 Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is our public affairs show here at Amherst Media co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters. We're trying to help our friends and neighbors understand our evolving and quickly expanding new town government. And when I say quickly expanding, I'm focusing tonight on the fact that we have a new committee to learn about. It's called the Community Resources Committee and we have the chair of the committee, Steve Schreiber and the vice chair Dorothy Pam here to explain what this committee is all about. So let's start at the very beginning as we usually do. What's the charge of the committee? What's its authority and where did it get it? Thank you so much for inviting us to speak about the new CRC as we like to call it. So probably the way that I describe the CRC is that we advise the council on issues dealing with the character of Amherst. So by that I mean really the natural and the built character. So everything from zoning bylaws, the master plan, open space, you know, issues that people can really touch and feel and be engaged with. Great. Now Dorothy you described it to me in a previous conversation as the quality of life committee. Well I framed it that way but you use the term quality of life. Yes. And I think that is in the charge too. So just to build on what Steve said, we think about neighborhoods, agriculture, residential neighborhoods, housing, affordable housing and then we get down to the things that go with that which is where many people are very concerned, parking, parking on the residential streets, parking downtown, transportation. So we have, oh and never forget the historical areas that we have, cultural and historical and the arts. So we have a lot of things that we are dealing with which are the things that we think people think of when they think of Amherst. Excellent. Steve, you in a previous conversation said it was the eyes and ears. Eyes and ears for who about what? Yeah. So you can look at any council of, I'm sorry, any committee of the council as being really we're advisory to the full council. So the council could exist without us. So our goal is to make the councils work easier. So measures that deal with the physical character, the many of the issues that Councilor Pam was talking about that would either be referred to us or we can also generate things that we think should be looked at by the council. So we're in a way, as with any council committee, we are the smaller group that can study an issue more deeply than the full council can and then bring back information to the council. And it's advisory in its nature. Yes. So you can do a lot of homework, you can study an issue, somebody might propose an idea that doesn't have a home in another committee and in fact in a conversation many months ago when this committee was being fought about in that show I said it sounds like this is where all the orphans are going. So if it doesn't have a home in another of the standing committees, this is a place where the item can find a place to be worked on, thought about, yeah? I would counter that a little bit. I'm on the finance committee as well as the community resources committee. And between those two committees we deal with the major issues of the town, of life in town as people encounter it. So we are very, CRC is very central and it's one that many, all the counselors want to be on but of course they get their chance to speak on it because we do vote on issues and then they go to the full council. Some issues go both to the finance committee and to the CRC who will look at them from different angles, different aspects. And then we bring it to the full council and have everybody engaged and that's where the decisions, the final decisions are made. At the council but it's going to be thoroughly explored and voted on at the CRC level. So how many members on the CRC? There are five. Five. So you're getting close to half of the council is actually on the committee. So every committee has four, five, six, seven people therefore once work is done at a committee level there's already a foundation of understanding even before it gets to the full council. And so that's to your point that every piece of business that's going to be before the CRC, CRC, yeah okay CRC is actually going to have a meaningful debate and it already will have a foundation by the time it gets to the council. And several council members who are not on the committee do attend many of our meetings because what we're doing is really so central and in fact some of the issues that were very active in the campaign are central to some of the mission of the CRC which is what kind of a town is Amherst now, what kind of a town will it be in the future and what do we want and how do we balance all of the forces and needs and desires into something that hopefully keeps most people happy. So we have a lot of issues that are. And so the town council when you talk about planning and zoning and things of that nature which are in the purview of the CRC you inherited as a government a set of documents and rules and laws that are already in place so let's just talk about zoning. Should we do master planning first or zoning? Which comes first? Well really master planning comes first because master planning is the macro set of principles which as a community we've come to some consensus on big ideas about how we see the town evolving over time. So the current master plan is 10 years old but we can come back to that in a second. But what I like to say is that the master plan are the macro ideas but it really has no authority in other words you can't it has no authority to there's no laws in the master plan that require. It's a vision. It's a vision. It's a vision of what we want to be. So the laws then come out of things like the zoning bylaw or other land use bylaws are which always have to refer back to the master plan. Their authority is through the master plan that we think that the zoning bylaw refers to section whatever it is of the master plan so we think that when we say that we believe that there should be village centers that then the zoning bylaw defines more carefully what a zoning word of village center might be. Okay and so a 10-year-old master plan which is what we've got today how fresh a stale is a 10-year-old plan put aside the idea that we have a new government but we have a master plan. Is that plan considered fresh stale getting stale? Let's see how many people are in Amherst. However many feel our name will determine the number of opinions. So the typical shelf life of a master plan is about 20 years so but the typical master plan also is updated at intervals so a typical interval for updating is five years so I don't believe that our 10-year-old master plan has been updated in those two five-year increments in part because yeah I can't really explain why that is but I think that the change of government which was a three to four-year process probably stalled that a little bit. Yeah so do you think it's time to do a review and revise or time to do let's go back to the beginning and do a very robust planning process. So is someone who was involved at the very end of the last master plan? As a member of the planning board? As a member of the planning board. Okay. I have a particular opinion which is it's time to update and revise. Okay. But starting from scratch I think is probably too much for for us at this time. Dorothy you're nodding in agreement. I think that we can do some changes and fixes. We had our district meeting last night district three and I was expressing my present vision of the town partly inspired by the 28 million dollar gift to the Emily Dickinson grounds which I felt was a strong statement that Amherst has a historical role and a center that we want to preserve and we want to preserve other parts of our history and that is balanced with the master plan that wanted to avoid suburban sprawl and to have infill development in the village centers which we are having. So the question is what kind how much and where and at my district meeting and I represent a district which is right up by the town center part of it was where are the boundaries just maybe relooking at some of the boundaries of this so that we have the neighborhood part is strengthened and I was thinking we don't all have to look alike we have our historic districts we have UMass with an incredible variety of all the different types of modern architecture, architecture including the overbuilding where your office is which is a really exciting building and we have Amherst College if you like colonial revival which is very strong and sedate and beautiful and I forgot to mention last night was I have Hampshire College we have absolute cutting-edge energy efficient buildings with the Kern Center and the Hitchcock Center so we don't all have to look alike I guess I'm kind of fighting against the sense of homogeneity that might be coming in the center and many of these decisions will be made while we are just thinking about looking at reviewing and revising so that we may want to influence them but zoning law is the law that is an effect so it's really not starting from scratch there are many great aspects of the master plan but looking at some areas where we can refine and clarify and say okay here but not there so is it fair to summarize what you just said that we could have neighborhood neighborhood areas that have different character and feel from others in town yes and still have a feeling that you're still in Amherst that's right okay and so let's go to the next level here which is the zoning so if you're thinking about reviewing and revising on the master plan does that mean you freeze zoning where it is today or are there issues that relate to zoning that are more immediate that might need to be addressed even as you are going through what is probably a multi-year process for review and revise of the master plan so help us understand the relationship between our current zoning and the review and revise process of the master plan so I think one of the questions before the council would be these these are two big documents the zoning by-law in the master plan so really a question before the council and proposals that have come up for both is should we review and revise and basically start over the zoning by-law so which would be a better use of time and effort to completely redo the zoning by-law if we were to or to completely these aren't questions that have been put on the table yet but but to review and revise the master plan so as someone who's tried to interpret the zoning by-law and to see how over the years there's been asterisks added and bizarre reference difficult to understand references I would love to see and I don't you know I don't know how you know how possible this is a rewrite of the zoning by-law so that it becomes smaller you don't need a PhD to understand it and you don't need a year of experience on the planning board to even begin to you know open your mouth on issues that are in there so there are a lot of obscure references that are very difficult for the lay people to understand so there's been a lot of discussion about form-based code so form-based code which is a type of a zoning can be a replacement you know zoning and that's a much more visual you know graphically understood it uses more common terms not technical terms and typically the communities that adopt something like that end up with a much smaller and everyone's happier so that the future builders are happier because they can understand what they can and can't do with land the citizens are happier because they know what the future character of the community might be in the so it makes it more user-friendly yes would there be policy changes involved in making it user-friendly which then might either drive the master plan or have to be revisited later on yeah yeah because the master plan review and revise two or three years later now puts your user friendly yeah document in conflict with each other so speaking only for myself yeah I think that I who have that planning experience so not speaking for the council or for the CRC I think that the master plan is very well intended and very in many ways very complete and I think that a rewrite of the zoning by-law could be argued that it fits within the context of the master plan that we have okay right but the form-based zoning that he mentions if we go through that and review it and and and put it in the zoning law I don't believe it contradicts the master plan no infill development so this just specifies what kind and how do we arrive at it so we could do some things which is encouraging encouraging so we're very lucky that we have Steve as our chair because he brings a lot of good experience so what I was one of the things I was trying to get at is this is this a sequential exercise and which has to come first yeah or can there be concurrent work on reviewing and updating the master plan even as you make the zoning existing zoning by-law the existing without changing the existing policies in the existing zoning by-law make it more user-friendly or does the exercise you're talking about Steve result in policy changes within the zoning by-law if you're reviewing and revising that at the same time yeah you're dealing with reviewing and revising the master plan so both the master plan and the zoning by-law were discussed a lot during the charter change the campaigns for counselors and probably it's fair to say that most of the discussion about the master plan had to do with the legitimacy of the master plan rather than the content of the master plan so the fact that the legislative body didn't have a role and this is by state law in approving or adopting the master plan so that's changed with the charter that the new town council adopt the master plan but there hasn't been that much critique about the actual content of it other than maybe where are the boundaries of the village centers like really kind of nuance things but most of the critique seems to be about the zoning by-law that seems to be where the the rubble out of the angst is like height of buildings you know things like that so so I think we could we could address some of the angst of about the master plans legitimacy by adopting it or you know doing whatever it takes to adopt it but I think that the really important issue is the zoning the zoning got it okay well so let's let's get down to some more detail here by going into sort of subsidiary if you will issues so housing is a big part of the master plan it's a big part of the zoning question and issues what are you thinking about housing either of you have some some thoughts about where we are in housing development in Amherst well there are two things one I don't believe our present zoning law requires that new buildings have a certain number of affordable units and so one new project North Square at Mill District does have them but the other recent buildings do not and I think is a strong feeling that that has to be clarified and changed another area that I'm interested I'm just at the level of just doing beginning research is looking at cluster zoning for I'm interested in owner occupied houses we've been doing rental housing and somebody there was some article that said Amherst is a rental town well I think it's great to have rental housing of different types but I do think it's a town is very strong if there's more owner occupied but not the kind that has been coming up the big houses with the big lots so it would have to be using a different zoning perhaps some cluster zoning which would have maybe even attached one two and three family houses where people can afford to rent and to buy and own to help create that so I don't know where that the one of the big questions is do we have a good piece of land for that I don't know we have concept of cluster zoning is something you'd like to see yes to making some some owner occupied housing as well as the rental housing and to build in the affordable units in any new rental housing that is developed Steve any thoughts on that that you want to add yeah so I think that for me a huge need is multifamily housing in village centers that can be owner occupied and so here the the motive is this that there are lots of people that are aging in place in single-family houses which they have to drive to they love Amherst they love you know the restaurants the cultural amenities that are mostly available in the downtown quarter or at the universities but there aren't good options for you know basically for there aren't other options other than single-family house right or retirement committees so there are lots of rental you know more and more rental buildings but that's typically not an option for somebody that already owns a house and wants to stay invested in real estate yeah so I would love to and it's easy for me to speak because I'm not the one developing but I would love to see more of an effort to building kind of owner occupied multifamily houses in downtown areas in the remaining underdeveloped downtown areas that I have really more of a focus of people that already are here in Amherst owning houses but want a different option so it is a concern that if we build too many buildings that are just rentals that attract you know certain that have a certain market that it'll become then more difficult to have really kind of intergenerational you know communities in those same places so that's what I would like and so in the same building some units that are owned and some that are rented and some that could be affordable exactly right for a particular population and that particular social goal so mixing it up a little bit more instead of it all being homogenous yeah yeah so multi-generational and multi-income or mixed income and some families some singles some you know and they can so we're we're right now the places in Western Mass you know Amherstil is a very desirable community but if you watch they the increased desirability of places like East Hampton you know these really small cities where which have you know good bones already because they have mill buildings or you know sort of dense housing that was already developed but now is being converted I think that in a way we can become more of an attraction for people that are choosing to live in those places economic development that's another area that would fit within master planning any thoughts well certainly we know that we need it and I think that storefronts as in mixed-use housing we don't really know how many things need storefronts now because we have the internet so I think that we really need some light industry and hopefully some things that use intellectual capital we definitely need to have economic development because we needed to keep our budget balanced and I think our present budget was balanced with new growth so new growth and or economic development we have to have that so I just wanted to add one more thing to what Steve was saying I think the intergenerational aspect is really major if you're thinking about retiring at some point in the future many people do not want to live in an age-segregated place but they also don't want to be having all the upkeep of their house so what you are describing would be a really desirable thing and I would love to see somebody develop that and be thinking of downtown Amherst for it very good so I think for I think the kind of one of the missing links in economic development in Amherst actually there's probably two that I would focus on so one has to do with the creative economy basically performing arts visual arts spaces so you know again we all head over the bridge to Northampton to or to Eastampton to go hear music or to go to galleries and so what I'd love to do is see the the tables turn the traffic come in the other way from Northampton to you know to Amherst so Amherst actually has been the breeding ground for some amazing you know musicians who then often come back and play in Northampton so I'd love to find a way place for them to put different kinds of performing arts venues that aren't on the campuses that are so that's the part that's really critical because there are plenty of performance venues on the various campuses and enormously useful series that you can get at the Fine Arts Center at Buckley etc but you're talking about community based community exactly really and like the Amherst Cinema is clearly in traction the traffic that that brings yeah into the into the community and also the prestige that it brings because it's the only of its kind in a quite a quite a distance so yeah so you're talking community based not a young space possibly sponsored by the colleges but not on the college or done collaboratively with the colleges so the other one is but really has to do with technology transfer from the universities and colleges to the you know to the economic development of Amherst so we all know that the universities and colleges the many faculty and researchers there they are getting patents they're doing important work and but there's not a particular sort of research park or places not that many that are keeping that that industry you know here in Amherst and and by Amherst I mean Amherst not Hadley right right right because the Venture Center was actually intended to be what you've described and it turns out first it's a it's in a different community and it turns out not to be that at all it's it's housing some really amazing enterprises but they're not the kind of enterprises that you're talking yeah so what I mean obviously one example in Massachusetts is our cousin MIT also a land grant university which is in Cambridge but in right across the street is the I can't think of the name of it but the venture park which is sort of an amazing enterprise which is directly related to the the research and work that's being done but something at that you know I don't know where that happens exactly the university of course has a lot of surface parking lots and has a big interest in p3 of public-private partnerships so maybe something like that or but I would love to see more encouragement of that yes any other thoughts on that that theme well yes and referring to the arts we have a place in mind if we ever get our capital projects and get the new home for the Department of Public Works and the fire department hopefully the fire department which is right in the center of town could become a performing arts center as well as visual arts that could really enliven the city and make it fair the town make it very very interesting for us to come downtown more often and would you envision that being a community owned facility or a nonprofit that would be given access to the building and then develop that that venue yes there is a committee that that has been looking into this I don't know if they're still working on it but I I know that there are people who have had this thought and who already have done some work on it but so we are very supportive of whatever comes up terrific so I want to thank you both for being here and thank the audience hope this gives you some idea of the direction of this new committee that has quite a major set of responsibilities and some complicated tasks ahead but we wish you success and thank you so much for being with us again tonight thank you so much you're welcome