 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of March 31st, 2021, based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Chapter 30A, 6 and 20 and signed Thursday, March 12th, 2020. This planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. My name is Jack Jumsick as chair of the planning board. I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.35 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media Livestream. Minutes are being taken. Board members, I will take a roll call. I'm gonna call your name and meet yourself, answer affirmatively, and then please place yourselves back on mute. I'm Rhea Chow. Here. Tom Long. Here. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And myself. So board members of technical difficulties rise, we may need to pause temporarily to correct the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have a technical issues, please let Pam know. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed and the minutes will note if this occurred, please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and call on you to speak after speaking remember to remute yourself. So the opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment item and other appropriate times during the meeting. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during public comment period, you must join the meeting via the Zoom teleconferencing link, which is shown, correct? Yes. All right. So the link is also on the town website via the calendar listing for this meeting or you can go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda which lists the Zoom link at the top of the page. Please indicate if you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting as 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 can express their views 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 allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So with that said, we are kind of putting a hard stop for the meeting for 8.30 so that gives us two hours to discuss the agenda. So moving on minutes we have none and we can go to the public comment period. I'm just, I'm opening that window here. Whoops. I see one hand Susanna saving, if that's correct. Yes. Hi Susanna. Hello. Hi, I had a chance to read the language for the proposed inclusionary zoning bylaw before the meeting and I would like to endorse it wholeheartedly. Is that appropriate now? No, because that's part of the subject matter of the meeting. So you'll want to put your comment after we talk about it. So if you don't mind. Okay. So I see no other so we can get into it. The first is, we're going over the zoning priorities and the first one would be the mixed use buildings which is section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw, definition standards and criteria. And I believe we have a presentation. Is that Nate? Sure. Okay. Oh yeah, hold on a minute. I'll share my screen and so is this visible to everyone that mixed use building standards? Yes. Sure. All right. So yeah, I'm Nate Malloy, a planner with the town and one of the zoning amendments we had been looking at were new mixed use building standards. I will say that they're based on, there's a previous version from a few years ago that didn't, I was referred back to the planning board. It wasn't approved by town meeting, but it's based on some of that. And so the purpose of the mixed use building standards, it'd be a separate piece of the bylaw, kind of like a development method or something. So it'd have a purpose and conditions and different things as opposed to just being like a use in the use chart, right? There'd be more narrative in the bylaw. But the purpose of the mixed use building standards is to continue allowing different uses in the building and the village centers. The hope is that it would reinforce the streetscape enhanced pedestrian experience with open space. And there are some design guidelines in it. And so the mixed use building standard bylaw that's being proposed really has two big pieces. One is defining the residential and non-residential uses within the bylaw. And then the second piece is the design standards, which really is kind of an added bonus to a mixed use building standard. It's not necessarily, integral to it. So some bylaws really, they just say, first, second floor uses, upper floor uses, and they don't really get into the design standards. So the current issues being addressed, I talked about the balance of residential and non-residential. Currently, the zoning bylaw doesn't really address any of these in terms of the size of the non-residential use, the orientation along the street, or different design guidelines in terms of entry ways for the residential and non-residential pieces. And although we are in a municipal parking district, I think if a bylaw can encourage shared parking behind buildings and have some clear statements and guidelines for the permit granting authority, that's just a bonus. So the sections of the mixed use building standards, there's definitions. So again, it would apply to a building that has residential and non-residential uses with two or more dwelling units. And so, previously we had recommended this and other communities have this so that if there's like a live work building that has one unit and then a work studio, that's not considered a mixed use building. And that could be a point of discussion. At what point is there a mixed use building in terms of number of whether it's residential or retail commercial uses? Similar to what we had in the limited business overlay, that proposal, there is some open space required in front of a building. And I'm saying 20% of the footprint, I think it could be 10%. When this was presented to the CRC last week, there was a big discussion about, could it be simpler as saying, let's just have a minimum width of a sidewalk. Say we want a 20 foot sidewalk in the downtown and maybe different width sidewalks and village centers. And so, right now with the setbacks, there really isn't, what we've seen is that the buildings push the dimensional standards so that they max out the building coverage and lock coverage and there really isn't much open space in front of the building. And then we'd be defining parking as its own category just within the mixed use building piece. So, that's something that's new. The standards and conditions are a requirement that there's a management plan for all buildings. First four uses, which we don't have now is that a maximum could be residential or parking, which means the remainder has to be a retail or commercial or non-residential use. And that's the big change. Right now someone could have a small office space and the rest could be all parking and that qualifies as a mixed use building. The upper floor uses were not prescribing anything. So it could be a mix of residential or non-residential and non-residential. So you could have offices on the second floor. We have orientation or first floor uses so that the commercial retail would face the street or areas commonly used by the public. So if there's an alleyway, that is really part of the front of a building or although it's not on the right of way, but it's part of what we could consider a front facade and we'd want uses oriented to that alley as well. One piece that wasn't the previous by-law that the CRC recommended be eliminated is a bedroom count in the center districts. And so it was just put in there really to have a variation of unit sizes. And so it's difficult because the market does dictate what's built. So a few years ago, we were seeing more three and four bedroom units and now it's a lot of studios in one bedrooms. But there could be something in the standard that there's maybe a 10% of units need to be three or more bedrooms or something just so that we're encouraging some larger units for bigger households. Parking within buildings would be allowed only on the first floor and it couldn't be visible from the street. And then there are the designer view standards and principles in the by-law and we could actually, the thought would be that any mixed use building would have to go to the designer view board. It would be a mandatory process even if they're outside the designer view district. And then there's some additional design guidelines. So for the design guidelines, the idea would be that 50 to 75% of the facade would have to be along the step back line. You know, length of solids greater than 12 feet are not allowed so you couldn't have, you know, even if it was parking or certain uses inside the building, you'd have to have some fenestrations and some detail. Facades over 40 feet in length would have to have some change in plane. And so some of these standards are taken from or would be consistent with the limited business overlay, that proposal, or, you know, they could be standalone just to mix use buildings. You know, primary doors face the street. You know, a minimum of 70% glazing on the first floor that's broken up into smaller sections to reinforce pedestrian scale. So this is really getting to if there's retail and non-residential uses really having some glazing on the first floor. You know, the one standard that's in here now says the bottom 42 inches, which maybe that is too high, but the bottom 42 should be a non-glazing material. And some of this is to, you know, have the, you know, could be, may not necessarily need to be a requirement, but have something in there so that if there are certain uses that we don't necessarily want the glazing going to the floor so you don't see the cords or the backs of computers all the time, you could have some non-glazing. You know, glazing above the first floor should be reduced in scale and proportion to know that there's a difference between non-residential and residential. Encourage awnings and canopies between the first and second floors or upper floors. And then, you know, facades over 100 feet in length can have a step back of five feet, you know, every 80 feet. And the idea here, you know, I know that the bottom picture shows a pretty uniform setback. I guess there was some concern that if someone aggregates lots, you could have a 200 foot long building along the front. And, you know, this last condition really is saying, well, if there is going to be a really long building front along the street or alleyway, you know, there needs to be some step back. And so, again, these are things that can be discussed and considered. In terms of site design, you know, some of the conditions are really keeping parking away from the major streets, you know, encouraging consolidation of parking between properties and minimizing curb cuts. Again, having this product open space along the front of a building, it could be along the sides as well. And it's really meant to be for the users of the building and the public. You know, we're not necessarily saying that this open space is going to be yards, you know, for the residents. Most of the mixed use buildings are allowed in village centers and there really is limited amount of space to have, you know, individual lots behind a building. I mean, there still could be opportunity on properties to have open space for residents, but the thought is that, you know, Kendrick Park, the town common, other common areas not on the property could be used as open space. And again, really saying that outdoor amenities are part of a project. And so, you know, the CRC discussed, again, having mandating wider sidewalks and then requiring certain amenities like seating and landscaping and bicycle storage. And so these are things that the bylaw addresses, but not so clearly. So for mixed use buildings, I mean, we could, it could be that. We're saying that if you, you know, you're providing a mix of residential and non-residential uses, these are the things that we want to see outside in every project. And then for utilities and mechanical, really, you know, screening them from view and locating them on the sides or on the roof and screening them. And I think, you know, that's the presentation. I do have the bylaw itself if you wanted to go through it or if we, you know, walk down through the actual language. We think that's good or we could stop and have questions now. I would mind seeing the bylaw if we can throw that up quickly just so we, sure. I don't know if it's a red line. Yeah. I mean, it's a, you know, it's all new. So it's really, there's not much of a proposed language. I don't know how visible this is to, if the text is legible or if it should be larger or looks good to me. I get a little bigger. Again, the purpose, you know, is to have this mix of uses, you know, to allow different types of retail, commercial and residential uses in the Village Center. Definitions, I think is something that would be new. So defining a facade as something that is a, you know, the face of a building that faces a public way, sidewalk or plaza. Again, a mixed use building would be something that has residential and non-residential uses with two or more residential units. And the definitions, you know, would carry through in the standards and conditions and then the design guidelines. And so right now in the mixed use building, you know, we're just assuming that something that isn't a residential use is the non-residential use and then the units are residential. And so here I'd actually define non-residential use. She'll be, you know, any permitted commercial retail or other uses allowed in the bylaw. So in, and then parking is its own use. And then the product open space. And the reason for defining these uses, it then plays into, you know, the orientation and what's allowed on certain floors. And so, you know, what we're saying here is when there's ancillary space associated with parking or, you know, like different storage, like bike storage or common hallways, what do we consider that space? And so what these definitions are trying to do is really clarify, you know, for instance, parking is anything associated with it. You know, the walkways and everything. So that, you know, when someone proposes parking on the first floor, if we're saying it can be no more than 50%, we're trying to define what area of that footprint is actually associated with parking. The product open space, as I mentioned, is, you know, right now it's saying 20% of the building footprint, including overhangs, and then it described where and what the product open space should be. The residential use are the residential units, including, you know, again, common areas and other things so that, you know, it's trying to be inclusive of any area that's associated with the residential use. And the standards and conditions, I think these are the major components of the mixed use bylaw, you know, the submittal of a management plan, the first or ground floor uses. So really prescribing that, you know, at least 50% has to be a non-residential use. And that's something we don't allow now or don't, you know, have conditions for. So if someone could come in and propose a 200 square foot office building and then have the rest of the first floor be parking and the rest, you know, the upper floors be residential and that's a mixed use building, but really there's not much in terms of, you know, retail happening on the first floor. You know, the orientation, again, trying to have the retail spaces face onto the public plazas and sidewalks and streets and saying that parking cannot be visible, you know, from inside the building. So if they do allow, if we are allowing parking on the first floor, it can't be, you know, facing the major streets. And again, you know, again, trying to limit where, how the residential units face onto the street as well. The bedroom count, I think is something that could be reworked to say that maybe 10% of the units should be three or more bedrooms or something. I don't know, you know, the CRC, you know, like I said, discuss this and really thought that trying to prescribe certain counts is can be problematic if the market isn't really there for them. So, you know, this was a holdover from the previous version when we were seeing, you know, more of one size unit being built in the centers. And we're still seeing that a little bit, but I think it's really hard to get it right in terms of what is the market, you know, asking for. And again, parking would be allowed within buildings. The CRC, you know, a few members question this, you know, why are we allowing parking within the building? I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea to limit it to the first floor only and then less than half of the first floor space. And so, you know, there will be demand by the residents for parking. And, you know, with the municipal parking district and other, you know, this bylaw isn't, you know, we're not discussing the municipal parking district or anything else. It's really saying that we're allowing it to be parking to be provided. If we prohibited it or we said there can be no parking, then either it has to happen outside the building or, you know, wouldn't happen on the property. So I think allowing it in the building can be an option. And then, you know, these design review requirements actually requiring it to go to the DRB. And just again, stating that the permit granting authority applies the criteria of section 10.38 and 11.24. So really just calling out that makes these buildings, even if they're a by-right use, you know, they can be subject to conditions in terms of their site plan, their architecture and the building layout. I think that's something that's really important. So, you know, the planning board or permit granting authority can condition by-right uses, you know, site plan review uses. And, you know, I think it's just important to rewrite that in the bylaw. And then the design guidelines are the things that were in the presentation. I'm not necessarily gonna walk through them all. Yeah, I know we probably should, you know, have time for discussion and all that. I mean, I think, you know, one big one is interesting. There's one in italics, you know, some mixed use building standards will say that the residential entrance on the first floor should be its own entrance or some communities say that the residential entrance needs to be on the side or the back of the building. They actually prohibit the main residential entrance to be on the major street or walkways. And so, you know, I think it's written here maybe inconsistent in the bylaw. I'm saying it has to, you know, shell face the primary street and gets its own entrance. And so, you know, there's little pieces of this that could be tweaked, but I think, you know, that's one that communities seem to split on, you know, should the retail facades of the front of the building be broken up by a residential entrance? I don't, yeah. So I think that's really about it. Great. So I'm anxious to hear what, you know, the finding board members have to say on this. I mean, in my comments are fairly minor, but I'd like to hear what others are feeling. Tom? Sure, I just had a quick question in regard to the front entrance on the side and back of the house for residential entries. I'm curious what the rationale is for that. And, you know, thinking too many kind of urban streetscapes with these kind of smaller entrances where people kind of enjoy walking out the front of their building onto an urban street or a semi urban small town street. There's something nice about having that address, having that front entrance. So I'm curious what the rationale is for forcing that to be something that you have to kind of go from the side or the back as opposed to making it, for instance, a minimum percentage of the facade or something to that effect. Yeah, and I think the concern might be that if, you know, every floor had its own entrance, maybe all of a sudden you'd have four doors on, you know, the main street and I'd be taking away from possible space for retail. You know, to me that's the only reason why you would limit that entry. I like the idea of having a residential entry on the main street. It was sometimes it's difficult by building code if the hallways share, you know, maybe share different uses and it might just be, you know, to try to eliminate any conflict there between uses, you know, having residents pass by spaces that are closed or something, right? So to really limit that conflict of user, but I don't necessarily see a reason to say, you know, your main entrance is on the side or back of the building. Nate, how would that entrance with the ADA, you know, work? I mean, in terms of like, you know, access to an elevator or things like that, is this- Yeah, I mean, the buildings- The buildings that are there now, you know, they have the residential piece has their own entrance and it might then have a common hallway with the non-residential use, but then it leads to a central space with elevators. So, you know, even the back entrance has to find the elevator. So, you know, but- Okay. Andrew? Thanks, Jack. Thanks for the presentation, Nate. I thought this was like a lot of really common sense stuff. So it was nice to see. I had a couple, I was a little confused on just the open space because there's 20% of open space in the front. I saw at one point said in the front of the building and then another spot, maybe not. And just what would that, is does the open space with that encompass the sidewalk and like would setback be part of that? Like how much of that would sort of be built in if you measured from the curb? Right. And then also just a quick ball on that particular one. I think it said 20% of 20% could be landscaped. Right. And so like 5% being landscaped would just love to maybe hear a little bit more on what you're thinking there. Right, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if you thought 20% might be too much, right? So then we're taking away actually the building, the buildable area of a lot. And so I think right now though, the issue is especially in, you know, the BG and BL and our village centers, the lot lines aren't necessarily parallel to the curb lines. And so, you know, like we have a one East pleasant, you get a pinch point. And if the developer pushes the way, you know, says, well, I can build to the zero lot line then you have, you know, you have really a really narrow sidewalk. And so, you know, I think there's probably a few ways to address this open space. Like I said, some of it, the CRC was talking about not having this requirement and just saying, we want a 20 foot wide sidewalk. And, you know, and that could be on both public and private property. But in terms of the open space, you know, whether it's 10, I think, you know, I think 10% might be better. My thought is that the way it's written, it's all on private property. So it's not part of the public right of ways on private property. And, you know, and essentially that would be something that if it were part of the mixed use building standards, the permit granting authority would really work with the developer then to figure out if we said, okay, it's on the front of the building and maybe it's on the sides or any, it's on any part of the building where there's a public alley or walkway or plaza or street. It's the permit granting authority that would work with the developer then and say, what does that look like? You know, for instance, if the mixed use building was to have a restaurant or places that might want gathering spaces out front, you know, what's the shape of that open space? Maybe in some buildings, it's more of just, you know, a wider sidewalk. And so I think it's really difficult to prescribe and get, you know, not getting too messy in terms of the details, what does that open space do and what does it look like? And so I would have it be, you know, like the thought would be that the permit granting authority would have the ability to work with the developer on programming it. In terms of landscaping, you know, that requirement, some communities, you know, when I was researching it, the thought is that if you require it, some developers might just make it so it's not usable, right? So that they just plant it all or put ground cover. And then essentially they have, you have the open space, but it's not, you know, it's not, can't be used by pedestrians or a proceeding. And so having some, a few more, you know, a few more qualifications or conditions in terms of how that could be used. And so, you know, whether or not 20% landscaping is the right percent, I don't know, even necessarily, but at least having, you know, some guidelines in terms of how the permit granting authority could program that space. That makes sense. Can I ask one quick additional one, Jack? Was just, was that, I like seeing the recognition of like needing to have the first floor uses be not purely for residential. Like, I mean, the ground floor reach, the ground floor space, certainly as we think about downtown or village center to me really needs to be retail. So I like calling out residential, but I wonder whether the split of, you know, residential use versus non-residential use is the way we'd wanna go. Cause that, at least from what I was reading, that could open this up to ground floor office, which is essentially more private property, right? It's like it's not for public use, where I think what we really wanna do is make sure we've got activated retail. So just wonder whether the language might wanna be, whether it might wanna consider tweaking that to making sure that we've got use allocated for retail, not just non-residential. Yeah, I think, yeah, so some, yeah, some bylaws really try to, right, define more, you know, more clearly what they want in terms of the non-residential piece. And, you know, there are some communities now closer to Boston where they had a mixed use building standard a few years ago and they specified, say for instance, certain retail and now they realize they can't fill that space because the markets have changed. And so, you know, I think there's different philosophies on that, you know, we're not, I agree that we may want certain retail uses in village centers and downtowns, but if we only allow those types of uses and a developer can't fill them, if we prohibit office on the first floor, we prohibit certain uses on the first floor, you know, will there be actually enough demand to have that much retail space? You know, so I, yeah, I think that's a consideration. You know, how much do we really start defining that first floor, you know, kind of non-residential piece? So we have, thank you, Andrew. So we have Doug and Janet, because I might forget my train of thought here, intrigued about open space, you know, from the building and kind of being more of a, like a vendor, you know, like a rent-free or vendor type space for, you know, where, you know, I think there's a feeling that we're missing, you know, affordable retail spaces and, you know, family businesses, that sort of thing. And I'm wondering if like a three-season type business can occupy the open space, you know, within, you know, the context of this, you know, of this by-law. Is that something that you've given any thought to? I had it. I mean, you know, right now, if it's in the public right-of-way, they have to get, you know, licensing for that. If it's on private property, I don't know if that, you know, then be like an amendment to the site plan review to allow, you know, a seasonal use on the property. You know, I'm, you know, Rob's here. I mean, I, you know, is it, you know, is it considered? I mean, I'm assuming it might be allowed as a use, but I don't know, I haven't, that hasn't been asked before. So I don't have a good answer. Rob, you? Yeah, I think that could be proposed under the site plan review or a subsequent site plan review in the future if that was after the fact of the initial building construction. Yep. Okay, thank you. Doug? Thanks, Jack. So I guess, Rob, or Nate, I have a couple of questions first and then I have a couple of comments. So my first question is, how does this standard exactly relate to our bylaw? Are you suggesting that section 3.325 would be just replaced by this multi-page standard? So I think this could be within section 3 and maybe it'd be, you know, right, a whole new section. And so, you know, as opposed to having this lengthy part in the use chart, it would be, you know, it'd be a separate area. And so, you know, it would play, you know, you'd still have mixed these buildings there, but then the rest of it can be referred to, you know, C-section 3.5 or, you know, have it be just its own section. Okay. All right. And then where are we at in the process for this? Like, you know, once we, you've already presented this to CRC, you're presenting it to us tonight. I mean, you know, is it gonna go to CRC like all the other things that we've worked on this spring and then it's just in their hands or is there gonna be more conversation about this in future meetings? Yeah, I think the CRC, I think we'd want to discuss it again. They've also mentioned that they'd like to see an updated, whether it's a definition or an update on the apartment definition or what, you know, how we're classifying apartments. They think the mixed buildings and apartments go somewhat hand-in-hand. You know, it seems like people are using the mixed used building permitting path because our apartment definition is kind of, I don't want to say archaic, but, you know, it's pretty pulled in it, you know, like the number of units in a building and a few things. And so, you know, I think, I mean, I think that this is the beginning of a process of looking at the bylaw that was written and how, you know, and seeing if it, how much of it needs to be changed again and refined to become a bylaw that would be presented as a formal zoning amendment. Okay, all right, so. There's a huge user hand raised there. So then my comments are these. First of all, there's, you know, I thought the immediate problem to solve was a little bit more specific definition of what a mixed use building was so that we didn't end up with one leasing office on the first floor of a building that was otherwise entirely residential. So it strikes me that there's a lot in this proposal that really would be general requirements for our downtown and village centers, regardless of the use, you know, things about the facade stepping back and the amount of glazing at the first floor. So to some degree, you know, I don't, I wouldn't say this is a wolf in sheep's clothing, but it's an, you know, it's an apple that's actually in orange with a little bit of apple flavor or something like that. So, you know, I wonder whether what we really ought to be doing is saying most of this ought to be a general design guideline or overlay in all of those downtown and village center districts. And then we just go separately fix the mixed use building definition. Sure. So that's, that's sort of my first comment. And then Doug, you want to let Nate respond to that now, maybe? Sure. Okay. No, I think the, you know, like I said, the standards and conditions within the proposed amendment, you know, that deal with the first floor uses, the orientation, the parking, the open space. I mean, those would be the components of the mixed use building, the design standards that deal with like, right, facade treatment and parking and other things landscaping. You know, I agree that those could be generalized as part of the zoning. The town's also looking at hiring a consultant to, you know, come up with design guidelines and other features. So, you know, at some point, whether or not these get adopted, the thought would be if there are better design guidelines that the consultants come up with a, you know, they might replace what is in this bylaw, right? So then these, so then, you know, in a year or so that we'd have better standards that would be applicable to, as Doug mentioned, you know, all of Village Centers and downtown. Okay. And then some, just a few specific things. You listed, or you mentioned having an awning band between the first and second floor, you know, I might call that a sign band. You know, I think you do want some sort of horizontal separation and that just lets the first floor be what it needs to be. And the second and upper floors can just be separate. I do think the 42 inch bottom opaque requirement is way too high. I would personally go down pretty close to the ground and then let people frost their window or whatever. I do support the minimum sidewalk width. As opposed to the open space approach. And then in kind of in response to Andrew's comment about whether we want to specify retail versus commercial, I would probably keep it more open. I can envision, you know, various office uses that would be perfectly interesting to walk by, even if they're not retail. So I would keep it more broad. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. So we have Giannet Maria and by Chris, I'm going to bump you up if you'd like to speak. So I just wanted to speak about procedure. We really haven't decided, this is to answer Doug's question about where is this going? Are we going to have another shot at this? I feel like this is in its early stages of being developed or maybe it's half baked, but it's not fully baked yet. Sorry, Nate. I think it's half risen, not like that, it's okay. We have to have discussion about it. We have to talk about it, the planning board and the CRC and really refine it to something that we want to present to Town Council. So I think it's partway there and maybe it's most of the way there but it's not completely there yet. So I hope that it will come back to the planning board and I hope that the CRC will be discussing it. So anyway, I just wanted to share that. Yeah, it reminds me of a souffle which is really tricky. I think it's very difficult baking exercise. So I think that's probably what we're looking at. Giannet, please. Hi, I'm going to try to avoid any food images because I'm getting really confused. Anyway, it's nice to be back working on the mixed use building issues. I like the idea of the public space in front because it will give kind of, we know that the sidewalk dining has been a hit and just some width to the sidewalks and things like that. I think we should definitely work off the curb because of the issue of where the lot lines are is kind of mystifying. I was looking, after reading Hilda Greenbaum's article in the Indie about the design review board, I looked at the manual and it has really detailed design guidelines and lots of pictures and kind of like do this, don't do this, a lot of specifics. And I thought, there already exist and kind of pulling them into this might be great and really helpful. And then some of the ideas they had there were like more historic features and looks to buildings and like how did the buildings look next to each other in the context, the heights of them in the context of the surrounding areas and buildings around near it. They talk about smaller windows on the first floor and the upper floors and the upper floor buildings had a lot more details like the windows, the windows had details. Each window had like a little dressing. The roof line had some detail and dressing. So I thought that was all really attractive and it fits a lot of the buildings that we like downtown. I also thought about maybe like the idea of terraces for people if there's apartment buildings and stuff like that. Cause I think we've learned that even tiny pieces of open space are good when you live in a small apartment or apartment in a big building. I also thought to avoid kind of excessive bulk and massing like a building like one East Pleasant Street which is so high and it's so on the street that the idea of a step back at the fourth floor, the fourth and fifth floors have to be moved off. And I've been dry. I was just in Cambridge and Jamaica Plain and most buildings are new builds. The new buildings are like three or four stories. And so I think that pulling the fourth floor or the fifth floor off the street and maybe that could be like a terrace, a big terrace and kind of a penthouse kind of idea but it would prevent those buildings from like seeming so big. Sorry quickly, Jen, just one other thing I've discussed with staff is also, we don't factor in a track or anything on the roof as part of the height. And so some of the buildings with all the mechanical equipment and stairwell projection up top, I mean, it really adds up almost a floor really. So I'm not proposing for the mixed use building, the idea of a step back is one idea but the other could be redefining what we measure as the height of a building if we're seeing more rooftop mechanical and other things, even proposed solar on the roof would add essentially a floor, make it feel like it's a floor taller. So I, yeah, so anyways, just to riff on that, I think there's ways to, ways we could try to discuss that. And the design review board manual was showing all these different ways of looking at building height which I thought was kind of interesting. But I think I see your point about just getting bigger and bigger with all the mechanicals going upstairs. The other thing I think, which also comes out of the manual is just like smaller windows on the first floor and also like small retail spaces on the first floor. And so if you could land like a major retailer downtown that might be a big draw, but the odds are it's gonna be a small shop. And so if you have a requirement of small retail spaces on the first floor, which I think you could just break and make bigger if you needed to, but just the idea that small businesses are gonna do better in small spaces and that, you know, rents are high in a lot of areas. And so, and in terms of retail being dead, like has anyone been to Hadley? Cause there's tons of little office buildings and shops and along route nine that weren't there like 15 years ago. And so in even, so you see, so I think we just need to create those spaces instead of losing them. And then my final comment, and I'm glad that this isn't my final moment with the mixed use building and we'll be working on it in the future is that a hot button issue in town meeting was the parking inside the building. And I think that's one reason it went down. And I think, and Maria could help me, but I think that when we were working on this in the zoning subcommittee like a year and a half ago, David, we were talking about that parking issue and David was gonna tweak it a little bit and see how to address that. Cause in town meeting that didn't go over well, I think people were asking questions at the CRC. And so, you know, and then parking is always a hot button issue, but do we want parking inside a building or should it be on the street or something? So I just wanted to like, sort of say, you know, warning cause that was a big issue. I'm not sure how I personally feel about it, but... You're muted, Janet. Oh, sorry. That was a long list. So I'm happy to send that to you or, Oh, if you have a type of, I'm talking more. Yes. You know, actually one question I have is like, how can we help you? Like, you know, can we workshop this with you in some way? You know, what's the best way to, you know, kind of fine tune it? Right. Well, after this meeting, you know, I have the notes from the CRC and all of notes from this meeting. I think some of it will be then, you know, meeting with Chris and Rob and staff and discussing, you know, what pieces get revised? How do we, you know, track change the document to see, you know, how it's evolving? And then I guess just presenting it again. I'm not, you know, I don't, you know, in terms of having another workshop or meeting, I guess that, you know, I could talk to Chris about that, how we want to work it. But my thought is I'd just, you know, take what we're discussing tonight and what the CRC had and try to revise the bylaw. Okay. And then, you know, there was some language I found confusing, but that's sort of like very nitty gritty stuff. You might want to say that, Janet, because I know we got to hustle to get through because of the night. We're just gonna do it now. So, so we have Maria and Tom and then, you know, perhaps we'll have some public comment after that. So Maria, please. Thanks, Nate. Again, really great presentation, really thorough. I kind of share the sense that Doug had where when I first read it, I was really surprised how far reaching this was. I really thought the issue was like, we don't want an ATM and residential. Then like you said, a lot of developers are using mixed use to avoid the whole limitations of our apartments. So I thought that was the goal, but, you know, I think in one of these memos, it says something about like maybe the DRB should be reviewing all mixed use projects. And like Janet was touching on, maybe let that be the thing that sort of tests the design standards and those kinds of issues rather than burying it into the mixed use bylaw. If you just wanna kind of quickly fix sort of this hot point about, you know, what is the first floor use? What do we want the first floor used to be? So that sort of one big thing is, I wonder if you're overreaching a little bit with too much prescriptive design standards, perhaps. I don't want to answer for that. I just wonder if you consider just re-search. What it is exactly you wanna solve with this mixed use bylaw. And then the other thing is, yeah, over time markets will really change. So I am not for like being very specific about sizes of retail, whether it is retail or office. And then as far as the unit mix, there's a thing in the apartments where it says, you know, you can't have 50% of the units all one size. So maybe what you're trying to avoid is having like, you know, the sort of whole building of one bedroom units, just do something that sort of flips it and says, well, instead of dictating what kind of units, just say we don't want, you know, all the same, but you know, similar to what apartments are saying, just give it a sort of don't do this, but you can do anything else kind of rather than specify what you want. So those are my two main comments. It's just like one, yeah, you're getting a little bit too much into like form-based design in a way with this one use. And then the other is, yeah, I suggest trusting architects, developers and all the various boards and that oversee these projects to help define what the best project is for that time period rather than putting in a bylaw. You know, these are the types of things you want to see for, you know, perpetuity. So those are my two sort of big picture points. Sure, I was just going to share my screen again. Yeah, my thought would be, let me just add this to the, yeah, I think to Maria's point, if the mixed use building standard, if in the bylaw from design guidelines down was eliminated and all you had were these standards and conditions and definitions, you know, that would try to address just those, the piece of what is, you know, what are the uses, what is the mix of uses and the orientation? You know, I agree that the design guidelines, everything else is not necessarily typical of a mixed use building standard, right? I mean, that does, you know, maybe some of the glazing requirements on the first floor, but maybe that is something that can just be, you know, part of this, right, section 10.38, if we say, okay, the permit granting authority should use, you know, the designer view manual and really call it out, then the rest of this could be, you know, could be modified or eliminated in a way. So I mean, I'm not, yeah, I think it's a, I think it's something to discuss, you know, is that, is it necessary as part of the mixed use building? So, Maria, could you kind of like talk about, you know, like the form-based aspect here, because it seems like, you know, the flexibility is a big part of that sort of thing. And if it's prescriptive as proposed here, it runs counter to that. Yeah, I'm just worried that, you know, every site is different, every zone is different. And already the four or five zones have different front setbacks. Most of them are 20, but some are zero and 20, some are 15, and I think one was 10. So to set a sort of, yeah, sort of units of specific units seems kind of confining. And then I appreciate all of the design standards that were presented. And maybe we keep all of that and keep discussing it, but use it in a different place in the bylaw or something. It just doesn't seem to muddy the mixed use issue. And it's a lot. I mean, it is really similar to what form-based zoning is where it starts to talk about streetscape. And so I don't know if that answers your question, Jack, but yeah, I just, I feel like it's a lot. I was really surprised to see that level design guidelines, which I really appreciate. I think we need, but I just wonder if this is the right place for it. Yeah, I just, yeah, that was good. And I like, you know, I agree, Maria, with your comments. So we have Tom and then Janet, and then maybe we'll get to the public comment after that, unless we have any other board members. I'll be brief. I think to follow up on Maria's point and your question, Jack, one of the things that struck me, just it's a really nitpicky comment, but the notion that in the design guidelines you have that primary doors face the street also seems somewhat really arbitrary when you can imagine a little alcove with two doors that enter from the side, like an aya kind of, I want to enter from the side to maximize seating along the glass in the front. Like it doesn't do what I think you're wanting it to do, and it seems overly prescriptive for the designer as opposed to just more thinking about what the experience on the street is like. So I think those are the kinds of things that feel really prescriptive, that don't necessarily need to be here to solve the problem that I think you're trying to solve. And if anything might create more hurdles for you than actually getting this approved. So that's something you might want to consider in terms of like, how do I strip this down to the things that I think are essential to solve this problem and not so much to be that nitpicky? Because I agree with the 42 inches and all that stuff too. I think it's a little too nitpicky. My last comment was about the site design and this is probably something we've talked about before I came and we've talked about since I've been on the board, but this notion that we wanna maximize lots of parking between buildings seems like the right idea that we don't want them on the street sort of facing the front of the site. But at the same time, can we create a too big of a void in terms of the urban landscape by having two adjacent buildings take 40% of their lot and put a mutual parking lot in the middle and just create this kind of sea of asphalt that we don't want in a downtown landscape. So in that way, we're encouraging a certain kind of a pattern that we don't necessarily want where we might want smaller lots more often rather than massive lots or if lots are more than a certain width of the facade, then they have to go in the back and not in the front. So I think there might be other language we can use to limit this kind of the mass of parking that we might wind up with as a result of saying you can use the side because using the side to me feels problematic in that urban experience. That's all I got. Thank you guys. Great, thanks, Nate. Do you have, if you don't have anything, that's good. No, I mean, yeah, I think the parking is a big one. You know, some, right, some bylaws really say it can only go in the back and that's it. Some will allow it in building, some won't and some, right? Say if it's on the side, it has to be at least 30 feet back but then I agree that you might have these weird spaces, these kind of amorphous spaces between buildings that really aren't, you know, are they public? Are they private? What's in front of the parking? So yeah, again, thanks. I think that's a good comment. Yes, all right. Thank you, Tom and Janet. So I think that what you're trying to address here is the fact that we don't have strong or strict design standards and which is what the master plan calls for. And so you're trying to kind of patch up a problem that we have, knowing that later down the road there'll be more to come. And so I wonder, you know, the mixed use buildings, I think are sort of, it's kind of, the cat is out of the bag. And, you know, Christine Brestrup has sort of described the mixed use buildings as sort of a big box that you pour units into. And for the developer or the property owner, the incentives are all for more units in the box and to make the box bigger. And, you know, to go to the property line, to go to the front setback or to ask waivers to make it bigger. And so I think what this is trying to address is putting in some kind of design guidelines for mixed use buildings that come to us that create public space on the sidewalk in the absence of that design guideline for village centers or the downtown, which we all wish he had now. And also, you know, I'm saying to do a step back because the buildings are too big and too massive. Or if we did follow the design review board recommendations or the manual, the windows will be smaller and more decorative. The buildings wouldn't be that high because they wouldn't have matched the buildings around them and the rest of the downtown. And so I think what you're trying to donate is address design issues that we haven't really addressed wholeheartedly in a way to make sure that the next buildings we have just don't overwhelm as much or, you know, kind of more pleasing. And I think that we need to kind of go there and start talking about that and start implementing that, knowing that we can change it later because everyone's gonna have like a pet, like things, like, you know, saying that, you know, you should have a front door entryway to an apartment building instead of in the back or the side or put the parking in the back, not in the side. It's kind of a design issue. It's just that, you know, and then if someone says make small retail spaces or public space in the front, that's a design issue. And so we just don't have a lot of design guidelines specific to do form-based zoning. It doesn't mean we have to do form-based zoning right now, but I think we have to do talk about the forms and create some public space and realize that we need space in front of a big sidewalk to have things happen that we wanna have happen in the downtown and village centers. So I think you're going in there, the planning department is going in there because there's a big gap and we need to do it and start that conversation and actually start implementing it, knowing later on we can get more rigorous. I'm not sure I care where the sections are, but I can see what you're trying to do. All right, thank you, Janet. I don't see other board members. And again, we're at 730. We wanna adjourn at 830. So I think we can flip over to public comment, three minutes per person. And I see Pam Rooney. Pam, just state your name and address and appreciate it. Hi, Pam. Hi, everybody. Hi, Pam. Pam, I'm Pam, 42 Cottage Street. Thanks for letting me speak. I see everybody kind of grappling with the same basic question. Are we today trying to force a minimum of commercial space into these buildings or are we trying to maximize residential? And it's kind of the dilemma between what we want our mixed-use buildings to be. I was thinking as you were talking, again, the application of some of these design guidelines, I think Ms. McGowan hit it right in the head. We're lacking them, so we're trying to make them up as we go. And certainly a good conversation about this, how much of these conditions could actually apply to apartment buildings as well when those definitions get tackled coming down the pike. I'd like to talk a little bit about open space. That's my pet project, I guess. And it right now rests entirely on the permitting authority to protect the interest of the community, I guess, the keeper of the public way. In the material that I sent to Christine for you all, there was a wonderful little graphic. It came from Aurora, Colorado. And it was nice in that it described sort of the pieces of the public space. And it was the curb, the furnishing area or the tree area, then the thoroughfare, and then the frontage, what they call frontage. And it feels to me that the frontage is really what we're talking about is that we, the town typically would, typically would provide the 18, 20 feet of curb to back of sidewalk. And then everything from there on is sort of the building bonus. And that's where you can create the liveliness. And so Nate's idea of having the open space, the project open space added to, in fact, the public way, I think is a really important aspect to keep, even though it is kind of a design guideline-y thing, it feels really important to require some open space in addition to what the town would traditionally provide. And unfortunately, whatever permitting authority was acting the night that one East Pleasant was permitted, really lost it for the public. It gave up the public way. And there's such a strong public space that follows North Pleasant Street all the way past the toy box. Then is the toy box, Amherst Optical, and then it gets lost. So whatever happens beyond North of that really needs to reinforce and take back the town, the town public way. Thanks, that's all I wanna say. Oh, I did appreciate the comment about stepping buildings back. It feels like after the three stories, which is a really standard building height throughout much of town, that the fourth and fifth could be, in fact, step back, reduce the bulk, and allow for some of that green space on the roof. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Pam. And I know you send in comments as well, which were well received. So thank you. Dorothy Pam. Name, address. Hi, Dorothy. Hello, Dorothy Pam 229 Amity Street. And I'm talking about the public way as well. I like having learned a name, pinch point for the sharp corner. So the other day I went out and measured it, and with a small strip of grass and the sidewalk, it came to six feet. Now, it feels smaller than that. So that made me realize that six feet just isn't very much and that a 10 foot sidewalk isn't very much. So today I went to, I was up by Amherst Works, and I saw a very, maybe 20 feet of sidewalk. And then in front of the bagel store, they have an open porch with tables on it. And I thought, wow, that really is good. And because across the street where our kind of improvised outdoor dining, which truly looks awfully messy, those concrete barriers, and I'm somebody who's never gonna sit near the street like that. But I thought that was really good. When you talk about the 20% of space, I can't visualize it, that's my problem. It could be just a little bit of space everywhere and no place is the space enough to do anything or whatever. So I guess I'm really saying, why don't we say the town, and if the town has to help pay for this, okay, because some people's lots may go too close to the public way, but 20 feet sidewalks. And then the open space can be one or two places. One of the new restaurants has the little side entrance porch, which again, that looks pleasant. Things that are open where you can stand, where you could actually put a table that are kind of under the control of the business, as well as spaces which are purely public, which would be benches on the edge of the sidewalk. Both have their place. So I'm really interested in seeing how we can get the buildings back further, give the public more room to operate, but have these interesting interaction spaces provided. I'd love pictures, thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Jerry Wise, let your name, address please. Hello Jerry. Sorry, Jerry Wise, 277 Middle Street in beautiful South Amherst. I think this is a great discussion and I'm so glad the planning department has brought forward all these ideas. It's so needed. I'm assuming that had the basics of these concepts and standards been around before, we wouldn't have that monstrosity of six foot sidewalk on a five story building called One East Pleasant. I'm assuming that's a given, which to me says you've all defined why you need to have a moratorium on permitting any new buildings downtown. You need to get this right before more of these buildings because right now apparently you could build another one just like One East Pleasant. So really consider, get this right and then open up the permitting again. It just would make a real downtown and it's in danger right now. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. Next is Hilter Greenbaum. Is that your name and your address please? Hi, Hilter. Hi, how are you? My name is Hilter Greenbaum at 298 One Big View Road and I have a list thing. I hope I can get it through in three minutes. Anyway, one of the most of my comments here are related to the problems of the four buildings that are already existing that were built over the last few years. One of the things when we'd build a new bylaw how much of this bylaw is cast in stone and then where of it is there places where they can ask for waivers? The big problem, I went with my buddies to all the hearings for the three, four buildings that they've already built. And a lot of the problems of that building at One East Pleasant Street were waivers. For example, the bylaw says when a building abuts residential, which it does, the cemetery, it should have a 24th setback. Another case of bylaw says zero sideline setback or 10 set one or the other and the building has none of above. So I'm just curious when we write regulations, can they be something that people have to adhere to and not be given waivers? That's one question. The other thing that sort of bothers me is given the ambiguity of the setback requirements in the downtown and you're talking about 20% public space. What is the nexus? What is the interrelationship between this public space and the setbacks? I'm thinking side and rear particularly. The next thing is the status of the design review board has been basically ignored when it comes and they had serious problems with the Spring Street building and they were totally ignored and a lot of us were at that meeting and a lot of us are even more unhappy with what that building might look like if it ever gets finished. So the bylaw says shell and in the regulations but I think also the bylaw that for anything bigger and even for duplex that the design review guidelines and 3.2 or whatever the numbers are those two sets must be applied and or shall be applied. And I read that as must and I'm not, I'd like to make sure that the shell is applied to the new stuff here. That's another problem. I was just curious, the numbers that you have like the 80 feet and the 10 feet, et cetera, where they came from but they related to the buildings that we already have. That's just a curious thing. And then in village centers, we talked a lot about when we did the form review that we didn't pass from North Amherst because it was much too dense. We did talk about workforce housing in the village center where somebody could have a shop on the bottom and live upstairs. I don't know whether that's something that would be part of this amount of me as a single family or it could be two shops on the bottom with two houses on top. I don't know, I'm just curious whether that would fit in here. And then lastly, when you talk about parking, I know where the Kendrick Park place, whatever the name of Kendrick on the corner, that that has issues with Tanbrook but some of the other lots to the south of that, can we develop underground parking or is it just too wet? So that's another question I have. I'll finish off with what's very ironic to me is it was spending all of this tax money, local and state money on Kendrick Park and there's absolutely nothing around to draw people to come downtown. I can't even buy an ice cream for the little kids that wanna come and play in the park. And I think issues like that, people need to think about the have small shops where you can have, anyway, I like the direction. I like the direction, let's just follow it. Great, okay, thank you Hilda. And so we have one more and again, we have this inclusionary zoning because there are 830 hard stop. So Ira, you are up next, just say your name and address please. Hello, Ira. Hi, how are you? I'm Ira Brick. I live at 255 Strong Street and I just wanna thank you, Nate, very interesting presentation and I agree with others that I like a lot of what I'm hearing. I just have three comments. One is if I was building a building and wanted to attract retail, I would ideally have a build to suit situation where I just had a lot of available space and then would break it up. But in addition to that, there are retail groups, industry groups that would easily know what is the size of a modern store that most people want. If I had a children's shop, that was probably three times bigger than the one that I'd opened today. Secondly, as I've been told many times by planning people in Amherst, you can't dictate use, but you can design for it. And if we are looking for that diversity downtown of families and students and retirees and I hate the word workforce, but we can design buildings that actually encourage a mix within a building or like a nice mix downtown of the people that we hope will move downtown. And just third, personally, I would not legislate retail only on the first floor, but I understand that to have a closed office situation is not good, but there's a lot of public facing businesses that you might call retail a broad definition of art lessons or travel agencies are not a thing, but that kind of like, it's not an office building, you walk in and you do a service business with them and I'm a big advocate of retail on the first floor, but I would define that more broadly as any public facing business. Thank you. Thank you, Ira. So with that, we have 45 minutes and I think we can just move on to the inclusionary zoning unless anybody has the board or Nate. Doug. I'm ready to, Doug has his hand up. Well, Jack gave me an opening. Right. Yes. So I was just gonna say one thing that I think Christine Gray Mullin actually mentioned to me because she came on the planning board right at the time that one East pleasant was being permitted. She arrived late in that process and the horse was sort of out of the barn, but she's also a civil engineer and she mentioned to me that the town certainly could move the curb of North Pleasant Street or East Pleasant Street away from one East Pleasant Street building. That's where those two roads come together. There's that park across the street that's kind of the residual space. And so if the town is actually deeply upset about that condition and I share the concern about it, we could move the curb. And so, I don't know whether we as the planning board would wanna ask Chris and Rob to go talk to Guilford and Jason Schiels and have them come back with a study of how could we move the curb at that particular location because I think everybody agrees it was a mistake. Thanks, Jack. I wholeheartedly agree with you, Doug, and I'm just thinking about the situation on Main Street where Amherst Media was where the survey just wasn't accurate. And I don't know if that came into play with this, but yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. So Nate. I'm gonna move on to luxury zoning, that's good. Okay, all right, so let's do that. So inclusionary zoning, section 15 of the zoning by-law, we have a presentation again by Nate. Sure, the change to the inclusionary zoning by-law, the purpose is to maintain and increase the supply of affordable housing in town. However, the current by-law applies if you're producing 10 or more new units and it's a special permit use or you have a request to modify certain dimensional standards. And so many buildings can be built that don't actually trigger inclusionary zoning. So the threshold is too high, whether it's these dimensional standard waivers, building coverage, lock coverage, or increasing a floor height or the special permit use. And so, the new by-law would eliminate the threshold for a special permit and the dimensional modification. So it basically applied to any residential project, define that with exceptions. So for instance, a comprehensive permit project, conventional residential subdivision, which is really just the creation of lots, something in the fraternity district, and then institutional uses. And so, any other type of housing that creates 10 or more units would be required to provide affordable units to the inclusionary zoning by-law. What remains in the by-law is the percentage calculation of affordable units. So, we're not proposing to change the definition of affordability, which is at 80% of the area median income we're saying that if you have 10 to 14 new units, one affordable unit would be required, 15 to 20 new units, you'd have two affordable units, and then 21 plus would be 12% of the unit count. So that's in the by-law. It's also allowed that if four more units are required and half are on site, that through a special permit with a permit grading authority, you could provide off-site units or make a payment in lieu, that's three times the current median family income. And so, when this was proposed to the CRC, they had questions and comments about the entire by-law. And so, there may be that tonight, but really the difference is just lowering that threshold and making it apply to more projects. I think, I almost wanna say it's a clarification, I feel like for many, the thought that applied only to a special permit use was kind of a misinterpretation. And so, in terms of the actual by-law itself, here's the existing inclusionary zoning by-law, and the changes are shown in check changes. So really it's saying, shall apply to residential development, including but not limited to townhouses, apartments, mixed use buildings, cluster developments, purds or open space conservation developments that provide new dwelling units. And then it has the exceptions. And that's really the proposed change right now, just saying new dwelling units. I think the one other issue though right now is our by-law defines affordability at 80% of the area of median income. And that's a standard definition for affordable housing. In Amherst though, at 80% AMI, voucher holders cannot afford that income level. The rental amounts based on 80% AMI are too high for a voucher program. And so, Aspen Heights, for instance, just started marketing their 11 affordable units that were acquired through inclusionary zoning. And the Department of Mental Health, which often helps clients find affordable housing, they contacted the town this week and they said, well, are there any units set aside that are lower than 80% because none of my voucher holders, no one with a voucher in the Section 8 program can afford to live here. And I said, no, there's no set aside. The developers allowed to go up to the 80%. They can voluntarily reduce it, some do at initial lease up. But discussing this with staff, the thought might be that maybe there's a condition that if there's 10 affordable units are being provided, that a certain percentage of them have to be reduced to be affordable to voucher holders or something. And that's not in this current version, but I think we've run into that issue before with other developments. If the developer chooses to keep it at 80% AMI then voucher holders, which are, there are hundreds of them in the area, aren't even eligible to apply. Hey, Nate, could you give a quick thumbnail of the voucher program that you're referencing? Sure, so for instance, like a Section 8 voucher, it's AMIRS is in the Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area, so this MSA, this larger area, what the voucher program does, it'll say, okay, in this area, if 30% of your income is used to pay for housing, then this is what the rental amounts are. So say for a one bedroom, say it's like $1,100, and that's what, and then the voucher is a payment subsidy if the unit is at the $1,100 or less. And it's based on someone's income, so it's not the same for everyone, every household, but essentially it's a subsidy to a tenant if the unit is within this income range. And the issue in AMIRS is if the voucher program says that one bedroom is $1,100 and it can't be more than that, at 80% AMI, a one bedroom, I think is closer to say it's like 1250 or something. So it's just so expensive that it excludes anyone that has a voucher, it's just not even eligible for the program. And so it's a mobile voucher that moves with the tenant, typically. The other issue with the bylaw under intent and purpose, it mentions local preference. You know, it says the preference would be ensuring that preference for new affordable housing is given to people who live or work in AMIRS. And according to the statute, local preference, to me this is referring to local preferences more than just those who live or work in AMIRS. It also has school-aged children. There's a few other pieces to it. And so the CRC recommended either dropping this one piece, 15.03, or making it inclusive of all the categories of local preference. So it's just strange that it says live or work. It's somewhat contradictory. It's not as comprehensive as it could be. So those are the two pieces that really aren't written down in the changes. The local preference piece or having a stipulation that if you have so many affordable units, maybe there's a set aside for voucher holders. And that's- Thank you, Nate. Hey, I'm thinking that kind of would change things up a little bit, because John Hornick had emailed us. And again, he's kind of integral all of this. I'm wondering if it's okay, if we have him say a few words before the planning board starts discussing. Would that be okay, Chris, do you think? All right, you're shaking your head. I'm shaking my head. All right, so let's bring John Hornick in, please. I'm gonna promote him to a panelist. Okay. Let's see how that goes. He should be coming over. And it's like eight o'clock, which is what he was hoping for. So this is great. Okay, thanks very much. I appreciate the acknowledgement, Jack. I will be brief. I am John Hornick, a resident of Amherst at 59 Carriage Lane. And I'm here to speak in favor of the revised inclusionary zoning bylaw. Why do we need to change this bylaw? Right now we have a de facto exclusionary zoning bylaw. New developments in Amherst typically come at a rental price of $1,900 a month for a one bedroom and $3,000 a month for a two bedroom apartment. We should hang a sign across President Street downtown saying no low income persons allowed here as most everyone knows, we have become a town where if you are not well compensated or wealthy, you can't afford to move here. Many people will tell you that they could not afford to buy the home they now own. Leaving the student population aside, we have become a community of older white persons. The numbers of families with children have been dropping very significantly at least since the year 2000. The revised bylaw will not change this overnight but it will provide a much needed nudge in a different direction. With a more inclusive inclusionary zoning bylaw, lower income households will have a 10% chance of being able to rent in downtown Amherst. Last night, we sponsored a forum on creating a path to home ownership for low income households in Amherst. The highlight of the evening was the presentations by three homeowners who live in affordable homes. For those of you missed it, it will be available soon in a recording in Amherst media. If you have only a limited time when it's available, please skip forward to the segment when the three homeowners speak. It's very moving. Let's take down that sign which now stretches across Pleasant Street announcing no low income persons allowed here. It's a block on our community. We need affordable housing and passing this revised bylaw will contribute significantly towards that goal. Amherst is a town that values equity, fairness and diversity. Let's live up to these values. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, John. Let's open it up to the planning board members. Tom. Thanks, Jack. And thanks, John, for your comments and Nate for the presentation. I agree. I think we do need to support this. I do have a really specific question that I think is for me speaks in a problematic way. Is this notion about offsite affordable units? I can't quite understand the rationale when we have, we're creating an inclusionary zoning bylaw that enables exclusionary behavior and saying, we're gonna build these downtown and they're gonna be beautiful. But within that zone, I'm gonna put these affordable housing units over here tucked around the corner and that you can do that by special permit within this bylaw feels really problematic to me in terms of creating a bypass for people to be exclusive as opposed to inclusive. We're trying to build, integrate low and moderate income families into our more affluent neighborhoods. This seems like a way to not do that for developers. So I'm curious what the rationale is for that and whether that needs to be included in this in order for it to be a fair. I think back in 2014 and 15, the town hired Judy Barrett as housing consultant and she looked at a number of bylaws throughout the state and many bylaws had this provision or similar provisions that would allow a developer to have, I don't wanna say like a relief valve but some way to provide units that may not be in the development. And so where the bylaws right now is within the same zoning district or 500 feet and it can only be half the unit. So half would have to be at least in the development and the other half could be outside the development but it's by special permit. So again, the developer would have to go through the exercise to say why it's not feasible whether it's economically or design-wise or something why it's not feasible to include those in the project and why and what is the option and what do they have, where are they gonna put the other half? So when this was included, the thought would be that a developer would actually have to show that they have control and financial feasibility to create units offsite. They can't just do it on a whim. Through the special permit process, the permit granting authority could say, if you don't own the building, we need to see a lease. We want architectural plans. We want a pro forma, we want budget. So it's not just something that's taken pretty lightheartedly. It's something that the board can really condition through that special permit process. So I think the thought was too, what if an owner or developer, certain projects may not, maybe they have another property that they were hoping to redevelop. And so it was just an idea of allowing some units within the general area of the project. I agree, some people may see it as problematic. Why are we allowing any type of relief? Why not, you know, it's better just to get the units built at a time of development. I guess what I'm saying, I guess I'm saying that I feel like the language is problematic and it talks about the affordable units being the ones that can be set aside as opposed to any units. And it's being, it's a very exclusive practice, right? And so I guess I'm concerned for people hearing this to hear it in a way that is not inclusive of them, that doesn't invite them into those zones or into the new building. So I'm more concerned about the appearance of it and the effect that it has on people than necessarily on zoning. And so I'm wondering if that's something we want to consider in terms of the language in that way approach it, that's all, thanks. Okay, so we have three blind board members with their hands up, Andrew, Maria and Doug and then a couple in the attendees. We have like a half hour left. I know I have something I want to say as well. So just keep that in mind. So Andrew. Thanks, Jack, I tried to keep it brief. I was just curious, I'd love to get some perspective and maybe some history on the payment in lieu of taxes. I guess first, has that ever been used? And then is this, I think in terms of some of the previous comments there, does that just give a developer an opportunity to buy their way out of not doing this? And does it leave our community any better off to have that money? I'd love Nate or even John to sort of hear your perspectives on that. Yeah, it's never been used. And right now it'd be about 180 or 190,000 per unit would be the payoff amount. And again, it would only be for half the units and the money would go directly into the housing trust. I think the thought there was that, and again, if the board allowed it through a special permit and the developer made a payment in lieu of and it went to the housing trust, the thought really is the trust could hopefully leverage that money to get more, at least one unit or more than one unit. So in the end, there would be a neutral, it wouldn't be a gain or a loss. It would just be an equal amount of housing would be produced, but it hasn't been used. When we had a consultant, we had two different people look at this, Judy there was one, and then we had Jane Armington when she worked for Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and a number of communities had a payment in lieu of and I thought is you don't wanna make it too low. It's like the three bears, too hot, too cold. But so the three times the median family income was something that seemed to be, it is adjusted based on the income. So we could say, okay, let's raise and say four times the median family income. We could eliminate it, but the thought was that amount was good at the time. The CRC questioned these two provisions as well. And they thought that, well, 190,000 isn't enough to build a unit. So why wouldn't we ask for more? But the thought was at least if it went to the housing trust, they could leverage it to get more units built. Thank you. Maria. Thanks. I'll try to be brief too. So we're gonna have some time. These larger size developments are the ones that have the biggest impact on bringing affordable housing, both capital A and lower case to Amherst. And so I wanna make sure that this is not something that's going to deter, slow down or stop development of those scale projects. And I agree with whoever was saying that we should hire a consultant for this. I don't want us to rush into just changing our, it's a very simple change in black and white letters, but the impacts of it and it doing the exact opposite of what we want, which is bringing more affordable housing to Amherst, that would be the worst case scenario is if we are so demanding and not giving back to the people who own the properties have the ability to do these size projects. They'll go to East Hampton or North Hampton, they'll go to the neighboring town. So I just wanna make sure that we are not making it so difficult or penalizing in a way to potential property owners and developers that this does the exact opposite of what we're hoping for. And then the only other piece I had to that was that, what was it? I think I lost it. That's basically it. I just, I really want a consultant to look at this. It's something we've talked about in the zoning staff committee for years and it's a very complicated process and it's a very complicated issue. And I feel like if we just change your number without knowing what it could do, I would worry about the impacts of that. Thanks, Maria. And actually some of my comments were that, that there are detriments to enticing developers because there are costs. And then for me, it seems like there's additional costs when you have the affordable units within the building that inevitably the rents on the other units within the building are gonna be higher than they would be otherwise. And it really, it's a difficult thing, but John, I saw you shake your head. Can you speak to this? Well, thanks, Jack. Right now, Amherst is a cash cow for people who want to do development. And they can't move to East Hampton or someplace else because the University of Massachusetts is not in East Hampton. They are building for students who go to the university. And so the market is right here. It's not someplace else. And I think they'll figure out how to work with this. I mean, the same developers we're talking about who are interested in doing projects downtown like Barry Roberts has a development on University Drive that was completed about a year ago. It includes four affordable units. I can't believe that these people who are sophisticated, understand financing will not be able to find a way to work with this. And in the meantime, as I said earlier, I think we need to take down that sign that no one with low income is allowed to move to Amherst. Thank you. So I get just on that. I just, I'm wondering if we shouldn't keep our eye also on like the 40R, 40B type things where the cost of the development is spread out, you know, amongst the community and the state. And then so it's just, you know, just, you know, a note of caution that Maria expressed. So we have Doug and Janet. So Doug, please. Yeah, I just had one question. What's the duration of the requirement for the affordable units? Is it the life of the building or is it 30 years like some of the other affordable units in town? And then they age out or is it tied to the property? And it's a perpetual requirement that there be those units on the property, even if the building becomes uninhabitable and has to be replaced. Can someone speak to that? Maybe. Yeah, so the, in the zoning bylaw, the definition of affordable units is that it meets, is eligible for the state subsidized housing inventory. So that means it's, you know, at or below 80% air median income, it's affirmatively fair marketed and it has a deed restriction that is in perpetuity and then that it's annually monitored. And so these units are in perpetuity. And so, you know, they count on the towns, the subsidized housing inventory for the state and, you know, they have to be maintained over time. And so, you know. So does that mean that if, you know, a hundred years from now, a building that has a couple of affordable units in it and, you know, the town would like to build a, you know, a hospital in that location, that hospital has to have a couple of affordable units. It's tied to the land. Well, the regulatory agreement has some provisions for forgiveness, but the state's pretty strict on that. So, you know, there are, you know, hundreds, thousands of properties across the state that have these restrictions on them that, you know, in a hundred years, maybe Doug, what you're asking is gonna be, needs to be, you know, reconciled. But, you know, the state has allowed for changes, but they don't take, they take it very seriously, you know, eliminating affordable units on a property. So. And what kind of units, what kind of units are they that do age out after maybe 30 years? Is that a HUD program or something? I mean, some HUD programs do that, you know. Well, there was, there were, there were some units somewhere in town three or four years ago that were gonna age out and everybody was alarmed about. Well, no, I think so. Previously, through the state or through different financing agencies, the affordable units were tied to certain pieces, whether it is a, you know, a financing mechanism. So that's a 30 year or a 45 year. So sometimes HUD or low income housing tax credit programs might be 45 years and not in perpetuity. And so, right. So, you know, like rolling green was set to expire because the affordability was tied to the financing and the financing was being paid off. But now the state, you know, especially for the subsidized housing inventory, they've updated their requirements to say that they're in perpetuity. And so, you know, all the 40 B projects that get approved, the town has a local restriction, especially if we have CPA money in there saying that they have to be affordable in perpetuity. Even if the HUD agreement says it's only a 45 year, the town's in perpetuity. And if in 50 years or 45 years, we have to become the holder of the restriction and enforce it, then, you know, that's the case. Okay, thank you. So, Janet has her hand up, I'm gonna bump. Chris, did you have something to add? You're good, okay. So Janet, please. I just wanted to say that I so wholeheartedly support this revision. And I don't think we can adopt it and recommend it soon enough. It implements the master plan, which is asked for inclusionary zoning that's comprehensive. The Amherst Housing Market Study was asking for, you know, across the board inclusionary zoning at 15%. And as did the housing production plan. So we've had two consultants come in and recommend a higher rate. This revision is simple and clear and that's gonna be easy to explain to people. And I think that's always been a problem with the inclusionary zoning. So it's super clear. If it needs tweaking later, we can tweak it later. And the motivation for that, in terms of like the density bonus, I mean, in a way the mixed use buildings are a density bonus because you can get so many more units in them than you can for like an apartment house. And so, you know, again, the cat is out of the bag. You know, one East Pleasant Street is charging $1,800 for a studio that's 497 square feet. And then you can have more than one person living there. So I think that, you know, I'm not worried about them so much. I think they're fine. It is a gold mine for them. Downtown Amherst is a really, they're getting a lot of money out of our housing stock. I think that, you know, they share in the benefits that are provided by the Amherst community, the high rents by high rents, the schools that we provide, the amenities, the pools, the beauty, the cultural events, you know, the town supports a lot of things. And I think that in this way, the developers and property owners will also share in taking care of community needs. And we as taxpayers do that a lot. If the developers, you know, provide 10% affordable housing, it takes the pressure off of town staff to do these very complicated projects. It takes a lot of people's time. And so there's a simplicity to it. It's not the only solution, but it's gonna, you know, there's so many housing, you know, we could have had so many more affordable housing units in our community. If we had this much earlier, I did a quick calculation and I came up with almost 40 affordable units out of projects that have been fairly recent. And that would be a huge impact to those families or those individuals in those projects. And I don't really think it would have been hard. In the zoning, in our bylaw, we also have a provision where the developers can get a tax benefit, a tax break for some years to help compensate them for the additional costs of providing affordable units. And that's a way of sort of kind of, that's not painless, but it's less than writing a big check or having a big CPAC check go to stuff. So I think that, you know, we can do that offset, that kind of density bonus through what we already have. If it does, I don't think it will stop development, but if Maria, if it is starting to do that, then we can make a revision and revisit the issue of density bonuses. But I think that, you know, we just need to do this. And I think this is a great, great solution. It's a great fix for a problem we've had for a long time. Thank you, Janet. So, Nate, in terms of the, like the low income housing tax credits, is that something that we can facilitate on the town end in any way? You know, the town has its own, you know, as a home rule petition to do, you know, you know, to a 10 year tax write off for if a project has, you know, so many affordable units. And so, you know, North Square received that, you know, the comprehensive permit. So if a product is of a certain size, they qualify for this local tax incentive. And really it's, you know, what's nice about it is it's, you know, they're just not paying the full amount of taxes. So it's not like the town's giving out money. We're just not receiving as much in taxes for up to, you know, 10 years. And then at the 11th year, it could be less, you know, through discussions with the town manager, it could be that maybe a project doesn't have so many and it's a seven year write off or something, but that is available. And, you know, developers also, right, Jenna mentioned CPA, even any of these projects that have affordable units could apply for community preservation act funds if they wanted. There is a cost to affordable housing. I agree. I think the CRC mentioned having a consultant. I think that they also mentioned asking the stakeholders. My thought is every developer is gonna say they don't like this, right? I mean, they're not, that's not what they do. I'm not sure, you know, unless the ones that do affordable housing, they're gonna say they do it. Beacon will say it's fine, you know, other private developers will say they don't like it. So I feel like we wouldn't get a straight answer. I agree that consultants have already said to apply it to more types of development. I feel like that was just to, like I said, a misinterpretation of the bylaw at one point. And, you know, so I, you know, the 10% is pretty standard. You know, some bylaws apply it at six units. We're saying at 10 units, we're not doing a 15% requirement. We're doing a 12%. If you have, you know, it's a tiered approach. So I even think that our calculations aren't that aggressive. And one other piece was that, you know, John had looked into it, the housing trust looked into it a while ago as having, you know, way finders be a regional marketing agent. And so, you know, Cape Cod has it where instead of every development pays someone to market the affordable units, that there's someone who works regionally for many communities and they maintain a waiting list. And so every time you have an affordable project, you don't have to go out and necessarily do a marketing plan, you can just go to this agent. And they seem interested, but it's a little more complicated. And then they, you know, they need, they would like, you know, a certain amount of funding up front. And, you know, we need more communities, but the thought would be if, for instance, if Amherst had this bylaw and we were starting to use it a lot to help developers. And if, you know, Northampton, Eastampton, other communities wanting to pool resources, could we find an agent to do the marketing of affordable units for a number of communities? And it could make it easier for each development. And it's something that, you know, we looked at at one point and could revisit, but, you know, that's something we were thinking about doing to help, help, you know, facilitate affordable units for the developer. Thank you. So we're getting close to 8.30. We might lose some people, but I see no more hands up from the planning board. We have a, maybe four or five. I see hands up from the public seven. So, you know, three minutes. Each, you know, we can extend this to 8.40, but we might lose some people on the board, I understand. So, and I have at the top, Jerry Weiss, state your name and address again, please. Hi, again, I'm still Jerry Weiss and I still live at 277 Middle Street. Thank you for calling on me. I wholeheartedly support these ideas and this is 12 years in that we've been waiting for this since, as Nate says, the misinterpretation of the original zoning bylaw that was created in Amherst in the early 2000s. A couple of points. I think it is important that in my study, there's a who's on the board that was when I did my 2018 amendment, Maria was there. I called a lot of towns in the Commonwealth and spoke to planning directors and studied, there's forms. Inclusionary zoning has forms. You can find them about the gold standards for how you create them. Having sort of incentives for developers is important. So, as people have said, the incentives are already built in because Amherst is so lucrative. I would wanna make sure that you don't come up against any takings laws if you don't offer anything. And I'm sure Christine knows more about this than I do, but that's the standard is to have. We'll give you this, but you have to do this. The have to has to be there, but there can be gifts. I would also wanna make sure you make it as misinterpretative proof as possible. The original law looked like you couldn't misinterpret what it said and it somehow happened. So please try to avoid that. And what people have said about the tax incentive is an important one to remember. Sandy Puller and John Musanti created that law. Sandy was, as you know, is a really smart guy. And he said this, we intend to make developers whole on this, they should not lose money providing affordable units and this tax law incentive law and Amherst will provide for that. So any builder who doesn't use it, I don't get it. Anyway, fine with us because they've said, well, I'll pay the taxes. That's great. That's off to them. And the worry about builders won't build. When I talked to the planner in Cambridge, she said, oh, they always say that. As soon as you say, here's the law, you have to do it, they built. But they'll always say they're not gonna build if you do this, so don't worry about it. And I really think it's important to have a mix of affordability levels, as was talked about. A voucher system, maybe 70%, maybe even 60%, not just 80. Cambridge does it, they have tiers and they have a certain percentage of each in their buildings. Brookline does the same thing. It's pretty standard to have a mix. See if I've covered everything I wanted to say. Yeah, that's it. Thank you so much Planning Department for doing this and Planning Board for embracing it. It's been a long time coming. Great comments, Jerry. Thank you so much. Next, we have, hold on. Is that your name and address again? Sorry. Totally green bound, 298 Montague wrote. I just have three quick comments. Can it happen that somebody skirts this bylaw by having some small lots here or there and building eight units this year and finishing that building and do six units another year and then build another eight. Can it be cumulative so that when they get to the second or third building that the affordable is required? That's one little loophole I can see in there. The other one is, I think that Nate said that subdivisions were excluded. And I thought that when we have things like cluster that we had to include affordable. So I'm just asking the question of why if you in fact said subdivisions were excluded they can't be included with a duplex here or a duplex there. That's if somebody finds a piece of land big enough for 10 houses. But then all right, so then the other one I'm thinking of small guys like me. The bureaucracy for dealing with these large agencies is largely for the big guys from out of town. Can somebody like the small guys say, all right I will take a couple of section eight tenants and that's satisfied a requirement or do you have to go through all the paperwork of dealing with HUD or DC would most and whatever. In other words, I'm thinking about how do you make the bureaucracy easier for the small guy who doesn't have six administrative assistance. Thank you so much, Hilda. I don't know of anybody, Nate. I mean, yeah, I know you developer can't just do it on their own. So an aspirant heist was first coming in the developer is like, oh affordable, no problem I'll just keep the rent slow. And I was like, it doesn't work that way, call the state. And so I agree there is a cost there. And so that's why, like I said the trust was looking at having a regional entity do be the administrator. The housing authority, Amherst housing authority has also been approved by the state. So they could assist with that. If we go back in order of the subdivisions I just said that a conventional subdivision would be exempt, not cluster or curd or others. And then the first question is the way the bylaws written it says that new dwelling units would mean a combination of units located in a new building or additions to existing buildings and any net increase in units resulting from reconstruction of existing buildings with a certain exception. So to help us first question, the kind of the building, the accretion of units over time it depends on how that, if they're actually separate properties and separate projects, then no, but if they're additions onto it, then it depends, interesting we say 10 new units. So it'd be, at some point I don't know we'd have to look at how that falls within that definition of the bylaw. But yeah. I mean it wouldn't make sense to me as a developer to add on every few years just to avoid the bylaw. It seems like that would be more costly in the long run than just proposing a project at fun. Thank you, Nate. Next from the public comment, we have Ira Brick. State your name and address again, please. Ira, can you unmute yourself? Yep, okay, thank you. Do you hear me? Yes. So Ira Brick, 255 Strong Street. I understand the pain that somebody might feel in having to provide this, whether they see the good in it or not. But I just remember growing up that seat belts seem like a pain in the neck. Recycling seem like a pain in the neck. Both things that people didn't do by themselves but they started doing when it became law. So this is just gonna be the future of that kind of thing, I think. Thank you. Thank you, Ira. Dorothy Pam. Hi, Dorothy. Hi, how are you? Dorothy Pam, 229 Amity Street. So many good things have been said and I'll just be summing up some. I think the great point is to make it simple. And I think the idea of Wayfenders and a regional body to help deal with this is a great idea. The other thing is I totally agree with what Ira just said. When something is required, then it's easier to do. I went to a lot of different hearings about many of the buildings that have been built in the last couple of years. And I remember asking one developer who included the required two ADA apartments why he couldn't include a couple of inclusionary zoning ones or maybe even combine it. And he said it was not required to. So he could do it if it's required but if it's not required, it's like really, really hard. So I think we have to just require it, make it very simple and very clear. I don't think many people are seriously worried about the fact that the developers are not making enough profit. But we could look at it from another way. People who have Section 8 vouchers can actually add something to many of these apartment buildings that have really to a student heavy clientele. And these would be working people, people who'd be living their year round. They would help add a mix and stability to the buildings. So it's a positive thing. So I think that we should do that but I think that if the including the Section 8 people after you've had 10 affordable units that would get rid of the few buildings which have included affordable units. The two on university, one built and one being built by Roberts on University Drive have fewer than 10 affordable units. So I would hope we would kind of lower that a little bit but I think it's important to have people with Section 8 vouchers. Otherwise it's just a cruel promise, a cruel promise that they go through all this work, fill out the forms, have interviews, get approved and then they can't find any housing. And I think they would add to the town. So I really am very excited about the possibility that we will have a really good inclusionary zoning bylaw very soon. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. And next we have Pam, Pam Rooney. State your name and address again. Thank you. Hi Pam Rooney, 42 Cottage Street. I again strongly support the inclusionary zoning. I think it's, Nate has done a really good job of keeping it very simple, very clean, as unambiguous I think as it, and hopefully effective for that reason. I'm also very pleased to not see the density bonuses which in the past couple of rounds trying to pass this bylaw, the density bonuses would have allowed additional floors or heights of buildings. And it was not, it did not discriminate where they were located. So you again had very little control over the height of a building next to you. The question was raised about the, if you have more than four affordable dwelling units and building that 50% have to be on site, I don't know the reason that we actually adopted I understand that a lot of places had that clause but it just feels extraneous. And I wonder if it quietly disappeared if anyone would croak. I looked at the list of projects that were, it actually was a different subject. It was those that were not subject to article 16 moratorium list and all of them are over 40 dwelling units except for one, which was the 462 Main Street that was only 24 units. And so all of those would have had the opportunity to come to you and say, hey, we only wanna put 50% of our affordable units in this building and they haven't. So it sounds like because it's never been used that outlet has never been used or taken advantage of, maybe it just quietly goes away. I don't know who would miss it. Thank you. Thank you. So we have three more. Hands up, Susanna, Janet and Ken. So Susanna Faving, please state your name and address. All right. Hi, Susanna. Hello, Susanna Faving, 38 North Prospect Street. I just wanna say thank you to the planning department for taking this on. It wasn't on the list that the council handed you and you've had so much on your plate. I really appreciate it. I think this is where the values of Amherst show up. I mean, we should be looking out for the least fortunate and I would encourage you to have a set aside for the voucher holders because they are the least fortunate, but even for the people who can't afford the, I mean, who could just afford the 80%. It's a way of getting some more affordable housing and helping people who are faced with otherwise very high property prices in town. So I just wanna say thank you. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of this if you can avoid giving people an out so they don't have to build these units. I would encourage that too, but I defer to the people who know better. Thank you. Thank you, Susanna. Janet Keller, please state your name and address. Where'd she go? Oops. Oh, she's- Here she is. She popped way down here. Hold on. Hi, Janet. Okay, I'm on mute it. So thank you, Planning Department and Planning Board for this thoughtful review of this really important topic. It is so needed and it was so sad to learn the exact number 40 affordable units not built. That means 40 families went without housing may need and they can't afford. I want to say also that the tiers of affordability are very, that worked with Amherst Community Land Trust in partnership with both Habitat and Valley CDC. We see that very low income families will work incredibly diligently to get their financial houses in order, despite the fact that by our everyday standards would seem to have very little resources, but they will work diligently and they will build up their credit and they will build up their savings. And I hope you see them on the affordable housing trust meeting that John hosted and is appearing on Amherst Media. Each of the three people who spoke told us how profoundly their lives were changed by having housing that they could afford be made available to them. So yay for inclusionary zoning, let's include more people and let's reduce the barriers to their entry to becoming members of our community. Thank you so much, Janet. And we have Ken Rosenthal, take name and address please. Hello, Ken. Hi, everybody. Thank you very much. I'm Ken Rosenthal, 53 Sunset Avenue. Thanks to the staff and the board for taking on this issue. I want to make just two points. One is the possibility of permitting a builder to avoid having to build the units on site by providing alternative revenue for building elsewhere. In my experience in New Jersey before I moved back here, that didn't work because there never was enough money to build the unit that you needed. But worse than that, it removes diversity that you would welcome on the project. So we're going to do it. I hope you make the in lieu payment large enough so that it gets you the unit that you want. That's the first point. Another is that we've been talking about affordable but we keep in this conversation or talking about affordable rental. I know this is not on your table for consideration tonight but I want to think about another way to have affordable home ownership. In John Hornick's meeting last night, the one word that never was used was condominium. And I think that the planning staff a few weeks ago called our attention to condominiums on Amity Street and North Prospect. They're expensive condominiums but we have two very wonderful examples in town of condominium projects that are not expensive where the assessed valuations for the owned units are as low as $150,000. One is 222, 232, 242 North East Street. It's where I lived when it was rental apartments back in the 1960s. Now they're condominiums and they assessments run from 150 up to 225 or 250. The other is Crossbrook and Pine Grove at the edge of Amherst Fields. That was where Otto Paparazzo tried to bring a project here to Amherst. It didn't work in the 70s because there was a moratorium on building all over the place and he ran out of money but what is left there is a project that you architects will know, Paolo Soleri worked on along with Paparazzo and there the units are also assessed from 160 or 170 on up. So we know that we can have condominium ownership that tend to be starter homes perhaps for some people if we do it right. I'm not prepared to tell you now how to do it but I hope you wouldn't forget about condominium ownership when you start thinking about affordability. It isn't just rental, but it's home ownership as well. And thank you again for working on this project. I appreciate it very much. Thank you, Ken. So that is, so we have received all the public comment that I don't see another hands up but I don't know if John or Nate wanna have a closing statement on this. You're welcome to do so. I know we're over our 830. We lost Andrew McDougal, by the way. So, but John, do you have any comments? I just say, I agree with what Ted Rosenthal just said that we should be looking at home ownership and we should look at an opportunity to do condominiums. And I have one thought in mind about that which I'm not gonna discuss this evening but I do think that is important and it may require some kind of zoning change or special permit in order to achieve that. Yeah, I would say that the bylaw doesn't differentiate between rental or ownership. So, a cluster subdivision may be ownership and so those would be required if it had the method requisite number of units. So there are two subdivisions in town that have affordable home ownership units that are on the subsidized housing inventory and would have satisfied this new bylaw. So it is possible, it's just the thing with condominiums is it may not be a development type, right? So it's an ownership type and so the difficulty is if someone converts or has units and converts them to condominium, that's not the development necessarily of units. It's the ownership type of unit, right? So it's hard to capture the condominium piece. It's not a development type. So that's, I do hear what Ken's saying though. It's kind of like the conversion of units in that respect is not captured by this type of bylaw. Thank you. I see one more hand we can take from the public whether it be Meg Gage. So, Meg, state your name and address please. Hello, Meg. Thank you. I thought I had my hand raised for like an hour, but anyway, Meg Gage. I'm sorry if I didn't see it. I'm sorry. 208 Montague Road, North Amherst. And I first of all appreciate all of you serving on this committee, which is demanding and controversial and maybe stressful. So thank you for your community service. I appreciate it truly. I'm speaking, I'll speak really briefly because it's quarter of nine and you wanted to stop like 15 minutes ago in support of the inclusionary zoning proposal. I think it's really, really important and it raises the question of what kind of town are we? What do we want to be? And it's frustrating when we hear discussions about, oh, if we don't build it for a building of five stores, it's not profitable. Oh, if it's this or that not profitable, if we have inclusion, if we have low affordable housing, it's not profitable. If something's not profitable, then we have to change what we're asking and what we're looking for. Just because something's profitable doesn't make it a good idea. So in North Amherst, we have North Square and we have a significant number of affordable housing units and it's fabulous. Those went just like that. You can't see any of it, I'm snapping my finger. They immediately were filled up and it's families, it's young people. We see them on the buses and they've really enriched our neighborhood to have those affordable housing units in our community. And I just can't, I mean, I could, I had a bunch of notes here to say a whole bunch more, but I won't because it's getting late. I just strongly encourage you to, and I see Johanna yawning, sorry, Johanna. It's okay, you're supposed to turn your screen off when you want to yawning. But what kind of town are we? We can afford this. We've built a whole bunch of places with no affordable housing and I could list them all, but you know what they are. It's these are families who really want to live here. Their kids go to our schools and we need to decide what kind of town are we? And there's gotta be a way to make it possible for lower income families to live here. Thank you. Well said, Meg. Thank you very much. So. That was abbreviated. I can go on, but I won't thank you though. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Meg. So, I mean, I had to say that I have a personal thing that I probably mentioned before that we had, I had my oldest daughter and her husband and their twins living with us last year and they needed more space and they had to go all the way to Westfield to find something that they felt was affordable versus, you know, here in Amherst. So that's 45 minutes away. So I, this whole, you know, affordable housing thing is near and dear to me. And hopefully we mean, you know, make it work on all the levels that we need to. So thank you so much, John, for your input, Nate. And Chris, do you have any closing comments? No, other than to say, I think this was a really rich discussion and thank you everybody for participating. And I'm glad that we're finally getting around to talking about this because it's been really hard to talk about for the last, what, 10, 15 years. So anyway, it's a good discussion. Thank you. Okay, great. So I think we can adjourn. And thank you all, the board members and the attendees that provided their comments. Our next meeting is, is it next week? April 7th, next week. Next week. Okay. All right. So we will see everybody then. Okay. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you everybody.