 Okay, Mr. Marshall. We have Amherst media here with us. You have a quorum. My computer says 633 we are recording and the attendees are coming on in. It looks like you're good to go to me. Okay. Thank you, Pam. You're welcome. Welcome to the camp to the Amherst planning board meeting of May 17 2023. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst planning board I am calling this meeting to order at 634pm. 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 two of the acts of 2023. This planning board meeting including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is accessible 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. The wind 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, you yourself answer affirmatively and return to mute. Bruce called him. I'm here. Thank you Bruce Tom long present. Janet McGowan here. Johanna Newman here. Karen winter here. Andrew McDougal has told us he is unlikely to attend this evening so Pam if you notice the hit that he does arrive help me remember what time that occurs. And I Doug Marshall I'm also present. Board members if technical issues arise we may need to pause 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 request and call on you to speak. After speaking remember to remute yourself. For the general public. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items, not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate 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 into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes, or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, so the time now is 637 and the first item on our agenda is approval of minutes we have the minutes from April 19 available for approval tonight, as drafted by our staff. So, board members any comments on the minutes. We have a lot of heads shaking no comments. So, would anybody like to make a motion to approve these minutes as drafted. Tom, you just beat out Johanna. So moved, and Johanna. I second. Thank you both. Are there any. Is there any more discussion from the board about these minutes. I do not see any. So we'll go right into our roll call. I approve. All right, Tom. Hi. Janet. Hi. Johanna. Hi. And Karen. Hi. And I'm an eye as well. We have six in favor one person absent. So the minutes are approved. All right, at this time we'll move into our general public comment. Period. And so members of the public who are here. This is when I usually read the names of the people I can see in the attendees list. We have Anna Devlin, got here, Dorothy Pam, Janet Keller, Jennifer Taub, Mandy Joe Hanneke, Pam Rooney, Sam Gurren, and Tracy Zafian. Looks like we have a good representation from the town council tonight. All right, so do any of the public attendees want to make a comment at this time about something that is not on our agenda. All right, I don't see any hands raised from the public. So we'll move right on. Now at 639 we'll move to item three on our agenda. Public hearing regarding the zoning amendment. Okay, this hearing is continued from March 1st, April 5th and April 19th, and May 3rd, all of this year pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended again by chapter two of the acts of 2023. I don't need to read that again. This meeting is being conducted via remote means and is held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding the zoning bylaw article three use regulations article for development methods article nine non conforming lots uses and structures and article 12 definitions. To see if the town will vote to amend article three use regulations to change the permitting requirements for owner occupied duplexes affordable duplexes non owner occupied duplexes convertible converted dwellings and townhouses to create more streamlined permitting pathways for these uses to remove the use category subdividable dwellings to add a use category three family detached dwelling or triplex. To add a permitting pathway and standards and conditions for triplex is to modify standards and conditions for other housing use categories to amend permitting requirements for housing use categories in the aquifer recharge protection overlay district and article for development methods to add three family dwelling where appropriate to amend article nine non conforming lots uses and structures to add a reference to three family dwelling to amend article 12 definitions to add three family detached dwelling unit or triplex and to delete subdividable dwellings. All right, so as I mentioned this is. This is the fifth meeting at which we've had this hearing. So it's, we've had a fair amount of discussion on it. Are there board board member board members are there any disclosures any of you would like to make tonight regarding this topic. Do not see any. All right. So, Pam, why don't we bring Mandy Joe, and Pat if pass here over, I don't see her so Mandy welcome again. And is there anything you would like to say this evening as introduction as we continue this hearing. Okay, so so Pat will not be able to make it tonight so I just wanted to let you know that we're just here to answer questions as you have because it seems like you've moved into your deliberation phase. And so I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Okay, thank you very much Mandy. Okay, so board members at the last meeting we focused on duplexes, although I know there were a couple of members absent at that discussion, who are here tonight. So we're going to move on to the other parts of the bylaw proposal, most first on to the triplexes, and then the other types of houses, or residences Bruce I know you put together a matrix with some questions do you want to talk to us about that or something else I see your hand something else. I just wanted to ask you how you wanted to handle this. Last time we discussed the duplexes, but we didn't move to any further than the discussion because as I recall certainly began it wasn't here and I actually don't think Andrew was either is it was it or was it Tom. Anyway, what the question that I have is, it may have been both of them you know that all three of them were here I'm not sure. Well, even what I wondered with certainly with with more solid attendance tonight I wondered whether you wanted to pick up on the duplex conversation. Well, the question is, do you want to do you want to us to deliberate resolve and vote section by section to whether we support this or do you. It seems as though it might be a little easier in terms of keeping it fresh in our minds, or do, or do, do you think we should do all of the deliberations and then vote either as a block or system at a sectionally. I just wanted to want to know what what your how you how you thinking of handling this. Well, since this was presented to us as a single package. You know it went, it went, it was sort of withdrawn and there was discussion with the planning department and then brought back. And it's still a single package. I guess I was expecting that we would do the liberation on all the parts and then eventually have a single up or down vote on the way it is. In the duplex discussion Bruce there were some things you were interested in having in the bylaw, or, you know, that were that are not there now. And I don't know if you're prepared with language you would want to add. But you know I think we should vote it up or down. And if there are amendments people want to make to make it at least more palatable to them. And as we go along, and you know we could talk about amendments to duplexes now and then go into deliberation or about the other parts. But I guess, to me this is one vote, because it stands as a single single package I think pulling it apart is actually going to be difficult if we tried to turn to do that. I'm happy to, as we go to craft a version of emotion, which I can send to you. Or at least just keep track of it so that from my point of view I know what I'm supportive of. So of course, doesn't mean that other people would support that but but I'm happy to do it that way. And I'll just keep track of my, my thoughts as I go so far as support. Okay, basically qualified support I think is where I'm at. Okay, Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I didn't have the I wasn't under the impression that you had finished your discussion about duplexes last time so my recommendation would be to go back and, you know, really complete your discussion about duplexes and then move on. And I suggest using Bruce's format or structure. I sent you a corrected version this afternoon because when I had edited it last week. Some of the formatting had changed and I apologize to Bruce and everyone else for that. You do have a complete corrected version in your packet and I think that format is a really good way to discuss this because it is, it does have many parts to it. And to take each part separately to discuss it I think is good and then however you want to vote on it. If you want to vote on it as a package that probably makes sense but anyway I just wanted to say that I recommend that you go back and sort of recap your discussion about duplexes, be comfortable with that, and then move on step by step as Bruce has outlined. Thank you. It did seem like the way we were, you know, first talking about duplexes and then talking about the rest of it was in part, or maybe in large part to make sure everybody understood what it was what the proposal was. And then, as Chris said we didn't get very far into what people thought of it. So, you know, Janet you missed that conversation. And Tom, I forget. Were you at the last meeting. I was. Sorry, sorry to not have a vivid memory of your kind. That's right I missed the one before that. And Andrew with missing last week. Okay, thank you. Um, I guess the first question is how do people feel like they understand what in fact is being proposed. And are there, you know, the implications of it. Do people want to talk more about that. Janet I see your hand. I feel like I could, I could use a refresher about whatever the most recent version is and I'm a little confused about what happened with the design standards for duplexes is it keeping the ones from the design review board or is it saying that the planning board might adopt them later and empowering them. I could use a quick refresher about the current proposal. By letting adjustments. I think the current proposal is the same as the time the last time you saw this which was two times ago is that right. Yeah, was that April 19. So if you read the minutes of April 19, you probably have a pretty good idea. So the proposal hasn't really changed. And what else did I have to say. You know, I have some issues with owner occupied duplexes and how they can be permitted. Once they get to be more than two on a site, but I can, I can hold that for later. But I don't think there have been any changes since then and what was the second part of your question, Janet. What about the design review? Is it, are we, is it, are we keeping this section 3.204 design review or the language about adopting it later like empowering the planning department board to adopt that later. Is that the current version. I think we're keeping the section 3.204. We're keeping that, but then there was some concern about that being primarily related to downtown and village center development. So we said that the zoning board of appeals and the planning board would be authorized via this by law amendment here to establish their own design guidelines that they would incorporate into their rules and regulations. But that hasn't happened yet. And we did consult with our attorney at KP law and KP law agreed with what Mandy Joe had said, which is that those two bodies really need to be authorized by the zoning bylaw to create their design guidelines rather than just creating them without that authorization. So I think that was a dangling question the last time we reviewed this. So, so the amendment keeps 3.204 but then the ZBA and the planning board can adopt different guidelines for whatever they're permitting. They can adopt guidelines that would be incorporated into their rules and regulations and then every time they are reviewing a duplex they would look at their guidelines and determine whether the proposal met those guidelines or not. Okay, so that could be two sets. Okay. I mean, okay. Three sets. Okay. Do you have any other questions at the moment. Oh, I had a comment about owner occupancy but I'll wait until we have any more updates. Okay. All right. So, Pam, I guess I'm wondering whether we should ask you to bring up the highlighted bylaw changes on the on the screen. Okay, so this is the flow chart, but this is the actual bylaw. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. Okay. And so, Bruce on your sort of organizing document. You know the three questions you had about duplexes were should owner occupied and affordable duplexes be allowed by right in all five of the residential zones. Should owner occupied and affordable duplexes be allowed by special permit in the aquifer recharge protection areas of our own RLD and our end. And should owner occupied duplexes be allowed by special permit of the zoning board in the three outlying residential zones, our own RLD and our end. That basically summarized what is being proposed by the proponents. Yeah. So, see I'm seeing Chris's hand. So I think the way you read the last one. See, I think you left out the non owner occupied aspect of that. So that question is should non owner occupied duplexes be allowed by special permit of the zoning board in the three outlying residential zones. Sorry, sorry. Sorry if I misread that. Yeah. Okay, Mandy Joe I see your hand. Yeah, I think you're potentially reading from the wrong question sheet because non owner occupied duplexes are already allowed by special permit in the ROL D and RN. Districts. What we are proposing to change is that they be allowed by special permit in the aquifer recharge protection areas of those three zones. Yes. For recharge protection areas that current bylaw allows them by special permit. Okay, thank you Mandy Joe. I thought I was reading the right one that came this afternoon. May I interject for a minute. I think that was a, that was a something that I'm going to have to go back and look at all three versions of this chart. Mandy Joe is correct that non owner occupied duplexes are already allowed in those zones by special permit. And three people working on this document and editing it and apparently the last change that Mandy Joe made and I accepted didn't get into this version, which is very confusing and I'm sorry about that. So the number C should read non owner occupied duplexes are allowed by special permit in this zoning district. I think. Alright, so. Let me just say this one more thing. I think if you go back to the version that you received in your packet. Although the formatting isn't 100% correct. You can use your mind to renumber things and then the wording will be correct because that was the final version that I sent out. That was correct. And only the numbering was incorrect. So, if Pam can resurrect that. I can't. I can't know I don't have that one. I don't think okay. But let's see, can we all. Is it just a matter of changing the word be to our right here. Who is that. Mandy. Go ahead. The correct document is in the CRC packet for May. What are we were weren't at the 17th for May 11. Okay. It could be up from there. Yeah, you have a Mandy. I do. Would you mind sharing it? Oh, sure. I can do that. Give me a second. If, if what I'm hearing is correct, doesn't it mean that the questions B and C are really essentially the same? Should any zoo, should any duplexes be allowed. In the aquifer recharge district. By special permit. I don't think number C refers to aquifer recharge. Okay. That's where the sea sort of goes away. Okay. I'm confused. Yeah. This is the correct version, I believe. I'm sorry, folks. I tried hard to make this simple. Can I, Doug, can I ask a question? Sure, Janet. So I'm actually just looking at the bylaw. Like the use chart, and it looks to me that. An owner occupied duplexes SP for in the RO, but a no in the RLD. I'm just wondering if that happens. That's the same for the non owner occupied duplex. And then affordable duplex is SPR in the RO and SP. In the RLD. Am I reading that correctly? I guess I'm wondering. I'm wondering whether we'd be better off just bringing up the flow chart. Which shows what's it, what's. What you're talking about. Yeah. I'm just wondering what you're talking about. With the changes that are proposed. Floor chart. Yeah, the chart. Mandy, Joe, I see your hand again. Yeah, Janet, in the use chart, anything in parentheses refers to permitting requirements in this aquifer recharge protection district. Okay. So I think that's where your confusion is the parentheses are not the RLD. The parentheses are all aquifer recharge protection district. Yeah. So what I'm seeing. On the flow chart. And, you know, that's it is shown on this image that Pam has on the screen. Is that owner occupied and affordable duplexes. Would go. To being site plan review in the aquifer recharge district. For the outlying zones, you know, and then the non owners occupied would only be allowed by special permit. In the aquifer recharge districts. Janet, I still see your hand. Are you still, you got something else to say? I do have another question. So. So when you say in a, so basically. Where you go to site plan review, there could be a house on that lot. And then someone can build an affordable duplex or owner occupied duplex. Or just a non owner. So there's three units on that. Lot and, and that could be either by site plan review, but not special permit. So for these outlying districts or for aquifer recharge. Wherever, you know, wherever it switches, you know, I'm just, I'm just pointing out like we're talking about three units. On the lot. Potentially not just a lot large enough. You know, you could take the existing house and add a second unit to it. And then build another one. Yeah. Because, because one of the issues we've talked about is this idea that you can have more than one principle use on a site. If it's large enough. And so. Am I correct in saying that under this, I'm looking at a chart is the owner occupied duplex would be a yes. In the RO and RLD, or is that like an old chart I'm looking at? No, that's correct. It would be a yes. Except in the aquifer recharge district, which it would be a site plan review. So the owner occupied duplex would just be going to the building commissioner. There'd be no. Okay. Okay. So that's. So I have a comment about that, but. I just. Well, why don't you go ahead and comment. So I, I have concerns about like having three units built on a property in any of these districts without any notice to the butters. And I, you know, I, I was thinking about my neighbors next door. And I was thinking if they showed up one day with a duplex being put in. And no one had talked to me or asked me about it. I would be concerned because part of the, you know, part of their lot is ledge. And are we have a really high groundwater table? So I would just think, oh, there goes my basement, right? And because there's not a lot of great, we have really poor drainage here. And so I think the idea that you, your neighbor could put make, you know, a lot, which is single family house or any empty lot and put in like three units without any notice to a butters and any input and, you know, good information, bad information, you know, this is, you know, good information, but using your neighbor is really odd to me. And I think it would be really startling to a lot of people in the Amherst and all these residential districts. And I think there's something very positive about public process, which is notice and ability to talk to the people making decisions. And then, you know, it's hard to appeal, but an ability to appeal. And so that's one of my concerns. The second one is I had a friend who had an owner. Got a job in another city couldn't sell her house to anybody. She couldn't get a buyer. And so I think she had to come back to the ZBA and spend at least $5,000 to get that requirement lifted. And then, you know, and there were different conditions put on the house because there was like a big attic and no one could stay in the attic and you know, whatever. And I just think there's not really a huge market. I wouldn't want to impede people's ability to sell their house. An owner-occupied triplex or a duplex. And I think what you're trying to get at with requiring owner-occupancy is more stable neighborhoods. Hopefully, you know, well-manicured yards or well-maintained yards and also somebody supervising the renters. And with the idea that your renters be they students or non-students will be much more chill than if there was no one there at all. And I think we could point to in our town probably hundreds of examples of, you know, duplexes and triplexes and multifamily houses without proper supervision and the negative impact they have. And so I don't, I'm not so crazy about owner-occupancy because I think it puts a lot of burden on people to sell to another owner-occupant and that market may not exist. And then at the same time, I think that what we're really trying to get at with the requirement of owner-occupancy is more stable neighborhoods. And, you know, the proponents of these changes are trying to create space for non-students. You know, affordable space for families and, you know, working-class people to live in our neighborhoods and have a nice mix of different types of people, different types of economics. And so I wonder, I don't know, I don't really like the owner-occupancy requirement. I wonder if there's a way to get to what we look for without saying no public process, no notice to the butters or neighbors, and also, you know, putting in requirements that might be really difficult for people when they try to sell. Okay. So it sounds like you would support having either site plan review or special permit in all cases. And you are not enthused about making owner-occupied duplexes more easier to build. Yeah. And I think then I think the affordable duplex, to me, that just means habitat for humanity, right? You know, those are the habitat houses, or they're built by, you know, the different CDC kind of groups. And I think that's fine for the building commissioner because, you know, I think that's make that easier and, you know, whatever. But I do think that I wouldn't thinking more of like one duplex and a lot, not just like three units sort of showing up. So I mean, you're worried about your neighbor. So if your neighbor sells to habitat for humanity and they put up another duplex, you're fine with that? Well, actually, as I was saying, and I realized, oh, there's a three unit problem. So I think once you get over a certain amount, like to me, like, I think it's like the issue for all of these things is how many units are on a lot and what does it look like? I would rather see, you know, if there's three units on a lot that would be in one building, right? Not, you know, a duplex and, you know, whatever or two, you know, a series of duplexes versus, you know, so I just think we're really talking about is how do we regulate and how do we permit multifamily houses? And I think we need consistency in that and not getting so caught up in, you know, is it a duplex? Is it a triplex? Is it a townhouse kind of thing? But but I'm not sure, you know, I know we're kind of like wending our way through this sort of complicated thing and making adjustments. But I think to me, it's like, let's step back and just look at what our goals are in the regulations. Well, I mean, we are talking about it in detail. You know, we, we could decide that there's so many changes we want to make, they should just start over. Okay, Mandy, Joe, I see your hand, you probably want to respond to some of that. Actually, I just want to clarify something, because when you only look at the chart, you're missing a lot of the proposal, if you're just looking at the permit use categories and the yes, SPR SP. So for those owner occupied duplexes, the conditions say that if you get over two units, one building, Janet, in the RORLD, you would need a special permit. So once you add that third unit, you wouldn't be a building commissioner review, you would have a special permit in the RN, RVC and RG, the conditions that we've proposed say once you get to that third unit, you would need a site plan review, again, not building commissioner approval. So once you've added more than that one building, those two units, you're, you're to the public hearing stage, whether you're at the ZBA or the planning board, it depends on what zoning district you're in, but, but you're at that public hearing, you'd have a butters notices, you would have all of that. So that's the same for affordable duplexes too. So, so the proposal, so, so looking at the chart, I just want to say looking at the chart doesn't tell the whole story, if you're just looking at the whole chart, you have to consider the conditions too. Thank you. Thanks for that clarification, Mandy Jo. Good, good, good point. Bruce. Doug, I was going to say the same thing, that this, this proposal has been morphing progressively. So that's another dimension of complexity that we have to deal with. The staff had made recommendations and apparently Mandy Jo and Pat have absorbed them. So, so, so that makes a big difference for me. Secondly, and the reason why I guess I'm speaking here now is that I think it's, it's quite possible that some people will build duplex under occupied duplexes and maybe regret them, but I know that there's a lot of others that or there are others that won't. Our community here has been created using under occupied duplexes and it would be very nice for us to have had this ability 30 years ago, especially with the, with the added conditions and so forth requirements associated with allowing the building commissioner to say yes to owner occupied duplexes. As long as they don't, there's only one of one duplex on the site and the same with affordable duplexes. And, and if somebody has shares giant concern that they won't be able to sell their owner occupied duplex, well then let them have a shot at going through this, the zoning board and getting approval for a non owner occupied duplex. Meanwhile, let's not make it difficult or more difficult for people who do want to create owner occupied duplexes because they may not be a strong market for it, but I think it's worth preserving the opportunity. So, basically this structure that's emerging here, I've moved from being skeptical at the beginning to feeling that this is broadly supportable. Okay. Thanks, Bruce. Johanna. Great. Thank you, Doug. And thank you, Mandy Jo, and it's been a good discussion. I, so while I appreciate that this is one package, my thoughts were that it would be helpful to almost like straw poll the different elements of it. And Bruce has kind of gotten us down that path already by saying how he's feeling about the duplexes provision. I'll just, I guess, share my thoughts and kind of the spirit of getting a little bit of that straw poll moving in hopes that we can then move on from duplexes to the rest of the discussion and the proposal. So, I'll just say I think the evolution of this and the morphing is good. It means the input is getting incorporated. I think these changes are good. We need housing in town. Owner occupied is something the town is familiar with. This places a premium on affordable housing and then it just provides the nudge. It's not radical. This is not a radical shift. It just nudges so that we can generate more duplexes in town by streamlining the permitting the streamlines in ways that I think our community like supports. It's not going to be the solution to our housing problems, right. I think last meeting we talked that this might generate 200 extra units. I think there's potential for those to be workforce housing. So at this point, I think I'm excited about this. I think, you know, if it was just this provision, I would be a yes vote. And I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts and then talking about triplexes and the other pieces so that we can move it along. Okay, thanks. Thanks, Johanna. Janet. So, you know, workforce housing. So when I look at the numbers of how much it would cost to build like a duplex, like, you know, I use the $250 per square foot, which Rob Moore, he had suggested between 225 to 275. So I took the middle and I figured the duplex has 3000 square feet, like 1500 square feet, which is not a big house by current standards. And then I buy a lot and I come at it like at least $900,000. And so is that affordable workplace workforce housing? And so it's not just, you know, saying about the duplex, but I think it's, you know, I think the triplex is actually worse because the triplex requires a sprinkler system under mass law, you know, it's like an apartment and, and then you'd add like 50 or 1000 or more, maybe 100 to that system. And so I just, I just think in a way like our goals are laudable, but I don't know how we get there, given the current market. And, you know, if the, so I, you know, I don't know if we're gonna, I'm not against duplexes, but I'm just wondering, like, are we going to get there with this kind of housing? And, you know, we're thinking it's people are going to build it. But if it's if a duplex, a triplex, like, came out with like, at almost $1.25 million, you know, before we even got to, you know, it's just, it's just a crazy number. And I just wondered, will we get and have the proponents looked at the cost of building these things plus land and things like that. Janet, Janet, it's not really our job to make just to make the numbers work. You know, it's our goal, right? The assumption that it's like 1500 square foot unit is, you know, that may be excessive. That's almost that's larger than the house I live in. So, you know, these could be 700 square feet, one bedrooms, you know, maybe or two bedrooms, but there's there's no, you know, it's the developer's job to figure out how to make the numbers work. And ours is to allow or not allow for end results that we are either comfortable with or not. So, I'm less concerned about that. You know, it could be a triplex with one large, you know, owner occupied unit and then two small units. We don't know. Mandy Jo, you're still muted. I apologize. I'll have to fix that on my headphones. I just wanted to point out that, that if you divide that 900,000 and a half, that's cheaper than the median sale price in Amherst right now. And if you divide the 1.25 and three, that's cheaper than the median sale price in Amherst right now for single family homes. So, while they might not qualify for big A affordable, they would potentially, even in your calculations, Janet, add housing that is below our median sale price, collectively below, right? There's always a difference depending on how it's worked, whether it's condoed or not, but collectively below the median single family home sale price in Amherst right now. All right. Thanks to Mandy Jo. Chris, you had earlier mentioned that you maybe had some things you wanted to say about this part of the proposal. Yeah, I'm, my hang up is that if you build more than two duplexes on a property. So four units. Four units. Then, you know, my opinion is that you should do that by a special permit, not by site plan review, because I think site plan review is great, but it, you can't say no, unless the applicant doesn't provide the required information or somehow deviates from this owning bylaw. So you kind of are, you know, inclined, strongly inclined to say yes. And there's no appeal process. So for more than two duplexes on a property, I would recommend a special permit. And that's what I've written in my memo to you. Okay. So board members, we can take that suggestion recommendation under, under advisement as we're thinking about things we might want to amend in this, in this proposal. Bruce, I see your hand. Yes. I think I'm guilty of thinking I didn't lead to download Chris, your May 3rd version of the May 2nd. So when I, what I read and it was that you were, look, you were advocating site plan review for two between three and four, and for special permits for more than four, but do I now correctly understand that you've simply got a one-liner there that is anything more than two is you're the staff are recommending special permit. No, I'm, what I said is I could support one duplex on a property by yes, and a permit from the building commissioner to duplexes on a property. I would recommend site plan review with the planning board because that would mean four dwelling units on a property. And then over four dwelling units on a property. I would recommend a special permit because I think that's really a strong move towards densification. Okay. That's consistent with the memo I have in front of me, but I heard differently a moment ago, so I'm glad I asked. I may have said the wrong words, but that's the second thing is what I meant to say. Okay. I'm good. Thank you, Bruce. Janet, I see your hand. So, you know, what I think about having four du, you know, two duplexes next door to me, or in the different residential neighborhoods, what I think about is students. And so we know the market, the people who are paying the most for rents generally are students. And that, you know, when I gave those numbers before, a developer actually wants to make a profit on what they're building, right? And so, and then somebody who's building, you know, even a, you know, say a homeowner builds a duplex, they're going to want high rents, you know, it's a lot to pay to build a unit at 350,000 and then pay taxes on that, you're going to want high rents. And we know we're in a market where the highest rents are being paid by students. And so nothing in this proposal addresses the issues of student housing. And so I would, you know, caution that we, you know, loosening requirements without actually some kind of mechanism to make sure that these neighborhoods are kept intact, adding students, but not an influx of students, or some mechanism like the way that Bruce is looking at to make sure neighborhoods aren't flooded by student housing, because we've seen that as a very negative impact on a lot of neighborhoods. We've heard a lot of neighbors talk about that, including people who work at UMass. And so I would say special permit for three, three units, I would say special permit for four, because we have to have some kind of way of making sure not just by management plans, but you have to do, you know, four units and each has four students just do the numbers and do the cars and do the impact on neighborhoods. And there seems to be under site plan review, no real way to regulate that. And I think until we get a handle on protecting neighborhoods or making sure that it's a mixed population, I don't think we should go forward with this with fewer requirements, permitting requirements. The proponents don't see this as a problem, the student housing problem. I just think everybody else does. And we've heard a lot about it. All right. Thanks, Janet. Karen, you're next. Yeah. So working on the local historical commission and on this, I, you know, I have seen developers come and ask for special permits and then the working together with the board and listening to the butters has really improved the outcome. And I think we do want densification, but we haven't got all those design review things in place. We want to be careful that we want more densification, but we don't want to destroy a neighborhood by losing regulations to the point that something sort of unsightly and that just is a jar to the butters gets built. So I, I'm also, I agree that losing requirements, I don't see the benefits that much. I don't think that it's really become a problem for people that see a new lot and say they want to build something on it. They want to provide a lot of housing like Barry Roberts did on Sunset and they make a proposal and then together with the neighbors who live there listening to their concerns, redesigns it and is kind of grateful for the input puts the driveway somewhere else and you get a much better outcome. I think we have a small town. It's a very beautiful town. It's a very special town and we don't want to just loosen under this sort of idea that, okay, that's going to make more people build faster and it'll be more, there'll be more housing, it'll be more affordable. I don't think that's going to happen. I think we have to have a lot of plans and a lot of people working together and I think I've heard Chris say that she, she's not aware of someone who's really stopped doing what they want to do because of the special permit process. I do agree. I think, I think the way of the future is to probably build duplexes and triplexes and co-housing and that's a good thing but we need to have the input and we need to have regulations and not just do away with them, I think. So Cara and are there specific changes you support to this proposal or do you just not support this proposal? No, I would go along with, I agree with Chris. I think that the conditions that she has with having a duplex, you know, one on a unit that that's, that seems something that I would, I would support in the way that Chris formulated it. Okay, thank you. Bruce, you are next. Janet, I just want to make sure that you understand that the way Chris formulated it is that the the proposal that we allow a duplex by right and that between two and the second duplex would be by site pan review and the third duplex by special, third and any more by special permit, those are all applied to owner-occupied duplexes. So the student component of that, the control of the student component of that, I'm fairly comfortable there's going to be conducted by the owner-occupancies. It's, if there was no owner there then it would, they would all require special permit and that's no change from the way it is present. So basically what we're talking about is relaxing in the way that is being discussed proposed by their proponents and with the accepted qualifications from the planning staff applies to owner-occupied duplexes and I think that's fine. It seems to me that we're reasonably safe and it does make it easier for those few people who want to do owner-occupied duplexes and those folks and there's numbers of them who think, well yes, we can take student renters or we can take non-student renters, we can take any renters we like into that or we can take family or we can take friends or but the risks to the neighborhood I think are greatly diminished by the requirement that these owner-occupied duplexes, we're talking about non-owner-occupied, non-owner-occupied duplexes essentially is unchanged except that we're proposing, that is proposed to allow them by special permit in the outer districts but they're already allowed by special permit in the inner districts and the village centers so there's not a great deal of change there. The big change is with these owner-occupied duplexes but because they're owner-occupied in the way that they've been qualified by planning staffs intervention, I think care makes them acceptable. Okay thanks Bruce. Tom. Thanks Doug. So I think just, you know, I made this comment before about sort of master plan and how one might plan density I think also in light of concerns for how we develop and an impact on the environment and based on the fact that as Chris said and SPR is essentially a guess with conditions, the idea that you could put four dwellings onto any property in Amherst, any residential property in Amherst and the amount of parking and permeable surfaces you have to add and the amount of impact it would have on the land to put four dwellings on every property. I'm not saying that's going to happen but that doesn't seem like a reasonable way to approach the land in Amherst and to build density and it doesn't seem like an environmentally friendly way to do that and I don't think I could support even just the duplexes based on those conditions so I would be a nay on this just to give you my perspective on it just on duplexes alone before we get into some of these larger ones which I'm actually more okay with in certain zones seeing more density in certain areas. I'm less interested in seeing parking lots and four dwellings in all residential zones that doesn't feel like the right thing to do from an environmental or a master plan perspective. Okay thanks Tom. Janet? Janet you are muted. Chris do you have numbers on how many owner-occupied duplexes we have in Amherst and then like a rough idea of like how many owner-occupied were converted to non-owner-occupied like in the last 10 or 20 years? We had the numbers at the last meeting for how many duplexes there were and how many were probably owner-occupied I thought. I don't know those numbers right at hand but I think you did have them at the last meeting in the packet for the maybe what was it May 3rd? Yeah the packet for the last meeting had those Janet. Okay the other the other issue and this doesn't just apply to duplexes but in the RG you can build with footnote M you can build nine units per acre but the footnote M does not cover triplexes and it does not cover duplexes and so if you were building a series of duplexes or triplexes you would go from nine units per acre which I think we can all admit is pretty dense and you would go up to 11 units per acre and so I don't think we want that but I think so I think if we we should think about the RG is sort of a special area because obviously it's kind of a target for infill but I don't think it should be a target like that because 11 units per acre is pretty dense and it could be a series of triplexes and duplexes kind of getting around the purposes and intent of footnote M and I hate talking about footnote M because it's so complicated but here we are again. Chris is smiling at least. Okay thanks Janet. Yojana. Thanks I just want to acknowledge I total so I hear Janet's point about a butter engagement and people feeling like they have I don't know a right to know what's happening in their neighborhood at the same time you know property laws are property laws and and longer process can make it harder to generate this kind of housing we know that that's it's kind of a like a lot of the things are kind of tried and true NIMBY tactics that have been used over the years to stop housing generation so I just want to acknowledge that tension that we that we face the and then Tom's point I agree that our mess that ideally this isn't how we this would not be our growth strategy as a town our growth strategy according to the master plan should be growing in the town center and in the village centers and I would argue the town center is probably where that should be directed so you know and yet we might need a little bit of both so that's you know I'm I'm trying to like I think this is a subtle nudge that streamlines housing generation in ways that I think Amherst can support but it's not the big move that's actually gonna you know diversify the tax base add vibrancy make our community more walkable and bikeable this isn't that play this is like a you know a much more subtle nudge from my standpoint okay thanks Johanna so I will offer one comment which is that I'm generally not in support of more development over our aquifer recharge area you know I if I have a house and I put a fuel oil tank in it and it leaks it's going to potentially end up in the aquifer if I have an old car and my gasoline tank leaks you know I don't know how far that'll go and maybe it doesn't really travel very far and you can excavate all the soil that's contaminated and truck it off to Ohio or something but in general I would say we don't want to have more development over an area that support that's providing drinking water so I have a hard time with any provision that increases the number of houses and vehicles and you know household cleansers that are going to be over an aquifer area so I have a hard time with that I at the last meeting I was pretty clear and I think I pretty much the same as Tom just expressed about this is not the way I would try to solve the housing problem and you know I just I have a hard time with this I think the only reason I could support this is if I think it isn't really going to do much so I'll stop there did I kill all the hands that were raised or did we just run out of things to say okay maybe we're kind of running out of steam on the duplexes so maybe we should move on and talk a little bit about triplexes and Bruce maybe or you know Pam why don't you bring up Bruce's questions for triplexes I certainly could just read what I see in the package that the document that came this afternoon it was should we bother to create a triplex use category which is currently only achievable as a subdividable dwelling or a small townhouse and it looks like that's pretty much the way it looks Bruce why don't you give us some comments yeah maybe I should have said is which is currently achievable in other words it's already possible to be done by either of those two current options so the only word another another editorial strike there but the reason for asking this question first before we proceed seems to me to be that we should understand that the triplex falls outside the regular street jurisdiction of the one and two family building code and goes therefore into the mass the general Massachusetts building codes it seems to me that folks who are building triplexes would probably be the same people who are building one or two family housing and it seems to me that if they had to use had to become familiar with a vastly expanded building code in order to do that and I'm not even sure that their construction supervisors license would extend to that that I do not know but it did seem to me that that that the incentive to do these would be rather small because it seemed to me that it was questionable as to whether the smaller one and two family contractors would move up to this and if they did why wouldn't they move to townhouses or larger buildings it's it's just seemed to me to be a category that we are creating that would likely be not used largely for that reason and maybe I should harm in creating a category that we hope will be be used and and and see if someone takes us up on the offer I suppose it's fine it seems to me that it's unlikely but especially since we have these other two mechanisms for doing it okay Chris you're next yeah so I wanted to point out again this is not the latest version of this document and triplexes are also allowed in addition to subdividable dwellings they're allowed as converted dwellings they're allowed as small townhouses and they're allowed as small apartments so there are a number of mechanisms for getting to a triplex currently but the idea here was that we would take triplexes out and make them potentially easier although I think that in the end we didn't necessarily change the permitting path but in any event I just wanted to point out that there are at least four ways of getting to a triplex now and that is reflected in the document that came with your packet even though it was formatted incorrectly thank you okay so under the flowchart I'm seeing the triplexes allowed by special permit now or under the proposal in the bn in the rg and the rvc in the rn by all that by special permit and then still not allowed at all in the outlying ro and rld districts uh bruce your your hand is still up are you no it's a legacy I'm sorry thank you and Chris your hand is up are you done you're muted all right that janet we're over to you so I found this adding the triplexes like you know I actually had hopes when we were I find this whole multi-family housing section of the bylaw to be incredibly confusing and really detailed and I had sort of hopes that we would the reforms would be making it easier for people to understand and kind of navigate it and so I think to me when I read about subdividable dwellings and converted dwellings I'm like well those are triplexes and there's all sorts of kind of guardrails or protections within that um about you know if you're in the rl or ro you have to add x amount of extra square footage or the rn something else some owner occupancy requirements so I don't want to add another category I mean like if you rename subdividable dwellings and just put slash triplex then you could just I don't know why we would abandon subdividable dwellings um it maybe we can just notify people this is a triplex but if we if we take a moment and look at the bylaw there's a lot of good requirements in the in the subdividable sorry but this can subdividable dwelling um I don't know if I can continue seriously here just a second um so I think we should keep those protections um and there's some limitations about where they can be and so I kind of don't understand why we're adding another way to go to three when we already have like three ways to go to three and maybe subdividable dwellings just has a bad name um but I think we need to if we're going to talk about adding a triplex but we're adding triplexes with much less protections than we have for converted dwellings and subdividable dwellings and I'm not sure why I think we should you know add those or just rename subdividable dwellings into triplexes to notify people who may not know okay thank you Janet I will I will I guess repeat it looks to me like every triplex is subject to a special permit so we as a town can always say no we are essentially unlimited in the number of uh conditions or requirements we would put on those now we don't have the language that's been in the bylaw for subdividable dwellings but there's no reason the zoning board couldn't uh keep though that language you know in their in their back pocket and just pull it out whenever they're thinking about triplexes Bruce I would recommend also as a qualification if it's not already in the notes and so forth that we add the the provisors for additional triplex units on a given lot um well actually I suppose it doesn't matter does it because we're they're all special permit anyway so I take I'll stop talking what I was saying is irrelevant sorry not a problem Bruce uh Janet we're back to you so I think if we want I mean you know there was a reason for these protections and subdividable dwellings and converted dwellings and um I'm not sure about townhouses it's not my area very well I don't know why we would add a fourth category of three buildings and say oh well if you want to you can add these more restrictive ones like keeping making sure they are public ways you know I mean if you if I think we should take a minute and look at all the language that is xed out in subdividable dwellings and the language that is xed out because that's what we're losing and if we we think if we don't think that is important language and we could easily lose it um then we should just come out and say that you know like oh it doesn't matter you know I mean let's just look at the the conditions like what we would lose because people are obviously going to go to a triplex where it's there's fewer requirements the planning board or the zba is going to say well okay this is a triplex it's not a subdividable dwelling you know we can we can freestyle here and make up conditions or we could apply these other ones I just I just think it's just a weird extra complexity for what we already have again in the rg we can now have three triplexes and a duplex I think we get to 11 units and then we're getting to really what we um town meeting really went against and a lot of neighbors of the rg went against which is um the development that is Chris what is the name of the development is I think it's on high street um it's by sale in place mr um Roblesky owns it spruce spruce ridge so that's that's the density of 11 units on an acre in the rg and so if we allow triplexes footnote m will not apply and you know here we are again so I think I think we need some consistency and simplicity and so multifamily housing has similar requirements similar guardrails um similar perm perning pathways it just seems this is getting needlessly complicated and not really protecting the neighbors okay so it sounds like this is another reason that you would not support the proposal I think we can get there a better an easier way okay I will say that running on my regular running route past spruce ridge it seems pretty benign to me it doesn't seem like a huge you know uh injury to the neighborhood but they felt that way that's why they went to town meeting you mean the original people that lived there yeah yeah okay well I assume people are now used to it and maybe that's why it doesn't strike me as a problem all right bruce is your hand a legacy or are you back it's a legacy I'm sorry all right chris so I just wanted to point out that um converted dwelling as it exists right now is really complicated and really cumbersome and it only applies to existing buildings so you can't build a converted dwelling you have to have an existing building that you convert into something else so it's not really um a good substitute for something that could be a triplex and so that's why a long time ago the planning department had proposed um a new category that would be a triplex so we're in support of this proposal here and we don't think that a converted dwelling would take its place thank you okay great and I I'd say that I'm actually fairly supportive of this uh to add the triplexes and get rid of the subdividable dwelling category uh the only thing I would do would be to keep triplexes as a no in the rn when we're in the aquifer recharge district chris I assume that's a legacy hand sorry yes sorry I will drop your hand okay um all right so uh anything any other board members want to say about triplexes before we move on yohana I'd say I too am supportive of this and then Doug I like I think your points about protecting the drinking water supply and not exposing it to any new additional risks from human development make a lot of sense to me so I don't quite know what that amendment language could or should be or how best to weave it in but um yeah I just want to say well I I would probably do some a few more no's in the aquifer recharge district maybe that's more you know I don't I don't want to be telling people what heating heating system they can use or whether they can only have an electric car and if they live there so I should say develop somewhere else all right thank you yohana bruce um Doug I agree with you I think there should be a parenthesis and in the rn column where there is also an sp for triplex so I I think I support that too I would support that as a change and if many joe agrees that would go into this chart and then it would be supportable without having them but it's qualified in a in emotions okay thanks thanks bruce and janet um I wanted to add to your comments about the water recharge area aquifer recharge area a lot of the reason to have light development there is is for recharge and so the more hardscape that you have the less likely the groundwater is going to you know resupply and so more driveways more hardscape more buildings um you know there's more runoff there's more erosion it's less less land to absorb the water um so I was wondering if we could look at the subdividable dwellings and the requirements and see if we want to bring some over to the triplex um all right well do you want to read them or do you want me to read them I know you're not feeling well thank you I'd love you to read them all right let me see okay uh by the way I'm I'm going to mention that it's now about 10 of eight and we normally take a break around eight and uh Chris has mentioned that one of the applicants for our old business bringing back some of the tent structures would prefer that we address their topic earlier in the evening rather than however long we're going to go with this topic oh at around eight I think I'd like us to take a break and then we'll move to the old business uh the the two topics about the tent structures that we allowed during covid and then we'll come back to this after that's finished if anybody objects to that please let let me know um you can raise your hand at any time in the next 10 minutes and Janet we probably won't get through all of these in 10 minutes but we can start now okay all right so the first one says a subdividable dwelling shall contain provisions for a specified number of dwelling units not to exceed three in accordance with a special permit issued prior to its use as more than a single family dwelling the total number of dwelling units at any given time may be fewer than but shall never exceed the maximum number allowed under the special permit so Chris I'm going to ask you to explain what that means I think you shouldn't be pardon me for being straightforward I guess but I think you shouldn't be reading the subdividable dwelling because that's one that people are thinking of removing completely and you might want to read um converted dwelling which is what um Jen it referred to initially in her comment that would be recommendation on the wrong one I'm sorry I think so and I think you might want to read the original converted dwelling which is on page what page is this 30 of the zoning bylaw as that as the text that I believe Jen it is feeling like she wants to use rather than the amended converted dwelling which takes out a lot of the things that are in there okay sorry about that well I was hoping to read it off of our handout I can read it do you want me to read it there we go okay so converted converted dwelling an existing residence a structure attached to an existing residence or a detached structure may be converted into a dwelling unit or units provided all other zoning requirements which would apply to converted dwellings are met uh Janet I'm assuming that that language is not something you would feel strongly about keeping or you are muted um it's a it's a I assume the triplex is a new building right where am I making that uh generally yeah it could be either one one triplex doesn't have to be a new building so this this uh yeah I mean I would definitely keep this okay but I mean they sort of reinforcing my point that we already have like that kind of triplex but go ahead well this is for an existing building rather than what might be built as a new building under the triplex category I think what I was trying to say is in the subdividable dwellings there's a requirement that the new building be mutually compatible with the neighborhood there's a requirement of a landscaping plan there's a requirement of a management plan in the RN for the extra units you have to give another thousand square feet in the RO or LD there's two thousand square feet so all those kind of protections that would reduce density are gone with the triplex and so that's what I was trying to say is that we're losing something by going to the the triplex um excuse me may I just say something Janet referred to the subdividable dwelling again and I don't think that's what she meant to refer to I think she meant to refer to converted dwelling subdividable dwelling is kind of an odd duck it's something that can go back and forth between one or three dwelling units and it's only been used once and so it's being proposed to be taken out of the bylaw completely whereas converted dwelling is proposed to stay in the bylaw and be modified well I think what Janet is referring to is the things that she thinks are good about the converted dwelling I could be wrong about that maybe I'll just stop and I won't say anything else but I thought that's what she was I think you are mistaken because the language that she's mentioning here I see under subdividable dwelling but I don't see it under converted dwelling although yeah under convertible converted dwelling items 11 and 12 that's a landscape plan and that's has the minimum square feet of usable open space of 2000 or 1000 so so I think it it looks like it appears in both places so maybe to save time since we only have 10 minutes I actually would like to take the the good language from both converted dwellings and subdividable dwellings and apply them to triplexes because there's other language and converted dwellings talking about location and things like that but maybe we can for the next meeting just have a summary of these protective provisions because there is a lot of text here for you to read and every single sentence doesn't really contain that so maybe you should save that for next time well do you think you would be up for coming back to the next meeting with some with with the parts that you'd like applied to yeah I have an open copy of the bylaw so that would be easy to lift so that'd be I'd be happy to do that okay Mandy Jo yeah I'm I just don't want the committee to forget that there are many conditions proposed for triplexes including general conditions that would apply to all duplexes and triplexes and as well as specific conditions that would apply specifically to triplexes within our proposal and so you can't again you can't look at the use without looking at the proposed conditions too and I think many of the conditions that Janet has been talking about are already proposed maybe with some slightly different language but may already be proposed within the current proposal you have to look at two different boxes the box under triplexes and then the box under just duplexes before you even get to owner occupied duplexes and all and then the other thing I wanted to point out with the triplex category subdividable dwellings and converted dwellings are not the only way to build a triplex right now in fact converted dwelling your your converting a structure to a triplex that may may be a single family or a duplex right now subdividable dwelling as Chris said has only been used once I think it's meant for new buildings but can be three can be two can be one at any one time or it can only be maybe two or one it doesn't have to be able to house three but you can also build the equivalent of a three family unit through the townhouse provisions which have almost no conditions you can actually if you page if Pam pages up a little bit on what's being shown on to the townhouse section those are the only conditions in the but right there no keep going up further further up those are the only conditions in the bylaw right now for townhouses this yep that it splits between two pages right now and you can build a triplex with that and then there are apartments you can build a three family unit with apartments which also have very few conditions and and so one of the things we're trying to do is add standard conditions to triplexes and then the other thing I would point out because triplexes can be built as apartments or townhouses the big difference between our proposed use table for triplexes and what is currently doable for triplexes is in the business districts actually you know in the bgbl and bvc where right now you can put a three family under the apartment definition or under the townhouse definition and we're actually proposing that you not be able to do that because of the status of what those districts are meant to be so I didn't want any of that to get lost in this conversation okay thanks Andy Joe Janet it's just about eight so so you know can I just so maybe Joe has kind of made the point I've been wanting to make is you know this is a really complicated zoning bylaw and these changes make it more complicated and we're not sure about the consequences and I'm not you know so you know I would I can't myself recommend this you know see of changes I don't think it matches or implements the master plan but I do appreciate what Mandy Joe just said which is you know I keep on thinking like treat like things like you know multi-family housing doesn't matter if it's a three unit apartment a three unit townhouse a three unit converted dwelling a sub three unit subdividable dwelling a triplex even a duplex it's like you know multi-family housing has very positive impacts and very negative impacts let's let's treat those multi-family things in a very consistent way you know notice to a butters consistent management plans consistent design plans you know landscaping plans I say let's have one consistent decision maker for these things the ZBA has been doing an excellent job there's some really nice duplexes in South Amherst and so they can apply these really consistently you know and then we also have to address before we make all these you know it's like we have to address the issues around student housing which is what we're waiting for from Bruce and so I just think that I you know I appreciate the effort in this but I really do think my recommendation would be to the state of the town council they have raised a whole host of issues and that have to be addressed we need to simplify the bylaw make it easier to build multi-family housing so you don't need to hire a lawyer to go through what are you picking in this you know Chinese you know like this menu of options and I just think that it's it it's it's worth the time for us as a planning department and planning board to look at these issues like multi-family housing where should it go who should decide and what are the conditions we want to see on it and how do we guarantee that we are building the kind of housing we want which is a mixture of different kinds of people and you know economic backgrounds in neighborhoods so my recommendation is not to recommend this but ask the town council to refer this issue back to the planning board and the planning department I would work on this for a year you know just to make it simpler and so we don't have this use table that it's just Byzantine okay Janet thank you that might be my last statement here okay yeah I know you're not feeling well so board members unless anybody objects I'd like us to take a five-minute break the time now is 802 and if you become when we come back at 807 we will suspend this hearing to deal with some of the old business the two items under our agenda for old business and then we will return to this discussion all right so please mute yourself turn off your camera and when you return please at least turn on your camera so that we know you're back thank you all right it's on my clock it's 808 so hoping folks are trickling back and we'll talk about something else for a little while and then come back to the zoning proposal I cannot hear you if you just said something I said it's cold in town hall tonight so I'm sipping up my jacket oh okay it's getting cold here yeah it's supposed to be a cold night Johanna's got a blanket I have one at my hands here ready you know what's sad is it's a towel it's okay it works I can donate some blankets for you we have way too many have them but none of them mine is legit so do you think this will like wreck all the flower the apple blossoms I do let's see see what happens okay it looks like we've got all the board members back and so Chris do we need to do any formal in terms of attending the hearing for a little while and dealing with this other stuff I think you can announce that you're suspending the hearing at a certain time and to take up other business and then announce when you go back into the hearing okay all right so the time now is 10 after eight and we're going to suspend the hearing on the funding bylaw proposal that we started some time ago this evening and we're going to move to item four on our agenda which is old business there are two topics under that category both of them are site plan reviews that we did back in 2021 and we wanted the applicant to come back to us and give us an update so we will now move to that the first of those two topics the one at the Amherst survival center and Pam you please bring in whichever applicant is associated with that first with the Amherst survival center okay so this is site plan review 2021-01 for the Amherst survival center at 138 Sunderland road in accordance with the site plan review decision condition number one the applicant will update the planning board regarding the continued need for the 14 foot by 30 foot shed located on the parking lot of the Amherst survival center all right it looks like Sam Gurran has joined us as a panelist for this discussion um welcome Sam and I wondered if you could give us give us the update absolutely thank you for having me and I think I can provide a bit of a break from all the zoning fun uh anyway so the Amherst survival center has come into the planning board to request an indefinite extension for our parking lot shed for a bit of context the structure was originally permitted through September 2nd 2021 set for a date after initial site review to return to the planning board where it was extended until March 2023 under the provision that we would return to y'all for renewal if a further extension was needed so unfortunately the demand for the center services continues to grow and while the temporary structure permit was originally contextualized as a covid safety measure both for the initial issuance in 2020 and renewed surrounding concerns about delta in 2021 we have the center found that its programmatic need has continued past the pandemic participation in the center in the past year has exceeded even heat covid numbers and continues to grow month after month and we simply wouldn't be able to maintain our current operational modes and programming without this temporary building which helps to obey congestion within the building proper reduces wait times and provides an outdoor low contact interface for those still needing higher covid risk risk mitigation all while ensuring that the center's building is the capacity to maintain its expanded pantry grocery delivery programs and simply numbers of people served so in a definite extension provides the assurance that we need as a as a staff as community participants that the center will continue to operate without any reductional services and selfishly so that we don't have to come back to e-fix every couple of years to make the same task but happen to provide any more information as okay thanks sam so you're requesting an indefinite extension for the tent structure or for the shed rather um chris are there any issues with a this structure becoming a more or less permanent structure uh in regarding related to the zoning or to the building code was it does it need to be does it need a foundation for instance that it may not have or uh that kind of thing are you aware of issues with that i'm not aware of any issues and the building commissioner was the one who suggested this avenue rather than having the survival center come back every six months or whatever to um have them come back once and ask for an indefinite extension um he understands that they are contemplating an expansion of their existing building and um he thought that this would be the best mechanism for um dealing with their interim situation so i didn't hear anything from him about um issues or problems related to the shed and and he was the one who suggested this as long as the planning board would go along with it okay um and as a permanent structure uh in terms of the site plan is it permitted uh you know it's not within a setback of the from the property line or you know i i can't think of any other ways in which it might be in violation but have you reviewed that i don't believe it is with in any violation it's on top of an existing um parking lot so it's not increasing the lot coverage it's way uh far away from the property lines so it's not um in violation of setbacks it is the same impervious material or it is an impervious material similar to pavement so it's not causing increases increases in runoff um so i'm not aware of any issues other than the fact that it takes up i think it takes up a bank of parking so it itself takes up four parking spaces and then two additional parking spaces to the north i believe are also not able to be used because of people going in and out of the side of the shed so it does have an impact on parking but um not as far as i know on anything else and have you been aware of any complaints from neighbors or anyone about the presence of this shed i'm not aware of any complaints okay um sam have you gotten any complaints we have and we are taking operational the operational routes to address uh parking by expanding hours but you know making that shift in behavior takes time to affect so we're up okay thank you all right janet so i was at the survival center i think remember was this week or last week masked dropping something off and i um i got a quick tour from one of the staff members and you know they continue to have the seating for people you know for their lunch and also the kitchen and then the free store is now a series of tables filled with bags of food that they now do the survival center delivers directly to people and they're not planning on bringing the free store back in the back is a whole bunch of groceries on shelves that people can come i think once or twice a month and pick what they want and the shed was filled with food that is donated by local i think supermarkets including like lovely flowers and so people i was told could go and pick up some extra items in addition to the other bags or after they eat go to that so it looked like they were like fully you know they were using every square foot and also they the staff members said they are serving a lot more people than they had so i could see the need for this the shed and hopefully i'm not seeing the end of the need for the shed at any point soon okay great so it sounds like you're in support of this request for an indefinite extension bruce um i i echo janet's comments we lived up near the area i passed the building frequently i haven't been in it recently but all the reports that my wife and i have read and we're supporters of the food bank of the survival center are the same basically as janet reported so yes i think there's we understand that there is a continuing need okay okay uh board members any other uh comments i think uh if not i think it's time that we get a motion for approval of the the indefinite extension of the approval to have this shed on the site right bruce so moved all right tom a second all right thank you any other discussion all right i'm gonna take one second here and just ask are there any members of the public who are attending who would like to make a comment about this topic okay i don't see any hands raised from the public and we'll uh unless anybody else from the board wants to say anything we'll go right into our board vote um all right so bruce uh yay means you are approving the indefinite extension and nay is opposing that uh yes all right tom hi janet hi yohana hi and karin hi and i'm and i as well so six in favor one absent all right mr gurren thank you very much for coming and sounds like uh we'll probably next see you when you have a proposed expansion of your facility it's open thanks again for your textbooks thank you for all of some time okay so the time now is 8 20 and we'll go to the second item on old business which is uh from the jones library spr 2021-03 at 43 amity street in accordance with spr 2021-03 decision condition number one the applicant will update the planning board regarding the continued need for the 14 foot by 40 foot tent erected on the front lawn of the jones library mr hicks record richards thank you for joining us i please give us the update yes and uh thank you all for having me uh so just a little bit of history the tent was originally uh purchased and installed uh when we reopened during covid and it was so that we could have outdoor programming and we could have groups together in a safer environment uh and last year although the our covid restrictions had decreased we did ask for a permit renewal from the building commissioner we asked him by email and he approved the tent to remain for another year because a lot of people were still not very comfortable in meeting in large groups the children's department was using it for programming the friends of the jones were using it for programming it was actually used by quite a few people the town hall several town hall people actually took use of the tent last year uh so this year when i emailed rob for a renewal of the tent he suggested that i come to the committee uh i know that i submitted a couple of letters ones from the one from the friends of the jones and one from the children's department in support of having the tent this year uh and why they need it so i'm happy to answer any questions in regards to that uh okay can you clarify are you requesting a a an extension of a particular time uh one-year extension one-year extension yeah it would come down an indefinite extension correct okay thank you just a one-year one-year extension okay yohana thank you um yeah it was just at the library yesterday and notice the tent structure was there but that it didn't have a canopy on it um were you just waiting to put on the canopy until the permit was authorized or correct correct and we also uh tend to wait until you know spring thaw and things like that because if we put it up too soon uh we have to deal with mud and all the kinds of fun things so we typically wait until may anyways uh but we were waiting for approval on this got it okay any other questions from board members do we have any members of the public that wanted to make any comments on this okay uh janet you know when i'm when i'm in town i feel like i've never seen any activities in that tent for a long time and so um and then there's just been polls so i i'm not quite sure i see the need the way i did for the previous um the survival center it just seems like to me it's like an eyesore and i don't see that much programming going on and it seems like the jones itself has you know enough space inside of it in rooms so i'm kind of not seeing the need and i haven't seen the use i guess is i don't see the use and i don't really see the need and i could see having a tent for the book sale because it's very prominent but like that could be a weekend thing i don't know if it needs to be up all summer all right uh george do you have any comment about maybe how many hours a week it's getting used or something like that uh well i will say that the tent doesn't get used you know come mid october uh and then november we take we take the covering off of it of course and it doesn't get used again until uh until may of the following year so it's completely dormant during that period of time but i will say the children's department uses it every week when it is up the children's department uses it every week for programming at least once a week sometimes more and is that like each time they use it is it for one hour or is it like continuous after school until eight o'clock or no it varies it's typically one hour two hour blocks uh typically morning programming for younger children so maybe five to ten hours a week approximately yeah uh uh what are the exact dates of the extension i'm i believe it would be it would be now through uh through through the month of october oh so this is really just during this seasonal correct when it's warm enough and then would you intend to fully dismantle it in october or well i know you've been leaving the frame up yeah we've been leaving the frame just because it's uh we really don't have a place to store it and it's it's very time consuming to put the frame up uh but i mean our hopes are that we will be moving into temporary spaces and doing the jones expansion project so uh the plan is to take it down in its in its entirety this fall okay all right so this would be a one-year extension effective may 17th through may 17th of 2024 is that true chris i think george is asking for an extension through um the end of october is that correct george yeah i would be comfortable with that that's yeah okay well we all know you know things don't always go the way we expect so you know i guess you could always come back in october if if things change i agree all right so from may 17th to october 31st so you can have your halloween party there then you have to test it all right board members any other uh comments if not does anybody want to make a motion probably in favor of it so that the yes vote means yes it can extend and a no vote means no it cannot bruce uh you are muted move to allow the requested extension from may until november 31st i thought we said october oh i thought you said november 30 well october 31st okay great tom i will second that all right thanks tom all right so um if any no more hands i don't see any hands anywhere all right uh bruce i approve tom hi janet hi yohana hi karen and i'm i as well that's six in favor one absent thank you very much george have a good summer and enjoy the 10 thank you very much okay i'm gonna go so but see you guys later okay i hope you feel better janet thank you thank you so the time now is uh 8 29 and we will now resume the public hearing that we had started earlier regarding article three article four article nine and article 12 changes to these uh articles mostly related to multifamily housing duplexes triplexes and townhouses and a couple other categories so we're now resuming that hearing bruce do you think it'd be appropriate now to ask for public comment i mean there's a way of resuming sure i'm happy i personally would like to hear what fritz is thinking okay right all right um yeah we do have a couple of categories left we haven't talked about townhouses at all but uh okay so public public attendees would anyone like to make a comment i still see eight people in the uh attendee list uh there's a hand dorthy pam let's bring dorthy over remind us of your address and your and your name dorthy welcome hi i'm dorthy pam from two to nine emity street um i have to say that um this zoning proposal is excessively confusing and i really do not agree with your voting it up or down uh to vote something that has put had so much work put into it down um seems to be kind of cruel but there are many many aspects of it which you have individually uh and sometimes it's a group said well this isn't clear or i think we need more protection here and there so either i recommend that you do as was suggested i guess by janet uh refer it back to the planning department for detailed work uh hopefully they've taken notes on the um i cannot even count how many hours have gone into this so far and few of us can keep track of what has been said yes no up or down um and all of you have made valuable comments on specific aspects um so i'm really thinking that voting it up or down would not be good in terms of the public you know it's supposed to be transparent and whatever most members of the public cannot keep track of this in any way um no matter how many times we spend the evening listening in and maybe your supermen can do it supermen and women that can do it um there's a lot of things that are really difficult here uh one of them is you know i heard at a meeting that i wasn't at that umas admitted that they're have a demographic cliff coming up when there's because the few young people of college age and a reduction and this right now this the student demand for more and more housing is not forever it is a temporary moment it's temporary blip and that is one reason why the university does not want to build more housing and by university i mean you know the the overall or not just our own UMass does not want to build more housing but the thought of us accommodating um that problem by the destruction of some of the most lovely residential neighborhoods by getting rid of greens getting rid of trees um and adding so much density that they'll probably never return some of the play to what they were um seems that the town of amherst will bear all of the burden and will lose something that's very important i mean i just went in for a hospital test yesterday and the young woman said where do you live i said amherst oh i used to love amherst i used to love it but i don't anymore it's just not the same and she started listening some of the things that some of us have been speaking about so i think we have to be careful about losing something for a temporary blip um and i janet was correct it's not just the cost of building but there's also the profit motive um only developers can really do this this is building these densit densification is not something that most people and certainly not people who are families and workforce housing can afford to do it takes outside money of somebody who expects to make a profit otherwise why would they spend so much money and profit by high rents so i i really feel that what you're doing here is crucial to the survival of amherst as a town that people could actually love so i hope that you take more time and more care and do not just vote up and down thank you i assume you are speaking as a per private individual rather than a homeowner i'm speaking as a resident of a block in the key one of the key neighborhoods i am speaking totally as myself dorthy pam who lives at two two nine amity street okay and i have a huge backyard and i do not want to see it paved over and i do not want to see the trees cut down like the plan for 98 fearing that is to me just sacrilege okay and we talk about all right i i'm sorry we've we've hit the three minutes and i need to be fair just don't cut down our trees thank you okay thank you are there other members of the public that would like to make a comment at this time okay all right um members of the board shall we continue our conversation i think we had left we had gotten through duplexes triplexes we touched on converted dwellings bruce i at least what i see on your handout that was mailed to me in the packet had to do with should converted dwellings be allowed by site by special permit in the aquifer recharge protection areas of the outlying districts given the proposed conditions currently not allowed we have talked some about that i guess that leaves townhouses um let's see the townhouse work workflow or matrix here looks like it has the primary change being in the rn townhouses would be allowed by special permit going from a no and in the bg townhouses would be allowed by special permit going from site plan review so making it slightly easier to do a townhouse in the rn and slightly harder to do it in the bg and then under the language under the language that's now in the zoning bylaw i'm just seeing a couple of minor changes to go from the text that read permit granting board or special permit granting authority to simplify that to permit granting authority and that probably was done because the zoning board really or the planning board really isn't involved uh it's all zoning board because it's all special permits for townhouses all right um chris uh how does the planning department feel about that did you have any particular comments about about townhouses or not i do not have any comments about townhouses okay all right uh board members i wondered how you felt about that um you know i probably would have the same concern about a townhouse in the aquifer recharge district so i would probably keep a no in parenthesis on the rn category um i don't think there are any there's any part of of the rvc that has aquifer recharge district so we wouldn't change that all right so has everybody run out of energy to talk about this tonight i'm i'm just uh you know i feel like i'm trying to fill in during an election waiting for some more results to come in bruce talk to me okay um this this the um the rn district moving from a no to a special permit seems to be the the the significant uh uh um change here the rn districts is fairly extensive uh and it ranges pretty widely from stuff that's pretty close in bordering on village centers and so forth and uh and and and and the general residents who being fairly outlying um and this one is it's for me quite difficult because i it's i would this this this in particular i would uh um be inclined to ask uh to to refer to the to the planning department and or refer to the boards to refer to the planning department so that some kind of uh assessment uh or study could be made um uh it's because i am you know as speaking as an architect i can uh i'm not afraid of um bumpy family townhouse buildings i think they can be quite nice but uh in other words if i was designing them but um recognizing that um frequently i'm not asked to do this kind of work on either of my colleagues professionally and so um buildings that could be um uh structures that can be uh uh have a scale of eight to ten buildings uh can have a significant presence and it seems to me that uh the benefit of professional design is really rather important but i i doubt that we can obligate a developer to um have a professional designer and even if we did this you know there's a number of my professional colleagues who was design judgments i wouldn't trust and so that's not going to solve the problem either so i think that this one i just don't know that uh i can support because i'm not brave enough i i i think that uh there are too many moving parts here i don't understand the full extent of they are in enough uh i could put in the time to do that but i would rather have somebody who's uh got uh better resources than i can bring to bear more professional planning experience than i have and uh i guess probably more time as well and i'd like to rely on professional counsel before i would support this one okay thanks bruce uh you you have kind of reminded me of something that went through my head when we heard from Dorothy Pam uh so chris um are we not obligated as a board to vote this in some form up or down uh this came as a formal referral from town council to us and i i don't think we have the option or i don't know that we have the option to not act i think you need to act um you need to recommend it in in its entirety or in part or not recommend it in its entirety or in part on the other hand you could recommend that it be referred to someone or some entity um so those are some of your choices you do need to make a recommendation although well so all of those choices but what i would suggest for tonight is that you also have hearing about the lighting policy on your agenda so it makes sense to me to end the discussion tonight and pick it up um maybe on june 21st or maybe well yeah june 21st the next time um is that's the next time i'll be around to listen to this um june 7th i'll be out of town and i think that having you know janet and andrew's voices um to discuss this is important and converted dwelling and subdividable dwelling are both very complicated so i think at this time of night with people kind of maybe losing focus i know i'm losing focus um it may be best to continue this public hearing to a date certain and take it up again at a future time all right well um looks like tom's got his hand up we'll hear from him and in the meantime maybe chris or pam if you could find a date or a time certain on june 21st that you would recommend and we'll come back to that uh tom sure i can pass i mean if we're going to continue this conversation i i don't need to open up another can of worms but i was gonna say generally speaking i'm not i'm not necessarily against townhouses and i'm not against them with special permit as i can um imagine the kind of scrutiny that they would have um in putting these into these various district or zones so um i don't necessarily have a hang up with this but again the problem is that we're voting the whole thing that's a good point in how does it all balance out yeah i will say that you know part of the one of the results of this discussion about this proposal for me has been that i'm not really happy especially with the rn district and how it's laid out you know if i were allowed to say well let's just scrap this for the moment and start over and find the best you know find some things we want to really drill down on that come out of this conversation uh i think i think the rn district needs some review and maybe some changes um so okay so uh board members how do you feel about uh ending the conversation for tonight and continuing to uh june 20 june 21st wow we're already into june um and uh pam did you or chris think of a time have we got anything on the agenda yet you will have something on the agenda and it's probably ever sourced and their property on college street where emerson media used to be they're extending their structure there and so they are hoping to have a public hearing that night but if that public hearing starts at um 6 35 my guess is you could get through that in an hour so you might want to put this on for um 7 30 okay to get it get to it by 7 30 yep uh you don't think there's any chance it would go faster and if we put 7 15 we can always be late oh you could possibly do that yep well maybe in the summer people will want to talk less and be outside more so things will go faster uh mandy joe how are you feeling about us continuing so i obviously i'm fine with the continuance i just wanted to let the board know that if it's continued to the 21st of june i may not be able to come because i have a conflict um another dress rehearsal that night so um i don't think i can make it that night i i do i do not know whether pat could obviously we're not necessarily um needed for these conversations since you're deliberating but i did want to inform you that um as you're making that decision okay thank you well i think i personally at least would like to kind of keep this conversation moving so that we eventually finish it um so you know having to skip it on june 7th seems unfortunate but we do need chris uh she's pretty essential for these conversations so i would support the june 21st continuation bruce well i could say so moved moved to continue the hearing until 7 15 on june uh 21st thank you bruce and tom you've been doing our seconds tonight again thank you all right board members um we'll do a quick vote for that move to continue to june 21st at 7 15 bruce hi all right thank you tom hi i'm and i jan our janet has departed yohana right and paren hi okay thank you karen okay time now is 847 we're gonna go on to the next item on the agenda let's see all right um so just to make sure we check all the boxes on the agenda chris uh the third item under no old business was topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance uh do we have any items i see you shaking your head topics no okay the time now is 848 if i didn't say that a moment ago uh moving on to a new business amherst streetlight policy as proposed by anna devlin gothier and manny joe hanneke welcome to you both and uh tell us what you want to tell us i i suppose i should ask if there's any uh um you know recusals or whatever it was called uh by the any disclosures by the board yeah anybody who's got part ownership in a streetlight company or something like that not seeing any all right mandy joe and anna please go ahead anna would you like to start no go ahead um oh i don't think we're gonna go through the presentation that we asked to be included in the packet it is late um the the goal is so the current streetlight policy um and and and i guess what i'll frame is the larger the larger potential plan here um zoning does a lot with lighting you don't have a specific lighting section per se but you talk about lighting a lot i've been in meetings with site planners reviews where lighting's talked about there's a little bit of mention of dark sky compliance uh the zba in special permits talks about lighting a lot and then we have all these streetlights so there's a lot of private lighting and there's a lot of public lighting and all of that lighting can cause um trespass it can cause pollution it can cause all sorts of things um and so anna and i were looking at trying to update the lighting policies in town and we are starting with the streetlight policy it is um a policy within now the purview of the council um does not involve zoning at all because it is a policy of public way streetlights uh but the whole ultimate goal would be if if this is adopted by the council as an update to the streetlight policy which has not been updated since 2003 i believe um we would then hope be hopeful of figuring out a way to propose some sort of zoning that would match the streetlighting specifications um and we're starting with special specifications in terms of um what color temperature um light trespass down lighting fully shielding all these things um as a hope of fully reducing the um the uplighting the light trespass and the light pollution that we have in town um because the scientific evidence out there is that these various things about light trespass and the color temperature and all of that harms not only human health but other animal health um can actually create more dangerous situations um instead of less dangerous situations can be more unsafe um and so we're hoping to start with the streetlights and then update to the rest of the town for other things um so we're in the discussion process with the streetlights right now the the main part of it right now is is specifications of streetlights to require full shielding of all streetlights um to require no uplighting of all streetlights so we're trying to reduce glare we're trying to reduce uplight in terms of the light pollution into the sky the sky glow um and then light trespassing to ensure that our streetlights only light the parts of the street and public way we want so that they do not light private um residential and commercial properties that they stop at the property line um so it's been through a lot of various configurations since we proposed it um and and we're now sitting with instead of a complete um repeal and replace a modification of the current bylaw the current policy um and an addition of an appendix that would include all of these um dark sky compliant and proposed uh specifications to it we have removed all proposals related to the change in where streetlights go because that we initially started with one um and that we realized very quickly got very complicated very quickly in terms of locations and placements and all of that in as well as varying different views and that that would require a lot more outreach than necessarily the specification proposal so we can answer questions about the specifications if you would like um and and how that might at this point it would not affect any private parcels I will say that we're solely focused on streetlights but if this is you know we didn't do these at the same time because we don't want things to conflict um and so if we were working on a streetlight policy at the same time we were potentially working on zoning bylaw changes um that adopted them we might end up with conflicting specifications and we really don't want that um so your input uh into dark sky stuff specifications and all of that um would be great most of our special specifications came from um the international dark sky I don't think it's society association their model bylaw um if you're curious where we got them so yeah and Anna can add anything else I missed the only thing that I want to add is that when when we talk about a repeal in a place replace in a policy we're also not suggesting that this be a mass um replacement of all streetlights at the same time so just as a consideration this is a this is something that would be phased in as our current lights um die so uh I wanted to make sure folks knew we weren't undergoing a massive massive uh project and undertaking here um but other than that Mandy Mandy covered it all and we'd be happy to take any questions okay well I know I have some questions but Chris what you've got your hand up yep I just wanted to um say that I invited Mandy and and Anna to present this to the planning board because the planning board does occasionally have to do with um streetlights when you approve a subdivision um you make decisions about where streetlights are going to go when you approve a site plan review project you often look at ambient light that's available from streetlights and you judge the light that is going to be added um on the site based on what might all already be available from ambient streetlights and um some of your projects are very close into the right of way such as projects that you deal with downtown which would definitely um be impacted or have an impact from uh a streetlight policy so I wanted you to be aware of this policy and then if you have comments or want to discuss it you have an opportunity to do that but I just felt like it was important to have this presented to you thank you okay um so uh Mandy you made some reference to it being a late hour um and for for us this is not a late hour although I wouldn't argue if we wanted to stop um if do you want comments in this meeting or if we email you or Chris comments that she forwards to you uh and questions is that the kind of is that adequate or would you want to have a discussion to see a full discussion comments and all is perfectly fine tonight I don't know when the planning board normally ends their meetings Anna and I regularly have council meetings that go well pass this so we're happy to stay as long as the planning board would like to stay okay all right so board members uh any objection to having a discussion on this for let's say at least a half an hour okay all right um so I'll open it up to people who have questions and comments I I did say I had some but I'm happy to wait uh Johanna I have just one question about the phasing it in approach um if we do it does it add incremental costs to phase it in as opposed to just changing all the fixtures at once it's a really good question um and that's one that we don't necessarily unless Mandy has magically done homework that I have not done yet um we don't know the answer quite yet we have some baseline pricing understanding but um we would need to look into that further my understanding is is that it it wouldn't necessarily be the most efficient option because we have probably about 10 years left on some of our on many of our street lights and so we may be able to batch it a little bit but um it wouldn't be necessarily phasing it wouldn't be necessarily phasing one by one in terms of like purchasing uh equipment it's possible that we would purchase that and install as as things die Mandy anything to add yeah I would just add that uh the council has been very um concerned about the costs and since our current LED street lights um while not compliant with dark sky and anything here um are at least somewhat efficient as they have as as Anna said about 10 years left and so one of the things we've been thinking about is get this policy in place and then when we do the relamping of the whole town that would be sort of the the last date everything gets done but um to give an example if this policy gets in place earlier the council just had a a hearing for polls but actually underground things that might underground a lot of utility poles on College Street which would remove all of the lighting that's on those utility poles on College Street and so we might need to be purchasing new lighting so that um you know would be a place where we'd get a batch of stuff in like this the goal is sort of to minimize the additional costs to the town versus what we would already be doing to just replace the street lights as it were great um okay so I think what I'll do is I'm just gonna read I'm just gonna give you like five or six different comments I don't need you to answer them but uh you know this is just feedback in terms of things that occurred to me as I look through it uh the first was what does the DPW think of this and I hope you've already talked to them uh the second one was uh at the bottom of page four where you talk about the warmest possible color temperature um hey you know I've seen red lights you know if you go down into submarine everything is red uh I don't think that's what we want so that phrase kind of bothered me in terms of you know if some fixture is is available in a really warm temperature that's beyond the you know something when people would consider white um that that's questionable um under on page five item four I guess it's four B um there's a couple of references to normal illuminance levels which I don't think is ever defined uh under on the same page under um maintenance standards um item D one uh you're talking about maintaining on a website an official map of the location and all the details about the street lights uh I hope you're talking about the potential staff time to maintain that database um I know that I have found that just because you could keep track of something you don't always have the resources to do it um under D two uh in the very last line you you use the phrase burnt out um since this is not actually burning I think you should use the word inoperative and then on the last page actually this the last comment I had was about the 10-year period and I didn't I didn't think LEDs really had any end date you know that they would last for decades although I at least the early ones used to have a color shift so you know I wasn't sure whether you were actually accelerating the replacement by specifying 10 years and it sounds like that's not the case so those were what occurred to me um I think at some point in the past we have had a conversation maybe it was just you and me Mandy Jo about when what we would do as a planning board uh about lighting and to and I know at that time I expressed some concern that we not make the bylaws for private citizens so technically demanding that they're not able to comply without hiring a lighting designer or you know being at the mercy of the lighting industry which is uh notoriously fickle industry those were my those were my comments Doug I think I got some of those and I bet Mandy got even more but were those written down and would you be able to send them to us uh I can send you an email with the gist of them yes that would be really helpful I do think I got most of them but it would be really helpful if you they were I guess I guess they've also been recorded oh true look at that okay uh Johanna sorry toggling between tabs um thank you for your detailed attention Doug I was wondering it's possible that we just want to specify the range of kelvins in terms of the color yeah um and for I was just looking at the I think there was a target of 3,500 kelvin in there but you know it it did have some other language that suggested it might vary so we had a 2,700 max in there that has actually changed since our original proposal um but you know it's the the the presentation had some language regarding the original proposal so that might be what was confusing the current and and we just didn't change that because it was like the only thing in this presentation that was kind of out of date um the current proposal is a max of 2,700 kelvin for all lighting in town um it used to be 2,700 for streetscape and 2,200 for other lighting so the non the non downtown business district sort of area and the feedback we got actually from the DPW was that that 2,200 kelvin is a lot more expensive of a light to source right now than 2,700 because the 2,200 is a special order at this time and so we've changed the policy up to that 2,700 that is likely not the special order from what we've been told um so that it would be a much more um fiscally feasible um and cost efficient light that's still on that warm warm side um so okay that's great anything else Johanna okay uh I I did want to ask you included a I guess a sort of product information from spec lines and um I guess I was just wondering does that mean this is the only supplier or why was this included um so one of the reasons it was included is we've had a lot of questions in TSO about what do these look like um and what's possible um so we what does TSO oh our town services and outreach it's the committee of the council that is hearing and and discussing and deliberating on the current proposal for streetlight for the streetlight policy um and so we thought we'd include I'm not even sure it's our supplier in town but we thought it gave the tops field example of a full retrofit but it also gave a lot of cool things that streetlighting can do especially as to solar powering and all and so we just thought it was a a good introduction to what is fully shielded what do they look like um what does down lighting look like can they be done in historical sort of or you know that type of way that we do sometimes use in town um it's not the only supplier I think I've got three or four other supplier brochures from a municipal conference from this year so it's just gives you an idea of things that might be possible okay great Bruce um I I think this is a very good thing to be doing and I confess that I didn't see this in the packet so I didn't read it um I have had it up for the last 20 minutes so I kind of read it but I'll I'll do what Doug did and and and see if there are any other things he seems to have done a pretty good job but I uh I'll do I'll have a look and but I I'll have to do it later and send you in any comment any additional comments by email but thank you for doing this it seems to be a very positive step appreciate any comments that you have thank you um as you get into this is there an aesthetic decision about you know are we going to go with the retro you know retro look that from the 1950s or are we going to go with the circa 2023 you know crushed brushed aluminum with very angular reflectors and you know how how does that decision get made you want to try that out I know I really know I'll try it I'll try it so so our policy itself does not um set forth any of those style um design type standards in that sense it it really talks about where the light can go and what color it is um and obviously some of that comes with some design guidelines but um there are policies out there and and model bylaws that would discuss some of that we have not taken that stance um I don't know how the town does it now I assume that process would continue as to how how DPW decides which ones to put in now in terms of look but um the policy that we're proposing doesn't specify that that that sort of fixed your decade or or or look well you know I I mean having worked on projects that had exterior lighting that that that can be an aesthetic decision um it always has cost implications and you know that probably drives what's happening and it and my impression of when we when the LEDs were put on the streetlight across from my house you know the the pole didn't change the arm didn't change it was just the head and um maybe that's the way it'll continue so there will be some shifts from that um Doug if you think about uh if you look at our some of our current streetscape lighting there's no shielding whatsoever and so but one of the reasons why we were trying to put together the samples for TSO was to show that there are options to match for example a historic looking lighting light fixtures while still having full shielding um and so while that while the particulars of an aesthetic decision are not in this policy the um intentionally I think I I think Mandy and I have great taste but I also do not think we should be the two people saying what streetlights should go in um aesthetically but I think that we what we wanted to demonstrate was that you can still match the the style of a neighborhood or of you know for example the street scape lighting um while meeting the the requirements of the policy um that was one of the goals that we had in putting those examples in so yes some of the fixtures would need to look different because many of our fixtures are not compliant with this even if the bulbs change the fixtures would need to shift okay so Chris I'll get to you in a moment I have one other question which is are have you do you fear or have you already gotten any negative feedback from private property owners who are who will be unhappy if your street lights no longer illuminate my property so Mandy do you want me to I'm all right so you know I think at first we heard a lot of concerns from property owners when we were still including um when when there was a section that was proposing actually removing certain street lights when we took that out we've we've had to work really hard at communicating to folks that we are not proposing to remove street lights right now um and once we've explained that I I personally have not had the complaints regarding um regarding the you know street lights outside of a home continue um they're one of the one of the um it's the plural of impetus anyway one of the reasons why we were working on this originally was from residents who were having issues street lights flooding into their bedrooms for example um so so no we have not heard I or at least I will speak for myself I have not heard specific complaints regarding people worried about the loss of actual light onto their property um I think people were more concerned when we were talking about actually shifting lights away from certain areas in town um so I've heard some on each side I've heard a lot of people that have come to me and said I would love that light to finally be shielded thank you for proposing that street light to be shielded thank you you know I've heard a number of those and then I've heard the occasional but I use that street light to walk to my mailbox at night um so there there are a couple you know there are some people that are concerned because they're actually taking advantage of the the light trespass onto private property to navigate their own private property at night um but there are you know so I think it goes with anything in terms of that trespass and the light levels in general or the the sighting that we had at one point when we were proposing rules on where street lights would go there was a lot of we want less and we want more um and so this is I think similar but we've been to uh the transportation advisory committee and their biggest concern is locations um not the specifications we've put down and including not the um the shielding that would stop light trespass onto private properties and we were also at the DAAC the disability access advisory committee and they were supportive of the specifications they also had concerns about locations but we've removed that because we realized we needed so much more outward outreach if we were going to try and do location great chris you had your hand up for a while did we pass you by I just wanted to say an answer to a question that happened a while ago that um for downtown street lights I think the design review board would get involved they got involved when the current downtown street lights particularly the ones with the um kind of hat like uh structure over the top that is a shield um were chosen they worked with the DPW and the planning department to choose those lights so they would probably be involved at least for the downtown okay great do we do any any similar thing in the village centers yet not yet we don't have design review over the village centers although I think that would be a good idea okay great um I'm not seeing any more board hands any members of the public uh anything you want to make a comment on about street lights okay all right um I guess thank you for coming um a couple of us at least will probably send some comments to chris for her to forward to you guys and um let us know if you want to consult us any more thank you thank you thank you both for coming all right uh second item under new business the time now actually is 915 uh topic's not reasonably anticipated do we have any of those chris or Pam I'm not aware of any okay all right we'll move on to item six uh form a and our subdivision applications no okay zba applications uh Pam you are muted thank you I did receive two transmittals today um and the first one I couldn't remember if we talked about 485 pine street uh which is a property in the r n district they're tentatively going to go in front of the zba on june 8th um they are requesting a special permit for a change of use currently the building structure is a single family but it is vacant they are proposing um a special permit for a converted dwelling a two family converted dwelling the first floor would be four bedrooms and one bath with the second floor of three bedrooms and one bath all right uh board members anybody particularly want to hear about that like I think we we decided on this last time did we yes we we expressed the lack of interest we felt the zoning board was quite competent to tackle that so okay thank you and then the second one um this is for property located off of southeast street it's in the ro and aquifer recharge protection it is a flag lot um the special permit was the original special permit was issued in 1974 and every couple of years it has to be renewed because the building on this flag lot has not commenced so the last time that it was renewed in 2021 it's going to go in front of the zba to be uh with a request to be renewed again so that also is scheduled for june 8th okay um so it doesn't really sound like there's a building for us to think about with that one not yet sounds like the flag lock is permitted by zoning so yes i personally i don't know why we would want to talk about that one anybody disagree okay so we'll let that one go pamm okay and that's it and i'll try not to tell you about them repeatedly at the next meeting well some of us forget them apparently me too all right so how about the SPP SPR SUB applications anything coming our way uh yes we do have the um the electric station substation at um college street and i think i've told you about that before and that's going to be coming to you on june 21st yeah okay um okay so that's it and so we'll move on to the next item and uh that's the planning board committee and liaison reports bruce anything you want to say about pvpc no they meet quarterly and and i'll have something maybe next time okay andrew's not here for cpac tom drb no we meet next week okay janet has left us uh maybe chris if you have anything you know about on the solar bylaw working group yeah we're slowly working our way through the bylaw and um i think we're making good progress and yeah bit by bit um probably sometime in july i will be bringing parts of that to you if not some draft so okay and how about crc and crc has been working on the zoning amendment um although um they didn't really talk about it too much at the last meeting but i think they're planning to talk about it soon and i'm sorry i don't remember the date of their continued meeting okay all right so we're through committee in liaison reports i as a chair once again have no report how about you chris any report from staff my only report is that i'm going to miss the june 7th planning board meeting with great regret but i will be in france so oh well i won't miss it too much have you prepared a fun-filled agenda for us while you're gone um pam and nate are in charge of giving you a fun-filled agenda that night and i'm not sure what that will include yeah to talk about that if we don't talk about duplexes what are we going to talk about there may be a need to cancel that meeting although we'll have to put our heads together here in the office and see if that's necessary okay okay all right great all right so with that actually bruce you've got your hand up you want to give us some parting words uh yes i just wanted to ask chris about staff i know that you've said that you've taken one of the two positions and uh running me no i'm wondering where you are with the second appointment we still need a second person and the um the requisition is out there but i need to reinvigorate it so i haven't had time to do that um but i hope to do that soon because we still need another person here we have way more do you actually outreach to the planning and region to the the department of regional planning at UMass because i they're just about to mint another crop of graduates yes we do definitely um so we can get people from there who don't have much experience like we we had ben and he was terrific and he just walked right in and could do everything immediately i think we're a little bit reluctant to take people with a lack of experience who would prefer you know at least a couple of years and that's what um our latest uh addition uh rob has he's got a couple of years and he's terrific he's very energetic and really hit the ground running um so yes we're still looking for people so if you have any uh people in mind have them contact our HR department and we will be as i said reinvigorating that requisition soon okay all right so time is 9 22 and uh i guess we're done for tonight anybody so we may see you on June 7th but we're not sure right otherwise chris have a great time in france thank you hoping i can remember some of my french all right and and happy Norwegian independence day thank you all right good night everyone bye bye thank you thanks Doug thanks chris you're welcome bye stop recording