 Okay, it's 4 o'clock, so the meeting has been called to order because we had another item at 3.30, but we will now proceed with the item on the agenda at 4 p.m., which is a continuation of Amherst's media's application, and we will continue the hearing. So with that, we will ask the applicants to present new information that's revision since the last meeting. So again, if you could identify who you are. Dear members of the Local Historic District Commission, as you might know by now, I'm Jim Lasko, the Executive Director of Amherst Media, and I'm pleased to be sitting here before you tonight. As we have previously presented and explained, Amherst Media is glad for our initial investment in purchasing the property of Manning Gray Street from the Gdera Trust. The property met all of our desired criteria, downtown location, out of bus route, near the middle and high schools, and the ability to assist in our organization's sustainability. While many residents at your public hearings attested to the importance of our work within the town of Amherst, there were some who felt our presence was out of character in the ugly historic district. Much work is going into the concept and design before you tonight. The character of the building is appropriate. It is our firm belief that our application is within the intent of the Local Historic District Commission's bylaws, and manages to reflect both the residential and commercial characteristics of the media neighborhood. This was accomplished by moving our proposed facility as far to the east of our parcel as possible. Ensuring the unobstructed view of the Hills House and Women's Club from the Main Street perspective once past our building site. This allows for the abutters express desire to have their houses seen as well as our right to build to coexist. The Commission's ability to work with both the abutters and the applicant to find a solution that address each other's needs should be committed. We are hoping tonight's presentation will provide the information you need to vote for a certificate of appropriateness so we can move forward in our project. I'll now introduce Bill Gillan for the presentation of that package. Thank you. Thank you. What are we going to do with the drawings from behind you? The slides are on the wall? Let's see. Everyone has a lot of my 17 handouts, too. And if we need to get up, we will. Okay. Can you put on sheet one? That's what I'm going to make a guess for. Right. I can actually see. Drawing one. You probably can see that screen. That's what I was. Can you see that screen? No. This Moran might be able to see. I think we're set up. I mean, I would, I think we can just walk. If everyone has, you know, those of my 17. Yeah. If you simply pointed us to the current page. The first page. On the handout. I think you could. Okay. Good. That's the site plan. Of your, of the one you just stated. Right. Well, they're getting. No, that's not true. The drawings in the right order on the screen. I'll look at this while I'm talking, which is what you're looking at. That is our number one. Yeah. And that shows the building on the corner. It shows the parking behind the building. It shows a grade access into the building on both the south side and the north side. It shows another exit over here at the corner. Because we had a dead end corridor. You're not allowed to have a dead end corridor exceeding 25 feet without a sprinkler system. The square on the left is the square of the area where there'll be a filtration system installed, which will dispose of the stormwater on the site, stormwater coming off of the parking lot and the building. And that will mean raising the land again with the site, but causing about a one foot increase in the elevation. Question. Why not? Whatever. Oh, no, sorry. Yeah. Okay. I notice there's a handicap entrance of Gray Street, and I'm not quite certain what doorway that access is. I see the handicap. I see this doorway and that doorway. That's not the current drive. This is like what you'll see on the screen. We move the handicap entrance to these. It is not the current drive? Yeah. The ones I just seen. You're good, Bruce. You have a move on. I think we all have the same. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's fine. Good catch. So we've moved the since in our previous games, we've moved the handicap access over accessible parking spot over next to the entrance next door to the little fenced in area that has the heat pumps and bicycles. It's also a path, a footpath running through to Main Street from the parking lot. That's a question. Bill, you've got a decorative roofing style. It's going to be on the west side of that parking area. A decorative roofing style? Well, you mentioned it in here. That's the picture of it here. Can't you call it a boxwood? Oh, the planting. That's this planting over here, and it's a picture. You'll see the picture here. It's used from, it used the public walk. It's a, yeah, it's an Eilik's, Steven, which is a variety of boxwood. It's on the drawing. Yeah, I had a question. Do these boxwoods get to be very tall? They go no higher than six feet. No higher than six feet. And these would not be trimmed, so they would be open. Are they year round? Yeah. They're green now. Yeah. So they would shield the cars at six feet? Because the women are high up, so they're looking just wondering if they're tall enough. Yes, bear in mind that there's a grade here over here, over here. It's four feet higher than the grade here. So they're already planted up on the bridge. So it's like 10 feet from, yeah. Okay. So they should shield. Okay. Okay. Along the back of the parking lot is a stone wall which will exactly match the stone wall that's here. I guess I've got it on the screen now. So the both of those curved lines are stone walls on each side where I'm looking to the right. This is a bituminous curve. Yes. The stone wall starts right there. Yes, and below that the one that's an upside down view. Yes, that's stone also. Yes, but over to the upside down part. She means further to the right. Yes. This is just the black top edge of the black, there's no need for retaining. Thank you. So we'll go to the plan sheet. Can we find that plan going number one? It says floor two. Or we're going to say floor plan number two. Going number two, yes. You just go in order. Okay. Let's look at the building. Oh, sorry, I quit for the commission. What's that? It's not good for the commission, but the screen or your paper copy. Yeah, I gotta, someone's, I can relate to what he's talking about. Let's give it a go. I think we don't have our old room, huh? Yeah, I can see. I'm fine. It's okay. Well, the heart of the building is the studio and the sub-art is the small studio. And along here we've got various computer people and other support spaces associated with using the studio. We have a large reception area, a co-danging area here, handicapped bathrooms, and here a green room. Jim Lesko's office here, a conference room, a break room. This is an interesting room. It's the room where all the cameras and equipment are stored so that they come and go very quickly and this person keeps an eye on them, I guess. This room is for your meters and your cable, cash, equipment. That's like a utility room. I have a question. I just wanted to verify. At its closest point to Main Street, is that 13 feet, 13 feet, 0.3 inches? It's 13 feet 3 inches, right? 13.3. 13 feet 3 inches. Yeah, okay. 13.2 inches. Yeah, we put those dimensions here and we have dimensions at the corners and dimensions up there. Oh, this area. But this point right here is 13 feet. Yeah. That's the closest. Yes. There's a planting bed here, I don't know, four or five feet across, which is a little stone wall because the grate is falling down over here so the stone wall finds that bed and that will be a planting bed. So we don't want you to think when you look at the elevations, it looks barren, but they'll be usual plantings there. We have this accessible parking sign just so that we have a placeholder for that. Looking at the elevations, this is the elevation facing Main Street. It's clabbered windows. We have a sample of, you know, the sample of the Anderson Architect window. This is the way the trim, we call it the trim, the surround will come as one big unit. And it, none of these shows the horns, which you may be wondering what the horns are, but they're the silk extensions down at the bottom that stick out. Those are called horns and they're typical. So we have them. We're thrilled to discover that we can get these things now and the windows come with them and they just pop them up and it's perfect. We have a window here. You get some light because there's the stairs and the attic that comes up right there. These funny lines are reference lines to the sections which will come later, the drawing of sections. These drawings are such that they can be used for pricing right now. They're not used for building, but they could be used for pricing. So that's why there are a lot of things which will turn into construction documents. They will turn into construction documents. This is the Gray Street facade and there's the level of the sidewalk. There's a slope about like that up to the corner here. There's some steps and a little handrail there to go down to the parking, two parking spaces there. And then over at this corner there's the stone wall, which is a loose, a dry-lending stone wall with over a foot of crushed stone. And it has a dead man, which are very deep stones, which will go about two and a half feet into the ground and act to support the wallkeeper from being crushed over by frosts. One is, I assume, going back up to the northwest side, that the handicapped access is in through the doorway that we see on the north elevation. Is that correct? That's where that... That's the door also of the parking lot, which is the accessible, they're both accessible in front and back. Thank you. And the second question is, I like the pediments that you have over the doorway on the south elevation and the doorway over the north elevation. Now I can see a problem with making a pediment over the east elevation. Have you considered that simply for the symmetry of this way? It was thought that it's safer to not let people think that that's an entry. It's more of an exit way. Otherwise there'd be an expectation for handicapped access that keeps going. They have a big security fault, they can't have all these doors open. So that's an exit. Just that we tried to come in this building today, we couldn't come in because the back door says exit only. Thank you. We won't put a sign up, we'll let you try it. So where was that? Maybe I was over on the side facing the triangle street. There's our high legs growing and there's the stone wall, the ferris and height, ferris and height. This is the conference room office and the break room here and another window there. And these dimensions tell you the heights of the ridge, which I can't read. It was 25'9' to the highest, 25'9' to the highest. Now this is the side, this is the north elevation looking towards Main Street, but through the buildings in a way. Clappard here, there's a band as there is on the east elevation, a band because the building is higher. That band is very useful for us as a brand, a band of smooth material, stucco. And we can use that for elements that we need to put in that don't sit well in the middle of shade or clabbered siding. Here and here we have, sorry, here and here we reserve for a grill to provide the supply air, fresh air and exhaust air from the studio, the big studio and the little studio. So in addition, there's a note here that we would have combustion gas, combustion air and combustion gases ports. Those would be like three-inch white PVC ports. If we have a gas-fired system, we don't know at the moment whether we're going to have gas-fired or will be air through air heat pump, one or the other. But in case we happen, we do have, I think it's most likely, we'll have at least a gas furnace in the attic, in that area. And this is the mechanics associated with it. We were also requested or advised that we should show anything on the roof. And so we do know we have, we'll have two plumbing vents. Those are about three-inch copper pipes. We have put them on the backside of the building by making them run up along the roof underneath in the attic and then come out on the backside so that you don't see them from Main Street. This is the stone wall, retaining wall that is echoing the one across the parking lot. This is a large door used for bringing big equipment in and out of the studio. This is a fence, which I, I copied from NLE, which would hide the equipment and the bicycles. Here's the cultural center sign that's existing, which will remain. Okay. Is this the Main Street? No. This is the Main Street. The site plan is also in the corner. There's now a freestanding sign. Yeah. So, you know, up in the corner of the site on stage two, the northeast corner. You'll see it on another point. Yeah, that's on a noble occasion. And, you know, we're not married to it, but if we, for some reason, maybe the fire department, someone says, you know, a sign that we didn't have to come back, approval for that. So, now I guess we're ready for three. And these are the fly-arounds which we did in November. Go on to the back. And Clayton Richardson, who's running this, he himself has upgraded our building, not the other stuff, but the building. This one. To be, to be the same shape and size as the one we've ended up with. Change. This is the view skate from the Hill House, looking north. And this is the view of the Hill House, looking from the Main Street up. Why is there a next to the paper copies of this page? So, in the handouts, if you flip through page three and five, if you flip all the way to the back, there's a new page three and a new page five that has the current views. So, just keep going. It's like on the, you know, out of order. So, there's only six drawings in old. Seven. Seven. Seven. That's fine. No, no. I'm sure everyone's having the same question. Yeah. So, if you just keep going to the end, there's new sheet three and new sheet five, new sheet seven. What happens is that we keep looking at it. We're going to catch this. We're going to catch that. And we kept feeding it to Mike, to Nate, and to Leo, who won't work. So, this is the building here. And so, this is the view from Main Street of the Hill House. Again, the view of the Hill corner of Ray and Main. So, that's the view escape that we're protecting and preserving. Okay, we're going to go to sheet four. She four gives you the attic plan. The portion that's shaded dark is the area where the height of the attic is about six feet. That's a useful area. This is the stairs up on the first floor. This is the stairs up to the additional four or five feet up to the top of the studio ceiling. In this area, it's a mechanical, and that's where the fans in the furnace would be to certify air for this section of the building. You know, I'll point out, Bill, just the sign specks. Yeah, this is the roof plan. It shows it two pipes on the roof, and that's nothing interesting. This is the, my narrative, you have to write a book or narrative, which I enjoyed. But over here, there's one section I'd like to read because it's one of the two parts. And it's actually, so you can read it. It's on this handout. It's one of the few things that you can actually see. It's not in like minute font. One of the few things I had some passion about. It's narrative from Amherst Media, is what it titled. The building is not included to upset the existing balance of the dominating Hills mansion to the north, or the perfectly restored and important Dickinson museums to the west. This building is intended to blend in. It's not intended to appear as the most important building on the street. It is modest, a New England look. It should not draw attention to itself. This is reserved for the important butters. And all along, I've been trying to say this is not the end all. That's the thing that you ever saw. The intent is to be a good soldier along the street and not distract from the stars, which is mentioned in the Emily Dickinson house. In this is also this verbiage which, or writing which tells you that there are a lot of such buildings along that side of Main Street, starting with Amherst Glass and then Jewish Community Center, and just here, a bunch, the Nickel Center. So we're not alone for that type of use. And then, yes, over here, just to be sure that there's no later objection, in case we need to put a sign, there's a painted wood sign, it's this wide and this high. That's a hard to tell. I should have put a person in to give you a sense of scale. Oh, and this map shows you where the dark building. The purpose of this map is to show you how it looks in its context with other buildings in the neighborhood. And it's neither the largest, certainly not the smallest, but it's not an outlier. This is the Emily Dickinson. This is the Hot Tubes. This is the Big Three Decker. This is this property. This building is as big as this building. Okay. Number five are sections, which you can see from these things. Are the details that have been asked for how the trim, how the fascia is done, how the trim is done. What the columns look like did not balance the columns. Bill, these are useful, too. But these guys here are, that we had last time, are also useful and differently useful. So are these still current? I mean, these are sections and these are elevations. So this shows us the width of all of these things. Yeah, but it's also spelled out exactly up there. If we blow up the elevations, we would, I mean, quite large, you'd probably see this, but you'll see it easier on here. So I'm going to assume that these are current, still current. But it's what generated these, came from that. Yeah. This is the main entry. Glass, glass, glass, so they're lighted up. Okay. I just want to ask about the difference in the door and glass design of the two main entries. I'm wondering whether you had intention there or whether there could be more symmetry between the two. Because, you know, I did notice that on the front entry, there are two sets of lights next to the door, which really does note that it's a main entry. The main entrance has got three panels of glass. Yes, it does. It's not symmetrical, that's why I'd like to. That's right, and it's not the same door design as the east elevations. They're all the same door. They're all fully glazed single. But there is a sidelight of identical muntins like this. It looks to me as if the east and north had, you know, a main section and then a light over it, whereas the south elevation had a more elegant design, as I could see. Yeah, well, that's intentional. Really, it was your committee's suggestion that we make the front tour have more, I mean, that's a front. Yeah, we dressed it up for you. We go to the, are we up to five, six, maybe? Six. So, this is the wall that we will be carrying on. This is the hedge right in here. This is me. This is I, I could say. When I brought the building that is where the police station is now, because we designed it, we took that building around and moved it down, Robert Frost looked at the building, moved it down, Bruce was involved with it. Did I take that program? You should have been an inspector too, and moved it down and literally blocked the view of the mansion. We blocked the view of a bunch of crap, so they were very happy about that. What was behind it was a very dilapidated Lumbiard, called L and Jones Lumbiard, which they quickly had replaced with one on Route 9, so which is leaders now. And we took one of the buildings of the Lumbiard buildings and made it into our office. We took down the other buildings because we had to have parking. So we saved that, but the view before was not a pretty view. The view a hundred years ago was a very prestigious view of the Lord of the Manor, looking out over his cat factory, which burned down, I believe, in that early 30s. That's the story of that picture. Actually, I have my pockets open because someone had just asked me, has it cost a lot of money? I said, see, there's nothing in my pocket. This is the cultural center, which there is one right here, which will remain. And this drawing, the ones you see, you have, so you can actually see this. This is the outline of the building, and you're seeing what we're blocking. You can see it better, maybe hard to see on this, but you can see it on that one there, that you can see the lines through it, and that's showing what you're blocking. So you're basically blocking that what is now the first house on Gray Street. The picture was taken just on the sidewalk on Main Street, on the same side of the street, not across the street. The wire diagram. Oh, from where I took the picture. Yeah, yeah. Or from me, because I'm on the other side of the street. So we only have another slide on pictures. It's our catalog information on the windows and the buttons from Anderson. That's the very last sheet. And they, when you look at the PDFs on your screen, you can blow them up and read them. I thought it was good to get all of our presentation into one set so that the whole nine-year-old is just here. That's the the Windows series, and the ones who will get these surround me, the trim made up. And then the signage over the door on the front will be, well let's go to the one over here. These are raised letters that have a slight light behind them, and that will be maybe six inch high letters over the front door. This is the Cornish detail. These are other Cornish's in the area, Emily Dickinson's Cornish. These are the the look of the columns. This is the look of the louver that will be taking air in on the north side. This is the look of stucco. This is the look of a gray shingle roof. I don't remember, John, what was this? We have a question, too. Oh, yes, yes. These are the kinds of lighting, where we have lighting, would be recessed into softened and casted dim lights. We install them in the, one of my big jobs, the toilet room on the ball field, the community field. There's, you'll see, you drive up to see the doors dimly lit up from a soffit, a soffit light, and they're LED lights. Amazingly, they haven't turned out. Can you remind us about the siding? The siding is a four inch exposure with cement wood. And it will be white. I believe so, but it's not all. We haven't got all that. That's all we have. Okay. Thank you. So, um, so the, um, I want to, the commissioners to have a chance to ask some questions. I have, I have one question for, I'm just going to jump right in here. Um, the sign, sure, I'm comfortable with it being backlit. Is that, you mean, so at night it will be lit all night? Is that going to, is that going to look a little cold? It's very subtle. I would leave that. Okay. Because I mean, that could fall off, you know, you could change that easily. It's not like it's going to be there for a million years. I also wanted to say that I'll open up to questions. And I think, um, you know, when you said it's not, it's meant the building was designed sort of not to intrude. I guess I saw it as, you know, a continuation of the residential structures down Gray Street, that since it's residential on gray and commercial on Maine, one building has to have both. So I saw it as, there's always been like a vacant lot on the corner of Maine and Gray that could have had a house and that this is the closest, looks like a continuation, modest in that it's a continuation of the house that's going down Gray Street. I didn't want an outlier. So I know that Bruce had some questions. Should I start at this? Let me start with Bruce and we'll work down this way. Bill, the roof overhang is eight inches. I think it's four. No, it says eight. Well, it's eight on the software. I guess if you aggregated it, it might come out. I guess, I don't want to become, you know, the closet architect here. So I'm not quite sure how I can distinguish my observations from, I'm trying to be, do the work of the commission. I think elegance in buildings is equated with generosity and overhangs. So I guess I'll simply ask, is it possible that the overhangs could be? Not only possible, we love it. The reason we love it, another reason we love it, because buildings with big overhangs don't have part of the grain coming in the windows. That's right. It's generous to the building. It pays off. So maybe I should be looking at you, Jim. When Bill advocates for generosity and the overhangs expanding it, I hope that you could support that. I think that would be a noticeable improvement. And so maybe we'll see whether that functions as a condition or not. But do you have a, no, you mean are you thinking of a size overhang? Yeah, doubling it. I'm sorry, what much? Doubling it. Doubling, okay. Okay. The, that would, that would, on the, on the, on the, on the gable ends as well as the, yeah, or maybe the, maybe double on the south and north and 1.5 on the east and west. On the east. Yeah, because I know it's more difficult to get generous overhangs, you know, that the going in that direction and it's flying rafters. Anyway, double would be fine, but 1.5 will look as good and we often have imbalances there and they look well. So then the, the elevation, I don't know about the rest of you, but I looked at these on my computer and I theorized them significantly, so I could see all this. The, page 2? I'm on, I'm, my questions now relate to the elevations for the next couple. Yeah, page 2. The, the, I'm not sure where we have this reference, but it's, it's a reference to what you call vertical reveal joints. It's in that flat horizontal band above the windows. And are they going to, it says that they're expressed and I'm not thinking. Just the tool joint. Yeah, okay. Is, is, is there's no way you could just make it completely flat without, I wouldn't. Because, because you're using stucco. I'm afraid, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Is there any way in which they can be aligned? I mean, for example, while I'm looking at the north elevation, maybe I should get up here and use the screen. That's the pattern of the, of the joint as I am. Thank you. This is for everybody's attention, so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. This is the, this is the elevation for you to see. These tool joints here fit rather nicely in, equally in here, but when we get here, they, they lose their, their relationship. I'm thinking it would be nicer if the tool joint was there and if necessary, another one in the middle and then maybe one over here. I was confused about these plasters too. That's another question. Does this lube have to be the same size as that or could it be smaller and fit with this? I made it so big that whatever they want will fit behind it. I expect most of it's going to be blocked off. What if we said that you have to tell a mechanical engineer that has to, I guess that the air volume is. I can bet you that we could do it half that in fact. I want them so that they fit into the panel and not be a small. So maybe the, if it's, if it's a condition that we would, it would be to work to align the, the tool joints with the plasters on the wrong side and size the, the side of the east and most bent accordingly. I could go back to my questions because I can't remember. So Northside, can you align with the plasters? South end of the plasters at the west end. So I'm now on the south elevations. Yes. Again, the, I see. You, you, you made that equal, and that equal. This, this, this, I found fairly jarring. Is that necessary or is that, I mean, it's, it's putting light into a corner of the, of the lobby. I realize it's light that's coming from not under this roof, but it's, it's in a kind of a hollow. It feels that the appearance of the south would be improved by, by not having that window there. I mean, that's a personal opinion. Which window? Yeah, that. The second side. The second side. It's so asymmetrical. It, it, it, it, it disrupts the symmetry around the entry. Right. Right. And. Do you want to see that one right here? One more question. Yeah. We can do that. The building will look a little more like it's belong to the graveyard, but. That's true. Deadly symmetrical, but. Oh, okay. But I mean, it's, it's because it's. I guess I'll let that hang as a, as a, as a, as a. Yeah, I don't mind that actually. I like, I prefer windows to. All offset. I actually prefer windows to deciding. Well, all right. Right. More light. Yeah. Let me, let me simply. If it's not taken up by the rest of you, then it doesn't have standing. Yes. Oh, I would, another opinion, I would think it would be more generous to have a wider trim band around that oculus. It would make the oculus sit better in that. It happens in two places. You don't need to go to the other places. Three. Yes. The two gave, other gave one. Yes. Yes. So if, if that could be six inches wide, I'm thinking six to eight inches wide. Our standard is six. So larger than the other two. Well, you're saying all larger. I would, I would actually go with eight inches. Eight inches. All around. Yeah. Because I think that I'm looking at the size of the, around here. What does that? We'll just leave it up all time. And you're not showing downspouts, but there will be downspouts, right? And they will probably, where they occur, they will be over the center of the corner board. There's that one we would expect. So we all know, right? So we, in making our deliberations and so forth on this as a commission, where we're not going to be surprised to see downspouts on the building because the detail shows gathering. The detail section shows gathering. The elevation doesn't show downspouts. The reason it doesn't show downspouts, I think, is because we want to see what the fundamental detail is. But in certain places, it'll be covered. I think what you said, Bruce, there will be at the corners or It's not going to be a lot of choice of where they go because they, you have to have them, you can't put them around the corner. If the gathering's here, you could. No, I mean, I'm assuming on the south elevation, they're going to be on the main street side, you know, it could be like four downspouts or something, you know, five downspouts catching that. Do we want to see where they want to go? Where the downspouts will go? Yeah, I mean, on the main street, I guess there's going to be a gather along there. There'll be one around here. So this downspout could be on this corner here, but two of them are going to be on the main street side. Looking here where they'll be on this. Okay, that's that's Madam Chair, that's all my questions. Okay, then you took note of, yeah, I did. Okay, so those. Do you have any questions? I'm very impressed with the improvements. I think it's amazing the presentation. It's great. My instinct is that I guess I would play, I don't know, a little bit more with the windows of the main streets by the door. If that could be, I agree that if you take away that window, you're going to have more of a that look that's going to be less attractive. But it is a little weird as it is. I wonder if you come up with a brilliant idea to even. I mean, is it possible to put another window on the other side? It will be in Jim's office. You mean if it went right here, which I mean. You have to agree that the appearance on the main street is going to be very, very important. So if you compromise that having windows in the office that you don't want, it might be worth it to have it really look beautiful in the setting from, and you're getting very close to it. It's just that part disturbs me a little bit. I agree with you because another set of windows on the other side would do it. I mean I would say play with that and see if they get a little more graceful. We could take the peek and move it a bit over. I wonder how that would happen. We work it out and put one launch light on the other side, but that's another. Yeah, well, we don't. I mean, I think you just play with it and see. Yeah, I think we need to play with that. We don't want to put one in Jim's office. I see him now. So that's it. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Karen. Jim, do you I don't have any questions. I'm just, you know, press it each time they come before us. The design is refined and more measurements and a lot of clarity has been added. Thank you. And I do thank Bruce for knowing what clarity to ask for. I appreciate that. Marianne. Excuse me. They have a little difficulty. I'm very impressed with the additions. This is really very well done. I do have two questions. You remember you just won my heart over several iterations ago when you had that lovely curved walkway up to the incline, up to the main entrance, rather than the straight shot you have up front. I like that idea. And there are so many straight shots on this that I think a curved line here and there, even echoing the, you know, the parking area, would be, I think, more elegant and more graceful. Yeah, I like that. So thank you for that. And the other one, and so now you haven't broken my heart by taking it away. Thank you. The other is, I had been puzzled and so now I just want to confirm on page, from the drawing on page four, that my initial, is four? Yes, it does, because I'm looking at the, at the little blocks of the outer boundaries of the homes. And I do see that the building on the western side does extend to the west of the tree line that is otherwise the back boundary of the Gray Street properties. Is that the case now? I just was wondering how the alignment went, because my hope had been that it wouldn't, that there would be a kind of a straight shot of the tree lines that are western bound, of the western boundary of the Gray Street properties all the way down. It almost does line up. Almost does, yes. I just wanted to confirm that. But we didn't intend to have a hard line. We'd like it to have a slightly natural look. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you. Nate. I just, I mean, I think, you know, I just want, I just have, I've highlighted things on the plans just to call up with the commission to be aware of. There's, you know, the side walkway on the west side of the building on the site plan. You know, Bill mentioned it. I just want to make sure people are aware of that retain while he captured. There is the, you know, now some earthwork on the southeast corner. So, you know, there's the circular topography. So, you know, the building is bouncing cut and fill on the site. So, you know, it's going to be brought up on the southeast corner. You can see the topography there. And then it's, you know, cut down on the, where the, where the islets hedges are. Wait, so right here? Yeah, that's going to be, you know, now it's, so if you go up to the building, it's, you know, three, four feet of grade change, you know, so it's going to be sloped up. That's what that I'm just sloped up going towards the street or towards the going up hill toward the building. Toward the building. Yeah. 30 degree angle. Yeah, I just want to call it out. So, just so you know that I was standing on the, on the street there where it says 264 there. Right here, yeah. My eye level would be with the plane above, up to the corner of the building. In other words, the, I would see, I could not see, my eye level would be with this plane here. But the height of the building from here is 26 feet? No, it's higher from there because it's, you've got, because it's, it's sloping up. Yeah, as, as just as it would be lower from here, because this is, this is 276, this is, this is 12 feet of grade change, 12 or 13 feet of grade change from there to there. So this is, and the building is more or less in the middle. Right. So yeah, you can look at the topography on the, you know, the infiltration basin behind the hedges. There's, you know, solid black lines at an angle. Those are new proposed topography lines. So it's balancing cut and fill on either side of the, of the building. So this, this is where the grade changes. Right. So this has changed, but all of this through here is unchanged. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just bringing that up. Sheet two, the, you know, if we look at the site plan, there's just the, the new freestanding sign in the northeast corner. If you look at, you know, the building floor plan, you know, over by the driveway, you know, Bill mentioned it. I'm pointed out. I just want to have just the commissioners be aware of that. That's right. On the other side, Bruce, the freestanding sign is over by the entry drive. Oh, this stuff, oh, that freestanding sign. Yeah, freestanding sign, yeah. Where is that? I was looking at this detail, but I'm not seeing it. That's on Sheet, the detail on Sheet four. So maybe we should just go to Sheets four. Okay. It's 30 inches higher than age and age is high. Yeah. So, here we snowfall. Yeah, they'll have the shovel to snow. It really isn't like 18 inches. Okay. Yeah, it's hard to read. You have a heated sign. Then just to note on the Sheet two, if you look at the east elevation, you know, there are the stairs that they're showing will be a railing that's visible. It says it there. You know, you can see a railing in the stone wall next to the east elevation. Oh, here we go. And I just want, you know, so for instance, you know, we don't know the detail of the railing, but it will be there. So, you know, it's kind of like we're talking about the down spallots. That's the railing. That's what it will look like. That's a two. It's just a railing. It's just a 30 inch drop. This is just a hand rail. In relation to that, I'm back to my favorite topic. But if we have the railing on the right side to get up the steps and we had some kind of slope entrance coming in from the west, I was also thinking about wheelchair access from buses because people would be coming with wheelchairs by buses as well as using the handicaps. You mean the main back entrance from the parking lot? No, I'm talking about coming, getting off a bus on Main Street and being able to come up a slope. Oh, there's no slope. Oh, I mean all along Main Street, in case they park way down. I'm on a wheelchair and I just went down out of the bus and unwailing myself into that front door and you've given me a lovely smoke access that I had just asked for. That is not on the steps, but it comes in this way. I think the bus stops. Maureen, I think you missed something. If we're on this, if we're on page two, the sidewalk on Main Street is showing, then there's a straight entrance right to the main front door. That's all accessible. That was only asking before and you would say it was possible that it's not be a straight shot. Oh, yeah. So while we're on that, could you, because it seemed like that found favor with everybody, is that correct? So if that's the case, it's likely to be a condition that we would. Yeah, I mean, it's typically a walkway at grade is not part of the review. So, you know, I think if that's, it can be, as a whole new building, it can be considered, you know, but I mean, we don't see it in front of us in terms of what that means. Well, all I'm trying to do right now is to attract consensus feeling or consensus opinion, let's say, on the commission and then keep a record of as we go. So I don't have, what did you say, Maureen? How would I describe it? That from the sidewalk to the west, that there be a sloped graded access to that main door, as well as being able to go up steps. Isn't that what we were talking about? Or were you assuming that if you were using the handicap, you'd go to Gray Street entrance? There's no change in grades. What we could do. I'm not sure that I understand. This is that straight shot that you have there. Or in addition. What I like about this is right now, it's a universal design, it's accessible to anyone. I think adding steps adds cost and it becomes a barrier. Well, you don't care if there's steps, right? I'm not asking for the steps. No, she wants. I'm just seeing that there's a railing, so I assume there were steps. Well, why didn't I get need one? There's no railing. I like railings myself, but the railing is just on it. No, but this is the, yeah, this is the eastern elevation line. Just in case it's nice to have a public rail. I don't think there is a railing on the front. You were talking about where Anne was having your curve in the park. Okay, so nothing about slopes. It's curves, right? So you're advocating for a curved entry walkway, as opposed to a straight one. We are going to public, well, you're up. Okay, you can, we're going to go to public comment after, but. I have something. Yeah, okay, right, right. Okay, that's fine. Yes, and you're, yes, you're town, not public. So I just, I'm Chris Brest from the school director. I just wanted to note that if you have a curved walkway like that, you have to come from some direction, and so then you would have to decide which direction are you coming from. And I think the straight shot is everybody an opportunity no matter what direction you're coming from. Just go straight in. Whereas if you start curving it, then you have to maybe have one going to the west and one going to the east. And so that's going to make a different look here. We probably need two walkways. No, I think you'll do it like this, Chris. So one's going up and one's going down. You'll do it like that. Right, Maureen? Yeah, that'll be fine. So I mean, if, if that's. Yeah, that's fine. Kind of goes like this. I just show, um, Karn, like this. Then you can get it kind of from, yeah. Just make it beautiful. So I'll go back to my comments on sheet two. So my only question is, do you think there'll be, um, people will want to cut across from that side path to the main walkway? Like would there ever be a, you know, just to connect, like, you know, just if there is desire lines. I was looking at that patch there and between the two sidewalks, uh, maybe we could dream up some. Something interesting right in here. Maybe joining this and this out again. That's, I mean, that's substantially at grade. I'm not there yet. Yeah. That'd be kind of fun. So I'm just going to, this thing's I've noticed on the east elevation, you know, there are a lot of, um, callouts. So you know, they said there's the backlit pin mounted sign over the door. There's the railing. There's a hose bib, you know, I'm just, you know, calling everyone's attention to those things just in small detail. On the south elevation, again, there's two signs, you know, the pin mounted signs, one above the door and one on the, um, eastern corner right below the banding. There's an exhaust louver below the pediment, you know, that would be right on that again in the band, um, just so we're all aware of it. On the north elevation, Bill, you covered all that. Is there a, I mean, could, since there are these outstanding details, so that, is there an opportunity before, you know, it's built to come back or how does that? Yeah. So I mean, I think I handed out draft staff, you know, draft possible conditions for this. And so one of it was that, you know, these types of things would come back at a public meeting. So they're noted on the plan and they're not, you know, at this point in the development of a, of a, you know, fairly big renovation and building, they may not all, the details may not be had. So the location might change a little bit and the exact specifications for that piece may not be known. So, you know, I think they've done a good job of showing roughly where it's going to go based on the interior layout. And so, you know, a condition would be that they could come back at a public meeting to preview the material submittals or catalog specifications or something. You know. Which is actually just what happened right before the first item on the agenda was a residence where we had issued a certificate of appropriateness and then they had a couple of changes and they came back. Right. And we approved them, but they did come back because there were some changes. Yeah. Right. And then just to clarify the sign on the driveway, there's no lights or anything associated with this. Right. That's, that's really, those are, can I raise just one other question? I don't know if it's appropriate to add a sentence or two to your appropriateness statement, but I thought that where you talk about the appropriateness of maintaining the view state, I thought the women's center might appreciate a sentence or two about screening the parking area for the, for the privacy of their functions because I think I didn't see that. That's the box. Right. Yes. But is that on this statement or maybe it couldn't hurt to make it explicit because we are requiring that so much is required is explicit here that I thought it would be a good gesture. I mean, yeah, you say this last one year around green head will be planted at the west end of the parking lot to show the view of the parking for final street. And you go on a little bit. I just thought another sentence would pin it down. Well, comfort. Okay. So we do, you know, want to have the opportunity for public comment. We would like to close. Well, we will close the meeting by six. So for show of hands, how many in here would like to make comments? So I think we'll proceed to that now and I'll go in order. So I'll start with you, Ms. Greenbaum and identify who you are, please. I have three questions. First, I'd like to say I'm really pleased how far this has come nine months or more. Huge improvement. My first one is I'm concerned about the walkway on the west side. What the purpose of that is and wouldn't it look better if it were landscaping? It connects the parking lot to Main Street, but I don't know if anybody would use it. And I tends to look like a place that might collect a lot of ice. So I'm wondering if that can be landscaped rather than it would. And then another one is does the engineer expect that there will be standing water in the depression for collecting stormwater? Would that have standing water in it? And would it perhaps be a rain garden type place where people might want to gather outside? And then I guess along with that, will the field be mowed or you don't care as part of the historical commission whether the field is mowed or left to go to love? And then my last question was I learned of the architecture work and I'd like you to define it. What is a horn on the window? I just wrote down all these questions and we'll wait till the end and then yeah, thank you. Going this way? Yes. So Felicity Hargy, I represent harm's way. I'm also on Amherst But I'm just going to introduce Lucy Conley from Berkshire Design who is a civil engineering firm because I had some questions about the rating of the site and not being civil engineer. I thought it would be best to have somebody with more expertise on that. Okay. So thank you. So give your name and yeah. Lucy Conley, Berkshire Design. Okay. So starting on the south, on the south elevation there's actually a wall to the left of the of the stairway which is not shown and there's grading into that wall. So for maybe at least that's it's shown on the site plan. I don't see it reflected on the I'm sorry. We have the site plan up and you do what I did and point the way you are. Page one is that on the east elevation. I'm sorry. Right. The site plan shows a wall with two contours swinging into it. I don't get it. Page two is what we want. The east elevation. The top of the wall 268 is what the interior grade is so it's really a corner. Okay. So you can't you you're not it's not really represented. You can't see that. Slow. You won't see. Okay. All right. Just to clarify the if we're looking at sheet two. This is the way I understand it is you know on this corner right here there's a set of stairs and there's you know a wall that wraps around it but that becomes essentially at grade so the land slopes up to it so it's not as if there'll be much of a raised wall here. Right. That's okay. So then if you move to the back of the site the parking lot is really depressed into the ground so where those where the Islex shrubs are at the end of the parking lot is actually a five foot increase in elevation up to the infiltration meadow and so uh it was stated that the storm water from the parking lot would be pumped okay so there's two points I guess these Islex shrubs are six feet high but really from the top of the meadow you would only see the top of the shrubs unless you plan on putting them up up this low just as a understanding of topography. My challenge was to get low ones that stay green anything can get too high and I didn't think that was good for anybody to be blocking the views. But it was stated that from Trials Street you would be looking at these evergreens but you actually would only see maybe the top of them. Good. That means you can't see the parking lot. The idea was to yes screen the cars. Right. Yeah and so we're going to pump the storm water up into this meadow so I think it's a big consideration for the view that that meadow not be changed in elevation the top that not be depressed or raised significantly. So it seems that that maybe is an important criteria that that area not change in topography from the current state wouldn't that so they wouldn't affect the view behind the building. Right. To the side of the building. I think it would help if you would I think it would help if you would stand and point to the focus of your questions. That would things would go better. So from here at 270 to up here at 276 is a six foot increase in elevation. So what I was saying is I am not commenting on the shrubs or I'm just wanting to state that these shrubs will not be visible from from Triangle Street because they're they're basically shielding they're basically creating a green buffer here but they're no taller than this elevation here. But will that elevation shield the cars from the women's club? The goal the the objective right is that if you're at a party outside the women's club that you're not be looking at the cars in the parking lot the eight cars in the parking right well that would be up to a some analysis of a view just to if you could see them but I was just stating then right they're not they're not you know they won't protrude above this right no I understand that I'm trying to explain them the right purpose for the trees was to shield the parking lot one would have to right do that analysis and so and then the other point is so then since this parking lot here is elevation 270 and this area is actually quite a steep slope to it so it varies in elevation from 276 277 278 so somehow the water the storm water from here and all the gutters from the building is going to be it's partial I believe that the parking lot goes out to she may agree but the roof drainage is going to go to that thing all right so when if it is pumped into here we believe it's it's a consideration that visit the grade in this area not be altered in order to create a pond or to to flatten it because that would affect the view shed if this was flattened you know it would have a totally different appearance right now it has a 10 a 10 percent slope across it so that's just we were considering that that should be maintained to maintain the view from through that area is it now raised by what foot is that that's the worst and blend and blend it in but is it visually is it preferred in terms of obscuring the view of the parking lot is that not only the parking lot every little bit you raise that is it less you're going to see of the cars right on main street so if I were up ahead up on the top looking down I'd prefer that if I was walking along main street I would fortunately because my head six feet up there we have a five feet up and I can still see past it but we went through that right like we also demonstrated good one here but we demonstrated up in our flyby we did it with one foot raised and one and less one foot raised I couldn't see the difference nobody could it's it blends right in it's perfectly no change and no change in the slope because it is right yeah no it's it's mimic it's just exactly one foot over and then blend it in and that's covered by the you know the engineering which is being done now it has to do with the water level in the ground right usually infiltration requires us somewhat left side it'll be all spelled out for the planning board the planning board will weigh in on that big time yeah yeah as long as the topography is not all right okay thank you thank you um yes I put oh let me go to miss Pam it's a question about the sign I can see that's a sign the back that sign I can see that I might like that in some place but I don't see how it fits in the style of this building yeah okay thank you I have that question too just back to the last one okay you say your name oh it's a Matty Massinger a preference in Harnsway and I'm a hammer's president what will that area look like from the deck of the Hill House sort of the front porch of the Hill House meaning is they're looking down are they is it going to be a noticeable area that they can see the water going not water going in but would it be like a ready septic septic system or something where you're sitting up at the Hill House you're looking down and here's a mound that's sticking up okay thank you I have a couple and um Miss Greenbounds questions that will let the applicant answer at the end of the public hearing well we'll get back to it again are there any more questions or comments okay um no just a question about pumping noise noise of the pump did we talk about that well let's add that to the questions that's good um so uh Mr. Gillan should I direct these questions to you I'll start with Miss Greenbounds had questions about um I'm sorry I don't have a picture uh she asked um will the walkway on the west side collect ice I don't know they'll be maintaining it the way they do anywhere else it's a west facing and there's not a wall there it just goes into the the meadow right it's there's it's not like it's not like on Pleasant Street where you're walking between two buildings though you know that walkway by Antonio's Pizza it's a walkway but it just goes into the the meadow right so it wouldn't it wouldn't be an uh an area for collecting it's nothing it's sloped it's enough to drain I'm not sure at this moment whether we'll even save it we needed to have a flat bed for the for the building we didn't want to have the slope bang into the side of the building so we want to create a flat bed so we've got something three or four feet wide we thought we might as well expect that people will want to walk around if to just to do maintenance if nothing else but it doesn't necessarily have to be it might not be paved it may be just gravel my my thought is facing southwest or facing west it's on that side it's going to get a lot of sun so I'd be quite surprised if there was a nice problem there yeah and then there was a question about um a rain garden well basically do you expect that there's going to be standing water in the one foot depression it's raised yeah drain through so that it's grass there are pipes underground with perforations and holes in them so it wouldn't hold water the pipes will hold water till it seeps out of them so you're going to have like a rain garden you couldn't have like a rain garden I don't know what a rain garden is it's not depressed it's not depressed well it's landscape like um embossed area oh no it's too much it's a slope yeah and then there was a question about a horn on the window what is a horn on the window this guy here oh that okay just it's just the trim it's the sill extending beyond the limit of the casing oh okay so you'll often see that the sills extend beyond the limit of the casing maybe an inch maybe that is called the sill horn and then mr massingale's question about what will that be the view from the hillhouse deck when you're looking down and they will not be able to see the drainage at all they won't see any rays no mounds nothing absolutely there won't be sort of like a this colored grass where the water is collected so I guess what I'm saying is if you're sitting on the deck and you're looking down you will not see it at all no no no sign of it at all and then my opinion no and I'm wrong is it 100% certain that you will not see so the question was at 100 I guess he said yeah so the response was no no yeah if you can go back to the sheet one the site plan I along this question I mean now I think the connection is looking at how it impacts the view from the streetscape it's not necessarily concerned with how much of the view is impacted from a neighboring home so that view is visible from triangle street through the women's club so it's important you know so like bill said there's a balance if we're on main street and you actually want to block all the cars you have a larger steeper slope along the sidewalk on main street to flatten the slope of the the lawn which would you know which we don't which everyone said they don't want along main street so you know I think if you know if the 12 inch increase in the infiltration area follows the slope of the thing so it's not a tabletop it's actually just an increase following the same slope and everything it's feathered out you in the end you won't even notice that it's there you know everything's subterranean so all the drainage pipes you know it's all going to be pumped from somewhere but on this site plan I guess my question is how you're going is is this wall up here visible what does this look like here so you know originally the wall never extended beyond the building so like that's one of them one of my obscenity questions what does it look like it's dying into the grave again so so from both sides it's going to just there's a few yeah so you say that you will not see that wall you want no fact what we were talking about because you just said that we wouldn't see it I think if they have 12 inch grade change if you feather it out you won't even notice that it's there if they can feather out you know that that infiltration area I think it'll be as long as I say so hey I think it's going to be very unlikely you'll notice it but I but the wall you're saying is going to be just be right into the grade so from both sides it's not going to be it's going to maintain an elevational height and then the grade is just going to come up to it at a full fence yeah yeah well the grade is on the north side it's above it it's it's it's the grade right below it it's it's accommodating the excavation of the building yeah I just want to confirm that yeah so I did the section shows the corresponding okay are there any other public comments I was talking about the public comments the noise oh okay let me I'll get so are there any public comment questions okay so with that we will close the public comment portion of the meeting and Marianne's question about will there be noise from the pumps probably a question that Jim would be more concerned about this it's going to happen inside the building right we're not expecting it that's something that the engineers working on very closely you know there's a verge we haven't been my building yet you don't hear them outside oh don't even hear them inside yeah if you don't hear them a little bit your work right sure yeah it's true actually my basement okay so with that um can we move to close the public portion of the meeting and then we will deliberate among ourselves I think there's no do I have to move to do that we can you know so you so we haven't closed oh we haven't closed the public hearing for five months so right yeah yeah yeah something yeah significant yeah so I think that's the that's the question right so if the commission is comfortable at this point to close the public hearing so that means you know know the information from the applicant you know no more public testimony or comments and then it's deliberation amongst the commission so I'm good with that so I'll move to be close to public hearing excuse me does that allow us to work with conditions yes it does but what does I say is if they end up changing the entry way around that that's you know possibly a new application so if changes come yes as they do as they do well I think we'd go okay right okay I just want to make sure but we I feel I think today we have to yes we have to make a decision today so okay is there a second but I think we can uh all in favor I read my thing uh yeah but no what I was I guess I mean that was also the time to say it that um I do think today we are I would propose that our goal be to approve a certificate of appropriateness deny a certificate of appropriateness or approve one with conditions but um I think we this application has been proceeding for 10 months well I guess since August the second application was submitted and um fairness to all involved as well as the fact that we you know are at risk of not having a quorum if we keep it open too much longer we already have two members that missed a meeting and so that are not um eligible to vote they're actually not here today but um so that's that's where I am hoping we will get to so well I think I'm gonna make a motion but before I make the motion I'd like to read something that I wrote uh because I arrived early and I'm sorry I ignored a few people like Meg I she was trying to get my attention that I ignored it um it seems to me that um this is a personal statement a statement of personal findings and to some extent it might be something that we all want to endorse but I don't think that's really necessary but I think it's appropriate that we read this because or I read this because it's been a it's been a quite an effort to get as far as we've gone so um I think the most important factor relating to the considerations that we are directed to in uh in uh section particularly section 8.2 of our bylaw um the the one that is most a significant most uh demanding was the matter of scale um for a certificate of appropriateness a finding that the scale and proportion but the scale of the building was paramount that that that was the thing that was certainly overwhelming the uh the most significant thing for me in this process the applicant and the commission have engaged over this uh strangely during the four five or six meetings that we've had over the past five months and many representations have been made by um folks uh in public comments um representations largely that have represented that the 4000 square feet uh or on two stories of 2500 uh their abouts footprint of the building is too big some of you have even made the case that any building in this location would be too big and whereas I understand that the viewscape from the east uh moving west up main street um would be diminished by any building and also whereas I agree that the viewscape um in this look from this location from this aspect is among the most splendid in town I find I can't support a finding that no building should be allowed on this site because any viewsca because of any viewscape transgression I think and I'm not a lawyer of course but it feels like that would amount to a taking and I can't imagine that we wouldn't be uh putting the town to the task and expense of defending it so I think we'd have to feel very strongly and I don't feel that strong um so that moves me to the question as to how much is too much in relation to a viewscape transgression and similarly in regard to the scale how big is too big so as I said the commission and the applicant have worked together to achieve significant improvement and I look back uh earlier at the various um submissions that have been made and and I think there has been progressive and significant improvement but uh as I said earlier in the in the discussion back in October I think I don't think that the current proposal which is to say the current schematic design approach is as good as it could be so far as being uh fitting in scale but I was not able to convince you all of that I was not able to convince you that such a voluminous building could be significantly reduced by going to a different style the flat roof style reminiscent shall we say of the neighbors across main street um that that would be a more suitable design approach I thought that at the time I still think that I think we could have done better but it would involve embracing embracing a design scale that you all didn't have the confidence that I do that could be made to look wonderful I still think it could be made look wonderful I don't think what we have before us is as good as it could be um and it was also clear that the applicant uh was not inclined to explore that approach either and I think that was unfortunate but it's water under a bridge water under my bridge so then um in the past month or so I um engaged with the with us all to um with the design solution that stylistically embraces the north side of the street rather than the south side um and work to uh in a joint effort to get where we are now the current proposal has come a long way as I said to achieving an acceptable finding uh in scale particularly in proportion um and uh and I guess personally I can now support a finding that the certificate of appropriateness should be granted I contemplated for a while that uh how how true how how strenuously was I going to hold to my view that we could have done better and does that result in an upstanding vote an abstaining or a or a no vote figuring that there is a majority here but I thought that was a little too precious even even for me so that um um so with conditions yeah yeah so so anyway all of that was a preamble I wanted to say that because I I I didn't want you all to forget that I think there's a better way of doing this I really do and you too Bill and Jim I know when I showed my proposal to uh Bill in October he said is is that he said I thought it was a joke that's what you said I thought you had done it for the for the proposals for two years earlier no no it's but you and I are old friends and I I know I know I know you're the way you the way you think and talk and engage and I although it was a little abrupt time I thought well that's that's the way it is so I would I guess um I could move that we uh were there any other well I yeah okay Maureen's got something yes I was going to propose similarly and I would second an motion for um certificate of appropriateness with conditions well I'm I so let me put that out and then we can talk about it because that's I think the mechanics of our process now means that if we have a we have a motion then we can talk about it so I think I'll just go with the same uh preamble that we usually do that I move that the commission grants certificate of appropriateness for the Amherst media project at 400 Main Street finding that it is well I've just spent three pages ruminating on consistent with the the criteria stated in sections 8.1 and 8.2 of the local Stark district bylaw um and and I think uh maybe then we we would go to uh conditions and at the end then I would like to reference the documents on which this is all based so the conditions I think I should read this yeah because not everybody has this well they do I think this was passed out but we will still read it we should read it yeah so natus has put together so the conditions in as follows the commission improves the plans submitted on january uh 27nd to january 27th I think the site plan is stated uh january 15th and prepared by uh gillen uh gillen collaborative yeah gillen collaborative yeah for the Amherst media number two any changes to these plans whether to the building or site shall be reviewed by the commission at a public meeting to determine whether changes are to be done at a at a let's actually let's do that now at a public meeting just prior to the issuance of a building permit I think it says this says prior oh I don't want this public meeting to be like two weeks from now I think it should be just prior to everything when a building permit is issued so that if there's any changes it's not going to screw up the building permit but anyway I think that's that feels to me like a reasonable time so any changes shall be reviewed by the commission at a public meeting just prior to the issuance of the building permit to determine whether the changes are de minimis or require a new application and um to ensure the intent of these commission these the following conditions is adhered to so the the documentation here and here is all thorough but our conditions are obviously a little less thorough because they're they're they're verbal than they're generated kind of on the fly so I would add the to those to the second condition the third condition prior to the issuance of the building permit which is to say at the same meeting the aptly that can shall provide material samples and submittals to the commission at public meeting for approval it's been done substantially as far as the windows are concerned but there are other samples and so forth like what oh I mean probably I think we probably should give you guidance as to what we all want to hear it sounds like people might want to see building roofing shingles or something like that well in that case in that case maybe we'll keep it there but recognizing that you've already come a long way and maybe all the way to satisfying that that fourth condition um prior to the issuance of a building permit the applicant shall provide manufacturer specification to the commission out of public hearing the approval of architectural features including but not limited to windows have we done that today uh doors railings lighting signs well they're not really manufacturer specifications again we can uh this basically gives us the right to ask certain things which we may or may not exercise hva equipment exhaust hoods and vents number five western portion of the property identified as the infiltration area shall remain undeveloped except as provided on the plans number six the infiltration area shall be rise no more than 12 inches in height than the existing topography as indicated on the plans so my only condition there would be and uh to add to that and follow the slope of existing topography so that um yeah something that was said today yes okay you're adding yeah I got that here um the retaining wall running east west along the northern boundary shall be made entirely a dry laid stone to match the retaining wall of 14 gray street and shall not include concrete um words dry laid yeah the wall shall be three to five feet in height as indicated on the on the plans I would say on the drawings or in the documentation the plans are certainly it's not really the right word so change all of those references to plans to the drawings the drawings um eight the low retaining wall that wraps around the north and east corner of the building and the east stairs shall be made of the same stone as the retaining wall of the northern boundary number nine the applicant is required to install and maintain permanent evergreen screen to the west of the parking as shown on the drawing 10 the applicant shall maintain all building setbacks as shown on page on drawing number let's say drawing number two floor plan and elevations um 26 foot two uh on the eastern corner from gray street 13 three from the southeast corner on the southeast corner from the southern property boundary and 20 foot four inches on the southwest corner from main street to the side wall and now there's some others which are ones that i have three uh number 11 the casing trim around the three oculi is that great work for you Adam Lincoln yes yes it wasn't one of my three that makes four to be at least 18 inches eight inches wide number 12 the roof overhangs to be enlarged uh all around to double that shown in the submitted drawings and we could say double on the south and north sides and one and a half times on the eastern west 13 if you can read the gable ends the gable ends three yeah so gable ends relocate the uh oh yeah you're right um relocate the vertical reveal joints on the north side to align with the pilasters and make the vent grill uh contract at the eastern end to fit between the pilaster and the cornerboard um number 14 um introduce a curved entry a curve to the entry walkway uh to the main street entry and then uh oh that one we've already i put back so that's it that's all that i have what about the parking the parking slots we don't we want to affirm that we don't want uh more than eight or is that a memo to the planning board well no isn't that part of our so i think that's what we're approving that's what we're approving that's in the right that's in the plans that's set right yeah i think implicitly the commission is saying yes to this design which is eight parking spaces i think the um you know then that began the discussion of the planning board how do you say oh i forgot um the above relates oh no hold on we did the reference documents on number one so actually i'd like to add to number one uh the commission approved the plan submitted seventh the drawings dated uh 27 and 15 um and the 3 11 by 7 hand sketch detail elevation sheets at three quarter inch equals one foot dated uh january 6th okay and now i'm done are there any others that members that want to add okay and i well i'll have to say my something to say to respond to what you you're you're you're the chair yeah yeah yeah but i should um i would like to respond to your written declaration but um and just so there's a statement but the declaration well your statement but i'll i won't interrupt the flow of this um motion i close the public hearing what yeah what do we do when i recognize yeah yeah we don't we're not forced to experience with writing conditions over the years i don't think you want to put in number two anything that has to do with um up until the building permit i think you want that in perpetuity well any changes to the building or plan because somebody may come in with a change order after the building permit i think then they got a line of five years want to do something no they would need to start the process they would need to start the process it would trigger a whole new review anyway so if a few years down the road they wanted to put an addition on or change something that would trigger a whole new application well that would do it too so i mean right somebody came in today because they would change we approved we approved a certificate of appropriateness and they needed a different vent they had to come back and a new entry door so if during the plans they say oh we're going to move our entry door six feet and they change the whole window layout that's a whole new application oh they have to come back right for that piece right yeah but so it's not yes so that is in perpetuity thank you okay thank you this condition this condition is really capturing you know that's go to site plan or view to the planning board and then through the process before they get to their full design and build they might have made some changes so you know that's saying is that's covering that that's the protection of a local historic district right and a reflection about the initially the asymmetry of the light of the main entrance of the doorway right the doorway with that so there isn't too much light into the wrong office is that something we need is a condition or is that something but i you you were you you were all you were all were not convinced by my view of that i didn't think what was your view my view was that the symmetry should be maintained and that we should ask for the removal of that window to the east side right and see my view was that more light is better yes that we like the symmetry but exactly oh we would like to add the window to keep the symmetry rather than take it away oh i don't that's unfair i think i think it is a problem because i think if you do the symmetry you're going to have the long trailer effect you know exactly if you take the window away but the symmetry is a problem i do see that little part as not having been there should be a better i think you can set the door i think you can head you'll it could be symmetrical yes so but we don't want let we we're not looking for more siding maybe maybe the entryway should be just a little i think the bill is saying that he can recenter it in a way that it is symmetrical and keeps the light as well okay so can we add that to the condition yes that we would like to see that the entry right but the design of the entry the main the main the main street entry doorway be adjusted to achieve a symmetry in the sidelight glazing you could do that by bigger housing the whole canopy or i'm sure there's lots of some ways of doing a couple of weeks so we just we just express the design intention not uh we didn't try and solve exactly are you comfortable with that that they would come back to us so the condition was designed so so approved with the condition that they come back with something that we like better or what that we see what they finally decide on and we get to vote on uh huh because right now it's not a change will be made to try and accommodate our request but we want to see what that change is right but what if we don't like it then we can ask for well i think the way this would work is that um where i hope it would work is that um it's not going to work but that if um basically the the the conditions as we have written them uh obligate the applicant to come back to make sure that there are more changes that aren't de minimis but also with the changes that we've asked for these drawings specifically that the our design intent is achieved um so they're coming back sometime in the future to review that with us my thought Nate is that if there would be something that well there's going to be things that there's going to be things on this building that are going to happen that some of which we've already caused to happen by asking for conditioned uh for changes as a condition of the approval and some which will happen that we don't know yet so i think we should just expect that we'll have to tough it through as a as a as a collaborative of commission and applicant you know this is the way and they'll come back and and if we don't like something we'll say no like we did with the columns that that or we'll disagree with each other it won't be unanimous and then we'll we'll vote and see where the majority is i think we yeah i think that's a bridge we don't have to cross right now i think the condition right now is the design of the entry to be adjusted to achieve symmetry and the sidelight entry so you know there's a if that's what the commission wants that can become a condition so that you know we're we're saying that's what we want the applicant to do if not then you know we're accepting the plans as they are and if they actually i actually don't necessarily want to put in that it has to achieve symmetry because i think the building could look even more okay more unique plain like a a cookie cutter building if you have this part symmetry i would like to see it somehow it's a little odd but i don't want it a cookie cutter symmetry just so you you like you like it the way it is i don't particularly i like the fact that it's a little unusual yes i do uh it's i don't i'm not an architect so it's harder for me to visualize than for you but i do think that if you have this just like a window here and there as you asked for my personal feeling is it looks more like a cookie cutter building right spot there and i i can concur with you i i would just i'd rather see if the way it is than to have the window taken away and more siding yes so i guess that's right but i think i think you might be able to come up with something even better so i'd like to have as a condition that you play with this to give us a now that's a wish i don't want to do that in any motion okay sorry we've got to we've got to we've got to express some design intention um because otherwise if i were bill i would just just blow you off completely wouldn't even bother to worry about it i can live with it the way i can live with it the way it is personally it seems to me that we should strike that that thing so we've gone two times around that circle yeah but i do want the signage that that's part of number two uh i i'm gonna come back yeah yeah i'm not i'm just with the signage and i also wanted to say that i do have to i i suppose anything could be could be better you know um i don't know you know most beautiful building in the world could probably be better so that's a little too you know um it's a standard it's hard to hold ourselves or to beat ourselves up for not having the the best possible design there could possibly be i personally think that it really blends in very well again you know with the with the residences on gray street and so i don't you know again you know i i guess in that what is it the perfect is the enemy of the good but i i think i mean this is something i'm i i don't feel like oh you know it really could have been better i think that it it really you know does and again i have to say of course everything could be better but i think it does you know blend in nicely with that uh residences on gray street we don't have anything to really be apologetic about yes excuse me and i wanted to add uh that this was incredibly challenging because we had three different three three different streets right that had we had a unique vista about which they were very strong feelings and uh we had a bumpy start and i really want to say as a credit i think to all of us that we have done an excellent job in a collaborative way and i'm proud of this achievement and we really took the public comments to heart at the first application that the building should be on the southeastern corner of the lot and that was the first one in march the first one in march that in addition to reducing the scale of the building the site was completely changed so i was going to say so bruce made a motion with 14 conditions yeah yes it needs a second right if someone's marianne seconds and then we vote um yeah i would add to your list of tribulations here that we we've kind of forgotten now for those five months on but we started with three seven of us three of us were brand new pretty much three of us were brand new we didn't know each other and the only way we can get to know each other is in in in this situation it was very difficult for us to know what we as a we had no collective consciousness we had no collective we we didn't have a we you're right so that was for me that was the other super difficult thing so with marianne second um should we take an actual vote uh individually for this do you they need to okay we have to declare ourselves all in all in favor or who's in favor hi okay it's unanimous the vote um so i thank everybody hooray yeah but i want to move to adjourn thank you everybody for the patience uh move to adjourn i did okay you were sorry i was thanking everyone so we formally have to do a second to adjourn right oh so yeah okay we are adjourned thank you very much