 All right, the appointed hour, 6.30, having been reached, I welcome everybody to this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. My name's Steve Judge, and as chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals, I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general laws, chapter 30A, section 18, and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order, composing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on a link on the town's webpage. In accordance with the provisions of Massachusetts general laws, chapter 40A, and article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaws, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call of the regular members of the ZBA who will be in panel for consideration of the comprehensive permit. I'm Steve Judge, the chair, I'm present. Mr. Langsdale. Present. Ms. Omira. Present. Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. Present. And the associate ZBA members, Ms. Waldman, Mr. Barak. Here. Mr. Greeny. Here. Mr. Meadows. Mr. Meadows, speak up, are you there? Yes. Oh, great. Also an attendant is Marine Pollock, Marine Pollock planner, Christine Bresta, planning director, Rob Mora, building commissioner, Nate Malloy planner, John Witt and Barbara Huggins, carbony of the KP law firm who are assisting the board in this matter. The zoning board of appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 40A of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare for the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. All hearings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and is evaluated on its own merits. And the board is not ruled by precedent. The subject of tonight's public hearing is ZBA 202039, a request by Valley Community Development Corporation for a comprehensive permit to construct a multifamily building containing 28 units at 132 North Ampton Road, Amherst. This is the second in a series of public meetings and public hearings and public meetings to be held on this request for a comprehensive permit. The focus of tonight's public hearing is to provide the public with the opportunity to comment on the application. There was not time at the first meeting to permit public comment and I want to give ample time for public comment on this matter. Tonight's agenda is as follows. First, submittals. We'll note submittals received by the board since our last meeting from June 25th from the applicant, town boards, and committees as well as the public. We'll have public comment. The board will receive public comment on the request for the comprehensive permit. The applicant may respond to the extent time permits. The applicant may respond to public comments submitted for the record or public comments presented tonight. And if time allows, the applicant will present responses to the ZBA's requests and questions from our last meeting on June 25th. ZBA members will discuss the app. If there's time, ZBA members will discuss the applicant's responses and we will compile a list of questions and requests for the applicant to provide for the next public hearing. At the end of the hearing, we will move to continue the public hearing to a date certain. And the board will entertain public comments on any matter that is not subject of tonight's public hearing. Tonight, about halfway through the hearing that we will take a five minute break. I found that it's probably better just to give everybody a chance to get up, move around and go get a drink of water and then come back. But just to give a break to everybody at five at about eight o'clock, quarter to eight. I also tonight want to review the ways in which in that, in addition to these public meetings, the public can be informed and comment on this application. Copies of all submissions can be found on the dedicated project page on the town website. If residents wish to be notified of any additional information recorded by the town concerning this application, they can use the notify me feature on the 132 Northampton page of the town website. Public comment can also be submitted on the town website or email to Marine Pollock planner at Pollock at amherstma.gov. This meeting will be broadcast on Amherst media and may be viewed on Comcast channel 17 and may be streamed on the Amherst media website. In addition, this meeting will be uploaded and uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel and we will be uploaded to the dedicated project page on the town website. Tonight, the board is holding the public hearing on ZBA 2020-39, Valley Community Development Corporation, 132 Northampton Road, requesting a comprehensive permit under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40B to construct a new two and a half story, residential, multifamily building containing 28 small studio apartments and related common areas on an approximate 0.88 acre property located at 132 Northampton Road, map 14C parcel eight, general residence and educational zoning districts. Before we begin, are there any disclosures? If not, I wanna remind the applicants, the board members to seek recognition from the chair to speak. You can do that by using the raise your hand feature on Zoom when recognized unmute yourself when you have finished, please place yourself back on mute. We have received the following submissions from the applicants since our last meeting. In response to our questions, we received an updated planting plan or a response to a request for an updated planting plan, a response to a request for the eight foot, a drawing of the eight foot fence along the Northeasterly property line. We've received detail for a bike storage shed. We've received photo metric plans and cut sheets for exterior like fixtures. We've received a description of the supported services plan as well as a reference to the full supported services plan which was enclosed, which was attached to a earlier filing to the town council. We've received an estimate of the distance from buildings to buildings. We've received a description of snow removal policies. We've received a parking management plan, photos of similar low income projects in other areas. We've received answers to several questions on the heating and cooling systems and the electrical systems of the proposed building. We've received a response to a question regarding the trees along the alleyway separating the property. We've also received response to a question regarding the proposed budget and finances of the proposed plan. The town staff has also asked questions regarding construction, the site plans and photographs and some section of elevations. We've received response to that though at times the applicant was not able to provide those. We've received a description of the storage in each unit and the types of jobs at various income levels in the town. And we've received a definition I think of students as well. Is there anything else, Maureen, that I've forgotten in terms of submissions from the applicant? That's it, isn't it? I think that's what covers it, yes. Yep, that's complete. And we've received no new submissions from town boards or other government bodies. Correct. We have received 10 comments as of noon today, 10 comments from the public and those are available on the town website as well. So the public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate they're using the raise hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. Instructions for how to be recognized to speak will be on the screen for your information. Please keep your comments to about three minutes. If you wish to make a statement in addition to your three-minute statement tonight, please note that you can submit written comments for the record. Those written comments are reviewed by board members and by staff. And there are also additional hearings on this matter and there will be an opportunity for public comment at many of those hearings as well. We are trying to schedule additional public hearings on this meeting and those will be the sub and those will be noticed when we get that done. So this is the time for public comment. Maureen, do we have people in the participants who wish to comment? Yes, so let's, I'm going to that now. We have four raised hands. So let me, five, okay. I'll go to the first one, which is Liv Ben Eiser. Sorry if I mispronouncing one's name. I'm going to allow you to talk. So if you could state your name and your address. Hello, can you hear us? I have unmuted you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great. Hi, I'm Lev Ben Ezra. I am the executive director of the Amherst Survival Center. And so I am speaking on behalf of the center which is located at 138 Sunderland Road in North Amherst. I am not a resident of Amherst myself. Okay. Great. So thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to comment on this issue and I'm glad to see members of our community continuing this discussion around affordable housing. And as the executive director of the Amherst Survival Center, I would like to express my strong support on behalf of the center for the development of additional affordable housing in our community. Our support for this specific affordable housing project is based on three key points, the need, the opportunity and the reward. So I think that where we all agree is the need, we know that there is a really critical need for affordable housing. This affordable housing shortage exists nationwide and unfortunately it's even worse in Western Massachusetts than the state as a whole. And one of the issues that the pandemic has put so starkly into view is that as all of us were asked to stay home to rely solely on our immediate family unit, on our own home, on our own savings for those who were needed to stay home from work and weren't paid, that it really put into such stark contrast the distinctions there between those who had access to sufficient housing and those who don't. The fear for so many as we come up to this end on the moratorium on evictions is a testament to the need for more affordable housing that people aren't at risk of losing with this. We know that the median wages locally are not sufficient to afford housing. Wages for cashiers, nursing assistants or teacher aides are half of what would be required for a single wage earner to afford a studio or one bedroom supervisors, even in retail or a full-time tractor trailer driver still don't meet that threshold. So there is a need for zoning boards in various communities to evaluate then how to site and how to appropriately zone these residential buildings. And that creates a really unique opportunity that here we are. We're lucky to live in a community where we see this need for affordable housing and we're lucky to be at a time when we have the resources to help to connect the dots. We have a site ready for the project. We have a community organization with a long track record of success managing affordable housing developments. We have funding that is set aside and we have a community of people who care, are engaged and have the ability to see this through in an effective manner. And we have the opportunity for the zoning board to move forward to allow this project to take place. So my last point before I'll yield the floor is just for us all to really consider the reward, a key role of the zoning board of course is to think about how to use the physical land that exists throughout the community to most effectively build a thriving community that supports all of the different components residential life, business life, et cetera in a way that supports a thriving community. And we know that affordable housing is the foundation upon which a stable and thriving life can be built that without stable and safe housing people must focus all of their energy, intelligence their bandwidth on this most fundamental need. And so this affordable housing is a key factor of maintaining food security. It is a critical opportunity to focus on or it's a critical way for us to support our community's public safety. It benefits our schools, it benefits our local employers who are looking for great staff. And now more than ever we see how affordable housing really impacts the public health throughout our whole community. So I really believe that this project has great potential to benefit our community as a whole. Thank you so much. And that's what I had. Thanks for your consideration of this proposal. Thank you very much. Okay, next we have Douglas Marshall. Okay, so state your name and your address for the record. My name is Doug Marshall. I live at 64 Eames Avenue in Amherst. I'm calling in as a private citizen rather than my participation on another board in town. I simply wanted to express my support and be on the record that I think it's a great project and it's a good place for it and it's a good design. So I hope you guys will support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Next is Steve George. Is that right, Maureen? Yes. Okay, Steve, if you could state your name and your address. There we go. Now I should be, okay. Yep. Okay, my name is, okay, great. My name is Steve George. I live at 23 Dana Street. There's probably no Dana Street intersects with North Hampton Road near the project site. I appreciate what's being done by the developers so far to respond to neighbor's concerns and the project I think is improved compared to what was initially described. However, there's one central feature of the proposal that remains problematic to me and that's the fact that it packs a large number of only single occupancy units into the project site rather than including a range of kinds of apartments. The number of dwelling units relative to the size of the lot, the so-called density of dwelling units is far out of line with the normal zoning in the RG zone. How far? Well, for apartments in RG on a 39,000 square foot lot like 132 North Hampton Road, the maximum number of dwelling units is seven, not 28 is being requested. I know that the ZBA has unlimited authority to grant waivers in this situation, but extraordinary deviations from the bylaw should require substantial justification and so far I haven't heard such convincing justification. The report by town staff to the ZBA lists this waiver request but it doesn't state that it's a four-fold increase in density. Just says you need more square feet on a lot. That doesn't seem very relevant or helpful to the ZBA since there's no way the ZBA can work with the developers to increase the size of the lot. What you can do is to work with the developers on the number of dwelling units which I believe is too large. In the past, the developers had made arguments as to why this waiver shouldn't be considered extraordinary. They've said that some Amherst College dorms and an assisted living facility in the area are similar to what's being proposed. I disagree. I don't have time to discuss this within the time limits but I wrote out why nothing in the project area is similar to a 28-unit apartment building and my comments are in your materials. The developers also say that the allowed seven dwelling units could house as many people as 28 single occupancy units if the seven units were for families. So the impact on the neighborhood should be no different but I disagree that the impact would be similar. In fact, including a family apartment in the facility would help it be better integrated into the neighborhood which has mostly family residences, many with children. You could keep the basic building size and design and the great plans for landscaping the plantings which I sure hope come to fruition but specify that some apartments will be one and two bedroom rather than studio apartments. The developers have said such a facility is not financially feasible but I understand that financial feasibility is part of your considerations. I respect the Valley CTC staff who worked on this project and if they say a development with mixed types of apartments is not financially feasible, I know they believe it. However, I don't think the ZBA in the situation must or should accept such a claim without really verifying it in a way that can be understood by people in the neighborhood so we can really get kind of this project. In both Northampton and Eastampton, the Valley CTC has developed affordable housing projects that combine studio apartments with one, two, three bedroom units. Why is what is desirable and feasible in Northampton and Eastampton not desirable and feasible in Amherst? The, oh yeah, at the ZBA meeting a week ago, a point was raised that seems to indicate that a facility with family apartments would be actually more financially feasible. The high cost of the project per square foot was explained by saying that each one room unit must have all the facilities for plumbing, kitchen and bathroom, presumably high voltage for stove and so on but if there were family apartments those would not have to have that so the cost would be lower. If you're a client to approve this waiver I hope the reasons for doing so will become clear in your discussion. I look forward to having this facility in our town. Thanks for listening to my comment. Thank you, Mr. George. Ms. Lewis, please state your name and address. This is Carol Lewis, can you hear me? I live at 21 Ward Street in Amherst. Yes, we can. Okay, I want to voice my strong support for this application and urge the board to approve it as submitted. And I will tell you some of my reasons which I also have submitted to you before this. But anyway, it seems to me Lev Benedra has done a beautiful job of explaining both the need and the benefits and the town has recognized this need for years and it's a housing production plan that was approved over five years ago. The need was recognized for this particular kind of housing and the need since then has only increased. There's no other housing quite like it in town which is, but there should be this kind of housing. Single room, single room studio apartments for people who have limited income and maybe and some of whom have been homeless is something that is desperately needed. Secondly, I see Valley Community Development as just a very wonderful organization. They've been working on addressing this need for years. They have a strong track record dedicated staff. In this instance, they've shown their responsiveness to the concern raised in many ways by residents and others. They've increased parking. They've increased the amount of time that staffing will be available on site to help residents locate services should they choose to use those services. The location and the plan are appropriate near shopping, near public transportation, near the town center. The area is already home to single and multifamily dwellings. There is a scheduled road improvement that will create sidewalks there. Additionally to my mind, Valley CDC is planning on building this as a passive energy certified home building. Thus helping Amherst decrease our energy footprint at the same time providing environmental advantages to the project's residents. So it doesn't end up to be only rich people who get to live in housing that's appropriate for the climate conditions that we live in. That's a wonderful part of their proposal to me. And lastly, just any delays or changes won't only slow down the availability of housing that was needed yesterday. It will likely increase the costs. And for a project that's already has a slim margin for financial viability, such increases could be seriously detrimental. And right now the amount of money that the town has to put into this is not, I can't remember the percentage but it's not a very large percentage of the total cost of the project. That's a great advantage to the town financially. Again, I just wanna strongly urge your prompt approval of Amherst studio apartments comprehensive permit application. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Lewis. Is it BGW next Maureen? Yes. Please give your name and address. Yes, my name is Barbara Grabbin-Wilbur. My address is 126 Northampton Road and I am immediate a butter. I am not voicing my negativeness about the proposal. I believe there is a need. My one concern that Lee mentioned was the community. I am concerned that this is for the community and not for folks that live outside the general Amherst-Hadley-Belchertown area. But what I would like to address is what took quite a bit of discussion at the last meeting. And that's the trees that border our property and 132. Those trees are extremely tall. They are right on the line, the property line. They are a menace. We have been here in this house since 1973. The trees have probably tripled, if not quadrupled in size. The wind blows, the trees sway. I fear that they're gonna fall on my house. So I would like you folks to reconsider the taking down of those trees. I have submitted additional comments to you in writing. I hope you have a chance to look at them. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have, concerns that I might have about the density of what was once a one family, more than quadrupling. Not overnight, as I understand, this is going to take probably another two to three years to complete. But thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much. Next. Jay. Please state your name and your address. Can you hear us? This is Jay Levy. Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. I'm with Elliott CHS Homeless Services and I'm also a member of the Amherst community at 34 Black Tiled Road, Amherst, Mass. What we do is outreach to folks without homes within really all throughout Western Massachusetts. And we've been engaged with a number of people who live within the Amherst area and certainly throughout Hampshire County, probably over 30 people that we've been working with who are chronically homeless and sorely in need of affordable housing options. I'm here really to bear witness to the great work that Valley CDC has done in the past and HMR properties that does the management. I've worked very closely with them around other projects, including Go West out in Northampton. One of the things we do is we not only work with the folks without homes, but we provide support services, transitionally helping people to get settled into their new homes and continue to work with community resources and connect people up to ongoing services that they may need to be stable in their housing. We've had great success working with Valley CDC and HMR properties on their past projects, especially in the early part of the development we've been involved in monthly meetings with HMR properties staff and Valley CDC personnel. We're able to review the clients that we've been able to connect into the housing and to talk about the support services that are needed and the work that's being done and attend to crises and that's worked very, very, very well. So, we really support, we know there's, we support this project. We know there's a great need for affordable housing. We feel that Valley CDC has done heroic work in the development that they've done. And in Amherst in particular, where I've worked with Craig's Doors and I've worked with CHD and I've worked with ServiceMed and other nonprofits to come together around organizing these support services. It's nice in Amherst to have something percolating and actually happening that's along the lines of permanent housing and in this case, permanent housing would support services for the folks that are allowed in there that are homeless. Amherst has done a good job in terms of providing and supporting us in the outreach services that we do and they've done great at supporting the shelter but this add-on of affordable supportive housing is essential. Thank you. Thank you. Next is John Hornick. Okay, give your name and address please. My name is John Hornick. I'm a resident of Amherst. I live at 59 Carriage Lane in South Amherst. I am also the current chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. I sent in written comments on behalf of the Housing Trust which are available to you. The Housing Trust voted unanimously to support this project. What I wanna do right now is to focus on two aspects of the project that are not part of my written comments. The first issue that's come up is public safety. Reading through the comments on this issue, I would say that there are several people who live in the vicinity of the proposed studio apartments have convinced themselves and some of their neighbors that the persons who will reside in this building will pose a danger to others or to themselves. The evidence for this is very poor to non-existent. People have suggested that drug and alcohol problems will be highly prevalent. There is no data that anyone can point to that supports this. Yet the group of people who are promoting this view have frightened themselves and others. One person is even convinced that she will need to buy a gun to protect herself and her family. They are now attempting to infect this zoning board with these scare tactics. If you approve this request and something, anything bad happens, it will be on your heads. Please don't let these emotional outbursts affect your judgment. Most town departments were invited to comment on the application for a comprehensive permit. That includes the departments of public health and public safety. If there were actually serious danger in this project, we would have heard about it. The public health director has a few comments intended to allay these fears. The fire department's comments are focused entirely on assuring that fire safety requirements will be met and the police department did not even think it necessary to make any public comments. This is not a dangerous development. This is not a dangerous development and I don't think you should allow anyone to persuade you that it is. The second aspect of the request that I wanted to focus on is the plan for social services support. Valley Community Development has gone beyond a social services plan for any similar building that I am familiar with. Most development of this type would only have plans for building maintenance and property management. These are present, but Valley has gone beyond this. There's a property management office plan for the building, but there is also a separate office for social support. They anticipated hiring an appropriately trained and schooled person to provide 70% of their time each week on site to assure the availability of social services. Some of this will be the direct responsibility of this person. That is they may do some counseling of individuals if that's necessary. They may help people get rides to other services. They arrange for people to provide services to come on site and use their offices. They will be knowledgeable about other services that are available. For example, Jay Levy mentioned Elliott services. This person would work with residents or work with Elliott homeless services to assure that people who are homeless are properly settled in the building. They can arrange for substance abuse services. John, can you give us a kind of a summation here? Okay, basically what I wanna say is if the residents have needs and are interested in receiving these kinds of services, Valley has set things up so that they will be accessible and just not on site, but even off site. And I think that's a very important contribution, which as I said, I think is very unusual for studio apartment projects. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Harnick. Next, I think it's Jay. Can you identify yourself? Please unmute, identify yourself and give us your address. Well, I think Jay already spoke. Oh, you're right. Yeah, so it's Thomas. Yep, Thomas, thank you, Mari. Okay. Thomas, can you, I have clicked the button to allow you to speak, I think. Can you hear us? Thomas? Thomas, I think you're still muted. One second. To disable, it says, sorry. Seriously, Thomas. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes, there we go. I'm sorry. So my name is Tom Kekelman, I live at 649 East Pleasant, and I am a member of the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, but I'm speaking here as an individual resident. My wife and I operate a bed and breakfast there. And we had the wonderful pleasure of having five unrelated students move into a single family next door recently. I know that's not quite what's supposed to happen, but it's not uncommon on our street to have lots of young people living in single family homes and it's becoming more and more predominant in town. And it's just a part of the crisis that we find in housing as people begin to squeeze into whatever available resources there are and find ways to accommodate the growing, inequality, the gap between what they can afford and what's available. And many of these landowners, these landlords have skirted the laws and have done so quietly and without any public discussion, certainly not as much as we've seen here with the Valley's proposal. And literally hundreds of such units are being created all the time around this town. And in this one particular incident with these relatively small number of units, a extremely competent, professional, reliable, just wonderfully resourced organization is coming forward with one of the most responsible plans that you could imagine. Amherst is indeed extremely lucky to have a group like this involved in the town trying to help deal with what we have in town, which is a very serious, very extreme housing crisis that needs to be addressed as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. And I hope the ZVA will move promptly to approve their application. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cattleman. Next is Nate Buddington. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Nate Buddington, I live at 21 Sackle Drive in Amherst. Until Wednesday, yesterday, I was chair of the CPA committee in Amherst and I was on the CPA committee when we unanimously and enthusiastically voted to send this proposal to town council for approval. And many of the people just spoke and have said things that I was thinking of saying, but I do think it's important to mine a little bit this fear. I think that people have about people who are single and people who need single resident occupancy housing. We have more and more single people in this society. We have a chronic issue with loneliness in this society. And this is a group of people that who are often overlooked in the affordable housing equation. And I think Valley CDC has really kind of brilliantly put together a wonderful facility in a good location that I think is serving a population that we really need to spend more time talking about. And I'd say this is especially true of disabled people. I think when you look at the housing problems that we have in this country, you can multiply it times 10 for disabled people who are often living by themselves. And these apartments are all, as I understand it, very close to being built with universal design. They're going to be very handicapped friendly. And the last thing I want to say is this sense that people are bringing baggage, mental health problems, alcoholism, whatever to this facility. These are the same kind of issues that we have in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our extended families, and we're able to manage them. And I don't see this as being much different than a neighborhood other than the fact that we have a cluster of people living by themselves, but in close proximity to other people, which I think is a wonderful part of this project. I think this would be, this is an amazing opportunity for Amherst and I hope the ZBA will recognize that and allow this to go forward as it's been presented. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buttington. Next is Amy Gilbert-Loyneza, Amy, can you hear us? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, okay. Thank you. My name is Amy Gilbert-Loyneza and I live at 14 Orchard Street and I am in a butter to this development. As in a butter, I am deeply invested in the success of this project and tonight I would like to request a Section 53G Independent Review of Valley CCC's proposal under Chapter 43 of Massachusetts General Laws. And I would also like to request that the ZBA start a pro forma process regarding financial details of the proposal. We were told that the ZBA was the place to work out the details and so I'd like to focus on the details. I think that some of the comments are getting a little bit broad and we wanna focus in on what this development will be, what services they'll provide. My specific concerns, which I outlined in a broader letter to the board involve the density issue, what I consider a weak and unaccountable financial model and structure, a risk of unfair tenant selection process that does not assure compliance with fair housing laws. And what I believe, I respectfully disagree with John Hornick from the Amherst Housing Trust is a lack of a comprehensive service plan that meets the needs of potential residents and it's under the responsibility of Valley CDC to provide its tenants. Tonight I'd like to focus on two areas in my limited time. I'm wary of Valley CDC's tenant selection process because they're limiting the homeless preference units to individuals recommended through a loose and non-binding relationship and I would focus on the non-binding. I think that there are no guarantees, there are no contracts, there are loose memorandums of understandings with these social service providers and I don't have any issue with the social service providers. I just don't understand the relationship that they've established with Valley CDC and what kind of accountability there is. They are recommending the tenants themselves and I think this really opens it up to bias. Who are they selecting? What is the criteria? Is it universal? Do they select people that they are managing because it works for their schedule, their services, will other people be left behind? They are only providing nine to 12 months of services and I don't think that this is adequate for the needs of this population. They are entitled to services for the duration of their stay at the facility. The best practices that are recommended by HUD calls for universal criteria and then they do a needs assessment upon the tenant selection, after tenant selection process. Then they'll do a needs assessment and then link them to services, provide the services. This seems backwards to me. And then the requirements of providing social, sorry, the preferred placement plan. I find it hard to understand how this is acceptable permanent supportive housing. They have received $7.5 million in a supportive housing plan. So this is not just a housing plan. Their building is beautifully designed. My husband told me I would get no support for asking it to be less pretty. But I think that with $7.5 million, I would love to see them put that back into their services for their tenants. The other issue I have is that they're saying, Valley CDC made a point last week during the ZVA meeting that the homeless population wouldn't necessarily be the chronically homeless that we're talking about people who are just temporarily unable to find housing. HUD is very specific about their definition of homeless. It is people who are in a place uninhabitable for human habitation for a year. And it can be a year with some interrupted periods, but they're very, very specific about that. The chronically homeless are these under that definition with a disability, including a physical handicap, mental illness, substance use disorder. So these are the people under the responsibility of Valley CDC. And I don't understand the broadening of this definition to include people who are not technically under this definition. So are we providing for the most vulnerable or are we broadening it out for some kind of, you know, for easier services, people who fit into their financial model. I'm concerned about that. And that's why I would like this independent review. In addition, I just wanted to say that I, you know, I'm a public health, I have public health. Ms. Lorenz, can you summarize for us here? We've run a little over time. Yeah, okay. I'll just finish up. I just wanted to say that I've been working on the COVID-19 response in the state for the last two months. And one of the things that has been most tragic is watching the vulnerable citizens in the densely populated congregate settings. And I think this whole move towards infill and density of municipal centers will have to be a reassessed in light of this pandemic and future pandemics to come, you know, threats of swine flu and other things that are coming. And we just really need to think about public health perspective and coordination with a climate change perspective and what's better for our society. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Lorenz. Thank you. So you're Mike Giles. Mr. Giles. Hey, can you hear me? Yes. All right. Hi, I'm Mike Giles. I live roughly in the neighborhood at 57 Blue Hills Road. Walked by the property every morning. And I think I'm echoing a lot of the things that other folks have said in my support of it. You know, homelessness is a very multifaceted problem, as we all know. But one of the very large contributors to it is this nationwide loss of SRO housing. If you kind of do the research, you'll see that that entire tier of housing has largely disappeared in the past few decades. And so there, and we know in Amherst housing prices and rental prices are extremely high due to the student population. So the loss of that really has pushed a lot of people to places, especially single folks where there is no affordable option for them. So I fully agree that everything we do comes with some risk. But at the same time, it is really hard for me to see kind of how a proposal could be much better. I did serve on the homeless committee in Amherst for a few years and have a lot of respect for Valley CDC. They have a very strong track record across a lot of different projects. This location as someone has highlighted, close to town, close to Route 9. And in addition, the very strong local need of residents for this type of housing really does make it hard for me to kind of picture how you could come up with a better package than what we're looking at right here. And I served for a number of years on town meeting and while that was frustrating at times, I think it did help me to see that the folks in Amherst really do want to live in a compassionate town that takes care of its citizens and often really take that much further than other municipalities do. At the same time, I see a lot of the same red flags here that we often heard at town meeting where folks who were directly adjacent to or affected by projects would speak out against them. Often those few passionate voices would instill kind of fear and doubt in enough folks to either delay or through delaying, ultimately just kill projects. And so I'm really hopeful that we don't let that happen here again. I really feel like the Valley CDC has an incredible track record across our area. Folks who want to explore that certainly can. They've got folks we can talk to and questions that can be asked. But I really do think this is a wonderful opportunity for Amherst to kind of take tangible steps towards caring for the neediest members of our community and hopefully guide a path for other area towns to do the same thing and really help to build a new tier of housing that helps a lot of people. Find the stability that they need to get out of chronic homelessness. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Trials. Melissa, please state your name and your address. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Hi. Hello. Yep, we're having a hard time hearing you. Can you hear me now? I'm gonna do this to hear you. It all seems like being in stability. I'm two-two and a unit to the unit. But what's the proper equipment? The proper hands, the proper mind, the proper ab. The proper address. I can question you all. Do you know me? Do you hear me now? We hear you, but you're breaking up. But if you can make- I can't really say why. Okay. I can't do anything about liking up. I can't do anything about that I'm low in hop. I can understand what you're saying. Yes, I can understand you. Listen carefully. I am. Listen carefully, I'm not on drugs. Okay, I'm a low income person. The assumption that all low income people are dangerous without effect community in some negative way is problematic. It's the same problem we have with the Black Lives Matter or gender neutrality. We give students from international status such opportunity in this community low incomes. Students in national people come with nothing and thrive. I can really feel come here with nothing and times is America people. This America, what are you afraid of? Everyone starts out when you come. From the moment you're born, you're debt-sidey. So don't judge me. I'm 47 years old. I'm nothing at it. I'm a low-income person. I don't have a car right back to ground. So that's when it's question doesn't end. I'm a B.C.A. I care a lot of stuff. Don't judge me because I work on my wage. This is not the fourth time I'm at restate. In the craft, rest, this is a vacant restate. Don'ts really, this side. This is about right bunch in court. This is about raising rent above my wage. So that low-income people cannot live in this town. This is about more to not raise student price. I got this. KCAA let working-class to live by. Can't find a place where everybody has no debt and I'm not in a fucking promise. I have under-wasting agency quality because I'm a student in the U.S. But my number four phone last month and it had one tie-year, two tie-year, two times a year, four times a year. I've been depressed doing people service once you're talking about your VCBC driver or your fellow employee, sponsor, CHD in town, town of Merck, Waverier, ACBC, CIO, service net, all the social services already vibed for. We don't need Belly CC hovering over us doing, but service do we need, we need guest calls. I'm a personal person. I wanna know that when I lay my head down at night, I'm gonna have guests by neighbor and chat in my sleep night because they can have guests over. They didn't sign the lease, but I signed the lease. I want some guest policy on a manner onsite that is looking at the parking spaces and the guests and who says, you have a lease, you've been precinct to be here if you don't have a lease, you cannot be here. I earned my lease on this plot. I earned my lease here. I want a strong guest policy. Melissa, can you wrap up your statement? We're running a little over time. So, no problem. No problem. Inclusion, I agree. The services that LACDC is responsible for already be provided for by the community. We just need strong services. We need strong housing agreements. Thank you very much and have a nice evening. Thank you, Melissa. Gary Weiss is next. Yeah. Hi, Jerry. Hi. Hi, Maureen. Can you hear me? Yeah. Say your name in your address. I am Jerry Weiss in District Five, Middle Street in South Amherst. Go ahead, Mr. Weiss. Okay. So, I am calling in support of the project. I will speak here as the president of the board of Craig's Doors, the organization that runs the winter homeless shelter at the First Baptist Church. I think most people know that the primary cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing. Amherst has a long-standing and strong commitment to providing affordable housing, and this project comes as close to, in my mind, a perfect example of affordable housing as I can imagine. It's somewhat unique, and it will be targeting some homeless people for some of the apartments. I just joined in because I couldn't come earlier, but at a public hearing last year, some people speak against the project saying that it wasn't a good plan for homeless people because it would be a long wait until they get in because it wasn't close to a bus stop and because it was a half mile from the nearest supermarket. I would say that I doubt any or many of these people have actually spoken to homeless people about their lives. If they had, they would know that the reasons given for objecting to this project are extremely poorly informed about the needs and how living at 132 North Hampton Road would be a blessing rather than unfair. Right now, homeless people are living in tents in woods all around town. It's not the greatest way to live. Tenting is really great for us privileged people who get to go camping. This is the way it is for them all summer until our shelter opens. And I find that this location is nearly perfect. It's not far from downtown. It's really only a half a mile, six tenths of a mile I checked from the big Y. And as we know, Valley CDC has a very good, if not excellent track record in running such housing. So I think that's a good idea. I hope you will do whatever it takes to agree to permit. This project. Thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you, Mr. Weiss. You're welcome. Next is. Elsa Campbell. Can you hear us? I think I've unmuted. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. It's actually a Lisa Campbell. Thank you. Thank you. I live at 27 pine grove. And I've been attending meetings for the housing issues now for quite a while for the League of women voters. And the league did send in a statement in favor of this project. I just wanted to make a couple of comments. Similar to something I said a year ago. When the town council was having a meeting about this project, they said, you know, you know, I don't know where this goes along with what Jerry Weiss just said about the need for this kind of housing and the cost of housing. One of the studies I saw what. A year ago said that the. Average. Rent. Or excuse me, fair market rent for a studio apartment. Is $1,272. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. They need to earn. Dollars an hour. We have lots of people in Amherst with jobs that do not pay $24 an hour. I think it's really incumbent. On those of us who are lucky enough. Privileged enough to have stable housing. To be empathetic for those who, you know, have a good time. And therefore I really hope that we will. Permit this project and have it go ahead so it can be providing housing as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Next is. Give me a second. Susan. Yes. Okay. Hi, Susan. Hello. I thought the comments. I'm Susan to grab. You know, Rolling green drive in Amherst. I thought the comments have been excellent. And I really liked the comment by Nate. Buttington about the fear of people. Being single and thinking that, you know, the worst. I think one person in their letter talked about these transient men. You know, I just, these kind of. Language and fear mongering is just not right. I don't agree with. With the last speaker. I agree with what the last speaker said about it's much, much worse to be homeless than to struggle. Around outside in the elements then to have to walk. What is it at half a mile to the grocery store? I'm sure that. People would find a way and they would, you know, pool resources or for a friend to get there. One of the opponents had actually mentioned or someone who thought it was a good idea to go to the grocery store. I mean, maybe there could be a shuttle or something. Maybe something like that would work if, if there's disabled people need to get to the store. I just wanted to make a couple of points about early in the discussion. One of the gentlemen talked about. We should only depart from the zoning laws. If there's an extraordinary reason. And because it's case by case, I submit that we should, because this is, as everyone has said, this is a very well designed project. And I think that we should be able to make sure that we have a good faith. As professionals as experts in the field. And I, and I really. Have to take issue. With people in the comments who have tried to say that they've lied and misrepresented and. Things that like that. If they said something was a bed and breakfast and now the person is not running it. I mean, come on, can we get to the issue here, which is homelessness. And as the last gentleman said, it's very, very serious. When you're out there and you're all on your own. And I would, I full disclosure, I've been a member of the housing coalition coalition for affordable housing and Amherst was John Hornick chairs. Why first learned several years ago that Amherst, when I went to the meetings, Amherst has been quite slow. In changing zoning that it's a lot of single family homes. And we had a presentation about a project in North Hampton, where the idea was to allow, say someone who's elderly. Who has a garage and wants to convert that into housing for someone, you know, one room or whatever it may be. Sounded like a great idea, but someone in the meeting. Might have been a Lisa. I don't recall. Had said, well, you know, it's, it's hard to get movement in Amherst and I've seen that having been here now for. Let's see. Three years. So I think that a departure from the zoning rule is certainly warranted, especially since I don't think it would be binding on, you know, another project. It's case by case. Maybe I'm not correct on that. But it's really an issue of addressing a problem and making changes. I remember before I moved up here, I lived in East Longmeadow and. Years ago was the notion of recycling was introduced and people got up and said, how are we ever going to put our trash into barrels? It's impossible. We have a large family and. Low and behold, they tried it and it wasn't so bad and it was great. And we reduced, you know, the waste in the town by quite a lot and it wasn't such a hardship. So. When people want to say. You know, that they can't change laws or they're set in concrete. I think that's wrong. We, these are extraordinary times we have to. React. Nimbly. Finally, I would say that. As the gentleman said, pertain to the homeless and some other speakers. We really have to look at the humanity here. Some of the speakers. I don't think they're considering the humanity of the people who were in these circumstances. They want to really nitpick about this point and that point. And really, they're, they're. Their purposes to defeat the project. We know that even in the, the things that have been happening with black lives matter that. White people have sometimes, you know, not understood. The way that black people have been treated as less than human. And I'm, I'm getting a flavor of that in the sense that. As John Hornig said, the demonization of these people that you don't even know. They're going to be, you know, a menace. The children are going to be menace. There was mention of there's 20 to 30 children in the neighborhood. There's no. Make some concluding remarks here. Thank you. Yes. So, so finally, Caroline, don't do that. Finally, I think that. You know, there's just, there's not evidence that these people are going to be harmful. I think they'd be very grateful to have the room. I did hear in closing the statistic on the radio that 5% of people were not married and single many years ago. And now it's 25%. I think as Carol pointed out. So what are you doing? My daughter was trying to point out something else, but that's about it. I really, I really appreciate that the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Is there anybody else? We have no other people that have indicated by raising their hand virtually. Through the zoom app that they wish to speak. Is there anybody else. Who wishes to speak? So please. Raise. Raise your hand on the zoom app. As we said earlier in the meeting, this is not the only way that the, the public can contribute to the process. You can watch the. Video on YouTube or on the town website or on the, on Amherst media, you can contribute. Comments. Through email by writing to this, writing to town, you can view and you can get information about the project on the town website. So this concludes the public comment portion of tonight's meeting. The next item on the agenda. Is. For. Is to get. Responses from the applicant. To the, with the questions that the board submitted. At our last meeting on June 25th. And I would like to ask. I guess it's. Mr. Or. The valley community development representative. Is your preference to, to give a, to review the submissions. In response to the board questions. From last. Meeting or would you like to. Talk about some of the comments tonight, but would you, how would you like to proceed? Because we will be take, we have some time to go over your comments. Thank you. Thank you. I'll be with me. Trying to find. Here's Laura. Great. I'm. Jane. Rachel. Sorry. I. It's Laura up here now. Oh, valley. I don't know who Valley is Valley community. Must be Laura. Yep. And then I don't know. Yeah. So Tom, we should have Tom Chalmers and Felicity Hardy. Yep. Tom. Tom. Yeah. I might be on this community. As Raleigh. So, um, Laura. Laura, would you like to, um, how do you want to proceed? Do you want to describe your, some of your, um, responses to the questions from the board. I think that we will, um, So we have, uh, prepared a presentation for you tonight. Um, it will be much of what you got in your packets. Um, but we could run through it with you and see if you have questions. Um, we did the best we could in a couple of days that we had, and it wasn't, I'm sure everything that people would like. So we can have some back and forth about that as well. Um, but what I'd like to do, Laura, is just first, normally I would say do the whole presentation and then we can come back to, uh, each individual questions, but these are very, um, if I, if I'm right, you're going to take each one of the submissions and describe them. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. Would it make more sense to go through each. To discuss each submission itself individually and have questions or be one of, would you prefer to have the whole presentation presented and then questions at the end? Um, I think because it's hard to go back and forth in the PowerPoint. Um, I think people should ask questions as we go along. Okay. So then what I want you to do then is to indicate when you completed your description of one, we'll ask questions and we'll move to the next one. Okay. Okay. All right. Should I go ahead and share screen now? Yes, please. Okay. How are we doing? People seeing a. Front page. Very good. All right. Just a reminder to folks that there is a real treasure trove of information on the town's website about this project. Um, cause we have been in a lot of active communication about it for more than a year. And so as time permits, I would encourage the zoning board to go back and read through, um, some of the project eligibility letter submission. Um, cause it has some information that is not duplicated in the zoning application. So, um, the format that we used for this presentation is kind of a Q&A. Um, we tried to focus on things that would be visual as being more appropriate for a PowerPoint. Um, there's a lot of verbiage that we also gave you in your packet. Um, so, um, I'm going to go through, there was a lot of discussion about, uh, landscaping. And these were the questions that you see here that were asked about the, the intended planting. Um, Rachel, uh, is going to lead you through. We did a couple of charts that answer some of these questions in terms of the quantity, the size at planting, the maturity, the growth time for all of the different proposed landscaping. Um, so I'm going to turn it over to Rachel. So I'm going to talk about three different major categories of planting that we're using on site. Um, the first category are the, is in the shade and flowering trees. These are deciduous trees that provide shade. They provide habitat. And some of them flower and provide no trees. Um, there's a range of heights also within, within our selection. Um, trees like the black Tupelo. Um, are medium to large size shade trees. 30 to 50 feet high. Um, and we have a range of growth rates that are slower to faster. Um, some of them will take 32 years to mature. Um, and we have a range of growth rates that are slower to faster. Um, some of them will take 32 years to mature and some of them will mature in eight years. Also a lot of attention in recent years. Um, the profession has been really evolving to understand better how different plants, um, support ecosystem services of, of pollinators and birds and mammals. Um, and so I referenced Douglas Tallamay's recent publication, The Living Landscape, and double checked all of these trees to see what, um, benefits he lists they provide. So as you'll see in the category under eco services, many of the trees that we've selected are supporting, um, local pollinators. Um, in the case there are some non-nate, most of the plantings are native. There are a couple of non-natives. Um, there are a couple of non-natives. Um, that's also listed in the chart. So there are some trees that are non-native, but they were introduced in the 1870s. Interestingly enough, the Norway spruce, which are, um, on the property line are actually pretty prevalent throughout Amherst and they were introduced during colonial times. So the left to below is a shade tree. Um, it also likes wet environments. Um, and it's also, um, it's a, um, I've placed it in the lower part of the site where the, where things we anticipate being a little bit more, more wet. So a little bit more wet. Has a lovely, um, lovely, lovely fall color. It is also well adapted to Southern climates also. So as things heat up, that tree will continue to thrive. Um, it's companion tree, the slump white oak corpus by color. Is a larger shade tree. Um, the oak by Douglas telling me really heralds the oaks for being able to support a lot of insects and really provide a lot of services, but they're also just wonderful trees to be under. Um, and they have, um, very smooth, low leaves. Uh, the sycamore tree, plantus oxidantelus is a native tree. It's very large. I've seen a couple heritage trees in the area. Um, wonderful pealy bark. So even in the winter, uh, it has a presence and beautiful yellow color. Uh, the sycamores do tend to, on a wet spring, they tend to bloom out later, but, um, just, they're, they're just so wonderful. And they have a strong presence and they thrive here. Um, the Japanese tree lilac is actually used by a lot of trees. And by the shade tree, public shade tree committee in Amherst is one of the street trees. Um, it has, it's not native, but it is really, um, understory tree that provides a lot of interest. 20 to 30 feet tall. Um, we've also chosen, uh, we have one sugar hackberry onsite. Um, it's quite, it gets quite large also. Um, and it has really supports a lot of song birds. Um, and it also has a lot of, uh, a lot of trees and the hackberry moth. Um, and also we're using eastern red, but it's another native understory tree, uh, the buds out and has great color. Okay. Next slide. The next category of trees. So those, that's our shade canopy. Um, and understory can understory accent trees. Uh, the next category are the trees that are going to be providing. A lot of green trees throughout the season. So when those trees lose their leaves, these trees kind of create more of a structure, formal structure in the landscape. Um, and we've, in this, in that category, we have a range of one of the challenges with a lot of ever green trees, like the Norway spruce is on the site. Is that over time, um, they lose the bottom branches due to shading. And so, um, trees that were planted once for a visual screen become open to people's sight, lens are, um, and the needles are at the top. So what we're doing is we're employing a mix of heights. So some of these evergreen trees, like the blue jinnaker and the false cypress boulevard and the business spruce are low evergreen trees that really occupy that six feet to zero level and stay dense and compact. In combination with the larger evergreen trees, like the Lawson cypress and the white pine. Um, and the Pisces blocker. So the white pine is a fast growing evergreen tree. It has these really sweeping needles, which are really lovely to see. Um, and that one will really take a dominant role in the landscape. Uh, the weeping white spruce is a little bit more narrow, but it has a different color and different texture. And the Lawson cypress is, um, it has a nice green foliage. Um, there is some variation out there with different distributors as claiming as to the height of the, of the Lawson cypress. Uh, we would make sure that we would get the variety that is the taller one for this case. Um, we also have rain garden area that we're, we're going to plant instead of just using mulch in the rain garden or rocks. We've been experimenting in the firm with using various grasses, sedges, uh, to, to use as a base layer that then we can plant shrubs in so that it stays green, has vegetation and habitat throughout the years. Um, and so I've outlined on this chart also, which some species of caterpillars, um, that appreciate these types of sedges also. Okay. Next slide. And then the sort of the mid height can categories, the flowering shrubs and shrubs typically in, in the landscape design and the public landscape shrubs usually get the short shift. Um, a lot of public landscapes are tall canopy trees, very few evergreens and very few shrubs in part because it's a maintenance issue and also it's a visibility issue. Um, to really make a space wonderful and feel very homie. It's really helpful to have things at that sort of mid height, the three to four height range where you can kind of see over them or you feel more, create sense of enclosure in spaces. It also provides more bird habitat, um, and more, more support to those colonners. And it helps express change in the, in the landscape over the season. Um, some recent projects are really pushing the boundaries of how shrubs and how the shrub layer could be woven into a public landscape. Um, like take Blaski Park, for example, a lot of the, the heights and plantings there, which are so wonderful to be in feels like a garden because it's in that scale. And that's something that we're going to be using here. So we've also used a lot of natives, um, and a couple, a couple of non natives. And I've highlighted which ones are non native. And again, as they said before, the ones that are non native, I, um, now when they were introduced to cultivation in the United States, 1870 is pretty, pretty great year for cultivating plants. Um, so to talk you through some of those, uh, spring torch heathers and massing a little bit. Um, and it's been used for centuries and you're in New England, um, and in Europe. Clethora all onifolia summer sweet. Um, has really great, uh, white whiskey flowers, which are probably in bloom right about now. Um, Comptonia peregrina also known as sweet burn has a really dense texture and it kind of has a spicy smell. So when you walk by it, you're really aware that it's there. It's a native plant. Um, red-twig dogwood, Tornus bailey, cornice cericia bailey, um, is a native plant. Um, it is often seen near wetlands or in wetter sites, but it also can tolerate dry conditions since probably one of my favorite shrubs, mostly because in the winter, that picture fourth one and on the bottom, the red twigs are really, really prominent in a winter landscape against the snow. Um, but then in the summer has very lush green leaves and white flowers. So it's a plant for all seasons. It also has really soft. So snow can be piled on it can break and it won't, you know, it won't break. It'll come back and you can also cut it down and it'll grow back in a year. So it's the, it's the winter for the landscape. Um, um, and it's great for caterpillars. Um, which Hazel has those yellow blooms that, um, in the spring, some hydrangeas, they're, they're, um, you know, more, more typical in a New England historic landscape. And then, um, Virginia sweet, sweet spire Henry's garden, which is also bloom right about now. Um, seedlings in the fall, um, you know, Colerates water sites, um, which we anticipate here and have really wonderful red leaves and the fall. Alex Gladrow Shamrock Shamrock in Very. Often used adjacent to parking areas. It's has a good salt tolerance. And it has these berries, which are, which are delightful for birds. It's evergreen for the seasons. Um, and it's pretty has a dense compact foliage. It's all over the area here in the woods and in everyone's yards and it's a it's a staple of the landscape design. It's evergreen. It has pink or white flowers in the early summer. Northern Bayberry Immersive Slovanica also has a tight compact form. It's semi-evergreen. I always hoped it would be evergreen, but it's semi-evergreen. Since the weeds lose its leaves in the winter, but it has wonderful berries and pops out in the spring. And then Broward's Beauty Pyrus is another evergreen, tight, compact form, which provides structural landscape. So that's the summary and detail of the species and kind of the intent of those types. And now I'll talk you through how those are placed in the landscape. And I'm just zooming in on the plans that were already provided that were in all of this information is on LC 111. So I've added color dots to kind of locate you and tie you back to the plan where these trees are. And there's a couple different slides that zoom in onto different parts of the site plan. So starting at the eastern border to our adjacent neighbor where the existing Norway Spruces are, we were proposing a range of evergreen trees. Those are the blue dots on the plan. So really using a lot of the pine astrobus Torolosa, the white flying with the twisted needles that will get quite high. That creates the structure for the new screening fence. At the end, we've added some leaking white spruce. We've mixed in a range of the fall cypress, the blue point juniper, the bird's nest spruce, and the mason silver queen. So that provides a really strong, formal evergreen structure at multiple heights. In addition, we've added in the sycamore and the hackberry, and then towards the bike shed area, we've added in some of the red twig dogwood and the sweet curtain. Next slide. This is the area that we're calling the front landscape. It's really the area between the front door of the apartment building and the parking area in North Kingston Road. And this is the area that residents will walk through daily as they go to and from the residents. In this area, we've got a lot of things going on. We're dealing with stormwater. So we have a rain garden area right next to the parking area. We also have, we're trying to screen individual units from views of the parking area and create some privacy. So we do have units in the, in the lower level. And as Tom had mentioned last week, when you enter the building, you enter at mid level height. The lobbies are a mid level between floors and go either up or down to residents. So for the residents who are living in that ground floor, half garden apartment. We wanted to make sure that we're providing screening for them and something soft and lush for them to look at when they're looking out and not looking into the parking area. So we're relying on, on some witch hazel, some more of the bird's nest spruce, lots of the red twig dogwood. So we're looking at the Calmea Latifolia. And then we're using a lot of understory trees in that zone also to kind of give more screen and provide spatial interest so that we're using some of those guys also like the Japanese tree lilac. And then as we move further out towards Northampton Road, we're taking advantage of the street tree and the shade tree relationship that's happening on site so at Northampton Road. We have a row of the Nyssa Sulfatica the black to the low trees. And then we also have moving inward to the site some of the, some of the swamp by oak trees, and then we around the parking area we're using the north part of the Gila, some of the cluthora, and closer to the end some of the ITIA garden, as well as in the rain garden area we're using a mix of Carrick's Appalachia, Carrick's Oglera, blue side oats graphs and little blues. Next slide. In the southern border, the portion of the parcel backing on to Amherst College property. We're using again a structure of the evergreen trees. So again, pineastrobus is the white pine, those blue dots are providing a structure. So we're interspersing those with some leaves and lights. Closer to the building, we're relying on the eastern redbud and then moving between towards the patio garden area, we're using more of the sycamore and the porcus white oak. And then we have a couple, couple shrub areas in those zones. We're going to use more of the full, full cypress kind of block used from the patio into Amherst College's property. Those guys will block everything from zero to eight feet. We're also using some more of the cornice and some of the cowlion. On the western border adjacent to the parking areas. Using many of the same trees and we've heard comments that there's a desire for more screening between the outdoor pavilion and the patio and the parking areas. So right now we currently have a deciduous shade border right up against the fence there with the sycamore and some porous pansy. But what we could do is add some more evergreen trees there if more shape screams desire so that's something that, you know, we can, we can modify if that if that would be a benefit to the town. As we move closer to the building we're using the eastern redbud kind of created grow that you sit up against and to provide again more screen between the residents looking out to people that might be in the landscape. We do have some spaces carved out for the, for the garden areas and the open and then moving towards Northampton really again we're using more of the big shade trees. So that I can just walk wide oak and a couple more of the other things and then closer to the building on the front we're kind of taking reference to more of a historic landscape. So we do have some evergreens as a foundation up against the building, and then we're bringing some hydrangeas in front of there, and some of the heather in front of that some conditional means and planting. Thanks. And then we had a question about with the crab apple tree along the very property line remain. And yes, we think we can. Before we had prioritize pedestrian circulation around around the building at the level of the exits. If we take that away and change the grading, we can, we can pick up the tree. And then the question was, what is the common scientific name the ally or trees along the northeastern property line. And that is Norway spruce, Pisces allies and as I said before that is a something introduced in colonial times is actually native to Europe and not not New England. I think we're going to leave the intense landscaping part of this so people have tree shrub planting questions about what Rachel has presented I think this would be a good time for those. Yeah, good time for those and then after at the end of, we answer that we're going to take a five minute break and we'll come back. So, all right. Who has questions about the planting plans or the landscaping that we've just covered. I have one. Yes, Mr. Langsdale. The Norway spruce do you have any idea how deep the roots of those trees go. I don't know at this time that I can find out. The only reason I'm asking is, they're obviously mature trees. And I know that pine trees, their roots do not go real deep. So they're more prone to falling down. So I was just wondering, I don't know about the spruce and I was just wondering if that's true of spruce as well. We can find out for you and get back to you on that. Thank you. I have a question. This parks. So, it's along those lines with those northern spruce I'm just wondering if, if there's an assessment of them that they are unsafe trees that they are, you know, a danger to either property, and if they might fall down I'd be interested in in the answer to whether they are concerning trees. The one concern that I'm thinking of for that neighbor who is uphill is if those trees are removed. I think that the lighting for the parking lot and for this new building will be very evident for them. And if they were just with those trees there, it would provide screening for a lot of the additional lighting for this property. And so I just wanted to just make that as a note. Just for that property owner to maybe imagine those trees missing and if there was a lighting lighting parking lot is that it pervert preferred view for them. Um, I'm, I'm just wondering what the cost of removing those trees is. I know that we've I've had trees removed and it's about $1,000 a tree and so I'm just wondering what you think the cost of removing those trees is and I'm assuming that you're going to have to do something about the roots or not. So, yeah, I so that that's my questions. Laura, we have not done an estimate on the cost of removing the trees. It would be a significant cost. It's not likely to be $1,000 tree because they do them all in a day or two. But it's significant and then they would have to remove the stumps as well if we're going to plant something in that area. I am interested actually in the question that was just asked about how deep the roots go because in order to make that soil suitable for replanting, you know, what what level of removal would we have to do to really give the new plantings a fighting chance. Do you know the age of those trees. Do you know of the Norway pines. Yeah, you know, your best bet is Barbara, the neighbor, because she remembers, I believe when they were planted they were planted by the family that used to own 132 North Hampton Road. I think in the belief that they were on their property. And I guess, do you have an answer to Ms Park's first question which was the stability or the potential dangerousness of the. Yeah, of those trees. We do not. You know, it's not unusual that we would have either the tree warden or an arborist come on site to evaluate trees because we can tell maybe not all of these trees are perfectly healthy trees. So it's definitely something if there was a contemplation of saving them. We would want to assess their condition if they're being removed, then it's kind of a mood point what their condition is. So it really is kind of a fork in the road for us. So we do not know their condition. And it would require hiring someone who's got some expertise to evaluate them. Other questions about the landscaping from members of the board. Just, you know, Chris Brestrup has raised again the playing. I can't see her. Great. Chris. Yes. I just wanted to note that I did speak with Guilford mooring the head of the DPW and I asked him whether the tree warden would be available to evaluate these trees. And his reaction was that he, the tree warden, his area of jurisdiction doesn't cover these trees. And it would really be better if, if you did feel that they needed to be evaluated, that you had an independent evaluation of them rather than having a town employee evaluate them. Thank you, Chris Brestrup. I conversed with the tree warden prior about this row of trees. And his comment, you know, initially we thought, you know, maybe it's not all or nothing, maybe we could thin them. And he recommended against that because as they grow, the branches kind of interlock. And so they're less likely to topple because they're kind of all holding each other up. So I'm just sharing what little I know about those trees. Other questions about the landscaping. So what's the cost, what are you estimating is the cost of this. It's lovely. It's a lovely plant looks to me so I congratulate us. And what's the cost of this it's in terms of and then what do you, how much do you think it was going to cost to maintain these of the shrubs and all the different plantings to keep them looking so nice because that's one of one of the real attractions of this project. Sure. So, Rachel, do you want to do you want to take a stab at the cost of the initial planting. Sure. We haven't, we haven't done that evaluation yet. I mean, that's something that we could provide at the next meeting. In terms of in terms of the maintenance, I think for the initial planting in the first five to 10 years, it'll be good for the tree maintenance just to keep an eye on where their limbs are coming in. So that there's an opportunity to really think about views in and also what's being screened by those branches so that's something that in those initial years of growth. So you can really cultivate what feels more open. So a shade tree that's tall with branches that start at six feet hard would allow for views through versus a shade tree that is left with lower branches be blocking views so that that's something would be a recommendation to for maintenance in the early years. A lot of the shrubs can be left left as as they are. They're, they're well behaving shrubs. You know, worst case scenario, or even they are only enhanced by by shaping and trimming. But for the most part, I think these can be left, left to be, I think also initially with the ground plane, anything in the rain garden area and any areas with the planting beds. Every two, every two, maybe every two years you want to bring in more mulch. And you every year every spring, their leading effort is really helpful to read early. You can really get ahead of anything kind of overtaking so we tend to tell people those first two years after installation when the plants are really small or on the smaller size and growing. You can really help, you can really make a lot of headway by by managing and maintaining it on other, you know, we could get some quotes for Valley CDC or Valley CDC might help if they do other projects. But we can, we can pull together those numbers also and talk about what's up. So in our management plan, we reference the fact that we do third party contracting for grounds maintenance. And at a minimum that includes a spring kind of cleanup, which would probably be the time that we would be fertilizing things or pruning things. And it would be a professional landscaper who would do that. And then we do mowing throughout the season. And then we do a fall cleanup as well. So that's kind of the bare bones of things that we would be doing. So can you talk about whether we you think these would need watering or are they pretty drought tolerant and also on a site that has such high groundwater, whether you think there would be much watering needed. I think, I think long term watering would not be needed on sites. Take for example this, this last the last two weeks or we've had unseasonally high temperatures without rain. And even, even the places that I've been walking around Amherst that I that had to have high groundwater that have soggy ground. I've been seeing things really struggling so I think we that for again that focusing on that first year of establishment is really critical to water. And that will be something that will be in the contract documents and will be on the onus of the contractor to maintain that first year, but everything will be to be watered and really cared for during the first year, since we are using native species. And we have matched the species to the character of the soil conditions of the site. Long term, it should not need irrigation. But it's really, it's really, really keeping an eye on them and that first year, first year and we're to make sure that they get the water so they can get the roots out. Thank you. Sarah, I see that you have your hand raised you have a question. I do just a clarification on that Norway spruce tree line if we can get through this. It's an eight foot fence, and that's a waiver, I believe from the ZBA for us to agree upon or not agree upon. Would the butter still want those trees down if we did not agree on the waiver. And is this not the right time to ask that question. I think it is the right time to ask the question I. I think that question probably is answered by the butter. And the butter, I think has their hand raised in the attendee list. It's that's correct. I think I see bgw and if I remember right I think that is, that is the butter. We, you know, I know that you can't answer that at Valley Development Corporation. So, I think it could ask. Go ahead, Marie. I'll allow you to talk. Go ahead. Thanks. First, I've heard that the fence would not go up. Those trees have probably about 60 years old, perhaps even a little bit older. Looking online, it says that the Norway spruce has a shallow root, and I can say that yes it does, because the roots have extended into our yard, probably going out about, oh, at least five feet in some areas if not further. I think that is, you know, my husband and I are both 70 years old. And while when we were younger, cleaning up after those trees was less of an issue. Now it's becoming more problematic. So, it's your are you suggesting that it's either a fence or those trees. I mean, I could you clarify that please. The question was what if those trees stay. Do you want the fence. Yes, those trees come down. And there's these other plans. Do you still want to and which includes trees come down there's a plan for a fence, but we have to provide a waiver for the size of the fence that's being talked about. I would, we would like a fence, given that we do not want people crossing, now cutting across to get to town. I mean, if you're coming out that side door and you need to get to town. The tendency, what is it the shortest distance between two lines, or between two spaces and straight line. We do want a fence along that whole property line. And we want to make sure that the trees gone because it seems, it will be very difficult to have a fence and have the trees both. How are you going to maintain it. I just, I don't see it. So, Mr. Mayor, does that answer your question that we have. Sorry, as far as the lights. We are uphill. I don't anticipate that the lights will be an issue. I don't anticipate that the parking quarters are on the second floor so we're even higher. I don't anticipate that the lights will be a problem I appreciate the consideration. There's a mirror. Does that answer your question. Can't hear you. All right. I don't think it answers the question. The question was, if we don't agree on an eight foot fence, do they still want those trees down. So, can I just clarify it so we can do a six foot fence by right basically. So you're current difference between the waiver which is for the extra high fence of eight feet versus six feet. The ZBA denies the waiver for the eight foot fence and we can only put a six foot fence. Does the neighbor still want the trees to be removed. Is that your question. Yes. That's right. I guess it's. You're on. You want me to allow. Yeah. Yeah. Louder. Quick response. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, I pressed the mute. Sorry, hold on. I think you can talk. Wait. Where did you go? Sorry. Bear with me. Okay. You can talk Barbara. Thanks. We would much prefer the eight foot fence. If a six foot fence is all that would be allowed. Then I guess we don't have much choice. We would still want the trees down. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Let's go back to questions from the panel from the CBA members of regarding the. Landscaping. I had planned to take a break here, but we're almost, we're getting close to the end. So let's, let's just, unless people object, let's just power through this to nine o'clock and go as far as we can. Okay. So, Shall we roll forward in our presentation? Let's go to the next. Okay. We need, we've been through the trees. And then now we're into the bike storage shed. Well, I do know that I do know that Dylan had his hand up. Oh, he did. Mr. Where are you? I'm sorry. Right here. Go ahead. Okay. I have a question. It's more of a comment. Are we, we had a point of comments or should I hold those, hold those later on? Comment on the, on the updated. Landscape plan. Yes. Yeah. Just my opinion on, on those trees before we move forward. Yeah. We have, we have the direct, the butter, the direct neighbor there who says that they, you know, they want those trees removed. They want that, that fence put in there. They want that fence put in there. They want that fence put in there. They want some type of study. About those, those trees in the roots, but I, I would say at this point for, you know, any of the members in CBA to think about my inclination here is for that, I, I'd say remove those trees. They want those down. And then my inclination also was an eight foot fence. We'd seen what an eight foot fence would look like there. It didn't look. To my mind, like something imposing. So I know we keep going back to the discussion about those trees, but I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that my own inclination is, is to, to go with what the butter has asked for. And the applicant has agreed to. Personally, I think. It would be a good idea to go that direction. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. So we were asked for sections and elevations along the fence line. And just want the ZB to ZBA to be aware that those are. Are kind of tall orders in terms of how much design time it would take. And not typical for the preliminary design phase. And so just to note. My kind of opinion about 40 B is the goal is to provide a streamline one stop permitting process through the ZBA that relies upon preliminary plans. In order to contain the developer's pre development costs. This is part of the state's policy to foster and encourage the development of affordable housing. So I just would have asked back to the board to think carefully and selectively about how many 3D images you really need to evaluate the project because it will take time and money to be able to produce those. That's my editorializing. So. Okay. I appreciate that. And I think we do as well. We know that they cost. And if these are, you can see we spent, we just spent 45 minutes on, or we spent 20 minutes on trees and fences. So maybe it may be an issue. This may be one of those issues that is important to the board, but you know, it may not be. We think there's needs for an elevation. We will let you know. And if that's a basis of our decision, I think. Oh, you should know that. And we may ask for it. Okay. So we've covered some of these. Thankfully, Barbara was willing to be here tonight and could directly represent her views. Question was asked whether we had always intended to take these trees down and the answer is no, our original plans had them preserved. And they were altered in January, 2020 in response to Barbara's request. We're open and willing to save the trees or consider alternates within the project's budget. However, we seek an outcome that is amenable to the immediate of butter. Bike storage shed. We were asked for construction details and dimensions on it. And here they come. This is a look at what we think it would probably look like. Actually, Tom, do you want to take us through these? Sure. So we were. Looking at just a very simple structure. We envision that. As we discussed last time and on the drawings, it would be just built on. There'd be no pad as we're shown on the detail in the drawings, but it would be built on sauna tubes. With the paver, the grass pavers. Continuation of the grass pavers beneath them. And it envisioning just a simple structure. Built with locally milled green hemlock, for instance, a lot of wood. Steel connectors. And the dimensions are the same as the dimensions that were on the drawing, I believe. 24 feet long. I think the height was less than 10 feet. Yeah. Yeah. If you go to the next slide. So the only thing that's really, you know, governing the height is just having enough. And the bike rack would just be a simple S shape. Rack in the center. Running down the center. It would accommodate how many bikes did we say? 21. Yeah, something like 21. Okay. And then there's an outlet shown there, which we. We thought would be important for charging electric bikes. And this is just a floor plan and another elevation. With dimensions. So just a little bit more about the bike. You know, obviously Tom hit the outlet. We are seeing a lot more of our tenants using electric assist bikes. And in this location where there is a slope up and a slope down, we thought it would make great sense to provide an easy way for people to get on the bike. So we thought we'd be able to do that. So we thought we'd be able to do that. So we thought we'd be able to do that. So we thought we'd be able to do that. So we thought more editorializing that we also see a lot of our tenants in motorized wheelchairs. Which makes it much more manageable to manage. The kind of slope that we're looking at on North Hampton road. I think we're going to move from bike shed. So if anybody has a bike shed question, this would be the time. So just really quickly. I thought at one point you said there was going to be lighting in the bike shed. Yeah, I believe it's on the lighting plan. It's a, it's a fixture mounted under the roof. So it would be basically just shining down onto the bikes. Stop me if you need to. We're going to do questions on the bike. Storage. All right, go ahead. We had a suggestion that we look at lowering the pole lamps from the 12 feet that was proposed to eight or 10 feet. So we're going to look at that. We're going to look at that. We're going to look at that. And our lighting consultant definitely did not encourage eight feet. He thought it would create kind of hot spots right under the lamp and not give a nice broad light over a big area. So we're providing a couple of things. One request was to be able to read the numbers on the plan. The original plan. And honestly, they're still hard to read on my screen. They're hard copies. And then this is the, this is the slide that we showed last week of kind of showing the different intensity of light, but all of these light levels are fairly low. And then we're giving you a look at what we could do with 10 foot high fixtures. And really the difference is we need more of them. So instead of up here, you'll see four of the pole lights along the parking area, one, two, three, four. To get the same kind of coverage, we would just need one additional pole light. To get approximately the same kind of lighting for the area. And then we're showing, we gave full cut sheets of the fixtures to the ZBA. But right here, we're just really giving you a snapshot of what the different fixtures look like instead of all the technical specifications. And then we're going to give you a look at what we could do with the ZBA. As Rachel mentioned last time, there are 3,000 care less, which means a fairly warm kind of light. These guys over here are solar powered. Everything else is. Traditional electric. So questions about exterior lighting. No questions about that. I have one. Yeah. Keith. You show on the plans, you show a. I don't see any three. Is that correct? You're only using the twos. The twos are in the, in the back area. And connecting the patio to the pavilion. The threes are along the path, the main sidewalk, connecting the residents to North Hampton road. They have a little bit more, more spread. So these ones that I'm pointing at now, Rachel, our tall were. Correct. Then these ones back here. Could you, I can't read what this says over here because all of our pictures are there. Can you move our pictures so I can read that? You can minimize the pictures too. If you hit the little. Minus sign, you'll just see yourself. So the P threes or looks like 36 inches tall and the others are 20 inches tall. Yeah. Okay. What minus sign do I hit? I don't know. There we go. Okay. It's just like two, it says pathway type two, not three. Path type two. Do we get the next step? No. Path like type two is right here. Yes. Now look at the other. Look. Does it say a two as well? Two as well. Okay. So Rachel, that's. Yeah. Okay. What minus sign do I hit? I don't know. There we go. Okay. It's just like two. It says pathway type two, not three. Path type two. Do we get the next step? No. Path like type two is right here. So Rachel, that should be three, correct? Yes. That is an error. Should be three. And it looks like the wash is. There was no wash on the, to the boundary. The neighboring property. Correct. One of our important goals is to not have any lights spill over the property line. So even if the trees weren't, what you're saying is, is this right that even if the trees weren't there, there's no wash over the, to the, the boundary. A budding property. You may be able to see the light from the abiding property because depending upon the height, but there's no wash over directly from the light. Right. So they're all kind of full cut off lights. And this I don't even think the Rachel correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think Dan took into account the fact that there's a big fence and plantings here. This is just almost as if there were nothing. I don't know. What people tend to see honestly are lights on in the building. When there's a, you know, there's nothing you can do to shade those unless people have their shades down. Okay. Other questions of on lighting before we leave this area. It's always a, these are all downcast. And I'm not an expert on cut sheets. There are people on this call who are, they're not going to go down. Right. Right. The first office starts the dark sky. Dark sky compliant lighting. Right? Correct. Okay. And if you are familiar with looking at foot candles, you know, we're in the point one to one, one to two range, which is pretty, pretty low light. Okay. So there's no other questions. Move on to the supportive services plan. Okay. had already submitted to the town has changed. And the answer is that it has not. And my understanding is that Maureen made hard copies for you folks and distributed them so that you have those in a format that's easy to read. We sent those plans in with the project eligibility letter to the Department of Housing and Community Development. We got comment back from them that it was a very robust plan. So the plan does not become final until it's approved and funding is granted by the Department of Housing and Community Development. They will be giving some resources to pay for the resident services coordinator. Okay, so, but this is a draft. This is the plan that you submitted to the town. Yes, and the state. And so, one thing I would like is not just that the ZBA have a reference of the Supportive Services Plan, but it seems to me we should have the Supportive Services Plan submitted to us as well as something we consider in our deliberations. I mean, right now it's, this is a plan that is submitted to another body and the other body approved it. And it's been, and it has been judged or you've represented that it's been judged to be in a robust plan. And one of the things I'd like to do is have this as part of our document. So I would like you to submit this to us and not just reference it as a submission to another government, another Amherst agent, government agency. Will do. Okay, thank you. You know, and I would like to spend, I don't wanna spend as much time on that today. I think this is a discussion for a lot of, I mean, there's a good discussion on Supportive Services. I think that the board would be interested in and I don't know that we have time to do that in 20 minutes. I do think it deserves, you know, more discussion. And I think, and I didn't anticipate, I thought we'd have a lot more public comment. I anticipated that we wouldn't get this far. So we'll have more discussion upon the Supportive Services plan later. But if anybody has an immediate question they wanna ask, we can do it now, but know that we have more discussion on Supportive Services than the plan that they've proposed at a later meeting. Right, and also know that we have a summary of the plan within this set of PowerPoints later. Yeah, yes, Mr. Maxwell. So if we're asking that the Supportive Services plan be submitted to us directly, that's part of the PEL, correct? Yeah. Could, should we just ask that we have the PEL submitted to us in its entirety as a document that we would review? Cause I know there's other parts of PEL that I'm sure we'll be discussing later, such as the pro forma, for example. We could do that. Is there any, I mean, I was going to go piece by piece, but if there's, the whole PEL is, I think a document that went to the town council and to the funding agency. And it seems to me the whole thing should come to, to the ZVA. Right. Is there any reason not to do it? In my experience, often towns make it a requirement of the Comperment application. Yeah. So I think it's a good, I think that's a very good suggestion, Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Parks, Ms. Parks. I just have one question. In some housing, there's a resident who is designated kind of as a, as a manager in case there's any emergency overnight. I don't, in any of your properties, does that happen or is that a possibility that someone could be a designated person to take calls in case of an emergency who then would be the person to get the service? Right. I understand your question. We have not used that model. I've talked with other folks who have gone back and forth in terms of that model. Sometimes it's tricky to have a resident be a resident and also fulfill a professional function. So no, this has someone who's their day times. Only there is a 24-7 emergency line that's for property management issues. Okay. I just wondered if that was something that you might consider. I know for some places there's a reduction in the rent to just take on the official responsibility. Yeah, and those places, we had a lot of consideration of this during this planning. And I talked to a number of agencies who run programs like that and they go back and forth if I'd make success with that model. So we would like to have someone who can stand a little bit apart maybe from the tenants and feels separate a little bit and has some authority and also some specialized training and who doesn't have to meet income guidelines. We're really looking for someone who's a seasoned person in social work to be our resident services coordinator. Okay, but I was thinking of it in addition to that just somebody who would be sort of the on call overnight but I understand what you're saying. Yeah. All right, so then I just want to go back and confirm Mr. Maxwell's request. I think that having the entire PEL submitted to the CPA is a good idea. And so we'd like to. Okay. So can I ask a clarifying question? It's 373 pages. Is it sufficient to send it digitally rather than copying? Okay. I think so. I will talk to, I will, I don't want to speak for Maureen and the staff rules but I think that probably is sufficient. Maureen, what do you think? If the- Or Chris, either one. If the board is fine with just receiving electronic copies by all means. Yeah. We don't need to cut down any more trees for that. For that, right? But, you know, if there is a specific document that within the whole sort of package, if you will, that you feel that, oh, that you realize, oh, maybe it would be nice to have a hard copy. You can let us know. Yep. Yeah. Printing out 300 plus copies for all the board members soon. So like a lot of paper. Great. Thank you. We appreciate that accommodation. Question arose about the distance from the neighboring properties and I'll let Rachel, Rachel did these calculations. I'll let her talk about what she found. I don't hear you, Rachel. So you might be muted. Rachel, you're muted. Apologies. I used a mass GIS's all of our online viewer and I measured from the neighbor's house, the footprint on Oliver to the property line, which gave us roughly 79 feet. And then we looked at the measurement of our proposed building, its distance to that same property line. The portion as a building near the storage shed and the dumpster area is 66 feet, a little over 66 feet from the property line. And then as the building gets closer to Northampton Road, it's further away from the property line. The building's an L shape and it's 90, a little over 90 feet. So that means that those two distances combined, the building footprint, the proposed building footprint is anywhere from 145 feet to 169 feet from the neighbor's house on Northampton Road. And I will just give you a caveat that when we use GIS, when we use Oliver, there's always a little bit of horizontal distortion with both the location of the property line and the structures in the site. So this is not a survey, this is from Oliver. And then, so this is the screenshot from Oliver and I've added the dimensions I described before. So you can see 126 Northampton Road, massing footprint in the neighbor and then our new footprint is in red and existing building footprint on our site is the beige color at the corner of the footprint. So you can see how far those distances at it. Thank you. No questions on building distances, okay. We were asked for a snow removal plan and specifically to talk about deicing methods and products and really the plowing near plantings was kind of, I think, the concern that folks had. And I'm gonna kick it back to Rachel again. So we have a lot of tools that we can use to manage snow and ice on paved surfaces. And I think as you pointed out that not all are the best for plantings and actually not all are best for pavement. So the goal of our snow removal plan is to primarily support vehicular access to the property and support emergency vehicle turnaround and access regardless of how much snow has fallen recently. And then removing the material from the paved surfaces for the safety of the residents, staff and visitors. But in conflict that our dense trep plantings which we know will make this feel more homey and more residential and also helpless screening of parking areas from other neighbors and other parts of the site. Also these plantings are helping increase the uptake of stormwater more so than regular lawn. These are inherently in conflict with snow storage areas. So the plan that Valley CDC is proposing is to the contractor that they hire will be instructed to avoid the plantings and only use the designated areas for snow storage. Heavy storms that are gonna have to take the snow off site and smaller storms, it will push the periphery. And if the grass paved parking areas are not in use by residents after a snowfall this area can be used for additional storage. And then sand and salt. Sand is used, it doesn't actually help melt salt snow or ice, but it does provide traction that it has limited use. We folks tend to use chemicals to speed up the melting process and help prevent freezing of areas but there are a number of different areas out there that have a range of impact on plant sand paved areas. Sodium chloride is most commonly used. That's why we call it salt. And it's very cost effective and it's very effective up to 12 degrees Fahrenheit. But it also is very detrimental to plants. And so that is something that we would not want to be using on site at all. It also can build up into the adjacent soil areas and over a long term can impact plants abilities that take nutrients up into their systems. So this would be avoided on site. Calcium chloride is used in highway de-icing efforts. It's very effective down to negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit and has minimal impact on plants. There's also, the RIA is another product that is used in the industry in construction, new construction. We often, when we install concrete, require that the grounds and maintenance not use any of the salting materials that use instead your RIA, it's a fertilizer, but it's often used for de-icing. And it has less of a negative impact on newly installed concrete, which if concrete goes through too many free small cycles in the first year, it can be prone to spallown. So your RIA is something that we recommend in a way for newly installed concrete sidewalks for these de-icing in that first year. So that is something that also is beneficial to adjacent plantings. But if it's overused, it can also be a problem. And then calcium magnesium acetate is another product that might be used on site. And it's not harmful to plants at all. So what we would like to propose is to give Valley CDC the flexibility to use a combination of these beneficial products with sand and the calcium chloride in RIA or calcium magnesium acetate is needed to adjust their plan to what the temperatures are on site and what the amount of precipitation is and what the issues are that they're encountering. So if I could ask the question, your management plan would then reflect that we store it on site if there's too big a snowstorm, it's removed. Or if the parking area is needed by the residents, the snow is removed on a big snowstorm and you're trying to prevent using harmful chemicals to melt snow. You'll use sand and the two, RIA and the calcium magnesium acetate, I guess are the chemicals. So the management plan should reflect that's what you need to do. Okay. A question was right. Any questions? Yeah. All right. Parking. Parking. So we were asked for a parking management plan to talk about the needs of tenants, guests, staff and service providers. And this is what we sent in your packet. The 14 parking spaces, which were kind of originally the total parking spaces that were proposed closest to the main entry, restricted to cars with a parking sticker for the property with some signage to indicate these spaces are for resident parking. Only two handicap spaces will be reserved for tenants having a handicap parking sticker or placard. Tenants with a car registered in their name will be issued a parking sticker, allowing them to park on site. No household will be issued more than one sticker. Regular staff working on site, resident service coordinator and property management will also receive a parking sticker. Cars in designated spaces without a parking sticker will be subject to towing at the car owner's expense. The two parking spaces located farthest from the main entry will be available for visitors and guests who do not have a parking sticker, but are visiting a tenant who lives in Amherstudio housing. And these spaces will be labeled accordingly. And we do anticipate, I think I've referenced this before, there's a little bit of a flux between the peak time for tenant usage, which we would expect would be overnight and weekends. And when there might be a staff on site, which would be more likely to be during the daytime hours. So do we have any questions from the board on the parking management plan? I think we're coming up to the time we have to break for the meeting and the questions. What we need to have comments from public on matters that are not on the agenda, and we also have to talk about the next time we meet as on this subject. So what I propose is that as it's 10 to nine, we have a discussion when we meet and open up the comments to the public for what matters not on the agenda tonight. But first, I think we need to move to continue this to another date. And so I'm gonna make that motion to move to continue this hearing to a date that we'll have a discussion about that date after we make the motion. So I move we continue this hearing to a date to be chosen. Do I have a second? Second. Ms. Park seconds it. Discussion, I know Maureen did a doodle pool, not a doodle pool, a doodle poll. And that poll indicated that the first time we can get the everybody back together again on a Thursday night is I think August 6th. Is that right, Maureen? Yes. That everyone, correct. Yep, and cause there's one time when we can't get people together but we have a full agenda for other items. So it seems to me that the most reasonable thing we can do is plan for our next hearing on this matter for August 6th. We have a meeting next week on three, we have three items next week, two continued and one new one I think or at least two continued and perhaps the one on one new one as well. Yeah, and then we have another meeting scheduled for July 23rd. Right. We're two special permits. Two special permits, but we don't have enough people to continue this meeting on that date. So I think. Let me look at the poll. Yeah, I don't think that would. Yeah, that doesn't work. So I move that I would want to amend my motion to have the date be the August 6th that we continue this meeting to August 6th. Anybody object to that amendment? Hearing none, the motion is amended. Any further discussion? And that would be at 630, just to clarify. Yep, excuse me, that's right. At 630. Any further discussion? Was that seconded? Oh, Tammy. Yeah, I think, yep, we had a friendly amendment to the original proposition. And so now we have the date of the 6th. All in favor, be a roll call vote. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Mara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Motion carries five to nothing. So meeting is continued until August 6th at 630. The last thing is, I know that we had several questions. The staff is gonna put together a list of questions that we will submit to you through the applicant. We also will continue that meeting and we'll also continue on through the submission that you had tonight, we'll continue on that. And we may have other items in the meantime that come up when we review the plan and the social supportive services. So we'll be back in touch on what we need to have ready for the next meeting. Okay, great, that'd be very helpful. Yep. And since the business of the comprehensive permit is complete for this evening, we now open it up to public comment on any topic that is not the subject of the hearing tonight. So attendees from the public. Sit here. I don't see any hands raised. I see no hands raised. We'll give them just a second, but it looks like that's it. You're in comment? Not right now. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. Very much to all the members of the public. Thank you everybody. And thank you everybody for all your hard work. Thank you. So we have to make a motion to adjourn. Yeah. Yes, we do. Thank you again. And we have a motion in the second roll call vote. Aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Meara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Motion carries five to nothing. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Enjoy the long weekend. You as well. Yes.