 Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting, Wednesday, January 29th, 2020, at 7, just after 7. Let's see here. We will start with minutes, which I believe we have two sets. So I will first draw your attention to the November 6th, which is the first oldest. And I assume everyone has had a chance to look at it. These were emailed to us or mailed to us. Does anyone have any comments or changes? Janet? On page three, sorry. I thought we should add what Gordon Hall was, what was in his letter. And so I just thought about that. Where are you on page three? On page three it says the board noted that a letter opposition has been received from the abutting landowner Gordon Hall. It's like kind of towards the bottom. Oh, the single line there. Do you want to have more added or something? Yeah, I just thought saying what was in the letter would be helpful to people and also make him feel heard if you ever read these minutes. So I thought Gordon Hall raising his concern that his right of way over Riverside's property would be obstructed by a compost pile. I think that was a gist of his complaint. His concern that his right of way over Riverside's property would be obstructed by a compost pile. Was that really his only concern? You know, I think there was a lot more than that. When he came and spoke, the next one or two later, he was concerned. He had some other things he was worried about, I think. He never came and there was a letter and it was pretty extensive. Can we look at that? I couldn't find it in my... Because I think he had more issues than just a compost pile. Yeah, thanks. He didn't like the idea of marijuana facility being located next to his property. So there were two issues. I thought he did come and say he was worried that there was going to be illegal drugs sold or something. Am I making that up? Might have been someone else, but it wasn't. Maybe there was somebody else then. Can we reference whatever it is in that so we could still make a motion after you make that change? Janet, do you have any other additions? Does anyone else have any? Nope. Okay, so if I... Nope. Yes, so if there's a move... Yeah, on the move we approve the minutes as... Adjusted. Adjusted? Well, it says it, but he wasn't there. It just refers to the letter again. So anyways, Chris, at that point, if you can... It's great. Is there any other discussion? All in favor? Unanimous? Great. So we'll move to... Maria. Yeah, it was quiet. Sorry. So we'll move to the December 4th minutes that we received. Are there any comments, corrections? Can I have a couple minutes to scan? Sure. Go for it. We can all re-scan. It was an addition. It's there. No worries. So this is for the video. So it was requested that someone have some time to scan the minutes that we are going to hopefully approve. So that's why we're just sitting here. Excuse me. It looks like Mr. Gemsick has finished. Oh, are you done? Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you. Move we approve the minutes. Second. Is there any more discussion or issues? None. All in favor? Pass the December 4th minutes. Great. Unanimous. So we can now move on to the public comment period. And this is a time where people can come forward and bring up something that is not on the current agenda. Is there anyone here to speak? Okay. I see no one. So that's great. We'll move on to item three, planning and zoning. Zoning subcommittee reports since zoning subcommittee did not meet. I assume there is nothing to report. Okay. We'll move down to item four, old business. We have some decisions signing. And I believe we have two of those in our packet today. Chris, is there one you want to do first? There are two decisions. One is the Emmer's College decision for the Emmer's College field renovation. They're public hearing closed on November 6th. So we have to file the decision by next week. I think it's by Tuesday. We were a little bit lagging behind on that one because of the holidays. So anyway, that has been prepared. And that is based on minutes that you did approve back in October. And November, I believe, November. Oh, you know what? I just realized there was a mistake in the minutes. The first page refers to one public hearing and then a second public hearing. And the date of the second public hearing is November 6th, not October 16th. So I'm going to make that change. That was on the minutes. No, I'm sorry. It's on the decision. Okay, that's it. And the bottom of page one, it refers to a second session of a public hearing. And the date of that is November 6th, not October 16th. Good catch. And you just approved the minutes for October, for November 6th. So that should be okay. So do you just pass that down for us to sign? Okay. So Gray Mullen needs to sign in two places. Thank you for reminding me. Talk about this. Yeah. So the second decision is for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. And you held the public hearing on that on December 4th. And you just approved the minutes from December 4th. So that one should be pretty straightforward as well. So I will pass that one along too. Thank you. Okay. So we can move on to item five, new business. A is planning board meeting schedule. Chris, I assume that's you. You have a meeting scheduled for next week. February 5th. We'll be sending out the packet on Friday. And then you have another meeting scheduled for February 19th. On the 5th, you'll be hearing a continuation of the public hearing on 462 Main Street. And in addition to the site plan review application, we did receive a special permit application for alteration or enlargement of an existing non-conforming building. So you'll be opening that public hearing and having that proceed concurrently with the site plan review public hearing. I'm going to revise the development application report to explain this. So you'll get that in your packet. Okay. Other things that are coming up that night, we're hoping to have a discussion about the master plan update. So that's one big thing on the agenda. And the Chapter 61A withdrawal request that we received a number of weeks ago, that one is coming back. And Dave Zomek and I are going to put together a memo about that. And I also am going to send you some background information on Chapter 61A. So you'll know a little bit more about this and how to respond to it. And on the 19th, you're having Mr. Mora come to speak to you about zoning. And I think there are a few other things on the 19th. But I'm not bringing you into mind right now. The Amherst Hills, Mike, if we have a... Amherst Hills, we're expecting that Amherst Hills will come on the 19th rather than on the 5th. We have some missing information that we're tracking down. And so the 19th seems like a better date. I've been in touch with Tom Reedy about that, but I haven't heard back from him yet. So... I got a little confused on the 5th. It's 462 Main Street. And then is it a separate application for a different building coming in? And then also the second question would be, is the ZBA going to come and talk to us about the building on Route 9 and University Drive extension? So on 462 Main Street, you already heard... You already had a session on public hearing on the Site Plan Review, and it came to light that the applicant was changing the rear portion of the existing White House with the red shutters more than had been changed the first time when you heard this last summer. So the determination was made by the Building Commissioner that the applicant needed to file a special permit application to really essentially completely reconstruct or take down and build something new at that northern end of the existing White Building with the red shutters. So it's really a very simple application, and you will see... Excuse me. Anyway, you'll see pictures of the new building. I think you saw them last time, but you didn't focus on them. So this time you're going to focus, and it's not a separate application. And I'm trying to incorporate issues about that and other things into a revised development application report, which you'll get in your packet. And the second thing you asked about was the University Drive South. So again, I've been in touch with Mr. Reedy who represents the applicant. And we had been hoping that they would come for the Planning Board on February 5th for a presentation and then to receive recommendations from the Planning Board to the Zoning Board of Appeals. We haven't received anything yet from them. They've changed their plans since they first submitted it to the ZBA. The building is getting smaller. I think they're shrinking the parking lot a little bit and they're pulling the project away from the wetland edges. So it is changing. So I'm not sure if the applicant is going to have something to put in your packets. And I've kind of dissuaded them for coming in at the last minute with drawings like on Tuesday and sending them to you. I've said that we really need them in the packet on Friday. And if they have them then we can put it on the agenda for the 5th. But if we don't have something to put in the packet on Friday, I'm recommending that it be postponed until February 19th. The ZBA meeting is February 20th. So you would have time to make a recommendation to the ZBA about that project. So I doubt that it will be on for the 5th, but that's something that is yet to be determined. Thank you. About Planning Board schedule. I know I had mentioned this to you and I just wanted to ask the board that I know it's only about to be February, but as you're thinking about your summer plans, if you plan a vacation, you know you're going to be away. If you could send an email to Chris and I just to give us a heads up because last summer we had a lot of problems with everybody taking vacations at different times. And as people let us know about that, we will let others know and hopefully we can coordinate or overlap some time that if you have any flexibility about your plans. I know I don't know what my plans are right now, but if anybody does, we can stop that. So thanks. Is there anything else on the schedule part? Well, there is one other thing which I think I've told you about previously, but I'll tell you about it again. We did receive, we received an application from Valley CDC to build supportive housing on North Hampton Road. It's an application to DHCD, which is the Department of Housing and Community Development. The application goes to them first and what they get out of it is a project eligibility letter. So DHCD looks at the site and they figure out if the site is appropriate for this type of development and sort of what the intention of the applicant is and review it for, it's really for financing purposes. So then if DHCD, which is the financing agency, agrees that this is a good location to make an application for and agrees that Valley CDC seems to have their business together, they will issue a letter and it's called the project eligibility letter. So that will come out probably sometime. We have 30 days to respond to Valley CDC's application and I'll be bringing it to the planning board at some point. I'm not sure exactly when. But we have 30 days to respond from the time that DHCD notifies us that they've received this. So that's probably going to be sometime in mid March. So sometime prior to mid March we will bring this project to you and you'll have an opportunity to make comments and we'll submit those with all the comments that we receive to DHCD. And then later on in the spring we expect that the zoning board of appeals will receive a chapter 40B comprehensive permit application for this project. It's all affordable housing. It's 28 units of affordable housing all below the 80% or less of AMI. Some of it is 50% or less. Some is 30% or less and some is for people who either are or are formerly homeless. So there's a different range of affordability there. But we, I shouldn't, I think that there is support for this from Town Council. Town Council has given approval for a $500,000 amount of money to help the project. It's a CPAC grant and there have been other indications of approval for this type of project. We know we have a homelessness problem. We know we have a problem with low income housing and so this is an effort to try to deal with that problem. I think it's going to be a challenging process to get through because neighbors are concerned and so we're going to hear a lot from neighbors. But in any event, and we'll hear from a lot of other people as well, but in any event, the reason I'm mentioning it to you is because again, you will be asked to make a recommendation to the zoning board of appeals about that comprehensive permit application. You did so for the North Square project. North Square is much bigger, but it was brought to you and you made a recommendation to the ZBA on that one. So that's something that will be coming forward. Sure. So we'll see this project twice, like once before the DHCD letter and then before, as it's going to the front of the ZBA. Okay. One question. I had an e-mail flow through today about the Amherst media building and it said on their blip six to eight weeks before it would come to planning board, but I wanted to ask you what you thought. Well, that's an interesting project. It did receive a lot of scrutiny from neighbors and from the town as a whole. They did finally achieve their certificate of appropriateness the other night from the local historic district commission. The district commission had a number of conditions that they put on it. I think they were like 15 conditions. Anyway, it is likely to be appealed. The decision is likely to be appealed. And I don't know how that will affect the timing of a submittal to the planning board, but there's nothing that says the two processes, the local historic district process and the planning board process are completely separate. So there's nothing that says that it can't be filed with the planning board while it's going through this appeal process. So you may see that in six to eight weeks. I don't exactly know what their time line is. We haven't heard from them yet, but it would certainly come to the planning board as opposed to the ZBA. So that's that was a good question. That could be a mid to late March. Okay. Right. And my last thing, just to repeat from previous, when is the flood map thing coming our way? Because it seems so far away when you brought it up. But so flood mapping will be presented for the first time to Town Council on February 10th. I believe that's what we're scheduled for in any event. And that'll be, I will be presenting a first look to Town Council about the flood mapping project. We've already presented it to the public. Can't remember exactly when that was, but and we've gotten reaction back from the public. And so Town Council is really going to be taking a look at this for the first time. They'll probably have a lot of questions. Then our intention is the, we're currently in an appeal period. So what that means is that we have our preliminary maps. We received a letter from FEMA saying, here are your preliminary maps. An appeal period is going to start on next date. Well, the appeal period started sometime in November and there was a 90 day appeal period. We have it on the Town website. It's about notifications to all the people whose properties would be affected by this. And the appeal period ends on February 20th. At that point, FEMA will send us a letter saying that the appeal period is over and no appeals have been filed. We hope. We're not sure of that. There could be appeals filed between now and February 20th. But anyway, once the appeal period is over and all the appeals have been resolved, a six month, what do they call it? Compliance period starts. And during the compliance period, the town needs to adopt the new maps. They need to adopt a new flood study that accompanies the maps. And they need to adopt a set of zoning amendments that tells everyone what they can and can't do within this flood prone area. So I've been working on coming up with a text for the zoning amendment. We don't have that yet and I won't have it by February 10th. I'll just have a kind of conceptual idea of what it will be. We do already have flood maps in the sense, well we have two forms of flood maps. We have the old FEMA flood maps from 1985. We have our flood prone conservancy district which is the new map. So those are two types of flood maps. The old FEMA maps will go away once we adopt these new maps. But we'll still have the FPC. And so at some point we'll want to deal with the FPC and the hope among staff is that we will coordinate the FPC. Either have the FPC go away or have the new FPC go away or have the new FPC go away with the new FEMA flood maps. We do also have a portion of our zoning bylaw that is related to the FPC zone. So at some point that will either need to be revised or deleted once the new flood zoning bylaw goes into effect. So all those details haven't been worked out yet. So the zoning amendment will be brought to you and you will have to make a recommendation to town council as to whether you recommend passage of the zoning bylaw. You do not have a role in adopting the maps themselves. But you have seen the maps multiple times. So that would probably be late spring your thinking for our workload. I hope so. Are you expecting any private applications or projects coming in? One thing that is going to come in is the playground at the Kendrick park. That is being worked on by the Department of Public Works right now. A gentleman down there who is trained as a landscape architect has been working on a plan and he will be working with playground designers to design review board. It is probably going to be shown to the DAAC because it is important that we get some handicapped accessible equipment in there. And then it would come to the planning board. So sometime I am guessing April May that will be coming to the planning board. We have been discussing North Square. The North Common. That was one of the things that I don't know if you all saw the town council meeting the other night but town council had a presentation from Paul Backelman, Dave Zomek, Jeff Kravitz, and I think that Gabrielle Gould from the bid was also there but I didn't see her presentation. They wanted to give town council an impression or a full look at all the projects that might happen downtown both private and public funded ones. And I think part of the reason is that the bid is offering to build a parking garage behind CVS. So that kind of changes the conversation about parking. There is some parking that would be lost as a result of the town common, the North Common project. So if parking goes away there then it would be added a little bit. So let's see what else we have on that package. We also have work on the sidewalks and work on the crosswalks. We recently received a $44,000 grant from MOD which I forget what those initials stand for but it's a state organization that makes money available to do renovations that relate to removing barriers. So we have a lot of crosswalks in town that are really difficult to navigate. So we're going to fix those. And the walkway that goes past Douglas funeral home, we used to call it Starbucks Walk but Starbucks isn't there anymore. So anyway that walk isn't really bad condition and that's one of the things that's going to be passed as a result of this project. So we're going to go ahead and construct a band shell on the common. There's a location that's been bandied about for years. It was actually on a plan that was developed by Frederick Olmsted's company. So he showed a location. And the bid is proposing to put a band shell there. Now that would have to go through a lot of permitting that would come to you. It would certainly go to the design review board because it's on town property. I would probably recommend that it come to you but I'm not sure that it's going to. So that's another thing. What am I missing? That's a lot. But anyway if you wanted to find out more about it you could look at the beginning portion of the town council meeting the other time and they were already talking about it. So somewhere a little before 7 it started and it probably lasted for about 45 minutes. But it's a very interesting concept to think about, you know, thinking about all these projects together and how they support each other and make the downtown more vibrant and more attractive for people to come here and go out to dinner and spend some money. That's a lot. Chris make you talk even more now. This is Chris's exhaustion meeting here. Number six, ANRs, subdivision applications. We do have an ANR and I'm going to ask Pam to help me describe this to you. Maybe Pam can bring around the drawings. I'm going to pass these or do you want to show these or do you want to show them? The location of this is Newell court. And a gentleman by the name of Noah Cune wants to acquire property from an adjacent property owned by Alan Saint-Helaire. He wants to have a garden there. He already owns a house and his property is very small. So he wants to acquire some property from Alan Saint Helaire and have a garden. Because these properties are all nonconforming, Newell court isn't really a road. It's more of a driveway that provides access to these properties. This had to go through the zoning board of appeals. The zoning board of appeals has already approved this configuration. Now it's coming to you because the property needs to be approved. It needs to be approved from Alan Saint-Helaire's property and given to or sold to Noah Cune. So Pam is showing you the A&R plan. The solid lines indicate the lines that are being proposed. There are some dotted lines there that are lines that are going away. So I think that's about it. I think that's what we're giving to this guy. So there still remains the easement of that dirt road. I haven't been down that road a long time but you can drive. So that even though it's changing ownership, the dirt road would still be there? The roads are going to be there. There's some question about who has a right to pass and repass over that portion of the road that is to the adjacent property owner to the west. And there's a dispute about who has access to that. It's currently open but periodically the property owner to the west puts up barriers to not allow people to pass through there. So those are all issues that are dealt with by the property owners. The town doesn't really have a role in dealing with those issues. They don't have a role in changes to non-conforming properties which is why the CBA was involved. And now you have a role in endorsing this plan which changes the property lines. But it really doesn't affect that easement that you were talking about, that dirt road. Though I do see a proposed 50-foot diameter gravel turnaround for emergency and service services. If you were to drive there, you would want to be able to get a fire truck. So is that part of this? Yes. That's been looked at by the fire department. And apparently it was satisfactory to the fire department. So that part of the new property that the land that's being sold, that can't be developed in a 50-foot circle. So that's not going to be developed? So they can't do anything? I think they have to leave that blank without planting anything there. But they have the other two trapezoids or whatever you want to call them that are going to be connected to the nine. And I haven't been there like I said for a while but from my recollection of turning here, it was that this was kind of garden, like it is someone's yard right now. I had to walk down there just by chance. It's accessible all the way through, at least on foot. I think a car could easily get through there at this point. There are no barriers put up. I used to walk by dog on that when I lived in the Dickinson house so I know that pretty well. I don't know if it was there. Maybe since 19, well, 2000, they may have gone up from time to time. But it's a simple drive-through as it is right now. Dirt. So I just want to be assured that these, the new owners understand that even if they're utilizing this corner right now that this is part of it. So I don't have to be available so that you could drive. It's been a while. I think there was a little fence and it was like a garden. They were gardening in here, I think. Or maybe that was no. And is that written in a memo with this? Okay. Great. So I won't worry about that. I think it's a good idea. Great. Complicated. So do you authorize the chair to sign endorse the plan? Thank you. Yes. So any other A&Rs? No other A&Rs. Okay. What about item seven? Any upcoming ZBA applications? Nothing that we haven't already told you. Okay. So we'll go to item nine. Planning board committee and liaison reports. And the first one is PVPC. Jack? The next meeting is February 13th. And I don't remember what the agenda is. Hasn't come out yet. Hasn't come out yet. Hasn't come out yet. CPA? Yes. CPAC is in the middle of its review of projects proposals for the next budget cycle. We're having a public meeting tomorrow on all of the projects beginning at six o'clock in the police station. Oh, in the police station? Yes. And the our assumption is that the recommendations will be available in about two weeks or three at the most. Good work. David's not here. So I won't ask about the agricultural commission design review board. No meeting since our last meeting. Okay. And there was no zoning subcommittee. So we can move to wow, we're doing good. Report of the chair. I was just going to say I'm excited that we're going to get a new member. Right. He has to get sworn in and Chris is going to give him an orientation. But hopefully he'll join us. Maybe the fifth. I hope he will join you on the fifth. That's Doug Marshall. So great. We're back up to seven, which is always good news. And I just wanted to comment. I'm just going to go back to the chair. I'm just going to go back to our Baker's bill. 3507 is now 4263. So I'll keep you updated as it keeps morphing and being adjusted. But there's a lot of good stuff in there for us. And we went over the meetings. Okay. That's all I have. Report of staff. I'm going to go back to the chair. I'm going to go back to the chair. So as you all know, the housing trust and town staff applied for a grant. I think it was in 2018. And we did receive it. It was a housing choice grant that was related to housing production. The state is very eager to have cities and towns build housing and they move on. They go somewhere else. So it's very important to the governor and the lieutenant governor and others that housing be built. So we have this grant. We hired consultants who have been working with us on locating places for affordable housing throughout town. But they've also been working with us on the concept of 40R. Overlay zone that is allowed by the state but would be adopted by the town as a zoning amendment. And within the overlay zone certain dimensional modifications would be allowed in exchange for providing either 20 or 25% affordable housing. It depends on the configuration of the project. It's allowed in zones that are of development but it allows a denser type of development. For some cities and towns which have a very low allowance for density they can also reap the benefit from the state getting payments for the number of units that would be allowed in the 40R district versus the number of units that are already allowed. In any event the town of Amherst has been working with consultants to investigate what a 40R is and whether it might be appropriate for the town. I think it's been a very enlightening experience and prior to this people had brought up 40R right and left and we didn't really know what it was. So now we know what it is. The consultants have been here with us three times already starting in I think it was June and I can't remember the exact dates but anyway they've held three public forums for this type of zoning. We feel like we've become familiar with it. The consultants have heard from people in the town, they've heard from staff about what we think about this. They're going to be coming back for a fourth meeting sometime in the next two months. February, March somewhere in there. We're going to hold another public forum. What the intent at that time is to bring forth a draft of a potential zoning amendment that would incorporate dimensional requirements and design guidelines for a 40R district. The current 40R district that we've been studying is based around the downtown. It includes the BG most of the BG but not all of it and two of the business limited zones that abut the BG. The last time the consultants were here they presented some ideas of what buildings might look like. The town is in complete control. I want to emphasize that because I have the feeling that people are fearful about 40R coming and somehow descending on us and not having us have any say in it. The fact is that there is going to be a concept for design guidelines concept for a zoning amendment presented to us but there's no no cudgel hanging over our head saying we must accept this. Whatever is given to us we have every right and every reason and time to analyze it and see if it's the right thing. If it's not the right thing there may be aspects of it that we do want to adopt. We as staff are particularly intrigued by the design guidelines we have struggled in the past to get form based code adopted and haven't been successful but it's been a number of years since that effort so there may be something about these design guidelines that will help us to get a grip on some of the new development that's happening in town. The other thing that the 40R does is it mandates that you include affordable housing and so it's one way to get affordable housing downtown so that may be an aspect of it that is enough of a sort of a carrot that people will be willing to accept other aspects of it. So there's a lot of discussion that needs to happen. We're reaching the end of our process with the consultants but we certainly haven't reached the end of the process with discussion about this. Whether it's appropriate for Amherst, whether the downtown is the right location what aspects of it do we like what aspects don't we like when you know shaping something if we decide to go forward with it shaping something that is beneficial to our town and not a cookie cutter from some other town. When would some this come to us like when would we get to give feedback or thought on it? Well I believe it would be best to wait until we get the zoning the draft text of the zoning bylaw and the design guidelines and then you'd have a complete package of what is being proposed and then you could chew on it and decide yes we want to look at this further and decide whether we really could make it work for us or no it just seems too outlandish and not of the scale that Amherst is interested in having. I think it's probably up to the planning board to make an initial determination about whether it's appropriate or not of course we could get a petition article saying yes we want this and you know that would have to be reacted to but I think probably in reality it's going to be initiated by the planning board if anything. So but you know we'll have a full consultants report with their recommendations and this example of what could be a bylaw and that kind of thing and then we can actually start to take it apart and think of pros and cons of course public hearing so people could come and even though these meetings are all public that they're having too. There are disadvantages to the 40R and one disadvantage is that once you decide on your design guidelines and the other guidelines that go along with it you have to live with that so there is an opportunity for review of projects probably by the planning board but the review is a project meet the guidelines so there's not a lot of flexibility or a lot of discretion so that may be something that we would question. Personally I question that. I would need to see how it works in other communities to know whether this is something that I think Amherst would be benefited by. So that's what we would start to craft pros and cons and then work from there with other suggestions from people and I think you all. So I think Ms. McGowan had a question. Yes. So Mr. Stutzman was on this I looked at the RFP for this the consultancy and it had somebody from the Amherst municipal housing trust and somebody from the planning board and so did his participation and the planning board's participation in that? I don't think he was there as planning board. So there were two members of planning board who participated in this initially and I think they only went to one meeting. It was Greg Stutzman and Rob Crowner and they went to a meeting I believe it was in the summer of 2018 and after that planning board participation was not part of this process and why that is. I don't really am not I guess I'm not familiar enough with all the details that proceeded and all the meetings and everything that went along why decisions were made I don't really understand. So I don't remember us really being asked. The planning board as a whole wasn't asked. I think those two individuals were asked because of their knowledge of planning principles. I don't think they were necessarily representatives of the planning board. They weren't chosen by the planning board to be part of this group. I think it was really I don't even know if it was put together by the town manager or by who actually invited the members. Greg was actually a member of the housing. He was working with John. That's how Greg was there. So he was representing the housing trust. And Rob Crowner was brought in because he knows a lot about zoning. So it wasn't really like the planning board voted to appoint these people to participate in this process. It was really more like these two people know a lot about housing and zoning. Let's bring them in. And I don't remember who made that decision. I don't remember it really coming up at planning board. So I just read the RFP and it said the consultant would work with the planning board. So I just read that. So I assumed since it's sort of a major project or initiative, the planning board would be part of it. I have a lot of concerns. One of them is that the RFP and all the, I've only gone to I think three out of the four. I've missed one of the presentations for the consultants where they constantly emphasize working with members of the community to design guidelines and preserving the look of the thing. And then the last one I went to there were very, very few people from the neighborhoods around downtown. And so, and I think that was an oversight because if it had been picked as a site it seems pretty easy just to give notice to people who live in around downtown. Some of the people who had come to that meeting were very concerned that the buildings were just really big. And they were, you know, they had somehow the consultants had picked the arts block, you know, three-story buildings as that's the look that's going to go through downtown and sort of forgetting that they're small houses and, you know, there's, you know, the Antonio's building and kind of the look of downtown is more varied in terms of architectural styles and heights. And so people are, there are people who are like, we, this doesn't look like a New England town. It doesn't look like Amherst. And so my concern is that the consultants, maybe they heard that message and they've gone off. I didn't get that impression from talking to the architect that he got that. And then also that people who are in this community that, you know, we promise in the master plan and the consultants coming and say, we're going to talk to you and build something that fits what you want to look. And then they leave and two months later they come back with something else. And so I think that is there an interim step to get that view or people still involved right now or and not go get a full package that doesn't reflect people and creates tension and conflict that we see over and over and again. The other concern I had, which also former members of the planning board thing is that the overlay district won't work in the BG because there's no incentive for owners to, you know, they already can build a five-story building without affordable housing. They don't have to provide parking. So what's the incentive to provide parking 20 to 25% affordable housing and still have five stories. And they can, you know, obviously get their waivers and setbacks. So half of this zoning district isn't going to get you what you want. And so it just seems like a very, it didn't make sense to me to include the BG unless there's owners who are really wanting to provide, you know, 20% affordable housing. So a lot of the decisions about the siting, I sort of had questions about like, oh, the work. And also this is our first why would you pick half of the downtown to do an overlay district when Northampton started with one building. And so I just wondered about the process or the results. And I thought the planning board should be involved a lot earlier and be discussing this much earlier. And, you know, you can say we can do it later, but it's, if people feel they're going on without their involvement, it's not going to bode well for, you know, months down the way. So maybe there's a chance to do it stop and do it differently. So the planning board members have been invited to all of the forums. And I think, you know, they've been given a specific invitation. I've sent an email to all the planning board members and all the members for development authority members to attend the meetings. And I feel like the planning board members who could have said, oh, let's have a meeting about this process at some point along the line. Well, that was actually my next statement. It would be good for us to see that presentation and maybe have a meeting. Earlier than when we received the zoning and, you know, the next phase. A lot of work could go into designs that people, you know, I mean, to be completely honest, every person I've showed that presentation and something like, oh my God, you know, at the size of the buildings on Cottage Street, I mean, people have been stunned by that. And so, you know, we might see it and say, oh, I'm not stunned, but I think that we should be on top of it and involved and know what the presentation is and talk about it and say, you know, I think this is too much or, you know, I don't think four-story buildings lining the town. And also, they don't look like it's blocked. You know, so there's a lot of questions I had and a lot of times you go to those forums, it's an hour of presentation. There's small group discussion and then it's over. Can I just remind everyone what Chris said that the consultant is going to come forward with their professional experience of 40 hours and how a 40-hour would work here. And as Chris said, it may be too much. That could be the whole point. Like, we wouldn't want to say to them, oh, make it a 40-hour mini. Like, because that's not the point. A 40-hour is robust. That's how it works. And you're right. Like in the BG, it's already five. So what would you have to do and, you know, give the incentive of a sixth floor? That's how it works. And that might, that's probably too much. But that's why this report, I'm very interested in seeing it and sort of looking at it. Because as Chris said, we could just be like, oh, this is too much. We don't want this. Or we could be like, we want it. Or we could be like, okay, we just like these bits here. Kind of like you were talking about the design guidelines might be something that you guys can glean a lot of good stuff out of. But so I'm sort of like the professionals are doing their job. They do 40 hours. I'm really looking forward to their report and then I do hope if it says in the RFP, I would hope that they could come and answer some of our questions after we've sort of got it. And we're digesting it and going, well, why do you have this so big? Why do you have this here? So we were analyzing several locations. One of them was University Drive. One was East Amherst near the Florence Savings Bank. One was North Amherst up by you know, North Square. I forget what the other one was. There might have been another one. So there were a number of criteria that we were looking at. And in the end I think two of the locations sort of matched most of the criteria. And we had to choose one. So we chose downtown. I think we were mostly looking at development potential in the BL district because currently the BL district that abuts downtown doesn't allow any type of residential development there. I mean, there is residential development there, but it's all nonconforming. So we were looking at it really with the eye that well, maybe somebody would like to, you know, somebody who owns part of a property in the BG and buys something or owns something in the BL could make something sort of out of both of them. So really just included the BG so that it would be, you know, the properties wouldn't be how can I say this? Well, it would be one continuous overlay, I think you're saying. Continuous overlay. Yeah. So, you know, it may be in the end that we decide that no, it just doesn't work for the downtown. For one thing, it doesn't work for the BG district because there's no incentive, there's no monetary incentive to the town to do it there because there's not going to be a differential between the amount of dwelling units that you could get currently and the ones that you could get in 40R. There would be a differential in the BL. There's a pretty big area of BL north of Triangle Street and there's a reasonable size area of BL west of the downtown. So those two areas are areas that have been kind of eating at us for a long time. Developers, owners come to us and say I want to build a building that has residential units in it and they can't. So they come to us with the office building that was proposed for 236 Halleck Street or North Pleasant Street. Anyway, you know the residential building. That building hasn't been built if residential units were allowed there, they would have built that building. But they could only build offices there so they can't find tenants for those offices. So this was really an attempt to say, oh well would 40R help those districts? We can turn around and say we would rather look at East Amherst and East Amherst is an interesting situation. You have to have underlying zoning that allows the type of development that you're proposing. In other words, you can't do this out in Echo Hill or something like that. The underlying zoning has to allow mixed use and commercial and retail and all of that. So the East Amherst has these little slivers of commercial that line College Street. It doesn't really have big areas that you could actually develop. What is behind College Street? The Strip Mall is wetland. And you know from looking at Mr. Amir's property that there were a lot of wetlands over there. So there's limited potential in East Amherst. There may be potential on properties like the old motel that is currently an apartment complex. So that's a possibility. We might want to look at that. There may be a possibility for redeveloping the gas station and that mixed use building that's behind the gas station. So there are potential development areas in East Amherst. There weren't necessarily willing developers. And that was one of the things we were looking at. We knew there were willing developers in downtown. Willing property owners who were willing to engage in this kind of endeavor. In this section, there's really not that much property available for development other than property that is already tied up in ownership situations that are not flexible at this point. They're not liquid. Property owners down there have expressed interest in doing certain things, but they can't do them for 10 years because of estate issues. And so, as I said, one of the things that we were one of the criteria that we were looking at was willing property owners. And we had willing property owners in the downtown. So that might have been one of the big factors why we went with downtown. North Amherst is already experiencing a lot of development and the properties that are available still in North Amherst are also tied up. The Joneses own a lot of property up there, but they're not in any they're not eager to develop things that say on the east side they have riverside apartments, they have the riverside shops. They're not interested in redeveloping those right now. Other properties on Sunderland Road, there was the old Jernigan Building that was falling down, that was an old auto repair place. Well, that was recently bought by somebody who's running a landscape business out of there. So he's putting that to good use. So it wasn't clear that there were willing property owners you know, potential sites up in North Amherst right now. There may be in the future, but right now we had the willing property owners in the downtown who were interested in seeing if something could be developed there. So that's a long way of saying you know, we had a lot of options for different places in town. Downtown was the one we said, you know let's try it. If people don't like it, we don't have to go there. It's just, it's a choice that we can make. Nobody's forcing anything on us. It was something that as I said, for years the Planning Board, Planning Board members, Zoning Subcommittee members had said, why don't we try 40R? And we didn't know what it was. So this was an opportunity to find out what is it, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages, what it worked for us, where might it work for us we'll come up with something and then we can decide whether we want to do it or not where we want to do it, we'll have tools. We'll know what the design guidelines might be. And they might not be five story buildings that looked like they belong in Watertown. They might be something else that's more typical of our town. So I just want to make sure that you understand nobody's forcing this on us, nobody's requiring us to do anything with it. It's an opportunity that's being offered. It's like an educational opportunity in my mind. It was free money. And it was free money to examine this. And also, I am not I listen to a lot of people. I'm not listening to a lot of people who say, Ra Ra 40R let's go for it. There's not a groundswell of people who are saying that. There may be certain property owners and certain developers who are, but the overall population is not that enthusiastic. So there has to be a certain level of enthusiasm for things for town staff to really want to move forward. And this may be something where we tried it and we said, you know what, it's probably not for us. So that's kind of where I'm at right now with it. I'm glad you explained the downtown selection because I do remember in the last forum the consultant saying when they ran their matrix and it was really close. They said that the downtown edged out a little bit more, but actually all locations had enough positives that matrix number why they all came in pretty close. So that makes sense now why they went with the downtown because of developers or whatever. But thank you for that. Michael, do you have a question? Yeah, it's picking up on what Janet said a minute ago. The notion of our responding to a finished proposal is one thing. The notion of our responding toward the end of a process after which a finished proposal will be developed is another thing. And it seems to me that if there's any interest on the board in support of this process of this idea anyway and I am if it actually results in an increase in affordable housing in favor of the idea I wonder if we might get further down the road more expeditiously if we were to have a presentation from the consultants prior to their completion of the final report that we could then give them some feedback on that and tweak a few things or make some suggestions or maybe just accept it wholesale. I don't know what the report is going to end up being. But if the goal is to give this good consideration and hopefully adopt it if it's to the benefit of the town I think it might be good in the long run for us to have a look at it and a shot at discussing it as a body. I know we've all had the opportunity to talk about it individually at these meetings. I've been to a few of them myself but that's a different kind of situation. You break up into little groups and the little groups get talked about and all that information gets back to the consultants and who knows what happens. If the board were to make if the planning board were to make a kind of a unified statement about one aspect of this it would seem to me to have more weight than a comment coming out of one of the corners of the room written down on a whiteboard and then passed on to the consultants. So I would like to see if it fits the timeline of the consultants contract us to have a discussion with the consultants prior to the issuance of their final report with the planning board. I can ask for that. I know they've stretched their budget to come. They've been here three times and they had three meetings in their budget they're going to be coming a fourth time so that's an additional time. I can certainly ask them if they would do this but I can't guarantee that they would because they had a particular scope of work that they were working towards. I just want to it reminds me a little bit that if we only do get it as the final they have recommendations so this reminds me of the parking report that recently came out and the consultant brings this huge report of all these recommendations and then they give it to the town and then the town figures out what to do there were eight major sections and then there were three to six suggestions under each one of those topics so it's up to the town to decide to pick which ones initiatives they want to take on and then to prioritize them. So in a way that's what I feel like we would do we're going to get this recommendation and then we have to sort of decide if what parts of it we want I don't think it's like this is what you get and this is we would vote yea or nay to accept it I don't think this comes in as a it's not a plan or a proposal it's more like a recommendation Jack? I assume that the report would detail everything that you said in terms of the process. I'm not sure we're going to get a report I was speaking to Nate Maloy close to this project than I have been and the way he described it is that we may get design guidelines and the zoning amendment and a memo describing how this process worked, how it came about how many times they came out here who they met with etc. So we may not get a full blown report I'm not sure I would like the matrix the matrix like how they ranked and all the criteria they used because that would be helpful information down the road for the town to have If what we're going to get is a proposed zoning bylaw and proposed design guidelines it seems like all the more reason for us to have a conference with them prior to the development of that because it's once the once the zoning bylaw is written it seems to me it's difficult to unpack and edit because it's usually pretty contained it seems to me well I would think we would handle it like if I look at all the others we used to do through the articles for town meeting revisions after revisions after revisions so to me it's just a lump of clay that shows up is a starting point if anything and we may not even go that route like it's just a suggestion because the way that I've worked through zoning subcommittee with the I mean you're the one you know Chris this they keep changing all the way up until the end so I don't think it's a I think it's just professionals giving an example from their previous experience working with other towns that do do 40 hours all the town and like I said I want them to be very honest and very best practice in what other towns are using because then we're looking at it honestly and we might like you're saying just be like this is not for us I don't want it to get too tailored at this point do you as a body want me to inquire about whether the consultants are willing to come out and talk to you if they have the budget I think that's just you know it's late in the game here when do they think you think within the month that be done so before Christmas they were talking about coming out in February but I really haven't had any contact with them since when did they come out last time it was early December was it December 19th yeah I think it was December 19th so I haven't had any communication with them since then does Nate and Nate may have but certainly they haven't chosen any dates for coming so I'm suspecting that it's probably going to be March rather than February since we haven't heard anything from them we usually try to establish a date at least a month in advance so we know we're not you know bumping up against something that the town council is doing or something that other boards and committees are doing so I will I'll see if they're able to come and ask if you're talking to them and asking if they can also try to get a contact from them I mean if they are thinking of coming in a month well that's not that far out but if it is going to be like two months maybe they could come since they're still sort of working on the job Chris all right oh yeah you know I support the 40R concept and I think it actually be great in East Amherst since it's it fits a lot of the criteria that was presented about lots of parking lots mismatched buildings kind of under built hard to walk around a lot of people living there you know things like that and I actually brought this up three years ago at a zoning subcommittee when this idea of a 40R was first proposed and it was presented like oh let's look at this as a thought experiment for downtown Amherst on you know North Pleasant Street by Kendrick Park and that you know so we started the committee started talking about that and I kept on saying you know there's all these other parts in town that this would be great it'd be great on University Drive East Amherst, North Amherst and it kept on coming back to downtown and one of the residents who comes to zoning subcommittee said you know what starts that thought experiment in a couple of years you know when we're looking at downtown for the 40R in a few years it becomes like oh we've been talking about this for years and suddenly it's in place and I think that that almost feels like a prophecy to me I think that people in this neighborhood around where we're sitting were promised that they would be part of the process and they haven't been and I think that they need to be giving feedback to the to the consultants and the feedback that came at the last meeting was is there one person said is there a way we can give comments online to the consultants people worried about the losing I mean they just all the things you know about the look and the facades and the small town feel and whatever so have the consultants taken that and it's one thing to sort of get a presentation at the end of a project it's a little disturbing if it's in your neighborhood and you haven't really been notified about it but part of it but to me if someone at the planning board was at the table working with the consultants for the last year or so and bringing updates to the planning board we could have been providing feedback and saying maybe the site's not going to work or maybe we should start a smaller maybe we should do university drive and so I don't want all this work to be lost and people downtown feeling like this is going to be a bomb shell for them and I kind of try to put this on the agenda for tonight and there were some people that wanted to come and talk about it at the neighborhoods but it wasn't on the agenda and now I'm sort of feeling like can we have some process that involves the community in a way that they feel like they're actually sitting at the table hearing about the information not after it's been designed and so I think that we're lurking into that territory very much by not Maria. I don't understand how they had all these public meetings and that was the place for them to bring their ideas and I also that the ideas that like I really like what you said Chris that this is an education we're learning about how it would work in a certain setting in a context we'll be able to see form based zoning which I'm really excited about so I think it's an education you can't look at it as like this is set in stone and why doesn't it work for everybody in Amherst it works for how 4DR is designed to work for the way you look at it through the lens of urban planners so if they were to design it to the scale of Amherst it wouldn't be that sort of successful 4DR project in the way of maximizing the land use so I think yeah it's going to appear large because that's inherent in what 4DRs are and to say the neighbors weren't alerted it seems strange because there's you know for three public meetings where everyone was notified I mean it was very public process everyone could join in so without making it seem like a site plan reviewer a special permit where they send letters out to the butters they don't know how much more public they could have made it as far as you know outreach and getting feedback they are professionals and you don't want to hand hold them too much you kind of want them to do their job and so there's a fine line between you know helicopter over you know consultants versus letting them tell us what the best practices are so I hear what you're saying about you know couldn't have to spend more of a collaborative effort but I'm not sure this budget allowed for that very fine kind of you know let's look at every parcel around what we're studying I think they're looking at like here's what 4DR can give you you know so you got to kind of look at it from a step back you can't sort of microscopically examine what they've given up so I have two points just I want to remind everyone that there were three public meetings but it wasn't until the last one the third one that they dove deep on the on the downtown that was because they had gotten to the point where they had done the matrix and that's the same they all kind of the same but they had chosen to pursue the downtown one so that didn't happen until December 19th and I just also want to say to everybody you know that the consultant made it clear that you could submit email you know right in I mean can be snail mail to but you know communicate that way and they are collecting actively collecting and Nate Maloy make sure that all the comments that come into town hall get forwarded so you know if there are people out there who are feeling like they're you know not being communicated to I will say right now I didn't know really much about 40 are and this is an education process for me and that's why I'm saying I'm looking forward to more as whether it be memos and draft design guidelines and bylaws I'm this is a learning process for me so that we can better evaluate how we're going to move forward and I agree with you Janet I'm sort of like I see good things and there's issues where I'm like I'm not sure so I think we're I don't know how much I would have been able to tell these professionals like what to write about 40 are because I'm sort of learning and but I do trust that they're professionals and they deal with lots of towns doing this so I look forward to being educated I have a memory and I think it's a real memory that we actually sense is to property owners whose property would be affected and people who had property within 300 feet of the area that would be affected I can check that with Nate but I'm pretty sure we did that because we felt like well here we are proposing a change to this area and we feel like people should know about it so I'm going to confirm that and I'll report back to you next time and for that fourth meeting that probably should be pursued that you make sure that you know now that the downtown is the one that they're focusing on that the letters go out about that the last meeting there because this was an add on they were only going to do three and now they're yeah okay could we contact residents not just property owners I mean the people in the Clark House and Wayland there's two historic districts there's no way we can send notices to owners and ask them to post it in a prominent location that's what we do when we send a butters notices if and a butter happens to be a multi family house we send it to the owner and then the owner is asked to post it so that people know about it so I'm just giving the feedback that there are people who are very active in the downtown who did not know about the meeting on the December 19th and it's one thing to contact property owner it's another thing to contact a resident and we have a street list we could send notices to or there's lots of ways to reach people if we're really interested in working with our community. I'm going to also pitch out there the town website you can go on and set your email I have all of them almost turned on for myself so sometimes I get a little like oh god another town email but if you really want to stay on the pulse and know about different meetings and stuff I highly recommend trust the town put your email in and send your little alerts and updates and keep checking the calendars so at this point you know I think Chris is going to go off and ask some questions and get a little bit more information either from Nate or the consultants and next week you probably will have some more information with us so I think that's 40 hour for tonight so I would love to say adjournment do I hear oh yes oh you have something no I don't I'm just wondering the master plan I thought we were going to talk about the master plan that's next so the next meeting there will be a whole like Chris has been working on a process so there'll be information we'll get in our packet and we'll try to figure out what we're doing it's not an agenda obviously no we were trying to keep this planning board light Jack well congratulations well we might finish it you did it better than the last four hour one so do I hear a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn second okay all in favor I assume yes good thank you thank you Amherst media