 Very good. Jack, I just want to see the attendees pop in so I can ensure that Amherst media is here. Okay. And there they are. So the other thing I'm going to do Jack is make you a co-host. Nate is here he is also a co-host. We got Nate that's good. Yeah, thanks. I should see my video works now that I'm. Okay. There you go. There's been some thunderstorms. I don't know if you have it down there, but it's been. It seems like it's ending up. Yeah. Before we start, I got to give a word. My dog is goes bonkers with thunder and I'm in the basement, but hopefully it doesn't jump in my lap or anything like that. Jack, we're five minutes behind schedule already. Are we ready? Yeah. Okay. Welcome to the planning board meeting of July 14, 2021. My name is Jack. I'm sick. And as a chair of the Amherst planning board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6 36 PM. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media livestream minutes are being taken for so to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by following the link shown on the slide. The link is also available on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites. I can't want to listening for this meeting or you can go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public will be permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post on the town of Amherst website and audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as they as soon as possible after the meeting. Board members, I will take a roll call. I'm going to call your name and mute yourself answer firmly and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Tom Long. Andrew McDougal. Doug Marshall. Janet McGowan. And Johanna Newman is not with us. As she gave us an excused absence there. So, again, I'm Jack. So board members of technical issues arise. Let Pam know. And if necessary, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed. And the minutes will note if this happened, please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak after speaking with a member to remute himself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period and reserved for comments regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Public comment mail may also be heard at other appropriate times in the meeting. Please be aware of the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. 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 speaking. Residents can express reviews for up to three minutes. And at the discretion of the planning board chair. 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 can proceed to the first item, which is the review of minutes. And we have minutes from June. Second. Let's bring in those up. Does anybody have any comments. On them. I see none. Is there a comment? Does anybody have any comments. On them. I see none. Is there a motion to approve? Oh, Janet. I didn't have a chance to read them. So. Well. Yeah. I didn't either. Yeah, they weren't in the packet. Yeah. At the other zoning amendments. Yeah, I'd be comfortable with just putting these in the next. Yeah. I think that would be a good thing. Chris, did you have your hand up? I just wanted to say that you could put it off till the next time. Okay. All right. So let's do that. And I don't, we don't need to vote for that. I don't think. No, okay. So we can go to the public comment period. Anybody that raises his hand. Again, set your name and address. Okay. I see Susanna must Pratt. Hi, Susanna. Can you unmute yourself? Good evening, everybody. I would just like to thank the. Planning board and the planning department for all of your hard work on the inclusionary zoning amendment and the ADU amendment. I think both of those. I think they're all very, very critical and deliberative. And they really do address problems in our town. I am really worried about the fast pace. Of the various amendments we're going to be talking about tonight. I think it's hard enough for the public to keep track. And I'm sure it must be a big burden. On the rest of you, there have been so many. Changes that happen. And I just hope that you will. Take your time and be careful. And not let yourselves be pressured. By other people's timetables to let these. Go to the council until you feel really behind them. Thank you very much. Thank you, Susanna. And we have Gordon green state your name and address, please. Hello, Gordon. Hi, my name is Gordon green. I'm from 551 to give you a road and you must. Did you hear that? Yes, we are. You're great. Yeah. Yeah, I would second those comments and just, I just wanted to mention this generally. Just the concept of, I know. The issue of affordable housing is, don't address intergenerational wealth disparities, whereas condos and other kind of purchase developments do. And I don't know if that kind of enters into the planning board's thinking, but I do think that more rental developments, even though they may be affordable, long-term don't really help to address intergenerational wealth disparities. And I just wanted to mention that it might be, I don't know if there's a mechanism by which that can be considered in terms of approving various development projects. That was all I wanted to say. Thanks. Thank you, Gordon. And I don't see any other hands at this time. So we can, again, we have a very full slate. And again, because of the amount of material, we're gonna limit the planning board comments to 30, so three minutes at a time. And there can be an extension on a request, but we just would like to get through this the best we can. And I mean, and I'd ask Chris at this time just to kind of frame this and, you know, are we indeed hurrying through this or do we have an opportunity to continue the hearing if we're not satisfied with the amount of public comment or if we haven't, you know, got it through our cell. So if you wanna go over that, I'd appreciate that. Yes, you do. These items that you're going to be hearing about tonight, three of them are on a schedule for a public hearing on July 21st. You certainly do have an opportunity to continue the public hearing for as long as you need to gain the information that you need or to gain the understanding or to hear from the public or whatever it is that you need after the public hearing starts, there's really no limit on how many times you can continue the public hearing. So until you're ready to vote, you can keep continuing. So. And then can town council act if we have not concluded the hearing? No, town council needs to wait until you make your recommendation. Okay. All right. Janet, why don't you make a comment? I don't know if we're talking about our schedule and why we're going at this fast pace or why the hearing was scheduled, you know, three or maybe public hearings next week for issues that we have barely looked at. And whether we need to, whether I just want, are we gonna talk about this now or at the end of our fast paced for zoning amendments? I feel like we have, you know, some time to at least make some initial comments and then have the public speak on each of the four topics tonight. And again, I think this is like a directive from town council. It is not from town council. Town council has not asked us to schedule these hearings quickly. So somebody has asked, but it's not in the table. Well, I think, I think, planning departments certainly has, I think, gotten marching orders to do certain things. So they're, and that's maybe from CRC, maybe not the full town council, but you wanna clarify, Chris? Well, I guess I would recommend going through the items that you have on your agenda. It was mentioned that people felt like they didn't really necessarily have a complete understanding of what was being proposed. This is your opportunity to learn about what is being proposed. And then we'll talk about the upcoming public hearings afterwards. But I think this is a good opportunity to hear about what's being proposed and for you to discuss these items and also to hear from the public. So I would move along with the agenda. And then if we have time later, we can talk about the process. That would be my recommendation. Okay, I see one hand in the public might not have just arrived. That's Janet Keller. Janet, you wanna state your name and address, please? Hi, Janet. Hi, I'm Janet Keller, 120 Public Hill Road. Thank you. I have a question as to what is happening tonight. What is happening tonight is, do I understand that it's a public hearing and did I mishear you, Jack, when you said earlier that the public couldn't comment on the items on the agenda tonight? Was that, did I get that wrong? Could someone clarify for me what is happening here? Thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to say that we are allowing public comment. And I was suggesting to the planning board members that we will probably watch the clock a little bit just so we can get through everything. And then as Chris said, we are going to have a public hearing on this. And if we're not satisfied with the public comment that we've received or that we wanna debate this further, we will not conclude the hearing which is gonna be what, July 24th on some of these items. So this is our review of this and it's only initial in nature and actual hearing will be on that July 24th day with, I believe it's a joint hearing with CRC. So- Excuse me, it's the 21st, sorry. Oh, 21st, I'm sorry. 21st, thank you. Okay, thank you. Janet. So we are not following any process that I recognize from past practice in that we are being presented with zoning amendments at public hearings like the CVS lot last week. The parking zoning amendment wasn't on anybody's list and just sort of showed up and we haven't talked about it and we're going to a public hearing next week with really no information, like no data. And then the BL sort of showed up on our agenda when we talked about holding this meeting for just three zoning amendments. And so, I mean, I can go down this list before the planning department just sent three zoning amendments to town council without informing the planning board and the planning director scheduled and had on her schedule that we would meet within three weeks, go to a public hearing. The town council has not asked us to rush. We have not gone through these amendments. We talked about mixed use to fair amount. We were fine toothing it. All of this work used to be done by the planning board and the zoning subcommittee. Last year we decided that the whole planning board could do the work of the zoning subcommittee not realizing that we're going to face 18 zoning amendments that seem to pop almost week by week. And it's clear that we are not doing the job that we need to do. We haven't had the data. We haven't had the language. There is really literally no reason I can think of for us to go to public hearing without doing our regular process and some diligence. I'd be happy to do some pop up zoning subcommittees and work on things and work on the language. But I literally want to know right now why is this being rushed? Because the town council has not said to rush. Is the town manager pushing these through? Does the CRC, the three, you know, the five members of the CRC, we are a member in the audience. What is the purpose of rushing right now? I can't find any reason that we have to revise a parking by-law. Why would we do the BL without doing downtown planning and the consultant? I can go through one after another, but nobody has explained to me why the planning board is why, what is the, who is asking us to go fast? Like this. Yeah. Thank you. Right now. Thank you. Chris, did you want to say something? Yeah, I had some comments. Because I knew this topic would probably come up and I thought this might be helpful. So there have been recent comments about the process and the relation of the process to the flowchart that was voted on by the planning board and the CRC last May. And I believe that we have been following the process as outlined in the flowchart. The planning department has been working with the town manager to respond to the request of town council to work on zoning amendments. The town council voted on certain zoning priorities on January 4th and the town manager requested that the planning department work on these priorities. On February 22nd, the planning department gave a presentation to town council on the zoning priorities that the council had requested and also a list of zoning priorities that the planning department and the building commissioner thought were important. The town council agreed that the planning department should begin to work on this list. The planning department presented information on this list of zoning priorities to the planning board on January 20th and February 3rd. And throughout the months of February and March, the planning department presented information on zoning priorities to the planning board and the CRC. On May 12th, the planning department presented draft zoning amendments on mixed use buildings and on apartments. Mixed use buildings had been listed as a planning department priority and apartments had been listed as a town council priority as on the lists that we had presented to town council. There was discussion at that meeting about both of these topics. And there was a suggestion made by planning board member Janet McGowan that we should move any zoning amendments related to parking and related to mixed use buildings and apartments into the parking section of the bylaw. So we drafted a small amendment to the parking section of the zoning bylaw to accommodate the proposed change in parking regulations with regard to mixed use buildings, apartments and accessory dwelling units as suggested by Ms. McGowan. On June 16th, the planning department presented a refined draft of the mixed use building bylaw to the planning board. There was a robust discussion, I think it lasted over two hours. And when planning board members stated that he thought the mixed use building zoning amendment was not ready to go to town meeting. The planning board agreed to hold an additional meeting on July 14th to discuss mixed use buildings, apartments and parking. After the June 16th planning board meeting the planning department and building commissioner reached out to the member who had expressed concerns about mixed use buildings. And we met with him and we believe that we resolved his concerns. On June 28th, the planning department and the town manager presented mixed use buildings, apartments and parking to the town council with the request that the council refer these zoning amendments to the planning board and the CRC for public hearings. At the June 28th town council meeting a statement was made that the planning board had agreed that the mixed use buildings, apartments and parking zoning bylaws were ready. I corrected that statement and made it clear that the planning board had not voted to say that these amendments were ready but that the planning board was meeting on July 14th to further discuss the proposed amendments. There's nothing in state law or in the charter that requires the planning board to make a judgment or take a vote on zoning amendments that are being developed prior to bringing them to town council. The only requirement is that the planning board hold a public hearing and make a recommendation to town council on a proposed zoning amendment. The planning board is scheduled to hold a public hearing on these items next week. We're in a new form of government now and the way that zoning amendments are proposed has changed. The planning board has a very important role in hearing presentations about proposed zoning amendments, offering suggestions and recommendations on how to revise zoning amendments and holding a public hearing on zoning amendments that have been referred to them and making a recommendation to town council but they're not required to make a statement about whether a zoning amendment is ready for presentation to town council. Town council requested that the town manager present zoning amendments. The planning board has been working on drafting these zoning amendments and has tried to keep the planning board in the CRC informed about the progress that is being made. There was a discussion about mixed use buildings, apartments and parking at the May 12th planning board meeting and there was a discussion about mixed use buildings at the June 16th planning board meeting. There will be a public hearing about mixed use buildings, apartments, parking and accessory dwelling units at the July 21st joint meeting of the planning board in the CRC. If the planning board believes that it is not ready to vote on the amendments on July 21st or has not received enough information, the board can vote to continue the public hearing. The board also has the option of voting not to recommend the zoning amendments if it disagrees with what is being proposed. Thank you. Very good. All right, so let's move on with our meeting. So going on to zoning priorities. The first one is a continued discussion about proposed changes to apartments section 3.323 of the zoning bylaw definition standards and criteria. And you have a presentation. We have Maureen Pollock who's going to present apartments. Okay, hi everyone. Let me pull up. Let me pull up. Can you see my screen? Not yet. Not yet. So, because I didn't, okay, so thank you. Okay, so let me pull this up full, okay. And so thank you everyone for having us here tonight. I will be talking about apartments. Nate Moll, I will be talking about mixed use buildings and then I will return to talk about parking. So we'll start first with the apartment section. This could be repeat information. So I will go fast and steady or slow and steady, whichever is preferred. So apartments, the existing definition for an apartment is one or more buildings, each building containing no fewer than three and no more than 24 dwelling units. I'll go through the existing standards and conditions. So an apartment development would need to be located close to a heavily traveled street or streets, close to a business commercial or educational district or in an area already developed for multifamily use. Continuing with existing standards and conditions, it needs to be connected to the town sewer, it needs to meet the dimensional regulations. There's special provisions for apartments that are located in the neighborhood business zoning district, which is about nine parcels around the corner of Main and Triangle Street. There is a provision about bedroom counts, where it says no more than 50% of the total number of dwelling units shall be of anyone's size. And it needs to apply with the design review standards and principles and standards. And so the proposed amendment language is to firstly, to remove the maximum number of units allowed per building opposed to having that cap of 24 units per building. And the rationale for that is, we want to encourage more housing in Amherst, which is reflected in the housing production plan, as well as other documents. And for potential concerns of, oh, will there be more apartments than desired? It should be noted that table three, the dimensional regulations that is in the zoning bylaw will dictate a number of things that will dictate the number of units for that particular parcel. So for instance, it'll dictate the bulk and mass of each building, the number of units based on the basic lot area and additional lot area per unit, particularly in the limited business district, which requires that there's 4,000 square feet for additional lot area per family. And if you remember the footnote M discussion, that also would require additional 4,000 square feet per additional lot area per unit. And thirdly for zoning districts in the limited business district, there are special provisions that get into floor area ratio at 0.3, which really dictates and requires that the amount of units is very, very limited to a very small amount. And I can certainly provide more information on that if needed. And so apartments are allowed in zoning districts that are located in our downtown and village centers. And that's where we want to encourage more residential development. We want to encourage more residential development that are on or near bus routes and stops, walkable to our retail shops, to Amherst College, to UMass Amherst and so that is very supporting of having apartments in particular is to have them in walkable neighborhoods such as downtowns and our village centers. Additionally, apartments are allowed by special permit in most zoning districts in Amherst. And the zoning board has the discretionary power to approve a use of a special permit. So unlike a site plan review, which is a use by right. So for instance, the planning board reviewing site plan review, that those are uses that are by right. And so more or less, you're gonna be looking at the site plan, lighting plan, parking plan, looking at traffic studies. The zoning board of appeals is actually looking at the whether the use is in harmony with the neighborhood and is in sync with the neighborhood. And they look at section 10.38 for their specific findings. And so they do have the discretionary power to deny a use by special permit. And so we feel that removing the cap of 24 units per building is something that we want to encourage with the note that there are already in the zoning bylaw, a lot of existing rules and regulations that will help guide that and not be sort of overwhelming in density quantities. Secondly, so moving on to the second bullet point on the slide is to update the standards and conditions. And that is one is to diversify the bedroom count for 10 units plus. And so no more than 50% of the total number of dwelling units can have the same bedroom count is the proposal. We felt that less in apartment building with nine units or less, that could be sort of discouraging to limit the types of bedrooms or the amount of number of bedrooms. But once you get to 10 units or more, we would not only encourage, but would require that there would be a diverse amount of bedroom counts per apartment developments. We also are proposing standards about enclosed parking, enclosed parking within the building or under the building that would be on the first or ground floor. And that would be required that they would be in the rear of the building and designed to reduce the visibility from the public right away and walkways. We are also proposing to revise the permit path for apartments in two zoning districts. Currently it is by, let's see here, by site plan review in the general business zoning district. And we're proposing that it should actually be permitted by approval of a special permit by the Zoning Board of Appeals, because that is a zoning district that we want to encourage, as the word says, businesses, commercial mixed-use businesses, mixed-use buildings and the like. And so we felt that that would be a more applicable permit path for an apartment to be a special permit. And then in the Village Center Residence Zoning District, it's currently allowed by special permit. And as the word, the zoning district names suggest, Village Center Residence, that is, like all Village Centers, those are the perfect or ideal locations to have more residential units. And so we would want to encourage that more apartments would be located. And so that is sort of the premise of why we're recommending that apartments would be allowed by approval of a site plan review through the planning board. And I will now hand it over to Nate Malloy. And I don't know if we're gonna have any questions. Yeah, I think we're gonna do discussion on each topic. Okay, great. So let's open up to the planning board here for initial comments and then we can open it up to the public. And again, three minutes for the planning board members and obviously for the public as well. And I see Doug, please. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Maureen. And thanks to Chris and to Rob. It looks like you have removed the language that was starting to get into the form of the building and the dimensional requirements related to, I think you called it the front yard or the setback. And it sounds like we will be dealing with that when we have a consultant to look at the dimensional requirements. This looks really pretty modest, intended to not make buildings that ought to be apartments turn into mixed use buildings because apartments have this artificial limit. So I think this looks very modest in its ambition and I have no objections to it. I guess I also feel the need to say that I'm not feeling pressured or to be rushed or anything like that. I feel like we have talked about the apartments and mixed use buildings all spring on three or four occasions. So what time is, life is limited and we might as well keep the process moving rather than perpetuate it much further. So thank you. Thanks, Doug. If you don't mind, I would like just to respond to Doug's comment, which I'm glad he commented because I meant to say this. So regarding, as you will see, hopefully later this evening, you will have a presentation about the town center, BL overlay district, which does get into dimensional regulations and it gets into project open space of requiring project open space, requiring a French zone and those sorts of things. We felt, planning staff felt that that dimensional regulations, project open space, French zones, things of that nature should be should be done at the neighborhood or the zoning district level opposed to a use. And this is a recommended, if you're familiar with form-based codes, that is a specific recommendation that dimensional regulations, getting into streetscape designs, design standards, those should be really looked at, guided and implemented at a much larger scale such as a zoning district. And we're very excited to work with a design consultant later this year to really dive into that. Thank you. Yeah, Maureen, I have a couple of just real simple things. There's no, with this apartment, amended apartment by-law, there's no actual zoning map changes proposed. No, because the map wouldn't change. So yeah, so the zoning map wouldn't change, but it would be a change reflected in the use classification located in Article 3. So that chart would just change. And this melds pretty good with the inclusionary zoning article that has been implemented. Yeah, it would have zero negative effects with the inclusionary zoning. And I would then say that there would be complementary to inclusionary zoning. So I think this is good timing to study both apartments, mixed-use buildings and inclusionary zoning, because everything fits together like a system. And so yeah, I think it's very complementary to the proposed inclusionary zoning. And then my last point, the enclosed parking, again, we have a parking by-law that we're gonna be discussing later, but this just recommends that if there is parking, it'll be not visible from the street. Is that correct? It'll be behind or? So the language, I'm happy to pull up the draft language. So the enclosed parking that's part of this specific proposal is saying that enclosed parking may be located on the first or ground floor. And it would need to be at the rear of the building, couldn't be at the front portion of the building. And it could not, and that aim is to reduce the visibility of parking from the public right away. Okay, thank you. So we have Maria, then Janet, and then Andrew. Oh, excuse me, Chris, I'll put you in the front. And then Maria, Janet, and Andrew. I just wanted to clarify that any lot that has enough space and where a developer wants to put parking and where the permit granting authority thinks that parking is required would be able to have parking on site. So I wanted to clarify that. Thank you. Great, Maria, please. Great, I'll be quick. This looks really familiar. I feel like we've reviewed almost all these points in the past. And I think it's a great combo with this and the mixed use bylaw that we're doing the both of them at the same time because the reason we're fixing both is because they were conflicting with each other. And I think, yeah, having it be a lighter sort of review for the Village Residential Village Center and a more careful one in the BG makes a lot of sense. And I can't remember what was presented in the past, but this sure looks like the same thing we've seen. And I think it's a, yeah, it's a great step for just getting more housing and where it should be located. And yeah, I really appreciate you, the comment you just made, Maureen, about the design standards, the broader design standards being taken out of uses. I totally agree with that. I saw how you did that with the PL, so. But yeah, thanks. This looks great. Thank you. And thanks, Maria, Janet and then Andrew. So, Jack, you just, I have a whole series of questions. So you just want me to, I don't know how to do it. I can start and then, I don't know if you're gonna give me, I don't think my- I'm not gonna cut you off, but I just, we don't wanna strive for three minutes if, you know, but just, you know, we just can't go into one o'clock in the morning sort of thing. So- I know we don't have enough time to talk about it tonight. So I have to say that we've talked about apartments once. And I did appreciate the, we had asked about what was the history of apartments and I did appreciate in the packet that you gave a really thorough all the changes in apartments. And in the most recent version or change when they changed to 24 units per building, not per site, I was wondering what was the vision of the planning department, the planning board and the town meeting that they wanted to go to 24 units per building. You know, it seems to have resulted in smaller scale apartments and townhouses with lots of open space. And also, if, you know, there's a minimum landscaping and natural- How about, how about marine answers one by one? Okay, that helps. Well, I will talk about the open space and maybe Chris can chime in about the Zoting By-law amendments. I believe that did come from the 70s when there was a rapid amount of large-scale development, largely through the beginning programs of HUD and community development grant CDBG funding, which was a reflection of that time in so, but I'm sure Chris could provide some more specific information in, but about the open space. And so currently in the Zoting By-law under 10.38, I wish I had the exact number section, I might, I might, but under section 10.38 and under 11.24, there are specific findings that both boards need to make that they get into that they'll shall be adequate open space in recreational amenities. So that is currently there and you can currently use that as you review any application before you. And so the reason why we're not addressing landscaping or open space here, as we had mentioned earlier, is that we feel that A, it's already in the by-law, and B, we would like to really dive in and study it closely at the zoning district level opposed to a specific use classification. Chris, did you want to speak to the 24? You're a mute. I don't have the planning board report in front of me, but my, if my memory of discussions around town hall is correct, it was a result of apartment buildings were not allowed in the general business district at that time because there was such a large lot area requirement per dwelling unit that none of the parcels in the downtown area would allow apartments. So most of the apartments were being built out in the outlying areas, particularly in the RN zoning district, residential neighborhood. And I believe that town meeting and the planning department and the planning board decided that they didn't want large apartment buildings out in those outlying residential districts. So they limited the number of units per building to 24 because they wanted to keep them looking like the boulders and South Point and that type of development rather than being larger than that. I can certainly look to see if I can find the planning board report to town meeting for that 1980 change and I will do so. Thank you, Chris. Janet, you want to proceed? My question is about the minimum landscape or natural open space. The requirement is that 40% of that happened has to happen only in the BN, right? Is that correct? But not the other RG, BL, BBC? Yeah, you know, there are special provisions in the BN zoning district, which are sort of contradictory to themselves as it actually, it reduces the lot coverage by 10%. And so it makes it more prohibitive for having apartments, as well as the floor area ratio really dictates the bulk and mass, the size of the footprint of the building and the floor area ratio of each floor of the building. So yes, there is a lot of room for that. Yes, in the BN, there is a special provision about open space, but now you're getting me thinking. So in all the zoning districts, and we'll only talk about the apartments, is that there are maximum lot coverage requirements for each of the zoning districts. And so lot coverage is referring to impervious surface. And so the remainder of that would be open to landscaping, vegetation specifically, and pervious surfaces. And I can, because now I am very curious and would love to tell you the 10.38 finding about open space. Let's give you a second to look that up. And then we'll come back to you, Janet. I'm going to have Andrew proceed because we're at 7.15 and we were planning to move on to public comment for this. But Andrew, please. Hey, Jack, it might be quick. I also, I wanted to echo what Janet said relative to the, the history of those. It's actually really fascinating to be able to read through that and provide some useful context for me. I did have one question and I sort of feel like it's an interesting consistency. Here's is that in the history section and mentioned, departments are currently allowed by special permit in RBC, BL, BVC, BN, BG. I'm sorry, not BG. That's a site plan review. But then in the, in, in the definitions table, it shows it's that it's special permit in RG. Is it, is it in RG or not? In the RG currently and as proposed, there are no changes is by special permit. In the RG. Okay, then, then it looks like I think just maybe on page, unless I just missed it, the process step on. On page 12 in our packet doesn't mention RG for special permit. I just wanted to clarify that. That's really good. We'll definitely. Double check and see if maybe there was a grammatical error or something. Yeah. And I guess I'll just jump on real quick. So then as we think about things like the boulders, alpine comments and so forth, where there's, it's more of a campus of apartments. Where the parking. Just by the nature of the layout may not necessarily be behind the buildings. Like how. How would we manage that? Well, so. The parking proposal here. As part of the apartment section here is, is. Talking about includes parking. It's not talking about surface parking. And so. If a developer so choose, choose to have. You know, a garage. Or maybe you would say at the existing one. East pleasant street. They have parking. That's underneath the building on the first floor. We would want that at the rear. So surface parking would be dealt separately under article seven. I'm totally good. I missed red when I saw weird, the building. I thought I was sticking surface parking. No, no, no. I'm totally good now. All right. Yep. Thanks. And to get back to Janet's question about. About open space. So under a section 10.397. It says in the ZBA reads these out loud at every meeting. When they make their findings, the proposal provides adequate recreational facilities, open space, and amenities for the proposed use. And I think that's a good point. And so they go through all these findings. And they, as a, are deliberating on their decision. They are. Providing responses. And some of, you know, some of these. May not be applicable. Like such as there's, you know, a provision like, oh, you know, we'll, we'll. We'll do anything to wetlands. Well, if it's not narrow wetland, then we'll say not applicable. For an apartment building. I would say that that use classification would be very applicable to, you know, providing adequate recreational facilities, open space, and amenities for, for the proposed use. And so for the planning board, I'm still trying to find that specific section, but it is the same language at under 10.38. And so, the planning board is, is, is very welcome to currently use that. Thank you, Maureen. Janet. So, Brian, thank you for reiterating that. Cause I think I've been making that argument for two years that projects need to have amenities and open space and recreational space on site. I think we can't say that enough. So when I look at, um, basically this, it's clear that each zoning different district will be affected differently. You know, building a 24 unit apartment. In the village center residents, which is an area for medium density is different. Building 100 unit apartment building in the RPC. And so, you know, we know that the different districts have different purposes and they function differently. Like neighborhood business. Is mostly for business. And they're looking at, again, moderate density. Limited. The limited business or BL is areas for moderate density. A transition between the, you know, high density uses. Commercial uses and residential. And so what I would be looking for is what are the impacts in the different districts and, you know, what, you know, how, um, if you're going from 24 apartments to 100 or 200 is a big change. And so, you know, my question is what could these buildings look like in the different districts? You know, what is the density per acre? And then the question that we asked for, for note M and moving. The BL onto footnote B. Is what will they literally, what would it look like? Like what would a big apartment building look like in the BL? Or the BVC, RVC and the different things. And so, you know, how big can it get? Well, they just turn into sort of big boxes instead of sort of smaller buildings. You know, they're kind of more of a village center look. And so that's the kind of analysis. I think we need to see before we can sort of vote on this change. So I would love to see that. Yeah. No, and those are excellent questions. And I think that's, you know, my response to you is, you know, in the zoning bylaw, the beginning, it gets into, you know, the listing of all the zoning districts and the purpose of those zoning districts. And table three, the dimensional regulations are a reflection of the purpose of each of those zoning districts. And so. With, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with those zoning districts. And so with, with which, as we know, gets into a lot area, additional lot area per unit, building height floors, set backs, building, building coverage and lock coverage. And so those are our safeguards that we have instituted. You know, you know, with the town to have a safeguards for each of the zoning districts, for each of the characters and purpose of each of the zoning districts. So I think that those are the safeguards that would help limit, you know, any concern over overscaled apartment building developments. So I appreciate that as safeguards and I also appreciate that over half of the dimensional requirements of the foot of the dimensional table are footnoted, often by footnote A, which is quite open door. And so, you know, for the BL, the planning department has come back and showed us several different models of what could be built, you know, in the BL overlay that you're proposing. You know, those are those kind of graphic, you know, discussions really are helpful. And then we've also looked at density per acre, how it goes up, you know, what happens if it's waived. And so I think that changing apartments, this definition and expanding the number of units per building is going to have different effects in different districts. And so can we find out what that is? Well, you know, and we did, in a way, with the footnote M study back in the spring, I guess, where, you know, I at that time, I was just a data wonk looking for looking for what's going on in the general residence zoning district, and how many additional apartments could be provided there with footnote M and without footnote M. And we soon realized that that there really would be no significant increase of units and if we remove footnote M. And so I encourage you to go through those slides because I spent many, many, many, many, many hours on them. And it will give you an indication of specifically in the general residence zoning district that due to table three of all the dimensional requirements, it will dictate how many units would be provided on a particular parcel. Good. Can we get that analysis though? I mean, because those pictures were really helpful. And I know that also the amount of parking required per unit limited how big buildings could get in the RG. But now we're talking about that being very flexible requirements. So I think that it would be useful to the town council, to the public, to the planning board to know like, what can we build in these districts? How big can it go? How dense can it go? And get a visual. And you might say, well, this isn't appropriate for RVC. It's not appropriate for RV. You know, BN is supposed to be businesses, not apartments. That kind of discussion. So great, great comments, Janet. And I think this will come up in the hearing as well. And we're not satisfied. You know, we will be, I think you'll be asking the same questions and hopefully get that answered. Yeah, if I could just make, I think those are good comments, Janet, in providing visuals. I'm a visual person. So providing visuals of like concept developments to see what that would look like in different zoning districts. I think that we will be very useful for future meeting discussions. And we can certainly provide that. Thank you, Maureen. So let's go to public comment about apartments, what we've been discussing. I see several hands up. Dorothy Pam, and then Susanna, and then he'll be a green ball. So state your name and address. Hi, Dorothy. Dorothy Pam, 229 Amity Street. I will have to say that I am feeling very stupid. I followed this for months. And every time we talk about something, it's different. And I say to myself, why? And I ask what's going on? So for example, we used to talk about things and there would be these questions that you're now saying, well, they're already in the code, this section, I guess, 10.38. And if that were in the code and it were listened to and paid attention to, then why are we having such a problem downtown? Or you're saying that they do apply to apartments, but they never applied to mixed use? I mean, they're both residences. There's people living in them. And the idea that it is required to have some kind of recreational space, open space and amenities. I have been to many hearings where there was nothing provided, maybe because everybody called it a mixed use. And so mixed use somehow didn't have these safeguards in the zoning code. So then I say, well, why if we're not going to put the details in with the details that we spent months talking about, if we're not going to put them in now, then what is accomplished? And I say, okay, well, I guess you can build buildings easier, but we're going to do it before we have settled all the questions about that you mentioned setback design and open space. And parking has disappeared in very strange ways. Because the new parking thing you're going to say is that nobody is required, the two spaces for unit forget that, not even one space per unit is going to be required because if there's a bus or if there's some kind of public parking somewhere or a street, then the person who builds the apartment or the mixed use doesn't have to provide any parking. So the only thing you mentioned about parking was if they chose to do it and put it inside the building, it had to be in the back. So I just see, I just feel a constant sense of loss of things that I said, oh, great, they're doing that this is good. And then it disappears. And it's never the same when I see it. So that's why a lot of people feel that we don't know what's going on because it's not like here's a zoning bylaw and we discuss it at a meeting and CRC discusses it and the planning board discusses it and the hearing itself. We never talk about the same thing. It's the river is moving and it's never in the same place twice. And that's how I'm feeling about this. So I guess I'll just ask this question. These the 10.38 in the zoning bylaw, which is supposed to make the building in harmony with the neighborhood. Is it true then that none of that has been applying to mixed use buildings and that it only applied to apartment buildings, but nobody built any. So that's that's question right there. Okay. Chris, do you want to respond to that just you muted. It's really district related and there hasn't been as much focus on open space in the business general the general business district general business district allows 95% lot coverage and I think 70% building coverage if I'm right. And so that really hasn't been and it's also the dense densest area of downtown and that's where we've seen most of our mixed use buildings. We do have some open space around the Barry Roberts building on university drive 70 university drive that actually has quite a lot of open space. So it's really context related. And what we're planning to do is we're planning to hire consultant to help us to figure out design guidelines based on the districts that these uses are in. So a mixed use building doesn't necessarily have the same requirements and an apartment doesn't have the same requirements in the downtown area as it might have in one of the outlying districts or in BL etc. So it's really hard to give a blanket determination this much open space for this type of building no matter where it's located. So we really need to get more finely grained on that and that's what we're hoping to do and that's what we're going to do when we hire a design consultant. Thank you. Rob, did you have your hand up? You're good. Okay. The next we have Susanna. Is that your name and address again? Hi Susanna. Hi Susanna Moss Pratt 38 North Prospect Street. How you doing? Hi. I have two questions and I haven't been quite as up on apartments as some of the other things that I'm following so pardon me if I'm asking dumb questions but I notice in looking at the actual text which Maureen hasn't shown us tonight that the clause about management plan has been taken out of both I believe both the apartments and the mixed use and I wondered why that's one question. Shall I ask my other question now? Yes. Okay. I'm just trying to understand we've been looking at the designs for 11 East Pleasant and the developer keeps trying to reduce the amount of retail space because he thinks retail is dead. So could he bring that same design back as an apartment building with a few more apartments in place of the retail? All right. So those two questions Chris please. So the first question about the text about the management plan. A management plan is now required and it wasn't in the past but it's now required for all special permits and all site plan reviews and that's a requirement of the zoning board of appeals and the planning board. So we didn't think it was necessary to put it into the zoning bylaw because it's absolutely required unless someone asks for a waiver and I think the planning board is familiar with that requirement. As far as the designs for 11 East Pleasant, actually the developer has expanded the amount of retail space that he has in his latest plan. I know that. Yeah. So and it's more than some of the other mixed use buildings around town. He's got a 2,200 square feet. Other buildings have much less than that. You will be hearing a presentation about mixed use buildings from I believe Nate Malloy will give that presentation and he's going to talk about the ratio of non-residential space to residential space on the ground floor of mixed use buildings and that may help to. Yeah, that's our next. That's our next topic. Thank you, Chris. And from we have two more and then Doug, let's get to put this good through the public review here. Hilda, please. Yeah, okay. I wanted to speak a little bit about the apartments and a little bit of history because I know this town as I refreshment of Mount Holyoke in 1954. So I know this town all through the 50s and 60s when we had a vibrant downtown full of little stores where everybody shopped. And now if you go down route nine, even through the pandemic and looked at the number of cars parked in all of those Hadley parking lots, including where the five guys are and the yellow bean and all that, every time I drive driven by them, no matter what time it is, that parking lot is full. So the whole business of retail for somebody to say that I can't afford to put retail in this building because I can't rent it, it's hard for me to believe. I think that has to do with the rent structure or something else. But to get back to the apartments, why we built what we did. All right, so I left Mount Holyoke and I went to Columbia to graduate school, lived on 120th Street, Amsterdam Avenue. Two blocks away were Mitchell-Lama affordable apartments. This is 1958, 1959, 60. They had just been built. There were two styles apartments. There were high rise and there were three story low rise buildings. Well, guess what? The people in the three-story low rise buildings would, without doorplaces to walk and congregate, they all knew each other and they took an ownership role with regard to their units and kept it looking nice. And the high rises, I hate to tell you the stories I would hear of garbage thrown out the window peeing and the hallway. Because people did not feel an identity for these high rise buildings. Well, guess what happened? Around 1965, UMass built a high rise and a low rise south-west complex when all sociologists were studying these Mitchell-Lama apartments in New York. And they says low rise garden apartments make people identify with their rental units as home. And they take pride in the building and they take care of it. And so just about that time, there was a lot of hard money with no money down and the developers came in. And because we had such a vibrant downtown, a place where you could get the most number biggest bank for the buck was to put it in the cornfields of Southeast Street or beautiful meadows up here on North Amherst. But at the same time, part of that history was that Alan Tory, who was the manager of the time, made sure that there was a sewer line on the west side of town, but no sewer line on the east side of town so that there would be no apartments in the in the South Amherst Common. And that's the true story. And so basically, if you're talking like Village Center, I'm thinking up here in North Amherst, I don't think we want buildings that are five and six stories high. I think that the apartment, garden type apartments where people, which actually could also be sold as you know, starter houses, which is where we really need middle income housing in this town, we're taking care of the the rental, but people who want to come and buy here on the 200 to 350, there's nothing for them to buy to get a foot in the door on. And I think this is a little bit what Gordon Green was talking about in terms of getting a foot in the door and getting some equity to buy a house. You know, small garden apartment, condo type things are a good thing to encourage. All right, thank you. I guess my question was, does the 24th separation between the building still hold? It was 24 units and a maximum of building 20 feet apart, does that still hold? Yes, I believe that's part of the definition. I would let Rob Moore answer that. So the definition under 12.02 apartment of residential use consisting of one or more buildings each building containing no fewer than three no more than 24 units proposal is about the cap apartment dwelling units may share internal access ways and entrances and need not have separate exterior entrances on the ground level. I think maybe your question about the distance between buildings may be a building code or fire code question. Yeah, Rob, do you have anything on that? There can certainly be distances required by the building and fire codes, but there are also ways to deal with that through the type of construction. So, you know, otherwise by the definition there isn't any other separation required. Great, thank you. Also, Hilda, very nice comments about your experience living in New York that is all very fascinating in context of planning history of these very high rise buildings. We're talking, you know, 30, 50 story buildings. We don't allow those in Amherst and, you know, I'm looking at the table three chart right now and the only zoning the in the BG zoning district we allow up to five stories and all the other zoning districts that allow apartments are two and a half or I would say three is the average and there are no zoning districts that allow four floors. It's five for BG and the rest are three and then it gets down to two and a half. So, great. We have one more public comment here from Janet Keller. Is that your name and address please? Hi, Janet. Hi, everybody. Janet Keller 120 Pulpit Hill Road. I'm looking at the Amherst preservation plan. I'm recalling I don't remember them all, but am I correct that three of the village centers are North Amherst Village Center East Village and Pomeroy and any chance you could tell me what the other ones are and the reason I raised that question. Oh, Cushman Village is also one. I'm remembering that now. A number of these are national register historic districts and you are proposing, if I understand you correctly, to allow apartments that could be as big as the buildings downtown or bigger and that you are removing requirements. So, how many of these are historic village centers and I think you ought to put back the protections for these. They are not, many people think they're protected because they're national historic registered districts, but they're not. Maybe Chris can respond to that. I'm very concerned about this and I would like a response. Thanks. Thank you, Chris. So, there aren't going to be buildings built that are as big as the ones that are downtown in the village centers because the village centers have a limitation of three stories and you have to get a special permit if you want to go beyond three stories. Also, the property sizes in the village centers are not large and in order to have enough land area to build a really big building, you have to have a larger piece of land. So, each district has a requirement for the first requirement is for lot area for the parcel itself and then for each dwelling unit that you add beyond one dwelling unit, you have to have x amount of square feet of lot area to accommodate. So, I don't think that the fear of having really big buildings in the village centers is a well-founded fear. If you take a look at the dimensional table and you can call me tomorrow and I'll run through it with you, but it really does limit the number of units and therefore the size of buildings and the height of the buildings. Thank you, Chris. So, Janet, I see you have your hand up. You want to make a quick statement, but I think we're about done here. So, I had additional questions and also a suggestion that we, the planning board, do some site visits to the different types of apartments. We have apartment complexes. We have the very big and very new Aspen Heights and we have a bunch of smaller apartments that are like six units and sort of just to look at them in terms of design, scale, the livability and amenities. So, I think that would be good to kind of look at Aspen Heights and say that could be the future or even One East Pleasant Street and so that's, I think that would be a good, that's my recommendation for the planning board to do some some street viewing. I have another list of questions and so I, should I just hold them for our public hearing? Yeah, I mean I think that public hearing, if we're not, we're not going to be in a time limit and we're going to be very thorough and this is just an initial rush to get the major points and I see Doug's hands up here and then Nate, you're on deck with multi-use buildings within a couple minutes here. Doug, did you have a comment? Yeah, I just had a thought that if Janet or others have a lot of questions and that many of them might be able to be answered by staff, she and others could email them to Chris and Chris could get answers to those questions outside of the hearing process so that we're fully educated when we get together for the hearing. Thank you. Good suggestion, thank you. With that, Nate, I think, did you have something on the apartments? Yeah, hi, thanks. I was, what I was going to say is that Aspen Heights is a representative project because it's, you know, it was a non-conforming use so I think I would, you know, staff could generate a list of apartments that were permitted as apartments, not, you know, a pre-existing non-conforming that, you know, so Aspen Heights was a pre-existing non-conforming that then was able to enlarge, you know, the building footprint through, through zoning that way. It wasn't, you know, a brand new apartment building that was proposed as an apartment. So to me, to me, like Aspen Heights wouldn't be, you know, a product to use would be, like, you know, maybe at South Point where they added a new building or, you know, have a list of other apartment buildings that were permitted, but I think the special permit uses like that are a little different. Good, good. All right. Hey, so Nate, don't turn your audio off because you're on, you're on deck here. So let's move on to mixed use buildings. Thanks. Continue discussion about the proposed changes to mixed use buildings, section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw, definition standards and criteria. Sure. Is my screen visible for everyone? Yes. Yes. Sure, great. Thanks. So, you know, there is an existing section in the use chart 3.325 that, you know, has standards and conditions for mixed use building and, you know, there is really no definition. And so, you know, this is something we've seen. We're proposing, you know, to have new conditions in the mixed use and the mixed, for mixed use buildings in the use chart and then a definition. So there'd be a definition in article 12 and then standards and conditions for uses on the first floor, you know, bedroom count and designer view principles, they apply as part of a site plan review use anyways, but as Marina had said, some of the conditions would also make it consistent with apartment building. So the zoning between those two buildings would be, would be similar. The new definition in article 12 would be a mixed use building that contains one or more dwelling units in combination with permitted non-residential uses. So the significance here is that, you know, non-residential uses is not just retail as any other use allowed in the district in the, in the use chart. The standards and conditions, it's something that we've discussed. So on the, on the first floor, there's a maximum of 60% of the gross floor area on the first or ground floor could be used for residential use or enclosed parking. So that's a maximum and then a minimum of 40% would be the non-residential use, including incidental or associated uses. So this is a minimum. So someone could elect to do, you know, more of the ground floor first floor being commercial retail or other non-residential use. You know, and we're doing this incidental space, it's something that's typically in a bylaw because, you know, it can be storage, stairways, elevators, a number of things can add up as part of the space for some of these uses. So if you had, you know, bicycle storage or closet space or lockers. And so it's something that is typically included as part of the gross floor area calculation. Examples of non-residential uses, it's retail as business, it's institutional, it's government, public service, consumer service, it allows for, you know, in our, in our bylaw there's things for entertainment uses, restaurants, you know, office space, lawful accessory uses. So, you know, I think that adds a lot more flexibility in terms of what the future holds for, you know, downtown shopping and businesses. The proposed standards and conditions, you know, we've removed any design guidelines from the standards and conditions. So we're not getting into, you know, facade treatment or necessarily scale of building. We're saying that, you know, dwelling units and enclosed parking on the ground or first floor need to be located at the rear of the building and designed to be, you know, reduced visibility from the public way. We have a way to address sloping lots or lots of multiple frontage, you know, so if it's on a corner, the permit granting authority has the ability to determine what is the first or ground floor and what's the frontage. Again, the, you know, the bedroom count is now similar to apartments. And the design of your principles apply, you know, we're saying that the planning board or permit granting authority always has the ability to refer an application to the design review board. And, you know, site plan review 11.24 includes the design review principles as part of the review of a project. So it's not part of the language, but it's something that's always there for a board to use. And an example that Maureen developed. This is the site where the Bertucci's building is located here. Here's East Pleasant Street, Kendrick Park is across the street. Here's Triangle Street. And so, you know, there was a proposed development on this site. And, you know, this development is saying, okay, if there's a large building with, you know, the yellow A is retail or non-residential use, B is residential, C is parking and D is, you know, kind of the elevator, core space, stairwell, you know, what percentage does, you know, if we calculate the building size, what percentage is each of these uses. And this is an illustration showing that what 40% looks like, you know, on a ground or first floor. So what, you know, what that split would look like in this type of development. And, you know, I mean, it would look different, you know, depending on how they wrap it, but, you know, the 40% is, you know, it can be manageable. You know, this is, the next two slides just are a reference to, you know, the town hired PVPC to do an economic development impact assessment of town and what kind of retail, what kind of commercial, kind of what's the economic viability of uses in town. And it did find that, you know, this is town-wide, granted it could be centered in different village centers, but that the town can support a number of different uses, you know, whether it's clothing stores, boutique shops, different retailers. And so I know that the, you know, retail is changing, but, you know, we were using this as a reference to say that, you know, there is, you know, there is the opportunity for new uses downtown. And so without having to, you know, define a mixed-use building as purely retail, we're living as non-residential to help with that. So, you know, we can't anticipate what may come downtown, you know, if there's more live music venues, billiers or different experiential opportunities. I know the bid is saying that they, you know, they think of downtown as being, you know, people come for an experience now. So, you know, that may mean different types of non-residential uses. I was just going to also share quickly the language just so, you know, everyone can see that, you know, I think there was a memo included in the packet. And so really what we're doing is we're not changing how it's permitted in any districts. So mixed-use building is still, you know, by site planner view in many of the village centers and by special permit in the residence village center. We're not changing that. We're removing all the standards and conditions that are currently in the use chart. You know, one is the requirement of a management plan. And as that has already been said, that's already requirement in the, you know, in the permit applications for both planning board and zoning board. And then we're adding these, you know, just, you know, these conditions right here, the 60% maximum for non-residential, 40% for, I mean, 6% for combination of residential parking, 40% for non-residential, the parking and closed parking condition, the sloping lot, and then the bedroom count. So those are the new standards and conditions proposed. And then the definition, you know, one or more building units in combination with permitted non-residential. So that is the entirety of the language, you know, before it had been much longer. So this is the new, you know, the new zoning. And that's it. Thank you, Nate. And I don't really have any questions right now, although I just, I know the buildings that we have seen, the larger ones anyway, you know, are not meeting that 40% and they're pushing back. Right in the packet here, they're, you know, in the previous pages, you know, in the memo, you know, it did mention a number of projects where the percentage of non-residential, you know, it varies from anywhere from like, you know, 10% to, you know, a little over 40%. So many of the new projects aren't meeting this 40%. Agree. Okay. Well, with that, Janet, you've had your hand up. Thank you. So I think that, you know, this, I feel this article is, I think, getting very close to being done. And because we've talked about it a lot, and I did ask Christine Breschrup to include in the packet the previous, the 2016 revisions that went to town meeting. And I thought where the planning board, the planning department, the select board all argued in favor of a 60% non-residential minimum. And so, and I did listen to the part of the town council meeting. There was a lot of pushback by the town councilors against the 40%. And I remember Steve Schreiber saying, you know, just because one, you know, downtown building wasn't able to fill one shop doesn't mean that we should, you know, you know, give up this idea that of having ground floor retail businesses of all types on the first floor. And so I think that's our big issue for tonight. I do have some, that's one big issue I think we should talk about. I know we were having a really good discussion of that. The other one is what happened to project open space. Like why did that disappear? It seems like every time, you know, the planning department goes to the CRC, you drop off some design standard or some kind of idea that you thought was a good one. And so, you know, did you change your thinking or are you just responding to the CRC? At the last meeting, Doug was talking about maybe a setback from the street instead of the project open space. I would suggest 20 feet from the curb because it kind of gives enough public sidewalk and enough space for good amenities. And then I do have some questions about specific language. It's kind of nitpicky, but I really do think we should recommend that the town councilor, this be amended to require 60% non-residential space. It will keep spaces open for businesses, professionals. It will keep the village centers and the downtown as a destination for visitors. There's going to be reasons to go there. And, you know, there's, you know, in near my house, you know, in what we now call East Village, there's 37 small businesses that are all functioning without any retail residential space above. They're small shops. They're all in the game. And we need to keep spaces for them downtown and other in the village centers because if there's no spaces, those spaces increase, what is there will become more and more expensive. So I think we should just stick with the recommendation from 2016. I'm very interested in what my fellow planning board members think. Thank you, Janet. Doug? Well, since I was the one that said at the last planning board meeting where we discussed this topic, that I didn't think it was ready for town council, I guess I feel the need tonight to say that I think it, I think it probably is ready. You know, the concerns that I had earlier had to do with some of the dimensional requirements, including the project open space and some of the things about locations of bicycle racks and entrances maybe to residential areas. So all of that has been removed and this has become similar to the apartment proposal, much more modest and more focused on really more explicitly defining what a mixed use building is. And I think that's a good step. It's an incremental step. And so I'm on board. Thank you. Thanks. So we have Tom and then Andrew. Sure. Thanks, Jack. And I tend to agree, in this case with Doug, in terms of this being revised, and all the reasons that I think he articulated go for both apartments and for mixed use that we are removing some of those, let's say, prescriptions for what the building should look like and how it should be positioned to, I think as Maureen noted, something that's zone or district based as opposed to building typology. And I think it's more appropriate to think of how a building sits on a site and what kind of open space it needs based on where it is and not so much on what building type it is. So I think that that change is helpful in getting this through. But I do think we do want to address that and whether that's part of our design consultants who are coming in to help us set some standards for those things in the future. I do think they need to happen, but I don't think they need to be embedded in these two articles that we're reviewing today. Thank you, Tom. Andrew? Yeah, I agree with some stuff, Tom. Excuse me, Tom and Doug said, I think, Jen, it's your question about what some of your peers think about the ratios. I mean, I would love to see it higher. I think just in practice, it would be lovely if all the ground floor was dedicated to retail, which I think is really important. I'm not as concerned when I consider, first of all, I'd like the example that was shared that really demonstrated how that 40% could deliver a very vibrant street front, depending on how it's configured. I'm hopeful that having a minimum of 40% which addresses the non-residential would get us to a point that once you balance out retail and other incidental and associated parking, that in practice, it's going to feel like it's more non-residential than residential. I think the math, when it's actually applied, will yield a result that's more in line with what you're hoping for and what I'm hoping for. I do think that example was really useful to help me to envision that. Thank you, Andrew. Maria, please. That's a good point, Andrew. I think that the 40% is a good place to start. Let's not make it a big hurdle right off from the start. I think as we've been presented a lot of these bylaws all spring, it's basically like, let's see how this works, and we can come back and revise if we see there's issues or a lot of property owners are having issues with meeting these standards. But I think that's a great point about just that example that was shown that 40% is great for addressing the street frontage. Every site's going to be different. For example, the 11th East Pleasant one definitely doesn't have that, but doesn't make sense to do that. I think someone brought the point about you could have retail not on the street front, it could go toward the back of a site, which is definitely possible. But I say let's just leave it where it is and push this forward. I feel like it's the same bylaw we've seen in the past. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this has been a long problem we've had with just not having a definition for mixed use. I think this is great, and we should just push it forward. Thank you, Maria. Janet? Yeah, one thing I forgot to say is a question I have is what do other towns require percentages of spaces on the first floor? I know this question was asked on the mass planners listserv in Watertown said they only allow 15% residential on the first floor, and they have a pretty vibrant commercial like first floor life. You can see the town has really been cooking. So I'm wondering if the planning department looked at other towns to see in cities to see what if they have a percentage requirement? Yeah, thanks. We have, and I think it varies, right? Some don't allow any, and I think it's really, it can also be some communities then regulated by district and try to get more detailed, you know, if a mixed use building is allowed in one section or another. I think, you know, I've also spoken with the bid and, you know, they, you know, they haven't formulated an opinion, but, you know, they were saying that the 40% could be feasible, but in many instances it might not be depending on how right the shape of the lot and access from different sides, you know, the proportionality of frontage to depth could be an issue. So, you know, currently there is no definition, so we, you know, there could be, you know, it could be 95-5, and so the 40-60 is better. I think, you know, I think the 40% is still allowing enough flexibility that it's a non-residential use. So it's not just commercial retail. So, and it is a minimum. So if, you know, if an applicant has an idea of how to have more office space, we're also allowing these uses on the second and upper floors. So we're not saying that the upper floors are only residential. We're just saying this is the prescription for the first floor. So, you know, an upper floor still could be all office space if there's demand for that. And so we're not, we're not saying no to that. We're just saying what has to happen on the first floor and how it's oriented to the public way. Yeah, so I think, you know, there's a whole range of percentages. I think for Amherst, we're saying 60-40 for a mixed use building is good right now, you know, and if, I think that if, you know, after time, this seems like we're getting, you know, different opinions on that, it can almost also be reexamined. But I think that it's, for many of these buildings, it's, you know, that for many new buildings, this is actually more than what they put in. So this would actually require, you know, a whole new thinking and site planning and building planning. Great. One more thing, Janet. So could you, so you said you do know what other towns do. So I wonder, can you just provide that to us before our hearing or at the hearing that, you know, like, you know, if Watertown is 85% non-residential on the first floor, you know, what are the different towns and cities like what does Northampton require, you know, Brookline, let's just, you know, get a good sense of what's out there. I also think that the context of their retail market and their business market. So, you know, I think the concern would be if we say we require, we say, oh, well, some communities say the whole first floor has to be retail or non-residential. That may be such a high bar that no one actually proposes any mixed use buildings. And so I think the concern would be that we would have a percentage that is not feasible to be constructed. And so, you know, that would either, you know, some people might think that's a good thing because then you're deterring development. And, you know, my thought would be then we're actually, you know, it would be something that we'd have to reexamine. And so I think 40%, like I said, would actually cause the developers that have been proposing buildings to actually rethink and change their, how they're designing now. And so, I know what, you know, I think I looked at Brookline, I looked at Cambridge, we looked at Northampton and other communities, but their market and their contexts are so different that I think it's hard to say, okay, well, let's do what Brookline does without trying to cater it to Amherst based on, you know, some of our market conditions. And so, you know, we think 6040 is a good split right now. Thank you. Chris, you had your hand up briefly, but you're good. I'm good. I just wanted to mention that Nate looked into Northampton. He did discover that 100% of the ground floor needs to be non-residential. But then he and Rob and I had a discussion today about the fact that there's a lot of open non-rented space on the ground floor of mixed use buildings in Northampton, even including some of the newer ones. So, it looks like they're having a hard time renting that ground floor space. That's all I wanted to say. Thanks. Yeah, I'm definitely nervous about new empty spaces and the affordability of who's going to be able to afford, I know the particular retail units that are offered. So, Andrew and Maureen, well, I'm sorry. Do you want to add something? Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say something that is, that I feel like I should say, as I'm the staff liaison to the Amherst Disability Access Advisory Committee, and I often hear in meetings, and I am happy to have this specific conversation with them again, is that persons with mobility issues that require wheelchair specifically prefer to reside on the first floor. They don't want to use an elevator. They have, we have had several long discussions about this of losing electricity, a fire, if there's a fire, if there's a fire test, that there is, you know, they need fire persons to carry them down the stairwell. And there's a lot of anxiety and frustration about where fully ADA accessible units are located. So, I just wanted to say that, that when we did create that sort of, that concept floor plan, I envisioned that those could be two perfectly well-sized ADA units. So, I just wanted to say that. Thank you, Maureen. And Andrew, and then we'll go to public comment. Thanks. Maureen, that's a really good point. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. I had not thought through that. That's excellent. Let's see. I do think that, to Janet's question, I think it'd be useful to have those as data points, Nate, like just what those percentages look like, not to say that we're going to emulate those, but just their additional data points help us understand the guardrails. I'd be interested in seeing that too. It doesn't have to be exhaustive, but, you know, a smattering of other across community. And then I was just wondering, for 11 East Pleasant, if anybody remembers what the ground floor square footage is and what 40% applied to that would look like, whether that, you know, and I don't recall it going up to 2,200 square feet. Does that move us even north of 2,200 square feet if you apply 40%? Yeah. So, sorry, yeah, the, you know, right now they're at, they're between 10 and 15%. So, if we did the 40%, that would, you know, get them over, I think closer to 3,000 square feet. Okay. Great. Thank you. I think we're good. Okay. So, we can open up to public comment. And Kathy, Shane. Hi, Kathy. And state name and address. Hi. Kathy Shane. I'm at 519 Montague Road. I'm just speaking as a resident, not as a council member. I just, I have two questions rather than comments on the percentage of, I don't know what the right percentage is. So, I do have the question, Janet said in 2016, the proposal was 60% non-residential, now it's 40%. So, my question is, with any examples where someone put a low number on the book and went back and put a bigger number later. So, when we say it's incremental to put start somewhere, I could see starting with 50 or another number and lowering it over time, you know, as buildings came in. So, that's just a question. Because once these buildings get built, we're not going to go backwards. And particularly where they're being built, there's not a lot of land for new buildings. So, I think we're talking about a long-term future rather than just a first step. So, that's a question. Then my other question, I had seen this discussion about some public space within the definition of mixed juice. So, I'm wondering whether, while thinking of mixed juice or anything else in BG, should we start thinking about the setback from the curb? Because my understanding of setback right now, it's from whatever the, where the property line comes and where the current sidewalk public way is. And that's so variable, what I've seen in lots of codes and the smart growth codes measure it from the street. And Chris, you had mentioned this in one type of starting to think. And right now, BG, as you know, it's zero to 20. So, it could either be none or 20. But it's measured from, so if it's a big wide sidewalk like Hastings, zero doesn't look so bad. You know, that's the public way. It's the problem when it gets narrower. So, would one want to start looking, when I'm looking across these, there's all sorts of variation going across each of the zones. But the big multi-mixed use has been so far in BG. Up here, mixed use, we have a new development, a big one that people are very excited about the beacon. It's mixed use. And pretty much all the first floor is commercial, not all of it. And it hasn't been rented yet, partly COVID. And partly, as everyone here has talked about, the rents for new commercial space, retail space, tend to be higher than the type of places you want to have move in. And they don't have the ability to cross subsidize with the apartments up above because they're owned differently. So, just that up here, the issue would have been the setback from the street. Because, again, the existing public way was very narrow and it was an industrial use. So, we didn't start the building back very far. And so, just thinking about it in the future, and I would say it in general for apartment buildings too, we have very narrow streets in a lot of old-fashioned airmars that never envision a lot of cars coming back and forth and starting to think about how far back from the street, particularly if we want to add a sidewalk later. And I sent some code in where other towns have done this. They call it, you know, they embed, it's not just streetscape, but they embed, they call them inadequate streets. They're really tiny. They barely fit two cars and start the building back further. So, that would help in BG if the building wasn't special permitted, but you just measured it from the curb. So, both of those are questions, you know, that do you ever go backwards if you said 40 is a good place to start? Could we ever have 50? And then my very last comment, Rob made a comment on what is non-residential. I really like the list of things that were there, food stores and are nated. And I'm wondering if you should write in specifically what's meant by non-residential. So, later you're not confronted with is the elevator that goes upstairs non-residential or is that part of the resident? Is the office rental office that's rental for the apartments non-residential, you know, so have a list of what is included in non-residential and maybe have a list of what is excluded. Very, it's a little bit vague right now, but just be more explicit on what doesn't count toward that 40%. That's it. Thank you, Kathy. And we have, oh, Chris, do you want to you respond to that in any fashion? Okay. Elizabeth Veerling, please state your name and address. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi. You can hear me now? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes, this is Elizabeth Veerling at 36 Cottage Street. And thank you for tonight's presentations. I understand the the desire to separate out the apartment definition, the mixed-use definition from other requirements such as open space, etc., and that those should be included within the zoning districts. And this really just brings to my mind that how important it is and how linked all of these considerations are. So it's really critical to not forget what you've just defined as mixed-use and as apartments when reconsidering how you define the requirements for open space, setbacks, etc., for BG, for BL, for any other district. So I just wanted to make that comment. All of these things are linked. So it's really critical to have a whole picture in your mind when discussing them. So you can't really understand the impact of mixed-use or apartment requirements until we see how they sit on the zoning, the rest of the zoning district bylaws. And then I just wanted, so I just wanted to make that point. My other comment is I didn't feel that I got a good answer to a question posed earlier, which was, with this new apartment definition, does that just mean that 11 East Pleasant could come back and say, well, we're just going to be all apartments and forget being a mixed-use building? So does that just mean that we're going to fill up the general business district with big apartment buildings? Is that just going to be allowed? And we just won't even have mixed-use buildings there. So that was my question. Thank you very much. Thank you, Elizabeth. Chris, respond to that. I wanted to say, in response to Elizabeth's question, that the applicants for 11 East Pleasant have put a lot of time and money into the design of their project. And so at this point, I doubt that they would switch to an apartment building in order to avoid the requirement for 40% non-residential space. And the other thing that we're proposing here, never mind. That's enough. Okay. Doug? I don't know. I suspect this is what Chris might have said, but isn't it correct that in the BG, apartment buildings would now be only allowed with a special permit? That is the proposal. That is a higher threshold of permission that's required. So it will still be more attractive to do mixed-use buildings in the BG district. Good point. Good point, Doug. So Janet, you have a point about Nate first. Sure. Thanks. I was just going to say that in terms of mixed-use buildings, we're not proposing to change how they're permitted or their dimensional standard. So what we're proposing is a definition and then standards and conditions to be used during permitting. So I know Ms. Veerling had suggested, oh, well, we don't know what they would look like, but we're not saying that they have a different setback than they do now or height requirements or anything else. We're just looking at the definition and standards and conditions that are applied. So what's allowed now is what would be allowed with these changes too. So we're not changing any of those pieces of it. Good. Oh, I'm sorry. All right. We have another public comment there. So we'll get to you, Janet, after this. How's that? All right. So Susanna, Ms. Pratt, please state your name and address. Hi, Susanna. Hello again. I'm still living at 38 North Prospect Street. Thank you. Thank you. I like Kathy Shane's suggestion that you start high and come down because if you don't design the spaces to be usable for retail, they're not going to be able to be converted to retail, I don't think. And you need a certain critical mass of retail. I mean, some retail helps other retail survive. So we've lost so many businesses already. If they can be encouraged to design smaller spaces, maybe that is a way of pulling the rents down so that they're, you know, but more small spaces rather than one large space or flexible spaces that could be adjusted to different sizes. But I think we don't want to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Retail will be dead and amourst if you don't have any spaces that retail can go into. And, you know, we're coming out of COVID. This is not a forever situation. I think we don't know what the future holds, but I'd rather see us sound like a town that's open for business in that sense than one that is only interested in housing more students. Thank you. Thank you, Susanna. So we're ready for a break. So it's 8.25. And I'm going to, five minutes, I guess, but, you know. Jack, just quickly, there's another hand raise after Susanna. I don't know if it's in relation to McSeuss. Oh, yeah. Oh, Kyle. Hello, Kyle. Stay your name and address. Hi, it's Kyle Wilson from Archibelgo Investments. How are you doing? How's everybody doing? Good. I have a two-part question. Is the goal of this bylaw the creation of high quality street-facing, fully leased retail and restaurant space? And if so, isn't the most direct way of doing that, mandating a percentage of street-facing portion of the property to be non-residential rather than an overall percentage of the ground floor? That's one question. Do you have another? Yeah. It's a two-part question. You want this answered first? I'm just, I'm attempting to understand the intent. Yeah. So thanks, Kyle. And it is saying that the non-residential has to be facing the street or areas customarily used by the public. I think the difficulty in saying a square foot or, you know, is it a depth off the street or depth in the building is, you know, we're not, you know, every use could have a different footprint, right? So a certain restaurant may need more square footage for a full kitchen or storage compared to a retail. So to have, you know, a square footed requirement could actually backfire. I think the 40% is a minimum, right? So anyone who wants to do more than 40% can do it. That's just, you know, we're saying that's the minimum non-residential space on the first floor. So if someone can line the street and have active streetscapes and go over 40%, we welcome that. We're, you know, so we're not, I understand what you're saying. I think the difficulty is trying to have some really prescriptive measurements that may not fit for every building, right? So it's easier to do it as a percentage or a proportionality rather than just a perhaps a square foot or something. I think there are probably other ways to approach it, but. Kyle, do you have another question? No, I'm just attempting to ensure that in a town with very limited opportunity for mixed use buildings in terms of overall land mass, that where those opportunities occur, that this bylaw doesn't inhibit the creation of housing, which is a very large demand in our town and also ensures that the different locations can all accommodate a active ground floor street front. And I think that it all starts with the street. And how do we accommodate the street? And I think as much retail and non-residential as you can put towards the street is the solution. Thank you. Doug? Well, I guess I view Mr. Wilson's comment as kind of a direct follow up to one of the comments he made when we were last reviewing his project, which, you know, the 11 East Pleasant Project has a very narrow footprint, very deep lot. So there isn't very much frontage in comparison to the size of the lot. And he was concerned that something like a 40% requirement would result in a very, very deep footprint for the retail, maybe deeper than is even, you know, optimal for business use. And but I, you know, I will say I can, I could view or I could entertain an alternative approach similar to what he's saying, you know, with a minimum percentage of the street frontage devoted exclusively to non-residential use. And then maybe, you know, we might think about requiring the depth of the retail area to be some factor or multiple of the width of the street. So, you know, whether it's 100% or it's 50% or it's one and a half times, I don't know. But I mean, that certainly is another way to think about it. So I'm not opposed to that. But, you know, Nate, I know you guys have taken the approach you've got. So, you know, maybe we need to give that a try. Good. So let's take public comment. Okay. I see Dorothy, then Jennifer, and then Hilda. Hi, Dorothy. Well, I'll be following up on Kyle's comment with a suggestion I made earlier, which is some kind of food establishment would be very well suited there. And the thing about the food place is it can have a very narrow front, but it has to have the depth. It has to have the storage space, the workspace, the washing space. So that could work there. I mean, you know, different businesses do do well in different kinds of spaces, but I know that many food spaces can have a very narrow front. And because I had mentioned before that in the past there was, I guess it's the, was it the loose goose? It had a public, it had a bathroom that it let people use who are using the park. And that what we have now is we have that all of those things are gone. And, you know, would there be some kind of food establishment at that building that would have a bathroom that, you know, during during the daytime, of course, they would let park patrons or people come in to buy some food use. So that could really help the whole thing in terms of the community feeling and the streetscape and serving the needs of the people. Thank you, Dorothy. Next, Jennifer, Tom, I'll state your name and address, please. Hi, Jennifer. There, I didn't see the unmute button. Jennifer Taub, 259 Lincoln Avenue. I was just, I maybe asked a clarification or comment in response to what Mr. Wilson said, because it sounded like, which is what I think some of us really fear is an assumption that the business of Amherst is providing student housing. And the businesses of Amherst should also be businesses that serve the community, you know, retail, facing community facing businesses downtown. And at the point at which it's seen that the business of Amherst is providing student housing, because that's, I guess, what Mr. Wilson sees the greatest demand being, then our downtown really is doomed. And then I guess I had a question was, it was, was, were you discussing that if the, or was Mr. Wilson saying that if the businesses on the ground floor have to face the street, then a building like 11 East Pleasant that's deep into the lot should only, should be required to have smaller retail? Because it begs the question if maybe we shouldn't have buildings that go so deep in the lot, and could then developers start designing buildings that only have a small frontage on the street to reduce the amount of retail on the first floor. So that's a question and a comment. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. So I think we're digressing a little bit in the 11 East Pleasant versus mixed use. I'm not sure this is appropriate. So it's Hilda and then Elizabeth, if you can kind of limit it to the bylaw and not Kyle's project. Hello, Hilda. I had, yeah, I had, this is Kyle's project, but, but it's also could be general. He's has six units on the first floor, on the south side of the building that face a garage. And then the other thing about that building is is probably those six apartments are in shade most of the year because of the height of the building to the south of it. And so it seems to me one of those apartments, if not more of them could be things that service the people who go to the park. It could be an ice cream shop. In fact, it could be a very large ice cream shop as as Bart's was and would do a land office business. And maybe we ought to be thinking as long along with affordable housing ways of affordable business space so that we can bring back the kinds of businesses that did very, very well. And I personally, I understand Maureen's issue of people who need to have disabilities don't want to be carried down the stairs in a fire. And, but I don't think they would want to live in an apartment that looks into a garage that never sees sunshine. We've had enough of the month of July with no sunshine. Those people would be basket cases if they never saw sun from one month to the next. So I I see that distance between those two buildings is prime place for something like an ice cream shop. All right. Thank you, Hilda. Chris, your hands up. Yeah, I just really want to caution people just like Jack did against talking about that particular project because we did not have that particular project on our agenda tonight. That's limited to the public hearing for that particular project. So I think you really need to limit yourself to talking about mixed use in general. And we're glad to have Mr. Wilson here because he brings the perspective of business to this discussion. And that's something that the town council has been encouraging. And the planning planning board has been encouraging us to talk to businesses. But we don't want to steer into that particular public hearing process because that's an improper use of this of tonight's meeting. Thank you. Thanks for the reminder, Chris. So we have one more public comment and then we were going to close a public comment period after this comment by Elizabeth Verling, please. State your name and address again. Hi, yes. Elizabeth Verling, 36 Cottage Street. And I just wanted to say that I'm sorry that my comment was taken as referring specifically to 11 East Pleasant Street. I did not expect it to come back as an apartment complex. My concern was more that the next BG buildings could be strictly apartments. And that this is where I wanted to say that it becomes an issue of what other requirements there are for the zoning district regarding parking, Greenspakes, et cetera, so that apartment and mixed use building outcomes are very closely linked to the underlying zoning district requirements. And that's why we need to understand what we're doing with the underlying zoning districts while we think about these mixed use and apartment bylaws. So I'm sorry that it was interpreted as just 11 East Pleasant. It was really more a comment about in general BG buildings becoming strictly apartments. And again, that this is all related to the underlying zoning district requirements. Thank you. Understood. Thank you, Elizabeth. All right. So let's take a break. I'm going to ask for a few more minutes, like eight minutes or so because we do have some more. I just want to get refreshed here. So eight minutes, we'll see y'all. Put your video off and put yourselves on mute. Hey, Pam. Hi, Maria. Hey, can I ask? So while I'm away, I, you know, I probably have spotty Wi-Fi. So I was wondering if I call in and I'm just brought in as a phone call panelist. Is that a thing or not? Yes, and I think so when I post it on the website, I actually include international numbers. Oh, yeah. Okay. So there's probably a different like phone number then that you would call. Like if you can give me a heads up that you're planning to attend, I'll be looking for you, but also like raise your hand and I'll be watching. Yeah. I mean, we'll have a cell that you, it has international calling plan, but it's just a local number. So I don't know that I would be, you know, it's just a local phone. It's just as an international service. So yeah, I think that would be the best way for me to just like dial in and then I can email you the day before or yeah, like a second, just tell you that I'm here because yeah, if there are a lot of boats coming up, I feel like I want to weigh in in real time and not just send a memo and then hope for the best. Okay. And then we'll just make sure that you get like my cell phone number and Chris's cell phone number. And so if we're having any trouble, you can text us. I think I have those. You've sent out like a contact. I did. I did. So yeah. So if you don't have that, let me in an email and I'll make sure to send it to you. Okay. Yeah. All right. Cause yeah, I know it's looking at the calendar and seeing what's coming up. It looks like every meeting is like, other than the CRC joint meeting, everything after that, I think there's a project or something being voted on. Yes. Yes. I'm committing to anything. I just, you know, I just want to make sure if I can, it's possible just to come in as a phone call panelist. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I must say I'm a little jealous. I've never been to Italy. Oh, it's this romantic trip we're going on. It's actually hard work. It's not like we're strolling through Kabul streets, drinking wine. I mean, we're literally hiking for six hours up a mountain. You know, and so to me, that's the beauty of it. Like, yeah, I'm not like the stroll and drink one. I mean, I'll stroll for sure. But like when I go away and it's necessity, so it's always low budget. So I'm always looking for the state parks. And you know, I tend to be a beach girl. So I'm like, okay, where can I go to the beach for free? And yeah, no, I just, I know a lot of people who have been to Italy or there that's on their bucket list. And people who have been, you know, they just have wonderful things to say. Oh, yeah. It's really great. It is. I'm not, I'm just saying that it's not like I'm going on a vacation. I'm, I'm literally going to like this horsefly infested campsite on top of a six hour hike up a mountain. And then helping like, well, this year we're short staffed. We don't, we're not bringing the college kids with us. So I probably will end up working a little bit with them looking at flowers and mods. So well, I can't wait to hear about it when you get back. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I usually have some photos and stuff I can share here. Yay. All right, a travel blog presentation. I love it. Yeah, we'll get that on the agenda. So are we have everyone except Janet? Hold on. Let me stop my screen sharing. I'll be able to see better. Janet is here. Okay. Yeah. So we're good to go, I think. Two, three, four, five, six of you. Yes. Yes, you're good to go, Jack. You just need to tell me like where you're, where are you headed? Yeah, well, we're going. So we concluded discussion on mixed use buildings. And now we have next, we're going to talk about the parking article and then a little bit about the BL after that. So the next item is proposed changes to parking section 7.00 general requirements subsection 7.000 of the zoning bylaw for dwellings, including mixed use buildings, apartments and accessory dwelling units. And who from the department, it looks like Maureen. Yes. Okay. Thanks, Jack. Yes. So before I get into the slides, just I would like to reiterate what Chris had said at the beginning of the meeting. So we were originally thinking about making some parking amendment changes to the uses, such as mixed use building apartments and the supplemental dwelling apartments in those specific sections. And, you know, after talking to staff and after attending planning board meetings and CRC meetings, everyone recommended to us that they would rather see the parking amendment proposed proposals addressed in article 7, which is specifically for parking. And so tonight's presentation is a proposal for article 7 opposed to the individual use classifications. So the existing zoning language and so, and they're just very the proposal is limited to parking space requirements and nothing other than that. And so the current language in article 7 says for dwelling units, including apartments to parking spaces for each dwelling unit is required. And our proposal breaks it down for parking space requirements for the type of residential uses. And so these uses listed here, one family, two family, a townhouse and a subdividable or converted dwelling dwellings are uses that we to date or have not studied as part of our like 2021 zoning amendment proposals. So we're not, since we're not studying these uses, we don't want to delve into making parking changes related to these uses. So for these specific uses shown here, it would continue to have two parking spaces for each dwelling unit shall be provided. And so this just specifies those exact uses. And the next slide shows that the other part of the proposal talks about the uses that we are working on with you in the CRC, which is obviously apartments mixed use building and the supplemental dwelling units. And for these, we're recommending that adequate parking for each dwelling unit shall be provided for each of these use classifications. And so the proposal goes on to provide specific criteria for both the permit granting authority and for the developer to give specific criteria for determining what is adequate. And so it is site specific development specific neighborhood specific. It's not just a generic number. And so this paragraph or listing here shown on the slide gets into the specific criteria that either the planning board or the zoning board of appeals would be requiring the applicant at hand to provide to provide as evidence of the amount of parking that they're requesting. And so I'll just list off. So such specific factors include the bedroom count in the development analysis of traffic impact reports, the proximity and connectivity to downtown, public transit, and or public parking, including on street and off street parking, availability of alternative modes of transportation, tenant lease restrictions relative to parking and shared or lease parking. And so the applicant would need to provide supporting evidence to who support the amount of parking spaces that they feel is needed for their proposed development. And so I would say I work with the zoning board of appeals so I can only give examples of my time with them in Amherst and the zoning board of appeals has required housing projects before them to provide parking spaces a parking space per bedroom. Instead of what the bylaw says, which is two parking spaces per dwelling, the board has sometimes goes above and beyond and says, no, we want a car per bedroom. And so I think that the two specific examples that come to mind that the board did require that they weren't near bus stops, they weren't near downtown, they weren't near opportunities for shared or lease parking. And so this gives the discretionary power for either board to determine what is adequate. And so if it's downtown on a bus line that's in walking distance to shops and colleges in public transit, maybe the developer could add there is perhaps the bedroom count is mostly studio apartments or one bedrooms, perhaps it would be reasonable for the board to consider maybe one parking space per unit and maybe even some of them don't provide parking spaces. And for those sorts of scenarios, and I think the planning board has dealt with this where that an applicant did not provide parking spaces for every unit or perhaps they didn't meet all the specific number that was required. In those scenarios, they would need to be a condition of the special permit or the site plan review decision that gets into the tenant lease restriction. And that would be part of the decision that is going to be recorded with the registry of deeds. And so that developer would need to, when they're signing off a lease with a prospective tenant that both the tenant and the property owner would have that legal binding document that the tenant would know that they can't park there. I also wanted just to mention that Sean Mangano who is the town's finance director is creating a parking working group to review the parking implementation strategies that resulted in a report that was produced in 2019. This report is on the town website and I'm happy to email it to everyone. And as part of that report, there are specific goals and recommendations and so Sean Mangano and this parking working group will be reviewing those goals and finding measurable actions that they can take. For example, they will be looking at the parking permit system we currently have, the parking passes to see how that can be improved for residents and maybe increasing the pricing of that. And there's a whole host of other recommendations out of that report. And so I think that was all I had. So again, the real premise of this is that this proposal is giving specific criteria for the permit granting authority to use as they review and deliberate on a decision. So it could be two parking, the board could say, you know what? We still want two parking spaces per dwelling or they could say, you know what? That made sense. You provided this evidence and, you know, we'll adjust the number accordingly. So this just gives the flexibility for the board to handle such things. And that's all I think I have. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, so I think in the projects we've seen in the last few years, it has been all over the map from Spring Street with zero parking to the recent collection of houses that are in College Street, where they wanted, you know, one parking space per tenant. And, you know, and I know that, you know, there's others besides Spring Street, I think the Perry apartments on Amity have 32 apartments. They don't provide any parking and they have 100 percent occupancy. So, you know, this parking is just, it's all over the place in terms of where it could go and, you know, what works for the town and all that. But that's, you know, my initial two cents. So I think Janet and then Andrew. First thing I want to say is that my comment during talking about mixed use and the brief time we talked about apartments was that I didn't think the use table was an appropriate place to talk about parking requirements. I certainly did not ask that the parking article be amended or changed or that this language be brought to town council or worked on. I think quite the opposite. I think the language in here is very confusing and poor. I think the distinctions between, you know, different types of multiple housing, where some have to do two units and some are up for grabs, you know, as adequate. There's no data to support, you know, these, you know, like how we decide it's going to lead to longer and longer hearings for the planning board and inconsistent decisions. And then we already have a parking waiver provision in the bylaw that we can waive requirements and it gives three different examples. If that needs to be clarified, we could do that in the context of that waiver. And also the planning board and ZBA can already increase parking using the different language and site plan review criteria and special permit. So I just find this whole thing just odd. You know, I think we can take care, I think that our bylaw already accommodates some flexibility, but it's not infinite. And it's not going to ask every project person to come in and provide a data set to us and tell us, you know, what their tenants, this type of tenant will need this year. I completely don't understand the distinction between apartments, mixed use and ADUs and why they have to have adequate parking versus duplexes, townhouses, converted dwellings and subdividable dwellings. These both sides are that both, you know, the ones that will be covered by adequate are multiple unit buildings. The ones that are going to require to have two units are multiple unit buildings. I just completely lost on, you know, what, why would the needs of a tenant to park depend on whether they're building with subdivided converted a supplemental unit in mixed use or one of 10 townhouses. I just, I can't fathom that. I don't, you know, the planning board has been studying specifically the needs of tenants in apartments, mixed use buildings and supplemental units. Please provide me the data. I just don't, I just, there's so many things here to understand. I don't understand what, how the planning board or the ZBA would be making decisions. You know, what, do we have any data on local parking needs of tenants in different housing types? So that's, that's just my first, you know, foray, but I do think we really need data and data and data before we do any kind of manipulation of, you know, adding this to the parking bylaw. Thanks, Janet. What we do know is that apartments and mixed use buildings are allowed in zoning districts that are in our downtown and village centers that are on or adjacent or close to bus stops and are in walking distance to the university and downtown shops. And since we are studying apartments and mixed use buildings as well as supplemental dwelling units, we felt that this was a good opportunity to address parking for these uses specifically and not sort of jump over to other uses that we're not spending any time at this moment looking at. And so I think that was the rationale for this proposal. Thank you. Andrew and then Maria. Thanks, Jack. I also found this a little confusing and somewhat arbitrary in terms of where the distinction is made. And then also just like adequate, the word adequate is one that I just have trouble grasping as well in terms of we've listed factors which is, which is good, but I don't know that there's any real guidance on how those factors should be considered and, you know, whether or not I guess would like some more direction as to if this particular metric is higher, we should have more parking if it's lower, we should have less parking. Also, I think it might be useful just to, you know, as we're considering the amount of parking. I know there's some reference into like what materials should be used, but, you know, the amount of parking is going to impact the impervious surface and as well as like the lot coverage. So I think like some recognition of that in the criteria, I think it should be a consideration if we're going to be playing with the number of parking spaces, we should have an understanding of how that might impact the overall landscape. Thank you. Thanks. Maria. So thanks, Maureen. Where was I going with this? So, well, I understand why you left out the single family duplex cover dwelling and I forget the fourth one is because like you said, you haven't studied that whereas we have been studying apartments and mixed use buildings and so that's why the distinction of only addressing the parking for those types of uses and it makes a lot of sense as well just because we've had this issue over and over where the parking bylaw is this sort of dinosaur remnant. It's something that we've seen doesn't make logical sense with today's sort of need to put people before cars and put sort of the idea of like being a little more conscious of like how much resources we use as far as just paving over real estate versus building housing, building retail and especially for mixed use buildings that tend to be in the downtown areas and apartments tending to be in the denser areas that are already built up. Giving up that much square footage for two parking spaces per dwelling in it has just come up over the years over and over and so I think what this is saying is basically let's take each project and think about its location, its size, what its adjacencies are and develop the best solution and of course developers are going to try to you know squeeze out more rental space than parking but then they also want it to be rented so they're going to figure out a good balance they're not just going to you know they're going to come up with something that will make their property leasable and rentable so there have been examples where yeah there's no parking provided at all and we'll see how that goes as far as what's going to be rentable or leasable but I do think this is a really timely bylaw that we've been hoping would come up eventually. I think it was one of the priority items from the CRC but it certainly is something that we discuss a lot in a lot of our projects and I'm so ready yours and so I appreciate this coming forward and I think we have been discussing it is just that we haven't been discussing it as a parking bylaw we've just been discussing it as parts of other bylaw amendments we've been discussing so maybe that's why it seemed like a surprise but but yeah thanks for the work on this end I guess yeah I've lost a lot of seminars during this pandemic and where it was all about affordable housing and how we bring more sort of affordable housing and one thing is literally just to not require a lot of parking for every development because it's a pretty convoluted theory but I should find the PDF again it's basically that you know you're assuming everyone needs cars and and assuming that everyone has two cars per family or and a lot of the affordable housing is about being able to buy the property build a house and build it just large enough for what you can afford and then to require on top of that to give up property to build parking spaces you know there are just there's a lot of things that are just outdated about the two per dwelling it so I don't know what the answer is but I feel like it needs to be something other than what we have right now so it'll be interesting to see what kind of answer you come up with I guess but but I think this one is a fair one it's what we're doing already I feel like as far as the planning board I don't know about the zoning board but we are doing a lot to sort of look at each property and each project and consider all the things that you just listed in the amendment so thanks thank you Maria Chris and then Tom thank you I just wanted to remind the board about the lengthy discussions we had about two recent projects and one of them was at 462 Main Street John Roblesky's project and the other one was a Miramik cheese project on southeast street and there was a very lengthy discussion about how much parking should actually be permitted or allowed or required there and the things that the planning board considered are the things that were listed in this guidance that we put together for figuring out how many parking spaces are reasonable and I remember we asked Mr Roblesky to come up with a plan that specifically outlined you know information about other parking other parking for other developments and you know information about buses and proximity to different things and in the end you know all of the things that the planning board considered were things that are listed in this paragraph here so that's why we thought you end up having this discussion anyway well why don't we put the guidance in clear black and white language in the bylaw so you have the specific guidance right there in front of you thank you Chris Tom oh Marie go ahead Tom uh Maria and or Anna but okay I mean I was just going to say that I agree with um the notion that parking is is highly specific to a particular site and all the variables and conditions that are there um and I fully agree that the approach should be to have it be a matter of discourse what I'm missing from this is process so are they proposing a certain number and then we're approving it or rejecting it or are we looking at a particular site and evaluating what we think it should have I'm just curious about how we get to um an agreement on a particular site or a particular situation and what that process looks like I just don't see it here and maybe it could maybe it's explained elsewhere sure no that's a that's a great question Tom um uh what I would envision for the process is that you know the developer is going to go to article seven they're going to see they're going to see this language and as they're sort of you know they're doing you know apartment building mixed use building an office something uh or actually only the three uses so forget the office scenario um and so they are going to um look at this criteria and they're gonna um they're gonna figure out what how many parking spaces they think they need and then they're gonna provide evidence to the board that's reviewing their application and the board will will evaluate the merit of that information and the board would and often will say no we don't like that you know sometimes that happens and they say no you're still gonna have to add another parking space or they do it for all other topics but um so I think it's a back and forth um you know and and the the boards um also have the discretionary power to get a peer review of of of data if if if you know if a board doesn't believe an applicant um you know evidence from a parking consultant um you know that the board could certainly uh under chapter 53 g could request a peer review which means that a peer reviewer would review that consultant's documentation um and so this is giving specific factors for the board um to look at when they're considering what is at adequate parking spaces for a specific development one thing I was gonna say um that I particularly really like about this um which is such a minor detail but to me it's very important is the language that says uh proximity and connectivity to downtown public transit public parking including on-street and off-street parking and the keyword that I really like is this word connectivity so um you know uh you know uh you might in your own neighborhoods notice that maybe you don't have a sidewalk or you don't have a crosswalk maybe the crosswalk yeah doesn't have a ramp that's ADA accessible um and so if a developer is making this argument that is you know there is a close proximity to downtown but unfortunately there's just no sidewalk well guess what maybe that developer is going to put in the sidewalk for the before that development that's directly related back to that development um and coincidentally it's a benefit for the town but it would be directly um related to that proposed development at hand and um I think that that's a really good um added part to this zoning language um which could be really beneficial to um perhaps many neighborhoods that may may or may not have adequate um you know sidewalks and curb cuts and and and like thank you guys good good example Maureen uh Janet 462 Main Street had a came to us for a project that had two parking spaces per unit and we gave it a permit and then at southeast street commons which has never been built we allowed less than one um parking space per unit after that mr oblast came back and asked for a bigger building with fewer spaces because he with fewer spaces you can get a bigger building and then so we you know long discussion we did that very weak evidence um of parking need or you know and in the area or studies and now mr blibblaski is tearing down the original building and putting in more parking and so um I don't think we can keep on this path of every single planning board hearing back and forth about the needs of of you know what they're providing what's their studies what their expert says I think that makes the process worse and longer I you know I wonder if Pam you can pull up the waiver section of article seven because if there's problems and lack of clarity in that I would play with that language to make it clear um you know that section allows waivers under several conditions um probably the one that we all argued about was um 7.912 and to me that focuses on do the tenants need parking and it looks at a bunch of different factors about a management plan how parking you know you know transportation could get you know provided to them in lieu of cars and parking and so I think we can work within this language and adjust it but I think it's really confusing to say a converted dwelling with three units needs two parking spaces but an apartment with three units it needs to be adequate and then we're going to debate it and talk about it I don't know why a supplemental unit doesn't necessarily can do adequate parking but a duplex has to have two spaces per unit I don't understand the logic of it it seems insanely confusing to me I don't think we have studied you know there are there are small apartments all over Amherst there's many apartment complexes you know on a single bus line that doesn't go by very often um in South Amherst and so you know I think we need to study this issue we have to understand what tenants need I could vary by age by being a student it could vary I mean there's there's you know what do the studies say are the factors income low income people tend not to have cars so they don't need as much parking um it might be proximity to a food store so I would I don't mind tweaking the parking bylaw and the waiver language I just don't have a data set to basin on I don't want to I don't want to sit in hearings and hear it over and over and over again and you know once we decide oh you don't need parking you don't go back from that usually you don't have more space the other thing is I completely agree with Andrew I didn't know what adequate parking means I don't know I was like what does that word mean what's the definition I didn't understand how this new section would work with the waiver section does that mean adequate parking can be waived if that section's invoked um can we now require parking in the municipal parking district because it's not adequate does that kind of supersede the you know section article three section about saying it's no parking district um you know I just I just thought I just I just thought this was not ready for prime time in so many different ways but I really want to know and I want to know what other towns do you know I've looked at Chelsea I've looked at Northampton they look at units they look at bedrooms they look at districts closeness to the MBTA a huge mass transit system you know I just this just seems you know I feel like this is really not ready it needs a lot more study and research and it's not really a priority when we have you know 17 other zoning amendments to look at I'm sorry I've just said this big piece but great hey um I'm wondering Chris um would you be able to make some general comments about what um some of the thoughts from the CRCR on this particular bylaw or is that all you know is there a consensus all over the place I'm just curious I don't remember the CRC having a lot of discussion about this Maureen was at the meeting when this was presented and maybe she remembers more specifically what the CRC had to say or what or Rob may have some thoughts about that but I just remember the CRC being critical of this of this section of the bylaw yeah I don't think they they had um much um sort of concern that I'm hearing from some members tonight um I do recall uh Steven Stryber uh town councilor Steve Stryber talking about well maybe maybe could we look at minimum and maximum parking requirements and I remember thinking well that has some merit and I actually did look into that and um and so form-based codes for instance uh they get into minimum maximum requirements for for uses and in zoning districts and my one concern with that is they recommend that the minimum be zero and then you define what the maximum is and I feel that that compared to the term adequate gives the board more flexibility to determine what that is opposed to a generic number um and especially um given that the board would be looking at specific factors um and um in evaluating things that Janet brought up you know what is sort of the age demographics uh what's the sort of affordability rate uh is it close to maybe hopefully one day a truck uh train stop um if that ever comes to fruition is it close to bus stops etc etc um is there uh shared parking um I do remember that CRC members um really like the the language about shared and least parking um which is a very common um a parking model where you have multiple developments um share parking um perhaps a mid block parcel where they share it and um and coming up with sort of creative solutions to to um to locate parking and so all those listings of of of specific factors or criteria um those would have to be analyzed and so um we're not saying zero parking spaces we're not saying you know we're not saying a specific number the the applicant would have to prove to the board what they believe is adequate and it would be at the discretion and that's the unfortunate thing of the planning board in the zba is that I think kind of like an engineer I want a I want I want the number I want I want black and white answers and the thing that the playing board and the zoning board of appeals uh need to grapple with is that you have the discretionary power to make your decisions based on your specific findings and so and in a lot of ways you'll see words in the zoning bylaw that are sort of up to interpretation and so it's really up to the board themselves to to review the evidence and make your discretion and use your discretionary power to make your decision yeah sort of like form this is one of the more form-based zoning codes that are being proposed I guess with the bylaw revisions is that true Maureen I uh say that one more time sorry Jack I'm just in terms of the thought you know I again form-based zoning is is um you know Maria and others have talked about it and it's hard to kind of put your but it sounds like this bylaw is kind of embracing that you know of all the bylaws that we're looking at yeah I know yeah absolutely and I would say that that the the parking implementation strategy report then again I'm happy to email some of the specific recommendations are also um you know specific uh recommendations for form-based codes um and they're really good ones and they're not necessarily even related to the zoning bylaw you know um it it it goes above and beyond of the zoning bylaw which we getting to fees and um and things like that and restructuring the permit systems and and providing better signage and um things of that nature great we have Doug and then Janet yeah this this conversation is reminding me of my recent interview to be reappointed to the planning board uh one of the questions that came to us uh to Janet and me was how we felt about waivers and when they should be given and when they shouldn't be given and uh the gist of my answer was is that we we've we will tend to give waivers when there's a problem with the underlying zoning and and the more waivers we give in a particular area of the zoning the more likely it is that that zoning is broken and so this change doesn't seem to me that it will really change our deliberations in any way uh because as uh I think Chris pointed out we've had these conversations about 462 Main Street and some of the other recent projects utilizing these same criteria that are proposed to be listed but uh I actually like this because it will I guess I would say it will remove the stigma and the guilt that I will feel from giving waivers because somehow by giving a waiver I'm I'm undermining the you know the guidance that the town has given us and and and now you know we can actually deliberate and we're taking away the kind of outdated requirements that uh you know we've had to live with so that's my comment very good thanks Doug uh Janet can we look at the waiver language in section 7.9 because we don't have to feel guilt when we apply very clear language and if there's some problem with the language we can tweak it and make it clearer but what we're really doing is we're going to take this whole section 7 article 7 and make it really murky and so if we can look at this language is there's three they give you very specific times that you can give a waiver one of them involves shared parking or people you might have a parking lot and people are using it at different times of day so you know so the tenants are using it at night and it's empty that's a reason for a waiver right you know parking peak parking needs generated by onsite uses occur at different times shared parking you know a parking management plan that makes sure that the tenants can get places and then of course the one that dug the compelling reasons of safety aesthetics or site design and then you know articles 11 for site plan review and article 10 for special permits make requires us to make sure that the the building works for the people in it and so we could add parking if we need if we see it we need more say there's undergraduates and they all need a car to get around so I don't see what's the problem being solved here the waiver the waiver section gives flexibility it gives a lot of very specific things if you if the planning department thinks that it wants to add some more criteria let's work within the context of that instead of adding adequate to certain types of multiple multiple multi unit places but a two parking requirement to certain other multi multi unit buildings and then those are two units versus the adequate and then we can waive those and something happens to the to the no parking district because that language shows up too I just don't I think this is really this is going to be a hard go and I just don't I just think this is really this is the kind of thing I would send to a pop-up zoning subcommittee to say like what's the problem being trying to be solved let's see what how the bylaw works and if we can tweak it without extensive changes yeah so I just noticed uh well Maria please can we book so I think you hit the nail in the head jam we're literally saying what in the bylaw needs to be fixed it's the parking the two units the two spaces per dwelling it has been the flawed piece that we've been dealing with for I can't remember how many projects now since I've been on for five years every time we look at a project where we look at what the parking was required and it's a huge number and then we look at the lot size and we look at how much square footage the building needs to have with the setbacks and the parcel size that's the flaw the flaw is the bylaw that's what we're trying to fix now just take off the two spaces per dwelling unit and do what we're already doing which is deliberating I don't think we're right now we're here to solve what the numbers we're here to figure out whether this parking bylaw amendment is as Doug touched on something that's a contentious point that we keep discussing because it's it's it's flawed that's why we've had so many waivers because it's literally something that's um yeah I don't know how else to say that's literally the answer is the requirement of two spaces per dwelling unit rather than going to the weeds of like discussing what an answer is or what a number is what a math is what's adequate I think it's just addressing that big picture which is is it's it's the bylaw the number that the bylaws requesting is not correct what is the number we don't know and that's why we have this amendment which is let's discuss it which we're doing anyways that all these site plan reviews so I guess I don't see what the risk is because it's what's happening anyways and we're addressing this flaw every single time so thanks Maria so I see we're like maybe 20 minutes behind this this ambitious schedule I think we're doing great but uh Chris I had a question about the next item the BL one and what you know we're not going to have a hearing on that on the 21st correct that's right we thought this was an opportunity to present it to you okay so if you want to hear about it we're here to present it tonight but if you feel like you'd rather hear about it some at some future date you know that that could be okay so okay and that'll be here and I just I'm just you know don't want to uh run at a clock here for us so um we'll continue talking um Janet you are new thank you so um I think that I understand what Maria is saying about the number I know some parking lots are very full I know downtown parking there's lots of people in a no parking district you know who are parking illegally or in empty lots um there's a you know there's a quite a you're a mute sorry they're showing up in neighborhoods um there are you know we have the management company a week or two ago saying that they see that undergraduates use one have one car per person and so I really think that we need to get more information and so the transportation the master plan the transportation plan says the parking needs study in different areas when we were talking about this a few years ago I know christinine breastrup was saying that we need more study um we can do that they're not that expensive the MAPC has ways to do quick parking studies we might want to wait a little bit till COVID sort of settles that but that could just be this fall um it's I don't it's like we're zoning in advance of data and information or rezoning and it's you know so I just think that we just need to do we need more information we have some parking you know I mean if you drive around town you know the parking are in the lower income there's fewer cars in lower income places because people can't I think afford cars they may need cars but they don't have them or may be dependent on very very dodgy or slow public transit system that has this strange spoke pattern and then really dies off during the holiday season in the summer um but I just think maybe more information I don't think it's hard to get I'm not I'm not wedded to two parking spaces per unit but do we base it on bed count we base it on is it student park student housing you know I just don't think we have data to make this decision and I still you know and I think there's a lot of just the distinction between a converted dwelling with three units or four units and an apartment just doesn't make it seems illogical to me good I see no other hands on the board um let's open it up to the the public let's see Dorothy Pam hi Dorothy hi I am at 229 Amity street well I could see this parking working only on one condition which is that we totally acknowledge that we're only interested in providing housing for students students can ride bikes students can walk to the campus students have the opportunity to get a pie a parking permit from the college so students have options but this means then that you're saying that you don't want any people with children because um no matter how income limited you are I don't see how you get your children to school without a car and it means we don't want senior citizens downtown either because this is New England and seniors don't want to walk on sidewalks in icy weather um because they have to avoid a fall so if you are saying okay we're just going to say we're just providing housing in our downtown for students you can you know kind of get rid of parking but I'd like to answer the objections to parking spaces some of them um one is okay two spaces you fought over this I've heard so many meetings I believe that one space per unit is fair and makes sense and that Janet has mentioned in the past that there have to be some like visitor parking that does not belong to you know the unit but handicapped parking something that could be visitors so a certain number of places that kind of parking does not have to be on impervious structure at the North Hampton new project which is being built up they have they don't have two parking spots for per unit but they have an area which will be um pervious I don't know whether it's real grass or fake grass or whatever it is but water can go through it which when needed can be used for parking and that you know and otherwise it just is green space we've also talked about the climate change things and I feel that electric cars are the answer the way they're going um I think you can be perfectly climate friendly by requiring electric cars I mean in in Amor Michis when you said two units were told you couldn't even get a parking place so that was part of their their lease was going to be you can't have a car but there was going to be a bike rack but the fact is when the developer doesn't have enough parking for his tenants he finds a way so we all knew that right next to the place that Michi is proposed to build but it's not building on there was a huge parking lot belonging to a bank okay not one that he could access or people could access but there was parking available okay and on the one with Roblesky I swear I heard that questions ask will you preserve this old house which somebody presented me with a very detailed history of that house and the answer was yes yes I will I'm keeping that house and then I find that oh the house needs too much work and and I'm going to take it down for parking so you know they think people need parking all right and they make them go through you and not giving it the way that the planning board asked for it but they think people need parking so I think that if you want to have not just students living downtown if you want to have some older people if you want to have people with children you'd have to provide some parking um but you can it doesn't have to I agree the two spaces per unit hasn't been flying but to go below one space per unit I think is just just wishful thinking and it's it's not really really good and I think you could open yourself up for discrimination if it says people say I can't afford to can't live downtown and there's an affordable unit I'd like to live in that my income meets it but there's no parking space and I can't afford to go you know rent a private space and there should have been one for me so I think that you don't need to get rid of it all and use that word adequate which I find is the biggest you could just drive a truck through it but certainly you could reduce it to one per unit and you could think of having some of the extra parking the few spaces on places that are not paved over so you can deal with some of your water problems there so anyway I think this is a big issue I think it's really important and I think it's one of fairness to do with the parking thank you thank you Dorothy um I remember mentioning overflow parking on on you know pervious previous service like it like a lawn or whatever so it's interesting you brought that up Dorothy uh well you know I I don't see other other hands up so this is uh Janet Janet Keller state your name and address please hi Janet Janet can you unmute yourself there you go yep thank you um still Janet Keller still live at 120 pulpit hill road and I would like to argue strongly for uh firm but uh usable guidelines like one space per unit regardless of where it is and what it is um plus a certain percentage for visitor parking um and um I agree that um electric cars are coming soon and more and more people are having them um I further agree that um I don't want to see an Amherst that doesn't have any families in it and the families I know need their cars to get the kids to school to get the parents to work um and to get the kids to after school things and to go to the doctors and to which might not be on the bus line this notion that buses can serve us in what is still whether we like it or not we live in western mess I don't live in providence road island anymore where I could walk or ride my bike and I did walk or ride my bike lots of places um we don't we can't do that if we have a family maybe students can so I I urge you to look at this um with fresh eyes and and um and leave our town um a welcome place for families please as well as students um and uh thank you thank you jenneth all right so we can move on to the next item uh proposed changes to the bl limited business zoning district abouting the bg general business zoning district including a proposed overlay district along north pleasant street and triangle street to allow more residential development in the bl zoning district and who do we have presenting marine hello hello everyone uh my name is marine paula okay so um I'm here to uh discuss with you our zoning proposal uh for creating a new overlay district uh the town center limited business overlay district so I'll walk you through this um there are two focus areas that this overlay district would apply to it would be the parcels west of north pleasant street adjacent to kendrick park between uh coles lane uh alex street and mccollin street I think there's maybe nine parcels or there's something one I won't count that's okay and then the other focus area is these parcels shown here along the corner of east pleasant and triangle street and um as you can see uh the surrounding area it's surrounded by the um in this sort of yellow is um is the general residence district um at the periphery of of both of these focus areas and then we have of course the the the general business zoning districts highlighted in pink and so um uh and back here um beyond this sort of dotted red line um and so the dotted red line represents the uh overlay district uh areas and um behind here represents the bl um not the overlay district but just the existing regular old bl uh zoning districts so here and then here as well and then this red uh blue line rather uh represents the uh Lincoln um sunset historic district so this would be outside of the that uh Lincoln historic uh district um the next slide um so the purpose of of this overlay district is to encourage uh residential development and these transitional zones between the on the core retail and commercial areas of downtown and the adjacent residential neighborhoods um so uh and um and is to look at the dimensional standards and design guidelines of the bl bl overlay districts um for the intention to foster development that enhances the pedestrian experience along the street um and our proposals uh our strategies for this proposal is are to create an area along the street that allows flexibility in terms of dimensional standards uh determine front setbacks that allow for wider sidewalks in active pedestrian areas along the street and incentivize density along the street away from the adjacent residential neighborhoods so unlike the uses that we've been speaking about again we're talking about now the district level the zoning district level um this slide shows the existing bl uh dimensional uh requirements under table three so of importance here you could take a look at the minimum lot area is 20 000 square feet additional lot area per unit is 4 000 square feet maximum floors allowed would be three floors with the maximum height of 35 feet and um and then single family homes and duplexes are prohibited town houses apartments converted dwellings and overnight lodging are allowed by special permit and mixed use buildings are allowed by site plan review in the bl district um currently and so now we'll focus on um we'll continue talking about this so um this overlay district would be mandatory um what what we'll be showing you in in these slides are not guidelines um and um after the last CRC meeting uh initially both of these uh overlay districts would be 100 feet in depth but after some CRC members suggested oh we'll maybe we'll make it a little wider or increase the depth so this north pleasant street focus area would have the overlay district would have a depth of 115 feet and from the property line along here and over here on triangle street it would have a depth of 125 feet from the property line and behind here the bl the areas behind this overlay district that bill is located in the bl would need to meet its regular regular bl dimensional regulations but the building height would be limited to three floors for the maximum and for the overlay district we would be establishing its own dimensional standards and so um now zooming in a bit more to the north pleasant street bl overlay district i'll try to walk you through it so again um a represents the depth of the overlay district which is 115 feet in depth b right here shown is the setback uh which is 15 feet from the front yard setback on north pleasant street the front yard setback on other streets such as mccollin calic and bull's lane would be 10 feet and um the area um here um sort of i'm showing in d here the back the back of of these lots are areas in the bl zone that are adjacent to the overlay district but they're outside of it and those vary in depth um as as it applies to that specific parcel and then um the the side and rear setbacks within the overlay would be zero the side and rear setbacks to adjoining districts would be 10 feet the building height in the overlay so within that um red dotted line um the building height would have a proposed minimum and maximum for a building height so the minimum would be 27 feet or two floors and the maximum would be 51 feet or four floors um also to note that uh we would propose that a minimum of 75 of the front facade facing the public way um shall be located along the front setback line to reinforce the street side uh street sidewalk edge so what that means is that um that you know the developer could have a little um maybe 25 percent um corner space that the building then is um so if if the building is along this setback maybe there is a corner pocket um of the building that setback and that could be a like a plaza or a cafe or or landscaping and that adds a little notoriety adds a little flavor if you will but but for at least a minimum 75 of the building facade it would be uniformed with the streetscape also to note with the overlay there are there would be no requirements related to the lot and building coverage lot area or additional lot area requirements in the areas um in the bl zone that are adjacent but again back here they're adjacent to the overlay but they're still in the bl i think i said this before they would still need to meet the bl dimensional regulations but the building height back here would have to be limited to three floors or 39 feet in in height and um now focusing on the triangle east pleasant street focus area um so the overlay district the depth of that would be 125 feet um that represented in e f is showing the front yard setback along triangle street that would be 25 feet the front yard setback on east pleasant street represented in g it would be a minimum of five feet um b represents the front yard setback on other streets such as um so that would be cottage street here that would be 10 feet and then he represents the adjacent bl district and this the remainder of these rows would be the same as as the other focus area about the side and rear setbacks and the building height and floor floors and so part of this proposal we want since this is now we're scaling up again we're looking at the district level um so we want to um get into standards and conditions and so we would propose uh additional design guidelines um we do knowledge too that there would be additional standards and conditions may apply based on the specific use classification as provided in article three um and so obviously those would still need to apply um we're proposing a frontage zone and so the frontage zone would be the front setback so that's the space between the front property line and the line of the front facade of the building um and that frontage zone would be uh the intended purpose of that would be for usable uh for incidental or accessory activities associated with the building uses and so um I just throw out some ideas of my own and you know we can play with other ideas so these spaces could be landscaping gardens sidewalks plazas sitting areas and may include amenities such as benches sitting walls and and planters and I'm sure the list could go on and on of creative and fun things uh and such as public art and um art sculptures um and installations um and so we also are proposing a project open space um at at the at this um at the district scale here and open space would need to be provided for all residential uses for the use for the occupants and visitors of the building um these spaces may be located anywhere on the property whether or not they're in the BL overlay district meaning if we just jump back to that one one of the maps meaning that the project open space you know it could be in the frontage zone but it also could be in the side setback or it could be in this adjacent BL district um if it's part of that same parcel just to show you um and so for buildings with solely residential uses such as apartments and townhouses um the project open space may be provided in the frontage zone um and so for like uh so for a mixed use building um a mixed use building could have project open space on the side in the rare but for sole solely residential um it had it has flexibility of where that could be located and the project open space would be provided in areas that are not used for parking areas driveways HVAC and utility areas service areas or unusable slope area um and so you know the project open spaces is really to enhance you know this transitional space between the dense downtown and the adjacent residential district so we want to sort of soften that transition between between the downtown the street the sidewalk the property line the transition between the property line to the door entrance um so there's moments for rest to gather to enter um these spaces and to provide frankly you know amenities for for visitors and documents to enjoy um we have some a concept example um this concept design was prepared by planner by our colleague planner Ben Breger um and so um I'll just um this is what we'll ultimately focus on this parcel here but just to orient everyone so um this is North Pleasant Street um this is where Kendrick Park is this um and the parcels in yellow highlighted in yellow those that represents the overlay district and um in the back those would be the adjacent um BL district area and so the focus for this concept example is looking at this building here and so we'll go to the next slide and so um the project so in this mock example um we we we say that this is a mixed-use building so the project open space would be required for the residential uses for the use by the occupants and the visitors of the building the project open space is provided along this now we're we're gonna ask everyone to use your imagine your imaginative goggles that there is on the side and rear of this building that there you may envision maybe outdoor patio area or landscaping um maybe a little play area uh maybe some garden plot so with your imaginary goggles you could picture that here uh and and and back um and um this image is showing the frontage zone in front of this building um which would be a depth of 15 feet um again the mock development is a mixed-use building and it would provide out um and so this mixed-use building has a restaurant on the first floor and so they want um the developer is providing a outdoor dining area which would be accessory use associated with the restaurant and again putting on your imaginary goggles maybe uh you could imagine a four feet tall native shrubs provided as a visual buffer along along the property line actually is this line right here in this particular location this grassy strip is actually within the public right away um but maybe perhaps you could imagine that there is a um you know some shrubbery or a low retaining wall that provides sort of a public private semi space um to help transition between the public right away and the private development and here is just another view of um this development so the front part of the building which is in the overlay district again um for this example the building height would be 54 feet or four stories and in the back this so that that's what I'm talking here this front part and then this back part this would be located in the adjacent underlying bl but not in the overlay and so the building height would be reduced to three floors and you can see that there is a setback along mccollin street and you can see that that frontage zone on the front the front setback as well here and you can see it in in relation to the neighborhood and um here um now I'm just showing another image of that frontage zone where oh now you don't need your imaginary goggles so now there is shrubbery on the side setback um which provides you know privacy and a space for visitors and and occupants and there could be some you know some really cool and creative things that are on that side setback and in this frontage and in this frontage zone you see that there's a change of surface materials with pavers you see that there is awning there's doors with windows there's tables and chairs and there is a a retaining wall you know perhaps there's there could be really some fun string lights um and it provides a nice transition between the public the the street to the sidewalk and to the property and then if you want to zoom out a little more so up to this point we've been just talking about the site scale if we zoom out and think about let me just go back to something now if we want to go back to um thinking about this um the next scale up district wise is providing or requiring a frontage zone um and what we're saying here would be 15 feet along north pleasant street and here would be I think we're saying I should know I think it's 25 feet it allows the flexibility for if not today if not 10 years from now or perhaps decades from now allows flexibility for the town to or the developer um to really think about the streetscapes and what we as a town envision for streetscapes perhaps you know I I'm always excited to see people use these shared bikes these electric bikes um you know perhaps these could be great locations to add more street furniture such as shared bike stations perhaps we're interested in separated bike lanes perhaps we would like to really be uh actively uh install public art sculptures throughout downtown perhaps there's wider sidewalks perhaps there are significant more uh street trees so when you think about this small zone here um this is just a sort of sample of what we could do in other zoning districts um in our downtown and perhaps surveillance centers and um so let me just go see if I have anything else to say um we did um and I would like to say that Nate Malloy uh spent a lot of time on this um and so did Ben and um and so it's been and Rob Mora and we've it's been a very collaborative um effort uh looking at this and um one of the initial recommendations were to provide some design standards for for the board to consider and um which they're all great um but we're not ready yet to actually recommend them for our zoning amendment proposal today so um they I think they may be in the packet but at this time we just want to focus on what we truly want to propose for those zoning amendments and we'll return back to these um which gets into building facade parking and mechanical equipment so with that I think I'm done questions thank you very much a lot of work has been completed um I appreciate that I'm gonna let that digest I don't really have anything to say right now um and we have Janet um when we last talked about this I think it was somewhere in the spring and um one of the questions the board asked was for unit counts like how many units um could be built like if you maxed it out and um since there's no side setbacks requirements um the building could be bigger and then also we know that a few property owners own like several lots so they could all be combined and so I was wondering if you could provide that information for both of these proposals because I remember when Maria and Andrew and Doug looked at um the unit count um under um footnote I mean under the current zoning versus the adjustment in zoning they felt like there was it was too dense and it was no longer operating that the BL would no longer be operating as a transition zone so I was just wondering can you get the numbers for us about you know say if the apartments were 500 square feet um assuming there are apartments or condos um how dense can it be how many units can it be um the other thing I want to say is um it seems like you have this really strong vision in the planning department and you know you're you're working on this um I also know that um you know Suzanne Musbratt and Pamerty presented a vision for this particular section we're looking at that keeps the historic buildings and expands them in a sort of a traditional New England way um I don't think they had specific um dimensional things and then there was talk on Triangle Street being more garden departments and more kind of a transition to the neighborhood and I everybody has a good vision I also know that the Pleasant Street area is being considered for being added to the local historic district by the historical commission so I wonder um and these are design standards I wonder you know my my gut feeling is since we're hiring a consultant to look at these issues and work with the community this would be a great add into the the the basket but it makes sense to me to wait till that person's hired and we work through the process because there's lots of different visions and um I do appreciate that you know how much work you put into it and you have this very strong sense of what you'd like to see and I just I just I want to appreciate that. Great uh Maria. Thanks Marine that was a really great presentation um I think that's doing a great job of exactly what a lot of people have said they liked about downtown which is creating a street edge and creating more human scale space um at the fronts of buildings and this achieves all of that it's really great it's basically form-based zoning without the sort of building facade um well you did touch on building facade a little bit so this is really close to form-based zoning so it's really exciting um and uh yeah I think also just increasing the density closer to the street and it only creates that street edge but you have the opportunity for more housing which is always great to have downtown um so yeah I think this is a great study and um I hope that this could inform other areas like the village centers um and I mean this is basically form-based zoning right I mean I think that it's touching on most of the things that um it just it doesn't also have like stuff like normally there's parking and there's other sort of features that are part of form-based zoning but um but yeah it looks like you've spent a lot of time really analyzing these parcels and yeah when Doug and I did it we did it just using math not we didn't put on our like architect hats we just literally sort of plastered maximum build out um minimum well if each parcel was its own parcel versus all the parcels as one so we just did some quick math but this is really looking at it from our urban planners sort of perspective so I really appreciate that and you know that you put a lot of thought as far as like what do you want to see and um and I like the vision I think it's a really good direction thanks Maria any other comments from the board uh Doug my my comment is actually a question um and that is since this is not going to be part of the public hearing next week what is kind of next in the process for this that's a great question yes is is there an answer or is it Chris Chris has her hand up so um I think the CRC thought this was pretty well along and I think they didn't think they needed to see it again Rob can confirm that but that's my memory the CRC's review so we would just want to get further along with the planning board um before we um put this forward so I will meet again with the planning board okay I'll look forward to your return good uh Tom you had your hand up yeah I was gonna ask the same question about the Doug asked in terms of process like what do what do we do with this information and how do we move forward with it and and what can we do between now and the next meeting um to uh to help move along yeah I mean it's just kind of late in the evening and you know I retained a little bit of it but I will look very forward to uh seeing it again well it's the meeting's being recorded you all can watch this again tomorrow again and again and again with your morning coffee Nate has some idea about where this goes from here Nate oh sure yeah I mean not necessarily where it goes I think that you know a number of months ago Ben and I presented a few um conceptual designs you know 3D designs as well um you know I'm probably a number of properties in this district and those still comply with these dimensional standards so you know Jenna asked about build-out so I think it was gosh maybe back at the end of March but we have models and you know we had um you know varying size apartments and mixed use buildings and what it would look like so we can provide that or it could be in a previous packet just to understand what it looked like so Ben had done the triangle street uh site and I did I think um you know a few properties south of Halleck if they were combined and what that would look like so um that's one example of what it you know a possible build-out following this type of uh zoning so there is something that had been presented a while ago just I think you know I think it would be easier almost uh to Jenna's point to show like building envelopes I think you know unit sizes can change right if you do a three bedroom or one bedroom I think it's could be more about the massing which is what we were trying to get I think when we did apartments we had like you know a 700 square foot unit or 600 square foot you know so maybe one building cut out 40 units but you know if you made those smaller it could become a 60-unit building in the same footprint but we do have some of those that we could try to get to the planning board pretty quickly just so you can see what that looks like but and just to add with these uh this hopefully I'm showing the screen um so this proposed dimensional standards would help dictate the bulk and mass of the building so talking about the building height and and the amount of floors and the and how the building is set back from the front the side and the rear and so that would help dictate the density within the overlay district um Chris I just wanted to mention the fact that um footnote A would not apply to any of these dimensional standards for the BL overlay these are you know what you see is what you get you don't have the option of asking for a special permit for dimensional modifications I thought that might interest some people good good um let me see what oh it is what 1015 yep 1015 um uh Janet so so I would love to see some unit counts um you know to understand you know how the density in a different way I do love the 3d thing I wonder I mean I thought that the the consultant was be doing handling these kind of design guidelines and so I'm a little confused about who what are we hiring this person for I thought it was for the downtown um design guidelines that informed based zoning and so is is this aiming towards a final zoning amendment without the consultant or um I'm just a little lost Chris please so what we're doing here is we're establishing dimensional requirements for an overlay zone we're not getting into the design of buildings we're showing you buildings that could possibly be built there um Nate showed you some fairly sort of uh which should I say modern looking buildings and Ben has been and Maureen is showing some um buildings that are more traditional but we're not getting into that kind of design at this level that's the kind of thing that we would get from our consultant here we're just saying what would the lot coverage the height the setback etc be for this overlay zone just the same way we have other zoning districts which have similar dimensional requirements so we're just setting up the dimensional requirements here and when we get to the consultant on board we'll start talking about facades and do you remember when Nate came through the first time he talked about you can't have more than 80 feet of a of a wall that doesn't have any change in plane and when you have your change in plane it's got to be at least six inches and sometimes it has to be five feet and sometimes there has to be a corner carved out for a space and so those kinds of things are the things that we would look to our design consultant for but um setbacks and lot coverage building coverage and height I think we can handle doing what we're doing now this just seems like a sort of seismic change and I wonder in terms of heights and density and bulk and it seems like this would be a great thing for the consultant to work with the community on and the boards thank you Nate and then Doug yeah sure I think you know this was the the overlay was also in response to the idea to allow more residential development in the bl you know the footnote b additional lot area per per unit and so you know the planning department thought you know we looked at that but that was actually actually more of a relief valve if you kind of wave that that whole piece the 4000 and so you know the idea here is to actually bring development along the street develop a street front have setbacks to allow generous pedestrians you know escape streetscape in front of a building so I think you know this was the response to that so you know is there a better way than just eliminating a footnote can we actually help develop um you know massing that's in place along the street I'll also say that you know the overlay started almost too as a response or took into account the 40 r district that the consultants had done so we actually took some of the work they'd already done through a you know a year and a half long process and we've actually I think tailored it more to amour so we actually reduced the scale of the buildings that the 40 r was proposing and we we took some of all that process in and then distilled it into this overlay so I think there is a lot of background work that was already done by consultants that was used for this overlay so I mean I agree I think that if we do have a design consultant you know they may look at it and say oh well you know are there tweaks that could be used but I think it doesn't necessarily um you know we're like Chris we're looking at dimensional standards uh that are different than design standards um you know it can be one of the same but I think you know we're I think this can be an independent thing that moves forward and maybe the consultant says wow I like these setbacks the way you're doing it um you know as opposed to a curve to a building frontage it's a property line setback that's just you know could be a cleaner way for our zoning to work um so I do think there's a lot of background research that went into this that was used to formulate it. Thanks Nate that's a good to hear um uh Doug. Yeah with the conversation about the upcoming design consultant I guess I was wondering with a question for the planning staff whether the planning board would have any opportunity to review the RFP for that consultant and whether we would have any input on the selection of that consultant Chris um that hasn't been discussed and so I can certainly think about that and get back to you on it it seems like a good idea to have the planning board have some input on the RFP I'm not sure about um the choice of the consultant but that I can I can do some uh asking around and see about that as well so I'll get back to you on that. Super I um I see no other hands raised so we can take out to public comment and I see Dorothy Pan and then Susanna. Hi Dorothy. Hi so there is a point in hanging in there to the end okay um this plan does include a lot of the nice things that had disappeared from the mix and I could see people living there I could see in my mind's eye people walking on the sidewalk and and feeling things um I have my question is just very technical um it's how many feet so on the drawing you had first the green along the curve then you had yellow for sidewalk and you had a little green on the other side of that sidewalk and then you had the gray which I believe you call the frontage area and so my question is what were the dimension not in the area of where the special town is like the trap it sticks out where there's a little town green there but in the regular part what were the dimensions of each piece so I could get an idea of how many feet back from the street edge is the building where it has the frontage area uh or are you talking which image would you like me to reference the one with the house not this one the okay the concept example short uh let's go to you had the green yellow and gray okay so um this um this where the arrow is pointing um right here that is actually the property line and so um all here is the public right of way um and so this would set back from here to this building wall of 15 feet and that's where the frontage zone would be provided and if um once again we'll see oh and then here um again that's showing showing the same information and then here it's showing the side step back which is um the side step back would would be within is actually uh the proposal currently is zero um feet but in this concept design we were generous and wanted to provide a side step back and since they are the developer would be required to provide for project open space um you know it it would be it it would be for it would be their design um would be a choice they could yeah yeah they would need to find a design solution to accommodate the project open space so maybe it's on the side maybe it's in the rare maybe it's in the front um so it gives them that flexibility of where it could be located but as you can see the majority of the building the front of the building um is is has a uniformed um building facade and that we would want consistent um throughout the that zoning overlay and you can imagine if this was applicable to other zoning districts um and then you could see that it then steps back a little bit um by at least um 25 percent um to allow you know perhaps a cafe um um or restaurant or just a plaza where people gather um for no you know for a little um like an amphitheater sort of seating um you could be I mean you could we could have fun and come up with creative ideas all day of what that could look like would that be if you have the the 15 foot setback and then you have the 25 percent I don't know how many feet the 25 percent would be just trying to manage the space that might be um what is the 25 percent sorry um oh oh oh where um so a minimum of 75 percent of of the front facade facing the public way would be located along the front setback line to reinforce um so um so this um maybe been exaggerated um the percentages but you can see that that the majority of the building facade is is would be at the consistent 15 foot setback and that that and um we'll say that maybe that's 75 percent of the building will will pretend that that is 75 percent and then um that uh there would be a portion of the building that would be setback further to provide a more ample portional um outdoor space and if you recall in earlier revisions I believe we had a percentage for the project open space and after much discussion um we I kind of forgot what that percentage was maybe 10 percent 20 percent I don't remember anymore um and but we felt that uh that that it needs to be uh the the project open space should be dictated on the the use classification the density of the development and the intensity of the development and those factors will help dictate the amount of project open space so for instance if you had a five-unit apartment building perhaps you're not going to have a gigantic play equipment area um but if you have a apartment building that has I don't know 25 units well now we're talking maybe now we can have an outdoor plaza maybe we can have a little a pavilion area um now if the building's larger than that now we're talking now we can say well we would want your project open space proportional to that use classification the density of that use and the intensity of that development and when I say intensity of that development we're talking about how many people are coming and going out of that building we're talking about how many occupants how many visitors and how much foot traffic how much cars are coming in and out things of that nature and so that that would help dictate for the board what what they would see is a reasonable project open space thank you thank you very much thank you Dorothy uh Susanna and then Kathy hi Susanna hello Susanna Moskrat 38 north Prospect street I have to say that way past my bedtime um and I hope I'm still making some sense um I was surprised that the purpose of the BL overlay district is only to encourage residential development is it not also for businesses I mean limited business that doesn't seem to be even on the agenda anymore well it would be um it would be my understanding that any proposed development in the overlay district would be what's you know what's permitted in the BL uh district so it could be all apartments right well it could be it could be a mixed use building it could be um yeah it'd be kind of be kind of nice if it mentioned that it had something to do with business so the dimensions that have changed a lot since the last time this came to the planning board and I am having real trouble understanding what um the the new height limit of 51 feet what that looks like I would really appreciate it if you would show us hypothetical buildings that were the maximum that could be built on these two blocks because we know that one developer owns the whole first block and it could be that there would be one building there and I also would really appreciate it if you would show us some sections that help us understand how these buildings at 51 feet at the maximum I mean what I would call the worst case scenario you probably call it the best case scenario what how that would line up with the the archipelago buildings across the street and I would like to see um this height against St. Bridget's church so that I have some points of reference and I think that would help a lot of people who don't have a mental image of what exactly 51 feet looks like I think it's really important that the council understand what it's voting for this is a huge amount of building for this area that we're used to seeing as a very sort of modestly scaled transitional zone and I think we deserve to understand what these changes could in fact bring upon our town thank you thank you um Nate and well Chris you did have your hand up okay so Nate I don't think Suzanne I think um you know not just a section showing a height I think you know what's important here too is we have a setback from the street and then there's you know um so we have a you know a new front setback and then there's also the property line so for instance along the Pleasant Street you know from Kohl's to Halleck you know the the property lines about 25 to 30 feet off the curb and then we have another 15 feet so even if the building is taller you know I would say we could also do sections from building a potential building across the street to the across the street to the you know One East Pleasant or to Zana Block and show kind of that whole street perspective because I think that's helpful as well you know I think comparing heights is also helpful but you can say wow that's a really tall building but if it's now 20 feet further back from the sidewalk then what we're currently seeing then the you know the relative height to the pedestrian zone is different so I think having that whole you know street side is you know one side to the other side sections in a number of places would would be helpful as well thank you um so we have Kathy Shane hi Kathy hi I'm still at 519 Montague Road um I just have two questions that build off actually what Nate just said um when I'm looking at the memo I think I'm reading it correctly that the building coverage goes from no more than 35 percent to no no maximum is the way it's written and and is that you're trying to set it further back from the street and do a variety of things that minimize the building coverage because that BG has 70 percent so it could be 100 percent is is the way I'm reading it with building coverage I'm not doing lot coverage right now so that's a question if I'm reading it right then as a transition BG has a height of 55 feet EL currently is 35 feet and this has a 51 foot height so it's not much of a transition um you know so there's something in between there like 45 feet that would be more so just a question where 51 came from so it's a question of why 51 and the um this relative scale um it would help me understand public way and property line if this particular we knew where the public way was and Chris you told me one point I can't make a guesstimate I have to go on the GIS map for each so it seems like the public way here may be deeper in this area before you hit property line so just that sense of scale you know would be helpful um I was told I live on Montague road that I can't guess public way if I go up and down the houses I have to go to each property so I don't know how much it varies um so that's where you're measuring from the public way and then the setback is from the property line so when you talk about relative to the height to the street but just put some of those on these maps too that would just be helpful for me um to get a sense of that so my first question to am I right that building coverage could go to 100 percent of whatever is left after you've set back um which is more than bg but maybe you've set aside enough lot that it's not more um so there there wouldn't be a building coverage requirement within the overlay but the um the area behind the overlay that's in the bl existing bl would need to meet the the building coverage requirement and I'm looking at the table three right now and that would be at 85 percent however but that's lot coverage I'm talking about building oh yeah building coverage sorry thank you it is it is getting late uh building coverage uh maximum building coverage within the bl is at 35 percent yeah and I just at least that means a physical structure with no maximum could be 100 percent other than what you've done um and I just would like some is that what's being proposed and does that mean there's nowhere for the rainwater to go down into the ground so I just I just want some sense of what that means if the building could be that much of it that's it it's so it's it's a comment and a question and I don't need an answer tonight very good um thank you Kathy uh going back Chris you ever hand up yes I just wanted to answer partially answer Kathy's question um so the right of way line is the property line so the right of way takes up you know all property that the town owns that includes sidewalk and roadway and green strips and trees and whatever the town owns is considered the private uh the public way and the edge of the public way is the property line of the private property that abuts the public way does that make sense it does and I just want to know how much is the public way because it's is it 10 feet of public way or is it 20 feet of public way that's in it varies all over the place right so in these dimensional things for this overlay I think it's particularly important that at least in these sections we get that wiggle line that's called public way that's what I'm asking you want to see that on a map yeah it was just to make it clear to me that the property line is right up to the public way and then we're measuring but I don't know where the public way is so um I think Kathy just quickly I think there's a difference that's why triangle street has a 25 foot setback because the red dotted line the property line is actually right on the curve right so we want a deeper setback there so that's why it's 25 feet whereas if you go to north pleasant street the property line the red dashed line is anywhere from 20 to 30 feet from the curve uh just because it's a more generous right of way and so that's why there's only a 15 foot front setback so we're those front setbacks are in response to how close the property line is to the curve edge now I think I understand what you're saying I think we could um we could diagram that uh just to illustrate that um a different way um but that's what that's what the you know where the where the cursor is right now that's a 20 foot it's about 20 feet from you know property line to right of way you know to the curve edge so there's 20 feet within the right of way that is not roadway thank you uh and then I just want to say quickly about the building coverage and we talked about this a little bit too I think you know right if you look at the blue you think wow that could be a really massive building but in reality someone's not going to make a building that's 100 feet deep most the buildings are you know anywhere from 50 to 75 feet deep you know if you think of an apartment a double loaded corridor office space just to have such a massive building you don't all that there's not a lot of light so there's a lot of interior so most people are not building a building that is 100 feet by 100 feet right they're just not building a big block even the bigger ones downtown are no deeper than typically 65 feet um yeah there might be an L shaped so it might actually be longer than 100 feet but the depth of the building typically isn't much deeper than 70 feet so I think that's a really good question about what the building coverage would look like so in concept models we can show that but I don't think rarely would you see a building that is just so massive right that would actually take up the whole overlay I think in reality the overlay is deep enough to give a developer flexibility in how they design the site in the building the hope is not that they would just put a huge massive building thank you Doug yeah jack seeing is this is our first conversation of this and we will have at least one more I wondered if we were going to have very much more conversation tonight because I'm going to need to peel off oh I think we're done I think we the Kathy was the last one and we just have a few more items to get through but I think we're all done with with the BL discussion so thank you very much Maureen Nate and Chris for all your input and Rob for your presence constant presence so uh old business no old business okay a new business no new business and for me and Pam can bring it up on the screen um I'll just describe what it is um Kay Atkinson owns a doctor's office of practice on um Research Drive over in East Amherstof Belcher Town Road and um she would like to build a parking lot for herself um a little bit farther down the street she needs more parking so she's purchasing a piece of land from Mr. Allen Birkenwald um and Allen Birkenwald owns this property that's outlined here in yellow you can see where it's located along Old Belcher Town Road between Research Drive and Haley Village Place um so he's carving off the back portion of his property to sell to Kay Dadkinson to construct this parking lot and Pam can show you the the map uh Mr. Birkenwald owns the area that's outlined in green um he's proposing to sell this uh the doctor Atkinson the area that is to the left of that red line um which is what is it 0.8 acres and what we need you to tell us is that um this is not a subdivision in terms of the usual um use of the word subdivision in other words A&R means it's not it's uh approval not required subdivision control approval is not required for this division of this property because we're not creating subdivision so I would ask you to authorize Jack Jamesick to sign this um A&R plan on behalf of the planning board and then Dr. Atkinson can move ahead with her project and by the way this is coming in under Article 14 and I'm sorry I think um I saw Rob Mara leave just now because he might have been able to explain to you um about the use of Article 14 in this um in this arena but essentially what it means is that the building commissioner can um approve a project such as this without it having to go through site plan review or special permit um and it's a it's a result of the um COVID emergency and Article 14 is in place through December 20 of 2021 so it's but parking lot aside what we're asking you to do here is authorize Jack to sign this um A&R plan okay any questions from the board I see none okay uh I guess is is there any uh anyone object to me signing this just raise your hand see none okay so we'll make arrangements to get together for you to sign the plan yeah so um anything else nope okay so reporter the chair I I think Chris maybe you could just report the town council decisions on the building moratorium and uh inclusionary zoning just in case yep people aren't aware so the town council voted on Monday night to um approve the inclusionary zoning by law and that was a vote of 13 to 0 and I don't believe there was any discussion they seem to be convinced that that was the right thing to do um on the moratorium um they voted uh four in favor and uh nine not in favor of uh the moratorium so the moratorium did not pass that was that was the result and I'm very happy to report about the inclusionary zoning I think that's really important and um yep developers are already paying attention to to that so it's a good thing good uh anything else Chris I let's see oh I should make sure that I tell you what's on the agenda for next Wednesday the next Wednesday we have public hearings on mixed use buildings apartments the parking that we showed you tonight and ad use accessory dwelling units which we showed you a couple of months ago and you all said it was good um so that's what we'll be having the public hearing on next week with it to be a joint hearing with the CRC and as I said before if you don't feel comfortable voting you can continue the public hearing you can ask us for more information um so that's that's the story okay great uh and then yeah maybe we can squeeze in the minute the review of the minutes uh as well there so next week uh yeah but see how it goes so uh I guess we can adjourn good night everyone thank you what was this four hours and 15 minutes and 40 not bad pretty long mr. gem sick yeah I kept to this good night my hand there's my hand nice stuff the cloud recording