 I think we're ready to go Maureen. All right, I have started the recording. The appointed hour of six o'clock having been reached, I want to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General Laws Chapter 30a Section 18 and the Governor's March 15, 2020 order is imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on a link on the town's web page. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40a Article 10, special permit granting authority, the Amherst Zoning By-law. This public meeting has been duly advertised and notice there have been posted and mailed to parties at interest. My name is Steve Judge, as Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals, I call this meeting to order. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 40a of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Zoning By-laws is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. There are copies of the 10.38 available for the public's use on our website. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the Board during the hearing, after which the Board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the Board has completed its questions, the Board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the Chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raise hand function on their screen. The Chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the Board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the Board. The Board will normally hold public hearings for information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is where the Board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the Board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition is heard by the Board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits, and the Board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the Board has 90 days from the close of its hearing to file a decision. For a variance, the Board has 100 days from the date of filing to file its decision. No decision is final until a written decision is signed by the Board members and is filed with the Town Clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the Town's clerk, there is a 20-day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with a relevant judicial body in Superior Court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of D to take effect. Tonight, we have the following agenda. Zoning Board of Appeals, Rules and Regulations. To review the zoning Board of Appeals, Rules and Regulations in order to bring them into compliance with the Amherstholm Rule Charter and review necessary updates. This is continued from May 28th, and I'm going to move to move this item to the end of the agenda so that we may deal with the two petitions first and then deal with our Rules and Regulations after that. ZBA FY 2020-38 RC Retail Amherst LLC, a request, a special permit for use of a recreational marijuana retailer under sections 3.363.2, 7.9, and 10.38 of the Amherst zoning bylaw, located at 328 College Street, Map Parcel 14B, Map 14B, Parcel 222, and Map 15A, Parcel 97, Commercial Zoning District. Second is ZBA FY 2020-37, Fiderman Family Limited Partnership, a request, a special permit to allow an increase in the number of residential units, converted dwellings from one to two under section 3.324 and 10.38, located at 152 Log Town Road, Map 18D, Parcel 303, Neighborhood RN, Residential District. After the meeting, we have a public comment period, where we'll take comments from the public on any item not included on our agenda or business for the night. Tonight, we will have sitting for each panel the regular members of the ZBA. We have also asked our new associate members to join us tonight. This is not something that we will do every time, but we want to make sure to give them the opportunity to view the hearings and meetings in person and to feel comfortable when they are called on to serve as voting members of a given panel. Tonight, I'd like to have a roll call vote for our regular members who are in attendance. Steve Judge is here. Ms. O'Meara, are you here? Joan needs to unmute herself. I'll try to do that for you, Joan. Hold on. Hold on a second. Joan, you can speak now. She muted herself again. Okay, I'm going to press the button, Joan. Okay, you did it. Nope. Do it again. Okay, Joan. Okay, go ahead, Joan. I can see you're there, Joan. So we're going to record you as attending here, unless we hear from you again. All right. She's going in and out of not mute. But I can see her name on the list. Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Langsdale? Here. Mr. Maxfield? Here. And associate members, Mr. Barrick? Here. Mr. Meadows? Here. And Mr. Greeny? Here. Great. Tonight with us, we have town staff Marine Pollock is here. I think, is Dave from the plant from the inspection division also here? Dave is here. Dave Wachacewicz? Great. Anybody else from the town staff and in attendance? Not right now. Okay. Good enough. And we can begin our meeting. The first order of business. And before I begin, we received one lessy tenant lessy certification, a requirement that of the zoning bylaws that the, if we're dealing with a public, a special permit, and it involves tenants currently in the property that they have to be notified in advance of this hearing, and that we need to get certification from the property owner manager that that has been delivered and that they've been delivered to the tenant. We do have that for the RC retail. We don't have a signed representation from Fiterman family limited partnerships for FY 20, 2037. We can discuss that when that comes up as an item on the, when we're dealing with that issue. So we should begin with our RC retail Amherst LLC ZBA FY 20, 2038. We did conduct a site visit at the on Monday evening. Site visit was attended by most of the members of the panel here. Joan is here. There you go, Joan. All right. The site visit. We asked several questions. At first, we reviewed the property. We walked around the lot. We saw the place where the parking would take place. We visited the, we looked, observed the approximate lot lines. We also observed the proposed employee entrance. We viewed the building through the windows. We did not enter the windows or deny into the building. We observed a delivery area fencing around the delivery area during delivery. And the the roll down blinds are for lack of a better term, the roll down structures that would protect from view delivery vehicles. And that was that was pretty much the questions asked during the site visit. Does any members of the panel have other questions that they think should be noted and make sure we're asked at this hearing? Okay. If not, we do also have the following submissions from the applicant that we've received. Those submissions include a special permit application, a management plan, project description and details, evidence of submissions to the cannabis control commission, a binding letter of intent for site control and option to lease, notarized state of representatives, property owner authorization, a butter proximity zoning compliance plan, ZDA special permit set, which includes a cover sheet, property plan, site prep and layout, site grading and details, floor plan, site photos, security cover sheet and base drawing, burglar alarms drawings, access control cameras, photometric lighting plans, light fixtures, schedules and cut sheets, an arch plan prepared by Randall Iser, lighting specifications, a traffic impact statement prepared by McMahon Associates, proposed findings developed by staff or by the applicant. We also have a letter and an email, excuse me, we have emails from the police chief and the fire department with their comments. And on June 5th, we received an email from Tom Beattie, the day of June 5th and we also received a parking utilization assessment. So with that, that details our site visit and the documents before us as a board. I'd like to turn it over to the applicant for the presentation. And then we will move to questions from the panelists and then response from the applicant and questions from the public. Tom and Stan, I've made you panelists. So now you can unmute your microphone and you can turn your video on. And Tom, you can share your screen. Perfect. Thank you. Also, we've got Chris Farley here, our architect. He probably, he doesn't necessarily, he's going to speak. I don't know that he needs to share his screen because I'll be controlling that. And then we've got our traffic engineer as well. So as we get to that point, you know, you can obviously make the decision whether or not you want to make them panelists or just listeners. So Sure. I don't see Chris here. And who is the other person? Jason Adams from Jason Adams. Yeah, I have Jason. I can go ahead and make him a panelist and then Jeff Robeler. Yep. Okay. I'll make him a panelist. Both Jeff and Jason, you can just keep your, keep yourself muted without the video if you want. And then I don't see Chris. It does say, does say total three phone call, call in listeners. Unfortunately, I think if Chris, if you're listening, if you could log in with the link, that might be better. I don't, because he's not here at least. Okay. Yeah. I think he tried. He said he had some, he got an error message that he had never got before. So he was, Chris, if you're listening, maybe try again and Yeah, if you can. Yeah. Someone, it says someone's raising their hand, but for some reason I can't, I can't see who's, oh, Chris Farley, I see you, Chris. Haha. Okay. Chris, I'm going to pull you up as a panelist as well. Thank you. Okay. You're all set. Beautiful. Thanks a lot. The world we're living in. And this is going to be the first time I'm sharing a screen. So I'm going to also ask for everybody's patience. So good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Ms. Pollock, Mr. Vaskevich. This is Tom Redium, an attorney with Bacon Wilson here in Amherst, here on behalf of RC Retail and its application for a special permit for a recreational marijuana retailer at 328 College Street here in Amherst. With me this evening, Jeff Robeler, the director of operations and constructions for RC Retail, Salvatore Carabetta Jr., the operations manager and the honorable Stan Rosenberg, who's RC Retail's community liaison. We've also got, as mentioned, Jason Adams, a traffic engineer from McMahon Associates, and Chris Farley, the architect for this project from Cune Riddle. So I think what I want to do is talk a little bit about the background. This thing, this project has been in the works for over a year. So in April of 2019, the town published a request for interest for adult use marijuana establishments in town. In May of that year, 2019, RC Retail responded. And in August, August 6th, they held a community outreach meeting at the Lord Jeff, or Vote Within, as it's now known, and then had a town review committee meeting with the former town economic development director, the police chief, the health director, Julie Federman, Connie Kruger, who was formerly on the select board, and then Chris Brestrop. And after going through, you know, after having the project reviewed, having the community outreach meeting, and then being through the town review, the town invited or selected this project to proceed. And so then we negotiated with the town, a host community agreement, and we signed that host community agreement at the end of September of last year. In October of last year, Stan Rosenberg went door to door to all the shopping centers, or all the tenants of the shopping center, and also the retail space that mixed you space at the rear of the site, and also door to door for the residential dwelling units in the neighborhood, invited them all to an October 13th meeting, just to make sure that everybody knew what was going on. Since that time, we've been planning and designing this site, and it's really just the interior workings of it. We've had meetings with Maureen, with Rob Moore, with Chris Brestrop, over those months. And as we were gearing up, and actually had submitted back in December, Rob Moore, in his review of the application, noticed that there was an old permit associated with the site. And let me see if I can start doing this and what this looks like. Maureen, I think it's going to kick me out, and then I'll be, I'll have to, okay, what do you want? What do you mean? Unless you have it. What do you want to show? I was just going to show, I mean, I've got the aerial to show. I have a property map, like a property map? Yeah, like a GIS property map. Sure, yeah. And then if we have the special permit stuff, just because my computer is going to make me quit, and then come back if I'm going to share the screen, because I just have to get privacy. Okay, all right, so I am going to, hold on a second. Or I could just, why don't I just, why don't you just let me back in. Oh, that's good. Perfect. So what Rob Moore realized was that 15A24, 15A97 and 14B222, the parcel references, are all subject of a site plan review approval that was issued by the planning board back in, I think 1998. And so while these appear as separate parcels on the assessor's map, under that approval, they are actually, they were considered one parcel. And so it was his opinion that we first had to make sure that probably divide those parcels and amend that site plan approval. So having recognized that in April of this year, we actually got the planning board approval for that separation. So there is a lot one and a lot two. Maureen, I don't know if you have that ANR. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so hold on a second. Let me find that. Okay, so I'm going to pull up yesterday's ANR. Perfect. One of you, let's counter this. Nice job. Can you share, can you wait, can you see it or? Yes. No. Oh, okay, okay. Nice job. So you'll see that while there were three assessor's parcels, though considered one for the purposes of permitting, we were able to successfully receive the approval from the planning board for this division that you see. So now there is a lot one where the shopping center will exist and a lot two where that mixed use center will exist. And so the mixed use is comprised of residential and commercial space. In both of, now that we have both of those spaces, we're able to only address lot one, which is this really the subject of this special permit. This plan has been recorded at the registry of deeds. It has not been picked up yet by the assessor's map. So I think that's why in your, in the application and in the publication in the newspaper, you include those former 15 a 97 and 14 b 222, even though when you make your decision, and hopefully it's an approval, it will only be dealing with lot one as shown on the plan. And I think there's just a lag time between the registry and your assessor's map. So we've been through the planning board successfully divided the lots. And that lot division also in Maureen, if you could zoom in just a little bit, please. Perfect. So as you know, under your zoning bylaw marijuana uses have to be beyond 500 feet property line to property line from any K to 12 educational use. And so Fort River School, the entrance to Fort River School, if you're familiar with Southeast Street after if you're traveling north on Southeast Street between the intersection right by the North Hampton Cooperative Bank, just beyond that is the driveway entrance to Fort River School. And so while the school is set back, the property line of the school is up at Southeast Street, measuring from that point out, you'll see the red dashed line on this A&R plan. That is the five thanks Maureen. Perfect. That is the 500 foot buffer line. And so lot two is within that buffer. And so we thought it was important to make sure that the marijuana use so the sale of the marijuana is outside of or on a parcel outside of that 500 feet. So that's the first piece. Your bylaw also requires that you that the marijuana use exist 300 feet away from certain uses residential uses, for example, there are residential uses to the north, there are residential uses to the west, residential uses to the east, you'll see that that light blue kind of teal color shows the 300 foot buffer from any of those disqualifying uses. And so what we've done and what Chris Farley will talk about is the design of the interior of this space, ensuring that the marijuana use exists outside of the 300 foot buffer zones. And so with that, Maureen, if you want to go to the just a special permit site plan that permit set, if you would, because what we're proposing is for approximately 900 square foot recreational marijuana retailer space with about 370 square feet open to the public. And so what I'll do now is I'll turn it over to Chris Farley to talk through the site design and especially the interior design for this project. Of course, feel free to stop us, ask us any questions that you have. Maureen and the interim, I'll probably hop off, hop back on just in case I need to control anything going forward. Well, good evening, everybody. I'm Chris Farley. I'm an architect with Q and Riddle Architects and Amherst. Can everybody hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. I'm up in Ashfield and there is sometimes a delay. So I'll apologize if I talk over anyone or if there's any problem with that. So I think the first thing I'd like to do is to talk about the tenant space organization that Tom alluded to, and then I'd like to talk about the exterior experience and then talk about the interior experience. So yeah, Maureen, if you could zoom in a bit. There's another page that essentially what's happening. I think that's fine from my point of view, as long as everybody else can clearly see it. So the tenant space is a long, narrow space from the front of the building all the way to the back. You'll see on this drawing red dashed arcs. Those are the relevant 300-foot residential buffer arcs. And essentially, all of the dedicated marijuana uses have to be outside of those arcs. So what we've done is we've created a retail marijuana store in the very front of the tenant space that is just outside all of those arcs. And then in the middle of the tenant space, there is what we were calling shared space. And that is space that is to be used by, potentially by the staff of the red cardinal store, but also by the staff or employees of the rear rental space. So it's common space. It is not dedicated to the marijuana use. And we've reviewed this with the town. So we have these three distinct zones. The front is marijuana, the middle is common space, and the rear would be for another tenant, as yet to be determined. So let's see, Maureen, if you could just zoom out a little bit so we could see College Street and the curb cuts there. I'll talk a little bit about the exterior experience and some of the exterior features. That's great. So you'll see at the bottom right of the drawing, there's an in and an out symbol. This curb cut onto College Street is intended to be the primary vehicular access point. There's a line of parking that you can see along the side of the building. It's the left side of parking that kind of marches up the drawing here. That is where we imagine, thank you, Maureen. That's where we imagine most customers will park. It's off to the side. It doesn't compete with any of the front parking spaces, which are really better suited to the other tenants in this building, the other retail tenants. So someone in a vehicle would come in, they would park in one of those spaces, and there's an existing sidewalk on the east side of the building. We're going to be doing some relatively minor elevational adjustments to that sidewalk, repaving and raising it up a bit to make the retail space fully accessible. But the location of the curb, the location of the sidewalk is going to be exactly as it is now. There are just some minor adjustments in elevation, which will be required to make the space fully accessible. So a person would come into a park in one of those spaces, walk up that sidewalk, and there's an entry door and an exit door under cover in the front of the store. And maybe Maureen now would be a good time to go to the plan, which is, I think it's two or three sheets forward from this one. Let's see, what is this? This? A little further. Next page, the sheet. This is the one right here. If you could just scroll to the left of it. To the right. To the left. I'm going to zoom out. There we go. Do you want this page or a different page? The previous page with the plan on it? That's not the floor plan. The floor plan. Okay. Can I just ask really quickly that can people please mute themselves who are not speaking? Because I hear a lot of background noise. I don't know if anyone else hears that. I think it sounds like a tea kettle boiling. Yeah. Yeah. I think that I think I might be coming from Maureen. Okay. I'm not making tea. There's no tea, but I'll mute myself. All right. So Maureen, if you could just zoom in just to the floor plan on the top of the page. That's excellent. Thank you. So there's an existing walkway just below the exterior wall of the building. A customer would come in, take a right. There's an area right in the front of the store labeled deliveries. And right to the right of that, there's an entry door, security vestibule. That's where IDs will be checked. There will be an ATM there for customer use. Once somebody is cleared, they would go from the security vestibule into the queue, the customer queue. And if there's a line of people when that person is to the front of the line, they would go to one of the five point of sale stations near the top of the drawing. And then once they've done their business, they would leave through an exit door to the delivery area and then back out to the sidewalk and to wherever they parked. Now, one of the things I want to point out here is there are three different hatches, textures, patterns on this drawing. The white, the interior white space, that's the public space. The cross-hatched space is the staff space. And so there's a security room, there's an operations room, point of sale. There's a couple of operation spaces on the right-hand side of the drawing. Another space just below the queue. And then there's just a gray tone space. Those are the common spaces. And you can see that those are inside the 300-foot residential buffer zone. And all of the dedicated marijuana spaces are outside the 300-foot residential buffer zone. There's an exterior door from the sidewalk that goes into the common vestibule. That's presumed to be the staff entry for both tenant spaces, both red cardinal and the rear tenant. There's a shared bathroom, there's a shared conference room, and a shared utility and storage space. And then to the right of this, through another door from the common vestibule, is where the rear tenant space is. That's just got a single hatch to represent that. So that's primarily the customer flow through the space and the separation between marijuana use, shared use, and the rear tenant use. Maureen, maybe you could go to the next page that shows the exterior views. Okay, great, thank you. So there's a, there are a couple of photographs on the top that show existing conditions with some dotted lines and some white highlights that show the tenant space that we're talking about and that show the existing features of what we're talking about. So the intention here is that the modifications we intend to make is to excuse me, is to maintain a covered front area. However, we do intend to put a low stone wall in the very front of the building, and we will be doing some reconstruction on the roof directly above. There's currently an open skylight into the space that we see into that covered front space that we see as a security conflict. So we're going to be filling that in, creating a more secure roof, and in the, at the same time, creating a new vertical parapet, excuse me, that will replace the sloped shingled portion of the roof, the mansard roof. That's where we'll be putting some primary signage, and then there'll be a canvas awning that will go across the entire front of the store and down the side of the store to that common entry, common space entry. So during inclement weather, if there is any queuing outside, that can happen under cover. So you can see in this, in this rendering, there are, there's a low stone wall in front. That is going to make sure that everybody enters that covered entry from the side. The entry door is just behind that corner column, and then the exit doors to the left. There's a secondary sign in between those two doors, and then the facade of the building underneath that cover is intended to be a new wood or some sort of a wood product facade. It's a material that we hope to tie in with some of the interior finishes, and it's a way to make the facade a little more engaging, a little more, a little warmer. The rest of the wall that goes down, the existing wall that goes down the side of the building is a is an existing concrete block that's going to be maintained, but it will be painted. There are a couple of large windows in the side of the building you can see in this rendering. We intend to fill in about three quarters of those windows, again, for security reasons. However, we're going to be maintaining one small portion of window. There'll be a new glazing that's installed with a security film so that people cannot see in, but it will transmit light into that security vestibule. Now, the other thing you'll see here, excuse me, on this rendering just below the canvas awning on the side of the building, you can see a series of gray rectangles. Those are LED wall packs lighting that will light the the walkway on the side of the building as well as the parking up to the side of the building. Thank you, Maureen. Those are the lights. These lights have a throw that goes out just a little bit beyond the end of the parking spaces. The entire parking sequence, getting out of your car, walking into the building and coming back will be well illuminated. Then on the left-hand side of this rendering, you can see a parking space with the symbol of accessibility on the ground and then a loading zone. That's some of the elevational changes we'll be making in the walkway so that there's a dedicated accessible parking space adjacent loading zone. It would allow someone with a disability or someone in a wheelchair to easily make their way into the building in a fully accessible route from that parking space. Then also, the walkway continues to the left in front of all the other existing stores and that walkway will remain unchanged. I think one of the things Maureen, I'd like to talk about is site lighting. We talked about the sign lighting, the wall packs on the side. There are also on the ceiling of this covered entry area, we have some downlights so that entire front of the building, I'm sorry, front of the of the store and that area under cover, that will be well lit as well. A quick question, Chris. Chris, a quick question. What is up here above the word red cardinal and the long rectangular? That is a linear light fixture which is intended to illuminate the sign. Okay, I can see that now. Thank you. Thank you for asking about that. And actually Maureen, before we go to a different drawing to talk about the site lighting, I'd like to talk a little bit about secured deliveries in this front area. So what we have proposed is, and you can see in the curb, there's a curb cut, they're kind of an easing of the curb. Excuse me, excuse me. Mr. Langsville? Mr. Farley, you began to talk about the lighting under the overhang there before Mr. Judge asked you about the lighting on the red cardinal sign. Could you go ahead and talk about the lighting underneath the overhang please? Absolutely. So as part of the the reconstruction of this ceiling area to close in that open area, skylight area, there'll be a new ceiling and there'll be recessed six recessed lighting fixtures that are spread out in two rows of three. That will illuminate the entire area in front of that wood facade in that above that that covered entry. So that will be a well lit area that will that will help to illuminate the sign as well as the entry and the exit doors. Thank you, Mr. Farley. And as long as we're on that subject, Mr. Farley, it looks like the light extends into the parking lot and then also into the parking lot too as well. Is that on purpose? I see your light when I look at your lighting plans I see positive numbers up to 2.8 for looks like it's across both parking lanes. Is that correct? That that is correct and more marine if you could go to the last sheet in this set that shows the photometric plan. Excuse me. I apologize. It's a little difficult to see. I'm sorry. It's the second to last sheet. Thank you. It's a little hard to see but directly in front of the store if you if you go all the way to the left there's a new lighting fixture that will be in the island between the the parking in front of the store and College Street. It's shown in red. There's like a there's a yes right there. So that's an 18 foot pole mounted LED parking lot light and that will illuminate the front of the store help to illuminate the parking in front of the store as well as as to some extent the walkway in front of the store and then you can see also in this drawing and I apologize I think it's it's tandem recess light fixtures in the ceiling you can see them as black dots in the entry area two rows of five those are the down LED downlights to illuminate that entry area and then Maureen if you could scroll down and zoom out a little bit on the bottom of this photometric plan there are three additional 18 foot pole mounted parking lot lights they are the they are identical to the one in front of the store they're the same height and you can see they're they're these the same red rectangles with the the lighting identification number and what this will do is it will illuminate that side of the parking lot and the travel lane between the two rows of parking without that the light the the wall packs LED wall packs on the on the side wall of the store they just don't project out far enough to give good illumination to the parking area to the travel lanes of the parking area Tom I don't know if you want to talk about the the lighting on and off the site I mean I'm I'm happy to I think it was so as Chris just mentioned there's a few fixtures that are on lot two which is obviously still owned by Mr. Paul Shumway who owns lot one and I think we just placed those lights there because as if you recall from the site visit there are no lights in that strip between spirit house and the shopping center and I think the nearest light is across the spirit house parking lot way on the easterly side so we thought that out of abundance of caution just to illuminate this area it makes a lot of sense to to add those lights so I whether they're I mean I think it's good to have them as part of this approval if they weren't I think they would be and end up going in there anyways but they are off this lot but I think useful for the entire shopping center thanks Tom um so I I went on a little bit longer than I had intended I apologize but I think that covers most of the basics I would be happy to answer any specific questions if you have them about exterior or interior features or circulation anything like that I have a question you were starting you were starting to talk about the delivery can you can you go back and speak about how that will happen yes thank you absolutely Maureen if you could go to the the architectural floor plan yes right there and maybe and if you could zoom into that front area that shows deliveries and the the vehicle there so the intention here is that this covered area is meant to be not only the customer entry and exit for the the retail space but it is also going to be the secure delivery area for deliveries and pickups at the at the red cardinal store so what's represented here in plan is a vehicle that would drive into this front space obviously it would be while the the business is closed there would be no customers present but they would the vehicle would drive in for a delivery or pickup and then there are there are heavy dotted lines on the three sides of this entry there's there's a long one in the front a short one where the vehicle would enter and another short one in front of the window into the adjacent laundromat what those dotted lines represent are rolled down motorized rolled down security grills and the intention is that when a vehicle is in there that the the rolled down screens would come into position and they would provide provide a secure environment for the movement of product you know any sort of delivery to the store or any sort of pickup from the store would be in this very secure location with these three screens the screens themselves are quite transparent so not only is it easy to for the the delivery staff to see out and to see if there are any people or anything happening outside the secure delivery area but because this is undercover and a vehicle is going to be driving in here there is going to be some issue with exhaust the openness of the of the security screens allows there to be some air movement so that there isn't any sort of buildup of exhaust here the protocol would be as soon as the vehicle is in place the engine would be shut off and I believe this was one of the comments from the fire department that they would request that there be a sign saying you know shut off engine in this in this location so we would have a sign like that and then as long as the vehicle was in there it would be turned off as long as the transfer was being made and then once the transfer is made securely in the vehicle or securely in the building the roll-up security grills would come up the vehicle would exit that area and that's how that transfer would take place so I have a follow-up question do you have any concern about gas and oil being on the surface which would be the entrance where people are walking what kind of medium will you be using well the the intention is that this is going to be a new concrete slab right now there are there is a concrete walkway and some vegetative planters there those will be removed there'll be a new concrete slab I think our our feeling is is that vehicles will be in this location for a very short period of time if there are any sort of drips or spills from the vehicle I think operationally this path will be set up to be able to put out an absorbent material to help absorb any of that material and do a cleanup before customers would be entering the building okay and then I have just one other question the handicap space is going to be moved around is that space available for people going to other businesses there it's just open all of the parking is open to whoever is there got it yeah so that's because of the this is a pretty unique situation because of the shopping center there's no exclusive parking for any use so that ADA space someone wants to park there and head to the laundry mat or head to summerland floors it's all fair game I will I will say Tom that we do have we are indicating one accessible parking space in a loading zone if there's any concern about not having enough accessible parking there could be potentially one added to the other side of that and there is another existing accessible parking space at the other end of the the parking in front of the shopping center and also about the mailbox is that going to be moved it was mentioned during the site visit that might be moved the mailbox is currently just right on the corner that's right the the intention I've talked about this with red cardinal and I my understanding is the intention is red cardinal will talk with the USPS and find a suitable alternate location for that for that mailbox what are the what are the exhaust systems for that delivery area do the requirements are the requirements the same as they are for a fire station or any garage where you've got to have the doors open or exhaust direct exhaust I think because of the the open nature of the security grills I think that the security grills I think are 95% open it's not really a door of any sort it doesn't keep air out or air in so I think the selection of that of the very open security grill is intended to be the ventilation method for this location I will say one other thing related to the exhaust is that in we've talked with our HVAC consultant and the security vestibule which is where the the deliveries or pickups would be happening through through that entry door the security vestibule vestibule will have a a positive air pressure so that whenever whenever that door is open it will create a situation where air from the inside of the building will be flowing out and and will not allow the outside air possibly contaminated with exhaust to enter into the building Mr. Chair Ms. O'Mara is raising her hand oh Ms. O'Mara hello can you hear me yes yes great sorry for all my technical difficulties I have a question on the hours of operation uh it's listed as Monday to Saturday 8 to 8 I don't know if we've granted those hours before can you comment on that Maureen um I I do not recall um the opening uh hour uh to be that early for for other marijuana dispensaries in Amherst um but I but I do I do imagine that the other stores are are have been granted to be open until 8 p.m. please correct me please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't recall any other stores opening that early I don't either yeah oh sorry go ahead go ahead concerned about the school bus is going to Fort River there can be a congestion in that area at that hour of the morning okay I also have a question on that all right mr. Langsdale um if if the opening hour is eight o'clock and then you go till eight o'clock in the evening and the deliveries have to be made before or after or both which I'm not sure it's not stated um then you're talking approximately like seven in the morning to make deliveries and um while it is primarily a commercial area there is the uh building that's on the property map is 15 a 24 which is the um mixed use so there are apartments there one of the other questions I have just because I don't know is uh the security grills uh they come down go up are they noiseless or do they make a lot of rattling noise um I'm just asking in terms of if we're talking like seven in the morning there are people who live around there so maybe mr. really could mr. chair I'll respond to a few of those and I think then I'll I'll ask Chris to discuss the the sound of the grills going up and coming down for the hours of operation your bylaw does allow 8 a.m to 8 p.m I don't recall off the top of my head whether or not rise for example uh asked for it I I think they might have asked for it while they may not open for it um you know the entire 8 a.m to 8 p.m it's what the bylaw provides so we're asking for it um as far as the neighborhood I think we I don't you know this isn't like the dumpsters are located closer to the residential units than this delivery area it's a it's in a commercial zone we are um you know we're not going to have reverse gear alarms in this area you're you're pretty close to the cumberland farms which I think is open maybe 5 a.m to midnight um so that's just just to set the neighborhood a little bit you know it's not like we are in in the middle of a residential neighborhood we're on this is route nine and it's adjacent to route nine so I'll let Chris talk about the grills and the sounds that they make but we think that given the fact that yeah there could be a delivery at 7 a.m or 7 30 or 6 30 or 9 p.m because they'll have to be off hours and it's random times random routes that these delivery vehicles will make an unmarked via an unmarked delivery vehicles obviously only a certain size because of the delivery bay that they'll be going into but I think that's probably in concert with the Dunkin Donuts that's right next door or Kelly's restaurant which opens I think at 5 30 a.m so you know there are some uses that actually start before when these deliveries would take place so just just for the board to keep that in mind given this location and Chris maybe if you'll talk about the the grills and the sounds sure so these are electric motorized grills so they they will be coming down and going up relatively slowly because that's the nature of how the electric motors work most of most grills like this when the when they're moving there is some small amount of mechanical noise as they run up and down the side tracks and then there is a low hum electric hum from the motor itself but I I I I don't I don't think that this particular system and these particular grills will be loud or startling I think it I think it will essentially be a low a low hum that you'll hear when they're going up or when they're going down and I I do think that Tom's point about the location of these is a good one this does face route nine college street directly across the street there's a lot of vegetation and forest and just to the east across the street is another strip mall another you know business building so I think that most of the sound from these the movement of these security grills will be projected across college street not behind where the residential units are primarily or not to the west where those residential units are I have a question as long as we're dealing are you done with your questions mr. Langsdale on that subject yeah yep as long as we're dealing with the deliveries I was going to wait till you're completed but I don't want to lead the subject one of the requirements are that your deliveries be randomized and I think the reason for that is for security security of delivery of the product and safety of the the vehicle occupants and people in the store this is the first time in my experience that we've had delivery out in front on a major on route nine out in front and it can only be either before eight o'clock in the morning so four five six seven o'clock in the morning or eight nine ten o'clock at night or in the middle of the night so you have twelve half your day you can't make a delivery it makes the randomization half as half as random as it otherwise would be other places in the other places that we've approved have delivery in the back or someplace where it could happen anytime when the store is open but that can't happen here you can't do it when the store is open so I'm wondering how you random talk to me about how you randomize the deliveries without having people in the stores to accept them which then signals to whoever you care about the reason that you put the the shutters around the vehicle talk to me about how you ensure that you have this is going to be a safe when there's going to be some there's going to be at least some pattern to these deliveries and if nothing else if it's at night lights in the store are going to be on so so bad folks could know that the deliveries are being made so talk to me about that that's my concern about the deliveries or so I guess I think the first response is this is something that we developed in concert with chief living stone so we had looked at we had gone through a couple of iterations of citing this delivery portal somewhere else on the site and this is where I think everybody felt it was the best location even though the hours of operation that we're asking for our 8am to 8pm I think a couple of things that's still a gives us 12 hours to deliver and you can see the size of the store they've got you know some sufficient area to marijuana products aren't that big and you know my guess is and maybe Jeff you can jump in here so RC retail has it's a manufacturing a cultivation manufacturing processing facility in that they're building out in Worcester and I would suspect that most of the product will come from that facility so they'll be able to control the times of the day and hours and it may be that this happens every day every other day and I don't think it would be unusual for it to happen in any of those 12 hours now if they find that because you know safety of their employees is paramount and so if they find that their employees are not feeling so comfortable there's probably a tiered approach that they could take they could hire a police escort if they want they could modify their hours of operation even though they have the right to do it 8am to 8pm to something different so that they could increase from 12 hours to something else maybe 14 hours the available times that they could deliver and Jeff I don't know if you want to button that up a little bit yeah I do good evening everyone my name is Jeff Robillier I'm the director of operations and construction the the plan for deliveries is as you say random the quantity of product of the store will need does not require daily delivery or even every other day we we think that it's going to be maybe once or twice a week and what day that occurs can certainly be random additionally the times can be random and we are asking for those 12 hours of operational time except on Sundays but as Tom said that's not necessarily what we will actually do so where we transport that product from could be from our own facility in Worcester it could be from another supplier but the route that we take to get to Amherst will vary every time and the day will vary and the times will vary so I don't feel like it could be much more random than that and that is in line with other security plans that we've reviewed for other facilities throughout the state of a quick question miss parks so quit the deal so are you saying that the deliveries could happen between 8 and 8 between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. so the hours that the store is open you would not have deliveries correct okay so what you're saying is you might alter your hours correct yes so what we're asking for is the ability just out of a business for a business decision to have 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and then if they find that nobody's coming between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. there's probably some overhead that can be saved and then they open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. but again it's it's going to really be dictated by the market I don't know that there's enough the man to be from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. maybe but I think we should let the market decide so you said to follow up you said this plan had been discussed with the chief or with the police department they approve the plan in terms of safety I mean not just of the way it's set up but in terms of the safety of the hours and the fact that it's not going to be that it's only half the day have 24 hours when you can deliver and he's he's comfortable with this is that right his so I think his comment to Maureen in his email was I've reviewed it and I have no problems with it so it's well that was to the security system I didn't know if that was directed to this this aspect of the I just don't know that so Maureen what was the chief's response your question that he responded to was it the general security system I asked him actually just about the project as a whole what his thought were and his response was and I don't know if Rob has spoken to to the police chief as well Rob Mora is in attendance of this meeting and he's raising his hand Mr. Mora you may speak but before Rob speaks the chief living said said I did get a chance to review the security plan and policies I am good with them as presented so does that so Rob I'll unmute you or you unmute yourself let's see unmute okay go ahead yeah I did have a chance to talk to chief living stone this afternoon and he is satisfied with all aspects proposed for this application he had no concerns with it moving forward okay thank you okay bear with me so sorry so if I could suggest that we unless there's any other questions about delivery let we should let the applicant finish the presentation then we can engage a series of questions uh Joe no Mara has raised your hand okay Joe um just another general question about traffic and I don't and I don't know about volume as we don't know the demand at this site um wondering if there's been any traffic understanding of the increased roadway usage given that route nine on the way to work going eastbound to westbound can be pretty backed up and I wonder if there's been any consideration around that issue so Mr. Chair if I could maybe we finish the um because we still have some security drawings to show if the if the board's interested we don't have to go through them but they show the alarm locations the security camera locations and I think you know either Chris or Jeff can can walk you through those just so you can probably get an even better sense of you know why the chief said what he said and then we can talk about traffic we've got our traffic engineer here uh and so I mean I can give a quick and dirty rough overview of it or we can get into methodology and counts and all those other things um but maybe we finish up with the the site plan first and then can move on to those things but whatever the board wants Mr. Mayor I know we're going to spend a lot of time we're going to spend significant time on parking and traffic so let's let's um hold that question till we discuss the traffic issues generally because I think that's a significant issue for the I mean at least for me it is it looks like an agreement oh okay okay and and Mr. Reedy I don't need a lot of but quickly do the security camera I'm not as concerned about that I've reviewed it I think the security system and what I've been able to see on the plans is pretty good but um I'm more concerned about the you know the randomness of the deliveries than I am the the cameras and the lighting and all that kind of stuff so I think briefly go over it and then go through the rest of your presentation. Sure Maureen so we have an we have an updated slide for the security there was just I mean you could probably go through yours um if you scroll down a couple of pages there was just a misalignment in the overlay so I'm happy to try again to share my screen if you want me to just look page sure what do what do you want me to show yeah that yeah there you go so you can see that it just doesn't see how some things are in the parking lot yeah yeah if I can try to do this with share my screen then I've got an updated one that is accurate and then Chris can speak to it go ahead so I'll stop my share do you can you see anything yes we see it and all the security is inside so Chris I don't know if you want to talk about the security briefly or if Jeff either one of you is it's fine by me I'm I'm I'm certainly happy to do it go ahead so there's a series there's a series of sheets here that show motion this this one for instance is showing motion sensors and without getting into too much detail there are sensors at every entry door the entry and exit door in front the entry from the common vestibule there's a glass break sensor on the the one window and to the security vestibule there overhead sensors there's sensors in each of the each of the operations rooms so that's primarily for for sound for movement Tom if you can go to the next sheet okay so this sheet shows the these the card readers on each of the doors so there again there are card readers essentially on every door in the facility with the exception of the exit door where the customers will be leaving being through and and what the system will do is it will make sure that whoever goes through that door if they if they swipe their their their ID or their security fob it will keep track of who went through what door at what time so there'll be it'll be a complete record of the circulation through the space and as I said every every door will require authorized access and then keep a record of it if you could go to the to the next sheet okay so this is the security camera layout and again there are well let's see there's a there's there's fundamentally two different kinds of cameras on the exterior you can see the the the yellow rectangles those are what are called bullet cameras which have a narrower focus they're intended to focus on a specific path or a specific area and you can see that not only are there three cameras in the delivery area to be able to cover that area completely there are cameras on the outside on the side walkway so that anybody approaching on the walkway will be seen and then all of the interior cameras which are the cameras within the black ovals um those are either um wide wide range overhead cameras uh fish eye camera that has a 360 degree view and and there's essentially a camera that is going to record every single circulation space of the building uh so that's that's fundamentally the kind of three layers of the different kinds of security for the space okay so maybe with that um if you'd like we can we can move on to traffic and parking I mean I think we've covered a lot of the oversight um operation etc we're happy to jump into that as well but it seems like parking and in traffic are on everyone's mind so I can turn it over to Jason Adams to either I can give you the like I said quick and dirty but you probably want to hear about how we got the numbers where they came from what they applied what dates they were taken etc so you get a sense of traffic um and then we can I can start on on parking and we can talk about the shopping center um on its own lot so I guess with that Jason why don't I turn it over to you great thanks tom um yeah as tom said we have conducted a full traffic impact study and parking utilization of this project um I'm happy to go through in as much details you like I'll give you a brief overview and then can answer whatever questions might come up as a result so we conducted both the traffic study and the parking review back in November of 2019 so pre-covid um full traffic volumes full utilization of the site we focused on the weekday afternoon peak hour and the Saturday midday peak hour the two busiest times that we would expect of the site we conducted turning movement counts at the two site driveways as well as at the adjacent signalized intersection with southeast street and we also collected traffic volumes at the spirit house Florence bank driveway just to fully understand the corridor um we forecasted the vehicle trips using data published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers so that's data from sites around the country I know that the marijuana industry is is still pretty new here in Massachusetts though there are many that are now open but these are based on sites with um you know similar characteristics as what will eventually become here in in Massachusetts so the the trip generation for this site during the weekday afternoon peak hour um we would expect to see about 10 entering and 10 exiting vehicles and during the Saturday midday peak hour we'd expect to see about 16 entering and 16 exiting vehicles um those vehicle trips were distributed based on existing traffic following patterns and then we analyzed the site driveways as well as the adjacent signalized intersection to see if there were any traffic impacts associated with the project the the project given the the relatively low trip generation does not expect to have any noticeable impact on operations we see the same levels of service at the signalized intersection with and without the project um we also conducted a review of the safety of the driveways we looked at available mass DOT crash data for the existing site driveways the spirit house driveway the adjacent signalized intersection and the crash history at each of those locations is below statewide and mass DOT district averages so that indicates that there's no existing safety deficiencies along the corridor we also completed a review of the available site distance at the project site driveways and that greatly exceeds what is required of based on the speeds of the roadway so again we we feel so the site is served by driveways that can operate in a safe and efficient manner um I can pause there if you want to talk about traffic or I can go through into parking I'm not sure what's best for the board mr mary you had some questions about parking about traffic thank you um I'm really more concerned about the 8 a.m shuffle um between school buses going to fort river once school resumes when and if that will happen um and what hour of traffic you've studied for the early morning hour in terms of westbound westbound to eastbound on route nine sure so the the this type of use um you know I know we just spent some time talking about hours of operation but we wouldn't expect based on the data available for this this use to generate very many trips in the weekday morning peak period um so it given the parameters of the site and the it data shows that we only would expect about five entering and four exiting vehicles during the weekday morning peak hour um very small I mean that's the the difference between you know different days of the week I don't think you'd even notice that there were five additional vehicles over the course of an entire hour so our study focused on the weekday afternoon and saturday midday when when the site would be expected to generate a larger number of trips we don't have specific traffic volume data during the a.m but but given that the trip generation expected of the site we wouldn't expect there to be any impact whatsoever I'm good with that thank you all right let's move on to parking sure uh so we we in addition to the the traffic study that we completed we also conducted a parking utilization study of the site also back in november uh we counted from 4 p.m to 6 p.m on a thursday and from 10 a.m to 2 p.m on a saturday we captured where vehicles were parking throughout the site um at the time we looked at both lot one and lot two just to have a full picture of the whole area um so lot one you know the focus point here there are 66 available parking spaces in that what's contained within the yellow box on the screen here um during the p.m peak uh at 4 30 was was the busiest and we counted 26 vehicles leaving 40 open spaces during that weekday afternoon peak um the saturday peak as i'm sure everyone would guess was was certainly busier um that that peaked at 11 30 a.m and we counted 56 vehicles on what is contained within the yellow block there on lot one 56 vehicles at the peak at 11 30 um by the time it got to 12 30 that was down below 40 vehicles so very much a peak driven by what we would expect to be brunch traffic um at kelly's so jump in for one second so when he says the yellow box i just want to say yellow box extended because right it does have the top piece yep in the yellow box it was part of it's part of lot one in his calculation correct correct um and tom do you want me to speak to lot two as well yeah might as well okay so lot so lot two just for informational purposes there are 41 spaces on lot two during the that same p.m peak there were 16 vehicles parked on lot two so 25 open spaces in addition to the 40 open spaces on lot one and during the saturday peak there were 20 vehicles parked on lot two so 21 available parking spaces in addition to the 10 available parking spaces on lot one indicates that there's there's enough parking but just you know we wanted to just focus on lot one here with our study so what we did was we forecasted the number of vehicles that would be expected to be parked as a result of this project that includes customers and employees uh based on the ite data uh we would expect that a portion of the vehicles parked on this site that might already be there would come to the site that's considered to be a shared parking trip when you have different combinations of retail or retail and restaurant um ite data suggests that close to 30 percent of your parking trips may be shared between different uses so that people come to this site go to multiple stores that's considered a shared parking trip um applying that that shared parking trip we would expect the site in the afternoon to generate five additional parked vehicles and during the saturday the ite indicates nine additional parked vehicles at that peak so so adding that together during the weekday afternoon and really throughout the weekday we would expect that there would not be any type of parking issue whatsoever uh plenty of availability um on on lot one alone um there are over 30 spaces that we'd expect to be available during the saturday it is it is a little tighter uh it gets up basically lot one is is at capacity when you factor in adding in the the additional parked vehicles associated with this trip but again as i said once once you get past that brunch rush you get to noon and 12 30 um from 12 30 on we're seeing that the site should have um a maximum capacity of 70 percent so so from from 12 30 on there's there's plenty of parking available is what our our data shows and and at that peak at 11 30 um lot one full but we're not even factoring in that that lot two is is available there are parking spaces just across the aisle have a question langsdale yeah your um statistics on the parking area does that include the probable 15 cars when this uh dispensary is up and running they have claimed that they will have 15 employees jason let me let me respond to that so i sure they park sure so i think uh keith what that is saying is there will be 15 full-time employees but they're not all on shift at the same time i mean if you if you look at the site and the floor plan if you've got 15 people in there you probably don't have many much area for customers to come in so i think it was just a representation um whoa look at that i think it was just a representation to the town that this is going to be uh job producing and not not that there are going to be 15 employees there at at that time okay um and so jason and he can speak to it but the it uses uh potential uses employees when they say here is what that number is that this use will require so his five on the weekday and nine on saturday is inclusive of employees during that hour or the the parking space during that hour miss parks um will there be a parking lot attendant as there are for some of the other dispensaries i'm thinking uh if it gets crowded in front if people try to park at spirit house or across the street and some of the other businesses yeah i think um i think what miss pollock miss pollock's condition is is um pretty well developed you know if if there is uh an issue then i think you know we would have a conversation with the building commissioner and if he would want the imposition of a parking attendant then we can certainly utilize a parking attendant you know i think what we've what we've seen and jason probably speak to this but i know what i've seen so i've permitted a few of these we started off with rise which was gti in north amherst and i think it was at a point when there were only maybe two up and operational you know cultivate in lester and then netta in north hampton and and everybody's experience with just those two was pretty terrible there was a lot of traffic uh there were parking issues etc but i i think what folks are seeing is that it's well it's not a mature industry here in massachusetts it is getting more mature and you're not seeing the the type of lines that you saw at the beginning i mean rise had an additional parking lot where it was just never used so they actually ended up returning it back to its natural vegetative state and they made that decision based upon actual live data that they didn't need that additional parking so you know i think we're as this goes on we're starting to learn more and it's just it's lost some of the shininess and in the novelty um but i think in those circumstances when we they're experiencing higher than normal volume then certainly we we we have a good relationship with the police department um stan certainly does jeff does you know having a conversation with them or if we get a call and there's an issue we're happy to have that conversation about what can we do to mitigate the issues that are being caused uh if we're the the cause of them so kind of a long winded answer but yes sure parking attendance fine if and as necessary i i just know that it's very busy there i often use those businesses and almost always the front spaces are taken and so i'm thinking you know if everyone's going to the side to the side spaces that's great but if uh if everyone's going to those front spaces again um i'm just concerned that people will start going over to spirit house rather than parking along the side right and it's probably one of those things where you kind of let nature take its course a little bit because i i know that you know rc is going to want to be in the landlord will make sure that there'll be a good neighbor to these other retail tenants and if all of a sudden you've got all of our c's folks parking here and summerland floors or town furniture or moms you know all of those things you know they're they're they're too close to do that so i think if there is an issue it's it's just a conversation to be had and then a probably a parking attendant in in place to shepherd folks you know where there's openings okay mr reedy how many what's the occupancy limit in that building how many retail customers can you have in there at a time in the rc retail space um yeah i'll turn to chris on the spot what do you think yeah chris you're muted i don't remember what the number is sorry i was asking chris farley i don't want to interrupt on on the spot i thought the architect with them if you know that would be even better but chris chris are you there i am i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm having trouble with the with the uh the sheriff's uh screen but can everybody hear me yeah okay um i believe and bear with me here i'm just going through my my own drawings i believe we have those numbers on uh let me share my you want me to share my floor plan well i i seem to be having well yes please a sheet a one oh tom tom can do it a one um well you know what uh that that shows the square footage calculations i i believe i believe that uh the the number of um customers that can be accommodated inside the building uh is is uh it's somewhere between 25 and 30 including one person at each of the five point of sale stations and so that's between the security vestibule the queuing space and the point of sale stations 25 or 30 people and a 300 plus employees and a 397 foot building square foot building that seems well that's we should check that that seems pretty dense i i have well that's that's that's that's maximum occupancy okay and that would be if the if the space was was completely full um i i i'd also think the intention is that we would do have go ahead because i'm sorry um i was going to say that um there is there is a quite a quite a good amount of exterior queuing space um i i believe the way the facility is intended to be uh managed and operated is that they will only uh a red cardinal will be letting in a certain number of people uh certainly the the the the ideal is to have anyone who's waiting to be inside the building but if there's any concern about overcrowding there is a an exterior queue that's quite convenient it would not interrupt the the business of any of the other businesses of the building it's a queue that would go down the side of the building underneath underneath that exterior awning well maybe jeff maybe you want to talk about transaction time because you know even though i think what chris is uh mr probably saying is that why he was giving you data relative to the building code and the number of people at maximum you could have in there which i think is good to know but i think then there's the practical reality of what is the market going to dictate and then also operationally what is rc retail going to want and i don't know i mean do they want 25 to 35 30 there probably but i just don't see that is happening um at any one point just based on the market i mean frankly there's the heirloom collective right down the street in hadley you're going to have pick a number on university have been approved and you've got rise up in north hammers so you know it's um and jeff maybe you can talk about the products that you're selling but you know i like to use the analogy of this is it's kind of like a package store where yes you can buy rc retail product but you can also buy you know howls or you can buy products that have been manufactured processed elsewhere in flour that has been grown elsewhere and you can probably also get those same things at the heirloom collective or at rise and so you know to a certain extent it's it's you know we we're getting away from that cultivate in netta whether they only shows in town or even for a beer analogy treehouse brewing which they don't sell their brewed beer anywhere but at at their location and so folks will go there but jeff i don't know if you want to talk about operationally any transaction times or products to you know yes um we've done a lot of research on dispensaries operating currently massachusetts and the average transaction time is about 10 minutes so if you take jason's traffic study and assume you're going to get 10 people per hour excuse me maybe there's two people on the car you're never going to see more than 10 people in the store and as as tom is talking about there's lots of competition now and what we're finding is that pent up demand for these marijuana products is not as pent up as it was when the stores first started opening there's lots of places people can go to buy these products so um we don't see overcrowding in the store as an issue at all but we also do have that outside queue on the side of the building and um and that's pretty much how we look at it mr langsdale yeah okay um i hear what mr reedy is saying but i think for us as the zba we have to look at this and say well yeah maybe you're not going to have more than 10 or 12 people at a time but we have to look at it and say what if there are 35 or 40 or 50 people um where does that queue go uh does it go down the east side of the building who regulates it you have the security vestibule you have the entrance and then the people have to check in at the security uh station right there so right there there's a bottleneck if you've got several people waiting just outside also you have an atm machine right there which means if anybody wants to use it now maybe you have three or four or five people jammed up there one of the things i wanted to say was what perhaps you could move the atm machine over by the door that goes into the queue area so that uh yes so that it's not right you have it looks to me like you have a bottleneck of security door and atm so that's one thing to consider um i think i think it's important you have made given that people go into the through the door into the queue area you have a serpentine system so that if there are 20 people you know i mean first of all you've got how many people on the you've got five people on the point of sale stations you've got the security you've got operations person i don't know how many other people you have uh but you have a queue that can accommodate i don't know 10 12 people uh and then you've got the five so there's the capacity for a lot of people so i think it's incumbent upon the zba to look at this and say okay let's go with the let's say uh in quotes worst case scenario best case for you because you've got a lot of people coming in how is that handled and how are you prepared to handle that that's what our question is i think and i think it's one that you have we have to address and know specifics for well let me try to give you the specifics is it at that security vestibule will be a security agent who is there to check ids and to make sure people are sober who are coming in but they're also there to control the flow of people into the facility and as you say we don't want people you know like a marine corps chow line right up against each other in that queue so the answer is that our staff will control the flow into the facility so if the line is backed up and we do get fortunate enough to have that kind of a crowd then the security agent will direct them to the outside and keep them in the queue if you also if we have that even a bigger crowd than the queue can handle if you look at our draft security plan that we submitted um our intention is if we have extreme crowds is to coordinate with the police department for situational advice on how to deal with it and we will have parking lot attendants if the if the masses show up and if we can accommodate them in the store and on the outdoor queue the parking lot attendants will direct them to the exit of shopping center and tell them to come back later so um but we as you say we don't want a mob in the store and our employees and our staff in the store will control that and if we have to we'll bring in parking lot attendants um to control the outside in conjunction with the police department and I do want to add that we are we have a different business in Connecticut where a associate company is a real estate development company we have people hourly people who work on our staffs so if we had a problem with traffic control we could have people here in 90 minutes to take care of it and we're very sensitive to it and if the police department or anyone was to call us and say you know you have this problem we are ready to respond to it because we do want to be a good neighbor excuse me you have people in Connecticut who could comment but they could be here in 90 minutes yes that's given traffic have you ever gone up 91 I mean I find that uh uh inadequate well let me let me say this in the interim between the time I could get people there because they would be there for a few days if the traffic is going to be that bad I would pay the chief in the police department for off-duty officers to to control it immediately and then um bringing our own staff as we could get them there okay then if if you have people backed up beyond outside of the security vestibule uh and this happens you don't have parking lot attendants on on I'm assuming you're not going to have them on all the time anyway uh what tells them to line up along the east wall instead of hanging out where the delivery structure goes the security agent and the store manager would you have one security agent in the security place how does that one person regulate what happens outside the building no the there is a person in the security booth that person is there there is a store manager there are store staff and so they will control the people and if people are hanging around out front waiting to get in the store the security agent or the store manager will go outside and direct them as where to go so we I mean that's how you control people as you have the security agent can't leave the booth so it can't be the security agent that's one who then is it who would control that the security agent can certainly leave the booth he he can go outside because people can't get into the store leave the booth yes then then there's no security I I don't know how to explain it to you but just mr robler over here are you saying that you could lock the door so that nobody could get in and then the security agent could go out and control the cloud and then security agent would come back in and then open the door again so people can come in is that what you're saying that's correct if you look at this plan that's in front of us if you look at the door to the right of the security vestibule that's a controlled locked door no one can go through that door into the facility unless the security agent in the booth buzzes the door open so on the one hand you could have the security agent go out there could be people in the vestibule you could have the security agent go out direct people to the proper queue or to go leave and come back at a later time and then go back to his booth and continue to process people into the facility in addition to that the store manager can go outside the store manager is not going to be tending the counter the store manager is going to be managing the whole store the store manager can go out on his or her authority and tell people where to queue up it'd be the same thing anybody does when they have a store you people running the store control the crowd so it seems mr. Langford you have another question if not I had a comment so go ahead yep it seems to me that we need a couple of things we need to know total number of people the occupancy limits on this square foot this square foot of restyle space which I think is 397 square feet there is a there's a limit in and I don't know what it is and I don't think anybody here knows what it is number of the number of occupants you can have in this place which includes security clerks store managers all that so that number we need we work back from that okay we can get that we and then we can work back from that and say well how many how many cars does that involve those sort of customers we can compare that to mr. Adams estimates on what how many people are likely to come we can multiply that by a factor to get to deal with mr. Langsdale's and my concerns and we can have a better sense of how likely it is we're going to have a queuing up outside but I think we have to start with some numbers which is occupancy staff and then what that means in terms of people that it can be in the store mr. Chair there are two people raising their hand Ms. O'Mara and mr. Rosenberg okay mr. O'Mara I did not mean to raise my hand sorry thank you mr. Chairman and I appreciate the the concern and the and the reflection on this important point I just wanted to add I I hope we have this problem and if we have this problem I'm sure we would come up with a permanent ongoing solution with the town with the police that everybody would be satisfied with but I certainly understand that before you issue any final decision on this that these questions and the way you just framed it are totally appropriate I just wanted to add one other thing I live five minutes from the site and I will be a resident of the community and I'm part of the team so if this situation were to arise I would hope that the manager would call all hands on deck and I'd be the closest and five minutes away in presumably most times and in most situations but I realize you're looking for a systemic response and answer and I'm sure we will come up with the appropriate information and appropriate solution but I just wanted to add the fact that I'm not 90 minutes away I'm actually five minutes away and I'd be there in a in a flash thank you mr. Chairman all right thank you so any further questions from zba members or town staff okay let's let's continue the presentation mr. reedy and then we'll we'll have some questions work also have to go through so I think probably what I'll do is just touch on parking a little bit just relative to the site so so I think what Jason talked about is is more of justification for our request for a parking waiver so on the sites combined so lot one and lot two there are 107 parking spaces based upon the uses on lot one and lot two combined they need 112 parking spaces so there was back in 1998 a parking waiver granted and that parking waiver was effectively renewed most recently at the end of April for both of the sites it looks like lot one requires 76 spaces and they have 66 spaces and this is this is pre marijuana use and then post marijuana use so assuming that it gets approved we're talking about 83 spaces being required so that's required in accordance with the strict interpretation strict language of the bylaw so when we take section seven we look through and we say here's a square footage here's a number of seats and kelly's etc those are the numbers we come up with and then I think we have the actual data and I mean this this photograph I didn't pick it it came up through GIS but I think it's a pretty accurate portrayal of what you're going to find on that site on most days it sounds like the concerning time if if I could be so brash as to say concerning is that hour on saturdays from 11 30 to 12 30 and outside of that there seems to be sufficient parking spaces on lot one you know we would suggest that if if it pleased the board we could get something in writing from the landowner that there would be some parking available on lot two I mean I think jason said there are 21 spaces available on lot two at that saturday peak time and while we do strictly we comply if we were to get the waiver it probably not bad form to have something as a as a sort of release valve to allow those vehicles from the shopping center right so I think this is the only marijuana establishment that is going to hopefully exist within a shopping center and not in a standalone building and so as jason talked about with the shared parking it's very likely that somebody will park walk into summerland realize there's a marijuana establishment and maybe go and check it out or Mr. Reedy have you talked to the owner the same owner yes about a lot too about getting the 20s 20 the difference of 20 spaces and having a least parking arrangement I don't think there'd be an issue to do that well so there may be something that we could consider but right now right now there's 66 available spots and the code calls for 86 and you're asking for a waiver to drop you down to what so the we have 66 the zoning bylaw requires 83 and we're looking for an extension of the the parking waiver an amendment to the existing parking waiver to allow us to stick with the 66 and I mean part of this Mr. Chair is as good as as well as I can read the board through zoom it sounds like we're going to be coming back at some point and so I wonder if we could just because we're about done with our presentation if we could just talk about any of the other issues that the board may have so that you know we are on a time schedule with the cannabis control commission as well and so we just want to make sure that ideally the next meeting is our is our last meeting so whatever information you'd request we're happy to provide it so a good piece of information go ahead oh I was gonna say uh Ms. O'Mara has raised her hand all right oh sorry I'm just mean to raise my hand but I'll take the opportunity so in conclusions from uh town staff there were some questions should we address those now or wait for the next meeting well you know what we need you know I have some questions of um but I do want to get to um and we should why don't we do this because I am I am concerned about the time we have another we have two other items we want to get to I agree and I and I don't want to we've spent two hours here so I want to be able to go through my concerns quickly and then go through the rest of the and let other members state their concerns perhaps we need a good chance for them okay then let's do that so let me run through my concerns and then we can get other people a second we just find it I've written a lot down tonight okay I have a my threshold question is this Mr. Liddy um part of the premises you have that you lease is within the 300 foot um buffer from your residence and you have it's you know it's a very convoluted way in which you you've brought up the um you design the space and so I'm wondering number one what's going to be what is in operations in the in the retail space what is it going to be done in operations and where is and where is the secure uh place uh safe or secure holding area for the marijuana products that's required under state law or uh Chris or Jeff do you want to answer that yes the uh the vault is in the operations room I believe it's 105 it's the one with the angle adjacent to the queue um we labeled it so it was operations and not the vault yep this becomes public information we're trying to keep a secret it's also you'll you'll notice it's located on the interior of the building not near an outside wall for security right okay and what's done up what's 108 106 is one you're just talking about 108 it's going to be what and 108 is a place where um this is 105 that's what he was I think he was 105 he was talking yeah that's where he was talking about 106 is over here yeah okay 106 is a um place for employees to put product in the baskets to bring them out to the point of sale it's a place for them to um you know put their lunch in those little lockers excuse me and then the operations 105 a is the it closet where the uh internet server and our security cameras will be run back to that area okay um there's a slight pad on um between the shared space and the least space is that right that door has has a swipe pad to it so here you have to okay um what does contemplate you have a conference room uh shared utility share storage in the common area what is contemplated the use of that for for our use um frankly we don't see much use of it excuse me except for the bathroom um we we had to lease that space is part of the deal so we're just making it convenient and sharing it with the tenant who may or may not lease the other vacant space but the primary use of it is if you see shared utilities that's where the electric meters will be and who knows what the other space is but the primary reason is for the bathroom and in the common vestibule there's a new metal door that's where the employee entrance for the um for red cardinal would be that's what we anticipate yes employee entrance and that would have some kind of a safety feature to it as well the swipe pad yeah they would they would have a swipe pad to that um and as would the future tenant for the space to the right and then they would have a separate security uh swipe to get into the retail area so the threshold question really is this space the lease the shared space is um it has three certainly two and just for a tiny part three different violates three different buffers and it seems to me that I need an answer from you as to why this is actually different than the other marijuana use you can't operate your marijuana shop without a bathroom you can't operate your marijuana shop with and you can't do the trick I'm assuming you're going to do the training and other kinds of employee requirements that are required under state law in your shared conference room you got to have your employees come in you can't do that you can't conduct your marijuana business without your employees and your employee come in and come in through the common vestibule and it's it seems an artificial and um contorted segregation of function artificial segregation of function between marijuana use and non-marijuana use there as well as outside where you'll have people lined up along this area waiting to get along the the wall waiting to get in if it's busy and they will be within the buffer and so when I I look at this I I wonder if we're we're really trying to squeeze the most out of the space and so and I don't know what the legal definition of marijuana use is but I looked at the state regulations on 500 whatever it was it's 122 pages but I looked at it like it's 500 0 0 1 5 I think and they talk about all the different operations that go on and all the uses and it concludes a bunch of things that have to be done in the um the shared space so talk to me about respond to my concern about that and if you can't do it now we can wait till next week and we can hear more about it then if you have to give it some thought I understand no I if I could so I I think the marijuana use is where the transaction occurs I mean I think it's as it's as simple as that and that transaction is going to and where do you get that from is that what the law says no I mean logically yeah other otherwise where do you draw the line do so when I leave my house to go to a marijuana establishment am I well you don't know them where I want to establish you you don't own the marijuana establishment in my case but I you know what I mean like how do where does where does it end and so I think you know I draw a lot of analogies between this and in liquor licenses because they're somewhat similar if you look at the title of the the act it is you know an act to regulate marijuana like it's the regulation and taxation of marijuana which is really dealt with similarly to alcohol and alcohol have licensed premises and so ultimately this will be a licensed premises and if let's say spirit house has a great deal or has some treehouse beer and folks line up outside you know is that use in granted spirit house might be a little bit of a different scenario because it's a single building on a single lot but that licensed premise is according to the alcoholic beverages control commission just that interior space where that transaction happens it's not the parking lot it's not the outside space it's not people walking from their cars even if they're taking the product from inside spirit house back to their cars or they're waiting outside of spirit house to have a transaction it's where that transaction happens and so using that as an analog the use is where the marijuana transaction happens well I'm not I'm not sure I'm not sold on that yet Mr. Reedy but I understand your argument and I think it'd be helpful if there is some guidance from the cannabis commission or there's some guidance from legislative history in the state law about what the use is because that's really what we're looking at here and I don't want to set a precedent of moving I'm concerned of setting a precedent of allowing businesses within buffer areas where they're not supposed to be by a creative and I don't mean this in a negative sense but and I'm clear to my view of interpretation of the law and in this case of the regulations so let's perhaps some further work on that would be helpful to for me for next time we visit the next meeting we have another question I had we've talked about opening date we talked about police and the relationship there one of the questions I had would you be would you be interested in doing the same thing that other marijuana shops have done or RMDs have done which is kind of turn over to the chief of police their judgment for the first six months of whether they need to have an officer or a or a traffic you know a traffic monitor out in there and instead of saying well we'll certainly do it on our own if we think it's necessary other places have said we'll leave the policemen the police department's judgment if we need to have a police presence or we need to have other kind of parking monitors would that be something you would consider yeah I don't see what I mean I think if from what Jeff had said that's part of our plan and I think I can tell you what Chief Livingstone would say and yeah it's not going to be an issue I mean I think frankly I think the board needs to understand that this is a read it's just a retail use it's similar to other retail uses but we've also had this we had just retail use we had that same agreement with the the the lessee is that they turned it over to the in in fact the judgment of the police department is whether they need to have additional personnel policemen there or they need to have additional personnel yeah I mean that I don't see any issue but I'm just telling you what the results going to be I don't mean to be curt or short but I just think the shine has worn off on this the there's a sign and one of your signs will be you have two signs in the building you have a third sign on lot two is that right no I don't know that there was a lot too was there a sign and go to your signage plan yes it's all on the building only there's only two signs it's a sign right here the rc and let me zoom in so you can see it so it's maybe that's a light at the corner of on lot two maybe that's a light at the corner of route nine and where it where lot two meets lot route nine it's so hard to read these things on zoom it was my interpretation that the circle was one sign if you go back the corner that little circle with the tabs is is a street light a pole light all right there's no sign um those are my um those are my my fundamental questions and I'd like to let other zba members ask questions now I think Joan raised your hand but I might have made that up I have one Keith which I don't need you now you can you know next time uh you're uh stating that you're going to put in four 18 foot pole lights uh along the the parking areas uh are those to be what are their hours of up good question good question I don't know the answer to that um we will I will get you that answer I think because there's one pole light right here yeah my mouse is another one here another one here and what yeah I love that and then the that fourth one right there does the board have a preference personally I don't think they should be on a light but in a sense it should be the best best use for those very simple yeah expensive and it will only go on when the light goes to a certain dimmness and then level off with a timer I I don't see an issue with that I mean if if this because I think this is more for the site itself you know because this use is going to let's say it's open until eight o'clock it's 8 11 right now and the light might just be coming on but the place is already closed so there's going to you know come June 21st and then obviously the winter time's a little bit different but I think these are you know illuminating this traveled way which I think just is good form for those um residents getting back to that mixed use um piece so maybe they come on it dusk or or near dusk and go off by 11 p.m. or something like that you know we'll try to be sensitive to the residents who might be using it to get back to their apartments right but one of the reasons I asked because there's nothing there now correct and you're adding these for the your business so I think there should be some regulation in terms of how long they're on you know yeah and I don't I just want to be clear I don't I think this is something that Paul Shumway who's a landowner would probably want regardless because okay the only light is where my mouse is right now yeah on spirit house and it's a pole light and it's shining just it's like a flood light just shining into here so there's nothing here there's nothing in here I think it's just good practice to have something there because folks you know the only way to get back here is for folks to travel this way so you know I yes they're they're part of this proposal but I just want to be you know honest about I think they should go there regardless and they don't there shouldn't necessarily be a nexus between those lights existence and the hours of operation etc or existence of the yeah yeah and if if you could have a discussion with him with the owner to see if he wants them on a certain time or just so that you're in agreement with that that's all not a problem at all okay any other questions from regular members or associate members I have one yes it sparks um so when we come back would it be possible to have some pictures of what the rolling doors would look like because I under I did see that there's a small graphic on on one of the pages but if like I guess if we could just see a picture of it and and see that it's ventilated I think I would feel more comfortable to understand you know exactly what it is yeah I saw that if maybe if you had some kind of photograph that sure what that is your photograph so you can see what they look at they're simple enough to get okay and any other questions or comments from members of the board but before we suspend the hearing I'd like to open it up to this is the time to open up to public comment if there is any Maureen do we have any members of the public that are listening in and want to comment or that if any members of the public would like to speak about this special permit application click on the button to raise your hand and then I will call on you so I just wanted to point out this is Chris that Joan O'Meara's hand is raised I don't mean to raise it I've heard that once or twice uh any anyone else um it looks like no one is raising their hand okay so it's I think the consensus of the board and would be to suspend the hearing where we are here to um come back set a the next date that's available Maureen for to continue this um we will continue with presentations from the applicant questions from the board and from the public and then we'll conduct that and we'll move into the public meeting area but we have to I don't want to close out the public hearing yet I want to leave it open sure uh okay um are folks available for July 9th as a as a possible continued public hearing date and if so does six o'clock work or would 6 30 uh for some people be better you just look at my calendar I think that would work July 9th you said correct uh Ms. O'Meara do uh what do you have any comments about the time 30 would be better for me 6 30 okay other members to 6 30 on Thursday July 9th let's verify that I'm saying the right date I have a question go on guess it's a lined up this will this be the only thing we address on that night well we don't have any you don't have anything else scheduled for that night yet do you I do not I do not I mean I I um I'm not sure if we're going to be able to finish this the next item on the agenda Mr. Langsdale so um I just don't know so there may be the next item well then we have we have that tradition now of 6 p.m and if we're going to have more than one uh I don't know 6 30 are we then talking about changing uh the time for every time we do this uh it's I'll speak I'll speak to that Keith yeah I have to work until 6 p.m with the virus going on at the hospital so that's my obligation let's make a 6 30 all right thank you and hopefully it will end soon yeah thank you I hope it does thank you there's nothing sooner than that uh July 2nd and no we have um July 25th we're reserving for a different project June 25th yes June 25th yeah yeah sorry I probably said July sorry June 25th we are reserving yes okay it looks like that's as soon as we can do it so let's look at for that date so I move that we continue the hearing until July what's the date again July 9th July 9th at 6 30 p.m do I have a second second second discussion if there's no discussion all in favor say aye all right call vote don't read yeah you have to do all right chairman votes aye miss omira hi miss parks hi mr langsdale hi and mr maxfield hi our motion passes it's unanimous thank you morning guys get a list of who the members are who are voting just at some point oh oh yeah I'll email you tomorrow great thank you all right okay thank you very much good see you all your time mr we'll see you soon okay uh mr chair I just wanted to um let you know that uh attorney witton has now joined us okay so mr witton can help us with the rules and regulations we have one other item that we need to deal with first which is the other item on the agenda correct which is um zba 20 20 38 or zb 8 um excuse me zba 20 20 37 federman family limited partnership request request to provide a special permit to allow increase the number of residential units with converted dwelling from one to two under sections 3.324 and 10.38 located at 152 log town road map 18d parcel 303 neighborhood residential rn district sitting on this panel will be myself mr omiram this is miss parks mr langsdale and mr maxfield we had a site visit um at 152 log town road on monday let me get to my notes reviewed the property and walked around the property um we had the representative there described the work to be done including the work on the deck um we've asked the questions about the second exit in the basement off to the um off the side not in the backyard but the side yard we asked questions about the slope of the sidewalk for and whether there'd be a need for a retaining wall we asked questions about whether there was a conservation commission meeting and decision on this we had questions about the placement of the deck and its size we had questions about new lighting and if there would be downcast and dark sky compliant we went to the parking spaces measured them we had questions about the whether there was an on-site manager those were the the ones that I had listed as questions I don't know if anybody else who attended the site visit had other questions that were raised what we have in terms of documents from the applicant we have received a cover letter a waiver request for submission requirements we received a parking a parking plan a special permit application a management plan project summary residential lease agreement complaint response plan proposed findings from the applicant a building permit plan existing floor plans uh three of the existing floor plans a set of photographs of the interior because we did not view the interior on our site visit project application report and comments received from the electrical inspector dated may 27th 2020 I think that's all we've gotten in terms of documents that for the record I think that's right isn't it Maureen yes okay so I'd like to turn this over to the applicant to run through the run through your what you want to do and describe it as best you can um and then we'll have questions from board members oh mr berson you're you're muted and we can't hear you there we go can you all hear me yes wonderful I'm using a one of those podcast microphones so please let me know if it doesn't work well it's a kind of a new setup for me i'm borrowing it um so good evening my name is david berson i'm an attorney from bacon wilson i'm here tonight on behalf of the family the featherman family limited partnership they own 152 log town road specifically with me i believe tonight is lc featherman likely on the panel or not the panel but in the in the audience who is the the general partner long-term resident of amherst and the resident of the property next door 148 log town road for for a number of years now additionally josh kenny I believe is also here from a kenny construction he is the contractor who is handled who has prepared the plans and he should be here as well to kind of walk through what's being proposed here and here to answer some more of those technical questions that the board had relative to to what's being proposed additionally I believe rick mcgin is also here as well he is the property manager he is not on site and I will touch upon that a little bit in my application but one thing I did want to address right off the bat before I kind of jump into it is just to clarify one thing there was a the comment about the tenant notification so just to clarify because I don't think I was very clear in my response to morning today the tenants were all notified by miss featherman the notification forms were personally delivered to them I just didn't have an opportunity to to notarize an affidavit with miss featherman prior to today's meeting so I can have that dropped off at the town tomorrow morning you know the affidavit stating that it was done but the tenant notification forms actually were absolutely done so I just wanted to clarify that point and I will be in Amherst tomorrow so I'll provide the updated affidavit for for the board additionally one thing that came out of the site visit were some requests that some changes be made to the the submitted site plan specifically relative to showing the parking area on that site plan with the actual dimensions of it as well as showing the current lock coverage and proposed lock coverage I have reached out to mr. Izer and I believe he will have those updated for us I just didn't have them in time for tonight's meeting unfortunately so we're here tonight very simply to convert or we're hoping to get approval to convert a single family home into a converted to family home in accordance with section 3.324 of the amazonian bylaw this property has been a a tenant rental or has been a student rental for for a number of years now primarily because of its location it's located directly off of on the corner right off of route nine heavily trafficked way I just do like to note that because it is one of the sections or any criteria that's actually highlighted in the converted dwelling statue or standard of the bylaw is relative to being close to these traveled ways and where it's appropriately located and we feel that this location is is very appropriate considering it's not only that close to the to route nine but it's also within walking distance of a bus stop on route nine so it's a very attractive property for this type of conversion and in addition to that there have been issues you know full disclosure there have been issues in the past relative to building issues and whatnot in fact what prompted this was discovering that when the property was built back in the 80s the basement window was about an inch or two narrow to be considered a legal egress and you know looking at changing that was kind of the the prompt to really modify things and do it the correct way with this property primarily because miss federman herself is is an elderly resident of amherst she's in her 90s and you know she really is looking to move a lot of the property management responsibilities off of her own shoulders so for a number of years now rick mcgin who is a a property manager who manages a number of properties in the area not necessarily amherst but in the area and he's always assisted miss federman when it comes to handling the management of this property we understand that as part of this process he understands that he's going to be coming on board as a more active property manager as the primary contact for complaints and and the like that being said the bylaws do have a requirement relative to a resident onsite manager for converted dwellings we actually have already spoken with one potential tenant he was you may have noticed him he was actually hanging around the day of the site visit while you guys were visiting so we have discussed with the potential tenant taking on this role and that is our intent we expect that there would be a condition of the permit that one of the tenants at all times be considered or agree to be the resident agent a resident manager for the property and what we envision for that role because we do want rick mcgin as the property manager and you know to be the the the number one contact both for the town as well as the you know residents and the tenants so we really envision this resident manager as being an onsite individual for getting a hold of rick in case somebody else can't so all the other residents will have this other resident manager's contact the neighbors would be provided with this contact so if there was a problem there's somebody onsite who can get a hold of rick for some other reason we can't get a hold of him because they're already in place you know schedules set schedules with respect to trash pickup landscape maintenance the snow plowing for the property all these things already have contracted services for so rick mcgin will make sure that those contracts stay in place and will be the primary contact if there are complaints for the property so we are planning on on meeting the resident manager requirement of the bylaw we just didn't highlight it or outright say who it would be in the application because quite frankly whether or not we even have this tenant this proposed tenant who is agreed to be the resident manager and say it will depend on whether or not we actually have a viable project here so that being said the there were some additional you know comments and that the building department as well as I believe the board had technically related to this the plans so I'm going to turn it over to to Josh Kenny so he can kind of talk to that and answer some of those questions but I will answer some of the questions just very quickly that were immediately addressed with respect to downcast lighting the expectation is that there would be two new lights at least one of the new egress and then one of the deck additionally those will absolutely be downcast and we would certainly be comfortable with the condition that we provide the fixture cut sheet for those once we've actually selected which lights will go where additionally with respect to the conservation commission we did go through the process already and we did receive a decision although we don't have the physical decision yet in hand so additionally we understand that a condition relative to approvals of the conservation commission would absolutely be you know required as part of this this type of project so with that being said I'd like to turn it over to Josh Kenny if he's on the line um and I am going to to mute myself unless you had other specific questions for me all right um how would you like to go about this would you like to ask me questions or would you like me to just go over uh well can you briefly go through the couple of points that you were going to uh David asked you to go through Mr. Burson asked you to go through and then if there are any questions we'll you can ask him directly okay um the the lighting and most questions are Josh why don't why don't you just go through a general walkthrough of what the current property looks like with the existing plan and then kind of go through and how you plan I think would be helpful for the members is to go through the the suggested changes that you're going to make an exterior and interior particularly where the board didn't get a chance to actually go inside the property yep absolutely so inside the I'm just going to interrupt you uh do you want to share your screen and and and illustrate those changes while you're talking so I am at home and I may be able to do that I can pull it up on mine I I was gonna say I have it I can share my screen if we need to uh I mean why don't you share your screen for the existing and the proposed changes okay hold on give me a minute uh floor plan all right so I'm going to pull up the floor plan all right yes perfect um bear with me for one second okay does everyone see this yep yep okay I'll zoom in um this is the existing floor plan for the basement um okay so in the basement um there's going to be a couple of changes um so where the stairs go up right now in the center the stairs are going to go away because there'll be no access from upstairs to downstairs anymore and that hallway will lead to a door that goes outside as a common egress right I can go to the next page so this is the proposed basement so yeah there's a hallway in the middle there um there's a new hallway heading out the north side I think that's a north north um that'll lead to the second egress um and there'll be a walkway outside that door bedroom bedroom on the rear of the house gets split into two bedrooms we're adding a kitchen um in the living room area and that's about it downstairs um I'll go be a new window also in bedroom sex there's a an additional window getting cut in to that exterior wall uh can I is this the backyard uh the backyard is at the top of the screen um oh this is the backyard oh okay oh yeah okay that makes sense this is the door this was yep okay yep um I think that's it for all the changes down there the first floor is less um the living room the existing living room on the first floor will become a bedroom there'll be a hallway from the front door which is at the bottom of the screen um so that hallway will lead into the kitchen um the stairway will go where the refrigerator is will go and that'll become the living room um and that's the only changes upstairs oh I'm sorry that there'll be a new deck on the back for a second even out of the living room um with the stairway to the driveway I hate to interrupt but uh Maureen can I ask that you mute yourself when uh you're not talking it's just a bad background noise coming from your microphone I think that's about it for changes upstairs of this the sliding the glass door will you know do the second egress um to the new deck I think that that's all the changes there um outside which I think if you go down one more sheet we can have some um elevations so the north elevation uh has no changes except for the deck entrance this wow will lead to the parking area um the south elevation is the new egress door at the end of the hallway um there may be a retaining wall here depending on how the the grades work out um and that walkway will be fairly level going to the backyard and the east elevation you can see the new deck there the new uh sliding glass door exit from the living room on the first floor the new egress directly under that for the basement um and the new window next to it the two sliding glass doors in the basement level are existing and uh I guess I'll open up to questions if can you describe the the parking lot for the parking situation so yeah so the my sorry okay um yeah so the um when we were out there um you may recall we did pull out the tape measure so we we are um confident we know for a fact that there are at least the four spaces required um under the zoning bylaw um for the the two dwelling units proposed um that is um uh planned or the request that we've made to uh to mr iser is that he include um the you know the dimensions of that parking area as well as the paved area on the uh a new site plan so that we can actually just show you you know the actual exact four spaces that are required um our intent is for those that area to be the primary parking for that um it makes a lot of sense there was already an existing vegetative buffer that was installed um two years ago when miss Federman did some work on on 148 um so there's already a buffer of vegetation to the north between the two parking areas um so it makes a lot of sense to to you know keep this as the primary parking area we've already met the requirements and the lease um the leases will be very clear that there are only two parking spaces uh per dwelling unit um so the lease that's been submitted does have a two parking or two automobile uh limit already drafted into it um it's the understanding being though that that that lease is really a you know that's a a dwelling unit lease if for some reason there were you know multiple leases associated with the unit we would still you know restrict the number of vehicles to two automobiles per dwelling unit so i um that pretty much is your uh presentation mr berson or is there anything else you'd like to discuss our de minimis um and the changes are de minimis um the while there is some proposed disturbance of the exterior um lot area um we don't believe it's going to be a substantial change to this site um if anything we believe that it's going to give the town a a better mechanism for enforcement if there are inspection and or issues related to the management of the property in the future knowing that there is a designated property manager and point of contact for the site um and knowing that there's a special permit that if if necessary uh zoning enforcement could rely on um you know with this property in the future so it just seems from our perspective to to make a lot of sense uh for from a an infill development standpoint as well as its its location um off of route nine and it's uh it's the bus stop as well as its historic use um in the neighborhood so thank you so i have a couple of quick questions i'd like to go through and then i'll open it up to um board members first um i know you've this has been to the conservation commission has the conservation commission considered or do they will they consider do they need to consider um any cut that you make in the uh for the second egress in the hillside that exists currently exists that you're going to have to cut back for the second egress into the basement and have have you gone to them or will you need to go to them for um mitigate for measures to mitigate um any effect on the on the conservation area yeah there there was not concerned from the conservation commission um and i mean moraine i believe you were at the meeting you can correct me if i'm wrong but uh primarily the um the actual um resource areas that are being discussed here um and the context of of those resource areas was certainly taken into account um at the conservation commission because the landfill was located directly to the i believe the east of this property um and it's not clear you know to what extent the detention basin down there was a runoff area for that or or what the purpose of it was but the uh and additionally the swell in the back it wasn't totally clear whether it could be considered a resource area because there wasn't actually any flow there so there wasn't much concern about this proposed project particularly where there's already such a um a very concrete delineation between the you know the this lawned property area versus the you know that vegetative buffer and then the steep drop to the um that resource area so i guess my question i didn't place put it very well the con com commission approved this did they approve it with a cut had they known that you were going to make the cut in that oh yes oh yes when you when they approved it that's yeah it seemed like it was a new issue okay yeah apologies for that yes that's what i wanted to know the proposal included that the walkway and the cutout for it walkway and the cutout good all right secondly um i know there's an electrical inspector's um letter regarding the jump to the fuse box that i used to call the fuse box with the circuit breaker on the wall for the basement and for the top uh the first floor um currently i don't think it meets code and i have you um i don't see that addressed in the floor plans is it going to be addressed and how would are you going to deal with that yep um so i'm actually going to uh turn it over to josh once again because my understanding is that they they've found a solution that's similar to i guess what they did with the 148 so i'll turn it over to him and uh i'm certainly no uh no electrical uh technician so so yeah we are going to move the um electrical panel to the outside of the house and build a cabinet around it because the everybody needs access to it both units um and that was the best way to do that um that has been run up through uh the electrical inspector and she has approved that all right so and do you have is that reflected on any plans that we have yet aren't any site plans or building plans that we have this this just must have just happened today so there's this wouldn't be reflected on any plan it is not reflected on any plan we have uh i i believe there's an email between the electrician and the electrical inspector staying in a room all right we didn't we didn't certainly add that to to the plan set though of course and submit that prior to you know of course my expectation is that inspection services will require that from us yep so we want that on a plan um you talked about parking so you're gonna have you need to have yes uh uh mr west gevitz has a comment yes yeah i did speak to tina today and she did describe what they're talking about so where you see the electrical panel located now they would bring that out of the basement because it's too narrow to get back there to the panel plus the other tenants on the first floor would not have access so they're moving the electrical service to the outside with the breakers outside as well um an overarching crop of concern or question that i have is that we don't really have a site plan with dimensions for judging lot coverage the the um the amount of parking spaces the length of the parking space is the square footage uh we don't have that and so that's that's a material part of i would think it's a material part of the application so we'd want to have a site plan and i know you've talked to somebody you'll have one for us but we don't have one before us now so it's hard for us to make judgments on um whether you exceed the if you if you exceed the um lot coverage right now so we need to have that i think that's that's understandable i mean i i as i mentioned we were happy to submit it i think uh i mean we'd be happy to to submit it if the board would consider a condition to that effect um because i believe we could get that into the town's hands very very quickly um mr judge yes um mr langsdale one quick thing if they in fact are moving the electrical box to the outside uh i think on the uh floor plan the changes that they make we need to then know what that little area is going to be used for where the box is right now right it should reflect the floor plan should reflect what is actually going to happen correct sure that'd be a that's kind of a fundamental precept all right that's good point mr langsdale and um the last thing you talked about you're going to try to delineate the residential manager's responsibilities and so i i have a short that you but i don't see it in the management plan yep so i i and and quite frankly the the list i have it's very short because the primary responsibilities doesn't mention but i will submit that in writing to the board as an as a you know part of the management application yep and the management plan and and that person will be on the complaint response form yes and i did want to address that however um the primarily because the the process for updating the complaint response form and this is just be this is my own ignorance because i i haven't had to update them before i generally just you know fill them out before these these hearings but um as far as updating that person's name in the future um is that doesn't i assume that's that's something that can be done at inspection services doesn't require a formal process if for the resident manager as opposed to the property manager i'm not sure i followed that so i'm actually followed your your point that again i my question i guess is is if we need to update the complaint response plan because we update the resident manager is that going to require us coming back for a public meeting or can that be done at inspection services because it seems more of a uh administrative than yeah marina i i'm not sure i i in this case it'll change in the fall when you have a new student potentially and that's and that's my and that's my point it you know yeah so a condition go ahead marina i i could see that you know the board has two options you can make a condition that when the complaint response plan and or the um the resident manager is changed that either the applicant would update that information with inspection services or if you want you could make a condition that they would have to come back with the updated information at a public meeting so those are the two two options we could two options that i think would work here yeah that you you you as the board should consider and and and uh we're we're obviously requesting that you guys allow us to hopefully uh get that changed if necessary through inspection services but um understanding that obviously this is the board's decision so i see joe miso mare's hand raise i don't know if that's intentional real raise i'll raise my hand for real i know we're far from any any motions uh on this at this point but while we're on the topic i would definitely say my personal feeling would be uh for that to be something that inspection services would handle and and not make them come back to the board i think feel that way we yes mr maxill that's how we dealt with it in the past okay done yeah not to burden us or burden i have a question parks i don't know if i'm if i'm not quite understanding but i'm seeing that it's proposed for residential units and there's four parking spaces but i'm counting eight bedrooms so are you intending to have eight tenants or four tenants yes let me let me clarify that so it's it's actually so there's there's two dwelling units with four bedrooms in those respective units so it's so that each unit of four bedrooms will only be allowed to have two cars um it works because of the fact right off the bus route and it's primarily students who live there um but um primarily the the thinking being that each unit will only be entitled to two cars they'll have to figure out amongst themselves as to who will actually be entitled to a vehicle okay so but i'm reading here that um one parking space shall be provided for each room that's occupied is that something we're waving that is my understanding and i apologize my understanding is that the the requirement is two two spaces per dwelling unit miss parks where do you see that well i guess i'm looking at residential accessory uses for oh you're looking the zoning bylaws yeah i'm looking so tell moraine can you tell me in the zoning bylaws where where the parking requirements are for rental units uh it should be section is it section seven seven i think it's seven i believe it's yeah and so it would be page 82 it would be um get ready for this okay i see it seven point zero zero zero zero i just wanted to say that and which is two parking spaces for each dwelling unit okay i mean and i also do note that there's uh on street parking there yep okay other questions yeah i was going still yeah on the parking um you have well what we have shows five spaces right talking about four but then there's the other park the area right next to the house what is not to be used for so the the intent is and uh as um it's a very good question um but the intent is to not have that be a parking space so the primary parking be adjacent to the um you know where where we had measured it out and primarily because with this the deck being put there we're gonna want to leave that um just more open so that if people want to or need to they can actually you know leave off of the deck a little bit easier um so yeah i mean the space is there and if we needed to i guess we could claim it as a parking space but the intent is not to use it as one so if what what is what are the dimensions of that space is it a nine by 18 um Maureen um i don't have the um if you wanted to measure i know it's not perfect with the gis but sure you want me to measure it next to the yeah i see you're saying hold on i think and i think he wants right next to the uh the house correct Keith it's approximately well let's right up to the house yeah so yeah so it's much bigger than a parking space yeah so if if if your intention is that for not be one because of the egress from the uh deck because you're building that that stairway off of the deck to the that area what are you going to do to keep it from becoming a parking space i don't think the intent is to do it to do anything with it um so it then becomes i mean if the board if the board has a preference i mean we can certainly you know add a condition we we didn't hadn't considered it really quite frankly well if it's something we need to consider because if you're saying you have four parking spaces and you actually have five then that's different than what your well regardless in your management plan or well well no because regardless of of what's physically there on the ground um we are only permitting four spaces so each unit will only be entitled under the lease to two cars per unit um and that's something that's just gonna you know we'll have to be enforced via the you know property management the resident manager okay well can we make that a condition then uh that it be sure that it is not a parking space and that it uh needs to be managed that it uh the parking is not permitted there because otherwise i mean it's there it's somebody's going to park there um it's as i mentioned it's certainly it's not a concern for us but if it's a concern for the board we're certainly you know open to it okay then on on p1 uh which it is existing for plans on the basement plan on the south side uh it shows a window toward the west area which is to remain uh with the changes but it does not show the small window that's further toward the east side i'm looking at this sorry keep can you say uh can you repeat that so i can pull it up p1 that's p2 basement yeah so you have a window on the south side of the building you have a a window uh toward the west which is to remain but there's a window toward the east which is not indicated on the plan um i will let josh speak to uh to that window in the plans okay um so i'm i'm not following exactly which window doesn't exist is it this one no no this let me do this again oh sorry yeah the south side of the building toward the west is this window that is to remain when the door egress is put in but there is a small window which i observed when we were there that is on the eastern part of the south side outside of its bedroom well it's seven there aren't eight bedrooms there now there are only six so that would be i don't know three four five bedroom five i guess uh but it's listed as bedroom seven that's incorrect uh so that window isn't indicated on this plan nor is it indicated on p2 which is the uh floor plans uh for the uh renovations i don't i isn't it there i don't think there's a window over there i have some pictures i saw it and josh do you want to pull up the picture so we can actually see which you know so you can physically see which window we're talking about because i know we do have part of the reason i'm talking about this because we weren't able to go inside so right we couldn't really get a full understanding of what that inside the inside of that building is especially the basement so i need to know what that window is and i mean you're right um i have a picture and that i'm looking at there is a window in that bedroom it's a small basement window uh that was probably there originally it would just be used for well my understanding would be that's the window that does not provide egress so that that's why you need to put the door in on the south side anyway i don't believe that needs that needs to be on the floor plan and it needs on p1 it needs to be indicated on p2 if it's being removed that needs to be indicated as well or if it's remaining that needs your um josh just so i'm is that where the the new egress is going i'm just curious if we can go back to that picture i mean we should we should update the plan i'm just uh give me a second um just give me a second uh because it's in my email um oops wrong sorry give me a moment so uh this is nothing's rotated so bear with me so why don't this is something that i think we can probably resolve by having a plan that accurately reflects the plan yeah we don't i don't think we need to discuss this here why don't we have why don't we that is part of what we need is we need site plans we'll need an actual floor plan we'll need the what the changes that Keith that mr. Langsdale represented we need to have that and that will help us to make a decision right and and the elliptical of course updated as well yep right is that satisfactory is that satisfactory mr. Langsdale yeah for that that's that's fun yep okay now the other thing is they're asking for a waiver of lighting plan there are now uh three areas that have lights on them uh the the west side which is the front door there's a light there that's a carriage style light on the north side there are two spotlights um on the east rear elevation there is a light fixture above uh on the it's attached to the upper part the the first floor yeah above the concrete and it's it's i don't know what it is but it's upside down um then there is the light proposed for the new egress so that'll be four place four light areas all of which need to be uh dark sky compliant so so the light will include the light in the east rear elevation right now is would be at least as far as i could tell because once again we didn't have full uh access but as far as i can tell the light that's there now would be somewhere close to the floor of the deck so it has to be moved for one correct but it has to be dark sky compliant and just just so i'm clear um because obviously our intent had only been to replace oh i'm sorry if if you're you're coming out so i wasn't sure if you were done or not key yeah well all i'm saying is that because of that because you're applying for a special permit to make these changes part of that has to be a lighting plot and we have to not only see where they're going to go but what they are what your proposal is for those light changes sure so i i know i'm more than happy to provide the board with uh with fixture cut sheets um you know we can certainly just you know pick the lights that we choose to use um and provide that to the board i think what um a few things one um i think originally our intent had had been obviously not to to change the lights that were already in existence there but if if the board's uh position is that all the lights need to be made dark sky compliant we're more than happy to do that uh and we're happy to provide you with the fixture cut sheets um we can do that you know we can sit down this week and pick some lights um the i guess my when i request the waiver i guess specifically my concern is um you know i'm more than happy to show you where on the buildings those respective lights would go i think uh by weighing of requesting the the waiver specifically what we were looking for is a waiver submitting the the photometric light plan and the you know the whole the nine yards so i mean we're more than happy to provide fixture cut sheets as well as show the elevations with where the you know those lights would be i think the the intent behind the waiver was was more of the to avoid the larger scale analysis plan all projects right well i we can certainly make that a condition of the of anything with the special permit okay um so are there any other questions from the board members what i'd like to do is is wrap up board member questions any responses opens up to the public if there's any and then again uh since we're getting on nine o'clock which is time when we typically wanted to stop this um we have in the past nine it's been the uh ending hour um we do have one we can see if we can get to our rules and regs quickly if not we'll we'll suspend those as well but i'd like to suspend this uh continue it on to next week with the the information that we need to get from the applicant just at a at a meeting and not at a hearing go ahead marina just real quick i dave with skeptics has a comment if you don't mind yeah actually a couple of questions um in mostly in regards to that parking space that keith was talking about where's the trash going to go i don't know if that's been discussed and then when that deck goes in place um people will need a pathway around it to get up to the parking lot and since we don't have a site plan i don't know where that is what that path or that elevations like the uh the incline if there is any um also lighting because that deck is going to cast a shadow you light above the deck you light below the deck but you're not going to have anything towards the stairs in that area so do we need a lamp post or is that would that light that's maybe on that uh north side be enough i don't know so um that's just some of the things i was thinking about and then real quick i had one more to echo off of dave is i did see where the trash is it is in the sort of fifth parking spot if you will stop calling it the parking spot yeah right stop the parking spot i do have photos it does not look um it does not look uh enclosed and i um that might be something that the applicant might want to just want to consider what we want to think want to think about and we and we might be able to tie those two those two things together the the parking issue with the with the trash receptacles so um just to eliminate the concern there um because it clearly it is a concern um so noted um and we will we'll certainly update um you know the lighting in the site plans accordingly okay may i step in a second one last yes mr langfield given this picture that's up right now that marina has put up you have there four trash receptacles and two bicycles so instead of a parking area for a car why don't you put a bike rack there along with uh an enclosure for these receptacles and that way you'll you'll have uh if any of your tenants well obviously some of them ride bicycles you'd have a place for their bicycles to be stored definitely not a bad idea i and i will speak with uh with with lc um about potential solutions for that that spot because that is a good one okay are there any other questions i guess um mr axel i guess i just want to know with um you know just you know the the fifth parking spot that we're no longer referring to it as the the place formerly known as the fifth parking spot um before we we we have these guys come back with any sort of plan is it that we want it mandated in what they're bringing back that it's specifically not going to be used as a parking lot because i know they're required to have four they have four and if they have more space where let's say i don't know it's one of the tenants birthdays and they're gonna have a bunch of people come in and park and blocking people in like are they going to be do we want to put any type of stipulation where they'd be in quite violation and not not to cut you off quite frankly we're not concerned about the parking because as it was mentioned there's there's more than adequate on-street parking um you know particularly where this is the last house on the street and there's the entire you know drainage basin lot leading up to route nine that's totally you know empty street as well so i mean if if the concern is is with people utilizing as a spot i mean from a parking standpoint if the if there are guests you know we feel that there's adequate space um you know in and around the location um to you know adequately meet any of those needs okay yeah i just i bring this up because my my concern is i don't feel we should be more burdensome than we need to be if it's not necessary for us to put a stipulation on what that spot is used for because we know we're not it's not zone specifically for parking um they have the four spots that that meet our criteria so i just don't know if it's that's something we really want to to push on or not or if it would just be better to just kind of let it i think but i think in this case we should let the the applicant come back to us with what they want but they want and then we can review that and see if it meets our um meets our requirements but i understand the point you're making there's no reason to deny them an additional parking spot if they really want one on their land a fifth parking spot as i mentioned we're not we're not concerned but there are you know the trash should be screened so those are things that we will have to address so all right good enough good point any other if there are no other questions from members of the board um marina is there anybody from the public that um is attending that wants to make a point if there is anybody from the public grab raise your hand or indicate that you wish to speak to this i see no hands being raised i see no hands so um what i'd like to do is to um continue this meeting until the july 9th and at that time ask the applicant to come back with a full site plan come back with the um the lighting cut sheets come back with a plan for the site plan should also incorporate what you want to do with the um enclosure and if you want to add a bike rack or not or however you want to deal with that formula what's the place formerly notice parking spot five and also to have your plan reflect the actual work to be done both in cheer on the interior and the exterior so that would be um what i i think those would be the requirement that are the requirements that i think we should you should have for um next meeting and with that i would move that we continue this um hearing until july 9th is there a second second is there any discussion on that motion all and if not um roll call vote i vote i i miss parks how do you vote i mr maxfield how do you vote i mr langsdale hi mr omira miss miss omira you're you're muted miss omira can you unmute me maureen oh we heard you just say i hi all right motion passes we will continue this until july 9th thank you very much thank you all very much have a good night thank you um thank you normally we like to close these off to members of the board i want to say normally like we like to close these off at nine o'clock at night um that's a long time we're in it's uh this was a particularly um detailed um meeting i would like to get people's impression if they have a lot of questions about the rules and regulations we can go over them we have johnson with john witton on the line with this he's an attorney that's helped draft this i have reviewed these i have looked at the changes um they are i think they are minor except for the large change in adding the all the procedures for the comprehensive permit but um if people have a lot of if they'd want to discuss this and want to spend an hour on this i would suggest we move this to another date but if you don't have a lot of questions if you aren't if this isn't something that you think we need to discuss uh and you'd like to approve these rules and regulations that's would that would be my preference and we can ask john to do a very very brief um um summary of the of the significant changes in the rules and go from there so first of all i'd like to get a sense of the board and if we we're going to wait a long it's going to be a long meeting then we'll postpone it if it's going to be a short meeting i'd like to have him uh go through the the summary mr mr maxfield i um i mean my personal preference is i uh i've read through it i haven't gotten as much of the chance to go through it as thoroughly as i would have liked to um so before we even get started if other people are feeling maybe we want to postpone this before we get into a big discussion about it um i'm in favor of that being said i know we have john witton here and if we have to then make him come back another day and we just want to go through it i could go either way but if it's not difficult to postpone it that would be my preference if it is i'm still ready to move forward on it nonetheless i mean my preference would be to let's so you don't you would like to have more information but you don't know that you have a lot of concerns at this point because you need more information that's okay all right um any other any of the board members have concerns grade concerns about the regulation rules and regulations as submitted to you last week so i think we'll take barring that i think we'll take the opportunity for john witton to go through briefly the the changes and then there are there's one item i'd like to discuss at the end of this in the comprehensive permit but there's not much else that i think needs to be um that i need to address i think john can address the major changes thank you mr chairman i'm on my cell phone can everyone hear me okay can you hear me okay mr chairman yes we can okay great thank you good evening everyone so the um the most significant changes to this really second round of proposed changes is to strengthen the regulations so that the board can require the submission of materials that the board needs to review a comprehensive permit so that the board can be clear to the applicant what the requirements are for waivers and so that the board can make clear to the applicant what's required in terms of the pro forma review there's a lot more detail in the draft regs than that but those are really kind of the macro concerns that i believe the draft addresses uh plan requirements filing requirements issues relating to waivers and then issues relating to the pro forma um you know on a scale of one to ten ten being very aggressive one being not aggressive at all the draft regs are right in the middle i think they're five or six they're consistent with regs from across the commonwealth they are a big step forward i think to the regs that you currently have um and in terms of really laying out the framework for what an applicant needs to do for filing with the board of appeals so mr chairman i you know i know the hour is late and i know the board's been at this since six o'clock so i let me stop there and i can address any specific questions that you might have um however you'd like to proceed well uh john why don't i do this i will run through what i see or sort of procedural changes as to how the board itself operates and they're minor but i think that would be important to advise the board about and then to the extent that people want to talk about the um the public interface the and the the biggest places in the conference of permit um we can talk about that as well but i i think it's just important to go through the the way the board operates itself there's only a couple of changes a few changes the first is we delete the requirement that there's a majority vote a unanimous vote needed to uh for plans signs and other items as a condition of a public meet as a condition of a special permit at a public meeting and we just make it a four vote majority in effect i think this was a a carryover from when we had a three-member board there's it seems to me that since we use a four vote majority to make a decision on a on a special permit i don't know why we need to have a the unanimous vote to approve signs and other items which are set as a condition of a special permit a special permit i think a four vote is consistent with other other things um mr chair if you don't mind um clarifying what section uh where that is what page oh my goodness you are um i i have just found it um so people um referring to it i'm not working you know marina i'm not working off the one you sent because i i have not used um track changes for about 15 10 years and it's so much it's so different yeah i can't really figure out okay all right well we'll try your best uh we'll try uh the best so what he's referring to is on page three the last the last line of page three yeah that's on this one too it's the last line of page three a board may see clarifying information from the public if it's necessary and we delete the unanimous vote of all members of the board is necessary for approval of signs and other items required by condition attached to the existing permit that's the first one um we make the same same change we go from a unit this one i'll try to give you the page marina on page this one deals with the um approval of an extension of an extension request so an applicant has submitted an extension request i think that's is that on page seven it's on page seven correct on page seven an applicant go ahead marina oh just under the section that's that's entitled extension can you hear me now yes okay my we've even gone through my earphones no it's gone it's a long time um so what we've done here is is if an applicant has extended extended an written agreement to um extend the the approval asked for asked for an extension request i see no reason why that has to be a majority a unanimous vote a four-member vote seems to make sense again which is what we take for everything it's no reason that we require a super majority because an applicant and we agree wants to extend a application um another change on how the board operates is we have inserted language that requires that any material that is considered non that material that is substantive a change before meeting any material that would reflecting a change in plans reflecting a change in in any material change in the application be permit be submitted to the board seven days before the meeting so that we're not caught in the situation where we were getting stuff at the last minute and things like site plans or management plans or lighting plans are submitted the last day and i think that we should i think seven days gives us time in the staff time to look at it review it and for us to consider it i do for it does provide that we can deem these to be non-material and that's at the chairman's that the chairman's judgment but so i i don't want to have something little i don't want to hold up a permit but i think for something material to the application we should have seven days of noticing and to view the property view the material and those are the major changes in how the board operates itself that that are contained in these these rules and ranks any questions or concerns about that from members of the board if not um john do you want to briefly describe it's too long to describe i think the whole comprehensive permit procedures and what we can ask for but i think if you give a an overview of why the requirements are as specific as they are and how that helps not only us but it helps the applicants to know what the comprehensive permit what could be required everything that's on this on the the conference permit procedures is something we could do without this we can this is all within our power currently what we've done here is is you know codified what i think this is right and correct me if i'm wrong john we can quote we've we've quote um codified what we want to have from the the applicant and what our what our rights are as a board to ask for information that that's absolutely right mr chairman in the thing about the conference of permit process is most of the time the applications are very preliminary more often than not incomplete and the board really has its back against the wall from the get go so the these draft regs put the applicant on notice that these are the minimum requirements that the board needs to adjudicate the conference of permit they're not onerous they're consistent with your normative special permit filing requirements or planning board filing requirements but they're specific and they go into some level of detail as the chair says yes you could require these things anyway case by case but it's always better for the applicant and for the public to lay it out it's part of a regulatory process here's what needs to be filed from day one so you're not stuck asking for things six months or six weeks into a project so the filing requirements are pretty standard i don't consider the draft overly aggressive the board will be very specific on different cases a rental project for example versus a for sale project big versus small but i do think you want to have details in the application requirements and that's what the draft does i would open it up to questions or to a sense of the board um if you have specific questions about any of the either the operational or the comprehensive permit changes please raise them now or the sense of the board is that you really want to spend more time on this and spend uh and move it to another meeting we can do that as well but mr chair uh christine brestrup the planning director is indicating she has a comment go ahead christine thank you mr chair i just have a comment on page 14 the beginning of the comprehensive permit description under introduction and i objected to the language in the first line of that of the second paragraph there so page 14 is this the right page is this the page you're looking at christ no page 19 oh 19 yeah article four additional rules and regulations for governing the filing of applications for comprehensive permit there you go that um think language so i think um taking out the words comprehensive permit would solve my objection the thing is that i i am reluctant to say that the town encourages comprehensive permit applications so if we took out the words comprehensive permit and just left the town encourages applications for housing or mixed use developments that serve low moderate and middle income households i would be happy with that but i'm a little nervous about saying that the town encourages comprehensive permit applications even though i know that the intent of the language here is to say we encourage applications for housing and mixed use that serve low and moderate income but i don't want to encourage a lot of comprehensive permit applications to come here come to us so that would be my suggestion i think that's good suggestion christine miss rest of the suggestion there's also another um there's another question that we have that we that we want to have for board discussion and john this is one at the end of it's on page 27 i think it's the one where the board shall upon separate motion and seconded prior vote approve of any non-residential or structure within a comprehensive permit application prior form and vote of no fewer than four members so so this you know i think would be helpful is explain the situation of this that this applies to we have a oh i'm sorry this is this is not the one i'm is this the one that deals with um yes this is the one with non-residential use yeah explain the situation we're facing here so the comprehensive permit statute deals with housing and only housing when the regulations were revised about 10 years ago 12 years ago they included a provision that allows a comprehensive permit to be issued that included non-residential use the regs say that the non-residential use has to be ancillary to the residential use but of course that is a very subjective statement so i suggested this language for the board's consideration that if the board wanted to allow a non-residential component within a comprehensive permit that it would do so but the quantum of vote would be higher just to provide the town slightly greater protection because while a comprehensive permit clearly is going to need waivers from zoning none of us ever expected that that would include a non-residential component a retail store for example so my suggestion here is if the board wanted to include 6.10 that you would include it with a higher level of or a higher quantum of vote requirement and that's that's really all you don't have to do that right now it's a majority vote of the board so three out of five this would make it four out of five more like a special permit and my only support for that is because it's so extraordinary to consider that a comprehensive permit not only is asking for waivers from zoning density for residential use but could also allow a board of appeals to grant or retail use within you know mixed use within the the residential use so that that's really the theory and no nothing more than that and john is this only in the case of a non-residential use in an area where there can be a non-residential use without already without a special permit being necessary yeah this is the case where non-residential uses could be approved by without a special permit by right yes right and we would be saying non-residential uses in this district need a four-person vote of the board in order to permit it is that correct correct is part of a comprehensive permit that's part of a comprehensive permit and in addition a comprehensive permit is three for approval takes three votes not four votes by state law correct that's correct that's correct so this is a again a super majority for something that in my opinion a super majority for something that is otherwise provided for by right and that is the and i'm wondering i'd like to throw that open to the board for their for their discussion my my inclination is to not have this section in there but i would like to throw it open to the board because non-residential uses sometimes will be controversial we may want to have a higher standard okay i i guess i'm a little confused uh this section that uh mr witton has proposed to put in with the no fewer than four voting members that gives us more control right it does it it gives no are you saying that you don't think this should be in there well i'm saying that this only applies in a case where non-residential use is already allowed by right and it seems odd to me that we are going to we are going to condition a non-residential use in a comprehensive permit by a super majority vote of the board when it is something that could be done without having any any kind of permit at all and that seems to me to be i don't understand the the theory behind that and that's why mr let me know it's a very fair question let me let me just take this a step further so yes it's true i could build this non-residential structure and use today by virtue of just getting a building permit but in this context under 6.10 it would be part of a comprehensive permit where i come to the board for let's say 100 dwelling units and on the ground floor i'm going to have 3000 square feet of retail space i could get that retail space by right but i can't get the comprehensive permit by right so when i want to mix these two uses 6.10 would come into play it is true that i could apply for the retail use today and then three months later apply for a comprehensive permit around it but that's unlikely to happen we don't typically see that kind of segmentation so the the reason for kind of raising the bar is because i am coupling two uses that one allowed by zoning but the other at least in terms of density not allowed by zoning so it gives the board of appeals kind of a superintendency over the whole thing that that that's really the purpose Mr. Chair uh Ms. Brestrup has a comment Ms. Brestrup so the reason that you might want to support this is because there might be something about the non-residential use that requires a waiver so say they wanted to um you know have more lot coverage or they wanted to have less of a setback or you know if the if the non-residential use is on the ground floor of a building that's not complying with the denser the the dimensional requirements you might want to have the ability to have four members voting to allow that to occur because even though the use is allowed in the district it could be that there's an aspect of the waivers that you want to be particularly careful about so i just wanted to point that out uh and Mr. Mr. Barrack yeah uh i i think i agree with with john witton's suggestion i take it that the purpose of section 40b is to encourage affordable housing and if you're including retail space in it that's whatever whether or not it's desirable it's not affordable housing and it seems to me reasonable to require a somewhat higher standard for creating the mixed project than it is for creating the housing that's the purpose of section 40b i think the context that chris that ms Brestrup and mr witton have provided it um changes my thought here a little bit i did not i hadn't thought of it in that way and i just saw it as a limitation on something that would be otherwise permitted but i see this gives us the ability to leverage the comprehensive permit in a way that we otherwise couldn't as a board and i think that does make some sense um and i think your point mr barrack is a good one as well so um i remove my objection to this um and i'm i remove my motion to to delete this section and allow it i would suggest it stays is there any discussion on this section um you did have a ms Brestrup you made a suggestion to move to remove two words and we didn't vote on that but i think that i would move that we accept your deletion of those two words of a comprehensive permit early on and change that um i think we need a as all we need to roll call vote for all this stuff so um from this rest steps motion to delete the words comprehensive permit in the introduction second paragraph introduction of the comprehensive permit section um i would move that is there a second second all those um is there any just for the discussion i'm sorry i just um what was the exact rationale why we wanted to remove that it's because we we just don't want to encourage necessarily comprehensive permits as a way of achieving affordable housing is that the reasoning to remove that line correct by all at chris you mean to speak to that yes please speak to that i think we welcome comprehensive permits in town but i don't think we want to advertise it and this sort of advertises it and um comprehensive permits are really you know a difficult um process to get through and there's often a lot of objection by uh residents and i think by stating by stating we encourage comprehensive permit applications even though that's not the entire meaning of the sentence i think makes us sort of vulnerable to people saying well you said you encouraged these applications so so my preference would be leave out the words comprehensive permit and then just say we encourage applications for housing and mixed use development that serve these populations in general and i think that's enough uh enough of a statement i think we i think we as a border and see how involved in time consuming this comprehensive permit process is i have not been through one but i've talked to people that have and we have a lot of work ahead of us and it's a great it's a great tool that should be used but i don't think we have to as i as miss breast up said i don't think we have to advertise it i think we should i think this achieves our goal i have a basic question here yes mr meadows um you've been referring to four votes as being a majority before as as you look at um article one the definition of the board is five regular and four members which is a total of nine which would mean a majority is five so either we have to change that the definition or we have to change the uh indication of majority of what um so you're talking about section one members and officers yes you have five regular and four associate members and then farther down we describe when the when there's a panel there's a panel of five right i'm talking about in that paragraph it indicates that we the majority and majority it doesn't say majority of the regular members well it says the majority vote is required to adopt or approve business matters covered by this section so so mr chairman maybe i could just throw this out it's an excellent question that the a board of appeals consists of no more than no more than five members and so a quorum of five would be three and by statute a variance in a special permit requires a supermajority vote when the board consists of more than three so a majority vote for a five member board which is what you are even though you have associate members they are not considered part of the board in terms of calculating what a quorum or majority would be so you are always a five member body even though you have four associate members so a majority vote of five would be three and then the supermajority vote for a special permit and the variance would be four and when it's a comprehensive permit it is a simple majority or three would there be something in terms of talking about the the pal the sitting members of the board which are five no matter what their associate members are not you could you could it is not it's not ambiguous to me just because of the way the state statute is written 48 section 12 describes the board of appeals so we we know you know it's the technical term associate members we know that they only get to vote or have their vote count when one of the five regular members is not available so you are a five member body you certainly could put in more detail but i don't i don't think you have mr meadows does that answer your question i think so okay any other questions on the rules and regulations mr beric i i hate to bring this up on page three and i can't find the passage on my screen but i can describe what my concern is there's a list in the list of who has which of butters have to be noted notified it says that an invitation should go to other inter that notice should go to other interested parties with other interested parties not otherwise specified and i'm just wondering if that opens us up at some point to to challenging a decision for not having notified someone who considers herself or himself an interested party but john john witton you could probably clarify whether this is worth worrying about yeah no no it's an excellent question so the phrase interested parties could come out i i think that's in your existing regs um so i just left that alone but you're right it is an ambiguity i would take it out i i think the original intent probably was someone provided the board with a notice please let me know when you have a hearing in this matter but it does it's it's not necessary certainly couldn't take it out can you point me to the the paragraph mr john witton yeah section one under article two mr chairman yeah and it's it's the last sentence 2.2 under public hearings and it's shown on the screen if that's helpful yes that is helpful i mean based on what you described we want to just change that language to say and any parties who have formally expressed interest so that way they would have they've come to us and said they're interested rather than retroactively saying hey i was an interested party and you never contact yeah you could you know it's funny that we're having this conversation because in a sense the world has changed you know so so no one no one gets mailed an agenda anymore um the the board under the open meeting law can choose how it wants to post its agendas so i i wonder whether the board really wants to be bound by that full sentence even i hadn't you know i i didn't want to mess with your existing language on that as far as that went but you know now that we're talking about it uh the paragraph we're looking at that morian has on the screen i that first paragraph last sentence i would suggest delete it um the you know the the the board's going to send the the agenda to the town manager and the building commissioner anyways you don't want to be punished if you if you don't so that this paragraph would end after legal holidays yeah um no i would keep the next sentence unless otherwise stated notification is not required and then delete the next sentence the what i'm highlighting or in gray agenda board meetings and hearing right okay yeah the goal here would be to just make it permissive and not require not a requirement exactly exactly accomplish that by deleting it or by changing the nature of the of the sentence to be a purely permissive sentence yeah i i almost think yeah i almost get rid of it yeah i'd get rid of it you don't you know i can't imagine a court entertaining an appeal because someone forgot to send the agenda to the town manager but why leave that open and miss breast up is there any um thing that in terms of a organizational issue that we why we shouldn't delete this i think it's fine to do good let's do that i have i have a suggestion um okay we need a vote on that don't we yeah so it seems that we have three possible votes that maybe we can absorb into one motion because we have to do the roll call so one being this highlighted one the other would be deleting the two words that said comprehensive permit that chris uh spoke about and then do folks want to vote on make a motion on the section regarding uh non-residential uses which was on paging uh non-residential uses that was the one c was talking about that he withdrew the motion on my correct right now i'm gonna go ahead and uh because i believe there's already a motion to remove um remove those two words uh the motion that steve made earlier which was seconded which we're still actually currently discussing i'm going to move to amend that to also include the removal of that last sentence uh that section one public meetings agendas from board meetings and hearings drawn up distance staff so and so forth sentence town manager building commissioner and your party to also remove uh that sentence as well is there a second to his motion to amend second all right for the discussion on that um yeah are there other well we can dispose of your amendment and then continue to amend miss the the original amendment if we want or we can continue on with a third amendment which is not parliamentary procedure but it would it saves us having to make a bunch of votes so um are there other suggested changes that we can incorporate as an amendment to his amendment i'm not hearing any in that in that event then i will move that we we accept mr maxfield's amendment to the amendment um previously to my amendment do i have a second to that second all i vote any for the discussion i vote i miss parts how do you vote i mr maxfield how do you vote i mr langsdale i miss omira i motion passes now we come to the amendment as amended um um oh sorry oh no no no are there any other amendments that to the to the rules and regulations that people want to consider that we can incorporate into one vote if not oh go ahead miss parks i'm sorry i just want to ask a question i'm sorry it's um i just don't know um can i just say something real quick yeah while you're finding so i'm going to go ahead and delete this accept this deletion if you guys see it wait until we finish the amendment because we just amended the amendment we have one we have a final vote of the amendment oh sorry i thought i thought you approved it sorry sorry we're still as we have we have the amendment the amendment as amended before us got it i just have a question okay and that is under time requirements for use of construction i know that there is a time period by which people must commence construction but is there a deadline by which they must finish it once they've started so excellent question and the board is going to most likely want to put that as a condition permit by permit as opposed to having in your legs i'll tell you just just because it's such an important question and because you have a hearing coming up when a permit is about to lapse the applicants will come in and ask for continuation so the the board can impose a deadline but it 99% of the time is going to get at least petition to be revised so i don't think you need to put it in in the regs uh what marina's showing is that is for uh i think that's for a special permit marina isn't it yeah probably for 48 yeah so it'll be it'll be permit by permit on the conference of permit the statute or the regs take three years but you're gonna want to deal with that case by case okay and i guess i was just thinking about someone who starts a project but doesn't finish it yeah yeah and that's not uncommon and you know certainly that's what we just saw happen starting you know from february to march so the the when the board reviews the conference of permit they'll be bonding or performance guarantee requirements uh they'll be sure any requirements as part of that but yeah you do want to worry about a project that gets halfway completed and then the felfer either goes bankrupt or leaves town um and that's typically done through surety and as a follow-up to that uh tammy um often the board will make it a condition of the special permit for instance that you know from the issuance of the building permit the construction needs to be completed within 24 months or something like that and if not then the applicant needs to come back to a public meeting to um to uh either a public meeting or a public hearing i forget how we do that but um to explain why they need more time i just i've seen deadlines for starting the project i just didn't see deadlines for ending the project um and one other thing was that in the in all of our procedures here do we want to add anything about this unusual circumstance like um about zoom meetings and having to do roll calls and whatnot i didn't see anything for that not that i'm saying we should have it's just just throwing it out you know i'm kind of thinking that we should we're going to experience this for the next couple of months and i think we'll have a better sense of how we should amend our rules and i think we'll have to do it again in the fall and in the winter maybe so i think let's let's spend some time we can go back and reamend these rules again but i think we should gather some experience with it before we put something in uh you know cold hard uh black letter law sounds good okay so we have before us uh the amendment as amended by mr maxfield to amend the rules and regulations um and it's been seconded and there's been discussions now time for a vote on that amended amendment that amendment as amended and there's going to be a roll call vote so i vote i miss parks i mr maxfield i mr langsdale i miss omira i if there are no other amendments discussions or comments i think we've reached the end of the rules consideration of the rules and regulations for the zba um and and if that's the case i move that we adopt these rules and regulations uh for the zba is there a second i can do any further discussion if not this is a roll call vote i vote i miss parks how do you vote i mr maxfield how do you vote i mr langsdale i miss omira i motion passes unanimously thank you all for that uh and thank you john for your help my pleasure thank you all restaurant and miss pollock thank you for a lot of work on these rules and regulations it was um i i can tell you that i spent some time on it they spent a lot of time on it and it's tedious work and they deserve our thanks so thank you and thank you john my pleasure thank you mr john um that comes to the end of the the end of the items on the agenda the only thing left for this meeting is to open it up for public comment for items not on the agenda which we have to do for every meeting and um maureen is there anybody still listening anybody no one zero all right zero there is no public comments at 10 to 10 at night so matt i move we adjourn the meeting of the this meeting is there a second i can do all right um i vote up if no further discussion i vote i miss parks hi mr maxfield hi mr langsdale and so mera hi hi hi thank thank you all we'll try to return to our nine o'clock limit in the future or maybe 9 30 in the future i think that's enough but i appreciate your time patience and all your input for these last three items thank you very much thank you how are you everyone night good night night