 And I do see Amherst Media Jack. So you are all good to go. Great. So this is a call to order for the planning board meeting, November 18th, 2020. It's a 632 based on the Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GLC chapter 30 a section 20 and signed Thursday, March 12th, 2020. The planning board meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Jack Chomsick and as a chair of the plant Amherst planning board, I'm calling this meeting to order at again 632. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media live stream minutes are being taken as normal. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name and meet yourself, answer it firmly and then please place yourselves back on mute. So Maria chow. Tom long. Here. Andrew Mcdonough Mcdonough. McDougal here. McDougal. Marshall. Present. And Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. And myself. President soap. Board members of technical difficulties arise. We may need to pause temporarily. To correct the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let Pam know. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed and the minutes will note if this is occurred. 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 members. The member remember to bring me. Remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period. And at other appropriate times during the meeting, please be aware. The board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during the public comment period, you must join the meeting via the zoom teleconferencing link, which is shown on the screen. This link is shown. The link is also listed on the meeting agenda posted on the town website. If you wish to make a comment during the general public comment period, you can click on the calendar listing for this for this meeting, or you can go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking on the raised 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. We'll come back into mute when finished speaking. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning board chair, the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from meeting. So we have our agenda. We've discussed. Perhaps ending the meeting. For a target of 830. Relatively light. Scheduled but with heavy topics that I don't. I think just getting the first introduction through them it will be, you know, very helpful for all of us. Do we have minutes. No minutes tonight. That's what I thought. So I'd like to open up for public comment. And you. I see no hands. No hands up. Okay. Okay. I'm going to turn the phone calls in. All right. So I. We have a presentation by a new Catholic center. They're architect. But I did mention for the 40 are we have a guest. John Hornick and Rob Cronner, I kind of promised them 7pm. We would do a go there. So. Depending on, you know, whether they're there or not. I don't know. I don't know. But I'd like to stick that 7pm for the 40 our discussion. So we can maybe swap things around. Okay. So. I'm moving some people over. Okay. So Mr. Shaw. Father Gary. Okay. Were there only three people that you moved over, Pam? Nope. I moved over for. Okay. Okay. So this presentation will be under section. 3.211 of the zoning bylaw. By how do you pronounce your first name? Then. Then Sue Shaw. From CBT architects about the new building for the new Catholic center on the UMass campus. So with that. You're welcome to. Present your, your program. I'm going to start my screen share. Hopefully everyone can see this. Nope. Okay. Great. Yes. Or I can see it. Okay. So I'm just going to start with orienting us. On this. The star marked on the. Site plan. You see is the existing new man center. Across the street from the existing new man center is the proposed site for the new building. We're across North pleasant street and off of Thatcher road. And start with our site plan. So. Currently the site is a parking lot. We're proposing an L shade building along here. This is an existing. Stormwater retention area, which we're proposing to. Make a little bit larger and turn it more into a bioswil. Rain garden. With an entry courtyard to the building. We're proposing a new curb cut along Thatcher road to enter the existing parking lot. Right up against the building will be new parking for. The new man center and the remaining stays. The parking lot for new math Amherst. I'm getting into. Here's a view of the proposed building from across North pleasant street. So if you were kind of standing at the existing human center, this is. What you would see. And this is getting closer to. Our building. We're proposing a brick. White brick masonry for the. Chapel portion and then a white fiber cement. For the student center area with. Entry way right around the middle. Getting into the floor plans. The program for the new man center is fairly similar to. The existing building. We have student lounges and hangout spaces towards the left. With the main chapel at the right. About. 400 seats for the chapel itself. And a cafe in the back with. Supporting kitchen in this area. On the second floor, we have the research center. A choir loft, which is called planar to. Our second floor. Looking over to the chapel and then offices. To support. The new man's honor up here. Some interior views. This is looking at the chapel. Inside the chapel looking towards the altar. We're proposing to bring over the existing stained glass windows from the current new man's center. That's what you see. Down around here. And then this is looking back towards the choir loft. This is the student center. In one of the lounges. You can see the, it's a double height space at the Quigley lounge. And you kind of see inside the chapel. Inside the chapel looking towards the altar. And then you see the research center. And this is upstairs at the research center. Looking back out towards stature road. And a view of the cafe dining space. The end. That is everything. That we have in our side show. Thank you. What's the current capacity? Because I know the new man has. An expansion. Wing there. For the chapel for, for larger. Masses. So the capacity in the chapel. I don't know what the existing capacity is, but the proposed is 400 seats. Yeah. So maybe father. Gary could. I'm just wondering in terms of. Is this a. Increase or same or. Decrease in terms of capacity. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So the present capacity is the same as the one that will be in the chapel now that what you're talking about is the side. Door that we open twice a year. Which is Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday morning. We won't have that in this chapel. We'll have to make other arrangements for any other crowd. Whether it's additional masses or something like that, but we won't have an expansion in the, in the new chapel. Okay. So. Yeah. Yes, Chris. So I just wanted to say thank you to the Newman center for coming. Tonight and with their architect. The purpose of this presentation is to inform the planning board. About what is going on on the UMass campus. This project is proposed within the educational zoning district. And really the only requirement for something in the educational zoning district is that the, the proponent submit plans to the planning board. And in this case, they're making a presentation to the planning board. The planning board can make comments or recommendations, but there's really no permitting role that the planning board has in this project. And if you wanted to read more about the. The zoning district, this particular aspect is in 3.3 to 1, 3.211 of the zoning bylaw. And it really just says, you know, what kinds of things are allowed in the ed zoning district. So I don't know if anyone has any questions or comments or recommendations, but. Thank you very much for the Newman center to be here tonight. And I see a couple of hands up, Andrew. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. I was curious. From a parking perspective. It looked like there were 10, 10 spots dedicated to Newman. Do you have an arrangement with the university to use their lot. For, you know, daily masses or at least on the weekend. Well, the weekend is not a problem because as we have the situation now there's free parking on the weekend. So it's not a problem. But it's not a problem. Right now people park across the street for masses. At this point, and they would have the availability to park in the other half of the parking lot that exists that will exist there. And back of the building. For daily mass, we've, we've talked to the university about this, about the possibility of, of having a few spaces where. I don't know how we're going to work it out, but some people that come to daily mass would have an opportunity to park there for that mass time period. So I think that's a quick question was just for the cafe is that. Is that a something that will be run by the church? Or is that something that will be run by the university or a third party? It will be part of you mass dining. Great. That's it for me. Thanks, Jack. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Andrew. Janet. Hey, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I know the Newman center is a very well used building and I've used it myself and I really like the new building. I was worried at first about the facade, but I'm cause it just looked kind of like cemented in the pictures, but I do like the idea of the white bricks and having a different material on the other building. The parking seems improved to me because I have, you know, it's, it's been parking behind that building and getting into the main building is kind of a, or a deal. And I would think some people who had some mobility issues would be really harder. So the parking seems very like an improvement. I have a question just about energy efficiency. If there's any exciting, if it's a zero E building, or there are different ways that you're reducing energy use or producing energy, if you could add that to it. Thank you, Janet. We will have to answer that. We will be meeting all energy codes and in general, we'll try to use as many energy efficient green materials within our building as possible, but we're not going for any lead certification or any other energy certification per se. And I will add that the glass, the glass we are using will be a high efficiency glass. And you know, we're really trying to limit the amount of, of exposure and we are doing some interior treatments and utilizing some deep structural members. You can see there's some wood vertical structural elements. Those are glulam structures that we're using that will actually provide some glare reduction on the inside of the space. But generally, yes, the walls will be pretty well insulated and highly thermal. And you mentioned some stormwater features there that would be, you know, consistent with some lead design as well. So. Okay, Andrew, your hands up, but. Is that residual? Okay. Johanna, please. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. It's exciting. I know the university is taking sustainability very seriously. I'm just curious whether I think the Newman center is an independent entity, right. And so. And then I don't know enough about the building codes, whether the, is it the same codes as the town uses, or are there different codes within the educational district? Probably this is a question for Chris, but I'd love to be educated on it. I think the building codes are the same. I'm not exactly sure who will be inspecting this building when it is under construction. But I think the new mass has a state inspector that they use for all of their buildings. And it could be that Newman center and new mass will make some agreement with the state to have the state inspector inspect this building. But I believe that all the buildings have to follow the Massachusetts state building code. That's correct. As follows the, the IBC. And this will be under the purview of the town of Amherst in terms of meeting local zoning codes. I believe the town of Amherst has the stretch code because we're a green community. So I presume this meets that. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And I see no other hands. Chris, is this something that we open up to public comment? You can open it up to public comment if you want to. Any, any, any comments from the attendees on the. Public side. Am, do you see anything? I'm checking. Yeah, I don't see anything. I see none. Great. Well, again. Oh, there is. Oh, When just came up and there. Okay. Jack. I'm not even going to try to say the last name. Yes. But if you hold on. Okay. I will allow to talk. Hello, Jack. Are you there? And now, okay. Now I'm unmuted. So then Sue, and for full disclosure, I'm on the building committee for this building. And we just started with the building committee. I'm curious a little more of the history. So why not lead certification? I know that Amherst is a green community and you're following the stretch code. But was that a matter of cost? Yes, I believe so. I mean, Eileen, you might know more about the history of what that decision was. Well, I think, you know, we often have discussions about, you know, whether we actually go through the certification. I think this would, the way we're designing this building, it would be very likely leads are viable. I think the diocese wasn't, you know, there was, they were thinking that they may not jump into, you know, actually the expense of the full certification that's required. But, you know, we're, we're designing to stretch code. We're designing to, you know, pretty stringent Massachusetts energy codes that would, you know, generally meet, you know, at least the lower levels of lead certification. Yeah. Okay. So you're practically green, even though you're not necessarily applying for lead certification. That's right. That's right. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. And I don't. Yeah. So that's it. So I think, again, we, we thank you very much. The team been sued by Gary, Eileen and Mark. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Okay. So this is great. In terms of being able to. Seven o'clock here, we can talk about the, the 40 are. There's a lot of material here. And I guess. You know, we're, we want to revisit this based on the revised. You know, by all that, that was generated. We have lots of comments and Chris, I'm really going to need your help kind of navigating through this because there's just been a lot of different. We just got an email from CRC, you know, like an hour ago. I mean, you can't possibly. You know, filter through all this and digest it, but I just, I. I think it's important because we have three new members. That we hear from everybody in a general sense. Regarding their opinions on, on the proposed 40 are downtown. And then we also have. John Hornick from the Amherst housing. Well, all this color hammers housing authority for that. And then Rob crowner, who also sits on, on that committee. And then, and we, and you know, we have a letter from, from. From Janet. That was written and Megan, we have a new. New bylaw that's been provided. So. Chris, I'm. Do you want to give like an overall sort of. Or, or should. Presentation on this, or do you know, how do you think this should go with, with John and Ron? Well, I didn't really have a presentation prepared, but I'm happy to give a brief summary of where we've been and where we are right now. You would, you would better you than me. Believe me. So we've been working on this project since 2018. John Hornick and Rob crowner were part of the original group, which included Nate Malloy and myself. And I think the town manager was part of it at one point. And anyway, there were a group of five or six people, including the, or in addition to the consultants, consultants were Karen Sonneberg of Karen Sonneberg. Consulting ink and David Eisen of the abacus architects firm. So we had. I think it was four public forums starting in the spring of 2019. We had one in April, one in June, one in December. And over the course of those forums, we learned about what chapter 40 are is why the state wants to promote it. Mostly the state wants to promote it for two reasons, one is to build up our housing stock and they think that this is a, a good way to build up housing stock. And they also want to increase the number of affordable units available to residents of Massachusetts. So we learned all about that about the background of a 40 R. And then we started to get into the nitty gritties of it. And in. I think it was in December of last year, but I think it was in the mid mid to mid 20 to mid 30. And that was the stance that some of the most numerous locations considered. Maybe I should back up and give a little talk about what is chapter 40 R chapter 40 is a state law that allows cities and towns to, to adopt an overlaid district. In some part of town, it's usually. It's encouraged to be in an area that already has commercial uses. built up to some degree. And there are exceptions to that rule. The Northampton Hospital Hill is an exception. They built a 40R, they are building a 40R in an area that is, that was a little bit derelict. It was an old hospital property that had not been used in a long time. And so they proposed their 40R there to begin with. Then they proposed a second 40R downtown. But anyway, it's essentially a way of getting more density than the underlying zoning would allow. And in sort of payback to the town for getting more density, the developer has to provide at least 20% affordable units if it's a home ownership development and 25% affordable units if it's a rental development. In addition to that, depending on how much increased density you have over the underlying zoning, there are opportunities for the state to pay the city or the town some money. I think it's $3,000 a dwelling unit. And I think it might be each year, but I'm not actually sure of that. And that's based on the differential between what the underlying zoning allows and what the 40R allows. So in December, during that public forum, we looked at various different locations for the 40R. We might have talked about that previously, but among the locations were downtown in the BG zoning district and the surrounding BL zoning district, East Amherst, which is where the Florence Savings Bank is and the Cumberland Farms and Spirit House in that area. That's East Amherst. Then we also considered Pomeray Village. Pomeray Village is where Mission Cantina is located. And there are a lot of little commercial establishments there. And also, Ron Laverdeer owns a huge piece of property there. And the Department of Agriculture has a facility there. So anyway, Pomeray Village is a kind of, we call it a burgeoning village center. And that started out as a crossroads. Little by little, it's gotten built up. And it seems like it's on the verge of something really good happening there. The other place we looked at was North Amherst, North Amherst Village Center near the intersection of Sunderland Road and Montague Road and Meadows Street. So that's in the vicinity of Cole's Lumber. The old North Amherst School is there. The Korean Church is there. And recently we've seen the development of the Beacon communities building a large mixed-use development up in that nick of the woods. So those were kind of four areas that we looked at. There may have been others that we kind of briefly considered. But we developed a matrix for why choose one over the other. And there were lots of reasons why to choose one over the other. It seemed at that time that we were looking at this, that there was some more level of interest on the part of property owners in the downtown area than there were in the other locations. Sunderjohns had just recently done a lot of development in North Amherst. And we weren't sure what else was going to be happening there. It seemed that the property in Pomeray Village might be locked up for a little while. And there probably wasn't too much that was going to happen at that time. Since then, we've become aware of more development that might be possible there. And then the other one was East Amherst Village Center. And that's an area that certainly could be developed or could have a 40-hour overlay district on it. So in the end, I guess it was the working group, based on a lot of information, determined that we thought the downtown area would be the best place to start. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't have 40 hours elsewhere. And it doesn't mean that we are definitely going to have a 40-hour downtown. It's just kind of like we had to choose a place because all of the design guidelines and the dimensional regulations and everything else that goes along with a 40-hour has to be kind of rooted in the place where it's being proposed. So we started looking at the downtown and the consultants gave a presentation to the planning board in May. I think it was early May, maybe May 6. We may have talked about it with the planning board before that, but that was really the time when we had a presentation. It was a very, how can I say this nicely, it was a preliminary presentation. It was not a polished presentation. The consultants kind of put together the presentation very quickly, based on what they had heard from these public forums, but I think they really hadn't gotten a lot of, they hadn't really accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. So I think the planning board's initial reaction to it was sort of lukewarm, but the planning board wanted to have a further discussion. So they had another discussion in August. I think it was August 17th, if I remember correctly. And at that time, it seemed that there was a little more interest on the part of the planning board in looking into 40R. And then we invited the consultants to give a fourth or to host a fourth public forum. So I can't even remember what day it was, but I think it was October 14th. They hosted another public forum at which time they gave a much more polished presentation and they had kind of filled in the gaps of things that they hadn't presented in May. And after that presentation, it seemed like there was more interest in pursuing, there was more positive reaction on the part of some planning board members for pursuing this. Not all planning board members felt that way, but some expressed interest. And so where we are now is really, we're trying to decide, is this something that we want in Amherst? Is this something that we think would be helpful to us in Amherst? Would it kind of loosen up some of the log gen that we have as far as what properties can and can't be developed? And so we're looking at the downtown right now. And quite frankly, the way the BG Zoning District, the Central Business Zoning District is set up, there isn't much opportunity in that Zoning District to gain more density. It's really in terms of what you can build there, unless we went to six floors. So the real advantage to this would be in the BL Zoning District, which is adjacent to BG. And for those of you who aren't familiar with it, we'll look at a map later. Actually, maybe Pam could bring up the map now. And the areas that are colored in yellow, there it is. Do you want this one? Or do you want the one Maria marked up? Oh, the one that Maria marked up would be good. Yep. Do you have the original one? Yeah, this is the original one. So there are a little two quirks with this one. But thank you, Maria, for doing this. That's the original one right there, right? Yeah, let's look at that one. Let's look at that one. Let's look at the original one for now. Okay. So essentially, the yellow for the most part is the general business district. I think there may be some questions about the land on Kilogg Avenue and whether that's in BG or not. But anyway, the yellow area is the general business district. The green areas for the most part are BL, although some parts of them are RG. So it's a little bit mixed up here. But the area along North Pleasant Street between Halleck Street and Coles Lane is in the BL. Anyway, I just wanted to point out to you that there are these zoning districts that are kind of attached to the downtown. Maybe this isn't the best map to show it, but they are underutilized right now. They're not developed to their fullest potential. For instance, the area north of Triangle Street that's shown here in the green, you can see where Cottage Street is noted. That green area is currently a one-story shopping area with a huge parking lot behind it. And on the other side of Cottage Street is a little building that used to be a Department of Agriculture building. It's currently owned by Cinda Jones and she rents it out of this offices. But the point is that that area could be developed for housing. Right now it can't be because the zoning makes it too difficult to develop it. You need too much lot area per dwelling unit. And that's the same as true of other areas of the BL, which are adjacent to the downtown. So in any event, I guess the long story is short, is that the advantage of the 40R to the downtown would be to make it easier to develop residential developments, mixed-use developments, and residential developments in areas adjacent to the downtown. What else do I have to say about this? So we're going to look at the proposal for the downtown and kind of go through it and scrutinize it, whether we do that in depth tonight or whether we do that at another date is sort of up to the planning board. But it is true that there are these other areas of town that could be considered for 40R. So East Amherst is probably the most realistic. And anyway, so that's kind of the background. Where we are right now is we've had four public forums. The planning board has had an opportunity to look at this twice on their own. And now they're taking this night to look at it more closely. The product that you have to date is still in draft form, so there's still a chance to make changes to it. And what would happen to this is if the planning board decided to move forward with it and pursue it, I think we would take a really close look at exactly, what height do we want? Exactly what density do we want? Exactly how close do we want these buildings to be to the road? What should the setback be? We have done some of that to date, but we haven't really all come to an agreement about setbacks and heights and things like that. But the planning board, neither the planning board nor the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council have said definitively that they want to move ahead with this. And moving ahead with this doesn't absolutely mean it's got to be downtown. It could mean, well, we really like 40R, but we really think it should be an East Amherst. So the conversation is open now and the planning board can decide whether it wants to pursue this and how it wants to pursue this and where it wants to pursue this. And I think the CRC and Town Council are kind of waiting for the planning board to make a proposal about what they want to do here. So I guess that's all safer right now. Yeah, and I would add, Chris, that the discussion of reducing the extent of this 40R in downtown is an option as well. And I'm wondering if it'd be a good time to have John and Rob pulled in. We can do that, Jack. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to stop sharing my screen and let me go and find them. Mr. Hornick should be on his way. And Mr. Crowner as well, they should both be joining you. Great. So John, Rob, I loved, you know, for you guys to kind of give some perspective here. Chris kind of did an overview, again, several forums presented. We have a draft, but I appreciate, you know, maybe starting with John in terms of what the situation we're looking at with, you know, housing in the town and why, you know, 40R is something that, you know, the town should consider and then why should consider this downtown proposal as well. Okay, I guess I'll start out. Rob is certainly much more knowledgeable about these kinds of issues than I am. It may be useful for people to know that this project was initiated actually by the Housing Trust, myself, Rita Farrell, who's a consultant to the Housing Trust, and Nate Bolloy, combined to write a proposal to mass housing finance, which, as Chris suggested, is interested in promoting greater use of 40R throughout the Commonwealth. So we took advantage of that and we wrote a proposal. And lo and behold, they funded it. Formally, the funding came to the town and has really been primarily the responsibility of the planning department, but I have tried to stay involved with it really throughout and followed what the consultants were doing pretty closely. But without saying I support absolutely everything they proposed, I think they did a very good job. And among the things that I really appreciated and frankly that I personally pushed them to do is to include in the proposal a set of design guidelines. We don't have design guidelines downtown or anywhere in Amherst, as far as I know, and yet people complain, as I do, about some of the newer buildings in town. And the hope is that by having to design guidelines, we would avoid some of the kinds of mistakes that have occurred. The Housing Trust interests primarily had to do with increasing affordable housing, particularly, but housing production in general. Again, as Chris noted, having a 40R district means development comes with a requirement that 20% of new units be affordable. And that's significant. Right now, we don't have any requirement for affordability in the downtown area. Other areas of town have, I think, a 10% requirement, although I'm not absolutely sure that's a requirement. I think it's only a requirement if there's some kind of special request for a waiver from the existing zoning requirements. So this would at least make it required in the area where the 40R district exists. And it would be great, frankly, if it could be extended to other areas of town as well. As Chris mentioned, the town would receive from the state certain offsets to the costs for some of the units. It would also receive a kind of favored nation or favored town status with respect to mass works, which is a state program that supports roads and other kind of infrastructure development in the town. So there are various advantages. We do have a shortage of affordable housing in the town. The major focus of the Amherst Municipal Housing Trust, of which I am chair, and Rava is a participant, is to encourage the development of more affordable housing in town. If you look at rents in Amherst, they're pretty high except where they're capped by very specific projects. We're fortunate it looks like the 132 Northampton Road or Amherst Studio apartment program is going to go forward, but frankly that's only 28 units. I won't say it's a drop in the bucket, but it's considerably less than is the estimate of need that was in the housing production plan that was produced now six or seven years ago and in which the town promised 525 I think it was new units. We haven't built anything like that number. We did pick up some in North Amherst with the beacon development and there have been small numbers picked up elsewhere, but we really aren't anywhere toward really resolving the issue of making more housing in Amherst affordable. So this is an important opportunity and I am personally pleased that the planning board has agreed to take a close look at this. Saying that I know it's going to be difficult. There's been a lot of controversy about this. People don't like the process. They don't like the details, but I think it's an important opportunity and if there are things that people don't like, I look forward to hearing the ways in which what's been proposed can be improved. So we do end up with more affordable housing. We have a somewhat denser downtown, which I don't personally view as a liability as long as the ultimate design for that looks pretty interesting and is consistent with what we would hope for in an old New England town. So I'll conclude with that. If people have questions of me, I'll be glad to try that response to them and give Rob an opportunity to offer his wisdom. Yeah, let's have Rob say some words on this. Former planning board member for how many years? Then we can ask both of you questions. How's that? I'm not just a former planning board member. I was really involved with the zoning subcommittee for all that time. Absolutely. Sorry about that. That's fine. That's the reason I'm interested in this proposal. It's an opportunity not just for expanding the housing stock and expanding it in a place where most planning efforts in the last 50 years have decided, have thought that it should go in already built up areas. It's also an opportunity from a planning perspective to address what I think and what has long been a concern of the planning board about fixing the downtown, fixing those zones around the general business zone, the BL zones, that don't really work the way I think they're intended or they should be intended. They're supposed to be, if you look at the zoning by all, they're called transitional zones. They're not called buffer zones, they're called transitional zones, but they don't really transition because you can't do anything there. You're stuck with what is there now because the existing zoning does not allow, the setbacks are wrong, the lot coverage is wrong. You can't do a new building there. So what the 40R proposal does is it allows, it provides an opportunity for those zones to be built on. It also introduces form-based design standards that has also been a long-standing interest of the planning board. And of course, it promotes affordable housing, not just low-income affordable housing, but by increasing the housing stock, it increases affordability over multiple sectors. So with one initiative, one effort, you could address a number of long-standing concerns, issues that the planning board has dealt with, has looked at for many years. And so I think it's an exciting opportunity. So in just the buildings there would not be able to be built in kind for the lots in the BL? Some of them, many of them would not be able to be built in kind. Some of them I think maybe wouldn't be. So can I just clarify? So as Chris said, part of the reason they can't be what the building is not really feasible there is because for the most part, most development, especially in Amherst, you're going to want to have a housing element. You can't just build or it's difficult to build just an office building or just a retail establishment because it's not cost-effective. You need some housing in there. But the housing requirements, according to the zoning bylaw, require more space, a bigger lot, and you just can't fit the right kind of building on the lots that are down there. So some of the buildings that are there you can keep, you just can't do anything with them other than what's already there. So if we want to add housing, we need to at least fix the limited business zones. And also I think the RG zones. So part of the 40R proposes changing some of the RG zones, the general residence zones that touch BL. And that's also an opportunity. So I'd like to open up the bat, the funding board members for comment. But personally, I was struck by the last presentation in October because since the March presentation, this COVID thing has really changed the landscape. And I feel this housing crisis within town due to personal reasons. My daughter moved out of town because there was nothing available and she moved 45 minutes away. And affordability issues came in to play there. But I was intrigued and I'm wondering if the buildings that have been developed recently are more not really necessarily family oriented, but there are some two-bedroom, maybe some three-bedroom. But I'm wondering about the family aspect and if the 40R kind of promotes that. I kind of intrigued by Kendrick Park with the playground there. It just seems like we're inviting more amenities for families in the downtown area. So all these things kind of you know, struck me. So Maria, you have your hand up? Yeah, so I went back. This was great to have you both, you, John and Rob here, because I went back to the April 20th proposal and compared it to the November 10th proposal. So I can see exactly where the consultants added stuff and they added quite a bit. And I just want to get a sense from you to, you know, the response between the forums was, you know, a lot of neighborhoods came up and it looks like this November draft really responded to bringing the scale down for certain neighborhoods, certain zones. I want your feedback on, you know, do you feel like they went sort of, I guess, above and beyond as far as responding to public comment? Because I know that a lot of people have been saying, the public hasn't been involved in consultants. The first presentation they did, I felt was kind of boilerplate and had very little that sort of got tweaked for Amherst. But this latest one, I really found a lot of places where I felt like it was tailored to our town. I want your sense on, you know, do you feel like this 40-hour design guidelines, I don't know if you've had time to review it carefully, but whether it feels like it fits a lot better. I mean, I already, Rob, you've already made all the points, which are, you know, all the positives we already know, you know, unlocks BL. And unlocks BL brings form-based zoning, brings affordable housing. But as far as like how it really is designed for our town, did you guys feel like it could have taken more steps for that? Or is it pretty, you know, pretty well done as is? I just want to get your sense on that sort of aspect of it. Rob? So you're right, the consultants were really very good. They created a sort of a generic proposal, and then they listened to the feedback and they changed it based on feedback. I think it is improved and close to very good. I think anyone would, you know, might tweak it a little bit. I might tweak it in one direction, might tweak it in another direction. But overall, I think it's pretty close to where we had hoped they would end up. Yeah, I mean, it's never going to be perfect. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. Yeah, I would just say, I agree with what Rob just said. I think at every step the consultants were willing to make changes. I think the process that we devised didn't have enough opportunities for them to listen to people. And that's why, you know, the earlier proposal that you referenced, Maria, wasn't as good as the most recent one. And it's not like, again, it's going to be everybody thinks it's great, but it's really well along. And so there's a real opportunity here, as Rob said, for you all to take your own look at it and think about changes that would make it really responsive to Amherst to the extent that it isn't already. Thank you. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Rob, John and Chris for providing the background. I had a couple thoughts and sort of a couple of questions here. I know the spirit of 40R is to add housing, but is it right to also think of it as bringing in sort of this mixed use that we can think of this as a vehicle to spur commercial development in addition to adding residential? Yes, it includes mixed use developments. So buildings that are partially commercial and retail and partially housing. And it can also include a building that could be all retail and commercial, but you have to have a housing component to the development as a whole. Got it. Yeah. As I think about that, what comes in my mind is, and having kind of listened to some of the comments and reading some of the comments as well, is just I wonder whether it makes sense to pursue this in one of the Village Centers, as Chris had mentioned in her introduction. Almost like to test it out to see if it is something that does seem to be effective, which also allows us to really develop those Village Centers in a way that maybe hasn't been done before. And then roll that out downtown. Does that seem like something that folks might be interested in considering instead? Not being part of that original prioritization process. I'm curious how we ended up focusing it on the downtown, almost specifically knowing that we may not be able to add it. I guess if it's really only providing benefit in the BL zones, maybe we're not adding that many additional units? What do you all think? Yeah, we just add that. I think Rob even mentioned reducing the proposal to a smaller, you know, much smaller area. And that could be a test case as well for downtown. But I don't know if Rob and John have any comments to Andrews. I did not suggest reducing it in downtown. I suggested making it work in the whole proposal by downscaling at the same time introducing 40R downzoning the existing general business zone so that it became more attractive to use 40R instead of the underlying zone. But I think the reason that downtown is attractive is because downtown really is, everyone knows downtown. Downtown belongs to everyone. And so introducing it out there somewhere, that means that a bunch of the town can ignore it. They don't go there, they won't see it. It may still be useful to do it. That may still be a better way of going about doing it, is trying it somewhere else. Or it might even work better somewhere else. I personally think that East Amherst would be a great place to have a 40R zone. But the reason I think that the downtown was chosen is because that's the focus of the town. And there are other benefits, as I mentioned earlier. Thank you. Kirst, did you have your hand up? I was telling my daughter to help herself dinner. I was only going to say that it's just sort of, my initial read is it's sort of, to use the sports analogy, it was kind of like a Hail Mary in the first quarter of, like if this is something that could be effective maybe we should be sort of testing it out in these areas where we might be able to develop village centers, bring in some needed commercial to support the residential. I think East Amherst popped in mind especially of there's a fair amount of housing around there already, but not a ton of goods and service like daily needs that are servicing that population. There's mass transit over there. And then also I think there is just this general concern given the developments that we've done in downtown of like we need to make sure however we approach any redevelopment in downtown is as perfect as it can be. And I just wonder whether it makes sense to build some momentum, get some excitement, maybe do some great things in other parts of town and then roll it in here because I love the idea in principle of this. I love the idea of building density, the smart growth, getting the affordable housing in and hopefully it's something that we'd be able to implement across multiple areas before we're done. That's it. Thank, Jax. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Janet. So the planning board had recommended during the summer because the CRC was wondering what our zoning priorities were not always zoning but just dealing with issues and the planning board had voted that downtown issues were a priority including the problems in the BL kind of figuring out more ways to get housing throughout Amherst in a way that is productive and fits our community and then also to focus on the recodification of the bylaw. I see the benefits of the 40R process in the sense that the consultants work has focused the attentions and we're talking about the downtown problems and the need for affordable housing which I think should be required in all housing developments and we can see the need to work with the local businesses, property owners, and community because the more we do that the better the proposal gets and you get information from people and there's a real need and a real desire for people to work together on what the downtown should look like not just in this zone but really everywhere and you know I think the problem with the 40R proposal which I've identified you know a bunch of them but I think the problem is that it doesn't resolve the issues of the downtown in a comprehensive way and it also doesn't resolve the issue that we need inclusionary zoning throughout Amherst and I appreciate you know so we need to do that. I see a lot of problems with this proposal in a way it's gotten better because we some of us have been sort of battering at it including the neighbors and sort of saying you know we don't want five-story buildings across staring at each other and then get things get a little lower you know and I can see working on that and working on that and working on that the question I have for us as a board is do we want to focus our attention on the downtown issues and problems and work our way through them in a comprehensive way to you know to get design standards for everything in downtown not just a building that comes in under the 40R do we want to figure out how to protect our historic buildings but also increasing density and size do we want to figure out how to get families downtown because having these very expensive apartment buildings are not going to attract families and we'll have like really wealthy people a lot of wealthy students and we're going to have fortunately people will have some affordable housing um and so I think you know this this proposal doesn't address the parking issue at all so do we want to focus um on downtown issues and really chew on them for as long as it takes and and put some fixes in and some real form-day zoning do we want to agree about the heights and the design or do we want to continue to work on this 40R proposal which realistically only affects a small amount of properties because I don't think the property owners are going to bite on most of this district because it lowers heights in the RG it doesn't do anything for people in the BG um you know it's there's just it it addresses very little stuff and it also will just basically wipe out the whole look of most of the town where it is do we want to keep on working on this which leaves most of the downtown problems unresolved at another overlay district you know have a limited amount of 40 affordable units or do we want to just focus our attentions on the downtown we have certainly an active group of people I'd like to bring the business community in because I think one of the effects of the 40R and new development is we're going to be losing more small businesses and so I think we're sort of at a crossroads like do we want to keep working on the downtown or start a real effort there or do we want to work on this 40R proposal which I think would be very time consuming based on the flaws that I see with it um that I'm not going to go through um so that's kind of how I feel and you know I think everybody knows how strongly I feel for inclusionary zoning we could get an inclusionary zoning by-law through the town council very simply we have two good options on the table right now maybe we should put our focus on that and make it comprehensive you know I just to me just adding a 25 page 40R proposal to our by-law on top of the overlay districts and this and that it's like let's just look at the downtown and resolve it let's just have inclusionary zoning throughout Amherst let's simplify our situation and really just face our issues hit on so that you know that's my vote also I love the idea of the east Amherst thing or or doing a village center somewhere else like using a small project and figuring out how it works thank you Janet um John Rob um I'll just speak briefly one of the criteria that the consultants urged us to talk about when we were trying to choose where an Amherst was the most likely location for a 40R was whether there were developers ready willing and able to do some development and they did extensive interviews with people around town who own property and who do development and based on those interviews their conclusion was downtown was the best opportunity for actual development now there are things that I personally like about east Amherst but if you look at east Amherst and think about it as a pilot project what's going to happen well okay first you develop a new 40R draft by law for east Amherst and that takes who knows six months a year and then it starts to get implemented and it's probably at least four or five years probably longer uh until you actually see some building happening so you might be talking about a decade before you see the results of this pilot that you're talking about by then everybody on the planning board will be off the planning board I'll no longer be with the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust and what we've gotten out of it is a small pilot project which undoubtedly is worth doing but I don't think it's worth doing instead of focusing on downtown yeah I have to admit bringing this you know back to the planning board I the word crisis kind of comes to mind with regard to the the local economy and our housing and our downtown all these things and and and I agree John I like the more immediate sort of process that would result from from the proposal it just struck me as getting action and I think you know maybe timing means a lot to this town right now um uh Tom hey thank you um John and Rob for speaking and for your comments also at the October 14th presentations as well I'm new to the board as you know relatively new and part of what I felt was my duties tried to go back and read as many comments or listen to as much as I could to try to better understand what some of the issues were that were presented um sort of what the pushback was against this you know just trying to understand from a holistic perspective what's the problem here um and one of the things that seemed to be problematic was that um there's no guarantee of specific outcomes right that it's going to look this way or behave that way and I think that you know as a planning board and as a committee and as a community you know our job should be to help shape those and foster those outcomes and those changes but I don't think we can guarantee anything I don't think we're going to guarantee even with the design review board looking at buildings that it's going to look the way everybody wants to look and it's going to behave the way everybody wants to behave and that you know fostering change and growth should be something that we um aspire to as as members of this board so um you know having having gone through all of those comments and sort of thinking about the what's been said today you know I really do believe that the downtown is the kind of epicenter for Amherst represents a lot to a lot of people um but it also has a lot of unlocked potential um and I think I'd love to see what happens and as your pilot I'd love to see what happens when we start unlocking some of those things um and and I could easily see that growing and becoming part of East Amherst and other parts of Amherst as well um but I do agree that the immediate potential and the strongest impact is is in our downtown right now and I do think that it's just as much about housing and and Jack's concerns and others um more more specifically about affordable housing but also um you know ways to um bring more opportunities for business owners into downtown and um build a more robust downtown than we when we have now um so that that's my perspective on it so I mean I support us looking through this I do agree that if we went down Janet's route that we could come somewhere near this by actually building out a bunch of uh smaller bylaws to get us to a place where um we might have something far more specific to what exactly we want but as an overarching set of principles um I support where this is going I have I like um Jan and I have questions and comments about specific items that um we can probably debate next time um but um but you know my perspective is that I support moving this forward and look forward to seeing the impact um in the town thank you Tom and you know we're just we're uh good point we're not going to get you know in the super details is kind of want to get everybody's you know peeing everybody here on the board and kind of get you know just the initial you know gut reactions from everybody and then we can you know take this up you know the next meeting so uh Johanna please great thank you Jack and thank you John and Rob for your comments I really appreciate them as well as a new board member um you know I'll say Amherst um one of the things that makes living here so great is that we have really high ideals like we want to preserve the historic character of our awesome town we I think as a town support smart growth we want housing affordability so that everybody who can live in Amherst can afford to live here we really value our environment we you know want high quality services from our schools to making sure roads are maintained well and sidewalks are maintained well and we want kind of a vital downtown and I think those are all values that you know kind of make living in Amherst so desirable um and then I think you know putting those ideals and those values into practice like where the rubber hits the road you know comes down to things like this and um and I personally think that downtown is the right place to start it's our core um I really believe in building from the core out especially when I feel like right now our our downtown is like on life support you know I keep hearing the ads on the radio about the business improvement district just like saying hey SOS like we are in trouble here and if we had a more vital downtown with more people living in walking distance to all of the goods and services that are downtown um I just think it reflects our ideals and um so both because it's our core and it makes sense to invest there first like just as a principle I think makes sense and then secondly just pragmatically like you know this is close to schools it's close to the post office it's close to our shops it's close to town hall it's close to bus stops and it's close to UMass which is a major employer in town and so um you know I don't know I for one think like the I've been following the parking conversation in our town and um you know I'm happy to be educated more but right now kind of feel like the parking concerns are overblown we have enough parking and really what we need to do is make it so that people can live close to town and not need a private car um so I'm really excited about this I think it aligns with our values um there I don't think it's perfect you know and I think it leaves some things on the table some of which are under like not under our jurisdiction so you know I would love to see this couple with infrastructure investments like you know dedicated bicycle lanes for example or really sound storm water management so that we're not like building new parking lots that also just you know put polluted water into the fearing brook which pollutes the fort river but ultimately I'm a firm believer that you accomplish big visions kind of step by step and um we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and I think that this is a real opportunity to move forward now not two years from now not five years from now and I'm excited about continuing to explore this and make it the right you know make it kind of as Maria said the the best option for Amherst thank you thank you thank you Johanna that was uh very good comments Doug yeah um I guess some some of what I'll say is a repeat of the written comments that I made back in May I guess um I I'm generally supportive of the massing that is proposed in this set of proposals um frankly I I probably would have opposed some of the downsizing that's happened in the last few months um because I'm I'm generally uh in favor of greater mass and greater density downtown so that we can have a critical mass of people that live work by their groceries and can commute without private vehicles and uh I agree that UMass is the dominant employer and the ability to to walk there uh or bicycle there easily uh makes downtown and everything between downtown and UMass uh prime prime real estate um so um I I guess my you know I I agree that it's not perfect from my point of view um I kind of disagree with Chris that we have a log jam downtown um because uh I think the thing that slowed down sort of the next big building project between Kendrick Park or Kendrick Place and One East Pleasant uh was the coronavirus uh and not that you know I mean we certainly heard that there was a big project planned in that area where the where the where the pub restaurant was um and I don't think it stopped because of our zoning I think it stopped because of uncertainty about economic conditions and what's going to be the population of UMass in the next few years um so I agree with John that that there are developers ready to do work downtown um I guess my yeah my biggest concern is that I view Kendrick Park as Amherst's Boston Garden the public garden and um so if I put my take off my architect hat and put on my developer hat I want to allow the highest and best use in what I consider potentially the premier real estate precinct in Amherst and so to sort of artificially say you've got to put 20 percent affordable units in that area feels to me like we're giving up potential revenue from you know retirees who want to have an urban experience in a small town now that they've fled from Manhattan uh from the pandemic um it just feels to me like we're limiting the potential income uh frankly from the from that area uh so you know I wouldn't down I wouldn't down zone any of the bg I probably wouldn't do a 40 r in any of the bg but I fully support doing it in the bl zones that are proposed here um and um I guess uh let's see what else I I think East Amherst would be a fine alternative um I will throw out that I think University Drive uh would be another place that um you know we could allow a lot of housing down there let people walk to the big Y and take the bus down University Drive to work and there aren't a whole lot of a butters there who would object so similar to how a lot of uh old large cities have a their downtown and then they have a secondary sort of uh excerpt uh commercial district a few miles out of town that's newer and nicer well maybe University Drive could be our you know the modern downtown and then we let the quaint new england historical village downtown from back when we were a town of 5 000 people uh stay up up on the top of the hill but uh you know if the consensus is that we want to move forward with the downtown zone that's fine i'll come along for the ride um I guess uh you know in terms of having people talk about timing and this being a crisis um from my point of view this is a crisis that is probably 50 years in the making because this town really hasn't allowed significant housing uh since the 70s when UMass attained pretty close to its current size so uh you know we kind of have we've made the bed we're sleeping in um and it's going to take a while to dig out of it that's all that's all I'm ready for now I'm writing multiple notes Doug so um thank you that we were getting tons of great comments um and I think we've heard from everyone Janet has her hand up again um so Janet please so um I just wanted to just I just to present a little background is that in the last like 10 years we've had you know and things that are under like green leaves apartments has been adding housing Amherst commons was you know I'm not sure if it's it's I think they still have a permit we issued a permit spring street we got a permit one east pleasant street Kendrick place main street LLC Amherst hotel is building university drive south is under underway university drive was just built the presidential apartments increased their housing north square was a huge jump ahead there's not like a lack of housing being built in Amherst and so if you have this impression that like all you know downtown has to be unlocked because we just are all you know it's like there's a tremendous amount of building that has gone on for housing units in Amherst um also the same 10 years UMass has added 4 000 students but not 4 000 beds um and so I think a lot of the issues so that's been going on too and so I think that so let's you know there's and I don't think anything we do tonight is going to affect COVID and I think there's just no the timeline doesn't work and so I think we have to make good decisions based on long range kind of visions and plans I think downtown could use a lot more densification I think it could use much nicer looking buildings I think it you know I have somebody you know you know we have a master plan that talks about that I think if we want to keep going with this 40 r proposal I think before we decide to jump in I think we should compare through a comparison chart and just so we can visualize what we're talking about numerically let's do a chart where we compare the bl you know the heights the dimensions the possible units to the to the um bg to the changes of the 40 r and also add you know what if we change the bl to business village center which allows a lot more housing has sort of yeah less setbacks but also preserves the three stories and then add a little thing about you know if we required 10 percent or 12 percent or whatever of inclusionary zoning throughout all the districts how many units will we get versus this 40 r which is really going to be a very small part of downtown so you know where's our biggest gains but also I think we need to chart comparing one strategy for the other like if we're going to say 40 r is our strategy downtown we're going to put all our chips there but we're not going to address other issues in downtown for a long time let's know what what what why we chose that over something else this is not particularly my suggestion it's also one one of the things have how many units can we put in you know so where will the gains be comparing the bg to the rg district and things like that I think this is not my idea it's actually Pam Rooney's idea who's um used to be on the planning board of just like let's just take this look at this very systematically and say okay we're you know let's compare one strategy to other pros and cons numerical differences how many units i z benefits and just figure out what we're what we're proposing to enter into because if we take one path we're kind of like not taking other paths and so I think I'd like to like for as a next step suggest at like a more systematic look I do think this this piece of legislation needs a lot of work and so I think before we embark on it let's let's figure out if this is the best strategy to get what our goals are which would be more inclusionary zoning more density I think better looking buildings um things like that Jack press rep has her hand up Chris I just wanted to point out that if the planning board does decide to pursue the 40 r that doesn't mean that we can't make changes to the bl and the downtown and the rg it's just uh it's there are two really two different types of development and one thing I've been hearing is that um the 40 r may be more suitable to larger developers and it's got a lot of complications associated with it um not not insurmountable complications but just a lot of um you know the state being involved and having to follow certain types of rules and regulations and that may not be um appealing to some of our local developers um local developers may be more interested in you know kind of traditional types of development and so you know to Janet's point I think that you know she's made a lot of good points with regard to um the need to change the underlying zoning in the downtown so all I'm saying to you is if you choose to go the 40 r route and pursue 40 r it doesn't mean that you wouldn't also want to make changes to the underlying zoning because there may be two different groups of developers who would go after one versus the other and I think it is important to make the bl buildable developable whether or not people ever take advantage of 40 r or whether or not the town ever adopts it so I just wanted to say that it's more work obviously it's more work for the planning staff it's more work for the planning department it's more work for town council to try to understand it all but I think it's really necessary to make changes to the underlying zoning of downtown and the bl and the jason rg so that's all I wanted to say yeah so um I'd like to hear from from john and rob maybe these might be you know closing you know statements and may I just make a point that um there are a couple of attendees with their um hands up so um before or after john or rob speak maybe you want to hear from one or two attendees what what do you think now for public comment probably good to do it now okay okay and pam yes I see um I thought everybody would go to the yeah I see ira pan p.m rooney joice berkman ken rosenthal um ira rick ira is first okay ira thank you everybody and I appreciate the discussion that you're having um I am just one person that lives in amherst and I've been describing for a while the town that I would love to see is the end result which would be downtown with a lot of three-story buildings it's an appropriate height if you look at buildings that are already downtown that are the most attractive that are the most cornerstone buildings they are typically three buildings three stories with uh some service or product on the main floor and then offices or condos above and I only say that to make the point of it sounds like nobody on the planning board really understands the pill that 40 are is that you are deciding whether to swallow or not chris breastrupt who I respect a lot mentioned six story buildings maybe would be needed to achieve the density there's so many people in this town that hate five stories and don't want four stories I just think that when you ask what's the worst thing that could happen by going with 40 are it's basically whatever you permit that you don't like and I would just say the way to go is to prescribe the end result as Steve and Covey says begin with the end in mind and then figure out a 40 are is that solution and I also want to add for several years I had an office in South Amherst and Pomeroy area and that's a very dangerous intersection I was told that people have been killed crossing the street there very poor traffic control and that what they need is that mass mass works I think it's called but mass works will not be given by the state unless they see trends and forces of an area for instance if they knew that that Pomeroy area was about to get something like a 40 are they would go ahead with it and that's why somebody mentioned I think chris that the state would smile on mass works being approved for an area like that and I don't know that we know what's happening with the UMass population a few years ago a chancellor I don't know if it's the current one or not said that the college population is going to be declining at the same time there's been a big movement of put dorms on campus if you put dorms on campus that are attractive and livable and affordable there might not be six to eight students in a student house and if you lowered that to three then families would be able to afford houses and you've solved the affordability crisis in this town and the housing crisis in a totally different way by recognizing that we have a major state university in a small town just another point I want to make is I think that people are going to do whatever you permit them to do and the last session that I was on where somebody was saying look at this facade and look how we described all the design elements to try to get the next tall building in town to be handsomer than the ones that are here and everybody was like this drawing is as ugly as any of those buildings that have already been built and he was saying no that building is not the actual look of the building it just indicates what all the design elements are that we would be mandating in other words that architect was saying you could build the same ugly kind of building with the new design elements so I think that you really need to be careful to make sure that you're prescribing the right factors the right limitations if 40 r is a powerful pill that's really going to do something make sure it's going to do what you wanted to do because it could also blow the head right off our town so I don't hear enough understanding by the planning board about what 40 r is and could do for you to responsibly say let's swallow that pill thank you all right and Pam and Rooney yes hi everybody can hear me yes okay I second the thanks for the conversation I think it's really great that everybody is starting to actually get into the nuts and bolts of this proposed so I think I would just back up and say I would like the planning board to really consider if 40 r is the tool that you're looking for and I think we Janet mentioned we had a short conversation about the various tools in the toolbox and my perspective is let's look at a comparison of the tools we have and identify which are the the most appropriate ones to solve which problems so that's kind of my my basis I have a couple of questions and that is was there or is there in fact a an initiative underway that is the area of the pub cousin's market that that general zone I would be very interested to know what is currently even being thought about and then you can answer that after I finish talking the the 40 r final draft I will I have to say that people have lauded the consultants I would say they did a very minimal job and it was only because they got such feedback and pushback that they actually cleaned it up and actually looked at Amherst and said oh you're right there are some nuances here that we were not considering in detail and and then they threw them into the final product that we just saw so I'm not I'm not giving them an a for this job the the conversation about limited business I've heard at least six of say yes we really need to unlock the BL and at some point in this conversation or follow-up I would actually like to hear what each of you means by unlock the BL what do you envision the lower part of cottage street should look like as opposed to what it currently is the two areas in town that that are I would say most applicable for this 40 hour conversation is literally the BL on triangle and cottage street as well as the Henian block and I would say as as somebody who does home construction projects I try not to start painting at the front door I learn how to paint and make my mistakes by the back door and I work my way around to the front door where we will live with the mistakes that we made for 100 years um somebody acknowledged I don't know in some conversation recently that in fact they they really didn't realize the impact of the zero setback front setbacks when um I think it was one east pleasant street was approved and I thought to myself the people who are approving the bylaws ought to be able to visualize the impacts of what they are approving and I think that's a really critical element in this um in this plan it's very difficult for some people to visualize what five stories at the edge of the sidewalk actually means and we're talking we're talking up against sidewalks not uh not 20 feet back from the sidewalks so I think we're we're talking about a store's Connecticut look which is kind of a contrived downtown as opposed to the very organic kind of messy downtown Amherst which could have greater density with um adaptive reuse infill behind buildings where you keep your kind of funky streetscape but you build some density behind um I don't know in all of this conversation how many units are actually going to be afforded if we're talking about the one p l district on lower cottage street and maybe the Henian block how many how many apartments are we actually getting and how many of those are actually affordable um let's see what else that's about that that's about we have we have several more hands there you're you're uh I didn't say that three minute limit but uh I you know you obviously have a lot of points did I exceed it sorry no thank you thank you Jack may I say something I just want to say that this is an initial conversation for the planning board to have so it's not really a public hearing so and and we have a limited amount of time tonight I just wanted to let people know that there'd be plenty more opportunities to talk about this and um as I said this is an initial conversation and I know you had said you wanted to end the uh meeting by 8 30 at yes and and so I'll be a strict you know for the three minutes now for we have uh uh Joyce Ken Jean and Ted so Joyce Berkman so three minutes Joyce you're on okay there you go am I audible good thank you thank you uh so I appreciate the uh conversation as well I find myself uh somewhat confused by some of the remarks but that I won't take time to talk about what I do want to suggest going back to Janet McGowan and the idea of a comprehensive and more general look of vision of the Amherst that you would like to see and in talking about that vision I think if you don't think of housing stock as your first point of departure but think about business and what I'm talking about is imagine having places in Amherst that genuinely attract families for business that is the businesses attract families when I first came here there was Louise downtown a major grocery store that was kind of the fulcrum of the town of Amherst what if we really had a bowling alley again what if we had a pet store what if we had really an outstanding concert or performance let's say a performance area like they've recently built in Northampton where students and residents and people could come and do poetry readings or put on one act plays or do some ensemble work areas that genuinely would bring people into town for food for uh culture for families to enjoy the town then there won't be a business crisis in town which right now is just a plethora of restaurants and cafes and with a few exceptions I mean obviously we can't under covid use our cinema which is wonderful but we can't do that right now but I'm looking ahead beyond covid and what your vision is for the kind of attractions that the town needs to have so that families and students don't just go to bars and restaurants and at the same time I'm hearing a little bit about and it's not just a little bit there's a lot of talk on campus about a decline based on the plunging numbers of 18 years old in our state and generally it wouldn't surprise me if at some point southwest or any number of these places would be converted into general apartment buildings for people to live and take buses into town or to walk on campus to do enjoy various activities so let's not assume that there's a housing crisis or a housing shortage let's wait and see on that I'd say within the next 10 years we'll have a much better sense of population parameters in the town of Amherst the pandemic is possibly revolutionized the way people are going to talk about towns and while Doug something really appealed to me you're saying an urban experience in a small town I think that's incompatible if we have an urban experience in a small town we have a city and many of us who envision Amherst think of ourselves as living in a town not in a city and we have ample urban experience you have plenty of places to go to if we have new places to go to okay thank you thank you yes all right so yeah you know we're getting a lot of comments here Ken Rosenthal please and again three minutes if you could yes sir thank you very much I want to speak quickly about a process in substance processes I want to thank Chris Brestrup for her efforts a while ago and try to make it possible for a group of us to get together to talk about these issues in a more expansive way I hope you will have read the letters that the letter that Pam Rooney and I and a couple of others wrote published in Amherst Fulton a week ago talking about the inadequacy of meetings like the one we're having tonight where your audience is unable to see each other you can't see us you can only hear us yet you make this opportunity available to people like John and Rob I think that's great they have a chance to have a cross dialogue with you but the rest of us are limited to three minutes and I think you're going to cut me off in about a minute and a half so I'm looking forward to not just other meetings but opportunities where you and your your constituents can participate in these very important issues I for instance am a former chair of the zoning board of appeals and was a member of the select committee on goals for Amherst when we came up with the notion about village centers and so there's a lot of history here that I think you need to take advantage of one bit of history I'll mention now and then I'll shut up is that the town used to be full of people living in families living in buildings in the existing buildings we have right now those second and third and fourth floors where there are four stories used to be apartments not offices and that's why a louis food where CVS now is that's why a louis food could sustain itself for a while because there were people who could walk there and would want to walk there was a full-service supermarket that was perfect for Amherst now we have 47 restaurants and bars that have pushed out of town the stores where people used to shop the reason I think that housing is important and the reason I think that we are going to need want housing in town is because this pandemic is teaching us how many of us can work from home and small towns like Amherst especially towns as qualified as Amherst are the destination homes for people who are moving out of the cities moving out of Boston moving out of New York and working where they want to live and this is a great opportunity for us I think we need to take advantage of it and talk about it thank you for the time I look forward to having time to talk to you at greater length about all these issues thank you very much Ken um Gene hello this is Jeannie Hardy Jeannie sorry you can hear me now yes yes okay okay great well thank you for the opportunity to comment on this I really want to second the opinions that question the need for a 40R in the limited business district I question on two accounts the first is it's not clear to me that the amount of affordable housing that we'll get from 40R is really going to make a difference to the people who it is suggested to serve uh it's a it's a tiny amount of affordable housing I feel if we want affordable housing downtown let's build affordable housing but let's not do this 40R in the in the name of affordable housing when it's only 10 of the units my second my second concern is about um turning the limited business district into the 40R district because we've seen again and again that buildings in the general business district reached their maximum height with no setbacks and or very few setbacks and so I agree that this new this final version from the architects looks a little bit better but it still doesn't guarantee that the limited business district will have any transition to the neighbor neighbors who surround that district and one of the planning board members commented that there's not a problem with parking we should just encourage people to take public transit I think that's a wonderful idea I live close to town we're a family of four with one car so that we can take public transit but most people don't make these decisions so living where I do want a half a block from the limited business district there is a dearth of parking and come and take advantage of bigger isn't parking particularly if we densify the business the limited business district as a 40R with multi five and I guess maybe six story building so I would really really like the planning board to carefully consider whether we need a 40R in this area why can't we keep things as we as we have them and uh on a case by case basis assess whether developments will be in line with our vision for Amherst I don't think we need the overlay of the 40R thank you thank you Jenny um and we have Ted hello this is Ted hi Ted welcome very quickly I just want I appreciate what Janet was saying about the need to sort of look at the whole picture um and not just focus on one space I second all the comments that came before me and um just you know the demographics are going to be changing and I particularly like the idea of start at the end figure out what you want I think 40R could be a tool that you don't necessarily need so that's all I have to say thank you very much thanks Ted so um I at this time I'd like you know Robin and John kind of closing statements and then I think we can wrap up I don't know that we need to make a recommendation today but we can kind of digest this I know CRC is speaking speaking or how discussed 40R exact opposite thing last time um somebody isn't muted who should be yeah yeah I think all of everyone um there you go thank you tomorrow yeah so um but I um John Rob with with uh what the planning board comments and some of the public comments you have any Rob yeah I I have two points to make uh in response to what I've heard first of all most people are making very good points I mean I I don't disagree with most of what has been said in in in criticism on it um I still think it's it's worth pursuing so my two points are one um not liking the the existing buildings or the new buildings is not a reason to avoid 40R because the existing zoning allowed and allows those buildings so if you don't like those buildings you have to change the zoning um and second um in in the 40R that covers the BL most of the most of the BL um the the buildings we would be limited to three stories which is what Mr. Brick and and and some other people have said is what they want so three three stories which is actually what is allowed there now so they can't be built because of of other zoning problems so three stories is is still um the proposal for for the limited business so thank you Rob and John uh I appreciate the opportunity to talk this evening um unlike the other people I don't think you should be careful uh I think you should just charge ahead and do something irrespective of what the potential consequences might be no seriously I do appreciate the fact that you've got a smart experience planning board uh I think everybody on this board has their own ideas and the issue really is how to synthesize them and if that means changes to the 40R proposal that's fine if it means you walk away from the 40R but do something downtown that fits your vision that's fine too I just don't think that you should leave it alone I think that there are opportunities here and we do want to encourage more development and I do think that also has to support downtown businesses as well as additional people living downtown but if you have additional people living downtown as others have pointed out it means there's going to be more support for business so thank you thank you John so I'm wondering uh do we would we um have a roll call on you know further discussion or would we you know are we in the position of making a decision like we don't want to talk about this anymore um and that it's more of a straw poll I guess but again from from a time perspective I don't want to you know force anybody's you know to make a rash decision here but Chris maybe you can help me out on on what we can do I think you could make a motion that um you want to pursue talking about this 40R proposal and then see how many people um go along with that and then that will give you a sense of whether we want to keep putting this on an agenda for the future okay so do I hear a motion to that effect almost okay Tom a second I'll second Johanna all right Johanna don't think we need a discussion but any any words okay so I'll just do a roll call Maria do you want to all right so the motion is we want to continue discussing 40R that there's merit here there's something yes worth doing okay so uh Tom yes Andrew hi and Doug hi and Janet um you know I I wouldn't say don't talk about it so okay let's get some is that a yay or nay or kind of like an ah I need to record it those I think we should keep talking about it but I do want to if we're going to keep talking about it really dig into it in the details and the the sections and the lack of there's too many waivers like I think people have to plummet into it because I think that's when that's where the problems really emerge but I'm not in favor of this proposal in downtown so but I'm not going to tell the board not to talk about it so I'll say yes okay Johanna hi and I am a yes but I think I see unanimous that's good but so oh boy we're at 830 here um but thank I want to thank Rob, John, you guys you know appreciate all the work you do on on the housing trust and I'm so glad and I apologize about the last meeting where a little little mismanaged there but I'm so glad you guys were able to be present and and help us with this discussion thanks good luck thank you um okay so the next on the agenda um but I'm Chris here I go leaning on you again um we have old business is this there was a revised pardon me a revised agenda and I uh I don't have a copy of it but I think I can read I have it it's it's uh Janet's proposal for revisiting um the uh the uh Emily Dickinson Museum yeah so Janet to make her statement and then I have a statement that I'd like to okay so let's just do that then I was just worried about Bruce if he's in the attendees um yeah he's there so right here so let's let's uh let's broach this subject that has been presented to us by Janet so um I we had I abstained from the vote um on the Emily Dickinson permit because I was unsure about and I think the planning board was unsure about what section the language of section 11.2417's meaning was with respect to lighting and so at that meeting or we discussed three questions does all the lighting have to be downcast except for the architectural and interior lit signs um does all lighting have to be turned off after business hours except for safety and security lights and then are nonprofits iconic or historic buildings exempt from the section's requirements excuse me I think that you're um you're going over into a discussion of the topic and not focusing on um whether or not you want to reopen the public hearing so I think you should read your statement that you sent to the board and um have the board discuss whether they want to reopen it you can't give your arguments outside of a public hearing so I was just giving the background to my research so I mean so um yeah I just I mean it just seems like I'm trying to set the scene because it's just super random so I researched a legislative history and I wound up looking at the warrant article and the town meeting discussion and vote um which took place on November 28th 2007 and you know I you know in my memo I've had the legislative history um and the statements by um the planning board member um Jonathan O'Keefe and so I think that legislative history states very clearly that all the exterior lights should be downcast all the lights should be extinguished outside normal business hours except for safety and and security lights that all the the section applies to all uses in all districts with and there's no exemptions or waivers there's no language on that um so that was why so I think to me you know I'm an attorney but also just a member of the town I think it's very important that the planning board apply our rules very you know correctly fairly and consistently um you know if things are applied to everybody it tells applicants what they have to do and it tells the public that and you're going into your arguments just ask them whether they want to open the public hearing or not and you can't you can't make your arguments tonight because the public hearing isn't open the public isn't aware of what you're talking about and the applicant isn't here so anyway so I so the question for me was um does the board want to reopen the hearing and possibly change the permit conditions revote or vote to continue the hearing to allow the applicant to make adjustments um and then I also have a question for Chris is do we have to reopen the hearing just to revote yes you do you absolutely have to reopen the public hearing so I I do you want me to read the memo or has everybody read the memo or would that help you can read the memo if Jack says it's okay yeah I'm acting like the chair here I don't want to read the whole memo but I want to do I yeah I apologize Chris I it's just I don't know in my four years that we've had this situation of revisiting a decision that's been made by the board and but I understand the hearing needs to have you know the the parties here that and public you know has to be advertised and and all that so Janet you have a clear request simply based on your research whether you want to reopen the hearing or not so is was it helpful to read the Jonathan O'Keefe's testimony or has everybody read that already so I don't want to waste time you probably don't need to read it if everybody's read the memo already okay I sent an email this afternoon and I would like to read portions of that Chris please the board closed the public hearing on the Emily Dickinson Museum on November 4th after more than two hours of presentation and discussion over two separate nights section 11.2417 was thoroughly discussed before the board made its decision no members of the public or a butter spoke in opposition to the application the board voted six to zero to one with miss McGowan abstaining to approve the application miss McGowan is asking to reopen the public hearing in order to present arguments about why the information about the legislative history of section 11.2417 is relevant to the Emily Dickinson Museum case she would like to present reasons why the board might wish to change its decision based on this legislative history hearing miss McGowan's argument and discussing whether to change the decision is only possible in a reopened public hearing no information can be taken in after the public hearing is closed unless the board reopens the public hearing in my opinion any decision to reopen a public hearing must be made very carefully and done only when absolutely necessary a difference in interpretation or application of certain provisions of the bylaw is expected to occur at times and does not rise to the level of requiring to open the public hearing to reopen the public hearing where the when an issue was already reasonably discussed applicants come to the board and go through the public hearing process expecting to get a decision that they can have confidence in they do not expect the decision to be reconsidered at a later date I recommend against reopening the public hearing but I would also say that at a later date the board may wish to revisit the language of section 11.2417 and decide if it needs to be clarified or improved as part of the zoning bylaw rewrite that's currently underway so that's my statement thank you okay uh before uh public comment in my right screen up here um my my opinion because I reviewed some of this I really didn't think that that the research that Janet came across uh rose to a level of of actually new information uh there there was some rationale that was spoken in in my opinion um what she presented but that was really based on butters uh residential butters and uh I think we thoroughly um uh discussed this again much longer than I thought we would because I had someone else scheduled um uh it it was the 40 art discussion and we went we went another hour on it so um so I agree I agree with Chris uh Doug yeah having uh had Janet essentially make her request that we open the public hearing and having heard Chris's uh statement I guess I would like to move that we close discussion and vote on whether to open the public here whether to reopen a public hearing or not but here's second second Tom Tom or Maria one give it to Tom um any discussion for the discussion okay we can do a roll call all right do we want to a reopen uh the Emily Dickinson Museum Chris help me here here the move the motion was move that we closed the discussion and that we vote on whether to reopen so you have to vote on whether you're going to reopen or no you have to vote on whether you're going to vote and then after that you take a second vote to decide whether you're going to reopen or not that's what I understood Mr. Marshall to say I'm actually confused okay Mr. Marshall um I don't think he was asking you to take a vote on whether to reopen or not he was asking you to take a vote on move all the question and vote on whether well I don't know maybe he better rephrase it yes Doug okay okay sorry for the lack of clarity I'm uh moving that we we all vote first to close the discussion and secondly that we vote on whether to reopen the public hearing I don't think I've actually made the motion to reopen the hearing did I just to get really technical uh what are you proposing then well I mean I'm proposing that we vote on whether to open the public hearing so I'm making the motion okay okay all right but I'd like also to have us vote to close the discussion you should do that first yeah close the discussion are you gonna close the discussion Doug we do two motions one to disclose and then one can be much more clear about whether you're going to ask to reopen or not does anyone want to discuss this okay it's my understanding we need to discuss this in the public hearing if we decide to hold it okay yeah so we really can't say much so there was a second Tom to close the discussion I do roll call real quick Maria yes mom Andrew hi dog hi fana we're voting to stop discussing yes okay sure uh Johanna hi and myself yes okay and now we deal with a second motion which I'm not sure has this a second when whether we would reopen the public hearing so I think that needs a second let's get the wording of this correct is mr marshall making a motion to reopen the public hearing or is he making a motion not to reopen the public hearing Doug well since those are the choices you've given me isn't this you can let Janet make the motion yeah but why don't we why don't we do that I do feel I'm here um I would like to move to reopen the Emily Dickinson hearing to consider and consider the new legislative history okay so that will need a second thank you okay and any further discussion I seen oh uh well Doug is that a residual hand yeah okay so we'll do a roll call um so so an a or is in favor of reopening this and Maria no Tom no Andrew they dug no Janet yes and Johanna no and I'm a no as well so I think that closes uh that issue and topics not reasonably anticipated 40 hours prior to the meeting no topics okay so new business we have Bruce Carson's letter and again we're we're past what our target was 8 30 I don't I think we'll be okay but let's bring Bruce in and he's there his hand is up yep hi Bruce Bruce are you hear me yes okay thank you thank you so thank you for your your letter to us and if you you know I maybe I'll give you a few minutes here to summarize and then we can we can just you know discuss I I'm not sure what you know I think it's just more of a I'm not even sure we need to act on this because we're really just getting your information uh Chris is what's your understanding in terms of the any decisions being made or this is more like a public comment basically isn't it it's to understand the problem that Mr. Carson is bringing to your attention and then you can decide if it's going to be um one of the items that you wish to address during the rewriting of the zoning by law so we would make a recommendation basically yeah all right so thank you Bruce thank you well thank you for your time we have a situation in our neighborhood in which the lack of a definition of what is a resident manager has come up we have a absentee landlord who has a small home rented to three students and he has proposed to convert the garage into two more bedrooms and under the current zoning for this district he would either have to be owner occupied or have a resident manager he doesn't he is not going to be occupying either residents so he has proposed uh finding a resident manager among the six renters and it seems to me and to my neighbors that this is a untenable situation uh these are probably going to be six students five or six students and how can one of them be a resident manager who is expected to monitor the others and their behavior and also maintain the property properly and it seems to me that something could be done in the future with the zoning by-law to more clearly define what what is a resident manager is it somebody who should be a professional person who either works for a rental agency who has previously been a resident manager of an apartment complex also it seems to us that a resident manager should have his or her own unit so that there can be an objectivity in managing other people and in managing the property to be living amongst friends or roommates it just doesn't seem to us to be a workable situation and I think this original zoning by-law was intended for older people who might need additional income to stay in Amherst to create a second unit on their property but they would be the owner-occupant and now it seems like absentee landlords could use this as a sort of loophole to create a situation in which there really is an adequate supervision going on it seems like it's not the intent to us to to the neighbors and I that this is what a resident manager should be as a student monitoring other students who lives among the students thank you bruce um thank you so I I I suspect that this is going to be a discussion I mean that this this uh hits some kind of trigger points for me with regard to the whole you know availability of housing you know family you know housing for families within uh the town and and and Bruce your letter I I end up like doing some research which I think I will present um at a you know a subsequent meeting that I think Chris you shared an email that I had it had to do with incentives for you know owner-occupied um uh you know properties versus you know having some incentive because my understanding is there's there's a lot of freedom for a property owner and uh and Bruce is seeing this as a pushing to the edge of what might be you know reasonable and it's it's I think it's I think it's a tough one to to legislate and and and monitor um so Jack Mr. McDougal has his hand raised Andrew please thanks Jack yeah I'll be very quick I just Bruce thanks for bringing this to our attention I'm I'm surprised that it is only now coming to our attention seems like something that would have come up in the past and I I do think that it's worth worthy of having future discussion to clarify yes um thank you and I'm thinking that tonight is not uh not the best night uh for but I would like to talk about this situation and so where we can make a an intelligent recommendation to the to the CRC and town council uh on this particular issue uh and Rob Moore uh as we do the zoning bylaw uh rewrite because it appears to be a whole dug yeah I also would support talking about this in a later meeting I think it would be helpful to me in that later conversation if Chris or Rob Mora could give us some information on the performance standards that we expect from uh rent you know from landlords uh with the operation of their property whether they are in resident or whether they have a resident uh manager uh because I think you know I don't really care whether the manager lives with other people or not but I expect the same management performance regardless of who's managing thank you Doug and do I have see any other discussion good so uh we can make uh someone make a motion that we can discuss this as as a you know old business topic in in the you know next or future meeting and and I would probably wrap in some some of the things I put in that email about you know recommending tax incentives um that some towns of Massachusetts have been using for uh you know quite a while you know where owner occupied buildings get a rebate basically um um it's not our purview exactly but it's it it it uh I just I feel like we need to provide some incentives for owner occupied you know buildings versus you know the rental situations but so Doug Mr. Marshall has his hand raised and Janet has just raised your hand Doug do you have a continuation or well you were looking for a motion to talk about this at a later meeting and I thought I'd give you that oh perfect thank you all right don't move um Janet I'll second oh great thank you any discussion okay we'll do a quick roll call that will continue this discussion because it's merits Jack I think uh Janet wanted to discuss oh okay sorry sorry Janet um let me okay just a quick comment is that I I don't check about your comment about the owner occupancy and the tax break I the planning board isn't limited just to zoning issues and so we're not a zoning board and um so I would encourage you to talk about that in other meetings okay it's more you know we have a more holistic mission and um I would just I think that kind of thinking really is helpful so yeah I mean we would be making a recommendation to town council I guess about some incentives um so thank you for that um is this require roll call yeah the motion and so this will be the uh so the vote is that we'll continue this discussion on the general concept of owner occupied and management of non-owner occupied properties in Amherst so Maria yes and Tom hi Andrew hi Doug hi Janet yes uh Johanna yes and myself yes okay so and Bruce thank you so much that really was timely um former planning board member um appreciate that thank you and thank you all for your service thank you all right so briefly we can move to the second topic a new business which is the master plan implementation which we pre meeting we talked about what 350 rows on the on the excel table so uh that's impressive that is impressive so do you want me to just say a few words about it you or or Doug we don't need to talk about it a lot tonight but Doug and I spent I'm going to guess six hours working on this master plan implementation table and it was actually pretty informative to me even though a lot of the information came out of my head but it was informative in the sense that it showed me how much we've actually done and um you know there are many things left to be done and many things that are started but not completed but it was pretty impressive to think about all the things that we have accomplished and so um this is really just a first draft and I haven't um gone over it a Doug typed things that I was saying as I was saying them so I haven't had a chance to go back and read it and I'm sure I'll want to make edits but you all might want to add things or make edits too so if you want to look at it in its raw form now or not tonight but you know over the next few weeks then um we can come back and discuss it more fully at a future date but I wanted you to see the fruits of our labors and thank you very much Doug for spending that time with me. Thank you Doug. Thank you Chris. Yeah thank you uh Chris and Doug um I'm within the master plan um I haven't looked at the raw you know the actual master plan was there like a template in there of this form? Yes. Okay. It's part of the master plan. I think it's appendix A. Okay all right so I'll have to take a look at that um so Johanna has her hand up. Yes Johanna please. I was just gonna say that I um when we first embarked on this I was like this seems like busy work but I actually think there was some uh real value in getting the data dump out of Chris's head and onto paper so that we can all internalize it and then share it with our community um so kudos to Doug and to and to Chris for just advancing the ball. I think it's really exciting. Grateful for your work. Can I also say that we should uh also thank Pam for uh coordinating our multiple work sessions in especially in light of some technological challenges along the way. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah I mean for me it's like this committee what you know this was mentioned in the master plan way back when and it just never rose to level of this organization that now we're kind of rallying around you know thanks to to uh you know um this planning board uh Doug and and Chris so I appreciate that and I it seems like that's really getting behind our charge of what we should be doing so um topics not reasonably anticipated 40 hours prior to the meeting for new business. Um I have a topic. Yes. I've recently been made aware that um the dispensation that we were given by the governor back in the spring having to do with deadlines is going to lapse on December 1st so I have three planning board decisions that well actually four that need to be signed and filed with the town clerk by December 1st and I'm going to make a plea to you um the new members don't need to sign but the former members do need to sign and I'm also going to round up Christine Gray Mullen and David Levenstein. We need to sign the Amherst media decision and I'm very embarrassed to say that I haven't completed Russ Wilson's decision for porch on Vista Terrace nor have I completed the decision for the Kendrick Park playground and that's now under contract so those three decisions have to be signed and filed with the town clerk by December 1st which is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving so I'm going to be making a plea to you in the next few days and I'm hoping that you'll be in town and I'll be able to drive over to your homes and get you to sign these decisions. Chris can we get some pies from you? I'll give you whatever you need. So yeah no no don't don't throw anything else at Chris. Everybody leave Chris alone for the next few days and let her get these things done. Mr Marshall has his hand up. Well I was just waiting to, Jack do you want to call on me? I did. I did. Chris I was just going to ask if you could have all three at once. I certainly will. Okay and I'll work with you I'm sorry I haven't responded up till now. Well hopefully they'll be written by the end of the day tomorrow so one of them is two of them are written the other two aren't so I'll get them together and then I'll get in touch with you. Great. Form A in our subdivision applications? No none of them. Upcoming ZBA applications? Yes there is. Go ahead. Let me share the screen really quick because there it is oh my lordy I think I'm tired. So here it is I'm going to take it out of the screen share. So there's a race coming before the ZBA for property at 33 Pine Street so to request a special permit to modify a previously approved special permit in order to remove a condition that requires the permit to expire when there's a change of ownership and instead replace it with a new condition that requires the new owner to submit a new management plan and compliant response plan to the ZBA for review. Oh 338 Pine Street so I made an error there at the top so it's located at 338 Pine Street that's all there is. Thank you. Welcome. Upcoming SPP SPR SUB applications? None that I know of. Okay so regarding planning board committee and liaison reports um the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission I the last you know meeting was what October 8th I never really summarized it tonight it's not night to summarize it but I I do want to say that there was a presentation on the economic impacts of COVID-19 in the Pioneer Valley that really struck me and it and it and it really had some implications on you know downtown areas and and what it means and it was it was fascinating I'm and I'm going to try to get the the slide presentation for that it was by a Doug Hall who's the data manager and analyst I think he's a he's an Amherst Amherst resident as a matter of fact a new hire at Pioneer Valley Planning Commission um but no there's an executive committee committee meeting tomorrow but yeah if I can you know if I can get these slide presentations I can we can just share them so I don't have to try to you know recreate them but it's some informative stuff so um Andrew I knew you had a meeting uh this week yeah uh meeting again tomorrow um excuse me we have heard all the presentations so for CPAC we've heard the all of the presentations we'll be discussing and voting on those tomorrow um that that discussion is likely to span multiple meetings but we do have that uh some good news that we learned in last week's session was that the state match increased pretty significantly which gives us an extra approximately $300,000 to use towards projects so that was really great news wow good news uh there was a discussion was was the uh was it East Street housing discussed uh by presented by John Hornick yeah yeah he did so uh we're still waiting some information waiting on some information from John he is uh they're they've got a proposal in for some some money which would be used to acquire property which they were actively negotiating so um they were not able to share details um relative to exactly what that ask would be given the timing of of their conversations and the negotiation with the perspective seller but it's not that those conversations have have produced have gone very well to date so uh that's looking to be one for us to uh to consider thank you um Doug get uh any any news the ad commission well I think I saw an email from Chris with Paul's permission for me to go to their meetings I think it's a little even though I haven't been appointed I wasn't quite sure what to make of that I think what he was saying in the in the memo or in the email was essentially that the planning board has nominated you as their representative so you can go and attend the meetings as a non-voting representative and then Paul will inform the town council that this is occurring and I don't think that either of them has a role in appointing you so I I think I was misinformed okay so all of the of informing the town council that you will be the planning board's representative to the ag commission and so now we have to get you in touch with the ag commission okay all right thanks thank you uh design review board Tom yeah we had a follow-up meeting um last time I think I mentioned we uh approved some bus stations downtown or bus stops or shelters downtown um they're pretty much in line with the designs that are there now pretty much mocking the same ones and three locations um and then there was a review of um essentially the installation of a somewhat interactive way finding system there would be three units um on several corners I can actually share a plan maybe I can have Pam circulate that and Chris circulate it as well um three locations where they're putting up way finding utilizing funds from COVID support to basically try to get information out into the town about what's going on with COVID to support local businesses and advertisements for those local businesses as well um and those were um we went through two meetings to get that approved um they provided mock-ups for these um we have basically are entering a one-year test phase for these three signs to see how they work out in our town but they're used in other towns as well um they were coordinated with the graphic designer who's responsible for the way finding system that's already being installed in town um and then those also come with um several charging stations um that could support people who used to use things like the library for charging phones or devices um and then those will be installed around town as well and if we get out of our one-year contract uh we will be able to keep these charging stations as a result so we might lose the signage but we'll be able to keep the charging station so that was approved to let them go forward we haven't approved the actual designs of the signs just yet um they'll come back to that later on but we just wanted to give them a go ahead to start um uh applying and utilizing those funds for this purpose thank you uh and the zoning subcommittee is again on hiatus uh report of the chair jenna has a question oh oh jenna um i wonder if we could add to the um planning board committee and liaison reports a report um like what our sister committee the crc is is working on like because i know christ you go to those and i'm just i i'm not saying for tonight but like just to have a sense of what they're covering in their meetings so we have an idea what they're working on in terms of priorities or the bylaw or you know whatever that really overlaps with us i wonder if that's an idea that would be helpful i think so yeah i'd be happy to do that and um i can tell you just briefly that the meeting that they had on tuesday um they discussed 40 are for an hour and they also looked at um a chart or a matrix that's been developed by um ben breaker in our office to chart um the different items that the planning board planning department and the crc have said are their priorities for zoning changes so um the chart is an effort to get a handle on how long will it take to do various changes whether we need consulting consultants on these changes um and other information related to that so that's all part of the crc's packet and you could look at it online if you wanted to so thank you good suggestion yet jenna so uh reported chair um i don't think i have anything more to add than what you know has been discussed here so good very good meeting uh for the staff chris thanks we're all working really hard the planning board as well as the planning department so thanks for all your hard work and so we can adjourn at nine oh nine and our next meeting is december second december second okay right well everyone have you know a great rest of your your evening happy thanksgiving happy thanksgiving yes whatever that is these days yeah small turkeys small turkeys are the thing chris i'm depending on you for a few pies okay okay bye bye