 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs, and generous donations from viewers like you. Welcome to the planning, Amherst Planning Board meeting of April 7th, 2021, based on Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain revisions of the open meeting law, general law chapter 30A, section 20, and signed Thursday, March 12th, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. My name is Jack Jumpsick, and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at six, you know, say 32 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media Livestream, minutes are being taken. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer a firm believe, and then place yourselves back on mute. So Maria Chow. Here. Tom Long. Here. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And then myself. So, we have a full attendance. So board members, if you have technical issues, please let Pam know if there are technical difficulties and we may need to pause temporarily to correct the problem and then continue the meeting. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed, and the minutes will note if this occurred. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call and you to speak after speaking. Remember to re-mute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment item and other appropriate times during the meeting. Please beware the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during the public comment period, you must join the meeting via the Zoom teleconferencing link, which is shown. The link is also shown in the meeting agenda, posted on the town website via the calendar listing this meeting or you can go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda which lists the Zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished. Residents can express their views up to three minutes at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does comply with these, does not, if a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So with that said, we have our agenda and we have no minutes to review at this time and we can open it up to the public comment period. And anybody, I see Meg Gage, Susanna, Musbrat. So with the public, you know, state your name and your address and we can start with Meg. Hi, Meg. Can you hear me? Thank you so much. I appreciate the public comment being in the beginning. I'm Meg Gage. I live at 208 Montague Road in North Amherst and I wanna speak about our library and our hope that the parking plan that you develop is gonna be aligned with the beautiful building and the historic district. There are all sorts of ways of having parking. It doesn't have to be paving over. They're live parking or like parking with blocks that allow the grass to grow through. I'm sure you've all seen the amazing garden in the front of the library. It's all done by volunteers. The volunteers also manage the garden in the median at the, in front of the library between Sunderland Road and Montague Road. And we can really manage gardening, the back of the new front of the library and making it very beautiful. It's a nationally recognized historic district and the library is one of the, is the kind of along with the Black Walnut Inn and the church centerpiece of our historic district. And we would really hope to be creative in parking and not just pave over a whole bunch of area. We appreciate wanting to facilitate more people coming to the library, particularly when the Jones is renovated. We're imagining that people will want to get their books at the North Amherst Library. We hope they will. And we want them to be able to park their cars, but we don't need to pave paradise in order to make that work. So I just hope we'll work together to do something that's beautiful and creative and that we're gonna take into consideration the whole ambiance of the center of North Amherst, we're all working hard to build up the beauty and the history. Okay. So, Meg, I thought you were talking about the Jones Library, but the North Amherst Library is actually on the docket here. That's why I'm talking about it. It's not... Okay, so you'll want to chime in as part of that project because the public comment period is... I know, my book group is at seven, sorry. Oh, okay. When is your, somebody else may jump on then too. I'm sorry, I spoke at the wrong room. Not a problem, thank you so much. Our beloved North Amherst Library, we're so thrilled by the design Q and Riddle did and thrilled by the anonymous donor who's made it all possible. It's just amazing that we're saving this beautiful historic building and making it functional. Very good, thank you. I think, I can't talk later, I probably, but maybe someone else will jump on. Sorry to be out of place. That's fine, I understand. Thank you. Susanna, Musprat, set your name and your address. Hi Susanna, can you unmute yourself? There you go. Susanna Musprat, 38 North Prospect Street. I think my comment is that at Chris Prestrup. I just wanted to say that I'm so looking forward to the website we've been promised where you're going to be posting updates on where things and the various new amendments. I talked to a lot of people in town who really aren't up to speed on what's happening and they're asking me questions and I'd rather have a place to send them is hang it out of the way you want it laid out. And I think the Gazette and the Bulletin have not done a very good job of staying abreast of all the news and errors. There's so much of it, but I hope when it is ready, you can have a banner on the first page of the town website, the way you have the COVID banner now so that people will easily be able to find it and go there. Thank you. Thank you, Susanna. And I believe that's it. So we can start into it. We know we're at 640 and so we have the North Amherst Library for 635. It's SPR 2021, 06, 8 Montague Road and it's continued from the March 17th, 2021 hearing and they request a site plan review approval to add addition to the existing building and add new parking, walks, utilities, drainage and landscaping. And it's in map 5A, parcels 37 and 38 in the B-VC zoning district. So, and with regard to the preamble, Chris, do I need to go back to... You don't really need to read the preamble for this. So we'll just start. Yeah. So we can just flip it over to the project team and who would that be, Mike? We have Mike here and Chris Barley and... Chris Barley. Great. Sure. I don't know if you guys, Charles or Chris, if you guys want to go, I mean, just a quick synopsis. I guess last time we presented and there were several comments, there were many comments having to do with parking and whether or not we have sufficient spaces. We have made a proposal to add spaces. There were other comments, there were several comments about having to do with the safety of Montague Road and Sunderland Road, where pedestrians cross, is there enough lighting, et cetera, the speed, site distance, and Gilford was here last time. I don't know if he's going to be signing on, but basically I think that this project does not address some of those concerns that were brought up, obviously. I think it's well known that there's going to be future, there are plans for the future realignment of Sunderland Road, which would include potentially other improvements and some redesign on Montague Road going south to Pine Street and Meadow and that whole intersection, so we don't know what that's going to look like, but I think that Gilford was confident that some issues would be addressed at that time. We certainly hope it's not far off into the future. I know that the town is looking for funding to further the design of the road realignment, so and we don't know what state that's in, but it certainly is something that's planned for the near future. And then further, there were a couple of comments about some of the building design and aesthetics and which Cune Real will obviously address, but I guess if you'd like me to start, I can flip over to the revised plans and I think I basically want to talk about what we have planned for the parking. So let me see if I can. Thank you. Get over to that. Okay, let's see. Okay, this is the illustrative plan and I guess I'll, oops, I will just use that. So let's see, how do I start? Last time, whoops, all right. So just to orient you, this is the existing library building. What is hatched in here is the proposed addition and then further to the north, we have the proposed parking. The original proposal just called for these 10 spaces facing the library and a slightly relocated curb cut on Sunderland Road with the curb cut going out to Montague Road being closed. This kind of heavier dashed line, the symbol indicates the new curbing. So we are closing the curb cut that goes out onto Montague Road and the sidewalk and curb would be extended across the opening, across the current opening, which is shown right there. So basically our proposal is to add 12 more on-site spaces, which are shown here and these are just painted spaces on the existing pavement of the former garage parcel. So there's like a little bit of a trade-off here. Before we had proposed to cut out some of this pavement and turn it into a grass swale. So in this scenario or this proposal, there would be no grass swale at this time, but certainly a rain, we have in mind, speaking with Gilford that a rain garden would be added in the future to take on some of that runoff from the north and funnel it to the drainage system on Sunderland Road. But this proposal is just to add a five to six foot blend of pavement from the edge of the north edge of the proposed parking, which is this dashed line and then meeting the existing pavement on the former garage parcel and painting these 12 spaces so that there's more convenient parking provided directly at the building. So that gives us 22 spaces on-site and then we are proposing to strike spaces that on Sunderland Road where the curb line kind of like flares in and there is space. If I can show you the area of photograph that our rendering was put on, it does even show a car, a van parked along here. I think you can probably actually get in four spaces there, but we're showing three in the proposal to meet the 25 that we calculated was required by zoning. So that would be three on-street spaces but they're essentially there in existing condition. I think that striping just basically has worn away and haven't been painted or repainted. So that's basically our proposal for adding more spaces. We did consider overflow around the former garage building but if we had that swale, it would have made it a little bit more difficult for people to park here to kind of like cross over and get more of a direct line to the entrance of the new entrance to the library on the north. And so seeing that there is existing pavement there, I think Gilford kind of gave us the directive to look for this as a solution to provide those on-site spaces, which obviously in the future, that you could be improved or repaved and potentially with that rain garden area to the north and potentially with a lot more green space to the north as well once that garage is demolished to make room for the road realignment. The reason why we're not having the grass swale is because the town still wants to have access into the garage portion of this building, which is shown right here. So there need to be some maneuvering room to be able to get trucks or whatever vehicles in and out of that building. So that's the reason why we've kind of taken that grass swale out. It wasn't improvement. It was reducing the coverage and providing more green space but I think we're basically, I guess if you want to think about it, sacrificing that for to be able to do it in the future. And as I said, there was some other issues about lighting and stuff on Montague Road. Montague Road is controlled by the state. So that's gonna be a whole process of coming up with a design and having go through DOT, Mass DOT for approval. And again, that's anticipated to be part of the road realignment project, the Sunderland Road realignment project, coming into Montague Road. So hopefully some of these issues will be addressed. We can look to address potentially access for pedestrians or easier and safer access across Sunderland Road to the former school parcel, which is right here. Again, that's not within the scope of the library addition project at this time. But certainly it's something that the town DPW would keep in mind along with the road realignment project and potential future improvements. And whether or not a piece of Sunderland Road is eliminated and turned into green space as well. I think I'm gonna let Charles and Chris talk about the architecture and show you some of the changes there. Sure. And then we'll be happy to answer any questions about the site and things after the architectural presentation. Well, thank you, Mike. My name is Chris Farrelly from Cuneville Architects downtown Amherst. Thank you very much to the board for having us back for this continuation. We appreciate it. I am going to share my screen as well. Sorry, bear with me for just one sec. And what I'm going to do is essentially the same thing that that Mike Lue did. And that is really just focus on the changes to the drawings, the modifications to the drawings that were submitted for this hearing continuation and to try to address some of the specific issues that were brought up at the hearing two weeks ago. So one of the things I just wanted to clarify was the portion of the existing building that would be demolished and removed as part of this project. So you can see here, this is a photograph of the existing building that was right after the trees were removed in the back. And this red rectangle with the X through it is the section of wall that would be removed in order to make the physical connection between the addition connector and the existing building. So what this shows is that the two sets of windows on either side would be preserved. We will be, we are proposing removing a couple of the clear story windows, the smaller pane glass windows, which is necessary to get the headroom that's required for the lift and for the new stairway to make the connection. But other than that, the vast majority of the rear of the building would remain intact. And then also just to clarify the existing chimney here, which goes all the way down to the foundation and the basement on the inside of the building, that would also be removed in order to make the physical connection between the connector up into the existing library level. So those are the two pieces of the existing building that we are proposing removing in order to, to connect with the new addition. And then there's a slightly revised set of new elevations. And I'm gonna focus in first on the new entry elevation, excuse me, the north elevation. We have, we're proposing that there be a simple sign on the side of the building that says North Amherst Public Library. They would be aluminum block letters, dimensional letters that would be pinned off the building. So that's really the only thing, the only additional signage for this new addition. But we did feel that it was the right approach to have a sign on the building identifying what it was. As we said before, the existing sign on the front of the building, the existing entry side of the south, that sign will remain. We are proposing a slightly altered set of columns and bases for this new gable entry to the front. The columns have been simplified a bit from the previous Doric columns. These would be straight-sided columns, which would be more consistent with the columns that are on the front of the building. These are a little bit bigger, and we feel that they're necessary to provide the appropriate visual aesthetic support for the space above. And then in order to address the concern about wear and tear on the painted wood bases, what we are proposing is that the two bases under the columns would be made out of brick. And that would kind of tie this part, this entry into the existing building because the base of the existing building is brick. So we felt that that would be a nice tie-in with the existing building, the existing materials, as well as providing something that would stand up much better to the wear and tear of this entry, especially in the winter with shoveling, et cetera. There was previously some curved arching trim above this double window, which is a window into the meeting room. And we've removed that and have provided just a simple straight flat head trim for these windows. And then this is an elevation, kind of a combination of an elevation and a section, a section cut through the new connector addition, but looking toward the addition. And we just put a note here saying that the south-facing roof face could, the trusses, the structural trusses in the attic would be sized to allow the potential addition of photovoltaic panels in the future. As we discussed two weeks ago, the PV is not a part of this initial project, but there was some suggestion that it might be nice to at least have the option for PV on site, and it's a relatively easy thing to do to size the trusses and the structure in order to be able to support those panels in the future if that decision is made. And also the fact that we have a standing seam room, I'm sorry, a standing seam roof specified for the project, that makes the attachment of the PV panels to the roof quite simple as well. So there is that modification as well. And then there was, let's see, so this is the Sunderland Road elevation, the West elevation. There was some confusion among the design team as to exactly what the design of this screening fence would be for the proposed new mechanical systems that would be installed on grade. And so what we're showing here is a horizontal wood screening fence. It would actually be a return to both sides. So it's a three-sided enclosure to help screen that mechanical equipment. And also the details that Mike Lew is showing in his package reflect this same design. So there is that change. Gosh, I'm not sure what happened to page three. Well, I, for some reason it's not loading. Well, page three was, it just showed an elevation of the existing library from the South where there are no proposed changes. And then there was an elevation of the north side of the library simply showing this same area which would be removed for the connection to the new building. And then we have a few 3D renderings, updated 3D renderings showing the revised columns, the brick bases at the entry, the proposed signage on the side of the building, the removal of the trim here above the windows going into the meeting room. So this is that same West elevation. This is the current Sunderland Road here on the right. And this is just showing the wood fencing. We're currently showing it as a painted fence, which would match the trim and the base of the proposed library. And then we have just a slightly different view kind of from the northeast looking at that same building addition. And I do want to say one thing about the color, the color of the proposed siding here. There was a fair amount of discussion about that with the planning board two weeks ago as well as some of the other boards that we've come before as part of this process. And one of the developments that's occurred is that we are most likely looking at possibly repainting the existing library. There was some concern that the existing library really did need to have a fresh coat of paint applied to it. And so it looks as though we are going to be exploring repainting that as part of this project. I know that in the, I believe it was the mid 90s when the library was painted. There was some research done about what the original colors might have been. And I think we would like to go back and revisit that a bit. And so relative to repainting the library, our feeling is that until we do that research, we really aren't going to know exactly what the final proposal is for the color of the library, not only the siding, whether that remains natural or whether it perhaps becomes a painted finish as well as the trim color, trim finish paint color. So what we'd like to propose is that as part of the next phase of work, we would look into the historic colors of the existing library to confirm what those would in fact be if we did that repainting. And then quite honestly, during the construction phase, what we would like to see is a section of the building mocked up in situ after it's constructed, but before it's finished, where we would finalize those color selections for the addition. So we are showing as part of this presentation, we're still showing painted trim and a natural cedar shingle for the siding, but we also acknowledge that there are a couple of additional steps that need to occur before those colors will be finalized. And we understand that if there was a change to the color that we're presenting tonight, that we would most likely be obligated to come back before the planning board and present those final colors, which we would be perfectly willing to do. And then I know Chris Brestrup may address this, but I just wanted to let you know as well that we have at the end of last week, we did submit a project notification form, a PNF to the Mass Historic Commission, MHC, about this project and about the proposed demolition. So we have filed that application or that form with the MHC, we have not yet heard back, but that notification is underway. And I think that's about it. Charles, do you have anything that you'd like to add? No, Chris, thanks. That was a great job. I want to thank everybody for being here and we're excited about this project. And really at this point, in terms of the colors and materials, it is somewhat fluid, as Chris said, and it'll be resolved and finalized as we go through the process of understanding what the historic paint colors were for the existing library. And I could imagine a scenario where we actually get material samples and we bring things out on site and build them up as Chris was saying and weather permitting and all other conditions being favorable, it'd be great to have folks out there and see things live in person. So I'm looking forward to that. And also just welcome your comments after Chris's presentation this evening. Thanks. Thank you, Mike, Chris and Charles. Chris, you? Chris, me? Yeah, Chris Brescher, please. So I would, I'd just like to ask a question about the roof of the connector. I know that Doug Marshall brought that up last time and said it was kind of a flat roof and it was in between two roofs that were more historical. So it looks like you've done something to the roof of the connector. Can you describe that? Well, to be honest, we haven't changed that from the previous presentation. We are still proposing a flat roof. There is also a skylight here in the middle, which was something that was part of the previous presentation. But quite honestly, we really haven't changed that connector. I think our feeling is, Chris and Doug, that the roof forms of the existing building and the addition are really very strong roof forms the connector is intended to be a piece of the addition which really provides a connection between the new meeting room and the bathrooms and the new entry up into the existing library. And our feeling is that trying to minimize the volume and the form of that connector will really help keep the focus and the attention on the existing building and the addition. So I think we feel that the flat roof, the flat roof is the appropriate form for the connector. We do understand that there are some issues about snow load, drainage, and those will certainly be addressed in the coming phases of design. But Chris, it might be helpful to go back to that demo photograph you had. It shows the back of the... Yeah, so to Chris's point, I mean, that red outline there demarcates the scope of that flat roof connector. And by having that piece be a flat roof, it tucks in underneath the existing eaves and it doesn't obscure the ornament or the detail of that dorm when it's projecting forward with the sunburst on there. And so it really is a way of sort of minimizing that connection, letting the detail and ornament of the existing library breathe and give it space and then let the new addition stand free. And I think that the 3D images do a good job of describing the way the flat roof piece in three dimensions from the approach really does kind of disappear behind the addition. So to this point, this figure is very interesting. To me, it looks like this library was built and designed with the intention of an addition because of that spot there is clearly, clear of the windows and the dormitory. It's central to it. And was that part of the plan? Does anybody know? I would guess, I think that it's just fortuitous quite honestly that there is this spot that's really pretty much just the right size to make the connection we need to for the wheelchair lift and the two stairways. I think the fact that the chimney and the fireplace, which you can't see here because it's only expressed on the inside. I think the fact that that comes right down the middle of the building would preclude an easy connection without the removal of that chimney. So I would have to guess and suppose that the design didn't necessarily consider a future addition, but I do think that it's a fortuitous spot that we've tried to take advantage of. Okay. Chris, do you have? No, that satisfies me. I just didn't notice that little cupola previously, the skylight cupola. So I just wanted to find out about that. Thank you. Okay, sure. Great. So we'll go on to board member comments. I have Johanna and Doug and Maria. Johanna, please. I can't hear Johanna. She disappeared. Oh gosh, thank you. Sorry. Oh, there, okay. Great, I've been talking. First of all, thank you so much for the thoughtful continuation of your presentation. And I have two core questions. So the first, I was wondering if you could go back to the initial drawing of the site plan. And I wondered, I just remember previous commenters talking about how much pedestrian and cycling access there is to this. And it seems to me like removing the curb cut to Sunderland, no to Montague Road is one change there. And I'm just trying to figure out if you could show us where a cyclist would, like if a cyclist were coming from Pine Street, how would they get to the bike parking and the entrance of the library? That's one question. And then my second question, I'm really pleased to see the roof be made solar ready. And I just wanted to ask whether the electrical systems are also gonna be quote, solar ready. Well, I would can certainly address the PV. I think our intention is yes, that the electrical infrastructure as well as the structural roof support would be a photovoltaic panel ready. So the intention is to provide a building and an infrastructure that would easily accept the addition of PV panels. And I think when it comes to, I'll try to answer the question about the bicycle. And then maybe Mike, if you have anything to add, you could chime in. So Pine Street and Meadow Street are kind of off the map down here. I think it depends a little bit on which direction you were coming from. If you were coming from Pine Street heading west, I would think that you would take a right when the light changed. You would come down Montague Road and either cross. Yep, that's where the existing crosswalk is where you're indicating now. So a person could walk their bike across to the library site of Montague Road, the west. So that's the official crossing there. And if they were coming from the Meadow Street side heading east, again, they would wait for the light to change. They would turn. I think they would come down here on Sunderland Road. And there's another crosswalk right here. That would be the place for them to stop, to walk their bike down the walkway and over here to the bike rack. And then the person coming from the east would walk across here down the sidewalk, up this sidewalk and to the bike rack there on the north side. Thanks, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Johanna. Doug Marshall, please. Yeah, thanks, Coon Riddle for coming back. It's nice to see how things have evolved. I basically had one question. If you could go to some of the elevations. Yeah, that one's fine. I wanted to just ask about the size of the window on the east end of the addition, those two windows. And there's a similar two windows on the north side. Both of them, both pairs are looking in or out of the meeting room. Are those intended to be operable sashes? Those look huge. Chris, you're muted. Sorry about that, thank you, Doug. Yeah. They are large windows. I think the intention is yes, that they would be operable. Whether they, exactly what kind of operable I think we haven't really gotten into. The idea is that they would be, the mullions would indicate a double hung condition, whether they would be double hung or something else, I think is something that we would explore in the next design phase. Okay. So I guess one of the reasons I'm asking about those two pairs and the size of them is that I'm getting sort of funny, I'm getting a little bit of double readings of the scale of these buildings because there's times I wanna see those as sort of regular double hungs, in which case the buildings are very diminutive. And in, but if I look at the other windows, particularly in the original building, now I think these are really big windows, a scale figure kind of would help, but is that intentional I guess is, or why not use similar sized windows and be a little, and have some of the embellishments around them where the, like they did with the original building and you did with some of these other windows. Well, that's a good question. We made a conscious decision to make these windows as well as the windows on the North side. I don't have that elevation here. The Bay on the North side has a similar size double window. We did make a conscious decision to make those windows bigger for a couple of reasons. I think first and foremost, we really wanted to connect the interior to the exterior with more glazing. We wanted to bring more light into the interior. We really wanted to take advantage of the fact that this addition while it takes its stylistic and form cues from the existing, it's a contemporary structure. It wasn't designed and built in 1893. So our thought was is that, especially in the context of these bays, which project out that we could take a little license with the scale and updating of the windows. I think it's as simple as that, although Charles, you may want to chime in and talk about this a little bit. No, that's true. And actually what happens is there's an interesting sort of interplay of scale between the two buildings themselves, the way they're tied together with the smaller windows, and then the scale and reading of the two bays, the bay here that faces east and the north facing bay off of the entry. And they're sort of working at their own logical scale, which I think is kind of an interesting interplay. Also, they're serving a room, which is I think gonna be the biggest space in the combined two buildings, the library and the addition. And in terms of like being a space, it's welcoming and inviting people in. It also wants to be flooded with light and have views to the outside and sort of Chris alluded to connection to the site. And so that was our thought with these windows. And it was an iterative and intuitive process. And this is sort of where we landed with all, balancing all of those sort of various considerations. Okay, I guess I will comment that if it's a meeting room that's used for projection or there will be times you need to have those completely blacked out and you won't want the glare from the eastern sun necessarily on the table surface. So I'm sure you'll work that out as you get farther into the design on the flat roof. Will it be an internally drained flat roof or will it have a slope with a gutter along it? I'm thinking it's gonna be an internal drain. That's the cleanest, easiest way to do it. And, but it's not gonna have a parapet. So if something ever happens with the roof drain, the water will naturally sort of flow off. It's not gonna be like a bathtub low pitch eighth of an inch to a foot or quarter inch to a foot to a flat internal roof drain. Okay, thank you. Good comments, Doug. Thank you and Maria Chow, please. Thanks, thanks for coming back. I wasn't gonna actually comment on the windows, but I kind of agree that a meeting room, if you think about the scale of a space, having larger windows, if you had drawn, our preview is not the interiors, but like an interior elevation would probably show that the scale of that space, those windows makes sense. So it is a tricky thing to balance, you know, interior and exterior elevations, but it seems like maybe that might have been more like a, also an interior move. My thing was actually, I love those little letters you added for the signage. It's like a little modern twist on the building. I wonder if it's allowed to have like a glow of light because a lot of events might happen at night. If that signage can be, you know, just I know it won't be dark, so I can apply it, but I wonder if there is, I think I've seen it in other places where it's just a backlight in a way so that the letters really pop at night. Cause I know you have those two acorn lights that match the town's lights or something. And I think they probably do reach that wall, but it's a nice little feature, you know, just the thought that I threw out there. And then the last thing I was gonna come out and let's see, I know you're still studying the colors, but I would also offer to maybe study hardy plank because you'll probably have, you know, won't have as much of a textured natural look as the wood cedar shingles, but the durability and low maintenance might be a nice thing about the hardy plank shingles. Like I think that they have, cause they're paintable. And you know, I know you're studying the paint, but just as you're moving forward, that, you know, as far as thinking about longterm maintenance and that kind of thing. But otherwise, yeah, I think every iteration, you know, it's just getting closer and closer to a nicer sort of final product. So I appreciate you coming back. Thanks Maria. Any comment? Mike, Chris or Charles on that? Well, I was thinking about backlighting the aluminum block letters also. And Chris and I had a discussion about it. And I think, I think where, you know, we didn't really finalize it. I think we both had different opinions about it. But as I'm looking at this, I wonder about the idea of even having like a wall washer light in the eaves of it and just kind of washing that wall with a little bit of a pool of light as another way of lighting that sign up. But I think that's something we should definitely think about. What do you think? I would agree with that, you know? Yeah, I think that would look really nice. We do, the sidewalk light is in close proximity to where you're showing that North Amherst public library lettering on the building. Yeah, so we might move that light out or perhaps consider putting like a back shield on that light if that's possible so that we don't get so much glare from, you know, that fixture back to the wall. Cause that would, I think that would conflict with, you know, a wash, a soft wash coming down from the eaves. But we'd have to look at the location of that, you know, pole fixture. Yeah. I mean, we might want to look at those right now as I'm looking at those two fixtures, they sort of have, they're not sort of geometrically locked in with the building plan at all. We might want to look at the locations of those and put them somewhere where they're relating to the building and the plan in a coordinated way. Yeah, and I'm not, I don't know how the board feels about this, but even pushing them out closer to Sunderland or Montague, you know, we'd have some more light washing out into the public way, which would help improve, you know, navigation for pedestrians or whatever, you know, toward this site. Cause obviously once you get there, I think you can figure out where the door is on the north side, you know, and certainly we need the lights to light up the parking spaces, but we've got significant overlap on the lighting. So, you know, if the town would approve some more wash out onto the sidewalk and the road, we could kind of push those lights further away from each other. Okay, maybe we've got more discussion on that. Andrew? Thanks, Jack. Thanks for the updated presentation. I just wanted to address the parking real quick. So I think, you know, this was a nice kind of clean and simple solution. The space was there, it was already paved. And apologies if you mentioned this and I just missed it. Was there going to be any lighting on serving these parking bays here or would they just be kind of existing? I think that's a good point. I would like to, I think I would like to look at the, you know, there's different distribution patterns that, you know, the lights are capable of. So these ones that we're using now have a more linear distribution pattern. We can look at a distribution pattern that has a more square or blockier kind of throw so that you'd get more light being thrown to the north if the parking spaces are there. I think that's usually pretty standard. There's four basic distribution patterns, you know, for lighting. So we could certainly look at that. I can't remember what it is, if it's type B or something like that. But it has, you know, a further throw to the front. Got it. Okay, yeah, I'd love to know a little bit more about that. Certainly. Yeah, that makes sense. And then I know nothing about PBTA ridership and like this, I don't know if this is necessarily an issue whatsoever, but when you were first presenting this, I was just imagining other parts of the world where I've seen things like this. Where you're adding parking spaces that are probably not gonna be used a lot of the time next to a mass transit stop. And like, do we feel like folks from Sunderland might use that as a parking ride? And I don't know that it's legitimate, but I just didn't wanna share that thought that had popped in my mind that for folks coming down 116, this might be easier for them to just park in this lot, which is going to be only sporadically used and largely in the evening, probably, based on comments you presented last go around where the usage is really pretty low. So again, I don't know that there's anything to do, but I just didn't wanna share that thought. Thanks, Hans. Mike, can you brief us on the... Well, in terms of coming from the North, well, first of all, okay, let me remind, on this plan that you're seeing now, the bus stop on the East side of Montague Road is, can you move the cursor, the hand down a little bit? Chris, yeah, right there. That's the bus stop going in the northerly direction. I don't know exactly where the bus stop is coming from driving in a southerly direction. I think it's further to the North up toward the, or maybe even across the bridge of the Mill River. That's kind of far to come and park in that lot and then walk back to the bus stop if you're going into UMass or whatever. Is there a bus stop in front of the Black Walnut Inn? That might be the next location where there's a stop headed south. I think you might be right about that, Mike. I think on the other, yeah, to the south of Meadow and Pine. So, I mean, my gut reaction is that it's not likely that somebody would come and park their car there all day in the library lot, but I mean, it could happen. There's obviously no guarantees. And I don't know, I'm not sure what commercial property owners do or whatever to prevent people from using kind of the parking for their own kind of uses or desires. So Andrew, I have to say, I'm not sure if you're suggesting that we explore allowing people to park there or if you're concerned about people parking there. Yeah, it would be more of the latter. I'm, again, not advocating for any change in what we're proposing here. I just, I wasn't sure if folks knew enough about the bus lines, the stops, it's an easy out to just whiz up Sunderland Road to head north. But yeah, I know there's ample parking across the street. Again, it's just an observation to make. I will say, I mean, this is certainly anecdotal, but I drive by here on a regular basis. And that entire north parking lot, you know, is available. It's not striped or anything right now, but I do see sometimes a handful of cars there, but I've never really seen a large number of cars. And again, that's just anecdotal based on my experience. But I think because of the locations of the bus stops and the proximity to this parking area, I would guess it's probably because of the parking lot I guess it's probably not going to be an issue. I would say that if it does become an issue, then, you know, we would have to, or the town would have to look at ways to try to dissuade people from parking there. Well, I was like, sorry, Jack, just one last thought. Is I wonder if PVTA might be interested in having a stop here with it now being kind of a revitalized library site. Thanks. Thank you. So I'm gonna, Jen has her hand up. I'm gonna have a bump Guilford up. Guilford? Oh, sorry, I just wanted to weigh in on the parking here. We already have the problem with university students parking in this village center. They actually park at Mill River at the recreation area. That's the closest parking area to the southbound bus the bus stop is up towards Mill River more. They park in that little parking lot by the pool close to the road and walk up and then they just have a short walk back because they have to walk from Riverside Park Plaza back up to the parking lot. So we do already have that little problem going on now and we have talked to PVTA about moving the stops but they kind of like them where they are right now. And one is in front of the black walnut end and the second one is in front of Mill River and the third one is over by Kohl's Lumber and it kind of serves the survival center. So it's kind of a loop and there's also a new one on Kohl's, Kohl's, there's four in this little village center right now and that's what they want to keep. So just so you know, we already kind of have people parking and riding the bus and using town lots for their parking spaces. Thank you. Janet? Thank you. I just, I don't want to say enough how much, how much I love this project. I think it's just beautiful. I have a few things to say. One of them is in terms of the parking, I'm not in love with Asphalt but I do think it's important to have enough spaces so people can use this beautiful library that's gonna have all this expanded capacity. And so I think Meg Gage had mentioned using those kind of open blocks that let, grass grow in and things like that. So I think, is that an option that you could look at instead of just tearing up the whole thing? Is that, you know, I know that's more expensive too but just the question is like, is that a possibility just to keep the more drainage on the site, natural drainage on the site and maybe looking less asphalt-y? And then the other question I have is maybe partly for Christine Brestrup is, I couldn't really find the management plan. And so it seems like, I don't know if I just have lost control of my paper or that it seems like new things have been added. And I don't, like when we referred to in the draft findings or the, I couldn't figure out what the management plan is. And so I was wondering if there's a final document yet that could include different updates including the parking spaces. And then when I looked at the design review board and the disability access advisory committee, like have their recommendations been incorporated into that plan? And if it has, then we, you know, maybe you don't need to go over it and things like that. Like with the disability access, you know, there was questions about a bell, a backup generator, widening the hallway, a place of refuge, which I didn't even know what that was. But, you know, are those things been incorporated? And I just don't know they're there. Thank you. So one of your questions, which is the management plan. So the management plan was included in the packet that went out for the March 17th meeting. So there is a management plan. It's, you know, it's pretty simple. Basically says the town's going to do everything. But it is in there. Pam, can you find the management plan from the March 17th packet? It was, you know, part of the application. Is it that single page, like that page? It's like a page with double sides. Okay. So I wonder if we can have an updated plan that incorporated more issues. And did that plan address the issues raised by the design review board or the disability access? No, it was produced before the two meetings. So Chris, like, should we talk about those issues now or how do we incorporate their suggestions and concerns? I think if Jack agrees, then that would be a good thing to do to talk about their ideas and concerns. If Jack thinks that's appropriate. Would that be like Tom or to bring in the DRB and? I would love to pass that off to Tom. We have those documents as part of the packet. Yeah, I have it here. Where am I looking? Yeah, all the notes from our meeting are here and the recommendations are here. And I think a lot of the same recommendations that we had were raised by the DRB as well. And some of the things that Chris had addressed in terms of the aesthetic for the entryway, the curve above the windows is an extraneous detail and some other elements, including color, were part of that debate and discussion. And the team did address a lot of those, Doug and Maria as well, the double windows on those two facades came up in that meeting and their scale. So those things were raised and discussed and they were very similar. And I think signage was really the only other thing that was raised and that's been addressed here as well. So as far as I can remember, I just reviewed the document again today, but as far as I can remember, those were the kind of main things that came up. Entryway, the windows, signage and extraneous detail around the soffit. I think that was, oh, and the screen around the mechanical. And those seems all have been addressed. Okay. And then on the disability access advisory committee, they were, I think that there was gonna be a bill on the chairlift, is that right? Yes, we, the intention is that we have a list of the suggestions, comments and concerns from the disability access committee. Essentially what we've said is that we will try to the extent that we can to incorporate all of their comments, the bell on the lift, to the area of refuge inside the generator, et cetera. There are some issues that may or may not be permitted by code, but to the extent that they are permitted, we will certainly explore them in the next design phase and try to incorporate all or as many of them as we can into the design. What is the place of refuge? I didn't understand that. So a place of refuge is if there's someone with a disability in their wheelchair bound and they can't get out of a building because of stairs, et cetera. It's a place to provide, a place for them to go, to be in a safe location that the emergency services knows about and during an emergency, the fire department or other service can come and get them safely out of the building from that area of refuge within the building. Okay, well, okay, that sounds really important. My last comment is, I think the lighting plan is a little, it seems kind of, it needs sort of more detail. And so in terms of where the lighting's gonna be, and then I couldn't tell from the picture of the lighting plan, are there gonna be lights like at the doorways and are they gonna stay lit? Cause I've noticed that in the different buildings in town, there's like, you know, like on the Munson Library, there's a light on the doorway that's always lit, kind of a safety thing, as well as at night helping that. So I couldn't see that, but I was just wondering if the lighting plan could be sort of more detailed or a little more clear. We, that's a good question. We do have, I'll be honest, I can't remember if it's one light or two lights in the ceiling of the entry to illuminate that covered entry area on the north. Excuse me. So the intention certainly is to have that that entry, that covered entry illuminated. And I guess what I would say is we can certainly clarify that on the lighting plan. Yeah, I just didn't see it. I kind of assumed it might be there, but it was, the plan is hard to read for some reason. I don't know if it's just tiny or whatever. Okay, thank you. Oh, and then in terms of the parking lot, like would you consider using that kind of open, I don't know if it's brick or something like that? I think they're expensive because I remember when we talked about it for the common school. It is a little bit more expensive than asphalt paving, but I think that that's, I mean, I'm gonna have to let Guilford make the call on that, but I think that's, that would be a very reasonable thing to do for when those northern spaces, for instance, become a permanent feature, what the demolition of that garage. I think that'd be the perfect use for it because those are likely to be less used than the spaces that are facing the building directly. And so it makes sense to capitalize on those types of pavers for infiltration and treatment of the runoff. Okay, thank you. Great. So Tom, is your hand up? Was that residual? No, that's up. Yeah, no, I have another question in regard to the parking area. And Mike, I think I just need some clarity on this trade-off we're getting. And so the last time we looked at the plan that swath of land where those parking spots are now was a swell, there was a water catchment that would bring water to the drain. What I liked about that, excuse me, was it created an experiential or visual separation from this area of the library to this kind of raw vacant lot that's there. Right, right. So in my mind, that was a nice feature. And I feel like the trade-off now is that there's just spray painted lines and a continuous sea of asphalt. And I'm curious why such a drastic trade-off. Like, can there not be any grass along the back, like three inches, or can it not be anything that separates these things from each other, even with one cut that lets cars or trucks or something through, because they couldn't have gotten through before. So I guess I'm curious about what that threshold is. And I know we're spending money that's gonna disappear maybe later, but I guess I'm looking for something there so it doesn't feel like this parking lot is just a sea of asphalt. And I guess I'm wondering what the trade-off is and whether it's money or procedure or what. There's probably not much difference when it comes from a monetary standpoint because before we were gonna remove pavement and then turn it into grass. Now we're keeping the pavement but adding a little bit to blend the new pavement, which is higher, back down to the existing. But I think you're right. Visually, if it kind of like spills over into the former garage parcel, you don't get kind of a clear separation of the uses or the two parcels, but I think that we'd have to look at what needs to drive in and out of that building. Maybe we can add like whatever, a minimal green strip or something like that. If we can't, then maybe we can install some bollards of some sort at least to provide the visual separation if you will from separating that sea of asphalt. But I mean, I really like the idea of in the future that what can end up there is an actual rain garden that functions as such rather than, we just had a grass swale. It wasn't a rain garden. And certainly it would treat, just run off in a minimal way, but a rain garden is gonna do a lot more. I mean, I don't wanna put more work on the gardeners that do a ton of work there now, but if you gave them 12 inches of something, the plants, they'd probably find something to grow there and to help make that visual break that I think we need. So I think I would just say, it would be something I'd love to see considered as we're digging that, or as we're cutting that, to sort of think about how we, because that is a really nasty looking parking area. And whatever we can do to separate these two visually would be great. Thank you. Thanks, Tom and Mike. Guilford, please. This is more of a, it is more of a money issue than it is anything else. We're working in the fixed financial realm of what the donor is willing to give and the requirements of the donor. Donor has made it quite clear. They do not wanna pay for anything beyond the building basically and what's technically required for the building. So we're trying to keep the donors' wishes intact and still trying to meet the needs of the library. We just have to agree that when the road work is, when the road intersection work is done, we're gonna have to take a lot of the things you're talking about now and roll that into the road work, lighting, pedestrians, changing the parking lot, having more green and more aesthetically pleasing lawn for the library. We actually still don't know where the entrance to the library will be when we realign the intersection either, the driveway entrance couldn't be through part of the garage or where the garage is now. So we might have to rearrange things. So we are, as you start moving away from the actual building addition, we're adding money to the donor who doesn't wanna really pay for those and we're getting farther into the unknown world of what we're doing with the road realignment. This is really the two issues that are driven here, driving this. So Guilford, I believe I read somewhere where this North Amherst intersection is gonna be delayed somewhat, didn't get approved. So how many years are we looking at before that intersection comes to fruition? The redesign there. So the money for, they start the redesign and move that along with the late a year. So it's not gonna get, we're not gonna start at this July and go into design over the winter here. We'll start next July and go into that winter design, doing redesign. That's all that happened, just slid one year. So it's not too far off from the future then? No, it's the next big project in the queue after we finished the MassWorks project at Palm Royale 116. And then we have a North Common and probably two more in there that are under design now. And then this will be moving forward. So to Tom's point, I feel like this is really like a temporary, wouldn't know what's being proposed is really has a very short lived sort of thing because of the redesign, but I don't know if you feel the same way or not, but there's a lot of moving parts here on the project. So let me see if there's any other hands up. So Chris, we have some draft findings. Would it be prudent to edit those with the comments that we have today and wrap those up or can we do with this on the fly tonight? Well, it seemed like from the comments that Janet in particular made that there are some things that need to come back like a revised management plan and the lighting. Looking at the lighting again. And so I think in order to clarify those things and making sure that all the DAAC comments and the DRB comments are incorporated into the design, it's probably worth it to have one more meeting and have the others come and tell the board how the DRB comments and the DAAC comments have been incorporated and how they've dealt with the lighting questions that Janet has brought up. And if there is anything else that people want to do about the parking lot or access or anything like that or if all of those questions have been answered. I just feel like there are things that are sort of hanging. Yeah, but I know somehow we need to like within quotation marks that this is all gonna change because it's just a major construction project coming down the line for the intersection that's going to incorporate a portion of this project. Well, what if we had one more meeting and the designers brought back whatever they could do to resolve some of these issues and then I will try to incorporate some of those things into the findings. And I did come up with some draft conditions but I haven't had a chance to review those with Rob and Maura yet. And so I hate to say it but maybe it's worth it just to have one more meeting. Yeah, I mean, I think Mike, Chris and Charles definitely did a good job responding to our comments from the previous meeting. And so what are we looking at for schedule? I don't have that in front of me, but. Meeting coming up on, there's one on April 21st. We're having an interim meeting if everybody, well, that's gonna be talked about later but I was hoping to have an interim meeting on the 14th to talk about zoning. Yeah. When the regularly scheduled meeting is on the 21st. So we could have them come back on the 21st if that would be suitable to everybody. Is that good, Mike? Chris, Charles? Are we good with that, Guilford? For that's what, two weeks from now? Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Jack, I think somebody has a hand up in the crowd in the audience. Yes. Mr. Marshall also has his hand raised. Okay, let me get Doug first, Doug. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to say, I thought I heard Chris say that the intent was that they would take care of at least all the DRB meeting comments when they get further into design. So I don't, I'm not expecting any evidence that they're all addressed and I'm not expecting any assurance or promise that they all will be addressed but that the design team will evaluate whether they are all allowed and appropriate. So, you know, I guess I wouldn't expect anything more at this point in design. So I'm not sure why we would have them come back at least for those kinds of meeting, those kinds of comments. And so I'm a little surprised that we're headed toward another meeting given that this one is the second meeting and we spent an hour and a half on it. Thank you. So can we, can we power, you know, power through this or not? Chris, we have these draft conditions here and we'd have to kind of like, again, on the fly, get them all right, but we don't have. I think that's going to take a while. Yeah. Okay. Sort of tone of the conversation. Yeah. So, Doug, I think I appreciate your point. I would love to close this, but let's get some public comment here. We have Larry Zekairis. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name, but state your name and address please. Larry Zacharias at 519 Montague Road. And I just had two questions. First of all, on the parking, I don't think the board should look, should be too concerned about the parking because there's a lot of parking across the street, both at the old school and in the riverside shops. There's the whole Mill River area that has parking. And then at worst, the North Square area has a huge amount of parking, which is all accessible by sidewalks. So, I wouldn't put too much of an emphasis, certainly not on spending money on the parking in light of what Mr. Mourning says about the intersection. The one thing I would say though, is that the sketch for putting in additional parking there, it looked like the two bays or the two groups of parking were very close together. And I think a lot of people are gonna back out into each other and it looks a little bit precarious. So, better to leave fewer cars, spray paint fewer spaces and make sure that people can get in and out easily. The other question I had, and maybe you said some, the architect said something about this, but the flat roof in between the two buildings seems like you're asking for trouble. I mean, if the snow falls down on the flat roof and it gets into the stices or whatever you call them, the flashing points, it just doesn't seem like a healthy situation unless there's a way for the snow to slide off the flat roof in between or else you're just gonna get a huge snow buildup in there. So, that's something I think if it hasn't been considered, it should be considered. So, that's it. Thank you, Larry. Janet Keller, is that your name and address please? And Janet. Hi there, everybody, thanks. I had a question regarding the parking and the functional rain garden. Mike indicated that that could be, you know, seriously functional. And I missed the previous meeting, so I don't know what led up to the discussion of adding so much parking. And, you know, I'm agnostic about all of this. I'm really asking, you guys are the experts, if you had your way, what do you feel is best for that spot? Or is that parking thing a settled issue when I shouldn't even be asking this? So, Janet, what's your address, your residence address? Oh, sorry, I live at 120 Popewood Hill Road. Very good, thank you so much. You want me to talk about that? Oh, Chris, go ahead. So, the last time we met, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that there were only 10 parking spaces provided on the site. And the requirement of the zoning bylaw was to have 25 spaces. There was a lot of discussion about being able to park across the street either at Riverside Shops, which is a private property, and we don't really have permission to park over there, or to park at the North Amherst School. Either case, you have to cross either Thunderland Road or Montague Road. Some people will be coming to this library at night in order to go to meetings in that meeting room. Members of the board didn't really like the idea of putting people in danger by crossing those roads at night when there really isn't adequate crosswalks or lighting. And so they felt strongly that there was a need to put more parking on the site. So the designers have gone to a great extent to find places on the site to provide of the 25 spaces that are required. So they don't need to ask for a modification of the parking requirement anymore. So I think that they've done a good job with that. And as a result, they have had to eliminate the swale that was going to accept stormwater. And that's too bad, but we've been told by Mr. Moreing that efforts will be made to solve that problem in the future when the intersection is redesigned. As far as I can tell by looking at the grading, the runoff from the parking lot will go in the direction of a catch basin that is either new or going to, or is existing on Thunderland Road. And so I think, you know, overall the drainage will be handled. This isn't going to turn into a flood zone or a sea of ice. But in the future, it may be possible to handle the stormwater in a better manner. So that's kind of the story as far as I understand it. Thank you. Very good. So can we, you know, finish this up on April 21st with, you know, Chris, I think it's going to rework, you know, work with the design team and, you know, edit our findings and conditions. And I think it would be helpful if the design team did address the issues that were brought up by the DAAC and the DRB in writing, whether you can solve them now or not, it would be nice to just put it down on paper and say, well, we can solve this issue now and here's what we're going to do or we can solve this issue in the future in some manner that is undetermined, but at least address the issues because I think they're going to be brought up again next time if you don't have something in writing. The other thing is to update the management plan and that's probably on us. I don't know who actually did the management plan and whether it was Mike or somebody in my office or Guilford, but we can put our heads together and see what we could do to beef up the management plan of it. And were there other issues? I think Janet had some issues about lighting. So thinking about exactly where the lights on the north side of the building are going to be placed to the best advantage to light up the access to the building and clarifying what kind of lighting that you have in the entryway to allow people to get into the building at night. And so those are the things that I remember and I don't know if Janet has other issues that she feels need to be addressed, but those are the things that I would bring forward. And we talked about the signage there with that wanting to be presented and kind of separated from the two light poles out there. The pole, you have the pole fixtures. Yeah. So yeah, some tweaking. I'm happy to. Janet, yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, I think that Chris, you covered that and I'm happy to donate some perennials for the perimeter that Tom was talking about. So if you wanna create a little vegeta, I have tons of stuff I can, I'm sure lots of gardeners would donate. So. Mr. McDougal has his hand raised. Yes, Andrew. Thanks. I was just gonna add real quick, Chris, that Mike was going to look into the lighting options to reach the far parking bay as well. And I'd asked him about that. Yeah, we'll try to get more light to the north. And again, I mean, we're in a kind of a tough situation. We don't know what's gonna happen in the future, but certainly if the entrance is realigned or whatever, there's probably gonna be some lighting associated with that as well, being added, and as well as the rain garden and things like that. So Mike, when, how flexible is it if you were to... How flexible is the lighting? Yeah, I mean, you get one configuration in there. Is it, can you? We'll be able to get some light thrown to the north, but it won't, if we're putting lighting on the one side, on the far side of the sidewalk, we're not gonna get what the lighting designers like to have for lighting levels in a parking lot. We're not gonna get that level all the way to the very north edge that's 58 feet away, or well, 58 plus counting, not including the sidewalk. So, but we will get some lighting there, so it'll be safer for people who want to get out of their cars. But can you use those same lighting fixtures and alter them with regard to the reconstruction that's gonna happen in a couple of years? I'm pretty confident we can, and I'll get in touch with the rep for the light product tomorrow. You want that flexibility. Yeah, yep. Great, okay, so are you good for the 21st? I think so, yeah. Yes, we're good for the 21st. Okay. You wanna take a vote to continue the public hearing to the 21st? Yeah, do I hear a motion for that? Chris, do we need to have an exact time? Yeah, probably. 635. 635. All right, so Tom, you had your hand up. I was just gonna move to continue. Okay, and a second? A second. All right, Janet, so we'll do a roll call here. Any discussion? Nope, okay, so Maria? Yes. Andrew? Aye. And Doug? Aye. Tom? Yeah. Janet? Aye. Johanna? Aye. And myself as an aye. So we will see you on the 21st. Okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Okay, we'll see you then. Alrighty, bye-bye. Thank you. Good night. Night. Okay, so I have to kinda rework my screens here. But we have, next is, and again, it's eight. We're getting into the evening here. But so we have a joint hearing with the tree warden on the scenic tree removal to allow space for a driveway to service a new single family home, Flat Hills Road, Map 9A, Parcel 30, a public shade tree impacted by this project includes the following trees. Looks like a seven inch diameter red maple, nine inch red maple and a 10 inch red oak. So I'm just looking for... So you have Anne and Novy Cook is here and Alan Snow is also here. His video is off. But here he is. Okay. Here's Alan. Good, good. So I should add in accordance with the provisions of MVGL chapter 40, section 5C Center of Groats and chapter 87, section three shade trees, this joint public hearing between the piney board and the tree warden has been duly advertised in the daily Hampshire Gazette and posted in the town hall. And then I've stated the other things with regard to this. So any board disclosures? I see none. And we ask the applicant to present the project please. You're muted. Is that Anna? Anna. Unmuted, sorry. I'm Anna Cook from integrity construction in North Amherst and the project site in question, we're intending to build a single family home. And so we're requesting permission to take down a couple of trees for the curb cut to get the driveway into the property. We've requested permission for three trees. Our intention ultimately is only to take down two of the three, but we have not exactly determined where the curb cut's gonna wanna go. So we wanted to have a little flexibility there. Very good. And we had a, we had a site visit. Anybody wanna give a site visit report? Who was there? Oh, Janet, please. So we went to Flat Hills Road and we observed the two, the site, it was marked it's width by red pink ribbons. And there are three trees. I think it's two maples and an oak. And depending on where the driveway goes, it looks like the tree in the middle has to go no matter what. And then one of the trees on each side has to go. And we discussed the width of the driveway, which I believe was had only to be 16 feet. And we also talked about like whether a fire truck would need something wider, but it turns out the truck can get in, but needs a wider place if it was into set up its side bases and stuff like that. And that would be further down the driveway. Was there anything else? The trees are actually fairly substantial. And then there was a discussion about where the fees for removing a tree would go. And Mr. Snow said that it would basically go into a fund to buy new trees and put them in a different location. And then also, I mean, there's a fair amount of quick, there's some traffic on the road that's kind of quick moving. And then we also observed where the public way ends, which seemed to be about like 20 feet, but I'm not gonna be quoted on that. Is there anything else there? Oh, we also talked about where the house would be built, which was not quite, you know, figured out yet. And then the lot itself is like four acres. So it's a fairly large lot. Chris, did I forget anything? Sounds right to me. Great. Alan, do you have anything to add? I can add that I met on site with representatives from integrity builders. We talked at length about location and to meet their customer's goals of where they want their house and driveway to be. Shows the area with the fewest trees. And, you know, I think it's probably the best location to get into that heavily wooded area. So no matter where you put a driveway, you're gonna be cutting down a few trees, a few public shade trees that is. So this seems to be the best location at this point. Thanks, Alan. Any other board comments? Nope, and flip over to the public and Shoshana King, state your name and address, please. Hi, Shoshana. Shoshana King, 46 Rolling Green Drive in Amherst. I'm representing the Amherst Public Shade Tree Committee. We met today also on the site and we agree that the best efforts have been made to have the least amount of impact on the public shade trees that are there. And we look forward to being able to plant new trees with the funds generated from those trees. Excellent, thank you. Thank you. So with that, whoops. And so we, again, Alan will, has a vote and the planning board has a vote as I understand Chris. Okay, so is there a motion to accept the proposal and close the hearing? So Mr. McDougal's hand popped up and then Yohana. Okay, so Andrew. I would like to make that motion. I just have one question before, which is just, it's for Alan. At what point do we, or maybe Mr. Shoshana, at what point do we expect to be able to plant those new trees? Like, is this something that would happen within the season or just kind of goes into a fund and trees are planted at some point in the future? Yes, so that money goes into a fund which we use to plant trees in years in town where there aren't trees or there is a need for trees. So it wouldn't necessarily be targeted for an area immediately. Okay, thanks, I'll make the motion. Great, Yohana. Second the motion. Great, okay, any discussion? I see none. So let's do a roll call here. Maria. Prove. Andrew. Aye. Doug. Aye. Tom. Aye. Janet. Approve. And Yohana. Aye. And I am, and I as well. So that's unanimous. And we flip over to Alan. I approve. Excuse me, I approve. Okay, so did we get that right, Chris? Yep. Okay. Well, thank you, Yohana. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. Alrighty. Thank you, bye. And we can go to the next, which is the, all right, more screens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so this is the, I gotta read the preamble here for this one. So this is for the SPR 2021-08, bang, center ramp and stairs, but would walk. And in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 48, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding the SPR 2021-08, bang, center ramp and stairs, but will walk. Request site plan review under section 3.342 of the zoning bylaw to construct a handicap accessible ramp and to repair and resurface the stairs at the south side of the Bangs Center for access to the John Musanti Health Center, which is on map 14A, parcels 305-343 and the business general zoning district. So are there any board member disclosures? I see not, okay. So we can have the applicant present that, which would be, Ben? Yeah, I'll be making a short presentation. And we also have Rob Mora here. He's the building commissioner and he can answer any questions. Okay. In the presentation. Well, thanks everyone. I did make a short little slideshow just things that were in the packet already just to go over today. Here we go. Are you seeing the like just the slide or do you see like the notes and stuff on this? See the notes as well, but they're kind of to the... They're small. Okay, I never know. There you go. Yeah. Let's see. So just a little bit about this project. The John Musanti Health Center opened in 2018. It provides healthcare for everyone regardless of their ability to pay. So it's a run by the Hilltown Community Health Center and it operates in the Bank Center in downtown Amherst kind of in the rear of the Bank Center. So right now there's the accessible route, the ADA route to the Musanti Health Center from the front of the Bank Center involves using the elevator. And that's an issue because the Bank Center hours are not always in line with the Musanti Health Center hours. So if there's time from the Bank Center is closed and there's then no accessible route down to the Community Health Center. And I think, I wasn't here at the time but my understanding is that as soon as the town knew that the Health Center was going into the Bank Center then we knew that there needed to be an accessible route from the outside. So as soon as early as 2018, the town was applying for grants to get the ramp built. I think there was two unsuccessful grant applications and then we were fortunate enough in March to get a $192,000 grant from Mass DOT the shared streets program to construct this ramp that runs from the Boltwood Garage parking area down to the Bank Center, down to the Musanti Health Center. And I think due to this location, it's also, sorry, due to the location of where the ramp is, it also provides access from the Anne Whalen Clark apartments, which are senior housing, some low income, also housing for the disabled. So it's an important population to, for accessibility is important to that population and this ramp will also provide access from those apartment residents, for those residents in those apartment buildings to downtown Amherst and to the Bank Center. It's worth noting too, there's also stairs here that the town will, we're probably likely to resurface as part of this project as well. So here's just the map of the area. You have the Bank Center here, the health centers in the back of the Bank Center, Johnny's Tavern is here, this is the Boltwood Garage. It's off the map, but the Clark Apartments and Anne Whalen Apartments are to the right over here. And so the blue kind of shows just a very rough drawing of the location of the new ramp and also where the stairs will be resurfaced. I'll show some pictures in a second, but just so you know, this is a hillside with some great difference, which is why the ramp is important there. Here's just the aerial, the same thing. And so, yeah, this is why I wish I could show the full screen just because I wanted to be able to zoom in. Yeah, there we go, I guess. So this is the most recent construction document for the ramp itself. Just this is the Boltwood Garage, the very top right corner of the garage. And these are those stairs. The idea is the ramp basically runs with the grade. There's not a significant amount of grading that needs to be done. It's at a one to 12 grade for ADA accessibility. The metal railings are at, forget the exact height that needs to be for ADA level, but they're at that. There's a landing midway through the ramp. And then where the, it's an L-shaped ramp and at the, where it changes direction, we're proposing a concrete landing with four benches, a light pole. And this is just kind of like a, can be a place for people to rest, to gather. For some, going up and down this ramp is can be a lot of work. So it's important to have an area to rest. Continues down and then into the, a sidewalk for the health center and the entrances down here. So I think in terms of new additions, we're relocating the bike rack, which is currently located right where we would want the ramp to come in. We're proposing obviously the ramp, the rails, the four benches, a new, one new light pole. It's important to keep this area lit at night just before coming up and down the ramp. I'll talk about the trees in a second, but there will be some tree removal and new trees planted. And that was also part of the DRV recommendation, which I'll talk about in a second. And just so for some images, I probably should have started with some images just so we're all on the same page. This is a panorama. So it kind of encompasses a lot, but it shows the, this is basically where this image is taken is kind of where that landing is, where the ramp changes direction. So the ramp would start up here, that bike rack would be relocated over here and the ramp would come down, there'd be a sitting area here and then it would continue off towards the sidewalk over here. This is where the ramp would connect up at the Boltwood garage. Again, the bike rack relocated to this area. These are the existing stairs. They are in a pretty rough shape. There's actually chunks missing of the treads at the top here. And those cones have been in place for quite a while now to caution people. Mary Beth, the director of the senior center, she has expressed a lot of concern about seniors coming up and down these stairs and the urgency of repairing them. And we hope to do that as part of this project as well as addressing this retaining wall, reinforcing it. And so in terms of the trees that will need to be removed, there's two in this area, a linden and a london plain tree are in the way of where the ramp is gonna come in. There's a fox elder tree that likely needs to be removed because of grading work that might need to occur in this area to make the ramp work and this retaining wall. This white pine is certainly in the way that's right where the landing will be. And then there's three additional white pines off to the right here. And I'm not exactly sure if those will need to be removed but maybe this one might be in the way but these two might be okay. We are, the design review board approved this project with the recommendations that vegetation not be, vegetation shouldn't provide too much shade and screening for this area. They want it, it's gonna be an area people need to feel comfortable coming up and down and traveling up and down the ramp. And if it's too hidden in these pine trees then people might not feel comfortable doing that. So we'll have to decide whether the pine trees come down but if any plantings we do put in, we are definitely proposing, I'll go back to the plan for the plan. We're proposing one, two, at least two or three trees and some smaller shrubs as well. The trees that we plant will be large and make sure much, large shade trees that'll grow high and tall and kind of not have lower limbs to provide screenings. So it'll be, the limbs will be higher up so it won't provide too much of a screening effect. So that's basically the gist of it. The light poles and the benches will match the, Amherst kind of standard furniture that's seen in the rest of the Botwell garage area and downtown Amherst and the bike racks will be the same U-loops just relocated. And I think that's basically it. And in terms of grading, it's mostly, you can see the existing and proposed grade. It's mostly kind of at grade. It'll be raised a little bit above the ground and there will be some like obviously, work that needs to be done to remove soil, place a base layer and then build it up from there. But we don't expect it to be too disruptive overall. So I guess I'll end there and just kind of open it up for any questions or feedback. Rob or Chris, if I missed anything major, feel free to jump in. Ben, what's happening with the stairwell again? So my understanding is that it's gonna be a resurfaced essentially. So each, it'll be new concrete poured over the stairs and each tread will be like extended out one. It'll have a fresh surface. Okay. So Tom, you're on the design board, maybe you can give us a recap of your perspective. Yeah, sure. I think Ben, one of the concerns you were right, visibility was one of them in terms of making sure people felt safe and seen in those spaces. And so I think you did some work to address that. One of the other concerns was lighting, right? And I think what we don't get from this is a sense of the throw of the lights that are there. There's only three lights within the vicinity of this as far as I can tell. And I'm just wondering, on a real pitch black night, what kind of throw we're getting from that one light at the center, I guess the corner, the turn on that landing, is that enough to light essentially both of these walkways because that's really what it's job is gonna be or will there be smaller illumination stands along the way? How do we imagine making sure that there's enough light for people to navigate that space? Ben? Yeah, no, that's a good point, Tom. I mean, obviously we didn't do like a full-on photometric analysis, but this will be, the acorn lights are pretty bright and they do send light in all directions. And there could be some darker spots like in the middle of the ramp, but I do think between the three, it will provide enough coverage. And, but I guess we could look into it further. I'm not, I guess in terms of if we were to put an additional light, maybe it could go kind of in this area over here to kind of have on both sides of the landing. I mean, it might just be a simple matter of finding out kind of what the recommended spacing is for these, they're obviously used along the street and they're used in certain ways, whether they're different, foot-handled bulbs that are being used in different places and what the throw is, but there must be some recommendations for use. And so maybe that would just help you kind of just assure that you have the light bulbs, the right bulbs are, that we're not seeing any gaps where people might feel unsafe. Right. So, Ben, on this figure that the grayed out trees will be removed. Correct, yeah. Okay. Doug, please. Thanks, Jack, and thanks, Ben. Ben, I wondered if you could go to the panoramic photo you had. Yep. Yeah, so when you were describing the route of the ramp and you described how the ramp toward the bottom ended, you kind of gestured or even described that it was gonna be aligned with the sidewalk that's there along the east side of the bank center. Is that true? Cause that's not what the drawing shows. So the drawing, so the, yeah, it comes perpendicular to this sidewalk. All right. So Pam, would you be able to bring up the sketch that I sent you shortly before the meeting? I guess the question I had, Ben, is why it wouldn't be preferable to align the lower half of the ramp with the existing sidewalk. And it just seemed like... Like this one, this sidewalk? Yeah. Right. And it seemed like then the plaza could be outboard of the L. And that might just make that kind of messy intersection at the bottom more a little bit cleaner. Yeah, it's under this green thing. I can't get it. Oh yeah. What do I do? If you can hide the meeting controls. I got it. There we go. I'm so sorry. So I just did this as a quick overlay over your drawing. Okay, yeah. Interesting. So I was gonna say it probably has to do with the length of the landing needed or the length of the ramp needed. Well, this would give you more room, more length for the run of the ramp. Right. Okay, interesting. So that there would still be a plaza down at the bottom. Yeah, it seemed like, you know, I mean the other example of opposite routes that don't align is up at the top of Amity Street and Main Street and how they are not quite aligned. Yeah. So do we really need more of those in town? We wanna ask Rob Mora how he designed this because I think there's a mistake about where that sidewalk is along the east side of the bank center. So Rob. So. Chris, I'm not sure what mistake you would be referring to, but I think we definitely were not intentionally trying to line up the sidewalks, which looks like it could certainly be done. We were trying to avoid the electrical down at the bottom area, but I think that could still be done in and possibly align the sidewalk with the walk that runs along the east side of the banks. But we didn't attempt to do that, I guess, is the answer there, but could have done it. Okay. Well, anyway, so that was my reaction, you know, when we were out there. And I guess I would also, I guess I'd say do we really need another sitting area in this part of town? And I don't know whether you've reviewed this with the folks in the elderly housing and they were advocating for more of it, but when I've gone through there, it seemed like there were a fair number of benches already between the bank center and the housing complexes. And then we've got a fair number, kind of in and around the parking lot at the top. So I just wasn't sure, you know, where that demand came from and whether it was really necessary, but I suppose it's not a bad thing. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. I was just checking on things myself here. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Ben. I guess just back to Doug's original point, I wonder whether actually the reason why is because, mark this up, is more around like that this one here, that that, because that's so steep that if you move this over, then you wouldn't be able to achieve the 12 to one here if folks can follow my chicken scratch there, but that this needs to be, that you would need to be that far away because of how steep of a downhill that is. Right. So that was one thought. I would say, I guess just, I know like we're kind of under the gun from a timing perspective here. Can you go, I think it was back one page on this? Maybe one, well, actually, no, this one works. Yeah, this is a good one. Is that one of, like just my sort of old landscape architect sensibilities is just like the, my only concern with this design is like, you sort of, you kind of kill these spaces, right? Like you're kind of going through the middle of it. They would actually, I thought it would have been kind of interesting if this was more of like a meandering type of thing. And then you could have like access to the parking lot. You could have a longer path. And then you'd free up, like you'd actually make this like be a usable space. Again, I know we're under the gun. So like, I don't anticipate you could do anything on that. But I think that that might make, for a more interesting walk and also more accessible to the parking lot. And then if you could just go back one more time to the slide you were just on, you know, just wondering how we've got the landings. The landings here is like, would it make more sense to have those be at like the midpoint? Right? I understand we're like, it looks like we're just in the 30 feet and the 30 feet. But like if we put those in the center, then that seems like that would make for an easier journey for somebody who was traversing the long ramp. Andrew, I think I hope we can aspire to use of the annotation option here in Zoom. I've got a touch screen. I'm just having fun with it now. Oh, it's just excellent. I have a touch screen. I'm afraid to touch it. But no, but very not, that's really helpful when you can do that. Yeah, I guess it's like, I was telling folks, I joined the visit late, but like it was a really nice green space back here that I had never been in at all. And it was pretty expansive. And I think just this sort of advice exit and it takes the open space and sort of limits it, its ability to be in open space, which does open up like, well maybe this could be some really nice garden or something and maybe that's something we could do down the road. So like, we'll just note that. And then the other question, sorry to keep peppering you was that. Andrew, did you do the site visit? I joined late, yeah, but I was there. You might as well just take the site visit report because I think I might have skipped that. I'm sorry, one more time, Jack? Well, just, you're doing, I think you're essentially doing the site visit report. Oh, it's good. So I could, I arrived as Alan was leaving. So I don't know what Alan presented up front. I know he was talking about the trees that were being removed, which Ben also walked through in his intro. So I know that there was conversation around the fate of those trees and the need to remove many of them to make space for the construction, but also for safety purposes. There was talk about the stairs and the work that Ben described meaning to be completed due to the condition of those. We had conversation around the, just that connection point that Doug had referenced, whether it could align with the walkway that's currently in place. I had shared my thoughts just around the overall bisection of the space. We had noted also that sort of off in this direction, there was some kind of the utilities from Johnny's Tavern and noise from Johnny's Tavern that the plantings might help screen, but that also that the white pines that one being here is that those guys also provided probably some nice screening to the parking lot for people in the Ann Whalen apartments off to the east. I think that was the bulk of it. Really, Ben covered off on almost everything he talked about, but we'll open it up to the folks. This was, I'm sorry, but this was the, we did have some conversation around this tree in particular and whether or not that would actually need to be removed. That it was identified as one that would because of the construction, but it seemed like it would be pretty far removed. And we all noted that it had a very interesting form. It was relatively attractive tree. Again, Alan might have spoken to the health of it. I may have missed that. And maybe that's driving some of the consideration for removal as well, but that it is a pretty fascinating tree. One I imagine certainly kids would love to climb, but also just kind of nice to look at. So yeah, that's my read from the visit and then just my little comments. Yeah, thank you. Well, I'll definitely defer to the landscape architects and architects on the board on this. So Maria. Thanks, Jack. So, yeah, I can talk to Alan when over Chris asked a lot of questions of Alan, wouldn't be here at the meeting, but we kind of talked about, you know, why trees had to be removed. And a lot of it had to do with the grading. Anytime you disturb the roots of a tree, it's basically the root system Alan was saying those about 18 inches subsurface and then slightly larger than the drip line of the canopy of the tree. And so most of the pines, you know, there, you could see they were gonna get their roots disturbed even though they were pretty far off. Two of them were so close to get that by the time you remove one that impacts the jacelons. The ones closer to the building, he was saying that the cost to preserve a tree is so exorbitantly high that by the time you do it, you're not even guaranteed you're gonna save the tree and you've spent all this money to try to preserve it. And so I had some conversations with, I think it was Johanna and I were kind of strolling around. I was kind of torn because this is a sweet little sort of tucked away green space. We have very few of them. And I hear Alan's points and I know that the town has been so swamped with a lot of more urgent issues. And so this suddenly is on our plate at the last second. And so I was trying to rationalize, gosh, which way would I go on this then? And I read this document that came with our packet. It was dated January 29th about these different projects for the Accessibility Disability Access Advisory Committee. And the sentence that really got me that convinced me, all right, maybe this is a good project because what it was trying to provide was these various projects around town improving accessibility. And the sentence was to provide a link to and promote a network of walking routes seniors use for exercise. So it sounded to me like, yes, this is creating these large ramps that have railings that suddenly, you know, like a lot of people have been saying bisects this cute little green space with these really unique trees. But it's also providing a new sort of amenity that's being updated throughout the town. And so that kind of helped me sort of, you know, alleviate my sort of like thoughts like, wow, these really great trees that I didn't even know were here. I think my, I remember seeing a photo of my kids sitting in that London plane tree. So given, you know, the fact that there's this grant money, there's these improvements that need to happen. I liked Andrew's idea about, you know, being a little more gracious with the path, but I know budget and timer sort of conflicting with that. But had we had the luxury of those things, time and money, it would be, it would have been really great to really, you know, create something that was a little more organic feeling or yeah, just a little more special. So, I mean, maybe Doug's fix is an easy enough one to be able to meet the deadline. And I like how it aligns. It looks a little more, you know, less sort of like an accidental thing is a little more intention. So maybe that's a good shift to do with the constraints we have. But yeah, I just, I feel like, you know, this is doing something that's helping the, really close by adjacent residents who need, you know, accessible routes and that this is part of some sort of a, like a healthy outdoor lifestyle that I, if it's possible to do Doug's suggestion of just shifting that vertical ramp, making the plaza, you know, hug the right side of it. If further bisects the green spaces, but at least makes a little more of an intentional sort of mark on the land, I guess. But yeah, I was all torn about, you know, suddenly like, wow, we have the space. I didn't realize it, but we're improving it. And maybe we can improve this design a little further with the input that was given tonight. But that's basically what I wanted to say. And I don't know that I covered everything Alan said, Chris, you might've had more notes, you were frantically writing stuff, so maybe you'd like to go through your thing. Thanks, Maria. Speak, I could just speak that Alan recommended certain trees. I think he said box elders are good, they're very hardy. He said that London plain trees are really good because they are, they deal with compacted soil really well. And there was one other tree, which was a red maple that he thought might be suitable. So those are the three species of trees that he would potentially recommend for this area for replacements. Great, Jana. Also, Alan Snow had also recommended that the trees that, all the trees that would be removed would be replaced by other trees. And he recommended a mix of hardwoods and evergreens. And I thought that evergreens did a nice job of screening the parking lot. He did not recommend replacing it with white pines, even though they're native species, then they grow crazy tall and they drop their branches pretty often. And so he was, he didn't recommend another kind of evergreen, but it'd be good, I think, to ask him that. And then evergreens are just, for me, just very beautiful, all times of the year. The other thing he brought up, which was the need to especially water new trees in the first year, like twice a week. And so he wasn't volunteering his department to do that. And I think the suggestion was maybe someone from the Bank Center could fill those water bags if they put on new trees. But I do think it's important that we have a watering plan in place to make sure the trees are successful. And that was basically it. I had a question about, do people in the Clark House and the Ann Whalen Park, like were they notified about this ahead of time, or will they be notified afterwards? Because I think if the town goes in and cuts down five trees and people just see that and not know there's a plan in place or what's going on, it probably would be kind of upsetting. So those are my comments. Very good. Thank you, Doug. Yeah, I wanted to ask along that sidewalk, or I'm sorry, along the stairwell that's to be rebuilt. Yeah, the sort of upper wall has a couple of recessed light fixture wells. And it looks like the light fixtures may be out of commission. So I wanted to just ask if you're fixing or replacing the lighting along that stair. Yeah, I'll get to the picture of it. There's there there. Yeah, those are in pretty rough shape. Rob, was that part of the scope of the stair replacement? I know there's a fixture at the top. Yeah. Yeah, the stair replacement right now, the plan is to remove both those sections of stair and replace it with one straight run with a retaining wall to the side where the timber plantings are, the timber frame plantings are. The lights will be just discontinued and filled and removed. Okay. All right. And then I guess the only other thing I was gonna say was I also really liked Andrew's suggestion of a more circuitous route down that sort of hugs the perimeter of the green space rather than bisecting it. I would especially like that if that allowed you to achieve a one-on-twenty slope and eliminate the rails. And hearing that part of the motivation for this was exercise routes for the folks in the Anne Whalen and Clark House complexes makes me less sort of the efficiency and direct route seems less important. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. Rob, do you have comment on that? I did. The reason why we didn't go any further to the east is there's a major electrical service in easement through there that runs right behind Johnny's. There's a transformer. I think you can't see it on this plan but you might see it on one of the GIS mapping plans but I was trying to avoid the area where we know there's a power line running through there which is just off the east edge of the landing that we have drawn on this plan. So you could shift it to the west as I had proposed but you can't go any farther to the east. Yeah, my only question about that is the northeast corner of what you're showing as a plaza. I just, we just have to look at that closer to see what type of raised wall would be needed to hold up that corner of the plaza. How much construction or over digging is needed to accomplish that and again, trying to stay away from that electrical trench and not increase the cost of this that which was really part of trying to get the ramp on existing grade as close as possible. Thank you. Any other comments from the board? Maria. Would it be possible just to get rid of that funny, really sharp angled new sidewalk that's proposed that doesn't align with anything? I'm not gonna be able to do what Andrew does and mark up your thing but you see where the existing tree, the largest existing tree at the top and then see that sidewalk that has a sharp goes. Yeah, that's not there right now. I wonder if you could just not do that bit that just either connected to the ramp or straighten it down. Cause right now that you can see the new and old sidewalk patchy patchwork there but nothing actually exists as what's drawn. So maybe Pam could show the aerial photograph cause I think that shows a little bit better what exists currently. Or maybe Maureen's photos, she had some of trees, I thought. Let's see. Yeah, but you can kind of see it to the right here. Shows up in the aerial photograph of Pam. Yeah, okay. Not this one. Well, it's kind of covered up here. Yeah. Area. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. You see it? That's the one. I think what's there now is a extra patch of concrete that's not shown in the aerial. Well, I guess what was throwing me a little was just there was a lot of funny paths that didn't quite connect to other paths. But yeah, I hear what you're saying about trying to work with existing grades and do the minimal amount because you don't want to have a lot of retainage and a lot of walls here and there but that little angle there still seems odd to me but it's not a big deal. All right. Thank you, Janet. So I know that I wonder what we should do next because it sounds like no one really loves the design that we're looking at. And so there's some suggestions of making it more meandering there's suggestions that may not work or maybe Doug's first idea of making it closer in. And there's questions about the grade. Where do we go from here? Because this project is sort of coming to us quickly and then has to move quickly. And I'm wondering if there's like a next step or a next meeting or is there some, can we workshop it here? Just I'm just listening to what people are saying. Well, I just wanted to know that we have a meeting scheduled I think I'm gonna pull you at the end of this meeting but I would like to schedule a meeting for next week and we were gonna talk about zoning amendments. And then we have another meeting scheduled for the 21st. So either one of those meetings could absorb a change in this plan, I think. Sounds reasonable. Doug? Yeah, I was not trying to derail the process with my quick sketch this evening. You know, I threw it out there it sounded like there was some support for it. I understand Rob saying that we really don't want to move farther to the East and go into a more meandering solution. I will say that the overlay that I did with the plaza that I showed was not any farther East than the existing semi-circular plaza that was in Ben's original drawing. So, and the shape of that plaza, it doesn't really matter to me. You know, if it needed to be semi-circular or triangular or whatever works better with grade that would be fine. I feel like I was just putting out an idea and you guys are running the show so do what you want with it. You've heard some comments here from us tonight and I understood that Rob was working on the construction drawings right now for bid. So if you're under the gun, we gave you some thoughts and you take them or leave them and keep on going. Good, good. All right, well, I think we can pull the public. I see one hand up. Shoshana can state her name and her address. Hi, Shoshana. Hi, Shoshana King, 46 ruling Green Drive here as a representative for the Amherst Public Trade Tree Committee. We were interested in if there's any way to save the London Plain Tree. We figure it's a very charismatic tree and we'd like to see it survive the project. And we also wanted to provide any of our guidance on picking new trees and labor for putting in new trees as well. And we're also very excited to hear that you guys are looking to put in actual shade trees and not just ornamentals. Very good, thank you. Yeah. Ben, do you wanna onto that? Yeah, no, that's a wonderful offer for help with guidance about tree plantings and for the offer of labor for helping with the tree planting. And I would like to say, we'll definitely take you up on that after but we'll discuss it. And I think someone had mentioned earlier about watering. I do the senior center and the Masanti Health Center, they're all very excited about this project. And I'd be shocked if they weren't willing to help out with water. And I think they would definitely be helping out with that. Great. Chris? So I just wanted to know from Rob and Ben, what the schedule is and whether there's time to make changes and whether they would feel comfortable coming back either next Wednesday or in two weeks to show you some alterations in the plans or sort of, because this project really needs to, Ben needs to put it out to bed and it needs to be constructed by the end of May. That's my understanding. So we're under some time constraints. And I just wondered from Rob and Ben what, how much flexibility is there? Well, not for that timeframe. So we were gonna try to get this out to bid this week. We've been working hard at final, getting the bid stacks together and finalizing the bid package. If we're looking at changers, which I don't have a problem with, I just, for Chris and Ben, I think we're backing up quite a bit. I certainly don't have the time to have anything prepared for next week. That's a significant change. And we definitely would need to do more survey to accurately locate those existing areas that both Maria and Doug were talking about because we focused our design just in this area. We didn't go to look for accuracy of the GISO aerials of what's been done there in the recent year. So we have to spend a lot more time on that, which is fine, but just so we know that that's what would happen. I don't think we'll be able to meet that schedule that Ben has for this project currently. So does that mean that we would lose out on the grant money if we weren't to be able to meet their time constraints on the state side? That's basically how the grant is worded. Yeah, we could ask for an extension, but the grant was given to us under the, with the assumption that the project would be substantially completed by the end of May. So that would mean construction well underway and nearing completion. So even without any delays in permitting, our timeline was pretty ambitious to get the project bid by April, construction started by May. That's a lot of assumptions. And I think any other delays would risk DOT taking back the money, which has happened to other communities. So I think I agree that the recommendations are reasonable. I just, I personally wasn't involved in the surveying work and design developments, but Rob's statement about not having accurate, or not having surveys of those areas would mean certainly a lot more work to be done to get the designs changed. So. Thank you, Maria. Yeah, I agree with Doug, but I think it's just too late. Did, when you said you got the grant in March, it was March of this year then, not March of 2020. They only gave you two, three months from when you got the grant to when you have to have it completed. That seems ridiculous. Yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah. Okay, but yeah, I think with the sort of urgency and not wanting to lose the money, it'd be great if next time was more time, but boy, that seems like a really insane process to me. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for at least presenting it. But I think like with the given constraints, just pushing forward makes the most sense at this point. Is there a minor alteration that can be made to save the London plane tree? I wasn't at, Regenerably wasn't at this site visit this morning. So I'm not sure what Alan said, but I agree that's a kind of a very unique, interesting tree. And I would propose that we do whatever we can to save it. But I wasn't sure, did Alan comment on anything about root compaction or issues with that tree in particular? So I could talk with him about that. Yeah, Jenna. So Alan said that the London plane trees, they thrive in compacted soil and they like wet soil or the drowning and they seem kind of hardy. He also said he thought all the trees wouldn't make it at some point. So that was the other point of view. So anyway, I obviously, I was gonna basically say, if anyone wants to know what I think is I kind of like Doug's plan more than the one you presented, but I see the constraints you're on. So that's just my view. So I would say carry on. And if you could move it to Doug's, that's great. But if it's too much, you know, it's the pandemic. Chris. I forget what I was gonna say. Sorry. My advice would be to approve it and ask Ben and Rob to do what they can to respond to some of the comments. But knowing that it's probably not, all of the comments aren't going to be met. I see that. Okay. So yeah, this is, there's a lot. It's a small project, but you know, lots of comments. We got comments from the public and responses. So now we're just. You have Mr. McDougal, Mr. Marshall. Yeah, Doug and Andrew, Doug first, please. Okay, I was just gonna say, you know, I don't know your public procurement process very well, but I have been involved in projects where we sent one thing out to bid and we had change order number one ready to go as soon as the contractor was on board from a scoping point of view. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the surface area of concrete that's being asked for between the two alternatives. So maybe that's an option. That's all. Good point. Thank you. Andrew. Yeah, I think that makes a very good point. I would just, you know, I'm a little worried that we're doing this just cause we can cause we have the money and I'd wanna make sure, you know, this is something that, certainly given the hardscape and physical, like the railings, the concrete, this is something that's gonna be here for a very long time. And so I really wanna make sure that the design is as effective as it can be. So yeah, ready for the change order, I suppose. Alrighty. Yeah, I'm just, I'm looking at some of the other documents that we have here, but all right, well, so can, you know, a little confused and then we have some good comments. What's your suggestions, Chris, at this point? Well, like I said, I think, you know, you can go ahead and approve it and ask Ben and Rob to make as many changes as they can, you know, within the timeframe available, whether that's a change order or whatever it is. And give them, you know, sort of a flexibility to work it out. Is that a reasonable thing to do? I'm asking Rob, I'm looking right at Rob. Is that a reasonable thing? I can't tell. Yeah, I think it's absolutely a reasonable thing to do. We'll try to make adjustments, I can tell you that. I'm, as I'm thinking back, this has been four years now, since this idea started, and there was a lot of involvement with the senior center, and I did go to a public meeting at the Clark House, and I'm recalling discussions about, and it was the previous senior center director about small groups walking off the landing onto the new grassed area for activities. And I think that's why, as I'm looking at it now, we tried to create that flat area right off of the straight edge of the half circle. So I wanna, you know, and I'm not trying to convince anybody away from the comments that were made, but if we altered significantly, I'd want to go back through those steps and talk to those groups again and make sure that I'm not undoing something that I might have promised back that long ago. And I'll try to remember more about that as I work through that. Yeah, you know, I'm not an arborist, but I'm not clear why that London Plain Tree has to come down with the design, maybe. I don't think it's been staked out, and if we stake it out, it may appear that it doesn't need to come down, I don't know. Okay. The gnarly tree that you're interested in saving, right? Yes. I think if you, sorry, Jack, can I? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that if you realigns the sidewalk, you're well within the drip line. So I think that that's probably why that Allen had identified that. I see. Okay, so we have a need to move this forward, and there might be a condition or two, Doug. Can I make a motion that we, let's see, do we have a hearing open that we need to close, and then that we approve this design as presented by Ben and Rob, and ask them to move forward with it, taking into consideration as many of the comments that we made as they can incorporate into the constraints that they have from the state for the schedule for the project. Sounds good. We have a second on that or? Second. Okay, Tom. All right, any discussion, Andrew? Yeah, so this is assuming if nothing can change, we would just build this as is. Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty clear. I just wanted to see if anybody objected, but okay. Yeah, okay. No other discussion. Okay, Andrew, you're good. Okay, let's do a roll call then. Based on the motion, Maria? Approve. Andrew? Nay. Uh, what was that? No. No. Doug? Approve. Okay, Tom? Bye. And Janet? Can't hear you. Sorry, I was gonna say yes, approve, and then hopefully adding a condition of replacing all the plants with a mix of hardwoods and evergreens. Just that's probably for later. Okay, and Johanna? Approve. And myself approve with as many conditions that they can, you know, come up with your shortened timeline. So I think that's that. So anything else Chris on that? I wanna set some conditions. There's one that Janet just said about adding conditions to replace all the plants, deciduous and evergreen trees. Yeah, what was that Janet again? Can't hear you. All right, replace all the trees that are removed with a mix of hardwoods and evergreens. And then that's really it. What about adding a light? Did you wanna add a light? Did someone mention that the lighting was not adequate? And then you brought that up. I think we just need an expectation or maybe a demonstration of the light being adequate. I wonder if we could see whatever Rob comes up with, like at our next meeting, so we're not just let it kind of go out into the, sphere, even if it's a submission. You wanna see it for your information? Yeah, just for information, like so we don't lose track of it or it could just be submitted to us later. So that's not a condition, but it's something that you're asking me to do. Yeah, or I don't know if it's a condition, but I just thought. I can bring the final plan back to the planning board. Okay. So is that gonna be a condition Chris? The board wants it to be a condition, but I'm sorry, I don't really know if it's a condition. I was just hoping to see it again. So it'll just be a request, okay? Okay. By the end of May, we can just all go see it. And it's like that London plane tree. I mean, I know it's, can we kind of just give it, let it give a chance to survive with this without taking it down because. Plane tree to the extent that's possible. Yeah, because. Yeah, I'll talk with Alan about tree protection measures. Yeah, I mean, I know it's gonna be interfered, but it's not a foregone thing that would die with that construction has laid out. But anyway, those are all kind of just nebulous asks and we already kind of approved. Jack, Johanna has her name. Oh, Johanna, yes. Thanks. I don't really know the definition of a condition, but the other piece was just a request that there is an arranged management plan. So it sounds like there's eagerness to do it, but new trees aren't gonna thrive unless Alan basically said they need love and care for about three years. So just getting buy-in to get that. And then maybe we've already crossed this bridge, but the path alignment question and just really making sure that on the far end, closest to the entrance, the way the paths intersect makes sense for a pedestrian. So to the extent possible, you would like the end of the path to align with the end of the other path. Yeah, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a condition. I think it's just a request. Yeah. All right, so I think we've got some things for Chris to provide to Ben and Rob as you get this thing out to bed. So I think that's that's that for that project. And we can move on. Thank you, thank you so much. So thanks, Rob and Ben. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. So take care. And old business. Chris. I don't think we have any old business to talk about tonight, but except, well, no. We have the meat, yeah, well. We have new business. Yeah, that's new business. The meeting for next week, next Wednesday. Meeting for next Wednesday, who can come? I think Jack said he could come and who else can is available? Janet and Jack and Johanna. Andrew, Johanna, Tom, Maria. Maria. Yes, she's thumbs up. Okay, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven for the 14th. Okay, that's good. I will try, I don't know if you saw me shaking, but not a guarantee. Okay. There were, that's on the mixed use building and exclusionary zoning. Exclusionary zoning. And there were one or two other things, right? That it's new business, but we wanted to bring them up next week. One was whether the planning board should have associate members. Oh, yeah, yeah, yes. The email about that today, that's being brought up because the town council is moving into their season when they appoint members of boards and committees. Oh, it's really just the planning board and the ZBA that they appoint. But anyway, there's a possibility of having associate members in the zoning by-law. And the question is, does the planning board feel that it's necessary or would you like to have associate members? So I'm gonna put that on the agenda for the 14th because that is a zoning amendment that would have to be made. If, no, it wouldn't have to be made. I'm sorry, it's not a zoning amendment, but I'll just put it on the agenda if you agree to that. Sure. But your recollection is we've never, there's never been associate members during your tenure with the planning department. Yeah. And I also did reach out to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to kind of get their feedback on this and kind of just understand this, but the ZBA, I understand why they would have associate members because they were such a small group. Now they're bigger, going from three to five. We reduced from nine to seven. But yeah, be an interesting discussion. Janet. I have a question about like, I didn't read through all the materials that you sent, but is there like to someone done research on this or talk to other towns or is there any information for us? There's a memo from Lynn Griezmer. And I think I forwarded that to you this afternoon. So you may not have had a chance to read it. So Janet, I did reach out to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission because they're gonna see it, a lot of towns and... Yeah, I just wanted to know if there was any reason for this or it just seems like we're really busy with a lot of stuff. And I'm just kind of wondering if there's someone had done some research and there's some impetus behind it that it's really a case of it comes up every year. And so they wanna either do something about it or put it to bed. Okay. Okay. Any other new business? One other new business, which is the moratorium. I don't know if I mentioned that to you last time, but there's a group of, well, there was a group of town council members, three of them who proposed a moratorium on building permits, while the town deals with zoning amendments. Moratorium would apply to residents, resident uses over three units in the BG, the BL and the RG zoning districts. And it would last for six months. So we can talk about that. You will be holding a public hearing on that on May 19th, but I wanted to just let you know about it because I don't think we had time to tell you about it last time. So anyway, these three town councilers brought this up and then it looked like the town council wasn't going to put this forward as a majority group. And so that those three town council members went out into the public and they gathered, I think over 200, like 283 or something like that is the last count of signatures for this. So there's now a petition article and because there's a petition article, it automatically gets referred to the planning board and the CRC to hold the public hearing. So your public hearing will be held on May 19th. So those are the two things that I wanted to bring up as new business. Thank you. Doug, you have your hand up, yep. Whoops, back on the first item, the associate members. When I look at the text that's in the zoning bylaw, there is a set of conditions and they include ands and ors. And so it's a little bit ambiguous to me exactly when these associate members would be authorized to vote. So I guess, I don't know whether it would be the town council that would explain that or Chris, you would explain it. But when I read it at least the first two times, I came away not feeling confident that I understood exactly what that situation would be. And I wasn't sure that anybody would agree with exactly what I thought I read. So that would be helpful for next week. Okay. Very good. Anything else new business around that on the topics we've discussed? Okay, so Form A, A&R, subdivision applications. None, ZBA applications. Nothing to report. Okay, upcoming SPP, SBR, SUB applications. Only the 11 East Pleasant Street was submitted and it was taken under our wing and it's now part of our projects. And Pam has put it into Munis and it's scheduled for a public hearing. I shouldn't say we've taken it under our wing. We've brought it into our basket of things that we need to deal with. The public hearing is scheduled for May 5th. Okay. Anything else? Nothing that's really solidified yet. No. Okay. So planning board committee and liaison reports, the PPC met last week with executive committee and tomorrow there'll be a general committee and I just, the mass in motion thing I think I forwarded to you, Chris, and you distributed to the planning board. I thought it was interesting and didn't realize that Amherst had done so much in that regard, but there's more obviously that we can do in that. I don't know if anybody has any questions on that. No, okay, good. So the CPA committee. Sorry, no new updates. Okay. And the ag commission, Doug. Our next meeting is next Tuesday. No new updates tonight. Okay. Thank you. And the DRB, Tom. We had a meeting on Monday and I was actually pretty sick. So I was not there and I'm just getting caught up on the notes so I can update you guys on next Wednesday. Very good. Thank you. And then Chris on the CRC. We're meeting on Tuesday to present the latest next use building by-law and the latest inclusionary zoning by-law and to talk to them very briefly about a few other things. So that's before we're gonna talk about it the day after but that's okay. Yes, I think that's okay. Okay. All right. And then there will be a decision about, well, is it ready to go back to town council? Should, if we can get comments into you before that meeting, we probably should. Individual comments. If you get comments to us, we will, I will prevail on Pam to put them online and then we can share them. Yeah, for you. Yeah. Janet. Chris, you've been sending us a remarkable number of emails from residents. Do you, like if it's, if you're getting, do you send that along to the CRC or if it's on something that they're looking at or? They usually get them, they usually get copied. It's either they get them first and they copy us or vice versa or they're sent out to all of us. What we're doing with Pam and Nate and Brianna have been doing is trying to put together a website to show these zoning amendments and then have a place on them on the webpage where people can submit comments, but also so people can see what other people have already submitted. So I think Pam's gone through what has been submitted so far. She's scanned them all and she's ready to post them. It's just that we haven't quite pulled the trigger yet on saying this thing is live. But maybe Pam has a little bit more to say about that. Okay. I really don't, Chris. I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. It's been a team effort and these things just take a little bit of time. Very good. So report of the chair. I have nothing that's not been stated already. Report of staff. Thank you for sticking with us and for meeting so often. We really appreciate it. And I know it's a lot of work. And so thank you. Thank you, Chris. I, you know, keep, keep, keep doing what you're doing. You'll be seeing emails from me and you'll just go, delete, delete, delete. I would never admit to that, you know. Never. So we can adjourn and we'll see everybody next week. Bye. Thank you. Everyone have a good evening.