 Okay, Mr. Marshall. We are live. We are recording Amherst media is here with us and you are good to go. Okay. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of April 20, 2022. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst planning board, I'm calling this meeting to order. At 638 PM, this meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting, or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and then place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Jack Gemsack. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. Janet McGowan. Present. And I Doug Marshall and present. Tom Long and Johanna Newman are absent this evening. Board members, if a technical issue arises, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak after speaking remember to be mute yourself. General public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment could also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking on the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back on to mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds there a lot of time, their participation will be discontent discontinued from the meeting. Okay, so our first item of business this evening are minutes. And we'll start with the April 6 minutes. Those of our last meeting. Were there any comments from the board on our minutes. Are there any. Could I have a motion to approve the April 6 minutes as drafted and and written by Chris and Pam. I moved to approve the April 6 minutes as drafted. Thank you Janet I do see Andrews hand. I will second. Thank you. Thank you both. If there's no further comment, then we'll go ahead and have a vote. Starting with Maria. And Jack. And Andrew. All right, Janet. And I approve so that's four votes in favor. And one abstention. Chris, I trust that's sufficient approval for sufficient number of votes. That's greater than 50%. Yeah. Of the board members. Okay. Great. So that was item one on our agenda. Time is 643 and we'll move on to the second item, which is the public comment period. I see 12 public attendees in the attendees list. Attendees. I'll remind you. This is not for. Comments about items on our agenda this evening. This is for other items which are not on the agenda. I see one hand Pam Rooney. Please state your name and your address. I'm just here to introduce myself to you as the town council's appointed liaison to the planning board. I'm delighted to be so appointed. You happen to be my favorite board in town. So I was delighted that I was given this opportunity. I'm glad to be here. The board is pretty important. One that helps set expectations for what development in town can really achieve. So as a, I am the representative from the community resource committee. And I can say that the CRC was very pleased to hear from Christine Brestrup. What's the priorities for the planning department. The city council. The city council. The city council. The city council. The city council. In particular, the solar bylaw. The town center design standards. The comprehensive review of all the parking opportunities for facilities in the town center. As well as the boltwood garage growth capacity. So we finally pin that, that little sucker down. And get that information in place. So I'm glad to be here. And I'm also very happy to be here. I'm very happy to be on the several that were just mentioned. So I look forward to conveying to you as those develop. And interact with you at that point. If there is seriously anything that you want from town council, or that I can assist you within this process. I am very happy to help you in any way that I can. And. Thank you, Pam. Are there any other public commenters this evening? All right, I don't see any hands from the public. Jack, I see your hand. Yeah, I was wondering if is, is. Ham's role as liaison. Is that something that she would. Kind of be, you know, a panelist moving forward or. How's that working? Because I know there are a lot of. You know, there's a lot of. You know, there's a lot of. You know, there's a lot of. You know, there's a lot of. It's my understanding that she heard. She is. Almost purely an observer. Okay. And so I think the primary purpose is for her to report back to CRC and council on. Anything, any items of interest that she's heard from the planning board discussing. Okay. Okay. That was the second item on our agenda. I know there's interest in. Moving along this evening. So the time is 646. And we can move on to item three on the agenda. Which is a request. For release of lots. They're saying that they. Exit is the. Subdivision. Subdivision. Subdivision. From topieno associates. Discuss completion of roadway construction review. Punch list discuss possible site visit. Discuss request to release lots. And possible vote Chris I see your hand. I assume you'd like to. Introduce the discussion this evening. three remarks. So first of all, the Amherst Hills subdivision has been under development since the early 1990s. The last time the planning board discussed it was, I believe, in January of 2021, but there's been kind of an ongoing discussion by the planning board about this project. The project was originally proposed by Jeffrey Flower, a developer who began the Amherst Woods development and also the Hopbrook and Kestrel lane developments. Several things happened along the way to slow down the development of the Amherst Hills subdivision. There was an economic turn down in 2008 that lasted a number of years and it caused a slowdown in the work and the sale of lots. And the developer Doug Cole of Cole Construction and Tofino Associates passed away shortly after 2008. So business was difficult as Doug's successors tried to pull things together following his death. The roadway itself was begun in the early 2000s. The roadway was constructed primarily the base course and the utilities, but the top coat was not installed and it deteriorated over the years. The developer would like the town to take the roadway and that was the intention at the time that the subdivision was permitted. The town's policy has been to recommend not installing the top coat on a road that the town will be taking until most of the houses are built because the town doesn't want heavy equipment to travel over the top course until the subdivision is complete. So this works for small subdivisions, but not so well for large ones. And this one has taken a long time to complete. In this case, the development is so large that it could not be completed quickly. And so the base course deteriorated over time and other aspects of the infrastructure also deteriorated. The Amherst Hills, as I said before, Amherst Hills, the roadways were always expected to be taken by the town. Some roadways in town are not expected to be taken such as Swallow Farms, Vista Terrace. Excuse me, my husband is cooking dinner and he's making pots, making noise. I'm sorry for that. And South Middle Street. So these don't meet town standards, so those aren't going to be taken. But Amherst Hills roadways do and will meet town standards. So in the fall of 2019, the residents of Amherst Hills came to the town. They spoke with the town manager, the town engineer and the planning board to plead for help to get the roadway completed. Excuse me. Frank, could you stop making so much noise? Frank? Okay. Anyway, they came to the town, they spoke to the guys, already said that. The DPW had threatened not to plow the roadway in the winter of 2019 and 2020 because of the poor conditions of the roadway. So the planning board reluctantly stepped in at the request of the residents and issued a letter to the building commissioner, which was filed at the registry of deeds requesting that the building commissioner not issue building permits for certain lots that had not been built upon until actually was taken to fix and complete the way the lots that are being requested to be released tonight. And Mr. Ted Parker. Chris, we've lost you here as well. Lots that are requested to be released. You've lost me? Well, we lost you there for a second. You froze up and your audio went away and now it's back. Okay. Well, anyway, the developer has asked for those nine lots that were the result. Sorry, I got a little bit out of out of whack because of all the noise in here. So there was a letter written to the building commissioner requesting that he not not issue building permits on nine lots and that the issue sewer connections on these nine lots and that letter was filed at the registry of deeds. These were lots that had previously been released from a covenant. There were also complications with the conservation commission, which caused the developer delays in finishing the roadway. And there's a lawsuit between the developer and the residents, but we're not privy to that lawsuit. We don't really know what it's all about or any anything about its status. So since we last talked in January of 2021, developer has finished most of the work on the roadways and the town engineer says that the roadways are substantially completed to his satisfaction. However, there's still some work both on the roadways and off the roadways that needs to be completed. The town engineer gave us and he gave us a cost estimate to complete it. The estimate that he gave us was $14,000. The last time we talked about this project, the estimate to complete the work was around $230,000. The town has a three-party agreement, town of Amherst, Greenfield Savings Bank, and the developer to hold $288,995 as security to guarantee that the work will be completed. But this agreement is somewhat outdated since the deadlines have passed and the work described in the agreement does not exactly match the work that remains to be completed. But the sum is more than enough to pay for the work that needs to be finished if the developer were to walk away from the project. The developer has requested the release of the lots from the notice that was filed at the registry that would allow the developer to develop or sell the lots. Last year, the attorney for the residents requested that changes be made to the three-party agreement to which the residents are not a party. And the agreement is complicated and negotiating changes would be challenging. So instead of negotiating changes to that agreement that's in place, the developer has proposed giving the town a check in the amount of somewhere around $30,000 or an amount equal to two times the amount of the work that's remaining to be done. Since the town engineer gave us his estimate of $14,000, it appears that there's another probably about as much as $11,000 worth of cleaning of drainage structures that still needs to be done. So if I'm understanding this correctly, and I may need to be corrected on this, it seems to me that that money would need to be added to the $14,000 to come up with a total of $25,000. So if the developer were interested in giving the town twice as much as the amount of work that needed to be done, it would probably be around $50,000 that he would give to the town to be held in escrow. So the planning board is being asked to release the lots that were held without building permits so that they can be sold. And the planning board needs to decide if it has enough assurance and security to release the lots at this time, or if it needs more information. The developer is working with the superintendent of public works and the town engineer to bring the roads up to the condition that the town can accept the roads. And the developer has actually submitted a letter to town council requesting that the town accept the roads as public ways. The developer and the DPW are working very closely together, and they hope to accomplish this acceptance by the end of 2022. So I'll stop talking there, but that gives you a background as to what's going on here, and you probably will want to hear from the developer, Ted Parker, and possibly his attorney if he's still here. Yeah, I'm seeing several folks in the public attendees who probably are related to this topic. I had also notified Jim master Alexis that this was going to be on the agenda because he told me that he would like to be notified whenever this case came on. Thank you. I see him in the attendees too. Okay, so I have asked Mr. Parker to come over, but I'm not sure who else should come over at this point. I think person from Green Miles Lipton, who I believe is the attorney for the residents. Jim master Alexis is is a resident. And I'm not sure who else maybe when Mr. Parker starts speaking, he'll mention some people who might be there to speak on his behalf. So we'll start with Mr. Parker. Mr. Parker, I see your name. I see you are not muted, and I do not see an image for you. So your camera, if you have one, it's not on. Start video. I started video. We'll see if it's there we go. There we go. Yes. Now we have your image. Great. Thank you all. I wasn't anticipating that that Chris would make such a comprehensive introductory statement. So I have a couple of remarks and I'll edit them on the fly. But because some of them are redundant. So Tafino committed to be completing the roads in the in September of 2019 in a meeting with the lot owners prior to any of the legal action or any of the approach that they made to the planning board. Despite COVID in 2020, Tafino did complete the paving of the roads. And then in 2021, we continued mopping up the other details that we need to do in order to fulfill our obligation to the town, including the surveying, creating as-built drawings for DPW, setting all of the permanent monuments, maintaining the detention basins, cleaning the drainage system for the first pass, and the majority of the DPW punch list, as Chris said. And there remains a short punch list of items. And we just found out at 3.20 today that Jason's skills added the another pass at cleaning the stormwater structures. And so we added that estimate of that cost to what we are anticipating having to do. And I know that there are some questions about the complexity of the three-party agreement. And because there are three parties and every one of those parties has an attorney that would have to be consulted and paid to modify the agreement, it just seemed way easier for everybody if Tafino just took the amount of the punch list that's determined by the town engineer, doubled the amount deposited with the town, and have that cover the next three to five, three to six months that it'll take to punch out the job. And then we're proposing that the planning board release the lots when the funds are deposited with the town. And that's an option to change the form of agreement, the form of financial guarantee is an option, do any applicants according to mass subdivision law. And this will just simplify and eliminate all the questions that have arisen about the three-party agreement. Again, Tafino has already made the request of the town council in anticipation of the fact that the town council has not accepted any public way yet as a council, and that it would take a longer time than it would later on because they're going to have to consult with, you know, complimented page to make sure that they cross all T's and dot all I's. We made that request a while ago, figuring that it could take well through 2022 for the actual process to happen. And we've made that request of Belcher Town too. There's a short stretch of Concord Way that extends into Belcher Town and connects to Old Amherst Road. Tafino's attorney has already prepared all of the deeds to convey the right of way to the towns and convey all interest in the various easements and other property rights to the appropriate parties and those have been submitted to the town for their review. And just as a side note, Tafino is soliciting bids now for the completion of the cul-de-sac on Linden Ridge Road. And that's all I have to offer. Okay, thank you, Mr. Parker. You're welcome. Chris, do you have any input from Town DPW or the town engineer about this proposal? I do not have any input from the town engineer about the proposal, no. But I suggest that, you know, the planning board may need some time to think about this. They may need some time to visit the site. I was going to suggest that you schedule a site visit. And then, you know, come back in a couple of weeks and maybe by that time we'll have a clearer idea of exactly what the amount is of the punch list items from Jason. And I'd like to be able to get a statement from someone at the DPW that they feel that this is wrapping up and that you can accept a check to be held in escrow. And then they'll expect to have the roadways finished sometime in the next three to six months. But that I would then recommend to go along with what Mr. Parker is suggesting that once he deposits the check with the town that you would release the lots. Okay. The gentleman from Green Miles, do you have anything you wish to say at this time? Just to thank you, Michael Pill, Green Miles Lipton, Northampton. Just to note that the subdivision control law provision Ted was referring to is section 81U, 81 capital U, which is very clear that the developer is the one who chooses the method. And it says they may from time to time be varied by the applicant. And item two on the list of four items in that section by a deposit of money sufficient in the opinion of the planning board to secure performance of the construction of ways and installation of municipal services required for lots. And so I just want to be clear that, and I think Chris certainly was getting there, that your decision is the amount of money. The fact of putting up money is the developer's choice. And I think Ted is exactly on point. It doesn't get any simpler and any more direct than for the town to have double the amount that comes from the DPW in cash. And he is certainly correct. And I'm always happy to see clients save on legal bills. It eliminates every possible question that might be raised. The three-party agreement will no longer have anything to do with the subdivision. And any question about that agreement is now irrelevant and moot. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Pill. Mr. Parker. I just want to add one point, and that's that we've already scheduled some of the work to happen in the next week and a half or two weeks. We've been waiting for an exact list from the town engineer, and we received a part of that list today. And so if in fact you do what Chris is suggesting and revisit this in a couple of weeks at the next meeting or delay a decision until then, it may be that the amount of the guarantee will have been reduced by the fact that we will have already completed some of the work on that list. So I just want to make that clear now. So if we don't come back in two weeks and we say we want to put up $25,000 because there's only 12-5 sports of work left and it causes some confusion. Okay. Thank you very much. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. And thanks for the presentation, actually both Chris and Ted. So Ted, actually your point kind of ties in with one of mine. In Chris's introduction she had mentioned maybe that the scope of work could be a little bit higher and that, you know, at that 2x formula the number could be, you know, 50,000. Hopefully it'll get work done but I'm just wondering, you know, if we can hopefully save time at the next meeting, would you be prepared to pay up to 50 if it was deemed that that's the appropriate 2x value? Yeah. If I didn't make that clear in my remarks, that's exactly the amount we have. Okay. Okay, great. I may have misheard something earlier then. Okay. No, thank you. Thanks, Andrew. Janet. So I went out to the roads today and I was walking through the detention pond thinking why don't we simplify this with just putting money in escrow? So I think this is a great solution. It's super simple. It will, you know, it's really great to see that almost all the work is done. My only request if we do this at the next meeting is to look at a draft, a draft escrow agreement so we can just look at the terms and see if everything's tidy. Chris, were you expecting there to be an escrow agreement associated with this? I think that would be a good idea. I was expecting a letter of some sort, but an escrow agreement would probably make sense. Yep. And Mr. Parker, that would be something you would draft? If you're requesting that we draft it, then I will look into it for sure. I guess we are. We sort of happened into that. Chris sounds like she thinks that would be a good idea. So it seemed to me you were probably the right party to be drafting it. Chris, do you have any objection to that? I don't. Often these escrow amounts come out of a covenant which or they sort of evolved from a covenant and this development did have a covenant on it. What I've seen in the past is a letter that has been given to the town along with a check describing this check is coming as a result of work that still needs to be done and we expect the town to hold this in escrow. So that in itself is a form of an agreement. It means that the developer is agreeing to do this. So we want the town to agree to that also and who at the town would agree to that? Would it be the chairperson of the planning board or would it be the town manager? In my mind it should be the chairperson of the planning board. Steve Schreiber who was chair of the planning board was a signatory to the three-party agreement. Mr. Pill may have a suggestion as well. I want to hear from him. Yes, Mr. Pill. Thank you. I don't know if any of you remember the late Jim Smith who was for many years the Amherstown engineer. He taught me what he called the kiss principle. Keep it simple and given the fact of the statute I think what no one needs is to have this now go around have a draft agreement sent to town council and then we come back in two weeks and now somebody wants it sent to the town's lawyers and by the time that all gets done the building season is halfway through. I can comfortably suggest that Althead needs to do is hand over a check for 50,000 or whatever is 2x the amount that you get back from the DPW and he puts on the check deposit of money, mass general laws chapter 41 section 81U and what that does is it puts you the planning board in control. We don't need to fool around with any kind of anything beyond that because the statute says sufficient in the opinion of the planning board to secure performance of the construction of the ways. In other words what I think we're prepared to do given the fact that the law is so clear is put 50,000 whatever is 2x the amount as Ted has noted in your hands and you have the say as to win that amount is released and that's it. I don't think anything else needs to be done. I can understand you want to go out and look at this you want to take some time to talk to the DPW. Beyond that for gosh sakes let's keep it simple and get it done. It's been going on for as Chris has noted more than long enough already. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Pill. Chris you have your hand up. I think the least we could expect is a letter the cover letter with the check describing what the situation is and what the money is being turned over to the town for and Mr. Parker would sign the letter and then the planning board would vote to accept that letter and that amount. That seems to be a reasonable way to conduct this in my mind. Thank you Chris. Mr. Parker. I agree with Chris. I mean I think that if you were to ask the treasurer of the town you would find that there are many many many of these kinds of deposits made with the town and very few of them actually go to the trouble of executing a complicated escrow agreement. I think that it's pretty straightforward what our obligations are. They're already been defined. They're being agreed upon. They're being publicly disclosed. It's nothing unusual and and I think that you know the only provision that I might add to some kind of letter is that upon approval by the DPW because it's truly I mean I understand that the planning board is the ultimate arbiter of it but most of these questions are technical questions that the DPW will be reviewing and deciding so or at least in consultation with the DPW. So yeah I'm happy to write the letter. I'm happy to you know run it by. I'll send it to Chris early hopefully and we can look at it at the next meeting. Thanks. Thank you. Jack Jemsak. Yeah I was just going to say I don't feel like you know I don't have a burning desire to go out there and do a sidewalk. I mean I really would be relying on Jason's skills to kind of like firm up his opinion that that we can you know sign off on this and also I'm very interested in you know some of the you know upcoming speakers there you know in Amherst Hills with regard to you know for instance Master Alexis. So you know I'd like to hear them but you know I'm kind of leaning like I'm not sure we need to do a site visit out there that again. Well thank you Jack. Yeah. I will say that if I'm a party to this I'm going to want to go out and look at it. So Pam I'm seeing Mr. Master Alexis in the public commenters and he has his hand raised. I think we should let him in and see what he'd like to say. Bring him over as a panelist. Yes please. Okay Mr. Alexis I see you among the panelists if you could give us your name and I believe you have an Amherst address. Hi Ross. Excuse me I didn't hear what you said Mr. Marshall. Yes if you could introduce yourself with your name and your Amherst address. All right. Good evening everybody. My name is James Master Alexis and I live in Amherst at 35 Lyndon Ridge Road and I've lived here for about 17 years. Thank you. Did you have any comments you wanted to make about the proposal on the table to receive a positive amount? Yes I do and other things. First of all I was unaware of the deposit amount in this discussion until tuning into this meeting so I think that is a positive development and I also I think it's a positive development for a couple of reasons. You know I'm not a person that does construction but you know we've gone from $14,000 in the town engineer's punch list then some extra things for the detention pond and we're up to 25 and then doubling it seems reasonable but there's always things that happen generally speaking in construction where costs are increased or it's more than you think so I think that that's a positive development and it actually addresses one of the concerns that I had in the letter that I sent to you asking for clarification from town council about how to reach funds in the third three party agreement because that doesn't happen very often to my knowledge so if the money is deposited that's a good that's a good thing and we all want to be reasonable here okay um I think the um Mr. Pill said something interesting keep it simple uh the kiss principle well the actually the the simplest way to do this really is to release the lots which are the security for this project in addition to the three party agreement release the lots when the work is done because that would be simpler if the work is done release the lots I know they're close and that's fine but if the work doesn't get done say the check gets deposited and then they don't do the work and then you have a situation where that I believe the town is going to have to do the work themselves or hire contractors and use the $50,000 to get the work done and I think the simplest issue here is a solution is to get the work done okay and then release the lots but we don't want to be unreasonable because I want to say you know I want to say thank you many of the members of the planning board here didn't uh live through the hearings that we went through in 2019 and 2020 we had detailed meetings hearings by the way that Tefino never attended okay and the planning board voted six to nothing I didn't see any reluctance it was a six to nothing vote to place these moratoriums on Tefino and they worked the work was done and I have to say Tefino did a very good job the roads look great okay I'm not an engineer I'm not a person that does construction but the roads look great and if Jason Schiele is happy with them we're happy with them okay um but I want to say a couple things I think Ms. Brestrup's summary of the matter was right on and I think Ted's was too with one exception in September and I'm not going to rehash everything here in September of 2019 yes Tefino said that they would finish the top layer of the road but they wanted us the residents to repair and reconstruct that's because that's gilford mooring wanted the roads reconstructed they wanted us to pay for the reconstructing of the bottom layer of the road okay we're not a construction company they are and in the three-party agreement in paragraph six it says the amount of security shall all times bear direct resemblance yada yada yada to the effects of inflation delays of construction damage to damage to previously completed work they had they had in the three-party agreement bonded and I know that's the wrong legal term but verified that they were responsible for the previously completed work including the bottom layer of the road but that's sort of water under the bridge here that's a subject of a loss who's going to pay for the repair of the bottom layer of the road okay I'm happy where we are I would prefer Tefino that you say to Tefino go get it finish the work and the lots will be released what if we get into a situation that it's 50 in good faith we all think it's 50 and I'm sure Tefino in good faith thinks it's $50,000 to finish but what if it's not where to where where are we then and really it's the responsibility of the planning board to protect citizens of Amherst in this circumstance when development is done and that's why we came to you and I want to thank you our neighborhood is in a much better spot now than it was in 2019 when Tefino was refusing to fix the potholes in the neighborhood unless we paid for them okay so all that's under the bridge there's a lawsuit pending I don't want to discuss that we're in a better spot but I would ask you the better course of action is to ask them when is the work going to get done when can you finish the work if it's July that's not too far if it's June we're all in a better spot how long is this going to take I moved in I was the first person to move into this neighborhood in 2005 I was living here all by myself for a year until other families moved in okay that's 17 years the sub and Chris Brester was right it's a big subdivision and there are reasons why why there were delays and I understand that okay but it's been 17 years and the subdivision isn't done I think at some point the planning board has to say you need to finish and here's the date and give them a reasonable date you decide I don't want to tell you what a reasonable date is ask them how long is it going to take you to do this and maybe you have them give you the check and say to you Ted when can you do this work I haven't give you a reasonable date so with all that said and I hope you all receive the letter that I wrote with all that said we're in a better spot they did a good job I'm glad they're handing over the 50,000 like I said in my letter I don't want to stop anybody from selling any lots I don't want to disadvantage them okay they own the land they should be able to build all right but we live here all right and we really need this to be wrapped up and by the way I want to thank them again for putting in the application to the town council to accept the roads but I don't think it's too much to ask to ask them when are you going to finish all right thank you everybody thanks for listening I appreciate it okay thank you mr. left mr. x master Alexis it's a long Greek name so it's a lot I'm sorry I don't come to it easily that's okay that's all right I see both mr. Parker and mr. pills hands raised mr. pill why don't you start thank you um what mr. master Alexis is trying to lead you into is a serious legal error um withholding the lots is is the third option in section 81 you you have and the choice is the developers the statute is clear there is absolutely no legal foundation no legal basis whatsoever for what he is asking you to do in effect what he's asking you to do is to violate the law by number one you choosing which the security is and number two you demanding two types of security um with respect to the speculation about what the amount is going to be um that's why you have the town engineer I think Ted and I have already made it clear that the amount and the statute is clear we're just going by the law it's the opinion of the planning board as to the amount you go to the town engineer you tell us what the amount is and the deposit will be double the amount and that's precisely to provide you with the security you need and there that in a nutshell is it um I am disappointed that having said he doesn't want to get into the lawsuit he then went into quite a bit of it and I'm not going to take that bait we're going to stick to the issue that is before you here tonight thank you very much thank you mr pill Janet so I'm content with a letter that explains the escrow you know what the money is for it and what it will do I think I would recommend that the planning board on keep control over the final decision about um asking the um um building commissioner to remove the letters um you know from the registry of deeds um and of course we will do that based on the advice of our town engineer um and chris I would just be happy or more relaxed or reassured if we just ran that by our town attorney to make sure that letter is fine and we'll cover the situation because I just don't want to be in some strange complicated thing that we didn't expect thank you Janet chris I had a question for you um is there any question about the town accepting the road and does that bear on this question at all um I don't think you need to worry about that right now but the intention is and has always been that the town will accept the road and from my conversations with the superintendent of public works he is also thinking positively about that he doesn't have any reservations as far as I know um and I think everyone is on board with the idea that the town will accept the road the roads okay thank you and so hey maria I see your hand so I just want to say I was part of the original group that went through the garage of uh I really felt I was bullied personally but I will get into that years ago when we were as a planning board uh getting um a talking to from every direction but anyways I kind of had the same feeling that jack and I think jack was there with me um that I don't need to see the site but any of the new members who do want to see this site that's fine but I feel like um a lot of it like chris said was in the hands of jason's keels the dpw to tell us you know what they thought was the best path forward and then I agree with janet a quick look from our town council uh s e l not c i l town council to to just make sure it's all legally clean and we're not getting into another mess this sounds great to me but I I personally um this is all above my pay grade so I feel like I just want to rely on the experts in this and I think it is the people that we're waiting on for more information but um I do I would like to keep it simple as well and I don't want to prolong it because the building industry right now is in a a real bind so to to expect you know like timeframes and how much time is it going to take that's so impossible right now to nail down for anyone um speaking as a architect working with contractors um so I'd rather just yeah rely on the engineers dpw to tell us the best path forward and that as a planning board um as much as we can keep it simple it'd be great I'd love to see this off the planning board's plate it's been here um for years yeah all right thanks maria uh so chris um I'm hearing a couple of votes for not having a site visit and uh but it sounds like we'd still need we need to sort of finalize the estimate of the uh the the work remaining is that right yes we need to finalize the estimate and I would like to show um joel bard who's actually been very helpful in giving us recommendations about this um this whole case for years I would like to show him the letter that mr parker is going to put together just to make sure that everything is um nailed down okay so yeah so we're we're really not going to be in a position of voting on this this evening uh really in any case and so um given that uh I think I don't think it would be a bad idea for us to just try to at least schedule a site visit uh for those of us who have not really been out there um maybe I'm the only one but so be it I'll be happy to meet you out there chris I'd like to go back there yep okay see how much improved it is all right um mr parker I see your hand yes I was just going to say please let me know when you intend to be there I'd be happy to accompany people and uh answer any questions that might arise thank you that'd be great uh Andrew thanks Doug I just a quick question maybe clarification to one of mr master Alexis's comments um is there any uh is there anything on paper or any type of yeah I'll just say anything on paper that would indicate approximately when the work would get done right so like we get the 50 000 it's in good faith whatever happens right and the work doesn't get done at what point do we take that check cash and do the work ourselves I think that is it's a it's a very fair question I'm just curious if that's part of the documentation that would be provided if that exists somewhere is some some element of time boxing around this thanks Andrew uh mr parker I think it's a reasonable uh consideration to uh a lay person but uh I would say this and I say this at I say this reluctantly because it's I'm not I'm not I don't want don't want to throw anybody under the bus but um I've been asking for a list of the catch basins uh that need to be cleaned again for months in order to schedule the work I received that list at 315 today knowing that there was a meeting tonight at 6 30 with a request that I get an estimate for that work and I responded by 6 30 or you know then I went and estimated the work myself so if you impose an arbitrary deadline on this and the completion of the work is dependent upon me getting timely information from the arbiter of whether or not that work is done and I have no control over that then what do I do I hope I need to reappear at meetings and say but I didn't get the information so please grant me another two weeks or please grant me a month listen I want to get this done I'm if you think you all are sick of listening of hearing about it and dealing with it I I can't explain to you how tired I am of dealing with it I look forward to getting it 100% off my plate and I have you know tempting though it is to dive in to the details that you all have been subjected to over the last two years uh I don't want to do that because I I just want to move forward and and finish the project and move on and have everybody move on you have my my for what it's worth you have my commitment that I want to get this done as quickly and as efficiently as possible thank you Mr Parker Chris uh I see your hand I was going to suggest that the letter include some intention to get the work done by the end of construction season of 2022 and I that I understand the issues with that that Maria has described and then Mr Parker has described but I think it would give the planning board a feeling of reassurance if Mr Parker were to at least state that his intention is to finish the work within the construction season of 2022 I know he's very eager to do that because he wants the town to take over the roads and the town's not going to take over the roads until the work is done so he's got that reason as well that he could make a statement that his intention is to complete the work by the end of construction season of 2022 I'm happy to include that language in a letter thank you Chris and Mr Parker Chris I'm going to ask you a question not really to be provocative but partly but basically because I'm curious um how was the twice uh the estimate why was that multiple chosen and not say four times the estimate or 10 times the estimate I I can imagine that if the multiple were higher it would increase the motivation to finish the work so I did not come up with that number Mr Parker offered that number okay thank you I'm sorry I had to unmute it's not a penalty and it cannot there's no basis in the law for it to be a penalty and my understanding and Ted can dive in if he wishes is um construction estimates may be off by percentages I have an ideal with this land development stuff I've been doing it for 40 years now I've never seen uh an estimate be off by double um Jason Skeels is an experienced competent engineer yeah maybe by a few percentage points but not double and I believe Ted picked double because that already is an amount that is simply beyond the realm of um and I see Ted nodding in other words let me put it this way I think both Ted and I have more than enough faith in Jason Skeels that there's no way he's going to miss it by anywhere near that amount he's too good and he's been doing it for just too long and therefore I think the answer to Mr Marshall's concern is that double is already plenty thank you thank you very much um I'm going to go to Andrew you've had your hand up for a while yeah thanks I just I wanted to just tack on to my last question I think so uh Mr Parker made a very interesting point I would first of all I was not it was not my intention for us to to throw an arbitrary timeline I would expect you to do that but the point you made which I think needs to be captured here is that you you don't know what you have to do yet specifically right you asked for that work I would I would suggest that you know if you were to furnish a letter saying I'll have it done by you know I'll target a certain date is you would have the conditions that you would need up front to be able to make that assessment so upon receipt of ABC and D I will have the work done in six months I don't know what happened with the catch basins it was I'm kind of surprised to hear that um based on everything else that's happened but um let's let's be fair to both sides you need to know what you need to fix um before you can really could you know put any sort of commitment out there so um that was all I wanted to add thanks Doug thank you Andrew um Mr Master Alexis and I'm gonna I'm gonna actually ask you to try to limit it to three minutes nope you want to pass no no no I'll make it quicker than that okay I muted myself I'm sorry about it um a couple things um I believe Ted when he says he's committed to doing it I do um I think perhaps he needs to get a detail maybe you can help him with this get a detailed list of the work he needs to do from the town engineer however on page 15 of your own agenda and packet there's the punch list from the town engineer and I'm not going to go through all of them because one of them says crack seal and sidewalk cut out repair sinkhole $1,000 another one down we know where the cracks in the sidewalk are we know where those are another catch basin needs to be repaired and I know where that is you walk out of Mark Schneider's house and take a right it's there's a broken catch basin down in front of the lots that were the subject to the conservation commission um I think it's a lot like seven eight or something like that but we know that that work can be done now because they're on the engineer's punch list and they can be done and I'm sure Ted's correct that that particular list of the catch basins that need to be done he didn't have but there's a bunch of work that he does have okay and it's on page 15 of your packet so I don't want to pick an arbitrary date either but I think we need to get to work here because this has been a long long time and by the way I I'm here as a citizen I live here but I've been a lawyer 31 years I wouldn't ask anyone to violate any law okay I just have to say that for the record and I'll end there thank you very much thank you Mr. Master of Lexus uh Chris I see your hand just wanted to note that um it's very hard to get a contractor out to do piecemeal work so I'm sure that what Mr. Tafino or Mr. Barker is hoping to do is understand this full scope of the work and then get somebody to do all of it at the same time that way he will be most efficient in time and money thank you thank you Chris um Mr. Parker did you want to add anything to that some of the work that is remaining is weather dependent you need to wait for the weather to warm up significantly to do it look for two years you all have had two financial guarantees on this work one of them imposed on us against our will even though you know and we didn't attend the meetings because I feel like you were drawn into a private dispute between a developer and some property owners and it was an uncomfortable position to be in you took the position you took we didn't feel it was useful for us to try to litigate before the incorrect body which is the planning board so here we are and uh you know I I I think I'm a I live on Woodlock Road I've lived in Amherst since 1992 I'm an Amherst residence I and so I know how hard it is not to get drawn into you know complicated disputes but but I think in this case with all due respect I think you should leave the technical questions of what needs to be done and when it needs to get done and how it needs to get done to the DPW and to the town engineer and not to lay people not to not to me leave it to the people who are hired by the town to protect the town's infrastructure and its best interests and then when they tell you that we've satisfied them and that the work has been done correctly then we'll all agree to to to move on and I just I just don't want this to devolve into another complicated timeline review legal review dispute that is just played out in public in a way that is frankly not productive for anybody so thank you thank you very much mr parker jack yeah just I I think for your benefit Doug and Andrew uh Jason skills basically when he's doing these estimates is just taking the mass DOT spreadsheet so standard costs and that sort of thing and you know again that's why I think it's important that he takes a look at this you know I I I think I think uh uh uh mr pill is correct I mean a double is is certainly going to take care of any inflationary factors that we're all you know experiencing but you know it's going to be good to get Jason and and you know dbw take a look at that one more time and send us a letter and and so we'll you know right a good understanding okay thanks jack um mr parker is that hand I see a legacy yes it must be I see it's gone okay so um I think we probably can end this topic for this evening um Chris uh we'll put it on the agenda for next next meeting uh at the beginning of May and in the interim we'll need to collect some information from Jason and have an opportunity to go out there and talk with mr parker on site yep and I will email everyone about um a schedule for a site visit okay is there anything else you want to get out of this evening's uh conversation Chris I would like mr parker to draft the letter that he intends to include with the check so that I can have an opportunity to send that to jill bard and um so that when we do come back together again we have all the pieces that we need to um make make this work I won't get to go early to mid next week I'm sorry but I'll get you as soon as possible and it may be unreasonable to um come back on May 4th it may be necessary to postpone it till May 18th depending on response that we get from dpw because we want to get a final punch list from dpw so we'll try for the fourth but it could be that it wouldn't be until the 18th in order to get information from jason skeels and get a response from joel bard and put everything together I'm just um letting everyone know that okay okay thank you chris all right um thank you mr parker mr pill and mr master alexis thank you everyone for your service and for your time thank you thank you all right so the time is now 743 and we can move on to item four on our agenda which is the request for proposals for downtown design standards um christ do you want to introduce this or is nate here to introduce this nate is here to introduce this I wanted to just make a statement though beforehand that um rfps are issued by the town manager and that that's what we're working towards here the town manager has authorized on the planning department to put together this rfp so we're seeking your recommendations and comments um that I just wanted to make you clear that it would be issued by the town manager and not the planning board or the planning department for that matter thank you all right thank you and nate do you want to give us a little uh background or introduction I guess no um thanks so yeah the uh you know we do have funding available for you know about a hundred thousand dollars for a consultant or consultants to look at downtown design standards and you know I think it wasn't um you know staff made the decision to call it downtown design standards as opposed as opposed to form-based code so you know there's probably a number of ways it could be semantics um you know and so what we're asking for is you know I can share my screen but I'm just gonna just kind of describe it you know we're asking for a consultant to come in and hold a public process to help determine the boundaries of what you know kind of what downtown is and where these design standards would apply um you know research existing zoning uh perform case studies you know use visual preference surveys or other surveys to get community input so that you know this is a really like this is a two-year process right from start to finish so this isn't something that's going to be done in six months where we think that this will take a lot of time a lot of iterative process um so anyways I'd have this one task these first two tasks are you know assessing existing documents research community outreach and then coming up with design standards so you know actually coming up with everything from graphics and narrative to text of what you know could be sub design areas right different design areas one big area but we we're assuming that there may be different standards applied to different areas but really coming up with a comprehensive um set of regulations that could be adopted as an overlay or as base owning but it would really take over you know from table three and the use regulation so they would have really comprehensive standards in terms of density height citing on lots uh distance from curb setbacks materials and it really would be a really complete set of standards that could go in place of the existing zoning so you know and it could be really specific that along north pleasant street there's a there's a certain type of setback there's a certain height and if we think that design standards should apply on north prospect street facing residential neighborhoods there's a different set of standards um and then maybe that the consultants recommend zoning changes you know we're not limiting this to just the bg area or bl or the surrounding residential districts we're really asking the consultant to come up with what is the appropriate area to look at so over the years we've had consultants come for the housing production plan the 40 are um and when they drive around downtown you know they've looked at the gateway you know it's considered the gateway the corridor between um downtown and new mass they said wow you know we're where the fraternities were removed wow this is an area that could be considered they see you know the bank of america the lot the parking lot on south prospect and they also see this as a potential area so really it's through community input and also the consultant's expertise what you know what is the appropriate area to apply these and it's you know then a local decision right so what how do we want to do it but we really want the expertise of the consultant or the team to have this outreach have you know have experience doing this and then spend time developing it and refining it and then you know preparing something that is you know could be adopted as both zoning and general regulations so most of this would probably be as you know a zoning measure but there could be regulations related to signs or things in the public right of way that would be in the general by-law that would also be adopted by town council most of it is you know would be considered zoning or part of land use um i will say that you know i looked at a number of communities um you know it's probably about a half dozen north hampton recently finished their process or you know i guess it's finished um for you know downtown and florans that that was a you know that was a multi-year process different different types of exercises and approaches so we you know we talked to those consultants and we looked at other communities um the listserv had a few the mass planners listserv had some discussions about this and so you know i'm considering it almost like a little mini master plan for the downtown and to try to get some consistent idea for visioning and so you know in the in the document we have you know five tasks we have pretty detailed deliverables pretty detailed tasks and then we have as a request for proposal you make a decision based on the proposal not on the price and so you know um there's a review team that's appointed by the town manager that would review proposals using you know first they have to meet minimum criteria and then they get reviewed using the comparative criteria um and so you know we have a number of criteria there one is an interview you know one is um you know their methodology approach so we expect a narrative to document how they will um you know work through this process and project we have a community engagement plan so how are they going to describe outreach methods what are they doing to go beyond just having a public meeting at town hall but what are the other things they're doing um you know the expertise of the team and so once we if you know if there's a hopefully through that process there's a someone that you know the team recommends and then you know then we would look at the price so really it's based on qualities and their proposal so their response to it interestingly enough a few consultants we've discussed we've asked about this they've said I think it's a lot of work for a consultant or a team right architects and engineers put together a proposal and so some have recommended well have a really um have a high threshold for minimum criteria and then just take the lowest bidder right take the lowest qualified response which you know is one way to go about it but the the issue there may be that it's really hard to exclude a team if they meet your minimum criteria so you can't set minimum criteria so high that it really is exclusionary right you can't you know you can't set it so that you have 50 years experience and only a firm that has you know you know a few employees that have been there you know 10 projects a very comparable scale and really that excludes you know half the firms in the region and so you know we think that our request for proposals is the way to go about it because we can then through the you know through the proposal document through what we're asking uh what you know what some middles we're asking for we can really get the best team uh you know it is pretty detailed right so we have I think it's like five detailed tasks and we and then we have the comparable you know the review criteria and so some communities keep it pretty general and I think they hope that those just have a good relationship with the with the team with the you know with the consultant with the professionals and say oh we want you to do this we'd like you to do that and so we're taking the opposite approach we're really trying to outline you know what we want what we expect for deliverables what we want for meetings so that you know someone coming into this understands that you know I'd like to think that if this is a two-year process we have a meeting every month they're meeting with staff as needed more than once a month but we'd have a you know a meeting that's open to the public or they'd have you know office hours or some outreach once a month and we'd have a consistent schedule we'd have a regular schedule and then it doesn't um there's not a lot of delay between meetings right I think when we had our 40 hour process sometimes you know there'd be a few months before there was any updates and that that ebb and flow of the process I think was detrimental to keeping things moving forward so I'd like to have this be you know we're asking for a schedule and a timeline with milestones and I'd like to you know that's what's great about having our press for proposals we can ask for that and then we can really say here's what they propose and we can have that as part of the contract document and so you know I'd like to have a process that is um you know it might be long but really we haven't mapped out and we know what to expect and then we can also then that helps with engagement right so we can tell the public what we're looking for here's the schedule here's when we want to have meetings and different types of meetings you know I'm you know in Northampton they had pop-up shops right so like they had the consultant do events downtown and so we're asking the consultant to you know maybe attend the farmer's market and have a table to get comments to do a type of maybe online survey to have office hours downtown different strategies to to get people involved and you know with the older adult survey for the agent dementia friendly project that staff is working on they've done you know a survey in different languages they've had outreach with people helping to go encourage residents to complete that and so I think there's almost 800 survey responses and that's that's great and so you know it took a lot of time it took money it took effort to have that type of outreach right to have translation services to have it both online to have it mailed mailed twice actually to have different you know point of um contact surveys where people were handing them out at certain locations but I think we've seen the effectiveness of that kind of strategy so I'm hoping you know that can be employed with this process you know so it can be more than just you know here's a public meeting please come and attend let's have some different outreach methods to try to engage the community um you know I'd like to hear from people who come to downtown who don't come to downtown right what why don't they come down what what could attract them is it is that the type of business is that the architecture is it both and then you know does that influence the design standards so um you know I think we're we have a list of what we want in the design standards we say may include we list a number of things setbacks dimensional standards materials building siting and so you know as you look at that if you think there's things that are missing you know I think that would be helpful like what are some pieces of design standards that could be articulated better in the document I mean it's not meant to be exhaustive I'm hoping that it's you know whoever's reading this responding understands we're also asking for streetscape guidelines in terms of amenities setbacks and other things I will say that there's a grand opportunity this summer to apply for the streetscape piece so we're we're going to have this be included in the request for proposals and we may have it as an alternate so that you know if we if we apply and get this other funding then this consultant wouldn't necessarily take on that piece and could you know concentrate more on the built environment and you know say from the curb back or something or you know just because I think we're asking a lot you know a hundred thousand dollars seems like a lot but we are asking for quite a bit of work and so um you know if we could get the streetscape element taken out and have someone come up with you know what is the right roadway with in terms of bike lanes sidewalks you know we have a 1996 the downtown design standards right that has the cross hatching of the scoring patterns for the sidewalks with the bricks you know course on the sides and it came up with what we use for trash cans benches light poles and that's really outdated and so we've kind of rolled that into this process but really if we could take it out now you know the same or another consultant do it I think would be helpful um you know I think uh we have 3d models for designated areas of downtown so we're not asking for a 3d model of the whole downtown we're asking you know we would determine is it a certain block or blocks or buildings and really ask the consultant to develop um you know 3d models that can help illustrate what they're what they're talking about we also want you know graphics and other things in the bylaw but you know when we were doing the proposed BL overlay staff developed some 3d models and you know without putting too much time in they looked okay but they're still they still can be a little hard to read right they're not they're not quite as nice as let's say the image behind me and so I think that becomes really misleading even when we did the initial you know here's the existing conditions people are like wow that's what it looks like it's really ugly and it's like so unless you're actually going to make it photorealistic and have the topography right and the trees right it's really difficult to have a 3d model and so Northampton had it and they showed kind of an oblique image set back and they showed built out scenarios over time but it was almost at a scale where you actually couldn't see detail and it was just it was I think was helpful but you know so we're not asking for that because it could be a big price component um but we really would like you know graphics elevation sections um you know annotated drawings along with text so I'm hoping these standards are more than just you know kind of like a design review handbook it's saying you know here are measurements for what we think the height could be so right now you know we have height in the bg and anything above that um if it's like you know HVAC equipment and everything doesn't factor into the height of a building I'd like these design standards to have absolute height you know with or without things on the roof what does that mean you know um and you know on Callagav is that four stories and if there's a fifth it has to be set back so many feet or if the sidewalk is wide enough it doesn't need to have a step back on the upper floors because we have a generous sidewalk width and so all these questions you know we're relying on the consultant to help answer um you know after community input you know um for instance 11 or 13 he's pleasant is a you know the newly proposed building is modern materials right it's metal wood and glass you know it has irregular window pattern um you know it's it has um it you know HVAC and solar on the roof you know has a certain setback from the street you know so you know my thought is with these design standards would it say okay if you're this high this is what we'd want from curved to building if that's the measurement we want if there's stuff on the roof we want it set back this much so it actually can't be seen from the other side of the street or if it does have forward-facing businesses the percent of glazing on the first floor where is the entrance to the to the businesses if it's upper floor residential what does it look like in terms of window spacing and patterns you know what are the treatments of the corners of the building and along the roof line the corners and the fascia um is there a horizontal banding between first and second floors and it makes use building for signs and for lighting and is that where it would go I mean I'd like to think that it's a a recipe for design but it has enough detail that um you know we we can kind of anticipate what things could look like and you know in terms of the design review board they have the design review principles and the zoning by-law they have their DRB handbook and so we're asking the consultants to look at the design review principles in the zoning by-law and perhaps the standards replace those and build on them and the design review board would then be um applying these standards these new standards as well they'd be advising the planning board and zoning board using new standards and so I think we have a lot in our by-law and I think some of it's just and we have a lot of existing conditions documents right going back to 2007 we had an urban form analysis report with some kind of preliminary form-based code as part of the master plan and then since then we've had a number of documents and so I think we have a lot to work with um and I'm hoping the consultant can pull it all together with community input and have you know a really nice set of standards that could be used okay thank you Nate um Andrew thanks Doug uh thanks for walking us through this Nate um I guess I was just curious um do you have a sense I mean you've you've described it you know we've read it there's a lot of work in here do you have a general sense of how many firms might qualify or be interested in this um so I think that that would be the first half and I have a second yeah so I think you know we have a list of maybe a half dozen to eight um architects engineer firms you know when this would be publicized it would both you know it'd be in the newspaper it'd be online so we'd post it with um maybe goods and services bulletin you know it's a statewide publication and so anyone who's registered there would get notice of this so you know it becomes you know available available publicly I'm sure third parties would pick it up so we yeah I mean I think we could have you know we could have anywhere from six to ten you know responses and it could be that we have you know a local architect may assemble a team right it may be a team of engineers architects landscape architects planners that then uh respond to this so you know if you have suggestions please send them to us you know we can send this to a firm directly as well as you know we have to we have to do the regular procurement on this service but um so we you know there are some ideas you know it's not you know for instance like the Cecil group which is no longer but you know there are groups right out around Boston around even out on Amherst here Dawson and Flinker did Northampton right so there's someone that you know they could be sent this and so we do have a list um it can it can grow we're hoping that you know so you're right so when we would procure we have to procure this it becomes a public procurement and you know we have a question and answer period we could have a site visit and so it could be that we put this out there and we don't have a lot of response we have a lot of questions a lot of concerns about the document and at that time the town could issue an addendum to the document or we could decide to um you know reissue the procurement if we think you know something is amiss right if it's you know for instance if everyone if we everyone says wow we think what you're asking for is going to cost more than what the estimated cost is right if everyone's like wow I think this is really a $200,000 project and it seems like you're just asking for too much you know you're asking for 20 public meetings or whatever then the town has to reassess but we we have that ability but we think we have people who would be interested okay and actually that was so that was the second after my question it's just do we if if if the consensus is this is too much work do we have a a sense of what we would pair what would be the first things to come off this list is that something that you've thought through as part of this and is and if so is that information that you can share just so we would have a sense yeah I think you know I mentioned the streetscape standards and so I think we're going to try to in the response or somehow we try to separate that out as a as a discrete piece so that would be one because we are going to apply for some other grants to try to accomplish that in the next year um other than that it's really interesting uh you know how do you pair it back so we can negotiate with the you know the the selected professional and so some of it could be um you know are there meetings that staff could do are there things that we could reduce in terms of expectation so for instance um we have six meetings uh later on in the process six meetings with different public boards to to um review the design standards and is that something that you know staff could do they could be reported zoom meetings but maybe we facilitate and then the consultants could wash but you know do we help with more mapping or technical things or you know so um we haven't really decided you know we haven't determined exactly how we would you know I would say I don't want to take out anything but um yeah yeah you know I mean I think it's just a sort of a useful sort of thought exercise anyways just for us to have a sense of what's critical what's nice to have what's need to have things like that but yeah so I think you know I we have met and we said so for instance if we're asking for too big of a scope you know we're saying oh let's do a visioning process let's look at a pretty big area and if it really seems like that the whole from the start it seems like it's too big of a project we could say okay let's pair it down let's say let's draw a specific boundary to where we want the consultant to work so the consultant isn't spending their time kind of determining where to apply the standards we we show that on a map and we say maybe it's you know uh two properties beyond the bg or bl right we draw a boundary we say it's you know um north prospect street to halic to north pleasant to a triangle to whatever and we you know that might take out a lot of that the work of the consultant to have some of this first visioning step so yeah there are ways we could do it it's just you know I'm hoping if we have this team you know they could they could do that visioning and say oh here's where the appropriate boundaries could be for the design standards not us saying well just focus on the bg and bl because what if they said oh wow actually these few rg properties right next to the bl might be really great to have design standards on so very good thanks Nate thanks to uh Janet so um I you know I I appreciate all the work that you put into this rfp it's a really strong document it's I think it has a really clear um you know it lays things out really clearly and I think this is going to be a really exciting process it's kind of like one of the reasons I'm on the planning board um I was also really interested that it included talk about the dimensions of the downtown and parking strategies and density recommendations because it's kind of like kind of broader of a scope that I had expected um I did think like the rfp could do some ads and one of them was I thought that it doesn't I think the art we need to mention that we're a college university town and we have a majority of student residents and that I thought this would be a great opportunity to have the consultant look at um you know research and get examples from other really successful college downtowns and so um so I just thought that was a you know a big a big opportunity for us to get some good-looking you know examples and you know downtowns that really work for university towns or college towns um the other thing I was a little worried about the stakeholders that it might be too limited to sort of property owners and business people or um and I just thought it should be a more like it's not a you didn't say only that but nothing nobody else was mentioned and I thought it could be more inclusive and that it should include the residents of downtown which are students people living at Eric and Wayland Clark houses um and also um you know residents of the RG and so that you know and maybe instead of one-to-one introduce maybe some focus groups I also um thought that um like to bring more in the BIPOC community in terms of specific outreach strategies so you know a stakeholder meeting or a focus group that includes BIPOC people and a real effort to reach out to the communities that we often don't talk to and so I thought that had to be kind of put in there front and center um and I know we're all you know the town's been really working well on that um so that was that was my two big points and then I just thought some little tiny ads of in terms of source documents um the historic preservation plan which I think I have the right name of the design review handbook and the Kendrick Park plan um those were things that are real effectively downtown so that that's really it but I just I think it's a great RFP and I just think a few more things could strengthen it and kind of maybe get a little bit more out that would be very focused on Amherst's needs so thanks. Yeah um Doug if I could the uh yeah stakeholders are interesting we the when we had the 4DR process the consultants you know met with stakeholders and then the difficulty was you know they met with some property owners downtown and business owners and managers but then they're also residents but they weren't specifically only residents they were a combination of things and so if we do like the idea but I think you know Janice a good point I think we have all these other types of outreach and so if we think stakeholder meetings or focus groups are important you know let's consider who to ask because I you know it would also be great to have residents of North Amherst and South Amherst as part of stakeholders and so I do think you know staff we discuss this like is there enough of an outreach process that maybe we don't need stakeholder meetings or do we think they're important enough because what if we did a type of survey where we could get opinions the same type of feedback but from a larger group so I think that's a good point in terms of um you know the BIPOC community and we've also thought about you know how do we incorporate sustainability into these standards and so I will say that the comparative review criteria you know we I had a list of like what it was right so in your community engagement plan have a description of how you would you know perform the outreach in terms of steps and then you're supposed to list under we have highly advantageous advantageous and not acceptable and under those in those three categories is where we would say what is highly advantageous so I think what you were saying in terms of having a better outreach process to reach different communities that would be highly advantageous and so we may or may not say it um in the explicitly in the document but in our review criteria we call those out so you know the consultant would see that there was the respondents would see it and they say okay you know how how am I reach how am I going to achieve this um outreach how am I going to make it sustainable in terms of my standards and so when the trust developed the RFP for Belcher Town Road and East Street School in the comparative review criteria in those categories that's where we actually had a lot of the substantial kind of um thresholds to really try to get out a proposal that would get what Amherst wants right so when we asked for out marketing outreach for the affordable units we said it has you know the highly advantageous was you know you would have a community liaison who'd go to the BIPOC community and do physical outreach at locations in Amherst right which is well beyond what a typical marketing plan requires and so I will say that I didn't get to write some of those comparative right review criteria you know the highly advantageous advantageous so I think what you were saying would go in that we can mention it in RFP and I think then in the comparative review we can call it out for each of those um submittals right so in terms of their methodology and approach what's highly advantageous we want them to have you know um you know a good outreach plan we want them to have sustainable design principles we want them to you know so we can put you know criteria in that you know review right to really make sure it they can respond to it so yeah I think those are good ideas all right thank you Janet um I I will say Nate that I didn't realize you hadn't sort of that there those criteria were you know since missing well so some some just say you if you exceed what's written it's it's okay and then for advantageous you say it meets what you've said but you can also then kind of enhance those and you know really be explicit right so someone could say in their timeline here's our timeline right every month we have a meeting and here's the milestones but then another proposal if we say highly advantageous is you know in addition to a schedule there's a narrative explaining how they will incorporate comments into their next set of public material right and so we can write that as the highly advantageous so if in their timeline and schedule they just show us a matrix and they have the color you know blocks and everything okay they they're advantageous but if another response is like here's how we're going to take all the material we've gathered at this step and how we're going to make it better and incorporate it in the next step that's highly advantageous so you know typically we we try to write that in a little bit just so we can have separate out the proposals otherwise it is difficult because if you have professionals responding oftentimes um you know they always you know hopefully they meet the minimum and most of them are advantageous and so then you really do want to have some some clarity between what is advantageous and highly advantageous you know otherwise you you know almost you all almost have a tie between responses and so you really want to have some kind of distinction if you can it does get difficult I will say the more criteria and the finer grain the more you have to have some distinction okay thank you Maria um thanks Nate um I cannot tell you how excited I am it's finally happening this is so fantastic um but I do agree to ask this is a huge scope a huge undertaking uh real quick first question how do you guys remember they fee the 40R uh project costs the one we just did and didn't do anything with what was that consultant fee do you remember yeah I think you equated to $20,000 oh okay okay I think they went a little beyond what right I remember them saying that okay well so I think my only thing about like looking through your um this document is maybe um try to if if you were to need to um prioritize you know say the fee isn't quite enough um maybe really tailor the scope of services where you really use them for the outreach for the creating of the um I guess what's that called distilling of the zoning bylaw into this new product and keep a lot of what you have on page two where you have a lot of like the review existing documents and the document existing conditions have more of the staff either do presentations or collect a lot of data prepared so that the you know you're paying consultants to do what they do best which is sort of distill the information rather than collect information I know they'll learn more if they collected themselves but I am a little worried about this two-year $100,000 um sort of scope I just I I know how important the public outreach will be so we really want to make sure that's not just sort of like a a complaint fest but that really becomes like a a way of gathering data that isn't like an overwhelming amount of data that no one ends up really distilling or doing anything with so I feel like maybe you know if more of their scope is um yeah less of what's on page two and then more of what's on page three which is develop the design standards and I guess maybe you know as long as like I hear what you're saying about you're being very precise and specific about what you're asking for I think that's really great and then hopefully they'll like you say you know show a couple projects recent projects so you can get a sense of how they'll deliver things because you know the 40R project uh I thought that deliverable was um good graphically but it didn't have a lot of meat to it so I don't you know want to make sure that um it looks like you're asking for really specific things so I just want to make sure we don't sort of repeat that where um we have just enough sort of beginnings of an idea and then it doesn't go anywhere and um so it sounds like you're you're in that path but I would say maybe it's just the you know really really take advantage of town staff and planners all the expertise and the collective historical knowledge you already have and you know really help them um once you select one uh let them do the front of the sort of you know um breaking down the data rather than collecting the data but otherwise this is really fantastic I I hope even after I'm off the planning board I go to a couple of these public meetings and just see how it's all going because um it was a long time coming I'm so glad that you guys are doing all this because it's a huge endeavor I've been there a few steering committees for for for downtown downtown uh charrettes and yeah we needed a consultant but it was definitely something you need hired experts for so I'm really excited about this and um I um maybe what I'll do is I'll comb through this document again I didn't have time to do a lot but I can note like where I think maybe you could you know eliminate or take out of their scope so that then more of that hundred thousands is really you know um puts a good use but um thank you so much for all this effort it's fantastic okay thanks mario janet you have some more um yeah I just wanted to respond you know something that Nate said reminded me of I think they were the 40 our meetings that I heard a lot of complaints so and actually sort of understood the feeling what when you did a charrette and people wrote down you know what they thought and then they everybody comes back to the main group and then then nothing like people didn't see a synthesis on or they didn't understand they didn't see they felt like they didn't see the consultants taking that information consolidating it and presenting it in a way that others could look at it or they felt like it didn't affect the outcome of what was being offered at the next meeting and so I when you were saying that you know that it's sort of next level um you know most advantageous and if you lay out that criteria I think that's a really big missing piece at the few charrettes I've gone to where you just feel like oh everybody had this participatory effort and then you know where did it go and did someone take it in and summarize it anyway so that's just a participant and then complaints I've heard observation okay thanks janet and sorry jug and yeah i'm rich your point we yeah it's interesting staff had talked about could we use engage amersson do the survey so um you know we don't necessarily want to you know complete it you know the draft a survey without the consultants right but could we then have them tell us or help us develop the survey but then we staff does the you know tries to get the the responses and if for instance right existing conditions after we have the consultant as we're going through if his contract negotiations uh what what would they do to document existing conditions in terms of measurements photographs and then staff could actually do it so we spend the time you know measuring setbacks measuring heights and so right then that could take you know it could be a time consumptive um part of their process that staff could do right if they're just you know measuring lot sizes using gis and other things we could do that and so yeah i think it's a good point um i was kind of optimistic we we could just have have the consultant do do it all but i i do think we're asking a lot okay thanks nat um i had a just a couple of comments um i agree this looks to me like a 200 thousand dollar uh effort and it i i'll be surprised if you can get it for a hundred um particularly the number of meetings i mean you know you you are talking about 20 or 25 meetings and um that's a time consuming effort for a consultant um on the on on the comparative review item six was the 15 minute presentation um i wondered whether you really want to have a 15 minute presentation from all 30 responses you get or whether you might want to have that as the secondary review uh from a short list um so and you know that takes time for somebody to prepare too so um if they're not sure they're going to get the job it might scare people off and then you had you had the the words diversity and inclusion as a criteria kind of sitting all by themselves on page seven and i thought that looked like a fragment that belonged with public engagement or somewhere up somewhere else so but sounds like you you know you're not quite finished with this yes i think to your last point that's where yeah i put those words and i i was starting to try to fill out what would make things highly advantageous or advantageous and so that in the comparative review that wasn't necessarily complete so i i agree that that those were um you know uh just fragments um in terms of the interview i've been told that you if it's a and i think it's actually pretty clear in the procurement guidelines now that if you intend to interview even if it's a second round interview you actually have to interview every response so it can't just be you know we've narrowed it from 30 to 10 we're only going to interview 10 you have to actually interview all 30 um responses so if it and if you are if you're and if you're going to use the interview as any part of the comparative review or decision making process it has to be in the rfp document so you can't um you know decide oh let's have a second round of interviews and then we're going to throw in an interview you actually have to have it be part of the comparative review up front and in the past i'd say that some towns and maybe sometimes don't follow that as clearly and so you might hear about like oh yeah during the second round of interviews we'll interview someone but really i've been told that it needs to be um you know part of the process from the beginning so i agree like if we have 10 responses and we have 15-minute interviews plus you know 10 minutes of questions say it's a half an hour so you have you know you have a few hours of just interviews okay all right well i you know your process and i i have my experiences on a different type of process no thanks i i'm actually pleased to hear that you're the 15 minutes is what you're talking about is the presentation from the people and that there's maybe some q and a after that right so having because i misinterpreted that i thought the entire start to finish was 15 minutes okay yeah so you might want to clarify that it's a 15-minute presentation that's part of a 30-minute interview or something okay yeah yeah but overall i can't wait to see it happen uh i guess the the only other thing i'll ask is how involved are you going to be willing to have the planning board in this process oh yeah this is the this is exciting stuff you're gonna be organizing the monthly meetings you're gonna be uh no yeah when we've um it's a really good question i think we um you know when you've done like rof park or kendrick park or other projects we have kind of a team you know staff and others that really will be part of the project and so um yeah you know i think they're you know at some point it becomes either a subcommittee that has to be a publicly posted meeting every time the planning board members discuss it or you know is it you know one representative and that gets reported back so i think um yeah i think that's a good thing to discuss how how does the planning board want to be involved in terms of when this is happening um you know and we say two years it could be faster at one point we're saying oh 15 months but realistically if it is sooner than two years great but i don't want to push it or short change it right it um seems like a long time but the 40 hour process took quite a few months um and then just to have you know time between meetings and allow the consultant to do some work um i think it you know if we think you know we could always put it a shorter time frame but well you also don't want to fatigue people right so it's a balance all right is there anything else you wanted out of us this evening nate no i do think that's a good question Doug about the planning board and i sure others would want to be involved too and so yeah that's something staff hasn't discussed you know yet is really how you know what is the team moving forward if this were you know when this is happening so um yeah okay i see chris's hand maybe she wants to comment i just wanted to ask nate a question um nate do we want to invite planning board members to send written comments i know maria offered to do that and i'm not sure if janet offered to do that or not but is that something that would be helpful or do you feel like you've gotten enough comments from this discussion tonight um yeah i think written comments are fine you know i want to i don't want to burden planning board members but if you have them or if you take a notes and you want to send them to me that's fine or if you want to look at it again after tonight and send me more that's great do we have a deadline by which we would like people to send their comments like before the next planning board meeting before may 4th yeah that sounds good that sounds good in the next week and a half two weeks are so i assume all comments should be sent to chris and then chris you'll pass them on to nate all right thanks chris uh jack i see your hand yeah i just i'm uh having memories of uh some bad experiences with uh charrette's with an amorous i don't think it really works so and i um i you know encourage nate to kind of do more you know one-on-one you know the table the farmers market that sort of thing but just getting a large group of people together um i think like decorum um and i was actually embarrassed i think in some of the downtown uh you know uh work groups that we've had chris remember people yelling so uh that's amorous and so i'm sure you're very much aware of that nate so thanks jack chris i just wanted to respond to that which is that sometimes people treat their own family members worse than they treat their friends or the public and i think we experienced that um at that meeting where residents felt like they could be pretty outspoken to planning board members and staff but i think people are not as free to be um not exactly sure how to characterize what they were but anyway they're not as free to be as outspoken perhaps with a consultant they're more um they act with more decorum with a consultant because a consultant is not a family member so anyway i just wanted to offer that we're hoping that the consultants will be strong people and able to withstand but also that um members of the public will be respectful of them all right thanks chris uh i see one hand in the attendees pam rooney state your name and your address thanks i wasn't sure if you're going to have any public comment this is pam rooney 42 cottage street um i'm just here as a resident and i just want to commend mate for a really terrific rfp and again i will echo that i'm very excited to see this starting to take shape um i was thinking as you said how how could some of this be pared down and uh janet mcgowan beat me to the punch on one of them and that is that the idea of of you know 12 stakeholders um might be winnowed down to four or five focus groups containing some of those stake member categories and um she actually named off some of the ones that i was thinking about the ann whalen and clark house residents close in neighborhoods property owners um as in the bid business owners as in the chamber and then the student rent renters or people from who actually live downtown and and walk up outside day to day um in that same section that describes the that i think it must be task two uh a wonderful idea of of coming in with case studies i thought that was terrific um but if if you're mentioning case studies um the fact that that again the spagallon beat me to this but if if you're recommending things um examples of college towns is really good because it's we're a sort of it's a different breed of cat um but also that that case studies that might show mixed use and mixed populations because i think we really do want mixed populations in whatever density we develop downtown um but also the words adaptive reuse i think is something that's critical that we that we clearly need to deal with in uh certainly in the bl districts downtown so adding the word adaptive reuse would be very helpful to help flesh out where good examples might come from um and and then when you're looking at the rest of that paragraph um you know bringing bringing forward images plans information on building use and maybe adding the word occupancy because um you know just to have a square footage amount is one thing but to actually understand how many people you might be having living there is is a is an important element as well so thanks and i'm and i'm just delighted to see this um thanks for working on it thank you pam um i see dorothy pam so we can bring her in okay dorothy pam 229 amity street and again i'm speaking as a resident um i think that uh as nate tells it it sounds like a lot of thinking has gone into this and a lot of good ideas um i would in terms of of people that would reach out to for comments i hope that you would reach out to the nearby residential neighborhoods people who use the downtown on a regular basis um and who are right close to it but the main thing i want to say is thinking of the 40 r is i hope that you can include and maybe this will be part of the stuff that is that you add up and what it's going to cost that the consultants spend some time to get to know amherst to visit amherst um there was a sense with the 40 r when some of the people responded in disbelief at some of the pictures they were showing that the person didn't know amherst or hadn't been to amherst so um that might be something extra you'd have to figure it on the expense side that they would at least they have to get to know the town they have to come and see it walk around in person and not just read about it um you probably have already thought about that's already probably in your rfp i don't know um but that's my thought so good luck to this i think it'll be a great project thank you dorthy all right um nate unless you need anything more from us this evening we can end this topic no great thanks i was just yeah thanks for the comments everyone um and from the attendees i think for instance um dorthy's last comment about getting to know amherst again i think that's something i'd like to um uh incorporate into the review criteria so that you know their methodology methodology and approach you know highly advantageous would be something that they you know um that they understand amherst or that there's evidence that they you know visited amherst or understand you know its context and you know so i i like you know i think those are the that's where we would try to um you know make sure the people responding you know are serious about it and we can get someone who really is you know serious about the proposal so yeah i think all those these comments have been really helpful um i like that you have focus groups as opposed to stakeholders just because i think that could be a better way to get feedback um yeah no i think there's but i i'll you know there's a lot to think about and so i'll you know if you send me comments i'll probably do track changes and keep a document that you know keeps evolving um yeah i'm kind of excited too it was a lot of work at first but once you get started i um i think it carried away with what you're asking for so it's nice to hear uh hear all the comments all right thanks nat so the time is 8 35 and we haven't taken a break yet do people want to take a break or i know uh one member had been interested in finishing by nine so uh if that's the case i see two thumbs up maybe we'll move right on um all right so the time is 8 35 and we'll go on to item five on our agenda which is old business starting with the solar bylaw working group we need to nominate a member to represent the planning board on this working group um chris did you want to say anything or yes yes okay yes so um you all have a copy of the charge of the solar bylaw working group that was put together by the town manager and stephanie chiccarello and myself and this is essentially a seven member uh group that will be in place until may 31st of 2023 and that's where and we're expecting to have the solar bylaw finished and the solar siting study also finished um and we're invited to have one planning board member be a member of this group and there will also be representatives of the energy and climate action committee conservation commission board of health water supply protection committee and two residents with solar and or forestry or other relevant experience so i've received two emails of interest from planning board members the first one came from janet mcgowan to be the planning board's representative and the second one came from doug marshall for to be the planning board representative i haven't heard from other members of the planning board about um their interests so um doug you may want to ask if any other members are wanted to step forward where there are others who were interested jack i see your hand and andrew you can follow jack yes um i'm on the water supply protection committee and i'm really into it pretty deep uh with regard to um you know environmental impact um of this from from a water resources perspective and i i offered to be the representative for for that uh committee so we'll see um and but i i don't think i you know should throw my hat in the ring for the planning board um i think we discussed last time that since you and and maria are not going to be on the planning board necessarily after whenever it is is it june or july um that you probably shouldn't be our representatives from the planning board yeah okay um andrew thanks again i was not going to put my hat in but i saw janet's letter and i was was there another letter from doug or i i i had even realized chris last night and i probably sent that around everybody it gets to my email today okay i may have not it was fairly belated i wasn't really sure whether i really wanted to do it but i'm interested i'm interested in the topic that's really the bulk of it but i'm not i'm not gonna push i'm not gonna campaign for this um andrew did you want to say something else i mean i was going to make a motion but i see maria's hand up first so maybe let's see what she says first all right maria um do we have enough what will we be voting because we have five people present but i don't know if doug and janet would be voting like what is the process for this well this is similar to selecting officers is it and i guess my understanding is that we typically all vote on that is that correct chris that is correct yes um that's all i want then andrew yeah i mean i mean i could make it easy and just withdraw if that's what people would like um go ahead uh andrew did you want to speak i yeah well i was going to make a motion to recommend janet for the committee all right do we have a second uh maria what if i had wanted doug to be on the committee then what does that mean what i vote no for janet and then try again for doug how does that work well i mean i suppose we could just have around a kind of a roll call of uh who would support janet for that position and then who would support me for that position is that a reasonable way to tally the votes well i would support me and i would support you doug just have a quarter we can flip i don't think well you know what i mean i'm i mean i'm already the chair i don't really particularly need to go to two more meetings a month um janet would you why don't i second uh andrew's motion okay then i'll second maria's no we only have one motion on the floor okay okay sorry all right so um okay so we have a motion on the floor for janet to be the representative um i'm going to do a roll call vote um all right so get my list of people all right maria so i'm voting whether or not i want janet not knowing whether you're going to be on the table is that right yeah that seems like a good idea is it not a good idea that's fine i'll i'll say okay yes all right um jack yeah i'm uh i'm good with janet i just would uh kind of uh you know we we we pulled some uh examples from some nearby towns which i think are super conservative and i would just you know ask that janet looks at you know the bigger picture and not you know i i think there's some like an anti-solar sentiment out there from some of the towns and so i just would ask that she you know the level on that perspective so but yes i i i approve for janet yeah okay andre hi all right uh i can i can i i feel like i should abstain since i was and janet i assume you would vote yes i would vote for me but i also plan to vote for you so so that's three votes in favor of janet so four right or four four yes sorry all right so do we want to is that good are we done nate yeah i think i was gonna ask chris to clarify i think as um sometimes working groups don't necessarily need to have a public meeting with a posted agenda but i think this one will um right chris this will be a post meeting a working group this working group will act like a committee and we'll have posted meetings in minutes and the whole nine yards that right and so i was going to just say yeah as i say because of that you know members of the planning board could also attend and provide input you just you're not you know you're just not a voting member so you know the charge does say community input it sounds like it'll be a pretty interactive process and um you know and then there's also the solar assessment that's ongoing as well so um yeah i think it'll be a good group to have community input and then come up with a with a bylaw and i'll probably be the one who's attending and helping to take minutes and other things too so while you're working on your design guidelines sure and and attending 20 20 meetings for that okay so we got 15 minutes to finish up guys let's see next 844 is the time chris next item on old business is fees for public hearing legal ads so we introduced this topic last time am i muted i'm not muted no you're not we can hear you so um i i provided some information for the board about with this topic with the help of of pam who did all the research and i wrote the memo and i wrote the memo um so anyway the planning board had uh we talked about the fact that planning board um charges only $75 for each application um for a legal ad but the average cost of a legal ad for the last six months has been 489 dollars and 43 cents um so um the question is does the planning board want to raise its fee from $75 to something else um does it want to actually have the applicant pay the fee directly to the daily hamster gazette which is where we advertise um and different towns do this in different ways um the other thing is i have to mention that not all of our legal ads are for applications some of them are for zoning amendments so that we just um submitted one for the zoning amendment for what was it for um i'm blanking right now i think it was for demo delay um and that was a pretty expensive one the town actually has to eat that because there's no applicant to pay that fee but um in an event we're talking about fees for actual applicants um so we're considering two two methods of dealing with this as i said one is to charge somewhere between 200 and 500 dollars for each applicant for the legal fee the other one is to have the applicant pay the gazette directly we've heard from um different planning boards about what they do ham ham has done this research the Hadley planning board sets their fee high enough to cover mailing and publication of legal ads and they gave us an email about that Sunderland charges 150 for legal ads and mailings and the money goes into a general fund and then invoices are paid i doubt that that's enough money to pay for legal ads and mailings Deerfield has a an advertising fee paid directly to the greenfield recorder and South Hadley the applicant pays the actual cost billed directly to the applicant and we did hear from um one board i guess it was the Hadley planning board and i included some of your some of the emails in your packet um the Hadley planning board said that it sometimes has has trouble or it did have trouble in the past um having uh someone pay the gazette account because um many people don't have a gazette account so they can't get invoiced um our what our conservation commission does is they uh send in the legal ad themselves and then they get a bill or not a bill but a statement back um with the proof of the legal ad saying how much it's going to cost and then they chase the applicant to give them a check made out directly to dilly hamshire gazette for that amount so um this isn't necessarily something that we have to resolve tonight but we're providing you with information about this the planning board really should be involved in setting this fee um my department actually also pays fees for the historical commission the local historic district committee and the um zoning board of appeals so you know we have to address this same topic with all of these uh groups but um i don't know if you want to discuss this tonight or you know take the information that we've given you and put it on the docket for a future um meeting or how you want to deal with this thanks chris andrew do you have a suggestion or comment i i i've just two thoughts like none are really very good but you know one is i'm just wondering has has someone ever talked to the gazette about what they charge um because you know it's doing a it's a like a public service i and i know that they're up for profit but i just you know wondered whether whether anyone had ever reached out and said would the newspaper be willing to charge a flat fee or negotiate a fee and then my initial thought when i when i thought this was you know just let the applicant pay the cost but that you know i don't know whether there's any mechanism for like a hardship waiver or something like that um that we might entertain i imagine that would make things could make things exceedingly complicated but you know five hundred dollars is a is a big pop to throw on for uh really a formality but anyhow those are those are my thoughts thanks all right andrew um janet so here are my deep thoughts i thought that um having the applicant pay directly and schedule the ad could be potential disaster in terms of um setting up you know the right time for the public hearing and you know making sure they had paid and all that stuff so i thought that should be left in the hands of the planning department because they do that well and you know can sort out the calendar um it did seem sort of expensive to me especially if somebody had to go you know do a hearing for a concom and a hearing for us and i began to wonder like when people come to us for public hearing like how big are their projects or how small do they get you know is it you know we're not we're not getting hearings about an usually an extension a small extension on a house or something but i did worry about smaller applicants or nonprofits that these kind of fees could mount up and so that was my concern all right uh i guess my two cents was if the average cost is now four hundred and eighty nine dollars we should charge five hundred dollars and we should have the applicant pay us and then we deal with the paper to make sure they get paid and i'm not happy about that amount but it covers our cost any other comments from people jack yeah i was just wondering like i'm getting additional papers the reminder uh has been coming and i don't even know the source of that but i i'm wondering if you know that's a less expensive alternative uh to the gazette and would still qualify as you know for public notice purposes i can tell you in my house i only see it intermittently doesn't seem like a dependable arrival christ do you know any more about that publication i think it's mostly a an advertising vehicle and they do have a little bit of news in it but it's mostly um you know in a vehicle for advertising supplements to come out to to people i can investigate it one problem with it is it only comes out once a week and we usually aim to have legal ads in like 15 days before a public hearing and seven days before a public hearing and we kind of have to you know strictly deal with that deadline as a result of public public the public notice requirements of the state um i'm starting to lose my ability to talk but um it's only not not yet nine o'clock anyway um yes the state requires that we publish the legal ad 14 days or 15 days in advance and seven days in advance so it wouldn't work yeah sorry chris i do see nate sand yeah thanks the um you know there's the on the mass planners listserv there has been a discussion about you know the requirement for posting and it seems like it is becoming cost prohibitive not just in you know for the gazette but everywhere and some of it is just you know with shrinking subscriptions um you know what's happening so in southeastern mass you know a bunch of newspapers will close because it's a consolidated parent company and so you know for instance some communities might need to publish into you know the boston herald or some you know some newspaper that's really towns away and um you know so some some have been saying well could the law change right can the law be updated to reflect some other type of posting and so that's not the case yet and maybe that's something that would be happening in the next year or two um yeah i do think it is expensive but i um and i let your point about talking to them and maybe that there's just you know the cost of print and everything there's just kind of a standard rate per character or space in the you know in a printed um advertisement or legal ad and so um you know i'm not sure how much will the room there is but you know on the listserv others have said the same thing you know across the state that wow the cost of a public notice has gone up quite a bit and so it's not as if it's you know the gazette is raising prices um and no one else is it's really i think uh across the board something that's happening so you know the the cost of print is just increasing and so you know it's not um you know it is just something that's what's happening um i agree that chasing an applicant could be could be difficult um i think you know i was going to say that right now the planning department you know the way legal ads are paid you know there's a line item budget but we're overspent quite a bit this year and so every year we overdraw that you know our ability to pay for for public notices so it's becoming more challenging you know we have to estimate how much we're going to spend every year and so it is a pretty big line item budget now to do legal ads if the town is paying for it all right thanks nate um chris uh ideally it sounds like you want us to somebody to make a motion and and all of us to endorse some particular solution is that right yes and and you want that to originate with us or do you want that to originate with you well maybe i will take this back to my staff and to um davzomek who is my direct boss and talk to him and them about this because as i said this has a ripple effect um you know if the planning board changes their mode then the zoning board of appeals and the historical commission and the local historic district commission have to also change so i've gotten a sense of how you feel so why don't i bring this back to you at a future date okay all right i briefly saw maria's hand uh no okay all right so so end of that item the time is eight fifty six uh the last item on old business was topics not reasonably anticipated chris anything nope all right item seven uh form a an r subdivision applications any of those no form ease how about zba applications nothing new tonight all right upcoming spp spr sub applications item nine on our agenda yes we have two new ones let me see if i can remember them um one is from john robleski and it has to do with a new building that's going to go in at four forty six main street that will be coming before you probably on may 18th and there is another one um and it escapes me i didn't write it down yeah the umass five college credit union yes thank you nate yep so umass five college credit union is coming in for a new building on north hampton road in amherst yes and we may we may have told you about that one before i'm not sure but anyway yes that's coming as well and then of course we have um the new building on olympia drive so those three are coming before the planning board yep okay thank you uh item 10 planning board committee and liaison reports jack anything for pvpc yeah we had a quarterly meeting with the commissioners last week and chris sent the presentation for the housing so uh the feature talk was about um you know uh having um affordable housing you know within the piner valley and i just i would just say that what we're experiencing here is it's across the country you know i think i've been feeding chris some things that she's been distributing but again i'm really glad that that this is you know being uh looked after you know with within our you know within our region and it's getting energy and uh so um yeah seems like a little bit of a housing crisis here across the country but all right thank you yeah c pack and no updates okay uh tom is absent so nothing on the drb and chris anything from the crc the crc held a first session of their public hearing on april 14th on the demo delay bylaw which is now being called preservation of historically significant buildings they voted to recommend that the bylaw be removed from the zoning and placed in the general bylaw they haven't yet come to a conclusion about what exactly the wording will be of the general bylaw they um ben bregger of the planning department staff has been working with the historical commission to develop the language he's bringing this back to the historical commission i think tonight to get their opinion about a few issues and then the idea is that it's going back to the crc for their vote we hope on april 28th in in a final version that we're hoping will go then to town council so that's one thing that they've been focusing on the other thing they've been focusing on is the rental registration bylaw and this was brought to them by members of town council who are concerned about housing in amherst and particularly rental housing particularly the numbers of people who live there the lack of maintenance and management on the part of some property owners and how to get a handle on that and behavioral issues comes into this too but that's not really a zoning issue so anyway they've been they've been talking about that as well so and they're also talking about how to extend article 14 which gives the building commissioner the ability to approve certain uses um this particularly in the downtown area um so that's what they've been working on and their next meeting is the 28th of april all right thank you next item report of the chair i really don't have anything to report this evening next report of staff chris bam i'd like to report that it looks like we're going to be finished with the meeting at nine o'clock and that's very good news and congratulations my clock just went to nine oh one uh oh all right i think we're through our agenda and it is nine oh one any objection to adjournment i did jack i don't think you're objecting are you all right thank you all and we'll see you uh was it may fourth yes that's right okay thank you very much all right good night pam i forget to turn the recording up i'm just gonna push end and hopefully we're gonna stop okay good night good night