 Sorry, I'm cutting you guys off. Sorry about my mother another time. All right, we're recording. Thank you, Athena. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I am calling the March 17, 2022 community resources committee meeting to order at 432 p.m. Pursuant to Governor Baker's. That pursuant. To the chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted by a remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by a zoom. No one person attendance of the members of members of the public's will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. This time I'm going to ensure that the committee members can hear me and I can hear them by taking the role. The role. Pat. Present. Jennifer. Present. Mandy is present. Shalini. Present. And Pam Rooney will be absent today. With that, we're going to move into our agenda. There are a few changes. There's one change to the agenda. We're going to start with our action item for B. Incorporating article 14 temporary zoning and the zoning bylaw will not be on the agenda today. I did not remove it, but I was informed that it was not ready for today. So instead of changing the agenda, I'm just announcing it today. And we have no public hearings today. And so we're going to start right with our action item. Which is planning board appointment recommendations. And the one thing we have to do today is. We're going to start with the bulletin board. This is a requirement of the new council policy on committee making recommendations. So that bulletin board notice is in the packet. It follows, I believe near exactly the bulletin board notice that this committee approved for ZBA appointments back in January, except changing the relevant. Changeable information regarding planning board and what. Vacancies are coming up. And are there any questions regarding that bulletin board notice at this time? I will take that. I do not believe the committee needs to vote to approve this to, for me to put it on the bulletin board. I believe the policy just says that you need to review it beforehand. So I will save us a vote. And the next steps on the planning board appointments will be for this to be posted. And on the bulletin board for a minimum of 14 days prior to when we would be able to declare an applicant pool sufficient. And I will be after it is posted on the bulletin board reaching out to the two planning board members whose terms are expiring at the end of June. And also to everyone who has filled out a CAF in the last two years to inform them that if they are continuing to have an appointment, they need to refill out a CAF per the council policy. So those are the next steps for this appointment. I will update on ZBAs. When we get to that item on the agenda, we had no action items for that one. That's why they are separated. And so with that, we will continue to see both planning board and ZBA appointment recommendation in items on our agendas going forward through to the end of June. We will now move on to discussion item for a or did I miss something from someone. No, okay. Discussion item for a is demolition delay, which is the old title. Well the current title in the zoning bylaw is demolition delay. The proposed title for this new bylaw, which would be in the general bylaws is preservation of historically significant buildings. And this is my understanding is this is coming to the council on Monday for referral or request to refer for hearing and recommendation. The required hearing is on the rescission of the current demolition delay bylaw under the zoning bylaw. It is not on the potential adoption of what we're seeing today under the general bylaws, general bylaws do not require hearings zoning bylaws do not require hearings. It will be, I'll be speaking with the planning, if that gets referred, I'll be speaking with the planning board chair and the planning department to determine how we hold those hearings given a switch from one set of bylaws to another is proposed. But at this time I would like to recognize Rob Mora and Chris Brestrup to discuss. I think you guys wanted to go through it a little bit before we start asking our questions. What is going to happen? I guess I didn't finish what's going to happen. We're going to discuss this today. What will be seen by the council on Monday is going to be as far as I know this bylaw. And before it comes to hearing and discussion back to us, if it is referred, anything we discussed today may be addressed by the planning staff before we see it again, but it will not be addressed prior to Monday's meeting. So we're going to go ahead and do that. And we're going to go ahead and do that again. But we're sort of starting that process. Jennifer, you have a question. Yes, I just wanted to make sure. I just understood something. So we're going to rescind or propose rescinding the current bylaw to adopt the new preservation of historically significant. Structures. So there's not going to be a point that there's no bylaw. Unless one gets rescinded and another doesn't get that bylaw. Is there a time between the rescinding and when the new one's considered? No, there was not an intent to have that lag time. I believe the intent is to do them simultaneously. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks. Yes. Robin Chris. Do you want me to share the screen now or later? Well, why don't I give up a brief. I'll try to make it brief. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Ben and I put together a memo. For the town manager to give to the town council. For Monday's meeting. And maybe I'll just summarize what's in that memo. And then we can go over the chart that I sent to Mandy. I think it was yesterday. That talks about the differences between the old bylaw and the new bylaw. So I'm going to explain that and ask our questions and ask and answer questions. So essentially what we're proposing here. Is that the historical commission is actually proposing this with the help of the planning department. To repeal article 13. Which is the demolition delay bylaw. And to replace it with a new bylaw. In the general bylaws. And the purpose of removing the bylaw from zoning. So the general bylaw is has three reasons. One is that demolition authorization and historic preservation. Or not really matters covered by zoning. And I think this was clear when the local historic district. Bylaw was adopted and that was put into the general bylaw. And not into zoning. Second reason is appeals of decisions related to demolition authorization. And the third reason is that most cities and towns in Massachusetts. Include this type of bylaw. In their general bylaws and not in their zoning bylaws. And this was made clear to us. When the historical commission. Met with a representative of the Massachusetts historical commission. And he talked about that. And the third reason is that most cities and towns in Massachusetts. Include this type of bylaw. In their general bylaws and not in their zoning bylaws. And the third reason is that most cities and towns in Massachusetts historical commission. And he talked about that. And I can send you, actually, that's a good idea. Send a link to the video. Where in the historical commission met with this gentleman, Chris. Skelly. Mass historical commission. Because it was, it was really enlightening for me. And I think it was enlightening for planning board members. And I think it was really enlightening for me. And I think it was really enlightening for me. Because bylaw revision are really three things as well. And one of them is to clarify the definition of demolition. One of them is to make historical commission. Public hearings more efficient by authorizing a designee. Or designees to determine the significance of a building. Before the building. Demolition goes to a public hearing. And then there's a approval process that separates the historical commission process from the process. That inspection services uses to grant a demolition permit. So there are over 150 cities and towns in Massachusetts, which have some sort of demolition delay bylaw. Or ordinance. And it's an important tool for preserving historic buildings in the state. In Amherst, the current bylaw. It applies to buildings that are proposed for demolition that are 50 years or older, but this threshold is not explicitly stated in the bylaw. It's implicitly. It's implied because there's a reference to national. National. I'm losing the word for it, but the national register. Yes. So national register is for buildings that are 50 years and older. And the national register. So now once an applicant submits a demolition application. For a building that's subject to the bylaw, the historical commission holds a public hearing. To determine if the building is significant. Is considered historically or architecturally significant. And if it's found to be significant. Whether a 12 month delay should be placed on it. This delay provides an opportunity for the applicant to work with the building or moving the building or selling the property to someone who would like to save the building. The demolition delay bylaw was first adopted in 1999. And it was updated in 2005. Some examples of recent buildings that have been saved via the demolition delay bylaw are. The Amherst college property at 197 South pleasant street, which was moved down to the intersection of Snell street and Baker street. And you might have seen that. Move, which happened, I think last summer or maybe it was two summers ago. Anyway, it was. Interesting to observe that. And the other building that I'd mentioned is the former, but two per two cheese restaurant building. That was that had a demolition delay. The demolition delay bylaw was first adopted in 2000. And the demolition delay. Placed on it. And now it is. A restaurant, a successful restaurant. So talking about some of the problems and solutions. With the current article 13 and the new bylaw. The demolition. Definition is currently vague. And it's difficult to interpret. The definition is any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. Any act of pulling down. We're commencing the work of total or substantial destruction with the intent of completing the same. So the phrase that's the most troubling here is. Or portion thereof. Because it doesn't give us any guidance. Does that mean if you take a shutter off a window, that's a portion there of, or does it mean that if you're, you know, I don't know. Replacing a door. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that means as to what that means. The new bylaw would have a three part demolition. Demolition definition. And it would include the first part would be total destruction of an entire building. The second part would be. The active removing 25% or more of any building facade. And that could be facades that are facing the street or not that are facing the street. And the third item would be. Local historic district focuses on things that are facing the street, but with the historical commission, it's, it's any facade. And the third item would be. Buildings that are listed on a certain inventory, which could either be a state inventory. In which case it would be what we call macros or the Massachusetts. Cultural resources information system. That would be updated by the historical commission. If, if those buildings were to be. Partially demolished. And those are buildings that are, you know. Considered to be. Pretty important enough to put on an inventory. And things that would be potentially reviewed. Would be removing doors and windows. Porches, fences, et cetera. So that's a three part. Definition of demolition. Let's see. So. I don't know if Rob wants to talk about this. If you want to get into this at this point, or if you want me to continue to kind of summarize. What the changes are, but I know that Rob. We all initially had concerns about this parts. See of the definition. I mean, Rob had particular concerns, but maybe we'll hold that for when I get to the end of the summary. And we can go back and talk about that a little bit. So the second thing. The second main issue that we're dealing with is a determination of historical significance, which is currently made at a public hearing of the historical commission. And right now that takes a lot of time because you have to set up a public hearing and we all know that that's a kind of process. You have to publish something in the, you know, in a general of general circulation. I'm not sure if it's, I think it's 14 days in advance. And I think we have to publish it twice. And you also have to post. You have to send out a butter's notices to property owners within 300 feet. And the historical commission has 35 days in which to hold that public hearing. So at the public hearing currently the commission deliberates on whether a building is significant. And they have to go through a 13 part list of criteria to determine that and usually vote on each. Section. I think it's 13 parts. But anyway, I have to apologize because I'm not the expert in this. The expert is currently at a wedding in California. So I'm doing my best to take his place. But anyway. So after the determination of significance is made by the commission, then the sit in the commission would vote as to whether they wanted to impose a 12 month delay. And overall, this process has worked pretty well, but it's cumbersome and it takes a lot of time. And it particularly makes conservation, excuse me, historical commission meetings take a long time. So what we're proposing is instead of doing that, a two step process. And the two step process would include making a public meeting of the historical commission. So you wouldn't have to send out the notices and publish the legal ad. Or it could be made offline by a town staff person, which presumably would be the staff person of the historical commission. And perhaps one or two members of the historical commission working together. To make that determination as to whether the building is significant or not. And then if it is not, it's not going to be a public hearing. So that kind of alleviates a lot of. To make that determination as to whether the building is significant or not. And then if it is determined to be significant, the proposal to demolish part or all of the building would then go to a public hearing. So that kind of alleviates a lot of. Work on the part of town staff and work on the part of the conservation commission. I keep saying conservation commission. It would be a lot of work on the part of the historical commission. It would alleviate some of their work. The third part of this is that the historical commission. Demolition review process and the inspection services. Demolition review process are right now. Inseparable intertwined. They have the same application form, but they have different timelines for their processes. And it makes it confusing for applicants. So we're proposing to separate those two processes. So the historical commission would have its own process, its own application form for a demolition and what someone would be asking for would be a demolition authorization. So they'd be going to the historical commission to get authorization to demolish a building. And the historical commission, if the building is viewed or determined to be significant, it would hold a public hearing and determine whether it would issue the demolition authorization or whether it would alternatively issue a certificate to preservation order. So, and the building commissioner would go on his way to receive a demolition permit application and he would have his own timeline to deal with it. Someone would not apply for a demolition permit until he had gone through the historical commission process. If the building would were found to be significant. So those are the, those are the ways that we're, we're changing, we're proposing to change the bylaw. And if you would like to bring up the chart that Ben put together, we could go through that and kind of look at it side by side. And that may clarify some issues. I think. There's a first page is kind of long narratives. So. In terms of the purpose statement. You can see that the old purpose statement was kind of long and it had, you know, several parts to it. We've consolidated it and we've consolidated the purposes. Into a shorter paragraph. Which I think is more understandable. The new paragraph is the bylaws. Inacted for the purpose of preserving and protecting historic buildings. That constitute a reflect distinctive features. Of the architectural, cultural, economic, political or social history of the town. And encouraging sustainability through the adaptive reuse of historic structures. Through this bylaw, owners of historic buildings are encouraged to seek out alternative options. That will preserve, rehabilitate, or restore such buildings. And residents of the town are alerted to the impending demolition of significant buildings. By preserving and protecting significant buildings. This bylaw promotes the public welfare by making the town a more attractive and desirable place. In which to live and work. To achieve these purposes. The historical commission is authorized to allow. Or delay demolition. Through the issuance of a demolition. Authorization. Or a preservation order. The issuance of the demolition permits is regulated as provided by this bylaw. That's not really true. The last sentence there isn't really true. I'm not sure why that's still there. So I'll have to. Illuminate that. But anyway, as you can see that it's, it's, it's clear, shorter. And easier to understand. We've already talked about the definition of demolition. Thank you, Mary. Which is at the top of the page here. As you can see the current demolition definition is very short. The proposed demolition definition is more. Clear. And I said, it has three parts. And. The third part is probably the most problematic. Maybe this would be a good time for Rob to talk about some of his issues with regard to that. Section of the bylaw. Essentially. You know, what we were trying to get a handle on is if somebody has a really beautiful old building. And they want to take off, you know, the beautiful woodwork over the front door. Is that something that we want? The historical commission to be able to review. And previously. You know, we had had this section C in here. And we realized it was really stepping into the. Realm of the local historic district that the local historic district has the authority to. Review all of these different kinds of. Details on a building. Because it's a district that has been specifically established because of its historic nature. But we don't really want the whole town to be considered. The same way that a local historic district is considered. So we tried to put a limit on the number of buildings that would be included in part C. And one of the ways of doing that is to have either. Focus on buildings that are listed on this macro system. Or to have our own inventory. But now I'm going to let Rob talk, and he can talk about why he has issues with this section C. Thanks Chris. Yeah, so the demolition definition is definitely, you know, something we've struggled with for years. You know, the. The act of pulling down or portion there of, you know, has always been there. And I think it's been interpreted differently over the years. You know, I know in my time being here, we've tried a couple of different. Ways of handling that. You know, some one period of time as a more informal review with the chair of the commission. At other times sending every application. To the commission for their determination. Which is literally what the by-law says to do. And that, you know, just jammed everything up. Cause delays and a lot of frustration for everybody, applicants and the commission members. So we knew that wasn't the answer. So where we are today, you know, essentially if it's a complete removal of a building. It is considered demolition. Unless there's something really special about the building. And that's really, you know, the best we can do to make that determination that it's something that possibly should be looked at or would want to be looked at. So it's not a good. It's not a good, you know, way of processing these applications for sure. So the new definition is something that, you know, we're very, you know, looking forward to, you know, we like the by-law as being proposed. And I think the historic commission and then and Chris, you know, it's really coming together nicely, but I have concerns about part C of the, the new demolition definition. So A is really clear. B is nice because it, you know, it takes it to the next level. It, you know, it really works, you know, for us to be able to measure the work that's going on and be able to draw a line and say, yeah, this is enough of a change to the building to require the review. But when we come into C, you know, we're really getting into things like replacing doors and changing roofing and siding and materials on porch floors. And although I think it's improved from where it was by, you know, trying to limit it to those properties that are listed on the MACRA system, it's still, you know, somewhere I think Ben mentioned, 1200 to 1400 entries in that system. They're not all buildings, but there's a significant number of those are buildings over a thousand for sure. That would be subject to this, this sort of review. And I think that I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that. I know the commission's aware of it. I know the commission feels this is important. You know, my thought is that, you know, if it wasn't connected to the MACRA list specifically and was more of a Amherst inventory, a created list by the commission, it could start off with, you know, the 100 most significant properties on that list and build over time. So that, you know, there's kind of a, that we're working into this. I'm concerned about the workload in the department. I'm concerned about the commission having to do that. I'm concerned about the workload in the department. I'm concerned about the commission having to review so many applications. A lot of this work is pretty typical work. You know, happens, you know, in large numbers of permits. I'm concerned about property owners that have ordered materials and waiting, you know, months now for them. That might find out in the middle of the summer when the permits are applied for that. There's this new, this review needed some, you know, I would be, you know, asking that that there'd be a time period that would be, you know, taken to educate or, you know, inform the property owners that this is a pretty big change. If they're listed on that system. So we have some suggestions about alternative language, you know, and hopefully, you know, moving away from the MACRA list, but, you know, this is the language they've put forward and I suspect they will, you know, support and recommend when they talk with the council. But that, I just want to make sure everyone was aware of how the number of properties this could potentially, you know, be subject to. So if I may, Ben sent me an email today and he said that he spoke with the historical commission last night with their meeting and they would be satisfied if we mentioned an inventory that was kept by the town rather than the MACRA list. So we have to, you know, kind of work that out and work that into some new language here, but the historical commission would be able to accept that kind of a change. Thank you. So I think we talked a little bit about the rest, some of the other things on this page. So I'm just going to move on to the next page. And for the committee's understanding when we get through all of this, we're then going to, I'm going to take questions starting sort of from the top and we're going to go through it in order. So we're not jumping around. So can, can one of you talk about the, the change in criteria for significance? Although I think you, you talked, touched a little bit on that Chris. Why doesn't Rob talk about that? He's probably more familiar with that than I am. And the ins and outs of why the previous set of criteria was cumbersome and now we're moving to this new set. So, you know, the, the, the big change or the big, you know, piece of criteria missing for us in the current bylaws, the age. So, you know, we're, we've always been using the 50 years, but, you know, it, it isn't written anywhere. So now, you know, the commission will be able to, you know, or we'll be able to staff will be able to clearly identify a property by its age and, and be able to be clear to the applicant that it's something that would be able to be would need to be going through this process. So, you know, what Ben has done here was laid out some of the criteria that's listed over there on the left. Again, what we have struggled with over the years is the, you know, consistently being able to apply this criteria in any way. And there's been so many changes depending on who the commission members are, who the staff are. And, you know, being able to give advice to the applicant has always been, been really difficult. And especially for those applicants that are, are, you know, repeating here. So, you know, I think, I think, you know, this is an improvement for, you know, for the, for the commission or the designee to be. Performing that initial review of the application. Thank you. Thank you. Alternatives to demolition during the public hearing. So what that means is that right now, there's no guidance in the bylaw that states that the commission can help or assist the applicant in trying to figure out what to do with the building. And the commission does participate in discussions with applicants trying to figure out, you know, how the commission could be helpful in this case. And how using that demolition delay period, it wouldn't just be, you know, a blank period when nobody could do anything, but it would be actually an active period when the commission would be helpful. Could it be incorporated into a new plan for the property? Could it be, could the property be sold to someone who'd be more likely to preserve it, et cetera. But there's nothing written in the bylaw about that. So we wanted to have some overt language that. Really talked about how the commission could be helpful. It could be an active period when the commission would be helping the applicant to figure things out. And then that may lead to a shortening of the demolition delay. So this is under criteria for whether to place a demolition delay on there. So to preferably preserve. Rob, do you want to talk about that? Yeah, I'm just not. I haven't read this document. So I'm reading it now. So yeah, if you want to go ahead, Chris, I just, I'm trying to catch up with this document. So the commission would. I actually haven't, you know, really absorbed this either, but the idea here is that. The building. The commission would have to have a discussion about whether they wanted to preferably preserve a building after it was designated as significant and they may have a lot of different reasons for wanting to do that or not. But I think it's important. You know, there may be reasons why even a building that is found to be significant, such as. I think there was a building up in North Amherst, which was an old sorority. On Olympia drive. And it was considered significant because it was. Of an era. Which I think was the 1970s. And it wasn't a very attractive building, but it was typical of that era. So the historical commission designated it as significant. But then they turned around and they granted. The commission to demolish it. To be able to apply for a demolition permit. Even though they had considered it significant. So they didn't say that they wanted to preserve it or impose a demolition, demolition delay. So the demolition delay is essentially the same as this. Designation of preferably preserved. If a building gets a demolition, it gets a preferably preserved designation that. That means that it would have a 12 month demolition delay. And then there is a procedure to be able to shorten or lift the delay. So right now there's nothing in the bylaw that explicitly talks about. The applicant being able to come to the commission and ask for either a lifting of the delay. For a shortening of the delay. And so we're putting, we're trying to put something in here that, you know, if someone. Has made a good faith effort and it's really tried to. Preserve the building or sell the building or incorporate the building, which just hasn't been successful, then he would be able to come to the commission and a public hearing would be held. And the commission could determine that, you know, the good faith effort effort has been made. And that. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the delay, the period of delay can be shortened, but that would be done at a public hearing. Thank you. I'm going to stop the share on this one. And I'm going to share. The current, well, the proposed bylaw from the historical commission. So that we can all know what we're looking at. We can all know what we're looking at as we discuss this. And then. We're going to. Go through this and be able to ask questions of Chris and Rob. As I said, this is what the historical commission is going to present to the council on Monday. It will be coming if it's referred, it will be coming back to us. For. Recommendation. I'm going to go back to the historical commission. I'm going to go back to the general. And so this is not, this is sort of our first look at this to put out any concerns we have. So that the planning department can go back to the historical commission with that. Those concerns. And they can be able to be ready to discuss those concerns with us when it comes back to us during the referral process. So may I get to further words, if you wouldn't mind. So you haven't seen this for a while. I'm guessing it'll be a few months that you haven't seen this bylaw. It has gone to the planning board and went to the planning board a few. A few weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago. And the planning board had. Comments. Most of the planning board felt that it was a good bylaw, but there was at least one member who had questions and concerns. And that member came up with a lot of language. Actually, she, what she did was she watched the by, the video of Chris Skelly from the mass historical commission talking about, you know, how other cities and towns handle this type of thing. And she was initially kind of concerned about bringing this from the zoning bylaw to the general bylaw, but I think she became comfortable with that as a result of her coming to the Chris Skelly video, but then she came forth with a lot of proposed changes to the language here. And actually Ben and I met with her. And we incorporated most, if not all of her changes to the, to the wording here. And one of the things that's different from the last time you saw this was, have a declaration of policy. And the declaration of policy is actually something that's in Article 13 in our zoning bylaw. And when we looked at it, we thought, gee, that's a pretty good declaration. And this member of the planning board was quite taken by this and suggested that we put it back in. And I think that was a good idea, because it's really clear about why we want to have this bylaw in here. So I wanted to point that out. This is something that wasn't in here the last time you saw this. Now we've put it back in and the planning board is pleased with this. So after Ben and the planning board member and I met, and we incorporated her comments, we discussed them with Rob, of course. We brought it back to the planning board. And the planning board voted, but they didn't vote. They took a consensus, a sense of the meeting, that this was ready to go to town council. They felt very comfortable with the language. All the members did, including the person who had originally expressed concerns. So I wanted to tell you that so that you'd have the context here. So that's it. I don't have to talk anymore. Thank you. We're going to start with that declaration of policy section and the purpose section. Do any committee members have any comments, questions regarding those two sections? Pat and then Jennifer. Very minor. I'm very grateful that the adaptive reuse of historic structures has been added. That feels particularly important to me. Thank you. I was just going to say that I appreciate having that declaration of policy. I was just agreeing. I'm going to make my comments on these two sections. I actually don't like the declaration of policy. I'm just going to say that. We have made in town council a push to shorten any purpose and whereas statements and actually get rid of those whereasy preambly things in general bylaws or in the adoption of anything. And this seems like going backwards from that and starting to expand those items again. And so I think the two are, it seems like it's more of a legislative signing statement than something that belongs in a bylaw, frankly, to me. And so that and the purpose section themselves seem to duplicate each other. And so I'm not sure why we need both in terms of, and that's my substantive comments on this. And then Chris, you identified my other question about the purpose, which is that very last sentence. The issuance of demolition permits is regulated as provided by this bylaw. I don't see any regulation of the issuance of demolition permits in this bylaw at all. And actually that's one of my questions throughout this. You'll hear me ask about that throughout a number of things. And so if it is supposed to be regulated through this bylaw in terms of when Rob is building commissioner can issue them, then we need new sections in this bylaw. If it's not, we might need some statements about where you go to get a demolition permit. And you'll hear some comments about that as we go through on the rest in terms of timings of some of the rest of this bylaws I went through it. But those are my comments on those two sections. Jennifer, is your hand up new again? And then I just want to make sure I didn't know whether it was a residual or not. Jennifer and then Chris. Yeah, I feel really strongly that the declaration of policy is only two sentences. And I think it's great to have the context and the policy and the purpose. And I feel if the planning board, which has a lot of different opinions and perspectives represented, came to agreement and thought that strengthened it, I would not want to. I think it should go to the council this way. I would not want to see us take anything away after the planning board came to that consensus. And I guess just to add that maybe what the previous council was moving away from, but I wasn't on the previous council. So I don't feel like I was personally part of that conversation. I think it certainly doesn't hurt and it just makes it clearer. And so I think we should err on the side of keeping it in and at least take it to the full council that way and see if they have the same concerns that Mandi Joe has. Chris. So I think that last sentence should read the issuance of demolition authorizations is regulated as provided by this bylaw. I think that was a misprint. And I wondered what Rob thought about that because it's really out of place if it refers to demolition permits, but I think it should refer to demolition authorization. Yeah, I actually think it may maybe it should say something like that, but I think there's going to be other areas. You know, I remember talking to Ben about the section about procedures for obtaining a demolition permit and asking why is it, you know, why is this the procedure for obtaining a demolition permit? You know, it's really the authorization to apply for the demolition permit. So I think, and I suspect Mandi's going to have similar questions as we go through, but perhaps that's an answer. OK, thank you. Moving on to definitions, any questions regarding any of the definitions in here? I'm not going to be able to put them all on the screen, so if someone's got a question about one, I will move to that particular definition. Jennifer. So I did have a question for number three. So the discussion of not, maybe this comes further down to ask this question, but whether we were going to reduce, not say, all the properties that are on macros, but maybe for Amherst to have its own list of what we thought were historically significant properties or the top 100. Would this be a time to ask a question about that? Yes, it would. OK. So I really appreciate that Chris added that Ben had spoken with the Historical Commission last night, so I feel, you know, if we have their blessing that they're comfortable with it not being all 1,400, I think Rob might have said, structures on macros. But so does macros, I guess this is one question I have, do they list like the 100 most significant structures or is just they're just all listed if they're on macros and there's no distinction made between one structure or another? So I guess the question of could we talk about the 100 most significant, are there 100 most significant? There hasn't been any list of the 100 most significant properties and buildings in Amherst and Macros does include anything that anyone thinks is historical. And in fact, I think if I'm not mistaken, all of the properties in the local historic districts are listed on macros. I think they all had to have a form be put out for them. But anyone can submit something to macros. I don't think there is a set of criteria that controls what goes into macros. And I don't think that Massachusetts Historical Commission is particularly discriminating about what they allow on macros. Yeah, I think that's true. So I'm OK if not every structure on listed in macros is considered historically significant. But I think maybe there was somebody had a reference to just if you were in the top 100. And I didn't think that they, in the macros, they distinguish one structure from the next. So how would we, if we didn't, which I understand, that we don't want to say that all, if you're listed on macros, then you're historically significant and need a special look. And I think Robin mentioned that the Historical Commission was comfortable with maybe developing a list of Amherst properties that would be considered historically significant. And who would do that, I guess is my question. Maybe that's for Rob. How would that be done? Yeah, so my thought is the Historical Commission would do that. So they would, through one of their regular public meetings, discuss what their inventory list would look like. So if we were to take this demolition definition and replace macros with the Amherst historic structure inventory, something like that, as adopted by the commission and reference that down in the administration section, that doesn't lock us into these 1,400 entries from the two weeks after the bylaws adopted. And the commission can work on that list and decide, maybe perhaps they're all properties that are listed on macros anyway, but they can decide how big to make that list and what criteria to use to start that list. It also gives the commission flexibility to update that list as they feel fit and really phase this in, which is what we would be asking for and to see, once if we adopted this language as it's written today, there's no way to undo it without a bylaw change. So we would have to process every property that's listed on the macros for review of significant structure immediately with this definition. And I was trying to pull away from that because the criteria for review is so common for work to being done to structures. I think the 25% of the structure on B is a big project. But when we're talking about replacing a door or a window or roofing material, that's going to get into large numbers. So we would develop the list and planning staff, Ben would assist with the commission in developing how that list gets built. And would we make that change now, or is this what's going to be presented by the Historical Commission to counsel? My sense is that this is what's being given to the council for referral. But once it goes to referral, that's when the language can start to be adjusted a little bit. And by then, we'll certainly have a recommendation on what that could be. OK. OK. So the adjustments may happen before the next time we see this as a committee, not before Monday's meeting. But this is to start some of those changes. Since I don't see any other hands, I'm going to mention my questions regarding definitions. I am concerned about this MACRES system. It sounds like, and I didn't know much about it, but it sounds like just by what you guys have been saying, that any property can go on MACRES. If it's over 50 years old, whether or not the property owner even knows it is on MACRES or applies for it themselves, that someone outside of Amherst can find a property that's 50 years old and add it to MACRES, whether or not it actually has historical significance or not. And I've got a real problem with that has been using that list. So I would support a locally created list that is discussed in public and given people time to do that. I have a question about, you know, and so at this point, I can't really support C at all. I am concerned even with those buildings that are on that list that simply replacing a door could be told to wait a year. Like I am concerned with how specific, no matter what that list is, that this has to go through. Replacing windows might be deemed a demolition, including a window that is broken or multiple windows that are broken. So I'm concerned about C completely. So I'm hoping when we see this next, we'll see a revision of C that addresses some of those concerns. In emergency demolition down here, it says a determination made by the building commissioner that a building is found to be dangerous and an imminent threat to public health, safety, and welfare. And I'm curious whether it has to meet all three, health, safety, and welfare, such that if it's an imminent threat to safety, but not public health, you can't do an emergency demolition. Should that and be an or? Is it too restrictive at this point? And then under public hearing, the review applications and make decisions regarding whether a significant building should be preferably preserved or if a demolition delay should be reduced. The language is wrong, and I think it's missing one. If a building should be preferably preserved, if a demolition authorization should be approved, or if a demolition, or if, and I don't know whether it's called a demolition delay anymore, or if a preferably preserved building delay should be reduced or something like that. I think it needs three listings because the historical commission is at the hearing is also determining whether to issue a demolition authorization, and that's missing from this definition of public hearing completely. So those were my three concerns with the definitions. Mandy, can you send me the language that you just read for public hearing that would be helpful? Yeah. Yeah. I'll send you a whole bunch of language. OK. As I go through with this. Any other things on definitions? Seeing none, we're going to move on to. So we're going to start with B, because B is short, but C is long, so I don't want to combine them. Seeing none. My question about this one is just, do we already have a bylaw or a charge that deals with section B completely, such that is this duplicative? That's really, and then the next question is do we want to in bylaws set forth how many members are on the body and what their terms are? Our charter already, I'm not sure our charter says anything about three year terms, but or should just that be left up to the charge that is adopted? So it's just more of a, are we being too duplicative? Are we running into potentially making things harder to change than they should be, especially with the number of members if there's already a charge and stuff? Chris. So right now, this definition or membership description is in the Article 13. So it's taken out of that. As far as I know, this isn't described elsewhere unless someone can come up with a charge for the Historical Commission, which I have never seen. So I've only seen the description that's in Article 13. I will mention that I believe that both the planning board and the ZBA have their memberships described. And I think it is in section 10 of the existing bylaw. So it's not unusual to have the membership of, and the terms of membership described in the zoning bylaw. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's typical to have it in a general bylaw. Thank you for that. Seeing no other questions with that, we're going to move to section C. And section C has three, four sections. So we're going to start with the first two sections of that. So application and initial review and then public hearing procedure. Jennifer. Yeah, I just have a general question. I don't know if this would be to Robert, Chris. Is Amherst unusual in having 50 years versus like 75 years? I've always wondered if that if we send it to 75 years, you might take out a save some work for the Historical Commission. Christine. We've talked about that over the years, but it seems that 50 years is what is typically considered to be a historical building. I believe that the National Register considers 50 years as a threshold and the federal government uses 50 years as well. So we've kind of gone around and around on this. And it seems that 50 years is the generally accepted. Some towns do designate a longer period of time, like 75 years. Some towns designate a particular year, wherein if a building was built before World War II or before 1942 or something like that, it's considered historic. But Amherst has always done the 50 years, even though it hasn't been written into the bylaw and others do as well. Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you. And then Pat. Yeah, I actually appreciate Jennifer's question. And do we know whether the National Registry, Chris, that you were mentioning, when did they make that? When did they come up with 50 years? Because what I'm thinking is, if they made that rule in 1950, any building in 1900s would be considered historic. But if it was, I mean, has it been updated since then? And are they still considering it 50 years? You know what I'm saying? It just feels like 1970, 1980 buildings don't feel very historic. So when was the historic commission, when did they make that rule about the 50 years? Well, I believe that this, if you don't mind my answer, I believe that this historical commission was established around the time that this bylaw came to be. I could be wrong about that. But this bylaw came into play in 1999. So I think that's when all of this was established. But even prior to that, you're right, that 50 years has always been kind of a landmark date. Going back decades, generations. Pat, you look like you wanted to say something. You're muted, Pat. Mine is so minor. It's a GLL thing. Procedure for obtaining a demolition permit. But we're talking about changing that. And it has been changed in the purpose to an authorization. So as I said, it's very minor, but that should be changed. That gets to one of my questions is, nowhere in this is listed how you actually get a demolition permit for a building that is under 50 years old at all. There's no mention that where you apply for one. But yet, this bylaw is regularly talking about not only demolition authorizations, but also demolition permits in 1A, the reason for a demolition permit. And so I think we need a little bit more clarification about buildings less than 50 years old. Where do you go when you get your demolition authorization? Do you have to fill out another application for a demolition permit? None of that is covered anywhere in this bylaw at all. And I think that leaves a big hole unless I'm missing something somewhere that Rob's got somewhere in the permits for building permits for demolition. But I know it was mentioned somewhere in this. Like, am I missing regulations? Where are those? What do you do when you get your demolition authorization? What do you do if your building is less than 50 years old? I think we're just missing a section of the bylaw or something. Chris? Well, I think that this bylaw is specifically focused on buildings that are over 50 years old. For buildings that are under 50 years old, they still need a demolition permit. And demolition permits are governed by the building code. And I'm sure Rob has a lot more knowledge about that than I have. But any building that is going to be demolished meets a demolition permit. So Rob, could you address whether that should be addressed within this or whether it's clear that someone who gets even an authorization from here knows that they still need to apply for a permit somewhere else and might have to do it very quickly because of other timelines listed within this bylaw? Like, how does it work together? And are we making, are we really making them fill out two different applications then? Yeah, I mean, I think what you're seeing is what's left over from a process that was combined in our current zoning bylaw to trying to separate it. So I understand what you're pointing out. And let us think about this and look at this language. I think it is confusing. I didn't, I never liked the heading of C anyway. But let's see if we can address that in a way that clarifies it better. So I think it does need a little bit of work. Thank you. I have some other questions in, not surprising here, in one. I always get concerned when a body that is supposed to be making a decision on whether a building should not be demolished is asking for descriptions of what a person wants to do with their plot of land. Because in my mind, what I want to do with my plot of land has nothing to do with whether the building that is on the land should be demolished or not. It shouldn't matter what I want to do with that plot of land on whether the historical commission decides that the building should be preferably preserved or not. Yet this application requires reason for seeking to demolish the building and a brief description of the proposed reuse, reconstruction, or replacement. There's no guarantee that a person even plans to reuse, reconstruct, or replace what they're demolishing at all. They could just be going for flat land. And so I am always concerned that the historical commission in putting this in this bylaw is overstepping authority on thinking about whether, well, I don't really like the proposed reuse, so I'm going to issue a preferable preservation order. And I will not issue a demolition authorization because I don't like what they plan to do with the building, with the plot of land, even though that goes into their thinking when it really shouldn't go into their thinking in my mind. So I've got concerns about those two bullet points in that one. And then in section B, this last sentence, if there is a disagreement amongst the designes, the building will be deemed to be significant. Does that really mean that if one of three members or one of five members disagrees with the significance determination that it's deemed significant, that it's not by majority vote? That seems very anti-majoritarian and very much able to be used in a non-good way where you get one member on this group of commission or designees that wants to go, everything to go to a hearing and so they just have to object to everything and say everything is significant. And I have one more in D, which is the building commissioner may then issue a demolition permit, the very last sentence. Rob, do you not have to issue one if everything is met? Is that should not be a shall? Or do you really have the authorization if someone applies for a demolition permit to say no to them, even if everything is met? Yeah, I think that that's written that way because there are a lot of other things the applicant has to do to satisfy the codes for a demolition permit that have nothing to do with this by-law or these standards. So it's not an automatic issuance. And that was that need to be really clear when it was the same application like it is now because that does get confusing. But there's a whole nother level of review and submittals that happen after the authorization occurs. Jennifer and then Pat. OK, so I have a question. I mean, following on what Mandy, the concern about be that if there was a disagreement that it would fall, the benefit would be given to the building being deemed significant and going to a public hearing. So what I wanted to ask is if when Chris was describing the process, she said the new process would be that either the commission as a whole or representatives designated by the commission would determine whether or not a building was significant. And if it was significant, then it would get a public hearing. But if it was not, it wouldn't get a public hearing. And that concerned me a bit because I mean, I know we have to trust it who's making the decision, but that a building could be taken down before the public even knows it was being considered. Does be apply to that at all? I know I'm not making myself clear. So if I guess I'm asking, does be come before public hearing? I'm trying. Yes. So if that if you didn't allow even one person to say they thought it was significant, then a building could be given a permit for demolition before it goes to a public hearing. And the historical commission, they're the ones that wanted, well, this is they drafted this. So yeah, I guess that's just concerning me. I know that we don't want there has to be some way to streamline it, but I am concerned that there could be a building that a neighborhood thinks is very historically significant. I'm thinking of a barn, a barn from the mid 1800s my neighborhood that the historical commission said to come down and then they later regretted it, but that that could happen and the abutters wouldn't even know they would have it wouldn't come to a hearing that would just be down. I don't know. So I that's so kind of struggling with that. I mean, I understand what Mandy's saying. If only one person, there could be one person that always objects to any demolition permit being approved. But I am concerned that a couple of people may be making a decision before it ever sees the light of day to the public. I really have an answer. I just want to express that concern. Let me see. Yeah, and I feel differently than Mandy does going back to A, the reason for the demolition permit, I think that's kind of critical. And a brief description of the proposed reuse, reconstruction, or replacement. I also think that's really important to have a sense of what's going to happen. It's a way of looking at whether a building could be reused to meet even what the property owner wanted to do. They want to build a certain kind of shop. Could they do that with reuse? I think those things should not be eliminated. I think that they're kind of important issues. Sure. Questions on one, two has A through I or J or something like that. It looks like I. Oh, Chris. So I wanted to go back to Pat's question about the brief description of what may occur on the property. And I think one of the reasons they put that in was because they wanted to have a sense of how they could help the applicant to come up with an alternative to demolishing. In other words, if the applicant is going to build something new on the property, is there a way that the old could be incorporated? And so I believe that that was part of the reason why they wanted to have a description of what was going on there in the future so they could consult with the applicant. And Rob may have more information on that, but that's my impression. Thank you, Chris. So I have some questions about the public hearing process. Just as demolition can proceed under 2D, this section right here, I think that should actually be demolition authorization can be issued because they're either issuing a preferable preservation order or they're issuing a demolition authorization. So again, just a language thing there. But then F, G, H, and I, this section, G kind of mirrors F because F talks about reduce the demolition delay period 2 and G, that's all G talks about. The three sections, F, G, H, and I, are not internally consistent on who gets notified or who doesn't. And then I just sort of repeats who gets notified or who doesn't. So I've got some rewording of it just to make it a little more internally consistent without actually changing the intent of it all. But I think it could just be made more concise and internally consistent. So I can send that rewording if you would like that. Please. OK, seeing no other hands, we're going to move on to three and four under this procedure for obtaining demolition permit, which is what the title of it is, which is three is preservation order issuance and what happens next, and four is exemptions. I can almost get it all on the screen. Any questions on these two? I just have one. And this one's for Rob. Exemption two or B, reconstruction substantially similar in exterior design of a building or exterior damage or destroyed by fire provided such reconstruction has begun within two years thereafter and carried forward with due diligence. Am I reading this correct that if a building is more than 25% destroyed by fire, that they would have to obtain a demolition authorization if the property owner intends to do other thing anything other than reconstruct as it was beforehand. Is that right, Rob? Yes, yes, that's right. And that's consistent with how this provision in zoning works as well. So in the event of a disaster, if a building is damaged or destroyed, whether fire or natural event, as long as it's reconstructed in the same way, height, location, that can be done without any other permitting or any other authorization. That's to make it more convenient for the home property owner. Yeah, I mean, it's protection. The law is recognizing that they are given back what they had without any risk of losing it or being told, no, you can't have it. So that protection is granted to them in most of our regulations. But I guess what my concern is, if it's 25% or 30% destroyed and the owner wants to take that destroyed part down but rebuild it bigger, they would have to get an authorization from the Historical Commission to do that because it was not in a substantially similar exterior design. That's right, or leave it down, right? Well, they couldn't take it down unless they got permit too, right? Well, it's gone. So it's gone from the barn burned down, right? So it's gone. I'm thinking not the barn burned down. I'm thinking 25% of the barn burned down, not the whole barn. And you can't rebuild that 25% slightly larger or smaller without a demolition authorization or take that 25% down or the rest of the barn down unless they get a demolition authorization. They have to go through this process. I agree. Yes, that's how this would be. Yeah, that's how this reads. Yeah, would this, if 25% was burnt down and they were going to rebuild, I understand that the exterior would have to look like the historic barn, but could supports and archways and things inside the building be of more modern materials? Or would they have to use materials that are reflective of the historical period? Because that's. It's the exterior architectural appearance. So if it's constructed with more modern supports, that would be acceptable. That isn't regulated by even demolishing the interior of a structure that isn't damaged for some other reason, isn't regulated by this bylaw at all. Thank you. Thank you. I have to think about that one. Jennifer. So I think he's following on a question to Rob. Now, is this only if, what if the structure is not determined to be historically significant? Would it could the, I guess what I'm saying is to the historical commission is only going to deal with that situation if the structure is more than 50 years old. Would they ever say it's not a historically significant structure and do what you want with it? Yeah, this is in the event of a fire that Mandy's example. So, you know, if the first thing that we would look at is the building 50 years old, if it is, then it moves into that next level of review. If there's a change occurring. So if they're not reconstructing it exactly as it was, and there's a change being proposed, because now is the opportunity to make it a little bit bigger or make the ceilings higher or whatever it might be. And they propose a new plan or an adjusted plan. It would go back to the process, the beginning of this process and first be reviewed by the commission designee to determine if it's significant, if it's not significant, the authorization could be issued and we could go right into building permits. If it's found to be significant, it would go into the public hearing and follow the rest of that process before the authorization or delay is issued. Do you have a sense of when this has happened? Is it the majority of time it's determined not to be significant and then it can proceed more rapidly or that's hard to say? It's, yeah, I think that's hard to say. I mean, we've had these conversations because, you know, we're assuming Ben will be one of the designees with a commission member reviewing these. So, you know, it's really hard to tell how they will view, you know, each case and, you know, judge based on the research or the information available. So I don't know, that's what's caused me concern with, you know, the number of applications that are going to come forward with the expanded criteria beyond just the full demolition of a building. So it's, to me, it's unknown. Jennifer. Yeah, I don't want to belabor this, but do you have a sense of if we were ever to say a historic structure with 75 years or older, would that decrease the workload? I mean, do you know that would that 25 years make a difference based just on your observation? I think it would make a difference. I didn't, you know, we didn't try to come up with numbers, you know, what we came up with was how many permits fit the classification of this type of work that was outlined in C of the definition. And over a six month period, it was like 250 permits or 260 permits that come through this office. So that was the kind of numbers that I'd given to the commission to help them think about, you know, reducing the scope somehow. And that was as far as I went with our research. We didn't go any further to look at age. I would think it would make a difference, you know, but I can't say how, you know, I have no idea how many, you know, that would amount to. Okay, thank you. We're going to move on to section D. D and E sort of get to the heart of the bylaw in a sense because those are how to determine the two things that the historical commission determines. The first one, section D is designation as a significant building. So this is what the commissioner, the designee would be using criteria for designating a building significant. Questions on section D. I will start if I could, cause I think we've touched on one of my questions already, which is section D one, Makris and national register is park places. It's my understanding that even the national register doesn't really require any proof other than that it's over 50 years old and anyone can ask for it. Even someone in California can submit something for Massachusetts for Amherst resident. And so does section one truly mean that all 1400 places on Makris, whether or not someone even wanted it on there? Well, whether the homeowner wanted their listing on Makris, all 1400 of those are by default significant buildings, whether or not they're doing any demolition, you know, whether, you know, no matter what, if they're proposing demolition and they're on this list, they are deemed significant without, with just one person filling out this form B or whatever you guys have talked about and no one else knowing about it. Is that accurate? Chris or Rob? I would say that's accurate based on this language and this is one of the changes that, you know, I'd like to see, you know, to go along. I think this was done once the demolition definitions part C was added intentionally, but I think one originally would have been just for buildings listed on the National Register Historic Places. And Chris can correct me. I think there's four or, you know, there's some really small number in town. Seven. Seven. So that's not a really big list and that that seemed reasonable, but I think the rest of it was added to compliment the part C of definition of the definitions. So I agree that that mattress could be taken out of this with not much damage. I mean, no damage because the building has to be designated significant by a specific group of people or by either the commission or the designees. So this would preclude that activity by stating that anything that's listed on mattress is automatically considered significant. So I think we should take reference to Matt Chris out. You said there were seven places on the National Register. Is that one harder to get on? Then it sounds like Macris almost anything can get on if it's over 50 years old. Is the National Register just actually having to determine stuff? That is hard to get on. Yes, it is. There's a process to go through. And there isn't necessarily one for Macris then. No, the things that are on the National Register in town are things like the homestead, the evergreens, the conky house, buildings like that. Thank you for that. Jennifer? If a group from the Historical Commission or other people in Amherst were to put together that list of significant Amherst properties, could that be referred to in number one at the point at which it's done? I guess that's to Robert Chris. Chris? I don't think so. I think that what you wanna do here is give whoever is designating the building as significant some guidelines as to how to designate it as significant. So you don't wanna preclude their ability to judge that. So I think having the inventory here, we're having Macris listed here, doesn't make sense because that pre-judges the situation. Thank you. So I got a question about the pre-judging and as it relates to two and three, you talk about having specifics as to how you designate something, but I think Chris Skelly said one way to determine significance is to actually have a local list where there is a list that is that. And so I think that's what Jennifer was asking, could we go the local list route instead of this more? I look at two and three, broad architectural, social, political, economic, cultural heritage, that is to me really subjective, does not provide an ability for an applicant to have an understanding as to whether they're building is likely to be deemed significant or not because it's very subjective. To me, it's not criteria that provides predictability. Same with number three, part of a view shed has historical or architectural value value as the period style craftsmanship method of building construction. Again, maybe it's just, I'm not trained, but I see a lot of this is very subjective that is hard to provide that predictability that we should be seeking to provide within bylaws. And so in some sense, I think it's better than the current bylaw that had even less predictability and much more subjectivity, but I'm still concerned at how subjective a lot of these terms are without being defined. I mean, for example, number two, and I'm just gonna give one, value association with specific, with one or more persons or events or with the broad political heritage of the town. So you could argue that a person who political heritage of the town who was involved in the very first town council because it was the very first town council, their building is now significant, right? Like everyone interprets those things differently. And so I don't see how this provides predictability to applicants. I don't know the solution, but that's my concern. So may I ask a question? Would two be acceptable to you if you left the last phrase off? In other words, left off with broad architectural, social, political, economic or cultural heritage? Because I think the first part of it relates to people or events. And I can think of one particular house on what is it, East Street? And it's kind of in front of where the four-over-school is. And if you looked at the house from the street, you wouldn't think anything of it. But I remember when someone wanted to buy that house and turn it into a duplex and Jonathan Tucker's hair stood on end. And he said that house was lived in by a famous person who was in the Revolutionary War and that house can't be touched essentially. So it's not on the national register, but it is associated with a famous person who had a significant historic position in town. So I guess my question for Mandy is if you left off the last part and you ended that with historic events or historic persons or events, would that criteria be acceptable? I think for number two, that helps, you know, personally. But again, I'm not an expert. So maybe I just see these words and don't know how to interpret them in a way that Ben or Robert, you can interpret them or someone who has architectural background can, Jennifer. I'm sorry if you trouble unmuting. Yeah, I think that view getting to three, view shed is important. And I think to, you know, commissioners who would be on historical commission that that's very understandable. That's not a vague or necessarily subjective term. And I know just for the local historic district commission when we were considering Amherst media, you know, initially the building was proposed to go right in front of the two Hills Mansions and it really would have marred the view shed and we did provide a certificate of appropriation, but so it would go in a different part of the lot and it would be consistent with the view shed. And it was very kind of clear what that meant. So that I think is a real term that has, is not ambiguous to people that would be serving on the commission. So I would advocate to keep three intact. Other comments on section D, Chris. I have a question overall, is this session, this session is being recorded. So do you post your recordings on YouTube, Amherst YouTube? So the town I believe every Friday puts it on the town's YouTube page. So Ben could have access to this meeting to watch it and be able to help us answer your questions. That was my reason for asking. Thank you. We'll move on to section E. Oh, Shalini, before we move on to section E. Yeah, I think I just wanted to hear from Ben or Robert, anyone who does do these assessments and for them to provide us the criteria that are objective enough and specific enough that would be helpful and serve the purpose of this bylaw. Thank you. Section E, designation of a building is preferably, preferably, preferably preserved. I can't stand that word. It's hard to say. The whole thing on. So again, I'm just gonna say my concern is again, I don't really see criteria in here other than what's listed in section D. It almost says, well, if it's significant, you'll apply the standards to determine significant as to whether you should preserve it. So where's the difference in those two decisions at that point? As Chris just said in her opening, there are buildings that might be significant that shouldn't be preserved or shouldn't be preferably preserved. But I don't see any standards in here that allow predictability again for an applicant or criteria for the commission to be looking at or for applicants or members of the community to come into that hearing and say, this should or should not be preferably preserved because it A meets X criteria or B does not meet X criteria. And so I don't know what to do with it, but I read it and I don't see quite actual criteria and that element of predictability that I would hope a bylaw would provide. Any other comments? May I just raise this issue, which is that if you have all the criteria listed, then you can often make a decision by administrative approval. So if it's very clear what the criteria are, these things could just go to Rob and he could check off a list. I think that we have a certain, I'm sorry, trust in the historical commission to use their best judgment and not just to check off a list, but to evaluate each case on its merits. And so I guess what I'm saying is I'm not entirely convinced that a list of criteria is necessary here. And if it were to come about that we had this list of criteria, you could say in the bylaw, if this meets 50% of these criteria, then the building commissioner can grant this, whatever it is demolition or preferably preserved. Do you know what I'm getting at? So in order to have real human beings thinking about things carefully and determining things on behalf of the town, you can't always rely on a list of criteria. I guess that's my point. Thank you. Thank you for that. Seeing no other comments for E, we're going to move to F and G, which is emergency demolition and permit expiration. I have two comments. The one won't be surprising to Rob. Permit expiration, again, this isn't supposed to be about permits. Sections A and B talk about a permit, if the authorization, once it's, this expiration, there's a year for you to demolish, yet it's based on the date of the authorization or the end date of preferable preservation, yet you don't have your permit at those times at all because apparently there's another application you have to go through and more things you have to do. And so shouldn't it be something about like you must apply for your demolition permit within a certain amount of time after this process finishes, not that it must be demolished within a certain time of this process finishing since they are now separate. So that's my question about those. And then emergency demolition, this one talks about immediate threat. I think the actual definition up in the definition section talked about imminent threat. And so I'm not sure the two that section F and the definition up in definitions actually internally agree with each other. Any other comments? Seeing none. H is enforcement penalties and remedies and I as administration will deal with them together. My questions, section one here, the following enforcement and remedies shall apply. Section one says, or to prevent a violation thereof. What does that mean and how do you enforce that? Like can, and I'm gonna go with a crazy example. Can the commission sue a property owner upon a rumor that the property owner might be demolishing a building, even though the property owners have taken no acts at all to demolish, like to prevent a violation. Well, how do you prevent a violation when there hasn't been a violation? Like what, I've got a problem with that section there, just that wording, because it's sort of future looking and you generally can't do that in law. And then I think section B, the fine section because this is now a general bylaw, that's redundant from what is left up above in the data block. So it doesn't need repeated. I think it can just be deleted. Some of these are GOL issues. And then my only other one was administration. Oh, this one, this delegate authority to make the initial determination of significance to one or more members of the commission or municipal employees at a public meeting. So two questions, does the determination happen at a public meeting or does the delegation of determination happen at a public meeting? And number two, if the commission designates members one or more member, or particularly more than one member since the commission is a public body, once they've designated someone other than them to make that determination, does those members become a public body under open meeting law, which defeats the purpose of trying to do this outside of a public meeting in terms of what we've talked about. So I think a review of ensuring that whatever happens for that designation, because I think what the goal was was to not have to schedule a public meeting to do that significance determination, but I'm not sure if you designate more than one commission member, you actually accomplish that. Jennifer. Well, couldn't it be if it's not a quorum that they could meet and not be in violation of open meeting law? Like if you had two. I'll give you an example. If I designate from CRC two people to work on that matrix instead of one from our meeting last week, suddenly that is a public body that must meet in public and comply with open meeting law because two members of a public body were designated to do the work of a public body. And so I think this part needs legal review. Chris. So two members of a public body become a subcommittee. Is that what you're saying, Mandy? Basically, yeah. So if we just dropped or more, that would be okay. But if we combine it with one member of the commission and one member of the staff. Well, what I'm saying is I think you need public, I think you need legal review on how to do that to have more than one person making that determination without it becoming a public body. I don't know how you do staff versus that or whether you can, if it's more than one person. So when we initially proposed this, we were imagining one member of the commission and one member of staff. And then the issue was brought up by one member of the planning board that maybe one member of the commission wouldn't be enough. So, you know, wouldn't give the commission enough voice in the determination. And that's why we said one or more members, but I understand what you're saying. So I think we need to drop this back to one member of the commission and one staff member in order to avoid this public meeting problem and just go back to the planning board member and say that's what we've decided to do. Jennifer. Yeah, I have the same concern of it just being one that we have a seven member historical commission who have his expertise to be on the commission. And yet we would designate pretty important decisions to be made by one. And they're working with a staff but may not necessarily, I don't know, I think we have a lot of expertise on the historical commission and we're depriving ourselves of much of that expertise by just designating one member. That concerns me. Chris. So alternatively, we could have a subcommittee that would meet in public, but it wouldn't have to go through a public hearing process and it wouldn't involve all of the commission members. It might just involve two commission members. We did that on the local historic district commission. There's currently a subcommittee and the meetings are publicly posted, but it's, I don't, they don't, but Chris, do they have to be, they're posted online. I don't know. Yeah, it has to be posted online, but you don't have to send that a notices and you don't have to put an illegal ad or anything like that. Yep. Other comments, questions, thoughts on this before we move on in our agenda. Chris. I have one more question. What level of review do you think the council will engage in on Monday? Dennis planning to give a presentation. Is the council going to engage in the kind of discussion that you've had today or are they just going to refer this for public hearing? What's your expectation? So I suspect it will not get as in depth as this discussion, but there may be some specific questions. You know, the four of us have had a chance to talk to you. So I suspect you won't hear much from us on Monday, but that's just my guessing. And so, you know, typical referrals from, regarding bylaws like this have generally had some high level questions before referral. And then the committee that it gets referred to, counselors sometimes reach out to the chair of that committee or come to the hearing, if there's a hearing and all to ask their questions there and make sure they're asked. So I would expect some sort of broader questions related to it and not as many specific ones as we've had here. But that's just a guess. Dave and then Chris and welcome Dave, you've been quiet. I've just been listening, I'm learning a lot. This is great. I do not know a lot about these areas, but no, to Chris's question, Chris, I really like the handout that Ben put together showing kind of, you know, the bylaw now, what's, and then what's different, what's proposed. I know I've been listening intently and there's still a lot of work to be done on this and the CRC had lots of good questions, but I found that very helpful to see kind of the, today and what's being proposed. I think that's in a nutshell to some degree, using that as a reference on Monday night to me makes a lot of sense, but that's just my input. Chris, your hand is still up. Okay, so Mandy, which committee do you think, to which committees will this be referred? So I haven't seen the motion sheet for what Lynn the president is thinking, but the fact that there is a zoning rescission that comes to CRC. And so my hope would be that the council decides to send it all to CRC so that the rescission is not in one committee and the subject of the rest is not in another committee. And so that's my hope, but I have not seen what the initial proposal is, but that would make the most sense to me from an efficiency point of view since CRC has been designated the committee to hold the zone, the required zoning hearings. And one part of this does relate to zoning even though the other part isn't necessarily directly within our purview at this point. So that's that. And then it would obviously go to GOL afterward because GOL sees all bylaws before they go back to the council for the legal, formal legal review. Anything else before we move on? I wanna thank Chris and Rob for coming today. I'm sorry, Ben couldn't make it. We'll see Ben the next time since he's been the one getting this through and working with the historical commission on this. But thank you for taking all of our questions, for taking notes, for considering them all for answering everything we had. We'll see in a month or two, we'll be back with this. This is the start of conversations with this. So thank you for your time on that. I think that means you guys are done for today. I don't think we need anything else from Chris or Rob for today because we're not doing the article 14. Chris, you had a question? Please send me your comments. I will do so. And anybody else who has comments that they wanna send in writing, that would be helpful. Thank you. I will do so, thank you. With that, we're gonna move to ZBA appointment recommendations update. So as I mentioned, the last time we were dealing with ZBA, I have designated the vice chair, Pam Rooney, to be the point person for ZBA recommendations because the last time I did this last spring was chair and I tried to be the point person for both planning board recommendations and ZBA recommendations. It was crazy and I don't desire to do that again, all simultaneously. And also because I feel it's important to have more than one person working through this system and getting knowledgeable in a true in-depth manner about the process, how it goes, the emails that go out and all of that because we need to create systems that allow us to transition council to council and not have all of the information held by one or two people. So Pam is the one spearheading the ZBA recommendation process. She is not here today cause she could not make it. So she gave me her report to give you, which is the ZBA associate member vacancies have been posted on the bulletin board since January 18th of 2022. We've just renewed that posting to make sure it goes through the end of June. There are currently four vacant or impending vacancies for those associate positions because they are one-year terms. There are two impending vacant, so two of them are vacant right now and two are impending vacancies. We only have two of our four associate positions filled at this point. There are also two pending vacancies for full members for three-year terms because two members terms are expiring in June. The planning board notice for the full member vacancies, not planning board, the ZBA notice for full member vacancies has been posted as of earlier this week. So we are within that 14 day deadline. There was an administrative snafu between communications between Pam and Athena. I'm not blaming anyone for it, but we thought they had been posted and they hadn't. It fell through the cracks on so many levels. So we've got them posted that this committee had already authorized that posting. We're in the 14 day period for waiting for that. Pam did send out emails to those who submitted CAFs in 2020 and 2021 asking if they are still interested. She sent those out on March 9th and she sent notes on March 9th to the four current ZBA members associate and full whose terms are expiring in June to see if they intend to apply it again and ask them to submit CAFs. Those emails went out on March 9th at this time. No CA as you all know since everyone gets the CAF emails when they come in there have been no CAFs submitted since that March 9th email. And then she writes that we'll solicit selection guidance from the current ZBA chair when we have a pool of candidates. So basically at this point we have no pool of candidates at all for ZBA. And so this worries me not only for ZBA it worries me for planning board because generally those pools are very similar because people submit CAFs for both at the same time. We as a committee and as a council need to figure out how to get people to apply to these positions. Jennifer. Well, just for this one specifically so I did we all get an email from Alex Berver at the Jones library to get word out to our constituents for their input on library programming. So I was gonna do that over the weekend and so I will also make the announcement about planning board and ZBA vacant openings and maybe we could all do that. Yes. Another way to get the word out. I will make note to in my report at Monday's council meeting to mention the vacancies and the need for applicants. This is really a entire council job not just the five members of CRC. So it shouldn't be put on just the five of us, Shalini. Have you ever made an effort to maybe reach out to Tony Maroulis at UMass Outreach? You know, when we met with him one-on-one or he didn't write it all of us, he said that he could be the point contact to reach the different faculty members in UMass. And I wonder if reaching out to him we could say, you know, he would basically reach out to design, agriculture, all these different departments maybe and target them. That is a good suggestion. I will write that one down and see if I can do that. It seems like it should include graduate students as well in the appropriate areas. Yeah. It gives them such good real life practical experience I would imagine. Yeah. I'm sure Pam and I would be willing, would be happy to receive any and all thoughts on how to continue to advertise that we have openings on both the, well, on the ZBA at this point known because we currently have two vacancies. And it is unknown on the ZBA and the planning board at this point, whether the impending vacancies, whether people, current members will seek to continue in those positions or not such that we might have available appointments. They are treated the same in terms of interviewed, I need to start figuring out and advertising that we're seeking applicants for these positions. Any other questions regarding the update on ZBA appointment recommendations? Seeing none, we are going to move to general public comment. There is no public. So there is public comment. There can't be anyone, there are no publics, but we opened it up and then we closed it because the public's not here. Minutes, adoption of the February 24th, 2020, meaning 2022 meeting minutes, are there any requested changes to those minutes? Seeing none, I'll make the motion to adopt the February 24th, 2022 meeting minutes as presented, is there a second? Second. How? Jennifer seconds. Any discussion? Seeing none, Pat. Aye. Shalini. Yes. Mandy's an aye. Jennifer. Aye. They are adopted as presented. Are there any announcements? Other than we need applicants for ZBA and planning board? None. Next agenda preview. I haven't fully seen today's the Monday council meeting agenda. I think we might have a couple of referrals coming to us on Monday. They may or may not show up on next agenda. I'll have to look to see what those referrals are and what the timelines are on them and how many there are. But right now the plan is to discuss the prior the zoning matrix that we discussed being created last week. We will continue that discussion even if it is a shortened discussion and not, I don't expect to get through it but we will continue that process and that discussion as it fits into our agenda, always with the goal of trying to get us to having some sort of recommendations to the council or some sort of advice to the planning department as they move and obtain more time to work on stuff so that we can get there. And then we will continue with ZBA appointment recommendations if there is an applicant pool. What would come up next is just determining the sufficiency of the applicant pool, the selection guidance and the ZBA handout reviewing that once a year. Similarly, the planning board stuff will follow in a similar process but approximately one meeting later or less because we have to wait 14 days and I won't get that posted till tomorrow. So that 14 days will not be before next meeting, Pat. Is there, and I should know this, but is there criteria for people who are interested being on zoning board of appeals more than what's kind of vaguely listed? What should we be telling people their experiences should be and how might we open it? So the bulletin board notices for both ZBA and planning board are identical. They list a whole bunch of background information. We've tried to, Pam and I in rewriting this, those notices are not identical to what they were last year. We've tried to expand some of that background information and expand some of the wording to add one of the things that was specifically added, including those who have no prior municipal government experience. We changed, we added the word exposure to aspects of planning zoning and all of that instead of experience with. So we've tried to broaden that. I would suggest other than that, there's really no criteria. If you're curious or if people are curious what criteria have been used in the past, I can forward last year's criteria to the committee that we adopted last spring for both bodies. That basically has the basic criteria that is in the council policy. And then it lists some of the stuff that the two board chairs, the planning board chair and the ZBA chair wrote last year for things for experience and things they thought were important to serving on their boards. That changes yearly obviously, and that is subjective, but I can send you, I can send the committee what was sent, what was approved by last year's committee during this process. That would be really helpful. Thank you. Any other items for the next agenda? Anything not anticipated by me? Is that ever possible? Totally possible, Pat. Totally possible. With that, we are adjourning at 6.30 p.m. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Athena.