 There we go. What's that? The chair notes the time is 6.02. I call this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge, a ZBA chair. I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. We'll begin with a roll call of the ZBA members. Steve Judge is present, Mr. Denone-Maxfield. Present. Mr. Sarah Marshall. Present. Mr. Meadows. Present. And Mr. Sloveter. Present. The quorum is present. Also attending tonight is Mr. Rob Wachilla, planner for the town. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to observe the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 48 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, chapter 48 and Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law. This public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. They may be viewed via the town of Amherst, YouTube channel and ZBA webpage. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its question, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen or by pressing nine on their phone. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information and time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merit and the board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the board has 60 days from the close of hearing to follow a decision. For a variance, the board has 100 days from the date of filing to follow its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there's a 20 day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with a relevant judicial body in Superior Court. After that, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, approval consideration of the minutes from the June 8th, 2023 meeting and a public hearing on ZBA FY 2023-17 Breckenridge Group requests for a modification to an existing special permit ZBA FY 2019-17 under section 10.33 of the zoning bylaw to amend conditions 46, 49, 62, 76 and 77 and to amend the landscaping plan at 408 Northampton Road, map 13D parcel 51, PRP, Professional Research Park Zoning District. After that, we'll hold a public meeting on the same subject, discussion of general public comment period on matters not before the board tonight and other business not anticipated within 48 hours. The first order of business is consideration of minutes from June 8th. Have you had a chance to review the minutes? I have, they seem to be in order and I have no comments or suggestions. Does any board member have any suggestions for changes? If not, is there a motion to approve the minutes from January or from, excuse me, from June 8th? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the motions or the minutes, is there any discussion? If not, vote, oh, go ahead, Sarah. Just that two of us present tonight were not part of that meeting or at least I wasn't. So if it's, I will vote to approve if the minutes are acceptable to those of you who are at that panel. I thought they were on myself. Yep. And I don't think anybody else who was on that panel had a problem, so it's a good question. Any for the discussion? All right, vote occurs on the motion to approve the minutes. I liked them, so. Cool. You'll see reflected in my vote. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Meadows? Aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. Mr. Sloveter? Aye. The next order of business is a public hearing on ZBA FY 2023. I got to announce the vote is passed unanimously, minutes are approved. The next order of business is a public hearing, ZBA FY 2023, 17, Breckenridge Group requests for a modification to an existing special permit, ZBA FY 2019-17 under section 10.33 of the zoning bylaw to amend conditions 46, 49, 62, 76, and 77, and to amend the landscaping plan at 408 North Hampton Road, Map 13D, Parcel 51, PRP, Professional Research Park Zoning District. Are there any disclosures? If not, I'd like to go through the submissions that we have. And I'm using the project application report, the draft project application report dated June 15th. The submissions from the applicant include a cover letter, the application, a management plan, a complaint response form from 2019, a special permit amendments document, amended site plan prepared by Berkshire Design Group, sheet one plans to show locations of tree plantings, affidavit indicating the number and species of trees to be removed, diagram showing the location of photographs of dying tree plantings. Planning staff submissions include ZBA Decision 1968-02, ZBA Decision 2017-24 and ZBA Decision 2019-17. There was also one public comment that we received. It was a letter from, hold on, the butters. I have it here. Rob, you have that. It's from the butters. I put my papers all in order before this. Here they go. It's from the butters, Louise and Doug Colligan, the butters to Aspen Heights, Amherst 408 North Hampton Road. They live at 14 Greenleaves Drive in Amherst and they have submitted a letter in general support of the application. Ms. Marshall. Amir. There is also a memo to Ms. Brestrup from the Fire Prevention Officer, Captain Baskham, conveying comments about some of the amendments. Yep, two points made by the fire department. Exactly, thank you. As well as, and one more thing that the Planning Department memo from Nate Malloy submitted on May 24th, a comment regarding the shuttle service. I think that's all the submissions either from town staff or from the public. So who's representing the applicant at this? So we have two individuals who are in attendance. We have a Timothy Ryan, who's the attorney for the applicant. I'm going to promote the panelists right now. We also have the applicant themselves, Mr. Jacobs. So I'm going to promote as well. Good afternoon, gentlemen, Timothy Ryan and Mr. Ryan, can you give us your address for the record? I'm a resident of the city of Springfield and I'm attorney working at Egan, Flanigan, Cohen, 67 Marcus Street, city of Springfield. Thank you, Mr. Ryan. And Mr. Jacobs, can you give your name and address for the record? Hi everybody, I'm Andrew Jacobs. I'm representing the Breckenridge Group. Yeah, and I'm currently located in Austin, Texas at this point, but obviously the property in question, the subject property in question is the 408 Northampton Road. So it's a pleasure to meet everybody. Thank you. All right, who's going to have the presentation for the applicant? I think Andrew was, right, Andrew? Yes, yes, and I did, Rob, I think I'd send you a note. It is okay if I share my screen. Is that appropriate for this setting? You should be able to control it directly from your screen. Okay, so yeah, I will pop up my screen here. Just, I can get an indication that that screen is visible. Yes. Awesome, so yeah, I'll just, I will just run through this quickly. Should I go get, should I get started or any other, any other commentary? Okay, awesome. No, please proceed. So just some general introductory notes, really just, you know, some commentary, commentary, Steve, that you already mentioned, just a indication of the specific paragraphs that are in question at this public hearing. And then I'm just going to, the way that I organized the presentation, kind of short and sweet, but just kind of addressing some of the main points related to each topic and their respective paragraphs, starting with the landscaping. So as mentioned, there are in the landscaping plan that was part of the original approval of this building. Unfortunately, some of the kind of younger, less mature Serbian spruce trees have not thrived within the designated location per the original landscaping plan. The reason for their inability to thrive and prosper is because of the existing mature canopy being from the mature pines. So they are casting a shade onto the area of the younger trees in addition to the wooden fence, which is about 12 feet tall. So a combination of the mature trees as well as the wooden fence is creating an environment that is not conducive for these particular Serbian spruce trees to thrive. So part of our proposal is to remove this requirement from the landscaping plan because it is prohibiting our ability to achieve a certificate of occupancy, which for obvious reasons as property owners is something we would like to operate with. So right now as of yesterday, 34 of those trees were actually deceased. So it's actually a little bit higher a number than we had originally anticipated. So our request is to no longer have to kind of plant or replant those trees to be able to create a pathway to a full certificate of occupancy. Just some other commentary here is kind of the high degree of competition amongst the existing trees, also contributing and the larger root system. So I believe the original intention of this provision was to create a barrier between the neighbors and our new property. So we've had discussions in all of these points here, I would like to mention war, disgusted length with our neighbors and their representatives. So our goal here is not to blindside our neighbors or anybody, but to have them participate within this conversation and reach some sort of agreement that is reasonable and we could all be happy with. I think Steve, these were some of the visuals that may have been submitted as part of our proposal. So this site plan, the orange circle, if you can see my mouse, is just kind of pointing out the area in question, kind of the nautical direction here pointing north. So this area here is kind of this median just to the west of Greenleaves Drive. On the other side of Greenleaves Drive are butters represented by Louise Colligan. So yeah, just kind of an overview. And then the next slide, if you kind of follow this orange circle here, it's basically just zooming into that point on the previous slide and just adding a little bit of more color, a little bit more context to the trees that are in question. So we have the, in this kind of green shaded area, we have the 30 to 35 Serbian spruce trees which have not had a successful growth or prosperity. And then some of these other, and then kind of the way that we got to that 30 to 35 number is kind of these subsets here, kind of the 17 included in this section that are three to four feet in size and height. And then another seven, another five. So that's how we reached that number. And how we arrived at the details within our proposal. These are some recent pictures that we've taken of this specific area. So these pictures in particular, I believe these were taken yesterday actually. I had some pictures here that were a little older. So I don't wanna misquote myself but these in particular were taken yesterday. So you can see the younger Serbian spruce trees between three to seven feet in height, which unfortunately I have not been able to grow within this area. So my kind of verbal or these pictures kind of support my verbal description to start off the landscaping topic. These kind of bases of the larger pines as well as the shade being cast from the fence. These are just some more pictures of the area in question. And so you can see here on the right-hand side picture, the trees were also spaced out within relatively short distance to each other. So within a relatively small space, the plans did contemplate a high number of trees, which unfortunately those are the ones that have since deceased or are on the path to deterioration. And these are just some more pictures here. So I'll kind of pause there. I know that was a lot of words at high speeds. So does anybody have any questions or commentary based on the landscaping topic? Well, let's just have our discussion here about the landscaping itself and we can go on to the other items or requests. So I drove along Greenleaf's property road today to take a look at this. And I can see where it's obvious where the trees are not thriving right against the fence. I'm not clear what you're putting in to replace them. The purpose that I think, I don't remember the discussion when the condition was and the landscape plan was approved, but I'm assuming it hide a bit of the, hide the fence to some extent. You have some larger trees that have not a lot of foliage in the first eight to 10 feet. And that these are placed there to kind of hide that 12 foot wooden fence. Are you proposing to put something else in there to buffer the fence from the butters? I appreciate that comment. We, the reason we are not proposing anything is because of the environment. We've received some opinions from local landscapers. And their opinion is that the environment is not conducive to tree growth here. So as much as we would appreciate additional foliage and greenery, we just, we unfortunately see it as a fruitless attempt. And the outcome may, you know, will likely, in the opinions of the landscapers that we have received, will, you know, the trees will have a similar fate to the ones that we have attempted to plant. And, you know, in during our discussions with the butters and I can't, I can't, you know, speak for them. And I believe some of them are present at this public meeting. The, you know, the intention was to, you know, create a wall of privacy. And it seems, you know, that we, they were in agreement with our proposal, which did not include a replacement of the trees. Have you thought about, was there any thought given to putting low level shrubs in front of, between the existing pine trees and a green leaves drive? Oh, we deny it. It seems to me, it's really, it makes no sense to put anything back there where those things are dying. I don't know what you put there. You know, if you date loving ferns or something, that's not going to do anything for, you know, buffering the fence. So it was any thought given to, and if it was, what was the conclusion to putting some? We didn't reach. Yeah, we didn't reach any specific, we didn't identify any specific species of shrubs or, you know, kind of, you know, low level, you know, tree species that would thrive in that environment. If I'm being completely honest, we were kind of more analyzing the, you know, the existing area. But we would certainly be, anything that will grow there, we have no issue with putting anything that will grow there. You know, obviously within reason. So yeah, that's kind of our stance here. But, you know, I do know that, you know, if we kind of looked at, you know, this picture, it didn't seem, it will, you know, there was existing greenery there. You know, the grass was there and it was, you know, aesthetically pleasing. And I guess, you know, that's a subjective comment. But yeah, all that to say is we have not identified any species. We would be open to it, but we didn't think that it was a necessary path to go down given the existing grass there. Okay. Do other board members have questions on this landscaping topic? It looks like, David, are you speaking? Yeah, I was just going to ask one question about if you remove all the trees as I'm looking at the picture on the right, there's a lot of dead potential fuel for if anything would catch fire. So is there a way that after you remove the trees, which removing dead trees makes sense, that part of the ongoing condition would be to maintain the area so that it would not be a catch-all for anything dead? I mean, there needs to be some sort of landscape maintenance, I would think. I don't know what a fuel source would be, but if there's a very prolonged, I mean, a fire source, if there's a very prolonged dry period and fires are more likely, we don't want that to go up. The fence would burn and it wouldn't be a good thing. So do you have any thoughts about after you remove the trees about maintaining that area? We do have a professional landscaping service that we contract with. I believe it's either a two or a four-week basis. We could include, this area would be included, is included within the scope of the work of that landscaping company. So I'm not sure the specifics of how they dispose of trees. I mean, we would certainly be either totally open to adding to their existing scope, a monitoring of this area that would certainly be a certain, I think an easy addition to their scope. And as far as the existing trees, whether it's recycling them back into the terrain as fertilization for the trees in the form of mulch is certainly something we'd be happy to do and recycle. I don't think my understanding is that that wouldn't be much of a fire hazard, given the common practice, given the commonality of that practice. But yeah, that's kind of the best answer I can get you is we do have a professional landscaping company who certainly monitors not just this area but our entire area. Okay, thank you. Comments about tree removal and landscaping, Ms. Marshall. Yeah, about a couple of questions and then maybe some comments. So when were these trees planted and did they come before or after the fence was installed? So if you can answer that and then I'll get you. They were planted, so if we're in 22 right now, we started. 23. I think they were planted in 2021, I believe. I don't know the order of operations on if they were before or after the fence. It may have, yeah, I don't know that answer, I don't remember, yeah. All right, because I'm surprised if these were, this was part of the professional landscaping plan, I'm very surprised that anyone would suggest plant trees that couldn't thrive. So that's one thing. Secondly, any new planting like that needs irrigation and we've had several droughts. So I wonder if they really died from the shade. I mean, they're evergreen, they should do fine in shade if they're watered. So I wonder if you have irrigation on that side or anyone did that to help them take root, literally, and adapt. I mean, I think I'm, well, go ahead. No, no, sorry, did you have another? Well, go ahead, address that. Yes, so I had a similar concern and thought. So I don't know some, I guess a little bit of background here on my role here is I work for the Breckerage Company and we have some other student properties, not just in the Northeast, but across the country. So I say that because I'm not as intimately involved in the development process. So I don't want to kind of say something that is not 100% accurate. But what I do know just based on conversations I've had with the development team is that there was, when this plan was being developed there was, it was questionable, I think. And I think the thought and the commentary was that it was likely to fail even before it started. And I think it was something that was included within this settlement agreement and within the special permit to address some of the concerns of a new large structure being aesthetically not pleasing. And we were kind of like, hey, and I'm not a landscaping expert, but we have had opinions of local professional landscaping experts and I'm just kind of repeating some of what they're saying, which is that these aren't gonna thrive there. And we do not have a drip irrigation system there from my understanding. And obviously that would be an additional resource. And I think, yeah, so yeah, that's kind of the context there and we didn't necessarily explore that because we had in tandem with this discovery process, we felt that we had reached a amendable agreement with our neighbors and part of that agreement and discussion didn't include replacement. So they seem to be satisfied with the removal of them. And again, I think that was one of the documents that was submitted from the public that Steve mentioned earlier in support of the general proposal that was coming from them. So that was kind of the way that we were approaching this was having conversations in tandem with the affected parties, which were our neighbors as well and as well as getting opinions from professional landscapers. Then I'll just say if the fence is part of yours, so to speak, then presumably it was part of the previous permit and it was part of the landscape design. So it's still a little puzzling to me. And I would also say that if, regardless down the line, if there's a desire for more plantings than as Mr. Judge indicated, you can plant rhododendrons or box or anything on the road side of those trees and that'll provide screening and would be just fine, I think. Okay, that's... And again, yeah, we're open to, obviously there's a couple forces here and I would be lying if I said we didn't have an interest in getting a certificate of occupancy. Obviously, I don't think any building owner wants to be operating out there without a certificate of occupancy, but at the same time, we want to respect all of the parties involved. And I'm not sure if that falls outside of our site, outside of the boundaries of our site. So that would be a question that I would have. And then also, subjectively, and for the stakeholders involved is this current grassy area satisfactory or is it not satisfactory? So, and I'm not the only one who can answer that question, but anything that would grow here or we're open to it, so. So are you, just to clarify what you're saying, Mr. Jacobs, is you and representing the applicant would be willing to agree to a condition that required planting of shrubs and other kind of greenery on the road side of those trees and the fence between the road and the trees to buffer the fence from the neighbors and from other people. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, I have immediate hesitations. Or do you want to check with them? Is that where you're coming from? Is it you want to check with your client? I guess I would say, if that's what was necessary in order to achieve an operating permit, my concern is that it's going to start a whole other, we've been operating this building without a certificate of occupancy and you're going into a third year right now. So my concern would be, and I know this isn't your guys' concern, but my concern would be that would create a whole other delay in being able to have a proper occupancy permit. And also that hasn't been something that was presented by our neighbors. So it wasn't something that we necessarily dug into. So yeah, that's where, but yeah, I mean, if that's what the neighbors would feel comfortable with, then we're certainly open to that. And we're willing to show good faith and good will here, obviously within reason and we would, if that condition did arrive here, our request would be, we would get an opinion of a professional landscaper to confirm whether the suggested tree species would thrive in these environments. And identify those specific species to not repeat the same mistake. Words in your mouth, Mr. Jacobs, but it sounds to me like you're saying within reason that's something your client would consider. Yes, yes. Okay. I want to go to Mr. Wachilla and then Mr. Meadows. Wachilla, Rob, you had your hand up first. I think you probably have a clarification. Well, I actually have a question as well, but I was going to ask on the portion of the property where the trees are dying, they're proposing to remove the plantings from. Do you know how many neighbors abut that specific portion of the site? Like is it just the one neighbor who sent in that public comment or is it possibly another neighbor as well that we don't know about? Like is there multiple people who will be affected by the view shed? As far as permanent neighbors, it would be Louise Colligan and her group, but in terms if we were to widen the definition of your question and say, yeah, I mean, it could be anybody who's on, you know, in the road, but yeah, as far as the neighbors and the stakeholders within the agreement, it's just the neighbors. I think there's a street that runs right, that runs perpendicular to Greenleeds Drive. It has a couple of units on there. I'm not sure how many, but there's runs, the building runs perpendicular to Greenleeds Drive. And so I don't think they're looking out from their front door window into the fence, but I think there's several, at least a couple of units along that road that runs perpendicular to Greenleeds, but I didn't go down that road. Mr. Meadows? I would just have a little concern about the unintended consequences of doing something like that. In that, you know, you got snow plowing going on there. And while it looks very nice, it may be put another hedge of something else at this point. If you're plowing snow into it, onto it, et cetera, I think it's, the consequences could be worse than what you're attempting to get by putting some trees in there, putting any other shrubbery in. You're thinking that's true, even if you come out five or six feet from the existing trees and you're still five, six, seven feet from the road, you're worried about snow plow pushing the snow up that far to the shrubbery or trees. The spacing narrows as you go farther down. We're looking at the widest portion right here. Yeah. Seems like it would be awkward to put them just in the widest area and not put them all the way down. And what have you really accomplished? Yeah. I mean, the fence isn't good. So you also look at it in a fence, it's in good shape. The spirit of the, I read through the condition, the spirit of the condition is that some something dies, you gotta replace it. Now, it makes no sense to replace those dying trees up against the fence. So I guess we can discuss this a little bit more when we get into our, or if I had people have other opinions, but nobody is expecting you to replace more Serbian pines or whatever they are in that space. They're just not, nothing's gonna thrive there. And it may not make sense to go down the street with other additional rhododendrons or whatever, but we can discuss that later. But you'll be willing to think about it. That's good for us to know. It may not make sense, but it's good for us to know what you're willing to do. And one last question, Mr. Wachilla. They already have their occupancy. They have their certificate of occupancy by when they completed the, when they complied with the conditions back in 2000, was it 19 or 2020? So they're granted a certificate of occupancy because there's been people there for two years, right? I can't give you- This is taking that from them. I'm not giving you, I can't give you an answer on that one. And Rob Moore couldn't make it tonight because he had other, something else to attend to, but I could definitely provide that answer at the next meeting. I believe if I'm, correct me if I'm wrong on this, Andrew. When did the property transition from Breck Group to Breckenridge? Was it 2022 or was it the year before that? I would have to get back to you on that on the exact date. I can put that into my notes. And I guess to clarify is we do have a, a temporary certificate of occupancy, but what we don't have is the permanent, the certificate of occupancy. So I don't want those words to get confused there, but yeah, we do have people living there. But again, as a property manager and owner, not an ideal situation for more reasons than one. So, and this is obviously one of the things that are holding that up. And Mr. Jacobs, are you, the Breckenridge Group is the manager of the property? You're not the landscape architect or not a landscape company. You're the manager of the property. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, correct. And there might be some confusion that the landscape architects have a similar name. I think Berkshire Group or the original one. So yeah, we, we are Breckenridge Group, you know, doing business as Aspen Heights. But yeah, our entity name is Breckenridge Group. And your role is owner and manager. Is that right? We do third party management with a group called Asset Living. But we, yeah, we are, we are the owners. We are the owners and yeah, the owners and managers. But not to be confused with property manager, you know, we do technically have some third party property managers and that's a different company. Yes. Different company. Yeah. That's clear. Okay. Mr. Meadows. No, I, I, I expressed my, I just didn't know. Oh, your, your, your hand's still up there. Here we go. There you go. All right. Mr. Wachilla. Just a quick follow up. When does your temporary CO expire? Do you guys have a set date for that or do you not? We have been extending it just, just kind of as, as needed. So I think our latest one, I could tell you right now, and if this is the right record, I mean, it might be expired already. I probably shouldn't say that out loud, but we have been, we have been, been trying to renew it with Dave. One of the, I'm not sure if Dave is in this public hearing. Why, why Chosky, I might be pronouncing his, his last name wrong, but we have been, yeah, just kind of periodically renewing it as, as needed, you know, as needed. So, yeah. And he's usually three, three to four month increments. So. Okay. Ms. Marshall. Yeah. Are there, is it these issues were these, these revisions that you want to the permit, are these what are preventing, what are standing in the way of a permanency of O or is there something else going on? I mean, are we the show, are we the on the critical path to that? Or what? This is the last issue, the landscaping issue. And not the other issues that we'll talk about tonight. Just as far as the certificate of occupancy, it's just the landscaping one. Yeah. And the reason for that is because the trees are, are dead. So. Yeah. That happens. I'm surprised that's a requirement for a CFO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the conditions specific states that the landscape plan must be fully implemented to get the CO. Right. Right. You know, that's, so that's, it got tied to that as I look at the conditions. Anyway. Yeah. And there was some other, there were some other just so it doesn't look like this has been going on for two years. I mean, there were some other issues that we were dealing with that have since been resolved, but this is, this is the last, this is the final one. So, yeah. Okay. All right. Unless we've got other questions about the lands, this portion of the landscaping, do you want to move to the other issues? I'll see if anybody has any more questions. And if not, let's move to the next issue, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Jacobson, excuse me. Go ahead. Yeah. The other issue was a modification to the shuttle requirements. So the way that the language reads right now within the special permit is that the shuttle must operate year round. And the modification that we're requesting is to change the wording from saying year round to within the months that students are in session. The reason for that is because there's multiple reasons for that, but one of the reasons is that we did operate it during the summer last year. And there was anywhere, you know, between zero and three riders in the shuttle throughout those summer months. So basically we just had a shuttle, you know, driving around the city, you know, burning gas and fuel and resources, you know, both environmental and economic resources. Again, I would, you know, I would be lying if, you know, any building owners obviously, you know, trying to be prudent within their economic resources and it is about a $10,000 per month cost to operate the shuttle. And it was largely empty. So, you know, those are, you know, a number of different reasons. And then, you know, just, you know, I know there was the fire department's commentary, you know, about the demographic at the property. So we market to all residents, students, and non-students, you know, within, you know, all of the Fair Housing Act requirements, as well as the state requirements. So we did not discriminate towards any residents, but naturally, not surprisingly, a lot of our residents, you know, we observed that a lot of them are students upwards of 85%. So that's the main, one of the, you know, contributing factors to the lack of ridership within the summer. But for those, you know, 14 to 15% of residents within our building that would potentially ride the shuttle, you know, we, you know, obviously the weather conditions are more conducive to the utilization of bike lanes and to the utilization of the nearby city bus stop, which is not as convenient as getting picked up right in front of your door. But it is, right out, you know, it's only about, you know, a block, a block walking distance. So, and I've also, it looks like this arrow, I do apologize, this is not accurate right here, the project subject property is right around here. So the city bus does provide a reasonable alternative for those, you know, 13 to 14% of residents that may want to use public transportation within the summer. It provides kind of a similar route as the private shuttle that we're offering. So, you know, I think there are alternatives that are more conservative with the environmental and economic resources that we believe are reasonable and are therefore, you know, the reasons for our amendment to the proposal. Mr. Jacobs, do you have a, have you done a survey of and a study of usage year round? What's the usage like in October? What's it like in March? What's it like in July? And then how many, and if you've got 86% of your residents or students, how many of those are September to May students and how many of those are full year? I don't know, I don't have that exact data point. I, you know, hard numbers. I have a lot of anecdotal and observational support that I could share. So what I can say is, yeah, during the regular, the fall and the spring semesters, as well as I know that the winter semester was recently added and we don't really have much anecdotal or I was gonna say clinical data, but we're not in a healthcare setting. So I don't know what the appropriate term for that would be or just hard data. But yeah, it's a popular amenity during the school years and we've observed a dramatic drop in ridership during the summer months is, you know, kind of one of the best ways I can describe it. Yeah, so that, yeah, that's kind of the way we're looking at it. You have anecdotal, but not ridership data. You don't have a number on that. Having this be on call system during the summer. Where if somebody that up at the Mullen Center and they need to get a ride back, they call to the main office, you come and pick them up as opposed to, how often does it go every during the summer or any time of the year? How often does it travel? Oh, here we go. Is this your shuttle? Yeah. So every half hour. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And, you know, we were obviously scaling this back a little bit during the summer because it was just, you know, again, a huge strain on the resources. But yeah, I mean, we just viewed it as a large waste of resources during the summer, just kind of any way we looked at it. So... Could it be done during the summer on a on-call basis? When I answer your question from a literal sense, anything can be done with a certain amount of resources. But, you know, I don't believe that that would be an efficient use of resources given how the contracts with these shuttles work. It would be a challenge to get them to agree to have a shuttle and labor willing and able and labor to agree, you know, to suffer it to make sense for within like a reasonable, you know, within a reasonable cost. So it would be a challenge. And I would certainly, you hesitate on it, just kind of given how low of ridership there was in the summer and given the alternatives that are available via the city buses and the bike routes, you know, it's just, it'd be a difficult challenge and a costly one. And so... Okay. Mr. Maxfield. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. You actually, you asked most of the questions, both of them that I was going to ask, but I guess... Sorry about that. No worries. Because now I'll just go into a follow-up here on that, which is as far as limited availability even something like an on-call or not an on-call, but if you have some ridership in the summer, is it just sporadic? It's any given day. Is there any sort of a trend where it might make sense to say, even for residents, all right, in the summer, there's one day of bus service where people, if they're going out on, I don't know, a Saturday is the day people are running errands kind of thing. Does that make more sense than saying a seven-day schedule? From what we've observed, there hasn't been any necessarily a pattern, like any strong pattern that we've observed. It's just been, you know, zero to three riders, you know, at times without identifying a specific pattern. You know, our contract with the shuttle company, Greenway Shuttles, part of the scope of that contract does not include a collection of ridership data at a, you know, kind of sophisticated level that I wish we had for this purposes of this meeting, but that's not included in the scope of those services. You know, and I guess the part that I struggle with is, you know, is this a, you know, is this a requirement, you know, from all, you know, for all kind of, you know, all residential, you know, buildings being, you know, required to, you know, provide this level of, you know, shows. And we want to keep it during the school year. We actually view it as a popular amenity that attracts students as well as keeps traffic down. And less disturbances to the neighbors. So not only is it required, but it's an attractive amenity that we like to offer and gives us what we would, you know, a competitive advantage within a already tight market. So we just kind of struggle with the requirement a little bit during the summer and how, you know, and kind of, you know, I guess setting that, you know, kind of standard amongst your residential properties multifamily properties. It's not required of other uniformly across the board for large-scale rental properties in Amherst. It was in this one because of the, because that was one of the conditions that the board thought was important at the time. Mr. Sloveter. Well, just like you preempted Dylan's question, you preempted mine, but I was impressed to see how frequent the schedule was. Have you considered a reduced schedule in the summer, as opposed to eliminating it all together? Perhaps the shuttle running every two hours and perhaps being operated by somebody who does something else on the property when the shuttle isn't running or every three hours or whatever, it would still provide transportation to town during the summer months for those people who are there. So is that something you've considered? We've considered, yeah, like any, any option that's reasonable, you know, we've considered, but just kind of given the ridership, we didn't feel that that was a consideration, you know, kind of worth including within this amendment to the proposal, you know, even the dramatic drop, you know, from, you know, after the spring semester. So, yeah, again, it would be a difficult, you know, challenge to, you know, to kind of have a setup like that, you know, you know, these are kind of contracted services, you know, we're in the business of, you know, providing shelter to residents, but we're not in the business of, you know, operating a sophisticated private shuttle, which is the reason we outsource this particular service. So, yeah, it would be a challenge to, it would be a challenge. Okay. And also, what is your definition of when school is in session? If that, I don't remember if that's the actual phrase you use, did you, the academic schedule. So, are you looking at the last shuttle would run on the last day of school? Would it run on the last day of finals? Would it be move out day and move in day? Or would there be a shoulder period? Perhaps it would continue to run for two weeks or some period after the end of finals to include, to move out and students that stick around a little bit longer before they leave. How do you define the academic year? Yeah, so I'm not sure. I don't know if that definition made it to the final iteration of the amendment, but the intention and we'd be happy to include this was the UMass, you know, but it was a lot was the UMass definition of the beginning and end of each semester, which I know that I had, I know I had looked at that link at one point, but that, that was the definition. It was on the UMass academic calendar university registrar website for the beginning and the end of each semester. So we would be essentially mirroring their start and end dates was our intention. Okay. So that was our intention. And you were not, you didn't intend to do that during Christmas vacation or breaks, right? Correct. To stop the shuttles during breaks. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. And Tim, I can't remember if we, if that ended up making it to the, that level of detail ended up making it, but that is the spirit of the, of the amendments and we could, we would be certainly happy to include that language. Yeah. So, especially it is in there. Okay. It says in other words during summer break. The December through January break and any spring break. But there are, there are a lot of students at UMass who come from a distance. And don't leave town. Yeah. During spring breaks, especially or, or winter break, especially if they are living in apartments off campus. Where they're not affected by the reduction in services. In, in the dorms on campus. So it wouldn't drop. Or I don't know that it wouldn't drop, but it doesn't make sense to me that the, that the number of students on site on your property would drop to summer levels during spring break. Yeah. But you still want to, you still want to eliminate the shuttle then. Yeah. So the, what I would share is that the primary motive. For using the shuttle is to get to campus. So that's, that's kind of the, the end. Destination destination. There are some other stops along the way. But it's primarily being used to commute to campus and to class. So that would be the reason behind the drop. And, and, and that's where the, that's the key. And, and that's where the, that's the key. And one school is out of session. Okay. Thank you. This Marshall. My thinking was similar to Mr. Slovators, but I would. I would. At least at the moment, I feel like it. Would be. Why is to continue the. Shuttle service may be reduced, but not eliminated during the academic breaks, students who are continuing their studies or their jobs on campus, not not everything shuts down just because classes are not happening. And also because at least during January, whatever, whenever the break is in the winter, it's more hazardous time for biking. Yes, there's still city buses, but so that's my thinking about the the break. Also, I gather you do have tenants in affordable units who I assume are not students I don't know but they're there they're there or might be there every day of the year. Maybe those are the one to three people who are using the shuttle in the summer. Anyway, so, so there's that also thinking about a shoulder season students do it do move in early they don't move in the first day of class. And they don't move out the last day of class so I would think it might be wise to begin the service a week before the first day of class and and a week after commencement maybe something like that. Yeah, I could certainly see that and sorry I don't know if it was I was okay to respond to that, Steve. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I mean, again, I would just reemphasize you know it's it's primary purpose and destination is the campus. You know so even during that shoulder period. If there's, if there's no class, then it's not really being used. So that's, you know, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean we could. Yeah, it's just tough to say and I think I, you know I keep going back to, you know reasonable alternatives. And as well as you know kind of standards so they're multifamily properties not that we're trying to avoid it we're not trying to avoid this we're just trying to be, you know prudent with our resources and I. You know, I, I, my opinion is, is it wouldn't be used in less classes in session it doesn't really get used is my opinion and is the observations of the onsite teams. I have a couple of questions about this. So, it seems to me that what this all comes down to is really data on usage. That's really what drives me there's a couple of what I think what was what this board was looking for when they imposed this condition was they're trying to reduce the number of private vehicles that are traveling around back and forth to school. They recognize that a lot of people that are living in the units as you have. You mentioned do not have their cars and attractive, attractive thing. And we have affordable units in that where there may or may not be cars and other message of transportation for people living in affordable units. So I guess I have a couple of questions. The first is, how long is your experience been with this shuttle. So you guys bought this how long ago and so give me the length of time you have looked at this and and been able to evaluate it. So we opened our doors in August of 2021 around there. Kind of the coinciding with the fall semester of 2021. So we are, we have you know kind of two years, academic years of data now and you know going on a third so it's you know two years of two years of observations. So the, oh, I thought the property was sold recently. I must be mistaken. No, no, no. Okay. Yeah, we know we we we we built it. You know, dating back to 2019 and have been involved since then. So since then, so it's the same owner as it was when they win this and condition was imposed. Great. All right. Number number two. What percentage of your residents have cars. I don't have that number. I could, I can get back with you on that one. But you know, I do know. Yeah, I mean we have more than sufficient parking regularly so I know that. This goes more towards everything be helpful to have it's more towards my substituting driving for the shuttle to mass transit versus individual transportation trade off is what I'm trying to get at that. Yeah. Next question is how many of your units are affordable. I know there was a requirement on the. Yeah, we have 12 certain number. Yeah, it's a 12 out of 88 units 12 out of 88. Okay. All right. And you, in your, your, during your ownership, you've not done a study or a, we both could use a term clinical study data, data driven study of ridership. And that would be helpful. That would make this a lot easier to make a decision. I think. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, yeah, we don't we don't have that. Again, kind of just given the scope of and the sophistication of, you know, and our resources, you know, we haven't done what I would consider an appropriate study that in our minds we can design, but we can. Yeah, I don't, I don't, you know, I don't want to be contentious, but I see that as a guy with a clicker, the bus driver with a clicker. So many people came in each day, write it down at the end of the day and turn it in. There's your, it's not a lot to ask for your of your contract service to do so it's possible without being, you know, horribly burdensome to get the numbers. I think, but I'm not running a contract. No, I think that's a good. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. But, you know, would it, would it be helpful to provide like testimonials? You know, would that be like an alternative that doesn't. Well, it's anecdotal and it's not, you know, it's not sort of database. I mean, I think we all agree that there's going to be less ridership in the summer, then there's going to be in in October, I think everybody agrees with that. But to extent to which that reduction warrants a reduction in schedule is what we really want to know what makes sense. I think, I mean, that's what I'm looking at. Mr. Sloveter. I just want to make sort of a proposal while we're on the topic of the shuttle so I don't forget to make it later or if I don't have an opportunity. And that would be to provide the shuttle from August 15 to June 15. The summer is when the alternatives of a bike or walking or the town bus are easier, more attractive, less of a burden. To have for graduate students, anybody who is still there during holidays, when it is very cold and it is snowy, perhaps, nobody's going to be riding a bike. So it seems that it might end up being a reasonable compromise if, if there is really a justification for eliminating it during the summer, then to run the shuttle from the earliest point at which kids returns to school. And this year, you mass move their graduation back to Memorial Day to the very end of May. So, I live in town and can see student foot and vehicle traffic from where I'm sitting right now. And it was into June, and there were still students, clearly students here. And if you wanted to eliminate it in the summer, you could balance that and continue an appropriate shuttle service from August to June, and then that would take care of the vacation periods when I still see people here. It's not as deserted in spring break and during the winter holiday, as it is during the summer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Slavittor. Mr. Maxwell. Yeah, I'm sorry, I was just wondering when does your lease run from from what month to what month. Is our lease, or like our with the shuttle company or. No, no, I'm sorry with with residents your lease starts when ends when typically. Well for most, most of them I mean we we offer all leases at all start dates, but because most of the residents are students and that's who we attract. It's usually from August 1 to July 31. August 1 to July 31. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, we have staggered I mean we, you know, we, we have staggered leases as well. So, they would be one year leases or would they be something where somebody's coming in six months and you'd give them that to whenever to July 31, is it always. We typically it's yeah typically it's the majority are 12 months. You know if there's a student who comes, well, we don't really have any availability where 100% least on both the affordable and the non affordable units but if we did have availability, we would be open to offering a student, you know, a spring to a spring move in and then for like a six month lease or something like that as long as we're, then all city and state requirements. Got it. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Other questions about the shuttle. Mr. Wachilla. So one thing from the fire department transmit all wanted to bring up it seemed like back in 20, believe it was 2017 when they established the shuttle condition. And this was with the previous owner brec group. That it was to alleviate the issue of pedestrians crossing route nine near the apartment complex located. So I kind of want to just throw that back into discussion because it wasn't really touch much during our comments regarding the show service so the fire department seemed to be in favor of that condition at first because it prevented, at least during the busy months, students and residents from crossing there instead of going further down the street to the intersection which I believe is intersection right there with I forgot the name of the street. I think it's university drive. It's university drive isn't it? University drive and I believe you guys are a little bit distance away from the intersection so I wanted to, you know, ask the board if they wanted to bring that up to the applicant or if you feel like it's not important then go ahead and ignore me but it's just something that was kind of missed in conversation. Yeah, the fire department had recent concerns then and in comment from fire department. Now, they raised to find correct. What was the comment from the fire department. The shuttle service is not just convenience for residents the Amherst fire department supports the concept of the shuttle in order to increase pedestrian versus vehicle on nine and one 16 residents and visitors can see up includes a liquor is 44. However, there's no safe way to cross it about a highway pedestrian versus motor vehicle accident occurs in the vicinity of Florida. North Hampton road and involved in the resident building the shuttle service should immediately work back to the first schedule operation. I really hate to think about the triggering event and as outlined by the fire department is Marshall. I understand that concern, but if this shuttle I'm looking at the map, the route. If it really just goes one way, then in order to get to stop and shop, you have to ride almost all the way around on that shuttle just to get to stop and shop. So, I mean it. I, and even if it goes the other way and like you go there. There's no way you can really go there first so I don't know I'd be surprised if many people just want to sit on a shuttle for 15 or 20 minutes. You know, maybe they do but you know I don't know and people are also, they're grown up and they're they may already they may still be crossing the street crossing nine despite the shuttle so I don't know that we know that it's such pedestrian traffic to begin with. Mr Maxfield. Oops, you're muted Dylan. There we go that should help. I know kind of where we're at right now with discussion my general feeling right now is, I'm being inclined to agree with the applicant in terms of doing it for you know, maybe definitely July August, probably June. I think really at this point, if somebody sitting in the audience when we do get the public comment is a is a resident may make a good case I haven't thought of her why it maybe should be continued I might change my mind but I don't know I think it seems pretty reasonable. It's, it's not a condition we impose on anybody else here, and even you know with the fire department with the summer. I do see it as kind of a waste of resources, I don't know people feel differently but I think that's wrong at this point. Okay, thank you. Unless there's other let's move on to the next. I think we've discussed this a lot. And I think we've got some good information and good suggestions. So, let's move on to the next subject. Mr Jacobs. Yeah, I appreciate that Steve and yeah thank you. The last one was kind of combined into two, because we viewed them as related. The requirements mentioned a few things. It mentions 24 seven concierge front desk coverage as a requirement, and it mentions live in security professional. And that it doesn't specify what live in means but I think we could all, you know, come to our own definition of that which is, you know, we reserve a unit for a security professional to live on site so our proposal is to modify that provision to to remove the requirement for the 24 seven concierge service. There's a lot of static going on. Steve, I'm not sure. Yeah, I got a lot of water behind me but it's not. So our proposal was to remove the 24 seven concierge requirement and to remove the live in requirement. We intend to maintain 24 seven coverage in a modified version, which is during business hours we have our onsite staff, which includes a general manager at the property, an assistant general manager, a part time office staff member, a maintenance, a supervisor, a maintenance assistant or technician. We have five people there onsite during regular business hours, up to five people sometimes obviously it's less. And then outside of those regular business hours. We are continuing to agree to provide professional security guard coverage. The only difference being is that they do not live on site. It's explored trying to offer a unit to security guards and it seems like a attractive proposal, but it's actually was it's been difficult to even get convinced somebody to live on site. And even if they were to live on site, due to labor and employment law requirements, we would still have to bring in additional security personnel. So that they are not working. Yeah, they can only work a certain amount of hours per week. So, yeah, that's our proposal. And we, yeah, that's our that's our modification there. So, I'm confused, Mr Jacobs. So right now you have requirement for 24 seven concierge desk and 24 seven security. Is that right. And you're saying we don't want to have the 24 seven concierge desk but we will have 24 seven security on premises. Well, yeah, I guess, yeah, I can see the confusion there. I guess we're saying 24 seven coverage and that coverage is a combination of management staff and security guard. Professional security guards. So three in the morning you'll have the security guard on site. That's that's what we're doing right now. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what you're proposing to continue. Correct. So it's not going to be uncovered and there's some, there's also some statement here. There's, there was a procedure where you had were guests had to check in with somebody. Is that going to continue? Please explain what your current policy is and how you want to change that. So our current policy, well, you know, it's been difficult to comply with the existing language, but our current policy is either a existing resident or a staff slash security personnel needs to have eyes on any on any non residents. So it's difficult to enforce and police residents who let in their guests on some of the side doors. But, you know, the way that we look at it is that, you know, they, you know, they will have a visual check on those guests if they're letting them in through the one of the side doors. But if they come in unattended through the front door, then they will be checked in by a security guard or by an onsite staff. We do have cameras. Yes, we do have cameras. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. So it seems to me that having it's almost like it's burdensome to have a doorman, a New York City style doorman at the front desk of this building 24 seven, just in case somebody is going to want to have somebody come in. It seems to me to be excessive. As long as there is 24 seven security coverage, I think you're living up to the spirit of the condition, my opinion. Other people may have others. And it's also it seems to me that if your, your residents are letting people in through the side doors as opposed to the front door. There's not a lot you can do about that no matter if you even did have a concierge there all the time. Their job was to monitor the doors and not allow people to come in without checking in at the front desk. And it's not a dorm. You know, it's not a UMass dorm. It's a, it's an apartment building. And it seems to me that in some ways this is mirroring the requirements of a dorm as opposed to the requirements of a apartment building with a number of students living in it. So the change that you're putting as long as I'm understanding it, you're still going to have 24 seven security there. Yeah, all the time combination of staff or security guard. I'm comfortable with. I think. Miss Marshall. So, when the office staff, the business hour staff, when they're not there. In all of those other hours, there will be a security person in the office. This is not an on call person or driving around out. It's a person. Yeah, it's a person in, in the office. On site, on site. On site. Right. On site. Doing like it's not a error else like walking around outside or. Yeah, we part of the contract that we have with them. They, they, there's a number, there's a scope within that contract and they, you know, they have different checkpoints. So they basically do patrols as well as standstill service. Okay. And, and the, and the other thing I should mention is, yeah, they do, there's a number to call. It's not, it's not a call center. Like it's, you can, and we have provided that number to our neighbors and we were open to providing it to. You know, and obviously our residents have it as well. So. And if somebody calls that number and the, the guard is not at the desk is the guard going to receive that call. Is this to a mobile? The way that. Yeah, the minor. Yeah, it is a, it is a mobile phone is the way that it was set up. You know, I haven't tested it in a while, but that's, that's the way that it's set up. And that's the way that our contract, our contract has it. So. Okay. Okay. Mr. Maxfield. Thank you. Who do you folks use as your security company? I just forgot the name of them. That's a good question. If you can, I can bring it up if you were to give me 60 seconds, I can bring it up if that's okay. Sure. Take your time. While you're working on that, does anybody on the board feel they need to have a live in secure that it's a reasonable requirement in this day and age to have a live in security person on site? Not I. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it may have been at the time, but I think trying to, I can imagine trying to find somebody do that day is pretty tough. So we use Orion protective services. Yeah, got it. Now, now's the idea that you're going to have somebody from Orion there 24 seven, and then during business hours you might have some to somebody else doing the concierge service at the desk, checking people in or Orion is kind of always. You know, yeah, so yeah, so yeah, for instance, if there's, you know, if the office staff is there nine hours, then Orion will be there 15 hours. So they're not Orion's not there when the staff is there. Okay, got it. Regular business hours, Orion is not there. Right. Yeah, so yeah, during regular business hours, which includes weekends. Some weekends. The staff is, is yeah, I mean, there's somebody to greet residents and monitor and then the doors are always locked. Of course, we have a fog key system and, you know, like after hours and you know, no, you can't get in unless you have an entry access. Do you have any history? Is there any history of crime breaking and police calls to your spot? We, we haven't had any serious issues and that was some data. I was trying, I was trying to, I figured that question was coming and I didn't. Yeah, we haven't, I haven't had anything since I've been covering it. We haven't had any serious issues but Rob, I can get you we should have hard data on that because we do track that. I apologize for not having that prepared for this call but yeah, we haven't had any major issues but I can, I can shoot over a note to you after with our kind of we track our incident reports. I think we've run through the four major. Go ahead. Marshall. Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry I was recalling something I thought I saw in the fire prevention officers memo. That person Captain Baskham writes that there was emergency incidents. I don't know how many, presumably more than two have already occurred where an immediate presence was required. So, I'm just wondering how serious those were, you know, or what he's referring to. Yeah, I could, I can get that list and see exactly what they were, you know, truthfully. Yeah, I would have to get that list I don't want to speak out of line but yeah at least what's been brought to my attention. It's never been elevated to the point where it's not something that was kind of handled by the onsite staff. So, I, but I'll get that I can, I can send that. But it sounds like sounds like the fire department was there. Yeah, they wouldn't know about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You've got your hand up no longer. Thank you, Mr. share. I mean, the only request here is just for this condition is just that the security guard not be living am I correct. It's not as well as the removal of the 24 seven concierge. Oh, sorry. Yeah, right. Yeah, so it doesn't have to live there and you don't have to have somebody at the front desk, you know, not working hours. Got it. I mean, so yeah I mean my my thinking is whether or not they they have emergency incidents that required somebody to be there. I mean, I don't think it's going to impact somebody like a security guard sounds like somebody will still be there. So this to me doesn't that that information. I don't think it's going to impact my decision here because they're still going to have that security it's not it's not going away. Okay. So it's not to me that we've explored the nature of the request or we don't have is any kind of circumstances or incidents and that something you can get us but we don't have tonight. All right. Let's see if there's any other general comments from questions from board members and then I'd like to go to the public comment. And then we can go into our public meeting and we can discuss this further. So, not a chance for board members to ask any other question of the applicants. Let's see if we've got some people for public comment. And I see we've got. I think it must be Louise Colligan had had her hand raised. Bob, can you bring her in? Oh, she's no longer has her hand raised. If members of the public wish to speak this is the time to either using computer, raise your hand function or use nine. There we go. Is that Miss Colligan. Yes. I don't know where the big is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Just give us your name address and try to keep your comments to around three, about three minutes. Okay. I am Louise Colligan at 14 green leaves drive. We're in the cottages. There are six condos here that you drove by. I'm excited to work backwards about the security. I wrote in public comments about all three issues that are coming up. We're pretty satisfied here that the security changes won't impact us. I would just call them aspen heights because it has many configurations does make themselves available. They visited here. They came by to look at the landscaping. We think that it's got very robust coverage planned. And we're not really worried about it. If they save any money on that, then let's move to the shuttle and maybe put up some kind of, you know, bus shelter UMass is going to be a UMass five the bank is going to be moving in next door and make that more attractive and that would be used in the summer months and in the winter, but to have a shuttle roaming around Amherst in the summertime, you know, just polluting the air and creating more traffic. It really just doesn't make any kind of sense at all to us. So the landscaping I it's hard to believe that's such a big issue. What we would like to see is just have those dead shrubs removed and have a cleanup done. There are a lot of down branches while they're in there to clear it out to make it less of a fire hazard. We're so glad for that fence. So it's not really as ugly to us as you might think because it's tall. It's almost opaque. As somebody else who's probably in the room right now was really instrumental in getting such a tall solid fence. So, looking at it, we're facing the woods either way, front and back. We really see these bars areas that we're, we were concerned about so we asked for a lot of things, and making adjustments of the type that Aspen Heights is asking for seems very common sensical task. Okay, that's it. Thank you, Mrs Colligan. There are other public comments. Any members of the public who wish to speak. If not, just last opportunity for us to ask questions of looking before we go to the public meeting or to make comments. Okay, so what I'd like to do is move to the meeting portion of our meeting while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to gather additional action. The public meeting is where the board discuss cells and votes and considers the project and. And it'll be time for public comment. Miss Marshall. Your, your audio is starting to break up. Never. It never fails. Does it. You made it. You made it an hour and 36 minutes. So, so not bad. You know, I'm starting to go now is it. Geez. Okay. Hold on. Just a minute. Now, can you hear me? Yes. Dylan, we have to do something about these Apple AirPods. They just, they should last longer than this. I know you know something you used to know something about this, but it just lasts longer than they're supposed to shorter than they're supposed to. Right now, all that information is officially out of my brain. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. All right. Okay, so it looks like we got four issues to discuss. Number one, the landscaping along the side. Number two, the shuttle. Number three, the security. And the fourth is the. It's back to landscaping again. The landscaping issues really. So, let's, if we could, did I miss something, Rob? All right, let's talk about the landscaping first, and then we can go through it. It seems to me it makes no sense to require people to replace trees. I'm going to die. That's, that doesn't make any sense at all. I am, I think Mr. Meadows had a point about putting shrubbery too close to the, too close to the road. And it doesn't, I mean, I, I think the big thing is to clear it out and make it look nice. The neighbors didn't seem to mind the fence. I was when I was there today, it was, it's, it must be 12 feet tall, I think, and it effectively blocks us. The view of the apartment buildings for all, but the top windows, top part of the windows, the top floor. It seems to me that if the applicant wants to add additional plantings that could do it on their own, but I'm not sure that I would require it, but I would be open to hear what other people think. Mr. Maxfield. I'll say on this issue and pretty much all the others, I am inclined to grant the applicant what they're seeking. And this one here at all seems very reasonable. If they want to try to grow something there in the future, sure, but with that that fence, I feel it's, it's fine to grant their request here. Ms. Marshall, your hand was up first. This is often the case. Mr. Meadows, you're fast on the on the draw. I should play Jeopardy. I agree about the landscaping, and I particularly don't think it should be holding up as C of O that to me seems ridiculous. It also seems to me that Breckenridge did comply. They did plant the trees as required. They have died. So that's what happens to plants. So sometimes. So, yeah, I wouldn't want to hold that, hold up that issue any longer. And I'm not certain, but I think the issue with that particular condition is that it requires them to replace them quickly. And that that's part of the conditions that if it dies, you got to replace it. I don't know if that's what the CEO, but it might be. All right, well, I wouldn't like you. I think it's ridiculous to put in more more plans. Mr. Meadows. I'm definitely going to say that I agree with what Mr. Maxfield's had. I think that the request by the by the owner is, all of them are very reasonable. The slope of it also had something that I thought was smart is to get rid of the fire hazard, the debris, and that I think we should. If we amend the condition on the landscaping, the amendment should be something to the effect that it's maintained. I wrote some some words down that it should be maintained. It should be a debris and fallen limbs, and it should be monitored by the property owner and landscape. So something to that effect should be the language of that condition. Mr. Slowder. Well, now I have nothing to say. I think it's sensible and as long as when the trees are gone, they shouldn't be replaced. The area should be cleared of debris. And the scope of the responsibility of the landscaper that they have retained should be to maintain the area. Well done, Mr. Chairman. I think we have a consensus on that item. I'm not so sure we have a consensus, but we may have a majority on the next item, which is the shuttle. I'm just troubled by no data and it's sort of anecdotal feeling. This condition was was put in precisely because it was trying to you're trying to find a way for people not to drive those their cars to the campus and they're going to be people living there that don't have cars and need to get to campus. And I'm everybody agrees that there it's going to be used during schools and session. And I think everybody made sense to me that it's going to be less usage during the summer. But I was there today on the property. I drove around. There were a number of cars there at a time when lots of cars there at a time when there should be the very fewest cars of all. People who are working and take a car to work would be would have it gone and there was still 15 to 20 cars, at least in the parking lot. So there are people that are there. They continue to be there during the summer. It's not it's not a vacant. And I'd like to see I'd like to see numbers on it. And I think it's really easy to get numbers with a clicker, just having your bus driver take a clicker. And the only way we know the difference between the numbers in the summer and the numbers in the fall is to do that do a study of what the ridership is. And if the ridership really is awful in the summer in the summer, I think that then it makes sense to reduce it or eliminate the need for a shuttle. But we just don't know that. And we know we don't know the delta between summer and school year. So I was thinking what wouldn't might make sense is that you only got I like the idea of acquiring the shuttle from August 15 to June 15. Makes sense to me that you got the shoulder season season in there and you don't have you don't eliminate the shuttle during the Christmas breaks because people live there. But we've got sick about six weeks to a little up seven weeks until August 15 to start that to start your fall season. And I'd like to know what those numbers are during that ridership is during that piece of time. I think you could reduce. I think you reduce the shuttle frequency during the next seven weeks by, you know, 50%. And you would save on the gas. You're not going to save on the salary, but it's just for seven weeks. We get we get a sense of the numbers. You run it for a year and see what it's like. And if you and if you find that that is really low in the summer compared to the rest and inordinately low in the summer compared to the full year, you come back to us and say, you know, this just doesn't make any sense at all. Because even if we stop it today, that shuttle is going to run for another two or three weeks before the paper gets signed and you can change the contract with your, your, your shuttle drivers. So it's going to be a while before you realize the benefit from the new shuttle, I think, and we get some information. That's the, my thing is just, we just don't know we're acting all on anecdote and feeling and we don't really know and you're going to be, you're going to be writing this thing anyway for a few weeks. It seems to me so the damage to you is not that to the applicant is not that long from having somebody do a clicker study, have a study done on ridership, and then we can know. I hate to, I hate to penalize people who draw who rented there who don't have cars who are there for a reason because of the shuttle and have it taken away without some on some analytical data to back it up. That's my feeling. I don't know that that's the board's feeling so I lay that out there my proposal would be to keep it for the time being. And end it next and the this proposal and this condition as of June, June 15. See what you see what you've got at that point report to us. And if it's if it's, and then reverts back to full year after that, but I would just like to see what you got and then you come back to us and say, you know, there's just no, there's no you can even come back to us in December and say the difference between the ridership in August and the ridership in December is X, and we can make our mind up and say you don't have to keep it going anymore during the summer, or you'd say, you better keep it because there's enough people there. That's my idea. Get the data and make a decision on that. And it's not like we're asking you to do it for a year, we're asking you to do it for a while, but for a short period of time we'll get the data. And that's what I'm interested in. So I'd like people's reaction to that. If you think it's burdensome and not worthwhile, you should just say it but that's what I'm thinking. Mr Meadows. You know, I think we all know that the PVTA and the student ridership during the summer diminishes dramatically. And that they also come way back on their, their number of buses that they have going. This is a bus that is primarily for one, just for one complex. I don't, I think it's a tremendous benefit during the school year to have that happening for the people who are renting that complex. But I assume that it is a cost that the, you know, the company is burdened with, and therefore is reflected also in their rents. So if we can help them to not increase their rents as a result of this, and follow the methodology of the PVTA in eliminating the need for a shuttle during the summer. It just seems logical to me. I understand your, your desire to have the numbers and it makes sense, but I'm not certain how really necessary is given the other proofs that we have in the area. Other thoughts. Thank you, Mr Meadows. Other thoughts. Mr Slaveter. For me, the, the given is that the shuttle should run from August 15 to June 15. So the question is, what are we going to decide from between June 15 for two months until August 15. And one of my concerns at the moment is that if we would approve stopping the shuttles as of, well, it's after June 15. So, right now, as soon as possible, then anybody who is living in the complex and rented with the expectation that the shuttles would be running this summer would have no notice that this is stopping. And for, if this application was being made in, in March, so that they could give notice to the residents that would be different. I think that the data is very important in a permanent decision of whether it would run in the summer at all. And it would be reasonable to cut back beginning now for this summer and get data on ridership. But I don't, I'm not particularly comfortable with just saying okay you can stop the shuttle abruptly tomorrow there are people who are presumably counting on the shuttle being available to them in the near future. So, given the timing of the year, and I also agree that if they can save a significant amount of money and that would contribute to slowing down rent increases that would definitely be a benefit to the people there. But given the timing, I think that it would make sense to continue the shuttle through the summer, perhaps, very validly at a reduced schedule and get data and then come back in September or October. It could even be that early with conclusive data on what the summer was, and then we can make a decision then but at least we would have the data. Thank you. And just a quick question from Mr Jacobs. Can you amend your current contract with the shuttle company, or are you locked in to the current shuttle schedule and could you even realize the benefit of cutting off the shuttle at this point. It's possible. It's possible and then. You got a contract that have to agree to it right. Yeah, I would have to revisit the provision that addresses that. I mean, sometimes there's, you know, 3060 day provisions so it might be kind of too late to, you know, make a difference there but I got to, I got to check with what's going on there right now. You know, we did, you know, reduce it a bit already. Since since no, since no one was writing it so, but yeah, I would have to dig into the verbiage of the contract there. Miss Marshall. Yeah, basically I agree with Mr slovener I wouldn't want the tenants left high and dry with no notice. So I think reducing the schedule even even further perhaps. If your contractor is willing is fine I assume you post the schedule or somehow get that information to the tenants so they know what to expect. Before you go Mr. Maxville just so it seems to me we might have some support for a notion of reduce schedule till August 15th. That schedule being a schedule you put on the board reduce it by 50% 75% you know 50% of this good starting point from August 15th you run the full schedule to June 15th. You come back to us with the use with the ridership study sometime next fall and we can say, you know, you're right. Get rid of the reduce it and make it clear to the tenants that you don't need a summer summer ridership program. That's I think there's some agreement about that here but let's see what Mr. Maxville has to say. I may have preempted him there prematurely. I guess the. Yeah, I was actually inclined to agree with your first position Mr chair I think that was was reasonable here and if we're I guess we're really just looking for specifically the summer not talking about breaks. I think that that proposal works come back in the fall, and we can go with that if we're talking about eliminating service or reducing service during breaks. Maybe we want that revisit time to be, you know, sometime in May when we've had kind of even more data, but I'm inclined to go really, really either way on this one. So. All right. Other comments on that or then we can move to the if not we can move to the security can discuss the security situation. It seems to me there's no reason to keep us concierge that's open 247 and if you got, if we understand it correctly, you've got 247 coverage with this between on site management and security guard. And you've got cameras. It seems to me that that's sufficient and you've got locks on the door key files on the door. So only residents can get in. That seems to me that that's sufficient. Does anybody disagree with that. This Marshall. I don't disagree, but I just want to clarify so we would also remove the condition about logging in visitors. I think well, yeah, I don't think you look. Where is that in the wasn't that part of. Let's look at that condition. That was conditioned what paragraph 62. 62. Let's just read it exactly. Marshall, if you're right 24 hours a day, seven day a week on site management presence. So that would change with the presence of staff management during normal hours, which are so we posted in lobby and security guard outside of normal business hours. Where is the Was there a logging in of visitors conditional was that just your, your company's policy, Mr Jacobs or Mr Ryan either one. I believe that the guests the check in. That is is not being amended that that portion of it. We do have that as well in our, in our, in our kind of building procedures. Tim, do you remember if the specific, you know, the check in words were explicitly used and the. Special permit I thought they were condition. It's what I sent to. Mr chairs what I said to Mr would chill. April 28. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think what we sent is, is, yeah, we it is saying, Hey, we are maintaining guest check the property shall have guest checking services. Guest checking services will be further outlined in the multifamily handbook. What's being removed. There will be no requirement. Yeah, so it's. We're adding that. I thought I was already there, but I could be, I don't have this special permit in front of me. I only have the amendment to the special permit. This earlier that you can't. You're not capturing every visitor. And it's not reasonable to think you can so I'm. So as long as that's clear, okay, but. Well, just, just to clarify, it doesn't seem that would even be affected by this change. If that's a current practice that existed in the previous special permit, it just seems like they're only addressing. Condition 62, which according to Mr. Ryan's original larity sent to me was just the presence of them being there 24 seven, whatever other practices they currently have would still effectively be in place even after this change. And I do remember seeing language about that Sarah, I think it was in one of the special permit application or decision documents from previous. I think it was 2019. But I do see where you were coming from because it was like right next to it. So I, yeah, so it wouldn't be affected at all. Okay, so. Our goal, I mean, what we want to accomplish here, it seems to me is that you've got. On site management. We're normal business hours. You got security guard after business hours. And if you want to have a policy where your guests have to check in, you institute it. That's, but I don't see that we need to do to impose that upon you a new imposition upon you as a condition of the special permit. Is that clear with it? Is that fine with everybody? Okay. All right. So that's what we'll, that's what we'll look at. All right. Is there any other discussion about conditions or any other issue that we need to revisit? Let's check. I'll check our notes to see if there's something that we. The only other, the last thing was incident reports to be delivered. You know, we're making this decision without again without data and said there's something out there, but. I'd like to see the incident report. Send it to Rob and he can send it around to all of us. And if it's, if it's truly breathtaking in its in the number of incidents you have before we sign this special permit. We may have to revisit it, but I don't anticipate that's the case, but I'd like to see that incident report to Rob and him to share with all of us. Just in case there is something that we do not know. All right, but at this point, we're going to operate as if it's, it's. The report is not troubling. Mr. Wachilla. I was going to ask in regards to this incident report. Is that something you'd want as a follow up if this permit was granted to them that they would have to revisit the board to assess. The effectiveness of the current arrangement if it were granted, or I'm just not understanding what Mr. Chairman. No, no, I don't. What I'm saying is that. Mr. Jacob said he could get you the incident report in the next couple of days. Okay. I'm going to get that to you. You share it with us. And if it's truly troubling, I don't think any of us are going to sign them the. Special permit report, you know, we'll say, Oh, this is new information. We need to reopen it again and talk to the client. And, but I don't think that's going to be the case. But if it is, I don't want to proceed down this path without having that information. So I just want to get the money to report. Make sure we have it. Okay. Does that answer your question, Rob? Yeah, it does. I just caution that you can't really have materials that brought after the board makes a decision. That would effectively cancel any decision that was made during the public hearing. Any information presented would have to be. Yeah. Okay. That's a good point. So you basically, what you could do is you could condition that say you agree to the arrangement, but you acquire him to come back to the board at public meeting if the information presents anything that's extraordinary. I'm just saying at the end, condition, if in the opinion of the building commissioner that presents anything that is extraordinary. There we go with that. We don't have to look at you again. Mr. Jacobs. You don't have to look at us. We can leave it up to Rob, Mora to make it. But I want to get to, I want us to all see the incident report. Rob is what I want. Yeah. Okay, that that makes sense. We'll leave it up to the building commissioner. Yes, this Marshall. Yeah. I think we just fall when we were talking about renew. Yep. There was, there was some issue about getting the data on police calls and like they had it, but they didn't have it in the system as well. So I don't know how to get it, but would Mr. Wachila help the applicant, you know, talk to the right people so they get. It's going to be both Mr. Jacobs information and then what the town has, but the time won't have as much of it as Mr. Jacobs incident report. Yeah, you're right. Okay, so let's let's proceed then with. I think we understand the conditions. So. So we're kind of doing this with a bit of ad hoc. Language and I'd like to empower the staff to get it right. But I think what's the 1st issue is the condition should state. That the, that we would we eliminate the requirements or replace the dead. Eliminate the requirement to replace the dead trees. The property is maintained grant of debris and fallen limbs are removed and fire hazard is decreased. I think that's the 1st condition and you're you're on your home free. Anybody disagree with that? Good. Next condition is that you have the. You can reduce the existing schedule as as reduce the shuttle schedule as relate to us tonight. You had a schedule by 50% that's open to negotiations. You don't want to do 75% we can do that reduce it by 50% from now until August 15th. You can. You can do that. You restart full schedule on August 15th through June 5th through June 15th, and you come back to us sometime with a with a study on ridership. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's just reiterate. So you want schedule reduce between now and August 15 by 50% allow them to operate from August 15th to June 15th at the normal schedule. And you want them to come back before the board with data. Proving that in those break months. So winter break and then spring break that the ridership goes down. Is that correct? That's correct. Mr. Slater. We're only interested, I believe, in the summer. We're, we're, we're asking that it operates June, August 15th to June 15th on their normal schedule through winter break and spring break. We're not looking to reduce the schedule during those times unless we are. You know, I don't think so comparison between summer and. Right. We just want to know. Right. We want the data from June fit through the summer, and they can come back whenever they want. After the after the summer period is done. And, and submit the data and then we can make a decision. I think the benefit might be Mr. Slater that we compare summer data with fall data to see if it's, you know, what it. Right. Delta is, yeah, so they, yeah. Yeah. It's summer. It's really a summer data versus fall data. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Mr. Maxwell. I was going to say, I think the way you put it, Mr. Chair of the, you know, till August 15th and August 15th, the June 15. It'll be the normal schedule. And if the applicant wants to come back to us in, say, I don't know, September, October, and say here's the data we have. If they want to come back to us in May of next year and then say, here's what we have for the summer and for winter break and for the other things and they want to ask us for just the summer or they want to ask us for the summer and the breaks is now they have the data. I think it gives the applicant the discretion to do that. So I think the way you have it worded works and it gives the applicant flexibility. Is it comfortable with the 50% or would you like that to be 75% production? I threw out 50% off the top of my head. What's the feeling of the board? I think 50% is very substantial and reasonable to maintain some sort of presence. Okay. All right. And if they can't put that into effect this summer, because of their contracts, then they may have to go through next summer before they can give us that data. Okay. Right. I think we have that. We have this that condition. It sounds like there's a consensus around that and the security guard condition. I think we've had that down as well. Okay, so what I would like to do is then vote on the vote on those conditions that we've just discussed. I think we discussed them enough so that we know exactly what we're voting on. And I think we can vote on them and block. So I would take them. I would entertain a motion to approve the three conditions as we have stated them in this meeting and allow staff to word Smith it correctly. He can work with the applicant and any of us as well. In the next couple of weeks to work it correctly, phrase it correctly, not work it phrase it correctly. All right. Is there is there such a motion. So moved. Is there a second. Second. Is there any discussion about this? All right. This is requires a roll call vote. This roll call vote is to approve those conditions. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Hard. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Sloveter. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. The conditions. The voters unanimous the conditions have been approved. Now we have to make our findings under 10.38. Mr. Yes. Mr. Whatchilla. So there are other conditions. Mr. Chairman, if you go to page seven of the project application report. Those are general conditions that would eliminate any conflicting conditions from previous permits. if you want to go through those real quick and see if the board also want to approve those as well. That's a good catch. Thank you, Rob. That's a really good question. Just to give you some background. Very good. You said it's on page seven. Yes, page seven, the project application report. So the project should be built and maintained according to oh this is our standard. Is this condition one, possible condition one not included in the original? Because we have new documents that are given to us which include landscaping plan that they submit to us that shows where the tree plants are removed and I think it's important to reference those as well. So when they're looking at this permit in the future, they won't be held and prevented from getting their CO. Yep, okay. I agree with that. So if everybody has page seven condition one is just referencing the new submissions, really is what that does. Condition two says it all remains in effect except for that which has been that have been modified. That makes sense. And this last is the our normal sort of a standard boilerplate. If you change ownership, you got to come to us for the to renew the conditions of the special permit. And plus it puts their name on the permit too, which is really important because the last permit was given to Breck Group and this is Breckenridge. So the ownership will have the correct name on the special permit. All right. I take, I entertain a motion to approve these conditions as well. So moved. Second. Second. Of course, unless there's any discussion, of course, a roll call vote to chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. Mr. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Slobner. Aye. All right. Conditions are done. We dealt with the other conditions that you were raised as possible to be considered, I think, Rob. Yep, we've done that. Okay. Now, the only, I think the only findings we have to make are in 10.38. I don't think we have to make a finding under seven. It's just the acknowledgement that the parking is, requirements are met. So 10.380 and 10.381 is really that this is suitably located. It doesn't alter the location and there's no change in this. 10.382, 383, 385, 387 would not constitute a nuisance. Nothing in this, nothing in this modification is going to create an increase in nuisance. And with the, and even the tree removal will, I think, will reduce the nuisance of dead trees that people have to observe. 10.384, adequate and appropriate facilities for the operation. The only change that even remotely deals with that is on-site security. And I don't think that has done that. And we have dealt with the school, the bus schedule. 10.386, it's in forms of parking and sign regular, nothing is, nothing has changed. 10.387, limiting the bus schedule would not likely impact traffic alongs, deals with convenience, safety or traffic. I think actually there is some way in which we maintain the safety of vehicular traffic by maintaining the shuttle for the time being. 10.388 doesn't apply. It deals with the off-street loading. 10.389 deals with disposal and storage for refuge. Again, that's nothing's changed. 10.38390, nothing has changed. Dealing with equipment, 10.391, dealing with natural historic doesn't apply. 10.392, adequate landscaping. I think we've made the decision about and used our judgment on landscaping, landscaping issues. So I think we can find that it does meet 10.392, 10.393 adjacent properties. Again, I don't think this, any of the changes affects that, that section, 10.394, exempt fees will, steep slope doesn't apply. 10.395 does not create disharmony with respect to terrain and use. That does not apply. 10.396, the proposal provides screening from storage area. There's no change, 397, no change, 398. The proposal is in harmony with the master plan and goal of housing production in the case of modification and reinforcing the existing one. I don't think there's, I don't think we've met 10.398. So I believe that all the conditions as laid out and as adopted on the, by the, by the board, authorize, give us the ability to make the findings under 10.398 that are required for approving this special permit application. So unless it, I would entertain a motion that we make, that we've made the findings required under 10.38 as I stated, and I'd look for a motion on this. And Mr. Maxfield, since this is your last meeting, and you have been pretty good about making these motions in the past, I'd open it up to you to make that motion. So moves, Mr. Chair. I like hearing that, Mr. Maxfield. I like hearing that. And who wants to be the second? Mr. Meadows should have that on, right? Mr. Meadows, would you like to be the second? Second. All right. Is there any discussions? If not, this requires a roll call vote. The vote is on the conditions, the findings, and that we're making to approve the special permit application with conditions as outlined for the, and the findings that we have made for this, for FY 2023-14 special permit. FY 2023-14 special permit application. Mr. Chairman, it's 17. Is it 17? I'm looking at the... Yeah. All right. Well, there's a typo here. Yeah. Yep. I see a typo. 2017. That's my bad. Yep. Do I have such a motion? I do have a motion and we're going to go to a roll call vote. The chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield, on your motion. Aye. Mr. Meadows, on your second. Aye. Ms. Marshall. Aye. Mr. Slogater. Aye. Congratulations, gentlemen. You've got your special permit. You'll do the ridership survey and come back to us when you have good information that you think shows us what you need to do with that. And then please provide Mr. Wachilla with your incident reports as soon as you can so we can go forward with signing the application. Mr. Wachilla. I just want to make the applicant aware too that as soon as this decision document is drafted or the clubbing weeks, the board signs it and it's submitted to the town clerk. It does trigger a 20-day appeal period. Usually members of the public can appeal this decision of the board to a higher court, land court, spirit court of their choice. You cannot pursue your specific option until after this 20-day appeal period has ended. You are free to pursue building permits for other matters that aren't directly governed by the special permit. So keep that in mind. But yes, just proceed your own risk as the advice that we give to applicants in the situation. So I'll be in touch with you. I will reach out to you about the conditions that were discussed tonight in the language and see if it's accurate. And of course the board will have the chance to review the document before they sign it as well and offer their comments on it. So just to make you aware of that. Thank you all. Very, very diligent. Thank you. I think there was, you're damning us with faint praise. This work for 12 years is a member of the Springfield City Council. So I know exactly what you're going through. All right. Well, I appreciate it. And I also appreciate the fact that you didn't extend the time any more than, except for that nice comment. And I like it very much. Thank you. Thank you very much and good luck guys. Thanks all. Thank you. Next order of business is public comment on any matter, not before the board tonight. Oh my God. So do we have anybody who wishes to speak? Am I good to go? Sorry, Steve, or? Oh yes. Yes, Mr. Jacobs, you're welcome to observe some more if you want, but I have better things to do. Oh, is this, is this the same topic or? No, no, no. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All right. We're going. Let's see that we have Magnus Winnmier wishes to speak. Mr. or Mr. Winnmier, please correct my pronunciation if that's wrong. Give us your name and address for the record and please limit your comments to around three minutes if you could. Hi. You have both my husband, Magnus Winnmier, and his wife, me, Josie. And we have applied to the ZBA to build onto our existing two family home for us to occupy since we are now empty nesters. And we've been pursuing the ZBA application process for quite some time. We just don't know when we're going to make the agenda. So I'm sorry. We just have like all these baseline questions and I apologize. Well, you know, I'm assuming so your question is when you make the agenda, right? Yeah, we got our contractor on Friday, this past Friday, to submit the application. Although we had previously applied like a few months ago and we're not sure what happened to that application. Yeah, so we're really kind of confused. So Ms. Winnmier, let me say this. Number one, you certainly have every opportunity to express your desire for more information and more assistance with your application. We really, I can't tell you when you're going to be on the schedule and I'd like you to continue to work with the staff to get the application in the form and completeness that they need to be able to schedule it. It may be close to that. It may be something else, but there's a series of things you need to do in order to have an application, a special permit application that's complete. And if it's not complete, it can't go to us. It's not complete in the position of the, in the opinion of the building commissioner, it can't go to us. So I encourage you to continue to work with the staff. Okay. But hold on a second. Mr. Wachilla has his hand raised. Maybe he can provide more information. Yeah, sure. I think there's a few items that had to be addressed. I don't want to speak to that over a public meeting because it's not an active permit. But if you reach out to us tomorrow, I'll talk with Mr. Malloy, who's our senior player. He's been working directly with the, is your last name, Winnmier? I'm sorry. Yeah. Yes. I'm Josie DeAngelis, Winnmier, and my husband's Magnus Winnmier. Correct. So I believe Nate has been working with the policy, but I'll check in with him to see what the status of that is, whether we still have, if we're waiting for certain things to be submitted or not, I'll have to check in with him. That'd be super. Let me know if there's anything you need. That would be great. Thank you so much. All right. And again, my comments were about the general policy, the general procedure used by the town to deal with special permits and wasn't specifically speaking towards yours. All right. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. No other public comments. This is for all business. First, Rob, before we get to the last thing, Rob, what's next on the schedule? So as of right now, we did just get a brand new special permit application for 798-800 North Pleasant Street. It's a two family, sorry, non-owner occupied duplex that's being put on the same property as an existing non-owner occupied duplex. So it's going to be two buildings on the same lot, one are exist. They're putting one around the back of that property. They're going to be on the schedule for the second meeting in July, which I believe is either the 22nd or the 24th. And then we have a public meeting item for our first meeting in July, which is July 13th. And that's for Pleasant Trees, which is discussing a mural that they're planning to put on the side of their building, which shouldn't be too long of a meeting. And that's pretty much it, Mr. Chair. We don't have anything else other than that in the schedule. We do have an upcoming permit for Shoespray Road for a solar field. And that is anticipated to be late August when that's going to come before the board. They still have to, we still have to submit that permit to the town clerk. So I'd like to bring up some couple of meetings I think we'll need to have and maybe on the 13th we can add to the meeting agenda. We're going to have some new, we'll have new members of the ZBA, I think sometime in early July. And we need to have administrative meeting, bring them up to speed, whether they're associate members or full members. So we should do that. And I think the other thing we should do, maybe that at that meeting, or maybe at another one, is we, I know we've got some 40B applications coming up. And I want to make sure that before the 40B applications come up, the existing members and the new members all have a chance to understand what a 40B application is. And we run through the kind of the, you know, sort of here's what takes place with the comprehensive permit. It's a very different process than everybody else than all the other processes we have. So it's important that we have rescheduled those. So I would encourage you maybe to think about an administrative meeting on July, the first one in July, if that works. And then we can, or maybe the second meeting in July, but we'll need to have it at some point. I think it'd be wise for us to have it that first meeting in July and just do it before we do the public meeting portion, just as an administrative task. I think that would make the most sense. So we should think about that and schedule that. And that really leads me to one of two comments I have. So typically, first of all, I want to thank Sarah and David for the work they've done as associate members. I have really enjoyed the fact that you've been an associate member and participation, the level of participation and the degree to which you've worked at that role. I think it was phenomenal. And in all my years here on the board, I haven't seen two associate members who worked as frequently in their position as you guys have. Sarah, from the beginning, you've been on almost every other panel. And David, you've only been about six months, but you've been on several panels at the same time. So normally, associate members don't get this kind of experience and activity in their first year, especially in their first six months. I just think you've done a great job. And I really appreciate it. Well, normally, associate members are the ones that move to be full members when we have openings. And we had two openings that I just assumed that that would be the case. I'm disappointed that you guys aren't full members. I have, and I say that with some trepidation because I watched the CRC committee. And I think the two that they appointed are smart. They're going to be diligent members. I have nothing against them. But the process we've used in the past has been get some experience and moved it full. And there's a reason for that. And I think it works out very well. I am uncomfortable that we didn't follow that process this time. And I've let people know on the council that that's the case. I don't know what they're going to do. And I don't want to speak ill against whoever they choose. They look like they're very good, they could be very good members. But they'll have a learning curve that you guys don't have and wouldn't have as full members. And so I just want to say that I want you to know that I've really appreciated your service as full as associate members. And you would, you would be grateful members. And maybe someday, maybe someday you can aspire to that, you can have even more pain and misery than as an associate member as a full member. More glory, more glory there for glory. But I do want to say that no hard, no hard feelings here. I think they'll, they'll do just fine. So I do think they'll be good, but you both applied for full membership. And I think you would have been good at that. And I'm sure the new guys, the new, the two members that they may choose, the city council may choose will be good as well. That said, we are saying goodbye to somebody that I that has been really has been a great member. And Dylan, I'm going to miss your motions to keep the meeting rolling all the time. You do that very well. That's why I'm going to make sure that you get to move to adjourn tonight again, first, because you've done that with anticipation of getting done with these meetings earlier than later. And I do appreciate it. You, it's been great having your member. I really liked it. I appreciate one thing I appreciate is you have a younger person's perspective, but we need it. You weren't a property owner yet. You're still a renter. We need those kind of perspectives as part of the ZBA because they bring something different. And we don't always get that. And plus your knowledge of the other boards in the town, you were great. I just really appreciate your work. And thank you for being on the board for these last four years. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll wrap up too with a little bit of a goodbye for everybody here. Rob, start with you. You had very big shoes to fill coming in with Maureen. And I got to say you hit the ground running when you came in. Hardly seemed like there was even a learning curve. You came in, you knew exactly what to do. I'm sad I won't get to work with you in the future, but it's good to know that ZBA is in good hands. And then Dave and Sarah, I've been thinking about what I was going to say. And a lot of it involved a so glad you guys are coming on in as full members here. And we're in good hands. And again, I think echoing, I'm sure the people that are getting in are going to be good. But again, I think it was a little bit, I don't think it was the right decision. I think I agree with Steve on the process there. But that being said, working with you folks over the last couple of months, I've been out of what's happening. I thought you guys were full members, like it was news to me that you weren't. Yeah, no, it's been what you two have really brought to the table the last two months have been really, really incredible. It's been great to work with you both. You do that thing where sometimes I'm going to ask a question and I'm like, good, I can ask it. Now I'm participating and one of you asked, it's like, damn it. I thought that was a thoughtful question. I thought I was unique and coming up with that. But, but you know, you guys are there and. Sorry. I dare you. Maybe we really only need two or three board members. Exactly. But yeah, no, it's been great working with you guys. Craig, you know, we've been serving now for what feels like forever at this point. Isn't it? It's yeah, I can't remember a time where we didn't serve together. It's been great working with you on this. I like what you bring. I like that you have your style of, you know, we're doing pollinators. You like pollinators. I like that you've got the expertise that you can bring into this. That it's one of those ones where sometimes I can even read something and be like, Craig will know this one. That's, that's, that's his wheelhouse. I don't have to focus too much on that one. And it's been good working with you. You're always somebody who you can get along with and work with the board. And I think that's a really important skill that it's something that in the group we have here. I'm glad I've been working with all of you. And then lastly, Steve, Mr. Chair, it has been an absolute honor to work with you this whole time and going through from start to finish with you during the pandemic. I have to say how you managed to handle this at the beginning of where this was such a hectic thing. No one knew what was going on with anything. We're all learning Zoom. It was such an unenviable role. And where you took that, what the hand you were dealt with that and what you have, the well oiled machine that you've now got the Zoom ZBA turned into is absolutely incredible. And as a chair, you know, I was talking about this with a friend the other day about how, you know, I really like, you know, John Gilbert, he's got that really specific, like architectural knowledge that he uses. And I was mentioning you that you have that being the chair, chairing a board truly is a skill. It's an art form that you bring the way that I've seen you handle where we've had difficult applicants or even sometimes difficult board members, the way that you are just able to handle it so professionally, so smoothly, with just giving fairness to everybody involved, applicants, board members is truly admirable. It's something that, you know, I one day hope I could be as good of a chair as you, but it's absolutely incredible. You've done a wonderful job. And I'm glad that it's just me leaving and for the town's sake that you're the one here staying because you do a great job. It's been not only an honor, but just an absolute pleasure to serve with you over these last few years. Thank you, Dylan. It's been a pleasure to work with you. It really is very nice. And I think we all agree with that. I can speak for all of us. It's been, and I hope you get a chance to come back and serve again. With this new job, you're going to be busy, but hopefully you'll work through it and have a chance to come back. We'd love it. Hopefully one day. Yep. Great. Anybody else, Sarah? Isn't Craig also leaves? No, Craig, you're staying, right? He's stuck here. You're stuck. Oh, it was Tammy, Tammy. It's Tammy, yeah. Okay. Don't give me a heart attack. I was looking at all of you thinking it was one of you and there was no one left. So I thought, okay, sorry, Craig. No, Craig, Tammy was up to dessert me. He's still tied to the mast for a couple more years. Okay. All right. Well, if there are no other comments, nothing else for people to say I know of the new business, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn and I would like to see if Dylan would like to make that motion. Oh, Mr. Chair, I will go ahead. I will move to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. Been moved and seconded that we adjourn. It's a roll call vote. It's non-debatable. Chair votes aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Mr. Meadows? Aye. Ms. Marshall? Aye. Mr. Slovater? Aye. Aye. Thank you all. Thanks, Dylan. Thank you all for, it was longer than it needed to be, but I think we came to the right conclusion this time. Yeah. I appreciate all your work. We got there. Yeah, we got there. Have a good night, everybody. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Take care.