 Wednesday, May 15th meeting of the Amherst planning board and zoning subcommittee We're gonna be joined a little bit later in the meeting by our friends who are present here from the town council's community resource Committee, we have a couple items before we get to that joint meeting the first being announcements in minutes And I believe we have the minutes of Wednesday May 1st here in our packets Are there any comments on the minutes of Wednesday May 1st? All right, we'll consider those minutes approved. Thank you Are there any announcements? All right seeing none The next item is public comments and this is public comments for items not related to items that are occurring further down the agenda Is there any such public comments? All right seeing none We'll move on to the next item and this is the joint meeting with the community resources committee of the town council to discuss the process of Working on zoning amendments and other matters and we have this community resource committee is here Their chair Steve Schreiber will be co-chairing this portion of the meeting with me. Welcome everyone Thank you. So I officially called to order the CRC Meeting also we have a forum Would it be helpful if we did introductions? That would be very helpful. Yeah, so I'm well, I'm Steve Schreiber I'm a town councilor chair of the community resource Committee and former planning board member and actually former zoning subcommittee member So it's good to be back. Good to have you I'm Dorothy Pam member of community resources committee at the Angeles community resources And the Steinberg Council on the committee Kathy Shane on the council, but not on the committee. So I'm part of your public Greg Statesman planning board and zoning subcommittee David Levenstein planning board and zoning subcommittee Chris Brestra planning director Lynn Griezmer president of the town council and actually here is a member of the audience Chris I Wonder if I might just point out what is in the packet before you get started with your meeting just so you understand the Resources that are available to you here. Please do So the first item that you have in your packet is a colorful sheet of paper that the zoning subcommittee and the planning board have Been working on for a number of years putting together their priorities for Zoning amendments and the blue section is what they consider the higher priority the Pink section is the secondary priority and the green section is the third priority. So that's kind of an over overview The second thing you have in your packet is a copy of section five from chapter 40 a of the mass general law. This was something that was provided to us by Bob Richie who is working on the bylaw review committee and it It traces the process by which one or by which a town or a city can change its zoning and since we are Changing our form of government from town meeting to town council. We thought this might be helpful the third thing is Three it's a little packet that's stapled together and it's three zoning amendments that are just in there Early stages of being put together and zoning subcommittee is Considering whether they want to present these as a first packet to town council and we can talk about them individually as we get into the meeting the fourth item is a memorandum and the reason I included this in the packet is because Ms. Pam brought up a question about the The desire by the planning board to change its voting requirements for site plan review. So this is a memo I wrote I think it was back in February because our planning board members had similar questions So you obviously can't read that right now But you might want to read it at your leisure and it will give the history of why we arrived at the voting requirements that we have now and Potential reasons for wanting to change those voting requirements and then the fourth thing is a report to town meeting on One of the zoning amendments that is included in the little stapled packet it has to do with supplemental dwellings and I thought that would be helpful to you because Supplemental dwellings was already brought to town meeting and town meeting didn't Adopt it for a variety of reasons at that time which you can go into later But this memorandum from the planning board will give you a sense of why the planning board thought this was an important Topic so that's that is your packet in a nutshell Great. Thank you so much for that overview And to give a little more background on why we're here today and why the zoning subcommittee Thought it wise to invite the CRC to have a conversation with us We understand that the presentation was given to the CRC on zoning this afternoon and we had considered Attending that meeting and having that meeting be a joint meeting of the two bodies But it seemed to make more sense to have that discussion take place here to provide more time for the presentation by staff earlier this afternoon So we're here to have a conversation with the CRC about how we might proceed with zoning Answer any questions about how that's been happening up to this point and again look at how we might move forward Chris I Forgot one item You also have on your desks a packet that Is representative of a presentation that the building commissioner gave today and one of the sheets in here may be helpful to you in discussing What you would envision going forward in terms of a process from ending zoning? I can't remember which page it's on but I'll look that up and when the time comes I'll be able to refer that to you Thank you So first I'd ask if there were any comments questions on the Presentation that was given today CRC members have questions or comments for the zoning subcommittee about any of the information we heard earlier today As I say said to Dave in the break What for me would be most useful our case studies? Kind of like what you did on a certain thing what problems arose how you proceeded so that we have just a better idea of how things work Chris Is miss Pam? Imagining that those case studies would be in the form of written material or would be presented orally at a meeting orally Case studies of what? Decisions that you made or how it worked out particular Something is presented to you how you proceed and what happened well We can speak about the process under the prior form of government in which typically Proposals that would be brought forth by the planning board Would be discussed first by the zoning subcommittee Working from base materials such as the priorities document that's been presented in the packet today, which again has been Created over a large number of years so inspiration might be drawn from that it might be drawn from current issues that arise and the conversations we have at the planning board and once an idea is Circulated amongst the zoning subcommittee staff will work with the zoning subcommittee to refine it It would then be brought to the planning board For further discussion and as noted in some of the materials in our packet any Zoning change requires a public hearing by the planning board and under our previous form of government after the planning board had held The public hearing it would make a recommendation to town meeting town meeting Would ultimately vote on the proposal We also have in the past had zoning petitions brought by citizens Those can be brought to the zoning subcommittee to the planning board There was a requirement for number of signatures in order for that Proposal to be brought directly to town meeting and in a number of cases the petitioners would work with the zoning subcommittee in the Planning board to refine their proposal and to seek the approval and endorsement of the planning board Again, the public hearing held by the planning board is a mandatory requirement for all these zoning matters So in some cases petitioners would work closely with the board in the subcommittee in some cases Petitioners would draft their own language and not work as closely with the two board the board in the committee But in either case again the planning board would hold a public hearing on the matter It's Gonna add another scenario which was at one point one of the planning board members wanted to bring a certain item to the agenda and want to discuss housing and so It was sort of instigated in the planning board and then it was sort of given to the sub The zoning subcommittee members to sort of brainstorm some ideas and options and then we brought it back to the planning board So there is that kind of back and forth as well, and then it would follow the process that Greg So the ideas come from various sources Yeah, there was one or two additional elements of the process because the finance committee as it existed at the time and the select board also received presentations of proposals before they went to town meeting and the result was whether to recommend or not recommend and that was not exclusive to Zoning proposals, but was to all things the finance committee tried very hard to focus in on the financial implications of a proposed change In making its recommendations, which was always the source of some level of debate within the finance committee Sluck board was acting in a broader sense in whether it would recommend or not and I think that the question for This community resources committee is to it to what extent it is acting in a similar capacity As something flows from the Planning board to the council or whether we have some other role that we're seeking to define and I think that's what I'm trying to understand right now One thing I was having trouble remembering from When we were discussing this earlier, so we have in the old days We had the citizen petitions and then we had the planning board generated Zoning articles in the case of citizen petition those would always go ahead even if there was a negative vote Recommendation on the part of the planning board When the planning board had a negative recommendation on its own zoning articles did that continue to move ahead? Did we ever forward anything that was generated by the planning board that had a negative vote? I think typically the issue that would come into play was the timing of the warrant being issued And so there were some cases I can recall where Planning board may have decided it did not want to proceed with supporting an article But the warrant had already been drafted and so it appeared on the warrant and there were other cases where the decision was made to Withdraw the article prior to the drafting of the warrants and did not go ahead I think your point may in part be that a petitioner Had the right to proceed to town meeting Even if it did not have the support of the planning board for its proposal and that's absolutely true We would not it would not advance after that In the case of an article of the planning board itself had placed on the warrants Again, I think it comes to the matter. I mentioned with the timing so there were cases that went each way Yeah, and there are some cases in which a petitioner brought an article to the planning board and the planning board adopted it as their own and then proceeded to be the Supporting body when it came to town meeting Chris I just wanted to mention an interesting case study for Ms. Pan's benefit that Last spring actually it started in the winter of 2018 Jerry Weiss who had been a select board member. It was very concerned about affordable housing and and was really interested in bringing a warrant article on inclusionary housing inclusionary zoning and You know, we have discussed this over the years and various Efforts have been made to pass inclusionary zoning by-laws and and we do have an inclusionary zoning by-law, but it's not perfect So mr. Weiss came forward and said that he really wanted to work on this and he drafted something up and He came to the zoning subcommittee and he said well, here's what I think now I'd like to work with you to hear what you think and Potentially come up with something that is really That will pass town meeting and will be favorable to everybody. So he did come up with his own version and He kept that as a petition article that did go through the petition process But at the same time he worked with the zoning subcommittee and the planning board to come up with something that was what he Eventually thought was better than what he had come up with originally his petition article was kind of He had to submit it because of timing issues So it was kind of cast in stone and then time went forward and the planning board's version was eventually passed by town meeting Last spring, so I think that was a really good Kind of scenario for how something Started out as a petition article But was worked on by both the petitioner and the planning board and eventually came to town meeting and was passed with I think it was a very good Number of people who voted for it Margins for a zoning by-law change In the many long time And I suppose to give some further background on the workings of the zoning subcommittee We've been paying attention through staff to town council and it's evolving work and it's evolving subcommittees and The document you see in your packet today the priorities The the colored packet is the result of the work of the zoning subcommittee over the last few months and drafting a Proposal we could bring to town council that might instruct us be a sort of a road map To what zoning priorities may be And the reason that there are some specific articles included in here with their draft language Prepared by staff in some cases and past planning board in some cases is because the zoning subcommittee felt that these articles were fairly straightforward and Discussion of them could be a good starting point for the CRC and the town council as it discusses zoning so we have the three articles in the packet one relates to marijuana uses and and That has been the topic of much citizen discussion at our zoning subcommittee meetings recently There's been concern from some citizens that although the town has supported permitting marijuana businesses since the legalization That the way the current zoning is structured is Significantly more prohibitive than the relative state guidelines Especially when it comes to cultivation research and similar non retail uses So the zoning subcommittee has met with some concerned citizens on this issue and staff has drafted some language That might make it more possible than it now is to have these cultivation research and similar uses located in the town I thought we might just go through these articles one by one. So that's one. Are there any questions comments on that article? on the marijuana article well, I did read it and I Was wondering about we start off with 500 feet. We have 200 feet and we go to 300 feet for different things And nowhere does it mention selling it's talks about cultivating manufacturing processing research testing But so it's selling is exempt from these. I'm just kind of curious about that Chris So this is a first draft and the way the first draft is set up is that The 500 feet is mandated by the state all of these marijuana uses need to be 500 feet from schools That's part of the state cannabis control Commission regulations then the planning board and the zoning subcommittee were grappling with the issue of are there certain marijuana uses that are less threatening than others and Based on what we've heard from farmers and also from landowners who are interested in doing Cultivation research testing etc The zoning subcommittee felt that those particular uses were less threatening than say a retail use and that that those particular uses might be allowed to be a little bit closer to certain Certain other types of uses then the retail or something like that So the way this is drafted is that those uses related to cultivation research testing manufacturing and processing Which don't involve somebody going and buying something. They just involve a manufacturing process might be allowed to be within 200 feet of certain other uses like a residence or a Pharmacy or another marijuana establishment and then the 300 feet applies to every other use aside from cultivation manufacturing processing and testing so The third part of this encompasses all of those uses including retail So but nowhere does it mention something I read a while ago about marijuana talked about Smell and odor and limits and I don't see that in here That's all part of another portion of the bylaw which wasn't proposed to be changed So that's all taken care of in another portion of the pile any other comments on the marijuana article Chris There's one other comment. I'm sorry. I'm talking so much, but there was one other comment that I did not fully understand the Intent of the zoning subcommittee when they met last time and one of the intents was to Potentially even eliminate the 300 foot buffer for all Uses related to marijuana for everything but schools and residences So I haven't drafted that up yet, but the next time we meet I will draft that up I think what the idea was and perhaps Ms. Chow can express this better than I can but I think the idea was that all of the Uses that are not retail uses Could be allowed to be Right next to other uses except for residences. Is that is that capture it? I think that's correct Just residences. Yes, because the particular petitioner community member who came up his property was In our in and I believe and I think that was what he was His ass was anything but dispensaries to be within Basically, there's no buffer between that and the residents And that's not addressed in this So that's something that I'll be presenting to you next time you meet all right thought we may move on to the voting requirements article and I believe some background was given on this already and we have even further background in a memorandum prepared by Planning staff in our packet, but essentially the planning board encountered an issue with the adoption of the new charter where Our new size of 7 required a look at how the voting requirements were worded And we found a further complication in the fact that the voting requirements are spelled out both in the zoning by-law and In our own planning board rules and regulations Now a change to the zoning by-law would have the requirements that we've previously discussed and would be a matter for town council The planning board rules and regulations are changeable by the planning board itself with a majority vote after a public hearing So seeing that we had these two instances that could potentially come into conflict the planning board recently Started to pursue the approach of removing a reference to the voting requirements from the planning board rules and regulations and relying on that version which lives in the zoning by-law and We were waiting to hear back from the town attorney about his thoughts on our proposed revision before proceeding with changes to the planning board rules and regulations and before proceeding with a potential change to the zoning as it relates to planning board voting requirements But one of the main issues is that if the requirement stays as written that the voting requirement Therefore would become a higher percentage of what it had previously been in terms of the overall membership the voting membership And if we were to adopt the change, I believe it would end up being a slightly less percentage of the voting members Any comments or questions on this article? Chris so I Did a fair amount of research on this back in February and miss gray mullen actually did a fair amount of research too and she and I Kind of put our heads together and came up with this what this memo talks about Essentially back in the 1980s and I shared some of this information earlier with the CRC But back in the 1980s Amherst adopted cyclone review as a process prior to that They had just had special permit process and the special permit process requires a two-thirds vote To be approved and so when the town adopted the cyclone review process They felt that they should try to mimic the special permit process as much as possible so that people would feel comfortable adopting this new Regulation and so they required a two-thirds vote of the planning board to approve whatever was being proposed But then later on It became clear that the special permit was really something that was you know discretionary and Required kind of a higher bar to be approved a cyclone review should be really something that is considered to be that the use is Allowed but the planning board can tell the applicant how to do the use You know how many trees to plant how many lights to put up whatever so the the planning board decided to Look at reducing that number so what they did is instead of reducing the number They said well will still require the two-thirds, but then we'll say instead of requiring six to vote for a cyclone review They said well only require five out of nine so they had this kind of dual thing that if all nine members were there They'd require two-thirds vote and if but if all nine members weren't there you could get away with or have or achieve Success with only five members voting so this has been looked at by By us and by other cities and towns and other cities and towns have decided that they only Will require a majority for cyclone review and on page three you can see a list of some Representative cities and towns that are only requiring a majority for cyclone review So we feel that that is really the direction that the town should move in you can get a lot more detail about the history of this Process and how we got to where we are by reading this memo I won't go through too much of it now, but essentially it seems like this is the wave of Most cities and towns in Massachusetts that they only require a majority vote for cyclone review Whereas they require two-thirds vote for a special permit Thank you so if it's so one of the issues is Simply a quorum or getting the same five people or whatever to to vote So I have two questions one is if the planning board fails to act on a cyclone review is it Is it? It falls in the favor of the applicant. Yes, so if the planning board fails to act Then the the application is constructively approved. It's constructively approved So the second question I have so that would be an argument in favor of a smaller now that the planning board is smaller of having a smaller number of You know approval so that that doesn't happen, but the second question is regarding another change that's happened is the Mullen rule right the remote participation So so we have adopted that for landing board. Yes. Yes But do you have to be present to vote? Yeah, yeah, two different things one is the Mullen rule where you can miss one of the public hearings sessions But come in afterwards and as long as you've Read all the material and you know watch the video and become familiar with everything then you can vote on the other thing is Remote participation which requires that there be a quorum at the meeting itself and you can participate remotely And so all the boards and committees in town actually have that advantage. Okay, so let's say that So so as long as there's a quorum in the room, but it doesn't have to be the same quorum that started the hearing like if the multi here It's a multi meeting hearing Doesn't have to be the same five people or the same quorum in the room For the vote to happen and people can vote for the final application remotely by roll call No, you have to be present to vote You have to be present to vote does Does participating remotely count as being present to enable voting for that number I have only experienced the Mullen rule where someone misses one session and Reviews the material and then comes in at the next session a subsequent session and votes. I have not experienced the remote participation And what that How that affects voting so that's something that we need to look into I think Steve Maybe I'll be serious Steve I think I think that though those are those are good points about sort of practicalities of being able to Enable the process the planning process and the voting to go on for the particular things for me I do think it's more a more fundamental the more fundamental point is just that the site plan as Developed historically I think was developed has is now understood to be have a lower Threshold than us then granting of a special permit again the different the distinction that's I understood it in my You know learning curve is that that the site plan review is one that Enables the town to regulate to put conditions on the project But essentially the the applicants proposing uses that are permitted by the zoning by-law as opposed to a special permit And so a lower threshold a special permit is these are discretionary uses that are being petitioned for being requested and so a greater Higher bar is logical to me. That's not clear in the current rules. We have an opportunity to revise that rule while also Getting it out of potential redundancy by just putting it in the zoning by-laws rather than zoning by-laws and planning board rules Any other comments on this article? All right, let's move on. Well, I think it's so Long before there was a charter change. There was it there. We had a Investigation as to there's been an interest in the possibility of reducing from nine to seven for a while and it was during those zoning subcommittee studies that we discovered You know all of these different the fact that the number of planning board members wasn't defined in You know in the town by-laws, but it was defined in the Zoning by-law, so I think reducing the number of places you have to look for membership and for voting requirements No matter what the outcome is is a step in the right direction All right, so we move on to the last article. So this is a supplemental dwelling units and to provide some background on this Probably about five years ago the planning board looked at ways to promote the production of More diverse housing stock in town. We looked at possibly allowing for smaller houses on small lots The type of development called a pocket neighborhood, which would allow for a number of small Houses on a relatively small parcel compared to density requirements that we otherwise have and the one proposal that we did end up bringing forward to town meeting and past was one to allow supplemental detached dwelling units in the town and the town had previously and still does permit accessory attached dwelling units these are Units of up to 800 square feet or 900 square feet in size if they're handicapped accessible which are attached to a principal dwelling and We saw that the trend around the country in order to produce again a more diverse housing stock was to allow for supplemental or is there more commonly known accessory dwelling units There are some model by-law changes that the state has been looking to pass for some time which would ease the permitting of Accessory dwelling units up to 900 square feet in size and so the planning board brought forth an article that would allow detached supplemental dwelling units in Amherst and that's a past town meeting with the size limits of 800 square feet or 900 square feet if they are handicapped accessible and While that by-law found some success in that a small number of these have been permitted and I believe that number is Maybe in the neighborhood of 10 and perhaps staff has a better number than that in that ballpark So they haven't proliferated in a in a major way But there have been some which has been encouraging and the purpose of this article was to encourage further production of these units I should note that one of the reasons that this was adopted and supported by town meeting was that there's an owner occupancy requirement so there had been some concerns that this could lead to a boom in solely renter occupied housing, but the owner occupied requirement was well received and Make sure that our neighborhoods remain diverse in terms of both size of structures and owner and renter balance and so there was some production of these units, but the planning board felt that's Greater production would behoove the town and so it last spring's town meeting the planning board brought an article which would allow Units up to 1,000 square feet in size or 1,100 square feet when they are ADA accessible and this article did not pass town meeting A little major argument against it was that like a number of other zoning articles being heard at the time town meeting didn't feel that Such zoning articles should be acted on because we had an incoming new form of government which would be more appropriate to take action on any such articles and So this fit into the zoning subcommittees criteria of fairly straightforward articles In fact, we have not made any changes to the article Is before you today in the same format went to town meeting This is in fact the report to town meeting and what has been discussed at the zoning subcommittee is bringing forth the same article Verbatim essentially for a second run with the town council. I have a couple of questions here First of all It's all dependent on the house being owner occupied so the house gets sold How do you does the town monitor that in fact? It is an owner occupied house that connected to the accessory dwelling So first I'd clarify that one or the other of the units needs to be owner occupied So for instance a situation that we've seen Commonly is that an owner might want to downsize and still remain on their property and remain close to family and friends But rent out the principal residence, so it's in fact either of the residences that needs to be owner occupied The building commissioner would be better suited to speak to how he might enforce owner occupancy requirements I don't know if Chris you could speak to that There would be conditions on the permit that would state that it had to be remain owner occupied and then The building commissioner receives complaints from neighbors when something like this when property turns over and it becomes clear that Property is not owner occupied. So he would if it were not owner occupied receive a complaint from a neighbor and Go out and enforce the regulation If he became aware of this the situation himself or his inspectors did driving around they would also bring that back and I have two other questions when somebody Gets a rental permit they have to provide parking and There's no parking provision here Which wouldn't matter in most cases if it's like your mother or old mother in the back small Dwelling but you said no more than three adult residents and they didn't even say they had to be related. So I could see The parking problem which we observed in the the rental houses developing here A few comments on that. So firstly, although parking may not be explicitly mentioned in this article that doesn't Moot the existing parking regulations and the rest of the zoning bylaw So those would still be in effect and you raise a good point about the rental registration system requiring a Parking plan and if one of the dwellings were to be rented it would require a rental permit And so that same requirement would be in effect Yeah, I was curious whether there had been any consideration or discussion as to whether the supplemental unit might in fact end up being an Airbnb type of rental as opposed to renting to create a housing opportunity for Individual or a small family grouping. I Think that's a really good point. I don't think it's a specific concern to this article I think it's a concern to any housing in town that may be a rental and could be rented in either of the configurations that you describe I Think it's an issue that Is gonna need to be looked at and is being looked at from a zoning perspective and other perspectives is that issue with Airbnb continues to evolve Chris, excuse me. I I wonder if Maybe you've had this in mind, but at some point we could review this chart here We did review it when mr. Levenstein first joined the zoning subcommittee And I think it was helpful to him to kind of know where these things came from and and why they're on the chart and Maybe if we could just run through those it might help the CRC members to understand what what this means. Do you think that would be helpful? I think so I'd like to give some thought to how we what Depth we want to go into with these items or perhaps we want to go category by category because if I recall our conversation of These priorities lasted close to two hours Which was I think a reasonable amount of time if we wanted to really explain each of them so I suppose in a broad way we could go over where some of these have come from and How they receive the priorities that they Are shown with in this document the prioritization was done by the zoning subcommittee over the last several months the articles themselves Probably 75% of these have some form of draft language associated with them or were the topic of a planning board Study that did not result in an actual draft article going to town meeting The categories Have been for the most part inherited from previous zoning priority charts the one prior to this that I recall was Created by Jeff bag was a similar format where we had high medium and low priorities We also looked at those in terms of time frames a short-term medium and long-term time frame And the categories have remained broadly the same with housing downtown town center Village center zoning by-law repair and zoning by-law overhaul So Yes I'm I can Graphic looks fine. I have a question under housing very directly and One of the it says definitions and we're I'm assuming much more. It's mixed use buildings defining those and since there are many in Municipalities all over the United States very different definitions of mixed use. I was wondering what which one Are you working with? So the question is are you working is which definition are we interested in revisiting under this Item say that again. I'm sorry is your question which definitions. We're looking to revisit under this item so The town has looked at definitions and requirements Standards and conditions if you will the next bullet point for both apartments and mixed use buildings over the past Several years with the mixed use buildings We've seen instances where there may be a fairly limited commercial elements and a more significant residential elements and There's been discussion about how we want to address that and what is a reasonable balance of those two types of uses in a building and With the apartments an issue that we find is that the zoning by-law is fairly restrictive when it comes to the number of Units that can be provided under a apartment the number of units total and the number of units per building And so what we've seen more often are mixed use buildings that have residential units with some commercial Component as opposed to apartments So there's been discussion of for instance having different classes of apartment buildings That might be the lower density type that we now allow and then providing for a higher density type of Apartments and then also looking at the mixed use building issues which I mentioned Directly, I'm wondering how this the new spring street building that's going to go in has a thousand square feet of commercial space In it and and that doesn't seem really like mixed use Usually it's the whole first floor of the building where buildings are used for retail commercial, etc Then there might be professional offices on the second floor and then residences and so that seems like a better Definition I think you're chaptering on exactly the same concern at some point the planning board had a concern that we might see a Building where there for instance is an ATM on the first floor and no other seemingly commercial Use and the by-law does not speak clearly to that scenario And that's one of the reasons that we think it's a high priority to look at this issue and the opposite where it's primarily commercial with a You know very few living units, so those are mixed use we all know what mixed use Those up on the wall behind you know those are mixed use buildings as we define it And so where that's in a way. That's what we try to get to but we also have to recognize that You know commercial operations though are also changing You know in other words like the idea that you have to go to a brick-and-mortar store So it's a very complicated issue that because I think we all Know what we want we want The good old days by getting there is you know, it's really Chris We do have specific requirements for mixed use buildings in the commercial district and they Don't allow more than a certain amount of residential use on the ground floor so for some reason the commercial district was considered to be very Sensitive in terms of allowing mixed use buildings But we haven't delved into that downtown although a few years ago the planning board did come forth with a zoning amendment that included definitions for how much of the ground floor needed to be a non-residential use and then they also included the fact that some part of that non-residential use could be parking and I think it was interesting because that Amendment went down to defeat a town meeting and I think it went down to defeat over the issue of parking Because some people didn't like the idea of parking being included in an excuse building, but in my personal opinion I think that we're all thinking that we need to provide parking for these buildings And if one of the places that that can be provided is in the building that makes sense And in fact one East Pleasant Street actually has parking on part of its ground floor So it has Restaurants up in front and then parking in the back on the ground floor and the rest of the building is residential So if we could try to Capture the percentages of that building maybe that not not in terms of that I'm not talking about the height or the setback or anything just the percentages that might be the direction that But referring to the pictures on the wall You can see that it's a more equal balance than what we have recently have built have you know and and I Would love it if those had been built And we'll start with the bank So So there's a couple things so one is the absolutely the model that retail on the ground floor offices on the second floor Residences above is sort of a classic mixed-use building type. So there are there are a few things I Mean there are lots of cultural changes that that doesn't happen anymore. So a lot of those second floor Occupants with people like dentists and doctors and the way that dark medicine is you know practice now is simply You know simply is different Also the way that buildings are built so You know, it's typical now that there be sort of a Hardened ground floor like the first floor It's called podium podium buildings. Yeah, and then the upper floors are different construction types. So it's harder to Because builders are also trying to You know build this economically. Yes, they can to make to build you know to make sense So we've seen that in some of the new buildings downtown where the sort of our how hardened ground floor the one he's pleasant and Kendrick place in bullwood place all have that and then the upper floors are different construction material Which means that they all are housing so you can't mix again the uses Yeah, so I might propose and Steve see if you agree a way to Approach the rest of these items. There are a lot of them. I thought we might work our way across the highest priority items in the top row We're gonna aim for I think wrapping this up around 6 30 so we have about 35 minutes and See if we can get through as many of those items as possible And if we get through that whole first tier move on to the second Yes, I just wanted to also introduce the topic of the fact that the zoning subcommittee has been interested in hearing from the CRC about what the CRC's vision is for Zoning amendments moving forward and is there a role for the zoning subcommittee in the initiation of zoning amendments In other words, is the CRC going to be reviewing zoning amendments after they're proposed to Town Council? Or does the CRC envision that it is going to be the initiating body? So that's one question. You don't have to solve that tonight, but I think that's an important question on the second question is Does the CRC and the Town Council feel that the zoning subcommittee might benefit from? Being expanded in some way and that was something that the Building Commission touched on earlier in his presentation to you in other words Instead of just having three members or five members from the planning board Also incorporating, you know, a member of the Town Council or incorporating a business person or someone who manages property similar to the way the rental registration Process was was built There was a kind of a large group I think 20 people all together who met on a weekly or monthly basis and developed the rental registration program And the Building Commissioner is aware that in other cities and towns they they do have A zoning subcommittee of some sort, but it includes members of the community So I think that's another thing that The zoning subcommittee is curious about are you is the CRC interested in exploring that as a possibility And and making the zoning subcommittee even more of a robust group that is representative of the town so I guess I'm bringing those two topics up because I know we're going to get into a lot of detail once we start looking at this chart But those are two Issues that I think the zoning subcommittee would appreciate some input from the CRC Perhaps not at this meeting perhaps at another meeting It seems like this would be a worthwhile thing to continue for these two groups to meet together Yeah, so we're we're advisor to the Town Council that we get our marching orders from My president sitting here, but we get our marching orders from the From the the Town Council So any any kind of expansion like that because to get to the charge of where we are You know took a long time of making this a council basically. I'm sorry committee of the council One thing I know that there is missing is that we would like to have And I can't speak for the council I believe that there's a slot for liaison from the Town Council To the zoning subcommittee specifically or historically there was a select board or at least there was a proposal for that But a liaison from the Town Council to your zoning subcommittee. I think would help You know a lot and then the zoning subcommittee is your construct so you can Do with that as you see fit, but I believe that we have that Interest in having a liaison to you whether or not it be from the the CRC Here or whether or not it be from the remaining Town Council members that's up for discussion But the rest we can certainly take back to the full Town Council to discuss unless you Our own we're playing to have our own retreat at some point and that would be a great question, too Just want to throw in that that would actually be really helpful as well as having other sort of More objective members because zoning bylaws are such a complex and made like Thing that to just jump in or just to hear articles sort of without understanding the full sort of History and story behind it is a lot so having that continuity or someone that's you know So in the meeting seeing how it's being processed and formed would be great Rather than you know suddenly throwing in your lap, you know pile of articles and you have to quickly think about I agree with you and I also feel strongly that You should develop your committee as you said the way you see fit and having other members that would support the work is I think critical. I also Would love to see People from CRC aren't working with you in collaboration as we look at things over time So yes, somebody on the committee other who worked long term But also that we really will need to collaborate with you Great. Thank you, and I understand that this is an evolving process Does the charge of the CRC specifically currently to its role in zoning? Yes Thank you. I just want to be clear that a couple things first of all If a council member is a liaison to this committee or any other committee Unless specified differently, they would not be a voting member. Okay, and in their role as liaison While it's important that they Um Contribute to your thinking it's also important that They are not seen as a voice of the council unless it has previously been discussed at the council and a vote's been taken and Finally, one of the major things is to help bring back to the council Issues that should be brought to the council's attention and possibly lead to an actual meeting where we would ask of Committee of some kind to come and meet with the council. So I just want to clarify We have not voted on those guidelines, but those have been presented to us at least once and Seemed to be very consistent with how the previous select board had liaisons to boards Thank you for that. All right. Shall we start moving through these? So we've started with the top priority housing articles and talked about apartments and mixed-use buildings The next item there is the 40 our district planning process And I believe a number of counselors and others in town attended the recent forum that was held on 40 our smart growth and The underlying idea here is that it may be moved the town to look into implementing a 40 are to provide a more diverse housing stock that would include Mandatorily affordable housing units and so the town is working with consultants and has been awarded a grant to further explore that notion Which ties into a number of the items in the next? box downtown downtown downtown and town center So a form-based code is another issue that's been of great interest to the planning board and subcommittee for some time being codes that would dictate more the Makeup and look of the town as it evolves and less the the use underlying and we've seen that in particular in regards to downtown and town center where a number of voices in town have looked for more Consistency and predictability in the way that downtown takes shape and the zoning subcommittee Share that interest and I think Maria in particular has looked at form-based code and ways We might go down that path. It's one that the town has explored before looking into implementing Form-based code and some of the village centers that proposal did not end up being passed by town meeting But a lot was learned And there's some valuable material available to the town on form-based code through that Moving on landscape standards. These are all again. This could relate to form-based code the landscape standards the setback Maximum floors height modifications are all things that we might look to further and better define in the downtown And that could be done through form-based code mixed-use building standards and conditions relate to the discussion we had previously about mixed-use buildings But are a particular concern for the downtown because they have been occurring there with greater frequency than other parts of town Transition zones and the BL zone So our core zoning district is the BG or general business district which allows for the greatest density in town and it has on its outlying Borders a number of zones known as a limited business zone or BL. Those are at South Prospect along North Pleasant where it branches off with Halleck and North of Triangle Street And so there's been some look at these zones and whether the zoning there is appropriate Because in fact a lot of what exists in those zones now even that which many find appealing could not now be built under our current zoning in particular because the minimum lot area requirements for residential units are so onerous a Number of parcels there could not be developed for the reason of the residential units Limits and also because of the setback limits. We've seen some presentations by those proposing Projects in that part of town that show how difficult it is to develop and so the thought is that it may be appropriate to look at these areas and find a density and a form that is not as dense as the BG district But creates a transition from that district into the neighboring Residential areas. Yes, I need you to go slower on the issues You're talking about in the BL district You said some things that some things made it difficult to build on number one Can you not preserve some of the houses there? Do they have to be knocked down? I Didn't you I just didn't get all the ideas. So I'd like a much slower discussion of this because I'm this is an area I'm very interested in yeah, absolutely So I don't think there's been any discussion of knocking down houses per se But there's been look at the fact that what now exists Could not be built because of our current zoning. So two examples are a residents that may have four Residential units in it where the lot area in fact allows zero residential units and another common impediments is the setbacks so we've been shown presentations where a large number of the Buildings, and I'm speaking now mostly about that corridor of North Pleasant Street A large number of those buildings exist within setbacks So they would not be able to be sited where they sit on the parcel now under our current zone again They're too close to sidewalk too far from the sidewalk, which are they too close? They're too close. Yeah, so if you built something new there, it would be further from the sidewalk. Is that correct? But then I'm but but the I Don't know a lot of things. Okay, the new buildings that have been built are right up into the sidewalk So those were built into the sidewalk. I What's the rule? So so why Okay, so this was a formerly residential area. It is a residential area people live there in houses the White Houses The BO on North Pleasant. Yeah, okay, so if you were going to build Are you this? Do you have to build apartment buildings there? Do you have to do it on both sides of Kendrick Park? Well, I guess an underlying point I want to be clear about is that the town doesn't do any building what the town does is look to see what it wants to Allow how it wants to promote that and other entities do the building. I think again the thought is that it has been a goal of the town for many decades to focus development to the town centers and these areas that we're describing the BLs have barriers to any sort of redevelopment even if it's of the scale that currently exists and The planning board and zoning subcommittee have felt it a worthwhile conversation to determine what type of development is appropriate there what type of density what type of form and Two tools we've discussed today form-based code and the 40 our districts could really go a long way towards addressing What I see as shared goals of the town which are promoting a mix of housing options and providing affordable housing But with the form-based code, I believe means you pay some attention to what's around it But now what's around it are some new apartment buildings. So does that mean to? Go with the neighborhood that's around that this one block in or to go with the new buildings on the other side of the park So I would actually say the best examples of form-based code or where there is no there there So in other words form-based code has been used Successfully say to redevelopment Strip malls or their mash P common is an example in Massachusetts Which was on the site of a one-story shopping center and it's largely been you know redeveloped as a mixed-use multi-story not unlike not unlike that so I Think the trap that we're in actually is that are One of our some of our conditions say that new buildings shall look like the surroundings But if the surroundings aren't what we wanted to look like then it's sort of a headscratcher That we've come across sometimes on planning board that if the next-door neighbor is a Sonoco station we don't want the apartment building to look like a sonoco station. I Hope I haven't anyone notice I just want to add that form-based zoning is not sort of like looking at spots or parcels It actually takes a lot of time consultants look at the big picture. They study streets. They study street scapes It's not just sort of thinking about what's directly So it's a real big picture kind of design based on sort of urban scale thinking and So it takes everything from the street the curve the sidewalk the trees, you know That's a signage the canopy a number of stories and so it's it's almost you know That's why I keep harping on it sort of the solution to all our problems if we can Somehow you know move I mean it's a huge undertaking So it's really but it really does address all of the kind of things you're asking From everything from you know, that's whole sort of block box under downtown town center in my mind all could be resolved There is so in the presentation earlier With Robin Chris. I thought that zoning came to Amherst 1940 But it was 1920 mid-1920s But there's a certain irony that the part of Amherst that we know and love that's on all the postcards and all the books Was built prior to zoning. So zoning came along 1925 every building you love was built before 1925 Well, okay, we're building that many of us love Was built before 1925 so we used to know how to build community before we got zoning and I It sounds like a joke, but it's actually not a joke because we tried to rationalize and we tried to math We tried to make mathematical formulas for how to build cities and we failed And so form-based zoning has recognized that we have failed at building good communities through zoning and it is trying to Repair that so we there's anything. I mean I keep pointing at that, but that was built all prior to zoning Form-based zoning is interesting that it's really designed for the human scale It really thinks about how a person occupies a space in a street Whereas a lot of the zoning dealing with easements and setbacks and height restrictions It's you know, like Steve said all math and it forgets about like how a person experiences the street So yeah, it's it's a it's a real design endeavor and it really looks out all that good conversation on that item Shall we move on? Okay, so the next is parking requirements and this is an issue that many in town are Looking at the zoning subcommittee and the planning board have recognized for a long time that zoning has a role to play in parking the parking system in our town and in particular there's been a lot of interest in looking at the municipal parking district which has been expanded both in terms of geographic area and what it allows what it doesn't require over the years and Conversations at the planning board and zoning subcommittee recently have in particular focused on well Perhaps we want to have more of a parking requirement than we now do and also perhaps allow for a provision of Payment in lieu of some parking and we see Municipalities around the state and the country have systems similar to this again This is a small piece of a very big picture a very complicated one, but it's definitely a high priority as Indicated by the chart village centers We Again tried to prioritize those village centers which have been identified over the years I think originally in the scog plan back in the 70s identified the village centers of Amherst and so we were trying through this chart to say which we felt were the most high priority and North Amherst has been a topic of much discussion and many proposals including the previous form-based code proposals And so there's been a lot of focus there also on the roadways there We've seen some development So this seems like an area where we want to continue to monitor and be involved in its development East Amherst has been less of a focus of regulatory changes over the years We see a little bit of new interest in development there but we also see a lot of lack of development and some structures that are maybe getting beyond their Useful life and a part of town that could really be better utilized And so that's why this finds its way towards the top of our priorities We've mentioned again mixed-use building standards and conditions That's the same item in this case as it relates to village centers We see village centers where mixed-use buildings are being located It was mentioned that the commercial district in the North Amherst Village Center handles those a little bit differently But we would like to bring Uniform regulations and some more predictability to mixed-use buildings in these other village centers as well parking requirements Same issue as before do we want to even though these village centers do not have the equivalent of a municipal parking district? Do we want to look at how parking is required in those areas? Perhaps require less parking in those areas? Because again, there's no current exemption as there is in the downtown Zoning by-law repair At various times over the years we've called this technical fixes a lot of these are items that got brought to our attention by the building commissioner or planning staff as Issues where more clarity could be provided or it's causing a problem for staff or for the planning board and The first item here is expanding the use of graphics in the zoning by-law and in the same way that form-based code Could be useful Our zoning by-law could be updated to include more graphics that would illustrate what exactly it is saying and be more clear We've seen this in communities like Northampton We've had some great conversations with our friends who were involved in planning in Northampton and they've spoken about the processes they've been going through to introduce more graphics into their by-law and It it seems a worthy goal Parking requirements per unit again same issue as we've described marijuana cultivation use This was placed on this chart prior to the drafting of the document that you've seen today But it just goes to show that this has been on the radar of the planning board zoning subcommittee and a number of concerned Parties in town for some time looking again at the marijuana regulations and making it easier to cite cultivation uses in the town And zoning by-law overhaul these would be big fixes So form-based code Either specific to the downtown or village centers or other areas of town generally incorporating that code into the by-law We've known for some time that article 8 of the zoning by-law the sign section is in need of a rewrite There's a lot of language in there, which I believe has posed challenging to the building commissioner in his enforcement efforts at One-point funding was requested of town meeting for a rewrite by an outside consultant that Funding was not approved as I understand its staff is has this rewrite on their priority list By-law reformatting an ecode the reformatting includes Potentially expanding the use of graphics also potentially Modifying the way the code is available and presented to the public There are a number of communities in the area that use what's called ecode. It's a Some might say more easily searchable documents our zoning by-law right now exists in a PDF format on The town's website and is available in hard copy to boards committees and citizens But many believe that ecode could provide some benefits Chris If people are interested in exploring that they might wish to go to the Northampton Website because Northampton uses ecode and it's it's pretty useful and you can search it pretty easily Thank you Master plan update another very large picture item which has been taken up by the town council There was a presentation last week on this So it's certainly of interest to the planning board as the planning board would have a role in any master plan updates, so we'd like to continue the conversation with the CRC and the council about the master plan process and what our goals might be for that So we finished the kind of highest priority items here And I thought I might just stop and see if there's questions or comments before we move on to this next year Yes, I had a question In talking about mixed-use buildings, which is what is going up somebody pointed out that part of that code was that The upper stories don't have to be built as strongly as the lower stories and that therefore they could not be Converted to condos where people could buy the apartments. Is that correct? So that's a building code issue, and I think Steve might be able to speak to it I may be someone that has perpetuated that story, but it there is some truth to that that the Expectations of people who own apartments is different than the expectations of people that rent apartments and so They probably would be constructed different and I can't comment on the buildings that have been built because plenty of apartment buildings have been converted to You know condominiums and vice versa, so I can't comment on any existing, but that is Generally an expectation that Renters have different standards than owners also If you have a building full of owners the potential for legal action for You know characteristics of the building that are not What am I saying that the Possibility of being sued is much higher in a building full of owners rather than a building full of renters Yeah, I think all good points And I would mention also that that has been a topic of discussion at the planning board and zoning subcommittee also Specifically at one point when we were talking about form-based code. We wondered whether it might be possible to Incentivize more owner-occupied units again the issue is that you get into more issues of the building code Than the zoning which are our separate matters But it's of interest it has been of interest to the board and the subcommittee to promote that type of unit in town because if you if you want to have Really a strong center you if you if you want if one of the goals is to have places Downtown where people who presently live in houses, but want to downsize They would be much more interested in a condominium apartment building than a rental building and I don't think that anything's been built recently is Attractive to those people and I think we have a lot of people who are potentially in that group I just wanted to piggyback on what mr. Shiber was saying before about the way buildings are built the new buildings that are being built downtown have a steel framework for the first floor and Beyond that second through fifth floor is a wood framework. So that wood framework is less adaptable to being used for offices and other uses besides residential uses all right, so moving on to this next row of Housing these are moderate priority items So town houses and apartments by right in more zones So this would be a way of providing more Multifamily units throughout the town right now the permitting standards for both of these town houses and apartments are Relatively strict and if we want to see more multifamily housing in town As a means to improve the diversity of the housing stock and promote affordability. This might be one approach Exploring the floor area ratio as an alternative to units per acre So our density for the most part in town is dictated by how many units can occur per acre and this change Would instead look at the ratio of the floor area of the building to the area of the parcel on which it is cited And it's a formula that's used in many cities and towns around the country a Multifamily overlay district for non-conforming apartment complexes, so we have a number of apartment complexes in town that were built under a more lax permitting standard it was easier for them to be permitted at some time often in the 70s and 80s and Since then at some point the town said that it was less interested in that type of development and so Many of these existing apartment complexes are non-conforming and so when they want to make any sort of change it's very difficult for them and So if we wanted to promote density in those areas which makes a lot of sense because many of the apartment complexes are located close to transportation close to services and Already have a certain density to them if there was interest in further densifying those areas. This would be one way to approach that PURD overlay that's a planned unit residential Overlay and we have a number of those in town and I believe this question this item may have related specifically to Echo Hill where there was a PURD, but now finds itself in a similar circumstance to the apartments I described Where the prior regulation regulatory path is no longer available. Is that right Chris? So Echo Hill was developed as a PURD most of Echo Hill not not including the single-family homes near Pelham Road, but the smaller single-family homes and the Townhouses were developed as part of a PURD With a special permit, but they don't have an overlay zone over them. And so now Those are being considered to be non-conforming. So every time somebody wants to do make a change to his home He is likely to have to go through the special permit process since the home is non-conforming So the effort would be to apply a PURD overlay To this area to allow it to be considered Conforming other areas in town which have PURD overlays can take advantage of the flexibility that's allowed by the PURD And moving on to additional lot area per unit. My understanding is this relates to a particular Footnote of the bylaw footnote M that requires more lot area per unit in certain parts of town And that that footnote was introduced because of concern about a development spruce ridge on High Street in Amherst, which I believe by all measures has been successful It allowed greater density and there have not been issues that I'm aware of with the development But it was felt that perhaps that was too much density for that area of town and so there's been stricter regulation of developments of that density in these residential neighborhoods and so the planning board has thought of looking at that and is This this higher threshold in fact appropriate should we allow more Units like spruce Ridge of that density in these residential neighborhoods and I believe the apartment verse duplex note refers to the notion that we might Regulate those two types of uses differently and have different additional lot area per unit requirements for those two different types of developments And then moving on to the moderate priority items under downtown and town center Outdoor seasonal entertainments we see and the ZBA sees a number of applications for businesses that want to have these uses outdoor seasonal entertainment outdoor dining by right and Those are only allowed to happen between April and November There may be Some reason to look at those regulations and open them up a bit We want to have a vibrant downtown and we want people to be able to enjoy it And this would be one way to improve that function Our G zone density variations So this relates a bit to a previous issue about the additional lot area per unit So right now our general residents district is a very large district And we see across it essentially a number of sub districts in terms of the physical form And the planning board and zoning subcommittee had thought it potentially worthwhile To look at dividing the zone up into multiple zones that more accurately reflect the reality as it's been built on the ground in that district Form-based code and village centers. We've already touched on the notion of bringing form-based code to the village centers Same with mixed-use building standards and conditions Zoning by-law repair lot sizes hydrology septic systems This relates to an issue that came up at last spring's town meeting where a concerned property owner was looking to have essentially those parcels that were not served by septic or town water downzoned and So the planning board considered this found the particular Approach that was taken by the petitioner problematic But felt that it was worthwhile to explore the underlying issue of whether there's hydrologic concerns in the area And if this should be approached in a different way Zoning by-law rewrites this would be a comprehensive look at the zoning by-law and it's something that's a number of Parties in town have suggested over the years. It would be a large project I think we've been floated some numbers for how much this would cost in the neighborhood of 250 to $300,000 staff might have a more specific number on that probably not that much I think we were estimating about a hundred thousand although we don't have current information about that So this would be a large undertaking The flood prone conservancy districts This is something we're gonna have to deal with in the near future because our flood maps the FEMA flood insurance rate maps Have recent are in the process of being revised So they're more accurate to the physical reality on the ground today But an entailments of this is that we have our flood prone conservancy or FPC district Which was based on the previous flood lines And so when the new flood lines are adopted we will have a zone That is out of conformity with what exists on the ground And so we'll be faced with the question of whether we want to Adapt the flood prone conservancy district Lines to comport with the updated flood lines, which could make Will make some areas of town less buildable and some more buildable And this actually came up at a recent zoning subcommittee meeting and the notion of having the flood prone Conservancy district be an overlay zone rather than a base zone was also discussed and the reason that would be beneficial is because When this FPC issue comes up not only are we going to have to decide Whether we want to move lines to comport with the new flood lines, but where a new underlying zone is revealed Essentially if the FPC is removed we would have to determine what base zone goes where that FPC used to be But one way to address any future changes that could happen to the FPC would be to make the FPC an overlay and Specify the underlying zones at this point and simply say that the FPC restrictions apply on top of those underlying zones So we've managed to work our way through another whole row here, and it's about 6 30 so Do people have comments or questions on this I'd like to just have a few minutes at the end to talk about next steps And we're getting towards the end of our time Andy I Just wanted to thank you for the presentation. It was very informative and very important for us and Just to share an observation they'd be getting into the next topic, but Having been involved in town meeting in Various capacities over a long period of time. I'd always been concerned that town meeting is a large body Would not really be in a position to understand easily very complicated information and concepts the planning board was working with and I Really one of the things that excites me about our new form of government is that I think that we have the capacity with a smaller council and with our committee to really Understand more quickly and more easily What the role? That you have and the information you have and make the transition from Your role in dealing with zoning change to the council's role a lot easier than it has been So this is a great first step. Thank you. Thanks. I agree All right, yes I just have sort of a I guess it's a detail or housekeeping item I'm not exactly sure how to categorize it but the you're probably aware that the bylaw review committee has been working on making the zoning bylaw and the general bylaw comport with the town charter and They presented a document to the planning board in December that did Bring the zoning bylaw into compliance with the charter and I believe that they are going to be eagerly Hoping to present that to you Soon, so it needs to go to the planning board first even though it went to the planning board in December Because town council didn't act within 90 days. It has to go back to the planning board and then Planning board makes a recommendation to you. I believe it's actually going to come to you first And I don't know what exactly the time schedule is but here's what I think I think The bylaw review committee will present this Changed bylaw to you first then it will come to the planning board for a public hearing And I think we're hoping for a public hearing on June 5th, and then the planning board would Make its recommendation to you and then you would vote hopefully to agree with the planning board was presenting And it was would only be after that that you would actually have an intact Zoning bylaw that could then be amended so we wouldn't be recommending any amendments to you prior to your adopting this This new I don't want to call it new but this Zoning bylaw that's more in keeping with the charter That's more than how Great. Thank you so much for that and thanks to the CRC for joining us today I hope this is the first of many such meetings, and I hope also that if you have Thoughts or questions on how we might proceed on these owning issues that you'll relay that to us and Appreciate your work with us on this so to quote from Casa Blanca. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship All right, so thank you so much and with that we'll close the joint meeting of the two bodies Dbd desk Is there a motion to adjourn the CRC meeting there's a motion and a second all in favor Thanks again So the next item on our agenda is the zoning subcommittee is the zoning subcommittee work plan and report I believe we've gone into much detail about our work plan today. Oh, thank you I suppose I would just ask David if you have any updates for us on that Failed miserably in producing on a deadline