 Are you going to take one of these? Both of them. Okay, but Rob's here as well. Okay, Yohana's here, great. Rob's here for moral support. Okay. And Yohana has arrived. And Chris has arrived. So, Jack, let me just check on, and Amherst media is here. So Chris, we, 830, it is. And we'll try to split the meeting into the two topics, you know, half. Half and half, but. That'll be our objective. Okay, Mr. Jemstick, we are. Ready whenever you are. Okay. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of March 31, 2021, based on Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general chapter 30 a, 6 and 20 and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Jack Jemstick as chair of the planning board. I'm calling this meeting to order at 635 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream minutes are being taken. Board members, I will take a roll call. I'm going to call your name and meet yourself, answer affirmatively, and then please place yourselves back on mute. I'm Maria Chow. Here. Tom Long. Here. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And myself. So board members of technical difficulties arise. We may need to pause temporarily to correct the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have a technical issues, please let Pam know. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed in the minutes. We'll note if this occurred, please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call on you to speak after speaking. Remember to remute yourself. So the opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment. So if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section. If you have any questions or any other item and other appropriate times during the meeting, please be aware, the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during public comment period, you must join the meeting via the zoom teleconferencing link, which is shown. Correct. Yes. All right. So the link. Is also on the town website. Via the candle calendar listing for this meeting. And the link for the zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting as a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone when called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back in a mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning board chair, please make a comment. I do not know how many of you have done it, but if the public comment has not done it, if we can't comply with these guidelines or exceeds their lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So with that said, we are kind of putting a hard stop for the meeting. For 8 30. So that gives us two hours to discuss the agenda. So moving on. Minutes we have none. And. I'm opening that window here. Oops. I see one hand. Susanna. That's correct. Yes. Hi, Susanna. Hi, I had a chance to read the language to the proposed inclusionary zoning bylaw before the meeting and I would like to endorse it wholeheartedly. Is that appropriate now? No, because that's part of the subject matter of the meeting. So you'll want to put your comment after we talk about it. So. If you don't mind. Great. Okay. So. I see no other so we can get into it. Okay. So the first is, you know, we're going over the zoning priorities. And the first one would be the mixed use buildings, which is section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw. Definition standards and criteria. And I believe we have a presentation. Is that Nate? Sure. Okay. I'll share my screen and. I'll share my screen and my screen. So. Is this visible to everyone that makes these building standards? Yes. Sure. All right. So. Yeah. I'm named a lawyer planner with the town and. You know, one of the zoning amendments we had been looking at were new mixed use building standards. I will say that they're based on. You know, there's a previous version from a few years ago that didn't. I was referred back to the planning board. It wasn't approved by town meeting, but. You know, it's based on some of that. So, you know, it's based on some of the new mixed use building standards. You know, it'd be a, it'd be a separate. Piece of the bylaw, you know, kind of like. You know, a development method or something. So I'd have, you know, a purpose and. Conditions and different things. As opposed to just being like a use in the use chart, right? There'd be more narrative in the bylaw. But the purpose, you know, the mixed use building standards is to continue allowing. You know, different uses in a building and the village centers. And then it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a unique way to have a. Enhanced pedestrian experience with open space. And there are some design guidelines in it. And so the mixed use building standard bylaw that's being proposed really has two big pieces. One is. You know, defining the residential and non-residential uses within the bylaw. And then. The second piece is the design standards, which really is kind of. An added bonus to a mixed use building standards. You know, it's not necessarily. A mixed use building standards. But it's also a way to. To it. To some, some bylaws really, they just to say, you know, first, second floor uses, upper floor uses, and they don't really get into the design standards. So the current issues being addressed. I talked about the balance of residential and non-residential. Currently. The zoning bylaw doesn't really address any of these in terms of the size of the non-residential use, the orientation along the street. Or different design guidelines in terms of entry ways for the residential and non-residential uses. And although we are in a municipal parking district. I think, you know, if a bylaw can encourage shared parking behind buildings and have some clear statements and guidelines for the permit granting authority. That's just a bonus. So the sections of the mixed use building standards, there's definitions. So again, it would apply to a building that has residential and non-residential uses with two or more dwelling units. So that would be a point of discussion. And I think we had recommended this and other communities have this so that if there's like a live work building. That has one unit and then a work studio, that's not considered a mixed use building. And you know, that could be a point of discussion, you know, what, at what point is there a mixed use building in terms of number of. Whether it's residential or, you know, retail commercial uses. Similar to what we had in the limited business overlay, you know, there's some open space required in front of a building. And, you know, I'm saying 20% of the footprint. I think, you know, it could be 10%. When this was presented to the CRC last week, there was a big discussion about. Could it be simpler as saying, let's just have a minimum width of the side of a sidewalks. Say we want a 20 foot sidewalk in the downtown and maybe, you know, different width sidewalks. And, you know, village centers. And so that's where we're going to be. And so that's where we're going to be. Right now with the setbacks, there really isn't. You know, what we've seen is that the buildings push the. The dimensional standards so that they max out the building coverage and lock coverage. And there really isn't much open space in part of the building. And then we'd be defining parking as its own category, just within the mixed use building piece. So. You know, that's something that's new. The standards and conditions there, you know, are a requirement that there's a management plan for all buildings. First floor uses, which we don't have now is that a maximum could be residential or parking, which means the remainder has to be a retail or commercial or non residential use. And that's, that's a big change right now. Someone could have a small office space and the rest could be all parking in that qualifies as a mixed use building. The upper floor uses were not prescribing anything. So it could be a mix of residential or non residential and non residential. So you could have offices on the second floor. We have orientation or first floor uses. So that, you know, the commercial retail would face the street or areas commonly used by the public. So if there's an alleyway, that is really part of the front of the building or, you know, although it's not on the right of way, but it's part of what we could consider a front facade and we'd want uses oriented to that alley as well. So, you know, I think that's one piece that wasn't the previous by a lot at the CRC recommended be eliminated as a bedroom count in the center districts. And so it was just put in there. Really to have a, you know, a variation of unit sizes. And so it's, you know, it's difficult because the market does. Dictate what's built. So a few years ago, we were seeing more three and four bedroom units. And now it's a lot of ones and two or studios in one bedrooms. But there could be, you know, something in this standard that there's maybe a 10% you know, 10% of units need to be three or more bedrooms or something just so that we're encouraging some larger units for, for bigger households. Parking within buildings would be allowed only on the first floor and it couldn't be visible from the street. And then, you know, there are the designer view standards and principles in the bylaw and we could actually, you know, the file would be that any mixed use building would have to go to the designer view board. It would, you know, it'd be a mandatory process, even if they're outside the designer view district. And then there's some additional design guidelines. So for the design guidelines, you know, the idea would be that 50 to 75% of the facade would have to be along the setback line, you know, laying facades greater than 12 feet are not allowed. So you can have, you know, even if it was parking or certain, certain uses inside the building, you'd have to have some fenestrations and some, some detail facades over 40 feet in length would have to have some change in, in plane. And so some of these standards are taken from, or would be consistent with the limited business overlay that proposal, or, you know, they could be standalone just to mix use buildings. You know, primary doors face the street. You know, a minimum of 70% glazing on the first floor, that's broken up into smaller sections to reinforce pedestrian scale. So this is really getting to, if there's retail and non-residential uses really having some glazing on the first floor, you know, the one standard that's in here now says the bottom 42 inches, which maybe that is too high, but the bottom 42 should be a non-glazing material. And some of this is to, you know, it could be, may not necessarily need to be requirement, but have something in there so that if there are certain uses that we don't necessarily want the glazing going to the floor. So you don't see the cords or the backs of computers all the time. You could have some, some non-glazing. You know, glazing above the first floor should be reduced in scale and proportion to know that there's a difference between non-residential and residential. Encourage awnings and canopies between the first and second floors or upper floors. And then, you know, facades over a hundred feet in length can have a step back of five feet, you know, every 80 feet. And the idea here, you know, I know that the bottom picture shows a pretty uniform setback. I guess there was some concern that if someone aggregates lots, you could have a 200 foot long building along the front. And, you know, this last condition really is saying, well, if there is going to be a really long building front along the street on the way, you know, there needs to be some step back. And so again, these are things that can be discussed and considered. In terms of site design, you know, some of the conditions are really keeping parking away from the major streets, you know, encouraging consolidation of parking between properties and minimizing curb cuts. Again, having this product open space along the front of a building, it could be along the sides as well. And it's really meant to be for the users of the building and the public, you know, we're not necessarily saying that this open space is going to be yards, you know, for the residents. Most of mixed use buildings are allowed in village centers and there really is limited amount of space to have, you know, you know, individual lots behind the building. I mean, there still could be opportunity on properties to have open space for residents. But the thought is that, you know, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city. And so you know, the city, the city, the city, the city, the city, the town, common, other common areas. Not on the property could be used as open space. And again, really saying that outdoor amenities are part of a project. And so, you know, there, the CRC discussed again, having may, mandating wider sidewalks and then requiring certain amenities, like seating and landscaping. So for mixed use buildings, I mean, we could, it could be that we're saying that if you, you know, you're providing a mix of residential and non-residential uses, these are the things that we want to see outside in every project. And then for utilities and mechanical really, you know, screening them from view and locating them on the sides or on the roof and screening them. And I think, you know, that's the presentation. I do have the bylaw itself, if you wanted to go through it, or if we, you know, walk down through the actual language. We think that's good or we could stop and have questions now. I would mind seeing the bylaw if we can throw that up quickly just so we. Sure. I don't know if it's a red line. Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, it's all new. So it's really, there's not much a proposed language. I don't know how visible this is to if the text is legible or if it should be larger or looks good to me. I get a little bigger. Again, the purpose. You know, is to have this mix of uses, you know, to allow different types of retail commercial and residential uses in the village center. And the definitions I think is something that would be new. So defining a facade as something that is a, you know, the face of a building that faces a public way sidewalk or plaza. Again, a mixed use building would be something that has residential and non residential uses with two or more residential units. And the definitions, you know, would carry through in the standards and conditions and then the design guidelines. So right now in the, in the mixed use building, you know, we're just assuming that something that isn't a residential use is the non residential use and then the units are residential and so here, I'd actually define non residential use shall be you know, any permitted commercial retail or other uses allowed in the bylaw so and then parking is its own use and then the product open space and the reason for defining these uses. It then plays into, you know, the orientation and what's allowed on certain floors. And so, you know what we're saying here is when there's ancillary space associated with parking or you know like different storage like bike storage or common hallways what what do we consider that space and so what these definitions are trying to do is really clarify, you know, for instance parking is anything associated with it. You know the walkways and everything so that you know when someone proposes parking on the first floor if we're saying it can be no more than 50% we're trying to define what what what area of that footprint is actually associated with parking. Open space as I mentioned is, you know, right now it's saying 20% of the building footprint including overhangs and then it describes where and what the product open space should be. The residential use are the residential units, including you know, again common areas and other things so that you know it's trying to be inclusive of any any area that's associated with the residential use standards and conditions I think these are the major components of the mixed use bylaw, you know the submittal of a management plan. The first or ground floor uses so really prescribing that you know at least 50% has to be a non residential use. And that's something we don't allow now, or don't have conditions for so someone could come in and propose a 200 square foot office building. And then have the rest of the first floor be parking and the rest, you know the upper floors be residential and that's a mixed use building but really there's not much in terms of in a retail happening on the first floor. You know the orientation, again, trying to have the retail spaces face onto the public plazas and sidewalks and streets, and saying that parking cannot be visible. You know, from inside the building so if they do allow if we are allowing parking on the first floor, it can't be you know facing the major streets. And again, you know, again trying to limit where how the residential units face onto the street as well. The bedroom count I think is something that could be reworked to say that maybe 10% of the units should be three or more bedrooms or something. You know the CRC, you know, like I said discuss this and really thought that trying to prescribe certain counts is can be problematic if the market isn't really there for them so you know this was a hold over from the previous version. When we were seeing, you know, more of one size unit being built in the in the centers and we're still seeing that a little bit but I think it's really hard to to get it right in terms of what what what is the market. You know, asking for. And again, parking would be allowed within buildings, the CRC, you know, a few members question this, you know, why are we allowing parking within the building, I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to limit it to the first floor only and then less than half of the first floor space and so there will be demand by the residents for parking and, you know, with the municipal parking district and other we're not you know this bylaw isn't you know we're not discussing the municipal parking district or anything else is really saying that we're allowing it to be parking to be provided. So if we're not allowing it or we said it there can be no parking then either it has to happen outside the building, or, you know, on, you know, wouldn't happen on the property so I think allowing it in the building is can be an option. And then, you know, these design review requirements actually requiring it to go to the, to the DRB and just again stating that the permit granting authority applies the criteria of section 10.38 and 11.24 so really just calling out that makes these are a by right use, you know they can be subject to conditions in terms of their site plan their architecture and the building layout I think that's something that's really important so you know the planning board or permit granting authority can condition by right uses, you know, site plan review uses and, you know, I think it's just important to rewrite that in in the bylaw. And then the design guidelines are the things that were in the presentation, I'm not necessarily going to walk through them all. Yeah, I know I know we probably should, you know, have time for for discussion and all that. I mean I think one big one is interesting on this one and italics, you know, some mixed use building standards will say that the residential, the residential entrance on the first floor should be its own entrance, or some, some community say that the resident residential entrance needs to be on the side or the back of the building they actually prohibit the main residential entrance to be on the major street or walkways and so, I think it's written here maybe inconsistent the bylaw I'm saying it has to, you know, shell face the primary street and gets its own entrance and so, you know, there's little pieces of this that could be tweaked but I think, you know, that's one that could be seen split on, you know, should should the should the retails, you know facades of the front of the building be broken up by, by a residential entrance. I don't. Yeah, so I think that's, that's really about it. Great. So, I'm anxious to hear what, you know, the finding board members have to say on this, I mean, I, in my comments are fairly minor but I'd like to hear what others are feeling. Tom. So I just had a quick question in regard to the front entrance on the side and back of the house for residential entries. I'm curious what the rationale is for that and you know thinking to many kind of urban streetscapes with these kind of smaller entrances where people kind of enjoy walking out the front of their building onto an urban street or a semi urban small town street. There's something nice about having that address having that front entrance. So I'm curious I'm curious what the rationale is for forcing that to be something that you have to kind of go from the side or the back as opposed to making it for instance a minimum percentage of the facade or something to that effect. Yeah, and I think, I think the concern might be that if, you know, every floor had its own entrance maybe all of a sudden you'd have four doors on, you know, the main street and I'd be taking away from possible space for retail. You know, that's to me that's the only reason why you would limit that that entry. I like the idea of having a residential entry on the main street. You know, sometimes it's difficult by building code if the hallways share, you know, maybe share different uses. And it might just be, you know, to try to eliminate any conflict there between uses, you know, having residents pass by spaces that are closed or something right so to really limit that conflict of user but I don't necessarily see a reason to say, you know, your, your main entrance is on the side or back of a building. Nate, how would that entrance with the ADA, you know, work I mean in terms of like, you know, access to an elevator or things like that is this. I mean the buildings that are there now, you know, they, they have the residential piece has their own entrance and it might then have a common hallway with the non residential use but then it leads to a central space with elevator so you know, even the back entrance has to find the elevator so. You know, but. Okay. Andrew. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation, Nate. I, I thought this was like a lot of really common sense stuff so it was nice to see I had a couple that was a little confused on just the open space. Because there's 20% of open space in the front. I saw at one point said in the front of the building. And then another spot maybe not and just what would that is as the open space with that encompass the sidewalk and like would set back be part of that. Like, how much of that would sort of be built in if you measured from the curb. Right. And then also, just a quick ball on that particular one, I think it said 20% of 20% could be landscapes. Right. And so like 5% being landscape would just love to maybe hear a little bit more on what you're thinking there. I mean, I think, you know, the CRC thought 20% might be too much right so then we're taking away actually the building, the buildable area of a lot. And so, I think right now though the issue is especially in, you know, the BG and BL and our village centers the the lot lines aren't necessarily parallel to the curb lines and so you know like we have a one East pleasant you get a pinch point and if the developer pushes the way you know says why can build to the zero lot line then you have. You know you have really a really narrow sidewalk and so you know I think there's probably a few ways to address this open space like I said some of it the CRC was talking about not having this requirement and just saying, we want a 20 foot wide sidewalk. And you know and that could be on both public and private property, but in terms of the open space you know whether it's 10 I think you know I think 10% might be better my thought is that the way it's written it's all on private property. So it's not part of the public right of ways on private property, and you know and essentially that would be something that if, if it were part of the mixed use building standards the permit granting authority would really work with the developer then to figure out if we said okay it's on the front of the building and maybe it's on the sides or any, any, it's on any part of the building where there's a public alley or walkway or plaza or street. It's the permit granting authority that would work with the developer that and say what does that look like. You know, for instance, if the mix is building was to have a restaurant or places that might want gathering spaces out front. You know what's the shape of that open space, maybe in some buildings it's more of just you know wider sidewalk. And so, I think it's really difficult to prescribe and get, you know, no getting too messy in terms of the details what is that open space to do and what does it look like and so I would have it be you know, that the permit granting authority would have the ability to work with the developer on programming it. In terms of landscaping, you know that requirement. Some communities, you know and I was researching it the thought is that if you require it some developers might just make it so it's not usable right so that they just plant it all or put ground cover and then essentially they have you have the open space and it's not, you know it's not you can't be used by pedestrians or proceeding and so having some a few more, you know, a few more qualifications or conditions in terms of what how that could be used. And so, you know whether or not 20% landscaping is the right percent, I don't know, you know necessarily, but at least having, you know some guidelines in terms of how the permit granting authority could program that space. Can I ask one quick additional one Jack was just was that I like seeing the, the recognition of like needing to have the first floor uses be not purely for residential like I mean the ground floor reach the ground floor space. Certainly as we think about downtown or build general to me, really needs to be retail. I like calling out residential but I wonder whether the split of, you know, residential use versus non residential use is, is the way we'd want to go because that, at least from what I was reading that could open this up to ground floor office which is, which is essentially the property right it's like it's not from for public use where I think what we really want to do is make sure we've got activated retail so just wonder whether the language might want to be whether might want to consider tweaking that to make you feel that we've got use allocated for retail, not just non residential. Yeah, I think. Yeah, so some, yeah, some bylaws really try to right define more, you know, more clearly what they want in terms of the non residential piece and you know there are some communities now closer to Boston where they had a mixed use building standard a few years ago and they specified say for instance certain retail and now they realize they can't fill that space because the markets have changed and so, you know, I think there's different philosophies on that you know we're not. I agree that we may want certain retail uses in village centers in downtown. But if we only allow those types of uses and a developer can't fill them, if we prohibit office on the first floor we prohibit certain uses on the first floor. You know, will the will there be actually enough demand to have that that much retail space. You know, so I yeah I think that's a it's a it's a consideration you know how, how much do we really start defining that first four, you know, kind of non residential piece. So we have a thank you, Andrew. So we have dug the Janet but because I might forget my train of thought here. I'm intrigued about open space. You know from the building and kind of being more of a like a vendor, you know, like a rent free or vendor type space for you know where, you know, I think there's a feeling that we're missing, you know, affordable. Retail spaces, you know family businesses that sort of thing and I'm wondering if like a three season type business can occupy the open space. You know within, you know, the context of this, of this, you know, of this bylaws that something that you've given any thought to. I had it I mean you know right now if it's in the public right of way they have to get you know licensing for that if it's on private property, I don't know if that you know then be like an amendment to a site plan review to allow, you know, a seasonal use on the property. You know, I'm, you know, Rob's here I mean I, I, you know, is it, you know, is it considered I mean, I'm assuming it might be able to be allowed as a, as a use but I don't, I haven't. I don't know what I'm looking for so I don't have it. Rob, you. Yeah, I think that could be proposed under the site plan review or a subsequent site plan review in the future, if that was after the fact of the initial building construction. Yep. Okay, thank you. Doug. Thanks, Jack. So, I guess Rob or Nate I have a couple of questions first and then I then I have a couple of comments. So my first question is, how does this standard exactly relate to our bylaw, are you suggesting that section 3.325 would be just replaced by this multi page standard. This could be within section three and maybe it'd be, you know, right a whole new section and so, you know, as opposed to having this lengthy part in the use chart, it would be, you know, it'd be a separate area. And so, you know, it would play, you know, you still have mixed these buildings there but then the rest of it can be referred to, you know, C section 3.5 or you know have it be just its own section. Okay. All right, and then where are we at in the process for this like, you know, once we you've already presented this to CRC, you're presenting it to us tonight. I mean, you know, is it going to go to CRC like all the other things that we've worked on this this spring and then it's just in their hands or is there going to be more conversation about this in future meetings. I, you know, the CRC, I think we'd want to discuss it again. They've also mentioned that they'd like to see an updated, whether it's a definition or an update on the apartment definition or what, you know, how we're classifying apartments. They think the mixed buildings and apartments go somewhat hand in hand. You know, it seems like people are using the mixed building permitting path because our apartment definition is kind of I don't want to say archaic, but you know, it's pretty old in it, you know, like, you know, the number of units in a building and a few things and so, you know, I think, I mean, I think that this is the beginning of a process of looking at the bylaw as written and how, you know, and seeing if it, how much of it needs to be changed again and refined to become a bylaw that would be presented as a formal zoning amendment. Okay, all right. I think that's a good idea. So then my, my comments are these. First of all, there's, you know, I thought the immediate problem to solve was a little bit more specific definition of what a mixed use building was so that we didn't end up with one leasing office on the first floor of a building that was otherwise entirely residential. And it strikes me that there's a lot in this proposal that that really would be general requirements for our downtown and village centers, regardless of the use. You know, things about the facade stepping back and the amount of glazing at the first floor. So, so to some degree, you know, I wouldn't say this is a wolf in wolf in sheep's clothing but it said, you know, it's an apple that's actually in orange with a little bit of apple flavor, or something like that. So, you know, I wonder whether what we really ought to be doing is saying, most of this ought to be a general design guideline or overlay in all of those downtown and village center districts. And then we just go separately fix the mixed use building definition. Sure. So that's, that's sort of my first comment. And then, Doug, you want to let me respond to that now. Well, I mean, I think the, you know, like I said, the standards and conditions within the proposed amendment, you know, that deal with the first floor uses the orientation, the parking, the open space. I mean, those would be the components of the mixed use building the design standards that deal with like right facade treatment and parking and other things landscaping. You know, I agree that those could be generalized as part of the zoning, the town's also looking at hiring a consultant to, you know, come up with design guidelines and other features so, you know, at some point, whether or not these get adopted, the thought would be if there are better design guidelines that the consultants come up with a, you know, they might replace what is in this bylaw. Right. So then these, so then, you know, in a year or so that we'd have better standards that would be applicable to, as Doug mentioned, you know, all of village centers and downtown. Okay. And then some, just a few specific things. You listed, or you mentioned having an awning band between the first and second floor. You know, I might call that a sign band. You know, I think you do want some sort of horizontal separation and, and that just lets the first floor be what it needs to be and the second and upper floors can just be separate. I do think the 42 inch bottom opaque requirement is way too high, I would, I would personally go down pretty close to the ground and then let people frost their window or whatever. I do support the minimum sidewalk width, as opposed to the open space approach. And then in kind of in, in response to Andrew's comment about whether we want to specify retail versus commercial, I would, I would probably keep it more open. I can envision, you know, various office uses that would be perfectly interesting to walk by. Even if they're not retail, so I would keep it more, more broad. Thank you. Thank you Doug. So we have Janet Maria and by Chris, I'm going to bump you up. So I just wanted to speak about procedure. We really haven't decided this is to answer Doug's question about where is this going. Are we going to have another shot at this. I feel like this is in its early stages of being developed or maybe it's half baked, but it's not fully baked yet. Sorry, Nate. We have to have discussion about it. We have to talk about at the planning board and the CRC and really refine it to something that we want to present to Town Council. So I think it's, it's partway there and maybe it's most of the way there but it's not completely there yet. So I hope that it will come back to the planning board, and I hope that the CRC will be discussing it. So anyway, I just wanted to share that. It reminds me of a souffle which is really tricky. I think it's very difficult baking exercise so I think that's probably what we're looking at. Janet please. Hi, I'm going to try to avoid any food images because I'm getting really confused. Anyway, it's nice to be back working on the mixed use building issues. I think that's the idea of the public space in front because it will give, you know, kind of, you know, we know that the sidewalk done dining has been a hit and you know just some width to the sidewalks and things like that. I think we should definitely work off the curb because of the issue of where the lot lines are is kind of mystifying. I mean, after reading Hilda green bombs article in the indie about the design review board I looked at the manual, and it has really detailed design guidelines and lots of pictures and kind of like do this don't do this. A lot of specifics and I thought, you know, they're already exist and kind of pulling them into this might be great. And then some of the ideas they had there were like more historic features and looks to buildings and like how did the buildings look next to each other in the context, the heights of them in the context of you know the surrounding areas and buildings around near it. They talk about smaller windows on the first floor and the upper floors and the upper floor buildings had a lot more details like the wind in the windows, the windows had details each window had like a little dressing the roof line had some detail and dressing. So I thought that was all really attractive and it fits a lot of the buildings that we like downtown. I also thought about maybe terror, like the idea of terraces for people if there's apartment buildings and stuff like that because I think we've learned that even tiny pieces of open space are good. When you live in a small apartment, you know, or apartment in a big building. I also thought to avoid kind of excessive bulk and massing, like a building like one East Pleasant Street which is so high and it's so on the street that the idea of a set a step back at the fourth floor, the fourth and fifth floors have to be moved off. And I've been dry. I was just in Cambridge and Jamaica plain. And, you know, most buildings are new builds, you know, the new buildings are like three or four stories and so I think that pulling the fourth floor or the fifth floor off the street and maybe, you know, maybe that could be, you know, like a terrace a big terrace and kind of a penthouse kind of idea but it would, it would prevent those buildings from like seeing so seeming so big. Yeah, just, you know, one other thing I've discussed with staff is also, you know, we don't factor in a track or anything on the roof as part of the height. And so, you know, some of the buildings, you know, with all the mechanical equipment and, you know, stairwell, you know, projection up top, I mean it really adds up almost a floor really so. So I'm not proposing for the mixies building you know the idea of a step back is one idea but the other could be, you know, redefining what we measure as the height of a building if we're seeing more, you know, rooftop mechanical and other things you know even proposed solar on the roof would add essentially a floor, you know, make it feel like it's a floor taller so I, I, yeah, so anyways just to riff on that I think there's ways to, you know, ways we could try to just, you know, discuss that or and the design review board manual was showing all these different ways of looking at building height which I thought was kind of interesting but I think I see your point about just getting bigger and bigger with all the mechanicals going upstairs. The other thing I think which also comes out of the manual is just like smaller windows on the first floor, and also like, you know, small retail spaces on the first floor and so, you know, if you can, if you could land like a major retailer downtown that might be a big draw but the odds are it's going to be a small, you know, shop and so if you have a requirement of small retail spaces on the first floor which I think you could just break and make bigger if you need to. But just the idea that, you know, we, you know, small businesses are going to do better in small spaces and that you know the rents are high in a lot of areas and so. And in terms of retail being dead like has anyone been to Hadley because there's tons of little, you know, office buildings and shops and along route nine that weren't there like 15 years ago. And so in even, you know, so you see, so I think we just need to create those spaces instead of losing them. And then my final comment and I'm glad that this isn't my final moment with the mixed use building and we'll be working on it in the future is that a hot button issue in town meeting was parking inside the building. I think that's one reason it went down and I think, and Maria could help me but I think that when we were working on this in the zoning subcommittee like a year and a half ago David, we were talking about that parking issue and David was going to tweak it a little bit and see how to address that because in town meeting that didn't go well I think people were asking questions at the CRC. And so, you know, and then parking is always a hot button issue but do we want parking inside a building or should it be on the street or something so I just wanted to sort of say, you know, warning because that was a big issue. I'm not sure how I personally feel about it but you're muted. Oh, sorry, that was a long list so I'm happy to send that to you or, you know, talking more. Oh, you know, actually one question I have is like, how can we help you like, you know, can we workshop this with you in some way, you know, what's what's the best way to, you know, kind of fine tune it. Right. Well after this meeting you know I have the notes from the CRC and all of notes from this meeting I think some of it will be then you know meeting with Chris and Rob and staff and discussing you know how what what pieces get revised. You know, track change the document to see you know how it's evolving. And then I guess just presenting it again. I'm not, you know, I don't, you know, in terms of having another workshop or meeting I guess that you know I can talk to Chris about that how we how we want to work it but my thought is I just, you know, take what we're discussing tonight and what the CRC had and try to revise the bylaw. Okay, and then there's some some language I found confusing but that's sort of like very nitty gritty gritty stuff. I'm going to leave that Janet because I know we got a hustle to get through because of the night. So, um, so we have Maria and Tom and then, you know, perhaps we'll have some public comment after that so Maria please. Again, really great presentation really thorough. I kind of share the sense that Doug had where, when I first read it I was really surprised how far reaching this was I really thought the issue was like, we don't want to atm and residential. Like I said, a lot of developers are using mixed use and to avoid the whole limitations of our apartments. So I thought that was the goal but um, you know, I think in one of these memos it says something about like maybe the DRB should be reviewing all mixed use projects and like Janet was touching on maybe let that be the thing that sort of tests the design standards and those kinds of issues rather than bearing it into the mixed use bylaw. If you just want to kind of quickly fix sort of this hot point about you know what is the first floor use out what do we want the first floor used to be so. So that sort of one big thing is, I wonder if you're overreaching a little bit with too much prescriptive design standards, perhaps I want to answer for that I just wonder if you consider just what it is exactly you want to solve with this mix use bylaw. And then the other thing is yeah over time markets will really change so I am not for like being very specific about sizes of retail whether it is retail or office and then, as far as the unit mix. There's a thing in the apartments where it says, you know you can't have 50% of the units all one side. So maybe what you're trying to avoid is having like, you know, the sort of whole building of one, one bedroom units just do something that sort of flips it and says well instead of dictating what kind of it's just say we don't want, you know, all the same but you know similar to what apartments are saying just give it a sort of don't do this but you can do anything else rather than specify what you want. So, those are my two main comments is just like one. Yeah, you're getting a little bit too much into like form based design in a way with this one use and then the other is. Yeah, I suggest trusting architects developers and all the various boards and that oversee these projects to help define what the best project is for that time period rather than putting in the bylaw you know that these are the types of things you want to see for, you know, perpetuity So, so those are my two sort of big picture points. Sure, I was going to share my screen. Again, you know my thought would be, let me just try to have this pulled up. Yeah, I think to Maria's point if the mix use building standard if in the bylaw from design guidelines down was eliminated and all you had were the standards and conditions and definitions you know that would try to address just those the piece of what is, you know what are the uses what is the mix of uses and the orientation. You know, I agree that the design guidelines everything else is not necessarily typical of a mix use building standard right I mean that that does, you know maybe some of the glazing requirements on the first floor but maybe that is something that can just be, you know, part of this right section 10.38 if we say okay the permit granting authority should use, you know the designer view manual and really call it out then the rest of this could be, you know, could be modified or eliminated in a way so I mean I'm not. Yeah I think it's a can I think it's something to discuss you know is that is it necessary as part of the mix use building. Hey, Maria, could you kind of like talk about, you know, like the form based aspect here because it seems like, you know, it, the flexibility is a big part of that sort of thing and if it's prescriptive as proposed here. It runs counter to that. I'm just worried that, you know, every site is different every zone is different and early the four or five zones have different front setbacks, most of them are 20 but some are zero and 20 some are 15 and I think one was 10. Yeah, sort of units of specific units seems kind of confining and then I appreciate all of the design standards that were presented and maybe we keep all that and keep discussing it but use it in a different place in the bylaw or something. I mean, it just doesn't seem to muddy the mix use issue. And it's a lot. I mean, it is really similar to what form based zoning is where it starts to talk about streetscape and so I don't know if that answers your question jack but yeah I just, I feel like it's a lot. I was really surprised to see that level design lines which I really appreciate I think we need but I just wonder if this is the right place for. I just, yeah, that was, that was good and I like, you know, agree Maria with your comments so we have Tom and then Janet and then maybe get to the public comment after that unless we have any other board members. I'll be I'll be brief I think to follow up on Maria's point and your question jack. It struck me just it's a really nitpicky comment but the notion that in the design guidelines you have that primary doors face the street. Also seems somewhat really arbitrary when you can imagine a little alcove with two doors that enter from the side like an Aya kind of, I want to enter from the side to maximize seating along the glass in the front like it doesn't doesn't do what I think you're trying to do and it seems overly prescriptive for the designer as opposed to just more thinking about what the experience on the street is like so I think those are the kinds of things that feel really prescriptive that don't necessarily need to be here to solve the problem that I think you're trying to solve. And if anything might create more hurdles for you and actually getting this approved. One thing you might want to consider in terms of like, how do I strip this down to the things that I think are essential to solve this problem. And not so much to be that nitpicky because I agree with the 42 inches and all that stuff to I think it's a little too nitpicky. My last comment was about the site design and this is probably something we talked about before I came. And we've talked about since I've been on the board but this notion that we want to maximize lots of parking between buildings seems like the right idea that we don't want them on the street, sort of facing the front of the site. But at the same time, can we create a too big of a void, in terms of the urban landscape by having two adjacent buildings take 40% of their lot, and put a mutual parking lot in the middle, and just create this sea of asphalt that we don't want in a downtown landscape so in that way we're encouraging a certain kind of a pattern that we don't necessarily want. We might want smaller lots more often rather than massive lots or if lots are more than a certain width of the facade then they have to go in the back and not in the front so I think there might be other language we can use to limit the kind of the mass of parking that we might wind up with as a result of saying you can use the side because using the side to me feels problematic in that urban experience. That's all I got. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Nate. Do you have, if you don't have anything, that's good. Yeah, I think the parking is a big one. You know, some right some violas are really say can only go in the back and that's it some will allow it in building some won't and some right say if it's on the side it has to be at least 30 feet back but then I agree that you might have these weird spaces these kind of amorphous spaces between buildings that really aren't, you know, are they public are they private what's what's in front of the parking so yeah I again so thanks I think they're that's a good comment. Yes. All right, thank you Tom and Janet. So, um, I think I think that what they're trying what you're trying to address here is is the fact that we don't have strong or strict design standards and which is what the master plan calls for and so you're trying to kind of patch up a problem that we have, knowing that later down the road, there'll be more to come and so I wonder, you know the mixed use buildings, I think are sort of. The cat is out of the bag and and and the, you know, I, Christine Brestrup has sort of described the mix, the use buildings as sort of a big box that you pour units into. And for the developer or the property on the incentives are all for more units in the box and to make the box bigger. And, and, you know, to go to the property line to go to the front setback or to ask waivers to make it bigger. And this is trying to address is putting in some kind of design guidelines for mixed use buildings that come to us that create public space on the sidewalk, in the absence of that design guideline for village centers or the downtown which we all wish he had now. And also, you know, to, you know I'm saying to do a step back because the buildings are too big and too massive, or if we did follow the design review board recommendations or the manual, the windows will be smaller and more decorative the buildings wouldn't be that high because they wouldn't have matched the buildings around them and the rest of the downtown and so I think what you're trying to do Nate is address design issues that we haven't really addressed wholeheartedly in a way to make sure that the next things that we have just don't overwhelm as much or are, you know, kind of more pleasing. And I think that we need to kind of go there and start talking about that and start implementing that, knowing that we can change it later, because everyone's like a pet like things like, you know, saying that, you know, you should have a front door entry way to an apartment building instead of in the back or the side or put the parking in the back on the side it's kind of a design issue it's just that, you know, and then if someone says, make small retail spaces or public space in the front that's a design issue and so we just don't have a lot of design guidelines specific to do form based zoning doesn't mean we have to do form based zoning right now but I think we have to do talk about the forms. And create some public space and realize that we need space in front of a big sidewalk to have things happen that we want to have happen in the downtown and Village Center so I think we I think you're going in there playing department is going in there because there's a big gap and we need to do it and start that conversation and actually start implementing it knowing later on we can get more rigorous I'm not sure I care where the sections are, but I can see what you're trying to do. All right, thank you, Jen. I don't see other board members and again we're at 730 we want to, you know, adjourn at 830. So I think we can flip over to public comment three minutes per person and I see Pam Rooney of Pam just you know state your name and an address and appreciate it. Hi, Pam. Hi, everybody. Hi, Pam. Pam, I'm Pam, 42 Cottage Street. Thanks for letting me speak. I see everybody kind of grappling with the same basic question are we are we today trying to force a minimum of commercial space into these buildings or are we trying to maximize residential and it's kind of a dilemma and you know what we want our mixed use buildings to be. I was, I was thinking as you were talking again the application of some of these design guidelines. I think Ms McGowan hit it right in the head, we're lacking them. So we're trying to make them up as we go and and certainly a good conversation about this, how much of these conditions could actually apply to apartment buildings as well when when those definitions coming down the pike. I'd like to talk a little bit about open space that that's my pet project I guess, and it right now rests entirely on the permitting authority to to protect the interest of the community I guess the keeper of the public way in the material that I sent to Christine for you all. There was a wonderful little graphic it came from Aurora Colorado. And it was, it was nice and that it described sort of the, the pieces of the public space, and it was the curve the furnishing area or the tree area, and the thoroughfare and then the frontage what they call frontage. And it feels to me that the frontage is really we're talking about is that we, we the town typically would would typically would provide the the 1820 feet of, of curve to back of sidewalk, and then everything from there on is sort of the building bonus. And that's where you can create the liveliness and so Nate's idea of having the open space, the project open space added to in fact the public way. I think is a really important aspect to keep even though it is kind of a design guideline thing. It feels really important to require some, some open space, in addition to what the town would traditionally provide. And unfortunately, whatever permitting authority was acting, you know the night that that one East pleasant was was permitted really lost it for the public it gave up the public way and there's such a strong public space that that follows North Pleasant Street all the way past the toy box then is the toy box and rest optical and then and then it gets lost. So whatever happens beyond north of that really needs to reinforce and take back the town, the town public way. Thanks. That's all I want to say. Oh, I did I did appreciate the comment about stepping buildings back. It feels like after the three stories, which is a really standard building height throughout much of town that the fourth and fifth could be in fact stepped back reduce the bulk and allow for some of that green space on the roof. Thanks. Great. Thank you Pam and and I know you know you send in comments as well but which were, you know, well received so thank you. Dorothy Pam name address. Hello, Dorothy Pam 229 Amity Street, and I'm talking about the public way as well. I like having learned a name pinch point for the sharp corner. So the other day I went out and measured it. And with a small strip of grass and the sidewalk, it came to six feet. But feel it feels smaller than that so that made me realize that six feet just isn't very much and that a 10 foot sidewalk isn't very much. So today I went to I was up by Amherst works. And I saw a very maybe 20 feet of sidewalk and then in front of the bagel store, they have an open porch with tables on it. And I thought, wow, that really is good. And because across the street where our kind of improvised outdoor dining, which truly looks awfully messy those concrete barriers, and I'm somebody who's never going to sit near the street like that. But I thought that was really good. When I when you talk about the 20% of space, I can't visualize it. That's my problem. It could be just a little bit of space everywhere, and no, and no place is the space enough to do anything, or whatever. So I guess I'm really saying, why don't we say the town and if the town has to help pay for this. Okay, because some people's lots may go too close to the public way, but 20 feet sidewalks. And then they, the open space can be one or two places. One of the new restaurants has the little side entrance porch, which again that looks pleasant. Things that are open where you can stand where you could actually put a table that are kind of under the control of the business, as well as spaces which are purely public, which we which would be benches on the edge of the sidewalk, both have their place. So, I'm really interested in seeing how we can get the buildings back further, give the public more room to operate, but have these interesting interaction spaces provided. I'd love pictures. Thank you. Thank you Dorothy. Jerry wise that your name address please. Jerry, sorry, Jerry wise 277 Middle Street in beautiful South Amherst. I think this is a great discussion and I'm so glad the planning department has brought forward all these ideas. It's, it's so needed. I'm assuming that had the basics of these concepts and standards been around before we wouldn't have that monstrosity of six foot sidewalk on five story building called one East pleasant. That's a, that's a given, which, to me says, you've all defined why you need to have a moratorium moratorium on permitting any new buildings downtown. You need to get this right before more of these buildings because right now, apparently, you could build another one just like one East pleasant. So, really consider, get this right, and then open up the permitting again. It's just would make a real downtown and it's, it's in danger right now. Thank you. Thank you Jerry. Next is hello green bomb. Say your name and your address please. Hi, Delta. Hi, how are you my, my name is over green bomb at 298 one big you road, and I have a list thing I hope I can get it through in three minutes. Anyway, most of my comments here are related to the problems of the four buildings that are already existing that were built over the last few years. One of the things when we build a new bylaw, how much of this bylaw is cast in stone, and then how many where of it is there places where they can ask for waivers. The big problem I went to with my buddies to all the hearings for the three four buildings that they've already built and a lot of the problems of that building at one East pleasant street were waivers. For example, the bylaw says, when a building a box residential which it does, the cemetery, it should have a 24th that back and other pace of bylaw says zero sideline that back, or 10 set one or the other and the building has none of above. Whereas when you, when we write recommend when we write regulations, can they be something that people have to adhere to and not be given waivers that's one question. The other thing that sort of bothers me is given the, the ambiguity of the setback requirements in the downtown. 20, 20% public space. What is the nexus what is the direct the interrelationship between this public space and the setbacks on the thinking side and rare particularly. The next thing is the status of the design review board has been basically ignored when it comes and and they had serious problems with the spring street building and they were totally ignored and a lot of us were at that meeting. And a lot of us are even more unhappy with what that building might look like if it ever gets finished. The bylaw says shell. And in the regulations but I think also the bylaw that the for anything bigger than a than an even for duplex that the design review, you know, design review guidelines and 3.2 or whatever the numbers are those two to south. Must be applied and or shall be applied and I read that as must and I'm not, you know, I'd like to make sure that the shell and is applied to the new stuff here. That's another, another problem. I was just curious the numbers that you have like the 80 feet the 10 feet, etc. Where they came from but they related to the buildings that we already have a that's just a curious thing. And then in village centers. We talked a lot about when we did the farm review that we didn't pass from North Amherst because it was much too dense. We did talk about workforce housing in the village center where somebody could have a shop on the bottom and live upstairs I don't know whether that's something that would be part of this amount of me as a single family or it could be two shops on the bottom with two houses on top I don't know I'm just curious whether that would fit in here and then. Lastly, when you talk about parking. I know the where where the Kendrick Park place whatever the name of Kendrick on the corner that that has issues with 10 Brooke, but some of the other lots to the south of that, can we develop underground parking That's another question I'll finish off with what's very ironic to me as it was spending all of this tax money, local and state money on Kendrick Park and there's absolutely nothing around to draw people to come downtown I can't even buy an ice cream for the little kids that want to come and play in the park. And I think issues like that, people need to think about the have small shops where you can have. Anyway, I like I like the direction, I like the direction this is forward. Great. Okay, thank you, Hilda. And so we have one more and again we have this inclusionary zoning. Because there are a 30 hard stop. So Ira, you're up next to state your name and address please. Hello, Ira. Hi, how are you. I live at 255 Strong Street, and I just want to thank you Nate very interesting presentation. And I agree with others that I like a lot of what I'm hearing. I just have three comments. One is, if I was building a building and wanted to attract retail, I would ideally have a built a suit situation where I just had a lot of available I would break it up but in addition to that, there are retail groups, industry groups that would easily know what is the size of a modern store that most people want. If I had a children's shop that was probably three times bigger than the one that I'd opened today. And I agree, as I've been told many times by planning people in Amherst you can dictate use, but you can design for it and if we are looking for that diversity downtown of families and students and retirees and I hate the word workforce but design buildings that actually encourage a mix within a building or like a nice mix downtown of the people that we, you know, hope will move downtown. And just third personally, I don't, I would not legislate retail only on the first floor, but I understand that to have a closed office situation is not good but there's a lot of public facing businesses that you might call retail as a definition of art lessons or, you know, travel agencies are not a thing but that kind of like it's not an office building you walk in and you do a service business with them and I'm a big advocate of retail on the first floor but I would define that more broadly as any public facing business. Thank you. Thank you, so with that. We have 45 minutes, and I think we can just move on to the inclusionary zoning. Unless anybody has the board or Nate. Doug, I'm ready to. Doug has his hand up. Well, Jack gave me an opening. Right. So I was just going to say one thing that I think Christine Gray Mullen actually mentioned to me because she came on the planning board right at the time that one East pleasant was being permitted. She she arrived late in that process and the horse was sort of out of the barn but she's also a civil engineer. And she mentioned to me that the town certainly could move the curb of North Pleasant Street or East Pleasant Street away from one East Pleasant Street building. There's, you know, that's where those two roads come together there's that park across the street that's kind of the residual space. So if you know if the town is actually deeply upset about that condition and I share the concern about it, we could move the curb. And so, you know, I don't know whether we as the planning board would want to ask Chris and Rob to go talk to Guilford and Jason skills, and have them come back with a study of how could we move the curb at that particular location because I think everybody agrees it was a mistake. Thanks Jack. I wholeheartedly agree with you Doug and I'm just thinking about the situation on Main Street where Amherst media was where, you know the survey just wasn't accurate and I don't know if that came into play with this but yeah, I think that's a great suggestion so I'm going to move on inclusionary zoning that's good. Okay, alright, so let's do that. So inclusionary zoning section 15 of the zoning bylaw. We have a presentation again by Nate. I'm sure the, the, the change to the inclusionary zoning bylaw, the, you know, the purpose is to maintain and increase the supply of affordable housing in town. However, you know the current bylaw applies if you're producing 10 or more new units and it's a special permit use, or you have a request to modify, you know, certain dimensional standards. So many buildings can be built that don't actually trigger inclusionary zoning so you know the threshold is too high, whether it's the you know these the dimensional standard waivers, you know, building coverage lock coverage or, you know, increasing a floor height, or the special permit use. And so, you know, the new bylaw would eliminate the threshold for a special permit and the dimensional modification so basically apply to, you know, any residential project, you know, define that with exceptions. So, you know, for instance, a comprehensive permit project, conventional residential subdivision, which is really just the creation of lots. You know, something in the fraternity district, and then institutional uses. And so, you know, any other type of housing that creates 10 or more units would be required to provide affordable units to the inclusionary zoning bylaw. One of the things in the bylaw is, you know, these the percentage calculation of affordable units. So, you know, we're not proposing to change the definition of affordability, which is that 80% of the area median income. You know, we're saying that if you have 10 to 14 new units, one affordable unit would be required 15 to 20 new units you'd have to affordable units and then 21 plus to be 12% of the unit count so that's in the bylaw. It's also allowed that if, you know, four more units are required and half are on site that through a special permit with a permit granting authority, you could provide offsite units or make a payment in lieu. That's three times the current current median family income. And so, when this was proposed to the, the CRC, you know, they had questions and comments about the entire bylaw. And so there may be that tonight but really the differences is just, you know, lowering that threshold and making it apply to more projects. I think I almost want to say it's a clarification I feel like for, for many, the thought that applied only to a special permit use was, you know, it was kind of a misinterpretation. And so, in terms of the actual bylaw itself here is the existing inclusionary zoning bylaw. And, you know, the changes are shown in check changes so really it's saying, you know, shall apply to residential, you know, development, including but not limited to, you know, townhouses apartments mixed use buildings cluster developments perds or open space conservation developments that provide new dwelling units. And then it has the exceptions. And, you know, that's really the proposed change right now. Just saying, you know, new dwelling units. I think the one other issue though right now is our bylaw defines affordability at 80% of the area of median income and that's a standard definition for affordable housing. In Amherst though at 80% AMI voucher holders cannot afford that, that income level, you know, that the rent, the rental amounts based on 80% AMI are too high for a voucher program. And so, Aspen Heights for instance just started marketing their 11 affordable units that were acquired through inclusionary zoning. The Department of Mental Health, which often helps clients find affordable housing, they contacted the town this week and they said, Well, are there any units set aside that are lower than 80% because none of my voucher holders, no one with a voucher in the sectionate program can afford to live here. I said, No, there's no set aside, you know, the developers allowed to go up to the 80%. They can voluntarily reduce it, some do at initial Lisa, but you know, discussing this with staff, the thought might be that maybe there's a condition that if there's, you know, 10, if there, you know, if there's 10 affordable units are being provided that a certain percentage of them have to be reduced to be affordable to voucher holders or something. And that's not in this current version, but I think, you know, we've run into that issue before with other developments, you know, if the developer chooses to keep it at 80% AMI, then voucher holders, which are there are hundreds of them in the area. Aren't even eligible to apply. Hey, Nate, could you give a quick thumbnail of the voucher program that you're referencing. Sure. So for instance, like a section eight voucher it's immerse is in the Springfield metropolitan statistical area so you know this MSA this larger area. What the voucher program does it'll say okay in this area, if 30, 30% of your income as used to pay for housing then this is what what the rental amounts are so say for a one bedroom say it's like $1100. And that's what in the voucher is a payment subsidy. If the unit is at the $1100 or less, and it you know it's based on someone's income so it's not the same for everyone every household, but essentially it's a subsidy to a tenant, if the unit is within this income range. The other issue and immerse is if the voucher program says that one bedroom is $1100 and it can't be more than that at 80% am I a one bedroom. I think is closer to say it's like 1250 or something so it's just it's so expensive that it that excludes anyone that has a voucher. It's just not even eligible for the program. And so it's a mobile voucher voucher that moves with the tenant, typically. The issue with the bylaw under intent and purpose. It mentions local preference. You know it says the preference would be ensuring that preference for new affordable housing is given to people who live or work in Amherst and according to the statute local preference. So it's referring to local preference is more than just those who live or work in Amherst. It also has school age children. There's a few other pieces to it and so the CRC recommended either dropping this one piece, you know 15.03 or making it inclusive of all the categories of local preference. So it's just strange that it says live or work. It's somewhat contradict, you know, it's not as comprehensive as it could be so the two pieces that really aren't, you know, written down in the changes, you know, the local preference piece or having a stipulation that if you have so many affordable units maybe there's a set aside for voucher holders. And that thank you, Nate. Hey, I'm thinking that kind of would would change things up a little bit because John Hornick had emailed us and again he's kind of integral all of this I'm wondering if it's okay if we have him safety words before the planning board starts discussing. Would that be. Okay Chris, do you think. All right, she shaken head. All right, so let's bring John Hornick in please. I'm going to promote him to a panelist. Okay. And it's like eight o'clock which is what he was, he was hoping for so this is great. Okay, thanks very much. I appreciate the acknowledgement. Thanks, Jack. I will be brief. I am John Hornick resident of Amherst at 59 carriage Lane, and I'm here to speak in favor of the revised inclusionary zoning by law. Why do we need to change this by law. Right now we have a de facto exclusionary zoning by law. The developments in Amherst typically come at a rental price of $1900 per month for a one bedroom and $3,000 a month for a two bedroom apartment. We should hang a sign across presence present street downtown saying no low income persons allowed here. As everyone knows, we have become a town where, if you are not well compensated, or wealthy, you cannot afford to move here. Many people will tell you that they could not afford to buy the home they now own, leaving the student population aside, we have become a community of older white persons. The numbers of families with children have been dropping very significantly, at least since the year 2000. The revised by law will not change this overnight, but it will provide a much needed nudge in a different direction. With the more inclusive inclusionary zoning by law, lower income households will have a 10% chance of being able to rent in downtown Amherst. Last night we sponsored a forum on creating a path to home ownership for low income households in Amherst. The highlight of the evening was the presentations by three homeowners, who live in affordable homes. For those of you missed it, it will be available soon in a recording in Amherst media. If you have only a limited time when it's available, please skip forward to the segment when the three homeowners speak. It's very moving. Let's take down that sign which now stretches across Pleasant Street announcing no low income persons allowed here. It's a block on our community. We need affordable housing and passing this revised by law will contribute significantly towards that goal. Amherst is a town that values equity, fairness and diversity. Let's live up to these values. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, John. Let's open it up to the planning board members. Tom. Thanks Jack. And thanks John for your comments and Nate for the presentation. I agree. I think we do need to support this. I do have a really specific question that I think is for me speaks in a problematic way. I have a really good notion about offsite affordable units. I can't quite understand the rationale when we have where we're creating an inclusionary zoning bylaw that enables exclusionary behavior and saying, we're going to build these downtown and they're going to be beautiful but within that zone I'm going to put these housing units over here tucked around the corner and that you can do that by special permit within this bylaw feels really problematic to me in terms of creating a bypass for people to be exclusive as opposed to inclusive for trying to build and integrate low and moderate income families into our more affluent neighborhoods. This seems like a way to not do that for developers so I'm curious what the rationale is for that, and whether that needs to be included in this in order for it to be I think back in 2014 and 15 the town hired Judy Barrett as a housing consultant and she looked at a number of bylaws throughout the state and many bylaws had this provision or similar provisions that would allow a developer to have I don't want to say like a relief valve but some way to provide units that may not be in the development and so where the bylaws right now is within the same zoning district or 500 feet. It's only you know it could only be half the unit so half would have to be at least in the development and the other half could be outside the development but it's by special permit so again the developer would have to go through the exercise to say why it's not feasible, whether it's economically or, you know, design wise or something why it's not feasible to include those in the in the project, and why and what is the option. And what what do they have. Where are they going to put the other half so when you know this was be when this was included the thought would be that a developer actually have to show that they have control and financial feasibility to create units off site they can't just do it on a whim. You know, through the special permit process the permit granting authority could say you know, if you don't own the building we need to see a lease we want architectural plans. We want a pro forma, we want, you know, budget. So it's not just, you know, someone has taken pretty lightheartedly it's something that the board can really condition through that special permit process so I think that the thought was to, you know, what if an owner developer certain projects may not, you know, maybe they have another property that they were hoping to redevelop and so it's just an idea of, you know, allowing, you know, some units within the general area of the project. I agree some people may see it as problematic why are we allowing, you know, any type of relief why not, you know, it's better just to get the units built that time of development. I guess, I guess what I'm saying, I guess I'm saying that I feel like the language is problematic. The affordable units being the ones that can be set aside as opposed to any units and it's being it's a very exclusive practice right and so I guess, I guess I'm concerned for people hearing this to hear it in a way that is not inclusive of them. It doesn't invite them into that into those zones or into that new building so I'm, I'm more concerned about the appearance of it and the effect that it has on people then necessarily on zoning. And so I'm wondering if that's something we want to consider in terms of the language. That's all. Thanks. So, we have a three playing board members with their hands up Andrew, Maria, and Doug, and then a couple and the attendees we have like a half hour left. I know I have something I want to say as well so just keep that in mind so Andrew. I checked, try to keep the brief I was just curious. I'd love to get some perspective and maybe some history on the payment in lieu of taxes. Has that ever been used and then is this, you know, I think in terms of some of the previous comments there. Does that just give a developer an opportunity to buy their way out of not doing this and does it leave our community any better off to have that money. I'd love Nate or even john to sort of hear your perspectives on that. But you know it's never been used. And you know right now it'd be about 180 or 190,000 per unit would be the pay, you know the payoff amount. And again it would only be for half the units and the money would go directly into the housing trust. I think the thought there was that, you know, and again if the if the board allowed it through a special permit, and the developer made a payment through the housing trust, the thought really is the trust could hopefully leverage that money to get more, you know, at least one unit, or more than one unit so in the end there would be, you know, the, you know, be, you know, a neutral, it won't be a gain or a loss would just be, you know, an equal amount of housing would be produced, but it hasn't been used. As a consultant we had two different people look at this Judy there it was one and then we had on Jane Armington when she worked for Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and a number of communities had a payment in lieu of method is you don't want to make it too low. It's like the three bears you know I got you know too hot too cold but you know so the three times the median family income was something that seemed to be, you know, it is adjusted based on the income you know so we could say okay let's raise more times the median family income we could you know we could eliminate it but the thought was that amount was was good at the time the CRC, you know question these two provisions as well and they thought that well 190,000 isn't enough to build a unit so why wouldn't we ask for more. But the thought was at least if it went to the housing trust they could leverage it to get, you know, more units built. Thank you. Maria. I'm sorry to be brief too so we're going to have some time. These larger size developments are the ones that have the biggest impact and bring affordable housing, both capital and lower case to Amherst and so I want to make sure that this is not something that's going to deter slow down or stop the impact of those scale projects and I agree with whoever was saying that we should hire consultant for this I don't want us to Russian to just changing or it's a very simple change in black and white letters but the impacts of it and it doing the exact opposite of what we want which is bringing the housing to Amherst. That would be the worst case scenarios is if we're so demanding and not giving back to the people who own the properties have the ability to do these size projects. They'll go to East Hampton or North Hampton they'll go to the neighboring town so I just want to make sure that we are not making it so difficult or penalizing in a way to potential property owners and developers that this does the exact opposite of what we're hoping for. And then the only other piece I had to that was that was it, I think I lost it. That's basically I just I really want a consultant to look at this it's something we've talked about in the zoning subcommittee for years and it's a very complicated process, and it's a very complicated issue and I feel like if we just change your number without knowing what it could do. I would worry about the impacts of that. Thanks Maria and actually some of my comments were that you know that there are detriments to enticing developers because there are costs. And then, you know, for me it seems like there's, there's additional costs when you have the the affordable units within the building that inevitably the the the rents on the, the other units within the building are going to be higher than they would be otherwise. And it really, you know, it's a difficult thing, but john I saw you, you. Shake your head I can you speak to this. Thanks Jack. Right now Amherst is a cash cow for people who want to do development. And they can't move to East Hampton, or someplace else because the University of Massachusetts is not in East Hampton. They are building for students who go to the university. And so the market is right here it's not someplace else. And I think they'll figure out how to work with this. I mean the same developers we're talking about who are interested in doing projects downtown like Barry Roberts has a development on University Drive that was completed about a year ago. It includes four affordable units. I can't believe that these people who are sophisticated understand financing will not be able to find a way to work with this. And in the meantime, as I said earlier, I think we need to take down that sign that no one with low income is allowed to move to Amherst. Thank you. So I get just on that I just, I'm wondering if we shouldn't keep our eye also on like the 40 are 40 be type things where the cost of the development is spread out. So amongst the community and the state. And, and then so it's just, you know, just, you know, a note of caution that that Maria expressed so we have Doug and Janet. So Doug, please. I just had one question. What's the duration of the requirement for the for the affordable units is it the life of the building or is it 30 years like some of the other affordable units in town and then they, they age out or, or is it tied to the property and it's a actual requirement that there be those units on the property, even if the building becomes uninhabitable and has to be replaced. Can someone speak to that maybe. Yeah, so the, in the zoning bylaw the definition of affordable units is that it meets is eligible for the state subsidized housing inventory so that means it's you know at or below 80% air median income. So it's really fair marketed. And it has, it has a deed restriction that is in perpetuity and then that it's annually monitored. And so these units are in perpetuity. And so you know they count on the, on the towns, the subsidized housing inventory for the state. And, you know, they have to be maintained over time. And so, you know, so does that, does that mean that if, you know, 100 years from now, a building that has an affordable couple of affordable units in it. And, you know, the town would like to build a, you know, a hospital in that location that may that that hospital has to have a couple of affordable units it's tied to the land. Well, the, the, the regulatory agreement has some provisions for forgiveness but the state's pretty strict on that so you know, there are, you know, hundreds thousands of properties across the state that have these restrictions on them that you have to, you know, a couple of years maybe done what you're asking is going to be needs needs to be, you know, reconciled. But, you know, the state has allowed for changes but they don't take they take it very seriously, you know, you know, eliminating affordable units on a property so. And what kind of units, what kind of units are they that do age out after maybe 30 years is that a HUD program or something. And that programs do that, you know, there was, there was, there were some units somewhere in town, three or four years ago that we're going to age out and everybody was alarmed about. Well, no, I think so. Previously, through the state or through different financing agencies, the affordable units were tied to certain pieces whether it is a, you know, a financing mechanism so that's a 30 year or 45 year so sometimes HUD or low income housing tax credit programs might be 45 and not in perpetuity and so right so you know like rolling green was set to expire because the affordability was tied to the financing and the financing was being paid off. But now the state, you know, especially for the subsidized housing inventory they've updated their, their requirements to say that they're in perpetuity. You know, all the 40 b projects that get approved, the town has a local restriction, especially if we have CPA money in there saying that they have to be affordable and perpetuity even if the HUD agreement says it's only a 45 year, the towns and perpetuity and if in 50 years or 45 years, we have to become the holder of the restriction and enforce it then you know that that's the case. Okay, thank you. Janet has her hand up I'm going to bump. Chris, did you have something to add. You're good okay so Janet please. I just wanted to say that I so wholeheartedly support this. And I don't think we can adopt it and recommend it soon enough. It implements the master plan which is asked for inclusionary zoning that's comprehensive. The Amherst housing market study was asking for, you know, across the board, inclusionary zoning at 15%. And we did the housing production plan so we've had two consultants come in and recommend a higher rate. This revision is simple and clear, and that's going to be easy to explain to people. And I think that's always been a problem with the inclusionary zoning so it's super clear. If it needs tweaking later, we can tweak it later and the motivation for that. I think that's kind of like the density bonus. I mean in a way the mixed use buildings are density bonus because you can get so many more units in them. Then you can for like an apartment house. And so, you know, again the cat is out of the bag, you know one East Pleasant Street is is charging $1,800 for a studio that's 497 square feet, and then you can have more than one person living there. I think that, you know, I don't, I'm not worried about them so much I think they're fine. It is a gold mine for them downtown Amherst is a really, they're getting a lot of money out of our housing stock. I think that, you know, we, you know, they share in the benefits that are provided by the Amherst community the high rents by high rents, the schools that we provide the amenities, the pools the beauty the cultural events. You know, the town supports a lot of things and I think that in this way the developers and property owners will also share in taking care of community needs. And we as taxpayers do that a lot. If the developers, you know, provide 10% affordable housing it takes the pressure off of town staff to do these very complicated projects. It's not people's time. And so there's a simplicity to it, it's not the only solution but it's going to you know there's so many housing you know we could have had so many more affordable housing units in our community. If we had this much earlier, I did a quick calculation and I came up with almost 40 affordable units out of projects that have fairly recent and that would be a huge impact to those families or those individuals and those those projects and I don't really think it would have been hard. So in our bylaw we also have a provision where the developers can get a tax benefit, a tax break for some years to help compensate them for the additional costs of providing affordable units. And that's a way of sort of kind of that's not painless but it's less, you know, than writing a big check or having a big CPAC check go to stuff so I think that, you know we can do that offset that kind of density bonus through what we already have. It does, I don't think it will stop development but if Maria if you're if it is starting to do that then we can make a revision and revisit the issue of density bonuses. But I think that, you know, we just need to do this and I think this is a great, great solution it's a great fix for a problem we've had for a long time. Thank you Janet. So, Nate, in terms of the like the low income housing tax credits is that something that we can facilitate on the on the town and anyway, you know the town has its own, you know, as a home rule petition to do it, you know, we can hear tax write off for if the project has, you know, so many affordable units and so, you know, North Square, receive that, you know, the comprehensive permit so if a product is of a certain size they get they qualify for this local tax incentive and really it's, you know, what's nice about it is it's you know they're just not paying the full amount of taxes. So it's not like the town's giving out money we're just not receiving as much in taxes for up to you know 10 years and then at the 11th year, it could be less you know, through discussions with the town manager it could be that maybe a project doesn't have so many and it's a seven year write off or something but that is available. And, you know, developers also right Jen mentioned CPA even any of these projects that have affordable units could apply for community preservation act funds if they wanted. There is a cost to affordable housing. I agree, I think the CRC mentioned having a consultant, I think that they also mentioned asking the stakeholders my thought is, every developer is going to say they don't like this. Right, I mean they're not. That's not what they do. I'm not sure, you know, unless the ones that do affordable housing, they're going to say they do it. It's fine, you know, other private developers will say they don't like it so I feel like we wouldn't get a straight answer. I agree that consultants have already said to apply it to more types of development I feel like that was just like I said a misinterpretation of the bylaw at one point you know so I you know the 10% is pretty standard, you know some bylaws applied at six units we're saying at 10 units, we're not doing a 15% requirement we're doing a 12% if you have, you know, it's a tiered approach so I even think that our calculations aren't that aggressive. And one other piece was that, you know, John had looked into it the housing trust looked into it a while ago is having, you know wayfinders be a regional marketing agent. And so, you know, Cape Cod has it where instead of every development pays someone to market the affordable units that there's someone who works regionally for many communities and they have a waiting list and so every time you have an affordable project you don't have to go out and necessarily do a marketing plan you can just go to this agent. And they seem interested, but it's a little more complicated and then they, you know they need, it would like, you know, a certain amount of funding upfront and you know we need more communities but the thought would be if, if Amherst had this bylaw and we're starting to use it a lot to help developers and if, you know, Northampton, Eastampton other communities wanting to pool resources could we find an agent to do the marketing of affordable units for a number of communities. And it could make it easier for each development. And it's something that you know we looked at at one point and could revisit but you know that's something we were thinking about doing to help help you know facilitate affordable units for the developer. Thank you. So we're getting close to 830, we might lose some people, but I see no more hands up from the planning board. We have a maybe four or five. I see hands up from the public seven. So, you know, three minutes. So, you know, we can extend this to 840. But we might lose some people on the board I understand so. And I have at the top, Jerry Weiss that your name and address again please. Hi, again. I'm still Jerry Weiss and I still live at 277 Middle Street. Thank you for calling on me. I will heartily support these ideas. And this, this is, this is 12 years in that we've been waiting for this since as Nate says the misinterpretation of the original zoning bylaw. That was created in Amherst in the early 2000s. A couple of points. I think it is important that the, in my study, there's a who's on the board that was when I did my 2018 amendment Maria was there. I called a lot of towns in the, in the Commonwealth and spoke to planning directors. And studied, there's, there's forms. Inclusionary zoning has has forms you can find them about the gold standards for how you create them. Having sort of incentives for for developers is important. So, as people have said their incentives are already in are built in, because Amherst is so lucrative. I would want to make sure that you don't, you don't come up against any takings laws, if you don't offer anything and I'm sure Christine knows more about this than I do. But that's the standard is to is to have will give you this but you have to do this. The have to has to be there but there can be gifts. I would also make sure to make sure you make it as missing, missing misinterpretative proof as possible. The original law looked like you couldn't misinterpret what it said in it somehow happens so please try to avoid that. And what people have said about the tax incentive is an important one to remember. Fuller and john Musanti created that law. Sandy was there as you know, is a really smart guy and he said this, we intend to make developers whole on this. They should not lose money, providing affordable units and this tax law, incentive law and Amherst will provide for that so any builder who doesn't use it, I don't get it. It's fine with us because they, they've said well, I'll pay the taxes. That's great. That's off to them. And the worry about builders won't, won't build. When I talked to the planner and Cambridge she said, Oh, they always say that. As soon as you say here's the law you have to do it they build. But they'll always say they're not going to build if you do this so don't, don't worry about it. I really think it's important to have a mix of affordability levels, as was talked about a voucher system, maybe 70%, maybe even 60%, not just 80. Cambridge does it they have they have tears, and they have a certain percentage of each in their, in their buildings, Brookline does the same thing. It's, it's pretty standard to have a mix. Let's see if I covered everything I wanted to say. Yeah, that's it. Thank you so much planning department for doing this and planning board for embracing it. It's been a long time coming. Great comments Jerry thank you so much. Next, we have held up. State your name and address again sorry. Hold the green bound 298 money you wrote I just have three quick comments. And it happened that somebody skirts this bylaw by having some small lots here or there and building eight units this year, and finishing that building and do six units another year and then and build another a can it be cumulative that when they get to the second or third building that the affordable is required that that that's one little loophole I can see in there. The other one is, I think that Nate said that subdivisions were excluded. I thought that when we have things like cluster that we had to include a affordable so I'm just asking the question of why, if you in fact said subdivisions were excluded. They can't be included with a duplex here and do flex there that that's if somebody finds a piece of land big enough for 10 houses but then. Alright so then then the other one I'm thinking of small guys like me. The bureaucracy for dealing with these large agencies as largely for the big guys from out of town. Can somebody like the small guy say alright I will take a couple of section eight tenants and that satisfy the requirement or do you have to go through all the paperwork of dealing with hot and hard or DC would Boston or whatever. I'm thinking about how do you make the bureaucracy easier for the small guy who doesn't have six administrative assistance. Thank you so much Hilda. I don't know anybody, Nate. Yeah I know you developer can't just do it on their own so you know an asthma heist was first coming in the developers like, oh affordable no problem I'll just keep the rent slow and I was like it doesn't work that way. Call the state and so, you know I agree there is a cost there and so that's why like I said the trust was looking at having a regional entity do be the administrator. The housing authority and this housing authorities also been approved by the state so you know they could assist with that. In order the subdivisions I just said that a conventional subdivision would be exempt, you know not cluster of her or others. And then the first question is the way the bylaws written it says that you know new dwelling units would mean a combination of units located in a new building or additions to existing buildings. There's a net increase in units resulting from reconstruction of existing buildings, you know with with exception with a certain exception so to help us first question you know the kind of the building you know I the creation of units over time it depends on how that you know if they're actually separate properties and separate projects, then no but if they're additions on to it then it depends, you know, I, you know, interestingly say 10 new units so it'd be. I don't know we'd have to look at how that you know falls within that definition of the, of the bylaw but. Yeah, thank you makes would make sense to me for developer to add on every few years just to avoid the bylaw it seems like that would be more costly in the long run, then just proposing a project of fun but Thank you Nate. Next from the public comment we have ira brick state your name and address again please. I wrote your, can you unmute yourself. Yep. Okay, thank you. You hear me. Yes. So, I wrote brick 255 strong street. I understand the, the pain that somebody might feel and having to provide this, whether they see the good in it or not but I just remember growing up that seat belt seem like a pain in the neck. Recycling seem like a pain in the neck. Both things that people didn't do by themselves, but they started doing when it became law. So this is just going to be the future of that kind of thing, I think. Thank you. Thank you, Ira. Dorothy Pam. Dorothy. Hi, how are you Dorothy Pam 229 Amity Street. So, many good things have been said and I'll just be summing up some. I think the great point is to make it simple. And I think the idea of way vendors and a regional body to help deal with this is a great idea. The other thing is I totally agree with what I would just said when something is required, then it's easier to do. I went to a lot of different hearings about many of the buildings that have been built in the last couple of years. And I remember asking one developer, who included the required to ADA apartments, why he couldn't include a couple of inclusionary zoning ones, or maybe even combine it. And he said it was not required to so he could do it if it's required but if it's not required it's like really really hard. I think we have to just require it, make it very simple and very clear. I don't think many people are seriously worried about the fact that the developers are not making enough profit. But we could look at it from another way, people who have section eight vouchers can actually add something to many of these apartment buildings that have really to a student heavy clientele. And these would be working people, people who'd be living their year round, they would help add a mix and stability to the buildings. So it's a positive thing. So, I think that we should do that, but I think that if the, including the section eight people, after you've had 10 affordable units that would get rid of the few buildings which have included affordable units, the two on university one built and one being built by Roberts on University Drive have fewer than 10 affordable units. So, I would hope we would kind of lower that a little bit. But I think it's important to have people with section eight vouchers. Otherwise it's just an accrual promise accrual promise that they go through all this work fill out the forms have interviews, get approved, and then they can't find any housing. I think they would add to the town. So I really am very excited about the possibility that we will have a really good inclusionary zoning bylaw very soon. Thank you. Thank you Dorothy. And next, we have Pam Pam Rooney state your name and address again. Thank you. Thank you for joining me 42 cottage street. I again strongly support the inclusionary zoning I think it's made has done a really good job of keeping it very simple, very clean, as unambiguous I think as the effective that that for that reason. I'm, I'm also very pleased to not see the density bonuses, which in the past couple of rounds trying to pass this, this bylaw, the density bonuses would have allowed additional floors or heights of buildings. And it was not. It did not discriminate where the where they were located so you again had very little control over the height of a building next, next to you. The question was raised about the, the, the, if you have more than four affordable dwelling units and building that 50 50% have to be on site. It, I don't know the rat I don't know the reason that we actually adopted that I understand that a lot of places had that that clause but it just feels extraneous, and I wonder if it quietly disappeared. If anyone would croak. I looked at the list of projects that were. It actually was a different subject it was those that were not subject to article 16 moratorium list, and all of them are over 40 dwelling units. Except for one which was the 462 Main Street, that was only 24 units. And so, all of those would have had the opportunity to come to you and say, Hey, we, you know, we only want to put 50% of our affordable units in this building and they don't want to use it. So it sounds like because it's never been used that that outlet that outlet has never been used or taken binge of. Maybe it just quietly goes away. I don't know who would miss it. Thank you. Thank you. So we have three more hands up Susanna, Janet and so Susanna faving please say your name and address. Hi, Susanna. I'm Susanna faving 38 North prospect Street. I just want to say thank you to the planning department for taking this on it wasn't on the list that the council handed you and you've had so much on your plate. I really appreciate it. I think this is where the values of Amherst show up. I mean we should be looking out for the least fortunate. I would encourage you to have a set aside for the voucher holders because they're, they are the least fortunate, but even, even for the people who can't afford the eight, I mean who could just afford the 80% it's a way of getting some more affordable housing and helping people who are faced with otherwise very high property prices in town. So I just want to say thank you I'm wholeheartedly in favor of this. If you can avoid giving people an out so they don't have to build these units I would, I would encourage that too but I defer to the people who know better. Thank you. Yeah. Janet Keller please state your name and address. Where'd she go. Oops. Oh, she's here. She popped way down here. Hold on. Hi Janet. Okay, I'm unmuted. So thank you planning department and planning board for this thoughtful review of this really important topic it is so needed. And it was so sad to learn the exact number 40 affordable units not built. That means 40 families went without housing may need, and they can't afford. I would just say also that the tears of affordability are very that worked with Amherst Community Land Trust in partnership with both habitat and Valley CDC. We see that very low income families will work incredibly diligently to get their financial houses in order despite the fact that they, they buy our everyday standards would seem to have, you know, very, very little resources, but they will work independently and they will build up their credit and they will build up their savings. And I hope you see them on the affordable housing trust meeting that john hosted on and is appearing on Amherst media. Each of the three people who spoke told us how profoundly their lives were changed by having housing that they could afford be made available to to them. So yay for inclusionary zoning let's include more people, and let's reduce the barriers to their entry to becoming members of our community. Thank you so much Janet. And we have Ken Rosenthal and address please. Hello Ken. Hi everybody. Thank you very much I'm Ken Rosenthal 53 Sunset Avenue thanks to the staff and the board for taking on this issue. I want to make just two points. One is the possibility of permitting a builder to avoid having to build the units on site by providing alternative revenue for building elsewhere in my experience in New Jersey before I moved back here. That didn't work, because there never was enough money to build the unit that you needed, but worse than that, it removes diversity that you would welcome on this on the project so going to do it I hope you make the in lieu payment large enough so that it gets you the unit that you want. That's the first point. Another reason we've been talking about affordable, but we keep in this conversation or talking about affordable rental. I know this is not on your table for consideration tonight but I want to think about another way to have affordable home ownership in John Hornick's meeting last night, the one word that never was used was condominium. And I think that the planning staff a few weeks ago called our attention to condominiums on Amity Street and North prospect. They're expensive condominiums but we have two very wonderful examples in town of condominium projects that are not expensive, where the assessed valuations for the owner owned units are as low as $150,000. One is 222 232 242 North East Street. It's where I lived when it was rental apartments back in the 1960s. Now they're condominiums and they assessments run from 150 up to 225 or 250. The other is crossbrook and pine grove at the edge of Amherst fields. That was where auto Papa ruso tried to bring a project here to Amherst it didn't work in the 70s, because there was a moratorium on building all over the place and he ran out of money, but what is left there is a project that you architects will know, Paolo so Larry worked on along with Papa ruso, and there the units are also assessed at from 160 or 170 on up. So we know that we can have condominium ownership that that tend to be starter homes, perhaps for some people, if we do it right. I'm not prepared to tell you now how to do it, but I hope you wouldn't forget about condominium ownership. When you start thinking about affordability it isn't just rental, but it's home ownership as well. And thank you again for working on this project I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Ken. So that is. So we have received all the public comment that that I don't see another hands up. But I don't know if john. Or Nate want to have a you know closing statement on this. You're welcome to do so. I know we're over our a 30. We lost Andrew McDougal by the way so. But john do you have any comments. I just say, I agree with what Ted Rosenthal just said that we should be looking at home ownership and we should look at an opportunity to do condominiums. And I have one thought in mind about that which I'm not going to discuss this evening, but I do think that is important, and it may require some kind of zoning change or special permit in order to achieve that. And I think that the bylaw doesn't differentiate between rental or ownership so you know a cluster subdivision, maybe ownership and so, you know those would be required if it had the method requisite number of units so the, you know there are two subdivisions in town that have affordable home ownership units that are on the subsidized housing inventory you know it would, you know, would have satisfied this new bylaw so it is possible it's just. The thing with condominiums is it may not be a development type right so it's an ownership type and so the difficulty is if someone, you know converts, or has units and converts them to condominium. That's not the development necessarily of units it's the ownership type of unit right so it's hard to capture the condominium piece. And you know it's not a, it's not a development type it. So that's, I do hear what Ken saying though. It's kind of like that can the conversion of units in that respect is not captured by this type of bylaw. Thank you. I see one more hand we can take from the public whether it be Meg gauge so Meg state your name and an address please. Thank you. I didn't understand. I thought I had my hand raised for like an hour but anyway, make it. I'm sorry if I didn't see it I'm sorry. Oh wait money you wrote your cameras and I'm first of all appreciate all of you serving on this committee, which is demanding and controversial and maybe stressful so thank you for your community service I appreciate it truly. Speaking, I'll speak really briefly because it's quarter of nine and you wanted to stop like 15 minutes ago in support of the inclusionary zoning proposal. I think it's really, really important and raises the question of what kind of town are we what do we want to be. It's frustrating when we hear discussions about Oh, if we don't build it for a building of five stories it's not profitable. Oh, if it's this or that not profitable if we have inclusion, we have low affordable housing is not profitable. If something's not profitable then we have to change what we're asking and what we're looking for. It's because something's profitable doesn't make it a good idea. So in North Amherst we have North Square and we have a significant number of affordable housing units and it's fabulous those went just like that. You can't see me but I'm snapping my finger. They, they immediately were filled up and it's families it's young people. We see them on the buses. It's really enriched our neighborhood to have those affordable housing units in our, in our community. And I just can't. I mean I could, I had a bunch of notes here to say a whole bunch more but I won't, because it's getting late. I just strongly encourage you to and I see Johanna yawning sorry Johanna. It's okay to turn your screen off when you want to. But, you know what kind of town are we, we can afford this we build a whole bunch of places with no affordable housing, and I could list them all but you know what they are. It's these are families who really want to live here their kids go to our schools. We need to decide what kind of town are we, and there's got to be a way to make it possible for lower income families to live here. Thank you. Well, well said, thank you very much. So, that was abbreviated. I can go on, but I won't thank you though. Thank you, Jack. Um, so I mean, I mean, I had to say that I, I have a personal thing that I probably mentioned before that we had, I had my oldest daughter and her husband and their twins living with us last year. And they needed more space and they had to go all the way to Westfield to find something that they felt was affordable versus. Here in Amherst, so that's 45 minutes away. So I, this, this whole, you know, affordable housing thing is near and dear to me, and hopefully we mean, you know, make it work on all the levels that we need to. So thank you so much, John, for your input, Nate. And Chris, do you have any closing comments? No, other than to say I think this was a really rich discussion and thank you everybody for participating and I'm glad that we're finally getting around to talking about this because it's been really hard to talk about for the last 15, 15 years. So anyway, it's a good discussion. Thank you. Okay. Great. So I think we can adjourn. And thank you all. The board members and attendees that provided the comments. Our next meeting is, is it next week, April 7 next week next week. All right, so we will see everybody then. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you everybody.