 Come on. Are you Mr. Marshall? Am I what? Seeing the attendees come into the house. Okay. There's one. There's Johanna. There's Johanna. I see Amherst media. So it looks like we have one attendee. We are good to go. All right. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of November 17th, 2021. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 6.32 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media and minutes are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. The Zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town's websites calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the room, the Zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, you will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceed proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then please place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Present. Jack Gemseck. Here. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And I, Doug Marshall, are also present. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to mute yourself. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate your wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. All right, so the first item on our agenda this evening is approval of minutes. We have two sets of minutes tonight. The first one is from May 12th, 2021. So do I have anybody who would be willing to make a motion to approve these minutes? I see Andrew's hand. So moved. Thank you, Andrew. Second. I think I heard a second from Janet. Is that correct? Okay, are there any discussion, any requests for edits to these minutes? Seeing none. Why don't we go ahead and have a roll call vote for these minutes? All right, first, Maria. Approved. And Jack. Approved. Tom Long. Approved. Andrew McDougal. Hi. Janet McGowan. Approved. And Johanna Newman. Approved. And I also approve. So the second set of minutes is from November 3rd, 2021. I have a motion to approve those minutes. Johanna. I move to approve the minutes from November 3rd. Thank you. I'll second. Thank you, Tom. Any discussion? I do. Janet? I was confused by these minutes when we got to the old business talking about the parking access regulation. I wonder if Maria could help me. So like on the page two, it said, you know, Maureen Pollock presentation slides in the packet, which I thought was nice so people could go look there. And then it kept on referring to like where in the packet, but I couldn't tell if you were just like saying, hey, if you want to see more, it's in the packet. Or if you're just saying, go look at the packet and this is also what she said. Like on page three, it says problem statement, page 69. Maureen Pollock's additional comment. So I, so that's my question. All right. Maria, would you be able to answer that? It's what you said, Janet. Which one of the options? Oh, that what that line is about is on page 71 of PB packet. And are the notes that you have put in the minutes, is that what's on page 69? Or is that additional information that came out of the discussion? It looks like a little both. To be honest, I can't remember now. I've broke these so long ago. Let's see. I think, oh, oh, I write the top under number three. It says Maureen Pollock's additional comment. So those must be additional comments. So the problem I see with that is that it would force somebody who is reading these minutes to kind of go to the packet and go back and forth and see that. And I don't think that's going to satisfy what we're supposed to do with our minutes under the state statute, which is just summarize the discussion. So somebody who wasn't there could understand it. So I hate to say this, but I just like, I was like, wasn't more, you know, I need like, I actually use minutes to go back and things. But I just, I don't think that's going to be enough to say, oh, go look at the packet, you know, which our packets being like 150 pages and say, oh, we'll look at that. It's on this page and then come back to it. So someone's going to be going screen to screen and stuff like that. So I understand the efficiency of it, but I don't think it's going to be like sufficient for our legal requirement. So it sounds like, Janet, you're suggesting that these minutes really ought to be able to stand on their own as a single document. Yes. Yeah, I understand that. Andrew. Yeah, I'm wondering what if the reference to just the page number and additional comments is struck. So it's just comments from Maureen. That way it's all self-contained with that. So Fais, Janet, do you think in your opinion? Well, I think we need to have our pre, like what she said. And so. So, yeah. So what if, I guess, what if it's just Maureen stated and then the following. And so it's not referenced as additional. That's, it's, it is summarizing what she said. Yeah, I just said, I'm just worried that she said a whole bunch of stuff that we isn't here. I mean, it sounded like, you know, when you have like, I mean, basically puts up her thing and then she repeats it and goes through it. And then she puts extra stuff on. I think we're missing the meat of it, or the reader would be. I actually, thank you. Thank you, Janet. Tom, you're the next hand. Sorry. Yeah, I actually don't think we can read them that way, because from, there's no way that Maureen's additional comments would be in our packet. I think what we're seeing is that Maureen's additional comments are then listed below. And the conventional standards are from page 71 of the packet, which is where that information would be located should you want it. But I don't think any comments are in there because comments cannot be in a packet that happened before a meeting. So I think we're confusing the issue on this. So there's really no way that additional information could be present. So I think the structure is really helpful in terms of showing people where the information that's being discussed might be. But I don't think there's any pertinent information from our discussion that's being negated here. All right, thanks. Tom, Maria. Yeah, that's basically it. Everything else that was said would just be me copy pasting page 71 of the TV packet under that, like, for example, number three, a, I could copy paste that whole page, but I didn't want to reiterate what was in the packet. Instead, I only wrote the one, the thing she said that I didn't see already in our packet. So exactly what Tom said. Sorry. But yeah, so our Congress, state of the art, yeah, so our conversation happened after this, I think, because this is just her presentation. Yeah, the board discusses later. So whatever she said that wasn't in the packet, I tried to call and put here. So if you want a whole summary, you could literally paste copy page pages 70 through 75 as the beginning to this section, because that's the additional information that missing is literally her slides. Okay, thanks, Maria. I'm going to jump to Chris. Did you want to make a comment? I was going to say we could add the phrase for further information, see page 70 of planning board packet or just drop the reference completely. Yeah, that would certainly not raise any questions to people that saw the minutes. Tom, your hand is still up, Tom. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's a legacy hand. Okay, Janet, you are muted, Janet. So I think I'm back with I started. So Maria, are you saying you captured everything she said or are you just putting down, you're not putting down what she said that repeated the presentation, you just did her additional comments? I think it's the latter. So I guess the question, Chris, is when we have presentations from people, do we need to essentially summarize or repeat what was in that presentation in the minutes? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, what I often do is, you know, Nate Malloy made a presentation about blah, blah, blah, and then this is what came afterwards. So I don't think that people need to reiterate everything that was in the presentation. Okay, so Janet, could I just say what I understand to just clarify it? So Maria, everything you've written down is what Maureen said, even if she was just verbally restating her presentation. No, if she was verbally repeating what was written in the presentation, Maria did not put it in the minutes. Okay, so I think that's what's deficient, like we have to know what she said. And so I don't think we can expect. Well, I guess I understand your comment, but certainly what we just heard from Chris was we can just say Maureen made a presentation, and that would be all we'd have to say in the minutes, at least according to Chris's kind of understanding of usual practice. And then we would record the discussion about that presentation in the minutes. So, Maria, I'm basically wondering whether you need to just spend another hour and go back and see if there's anything. What I can do is take away all the page references and Maureen's presentation, those pages are pretty succinct. They're just bullet points, you know, it's not like, you know, lengthy language. So it would be easy enough just to copy, paste all her bullet points, if that's what Janet wants to see as well, literally, because yeah, it's hard to know how much to write. But what I did was just not repeat what was already available in her packet. So if it's confusing, I just take away the page numbers of the packet and say, see the planning board packet for a full presentation, because it's a pretty, you know, it's pretty succinct. So, well, it sounds, I mean, I guess as I look at this, it sounds like, in fact, you've probably included more information than would typically be done if we just had a line that said Maureen made a presentation, you know, the entire third page would go away. That would have been nice. Yeah. Yeah, whatever I think Chris thinks is the established norm. I'm willing to follow. I think I was just typing away that night and didn't really think beyond that. So if it's confusing, I can delete all of that. I'd be happy to. But number two, Maureen made a presentation, see the planning board packet, and then it goes right to all the board discussion or something. Yeah, I just think that's, I think that's insufficient for our legal requirement. We can't expect people to go see, go through our packet to look for the presentation. And I would appreciate just, you know, the cut and paste, you know, people who read these minutes should know what was discussed and they wouldn't in that situation. So, I wanted to note that these minutes are nine pages long. And we'll actually eight pages long. And the meeting only went until 912. So those are pretty hefty minutes for a three hour meeting. And if you look at minutes from other boards and committees in town, they're nothing like this. You know, TAC has minimal, they don't even have full sentences. They just have phrases here and there. And I think these minutes are sufficient. And if people are really interested in delving into what was presented, they can go and look at the packet. And that's often the way we do it. You know, I would say, well, Amherst College made a presentation about their signs. And they were three signs and they were in these locations. And then later on the planning board discussed those signs. But we don't, we are trying not to write down every single thing that is said. And we've been struggling with that because it's very hard to turn out the minutes as everybody knows, everybody now has participated in writing minutes. And it's a real task to do this and to make it correct. And so if we, if we want to do the minutes in a timely manner and not, you know, have another open meeting law complaint filed against us, we're trying to do it in an expedited manner, but also to provide as much information as we can about what the planning board said back and forth about what they were discussing. And I don't really feel like we need to reiterate word for word what was presented to us because that is material that is available to people if they're interested. All right. Thank you, Chris, Andrew. So this is one of the reasons why I hate meeting minutes. I just waited like three hours of my life taking some minutes for a seat back presentation or meeting a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I tend to agree with Janet and I think that it's supposed to capture the content of the presentation. I think, I think it can be short though, right? I mean, I think it just, it can be like honestly, like three sentences even. Maureen presented something that talked about A, B, and C. She added and then you already have that stuff written like I don't, I think we've all agreed that it shouldn't be a transcript, but I will say that in the minutes that I had done and based on my understanding for that recent seat back one as well as the planning board once I had done, I shifted towards, sorry, didn't shift. I took the approach of we're documenting all the things that happened as briefly as possible. So I'll just put it out there. I think without having any clear direction as to what the bare minimum of meeting minutes truly is, we could have this, we could have this argument every time. Right. Jack, you are muted, Jack. Yeah, I just want to say as long as we have a link to the Amherst Media version of our meeting, I think we should be good, although I would suggest that what I'm seeing in our minutes is just like a link, but I would probably put the physical sort of web address for the link versus what I see, because I see one for November 3rd, it just says November 3rd, YouTube, but I think if we actually put the distinct sort of address, there's shortcuts or whatever to YouTube, if we put that in there, I think that will beef it up a little bit. And again. Oh, okay. Thanks, Jack. One thing that occurs to me would be the end product of the minutes is often a PDF. And if Maureen had five pages of a PowerPoint, would it make sense to attach that PowerPoint to the minutes? And then you've got a single document, you don't have to go somewhere else to see the, you know, look on page 70 of the packet. So I'll throw that out there. I don't know how difficult that would be for the staff to just attach the PowerPoint presentation. Chris, do you have an opinion about that? Yeah, we have a problem because when we post the minutes, we post a PDF, and the links are not live, as far as I know. Pam might correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the links are kind of dead links in the PDF and people would have to, I don't know, I don't know how, do they copy that link and then paste it somewhere, Pam? I don't really know. Pam? I'm sorry, that's why I keep doing that. I actually worked with Briana. We can't hear you, Pam. I actually worked with Briana recently and we looked at the links. So the links are live. You can, you use control click. So, Jack, I wanted to say to you, the November 3rd recording in those minutes, you are absolutely right. That is not a link. And that is because the recording is not up on the YouTube channel yet. That's not something I have control over. IT does that pretty quickly, but so as soon as they do, I put it into the minutes, the live link. So it most often is the live link. And then I feel like there was one third thing that I wanted to say. So we recently started adding a link to the packet at the bottom of the minutes. And also too, I'm not sure if either said of the minutes that are before you tonight, also any additional documents. So if your packet was sent out and then we got three or four more items and we posted that as additional packet documents, those are all listed at the bottom of the minutes now. Again, with live links that people should be able to go right to those documents. So hopefully those things are all helpful. So those, so you think those live links could, that my suggestion of actually attaching the the PDF of the presentation slides is unnecessary because the link is always going to be good. The link. Correct. I mean, you know, obviously, I guess the question would be as would it become redundant. And I guess that would probably be a question for Chris. I guess my question, Mr. Marshall would be why would we if we're putting up entire packets, you know, if we're linking to the entire packet and any additional documents that would include any presentations that were given. Am I am I understanding correctly? I don't know who you're asking. You're the one putting them up. Well, so that I'm trying to get you to answer that question because yes, then then I'm going to say it would be redundant because all of the documents are now attached to the bottom of the minutes through the link through through the links. Yes. So are you asking to actually include like a paper? I mean, I'm I'm I'm wondering whether that would solve the problem. You know, if if the I mean, there's there's the inconvenience of somebody reading minutes and having to go look at a separate PDF through a link to find the content of the presentation. And then there's the possibility that at some point in the future, that link may not be valid anymore. So to have the minutes with the with the presentation as a single document seems like it's more likely to be a complete picture of the minute of the meeting in perpetuity or however long we're really talking about. But I'm you know, I haven't thought much about this question and you guys have been doing minutes forever. Chris. So why don't we do this for this time? Either Pam or I or both of us will go through the video and we will fill in some summary of what Maureen said in all of these instances. And we will do that for this set of minutes. And I and so I'll I'll just leave it at that. And we'll bring it back to you the next time. All right. And my guess is the minutes are going to be like 15 pages long, but that's that's okay. Okay. That's what we are looking for. All right. All right. Thanks a lot, Chris. Janet. You are muted. Yes, I actually, I think the planning department has done great minutes for us for for many years. And I think that we definitely ran into problems falling behind. I don't think because of the minutes, but because of the pace that we were going at and the length of our meetings and the media, we were doing zoning amendment after zoning amendment. And so I think, you know, that kind of went by the wayside and became this big mischievous of stuff. If I can borrow a word now from my culture. But and so I just think it's I think, you know, the minutes that I've seen come out of the department have always been really good. And so I just want to be clear and have people understand what's going on without it being a transcript. And I realized now that I listen to transcripts, we don't say that we say things buried in many words. And so it's I just I appreciate the work that an effort that you've all been doing. Thank you, Janet. Andrew. I'd like to rescind my motion then for these minutes. All right. I certainly accept your rescind. And Chris, I wonder whether it might be worth sending us a few representative minutes from other bodies, whether it's somebody in town or I don't know if it was you or Pam that said you had seen the planning board minutes from Northampton. You know, I think it'd be useful for us all to see how far or or not how far out of normal we are what we're doing. And I guess I will say also that I think the fact that we're recording these minutes, these all these meetings makes it much more difficult to produce succinct brief minutes, because there's all that information in those recordings that, you know, you can always go back and check. Whereas before anybody recorded minutes, you did it as fast as you could during the meeting. And you never had another chance to hear that information again. So that's just a side commentary. Maria. Thanks, Doug. I just want to put it out there that our minutes didn't used to be 20 pages long in previous boards, and that some things shifted and minutes should not be this long and this wordy. Well, we definitely look at other towns and other boards, because this is a change that happened the last three years. It was not this long before three years. So just put them out. So maybe Chris, if you could pull a set of minutes from five years ago and just, you know, include that in our examples. Yep. Janet. Okay. All right. So that's it for the minutes. And we'll move on to item number two. The time is seven o'clock. And it's now time for public comment period. And so I'll remind the participants that you are not allowed to talk tonight in public comment period about either of the hearings that we will hold later in the meeting. So for right now, no comments on the Amherst College wayfinding signs and no comments on the site plan review for 534 Main Street. All right. Do we have any public comments? All right. I don't see any. All right. So we'll move right on to topic number three. And so this is public comment or this is a public hearing. All right. So the time is seven oh one. And in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a this public hearing has been duly advertised and noticed there have has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding SPR 2022-05 Amherst College wayfinding signs at multiple addresses. Request site plan review approval under article eight of the zoning bylaw of three wayfinding environmental signs to be located at multiple addresses on and off the Amherst College campus including 62 Boltwood Avenue map 14A parcel 273 in the RG zoning district 212 Northampton Road map 14C parcel 13 in the RN zoning district and 425 Southeast Street map 17B parcel 3 RN and RLD slash FC zoning district. Are there any board disclosures? Chris should I recognize your hand? I just wanted to give in a little introduction. As you'll remember Amherst College presented a number of signs on September 1st and we also had the town has a sign project that we're working on and we worked very hard with Amherst College to coordinate our signs with theirs so that there wouldn't be an overabundance of signs and as a result some of their signs they were gracious enough to offer to move and others of their signs didn't actually make it into the first packet so that's what we're doing here is we're kind of cleaning things up and bringing these last three signs to you so I just wanted to make that connection that this is connected to the package that you saw on September 1st. Thank you. All right thanks Chris. So who will be making the presentation for the applicant? Seth. That's me. All right welcome Seth. Nice to be here. I don't think we need to spend a whole lot of time presenting. I'm happy to be here. Good to see everyone again. Let me share my screen. I'm allowed to do that right. Okay is it up? Yes it is. Sorry this is not the first page. As Christine mentioned these are not additions to the signage package our overall signage package that is. Two of the three were mistakenly left out of your first review. That was our fault we didn't have a chance to get them in where they would be duly notified to all the butters and the last was moved in response to concerns about signage clutter and it went out of town councils jurisdiction and came into yours. And so these are just three of the 80 something signs that have now fallen into your jurisdiction and so we're trying to clean everything up so we can wrap this whole thing up. This was just a summary so the first one is B1003. This one was previously I don't know if people can see my cursor this one was previously on the other side of Boltwood Avenue's intersection with College Street it was over here. There was a concern that there were too many signs from this corner to this corner at South Pleasant and in discussions with the town it moved from here to move away from a town sign over to here which then puts it into our property. It is a vehicular directional it is directing people toward the athletic complex. The intention is to direct people to turn left which is a tricky situation because we don't want them to turn left on the Boltwood which is the one way going the other direction but we want them to continue going straight and then turn left. And so it's the same sign that we proposed same scale same detail same sign type that we proposed for all the other large vehicular directionals it's just was just moved this is the same sign that was half a block further that ghosting in of this sign here is where the town sign is and you can see there's also a lot of state highway signs and lane signs and so we were just trying to avoid some sign clutter. This one C1A 0113 is a building identification it is for or in this case not exactly a building but it's for the fields it's on Northampton Road it's intended to be be behind the fence so it is entirely on our property but but it is larger than is permitted by right. It is the same scale as again same detail same scale as the other other C1 signs that we reviewed before the only difference is we are using a mammoth on ones that relate to athletics and so this one has the mammoth on it and then the last one is over by Buckum Plowfield mistakenly left out of your packet last time it's behind our property lines and it's the same one as the one before for the fields except this one has the Buckum Plow logo same type again and so I think it's pretty from our perspective pretty straightforward all kind of the same types as before just three ones that we didn't get into the packet the first time all right thank you do we have any oh Chris do you want to say something well I just wanted to remind everybody that in these zoning districts I think all of them are residential zoning districts and the signs are limited to being four feet high and 12 square feet so that's what's shown on this chart and just like the other signs that you've that you reviewed previously which are listed down below many of them were also in residential districts and were limited to four feet high and 12 square feet so you're granting you're being asked to grant a waiver under section 8.5 of the zoning bylaw which allows if I had had time I would have written this up and I apologize for not having done that but section 8.5 is modifications and waivers and it allows any section or subsection of article eight sign regulations maybe waived or modified by the permit granting board which would be the planning board or special permit granting authority authorized to act under the applicable section of the bylaw and so the planning board is authorized to act on matters having to do with non-profit educational institutions and it's for compelling reasons of public convenience public safety aesthetics or site design so you would need to make a finding that this that these signs are being allowed to be larger and taller for reasons of public convenience public safety aesthetics or site design and in my opinion it would be public convenience and public safety so people would know where they were going. Thank you Chris. All right so we'll have board discussion Andrew. Thanks Doug and thanks for the presentation so the only the only point I was going to make I wasn't sure if that first sign was the actual sign but I just you know for what it's worth the I think the direction of the error on the sign was a could be a little confusing with the sort of up to the left since the road goes to the left if you keep going straight that um you know typically you'd see something that just is like a perpendicular or you know 90 degree but otherwise I'm comfortable. Thanks. Thank you. All right Chris did you raise your hand again? Oh sorry nope. All right I'm not seeing any other board hands. Okay do we have any public comment on this from any of the public attendees? I don't see any of that either. All right so if there's no more discussion does anybody want to make a motion with regard to these these three signs and the proposed design of them? Tom. So I'll move to approve these three signs as a means to improve public convenience and or safety in these districts. All right Andrew. Second motion. All right any further discussion? Okay so we'll do another roll call. Maria. Approved. And Jack. Approved. Tom. Approved. Andrew. Hi. Janet. Hi. Johanna. Approved. And I approve as well so that's unanimous and we will close that public hearing. Thank you everyone have a good night. Thank you Seth. All right the time is 712 and we will now open the second public hearing actually two public hearings. I guess so in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40a this joint public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding SPR 2022-06 and SPP 2022-02 Christine Lindstrom 534 Main Street and associated parking lot across the street. Request site plan review approval under sections 3.325 and 3.332 of the zoning bylaw for alterations to the site plan for a mixed use building to accommodate interior alterations and to request a modification of the total number of parking spaces required for the mixed use building under section 7.9 of the zoning bylaw and request a special permit to modify special permit ZBA 77-1 to allow 16 parking spaces in the associated lot on the south side of main street rather than 14 spaces originally permitted and to waive the requirement for an accessible parking space in the associated parking lot under section 7.9 of the zoning bylaw map 14b 128 and 14b 133 bn and rg zoning district do we have any board disclosure not seeing any Chris do you want to make any introduction or should we go right to the applicant I would like to make an introduction yep I wanted to say that this is a project that's been this a property that's been long-standing you received special permits I think there was a copy of one from 1965 and one from 1977 there was a subsequent one in 2012 but that since expired so I didn't bother to put it in the packet but essentially it's a building on the north side of main street that has four residential units and currently it has two businesses in it and over the years the building has kind of waxed and waned with commercial use and residential use and back in 1965 the owner of the building on the north side of main street acquired and started using the property across the street 14b 133 as a parking lot and got permission to do so and so this is kind of carrying that forward the permission was granted in 1977 for a gravel parking lot for 14 cars and now you're being asked to do two things one is to review the site plan review for the mixed use building which is the building that exists there now they're adding a use to it which is why you're being asked to view this as a site plan review the use that they're adding is a school for children and art classes for children the existing uses are fitness together and archival matters and the valley frameworks which is really one business and the person who owns the building Christine Lindstrom I'm sure she'll explain it to you in more detail but she's asking to add two parking spaces to the lot across the street and therefore it's needed to amend the special permit for that lot and she's also asking to only have one handicapped space and that handicapped space she wants to be close to the building which makes sense because it's accessible to the building and having a handicapped space on the south side of the street she feels is not safe because people will have to cross the street so that's those are two things that you're being asked to do site plan review for this new use that's being added to the building namely the art class school and amend the special permit for the parking lot across the street thank you and Christine Lindstrom is here to make her presentation all right so Christine why didn't you take it away if you have a camera and you want to turn that on or maybe Laura maybe Laura Fitch you may be doing the presentation I'm not sure you're still muted Christine we can see you Christine Lindstrom is muted there we go I'm unmuted I'm Christine Lindstrom nice to meet you all all right so I'm just going to share my hmm is that working sorry technical difficulty is it share screen or share should be share screen at the most and then it's I just don't know which one so that I can get to my desktop you can do either one of them if you see your document there when it shows because your choice you can click on that and only share that um yeah I was actually just going to share a picture of the building at this point um let me try one more time maybe maybe Laura you could help out because I'm not getting to what I want to get to well I have lots of pictures but I don't know specifically what you want all right I'm going to try that is that working there you go that works okay so this is 534 Main Street and I have a couple of the business owners who have joined the presentation to who just want to introduce themselves but you know as Chris said the reason for the site review is because we although we have pre-existing businesses that are essentially shuffling around in this building um one of the businesses is actually changing use or adding an additional use that hadn't previously existed so um looking at this the building from this side you can see um on the left hand side there's a sign that says valley frameworks it's black with gold letters um fitness together is actually in a suite adjoining or adjacent to the valley framework where the valley framework sign is located and fitness together which is a gym would like to expand from its suite which is suite c expand into suite a and b um meanwhile valley frameworks or archival matters is moving upstairs so you can see the suite above the sign valley frameworks um that's going to be um where archival matters is located and archival matters um is bringing on another business to run art classes out of one of the suites so i just wanted to take a quick minute and have the business owners introduce themselves and they can just tell you quickly um what uh they plan to do with their business um and then we can just move into the questions around parking so um jessica are you um or chris are you able to give jessica finnaf the ability to speak to kind of quickly introduce herself and introduce fitness together ham we can't hear you hello can you can everyone hear me yes yes hi um my name is jessica finnaf and i'm the owner of fitness together um we are a private personal training studio so we work with clients one on one um in private suites um currently in our current space we have two um two suites that we work with clients in um a small office and a small lobby area so we are looking to um bump into the space adjacent to us to have um a little bit more space for our clients all right thanks jessica um okay people can we um switch to ani revera the owner of um archival matters and valley frameworks all right thank we've hello can you hear me yes okay um yes uh my name is ani revera and um i am owner of archival matters and valley frameworks and i have been at 534 main street for 10 10 years now i've been in business for 25 years uh working um specifically with museum collections and university and public art collections and um the business uh during covid um was greatly affected obviously like everybody else and um i started seeing people by appointment which has worked really well for me and so i uh the space upstairs became available and it was really perfect uh for uh for my needs and it also came with a separate uh private space that that's connected to the main space but um but my daughter at the time is looking for space to do her small workshop classes with and so i offered her the space uh they had been our classes there uh before and i didn't uh see a problem with her doing small classes out of the the space um there's uh egress and there's all the requirements that all of you have uh before you uh documentation on and uh and i'm uh happy to answer any questions you may have thank you great um yeah so that's um the questions around altering the site that's essentially what we're doing is um oni is moving the archiving upstairs um and sectioning off a portion of his suite for small group art classes while jessica is expanding and taking over the entirety of the first floor for um for her fitness studio so um then we get into the issues around parking um to accommodate these changes um we actually uh 23 spaces are actually required and um i would like to have a waiver of one space um to be able to accommodate these changes with just 22 parking spaces um to get to 22 parking spaces i'm asking to modify the 1977 special permit that allows um currently allows 14 parking spaces across the street i would like that to be increased to 16 um and that 16 across the street plus the six that you see before you gets us to the 22 so um here's the six that are at the building and then um let me pull up uh an image of the parking lot from across the street um so caddy coordinated across the street or is uh a parking lot um we're not seeing it are you wanting to share that um your screen sharing is paused you share ah bummer sorry guys not that smooth is this kind of thing is that working yes yep okay so across the street um is where the majority of the parking for the building is located um and this is the section of the building that currently carries the special permit from 1977 um allowing for 14 parking spaces so um we have measured it out and um it can accommodate it with no changes to the parking lot otherwise we can go ahead and put 16 spaces here so that's what i'm proposing to do um one thing that uh in the process of this site review that came to my attention is that these spaces all need curb stops or some type of delineation or demarcation as you can see here that currently doesn't exist so i am planning at this point to put um uh landscape timber uh curb stops i'm going to put 16 of them along the side there in order to demarcate the 16 spaces but um that is what the parking lot looks like across the street um you can't quite see but um to the left hand side of this picture um is actually a right of way the properties behind the parking lot are all on sunrise avenue and they all have written into their deeds um permission to use this section the left hand section here is um is a right away for them to be able to access main street okay is that it christine yeah and so um we'll leave it at that i guess and just get into discussion i don't think more throughout or more to uh out there for now all right uh maybe you could stop your screen share all right um andrew i see your hand but chris has hers up to chris i just wanted to note that i did send a draft development application report out last night listing various things that i thought you might want to know about this project and then today i sent out a revised version and one of the things i noticed was that the um uh parking lot across the street um is maxed out actually it's over it's non-conforming as to lot coverage um and so um there was a question that came up at the oh well i should leave the site visit to a report by one of the board members but i just wanted to note that there is that report in your email in case you haven't had a chance to look at it and and doug might want to um track through it at some point i'm sorry it came out so late thank you all right andrew you have your hand up i assume for the site visit report no not for the site visit i was not there actually someone to do that first yeah why don't we see who was there was anybody able to attend okay i see janets physical hand yes all right why don't you go ahead so um maria was there and i was i attended and jack came in for the parking lot portion and so in terms of the building across the street um it's a little confusing there's six spaces out on the western side with one handicap space and the building's kind of been attached like extended and so the um part that will become the archival thing is actually on the second floor but actually has street like access directly from the site and there's another handicap space marked there and a few other spaces and some garbage um bins large large um um dumpsters um and then if you go across the street it kind of goes down pretty sharply and it looks to me like an unpaved lot or some really old gravel and when we looked at it it was clearly you could put 16 spaces in if you wanted to you could dig out some more if you you know it kind of it really it really goes down from the street so it could be expanded more towards main street and um we looked at the right of way which was pretty deeply rutted um and that's it i'm not sure i'm really am i missing something maria it looked like it would be a quite a haul i don't think it's for us to say that it was easy enough to add more spaces because it would require a major retaining wall because of the slope but the space they had was like you said um gravel and um when we were there there were 13 cars and one pulled away and um it sounded like from what uh christine said oh christine said that um that was kind of typical number of spaces being used on a normal working day um and then on the other side i took a spot i think maybe some other planning board members took spots and so um it looked like i think christine you said it was a typical day it wasn't a hundred percent full but it was maybe over half full and then um when we cross the street you know it was cars go really fast on that street so i would not recommend any wheelchair attempting that cross without a cross walk but um otherwise i think that's the only things we observed um i think chris you talked at length about the ride away town right away and how it was really um not something that we needed to get into but that um as far as what um christine presented of her property it looked like we weren't going to be changing anything other than just demarcating the 16 spots um also i think um miss miss lynstrum told us that the um there were eight parking spaces in the long lot for tenants because there's four units and those eight spaces were the farthest to the south um but they weren't designated but that's where they where people were parking and then i had asked is this parking like how is it used it does it get full and miss lynstrum said there's usually some spaces and it um and the tenants you know use it at night and there's a lot of day use um and that the day users of the building usually prefer to park um close to the building but obviously people there were 13 cars there was there people are obviously using a lot um i think that's it okay thanks janet standard uh thanks Doug thanks for the presentation christine um so i i'm i'm regret not being able to make the visit and i'm going to sound really ignorant here but this property is on the on the intersection of high street and main street right so when we say the parking lots across the street which street is it across starters it's across main street and then it's not directly across it's like it's to the west i just i'm not even sure exactly where this lot gets and i'm not sure if food is possible just to pull up like a google street view or a google map or something just to make sure i'm following properly yeah yeah that'd be great thank you thanks for the denny jones map is also helpful the denison jones map thanks janet okay so it's it's basically the so this is high street i can zoom in a little bit um more if i move this over here can you still see it um no put it back to the screen you're on okay this is the this is the lower talk map yeah so um this is high street here this is main street this is um sort of the residential portion yeah um the shape of the commercial on which is on two floors and the parking this adjacent to it the handicapped space then across the street is i'm with you okay very good all right thanks for clarifying that for me is the is the second floor business is it accessible now is there an elevator lift yeah so it's somewhat accessible and there's no requirement in terms of 88 upgrades to make it more accessible okay there's triggers that require you to make it's more accessible so there is a ramp in this area that goes to a deck and the doors are three feet wide the ramp is not entirely conforming and we're adding a handrail to make it more conforming but like i said there's no change that's um triggering um you know a complete redo of that okay um and then could you just scroll that up the pdf a little bit i was just wondering so i mean in terms of the number of spaces that that seems reasonable all right that's okay i was just wondering though in terms of the reduction of the 88 location 88 or the the parking spot does it like had you considered making that so correct me if i'm wrong but but there was we actually call for this sign that's against this ramp to be removed because this isn't a legal parking spot this land to the town so even though it has been used at the handicap accessible parking and has that sign there it's not actually an illegal spot you know i guess it seems to me like the you could put another handicap spot here to be to be compliant i'm just i don't know if you were able to see the annotation i had there but just basically the other side of that one spot oh he i'm sorry here yeah yeah i'm just wondering had you considered like what why not just do that to make sure that there are there are two spaces and and actually before you answer that i apologize for adding more on i'm not familiar with 88 law specifically i think in your in your proposal you said that it was not required by law by federal law so i'm not sure if anybody could expound upon that just just for clarity um you mean what i said in terms of improving the existing ramp i i think that what i i thought what i had read was that in the proposal it said that you know we're seeking you're seeking to go from 280 accessible locations to one and that only one is required by law so andor there's there's actually two laws that are relevant here one is the federal ADA legislation yeah and i believe that would only require one space that's ADA accessible however town of Amherst has a bylaw that would require a second ADA space and that's the uh request for the variance christine is that correct that is correct so federal the with one space here we're meeting state and federal law because um you go to two handicap spaces when you hit 25 parking spaces whereas um Amherst law is uh once you've hit 20 spaces you have to have two okay um so that is the distinction that the Amherst zone zoning by law is more stringent than the state in the federal guidelines can you say um we could cut to as Janet um suggested earlier we could cut to um a 1987 survey um that was done uh when this building was under the ownership of denny jones um to sort of show how much of the it's going to be on me so you guys are going to have to be patient oh you can't all thanks laura for the lifesaver um tell me which one it is again 1987 so at any rate um so the issue is uh and i didn't know this again until we started undergoing this process the current handicap space outside of the second floor is actually sitting in the middle of town right of way so it's just it's actually not viable it's a it's a lie of a handicap parking's location so um is this what you're referring to exactly so that that area that um laura is using her is circling or chris are around um there is a handicap parking sign but there's not enough um space that's actually on my property specifically to site a handicapped parking space because obviously you not only need this parking space but then you need the access um uh space on the side so um likely i have to go to town council and go through i mean i have no idea what that process is like um to site a parking spot there if i could find the room for it and i would need to ask the town to be able to be located in part on town right okay for that okay i guess okay no thank you i was gonna say um it seems like the businesses that are here in the retail establishment establishments are essentially all by appointments so you'd have some sense of of what that use might look like um so so i guess question would be maybe for chris is if you know another retail tenant came in who wasn't by uh appointment would we would we have an opportunity to to review that i guess i i just i'm a little you know what makes me concerned is just there's one spot for for two businesses really kind of three businesses um and i understand it's it's one of the five so on site it seems like it's reasonable but um would we have an opportunity to i guess kind of approve this only based on the current tenant mix of by appointment retailers all right andrew chris do you have an answer to that um well i just wanted to say that when tenants change um we are aware of that and so the inspectors um evaluate what is being changed and then determine what kind of um permitting is needed so if the tenants in the building change then either um they would be approved by what we call article 14 which you will see later by the building commissioner article 14 is a temporary type of zoning that allows certain uses to be approved by the building commissioner during this covid period or um it would be sent to the planning board or the zoning board of appeals depending on what the use is so one board or another or the building commissioner would have an opportunity to review the change and i think that answers andrew's question about um you know how that would affect the site okay thank you chris uh christine do you have a comment um i think i i was gonna show a picture of that area that we were just discussing i have another photo if that's helpful otherwise we don't need to do that all right why don't we hold off on that for the moment janet so i went i went back and looked at that the site today um i'm okay on the reduction in spaces because i think the peak uses of the tenants are different times than the peak uses of the business the people using the businesses so in the reduction in spaces seems very easy to me and also knowing that a lot is really never full is also very helpful i'm not okay on reducing the handicap spaces and i think it would be easy just to add the space where andrew showed like next to you know put the two handicap spaces together and but you know when i went back and looked is that there is a handicap there are two handicap spaces ones like the informal one um it looks adequately sized for someone to use and there's a ramp right there and it made me wonder is there somebody who regularly uses that space and regularly uses that ramp um in those businesses i don't know if it's the people who run it or a regular customer but it and then when i also looked there was a there was somebody using the um the more formal space right by the front doors and so so you know so that was my one of my questions was is there somebody who's handicapped who uses those that spot the informal spot there were also two cars parked along the western side next to the dumpster so there's a lot of space there it's not in the street and that's in probably mostly the public right away and so i was you know like how do we make this work right and you know i have a 30 foot right a public right away in my front yard and i use my front yard you know i i have a swing on it you know people are in the yard and i you know for this is let me make a question for christian breastrup is you know could we condition this permit that the the businesses can use this informal handicapped space until town council pulls you know they're not i mean the town has the right to to do something that public way but now it's not using that could we can we do the condition the permit saying to you know keep two handicapped spaces you can continue to use this informal space if that continues conditions change just add the an extra space near the front door i mean it seems like the site works well for the users all right thanks jenna christ i i think that um it sounds like that would be logical but i don't think that the planning board can allow something that wouldn't be necessarily allowed by the town so i think what i would say is that the planning board has to stick to the private property and make its decision about the private property and you know chances are people can continue to use those spaces that are around that northwest corner of the building but the planning board can't make a determination or an approval or anything about that they it's kind of something that you know if the town starts to have a problem with it the town can do something about it but until then it's okay to use those spaces but you can't count them as something that meets the requirement does that make sense it kind of we don't have the authority to allow a use on public land yes that's right it's easy you said that very well uh christine you wag your finger are you trying to get my attention yeah i mean i am very interested in pursuing um what my options are with the town council now that i know that's the path um i don't want to you know sort of hold up this entire proposal and stop annie and jessica from you know pursuing their business goals while explore what's happening but um uh so i don't know if it's worth just to throw it out there that i'm not going to kind of let it lie it bothers me tremendously that there's no handicap access for the second floor so um i just don't know how long that process lasts i don't know what it takes um and so maybe it's one of these things where if if i can show that i'm in good faith that i'm pursuing a path with the town council um wherever that path might lead you know that could be something that could be taken into consideration um it's definitely attention because um it is extremely bothersome to me to not have handicap access on the second far okay uh chris um would we be able to give a a decision on this say a waiver that on the second handicap that uh space for a a specific period of time at which point we would require her to come back so say five years you know and if she came back in five years and hadn't gotten anywhere with the town council then at that point we could say no you now you have to put the second handicap space in chris you are muted i think you could do that it would be a question of how would um the town remember that this was the case and right now we don't have a really good system of tracking things like that we we rely on people's you know honesty like you know the survival center came back after a year like you asked them to but um and i'm sure that christine is very honest too but it's good you know she might get busy and forget about it so okay you know all right so we so we could technically could do it but it has some downsides yeah andrew i was just going to ask since we have i think it was jessica and annie the business owners on do they feel like having a second accessible spot in that in that front parking lot would adversely affect their business jessica or annie um you're muted if you're talking hi can you hear me yes we can oh okay uh yeah i think it's really important to have a handicap access uh from the second floor uh the ramp is right there um and now and then i might get a visitor who who is wheelchair bound and they will need to enter and so um i think it's really kind of important uh in my view that we have or we provide access to all all people uh in annie i think the question was actually do you feel your business would be hurt in any way if on the lower parking lot next to the building we required a second handicap access uh handicap space um i don't think the business will be hurt no um i think it's it's just convenient to be if you're on a wheelchair keep in mind that it's it's uphill from from the lower level to my space so somebody on a wheelchair will need help to get up that hill and come into my space compared to now it's not it's not a negative thing to have them park at the bottom but it is it could be an inconvenience and it could be dangerous for somebody to try and come up that hill right okay so so in essence it wouldn't hurt you but it might not actually benefit you because anybody in a wheelchair wouldn't park down there right okay andrew uh did that answer your question i i think so i guess i was going to basically take your proposal dug and flip it what if it's we go with two and tell and let christine see if she can make it one right at which point we change it down the road but to me it seems like um i i'd rather see the two spaces there i can see the ramp or see the change of grade but that would also add like uh you know many many wheelchairs are motorized as well and would be able to to to manage that um so anyhow that that'd be my thoughts we did it too was an exception perhaps to our changes okay thank you tom yeah thanks thanks andrew that was going to be my comment i think that um we have an opportunity to maintain two spots on the site i think we should do that um and request that the second handicap spot be placed um in that lower level if necessary um until the client or the owner can secure the rights to the upper spot um so that we know that it's a valid parking spot and then we can revisit it when um when she can do so um i also think that many many handicap people also come with assistance or other people who can help them get up that hill as well which we should consider but um i agree that it's not incredibly safe and i would much rather people park up top but i still think you have an obligation to put two legal parking spots for handicap accessibility on your site okay thanks tom um yohana thank you very much interesting discussion um i what would that cut the overall if if there was a second accessible spot required in that lot next to the building would you go from six spots down to four with the space limits i think there would still be six spaces but two of them rather than one of them would be limited to handicap use okay great thank you thank you yeah i don't i i don't have the um the dimensions it's would take me a minute to just go back and look at the zoning bylaw i don't i don't know if it means that we end up with an overall reduction of the number of spaces or if we stay with the six it's just the two of them are so you haven't done a layout so of of two handicap spaces in that lower lot i have not i mean i would be that difficult for us to go back and do that but i don't think it would be a problem because i think um when you have that stripe between two spaces the spaces themselves are just the same size as a right okay so then just a label yeah yeah uh yohana does that conclude your comments it does thank you all right uh i don't see any more hands maybe we'll take a look and see if there are any public commenters not seeing any uh now seeing two hands chris so i wanted to note something that we forgot to include in your packet but i think i did forward it to you it was an email from nancy higgins who lives i think she lives next door and she is um disabled she's uh she has trouble with her eyesight and she put in a plea to have two handicapped spaces near the building so i just wanted to mention that and i apologize for not having included it in the packet but like i said i think we did forward her email to you so i just wanted to make sure you knew about that all right thank you uh yohana uh legacy hand sorry okay janet so one what the third the one thing i actually appreciate all the accessibility discussion and the effort by the owners to keep as much as possible i was and i definitely could see that um on the extended lot you'd be not only impossible to get up with a wheelchair but it would be dangerous to cross the street it felt dangerous for us to cross the street i had i have concerns about the um you know the backing out into the right of way and leaving because the right of way was like really deeply rutted um it looked like it had just been you know i know there's been a recent rain and it was kind of washed out and so i began to wonder if maybe that should be filled in with trap rock to sort of stabilize it and make it safer for people who are parking or leaving the parking lot and walking up the street i didn't know if that would be something that the building inspector or um the tenant engineer would have um some ideas on or if chris the the that's a requirement that in a parking lot it's the surface is safe and you know easy not so slanted and it's it was very deeply rutted towards main street okay thank you janet chris so you could impose a condition that that um situation be remedied by adding gravel to that location um that would be a reasonable thing to do because i think that that surface is not in great condition so since you're being asked to um agree to adding two spaces there you can require that the surface of that um parking lot be improved and i don't think you need to say over the whole lot but just that one place where the rudding occurs which is up on the driveway that goes up to main street thank you all right so if there aren't more comments at the at this very moment um i was going to i was going to go through chris's uh draft development application report and chris um i'm assuming i can skip over some of the project data at the beginning um although i do see uh there are a couple of non-conforming conditions but those are grandfathered in um all right so on item two on probably the second page you've got for the sign plan issues to consider the board may wish to ask the applicant to confirm the information about the existing and proposed signs the board may also wish to impose a condition that the new signs be reviewed and approved prior to installation so uh jessica do you have any comments about the signage that you expect associated with the new business at the property i'm sorry christine actually jessica go ahead you don't mind i'll just defer to her all right um yeah so there the sign that's currently that's um up there that says valley frameworks i think it was shown in that initial picture that chris had showed yep um that is staying as is it's just changing to for with my business name so the sizing is staying exactly the same they're just painting over it so it says fitness together so that black and gold sign to right there yep okay uh chris chris would would painting over that sign with a new name can constitute a new sign it will constitute a new sign yeah so and so that sign is oversized the sign isn't really oversized it's um you're allowed to have 10 of the building wall covered with a sign so the sign is less than 10 of the building wall so the question for the planning board is do you want to see an image of that new sign before they paint it up there or are you happy that they could do a good job of it without you're seeing it to review it and approve it okay thank you andrew i i don't need to see a rendering of the new sign but i was curious whether ani would have a sign for um the valley frameworks business added as well and apologies it was in the pack and i forgot uh hi can you hear me yes honey hi uh yes um uh we have uh design plans for for two signs one for archival matters and one for um uh feather press studio and you could see the building here where these uh two large panels are installed they are 21 inches high by 12 feet wide each and the top one will be for archival matters and the bottom one will be for feather press and we do have the designs and we were hoping um my my daughter maya who is the owner of feather press um we do have those designs available but we are having problems actually getting a visual of ourselves on on this so uh she was able to if she could present them she would and um about it because we do have them we could email them to you as pd apps and you can review them um and give us any comments and we're happy to uh you know um adjust anything that's necessary uh but they're very uh professional simple and to the point they don't they don't have any with you know a lot of designs on them so uh so i don't know maya if you can display these um but if if if we can't show them now we'll email them to the board chris so if they can't show them now um they could email them to me and i could bring them to you on december 1st for you to approve them okay okay yes chris um is there going to be a sign for valley frameworks or is annie just going to have a sign for archival matters it only it says our archival matters at the very top and then in smaller in smaller type uh below the the the main name it will have the different aspects of my business which is art and preservation uh photography what else um airspace uh airspace studios which is uh online gallery that i'm planning to put up so all these things will be much smaller uh below archival matters um and the feather press is really just says feather press studio amherst and then below that it says uh i believe it says artwork for art classes for everyone um so those are the that's the extent of the text all right so it sounds like it would be very helpful to us when you've got that material ready for you to send it to chris and uh and then she'll bring it to one of our meetings and we will approve it so this evening we may want to consider having a condition that you get our approval for these additional and change signs before uh you install them okay i could actually email i could actually email them to chris now while i'm here if that helps okay chris do you have anything else you wanted to say at the moment um well i only heard from um andrew about whether anybody wanted to see the sign for fitness together so um do you want to see an image of the fitness together sign or do you just feel that they can reproduce whatever kind of a sign they had previously on the front of the building and you'll be fine with it well wouldn't it wouldn't it make sense for us to get to the point of of of talking about all of our conditions and have that kind of conversation then yep i mean personally i think we should ask for all information on all the signs so andrew do you have anything else i was only going to ask just that the 10 for the the signage here on high street how does that 10 apply yeah 10 for the total building because this and this is more i'm not overly concerned but but if the 10 is for each building phase yeah i think this is a much smaller elevation it looks like so um may i uh ask uh christine had said that the total square footage of the facade of the west facade was 600 square feet so you could ask her how she calculated that christine i think i was out there with a tape measure um but yeah i mean i don't think that i um i spent a huge amount of time trying to get it exactly right um so if we want precision um i would need to do it again so the two signs that we see right now are a total of 48 square feet that's what christine has represented in her application and she's represented that the facade is 600 square feet so the question would be where is that 600 square feet um located is it the two the pieces of the building that you see the one to the left with two windows and a door and then the one to the right with a window and two frames are those the places that yes represent the 600 feet so i think if that is the case then these two sign frames could be placed there and considered to be you know less than 10 percent of those two faces of the building that would be my which are offset by some number of feet and i guess the question is whether we can count all of the wet all of the west facing facades along the street there or whether we're limited to a single plane of facade okay um is there a standard practice i mean because you know there's there's the center section of of facade with the signs on it there's the section to the left that's been counted in the 600 feet but there's also facade to the right that faces west and hasn't been counted um is there a standard practice on that chris there is not a standard practice as far as i know what i do know is that these two framed signs here were approved in the past and they're kind of existing frames so i imagine at some point they were approved but i haven't seen any documents that state that so if you wanted to just consider the actual facade on which these things are mounted you would need to either grant a waiver from the sign requirement the size of the sign requirement under section 8.5 just like you did for emmer's college just now or you would ask christine to make the signs smaller so that they would be 10 percent of this facade the one that's closest to us who was that laura fitz okay laura it seems logical to me that you would want to include both those facades because that is the space that he occupies so that second floor um frameshop and archival matters in um occupies those two gables and the flat wall with the um uh the two signs frames on it yep and never mind the historic aspect i'm not sure what historic aspect you're referring to they've been there oh okay chris that seems reasonable to me to count both of those if it's um all part of the same business right and it would mean that there's no additional capacity for signs on the gabled section to the left that's right okay maria uh thanks i feel like a lot of this project is you know existing conditions that have now become nonconforming but it's worked all these decades and the change is slight enough and sort of under enough good management that it's all working now even though there's a lot of black and white that doesn't match the project so i feel like you know the way we're looking at the parking um the way we're looking at signage and um a lot of this is just you know it's been working all this time for these businesses that seem like they're here for the long haul um i guess the only new thing we're thinking about is the ADA space whether we just change that label from number two to ADA but otherwise um yeah it sounds like the site and the spaces are all working for the current and sort of upcoming sort of slight changes to the businesses um but yeah i don't see an issue with the signage it sounds like it's all you know it's not right on main street it's also kind of off to the side so even if it is overly sized for just that portion it's still you know not like lasting on the you know the main side of the thoroughfare um but overall i guess the only thing i would wonder about changing after you go through all the rest of the requirements is just the ADA space issue but otherwise um yeah maybe you can keep going through that list Doug okay through this all right thanks Maria um so we we've talked some about imposing a condition that the new signs be reviewed and approved before the planning board or by the planning board before installation uh the third item chris was mentioning was we may want to require plantings along the west side to screen the parking from the adjacent house which i assume is across high street um what is meant by that is there is a fence along the parking lot on the south side of main street and one of the previous special permits for that parking lot um required that there be plantings along there to screen the house that's immediately to the west of the parking lot so the fence goes a certain distance but then the fence kind of dies away and the parking lot is still there so do you want to require that there be um plantings along that area to screen the parking lot from that house would it also be an option to restore the fencing to put more fencing in yes it would be which i gather was originally required fencing planting was required yeah okay uh janet um i would support the plantings i think a row of shrubs would look great um be nice habitat and kind of be a buffer to anyone using the building it's it's not super attractive it's useful the parking lot but i think plantings would be a real a good idea and i think it's in the bylaw under site plan review although i hesitate to put everybody through my search for that but i do think planting would be great okay um so let's keep that in mind when we're putting together our conditions um just scrolling further down i guess uh item seven parking christ issues to consider one of the things that came up during the site visit was whether this lower parking lot that you're looking at now um should be expanded to include one more space and i wanted to make the point here that the parking lot is already non-conforming as to lot coverage so if you were to add a space by creating more gravel then um christine lindstrom would need to apply for another special permit to change a non-conformity so that's what that's all about right and so the alternative is to allow the waiver and allow one fewer spaces yep then is required jack yeah during the site visit um the road is exceptionally wide and christ has said that there's so there's two-way traffic that needs to be on that road and for me i just i if you could explain that it'd be helpful um because it seems like it's just a huge paved area basically uh but the road is like a pine you know the the eastern two-thirds of it i guess but and your question is for chris yes yes she mentioned it had to be it's a two-way road which i don't know what so the question is whether that's required in the easement yes i haven't i haven't seen a written material on the easement but i would caution the board against you know thinking that we could shrink the easement somehow right laura you have your hand up do you have some information on that um i have information about the existing on plantings um i have better photographs of the area that's being shown right now as being sort of a gap in the yeah so i share my screen sure there's actually pretty substantial plantings here there's only a very small gap between this bush and that fence and once again once again we have lots of burning bushes which don't provide very good habitat for any of our native species all right well yes i i don't like burning bush myself but um although it looks great right now right um but and there's also trees here so i just didn't think that photograph was very representative all right uh christine has the extent of fence and plantings along here uh decreased since that special permit was was approved well um that special permit was approved in 77 um i took ownership in 18 um so you know it is what it is from my perspective um i haven't had any complaints or you know nobody has reached out from that property to me regarding um i don't know uh bother some uh headlight headlights at night kind of uh coming into their yard or anything along those lines um so i i think somebody said before that the parking lot seems to be working well and i think it does um work well and it seems to live well with the neighbors that's what i can offer um and it looks the way it looks okay thank you janet i found my section it's on page 104 it's um 11.2414 provision of adequate landscaping including the screening of adjacent residential uses um provision of street trees blah blah blah and then there's also a section about um when a non-residential use it joins a residential use putting a vegetative buffer not entirely clear that this would apply here but i do think if you had a row of shrubs native shrubs i suppose it would just be more attractive and you know provide some habitat and some beauty to the area okay uh all right so let's continue um then item eight the parking the ADA space i believe we've pretty much talked about that uh lighting the board may wish to impose a condition that requires that all exterior lighting shall be downcast and shall not shine onto adjacent properties um christine were you were requesting a waiver for from lighting yeah i mean she requested a waiver of the lighting plan oh okay all right so there is no there's no new exterior lighting proposed no i'm just ticking through my head i believe every single um i i think if this condition were imposed the building meets it now i believe every exterior light is downcast um but the existing ones and um put them on the the plans that were submitted so and they were all downcast okay all right so that is uh pretty much close to the end of your of chris's development application report chris you said the fire department in the town engineer have not commented yet should we be waiting for their comments i think in this case you don't need to wait for their comments because um they there's not that much that's being changed on the exterior of the building and the building inspectors are very well aware of what's going on on the inside of the building in fact i think that we did have a conversation it wasn't mike roye part of our conversation about what was going on on the interior of the building and i'm asking that of laura fitch um it was i i can't was it was it roye that was there i i guess i can't remember who i think i think it was a member of the fire department who was there so i think you probably don't need to hear from either one of them as far as um but we do have uh we do have a building permit that's included um improving fire um separation between the residents and the commercial it has improved um smoke detection in the commercial and um such like that so but none of that's related to the site plan okay thank you uh checking one more time for public comment i'm not seeing any public hands all right so um no hands from the board so i think we're about at the point where we need a motion um and i have the notes i've taken we've talked about whether we need whether we will allow one fewer ad a handicap space uh we've talked about potentially requiring repair of the ruts in the parking lot on the south side of main street we've talked about whether to require approving uh the the board to approve all the signs before they're installed and whether to require additional fencing or and or planting and whether we're okay with having one fewer overall number of spaces than the zoning uh file would require and then the lighting if we want to go there so does anybody want to make a motion with some or none or all none or all of these conditions andrew uh what you said duck i would say like can we can we have this be focused on the parking right so i i would i would have a motion that we would ask them to have two ad a spots that we would waive the or uh allow for the total number required to to be reduced by one and then i would ask also that we would have some planting to complete the the buffer um so that there's a contiguous continuous um uninterrupted line of um screening you know visual barrier and then um that'd be my motion and then i would just back on like let's address the signage in the future okay so that's a motion yes it is a motion somehow with the condition with the condition for the signage to come back to you if it's a condition that while i was i guess it could be a condition to do it that way or can we just keep it out of the motion and and just ask the applicant to come back and or we we could also handle these conditions sort of sequentially in this meeting and first vote on the three conditions that you have just moved and then we could have a conversation about what we want to whether we want a condition about signage and whether we want a condition about lighting so i think i'd like to to do it that way um i'm comfortable with that Doug okay so so the motion is to impose conditions to require the second to deny the request to have fewer handicap spots than are required to allow the request to have one fewer overall spaces than are required and to impose a condition for additional screening to complete the screening along that entire frontage with the residential property to the west correct all right so do we have a second for that jack i'm seeing seeing your hand jack i'll second okay janet jack you gotta you gotta be quick on the mute button there i've been on mute oh my you you oh my goodness everything i said oh i'm just saying how great a chair you're you are dog well i'm glad i'm glad we're keeping you awake okay so that was seconded by janet let's do a let's do a roll call on those three conditions uh maria jack approve tom hi andrew hi yohanna hi uh janet hi and i'm an i as well okay so that's the first three conditions um does anybody want to have a condition related to repairing the ruts on the easement uh along does anybody want to make a motion in that direction i'm seeing some heads shake no so oh yes janet wants to make that would like that condition do we have a second andrew i'll second all right thank you andrew all right let's go through that um maria no thank you jack uh you are muted but it looked like you mouthed no you are correct i i i am so bad sorry thank you i said no yeah um uh am i allowed to abstain i did not wait why you are allowed to abstain i will abstain i did not see the site okay andrew yeah i don't i didn't see the site either i'm inclined to say hi though so that's why you thank you um janet you are muted all right i'm gonna be an i i thought they were deep and be hard at night to go across so that's a second yes and yohanna no and i'm a yes yes so chris am i right that there are four opposed and three in support there are three opposed and three in support and one abstention ah so what do we do in a tie well you ask you plead with the applicant please fix your ruts um i do actually have rut fixing in i have um a landscaper installing the um the 16 curb stops but obviously not until after this meeting and i knew what our situation was and part of what he's doing is filling in the ruts at the beginning in the end of the right of way okay um um so i don't mind having a condition but um you know it's it's gonna happen it's gonna happen all right all right so i'll change mine to a nae and the motion fails we will not impose the condition but we'll be watching you here take a joy ride down the sunset right right extension okay um so lighting did anybody want to have a condition on lighting it sounds like we don't it really wouldn't have any practical effect not seeing any hands all right chris uh i think we've let's see so we've imposed conditions so do we need a general vote for each of these for the site plan review and the special permit you can say that you approve the yes you need two separate votes okay yes all right so and and we can say that the conditions that we imposed applied about both of these items you know whatever is applicable yeah okay andrew apologies remind me what are we doing about the signage the signage you're asking to come back to you for review well actually andrew i think thank you for bringing that up i think that slipped my mind and we didn't we didn't actually formally vote to impose a condition so does anybody want to impose a condition that the signage be approved but brought back and proved to us by us before it's installed i would move that myself so i'll move it tom you're seconding it yeah any discussion just a point of clarification so just before it's it's not going to a condition that um holds up our ability to sort of move forward with the business operation it's more just the signs themselves before they get installed yeah okay yep um andrew yeah i just wasn't sure what the condition was i just sort of went quick on it so we're saying we're approving we're approving it and then but they have to come back with the signs or we're going to um not approve it until they come what this you're approving it with the condition that they come back with the signs to show them to you before they install the signs but that doesn't up that doesn't hold up the other things that they're doing essentially andrew they can they can uh reconfigure the tenants in the building and introduce the the new business into the building and that new businesses and all of those changes are are part of them are prompting all the parking requirement review that we've been doing but when they do the new signage for all this new stuff they still have to bring that back to us all right i don't see any hands i see a thumbs up from andrew so one more one more vote maria approve jack i i think approve all right excellent tom hi andrew hi janet hey yohana hi and i'm an i as well thank you for reminding me of that andrew all right so now we need to make the have the two votes on the the sort of base motions which one is the site plan review and the other is the uh special permit and uh janet um could you just run through the conditions that we've imposed i've kind of lost a little track in the separate separate votes just to so i can get my notes together okay so uh we have required that the signs sign changes be brought back to us and approved before they are installed we have required that additional fencing and planting be um installed along the west side of the south parking lot we have allowed one fewer overall number of parking spaces than uh the zoning would require and we have denied the request to reduce the number of handicapped spots on the north side of the of main street from two to one okay so two spaces continue to be required thank you can you put that in positive language so that it can all be approved because i think if you deny something then i have to um characterize it as a denial of that one thing so well you could say we've i mean could you say that you're requiring that they're we've affirmed we've affirmed the existing bylaw requirement for two spaces i mean we could be in fact mute about that whole question because we haven't changed anything but we certainly talked about it enough i like what you just said affirm the existing bylaw requirement for two spaces two handicapped spaces thank you all right can i have a motion to approve spr 2022-06 with the applicable conditions we've agreed upon i will so move thank you janet andrew second thank you that was andrew that was andrew maria approved can i ask something okay so this is a site plan review so are we going to say that it meets all of the relevant criteria of the um of 11.24 and close the public hearing on the site plan review yes okay close i will so move all right so you're including that in your motion thank you thank you okay all right so i'm sorry we'll start again maria approved thank you jack tom brood andrew hi janet hi yohana hi and i'm and i as well and unanimous okay and then um um for the second general applications special permit 2022-02 we will approve the permit with the applicable conditions uh we will let's see what are the two things uh it's it's it's in conformance with the applicable bylaw sections and 10.38 in this case 10.38 10.38 and we will close the public hearing do we have a motion for that um doug are we we're not approving the entire request in the special permit though right we're required we're we're approving the request with the conditions that were previous that were that are applicable to that that particular application okay so we're allowing 16 spaces but maintaining the two 18 spaces i'll make that motion so okay thank you thanks janet uh tom your hand's up to second it second all right any further discussion no uh chris i assume your hand is legacy oh sorry good maria approved jack proof tom brood andrew hi janet approved approved and yohana hi and i'm and i as well all right so we've closed that public hearing uh the time is 838 good uh what people want to take a break yeah take a five minute break all right so why don't we come back at 843 uh andrew yes i'm sorry i was going to just say while while the the presenters are on the phone that it just um we've been hearing how like you know retail's dying and how businesses are really suffering and just it's really great to to have folks come to the board that are growing the business it's just it's really exciting to hear so you know congratulations to all of you and i wish you well all right thank you andrew and thank you christine and honey and uh your whole team hi everybody thank you so the time is 839 now and we'll come back at let's just say 845 all right the time is 846 and it looks like we've got all but one member back at least videos there she is yohana newman's back i'm back i'm going to turn my video off while i finish my dinner all right you can also mute okay all right so it's 846 and we're resuming our meeting uh we have another public hearing to be to get through so i'll read the preamble for that in accordance with the provisions of mass general law chapter 40a this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding zoning bylaw article 14 amended temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during the covet 19 emergency and it's an aftermath to see if the town will vote to amend article 14 of the zoning bylaw temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during covet 19 emergency and its aftermath by extending the expiration date until December 31st 2022 to help businesses to more quickly emerge from the economic disaster created by the covet 19 pandemic so do we have any board uh disclosures i do not see any all right uh chris uh who would be presenting this i will present it um i asked rob if he wanted to be here but he's been at a couple of late meetings lately so he decided not to attend anyway um article 14 is an article that was put in place i think it was in june of 2020 and it was an effort to um try to get businesses back on track to allow outdoor dining to allow expansion of um already existing businesses to allow new restaurants and retail shops to open up without having to go through um extensive permitting processes and it's um it's been very successful um i think we gave you a copy of a a memo that rob had written about some of the businesses that have um been helped by this um so just to run down a few the lift in north hampton or excuse me in north amherst on coles road they started offering their services outdoors that they're a hairdressing salon the cds kiosk on university drive was allowing people to get vaccines in kiosk on the town of amherst had vaccine tents that 70 bolt would walk which is the bank's center um there was a new restaurant that opened called powerhouse nutrition in the building that used to have barts uh ice cream and they were allowed to have outdoor seating and and many other things like savannah's restaurant down on university drive kind of modification of a previously issued special permit so it's really um it's been successful in helping businesses to stay afloat during this difficult time uh one one of the things that happened recently too was that um dragonfly health care on 17 research drive which is dr uh kate adkinson's establishment was allowed to um construct a new parking area on research drive in order to accommodate her patients and also to accommodate the um more patients that she has now because of of the pandemic so um as i said it's been very successful the only thing that we're changing is um the date currently the um article 14 was to expire at the end of december of 2021 and given the fact that we have our covet 19 pandemic um seems to be continuing um we are requesting that it be uh allowed to continue through december of 2022 so i'm available to answer any questions all right thank you chris uh andrew i see your hand thanks dog um yeah i'm just curious uh you know i've seen a lot of these restaurant sheds in my travels in obviously in town um is there any i guess what what's the downside or have have people been or is anybody complaining about these having these concessions that we need to to consider because to me this seems like a no-brainer chris we haven't received any complaints about this okay does it impact like um street vendors or something like that you know food trucks whatever uh do people have or you know i guess like how many parking spaces have been impacted i guess is there a way to quantify any like potential harm that we should be considering before we we think that chris so it has displaced parking spaces as you know um we've tried to remedy that to some degree by adding those back in angled parking spaces in front of um near antonios um so we're aware of that but um we haven't received complaints per se about that and people seem to really enjoy outdoor the outdoor dining particularly in the warmer months but you know people are still offering outdoor dining even even now it'll probably end you know fairly soon but um it's been it's been an eye-opener for all of us it's also given us some ideas about how we might want to redo the sidewalks in our downtown and um you know potentially rearrange the parking situation to allow outdoor dining to continue um but as i said it also relates to other things like you know medical institutions and farm stands and um just you know it's it's been very successful and well received so far and i'm not aware of any complaints all right go ahead and i'm sorry Doug was just um if uh just from the restaurant side if a restaurant is not planning on offering those services in the colder months are they required to take down their seating and then would like the jersey barrier component be adjusted in that situation such that we could take those spaces back the parking spaces back Chris the jersey barriers will be removed by the DPW just as they were last winter so all of that um outdoor dining that's going on in the uh in along the right of way is going to disappear um some of the outdoor dining that is occurring on the sidewalks may remain to the extent that people still enjoy doing that but um all of what's what's currently occurring in the right of way will disappear in a roadway i should say yeah thank you uh janet so i don't i'm wondering um if there's still a need for this um this bylaw amendment because it i understood like last when in fact i propose that this go longer than the initial proposal because i um had doctor friends of mine saying this isn't going away quickly but i feel like do we need this still or how long do we need it because clearly the planning board and the zba can give permits to new restaurants um and you know all the you know that when you do the list of the permanent changes you know the parking lot we could have done that um and things like that so i just wonder why can't the planning board and the zba step back into the normal roles and do that i can understand why um i can see next spring the need for outdoor dining maybe through the summer but it's hard for me to to see beyond that the need for that and so um i think at some point it's a long-term question for the town council if they want to expand the public you know to allow parking spaces to be used for outdoor dining we already do have outdoor dining on the sidewalks normally and so it's hard do we need this do we need can the planning board and the zba just give permits you know the way we normally do um maybe you know maybe limiting the scope of this just to outdoor tents or tents at schools although we have handled tents at schools and we have handled the tent in front of the jones library and that was very quick so i wasn't sure that you know i i feel like last year we were in uncharted territories and now they're charted and it's not quite as urgent and so i'm not i'm wondering is there a need for this to continue um you know past you know it ends in december does it need to continue maybe past the spring okay thank you janet chris do you have a comment on that i think i've heard from um the bid and the chamber that um you know this has been really helpful in keeping their businesses going and um so they're really promoting having this extension the building commissioner wish you were here um found it very successful and you know easy to work with and it just made life so much easier in the downtown and i think we can see that our our downtown has really you know become a lively place as a result and i can't predict when covid is going to go away and it seems to keep you know having a lull and then it has a surge so i think it's it's hard to predict and allowing this to um continue through next december i think is a good idea but certainly keeping in mind that it is going to end at some point and um hopefully it'll be ending next december so i i would encourage you to keep it going um but that's that's what i've been hearing around town hall so if i can just follow up on that isn't there a difference between saying yeah we'll permit outdoor dining and who gives the permit like oh the planning board can give the permit for that so did i'm saying i mean yeah i mean i i i mean i'm wondering i i think we need to go one way or the other way eventually we either need to end this and go back to the usual way of of approving things or we need to make it permanent so but i i don't mind waiting a year to make that decision uh jack yeah um i think this is no brainer and i was gonna move that we approve uh zoning men as proposed okay thank you jack anybody want to second that uh maria i see your hand up um i'll second but i'll also add that this isn't just about the dining also the permitting process it's um i i did a restaurant where they would have had to go through a special permit but because of article 14 they were able to just have me work with them directly with the various departments so it's not just about the sort of temporary situation but it's also part of the expediting the process and that's been really helpful for businesses to be able to establish themselves and try to get their feet under them in a less arduous way so but yeah i second jack's motion okay uh chris on that note uh do you think that this expedited process experience has will result in any long-term changes in how the permitting process happens in town hall um i hope so but we haven't started to work on that yet but you can see that some of the some of the bylaws that we've brought to you such as the adu bylaw did allow more authority for the building commissioner to approve certain things without going through the zoning board of appeals and i think that's going to be really useful so you know it will the effect of this will spread potentially to other things but as long as you have you know strong criteria in place i think that these kinds of things can work well but i wanted to um also talk about the motion that was made and i think the motion um might need to be amended to say that the planning board recommends this extension of article 14 to the town council because it's the town council that's going to need to approve it um and you're going to be recommending it if you choose to do that right so jack are you uh okay with that friendly amendment so moved okay thank you chris uh janet another another question i had um other than how long is um we had talked about a notice requirement um to notify people by putting a a note in the window and i think the crc agreed to that did the town council strip that out no and it's been that's been being done and whenever the uh restaurateur is not doing it the inspectors do it so it always happens okay so i didn't see that language in this thing in this one i would just wonder if it had sort of disappeared or i'm just blind the other the other issue i think just to highlight is that when people apply for to open a business or a special permit whatever is that you know it's an it's a pot process with a hearing and people can come and talk and um i i'd hate to lose that um part of it i mean i'm sure i'm sure applicants might when i lose it but i do think it's important that when we have businesses in the community opening or changes in use or expansions that you know the people affected by it or concerned about it have a place to talk and you know i you know i do think seven heads can often be better than a few heads and things like that so i don't want to um lose that that that part of the process okay thank you janet um i'm not seeing i'm not seeing the language about posting a notice either and i'm wondering if this is a an old draft an old draft so i'll definitely get rob to put forward the the proper draft okay thank you thank you janet well in that case since we're not looking at what we're actually making the motion about am i correct that the actual recommendation we're being asked to make is to take is to recommend that the existing article 14 be extended by one calendar year yes that's right regardless of what article 14 says the existing article 14 does include that language okay janet was referring to Doug you're making us into scary territory but i see it so okay so uh chris is that a legacy hand yes sorry okay all right let's see how many public participants we still have amherst media and mara keen and i think i know why both of them are here so uh i'm not seeing any hands raised from the public not seeing any hands raised from the board we have a motion andrew so what what is the amended motion and how we tweaked it when jack first presented it what what are we at now i believe the motion is that the that the planning board recommend to town council that article 14 of our bylaw be extended by one calendar year from December 31st 2021 to December 31st 2022 thank you all right seeing no hands oh my hand is up do we also need to close the public hearing at this point as part of the motion oh good good point yeah and do we need to say that we're in conformance with 11 point whatever or 10 point other things no okay i haven't yet memorized those numbers okay so so do we all think we're clear on the motion including pam who's taking the minutes i'm seeing a nodding head all right so andrew your your finger yeah sorry just one minute so but it's it's the article 14 the actual art of article 14 which has a language of janitors yes you're not thank you not what we see in our in our packet very good it okay roll call maria jac tom andrew hi janet hi yohana hi and i'm an i as well so we it's now 905 and we've closed this public hearing all right next item in the agenda article number six old business christ do we have any old business no old business tonight no old business article seven or item number seven new business no new business no all right number eight form a and a and r subdivision applications no subdivision no form a snow all right number nine upcoming zba applications yeah all right thank you pam number 10 upcoming spp sbr and sub applications yes we do have those um we have Wagner farm which is on south northeast street it's the Wagner farm that's on the east side of northeast street and they are proposing to install a i think in an existing building there to have a little farm store which would be like a farm stand i think it's a class two farm stand and they would be selling primarily beef that they raise on their property and also other farm goods so they're going to be coming to you for site plan review for that farm store and i think that the public hearing for that is going to be um january fifth okay and then we also have um john roblesky and he was concerned about the mixed use building by law proposal and what he's concerned about is how it will affect his properties at 446 and 462 main street so he's filed a preliminary subdivision plan to freeze the zoning on those properties okay i think that's it all right and is he is he likely to uh ask us to continue that like archipelago has done um hopefully by january fifth we will either have the mixed use building by law or we won't have it okay i think that the town council expects to vote before the end of the year okay all right so that's it for item 10 article or number 11 planning board committee and liaison reports planning valley planning commission jack i had nothing to report but i am wondering about um the suggestion that we kind of become a lame duck sort of planning board until the new council comes in just throwing it out there are you are you making the suggestion or are you are you've heard i i saw that somewhere i just was wondering about people's you know reactions to that well i i'll tell you that both of my legs are working i'm walking just fine i can still quack too so i'm i'm still a duck but not uh oh i am that's good news okay all right um i i think uh you may have noticed on our agenda that there is no agricultural commission listed so we've removed that from the agenda that that commission seems to be out of business for a while at least uh andrew community preservation committee thanks uh well i'm glad dug you get that time back on your calendar and i'm demanding um it'll shorten our minutes pardon it'll shorten our minutes significantly that's true um we're we're really in the thick of things with seatback right now we're we're getting our presentations done for all these submissions um i think i i don't i want to say they're like 17 we just got an email earlier this week that some of the eligibility may be in question um so we will be discussing that at our next meeting which is tomorrow where we'll have the final of the the final presentations of the applicants but things are are moving along well we've got some pretty cool projects in the works um yeah hopefully we'll have some good news for you in the next update as to where we stand on some of these things okay great i'm glad i'm i'm glad your travel schedule is allowing you to continue do that doing that janet what i was wondering how much money is it in how much money do you have and how many requests how much money and requests do you have uh so i don't hold me to it i think we have 1.6 million um there's there we have money that's available in reserve as well which we plan on keeping in reserve i think the total requests i know they're north of two million i know we have we have more requested than what we have but i've not reconciled that against which ones may no longer be eligible okay great thanks now how about tom design review board no updates this week one one question i had maybe i should have asked it earlier for the signs that might change at the property we reviewed this evening would those normally be seen by drb are they outside of that district i think they're outside of the district okay okay all right i was thinking the same thing but yeah okay and i think chris was wagging her head now okay and uh crc chris so the crc met um on the 16th which was yesterday right and they voted to recommend let me see if i can piece this back together they voted to recommend um on a vote of four to one some of the zoning amendments and a vote of three to two to other zoning amendments so on mixed use buildings um they voted they only have five members so they voted three in favor and two against um putting forward the mixed use buildings um the people who voted against it were darthie pam and steve schreiber i think steve was concerned about um creating buildings that were non-conforming in other words previously approved mixed use buildings that would become non-conforming as a result of this new bylaw darthie was concerned about not having enough um retail space in the downtown so those were their major concerns um on the parking facility overlay they voted four to one um darthie was the dissenting person to recommend the parking facility overlay as it was presented so that rather than changing the zoning of the property behind cds to bg um an overlay would be installed and a parking garage might be able to go ahead there um and then on the parking bylaw they voted four to one to recommend the parking bylaw and the parking bylaw is the bylaw that says two parking spaces are required for residential uses except if you can prove you know that you don't need to based on this list of criteria so so they talked about that and janet was there and i i can't remember what else they talked about maybe she is apartments where's apartments departments is all all approved that was approved by the um the town council a couple of weeks ago okay what else did they talk about janet don't remember actually what um that was that was it and then i don't know what they were talking about at the end i can't remember i think that was it so anyway they they voted to recommend all three of those um but one of them had you know a really mixed vote and and i can further report this is not really having to do with community resources committee but the town council hopes to take up um all of the zoning amendments except for the moratorium on november 29th and by moratorium you mean the solar array the solar array moratorium yeah right which will come to us at the beginning of december that will come to the planning board on december 1st but it probably won't go to crc until in january right and you have emailed a copy of that to all of us yep and i guess this would be a good time for me to say um i need to get with chris and and work out exact dates but i'm hope hoping that you guys can look at this and submit questions about it to chris you know several days in advance of our hearing so that we enter the hearing with chris prepared to give answers to the questions that people have raised i think that might help expedite the hearing of this so chris you and i need to find a time to talk maybe tomorrow or friday okay um janet you have your hand raised so the purpose of the public hearing is for the public to hear about the solar array amendment and we haven't discussed it yet right but by noticing the hearing that means that it will apply to the permit that is pending is that right any changes later um so any so we've noticed the hearing the hearing starts on december 1st you can continue it after that if you haven't reached a conclusion um but that means that um the solar array that is currently being proposed would be subject to the moratorium if the moratorium goes into effect does that answer your question yeah so and then we have no hearing we have no discussion before the public hearing for the okay right not unless we all get together somewhere else and and have a notice about it um i assume you're finished janet yohana Doug the questions that you've asked us to prepare would those be questions specific to the moratorium or specific to a proposed bylaw that the town would then potentially pursue so um chris emailed us what i believe is the text of the bylaw that is proposed and and basically it says you know any application for a large solar array shall be delayed or not acted on for 18 months or whatever it is so it's it's kind of like this article 14 that we've just talked about with the covid response uh in that this is sort of a temporary bylaw that just and you know it's also not that different from the moratorium that was uh discussed for downtown new buildings so it has a time limit on it and then it expires so but we wouldn't be we'll be talking about the the moratorium proposal but because this is a this is a a development of a type we don't we haven't dealt with very much as a board you know this isn't a building this isn't a a duplex apartment on the you know the rg district or something um you know i think when i started to think about this i had basic questions about you know how is the conservation commission involved what article of our zoning bylaw even applies to solar arrays um you know if it's not the conservation commission what's our role as opposed to the zoning board of appeals um and so you know i think i think we we should use this as an education an opportunity to educate ourselves about solar arrays in in our under our bylaws and how they're treated who gets to say you know are there are there gaps in the current process we have which seems to be the part of the rationale for this moratorium that we don't have adequate uh regulation of these developments um um you know it might be useful for us to kind of remind ourselves or even have a couple of site visits of existing solar arrays that have been built in amherst recently um so you know those are the kinds of things that went through my head obviously you know people will have more questions not only us but the public in the hearing however long it goes but i just thought this is one that we probably ought to think about our questions just to you know not show up with a whole bunch of questions and automatically have to continue the hearing uh chris so um i just wanted to say that it's um we do have a way of managing solar arrays now they're treated as energy generating facilities and they require special permits from the zoning board of appeals and almost all the zoning districts i think there's one zoning district where where that's not required and and that's worked pretty well but we've never had a solar array proposed that was as big as the one that is currently being proposed and the other thing is that we've never had one that is um that requires as much cutting of trees and i think those are things that have concerned people about this particular solar array we have had big ones in the past like the one at hamshire college which is visible from the street but that didn't require um any tree cutting i don't think and there are other ones sort of scattered around town so i think this brought up a lot of questions to people but other questions that have to be resolved are things like um how much carbon sequestration does you know a certain amount of land a forested land provide and then you know how do you balance that off against the carbon that would not be emitted into the atmosphere by having x number of acres of a solar array and those are things that we don't have any answers to we don't um neither the planning board nor the conservation commission is schooled in this topic so um we may need at some point for the town to you know hire somebody to help us to sort this out um but for right now what we're being asked to do is to place a moratorium on large-scale solar arrays which actually aren't that large there um i think that 250 kilowatts is what is proposed and that would be about an acre of land i think um so that would be what would be considered large-scale based on our moratorium and um the one that is being proposed up in northeast Amherst is like 44 acres so one acre versus 44 acres uh i think they're the one that's being proposed is 11 megawatts and you know it's possible that Johanna knows more about this because i know she's in that she's in that business or that the business of understanding these things but um anyway the the scale of this thing that's being proposed is much bigger than what we have seen in the past um but nevertheless the town does have a way in place of dealing with these things but we don't call it a solar bylaw so now we're thinking that maybe we do need a solar bylaw and maybe the solar bylaw says things like you can't clear more than x number of acres in order to have a solar array so these are all things that we need to think about and piner valley planning commission has published a document that is guidelines to help its member communities figure out how to deal with these things belcher town has a a bylaw in place that they put in place in 2019 that looks you know it's pretty simple but it looks reasonable and um some people in town who aren't well uh they're not staff members but they're members of the public are working on a bylaw so there's a lot of activity and thought around this and a lot of pluses and minuses too whether we want to have a moratorium or not but we can we can talk about that on the first but please send me your questions based on what you've received and i will try to get answers for them right thanks chris so we are we're we're not going to be deliberating tonight just because we haven't advertised this as a topic so but we did want to just introduce the fact that we will be talking about this jack you just took the wind out of my sails there um but you're welcome jack i thought you know chris you know again everything she mentioned was was on my mind you know does uhana have uh some expertise that she can share like now just kind of give us a heads up is this upper alley or should we hire um you know um some you know professional peer you know review on this to help us because this whole thing with you know cutting trees down and you know versus the the clean energy of the solar panels it's it's vexing and it's disturbing and it'd be nice to just someone you know can deal with someone from more than 50 miles away right maybe that's the definition of an expert so that yeah that's all i had to say but you know chris and yeah okay janet i'm not sure where we are on the agenda but nowhere we're on uh christine breast strip on the crc report oh okay because i was gonna i had a question for um report of staff section so okay all right chris i assume you're done with crc all right report of chair i don't have anything to report this evening i i jack you'll have to tell me what i'm what i'm missing i need but what it is i'm supposed to report in this section i have had a hard time finding anything to say uh you'll want to kind of like you know speak to you know your next backyard gathering okay sometime in the spring but you know the holidays are coming so all right well we'll see we'll see put a turn on the street yeah uh so next is report of staff chris would you start and it sounded like janet wanted to ask you something too at the end so i want to celebrate the fact that pam has become a grandmother her daughter had a baby daughter and i think it happened last thursday and so pam's been a grandmother for almost a week and she doesn't look a bit older than she did last thursday and the baby has come home the mother and the baby have come home and they are healthy and pam is on cloud nine pam welcome to the the grandparent club that's pretty awesome congratulations lots of grand pooches but um this is my youngest daughter so this is my baby well congratulations very nice yeah happy news okay janet did you want to ask something at this point um i just a question about the rfp for the design design consultant i don't know if they're going to be for downtown or what but um is that going to be like when's that happening because i'm very eager for that process to start or to see the rfp and things like that so i've asked nata draft an rfp and he's very good at drafting rfps he's done it a lot so um he's working on that he's reached out to other planners around the state and um he's going to be putting that together so we're hoping that we can kind of get that off the ground in 2022 great oh and i can also i could make another report too which is that um we're still working on their flood maps and we recently put out a press release saying that the appeal period for the flood maps is coming to a close in early december we're hoping that that you know wraps it up um what happens after that is that fema takes about 60 days to do whatever they do and then they come forth with a letter to us um and we we expect that the letter might appear in march come back to us presenting um what do they call it a letter of final determination and then we have six months after that to adopt the flood maps and adopt um text to go along with the flood maps which would go into the zoning by-law and to adopt a um flood flood insurance study which is a text that describes what this is all about so this is a project we've been working on since 2012 and we're hoping to wrap it up in 2022 well that is something that's going to be coming along and you will be reviewing the um the flood map text all right so is that fast for this kind of project i normally towns don't initiate this for themselves there were a number of reasons why amherst decided to initiate this process for themselves um but meanwhile while we were doing this there's another group of consultants actually connected to our consultants who are examining part of the Connecticut river watershed and and we're actually included in that so our study even though we paid for it ourselves will be included in their study so it happens that it's it's you know it's coming along at the right time um and anyway you'll hear more about that starting in january okay thanks all right anything else from anyone all right time is 9 30 and we can adjourn thanks for your time everyone thank you thank you thank you all