 Wonderful. Welcome everybody to the Amherst Design Review Board meeting of March 27, 2023. My name is Erica Zegas and I'm the chair of the Design Review Board and I'm calling this meeting to order at 502pm. The meeting is being recorded and will be made available via the town of Amherst YouTube channel minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022 and extended again by the legislature on July 16, 2022. This design review board meeting will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town's website calendar. The calendar listing for this meeting or go to the design review board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible. After the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call and when I call your name please unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and return to mute. Tom Long. President. Rebecca Lockwood. President. Catherine Porter. Yes, president. Lindsay Schnarr is not present tonight. Erica Zika's present. And we also have Chris Brestrup and Jennifer Mullins from the town. Board members of technical issues arise. We may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak after speaking remember to remove yourself. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment could also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate that you wish to make a comment by clicking on the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you've joined the meeting using a telephone, please indicate that you wish to make comment by pressing star nine on your phone. If you've called on please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the planning board chair and design review board chair. If the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their a lot of time their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Tonight's agenda includes one. DRB FY 2023 number 18, the Amherst bid business improvement district to review the proposed changes to the bolt would walk directory sign. Item two is approval of meeting minutes from February 27 and March 6 2023 general general public comment period and other business, which I propose to be a discussion of renewing terms and term limits. Anybody else has anything to add. All right. Well, let's get started then with number 18. Do we have a representative from the bid in attendance tonight. Here's that we don't I'm just texting Gabrielle. I don't. Gabrielle is in the audience, Jennifer. Oh, she is. Yeah. Oh, I don't she's not coming up for me as an attendee. Oh, there you are. Sorry, Gabrielle. Ignore me. Okay. Good. She's here. Hey. Can you bring her over to be one of us? Oh, okay. One. She is. Hi, how was everybody. Hi. Welcome. Thank you. I had to bring you over to the other side. I'm sorry. It's okay. I like my side. I'm going to stay in the shadows here. So thank you for, for seeing us. And I believe on shirt notice as well. As everybody knows, there's the bolt would walk sign that is sort of strategically placed between the university, the UU church, and the Roberts building that hosts that holds coronation cafe and several other businesses. I'm not sure if I can share my screen. If I can find the image, Gabrielle, I'm happy to. Yeah, that would be great. That would be great. Um, it's been, it's been blank for a very long time. And I have permission from Barry Robert to own the sign to bring the logos and names of the businesses that are sort of right around that. Um, and it would be at the big expense. We're not asking the business to do this, but especially next to Lido who was down that, that walkway. Last, this past summer, I was able to put cafe lights back and forth between the buildings to sort of brighten it and make it a little bit of a safer walkway. And we just, we'd love to see these businesses get a little bit more representation on the street front. There you go. I'm not a graphic designer. But I also, before I pay at Amherst copy to do this for us for real. This is basically the general gist of it. And if the businesses have a proper logo light coordination cafe and Mexico Lido and Tita pocket, we will, we would like to use their logos as you know, that's their branding. Panda East and Paul shoe repair at the moment does not have so we would like to go with a very simple clean and easy to read font for them, but this is basically the general gist of what we'd like to do. We would like to, you know, as we gain businesses, I know that there's a leaf on what was here each also add businesses and you know, let's face it, we do lose businesses over time. If we were to lose a business, we'd like to be able to replace it with the current business that is in that location. Great. And is this, this is a two sided sign. It is would be on both sides. The same exact layout. All right, well I'd love to open it up to DRB members for comment and some guidance in the bid for this effort. Anybody have thought to share. I want to jump in. I see Tom and then Becky will go to Becky. Yeah, I'll go first but I just want to say I mean I support this totally as an idea and getting exposure down that way is super helpful. So I don't really, I mean, obviously this is just mock ups of the logos on there so I don't really have any concerns with it based on the fact that those are the actual logos. I really have no comment in particular on it as it is and then I think it's a great idea to get some representation there. Thanks and Becky. Definitely agree with Tom. It's a really good idea. I guess my question is, is, is this the way it's going to look are you going to do some more design work because I like it. I just suggest on the Mexican leader of sign. If you could just do the logo like coordination. Absolutely will be. I just have a transparent logo for them. Okay, so when we'll be having Amherst copy do the proper design and the proper work and they will all do the same. So that's great. Oh, I see Catherine you have a comment. Yeah. I had to rack my brain I probably walked by this sign as million times and never pay the intention to it now I'm looking at it. And so I had two questions. How many me right now you have a limited number of shops that are in that block so I'm assuming you don't anticipate that there would be so many more that that there wouldn't be room on the sign for another to add another shop or two. I'm not right that this is probably the max maybe room for one more store on this sign, given the way I see the placement of the signs now. And we're building that space for the location that would be going into hair ease. I don't have their logo yet. Yeah, this is, I believe, unless things got chopped up and made smaller and this is what this both would walk fine would be for the The only thing that I would like to see is and again maybe this is in your, your mind is some color in that sign. Given that it's a Mexican restaurant. Is there any possibility. I can't. I can't. Oh, that's what they want. That's what they, they don't want any color in it then is that what you're saying. No, the cornice and cafe and the Mexico Lito logos are both black and white. This is, is that vibrant blue. We could put some. Yeah, we could do some color with Tandy East and Paul shoe repair because at the moment they don't have logos and I don't really think that the shoe repair is about to go get a logo. No. Okay. I had a comment as well about the color I think that Peter pockets pops for a number of reasons one is that it's on the diagonal and that's their logo and that's great. And then the other is that it's the only one in color right now and so I would encourage like all of them to. And sorry, we're delivery is happening and so of course my dog is working. And then just wondering if and I wonder what the other members of the board think about this but thinking about whether there is a hierarchy here or not. I know that the ones that are kind of spanning across without logo but they're just a text kind of pop and I might either. I might think about a six square grid, like a two by three pop everybody in. So we could easily do like panda ease, like, oh, like above each other and Paul should repair above so it's it's square so it's six squares instead of across that that actually would look really good. Yeah, and make that very clean. So that's those are those are my comments is to just kind of even everybody out and not have like one in color and that is my I think having everything in everything in color, or none of them in color is my private comment. And then kind of eliminating hierarchy by going with a grid. So probably put Peter pockets in a, like a bold black with the line that they have the in the center of each letter, we could do that white. I just I need to ask baby and use that that's okay. I don't have that suggestion but I don't speak for the board does anybody else have thoughts on those comments. I think it would look a bit better balanced if there was some cemetery to it. And now that we have new businesses with a little bit looking a little more personality. I sort of, I agree. I think it might be good to reconfigure the with panda and Paul, you know, in their own little box, so the square or whatever. All right. Well then. General appreciation for this. My advice to the bid is to make everything black and white, or find a way to introduce color to each of them and consider a layout with a six square grid. It doesn't work. Sorry if we were able to do that. I want to get this. If you don't know, Amherst copy goes into graduation and we lose like all capacity to get them free for a moment. I'm working on this immediately so if we could redesign this and then maybe email it to the group that it meets the request that you're having today. And not wait a month. My sense is that we're, we're close enough here with these comments. We need to review it again. And timing, sorry. Can I ask for a motion in a second. I move that we. I'm not quite sure that what I mean. Yeah, I'm not sure I can move until. Move the approval of the sign with the recommendations of. Okay, I can move that but then we had all this discussion about the grid and color. Is that part of the motion or is that going to be sort of suggestion outside of the motion. I move that we accept this logo for the Mexican restaurant and that consideration be given to reconfiguration of the. Sign so that every owner has part of a grid and that there should be consideration of color. Tom. Oh, second. All those in favor. Hi. Can I, can I ask one thing, Gabrielle, who does the landscaping under that. Um, Chris Hall. It's in its spring. We have yet to get out with mulch, but it's starting to bloom. And then we usually put two large pots there as well. Okay. Yeah, it's the bid then it or the town takes care of the bid takes care of that. Okay. If you see a flower downtown, it's, it's us. All right. Okay. Sort of bleak right there. I don't know. I think everything looks bleak right now. Maybe I mean, I'm seeing a little sprout. I actually am seeing a little shoots right there. Actually, I have to say this. I think this was two weeks ago. I think it's even gotten a little bit better. All right. Thanks, Gabrielle. Thank you, everybody have a wonderful evening. Thank you. All right. Thank you. That was great. My dogs barked the entire time that was soft. Okay. Moving on to approval of. Meeting minutes. We have March 27 and. February 27 to review. Anybody is everybody had a chance to see them or should I screen share and scroll through. Kevin. You're good. I'm okay. Okay. Great. Well, then we just need a conversation. About. Any changes to the minutes. Or if that's not an issue, then we could have a motion to approve. I move we approve the minutes of news. Of the two minutes. Two dates. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. On second. And thank you. Seconding. All those. And up down. Okay. Any discussion on that? No. Okay. All those in favor of approving those two minutes. Meeting minutes, please raise your hands. We've got unanimous approval. Thank you for writing those up. Chris. Thank you. Thank you. Public comment period. Is there anybody from the general public in attendance this evening? All right. Well, then. Is other business not anticipated. And I thought. Given Chris's. Email. Earlier today that we could have a quick chat about. How long we've all been on the board. You know, I think we just had a couple of questions. And I think we just had. All right. And. Eligibility to renew. Like what do we need to know? I've served. Two terms and I'm willing to. Go for a third. I don't know if we have term limits. Seems like we use. May I speak. Please. So I did consult Angela. Mills upstairs in the town manager's office today about. Restrictions on term limits. Or just term limits. It used to be that you couldn't serve more than two terms, two, three year terms. Because they wanted to give people, you know, time to new people, time to serve. It's not absolutely clear that that's still a policy, although Angela is checking. So. Some of you have served. A long time. Catherine has been on the board since. I think it's been serving all this time. So, you know, Catherine. We would want to know if you. Want to continue to serve and then Lindsay has also been on the board a long time since. Yeah. And the others have been on the board for a shorter time. But their terms are expiring. In 2023. So that's kind of what I know. And people have been asking me, well. I think some, I think Angela has asked some of you already, whether you want to. Re up. So I guess that's the conversation that. It would be great if you could have that conversation. Yeah, we don't need to make everybody commit tonight, but if you do have a strong feeling about it, it'd be nice to hear so that. We can. Start recruiting for here. Yeah. We're. We're knowing that you're going to stay with us. Well, I'm happy to remain, but I did have a question. Maybe Chris, you know, are there. Is there any interest from the general public on joining this board? I don't know what enthusiasm. People are showing for town committees these days. Do we know? I do not know. The town manager's office receives a citizen. Activity forms, I think. And, and I don't know what the status of those is. I do know on the historical commission that we've experienced difficulty in getting members. But that doesn't, that's just that commission. But. Yeah, I mean, my position is tied. Not tied to, but. Is an appointment via. Planning board appointment. So there's that linkage to that. I'm. Still on this fence about whether or not that happens. I have some other obligations and trying to sort out. But I, but you know, I think that decision would probably carry over to this. So I'm, I just need a little time to sort that out. But. But they are connected. So. For me. So it seems that. From everybody on the panel tonight. Sorry. My dogs are still going. That there's either interest or. To stick around. So if. Have confirmation that there aren't term limits. Where we'll all be interested in continuing on. Enough to work with for an office. Yep. I was going to say too, if. It appears that there are people who would like to serve on this board, then probably. I should be the person who. Leaves because I have the longest tenure. So. How many can we have on the board? What's max. Five. Okay. So it sounds like Tom might be a little bit on the fence. And his decision relates to being on the. Planning board. And I hope somebody else from the planning board would come to join us. So good luck with that. Convincing. Yeah. He lives down the street from me. Maybe I could do some kind of. Walk by knock on my door every day. I could bring him food cupcakes or something. All right. Well, thank you everybody for. Sharing your time for the last. Term. And hopefully we'll all be here at the next meeting. Catherine, thank you for offering to continue or to step back. If somebody else. Was waiting in the wing. Yeah, we'll, we'll. I guess hear from. Chris. About that. In the interim. And we'll start all of that out. For now. We have a great group. Okay. Thank you all. Motion to adjourn. I moved up. We adjourned the meeting. Oh, I assume it's unanimous. Okay. Bye everybody. Bye. Thank you. I guess here from Chris. About that. In the interim. And we'll start all of that out. For now. We have. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. Take care.