 All right, the meeting is now being recorded. Thanks. Is the applicant for Sunset Fearing here? Yeah, yeah, we can just call the meeting to order. Okay, great. Hi everybody. Karen you're muted right now. Hello. So I'm calling the meeting to order. I'm Judith. Judith Strayer and as chair of the Amherst local historic district commission. I'm calling the meeting to order at 303 p.m. on Monday, November 7th, 2022. This meeting is being recorded and minutes are being taken as usual. Also in a. In accordance with Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law chapter 30 a subsection 20, sign Thursday, March 12th, 2020. This hearing and meeting is being held virtually using this platform. So I'll now take attendance. As you hear your name called. Please. I mute yourself and answer. Bruce Coldham. Here I am. Greta Wilcox here. Carmen winter. Here. I'm Judy Ratner. Here. Steve bloom. Here. Nicole Miller. And I'm Judy Strayer. I'm here. Do we need, do we have members of the public that will be making comment that we know of? Does not appear. So, no. Okay. Okay. So our first issue is a revisit of. Yeah. Great. So I'll give a little bit of an intro and also invite Tom and Jonathan into the room here. So as. Most of you know the. Local historic district reviewed and issued a certificate of appropriateness for this. Project at the corner of sunset. Have and fearing street in December of 2021. Hi, Tom. The project has subsequently gone through the whole ZBA zoning board of appeals review process. And like any. Relatively complicated development project, there's been some, you know, changes over made to the project over the past. Just under a year at this point, 11 months. So the applicants. One of the conditions in our certificate of appropriateness. If you remember 11 months ago, the, one of the conditions was that the applicants to return to the commission after the zoning board of appeals process to review. Any, any modifications made to the plan set that was submitted. In December. And so that's what we're doing today. And you should have all received in the packet. So we have a, a kind of annotated drawing that shows the modifications that were made, but we'll run through those today. And just as kind of a reminder about what kind of your purview is today, the. You're deciding on whether the changes are minor in nature. And kind of keeping in spirit with the original certificate of appropriateness that was issued. And, and the. You know, design intent. And then, you know, there is some room if the applicants are agreeable, if there's, you know, slight modifications to be made. You, we could, you know, consider looking at those now. And then if for whatever reason, any of the changes rise to the occasion of being really, you know, so. So significant that there's no resolution today. There could be a requirement for a new application to be submitted, but. So that's the goal for this afternoon's meeting and Tom and Jonathan, if you have anything to add, feel free. No, I think, I think that was great. For the record Tom Reedy attorney with bacon Wilson. Out of hammer bacon Wilson and Amherst here with Jonathan Salvan from Q and riddle. To discuss what we think are minor changes. I think Ben did a great job giving. The background that I mean, most of you remember, we were here last year, so it's cool. We went through. So on board of appeals approval, we in fact receive the approval. The past the appeal period, I think. You know, the, this is a Barry Roberts project to his credit. I think he did a really good job of working with the neighborhood. Particularly to save one of the trees. To save the houses. And I think to ultimately have a really good project. So Jonathan, I'll turn it over to you and let you walk through. The changes, which we think. Are in the spirit of what your certificate of appropriateness was. And so we would ask at the end of this, just to find them de minimis and allow us to move on. So, but that'll turn it over to Jonathan. Everyone hear me. I would like to share my screen. So let's see if this is going to work. Okay. Set up for that. Can you all see the image of the, of the six buildings that will be on the, the site? I can. Yes, great. So the image that you're seeing at the moment, this is, this is the sort of view from above that, that was presented about, you know, 11 months ago or, or so. I've, I've tried to do a side-by-side comparison, noting items that have changed from, from a year ago to now. And so I'm not going to scroll down an image here. This image was created based upon the, the final kind of approval. I think I should say here is try not to pay attention to the, to the trees because we, I didn't keep the landscaping up and if this is really to focus on the architecture and try to, you know, focus on what's changed. So there's what you're seeing in the way of the trees and the landscaping does not necessarily reflect what was ever, what was in the, the zoning approval drawings. They were much more detailed. There were fences as a whole program of outdoor space in the back, but to focus on changes. One of the big changes is this drive-off sunset was eliminated. There's just simply a kind of fireplace and fire truck turnaround. I hope you can see my, my cursor too as I pointed things and let me know if you don't. And I'm just going to kind of walk through the buildings from A through F. So starting at A, one of the things that was missing from our initial presentation were some of the trim that would actually be put on the building, such as corner boards. And so now building A plus all the, the other buildings were shown with their full trim packages. Both A and B and for that matter, D, which is back here. These are duplex buildings with two single family units in one building. And the primary change was it seemed better to group a series of windows here on the side that corresponds to the, the kind of dining space as opposed to the divided up window that we were showing previously. So I'm just going to flip back. We had previously separated windows. It worked better for the kitchens and, and, and for the spaces inside to group them as a triple window. Okay. Moving to building C. This is a multi-unit building with two four bedroom units sort of off the front here on the left-hand side of the, the building and then a three bedroom unit here at the corner, kind of facing our view. And so that's a change from last time previously as I flipped back the, all the unit types were the same. There was more similarity between the two sides of the building, although they weren't exactly the same. The other changes we did show sort of a dormer here or actually a bay here at the, the second floor. It wasn't doing a lot of advantage force in the floor plan. So that got simplified in that area. Jonathan, can you toggle back? Sure. Yeah. In the, in the previous view, there's, I have a few coming up where it's clear. It was kind of obscured by the trees a year ago. Thank you. But we can, we can see that clearer in one of the, the subsequent ones. Okay. Moving back with D we talked about, because the changes are like A and B. E is a rather large change. It was a multi-unit building like C or similar to C. So I'm going to flip back. As you can see, there was kind of three bays along the front. This was scaled back to a building that has the same massing as the, as the ABD buildings. In fact, both E and F now have the same massing. So we're going to look at this from a different angle, unless folks want to pause with a question. Okay. So another one of the images that we showed last time was kind of a street view. Standing sort of at the corner of sunset and fear and kind of looking at the, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, standing sort of at the corner of sunset and fear and kind of looking both up sunset and into the site somewhat. So this again was the, the original image as presented a year ago and scrolling down, oops, that's not right too quickly, there we are. two split windows. Same thing happened in building B, but it's kind of obscured by the plantings on building B. And then again, just trying to highlight that change to the three bedroom unit in building C. Again, the same process. This is the image that was shown a year ago of primarily the building C unit. Here you've got a better view of that bay at the second floor. And then scrolling down one more, there we go. So the change in the fenestration here at the top floor. And I should, this is detailed enough for you that you can distinguish some of the changes in. We vary the way the light pattern works in the windows so that all the buildings don't have the same light pattern. That's what this note is kind of referring to. So here we have kind of a two over two expression on this building, whereas the A and B buildings have a six over one. And we varied some of the details like the size of the louver in addition to making that change to the three bedroom unit here at the end. That is in brief, the changes. And I'd gladly answer any questions that folks would have. Anybody have any questions? Nancy? So could you just orient me? How do you come into these units? Where's the driveway? Sure. Let me go back to the overview just, there we go. So there's a drive that it's, oops, let's go to the, at the right one? Correct one. Give me a minute. There we go. There is a drive off Fearing Street. There were two existing driveways into the two properties that make up this development. One was approximately where we were showing a drive a year ago in this location. And then there's another one on the right hand side that comes off Fearing Street. And the primary or the access to the site is off Fearing Street in the approved zoning, zoning board approved drawings. This drive has been eliminated. There's a little kind of T-shaped fire truck turnaround in this place. But at the street, there won't be this curb cut. And the parking for these units will all be in that central area between the six houses? Yes. Thanks. Any other questions? Yeah, this is Steve. Is there a view of what will be seen on Fearing? I do not have that view today. I think we may have had some elevation views that show the two end units. You'll primarily see the end of the A unit and the F unit, which if I scroll the right one, both have approximately this elevation. Jonathan, let me try to share my screen for a moment. If you don't mind. Yeah, let me stop. Hold on one second. Hope you got it. I just stole it from you. No offense. Steve. So here's, so these are the updated ones. These are with all the changes with the appropriate landscaping, with the retention of the tree that currently exists at the corner of Fearing and Sunset. And so this is that one access way off of Fearing in essentially the same location as it currently exists. I can try to, I've got some other renderings. This is one from inside the site towards the back and maybe what I can do is, I don't want to make anybody ill, but okay. So this is that overview, right? So here is that what Jonathan was talking about, how that no longer goes all the way up. Access comes in here, fire truck turnaround to allow them to get in, back up and then leave the site if they needed to. Sidewalk continues along the entirety of the front. You've got the landscaping in the front of these units. You've got landscaping in the rear of these units, parking here. We also, we've added a LA, I think landscape architects call it some sidewalk stairs to get back so that the folks here and here can either go, this is a completely accessible path so that someone in a wheelchair could get all the way back to this area where we have the community gardens and the play area in the back. So then this is just turning it 90 degrees. I can continue to, this is the front, you've got the gates, the landscaping that are being proposed. This is in that back parking lot all the way to the south looking at the university towers. The university towers look a lot better in those pictures. And they do it real well. I wish they would. That we can't fix for you. We're doing our best. This is on sunset, this is on the east side of sunset. So this is that third unit. This is where the driveway used to be, but you'll see that it's just sidewalk all the way down. This is essentially from the northwestern area. This is looking back at the back of the building. This is looking back at the community garden. I'm at the play area, yeah, about where the ramp is. This is, again, on the northwest early side, looking back at the structures, same thing from the west, looking back at the structure. This is that photo rendering that I first showed you. This is from the southwest looking into the site. This one is, this is that allay that I talked about. So this is in the parking area from the play areas here. The community garden is there. This is an aerial view of the same aerial view. This is another one from Fearing. So you'll see, and I believe these are hollies. I think one of the requests on the zoning board of appeals was to make them a pollinator species. So we've got pollinators inside the site, but we said, sure, we can do that. So this is what you're gonna see. And we've talked to UMass about this as well. And then this is just a little further up. I'm happy to keep going, but I think you get the sense of- Sure, thank you. Sure, they're looking to do. Thank you. Does anybody else have any questions? I see Bruce's hand. Sorry, Bruce. Well, I'm always a fan of taking all questions of clarification before we get into commentary. It seems as though that's happened. So I wasn't really asking a question so much as making a comment. It seems to me that this project, the design of this project has improved, has evolved positively on its trip through the various permitting agencies that you've visited in the last 10 months. So, and that design evolution is something I think this commission should be educating itself to understand and appreciate because we will always be the first, well, I guess I don't really know that, but it appears to me that we will likely always be the first cab off the land use regulatory ramp rank. So we should get used to watching and how complex projects like this evolve as they move forward. So I think, yes, there has been an evolution. My personal opinion is that it's a positive evolution. I've always been used to because of previous experience on planning boards and so forth to look at the minimus changes as being actually fairly small as well as the minimus. But I think these are, I'm not a lawyer, of course. So I'm imagining that I have to understand that the legal notion of the minimus doesn't necessarily mean small and barely noticeable because clearly there are some changes here that are not small and they are definitely noticeable. But I think that they're in keeping with the spirit that which the design was originally presented to us and which we engage with and on which I think we based our certificate of appropriateness, I think that the removal of that driveway on Sunset is a good thing. I guess we accepted it initially partly because that wasn't our purview to be looking at driveways quite so much. I mean, I suppose yes we could but there were driveways all up and down the street. So another driveway there was not inconsistent and arguably was consistent with the streetscape. But I think for the purposes of this development, it is probably improved by not having it there. Jonathan, as I understand it, the bulk of the paved connection which went between the street and the rear parking has been retained for a fire truck turnaround, is that correct? Yeah, there's a piece that's long enough to facilitate that turnaround. I suspect that it was not just my but the landscape designers and civil engineers assumption that the town would initially through the fire department request both of those drives and we were pleasantly surprised when they suggested that we could reduce to one. Well, my guess is that depending on who lives in those houses and what their kids are, if they have kids and so forth that turnaround would turn into a very nice half court basketball, but I guess if you're not gonna put a, you're gonna let that evolve rather than promise anybody that they will be there disturbing their peace or will be there giving their kids that's something to do outside the house. I think the variations to the massing and so forth in my view, either neutral or positive and the change to the large, the central unit that the rear is probably the thing that is the biggest candidate for questioning whether it's de minimis or not. My view is that it is in keeping with this challenging proposition of trying to put a certain number of units at scale into this site and the number of units. And I know when you first came to us, I think you had fewer units than in conversation with us. I don't know whether we were triggered it or what, but it happened during the course of your meeting with us, you I think increased the number of units and I think we all thought that was an improvement. So that's unchanged. So I think changing the mass of that one, particularly since it's to the rear and not on the street is also in my view, I think, de minimis. So my comment then is that I think I would support a proposition that these are de minimis as far as the spirit and the original application is concerned. And I'll leave it at that for the moment because others may or may not agree with what I just said. Anybody else like to comment? I myself will comment that I do think the changes are well done. And I like the smaller massing of the central building in the back as well very much. Greta. I also really like the moving of the driveway. I think that's a nice change. Any other comments or questions before we... Karen's got a hand. Well, Karen, sorry. Karen, I should say. Yes, I'm very pleased. I think this is kind of the thing that we were looking for. I think it is going to appeal to young families and professionals and students and will be a nice addition at the end of sunset. So I'm very pleased. Thank you. Are we ready to... Well, that's what my hands for. Oh, your hand? Okay. I was going to move... Let's see what the frame of that... Move that the commission finds the changes submitted in the final design. And I guess you would cite the documentation numbers and dates. Though significant in appearance are considered de minimis insofar as they accord fully with the original spirit of the approved project. The project has approved. Ben, does that cover it? Yeah. Yeah, I think that works. Would somebody like to... Second that? Karen? A second. Thank you. Okay. Can we vote now? Yes. Okay. Bruce Coldham? Hi. Rita Wilcox? Yes. Karen Winter? Yes. Nancy Ratner? Yes. Nicole Miller? Yes. Steve Bloom? Yes. Judy Strayer? I also vote yes. So... Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Jonathan. I'll follow up through the open guff portal and you should be able to get your building permit now. So that sounds good. Perfect. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Thank Barry for his work in moving those houses around. I know house number two is way over near Linda Manor, I think. So it's a long way from home. It is. But I'll stand there for a while. Yeah. I'm sorry. Or just there. Okay. So long. Okay. Great. Thanks everyone. You may have noticed just to clarify. You may have noticed that they, there's been some earth moving over there already on sunset fearing. They have a, they received a conditional permit just to start pouring the foundations, but they weren't going to start building the actual structures until they received this approval. So they've, that's just what they were doing there now is the foundation work, but now they can get their final building permit through this process. So. Yeah. Nice landscaping. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I think the ZBA spent our, maybe Karen might have been there, but they spent hours and hours talking about hollies versus Arbivite. And I know they finally settled on holly, holly shrubs. So that's the evolution of the zoning board. Yeah. Arbivite user hollies in 30 years. Exactly. That's progress. Yeah. Great. So I think our next item was Steve, you wanted to. Yes, I wanted to show you some things that I've done on the possible LHTC expansion study. I created two files. I don't know how to get to them. One, I guess is of materials and one is pictures. Ben, can you bring them up or. Yes, I can do that. Let's start with the pictures. Yeah. Just so people can see. Steve, I think I noticed that. There was a duplicate in there. Yeah. I fixed that. Yeah. Yeah, I sent it on to the second batch. I don't know if Ben added it or not. Yeah, I think it was three, 14. I didn't see it when I looked. Yeah. Yeah. No, I sent it on. So I don't know if it's there or not. I don't know if it's there as well. I don't know if they're. There. Anyway, so you can just. I took photographs. There's 20 houses under consideration. And I took pictures of all of them. And so you can, you know, you guys are all familiar with them. That's St. Bridgets. So you can avail yourself of those. Can I just make a comment, Steve? Sure. One thing that was. Three 46 had been added. To it. It's like a kind of a small building behind. Three 36. Okay. I didn't know that. Yeah. Look at that. Okay. Well, that brings it up to 21. Or 20. Or it could be 22. There's two buildings at the same Bridgets. Property. And also some people, I don't know if 12 Halleck is included or not. The main thing is. If you go to the materials, I have a list of all the properties. Can we do that? Anyway, I just want to let you know that if you got, oh, here we go. So go to. List of perspective properties, please. So here we go. So basically. I've been like. I've always been. I was involved with the LHD for Lincoln Sunset. And when I, like I said at the last meeting, we didn't include the properties along Kendrick Park. It was kind of a tacit deal and those properties, except for one or absentee are owned by landlords and their rentals. But I've had a change of heart because. I've had a change of heart. I've had a change of heart. I've had a change of heart. I've had a change of heart. Susanna has sent me in a bunch of material, Susanna faving. And that perimeter along Kendrick. Park. Is slated for commercial development. Down the line. So the real question I had, if I could scroll down it, there's 20 prop properties under. Study or adjacent to the existing eight. LHD 19 of the properties. 13 of the 20 properties are zoned BL for commercial use. And the other seven, which are currently zone. RG are being targeted for rezoning. For commercial development, except for one property. The existing North Lincoln suspect LHD 192 properties. And all his own exclusively RG. And my question is, and I may have answered it for myself, is that seeing that the zoning. Is so different from the existing LHD, is it appropriate for the BL properties under study to be added to it? I'm sorry. And since the zoning and designated use of the properties under study or commercial and not residential. Would it be more appropriate to try to create an entirely new LHD. And what are the advantages and disadvantages of going that route. So I actually work. I'm sorry to keep. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Just a question of clarification. You said being targeted for rezoning to commercial development. Now that was confusing to me because there is a. A zone, which is commercial. But I, do you mean that they're being rezoned as commercial or. I'm not. I'm not. I don't think so. I think. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So it might be good to, to, if this is going. If this is going to have a wider audience than just us. Using the phrase commercial development. I would say perhaps business development because then it doesn't trigger that confusion about whether it's another. Because commercial zones are, but there's a few of them in there, but then they're not, they're not in that area. So. Okay. I think it's better. Yeah, I'm not, I'm pretty imprecise. I have to. I'm not a, I'm a layman at all this. So. Well, so am I. Thanks. So anyway, here's my thing is that. I think it'd be difficult to get a step. I would personally philosophically like to have it be a new LHD, you know, a business LHD as opposed to connected to what is a residential LHD. But politically, I don't know if we could get the current town council to authorize a study committee and with town resources. So strained already. So I'm thinking that I actually wrote to Chris Skelly, who's the head of the Massachusetts historical commission, asking him these very questions. And hopefully he'll get back to me. I haven't heard. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't heard from him last week. Asking him which he would, which way he would recommend and what are the advantages and disadvantages. The reason why I think this is actually kind of imperative. Is I, you know, all the, all these buildings are from the 1800s. And they can all be knocked down. Even if zoning is changed. And the only way to, and the only thing that the historical society can do is do a one year demolition delay. And I don't think that it would preclude commercial development. If we could go back to the. To the index of. Of documents. Materials. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Okay. Thank you. I want to go to handout. Vision for North pleasant BL document. Right there. Okay, so this was drawn up by Pam Rooney. He's a, you know, a on the town council. And is a planner. And if you look under what could change. Is that right now, these buildings could be replaced by three story buildings with over half of their facades. Up close to the sidewalk to create a street edge. So today's casual gathering spaces would be covered over replaced with carefully crowded. So basically lose all sort of. It'd be like the op. The other side of the street. It would just be a flat. Straight edge. There'd be no room for like tables and. And dining and some of the things that we have now. So. That again, makes it to me a pair of that we try to do an LHD. And then I guess with the zoning, what Susanna said is that. It wouldn't be as tall as the, on the other side of the street, which is BG, which I guess could be 54 feet. But they could be 39 feet. But with the solar displays, it would still have the sensation. If they was constructed of a canyon of huge. You know, straight edge, straight, you know, flat facade buildings, which I really think is to the detriment of the town. And I think the town. Our brand is history. And they talk about destination Amherst. Well, that's why I think the destination, what makes it a destination. So if you scroll down here, and this is not, this is. You scroll down this document. Then what Pam suggested Pam Rooney is that you would keep the, if we had an LHD would keep the facades of these old 1800, you know, vintage buildings and you would build behind them. If you scroll down even further, she has drawings. Like, I don't know if you can make that out. If you draw it down. She has an overhead view. Have you guys seen this? I'm just curious. I have not. You have not. Okay. I wasn't sure if you had seen this or not. You can, these are all these documents. There's a longer version of this. All these documents are in this new file that I created. As well as. That you can peruse at your leisure. But if you continue down. Continue down, continue down. Continue down. Okay. Here you go. So. I don't know if you can make that out. If you draw down, she has an overhead view. Have you guys seen this? I'm just curious. I have not. So you can see, I don't know if you can see, but. Existing and. Yeah. Over here. Yeah. So you would see that at that. You would have the buildings, the old buildings, and then you would build. Build behind him and the parking would be behind them. So I think we could argue that, you know, we wouldn't be curtailing commercial. A commercial development. We just be preserving our heritage. And then another, I can't remember another. Oh, I went by today. Then did you get the two photographs, the three photographs that I sent you today? I don't think so. Sorry. Oh, okay. Well. Today I thought of Amherst college is doing two. You know, you know, you know, the building that's next. Let me see if I can find it on my files. Hold on. Amherst college is doing it. You know, the building that's next to the Hastings building. It has looks like kind of a church in the front. Yeah. It's the Peter Pan. Building. That's 79 South pleasant. Well, if you look in the back of it, you know, the facade is still nice. And then they built a modern building behind it. And they're doing the same thing down the block. Same side of the street to the south is this brick building. I took photographs of that. Yeah. This is not unprecedented in Amherst. So the real issue is. You know, it would ruffle a lot of feathers, you know, we're basically, you know, the libertarians were basically, you know, for the LHD, we had people generally, except for one person in the Lincoln sunset that wanted LHD for, you know, to preserve their properties and preserve the neighborhood. This is a big step. This is like, you know, saying to people who don't probably don't want it. Maybe the green. And the green bombs and maybe the green bombs would go for it. But I don't think the other two would go for it. So basically it's, it's pretty radical to consider. But on the other hand. I think the downtown is of a vast importance the entire town. So I do think it's a different. Since it's the business district, I do think. Philosophically, I don't have as big a problem. As I would. If it had just been that strip along Kendrick Park. I hope I've made sense. That's Steve, this is terrific. These drawings I'm, we are looking at now, did you do these? No, no, you kidding. I'm a screenwriter. These are all. No. This is a shorter version. And like I said on the, you go through the, the two files that I've created. There's one, I guess, been made that are photographs. And then there's another material. There's all sorts of stuff. That's Susanna has written. Yeah. There's stuff by Pam Rooney. You guys can just look at it at your leisure, but I just wanted to. Provide a digest and bring up the main issues. I guess I just wanted to point out a few things. Thanks, Steve is. So. Like what you're seeing on the build out side over here. While that's. Great. Like, I think. And a great way to use. Land in terms of like, you know, filling out existing parking areas. Like we can't currently do this with zoning. I mean, that covers. Way more lot area and lot coverage than is currently required. Then, or sorry, that is currently accepted in the zoning by law. There's limits on the amount of. You know, square footage that you can put here. So it's, I just don't want people to get the impression that you make a LHD and then you automatically get. What you see with the build out here thing. There's a lot of other. Work that goes into this. There's a reason that nothing has changed. On the West side of Kendrick park for. You know, decades is because of the zoning there is essentially locks things the way they are. The zoning did permit larger buildings than you would probably see them. Having come down already. But the zoning is pretty limiting in the BL and the RG along there. So I just. Want people to. Understand that yes, you know, that zoning can change that in it. And it's something that the town council looked at last year. But an LHD could. Provide some level of. You know, protection on those properties, but it would also require zoning changes as well. So what about in the BL properties? You're concentrating on the RG's. Yep. Yeah. Both, both cases. Yeah. There would not be a B wouldn't be able to build out. In the BL either. Not as it currently is not really, no. And if the height limit is 39. That's. That's a story higher than or a story and a half perhaps higher than. The buildings that are there. I think some of those buildings are definitely. 39 feet with the. Large roofs and stuff. Some of them are probably true. I don't think this is radical at all. I think this is a no brainer and this is absolutely the way to go because we all want a lively downtown with lots of shops and places to go. And we want to preserve the historical. Nature of the town vis visibility from the street. So this is the only way to do it. And having been on the zoning board, you know, the zoning board is trying to protect the town. But if there is a vision. Of development, which is positive like that, that really is attractive and keeps the New England flavor that we. Need in order to have our historical town. This, this is the way to go. So I'm a hundred percent. Enthusiastic that we should pursue this. And I like the idea. Of creating an LLC for a special one for this and pushing it through. So that's my. Well, like I said, I don't know if. If it wasn't an extent, an expansion, we'd have to get a new study committee. And I don't know if that's politically. Feasible. And I, like I said, I don't know what the deep. I have, I'm waiting for Chris Skelly to tell me. What the ramifications are. I'm not even sure. What the process is for doing an expansion. But I do, but then I do have to say, I was on the historical commission. When the building on the corner of Halleck. And South pleasant came up and. I saw the drawings. They want, they were going to knock that they wanted to knock down the house. They said it wasn't historically. Significant. It would very own that house. And then 12 Halleck was owned by. Kurt Schumway. Kurt Schumway. Kurt Schumway. Kurt Schumway. Kurt Schumway.大的. And. And they were going to build a huge office building. Which matched. The archipelago buildings. And actually they were really sore when we did a one year demolition delay, that I saw for that property on 12th Halleck and North Pleasant seem pretty darn big to me. I think they've been talking about site coverage rather than volume. Okay, see, I'm like, I'm over my head in this. I just, that's why you're Bruce, that's why you're here. But then Arquette Palago comes with a plan and they ask for a waiver of this and a waiver of that. And because the town wants the commercial, the benefits of it, you know, I don't know. I really think that they would approve a massing and use of the land if it was done in this way. I can't see that they wouldn't. I mean, it's a whole package that Pam Rooney has done in terms of rezoning and she's a planner. I'm not, all I'm doing is introducing what has already been put out there. And I'm just trying to provide some impetus to move forward. I'm not an expert on any of these, on anything, basically. I'm kind of an expert on getting the LHD because I was involved in the last one, but, you know, I'm not an architect and I don't pretend to be, I'm not even a historian. I'm just someone who likes the old flavor of this town and I'd hate to see this downtown. And I think most people in town would as well just turn into every other downtown. I think a study could be done and funded if it were part of a discrete and successful grant application. So I think, Steve, it's positively mindful that we should keep in mind that the town is budgetarily stretched at the moment, particularly in the capital realm. I'm not sure about the operating cost, but nonetheless, when I hear what the, yes, I do. But if what we would propose would be a study to consider the expansion of this district, particularly through a filter of business development and that a successful grant application could be made that would fund that, then it kind of falls outside the constraints of the town because we're asking to do this and we're, well, particularly if we were to write the grant application and so forth, rather than ask someone in Ben's position to do it. Because- I actually got a grant. I applied when I was the chair of the CPA of the LHD and I applied to CPA and I got some money to hire a grad student. I don't know if that's enough. Anyway, look, you guys, I posted everything. There's a ton of material up there. Hopefully Ben will add the three other photographs I put in and just look it over and look it over at your leisure and think about it. I didn't expect any kind of decision today. There's a lot of- Yeah, that's good. Big thing. The basic proposition that you're bringing to the table is that it might be that one considers making an application to expand the district but doing so by putting some kind of context for these particular buildings that would imagine that their future is business use rather than residential use and designing the historic district expansion with that in mind and whether that means it's a separate district or whether there has to be additional paragraphs or sections or articles in the bylaw or I guess it is a bylaw. That's a new thought to me. I haven't heard that thought expressed in the conversation that we've had over the past few months about this. So I think that stands a better chance of getting the support of the commercial, of the building owners because we could ask them what kind of language hitting in that direction. They could imagine supporting rather than just trying to ram it down their throats which we probably wouldn't be successful, do we? So I think you brought a positive brick to the wall. It's the only way to preserve the buildings. They're gonna come down at some point, otherwise. I mean, they're a slate, they want them to come down now. I mean, when Jonathan Tucker, I used to see his drawings, you know, his vision of our downtown was like a shopping center in Glendale, California. Yeah. Not positive. So the town is hoping to have invest a lot of money in kind of a designer, a design consultant. And that consultant is gonna do a lot of studies, studies that have been done before again. But that's, I mean, the time is ripe to worry about the design of that part of town. It is our future and we can't kind of lose that. So I think this might be the best way of doing it. And I think you're right, Bruce, I think if you consult with those owners that own the properties and ask them how they imagine that they could work with this kind of design keeping the old flavor and just filling in the back and making that dense. And that might really be the way to go. Anyway, it's food for thought, I'm done with my presentation. Peter? I've just, in Stonington, Connecticut, they have an example of just that. They have historical buildings and then behind them fitting in nicely our new building and it looks gorgeous. Do you have pictures of that, Greg? I can send them to Steve. Sounds like they might be useful. I mean, another file or folder of constructive material in that kind of repository of Steve's put together would be examples of positive development of the sort we're interested in. And you don't look very happy. Sorry. I know this is a planning department person's nightmare. Oh, you know, yeah, I know it's... I mean, I've said all along, I think that the LHD is just one tool in a toolbox of different ways to preserve buildings. And I'm not sure it's the most straightforward or easiest road ahead to try to get to it, but... What are other ways to preserve? What's the other ways to preserve buildings? I've talked about this before. Yeah, I mean, Karin alluded to the design guidelines or design standards that the town is working on and is fully funded and we're putting on RFP in the next few weeks to do that. And you can put... And I think Northampton does this really well. They have central business architecture guidelines and that's kind of what we're doing or we're proposing is to basically say, this is the standards that have to be met for designing buildings in the downtown. Is that binding? What you're talking about? It can be or it doesn't have to be, but it can be. And I think we're... And does it preserve the old buildings? It sounds like all it does is make recommendations for new architecture, but doesn't actually preserve... Nothing that I understand. The only thing that prevents old buildings from being destroyed is an LHD. Well, I guess I'm confused because you guys are talking about different things you're talking about. You're seeing new... You want to see new commercial development there, but you're also saying about preserving the old buildings. So I think the... No, I'm saying two things. What I'm saying is, first of all, the existing buildings would be preserved under an LHD. Secondly, the new architecture behind the old buildings would be subject to the LHD's standards in terms of saying that the new construction behind the old buildings would have to conform to the prevailing architecture that's in an LHD, just like they do in the other LHDs. Okay. Yeah, I'm just saying the architectural guidelines that we're working on can be applied to new buildings or will be applied to new buildings coming into that part of downtown. And so there can be a subsection that has guidelines that are specific to the architecture around Kendrick Park and look the part. But yeah, I mean, it's... I will say the current zoning basically makes it very, very unlikely any of those buildings will come down. That's why they haven't come down already. And so I think zoning is another way to prevent buildings from coming down. Yeah, I just have to tell you anecdotally, we wanted to have those buildings along the perimeter of Kendrick Park and North Pleasant as part of the Lincoln Sunset North Prospect LHD. And they were just insane about not having that happen because they wanted... That's where they see downtown expanding. They see that's the only place that downtown can expand. So I don't agree with... No, I just don't think they've gotten around to it yet. It's not a matter of that's why nothing's happened. I totally think it's in their sites. Ben, I'd just like you to clarify for me, because the building that they had been proposed for the corner of... Mm-hmm. Yeah, yes. I mean, that was not prevented by the current zoning. And that was a pretty big building. Well, that never... Yeah, I mean, that was before I started working from the town, but my understanding is that, you know, they often, these developers pitch lofty buildings and then they come to the historical commission as their first stop because they need to know if they can remove the existing building. So I don't think that building had been designed like fully to actually conform to the zoning at that point. I think it was more just a conceptual plan. And then they wanted to, you know, see if they could come bring the building, the existing building down, and then they would kind of refine the design further. But my understanding and from what I've heard is it did not conform to the zoning of the BL. Certainly the pictures... I mean, they had put... Post is a large picture of it, which they, you know, stood on the corner. Yeah, I've seen those. It looked like it was pretty far along in its planning stages. And from what you're saying, it couldn't have happened, but it seemed like it was going to happen. So I'm just puzzling whether we're really as protected as you say we are. Just a note of, so far, I mean, these days, well, now the last 20 or 30 years with digital capabilities, it is possible to make something that looks pretty advanced very quickly. And it's... So we should be careful to be able to tell the difference between something that looks like it's... Well, basically in my world, it's the difference between precision and accuracy. When I was young, you could easily tell the difference because everything was done by hand. And people drew very quickly initially and very slowly eventually. And so you could tell that things were both less precise and less accurate at the beginning. But the trouble with computers is that they can't draw slowly. I mean, they draw at lightning speeds, of course. So everything looks sharp and neat and finished from the moment you start. And it's been a little difficult for, I think, the society to come to terms with the way the building industry and the design professions technologies have changed in recent decades. Excuse me, but even besides the volume of that building, which I defer to you in terms of it, the architecture of it, it was just a rectangle. Well, that's Ben's point, Steve, that it hasn't been developed. But I do think the difference between what Steve is proposing and what you're saying, Ben, is that we, as a historical society, we really want to preserve the old buildings and add to them and make them more useful. They don't have to be completely the same, but there's a big difference between preserving them and then knocking them down and then having something that in design fits kind of into that New England style. And I think what I personally think it's really valuable to preserve them because what makes the Emily Dickinson town stand out in the world is that it is an old charming New England town and that means you want to have historical houses that are there, not sort of pseudo kitschy, sort of replicas of a New England town. So that's why we want so much to have a little bit of cloud in being able to preserve them while allowing great development. We all want lots of new things in town. We all need grocery store. We all need lots of things. So. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I would just say to try to frame your case that way, as opposed to preventing anything new. And I think you guys were talking about that, like pitch it as, you know, we want to preserve what's there and ensure that, you know, things that are added, you know, look, look the part. So I think that'll help your case. I think that building the, what I call the Peter Pan building is a good example. It's a good example because it really isn't elegantly a built building. It's a good example because the materials that they've used are completely different from the materials of the original, but still the total looks nice. And it's certainly it's a good example because the work was done, I think by Cune Riddle, who are local architects. So it's, it's not as though you have to get somebody from miles away who has got some peculiar talent. The peculiar talent, you know, resides in town. I guess, yeah, I just to kind of echo off that, Bruce, I think if, if, whether or not you go down this route and the LHD is expanded, I think it's, especially if it is expanded, it's all the more important to develop design guidelines for the LHD specifically or adopt the ones that are being developed for downtown because I can, you know, if you guys really do want to support new development downtown, you have to put yourself in the shoes of a developer and they're taking a huge chance on presenting a design to the local historic district that they've invested money in an architect to develop, but then to not have any guarantee that it's going to go through or not. And so the more that we can provide some guarantee or some, some idea of a vision of what we want the space to look like, I think that'll make it easier to see development in that area that that looks the way that looks like it should belong in the local historic district and is also easier for developers to work with because. Why is the planning department so invested in, I mean, first of all, I never said when I made my presentation that I was opposed to new buildings. I literally, I said I wanted to preserve what was there and then it would be new construction behind the old buildings, but it's always puzzled me why is the planning department, there's something called revealed preference. Why is the planning department and Amherst so worried about developers? I mean, you just said that you that the RG has not changed because it can't change. But then you're like, then you're saying that, you know, if we do this, you think about the poor developers, it just doesn't seem to, I've always noticed I've just never understood Jonathan Tucker. I know you can't say this Christine that you know when I did my presentation before the planning board for the LHD. Christine did a summation. And in it, she had 20 cons for against an LHD. And she had one pro which is that it looks nice. And then I, Mary and Adams got back to her and said, what is this, and I actually sent Christine the handbook and LHD which had 30 lists of things that were good about an LHD. So I just don't, I don't understand this orientation about the planning board. I mean, the planning department always worrying about the developers. And it's just makes me crazy. I'm sorry. I think I didn't know that one's always worried that maybe it's true, maybe more, maybe more worried than necessary. But certainly one has to have some sense of what that force is and how it operates. But I mean, my, I know we're being recorded and this is almost in public and everything, but we all seem to be fairly comfortable with each other and with the world around us. And my beef for years with the town of Amos was that the property owners were moribund when it came to initiative energy and imagination. And that we found that all of these properties along North Pleasant Street, nothing ever happened to them. They were ugly and tatty and had little bits and pieces done to them. And I just, when I first arrived here 40 years ago, I thought why the hell is this town so decrepit looking? Because basically the university when it, this was a phrase I think I developed when I was chair of the master planning thing 20 years ago, that the university in the 60s and early 70s when the state decided to expand the Amos campus as the flagship campus, it suddenly became like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking development down North Pleasant Street. And you had all of these buildings with little skirts. And so I thought that wouldn't it be lovely if the development community and the commercial property owners in the Amos developed a little bit of imagination and a little bit of spirit and actually started doing something, building new buildings in the place of the old ones in the upper end of North Pleasant Street, where it still is. I mean, we're basically where Judy's is where Baselad is is where the typewriter shop is where all of those sad little structures that are located. And so to some extent, I thought we enough Kelly arrived. Oh, looks like somewhat that was when that first white building that I said, well, it looks like maybe changes upon us. And I had a certain level of optimism associated with that. So I'll just hold with my initial observation of what my problem with the town is, which is too many of the property owners like imagination and the willingness to move off their rental income earning back sides and do something better. That's not really got anything much to do with what we're talking about, I suppose. I would like to join in on that because there's like new buildings in Northampton is one affordable housing complex on King Street, which is very contextual. And there's also even down even in South Hadley, the complex that Mount Holyoke paid for across the street from their campus. To me, that's very contextual. You know, the one I'm talking about. So it's not against. I know, but I know what you're talking about. I know there are other buildings that that where where it's a big white complex. It's where the movie theater is. Oh, that's the screen. Mount Holyoke. And they did a good job of like creating something. You know, that's contact that I consider contextual, not an architect. But and I just never understood and I brought this up many times in many forms. But why can't we do that? And then I get like stuff like, well, taste is subjective. You know, that we think that the new buildings, like the new archipelago buildings are like, you know, really nuts. So you can't win. So anyway, I think I know I'm like. I think Amist had an early 60s and 70s experience with some new buildings. And some of them are the two school buildings, which were in the process of tearing down, because they're so awful. But the one that my wife was born in town and grew up here. And so I get a lot of this, you know, of the evolution through the 50s, 60s and 70s. And that bank on the corner has done a very large. It's very, it's got a very large share of the blame for why folks in this town are skittish when it comes to having new buildings built in their, in their, in their center. And I think the Tucker Taff building, which was built by the firm that I was working for at the time. Gil and Q and Riddle and Gray, it was called then. And I think that's a clumsy building. And it's right up the town, right next to the fire station. And of course, CPS was never had any pretensions being anything other than a cheap money pit. And then the shops further on down. So there's so little of design quality. In along North Pleasant Street, it's really depressing. And so the idea that we could actually try and do something, it seems as we've lost the plot on that. And I would love, so we, I don't know what it is about the town other than what I've already said, but it's, it's, it's, it's not an inspiring place to visit if you're, if you, I mean, the first thing we could do would be to narrow North Pleasant Street so that the sidewalk, particularly on the east side, would be two or three times as wide as it is. And we, and we give much less real estate to cars and turning lanes and all this sort of stuff. So I would, and this is again way outside our purview particularly, but it's, it's not unrelated because we're part of a thoughtful process trying to direct and influence buildings in town, but particularly in the center. I think we're starting from so far in the center and north of Maine and Amity Street. We're starting so far back from the, you know, the mark, so to speak, where handicapped hugely in what's there. And I don't know exactly why that is other than what I've already mentioned, but it's, it is a big challenge for the town, I think, to come to terms with the, the, the, the, the, the, the dross that we have downtown. I'll probably get thrown off the planning board for this band. So anyway, think about it. I'm willing to take the heat. You guys want to move forward, but it will be a lot of heat. And there's lots of nuts and bolts in terms of, you know, maybe making a deal, you know, to make it enticing for the developers, but anyway, think about it. And there's a lot of material that I posted and, you know, let's talk about it. You know, just to add the, in Germany, the development for the towns that had money early on was pretty awful because they knocked everything down that was a little bit destroyed and they built what was modern at that time. And the good thing about East Berlin is that there was no money and we've come around to realizing that the historical things are where people feel the most comfortable. And so, and when something gets renovated there, the museum, it's exactly what Steve said. There's usually the oldest preserved and then that really glitzy modern glass structure gets attached to it. A little bit like, you know, in the loop where you have that glass thing. And that's the kind of thing I think we would be, we're happy allowing. We just want not to knock down. And if there's a shabby building like CVS, yes, we, we want to knock it down, but I think we, we'd be selective and preserve what's, what's there and try to add to it. And so do we, we just, do we, we, do we have a, do we have some, some business to do? We have something else. We have staff transition, which I guess is Ben. Cool. Yeah, you may have all seen my email. Thanks, Judy. That I actually have accepted a job elsewhere. I'm going to be working for the State Department of Transportation. And so actually this will be my last local district commission meeting. My last day with the town is on Thursday of this week. So it's a quick. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So it's the mass, mass DOT office in North Hampton. So I'll be able to stay, stay local, which is nice. But yeah, it's still a little bit surreal. And just wanted to say for, for those I've just met. It's been nice working with you for the past few months or so. And getting, we're seeing through the interview process and all that. And for the folks who have been on the commission longer, it's been really nice working with you guys for the past two and a half years at this point. And definitely wish you all the best with the district and. And I will say Nate Maloy, who's the senior planner who most of you know, will be kind of stepping in as the staff liaison for the committee. Until replacement is hired up and trained up and everything. So for, so yeah, Nate, we have the next meeting scheduled, I think for December 12th, I think it was. So Nate, Nate will help coordinate that and be in touch with with you guys at that, at that point. So, yeah, I just wanted to let everyone know. And a good look. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, we're going to miss you. You've been so great to work with. It feels good to have you on our side and we're going to miss you. Thank you, Karen. I appreciate it. Hopefully he'll help us get some great transportation out here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I think I'm mostly going to be doing roadway projects, but I know we do oversee some of the transit stuff and yeah, that'll be, that'll be a hot, hot topic issue. I'm sure. Put some protected bike trails on those roads. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else? There's, there's one item that you, I think mentioned last week. We had a last meeting about the pamphlet. Yeah. So one question I had, because I thought you had mentioned solar panels. Were part of the exclusions or maybe only if they were on the roof or something, but anyways, there's no mention of solar panels. Okay. In the examples. And I wasn't sure. If that was new or if I misheard. That it's not part of exclusions. Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks for pointing that out. Yeah, that may have just been a, been an omission. I know. Yeah. So solar panels, as long as they're laid flat on the roof. Are excluded from, from review by the local district. So we should. Yeah, I think that'd be great to add to it. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably, that's probably one of the more common. Things that do come in and we are able to just move it along. Is it laid flat or is it, if they're in, if they're invisible from the street? Well, yeah, if they're not visible from the street, then it's not definitely not. Yeah. Okay. But if they are visible and they're on the roof and if they're laid flat, it's excluded. Okay. It's kind of be hard to imagine if they flat on the roof that you would be able to see them from the street. Yeah. Unless it was a building that was dug into a site and you could see them on the uphill side or something like that. Because anyway, that's probably doesn't apply to any street and how the street. Okay. I'll make a note of that, Nicole. I have the copy up right here. Just. All right. And then any unanticipated items. Anybody have any. Okay. I actually have one too. I'm letting you know that this is going to be my last meeting. Okay. So I'm going to move on to the agenda as well. So I've decided to step off the commission. So, but it's been lovely working with you all. So Judy, so we have to find a new chair. Yeah. So you can think of who you want to be the new chair. So. Yeah. I think I'll talk to me. I think. That that should be like a formal agenda item. And we can put that on the agenda for the December 12th. We have a meeting that will be first on the agenda. Yeah. But yeah, if folks want to give that some thought, and I only have a few more days with the town, but if you are interested and want to learn more about it, you can feel free to email me. And we can talk about it then. But, but yeah, so. We'll talk. We all talk to Nate and you guys can talk about that. But yeah. But yeah, well, we don't have any public comments because we have no public. That's why I've been talking the way I've been talking. That being the case, perhaps a motion to adjourn is in order. Second. Yeah, Nancy did that. Thank you. Shall we vote by pushing the red button? I think I really thank you all. I'll see you next time. Bye bye. Take care. Bye bye.