 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. So welcome to the planning board meeting of what? August 19 and based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. And signed Thursday, March 12, 2020. This planning board is being held virtually using the zoom platform. My name is Jack, Jim second. I will be the acting chair for this planning board meeting. I am calling this meeting in order at what 631pm. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst media live stream minutes are being taken as normal. We will now take a roll call board members as you hear your name called unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and then please place yourselves back on mute. Mike, Maria Chow. And myself here, Dave Levinstein is not here. No longer on the board. Doug Marshall. Present. And Janet McGowan. That's everybody. We're down to all right. Board members, if technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause temporarily to rectify the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let Sean or Pam know Sean online. It's not, but I can at a moment's notice. Okay, go good. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed. In the minutes will note if a disconnection has occurred. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call upon you to speak. After speaking remember to remute yourself. The meeting for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period, and at other appropriate times during the meeting, please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. So a note there, you know, public comment period is going to be on items that are not on the agenda. So, and that's one of the first items of the meeting. If you wish to make a comment during public comment period, you must join the meeting via the zoom telephone teleconference teleconferencing link. This link is shown on the slide and can be entered into a search engine by typing. Do I need to read all this. You know, I usually have a screen up. Yeah, you know why I can't read a link. So, The link is right here. So that's the link. The link is also listed on the meeting agenda which can be found on the town website. In two ways one way is through the calendar listing for this meeting from the homepage where you can find the link within the event details. The second way is to go to the finding board webpage and click on the most recent agenda link and on agenda there is a link towards the top of the page where it states virtual meeting. Please indicate. If you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when public comment is solicited if you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their lot of time their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Moving on the slide will now show the meeting agenda. The minutes from July 15. Are there any comments on those minutes. None okay so I've moved to approve the the minutes. I move we approve the minutes of. July, I'm sorry. July 15. Okay. Let Mike move for that any second. Okay. All right. This requires a roll call. Right. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. Mike bird whistle. Approve. Maria. Doug. Janet. And myself approve. So that's five zero. All right. So public comment period. And you're going to have to help me out here. Is there any. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. Okay. I see Marine Adams. Yes. Okay. So it looks like just more and I will allow her to talk. Is it more and more marine. More and more and okay. I'm sorry. More and is muted. More and can you unmute yourself. There. Am I unmuted. Yes, you are. I'm sorry. My comment has to do with new business item. A. Would you prefer to take it then? Oh, we're definitely going to discuss that. Yes. Yes. But you would rather have it at that time and not now. Oh, definitely. Yes. Yes. Lower my hand and talk later. Good. So I guess I'm before I started the meeting, I was. One more Jack. Okay. Okay. Hi, my name is Jeanne Hardy and this is my first time being at a zoning board meeting. So I, I'm hoping you can give some clarification. I would like to provide public comment on the old business item on 40 are, but I'm confused. I have to give that comment before I hear your board discuss it. If it's on the agenda, we're going to discuss it and then there's a public comment period. If there's time, time allowed for the public to comment. So, we're on public comment right now. Right. But that's for non agenda items. I see. Okay. Thank you. All right. And I, I failed. Let me see. Where are my notes here? Actually, I wanted to propose before we got started. And this meeting is like, seems like it's, it's manageable. We have one item a for old business that is going to be delayed to the next meeting. So I'm, I'm wondering if we can keep this from being a four hour meeting because we're going to meet again every two weeks. And we're going to, and I think all this stuff that there's, there's a lot of heavy lifting here with the 40 R. Maybe not so much the priorities, but there's only some committee and things like that, that, that we don't take this into the, the, the wee hours of the, you know, of the night, like we have, because we moved the time up to 630 for reason. And going to 1030 is just, it's not, it's not feasible, at least in my eyes. And for the members of the board, when we were looking at to get a resolution to keep these meetings more in a manageable time. So I would offer that we have like a, a stop, say at 9pm, if we need to go longer. But, you know, try to conclude by 930. And if ever is, is everybody okay with that general concept for this. Okay, because we're going to meet we're not going, we're going to be here every two weeks so And I just find like, for me, it's, it's really difficult to go that deep into the night and try to do what you need to do the next day, sort of thing. So, and again, that's, I'm not going to take a vote on that or anything but it's just, that's what my hope and wishes and dreams are for this evening's meeting. So, with regard to all business, we have the chapter 40 are smart growth overlay zoning issue that we're going to revisit there's no presentation other than our discussion amongst the planning board on this concept. Planning board. We'll look at the amendment. I'm going to, you know, hand it over to Chris here immediately, but we had the presentation on May 6 from the consultants. And we didn't really resolve any sort of recommendation from that presentation. So we're now we're taking it up again. And so at that, I will hand it over to Chris. I just mentioned before Chris you start. Mr Bert whistle Michael has his hand raised. And I'm not sure when it came up, or if it's up by default. But if you wanted to recognize that Jeff. Sorry, I was on the panelists or the attendees view. No, you're so sorry my Did I understand you to say that you were going that the new business item for a is not being discussed tonight. No three old business old business three a is being moved to the next meeting. Old business. A. So, new business is has not changed. So we'll we're going to talk about zoning subcommittee and other topics. So, Chris. Hello. My name is Chris breast up on the planning director and I just wanted to give you some context for this discussion about chapter 40 are both for the planning board members and for the public. I'm just on the screen, prompted by the Amherst municipal housing trust. The town applied for and received a grant from the state entitled Planning for Housing production. The goal of the grant was to investigate. Excuse me. Can you be quiet. Please. Daniel Frank, please be quiet. I'm on TV. was to investigate sites that might be appropriate for affordable housing and to study the issue of Chapter 40R overlay zoning, which is often called smart growth zoning and to determine if it's right for ammers. The town hired consultants Karen Sonderberg and David Eisen who helped us with our housing production plan in 2013. Karen is a planner and David is an architect and they've been working with us since the summer of 2018 on this project. The town has held three public forums in 2019. The first one was on April 4th and there was another one on June 4th and a final one on December 19th. And we heard about what the 40R is and what is smart growth and why is the state promoting this type of development? And we heard about how this type of development might or might not fit into ammers. The consultants and staff received a lot of input at the public forums, but some of the planning board members weren't able to attend either some or all of the forums. So at the request of the planning board, the consultants gave a presentation on May 6th about what this project is all about. The planning board wanted to have an opportunity to hear directly from the consultants and talk to the consultants and among themselves about what is good and what isn't good about the chapter 40R proposal. After the consultant's presentation on May 6th, there wasn't much time in the evening. I think we were pushing 11.30 that night. So they decided to hold another meeting for the purpose of talking about what they'd heard. The planning board invited members of the public to submit comments and some of the planning board themselves also submitted comments. These comments have been posted on the town website and they've been circulated to planning board members and to the consultants. A public forum is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, September 23rd for the consultants to present changes that they've made to the project based on input that they heard and comments that they have received. What's being discussed tonight is not a final proposal. It's an opportunity for the planning board to discuss the pros and cons of chapter 40R as it has been developed to date and make suggestions and recommendations about whether it's worth pursuing and if so, how to improve it. The planning board will not be making any decisions or recommendations tonight other than possibly to decide whether this project is worth pursuing. Some people are worried that this project is a fey accompli or something that has already been decided upon or that the process is happening too quickly and they didn't have a chance to participate. There's still plenty of time for the town and the planning board and the public to consider this proposal and to decide if it's right for Amherst. Among the things that still need to be decided are is chapter 40R right for Amherst? If so, where should a 40R district be located? The town may decide that the downtown is the right location for 40R but that the current proposal needs to be revised. The town may decide that another location such as East Amherst Village Center is a better location. Once we know where it will be located, we can start to map out the edges of the district and begin to put together a zoning amendment that will include a set of uses that is appropriate for the location, dimensional regulations and form-based guidelines also known as design standards. At that point, there will be a presentation to town council who would then refer it to CRC and the planning board for a public hearing and then the town council would eventually need to vote to adopt the plan as a zoning amendment. So tonight, we're nowhere near that point. So with that, I'd like to suggest that we listened as the planning board discusses the pros and cons of this proposal and begins to think about whether this proposal or one like it is right for Amherst. Board members and the public are invited to attend and participate in the public forum on the 23rd of September and an announcement will be posted on the town website and we'll do our best to notify those whom we know are interested in this topic. So with that, I will turn it back to Jack, thank you. Very good, thank you. And so I'm looking for comments from the board. And again, I don't feel like this is a planning board issue. I mean, this is so early in the process. It was kind of born of funding that we got to explore this concept and there have been forums, whether they've been advertised, whether they were intended to the extent that we thought was appropriate or not. They were advertised and things like that, but it's just really early in the process, conceptual. But I guess we're being asked to provide recommendations to town council, is that correct Chris? You're being asked to provide recommendations to the consultants and to the staff working on it. So we're near town council yet. We are so early in this process. So there's no real urgency, early process. So we have to make sure we stay calm on this. And again, I think we all have questions and concerns and want to make this right. So I'm sorry, I did not, all right. So I'm just going to go with the top of the list here, Maria. So, okay, since we're not doing deep sort of discussion, I just, if we are trying to give advice or feedback to the consultants, mine would be I'd love to see more sectional drawings that describe the impact of this process. So I think we're going to be able to do that. So I'm going to describe the streetscape. I understand how they're trying to divide things into different divisions. And I think that from a lot of the feedback, it seems a little rough-handed, maybe, not like more fine comb examination of the neighboring streets. But they're coming at it from a big perspective planner kind of viewpoint. So I think that, yeah, it will take more time to really get into the nuances of the adjacent neighborhoods. But my biggest advice is just I'd love more form-based zoning, more information on what it is they're proposing other than just maximum heights and minimum setbacks. And everyone can focus on particular streets and whatnot. But I think that overall what they're trying to do is create a cohesive idea or plan for the parcels they are highlighting. And I think that their goals are right. It's just that path to that goal is probably a longer one than they probably thought they were going to have. And yeah, there's a lot of very near-public to give input. And so I guess it'll take a lot longer but my biggest critique of what we were given was it just didn't feel like enough information. I think that's where a lot of the worry and the contention is coming from. Cause we just, you know, we have these sort of abstract big picture kind of models and numbers but it's not really describing in more detail like setbacks and streetscape and how a building might step or change depending on what side of a street it's facing or what neighborhood it's adjacent to. So yeah, I would just, I want more design, more information from the consultants. On that note, Pam, did we, is there a PowerPoint that we kind of wanted to... I have the packet available. So what you received in your packet, I have available and I can try and share that. So... I don't know if that would be appropriate. I didn't know if it was gonna feel helpful at this point. I wanted to make a suggestion and I may have misled people. This is Chris speaking. I am not suggesting that you avoid the details. If you have problems with heights of buildings, if you have problems with recommended setbacks, this is the time to bring those forward. If you have specific recommendations for how things can change. One of the recommendations that I've made is that the area north of Triangle Street either be removed from the 40R or that it be changed to a district three, sub-district three instead of district one. So those are the kinds of things that I think are going to be helpful for the consultant when they're putting together their final product. The final product is expected to be handed over to us sometime in the fall. And what I mean as final product is it's the final product of this consultant for this amount of money hired for this contract. It doesn't mean that we are going to accept this and run with it and bring it to town council. All it means is that the consultants have done their job and they've handed something over to us. And then it's up to us to figure out what parts we like, what parts we don't like, but at least we'll have a framework for how this could work. So please don't be discouraged from talking about this in detail. I didn't mean to discourage you from that. In fact, I'd like to encourage you because I think it would help to make the consultants product better. And then hopefully it will also help to make our product better when we eventually come up with what we really want. Thank you. Should I be calling on you, Chris, if you have your hand up and, you know. Yes, you should. Not for you in the queue. Yes, okay. You did not have spoken up, but yes. Okay, so Doug Marshall, please. Okay, so I did provide written comments back in May, I think it was when we were asked to provide written comments on the presentation we got at the beginning of May. My views have not changed. If I were to advise the consultants what they should do between now and the, and whenever they are to be finished, you know, they've been working on this for two years with us. And I presume they've done kind of what they think they should be doing for this kind of, for the fee and the scope of work that was originally laid out. So my advice would be just to tell them to wrap it up and go on their way to the next project so that we can in fact deliberate about what they've produced. I view what they've produced as not ready for prime time, kind of like Maria was saying, whereas she was focusing more on the details of the form-based zoning, I don't understand the form of the draft that they've produced. There's a lot of wording in there about the intent. And you know, it's not the sort of dry set of rules that I would expect from a zoning bylaw. So, you know, I guess it seemed like there's a lot of commentary in there that I don't think we need to carry forward. Maybe it's useful for people who are not familiar with the current thinking and frameworks that planners are using for putting zoning together. And in that case, you know, great, that's commentary that could go in an appendix deep within our website somewhere, but it doesn't need to be part of a bylaw. Overall, I think the zoning or the massing that they're proposing is fine and appropriate. It doesn't get to the fine grain level that I agree we'd be well-served to think about. But I also don't really understand why we need to do 40R in downtown. I, you know, based on my limited understanding of it, it's used to induce people to build more housing. And we don't have a demand problem downtown for housing. We have plenty of people that would like to build housing down there. At however high we allow people to build. So I would use 40R in a different part of town outside of the center of town where the demand is highest. I'd use it as a carrot to induce people to build more housing in areas where they may only want to build, you know, two or three stories. Maybe we let them build in an additional story. So I think the massing that these consultants have proposed is a good starting point for us as a town to think about how we might better clarify the zoning downtown with our own regular as of right zoning bylaws. And then we use the 40R program somewhere else outside of downtown where maybe the demand is lower. That's all I'll say for right now. Thank you. So I would, I just want to say I agree with Doug because, you know, downtown and, you know, 40R, you know, 40R being more of a housing, you know, initiative affordable housing, that is an area where we only do certain things and in terms of, you know, we also for housing, you know, I'm just going, you know, putting my two cents in here, but we're looking at, you know, young families, you know, and for me, I feel like housing, we can provide all this, you know, the studios and one bedroom, but I would like to see 40R be used to enhance young families being able to be, you know, within Amherst. And I don't know that that's a great fit for downtown. And again, you know, Chris has hinted that, you know, in terms of maybe East Amherst, but I'm just interjecting by just wanting to say I do agree with what Doug has said pretty much at the bottom. So Mike, please. Yes, thanks. I also agree with much of what Doug and Maria were saying, particularly with regard to the relationship of the proposed district to the downtown area, the district lines and the very concept of this in downtown. I'm also concerned with the way in which this entire project, for me, seems not to fit into the requirements of the master plan or the suggestions of the master plan. But let me just read from section two, goals and policies. The very first goal and policies suggested by the master plan is maintain Amherst's existing community character. And it goes on at some length to describe what that community character is. But it focuses on the way in which things are now as part of the goal. That's one of, that's the key goal, the key directions for the community to maintain Amherst's existing community character. And I believe that the proposal, even though it may be in the preliminary phases, is still pretty full of bricks and mortar and 29 pages of zoning bylaw and lots of PowerPoint productions. It's pretty well along, it seems to me, in terms of what the consultants have done. And I think they've missed the point of maintaining Amherst's existing community character, particularly in relation to the areas on the west side of East Pleasant Street and North Pleasant Street and on the north side of Triangle Street. Those areas seem to me to be, particularly the areas west of Pleasant Street seem to me to be much of what makes Amherst a walkable, interesting place to be. If we move from the Amity Main Street, North Pleasant Street corner, which is the old part of town, the old downtown part of town, move up toward Triangle Street, we're going through a variety of areas in terms of the architectural and the feel of the street. Some are dense, some are solid walls, some are old fashioned buildings that have been adapted, some are civic buildings like the fire station and the churches and the post office. This is a wide variety of buildings in that stretch. It's a very short stretch for the amount of variety there is there. But much of the pleasantness of walking through there and it being a pedestrian friendly place has to do with the small shops and the small scale architecture, which given the proposal that the consultants have given us is pretty much just eliminated. Now, I would regret for that to happen. And I think this is a question of scale and it's a question of location. And I definitely agree that a four yard district if we're going to have one in Amherst and that's not a bad idea. I think it's probably a good thing to have in Amherst. Probably not, shouldn't be there. And if it's going to be there, it certainly shouldn't be with the boundaries that have been suggested by the consultants. So I think I'll stop there and maybe add more to say later. Thank you. Okay, so before I, Chris, do you speak? I forgot that I also agree with Maria and what she said. I didn't want to, no. I recognize Doug, but Maria, I also agree with everything that you've said. I think we have a somewhat of a consensus thus far. So, oh, Chris, are you going to speak? Oh, you're okay. So Maria, please. Yeah, I know. I think we all generally want a really careful look at our town, but I do also want to be careful about not encouraging different ways to unlock more affordable housing downtown. I think that saying downtown might not be the place for, I don't think that's what people are saying. I think saying a 40R might not be the place for downtown. I hope that's not assuming we're not encouraging the social economic diversity that I think downtown really should have. I feel like there needs to be opportunities for all different people with different backgrounds, different economic situations, different family situations to live downtown in a walkable, thriving downtown. And the way to do that is to unlock a lot of the parcels and that's exactly what 40R helps do because a lot of our zoning currently, as we know from notorious BL, 40R provides quite a bit of opportunity for housing. This was from three years ago, December 29, 2017. One of the planning staff did a study of the BL and did that for the Zoning Subcommittee actually because we were just curious what that would unlock and help for those three BL parcels downtown. And it was surprising. I could do 29 units for multifamily dwellings on the one east, or sorry, west of Kendrick and then on the one that's between Halleck and I forget the Lower Street, 40 units for multifamily dwelling. So 40R would help bring diversity to I think a place that actually is deserving of this sort of changing of status quo where it's a really valuable property obviously downtown but it really should be more, there should be less of a wealth gap I think. I really feel like downtown there are certain parcels that should be conserved for 40R, maybe not the breadth that Ms. Wilton has shown on the map that we're giving, but I personally would not wanna discount 40R for downtown. And of course I'd love it in other areas but in particular I would not want to say that downtown is not a place for it, I forget there. Okay, I agree Maria, and actually the thought went through my head that seeing how the BL, it would, if it was more restricted to say parts of the BL that are presently unworkable, that may loosen some opportunities that the 40R is targeted at, but I'll just leave it at that. I don't see any other hands, which means we have definitely an opportunity to hear from the public. Welcome to the minute, let me hear from Janet, please. I can't see her, there we go. Okay, I hope I'm unmuted. I'd like to agree with a lot of people that I think that this is the 40R is not a great idea for downtown. And if we come to like an agreement on that in this proposal, that will save me hours of time going line by line through the zoning bylaw that they're proposing. I thought it was kind of a nightmare to think about, we have the underlying zoning of downtown and there's problems with it, there's problems with the BL which could be remedied maybe by a zoning change or a change in the definition of BL or dimensional table. But then, so those problems will stay there even if there's a 40R overlay district on parts of the downtown. And then we're gonna have 100 pages of our regular zoning bylaw and maybe 25 pages of an overlay district for sections of the downtown. And to me, that just looks like a nightmare of complexity and I would encourage the planning board and the zoning subcommittee and the planning department in the whole town to sort of look at the downtown in a cohesive way and try to fix the problems that we see. Unlocking some opportunities for housing, protecting neighborhoods, looking at the form of buildings which I think is really important to people, the size of them and looking at the form-based zoning. So I just, this proposal shows away and has sort of sparked this discussion but I don't think this is appropriate for downtown. And I agree with Doug that if you're trying to spur housing demand and people to build that doesn't seem to be an issue in our downtown. There seems to be a lot of people, a lot of groups doing that, we're seeing that although there may be a small hiatus now because of our strange situation we're in. So I have a lot of remarks to make about the map and things but I just wanted to say, I just, the idea of these two different and overlay district with the whole different set of regulations on top of the current zoning which still has problems and some strengths just to me is sort of a legal or a planning board nightmare or any kind of to sort of sort through. And I don't think we need to make our zoning by a lot more complex. I'd like to see more simplicity and flexibility. So I see no more hands but again, we have a September 23rd forum on this 40R proposal so that consultants can wrap up their work. And then I'm just looking at what is the gist of our discussion of this at this point in time. But I think we've, okay Doug. I just wanted to, maybe I missed it when Chris introduced that forum on the 23rd but could she clarify at least for me, is that a one of these regular public meetings or is this a CRC hosted event or is this a planning board hosted event? Thank you. May I speak? Chris, yeah. So it's unclear who's hosting it. The other events have not been hosted by a particular group. I think they've just been sort of a community meeting if the planning board would like to host it or maybe the housing trust hosted the other ones. I don't exactly remember but it was really kind of just an opportunity for the whole town to get together and talk about it. And I think after the event on the 23rd the consultants will take whatever they get out of that meeting and wrap up their project. But that doesn't mean we have to wrap up our thought about 40R. I think that there's a lot of meat here that we can use to come up with good ideas either for the downtown or for elsewhere. And the planning board can still discuss this. You can still have this on your agenda going forward if you think it's worthwhile pursuing. So I'm not sure did I answer Doug's question? Yes, I think that's that you did. Thank you. Good. So I see no more hands amongst the board. So I think Pam we can look at the attendees. Yes, I'm going to stop sharing my screen so I can see everybody. We do have three raised hands. So there's Kathy Schoen, Ken Rosenthal, Jean, Nehardy, Pam Rooney. Can you see them, Jack? Yeah, I do. I do. Okay. So Kathy is at the top there. So perhaps- Is that where you want to start? Yes. I wasn't keeping track of who had their hand first but she's at the top. Yeah, okay, here we go. Hi, Kathy. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I'm Kathy Schoen. I live up in Northam or some Montague Road. I'm also on the town council, but I'm speaking now just as Kathy who lives on Montague Road, not in the downtown. I want to make a few comments. I had not sent in public comments, trying to make sure that the council is not weighing in in some way. So it's just me. Oh God, I muted her unfortunately, I think, where she did. Okay, no, I didn't touch anything. Am I back on? You are on. Yeah. I'm not going to touch anything, Pam. So if you just, you're in control. Okay. So I thought the comments you all made were excellent and many of the public comments were as well. So I just wanted to offer a few thoughts because when I first read the consultant report, I had to look up a bunch of terms like transects, transects one, two, three, four, five, form-based and many of the designs that they put in the specifics of the zoning changes don't seem to me to go with the concepts that were conceptually discussed. When you get to the quasi-urban, all of them are assuming a certain amount of public way away from the curb. So I didn't see anywhere where we were measuring how far is the current sidewalk, how far is the current public way? Because typically in the urban, it's 20 feet back before the building starts. So it may be able to build right up to the edge of it for zero clearance, but it's got a greenway and it's got a sidewalk. So a six-foot sidewalk, a six-foot greenway. And that's to, if you let something go taller to diminish the sense, then it's overwhelming someone who's walking by and it goes with this whole notion of walkability and people-friendly and benches. So I went and looked at a few towns that were putting something in downtown, a housing complex. And if they didn't already own that public way, they said to the developer, if you wanna go taller, so taller than two stories, then you have to give up some of your land in front to create a wider sidewalk. And I can send in the places I found. So it was negotiation to try to create a bench, a place to sit and meet, a place what we're seeing downtown now to put out a table. And I think that's particularly important if there was ever a thought that this would be families as opposed to students living downtown. So the kids could go outside and not be right away in the street and near it. So that was one thought. And then the other is on form-based code since it seems to be on everyone's top of their list, when you read the People Who Are Advocates for it says, form-based code is whatever form you want it to be that you have to decide what form you want it to be, but it's supposed to be inviting, comfortable, public spaces, walkable streets, and a specific vision and intended use. And so I didn't see any of that in this. And 40R, when you read about what other towns have done, they're trying to think of what's the space they're creating, especially for its families with kids. What does that space feel like to the people who are gonna live there and the people are gonna walk by it? So as Janet said, rather than going into criticism of specific line items and the zoning changes, I think wherever you put a photo are, it's gonna be what does it feel like to the people who live there? When Northampton did their 40Rs, they had the luxury of an old mental hospital, but they built a large amount of green spaces so people could walk out of their apartments and find not necessarily even a big part, but just someplace to sit down with a bunch of kids at a picnic table. And we certainly don't have that kind of space downtown, but we do have Kendrick Park. So if you were setting it back further than Kendrick Park and had easy walkways. So my last point is to think about the streets. It's not building, but we have smart streets and designs and we're supposed to worry about where is the bike lane? Can two wheelchairs pass on a sidewalk? Can you put a bench out? What does that feel like? And two of the places that were proposed downtown didn't ever mention the streets. What does the current street look like? How wide is the street? Is it a little narrow street? Do we create a wall or corridor and shadows? So I think as you go forward on this, some of it has to do with zoning downtown more generally, but if a building grows taller, Buford said by the time you get to the third story, the whole story steps back. So sunlight can come in. So it's, again, it's a negotiation. You wanna go taller, move away from the street. As you go taller, step it back. And just thinking of, sorry, I'll stop there. I took a picture a year and a half ago when I came downtown on a beautiful sunny morning and had to put my headlights on because one East Pleasant completely had the street dark and it didn't get light again till I got to Brugger's Bagels and it just completely blocked the sunlight. So if you think of that happening from both directions, from both the East and the West, we have no sunshine on Kendrick Park on a whole thoroughfare. So I think the entire space since you were the planners needs to be taken to consideration. And I'll stop there. Yeah, I'd have to agree again with Cathy's reference to the Hospital Hill where that was an area that was requiring some incentives for development. And that just brings to mind, like downtown doesn't necessarily need the incentive but we need the housing. And it's just like trying to fit. Forty-R seems like a great tool, incentive. But I guess we, from what I've heard that the board has questions with regard to location. So Cathy has her hand up. No, I think I thought I took it down. Sorry. Oh, okay. All right, so Ken Rosenthal. Hi, Ken. Thank you very much. I'm Ken Rosenthal. I live on Sunset Avenue and I'm a former chair of the ZBA and involved in Amherst planning and various committees for a number of years. I want to say first that thanks for this opportunity. I do agree with the comments first by Doug Marshall and by others of you about the appropriateness of Forty-R in town. Yet there are many things in a Forty-R proposal that could make sense for Amherst. I'm not going to try to talk substantively now because I want to talk to you about process for just a moment. I was invited, and I was very pleased to have been invited to a small conversation a couple of weeks ago that was summarily canceled. I looked at that as an invitation to me not because I represent anybody but myself, not because I represent where I live or what I might stand for and what else I might represent. And I thought of it as an opportunity, as the beginning of a series of conversations that I would not be involved in that would involve representatives of your board to hear people from the neighborhoods in which some of these changes are being proposed. I think that's a great idea. And I think that having a community-wide forum every six months or so on this subject, this goes back, as Chris said, a couple of years, we forget what we've heard, we forget what we talk about and the ideas are lost and not followed up. You need to hear from people who are experienced, you need to hear from people who are inexperienced but just concerned, you need to hear from people in the neighborhoods where these ideas are being offered. And we have a wonderful opportunity now with Zoom to do that. I can see you, but you can't see me. You can't see that I'm holding up a book called Essays on Amherst History, which I've mentioned to Chris as a wonderful resource for understanding how Amherst became what it is and the problems it had in becoming what it is and the mistakes that it's made in the past. I would want people to have an opportunity to read that book. I'm sure there are copies in Town Hall. My copy was given to me by Alan Tory in 1978. And I love it. I refer that to you, Essays on Amherst History. But you could see me because Zoom can allow you to have a meeting in which you can see everybody who's attending just the way we would in a room in Town Hall, but not to hear us. Pam can control the opportunity for us to speak. So there's no Zoom bombing allowed, but we can see each other and we can have a gallery view. You can know who's in the room. I can know who else from my neighborhood or from the town might be there and you would know too, but you'd also be able to see me. We'd be able to see the expressions on our faces. You have an opportunity to do this better. So two things I'm suggesting. One is to improve the way you do your Zoom meetings and I'm talking to Brianna Sunrid about this and I hope we can make some changes that will make this more realistic. And the other is not to give up on the idea of having small gatherings. They do not have to be open to the public for participation but they could be open to everybody for listening just the way I'm suggesting you do your meetings. Allow us in but not to talk. You can hear five or six people at that meeting, for instance, that I was invited to, John Kuhn who's a planner and was a retired architect was invited. So there are opportunities that you can use this peculiar time, this pandemic time to do things better than we ever have before and I hope you will not miss those chances. Have small meetings, have gatherings, do not try to have massive forums every six months but have meetings much more regularly that other people participate, that the community watch but not intervene and you'll get some good ideas and I think it will help the process and I thank you for listening to me tonight. Thank you, Ken, before you sign off. You had two points. I understand the second, but you said I think the first was improve Zoom meeting and I'm not, the second was like small gatherings for listening and having experts involved and things like that. So I'm just wondering if you could clarify your first point. Sure, Jack, I've just been taking a course of all things in jazz at Lincoln Center. It's taught by, it's offered to 150 people who are attending this meeting. We can all see who's attending. None of us can talk unless the monitor allows us to unmute our screen so that you would be able to see just the way if you were sitting in town hall in a meeting room, you could see the 75 or 35 or 25 people who are gathering in front of you. You wouldn't hear from them until you wanted to, Mr. Chairman, because you would have control over when they spoke, but when they spoke they could see you and you could see them. Being able to do that, not being able to do that, not being able to see our expressions, not being able for us to see who else is there. So we know whether perhaps we might not wanna talk. I don't know, for instance, how many other people are gonna put up their hands today. And so I don't know whether I have to cover everything that all of my friends who are may or may not be present might be wanting to say. It's an easy thing to do. It doesn't cost any more than this does. And again, I don't wanna take your time in doing it, but I can show you how it's done because I've been doing it as a student in a course of 150 people and it works. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Jean Hardy, is that correct? Okay. There she is. Hi, Jean, can you unmute yourself so we can hear you? Thank you so much for giving me the chance to talk. As you mentioned, my name is Jeannie Hardy. I'm a resident of Amherst, I live on East Pleasant Street near the proposed 40R location. I would like to echo the sentiments which were just raised. It does feel a little bit dehumanized to just be a black box and not be able to, you know, actually share as a human being with a face and everything. So if you could change to allow us to see each other, that would be terrific. I do wanna thank the zoning board. I can tell that you guys do a tremendous amount of work and put a lot of work and effort and hours into this job and I really wanna thank you for that. And I also want to thank you for your thoughtful comments. I can tell that you've thought about this plan and you are keeping residents of Amherst in mind and I really appreciate that. But there's still a few things that I want to say even if some of these have been covered already because I think it's important for residents to be heard because when you make these decisions, you are impacting our lives. When a five-story building gets built, a block from my house and I can no longer grow any plants or send my kids out safely to play because the traffic is worse and the visibility is terrible, it really impacts my life. So I live right next to the limited business district. I frequent those stores all the time and I'm happy with them. I like the integration. I like the way these buildings are short. It's a transitional space from downtown Amherst to the residential neighborhood where I live. I am really thrilled to hear that the Amherst master plan wants to maintain the character of the town and I've looked in depth at the 40R plans that have come from the architects and I agree completely that these do not keep the character of the town in mind. The setbacks, I know you don't want to talk about details but the details matter to me because the setbacks at Kendrick Place are so small that it's already made a wind tunnel before we get another huge five-story building on the other side. When you look at the architectural drawings, you see a five-story building around 20 feet from the houses that it sits next to. And so when you're thinking about putting a 40R in downtown Amherst, would you please remember that in addition to thinking about the new families who will be able to move in if that happens and I would like to pause to say, I haven't seen that happening. I live very near where all of these apartments are, the new apartments are and I have not yet met any families who live in those apartments. Whereas I know many, many students and young professionals who live in those apartments. So it does not seem to me that if we are trying to build a place for families to live that the developers are choosing to build buildings that attract young families. But getting back to the human nature of the people who live in the neighborhood next to the proposed 40R location, I would like to ask you to please remember that it could be your house that was going to have a five-story building eight feet from your property line built on it. And I'm grateful that many of you are saying that 40R should not be in downtown. Whether 40R happens in downtown or not, as you make planning decisions, please bear in mind that these are our homes and we didn't choose to move to the middle of Manhattan. We chose to move to Amherst, which had a particular character and if you change a limited business district to allow massive buildings, it really does change the character. When I looked at these, they looked like these plans were designed for the middle of a very dense city. There were no greenways, there were no open spaces, there were no playgrounds, the setbacks were extremely small. And if we are going to build buildings in this transitional zone between a business district and a residential district, they need to be on the scale of the residential district so that the people whose homes are next to it do not get dwarfed by a giant shade producer. Thank you. Thank you, Jeannie. We have Pam Rooney, please. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you so much for allowing some public comment tonight. I did happen to submit a number of comments earlier and that was back when we thought it was going to be discussed in July and all of the comments still stand. It's hard in a way to sort out what the most important comments are to sort of reiterate and recapture. I think there are not many people in town who do not support some increased density in areas that are poorly designed and poorly laid out to sort of residue from the 50s and 60s when Amherst grew so rapidly. I think 40R could be a tool that could be used but I also think it's one of several zoning opportunities that could be considered. I know the zoning subcommittee has worked on doing some pros and cons of various tools such as inclusionary zoning, form-based zoning, 40R, a whole discussion of zoning within the town center. I think these are all really important tools to sort of lay out on a table and sort of cut and paste and review. I really enjoyed hearing, I think it was Janet McGowan say that it would be appropriate to try to simplify some of the zoning rather than creating more complexity and I think that's a really good goal. I totally agree with the fact that the concepts behind 40R, the smart growth, the livable and walkable and friendly scenarios are wonderful. It's exactly the kind of town I want to live in but the details that were provided by the consultants missed it by miles. I would have to say, I believe that the massing and the scale of what was proposed is inappropriate to the context that they're being put into. Again, I agree there's, it was not a new town plan that we saw from the consultants. It was simply what would be, what are the largest Kleenex boxes that we can fit into the area between Triangle and North Pleasant Street, for instance, or on Halleck Street. How many big boxes can we fit in there? And if we maximize five stories, then we get X number of units out of it. We can continue to increase the number of housing units in town. I would like very much to see more affordable units in town. I think we need to almost go block by block if a 40R concept or a zoning tool was adopted in which you really do create transitions from neighborhoods into the town center. The transitions that we saw in the consultant's dimensional requirements were laughable. There was no transition. There was simply, we have a limited business district. We could fit five of the big Kleenex boxes in that zone and over here we could fit two. I'd love to look at it in more detail and really understand how to create type of the place that we wanna live in. And a number of people spoke much more articulately than I can on that. We do wanna create place. We don't want to simply maximize floor area and height. It's not the way to create the college town, the look and feel of a New England town. So I've lots and lots of comments. They're all in writing. But I think really this particular document so misses the intent that was stated that I think, I agree with someone that it should probably just be wrapped up. Comments, all comments noted and just say thank you very much. Let's not do any more damage. Let's let the zoning subcommittee start a new process of starting to pick this thing apart. Thanks. Thank you. Dorothy Pan, please. Hi, Dorothy. Dorothy. She's muted. She's muted. Okay, so now here I am. This is a topic very dear to my heart and I really do agree with much that has been said. Kathy is so correct about green space, wide sidewalks, walkability. Right now we have a situation where the building, some people feel almost impossible to walk on the sidewalk. I would hate to try to walk that with a stroller and a young child. It is very unfriendly to families and children. The question of shadows is a serious one. I've seen the shadow and I was shocked the first time I saw the shadow come across the street. I'm very excited about the new playground at Kendrick Park and I see they're working on the new drains. But then I began to fear that because we have this lovely park, that somehow that will be an excuse for not having any green space in front of the buildings which might be built on both sides of the park. So I don't want that. But also it is a playground. So it would be nice if in fact there was some family housing that could be there. One of the things that we've talked about is Forty-R has a lot to offer in terms of I think is it 25% possibly of affordable housing. And I do agree totally that the downtown is not that space because it's not a place for a large number of families. But if we just made that simple zoning change of inclusionary zoning, 10 to 15% of all units or space of all new construction would be affordable which as we know has a wide range of levels. So that affordable comes to be to do with the middle class as well as people at lower levels of income. So many people have expressed fear to me that form-based zoning, which is to kind of zone, I guess you can interpret it in many ways but one definition I've heard is that you make the housing fit the area that it's going into. But now they're afraid that the brand new buildings that have come up will then be the dominant force. And the small, lovely New England houses which are on the west side of Kendrick Park will no longer be considered, oh, that's part of Amherst. I mean, I think the discussion started off really correctly with Mr. Bertwistel's reading of the master plan which said, don't lose the feeling of Amherst. But yet I do know that we need some more building. I know that we need some new tax revenue. So it's a challenge. And it's a really big challenge to see how this is gonna be done. I agree with the suggestion of having filmed forums. I went to most of the forums. And the last one I went to, there was so much distress in groups all around the room. People were saying, no, not that, and that gets lost. People were not happy with the slides. They did not see that as something that they wanted in Amherst. And I felt, wow, couldn't they have found some better pictures of affordable housing that could fit in with 40R, that could be appropriate to Amherst? I'm sure they exist. But the pictures, unless it was a building we don't have. The only ones I liked were when there was an old building that they repurposed. It's an old building that represented something that had been there that looked like the town of Amherst. But we don't have those. We don't have the old factories to redo. So we can't do that. So if it's gonna be new stuff, I think it should have some relationship to the town of Amherst. And I am for new family housing, but I also agree with one of the speakers. We shouldn't forget the people who live here now, the families who live here now and make their sense, their feeling, their enjoyment, appreciation of Amherst is as important as that of new people as well. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. And that's all we have with regard to hands up for the public attendees. And I guess if there's anyone on the board that wants to respond to what we've heard or expand further, but I think there's a general consensus here. And again, it seems like it's not ready for prime time as proposed, but we need to support the consultants to the extent we can and make their next form beneficial to us all. But they're locked into the downtown area. I think that's probably the number one sticking point there. So any other board members have comments on this subject? Good. So Chris, can you comment in terms of where we go from here? I am seeing Michael's hand. Oh, it's gone. Well, there it is. Yeah, I wonder though, are we locked in to the downtown? Is there any reasonable approach to shifting the focus of this project to some other point, other place in Amherst as several people have suggested? I think we all agree that there is need for this kind of housing. We all agree. Well, I don't shouldn't say that. I think it's, many people seem to feel that the character of the area called downtown, perhaps a misnomer, is worth considering and preserving and enhancing. So it seems to me that a possibility exists of shifting this proposal to perhaps the East Amherst area that some of us have been talking about. And perhaps if that seems to be a good idea many or most of us, the consultants might in fact take that as a, not necessarily a directive but a suggestion in terms of what their next proposal ought to look like. So I don't know whether that's given or not. Chris, please. I think that consultants are getting towards the end of their project. So for now we're probably going to see the downtown as the location that's being suggested but that doesn't mean that we have to adopt that suggestion. And we can go ahead and investigate whether this would be appropriate in East Amherst, the East Amherst Village. And that may be a conversation that the planning board wants to have. But I don't think it's going to be possible at this time to shift the consultant's location. And I regret that, but we've been working on this for two years. I think they were expecting to be done with it after one year and I'm not actually sure of how much money they haven't left in their contract. I mean, that's something that I can investigate but I don't think that they're going to be able to shift at this late time. So I think probably what we're going to end up with is a suggestion for how this could work in the downtown and then we'll have to take the parts of that that we like and try to figure out how to make them work in another location that is agreed upon. Thank you. Doug? Yeah, kind of following up to what Chris was saying. I don't see any reason that we couldn't put together with Chris's help in the planning committee or the planning staff a proposal to Institute 40R or somewhere else in town, whether it's East Amherst or somewhere else. I think, as we've been talking about the zoning subcommittees future, we've been talking about potentially setting aside some time each meeting of the planning board to talk about kind of nuts and bolts detailed planning ideas. And maybe that's the first one we want to talk about. And then I think the conversation would probably need to involve Chris and whether she and her staff can help us put together a proposal to send to town council or whether we'd need to hire a consultant for that. Chris, do you have any response to that? My sense is that given our workload that we already have, it would be challenging for the planning staff, particularly with regard to the graphics to come up with a proposal for another location. But I think it would be really exciting if we decided on another location to try if we can possibly do it to hire a consultant to help us with that. I think we all seem to think that maybe this is a good idea, maybe the concept of 40R is a good idea, but we don't like the details that are being proposed right now. And maybe there is a location that would work better. So I'd be really interested in exploring that, but I can't promise that the planning department staff would be able to manage that at this time. So Chris, when, oh, Janet. So I could see how the 40R would be, especially for starting for Amherst, like a 40R project in a smaller site or a smaller, not like we're gonna rezone the village center or anything like that. But I kind of go back and forth between this idea of, let's do some village center zoning, maybe an East Amherst or a different village center and use that as a kind of, like how could we do the village center zoning that we're supposed to be doing for the last 10 years, according to the master plan, and just address the problems in the underlying zoning and not layer again the 40R on top of zoning that's flawed. And so, like I know in East Amherst, some things are zoned commercial, so there can't be any residents or maybe there can in these certain circumstances. It's just very dense and complicated. And to me, it seems simpler just to say, let's take a village center that a preprocess for looking at the problems in the zoning, working with the community and saying, hey, what do you wanna see in your village center? Let's fix the underlying zoning so we can get there. Like more housing, small shops, you can walk from building to building without going over curves and snow banks and things like that. I would rather do that than layer a 40R on top of an entire village center, saying we don't like your underlying zoning and then we're gonna put this thing on top and then we all have to weigh through the nuances of that. But I can also see a small 40R project going in a small place and saying, okay, let's do this as a demo to say this is how you can increase density and maybe building heights and everybody likes it. It doesn't feel like it's coming at you or over you, but it's into your neighborhood. And so, my first preference would be, let's fix the underlying zoning in a nice community planning process, but look at 40R as kind of a tool in the toolkit that can be appropriate in select areas. And Chris. So I just wanted to say that, we've been talking about this in the planning department among the staff. And I think there's a certain amount of enthusiasm for aspects of the 40R. I think deciding partially what we'd like these buildings to look like and that involves form-based code and design guidelines and really looking carefully at the relationship of the width of the road to the width of the sidewalk to the height of the building. I think that's something that we really wanna look at and we really want to explore how we can encourage or require affordable housing in these areas. So I personally feel like we have learned a lot from going through this process of the 40R. And I kind of agree with Janet that the 40R may be kind of too big an animal for us and that maybe it's more appropriate in a place like, you know, Waltham or Watertown or Somerville or some place that's closer to the downtown of Boston. And it may not be appropriate for Amherst. Even in Northampton where it's been used, it's been used in very selective ways. It was used on Hospital Hill for property that, you know, really didn't have a lot of people crying out to develop it in its current format. And so by using 40R, they really managed to do something good there, but that was outside of any village center or downtown. They also used 40R to develop an affordable housing development on Pleasant Street. But again, that was, you know, specific to one building. It wasn't really a whole neighborhood. So my personal opinion of 40R is that it may not be the right tool for Amherst but there are aspects of it that we've learned from. And I would like to take a crack at, you know, looking at the East Amherst Village Center, certainly, and trying to figure out how we can improve that. But also the BL district around the downtown, I think that's crying out for attention. And there are, you know, restrictions in the BL district that just make it impossible to build anything there or anything that is really useful for the uses that we need. So that's my opinion that I think we've learned a lot from this process. And there are tools that 40R provides that we can think about using in other ways, but we don't necessarily have to go down the route of 40R. But that's not a decision that you have to make tonight. You know, there are opportunities to think about this as we go forward, if we all go to the forum or listen to a broadcast of the forum and then come back together maybe in October and have another crack at this, maybe we'll come to some different conclusions or some more solid conclusions. So Chris, again, this is coming before us because more of the effort of the housing trust or former housing trust program and then finding funding and exploring this because we had the ability to do so. So the housing trust isn't really equipped to think about zoning. It's really a planning board thing to think about zoning. So I spoke with the chair of the housing trust about a week or so ago and he, you know, I was trying to say, well, the housing trust initiated this project. So why doesn't the housing trust carry this forward? And his response was really that they didn't feel equipped to deal with all the ins and outs of zoning and planning that are required to either make this work or decide that it isn't gonna work. So they would prefer to have it be taken up by the planning board. His response was more like, well, if anybody's gonna do it, you know, probably the planning board would be the group that would be the proponent. And from what I'm hearing tonight, I'm not sure that the planning board is ready to be the proponent, but maybe after the forum on the 23rd and after talking about this more, you would be willing to be the proponent of this in some other location or in some other form. So I think there's more conversation to be had. Okay, so I'd like to wrap up our conversation on this, but I do see one public comment hand, Cathy. Doug's hand is up and Mike's hand is up. And maybe we could just do one last round. And looking for a protocol here for Cathy's hand being on the public side, when would we let her in? Take one more public comment and then wrap it up with planning board comments. How about that? Okay, so I'm gonna let Cathy speak and then we'll wrap it up with the planning board comments. I just had a question about the public forum. Since you came to a conclusion, not this design, maybe not this place, do you really wanna have the consultants presented a public forum or do you wanna use that to talk about, here's the concept and we're possibly thinking of some other directions and get feedback on that. Cause otherwise you're pulling a lot of people in to react to something that you had more questions than positive statements. So if you wanna have the public forum, I would suggest switching the focus. Good point, thoughts on that, Chris? Well, I know that the consultants are planning to change their proposal based on what they've read, what they've heard from the group. I think it's legitimate to talk at the forum about do we really want this? But I guess I'm reluctant to just, I kinda wanna actually have an end to this project. So I'd like to have the consultant give us something and maybe they'll give us a revised version of what they have already given us with an addendum that says more study needs to be done, different locations need to be explored or whatever. But I think I kind of feel like if we take the route that Kathy's suggesting that the project is not gonna end, that it's just gonna keep going and I feel like that's not the right thing to do at this time. But others may have a different opinion about that. At some point we have to cut the consultants loose and just say they've finished their project. Yeah, I mean, I question the forum and if it's just gonna be based on the downtown proposal, not sharing it, it's gonna go anywhere and is it of any benefit to the town to go through that process and have the consultants do that? So anyway, I'll call on Doug. Yeah, I guess my, this wasn't my original comment but based on the two previous comments, I understand well Chris's desire to close the, bring the process with the consultants to a close and that they're probably at a point in their process and fee that they're not gonna be able to really substantially change direction. However, I would view their final presentation as an opportunity for me to be persuaded if in fact downtown is the right place for the 40R. I did not attend any of the public meetings. I know there was originally a long list of potential places for 40R to be done. I assume East Amherst was one of those and I'd be interested in maybe a recap of the comments from community or from the consultants that said, no, we don't think East Amherst is the right place. We think downtown is the right place. So I think it's worth bringing the consultants in at least to do a videotaped recorded presentation that we can use as a reference going forward. Even if it's not worth the time of a lot of other community members to attend because they don't see why we would do that. I guess the other comment that I was gonna make earlier was I think this has been a valuable exercise. It sounds like Chris's staff has gotten a lot out of it and it seems like it has jump started this conversation at a time when we have the new form of government and maybe this is the right time to be thinking about some new zoning structures and districts in town. So I applaud the housing trust for getting the grant and leading this process. That's it. Thank you, Mike Birtwistle. I think the planning board's gotten a lot out of this as well. And I think it's appropriate for us to take the ball and run with it in whatever shape the ball is and in whatever direction we wanna run. But I think it really is up to us now to figure out what the next step is and draft some kind of revision of the zoning model or addition to it that encompasses a lot of the ideas that have been brought forward in this process for the improvement of downtown and or for the improvement of one of the neighborhoods whichever one we turn out to wanna focus on. But I do think it then becomes the planning board's responsibility and I think we're up to that. So I guess Chris, I'm wondering in terms of this forum if it's gonna be the last straw so to speak if maybe they step back and recap everything they've done and with regard to all the village centers they've looked at and then to just kind of allow a step back versus like the downtown proposal but I just don't see it having the support but yet we're all very interested in the 40R in perhaps other districts in the town. Well, your thoughts? There may be aspects of the changed proposal that you might like to hear. So when they, I'm gonna write up what we've heard tonight Pam and I will write it up and send the minutes to the consultants or at least draft minutes and they've heard a lot of comments from the public and from others. So they may decide that the buildings should be shorter or that certain parts of the overlay district shouldn't be as they were proposed. I guess I'm reluctant to just cut it off at this point without seeing what their final proposal is. And I think I like the idea of having them go back and recapping why the downtown was chosen but then just having people talk like they're talking tonight. I don't know if more people would come to this forum or if it would be the same people but I think it's worth having the consultants come back one more time, show what they've done. I will relate to them what we've talked about tonight and there's not a lot of enthusiasm on the part of the planning board to take up the flag of this 40R project and go forward with it but there are aspects of it that we really like and we may choose to locate a 40R in another location. So I'm gonna try to give the consultants a flavor of this meeting and it could be that what comes out of the forum will be useful. I don't think we should abandon the forum and I don't feel like we shouldn't have them wrap up their proposal to the best of their ability. Does that make sense? Yeah. Are people feeling like they shouldn't even come back and we shouldn't even have a final meeting, we should just get a final product and then do what we will with it? My feeling is like it's like, let's move on. I mean, the forum, unless it includes like a big picture, I just don't see the downtown thing being fruitful. Although there are potential little, you know, like BL zone segments and things like that that seem fruitful, but I see a number of hands up, Doug. I guess in response to Chris, I think it's worth bringing them back one more time. I was also gonna ask whether this would be a, whether it would be appropriate to have a motion to continue this conversation to the first meeting in October. So we can wrap this item up on the agenda for tonight and continue it in October after the forum. Maybe I should just make that motion. Okay, we have Janet and Mike's hands up. Fine, I'll wait. Okay, Janet? It just seems awkward to me to have, if I was a consultant coming to present this proposal to a board and a group that isn't enthusiastic about it or interest, it just seems like very awkward to me for the consultants. And I wonder, that's all, that's my comment. It just seems like a very awkward situation for consultants to walk into. Although I see the desire for a final written product at least. Thank you, Janet. Mike. I agree with that. On the other hand, the last document, the list of one page document that we got from the consultant shows a whole bunch of ideas that they have suggested that they're going to incorporate in the next proposal. Some of those have some significance at least. One appears to be eliminating the area north of Triangle Street from the urban zone. So it could be that what they come back with is significantly different and then different enough so that it gives us more information to work with. So I agree that it may be a little bit awkward for them, but they're working for us. And I'm not all that concerned about whether they feel awkward or not. I've been concerned about getting something of value out of them. And this may be something of value. I don't know for sure, but it might be. And then again, are they work, they're not really working for the planning board. They're working for the planning department. What we have to say here, Chris, I'm not even sure we have the authority to kind of like dictate the form, substance and all that. So again, clarification on your part, be appreciated. Well, I think I am not noticing anybody else who might take up this banner and run with it. I'm not hearing from the developers and I'm not hearing from the housing trust. So I think the planning board is probably the point person, if you will, who is being looked upon to carry this forward. So I think you can make a judgment about whether you wanna hold the form or not. But I agree with Michael that I think it would be worthwhile to hear what they finally come back with because there may be parts of it that would work. We don't have to accept this whole area that has been mapped. We can accept parts of it, like Janet was talking about. There may be little pockets of this that would work. Belmont, for instance, has a 40-yard district that only has eight housing units in it. So it could be that we could carve out a place in the downtown that might work for some property owner. And that would be a conversation that the planning board could have. So I would recommend going ahead with the public forum, seeing what they're proposing, having a conversation, maybe similar to what we've had tonight, and then having another conversation the first week, or the first meeting in October and I don't know what the date is, but Pam might know. It's October 7th, according to my list. So that seems to be a good plan to me. Okay, so do we need to take a vote on this? Because... You don't. Yeah, we don't. Okay, so I think we'll revisit this at the forum and we can move on. Is that... Mm-hmm. Okay, all right. So it's at about 810. Two major items we have left is the priorities list for zoning amendments and then the status of zoning committee. So maybe a half hour each, maybe 15 minutes for the priorities list because we already talked about that, the zoning subcommittee might need a little more time, but that would get as close to nine o'clock. So with that, the next item on the list is the priorities list for zoning amendments and we've received a summary, obviously, well, we discussed this. Mike Burtwistle had modified the table. The table is, it seems like it's quite old. Are you bringing something up, Pam? I did. Okay. Do you want that in front of you? So we have the chart. We have the chart with Michael's suggestions. We have Janet McGowan has sent in some comments. So we have those. So anyway, I guess just leading into this, you know, this can be pages and pages of details, but I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but what this has been requested from the town council, the CRC, that they just, they want to know what our top priorities are. And so I figured that, okay, that's correct. All right, I see you shaking your head. So I mean, so let's get our top three. If we have to make a four, we can make a four, but then I suggest, and let's get that to them sooner than later, like tonight, and then develop a secondary list of future matters that will be much longer, that will include pretty much everything on that table, unless we want to scratch things off, but we're not going to get to that tonight, but we really should be able to address the top three or four items tonight and then get into the weeds in later meetings that we want to make sure that is in front of the town council and CRC. And that's my take on this. Any comment, I'm gonna call on Maria. I don't know if you had time to look at this. I basically summarized the top three from our last planning board meeting and I started to add a fourth one. And then like you said, Jack, maybe we table the adding of five through 10 till later, but the top three I wrote down were, improve downtown zoning, number two, unlock housing development and increase diversity of housing stuff, and number three, recodification of zoning bylaw. I think that was the consensus of the big points that we all kind of had, and then there were a lot of other outliers. Like I remember Jack, you said there was fixing of the sort of water demands in North Amherst area and some other people had parking. But I feel like the top three were those three. And if we can sort of hone in on that, maybe, I don't know if you guys agree with this summary or not, but it was sent out Monday or Friday, I can't remember. Yes, I mean, that's my recollection that we almost were to a point where in general agreement, and then we had a submittal by Janet, if I'm not mistaken, I have not processed all of that. Maybe Janet will want to speak to that. But again, I think that is, if there's more detail beyond the major items, I think that we should continue that discussion for later meetings. But I don't think we want to drop items off necessarily, but keep it on on a list. But I think town council is looking for us to provide more focused concerns, which I think we arrived at last meeting, but I guess we didn't vote on it or, and that. So I'm kind of, Marie, your list is not in our paper copy, so I'm kind of looking for it. There it is. It is. Okay. Good, all right. So the first one being improved downtown zoning, I think we were all kind of on board with that, and then housing development, increased diversity of housing stock. We were pretty solid on that. And then the recodification of the zoning by-law was kind of a mixed bag, but it's just overall, like, let's get a zoning to where it makes sense. And so that's already being undertaken by the building commissioner. So with that said, Janet, you wanna speak, please? So, Maria, I really liked your list and my confusion, I mean, not my confusing. I see nothing's that clear to me in sense of our, is the town council saying, if we had to do three zoning by-law changes in the next year, what would you pick? Because when I look at Maria's list, there's really like about 12 different sections, 12 different changes that would take place. When I look at my list, I see the same sort of complexity. I had sort of the housing package as being, look at mixed use buildings, apartments, affordable housing and parking as a package, because it's kind of, and that would be town-wide. So if you have an apartment, does it have to be 35 units? Can it be bigger? If it's a mix, there's problems in the mixed use buildings. So that's like a housing package of buildings, building apartment units. And then your package in number two is unlock housing development and increase diversity. And so that's looking at the different residential zones or the different places and talking more about lots and things like that. I just think all of this, that once we start on it or the town council is we're talking about like 10 or 15 different by-law changes. And so I'm kind of at a loss for how to summarize. Like, you know, my number one would be affordable housing because I think it's long, that's due and that wouldn't just be downtown, but you know, any residential, any project that leads to 10 or more housing units, there has to be at least 10% affordable units. And so- So wouldn't that go under number two? Yeah, I sort of got a couple saying, are they looking for very specific changes or- No, I think they're looking at big picture. Just big picture from the planning board. And then, I mean, we, you know, we're gonna probably talk about zoning subcommittee too, but you know, there's gonna be a lot of details behind it, but I just, I feel like we need to get past this with several big picture items and then, you know, work on the details of the nitty-gritty of zoning in our next topic there, perhaps with, you know, the zoning subcommittee. It's hard to work off of two documents. So working off of Maria's document, I would say the definition of mixed use buildings and apartments and include inclusionary zoning, I would move that from downtown zoning into number two because those kind of belong in there more. And then, you know, one thing that when we were talking about unlock housing, you know, in different residential areas, we keep on thinking, you know, in the zoning subcommittee, we've talked often about the need for owner-occupied housing. So if you have a two-family or three-family building or more, that at least one person living in that building is an owner because of the issue of students living in different parts of town. So, you know, in my neighborhood, if there was a three-family house and there was no owner living there, that could be 12 students or more because we know that landlords rent to more than four students per unit. So I think that kind of balancing of all the occupancy. But that's kind of going into the weeds a little bit, but I want to raise that issue about student versus not student. I mean, I've heard with owner-occupied housing, you know, from folks on the ZBA that it doesn't really, that concept kind of doesn't really hold up, although ideally, it sounds good, but not, you know, that's all I'm gonna say, but who else do we have, Doug? Yeah, I guess I viewed whatever we send to town council and CRC as part of a conversation. And I feel like we're early in the conversation, so we're talking broadly about general topics and we're looking for them to either say, yeah, we kind of agree that those are the broad priorities or not. And then we, so we'll hear that back from them. And then we can work with Chris and her staff on whatever priorities probably overlap between what we think should happen and the town council and CRC think should happen. And then we send specific things back as we finish them and as they're informed by further conversation with CRC and town council. So I view what Maria put together, particularly the first three items as broad topics that we think the focus should be on over the next, say, year or something. And I would simply be looking for kind of a concurrence back from them that, yeah, we think those should be the priorities or not. And then if they're not, then we need to find a way to have some more conversation with CRC. But if they are, then we're sort of good to go and we can get more into the weeds. So I would be happy to vote for Maria's, especially first three and say, let's send that to town council. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. And we're already working on number three. Is that correct, Chris? Yes, it is, yep. Okay, the first two, not so much other than... Well, it'd be nice to know the town council agrees that the building commissioner should be doing what he's working on. Okay, so we have Mike's hand up, Mike. Yeah, I like Maria's list a lot. I'm wondering whether the town council would be better off hearing specifics from us or hearing generalities. And I'm not sure. I like the notion of picking three of the bullet points from Maria's number one. And I would pick dimensional requirements, define mixed use buildings and apartments and fix inclusion or deal with inclusionary zoning. I would pick those three as my top areas of concern. And it seems to me that if we pick three things that are relatively specific, you might have some chance of getting something done. If we pick generalities, and I think, I mean, I agree with all the things that Maria's listed here, but I think the categories are so broad that we might tend to never get to the weeds. I think we need to get to the weeds and pick three things that we wanna work on or for and ask the town council and the CRC whether they want us to work on those things. So I'm gonna ask for clarification from Chris because there's a history here. I know the table that was passed around with the three columns and three rows. It's pretty antiquated. It's extremely busy and so what are we trying to do here, Chris? I think you're trying to start a conversation with the CRC. You've asked for guidance from town council and they've asked for your opinion about what you think is important so they can give you guidance. So it's sort of a round and round conversation. I think if you give them something clear to consider like Maria's list of one, two, three, then they can take that and respond to it and say, yes, these are the kinds of things we think you should be working on. I don't think that they want you to get really specific about we think that you should work on mixed use buildings in the downtown and what their first floor should be. I don't think they're gonna be that particular. And the other thing is they haven't really had that much exposure to zoning. So I think they're looking to you for your opinion. And I think these three broad topics are very timely and very important. And so I would agree that these would be the three that I would vote for. But they are looking for this. They've been looking for this because because I'm wondering, we could deliberate this further. And I'm thinking like if we can just get them that something I think we'll be doing ourselves a favor and seriously, and the broader we keep it, the better. But again, the details will always be there for us as we are tackling how we're gonna address zoning issues within the planning board moving forward. Yeah, excuse me if I'm interrupting you, but I think this really rolls into the next conversation because I think that the CRC sees itself as having a greater role in developing zoning amendments. And so I think that they are going to be, they're going to be taking some, let's say control, they're gonna be taking some actions and they wanna make sure that they are not out of line with the things that you think are important. So I would go with this list, not get too involved in the weeds. I do agree that the multicolored list is outdated. It was started in I think 2015 or 16 by a former planning department staff member as a way to get a handle on all the different things that we were working on and try to figure out which things we thought were priorities. But, and this has been carried forward year after year, but some of it may not be applicable anymore. Some of it may not be the priorities, may not be what we really think we need to do. The other thing is that in doing a recodification, we're gonna be sort of probably rolling some of these things into that recodification. So I would just go with Maria's list as a first offering to the CRC and town council. So Maria, I think we'd like to speak on this too. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I can remove number four and then you Chris, you think I should just remove the bullet points it's getting into the weeds too much. I mean, that's fine. If that's, this is the beginning of a conversation that's gonna continue. We can just have those in our back pocket. No. And then they may reach out to you and say, what do you mean by improved downtown zoning? And then you can come back with the bullet points. Okay. Well, then I probably don't really need to revise this, right? It's literally those three. I think, okay, so yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't need to revise it in that you could just send those three bullet points to the town council. You don't need me to create a document. I don't. So someone wanna move that we those, the three bullets that we have one, two, and three are good at this point in the process that we can send as the planning board's opinion on their priorities. Well, it's Maria's document. She probably should move it. No, this is all of our work. It's literally a summary of what we talked about at the last time where we got three bullet points. Okay, I'll move that we push these three main points to town council as next steps on zoning priorities. I second that. Very good. Okay, we'll do comment on the board. Okay, so let's, oh, Janet. So I was just to make the point that in improved downtown zoning, you have definition of mixed use buildings and apartments and inclusionary zoning. Those aren't downtown issues exclusively. So I was hoping you'd drop them to number two because I don't want the CRC or the planning, I mean the town council to think we only think inclusionary zoning. I mean, I hate to draw an inclusionary zoning bylaw that adds another strange layer of detail. Instead of just saying, let's just, you know, go across the board like the housing studies recommend. That's a good point. Good point. Those two I think are just town-wide and so that maybe can drop them into a box too. That would just help me because I don't want to create more confusion. Sorry, I'm just dumping, I'm not going, we're not, I didn't propose that we would show any bullet points. We're only going to show items one, two and three where it's underlined and no bullet points. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I misunderstood them. Thank you. But for our own purposes, we should make that change, I think, because it makes sense. I agree, future work. So again, we're just like improved downtown zoning, unlock housing development and increased diversity of housing stock, recodification and zoning bylaw. That's what we're voting on there. That's what the motion is on. Okay, so Janet, you still have your hand up? Okay, Maria, do you have anything to add? Okay, and Doug. Yeah, I'd like to call the question. Okay, we're good. Again, here, I'm getting my rules here. So we're ready to vote with the call to question. Technically, you're supposed to have a vote on calling the question. Okay, so the call to question. So anybody want to second that? Seconded. It doesn't need a second. It doesn't need a second. All right, see, there we go. All right. Okay, so we shall vote, roll call, right? Yep. Okay, so Mike. Yes. And Maria. Yes. And Doug. Yes. And Janet. Aye. And I am a yes as well. Thank you all. So now you have to vote on the motion. Now we have to vote on the motion. On the motion. Okay. And so Mike. Yes. And Maria. Yes. Doug. Aye. And Janet. Aye. And myself as an aye as well. And I see one hand up in the attendees. And I don't know how long it's been up. My apologies. It's Dorothy PM. Yes. Okay. I've asked her to speak. Okay. I just wondering if the list you're sending to CRC does not reflect in its simplicity, the conversation that was had tonight. So I'm just hoping that you can include some aspect or flavor of conversation you had with that, with those proposed suggestions. Okay. Should we have an individual? Okay. Yes. Should we have a representative of the planning board available for questions or Chris? Obviously, I have Chris present for questions in lieu of more detail during your meeting with where this is presented, Dorothy. Well, I think you could write a very brief report that included some of the sense of consensus that happened tonight. Otherwise, we're just going and starting from zero again. And we've been through these discussions many times. I feel tonight was very important discussion that reflected the thought that has taken place in the arguments over a long period of time. And we wanna move this thing forward. So. Absolutely. I can put together a memo for Jack's signature. How's that? Great. Thank you. And Marianne, I assume is on this topic. Marianne, I believe you're muted. It is because it's always the, now am I okay? You are. Good. I just had two comments on this. I had anticipated making. One was I wanna build on what Dorothy says. I think that Janet's point about taking inclusionary zoning and possibly also fixing the BL, I've heard the fixed the BL come up time and time again. And certainly inclusionary zoning has been a very long issue for us. I would really like to see them in some way heightened and generalized as town-wide issues and not justice issues that kind of come up through 40R. So maybe you can do that in the discussion that that really emerged as important for us. Yes? I don't think the BL, that has to be downtown because that's only where it exists. That's why, okay, yes. But I was just kind of, yes, certainly inclusionary zoning. Okay. That's town-wide. The second thing is, I don't know if this is correct, but it seemed to me that the driver for 40R that came from the housing trust had to do with affordable housing. I think that that was really the driver for that group. And I think that if the planning board can take up, you know, Izzy and other affordable zoning issues, as indeed you'll remember that John Hornig had come to you months ago, kind of asking what you could do as a planning board. I think if you were to go ahead and do that, that might pull some of the pressure off of 40R and let 40R simply be an instrument and not have that kind of energy behind it. So that was just the thought, done. Thank you. Okay, so we have, you know, 25 minutes till nine o'clock and we can move on to topics not reasonably anticipated 40 hours, 48 hours prior to the meeting as part of old business? None. None, okay. So new business and then status of the zoning subcommittee. The shifting papers around here. Pardon me. May I just say this is another topic that doesn't need to conclude tonight. There's nothing resting on this decision so you can have your conversation for the next 25 minutes and then carry it over to a future meeting, which could be the second of September, if you wanted to. Yes, and again, I don't think we have in our packet, Maria's memo, do we? Oh, wait a minute. I think you did. Or maybe it came later and Pam put it in the den and came later, actually, but I can summarize. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And actually I had a minute this afternoon to quickly read all of the emails that were circulating about this from Chris from public. And I'd like to just summarize so that maybe we can in the interest of time shorten it and that I think Janet's point about tabling the ZSC until after like maybe December or so makes a lot of sense. I'd like to go through my four points really quickly just to express why right now, the zoning subcommittee is not gonna have a lot of traction, but that maybe in the future after town council sets up priorities and direction and Mr. Rob Mora goes further with the zoning bylaw amendments that maybe there is a time for the ZSC, especially after new planning board members join, but that right now, like we said, because town council and CRC are setting zoning amendment priorities, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the ZSC to be working on things. The second being Rob Mora is working on zoning revisions as well to what scale I'm not sure yet, but hopefully we'll find out soon. The third point being a lot of planning board members have shown interest in discussing zoning and I would welcome that, especially since my point number five is that the current zoning subcommittee staff, oh, sorry, zoning subcommittee group is not the strength that all these people emailing and Chris about zoning subcommittee brings all these amendments and has brought it for decades. Yes, they did and we are not that group. That was a group of people who actually really understood the zoning bylaw from not just know where to look things up like I do, but they actually understood it at a different level where they could take a problem and think through all the different implications and where things could sort of interact to work toward a goal and that was a different, I mean, they literally had almost 30 years of experience writing zoning amendments and bylaws and presenting them to town town meetings. So we're not that ZSC, could we be one day? Sure, right now we're not there. And so that was another point why I thought the ZSC should dissolve, but hearing all the feedback about how important the work has been in the past and could be in the future, I think Janice pointed about like, let's just hold off wait until town council gives us priorities and directions and then regroup and think about how to move forward the best way possible, especially since it's a big workload on the planning department staff, they have to do a lot of work just to prepare for a ZSC meeting. It's not like they should show up. So that's a burden I don't want to put on them right now, especially since priorities are not set up and especially since a lot of planning members are showing interest in having more in-depth zoning discussions. So in the interest of time, if people are agreeable to that, then that we are not dissolving the zoning subcommittee, but we are thinking about next steps after we get priorities pushed our way from town council and from CRC that we will then maybe it will reform in a different format because we have new members, maybe it'll be more targeted because we'll have priorities set up, maybe we'll be working with Mr. Moro more. So yeah, in the interest of time, rather than discussing whether or not to dissolve it, I'd like to just see if people are open to cabling the status of the zoning subcommittee for what is this August? For like three, four months until everyone gets their feet under them as far as, you know, setting up priorities and COVID and all the extra burden that the planning staff has on them right now. Thank you. That's basically it. So I'm wondering, Mike had brought up last week, he has his hand up, but I'm wondering if we can, you know, dedicate like a half hour of our agenda for each meeting to discuss zoning issues and making it number five, you know, when our agenda, just so that we're like touching it, you know, until that time. That's my hope. I mean, I'd rather have a more fruitful discussion with the larger group than right now the zoning subcommittee is Janet and I. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know when this, you know, back, you know, a year ago, two or three years ago, you know, you guys were meeting at five and then, you know, the regular planning board was meeting at seven and we would go until, I mean, it's like, it was a marathon. And, but we all have, I think, valuable thoughts and input. And so with that, I'll let Mike speak. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. I have certainly no objection to the notion that the planning board as a board would discuss for half an hour or an hour each meeting, whatever zoning issues seem to be on the front burner. However, I think it's important not to even put the zoning subcommittee on hiatus. Somebody has got to write any changes that we're going to submit to the CRC. And I don't want to try to write something like this with seven people around the table. I want to write it with two or three people around the table at the most or with one person writing it and then two or three people editing it. That's what a subcommittee is all about is getting into the weeds and doing the writing. Now, to be sure, we don't have the expertise that former zoning subcommittee members may have had. But that's not to say with modest and I don't mean extensive staff help but modest staff help, we can't come out with zoning amendments that will pass muster once we decide what we want to write about. And it seems to me that the planning board itself ought to decide what we want to write about and zoning subcommittee ought to write about it. And if we don't have a zoning subcommittee on the table working, then we've got nobody to do the writing. Now, I suspect that there will be new members of the, I know there will be new members of the planning board coming soon. Some of whom may have extensive experience in this area. So I think it's unwise to decide now what we're going to do about this issue when we'll have two or three new members on the board. Let's see what happens with those two or three members and see where we are. But let's not take any action about dissolving the zoning subcommittee now. Good points. Janet. So, am I, can I hear me? Yep. So I would like to hear from Chris sort of the history of the zoning subcommittee cause I think it's been sort of a long and storied one. You know, it feels like it was a different era but I think it was in January or February where Rob Mora came and met with the zoning subcommittee and outlined his proposal for a zoning bylaw overhaul. And he said over and over, he would work closely with the zoning subcommittee. He would look to the planning board for priorities and direction. There would need to be consultants for certain issues like, you know, downtown building heights, parking, signage. And he repeated over and over again that he'd be working with the zoning subcommittee. I don't think you have to be like an expert legal draftsperson or to have the zoning bylaw like in your head, you know, you know, the way you had your multiplications tables to be effective on that committee. And so a lot of it is kind of, you know, I could see when you're getting down to actual language going through it and going through different parts of the bylaw. It's good to have a back and forth. I mean, people on the planning staff know the bylaw. David Levinstein brought up an issue about appeals that he developed from the familiarity of working with the zoning bylaw. The planning board has a lot of expertise and people, you know, as I understand, the zoning subcommittee would bring issues to the planning board and be discussed and go back and do some drafting. I would dread us doing that as a board of seven. You know, just the subsection A, reflecting to, you know, article four, you know, 105.C. So, you know, I mean, I can do that and I, you know, have been paid to do that. I don't think that's an effective strategy for seven people. I don't think the town council has more experience at it than us, for the C or C. I think they have less and they have larger groups of people. So, you know, Rob Moore also came to the planning board and kept on saying how he wanted to work with the zoning subcommittee very closely, the same message. If that has changed, we should talk to Rob Mora about the whole, you know, I just want, you know, I've only been on the planning board for a little bit more than a year and I feel like we changed direction so many times in responding to the town council. That was kind of the purpose of my memo about, you know, my six months in the zoning subcommittee where we're just like, okay, we'll do this, we'll do this. And, you know, stepping back, of course we're going to work with the town council. Of course they want to know our priorities. Of course we want to work with the C or C, but we're planning board, we're independent. We have a master plan that we haven't implemented very effectively for 10 years. We actually have zoning bylaw changes sitting around a multi-use buildings that we could put forward, you know, after a few zoning subcommittee meetings we're talking to Rob Mora. So I don't really get why we're stopping the zoning subcommittee except that we did because of, you know, because of the COVID crisis. And, you know, I think if, you know, in, you know, a few weeks we'll have more members, you know, on the planning board and let's just say who wants to be on the zoning subcommittee and let's chug along and work for a few months. If it looks like we're just going off a cliff and the planning board's like, oh my God, these people are so inexperienced, then let's have this discussion. But I don't feel like, I feel like this has been a good committee with a lot of power and a lot of intelligence. And then we have the intelligence of the planning department consultants and the planning board to look to. And obviously we have a very deep group of people in our residence. So I'm not sure where this kind of move comes from. I don't, maybe I'm overconfident, but I think that starting September we could figure out a zoom thing, add some members. I don't know if Michael was coming to meetings. I don't know if Jack wants to come, but just let's just start going again. Okay, my only comment is I'm not, I'm not sure I agree with, we haven't been implementing the master plan. Effectively, that's my only comment, but we have Chris, would you like to speak? Yeah, well, Janet asked a little about the history of the zoning subcommittee. And for a long time it was sort of a loose group of people who met with Jonathan Tucker on Wednesdays before the planning board meeting. And Jonathan would bring things to them that he had written and they would talk about what they had written and then they would bring it to the planning board afterwards. So it was really Jonathan Tucker who wrote most of the zoning amendments and the zoning subcommittee was a group that discussed them with him and made suggestions and that type of thing. And the planning board used to have part of its meetings, especially before town meeting, but I would say for two or three months before each town meeting, discussing what was being proposed, discussing zoning bylaws. So the planning board was fairly involved with developing zoning amendments. And then when Jonathan Tucker left, Rob Crowner took up the whatever you call it and started writing zoning amendments. And he was very effective and he was the chairperson of the zoning subcommittee for a while, but he was a member of the zoning subcommittee for years. And he did most of the drafting of the zoning amendments. So those were two really strong people who did that. Right now, the planning department, I don't think it's gonna be hard to manage. I'm being asked to help to staff the CRC and help them to understand zoning and help them to work on zoning. And for me to work with the zoning subcommittee and the planning board and do all the other things that I do, it would be a really heavy load. So I am getting strong sense from town council and the CRC that the CRC would like to be more active and more directive and more of the principal writers and determinants of the zoning bylaw and the zoning amendments. And that they'd really like to take the reins. And that's the message that I've been getting from the chairperson of the CRC and also from Dave Zomek who works with the CRC. So I think it's potentially working across purposes or redundant to have both groups working on the same thing. So I would really like to promote Maria's support of one of Janet's ideas, which is to the zoning subcommittee on hold for a while. Wait and see what happens this fall. Find out what the building commissioner comes up with. I know he's actively working on reformatting the zoning bylaw and probably coming up with some specific changes. So and his intent now, now that he's heard from CRC and he's heard from Dave Zomek, the assistant town manager was also the staff liaison to the CRC. Rob has gotten the message that I've gotten that the CRC would like to take the active role in writing the zoning amendments with staff. So yeah, so that's it's kind of an evolving situation. I don't think anybody has ever actually stated this in public. I'm probably stating it in the public for the first time, but that's the direction that I am witnessing things going in. And as I said, I think it's gonna be a heavy lift for me to staff the zoning subcommittee, help to staff the CRC and staff the planning board and do all the other things that the director of the planning department does. I would love to at some point be able to tell you about all the things that the planning department does, but I'm reluctant to jump in with both feet right now and say, oh yes, we're ready to work with the zoning subcommittee to draft zoning bylaws. So I would almost make the suggestion that if you wanted to continue as a zoning subcommittee that you take on the role of kind of staffing yourself. And if you have agendas and things that you want me to post, I'll do that, but I don't think I'll be able to attend the meetings, take the minutes, refine the minutes, bring the minutes back, make packets, all of those things. It's just, it's too much. That's my two cents right now. Thank you, Chris. Okay, so we have Maria and Mike, but I'm wondering about Pam, have you identified someone in the public? At this person, there's one person who wants to speak from. Mike has already spoke, Maria has already spoke, should, I'm wondering if we... But that's our one raised. Chris might be ready to guide us on this question. There are two people in the attendees who want to speak, Maria and Adams and Pam Rooney. So I would say, let them have their say and then go back to the planning board members. Okay, I assume you can just shake your head. Mike, you okay with that? Okay, all right, so, Marianne. There you go. Hi, Marianne, Marianne, you're muted. Now do you hear me? Yes, we do. Thank you, okay. I think you have my memo that expressed some of my thinking on this because have you had a chance to read what I wrote yesterday? Because what I wanted to do was express my very strong concern that the council take this kind of initiative on zoning issues. I think that's wrong for a number of reasons. First of all, it's the state regulatory role as I understand it, that the planning board is in charge of zoning. I'll need to check that with Rob Moore or others to find out about the actual legal status that is the state status of the planning board vis-a-vis the municipal status of the council. So that's a question as a bunch of comment, but it really worries me. The second is as Chris certainly knows, I've been a planning board junkie for probably the last 10 years. I'm happy not to be in your position, but I have observed you very, very carefully for a very long time. And I have been impressed by the range of viewpoints, by your independence of thinking, by the real technical knowledge that some of you have of the bylaws and the kind of connection and empathy that others of you have with the citizenry of Amherst. And I think that's exactly the kind of balance one needs in a planning board. And I should think it must not be preempted by the town council, which is a different entity, has a different legal status and serves a different purpose. I've observed in the last few months that at least in my view, your work has been muddied by the confusions raised by the CRC and the council. And it's really made me sad to see that. You kept asking, what do they want? Who's in charge? It's like the joke, who's on first? And obviously the town council is the new kid in town and needs to be edified, but I don't think it's the role of the planning board to defer to them. I think it's the role of the planning board to figure out what are the key zoning issues and go ahead with them. I also think it's a conflict of interest for the town council to think that they can initiate what they believe should be the priorities for the planning board and then be the group that votes on that at the end. They can't have both of those roles. The initiation of zoning issues has to come from you and the public. And it seems to me that if the council has some good ideas, I'm sure they'll find a way to communicate those to you. But the idea that you stop your work or delay your work because of their confusions, and I'm not saying this an antagonism to the town council. I've been tremendously impressed by the heavy lifting and the startup work that they've done. But they are the new kid in town on zoning and you're not. And it's not your job to educate them about zoning. If they want to have a key role in zoning, I do believe as a 40 year professor that one learns how to educate oneself on those matters. And to see the work of the planning board delayed and of the zoning subcommittee sabotage because of that confusion really breaks my heart as a fan of the planning board, even though you know I've often disagreed with many of your decisions. So I'm gonna need to find about the regulatory issues. I think you are the people who are in charge of zoning. I think you should be very firm in explaining that to members of the council who don't appear to understand that. And I think you should firmly maintain that separation of powers. Thank you. I'm done. Thank you. And one more public comment would be from Pam, Rudi. Wow, Morianne's comments are right on point. I had no idea that CRC was looking to get that engaged in development of zoning. And I totally agree with Morianne that it is the role of the planning board to do that. I did send in some comments saying simply that I see the zoning subcommittee as a workhorse. And I think the planning board itself is not terribly large right now. You're kind of undersized. But so the zoning subcommittee is a pretty good portion of your membership. But perhaps with some new members coming in, there will be some people interested in this. I would, I think what my reaction will be is to express my dismay about the CRC's engagement in the weeds. I feel very strongly that council should be an executive level. They are our government. They should not be doing the legwork and the drafting of bylaws, period. They certainly can express interest and they can, if there are some priorities that come out of their desire to improve the town in certain ways, that's great. And you can put on your agenda to talk about it and decide if you want to really go in those directions. And I think hopefully there's enough consensus in town that maybe your priorities will overlap. Anyway, long story short, I just think they are an executive group. You are the workhorses and the zoning subcommittee is even more of the nuts and bolts. Let's get the details in order. Thanks for letting me talk. Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna put Mike. Oh, we're in the queue and then, okay. All right, I see the top list, Maria. I'll try to be quick. I don't feel comfortable saying CRC and town council or not in the right place to set zoning priorities. I agree, yeah, writing zoning bylaw, that's not for anyone other than planning department, I imagine. I can't imagine a normal human is taking on that role other than Rob Counter and Chris Brestrup and anyone else in the planning department. So I don't think literally CRC are gonna be drafting bylaw. They're gonna lean heavily. I mean, Chris Brestrup is basically gonna be writing it. But I just like to keep it short in that I still support tabling any more zoning subcommittee work until priority is set, until we know where Mr. Mora is going with his work, until the load is lightened a little bit more for the planning department. I'm not interested in, I've already been through this for probably three years now. I'm not interested in drafting more ideas for zoning amendments and articles until we know it's actually gonna get traction. When we transition between Tell Me Into Town Council, I tried this, I tried to be proactive and set up a lot of zoning amendments. I delved into housing. We, Janet delved into inclusionary zoning, David Levenson delved into several other, I think it was mixed use and it didn't go anywhere. And I just don't, I don't wanna do that again until we have a clear direction. And then I'm happy to try to help facilitate that. But until then I don't wanna do what I've been doing for the last two to three years. Yeah, I can see kind of a sanity issue here where you put all this in, it doesn't go anywhere. And it's like, let's be realistic here. And I see Doug. Okay, I mean, I guess it seemed, I had nothing to do with the previous regime back when we had town council or a town meeting. But the problem with town meeting is it didn't matter what came out of the planning board. You really didn't know whether it would pass town meeting until you put in all the work. So now we have the benefit of having a town council that's a discrete number of people who can answer questions and engage in conversation. So, whether it's our zoning subcommittee that works and kind of in the room with Chris Brestrup and her staff or whether it's CRC, we now have the opportunity to have conversation with CRC and town council to find out if anybody's wasting their time before most of the work is done. So that seems to me to be a benefit of the current situation. As far as the priorities go, maybe our priorities will be different than town council. And if we wanna put their feet to the fire, we can work on proposals that are not their priorities and they have to vote on it. That doesn't seem particularly diplomatic to me. The chances of success seem low, kind of in the abstract. But yeah, we could do that. But now that we've got a group we can converse with, I think we ought to take advantage of that and figure out a way to work together. Thank you. Thanks, Janet. So I'm all for talking directly with people and I've often asked the planning board to consider having a liaison to CRC so we have at least some information going back and forth. So I've gone to a lot of CRC meetings and I don't remember when this was, it was sometime in the winter where they were talking, like the reason we haven't given any zoning to town council is that we were told all fall not to send zoning to town council even though we had some things ready because the town council wasn't ready to handle it. And then I've been at a CRC meeting where Dave Zomek suggested to the CRC getting rid of the zoning subcommittee. And the CRC took that up and talked about it for 20 minutes until Christine Brestrup kind of kindly and gently pointed out that zoning subcommittee is a meeting of the planning board. And so we haven't, I can see your frustration, Maria, in waiting for years for stuff to go forward. We were sort of gracefully holding back on a few things because we didn't want to tax the town council. And we seem to have gone from that to the CRC sort of saying, you know, anyway, so the next thing I've heard about the end of, you know, zoning subcommittee was I was talking to Christine Ray Mullins about some issues about the website and the planning board. I mentioned something about CRC and she said, oh, CRC is dead. You know, planning board's not gonna do any more zoning. That's all gonna be in the planning department and town council. So obviously conversations have been going on in town amongst town government, amongst our leaders. They haven't directly engaged with the planning board of the zoning subcommittee. So I would invite people to come talk to us. The last time we talked about zoning changes with Rob Mora, he was gonna work with the zoning subcommittee. If we get rid of that committee or put it to sleep, who is Rob Mora talking to? Can we put together a planning process and execute it for six months? You know, I just, I feel nothing but confusion and frustration. You know, I'm a very blunt person. I come from a blunt region. I come from a blunt economic class. I come from a family of blunt people. I don't really understand this kind of maneuvering. And if the zoning subcommittee isn't useful and the planning board doesn't have a role in suggesting zoning changes for the town, that's a huge role for planning boards and it's a power that's given to us by state law. And so I just wanna know what are the waters I'm swimming in? I'm sorry it's taken away from us because she's invaluable, but we do write our own minutes and we can host our own agendas and we can work on what the CRC is working on side by side and in parallel play or together or meeting. But I don't really wanna diminish the role of the planning board or the zoning subcommittee in zoning. It just seems like we're an independent board. We're supposed to be people from the town. We're not elected officials. We live in different neighborhoods. We have a lot to offer. And I'm sorry, I mean, it's been a very frustrating process for me in the past year and I haven't been on a two year situation. So I think we should just continue talking about this and get some perspectives. But I really would like the CRC or Mandy Johannike or somebody who's the head of something come talk to us about how they like to work with us and things like that. I prefer a direct communication than trying to read tea leaves and statements. Thank you. Thank you. And Chris, please. I'm gonna thread my way through this whole process too. And I think it has been fairly confusing. I did wanna say that the planning board's role in zoning amendments, zoning by-laws is really to hold a public hearing about the zoning amendment and make a recommendation to them ever the legislative body is. In the past, the zoning, the planning board has been the body that generates zoning by-laws but that's not always the case. It's not the case in Northampton. The staff generates the zoning by-laws and brings them to the city council and then the city council refers them to the planning board for public hearings. So it works differently in different cities which we are now a city where even though we're called the town of Amherst we're operating as a city. Also I wanted to say that I think one speaker mentioned that she thought that the town council was the executive body of the town. Really it's the legislative body and the executive body is the town manager. So that's changed. That's different from the way it used to be. The select board was part of the executive but that's no longer the case. The town council is the legislative body which is the same as what the town meeting was. I think that it's worth having the conversation and I would love to have Mandy Jo Hanneke or a representative of the CRC come and meet with the planning board and talk about what their view of the process is because I get a lot of this second hand too but I work for the town. I work for the town managerial staff and so my direction comes from them. So I do what they want me to do. And so yeah, what I would really like to do here is say that we will continue this conversation. We can continue the conversation through the fall and then try to figure out does the zoning subcommittee still have a role? And if it does have a role then who's gonna be on it? Who's gonna support it? Is it gonna have a staff liaison, et cetera? But right now that doesn't seem possible at least from my point of view. Would you like me to invite Mandy Jo Hanneke and perhaps Dave Zomek to come and talk to you about this topic at one of your upcoming meetings? I would say that's, actually I thought maybe Dave might be here this evening. But that seems very reasonable to me and we are after nine o'clock and there's a lot to this. There's definitely a lot for us to think about in terms of the history and our mission and then the new town government. And so we really just started talking about this what last meeting in terms of the full board. Okay, so, but I think, Maria's spot on and we don't wanna drop the ball per what? And I think the points that Janet has made if that is part of our function. But again, it looks like it's complicated. I think there's professionals, consultants that do perhaps this work and then we review it sort of thing. But we've been blessed with members that have gotten into the weeds. Rob Crowner was mentioned. And it seemed like that kind of forming it in terms of presentation to the town meeting. And now we don't have town meeting. And now the CRC just formulated, well, one committee was dissolved, right? The CRC was created, Chris. The CRC was split into two groups that, forget what, it starts with a T. So that was one group and then the CRC remained and then OCA was done away with. So the CRC came home, some of these and it's let go of other responsibilities. Yeah. So I suggest that we talk about this again next meeting and perhaps have Joanne and Dejo Mack as you suggested speak to us. And just so we can get our arms around this better. Yep. Mike? Yeah, sooner rather than later in terms of a meeting with Mr. Zomek and Ms. Haniki. It seems to me that if in fact the CRC is assuming the role of primary adjudicator of zoning issues that leaves very little for the planning board to really do in terms of planning, which is the name of the board. And that the sooner we know that, the better we are and we can turn our energies to something else. Yeah. Well, it just seems like whatever happened, it was like it was a heavy lift where Rob Mora in addition to Chris, because we're talking about a rewrite and that's prior the CSC was looking at small changes, language kind of things and just imperfections that simple maybe to the planning board, but to the town meetings seem complex. And we just inclusionary zoning is not a simple little thing. It's a major thing and that we've been working on that. Well, that's different. We have assumed the responsibility for forwarding those kinds of issues to the next level, the next legislative level. And have, in my view, abdicated that responsibility. And that's partly because the planning board has not ridden the zoning subcommittee hard enough to make those things happen. And I take responsibility for that. I've tried to go to some of those meetings, but I haven't been to all of them. And I brought up several times that we needed, we as the planning board needed to instruct the zoning subcommittee, our zoning subcommittee to do this or to do that. And for one reason or another, the result of that instruction has not paid off. It's not gotten past the writing stages and it's not been forwarded to the next level, to the legislative level, at town meeting level or at town council level. It's worked both ways. And I think that's wrong. I think that zoning is the responsibility statutorily of the planning board. I mean, not the final responsibility, but the responsibility for initiating proposals. And if we don't do it and the CRC is gonna do it, okay, fine, let them do it and let's not bother with it. I mean, why do two groups have to do it? Right. There's a lot of frustration, I think, as Maria has hinted. So I guess either we put it on a hiatus or we will reserve a half hour a meeting to discuss about zoning. But for sure, it seems like we need to have more input from the town, which would be a day Zomac, maybe Chris can attend to this more and then Mandy. So I suggest we table this perhaps and then take it up next meeting and try to get some clarification on, you know, what the town is looking for from planning board. I know there's state laws and all that, but we have a new government and we're just trying to figure this out. So does that sound a reasonable thing to invite? A couple of individuals to speak with us next time. Because I think we have a light, you told me we have a September 2nd, you said the survival center has a shed coming and then the high school has a couple of tents. So this is September 2nd meeting. So it's not, it shouldn't be a full meeting. And it seems like we can discuss this Sounds good. Further at this time. Okay. Any objections on the board to that plan? Okay. Doug Marshall has his hand up. Oh, sorry. Doug, please. Yeah, I was just gonna comment that we still are the ones that originate the master plan for the town. So presumably all the zoning changes that somebody else might originate need to be consistent with the master plan. So maybe we need a master plan that's a little bit clearer and makes harder choices about the, pleasing everybody in its writing. So, I mean, it's going through some edits right now. Theoretically, no, but that was actually put on hold. Yeah. Higher priorities with COVID. Mike, did you have? Yes. If we're gonna think about the master plan, we really need to think about the implementation matrix of the master plan, which is the thing that makes it useful. And I've said several times that we need to focus on the implementation to have an implementation subcommittee and even be staffed by the planning department, it seems to me. I think the existing matrix can be reviewed by two, three, four people who ever wanna be on that committee and begin to develop ways of exploring the degree to which the master plan has been followed or not followed in town operations for the last 10 and the future 10 years. And if the master plan is gonna be the planning board's only job, well, then we better get on it. So, perhaps we could have a section five that as a zoning and slash master plan, breakdown or update that we can at least spend some time during this hiatus in addition to having Dave Zomac and Mandy Jo-Anneke speak with us for the next meeting anyway. Okay, very good. No, not really. I think if we're gonna do the implementation is something that we can look at for five minutes and decide whether or not we wanna have a committee to do something about it. It doesn't need a discussion at the planning board level. I don't think, I mean, we could do that, but I think that would be a big time waster. And if you wanna, it sounds like we wanna make the meetings briefer and more organized. I think the more we wanna do that, the more we have to rely on subcommittees and small groups. Okay, well, so the master plan is on hiatus, correct Chris? I mean, we already decided that. The planning board decided that they wanted to focus on zoning or have staff focus on zoning, have the town focus on zoning rather than focusing on the master plan at this time. That is coming before the town council at some, one of their upcoming meetings where they're going to be asked to rescind the request to the planning board to continue to work on the master plan for us some set period of time until after a chunk of work is done on the zoning bylaw. I think that's a recognition of staff and how far staff can be stretched to work on both the master plan and the zoning bylaw at the same time. So anyway, the request was made by the planning board to ask the town council to put the request to work on the master plan on hold. And then I think part of that was to suggest to the town council that they actually adopt the master plan in its current form. And I think there's going to, there has been or will be some pushback on that. I think that the town council is not necessarily ready to adopt the master plan in its current form. So I think that there will probably need to be some work on it. But in my mind, I really agree with Michael that there's so much in the implementation matrix that can be done that is right there that are things are already spelled out that can be acted upon. There are already many things in that implementation matrix that have already been accomplished. So if the planning board wants to continue to work on that, that's reasonable to work on the matrix, but not to necessarily work on the rewriting of the master plan because I don't think the staff is going to be able to handle that, to do that at the same time as we're doing zoning. So this is all conversation that started sometime in the spring and it's been brewing. And I think, you know, Christine Gray-Mullen talked to Mandy John-Hannacky and things have evolved as a result of those conversations. So we're sort of in transition right now, but I'm hoping to get some solidity and some direction and really put our all into working on zoning. Of course, we would bring zoning to you even if you didn't have a zoning subcommittee. We would be bringing zoning to the planning board to update you on what was being worked on, but we would also be working with the CRC. So I kind of lost track of what you asked me, but... Well, again, I feel like my target was nine, it's 925. If we can put this as an item on old business and continue it the next meeting and hopefully have the guest speakers that we mentioned, I would be very appreciative of that. I'll second it. Okay. Roll call necessary on closure of the discussion. Okay. Everybody shaking their head, yes, no. I'm not sure what we're voting on. We're gonna discuss it next meeting. We're gonna continue this. Motion? We don't have to vote on it. Well, then why do we second? I'm confused about where we are. I'll withdraw the second. I think it was a pre-emptory. Okay. So just put it on the agenda and that's good. Okay. So topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours part of the meeting with regard to new business. None. Okay. Form A in our subdivision applications. We do have one. And if Pam can get the drawing, we can look at it. It is a subdivision, excuse me, it's an A&R on Bay Road. Don Allison, who's an attorney in town, owns a pretty large piece of property on Bay Road just east of the roundabouts down by Atkins corner. And the yellow parcel is one parcel and the turquoise parcel is the other parcel. So what he is planning to do is to have Kestrel trust acquire the land that is outlined in turquoise and then Kestrel trust will gift that land to the town as conservation land. And that will be connected with other conservation land that the town owns in this vicinity. Now the issue about the A&R, if Pam would bring up that map is that Don Allison has some parking spaces that are to the east of his existing property line. So he wants to be able to claim those parking spaces as his own as part of the house lot and not have them go to the conservation lot. So he's asking to redraw the property line that separates these two properties by incorporating those parking spaces into his house lot. So I think it's a pretty simple A&R. And if you would authorize Mr. Jemsick to sign the A&R plans, that would be what we're looking for. Move, do we still authorize? Very good, Janet. No, I'll second. Could somebody, Chris, can you tell us what these kind of square rectangles are and these little blots? Um, that's a good question. Three big ones. There may be, maybe just a, what am I trying to say, a survey. I think they're just descriptions. They've got writing in them, I'm looking at them. Oh, I see, I see, yeah. Descriptions of parcels. There's parcel A, parcel B, and parcel 25B60. Okay, okay. So parcel B are the two new parcels that come out of this. I have a super faint map here that I couldn't quite read. Okay. And the one that's down in the lower corner is a description of one of those lots. Okay. So I think Doug's seconded so we can have a vote. Um, Mike. Yes. I'm Maria. Yes. Doug. All right. Janet. Hi. Myself. Yes. To our contact, Mr. Jensic to come in and sign these plans. Thank you very much. Thanks. And the next is upcoming ZBA applications. I don't have anything new to tell you. Do you, Chris? Well, did we tell you that there was an appeal taken against the decision of the building commissioner with regard to, whether he was correct in, um, his interpretation of the zoning bylaw with regard to the front setback issue on Amherst media. I don't know if we told you about that, but it's probably not something that you would want to review. Um, it's kind of a technicality. It's the, uh, the butters to the Amherst media property are, um, you know, They have a very good lawyer who's working very hard to uphold their point of view that they don't want that building there. And so they're trying all different kinds of things to keep the building from being good. I see Doug's hand. Didn't we hear that that was not appealable? Um, the attorney for Amherst media believes that it's not appealable and we believe it is not appealable, but the attorney for the butters believe it is appealable. So they're appealing it. Uh, on a different matter, what's the status of the Northampton. Road, the Valley CDC. They were supposed to have their, um, third or fourth meeting tomorrow night, but it wasn't posted properly. So they're going to have that meeting on Tuesday. Um, and they're going to be, um, hearing responses to questions that were asked last time and discussing, um, Oh, I forget exactly what they're going to be discussing, but the agenda will be posted. In fact, I think it might have been posted tonight. Um, so tomorrow, the chair of the ZBA and the staff person are going to meet in a meeting and announce to everybody that that meeting had to be rescheduled because of lack of posting. I see. Thank you. Um, uh, next topic, uh, upcoming SPP SPR. And SUV applications. It's all about tents and sheds. Um, I think Jack told you that you were going to have a shed for the survival center and three tents for the high school on your September 2nd agenda. And then for September 16th, you're going to have a tent for the, um, Jones library, which is going to be directed on their front lawn. They'd really like to start doing some of the things that they've been doing inside or had been doing inside the building. They want to offer more services to people. So, so that'll be coming on the 16th. Thank you. And, uh, planning board committee and liaison reports. Pioneer Valley planning commission. I have nothing to report. Uh, community preservation at committee, Mike. Oh, nothing. Thank you. Okay. And the aggregate commission is vacant design review board. Nothing. Again. And then the zoning subcommittee, Maria. Nothing. Okay. Uh, report to the chair. I have. Nothing. Uh, report to staff. I'd like to thank Jack for chairing tonight. I think you did a great job. Thank you very much. And, um, Thank you. Our leader for the next few meetings. Thank you. And we can adjourn at nine 33.