 Okay, Jack, you're good to go. Do you want those screens up there? I'm good. So we're Amherst media. They are here. Okay, okay. So, Let me go through my spiel here. So welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of October 21. Based on Governor Baker's executive order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL Chapter 30A, Section 20 and signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Jack Jemslik and as chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream. Minutes are being taken as normal. I will now take a roll call. Board members, when you hear your name, meet yourself and sort of firmly and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. John McDonnell. Present. And Johanna Newman. Present. And myself. It's good. Okay. So board members, if technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause temporarily to rectify 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 being addressed and the minutes will note if a disconnection has occurred, please use a raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call upon you to speak after speaking. Remember to 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 public comment period, you must join the meeting via the zoom call teleconference link that is shown on this slide. There you go. And this link is also listed on the meeting agenda posted on the town website through the calendar. Listing for this meeting or. So you go to that or you can go to the plenty more web page and click on that most recent agenda, which also lists the zoom link. So. Now you're from if you're on the phone. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited if you have a zoom meeting. If you're using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment pressing star nine on you. On your telephone when called upon, please identify yourself by sending your full name and address or yourself back into mute. But finished residents are welcome bricks or express reviews. We're up to three minutes and at the discussion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds there a lot of time. Their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. That is that. So. The minutes. So we have minutes from. I'm just bringing this up. So we have minutes from. 10, 7, 10, 7, yes. That's right. And then Jenna McGowan had, you know, some minor comments on that. Did everybody see those. Okay. I sent them to you, Jack, and you okayed them. And so now the board needs to see them and. Oh, okay. So, oh, okay. So Pam, you can, you can throw that up there in terms. I'm going to give it a try. Hold on. Okay. Here we go, I think. Right here. So it's page four. It's in red right here. Okay. And Jack, Janet has her hand raised. Okay, Janet. I was going to just ask Christine to read that because I didn't have her written down. So that was it. And I can hardly see it actually. Would you like me to read it? Mr. Hartman clarified that the easement to the pond area would not include public access only. It would not include public access, but he added no one would prevent people from walking up the driveway to use the pond. So anyone want to move to approve the minutes with that. That modification. I'm sorry. I got to get the. Mr. McDougal has had his hand up. Okay. I'll make the motion. Okay. And a second. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we'll do roll call. Tom. Oh, excuse me. Any discussion? None. Okay. So. Tom. I agree. And Johanna. And Doug. All right. Andrew. Move. Janet. Yes. Okay. And myself. I think that's everybody, right? Maria. Oh, Maria. I'm sorry. How did I miss Maria? Okay. I'm just going by this. Panelists list. Somehow you slip. I'm sorry. My apologies. Approved. Okay. So that's a seven zero. And back to the agenda. So we have the public comment period. Do we have any. Any hands there? I am seeing no hands. Okay. Great. So I think we can get right into this. The public hearing for the site. Site plan review. Sure. So I know, let me start bringing in some people. Okay. In the meantime, let me grab. I'm just going to, I believe Celine is going to be the presenters. So I'm just not sure if she has. Other folks with her. I'm here. I don't see myself. And Martha Lyon is also joining in. Okay. I see her. And Jane waltz is also joining. Yes. Okay. So, um, are we ready to. To begin this, I can read the preamble. Are we good Pam? Yes, you are. Okay. Uh, so it's six 41. Um, we had six 35. So we're clear. Um, in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens. To be heard regarding SPR 2021. Oh five Emily Dickinson museum. Uh, they requested site plan review approval to install a permeable pedestrian pathway between the two historic homes, including lighting the pathway and to install site lighting to eliminate the facades of both homes. In some tree removal. Uh, this is a lot. Uh, you know, map 14 B parcels 26 and 27 in the RG zoning district. So are there any board member disclosures? Uh, I don't know. I don't know. None. And we can ask the applicant to. Present their, their project. Uh, Jane, do you want to say a few things before Selena and I proceed with us since you're the owner or their owner is representative. Sure. Thank you. I'll just say a little bit about the goal of a little bit about the. Um, uh, I don't begin with the path between the two houses. Um, there was a, uh, A path between the homestead and the evergreens, both, uh, Dickinson family homes in the 19th century that, um, was well traveled between, um, The poet. Home and her family next door. Um, I think there is a bit of, uh, kind of historical. Significance and Emily Dickinson's own words, uh, that it, it was, uh, A path, uh, for two who love. So this is a quotation of Emily Dickinson's that has kind of wide play. Um, we have historic. And, um, Indicate the kind of paving material for the path. Um, we have a, so there is this kind of historic. Preservation restoration landscape restoration piece to this. Um, there's also a practical goal for us and the path and that's to create an accessible link between the two houses. There is no accessible route for wheelchairs or those with mobility difficulties at present. So this would be, this would, this kind of improvement would allow for all of our patrons to be able to access both houses and to experience the full tour. So that, I think that's a kind of a significant goal. We have programs that take place tours and programs that take place after dusk. So this is one, one reason for lighting the path. As I understand it, we as a as a institution that welcomes the public, we are obliged to provide safe and accessible pathways and lighting for our patrons. So for the lighting of the facade of the houses, our goal there is, is twofold. One is to highlight the historic features of these houses as a kind of a cultural asset of the Amherst community and to, and to take care of security needs at the same time. So I think that's probably all I want to say at this time and I'll be glad to contribute later if there are questions. Thank you, Jane. And I just wanted to give a brief introduction. My firm has been involved in this project for a number of years, at least three maybe more. And we have taken a lot of pains to try to get as accurate and as authentic for application of the path as possible. There was a question about the lighting designer and we did engage the services of a landscape lighting specialist. Worked on some other very historic, very significant historic properties who spent a couple of seasons trying to get this lighting just right. I think he nailed the Evergreens first as a couple of years ago and then came back this summer and did a lot of experimenting with the homestead. And I think that really came up with a solution that suited the needs of the homestead for the museum as well as just highlighting those properties. And I wanted to just also mention that I was involved with the Amherst Historical Commission almost two years, two decades ago, writing the Amherst Historic Preservation Plan, which involved a significant public engagement process. And through that, this museum was identified as the single most important historic resource to the town of Amherst. And so I think the museum's efforts to really increase its one curb appeal that was accomplished through restoring the fence and the hedge a number of years ago. And then just making these houses so much more visible to the public is a really a way of fulfilling what was identified in that plan. So, Celina Weber is working with me on this and she's been very involved with the technical aspects of it. And she'll walk you through the different features of the plan. And then also I'm happy to answer any questions. Great. So it's Celene? Celina, yeah. Celina, okay. Like Martha said, I've been helping her on this project. And I met some of you this morning at the site visit. So there's three basic portions to this. Celina, we can, I can't really hear you. I'll try to speak up. Is that any better? A little bit. A little. Okay. Maybe if I move closer. There you go. I, there's three major portions to this project. And I guess at this point, maybe Pamela, if you would allow me to share the screen so I can walk through. You should be able to do that, Celina. At the bottom of the screen, there should be a green icon that says share screen. So the first project, the first part of the project is what Jane alluded to is the new path between the homestead. Can you see my cursor here? Yes. Between the homestead and the evergreens. And I actually have another drawing. This drawing shows the current path is this dashed line. And this, the proposed path, which meets more of the historical aspects is this sloping curve. So I just made this drawing since this morning so you can see that it deviates a little bit from the original. But not substantially. And this path will be a permeable path with four feet of stone underneath it and a drain that connects to the city, the town, the storm waters. So the path is, as we discussed earlier, is accessible and won't get soggy like the current situation. I'll show you just briefly. This is the grading plan. So there's an under drain in the path that connects here to the catch basin. There's also a couple other under drains that are being connected to this system. But we're not changing any of the impermeable surfaces. It's still the same amount. So the town engineer, I believe, is on board with this. The next part of this project is just north of the path. So the current path is this dashed line right here. And currently there's a little clearing with some trees. These trees are going to be removed. And this is also trying to mimic the historical situation that was there during Emily Dickinson's time. This was a clearing with a garden area. The hatched area here will be cleared of all saplings less than six inches in caliber. These bigger trees will remain in place. The trees here that are being removed, the stumps will be ground and there will be restorations to restore the disturbance. That's about 0.3 acres of area that's going to be affected. And then the next part of the project is the lighting. And with the help of the lighting designer, we've managed to do a number of things. So the first thing is lighting the path between the homestead and the evergreen. So right now there are no lights there, but to increase the safety of that path in the evening, there will be tree-mounted lights that shine down onto the path to create a fairly even level of lighting across that path. There will also be lights pointing onto the house. So again, like Jane and Martha both mentioned, one of the goals of this project was to really highlight these historic homes that are just such an important part of Amherst's history. And so these facades of the two buildings are being lit, eliminated with these lights. And the lighting designer worked and tried different situations out. So the design is a result of some trial and error and design to achieve the best possible look. So there's a combination of lights. There are lights that are mounted on granite posts. And the beam of the light, the spread of the beam of the light is shown in this planned beam carry. The dotted line indicates the width of that particular light fixture. So we went to great effort to make sure that we were shining the lights on the buildings and not spilling light beyond the buildings or spilling toward neighbors as well. So most of the lights are all pointing away from Main Street mostly and towards these. So there are lights that are mounted on granite posts. There are lights that are mounted in the trees to light second stories. There are lights that are mounted in the ground on the stakes that wash the walls with light. And then behind the home that there are also lights that light this little pathway. So there are a number of different lights going on. Oh, and then there are also lights lighting the two fence gateways at the pedestrian entrances at the homestead and at the Evergreen. And these are flush mounted lights projecting onto the fence posts. There are also security lights on the back here in the garage pointing down and behind the Evergreens also pointing down. Then the last part of this lighting situation is that the entry entries have pendant lights that are currently kind of bright. So those are going to be toned down. So I can flip through some of these elevations so you can see how the lights are located and adjusted so that the beams cover the sides of the house. So this is the homestead, the east facade and the south facade. You can see these are the little posts and these are the wall washing lights which are closer to the house. Currently, I hope you've all had a chance to drive by and see the lighting demonstration that's set up currently. So right now most of these lights on the south facade and the east facade are in place. So you can get an idea of what it's going to look like. Similarly for the Evergreens, there are elevations that show that again we're aiming the lights onto the building itself also for the fence posts. So these recessed lights are directly in front of the sidewalk and pointed towards the architectural posts. So these are the lights that we'll be using. These are the lights that are down lights. These are the path lights. These are the recessed lights. And then these are the lights that are projecting onto the two buildings. In case you haven't had a chance to go see the illumination. This is the demonstration lighting for the Evergreens which is currently not set up. But this was done on the east side of the house. Illumination. This is the demonstration lighting for the Evergreens which is currently not set up. But this was done a couple years ago. It shows you what the lighting will look like. This is the lighting that's currently set up that you can see if you drive by after dusk. This is an example of the path lighting. Although we're planning to have a more even wash of lighting along the pathway. That's kind of a summary of the situation. I'm happy to delve into more detail or answer questions. Yeah. To the board members, did everybody feel like they caught all that? I know Selina, the volume wasn't great. I think I'm okay with it. I just want to check with the planning board if they didn't catch anything before we get into the site visit. Okay, we're good. All right. So we have a site visit report. I have that, Jack. You want to give me a second? Yes. And who would like to present, whoops. Finding that here. Sorry. So many documents. So, Chris Bestrup, you produced that? I did. Do you want me to go through it? Yeah, I guess or unless one of the planning board members kind of want to go over to instead to probably be better. Well, we have Doug, it was there, Janet and Tom and Andy. So anybody want to. Mr. Long has his hand raised. Okay, let's let's go with Tom. Give you a break. We're going to give you a break, Chris. So I have a question. We should we answer the questions as we go through this or how do you, how do you normally do this? There are no questions yet, but let's just get through this part and then we'll have some questions for you. Yeah. So Tom, I'll give a quick overview. I think Jack, what I think it was Selena that was referring to the, the site report that was posted actually has a series of questions in it. There were things that came up as part of our discussion on site and I think it's just important that we reiterate them here. But those answers can be made publicly and others can hear. But we were, we met on site today, we were able to have a conversation in conjunction with the plans. So we're able to look at and imagine where the historic path was where the new path will be placed. And in addition to that, there is an existing location on the site that has the same material that's intended to be used on this path. So we're actually able to see the actual material for the new proposed path as well. We were able to identify all the trees or to be removed in the grove that were discussed. And that seemed for the most part appropriate because some were damaged or dying in some places. And we were able to take a look at where the existing mock up lights are, what some of those fixtures might look like. And most importantly, we were able to ask a lot of questions about how this will be implemented. And I think that's what, again, Selena was remarking down below that we had a pretty lengthy conversation. The visit was quite simple in terms of being able to stand at the site and see all of these elements, the two buildings, the path between where drainage might go and what that material was. I think it's important if we want to go through these questions, maybe that's that's usefulness. Someone has anything else they want to point out that we may have encountered on the site. Great, thank you. Any questions from the board, looking for hands. Mr McDougal has his hand raised. Yeah, well, do we want to just read through these questions. I mean, I'm happy to do that check but on the screen on page two we've got sort of a preset list of questions we talked about this morning and then I've got I've got some subsequent questions that I've come up with since the site visit as well. I think it would be a good idea to read through the questions and answer them as you go. Yeah, and I'm happy to do that if you want check. That'd be great. Okay. All right. The town engineer agreed to connecting the new drain line to the existing catch basin in the road to answer that is so I'm not going to answer that. Yes, I believe I saw the email that he said that he has no objections to it. Okay. Will the lights along the pathway be mounted on the tree trunks or in the branches. So in the pathway, it will be mounted on the trunks. A lot of those branches are up very high. And there'll be somewhere between 20 and 35 feet up from the ground level. Okay, actually, and I had a quick follow up to that one as well was so they will be since those trees are on the south side of the walkway, the trees that will remain they will be pointing sort of north. Wow, there is at least one tree that's on the other side of the walkway, maybe two trees that are on the other side of the walkway pointing pretty much down. Okay. All right. Thank you back to the others will the neighbors across the street be able to see the lights. So I don't think they will be because these lights have a long adjustable shroud on them. And then they're pointing down so they won't see the light itself from the fixture. Do you think for the ones on the north side of the path that are pointing south with those be visible. I don't think so because the shroud is actually pretty long on these lights. So the actual ball won't be visible. And we mentioned this already but did the applicant work with the lighting designer on the design of the exterior lighting. Have a butter has been notified. And what is the purpose of lighting the pathway. So the pathway lighting, lighting is both path was to connect the two houses and then the lighting is to just increase safety and to reveal the path itself to show where that is. When will the lights on the pathway be turned off. So the lights on the pathway. I imagine will be much like the lights on the facade of the house so they would go on at dusk and be turned off somewhere around 10 o'clock or so. So all of the exterior lighting would be on the same schedule. So that lighting will be on all night. Will there be electrical conduits going up the tree trunks. There will be powered somehow. Not actually conduit though it's a direct burial. So it's a wire. It's not a conduit. Okay. Yes. Can you clarify that so it you'd have a, how does that actually so from underground to the tree. How does it go. It's a wire. Which is a wire that comes right out of the ground that's stapled to the tree up to the light. Okay. All right. Will the electrical conduit lines be buried. How will the lights that light up the facades be mounted. So there's two different. Well, no, there's three. Some of them are mounted in the tree. Some of them are mounted in a granite post and I actually have a photograph I could share with you. And some of them are mounted on a PVC stake, which will be not visible. The fixture itself. How will the second story facade be lighted. Those will be lighted with the tree mounted lights. And some of the trees. How will the lights in front of the fence posts work and where will they be located. So they're going to be in front of directly in front of the fence posts. Right next to the sidewalk. So it's as close to the sidewalk as we can get them. They're flush and the light will be pointed towards. What kind of exterior lighting was in place in the time of Emily Dickinson. So that's something that. Jane knew more about. You want to say something, Jane. Right. Yes. What we know about. What we know specifically about. Exterior lighting during Emily Dickinson's time is that there were gas. Lamps at the entrance to the, to both houses. At the other end. There was a pole mounted. Gas lantern. During Emily Dickinson's lifetime. After her death. In the 1880s, when electricity came in. Game was wired through Amherst. Those fixtures. Lamp lights were powered by electricity. Good. When, so what time will the lights be turned off at night? So we were thinking somewhere around 10, 10 p.m. Probably is what the museum is predicting. Is that correct, Jane? Yes, that's correct. I think that would be. That's the time we've been discussing and would probably be the earliest time we would want to turn them off. Tag onto that. Is that seven days a week? Yes, seven days a week. Will some of the lights beyond all night. So just the security lights. What is the slope of the proposed path? And will it be flush with the grade of the lawn area? So the path will be flush. It is a gentle slope. To make it accessible. And there is a cross slope to shed any water that also falls on it. No more than a 2% pitch. What color is exterior lighting? So, you know, warm, cold, blue, yellow. Can you give us a sense of that? So the, the, the photos kind of show what it is. And so, Martha, do you want to speak to that? Since you helped with. Determine that. Yeah. So these are LED fixtures. And we, um, we. I guess. Colored them down or warmed them up to the warmest we can get, which is 2,200 Kelvin. Um, the designer. Started with 2,700 Kelvin. And I think again, looking at the demo, the demo, um, we decided that if we wanted to tone it down some, so we're going with this low as low, a light lower for an LD, LED that we can at this time. And because the houses are yellow and ochre, um, it casts a warm light. Okay. And it's going to be the same for both buildings. Okay. Yes. The effect is the same, but they're different bulbs that we're using. Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Um, let's see, will lights be on in the buildings when the exterior lights are on? So the plan currently is. No. No lights on inside. How will snow removal work on the new pathway? So snow is, um, Amherst college plows uses a snow blower for the remote. Is that right? It was a snow blower. Okay. Yeah. So, um, it'll be, um, snow blow. And this material. Has withstood that pretty well. And what, what's your assessment of the level of light? Is it appropriate for the neighborhood? Oh, um, the designer worked really hard to, um, come up with lighting that would reveal, you know, the architecture of the house in a, in a, in a, beautiful way. And without really destroying the neighborhood. That being said, of course, it's, you know, it's a subjective opinion. But the idea was to, um, try to fit in while at the same time, um, revealing this historic place. The last formal question here, can the designer provide information similar to a photometric plan to show the intensity of the light that will be cast on the facades. And also that will be reflected back into the landscape. Oh, there was a photometric sheet that was part of this package that shows, um, What the actual foot candles are at. Um, distances from, um, from the house. So we could extrapolate, you know, we can look at those and give an idea of, you know, what the foot candles on the house are. That being said, I think it's, um, easier to understand by actually looking at the demo and see pictures worth a thousand words. Um, so it's a quick way of, uh, seeing what the, what the plan is. That is all of the pre written questions. Jack. Okay. Are there any other questions from the board? Uh, Johanna. Maybe a question for Jane, but I was wondering if there are plans to restore the garden once the trees are out. Since that was part of the kind of. The site in Emily's day. Yes. Um, yeah. Gardening was really very important to the family at the homestead and the family at the Evergreens. Um, so you may know that Emily Dickinson and her sister, Lavinia had extensive gardens on the east side toward Triangle street at the homestead. And our long-term plan there is, um, to do as much archeological investigation as we need to do to restore those gardens. Um, documentation of gardens on the Evergreen side, which would be in this area between the two houses. Is, uh, More slender. Uh, but all indications are that there was, there were gardens and, um, perhaps chicken runs up on the slope, uh, between the two houses. Um, and being able to, uh, sort of clear up some of that area. Will, um, enhance our ability to, you know, do the, the archeological investigation that may give us clues there. There are some, there are some features already. Up that slope that indicate there were gardens and there actually are, um, in the spring. You can see, um, daffodils coming up, uh, on that slope. That were, um, Definitely planted in and maintained in the 19th century. So there's some, there's some interesting, uh, clues there to what we might be able to do in the future. Um, Thank you. Um, Maria. Um, thanks. That was a really. Lovely. I'm sorry I couldn't make to the site visit, but it was really a lovely presentation. Um, I personally am all for aesthetic lighting of architectural features. I think that especially since it's such an important, um, centerpiece of the town that this, this, um, lighting plan makes sense. Um, I have one question just like, you know, are the lights able to be on dimmers? I didn't look at each fixture, but that might be, um, a way to test it as well. If, you know, neighbors or butters or, um, other issues come up that there's a way to dim them a little. And also, um, Looking at your photometric chart. Uh, yeah, it's very low. Candles. When you get far away, but I noticed it's pretty high. Candles when the lights are, you know, when it's a short distance. And there's only a few lights where I can see. That create some hot spots because they are closer to the building. And I was wondering if the lighting designer. Did that for a reason. Like, um, I see mostly on like, what is that? The, if North is up the east side of, um, the homestead and. The pictures in our. What do you call this? The, uh, the thing we get every week. The pictures we have seem very reasonable. I seem kind of dim. Um, I just see a few hotspots sort of. On the building. And so I was wondering if you could answer. Right. But a, are, Are they able to be on dimmers and be, um, Was there a reason for someone to like to be like closer to the face of the building? And it feels like there's a few sort of, um, Places where it's a little brighter rather than an even sort of. Dim glow to the house. Houses. Um, Those are my two questions about lighting. Okay. So, um, First question about the lights being on a dimmer, These particular lights can't be on a dimmer. And the designer did. Selena, I would, uh, if you can get closer to your mic. Oh, sorry. So, uh, that does, uh, That does, uh, The lights cannot be on a dimmer, But the designer did work on, um, you know, He tried various different configurations. To try to come up with something that, um, was pleasant. Um, it could be that the, So you said some of, some of it was still right. So not every single light is in there currently. So, um, The, The lights that are farther from the house are mocked up, But there are some lights that will go closer to the house. Um, to wash those walls. So once those are in place, I think it's going to be, More even effect. And you won't get that glare that you're talking about. Yeah. Again, I think. The idea of, you know, Doing lighting on a building for aesthetics is a very nice idea. But, um, Yeah, I just want to be wary that it's not spilling over into the Butters or like creating night pollution. But, um, Of course. Uh, Andrew. Um, I was looking, it was actually useful to see your screen of L five Because it was a bit darker than the, The print out I have is just the lighting plan. Um, I just want to make sure I'm following it correctly. So it looks like there's a gap of light. Put that on. Yeah, that would be great. If you don't mind. I just want to make sure I'm looking at this correctly. And I'm, I'm probably not, but. Oh, this plan, the lighting plan. Yeah. Right. So the, the dark cross hatching. That's like the cone of light, essentially. Yes. So let's, let's look at this is, uh, We saw that one tulip tree where I said two lights would be put in there. And this is the cone of light from that light fixture. It will roughly eliminate that area. One will eliminate that. Okay. That helps. So that, that's the tree lighting. That's not ground lighting. So then, um, all right. So there is going to be a, uh, A gap there. It's not for the whole path to be lit. Right. So that, you know, you feel safe. Because you can see that there's light there, but it's not, you know, this bright situation. Perfect. And then the other, I guess I'm, it's, um, Yeah. Maybe more a comment. I'll, I'll save it. I'll save it for later. Um, I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. Okay. Thank you. So I have a dumb question. The light. The, um, the evergreen and homestead. Have operating hours. Till. What five. Is that correct? Depending on the season till about five 30. Plus. Um, Um, Yeah. Maybe more a comment. I'll save it. I'll save it for later. Um, thanks, Jack. Thank you. Oh, so I have a dumb question. I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. I'll save it for later. Okay. Plus, um, plus. Evening events from time to time. Okay. Evening. Okay. So this is just kind of to meld in with the existing lighting on the buildings. And highlight this path. Uh, the. Uh, the path lighting is. Really more, um, kind of. Intended, I think to be more functional. There's, uh, I think the purpose of that is really to provide. Safety for. Uh, individuals crossing between houses. After dark. Okay. Upon those occasional. Events. Basically. Yes. And yes. And during, um, uh, you know, winter season, when the days are shorter, it helps with our, uh, that last portion. Hey, where it's open to the public. Great. Thank you. And then Janet? I have a few questions. I wasn't sure what plan that the photometric plan that Maria was talking about with foot candles. Is that L5? Because I didn't have any. That's this one, I believe, right? Did we get this? Or am I? I guess we did get that, but I haven't connected it to the chart. OK, the second question I had was, I think during the site visit, someone said that the lights at the entry doors that are there now were thought to be too bright. And so the light levels were going to be reduced. And so I was wondering, that would affect how Maria's, that would lessen Maria's concern if those were reduced in terms of intensity. Trying to find that drawing here. So you're talking about here. The lights were the front door. I think I thought we were told that they just came too bright. And so they were going to be brought down a little. They are going to be. So then talking to Maria, I'm wondering, that would change her view of it. Or actually, you're looking at the post view. So I'm just going to defer to experts on that. And then also at the site visit, I thought that the path lights were going to turn off when the museum wasn't open. It was just if the museum was open in the evening or late afternoon and beyond. And then when people, the museum was closed, they'd just be turned off. And I just wanted to know if that was the plan and to confirm that. I guess I'll defer to Jane about that. Yes, that is our intention. That are, those are more functional. And then the architectural lighting is more of a wash that is a presentation of the historic houses. OK, thank you. Thanks, Janet. Maria. That last image, I think maybe the mock-up isn't representative of the L5 lighting plan. So I think as long as you're, yeah, see the right most drawing, how there's a hotspot right below that window. And it doesn't look like that's actually in the plan. So as long as you have a lighting designer who's very capable and making sure there's no spillage and it's all the, yeah, I'm sure it will be fine because you've got someone who's a designer who's actually, this is what they do for a living. So yeah, I wasn't actually talking about the entryways. It was more the ones that were creating a splash of hot light on the facade. But it doesn't look like this is like, L5 is slightly different. So it's OK. I think, yeah, it should be fine. When I spoke to him this afternoon, he said there may be a little bit of adjusting as he comes to install this because obviously he wants it to look terrific. He doesn't want to have the hotspots. Thanks, Maria. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. One quick question just on the clearing of the trees on the north side of the property said basically anything below a six-inch caliper is going to be removed. I'm trying to remember, is there ground cover there or will that end up being turfed? What will be the plan for that vegetation area that's beyond the trees that are going to be removed? So currently there is low ground cover and growing there. So we're going to remove the saplings, but we're not going to remove all the ground cover. OK, but six-inch caliper is pretty big. So there'll essentially be the seven or eight trees there and then ground cover is the plan. Right, but there are some big trees that will remain in that area where we're not clearing. So. Yeah, it looks like seven or eight or something like that. OK, thank you. And then the only other, I guess maybe more of a comment, but just for anybody on the phone might have an answer for this, are there any other similarly lit properties near downtown that I mean, is this is this matching a precedent? Is this setting a precedent? Is that something that we should be concerned about? So it's maybe more rhetorical, but I guess I just put it out there for consideration. Thanks, Jack. OK, thank you. I don't know. Maybe Chris, in terms of that perspective, can you want to speak to that? I think that the Grace Church has some night lighting, but I don't really remember the extent of it. I walk by there at night on my way to the car often, and I believe that they do have some lighting on the facade, but I can't really remember exactly what it is. It's also possible that the St. Prijitz Church has similar lighting, but again, I don't really remember specifically. And oh, I know. And the Unitarian Church, I believe, also has some facade lighting. So those are three places that we could go at night and look and see what they're doing. Thank you. Doug? Yeah, I have some concern about the brightness that comes through on the photos that are on page L11. And I guess I would like a chance to go by on an evening and see the mock-up in person. The other thing I wanted to know was on the mock-up now, what fraction of the final lights are installed or are part of the mock-up as opposed to the final plan? Is it half of the lights, or is it more, or just sort of roughly? Selena? I have to take a guess at that by looking at the. Another light on the east facade was the back. The pathway, the pathway lights are not on. I'm more focused on the building, the building lighting. The post-mounted lights are all there, I believe, Martha. So it's just the wall washing lights that are not in place. So it's more than half the lights on the west and south facades. Yeah, and also just to reiterate, the evergreen demonstration is not up. Understood. So it's just the homestack. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, Tom? Yeah, I just had a quick question. We raised a question in the early Q&A about whether the neighbors have been notified. Chris, has anybody responded negatively from those notifications? Neighbors have been notified. No one has negatively responded. And I'm looking to see there really aren't any direct butters in the list of attendees this evening. Some of the attendees may wish to make a comment, but they're not direct butters as far as I know. Thank you. May I comment about that? And I think Martha will, and Selena will probably have better information about this than I, but the demo has been there for two or three months. That's two or three months. So it's June. Physical to a butter. It's June, OK. I think it was June. Very good. Janet? You know, I must be not circulating because I've never seen Emily Dickinson lit up at night. But I have a quick question going back to what Doug was asking about. I think Selena said something about the wash lights aren't as part of the demo. And what is a wash light? Is it one of the little mushroom lights that are along the side? Or what does that mean when you say the wash lights aren't on? I will show you. Let me get out of this. So if we look at the, this is the homestead. And here's Main Street. Here's the front of the homestead. These are the demo lights on this little post that are in place currently. They're not on a granite post right now, but they're placed here. These spoke wheel looking things. It's just the symbol for the light that we used here. These are the wall washing lights. And really what that means is they're up closer to the wall and they shine up the wall more. So in this situation, it looks the same, but it's a more steep angle. If you look at this drawing here, you can see this angle is more steep against this wall because the light is so close to the wall, whereas these post-mounted lights are more broad. So when we look at the demo, we're not going to see the effect of the closer lights because it's not there, right? It's not there. Huh, okay. But that's just going to enhance what's there. So these will create some kind of a bit of a maybe spotlighty effect, but then these wall wash lights, this is my understanding, will kind of blend all of that in. That sounds right, Martha. I think that what the lighting designer was trying to accomplish here, these are very difficult buildings to light because they have so many angles to them, especially the evergreens, but Homestead is even difficult. And I think, Celina, you were absolutely right that he's got the lights that are further away that are going to be broader on the building, but then with just those, you would end up with some dead spots. And so he's introducing some lights that are closer to the building to kind of even everything out. And that was, I think, the objective of us both at the museum with trying to achieve. So if I was looking at the building tonight outside, these kind of darker spots would be brighter. And then I could hopefully look at the chart and figure, make the jump from there. Okay, so I do see what you mean by dead spots when I'm looking at the picture. Yeah, I mean, he worked really hard to try to remove those. And it took a lot of effort. Actually, these do a pretty good job already, though, of making it pretty even. Yeah. Doug, I see your hand raised. Yeah, one thing that we had some conversation about this morning was the dark sky. Regulations or standards that are sort of used in the industry. It sounds like the board doesn't really have a policy of always requiring that, but certainly some of these lights are shining up in a way that you wouldn't normally do if you were just doing general sight lighting. So I wondered, maybe Chris, could you give us all a review of what historically the board's attitude has been about dark sky? The board has generally required dark sky compliance. I think what that generally means is that they don't want lights shining up into the sky, lights that have a shield around them. What they usually say is dark sky compliant and or shielded. So if a light has a shield around it and it keeps the bulb from being seen, if you were a bird or an airplane or something flying over the building and the shield was such that you wouldn't be able to see the bulb, but the light projected onto the surface, but it was contained within that surface. I think that would still meet the spirit of what the planning board generally tries to achieve. And I did send you some material from the city of Somerville and they have something in the second, I think it's the second page of that document that has some exceptions. So they say essentially that they want dark sky compliance except for certain exceptions where lights can be shielded and directed towards a particular surface and don't spill out into other areas or other properties. I forget exactly how they put that, but I thought that might be helpful to you in thinking about this because I think that the main thing is that we don't want the lights shining up into the sky, but if they shine on the surface and aren't spilling beyond that surface, then that could be considered to be approvable, satisfactory, appropriate. So most of the lights are shining either down to the ground to eliminate the path or are shining up onto the surfaces of the buildings. Though am I right that there's two locations along the sidewalk at the pedestrian entries, one to the homestead and one to the evergreens where there are lights that are basically just shining straight up and some of the light goes onto the fence post and probably much of the light is just going up and away. Is that true? So that is the correct location. They are very adjustable. So it's a 30 degree angle on them. And so what would appear to be... So if you were up above, the light isn't shining up. It's the way I was understanding it that it can be adjusted so that the light, in this case, the bulb is part of the fixture. So the bulb is adjusted to shine in its 30 degree angle, whichever way you adjust it to be. So the fence post lighting is also aimed at the surface of the fence post. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. That's shown in a cross-section, L9. Yeah, I can share that here. So here you can see the recessed light and it has the ability to be adjusted. It's a 30 degree beam, but you can point it wherever you need to point it. And we're gonna try to move this. Because the sidewalk is so close, we only have so much space to work, but we're gonna put the light as close to the sidewalk as we can to get that angle to be related. So here it's shown in plan. Great, Maria. I just wanted to sort of answer what Doug was asking. We generally do ask that all lights are dark sky compliant, like when there's like a commercial project or a residential, if it's doing something strange in a new zone. But this is a very special different case. It's kind of like what Chris had sent out. It's like a monument or a statue. You know, it's something that's very much a feature. So yeah, I don't think that the dark sky light fixture needs to apply, but the dark sky idea definitely does. Where your lighting designer will make sure it's not spilling out onto creating more night pollution and not spilling onto adjacent properties. And so I think it's been pretty clearly made that the planning board generally always feels that way. But in this scenario, I think as long as the spirit of the dark sky compliance is met, the actual fixtures themselves, they're not pointed the way we normally require them to for projects that we review. But this is like that Somerville bylaw. It's a different case. It's like a, yeah, it's a feature or monument. So I feel like you guys are doing your due diligence with other lighting designer and making sure that there won't be any kind of dark sky non-compliance, I guess. But yeah, generally we do always look for that specific figure for light fixtures, the dark sky compliance. Thank you and Tom. I started to beleaguered this a little bit more. Chris, you sent around the site plan review notated 1124. Is that an Amherst related site plan review document? Cause there are conflicts to discuss potentially there in that 112417 notes that all lighting shall be kept extinguished outside of business hours or you know, established under the site management plan. So I guess I'm wondering if we actually need to make an amendment to that or make a notation in regard to that. The way I look at 11.24 is that those are guidelines of things that the planning board needs to look at when they're evaluating a site plan review application. They're maybe extenuating circumstances having to do with one or more of those criteria that you would find a way of how can I say this? Mitigating the effect and would explain in your findings how you felt that that effect was being mitigated. Okay. Great, thank you. Great. Okay, I don't believe we have any other board comments and we can open this up to the public. And Pam, do you see anything? At this point, I see none. Okay. So the applicant has, I think has responded. Oh, Dorothy Pam just raised her hand. Okay. Let's have Dorothy speak. Okay, go. Dorothy. I just want to speak positively about this plan. However you make whatever minor adaptations you might make because I think it just makes for a nicer town that if you're driving by, that you see some of the beautiful historical architectural pieces and houses light it up. Not like a carnival, but kind of, this is like the date lighting. So I just want to say, I think it's a great idea and I'm positive about it. Thank you. Chris. I just wanted to note that the local historic district commission will be looking at this on Monday. So I don't know if you wanted to make your decision sooner than that or if you wanted to wait and be able to have all the planning board members both be able to drive by and see the buildings in their demo, with their demo lighting and also hear from the local historic district commission. So you might consider continuing this public hearing to November 4th, so that you can accomplish those two things. Make sense to me. I don't know if any of the other board members you know, agree with that, but Doug? Well, yeah, I would agree with that. You know, it's clearly that the museum has gone to a lot of effort. They've engaged a sensitive designer and they've put, you know, the documents are great, but I'd still like to just be able to either drive by or stand and look at it with an eye toward, you know, thinking of it as a mock-up and before we vote. Okay. Janet. I agree with Doug. I'd like to be able to see it and be very, just look at the mock-up. And also I'll look around downtown and look at other buildings. I think there's lighting on the, what would in and maybe some other buildings, but it's nothing really jumps out in my memory, but I'm happy to look at that. I also am very interested in what the historic commission has to say, because it addresses a lot of the standards that we look at. I'm a little worried about the sentence that I can hear who is Tom or Andrew pointed out in 11.2417, when the by-law says shell, it's not really guidelines or guidance, it's kind of a more of a command. And so I'm wondering, I'd like to ponder that line more because it looks like it could have an effect on how we look at things. So all to say is I'd love to postpone this or continue our hearing until our next date or after the historic commission meets. Thank you, Johanna. I am inclined that way too, but I was curious whether there was any kind of urgency on the part of the applicant or whether us pushing back to November, like does that create any hardship for you all? Good question. I would say that ideally we would like to implement this project before the ground freezes, but we're also obliged to have this plan reviewed by the State Historical Commission. So that may, we will not have an answer from the Historical Commission before November 4. Andrew? Well, you're muted. Thank you. Thanks, Jack. You may have already answered this, Jane, but I was just thinking that alternatively we could approve the grading and the path and wait on the lighting if we felt like that would allow you to get your earthworks done before freezing, but it sounds like we're probably, if we continue in two weeks, that's still probably consistent with the timeline that you just laid out. So it seems to me like it would be prudent to wait for the two weeks. Okay. Yeah, I appreciate that. I, it really is the, you know, the below groundwork that the State Historical Commission is going to be concerned with. So I think we can wait the two weeks. Thank you. So should we have a motion to continue the airing? To... I will, I will so move till November 4th at what time, Christine? You have another public hearing that night, but that one is not until eight o'clock. So I think you could continue this one to 635. Till 635. Okay. Second. All right, Doug seconds that, roll call Andrew. Aye. I'm sorry, there might be discussion. I'm sorry, but no discussion. All right, good. All right, Andrew? Aye. Affirmative, Doug? Aye. Janet? Yes. And Johanna? Aye. Maria? Yes. And myself, yes. So that's seven zero. Mr. Long needs to... Gosh, I look at this list and I'm like, oh my God. All right, I had to... Yeah. Tom? Yes. Yes, okay. So there's seven zero. All right, my apologies. Okay, so we can move on to the next item. We thank you, Jane, Martha. Thank you very much. Thank you. And sorry. All right, so we have old business, Applebrook Cluster Subdivision, SUB 2007-0006, currently known as Heartwell Farms Cluster Subdivision, request the lease of lot seven. And I believe that requires us to bring Tom Reedy on. Hi, Tom. On, hey, hey, Jack. Hi, everybody. Hello. So maybe I'll hop right into it. So I was here, oh boy, a few months ago and we had talked about releasing lot four. We had originally suggested it be switched to lot two. And then I think Janet had suggested, why not make it lot seven? And we said, sure, because lot seven wasn't gonna get built upon for quite some time. So circumstances have changed a little bit and the developer is looking to sell lot seven. So instead of build upon it, he's gonna sell it and then it's gonna be built upon separately. It's gonna be built upon by the same builder that's been doing all the other houses in the neighborhood but he's just not gonna wait for it all to be done before he sells it. So obviously that accelerates some things. We've got a date of October 30th for all the road work to be done, everything that Jason had on that list. And if you're familiar with it, I think Jason's total was like $58,000. The majority, the great majority of which was road work. We've got, or the client has Warner Brothers coming to do that on the 30th. The closing is scheduled for November 9th, of course. So we would be here asking for a release of lot seven and I guess there's probably a hierarchy of how we would suggest it happen. My first and preferred would be just to release it, understanding that we have Warner coming in to do the work this year. If the board's not comfortable doing that, then I guess we would say, vote to release it subject to us providing you, whether it's a written contract or written evidence of them to do the work ahead of the ninth so that you feel comfortable. And then the third, which is, I don't prefer to do it because it's gonna cost more money to record a new document, but would be to switch it from lot seven to lot two. The last one seems, I mean, I can understand if you'd wanna do it. I just, I think probably that middle option, you know, the porridge is just right there in the middle with the release subject to providing evidence of that work to be done by Warner Brothers. So that's why I'm, that's why I get to see my mug again is because I'm asking for that release. So Pam, can we throw anything up with regard to this? So to give some of the funding board members some perspective. I apologize that we didn't prepare anything for this. Maybe Tom has a plan that you- Yeah, I can see how creative I can get with sharing my screen. Can you see the screen with the ANR? Okay, so this is the latest ANR. Route 116 is on the lower part of the screen. You come in, Vista Terrace is here. You've got lot eight, which is built upon lot one, which was an existing structure. Lot two is not built upon yet. Right next to it is open space. They've just been kind of stockpiling soil there. I think lot six, if you drive by, that's the one that's currently being constructed. Lot five, I think has a house on it. Lot four, I believe has a house on it and lot three has a house on it. So lot seven is the one tucked away here does not have a house on it, but it's under agreement to close land only on November 9th. So I don't know that I have the list handy from what Jason had put together. But his estimate, the majority was the surface course. You know, $11,000 hut mix asphalt berm of about $12,000. And then the hut mix asphalt walk surface of $18,000. And this was provided to Warner and Warner would be doing all of that work. Good. Doug? Yeah, I guess there's, I thought Tom was gonna say another option, which was can we release the release lot seven contingent upon the work in Warner Brothers list being completed? And since it sounds like it's supposed to be completed by October 31st, in which, you know, I don't really care whether there's a contract to complete it. I'm more interested in whether it's completed. So it would seem like we could do that and maybe arrange for Jason. If Chris is open to this, have Jason agree to go out there on November 1st and then we all know that it's completed and our contingent release takes effect and they can close on the 9th or, you know, we're supposed to meet again on November 4th. So if we have to talk about it again, we could do that. Can you, can you meet just a point of order? Can you meet on the 4th? If it's an election day? It's the 3rd, that's the election day. Is it? Well, look what I know. That's what COVID ballots are, I guess. Every day is an election day. Well, I mean, if that, if you're gonna be meeting on the 4th and I'm fine with that, I was just, I don't know, Doug, if they're gonna be able to start on the 30th and finish, my guess is probably not finish on the 30th. So I just wanted to give you something where you saw like, okay, this is going to happen. It is moving along and you felt comfortable. But if you wanna check in again on the 4th and you're meeting then, then I'm, I have zero problem with that. Thanks, Doug, as good comments, Janet. So I went by Applebrook today and there was an excavator on lot seven. So it seems like I was wondering if there's urgency to, are you trying to close on the, was it the 7th or the 9th? Because the 9th. And, okay, so then the builder is he going already or kind of like how Lot Six had a house on it when we were supposed to have a family? I don't think it'll be as dramatic as that. There's like a lot of digging equipment there. Yeah, and I don't, frankly, I don't know if it's just, I mean, the reality is, and as the board, I can appreciate if you would take offense to putting a cart before the horse, especially with what happened with lot four, which I think was more of an aberration and oversight than anything else. If anything, having, and this will be the lawyer in me, the excavator on the site shows you that they know they're going to do that road work because then they're definitely going to want that lot released. And if they're going to start spending money to start digging a hole, then they're, they know what they're going to do it. They know what they have to do. I don't want to get mired down in the kind of technicalities of it all. But I think when you look at it, it's something they have been planning on the whole time. It's just in the nature of when this stuff is happening. And maybe they're putting it on lot seven, so they don't have to drive it over once the pavement happens, the paving occurs. Yeah, it looked like they were moving dirt from lot seven to lot two, but I wasn't there that long. But I think Doug's idea is a good one. And I don't have a lack of trust or anything, but I just feel like let's do things in a sequence that protects the interests of people. So the people we're supposed to be protecting. So. Chris. So I just wanted to understand what's being proposed here. Is Tom Mr. Riedi proposing that the board wait until November 4th to vote on whether to release lot seven or not? But I guess what I would ask is, I'm just thinking of how to expedite it because if they get it done on the 30th and the first, let's say, then I wouldn't need to come back here on the 4th to have any release because they would have done the work. So I think that would be preferred. And then let's say if for some reason they don't or it's mid-construction, I'm happy to come back in on the 4th to discuss. Chris. I would rather have the board trade lot seven for lot two. I'm very leery given the problems we've had with Amherst Hills and when we agreed to certain things and they didn't happen, and that's a lingering thorn in our sides. And so I really feel like the best solution as far as the planning department and the planning board goes is to release lot seven in exchange for a lot two at this point. And then at least you have something and that would be my recommendation to the board. And you could make that decision tonight. And then whatever happens on November 30th or October 30th or November 9th, we don't have to worry about it because you've got lot two. But then we're spending money to, I mean, and it's $105, but it's still $105. It's not a big deal. To record. Well, no, but I mean compared to, I guess the alternative Chris would be just don't take action tonight then, right? And just so then nothing's changed. You still have a lot seven. If anything, you'll have more leverage come November 4th. And then if we then you'll either see that there's progress happening. Jason will say, yeah, everything's done or the board may still get cold feet and say we want lot two, but at least if you're gonna go with lot two, I'd say push that decision off. That would satisfy me and my recommendation. Okay. Andrew. I was actually just gonna mention what Tom did. It seems like let's just meet on the fourth. If it's done, it's done. If it's not, we can talk about trading laws. Okay. That was simple. Thanks a lot. Okay, so do I hear a motion to move this through? To, was it November 4th and take this up again? I don't think you need to take a vote. I mean, I don't think you need to. Hey, let's vote, let's vote. Well, no, in general, we all want to vote. Okay, but in this case, I agree. Let's not vote if you don't think it's necessary. So let's move on. Tom, are you good with that? I don't know what's next in your agenda, but I know I've got maybe two other items on here. The ANR, I don't know if that's gonna come up for Cortland Drive and then 40R discussion. And I don't want to impose myself on the board, but I didn't know where those are coming up in the agenda. Do we have a 40R? The ANR is on the agenda. I don't think we put the 40R on the agenda yet because I hadn't talked to Jack about that and decided on a particular day or night to do that. Yeah, I think that was gonna be like, report of the chair. We're hoping to, I want to discuss with the board some conversations I've had with Chris and others. And then I'm most certainly would hope that you would be able to present something as you discussed, but we haven't even broached that. But we have to kind of like revitalize that discussion because we did have just the forum last week. It was, I think Maria and I viewed it, maybe some other, I think Janet might have been there, but maybe some other board members saw that, but it invigorated my interest in the proposal in terms of the 40R downtown. And so we're not there yet, but I really appreciate your proposal to present something just from a third party kind of perspective, because we need that. Because we don't, this would be Amherst's first 40R. We don't know, we're not familiar with it. Downtown is very sensitive with regard to, it's everybody's downtown. And, but I appreciate that. And I kind of wanted to talk about that with the board members later in the program. So great. But we could talk about the ANR if you wanted to just move that up ahead a little bit, Jack. So there- Sure, absolutely. That would be great, thank you. And Pam has a map showing the ANR. I do. Bear with me. Let me just give you some background. This ANR came before the planning board, sometime in the beginning of the summer. And we got a note back from the town engineer, Jason Skeels, that he wanted to see a sewer easement across one lot. It's really, I think it's one big lot that was divided into two, or there was a change- That's correct. Or something like that. But anyway, Jason wants to make sure that the new lot that is not built upon yet, would have the sewer easement across it to serve the existing house. And Pam, can you go back one step to the focus map? You just had it up. Whoops. Low down. It's on Cortland Drive, and it's at the end of Cortland Drive. Sorry, I lost the whole thing. Bear with me. And anyway, when it came before the planning board, and there it is, and Jason Skeels said he wanted to have the sewer easement. So the planning board said, well, that's fine. We will authorize the chair, who at that time was Christine Graham-Mullen, to sign the ANR plan. But then the new plan showing the sewer easement was never given to us. So here is the configuration of the lots as they are now. The yellow one with the house on it, and the turquoise one that hasn't been built on yet. And then Pam, can you show the ANR plan? Yes. So the ANR plan is a little bit different. You can see that the lot line between the two lots has been changed slightly. And the purple strip down close to the road where that circle is, that purple strip is proposed to be the sewer easement. So Mr. Rede is asking you to agree that Mr. Gemsick can sign this plan as an ANR for this property now that it has the sewer easement on it. And we can do that this week if the planning board authorizes Mr. Gemsick to sign it. So, does anyone have any concerns? I see Janet's hand. Can we go back to the previous map, the kind of the more general one, that one, yeah. So this is not, this is really a question, maybe a little mega. So this road was put in and this isn't a subdivision here? It is, it is a subdivision. Okay, so the road has been put in, it's a subdivision and somebody's dividing their existing lot which looks quite large to create another lot. Is that right? I think the two lots exist now. Correct, so Chris is correct, the two lots do exist. I think they were, they're in common ownership. I think the house might have been built at a time potentially prior to that, the building circle requirement. And so what they've done is they've now changed the lot lines to make sure that both lots have the requisite amount of frontage and can fit the building circle. Okay, okay, so that helps me understand a frame or understand how we got to looking at this. Okay, thank you. So do you wanna go back to the A&R plan now Pam? I will. So here's the plan and usually the board agrees by consensus that the chair can sign an A&R plan if there aren't any issues about it. And since we already looked at this plan back a few months ago, we had the building commissioner look at it and the only requirement was that they come back with the sewer easement shown on the plan as requested by the town engineer. It seems that it has everything that it needs to have to be authorized to be signed by the chair. Any discussion, further discussion amongst the board? I see no hand, oh, Doug. Mr. Marshall. Yeah, I was gonna offer you a motion to close the discussion and go ahead and vote or do our consensus, however we get the consensus. Yeah, Chris, is this a vote? Since it's remote, a vote is probably a good thing. Okay, so I will make sure. All right, Tom, since I skipped you before, you are first. Approved. We need a second. Oh, a second. Sorry. Tom, seconded. Tom, would you like to second? Okay, all right. Any further discussion? All right, Tom, regarding approval of this, or recommendation of this? Approved. Okay. And Maria? Yes. Johanna? Yes. Doug? Hi. Andrew? Hi. Janet? Hi. I miss anybody besides myself. Okay, I'm in, I'm in, so. Okay, thank you. 7-0, all right. Thanks very much. Thanks for taking it out of order, too. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, have a great night. See everybody later. All right, night. So, old business topics, not reasonably anticipated 48 hours prior to the meeting. No topics. None. From Chris, okay. And moving on to new business. We have wanted to just, you know, to respect Marianne Adams. And she was at so many of our planning board hearings and kind of passed away, you know, too soon, unexpectedly. And we would like to pay our respects to her. And I'm just, here we go. I wrote up a little something that I'd like to say. Okay. Yeah, I'm like, I'm looking at my folder, sir. Oh, here we go. I'm sorry. All right, so I'm just, we distributed, you know, that her obituary, which was in the paper, but because she was, you know, compassionate, you know, toward, you know, the, you know, town development. She always was respectful. She was at a lot of our meetings, presented herself well, was always had the decorum of any one that you would, you know, ask that came, you know, in front of the planning board. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Chris. She passed away on October 6th and it was quite, she had been ill for a while, but it was still a surprise. She had been a long time activist and Amherst and she followed activities of the planning board really closely, particularly with regard to zoning amendments. She was a meeting member and she paid a very close attention to the business of the town. She attended zoning subcommittee meetings regularly for several years and offered her perspective as a long time resident. And she was someone who really cared about neighborhoods, especially those near the university. She was very protective of those neighborhoods and was actively involved in establishing the local historic district, the local historic district and then became an active member of the local historic district commission. Often Morianne did not agree with projects or zoning amendments that were being proposed, but she had a gentle, collegial way of making her opinions known and sharing her perspective. She saw herself as a bridge between town government and people who didn't have time or the inclination to be so involved, but were concerned about what was going on. She and I had many lively exchanges over the years and I had a great affection and respect for Morianne. And I'll miss her, excuse me. Sorry, I couldn't melt that. Yeah. Especially seeing a picture. So, I mean, we can have like a moment here, just of remembrance for her. So her family has requested that donations be made to the Fisher Home, Hospice of the Fisher Home or Dakin Humane Society, Amherst Survival Center and Amherst Community Land Trust or a nonprofit of your choice. So anybody that watches this, please be aware of that. And again, we appreciate what Morianne has brought in terms of her thoughts, well-intentioned thoughts in front of the planning board. And again, she's always the most polite person and should be sorely missed. Looks like you have two people who might wanna speak. Jack. Okay. Let me see that. Janet. Thank you. I think I might have met Morianne Adams in a zoning subcommittee meeting or watching the planning board meetings when I used to attend. And I mean, so much of her life was dedicated to bringing other people into the conversation. That was her work at the University of Multicultural Participation. She's written books. She came to the zoning subcommittee, which when it was going, always had lots of community members too. And she was so eloquent. I think that's like, it's hard. I mean, her voice was so resonant and she had a great way of putting her ideas forward in a way that I think people had a good chance of listening to or were able to listen to. And I know that, I mean, I think the best way to remember her is to honor her commitment to her neighborhood and that people in the downtown, we all care about the downtown. She lived next to it. We care about the businesses in the downtown. There's the small shop owners that are struggling now. And I think, as we talk about the downtown, let's bring those people, make sure those people are being heard that the people in the neighborhoods that really care so passionately about the community that they are part of our process and we bring them in. And so that is my real reason to be on the planning board is to make sure that the people most affected by the decisions that we make are part of the conversation. And so I wish I was as eloquent as Maureen and as graceful and articulate, but she became a very good friend of mine and a person I really looked to for help. So I just, it is hard to look at that picture. It is hard. So I wanna thank her and just, I think we should honor her by keeping and talking with our community and making sure everybody's at the table. Thank you. Thanks, Janet. Dorothy, can you bring her in Pam? I can, I think. What's going on? Whoops. Oh no. Now I've got trouble. It's okay. You just bring Dorothy, Pam in. Jack, I'm trying. Yeah. All right. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes. So I certainly would like to pay tribute to Maureen and I'm so glad that Bob and I had a little surprise visit on her porch. I think it was just two weeks before she died in which she talked about the planning board and what was happening in town. And she is the first person who spoke to me about town council and persuaded me to run which was something I had never intended to do. She was always positive and hopeful and strong in her belief, in Amherst historical neighborhoods and in the strength of our town. One of the things we discovered after we'd known each other for a while is that we'd both gone to Swarthmore College, she a little bit before me. And in many ways, she exemplified some of the Quaker ways which are gentleness and respect but speaking truth to power. So I do wanna honor a very strong woman tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much, Pam, that's... I mean, she was just out of a form as of a few weeks ago. So it's just, it really is shocking but we will miss her. Okay, I'm moving on to next on our agenda. Okay, sorry. All right, so we have article 14 amended which is the temporary zoning introduction and discussion. It can be provided by Chris Brestrup. Yep. And it looks like we have a hearing scheduled for our next meeting on November 4th. So this article 14 was passed in the early part of the summer as an effort to help the restaurants and the other businesses in town to get back on their feet after being closed for a couple of months. And it really was an effort to allow the building commissioner to make administrative approvals of certain types of uses. And it was really limited to restaurants and retail stores and I can't remember what they all were. I have it in my packet here somewhere. But anyway, what has transpired since back then we thought, well, maybe this would only be a short-term thing, this COVID-19 and that it would be all done with by the end of the year. And so we could then go on our merry way but it turns out that it's actually going to be with us for much longer. So the building commissioner and I were asked to look at article 19, article 14 and think about how we could extend it into the future. And also if we had any ideas for improving it. So certainly extending it is the easy part. The governor has an order, governor's order, I think it's number 35. But anyway, he got on the bandwagon shortly after the building commissioner and the town of Amherst did and he allowed existing restaurants to be open and to operate on the sidewalk or in the street or wherever they could possibly manage to operate until I think it was November 1st. So the governor has since extended his order to expire 60 days after the COVID-19 emergency expires. And we don't know when that is going to be but we wanted to have something in place that went to at least December 31st of 2021. We're envisioning that COVID-19 is going to be with us through the summer and through the fall of next year probably and we want restaurants to still be able to operate the way they're operating now. So what I'm coming to you tonight with is and I think I've sent you information about this and maybe Pam could pull up the article 14 on the screen and that would help. I just wanted to introduce this topic to you and make sure that you were ready for the public hearing that is going to be coming along on November 4th. It's going to be a joint public hearing between the planning board and the CRC, the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council. And you had it there a minute ago, Pam. There it is, yeah. So as you can see, this is our version of the extension. That is the planning director and the building commissioner. This is what we're suggesting. It hasn't been discussed by CRC as far as I know and they may discuss it on Tuesday. They have a meeting on October 27th. But anyway, the current proposal is to increase the number of uses that are allowed to come under this ruling. And you're adding medical uses because medical uses may, people may need to have vaccinations or tests or something outside. We were envisioning that some of the medical facilities in town like Kate Atkinson's office and Valley Medical and the medical facility on University Drive that they may at some point have to offer services outside, not just within their building. And those facilities are located in the office park and PRP, Professional Research Park Zoning Districts. And so that's why we're adding those two zoning districts to our list of in the second paragraph here, OP and PRP. And then we've also had the experience, as you well know that we've had to have some entities who just wanna put up a tent like at the high school. They wanted to put up a tent to have what they call breakout space or additional instructional space outside of the building. So they had to come to the planning board for a site plan review, which was a lengthy process and it caused staff time and cost them time. So to sort of not have to do that, perhaps not to have to ask the survival center to come in for their temporary shed that they wanted to put up. And there may be other types of uses like class one farm stand, class two farm stand, all of these things that are listed down below. We're envisioning that those types of uses may wish to have some sort of temporary use that would include a shed or a tent or something like that. And we've given a definition of what a temporary use is. So for your consideration, we wanted you to know about this and be prepared for the discussion that's going to occur on November 4th with the CRC. And I wanted to know if anybody has any questions about this now and what you might think of it. Thank you, Chris. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. I was just curious the temporary structure, the idea of a temporary structure, how that would actually be defined, right? Cause you could have something that's enclosed and very small, which probably wouldn't help with mitigating any transmission or you can have like the open tent like the high school has. So I'm just wondering if that is, if we've got the intent right on that or if that's needs to be tweaked a little bit. So the temporary structure would be things like tents, like the tent at the library that's going up, the framework of that is up, but it also includes the shed at the survival center, which is the temporary structure. It doesn't have any foundation and it's going to be placed on the parking lot. And that's going to be going away when they no longer need it. And you had given them some limited amount of time to have it there. I think you actually said if it was there for more than 18 months that you would expect it to go away unless they came back and gave you a reason to keep it there. So instead of the planning board having to deal with that and go through that process and come up with conditions, the building commissioner is proposing that he would take care of these temporary uses and temporary structures via this expansion of article 14. And it would be for a limited amount of time. It would be until the end of next year. Of course, if he said that something could remain in place for 18 months, then that would be allowed. Just as you did, you said that the shed could remain in place for 18 months. So does that make sense? I was just more like the three that we've looked at, the high school, the library and the survival center. One, the doors were always going to be open. One, the sides were not going to be on and one didn't have any sides. So I'm just more to the extent of like the purpose is to provide more areas for people to congregate in a safe area that it would have some sort of acknowledgement of the fact that you need open circulation, but I'm totally on board with this. Just thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Doug? Yeah, first of all, Chris, thanks for explaining some of the changes I hadn't really understood. A couple of them. I do want to say I'm associated with the first congregational church where the not bread alone soup kitchen happens. And I think there's been some conversation in that organization about how they're going to get through the winter and whether they need a tent or a shed. And at the moment, the way I read this, I think they would need to come to the planning board because they're not an educational institution and they're not a library or museum. So I'm just wondering whether you might want to tweak this at least to save us one item on a future agenda. I don't know where that conversation is going to go, but I think that's a possibility. So actually this section 3.330.0, the way the building commissioner has written it is a non-profit educational institution, but it's really non-profit educational and religious institution. So we should clarify that and thank you for bringing that up because it does include churches. Okay, thanks. Great comment, Doug and... I should also say I think Craig's doors might be another one that, you know, I know they're talking, I saw in the paper about them potentially moving from the Baptist church to the UU church, but they may want to be doing something outside too. Excellent, thank you so much, Doug. And Chris, I trust you will make that edit. Okay, and Janet? So I've seen medical facilities in the Boston area that do have tents in the parking lot for testing or whatever they're providing to their patients. So I have seen that, I can see that as a need. I also see that COVID could be going on for a long time. And so it may not be next summer, it might not be next winter, we might be dealing with a reoccurrent virus that we have to revaccinate for or we're not able to. And so I wanna bring back a concern that I had when we passed this the first time we're voted on it, which is all these tents and all these structures that are going out are gonna have impacts on the people around them. And that could include people who are residents, people who are renters and departments that could be the business next door. And I wanna see some way that they are consulted. And so, often when we have someone put in an application, we have to notify the butters within 300 feet. And that really means the property owners, but 300 feet from a business could include an entire office building with businesses that are having trouble, their customers are having trouble coming in or noise is too loud or I don't know. And so I wish we would add something that would give notification to businesses, also give notification to businesses and residents within 300 feet. It could just be a leaflet at the door saying this person has applied for this permit to build a tent. And we wanna make sure that you know about this and can talk to the building inspector and Christine Breistrup about their concerns. Right now we have no way of hearing, of notifying people that could be directly impacted. And they may not know until something happens. And after that, they may not know who to talk to. We don't have a town hall with an open door right now. And so I just think I know we're, I think our community is stronger if we have people notify what's going on, give them a chance to be heard and have their voice in there. And so I don't think it would slow the process down so far partly because I think there's not gonna be a run for outdoor tents in January, but I do think I wanna see a provision in here that people and especially businesses are notified. And they may be a little hesitant to come forward to a hearing in front of the planning board and say something, but they might be a lot easier to talk to Rob Moore and Chris saying, I love the restaurant next door, my clients can't get in, or people can't go by because they're in a wheelchair and they're struggling or the noise is too loud for me to hear what my clients are saying to me. So I just think we have to have something that lets the public or the people most affected know. So I wonder if you can draft a provision for that or think of some way that's not administratively complex, but actually just gives people notification about what's about to happen next door to them. We can certainly consider that, thank you. Hey, Janet, the 300 foot perimeter where does that come from? Isn't it the normal thing when someone files a permit application for a site plan review or special permit that a butters get notified within 300 feet? Chris, can you help me on that? Property owners. So it's property owners, but when you're talking about downtown or a village center, there's lots of businesses there that would never get notified or somebody who's in an apartment building next door, the rentors wouldn't be notified, just the property owner and be up to the property owner to decide whether he or she wanted to tell them. So I'm just wondering, is there a way just to notify the people who are actually in that kind of circle? We will think about that. Yeah, I mean, it seems a little bit onerous on the types of things that this bylaw amendment is addressed to, but we can discuss for sure. Johanna? It's funny, I feel like we're still in an emergency and mostly it's like, let's just keep our businesses and our community afloat and working through this crisis. I can't help but think about, at some point we're gonna emerge out of this. And I presume that there will be a list of all these structures that are out there and there will be a plan to kind of decommission them. But that, I don't know, maybe we don't need to even think about that right now because we just haven't crossed that bridge. But, and I do see that there are kind of, there will be a kind of application. So there'll be a process. So we'll know all the different structures that have gone up under this bylaw. So I think I maybe just needed to talk it out so that we didn't end up, I don't like thinking about the FEMA trailers, right? That kind of like were dispatched and then they persisted even though ideally they were just temporary. And I wanna make sure we don't end up with a situation like that where I don't know if we just have kind of like ramshackle structures scattered all over town in perpetuity. But I think my concerns are gone. FEMA? What? What do you mention? Is it FEMA? If you remember after Hurricane Katrina, they basically put in the FEMA trailers and then they were supposed to be around for, just like stop gap and then they weren't stop gap. Not an Amherst, that's yeah. Not an Amherst, normally. Okay, Chris please. So we are keeping track of all of the entities that get these permits and we did write a memo. I wrote a memo with the building commissioner to the town manager listing all of the entities that have received either article 14 approval or there were only three of them or there were like 12 that had received approval under the governor's order. Yes, this memo here. And I think you had a copy of that in your packet. So we are certainly keeping track of these and I think your point about making them go away when they're not needed anymore is certainly appropriate. So that is something that we're keeping in mind and that's something that we could bring up at next, what is it, November 4th's public hearing with the CRC. News next here. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. I was just gonna say, I agree with Janet. I like what she said and I would echo her sentiments on the 4th as well. Oh, yes. Chris. I will say that for the downtown, the bid has been doing a fantastic job of working with the business owners, the property owners, the restaurateurs, et cetera about what their plans are for their property or their outdoor dining and what the adjacent company or property owners plans are. So the bid is sort of coordinating it all in the downtown now and it's not codified, but it is happening. So just wanted to mention that. So Chris, this is just an introduction to the, this and then we're gonna talk about it next meeting. Yeah, and I don't need to really take any action at this point. No, just read through the material that we've sent you. I think we're going to be revising this memo to add more information about why we're doing this. So you'll get more information as time gets closer to November 4th. And I think I wanted to say something. And I see Janet's hand up. Just very quickly. I just wanted to say, I think that all the outdoor dining has been sort of exciting and interesting to see. And it's just great to see people out and about. And it's something we should maybe think about in the future about expanding more. And I actually love the picnic tables in front of town hall. And I think we should have more of those. Cause I think I often see people sitting there like getting takeout food and sitting down and talking and stuff like that. And so I know we have this big plan for that part of the common, but it's an expensive plan. And I thought, maybe we can learn some things from the COVID situation about what makes our town more vital or more fun or more interesting. And obviously there's a lot of people who are happy to sit on some fairly rudimentary picnic benches and hang out with each other. So I just wanted to say I kind of see the benefits of this terrible situation that we're in. And maybe we can think about that in terms of our planning. Good, good comment. Thank you, Janet. May I say one more thing? Yes, Chris. I appreciate Janet's comments. And I wanted to just let you know that the money that we're receiving from the mass DOT grant, we were received about $130,000 for that. So we are buying more picnic tables and we are going to put more picnic tables out on the North Common. We've also managed to distribute, I think 12 heaters to the local restaurants and we're hoping to get more heaters. So they'll be able to carry on their outdoor dining farther into the season. So when you go downtown this weekend, you'll probably see that some of the restaurants now have heaters and there are other things that we're going to be helping them out with. So we're finally starting to see the benefit of having gotten that grant. Thank you, Chris. I see no other hands. And so we can move on to topics not reasonably dismayed in 48 hours prior to the meeting. Chris, do you have nothing? Okay. Very good. Form A in our subdivision applications, please. We just talked about one with Tom Reedy and that was the only one that we had to bring before you. Great. Upcoming ZBA applications. No, I talked with Maureen Pollack, our planner who is the liaison to ZBA and she had nothing new to report. She anticipates some things coming but there was nothing to report to the board tonight. Thank you. Upcoming SPP, SPR, SUB applications. We have not received anything new. There are always things waiting up there in the wings but nothing new has come in. Thank you. Going on to the planning board committee and Lia's on reports, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. We did have like a quarterly meeting and lots of topics were discussed. My gosh, I don't have them right in front of me, unfortunately. But we did discuss about the... No, I'm not even gonna get into it because I don't have those nuts in front of me. I think the things that have been preceded this have kind of taken me off track here but I'm gonna defer this report to the regarding Pioneer Valley Planning Commission to the next meeting. So, yeah, there's so many factors but I'm sorry. And then the Community Preservation Act Committee. Thanks, Jack. We have our first... I did get my official appointment so I am a member of that committee. Congratulations. Thank you. So we've got the list of projects under consideration. There's 12 of them. They can fall under four different groups. There's six for historic preservation, six for recreation, I'm sorry, three for recreation, three for community housing. We meet for the first time tomorrow and we'll, I believe, have five weeks of meetings scheduled. So I don't have much update aside from that other than we're getting started and it looks like it's gonna be fun. Thank you so much for taking that on. Happy to. The ad commission, what's going on there? Doug is nominated but I don't think he's been... Okay. He hasn't been appointed yet. The same for the DRB but Tom. Tom has actually been appointed but I don't know if he's received his paperwork yet. Okay. No official paperwork but within the next few days so. You're good. And then the Zoning Subcommittee is on hold but so reported to the chair. So we have, I have a few items here. One of the Amherst Hills, we wanna stay on top of that. And I've had some correspondences with Chris Brestrup on that and I encourage Chris to stay on top of the communications because my understanding was that that the roads would be, you know, completed. That there's areas of deterioration there that needed to be replaced with regard to the base course of the pavement and then just final paving. So that's a lot of stuff. And now I think we have word that the DPW is, is hesitant about whether they're gonna wanna do the plowing this winter. And so here we are kind of going into like deja vu from a year ago. So that's why we're staying on top of it. And Chris, what are your thoughts on this? Well, there seems to be a problem with to Fino having enough money to do the work that is needing to be done. There's an ongoing public hearing in before the conservation commission that was continued from last winter to the spring in order to get a handle on vernal pools. But then information wasn't coming forth. They finally got the information, I think sometime in September, the concom, but then determined that the information they received wasn't, how should I say it? Wasn't what they were expecting, I guess. So they've hired a third party reviewer to review the vernal pool and the wetlands issues on certain lots. I think there are six or seven lots that are in dispute. And so now they've continued the public hearing until sometime in April when their third party reviewer will actually be able to go out in the field and determine what the limits of the vernal pool are and map them. So that's all to say that I think to Fino was counting on the money that they could get from sale of some of those lots to pay for work on the road. I know if Fino did do some work last year in order to fill potholes and raise catch basins that were sinking and do some kind of preliminary work to getting the roads up to snuff. But there was one whole section of the roadway that is considered to be subpar and needs to be completely taken up and the base course replaced and new base course put down and then eventually paved. So to Fino is waiting to get money from these lots aren't able to pave. So it's all kind of, as Jack said it's like deja vu all over again. At this point just to make sure that everybody knows what's going on. I don't know if I gave a full accounting of the history of this project but Amherst Hills is a subdivision that was started back in the 1990s I believe. And then the original developer had financial problems and eventually sold to Doug Cole. And Doug Cole made a great start on this project but then Doug Cole passed away and then we went into the recession of 2008. So there've been a series of kind of mishaps along the way having to do with this development. So there are many beautiful large expensive homes built in Amherst Hills but the roadway is deteriorating. And the planning board was asked to step in and the planning board did make a decision. I believe it was in the fall of 2019 to ask the building commissioner not to issue building permits on I think it was six or seven lots. And so that request was formalized. The planning board took a vote. We sent that letter off to the building commissioner and then we recorded that notice with the deeds. So those lots cannot receive building permits until the planning board is satisfied that the developer is doing the right thing as far as the roadway goes. Well, the planning board does have that leverage and according to our town council that leverage is appropriate at this time. I haven't heard anything from the neighbors recently complaining about the road. I did hear from the town engineer that he had had a meeting with Tafino. Tafino is the developer for those of you who don't know this project very well but Tafino and coal construction are the developers of this property. So Jason's skills went out on the 21st of September and walked through the development with Tafino Associates and Warner Brothers which is a paving company and they were discussing what work needed to be done. They have a punch list for the items that need to be taken care of but they discussed late October, early November as potential dates for doing this work but the town engineer said he hasn't heard anything since then. So I sent an email to Tafino's attorney today asking him what's going on and telling him that the DPW is concerned about the road and concerned about its condition and concerned about whether they can plow at this winter. So hopefully we'll get some response back from that. Yeah, I mean, the planning board should be aware that we had dozens of residents within Amherst Hills at our planning board meetings when this came before us a year ago and I mean, it's complicated but I'd rather us stay on top of this versus having them come again. And the whole thing is it's complicated but I bring that up because we do want that neighborhood to be accessible and that requires the roads be paved and the town being able to plow the roads there. Does anyone know, we have any questions about that with regard to where Amherst Hills is or anything, any general questions? A little bit of catch up for the new members. So off station road, it's just before you get to... On station road. Yeah, while it's on station road past... It's the last... Past Portland and you're almost in Belcher Town by the time you get there. Yeah. Part of Amherst Hills Subvision is in Belcher Town. I think it's Hawthorne Street and there's another street. I can't think of it. Yeah, I don't remember but yeah. If people don't understand it, it does need some serious work. Yeah. So anyway, that's... What's the ideal course of action? The ideal course of action would have been that this subdivision was built and finished and that it was all done in a timely manner but in this case, it's taken more than 20 years for all these various reasons that I've described and that is unfortunate. And as a result of the length of time it's taken, the base course of the road has deteriorated. The town had a policy and I think they're kind of getting away from that policy but the DPW has long had a policy where they don't want the top course of a roadway to be put down if there are going to be new houses built because then you have heavy equipment traveling over the new top course and the town will be expected to take the road eventually and own the road and have to maintain the road and they want the road to be built solidly but in this case, the base course has been without a top course for the ages and so it's really wearing down and that's the issue here. So Jason Skeels, who's the town engineer and the DPW superintendent have relented in this case and said, look, even though not all the houses are built there we are willing to have the top course put down but if we're gonna take over the road we want it to be built properly so they're saying sections of the roadway have to actually be rebuilt entirely and I think that's more expensive than what the developer had originally planned, of course. So it's a difficult situation. There's also a lawsuit. The developer has sued the residents and I'm not exactly sure all the ins and outs of that so it is a complicated situation. Yeah, I was gonna say it seems like limiting permitting on the residents there is also like harming them or giving them undue harm based on choices of the developer or issues of the developer which is also problematic for the people who live in those houses and wanna make some changes. Well, the notice that the planning board put in the registry only relates to these six or seven lots that are unbuilt. It doesn't relate to the other homes that are there existing. However, this lawsuit that the developer has put on the residents, I understand is keeping many of them from being able to sell their homes but that's something that the planning board doesn't have anything to do with. So that's a messy legal process that has to be carried out. So we're not privy to all the information about this. You know, personally, I learned so much about like pavement with regard to what Jason's skills presented. There is like, there's a cliff like pavement exists and then it just fails. And it's like, it's a, you know, a drop. A sudden event. A sudden event. Oh, okay. So I was like, oh, all right. You know, and that's, you know, a little bit of pavement 101 that I learned from this whole process because they had this temporary, you know, pavement in there, you know, wasn't, didn't have the top course in there. But when it goes, it goes, I guess, is what, you know, we learned. And that's where they, you know, they did significant patching last year at this time. And the town was able to plow, you know, during the winter. And now here we are again, but we were, the agreement is that they would, they would have finished the roads. So that's where we're trying to stay, you know, on top of this. So another item, the, and they probably put this on the agenda. I don't want to talk about this, you know, gives us nine o'clock, but the master plan implementation kind of review. I think Doug was working with Chris on this sum. And I don't know if you have anything to report, but we can start getting this on the agenda at some point. We have a meeting set up for Friday. Friday, okay. Good, good. Through the items. And I think Doug said, he's going to hold my feet to the fire. Night. Sounds good. Sounds good. And then the other, the, the last item I have for the report of the chair, and I can't believe I have so many items on the report of the chair giving a whiffed on the Pioneer Valley planning commission report. But I am, I want to present to the board consideration of the 40 R proposal for downtown. And there was a forum last week, I believe. And, and I would like to get a discussion going within the planning board about the merits of the 40 R, you know, district proposal in downtown. I feel, I feel that there are merits to it that weren't apparent to me or perhaps to mostly the other planning board when it was presented to us in March of this year. And then, you know, there was a December one and then ones before that. But for, for me, and I think, you know, Maria was, was observed that I think, you know, Janet as well, but it struck me as something that we need to look at seriously with regard to know what's best for the town. So I want to put this out to us, put it on the agenda. We have the Amherst, oh geez, I got to get this. Chris, all right. Amherst. Municipal affordable housing trust. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Amherst, municipal housing affordable trust. All right, whatever. But what an acronym they came up with. But we, we, so what I'm thinking, and if the board is, you know, copacetic with this that we have Rob Crowner, who is a former planning board member and John Hornick join us and present their thoughts and perhaps even CRC and that we have sort of a joint, you know, meeting on this particular topic because so many things have happened with COVID knowing that, you know, zoning changes aren't going to happen, you know, you know, easily virtue by the zoning bylaws that would take a lot of time. But we have a lot of the downtown is everybody's downtown sort of thing. So I know that there's a butters, but our downtown, it's only downtown we have. I think we need to heavily invest in this discussion. You know, we can talk about East Amherst or, you know, Pomeroy village, but I don't really wanna, you know, kick the can down the road. I think from what I gathered from this last presentation, which was solid compared to the one that we received in March that we consider this and give it our review. So Chris, I don't know if you have anything to add to that before we open it up to the board. So I think that the last presentation we had, which as Jack said, was just recently, I think it was the 24th of, no, couldn't have been 24th of October. It was the 14th of October, that's what it was. Anyway, it was much better and tighter and had been revised and improved. And I think it is worth examining and we wouldn't take the whole thing lock, stock and barrel, but we can discuss what has been presented to us and decide what parts of it do we like and what parts of it would we like to move forward with. And I think those of you who weren't able to attend that public forum may wish to watch the video and read up online. I think it's on the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trusts website that the video is posted and other information about- Chris, I suggest like Pam send that link out to all of us, because that might be hard to find, but- Yep. Thank you. Okay. And yeah, so for me it's the presentation from in March, I think the majority of the planning board is like, yeah, let's look at East Amherst or Palmer Village, but it's almost discredited before, but this last presentation last week, for me struck home like, wow, this is something that probably would be really good, especially now that we're looking at the age of COVID and our downtown is everybody's downtown. And so I would like to bring this up front and center to the planning board that we may recommend something to the CRC and then, you know, town council. Doug? Yeah, I came late to the presentation on the 14th, but I did get a chance to look at all the slides. It seemed like the primary change was that they reduced the height that was allowed along Triangle Street, which seemed to remove most of the Cottage Street objection, but I didn't see very much else that had changed. And I haven't seen anything, any new draft bylaw, which, you know, I kind of agreed with Maria back in the fall, in the summer, that it didn't look like it was fully baked. So I guess, you know, from my point of view, I don't really think anything's changed since the fairly extensive conversation we had back in the summer. So have the politics changed or something else? I'm just puzzled. Okay. I guess, you know, again, the presentation, I think it was very on point. And so if you have not seen the presentation that from last week, you did? Yeah, I mean, I mean, we're not buying the presentation. We're buying the bylaw and, you know, we haven't really seen that change at all. So again, I just, I thought we had a long conversation about that this summer and people were kind of tepid. You know, I mean, the massing that they had proposed both in the summer and now, I think is an improvement, you know, is fine. You know, I think the primary objection I had back in the spring and summer was potentially down zoning, the base zoning in downtown. And I still would object to that. So, you know, maybe you don't want to get into this tonight and I should just stop talking. So I won't say anything else, but I just, I don't understand what's changed, I guess is all I'm saying. I feel like the presentation, they addressed a lot of the points and concerns and, you know, the flexibility there was, they just, they spoke to the concerns of, you know, I'm not an architect, but having, you know, fewer stories, you know, closer to the street and, you know, a little bit of a buildup back. It was, I thought it was, I thought it was creative, but also, I guess I just feel like, you know, this town has a housing crisis and downtown has a business crisis right now. And so I feel like this needs to come back in front of us. And we need to discuss this, because it's that important to the town. Janet. I agree that we need to talk about the 40R. I do feel much like Doug field, and I think it would be premature to talk about it until we see the final report of the consultants. And I'm not sure if it's just gonna be a summary of things, because in a way, you know, there was less information on parking than I had seen more. And, you know, so I would like to see the final report. And I don't know if the final report is gonna be a revision of that by-law, which I thought had some very significant problems. And so I'd like to see the final document and work from there, that would make more sense to me. Because to me, it wasn't that much different other than pulling something off the map. It seemed like a lot of the problems remained, but I do think we should talk about it, but I would like to talk about a final product in that, you know, but I'm not 100% sure what that product would be. Maybe Christine has a better sense. Are they gonna rewrite the by-law and fix the problems or tighten it up, or I don't know, I understand. They are planning to rewrite the text of the by-law. They did change the setbacks, setbacks from the street. They also changed side setbacks. And they did, as Doug said, change the height. They also changed the zones or the sub-districts or whatever they called them. So now they only have two sub-districts. One is the- Yes, that I saw, yeah. Extensively denser development. And the other one is a residential sub-district that only has three stories and has greater setbacks. So they did respond in that way. And my feeling is that we don't have to buy the whole ball of wax. We can choose to say this area right here, this area on Kellogg Ave is where we wanna focus. Or this area between Halleck Street and Coles Lane is where we wanna focus. Or the area of North of Triangle, Heaven forbid, is where we wanna focus. So we don't have to take the whole thing. And we can make it our own. We can take the text that they have written and say, well, we really don't feel like 15 feet setback is enough. We feel like 20 foot would be better. Or the side setback, we really don't like the 10 foot setback. We think that 15 feet is better. So it's something that we can take and make it our own. We don't have to take it as it's handed to us. This is a framework, a model of what could be. And then we take it and do what we want with it. That's my feeling about it. So I would, I think we should talk. You're, I can't hear you. I'll say, I'd like to talk about after we see the final product. Cause when you're doing a zoning change like that, the devils are really in the details. And my preference would be not to do 40R, but directly address the problems in downtown on setbacks and height and fix the underlying zoning. I think our time would be better spent there. And that's kind of what we said to CRC, but I, it's hard to talk about this. You know, I'd like to see this 28 page zoning bylaw that we, you know, proposal. And to me, it just doesn't make sense to add that to our by-law just for small pieces around town. So, but let's talk about that separately when we see, when we get the whole thing in. May I say one thing here? Sure. Daughter's birthday is today and I haven't had a chance to celebrate it with her. So I wonder if we can talk about the 40R district another night. Oh yeah, we're just broaching this subject here. So the other, did we talk about the master plan? We already talked about that. Okay. So, okay, so we're good. So report a staff. I don't have any report except that, well, no, I don't have any report tonight, but thank you. Okay. So we can indeed adjourn. Thank you all. And November 4th. November 4th. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Take care. Stay crisp there. Bye. Happy birthday to your daughter. Yeah. Bye. Good night. Good night. Good night.