 The time is now 6.04. I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge as ZBA Chair. I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by Telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Additionally, the meeting record recordings may be viewed via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and ZBA web page. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40A and Article 10, Special Permit Granting Authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with the roll call of members of the ZBA and paneled for tonight's meeting. Steve Judge, Chair is present. Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. Here. Mr. Gilbert. Here. Ms. Winter. We also have Eric Cochran, Associate Member of Observing and I don't think Mr. Meadows is on. Also in attendance is Maureen Pollock, Planner of the City. 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 and convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. 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, provide 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 where information from the project and input from the public is gathered. Public meetings are a portion when the Board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the Board feels that 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 for the close of the hearing to file a decision. For invariance, the Board has 100 days from the date of filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting Board members and is filed with the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20-day appeal period for any agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body in Superior Court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the Registry of Deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, a public meeting, ZBA FY 2021-22. Christine and Peter Gray Mullen to review and approve the special permit decision with conditions from the public hearing previously held and closed on September 30, 2021, to allow an increase in the number of residential units converted dwellings from one to two intersections, 3.324, 7.9, and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw. Located at 37 Farview Way, Map 8C, Parcel 7, neighborhood residents, R and zoning district. After tonight's agenda, after that, after tonight's meeting, there's always our opportunity for general public comment on any matter, not before the Board tonight and any other business not anticipated within the previous 48 hours and then adjournment. First order of business is public meeting on ZBA FY 2021-22. Christine and Peter Gray Mullen to review and approve the special permit decision with conditions for the public hearing previously held and closed on September 30, 2021, to allow an increase in the number of residential units converted dwellings from one to two under section 3.324, 7.9, 10.38 of the zoning bylaw. Located at 37 Farview Way, Map 8C, Parcel 7, neighborhood residents, R and zoning district. As you recall, members, we, I wanna note that Ms. Winter is in attendance, so we have a full compliment and also note that Rob Mora, building commissioner, is also online. As you recall, we held a hearing and in September, I think it was on this project, this application voted an approval of a special permit with conditions. Subsequent to that time, we've had a administrative meeting. Some questions were raised about the kind of conditions and how we should treat conditions for owner occupants versus non-owner occupant rental property. How we should treat transfer of property from when there is a special permit, does a property have to, does a new property owner have to appear beforehand? Before the transfer takes place, does the special permit expire? We dealt with all these questions in our administrative meeting a couple of weeks ago. Subsequent to that and pursuant to that meeting, the staff and I looked at the most recent special permits that we approved and that had not been signed or had not been finalized. And notice that there was some, we could be consistent, more consistent with the, what we discussed in the administrative meeting. And you have before you a marked up version, I think you got it this afternoon, a marked up version of suggested changes to the conditions that were approved in September, I think it was September 9th. Was it not Maureen? It was September 30th. September 30th. With the proposed of the public hearing and when you guys made a motion to. September 30th. Okay. On September 30th. All right. I think you got it, you had a marked up version of the conditions then and the suggested changes to those conditions pursuant to, I think, compliance with what we talked about at the administrative meeting and what just seems to make some sense. And I'd be willing to walk through those with you very briefly, if that would help. I think what is most important is a couple of things. The first, does everybody have that piece of paper that Maureen sent out? Here we go. Thanks Maureen. So this, I think in number one, for the first change is, I think is purely grammatical. We need to, it's gotta be built and manage itself, it's gotta be maintained. Secondly, the second change in the next sentence will be reviewed by the building commissioner to determine if submission to the ZBA is needed. If you'll recall, one of the things we talked about at the administrative meeting is we wanna, when it's at all possible, avoid having applicants and property owners have to come to the ZBA for really minor, minor, minor things. Things that are not, there's no reason that those can't be taken care of by the building commissioner. So things that are really truly minimal can be taken care of by the building commissioner. He shall review those, but the building commissioner should review those changes and say to himself, if they're big enough, say, no, you got, this has gotta go to the ZBA either in a public hearing, if it's a minor change or if it's a significant change, to a public hearing where there's public comments, there's more notification, there's more, it's a larger bureaucratic process. But I think this speed, this will help to speed up the process. So in this case, if this owner or a subsequent owner has a de minimis change, it can be looked at by the building commissioner, he can say, this is de minimis, it doesn't have to go to the board, it does have to go to the board. We will then review it and determine if it can be handled in a meeting or in a hearing. So that's the first change. Is there any questions on condition one from board members? Okay, these seem to make sense. And I think it's probably a good template for moving forward with future applications. Second one, again, this is more so that it's specific to this specific application, this being a converted dwelling. We're talking about the dwelling, not the rooms. So the drawings, the floor plans of the converted dwelling is what we're really dealing with. So that's the change there. I don't think that's controversial, it seems to make sense. We can move on down Maureen for a little farther. This one is number seven comes up later on. So we'll skip that. Number nine deals with, number nine tries to deal with two different circumstances or tries to identify one of two different circumstances. In one case, you have a change of ownership of the owner occupied rental property that doesn't involve going to a non owner occupied. So a change of ownership is still gonna be owner occupied as opposed to selling to somebody else. And a change of ownership of an owner occupied rental property, the new property owners shall be required to submit an updated management plan to the planning department. At that point, the planning department can look at it if they say that this is consistent with the approved management plan or it's consistent with current needs, it can be approved. If the planning department feels that this doesn't, it isn't consistent with the special permit it's or it's insufficient as a management plan and they can say, well, it has to come to the board for review, but in the event, but we have a different case when the change of ownership goes to a non owner occupied property. And Maureen, would you move down to 12? I think eventually Maureen, I think it'd be good to put 10 and 12 together just for ease of reading. But, and so we have a different, we're proposing here a different condition when the change of ownership or change, yeah, change of ownership or the change in the current owner's residence. So this property becomes non owner occupied. Right now in this case, this property is owner occupied if the property owners would move or if they would sell it to a non owner occupied owner who's not gonna occupy that property then the following takes place. A, the property owner shall be required to return to the board of appeals, zoning board of appeals for public hearing for review and approval of the management plan. The management plan additional information required for any residential rental we to approve the standard lease which includes the maximum number of people of individuals allowed to occupy the converted dwelling the maximum number of over as night guests and the maximum number of people that were allowed on the property at any time as well as the parking management plan. That's similar to what we've talked about in the past in all cases, but I think at the last meeting and at this, oh yeah, and also, excuse me, thank you Maureen. The last is that at that hearing the board shall determine whether additional conditions are needed to meet section 10.38 of findings under the zoning bylaw. That's what we were imposing on all transfers of ownership. We talked about that at that meeting our administrative meeting and at the last hearing there was some public comment to the fact that we ought to be finding a way to make to have less burden on owner occupied rental properties and converted dwellings in this case rather than non owner occupied. And that seems to me to be makes sense to have that differentiation of treatment. This is one way to try to accomplish that. And that's what we've tried to accomplish here in this change in these conditions. Do we go through the rest of Maureen? Let's go back up a bit. Anyway, do people have questions about the owner occupied transfer of change of ownership and a change of ownership to non owner occupied? I don't wanna move through this too quickly if you have questions. Rob and Maureen, did I explain that correctly or is there anything you wish to add? No, I don't have anything to add. Ms. Parks. So I'm interested in why the complaint response plan was struck out. Yeah. What we've learned is that the complaint response plan is was a really good, what I've learned is it was a really good idea before we had the residential rental permit system and with the residential rental permit system they have to have that information there. And this is almost duplicative of the complaint response plan is almost duplicative of what's already contained in the rental permits, this residential permit system. And Rob, can you speak to that? I know you have to deal with that in your department. Yeah, so the application process for the residential rental permit requires contact information for the owner of the property and also emergency contact information. It may be the same, but we do collect that information. It's updated annually during the renewal process and it's not only available to us but it's also available to the general public through the website in case an abiding property owner wants to get in touch with the owner of the property where there might be an issue to report. So that was largely based off of this model that the complaint response plan was created by the ZBA years ago when we were writing the rental regulations to kind of grab that piece of the process that the zoning board was using back then. So as Steve mentioned, it really is doubling the effort by having another form created and submitted with another application when we are collecting it electronically in a very efficient way and it's stored electronically and available for everyone to access. Yes, go ahead. So is that part of the like the management plan additional information required? Is that where the complaint response plan is within that? Oh, you mean to double I? Yeah. Yes, it is listed under the management plan for additional information required for any residential rental as well as it's listed in the ZBA rules and regulations. Okay. As a requirement. Good question, Ms. Parks, thank you. Any other questions on Mr. Maxfield? I just wanna ask, so how did this maybe it was a little bit more clear and I'm just blanking on it. How did this all even come about? Was this you and Maureen working on this? How did we get here with all these changes in the first place? Well, I think the reason this came about is we're trying to reflect what we talked about in the administrative meeting to try to have sensible transfer of ownership for conditions, conditions that sensibly responded to transfer of ownership in certain cases and this case, this application had not been finalized. This seemed then to be the first place where we could take some of that learning that we had at the administrative meeting and apply it into these conditions since it hadn't been signed and hadn't been finalized yet. And that's the reason I think this one was chosen. Mr. Maxfield was because of that and quite frankly, it's an opportunity for us on a converted dwelling on something that seems pretty, to me seems pretty simple to have a less onerous condition placed on the property owner pursuant to what we talked about at the administrative meeting then continuing to what we did earlier and then applying it the next time that we have an application similar to this. So that's the reason I think we took this up now. Is that, go ahead Dylan. I just wanna say, no, I feel that I actually really like, I think this is definitely an improvement and I think it does really reflect a lot of what we talked about in the administrative meeting. I guess I'm just asking was this something that was worked on primarily by yourself and Mourney, Ms. Pollock and Mr. Mora or just how did this get about because I actually really like all these changes here. Mr. Pollock and Ms. Pollock and Mr. Mora did the lion share the work on this. We talked, I relied upon their judgment and their advice but we had a give and take but I'd have to say 90% of the work came from not, 70% of the work came from them for sure. I guess to say, I like being, I think these are all good improvements. I'd love to hear from the applicant as to whether or not they agree that these changes are less onerous as well. We can hear from them, if we did. I did not write this moment at this point in the meeting for approval. Let's get our discussion done first and then if the applicant wishes to speak, they, we can listen to them. So I think we've gone through everything, have we not? Property should, let's just move back up again, more into six, can we? Or seven? Yeah, all right. So converted dwellings, we didn't make any changes on two. Okay, we have all the, there you go. Keep going. All right. So on one, we talked about those changes. Two was just the wording converted dwelling. No changes, three, four, five and six. No changes on seven. Eight, property shall be free of litter and debris. That's just really renumbering. Nine, we've talked about. I mean, we're gonna put these two as nine and 10. So they're for ease of reading. Grass area regularly maintained. And then this one we just talked about and that's, and that is it. I think those are the changes. So I want to have the opportunity for anybody on the board to raise any more comments. All right. Do we, do, does the board feel it necessary to entertain public comment on this or not? I think, I think we've worked with the, far as I'm concerned, we've worked with the applicant, the staff has worked with the applicant. And I think these are good changes. I guess we could have the applicant speak if that's the desire of the board. Is the applicant on the call, Maureen? Yes. All right. Let's have. Did Dylan say something to say? Yep, Dylan. Oh yeah, I just, I just wanted to chime in with, only if the applicant really feels like talking this meeting. I don't want to put them on the spot, but if they do, I'd love to hear their feedback on the changes if they wish to provide it. All right. So if they do, they could press the raise your hand feature. Function. If they wish to speak to the changes. Sure, okay. Hi, Christine and Peter, I asked you to unmute. Let's see here. There we go. Hi, Christine and Peter. Hello, Christine and Peter here, Graham, all in all we have to say is after the first set came out, we did have concerns before signing and we just want to thank the town staff and you all the ZBA for really giving us a hard look and a hard thought to logistics and owner occupied and non-owner occupied. And I think this, as Mr. Maxwell was saying, I think this sets some good precedent for a future going forward, especially for owner occupied properties and if it does transition to something else. I think this catches what you all are trying to set with zoning and we support it. So thank you so much for considering doing this extra and I appreciate your work. Thank you, Ms. Mollum, we appreciate it. All right, I think what we have to do is approve these changes. We don't have to make findings under 10.38 or other areas because we already did that in the last hearing and I don't think any of, it's my opinion that nothing that we've changed in these conditions would change the findings we made in so on September 30th. So Robin, Maureen, unless that's incorrect, I would entertain a motion to approve the changes to the special permit as put on the screen by Maureen that you've gotten with the caveat that we're going to move those two conditions tenant dealing with owner occupants and non-owner occupants next to each other for ease of reading. Do I have a motion to that effect? So moved. Is there a second? Ms. Parks, seconds. Is there any discussion on that motion? Okay, if there's no discussion, we move to a vote. The vote is a roll call vote and we need four out of the five to approve this. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilbert. Aye. Ms. Winter. We can't hear you, but I saw you nod. I'm going to take that as an affirmative yes. Okay. All right. So the vote is five to nothing. The motion passes. The conditions are amended. And I guess I would encourage, since we've done this, this was the first closed on the 30th, we probably have a short timeframe in which to write this up and get it signed. So when Maureen asked you to get down to the city hall and sign it or to authorize her to sign for you, respond right away so we can get this out to the, and file as quickly as possible. And I expect that evening tomorrow. Okay. That would be good. So, and if you can't make it, you can authorize her via email and tell her that you approve it and she can sign your name to it. All right. That's it. Let's go on to the public comment. Is there any public comment on matters not before the board tonight? Maureen, do we have anybody that attended? So if there is any member that wants to speak about any items not on tonight's agenda, you can press the raise your hand function. Well, we have Dylan. Oh, Mr. Maxfield. Yes. Yeah, just a quick question. We got many word on, we're ever going to be back in person. Are we looking at a virtual for many more months? Have you heard anything Maureen? I have not. I believe we have until April under the state to, or we'll let Rob speak to that. Yeah, so what the latest plan is, is that the new council will take their seats on January 3rd and one of the first items they're going to discuss are in person or remote meetings for themselves and for the other boards and committees throughout the town. So I think that's where we're going to get the next, you know, the next guidance on where we're going in the beginning of the year after the January 3rd meeting of the new council. So thank you. No comments from the public. There's no business, I have no other business not anticipated in the last 48 hours. I would entertain a motion for us to adjourn. Don't move. Well, that was done together. So Ms. Parks gets up first on that one. Mr. Maxfield, I'm taking that yours for a second. All right. This is a non-demainable debatable motion. So the vote occurs. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Gilder. Aye. Ms. Winter. Aye. Oh, we hear you loud and clear that time. Karen, good. All right.