 Okay, Mr. Jempsick. You are good to go. Here we go. Alrighty, welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of August 18, 2021. My name is Jack Jempsick and as the chair, Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.34 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available via Amherst Media Livestream. Minutes are being taken, pursuant to chapter 20 of the Act's 2021. This planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so following the link shown on the slide. This link is also available on the meeting agenda posted on the town's website calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda which lists the Zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public will be permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure that 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, and despite best efforts, we will post on the town of Amherst website and audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. Board members, I will take a roll call when I call your name and you yourself answer affirmatively and then you can place yourselves back on mute. Maria Chow. Present. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. Doug Marshall. Present. Janet McGowan. Here. And then Johanna Newman has excused herself from the prior notification. So we have six of the seven members with us. Where members of technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. Discussion may be suspended while the issues are addressed and then minutes will note if this happens. 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If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. So with that, we have item one is a June 16th, 2021 minutes. And are there any comments? Chris, do you have your hand up? Both Janet and I had comments and Pam has two different track changes, versions of the minutes. So mine was more simple. Maybe we could review mine first because it was mostly just technical things. Can you see it? So for me, I just corrected. So these are corrections from the thing that you received in your packet, but the date of the meeting was originally listed as seven o'clock. And I suggested changing it to 6.30, which Pam has done. The second thing was, let's see here, on page five, I think, right? Or it's seven. Page eight, one, two, three, four, five. The fifth paragraph down where it says Mr. Marshall questioned and then would not create a uniformed street edge. So I'd crossed out the ED and made it uniform street edge. Then in the next paragraph, the board discussed the effects and it should be the board discussed the effects. And then on page nine at the top of the page, actually, okay. So Ms. Rooney supports further consideration of some sort of project open space that would add to rather than detract from the town. So those were the changes that I suggested making. So they're mostly either grammatical or spelling. And then Janet's. Yeah, you wanna throw good Janet's comments up there just so everybody sees them. Yep, well done. I'm getting there. Are these Word documents, Pam, or are they? They are Word documents, Chris. I got these, I believe, right out of the S drive. So you can click on the red bar there and make the change appear. So the first one is on page four and Janet is making the suggestion of adding. Ms. McGowan said she likes the proposed design, but reducing the requirement of 2,500 square feet for an additional unit to only 160 square feet was poor precedent. It would encourage investors to buy up small homes in RG without enough lot space and then add another unit and create duplexes for student rentals. Since students can always pay more, parentheses, $800 per bedroom and four bedrooms at $3,200 times 12, these small affordable or starter homes for families will disappear. So I understand from Janet that these are direct quotes from the recording. There's actually, this is sort of a summary. I mean, I talked more, but I tried to put the gist of it there. Okay, all right. And then on page seven, under zoning priorities, the first paragraph there, the CRC has already heard these proposals, proposal presentations and support sending them to the town council. And then Janet added, but we wanted to make sure that the planning board was satisfied with and then we will bring it to town council. And let's see. Next quote, I think I might have said with it. I mean, I left out the it, but that is next. All right. And then the next one was under board comments. And I wasn't exactly sure where this was to be located, but I put it on first. Mr. Marshall expressed his surprise that the CRC felt this was ready for town council and raised issues about the small percentage of non-residential space, residential tenant access from the front of the building, whether bike racks could be out front. If outdoor amenities for tenants could be in the public way, bedroom count requirements favoring 50% plus, blocking retail windows with street furniture among other issues. Ms. McGowan agreed with Mr. Marshall's comments that this amendment was not ready for town council and felt the parking and apartments were even less so. Mr. Jempsick said he agreed with almost everything Mr. Marshall said. So the reason I added this was that this was a really long discussion of mixed use buildings and that Mr. Marshall or Doug talked for like 12 minutes with a lot of very specific changes. And like it's not elegantly put here, but I wanted to get the gist of how many concerns he had and things like that. And then at one point, I think we just spent a long time like, I don't know if it was an hour or a half hour talking about the mix, the percentage of retail, I mean, residential versus non-residential space. And so I just added this in because I felt like we were sort of missing what a lot of what Doug had said and the various problems that we're seeing with this proposal for amendment so far. So that was the idea behind that, but it's not pretty when you look at the rest of the following paragraphs. Thank you. Any comments on the minutes be on what Chris has added and Janet, anyone want to make a motion to approve the minutes as amended by Chris and Janet? I so move. Okay, Janet, second? Andrew will second. Okay, Andrew, thank you. Any further discussion? I see none. So we'll do a roll call here. Maria, Maria for the minutes. Approve, sorry. Okay, Andrew. Hi. And Doug. Hi. Tom. Hi. And Janet. Hi. And I'm an I and that's six zero. Move all the minutes. Okay, so we have a public comment period. Can dive into and wait a minute to see if there are any hands raised. I see 11 attendees. All right, I see none. So we can proceed into the public hearing that we have for SPR 2022-02 462 Main LLC Center East Commons 462 Main Street and they're requesting a site plan review approval to amend previous, the previous site plan review approval of SPR 2020-05 conditions one and two for a mixed use building under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to remove the existing office building to provide a 12 foot by 16 foot temporary shed for trash recycling and bikes, provide cluster mailboxes on pedestals to add a connection to the parking lot at 4046 Main Street through access and then provide a bike rack with no cover and change in the management plan to vertex real estate. All right, this is map 14B partial 68, BN zoning district. And as a recall, we had like an informative discussion in the last meeting, is that correct? Chris, we didn't start the hearing. This is the start of a public hearing. The last thing you reviewed at the previous meeting was just some things that Mr. Robleski wanted to do urgently. Now, these are things that he also wants to do urgently but he realizes he has to go through the process. And Christine Royal, who was the architect is in the attendees. And so it might be a good idea to let her in and let's see what else. Mr. Reedy is here. And he has something to say. All right, we have a preamble here. Let me just catch this in accordance with the provisions that MGL chapter 40A, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interest and citizens to be heard regarding SPR 2022-02 462 Main LLC, Senator East Commons, at 462 Main Street. And the rest we have. So are there any board member disclosures I've seen on? And then we can have the applicant present the project. And we have Tom Reedy and Christine Royal. Yeah, so if I could for the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Wilson here in Amherst, chair on behalf of 462 Main and its application for modification of its existing site plan review, site plan approval, as the chairman noted. Good to see everybody tonight. With me, Christine Royal architect, John Roblesky, manager, property owner. He's here as well. And I think as the chair mentioned, I know that there were some discussions last month about these changes. And obviously John knows he has to go through a formal process, which this is part of to amend that existing site plan approval. What I'll probably do is look to share my screen if that's okay. I think all of these should have been provided in your packet. And so really what we're here to do is get your blessing to amend the site plan approval to primarily remove that office building. So as you'll recall, if you drive by the site the last time you had to really approve something here, there's that office building. John has been through the historical commission. They have allowed the demolition of the property. He did due diligence, went through the property and it was determined that the state of repair, the condition that it was in, in order to repair it was infeasible and if you were going to do it, you were really going to take away whatever sort of historic character that it had. So John went through the historic commission. They issued or they allowed the issuance of a demolition permit. He's got associated building records lined up to do this and the utilities have been disconnected. They went through the asbestos remediation so that the site is ready to go for that office to be demolished. So that's probably the biggest piece. Then as you'll recall, there were some things in the back of that building that John was going to use as it related to this property, really for the function of it. And so he's proposing, as you'll see here, a temporary storage area, 12 by 16 temporary storage area for this piece right here, behind it, beyond it are some cluster mailboxes. He's also asked and I will see if I am talented enough. Hopefully you can see a site plan now. So you'll see where the existing building is being removed. You see where that temporary shed, which is going to be used for trash and interior bike storage. You see where the bike racks are going to go uncovered. And you'll see that he has, so one of the other things that has happened somewhat serendipitously and spontaneously was the butters had approached him to acquire this property. And so he has in fact acquired this property for 46 Main Street. And so at some point in the future, I'm sure we'll be back before you for the entirety of these properties, but we're not there yet. And we've been talking with Chris Brestrup to get a sense of what that sequencing would look like when it does come time to amend what's happening on this 446 Main Street property. And I don't want to get too far afield, but just so you know, that's why there is this access point is because now John Robleski through a different entity owns this property. He's talked to Mike Roy. He's talked to Jason Skeels. They're both fine with this connection. And I think in fact prefer this connection just to give better flow because you've got gray street over on the left side of the screen. One of the other pieces that John has also hired Vertex Management to manage his properties. What I'll say is I don't know that you can keep John away from them, but he's gotten Vertex to manage them. They're based in Amherst over by Hampshire Athletic Club and they managed about 280 units in the Pioneer Valley. So John's pretty discerning and he chose them. They're currently managing his property. So you know, we're trying to get through these approvals. So hopefully, I mean, I'm happy to speak more about any of these, but it seems relatively simple. One thing I do want to note is, you know, there are 24 units in this building. There are 35 bedrooms. And as I recall going through the process, there was a lot of discussion about parking. And so just for the planning board's knowledge, there are 16 registered vehicles for the residential units at this property. So 16 registered vehicles, 35 bedrooms with 24 units all together. So just a little bit of data. I know that we labored that point a bit, you know, couple of, maybe just a year ago at this point. So with that, I'm happy to expand. I'm happy to answer any questions, but that's what we're looking to do here. Good. All right. Thank you, Tom. So my understanding is the commercial portion of the new building is Crossman now Vertex? So I don't know that. I don't think there is a tenant currently. So Crossman, I think has, and I don't know what technically happened, but I think he's working with Cayman's real estate now. Yeah. And so Vertex is just the manager of the properties. It's not that they're occupying the space. So they aren't the, because obviously I think to your point, this is mixed use. They aren't the occupier of that space. Okay. So does John have someone else in mind for that? John, I don't know if you want to talk about it. He and I talked about it today. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I had an attorney look at it and Tom Crossman actually sent me a couple of other, nothing has panned out to this point. Jackie from Vertex and that company is actively looking to find somebody for that. So there's nobody in there now, but yes, a little background. Tom Crossman was going to go into that space. We kind of designed it around what he wanted. He had another opportunity come up, which he kind of couldn't say no to. So now he's down at Cayman's real estate and he felt bad about not following through on a plan. But anyways, that's where that unit one sits now. So it will be actively rented to somebody else. Okay. Chris and then Doug. So I just wanted to mention that the driveway connection that's shown on the plan for 446 Main Street is going to have to come in under another application because 446 Main Street actually has its own set of permits. So the little crosshatch driveway that you see there connecting is you're going to be seeing that as part of its own application. And I think that's coming in around the end of September. So right now what you're looking at is just the area of 442 Main Street and you will be reviewing the driveway connection there, but it's not going anywhere right now. It's just stopping at the property line. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Any other board member comments? Janet? So I recall this from almost a year and a half ago, I think, or two years ago. So I recall in the white building. Commuted. Oh, I'm sorry. So I remember this project from like a year and a half or two years ago. And as I recall in the white building that you want to tear down, there were like five or six professional offices. Is that right? When I bought the building, they had it divvied up into seven separate rooms, basically. And I had presented a plan to turn that into three office suites, two on the first floor and the entire second floor. And so what happened to your tenants that were there? Is that, are they just gone now or? Yeah, through attrition. We bought the building in 2017 and there was three tenants in there. Tom was the one who stayed the longest, Tom Crossman. There was like a chiropractor and massage therapist. She needed a bigger space. She moved through route nine and Hadley. And TDS, they moved to the second floor above subway because they needed more space with an elevator. So yes, once they moved out, we tried to fill a couple of the spaces and it didn't really pan out. So once the plans came further together, I decided just to use the space as a construction office once we started it on the first floor. So it actually worked out pretty well. So when you bought the office, when you bought the building, did you have it inspected? I mean, like when did you realize that the building was in rush shape? I did. Guy kind of went through it, the contractor and he said, yeah, they've got new beams here and stop and looks like it's been worked on. Probably about in beginning of April, I had measured the floors back in 2017 and how much they slanted and I figured we could just kind of build them up, level them out and that was my plan. And then as things were going along, Tom Crossman said, now we can slate a chair from this window and it rolls all the way down to that wall. And I said, we better take a harder look at this. So that's when I hired the structural engineer and found out he pointed out several things. And I think the board members have that report from John Wallin. So I kind of opened my eyes pretty wide and then had to pull a plug on doing anything further to the building. Okay, so what's your plan for this building site? Cause when I kind of look at it now, I mean, I remember that we put the, I think they're inkberry shrubs, like the low shrubs to cover the parking spaces. And then also, I don't know if it was a transformer or the EV charging or something. But now when I look at this picture, I kind of feel like I wanna see more plantings like more trees. So it looked a little out of balance to me. So is there another plan for this spot? Are you planning to rebuild the building of professional offices or? Well, I had a plan when I didn't own the property next door. I was gonna build the maintenance shop, so to speak in a nicer trash and recycling and bicycle area and have like three single car garages there all on this 462 property. And then the background to acquiring the property next door is when the neighbors got notified of the historical commission hearing, the owner of the property representative next door called me and says, geez, we're a little concerned about taking that building down, you know why? So I explained the whole structural issues to them and to him and he said, yeah, I can understand that. And then he said in confidence right now, he says, would you be interested in buying this piece? So that's how that all came about. So once I own that piece, then that kind of changes the whole thought process about what can happen on that corner of Grand Main. So I don't have any concrete plan as to what's gonna go there. The transformers aren't gonna move. The parking spaces near there, the three spaces in the front, those aren't gonna move. So the screening on the plan you have for landscaping isn't gonna change much. So you are like tossing around different ideas though, that, so do you think that corner or the building site of the old house, is that gonna change or is it, I mean, are you, you know, kind of, what are some of your ideas, I guess is I'm just trying to ask. It's really in, you know, there's a lot going on in the past two months and I have thoughts about what might happen there. It's kind of depends on how things play out with certain other things going in town with zoning and stuff and definitions and what can be done there. And just, I think long-term, it just needs to have a nice addition to that building, probably, and that will enhance the neighborhood and maybe provide some service. The building next door right now has first floor offices on it. It used to be a doctor's medical office back in the seventies, early eighties. So that would remain. And it has a three bedroom upstairs. So, but as far as set plans, it's really too early to say I have any. Okay. Yes, Doug, please. Yeah, are either of these parcels part of the Dickinson local historic district? As far as I know, they are not. I think the historic district starts at Triangle Street. Okay, thank you. Chris, maybe Chris Brestrup, do you know? Chris. She's muted. I don't think either of these are in the historic district, but I would like a chance to look at a map. Yeah, I would add that the structural assessment that was presented in the last meeting was fairly convincing about the integrity or lack thereof of the building that the historical commission approved to for the demolition. And there are any other comments from the planning board? I see none. We'll open up to public comment. Oh, did I miss someone on the panel? Chris, sorry. Oh, me? No, I don't have anything to say. I'm looking, I'm trying to find a map that answers the question if this is in a local historic district. So it looks like it goes to the west side of Bray Street from what I'm looking at. I think it includes the Amherst media property. Yeah, I believe so, yes. And that's where it stops, goes across the street, little angled by the railroad, but this property, both 446 and 462 are not in it. Okay. Janet? So I have a question, I think, for Chris and Rob and Mr. Riedi. So it's funny to look at this picture because we know that the building is still there. The white building was the primary building and then this other, the new multi-mixed use building was secondary. So what happens when you take down the primary building and there's just a secondary building, do what happens legally then? Like, is that, what kind of impact does that have? Do you want me to answer that? Neither building was primary and neither building was secondary. They were two uses on the same property and the board decided that they were complimentary. So there was no primary versus secondary component. Okay, thank you. Great, okay, so I'm looking for public comment at this point. And I see no hands raised but I'll wait a little bit. Okay, so back to the board. We can make a motion to close this public hearing, find it in compliance with the regulations that Chris knows so well. 11.24, 11.24, okay. Mr. Long has his hand raised. Okay, Tom. I'll move to close the public hearing. All right. Second. Second, okay. Any discussion? All right, see none. So, and then we can deliberate after this if it's approved, Maria. Sorry, I'm approving to close the hearing. Is that what we're doing? Correct, correct. Okay, approve. All right, Andrew. Hi. Doug. Hi. Tom. Hi. Janet. Hi. And myself as an I. So that's six zero. Close the public hearing. So at this point, we got to get the nitty gritty. I'm just opening the document here again. Okay. So, yes. Oh, Chris. Chris has her hand raised. Okay, Chris. I did not prepare any conditions or any findings for this, but the suggested finding would be that this application meets the relevant findings of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw. And I didn't prepare any conditions, but the board may have some conditions that it would like to offer. Yeah, and I think the big piece of that is it's fairly consistent with the previous proposal and probably, you know, it's more diminutive and with regard to the building not being there. And so I think that's reasonable. Any other comment from the board on that aspect, Janet? So I'm just interested in what that space that empty lot space is going to be used for. It seems like it could be a nice area for the tenants with some trees planted and some benches out there or, you know, a place for the tenants to use. I mean, I wonder if that could be a condition to sort of set it up. I mean, it looks like you're planning to put some seeds on it. I assume grass seeds, but I wondered if there could be some trees planted, you know, which are lovely anyway, but also help with climate change and could make that kind of a more improved space for the tenants, because there's not a lot of space for the tenants to, I know there's a corner, but I was just, I thought that might be an idea to find some benefit from removing it. Yeah, I guess, I mean, what I gathered from John is that there's a next thing that they can kind of have a more comprehensive plan for the three lots that he has together. I'm not sure that I would, you know, ask that of them at this time. Doug? Yeah, I guess I was kind of of the same mind, Jack, in that it seems like the landowner is considering this sort of an interim condition until they figure out what they wanna do with the two parcels together. You know, I know we often have people that advocate for more open space when we do multifamily projects and having the former footprint of the house seated certainly gives this property more open space. You know, if we feel that this is not satisfactory as a long-term condition, if the owner decides never to do anything else with this property, and we could put a condition that he has to come back within a certain number of years, if there's no follow-up in terms of a master plan with the adjacent parcel, I'm not sure whether I really feel the need to go there, but if other people do, I simply throw that out. Yeah, my feeling is like as is, it's very consistent with the prior owner approval, it's actually more green space. If it changes, they're gonna come in front of us, regardless. Andrew, you got your hand up? I think, Jack, I would support that. Okay, Andrew, can you say that again? Oh, sorry, I like what Doug recommended, and I would support that if you could hear me. Okay, so do we want to put conditions on this or just approve as recommended, I guess, is what we're looking at? I mean, I'd be inclined to approve as presented, Tom. Yeah, I tend to agree. I think to suggest that there's a certain, there's a better kind of outdoor space. One that contains trees and benches is better than a place where someone can toss a Frisbee. I think it is one way of thinking about space, but it's not something that we wanna condition that all spaces have to have trees and benches. So I think that the owner is putting down grass and making that a recreational space. And I think that that should meet our expectations. So I don't wanna add any conditions. All right, so Jana. So I had to say, Tom, the Frisbee is like putting a stake in my heart since my son is a ultimate Frisbee player. And I do see that point that, so if it's kept his grass and open for tenants, I'd be very content with that. I just thought, like, let's use it while we have it. And of course, you can always change it later and come back with that. But I do think it's everybody should have some space to throw a desk or a ball. So I agree or kick one. Great. So someone wanna make a motion with regard that we wanna approve this. It's consistent with 11.24, correct Chris? Any other bylaws that we need to reference? Chris? Any other bylaws that you need to represent? Okay. So any motions? Oh, Maria. I move we approve the project as presented and that it meets the conditions of 11.24. Okay, Tom? Okay. Okay, any further discussion? I see none. All right, let's do roll call Maria. Approved. Andrew? Andrew? Andrew's muted. All right. He may be... Yeah, we'll come back to Andrew. He may be in between. Yeah. Doug and Tom? Approved. Janet? Approved. And myself approve and we'll go back to Andrew. Andrew? Okay, so that's five, zero. Andrew, technical difficulties there. Abstains. Should we count him as abstaining? That's fine. Let's give it a tie-down. Yeah. Very good. All right. Thank you very much. Good luck, John, Tom, Christine, everybody. Good luck tonight. All right. Tom? I don't know if anyone hang around for the mixed use buildings. Hearing that we have? Of course. Oh, yeah, just got a text from Andrew. Trying to... Okay, so Andrew was, yeah, he's just offline. But Tom, I was just wondering if you were going to be in the audience for the next hearing which was on the mixed use buildings. I was planning on sticking around to hearing what the discussion was. Okay. Very good. Thank you, John. And so at this point. Thank you to the board members for your time. You're very welcome. Good luck. Good luck. All right. So next item will be zoning amendments. And we have two. First one is mixed use buildings. It's article three, use regulations, section 3.325. An article told definitions. We're going to have a discussion and vote on the recommendation to the town council. We already closed the public hearing. We had the joint hearing with the CRC while back. And Andrew said there's a dead spot in Stanford, Connecticut. And how is that possible? That's a very well-populated area. I have to agree. But so this hearing is to see if the town will vote to amend article 12 definitions to add the definition of mixed use buildings to amend article three, section 3.325, mixed use buildings to remove the definition of mixed use buildings from section 3.325 to amend the criteria and standards required for mixed use buildings to set criteria to limit the amount of residential use and enclosed parking that would be allowed on the first or ground floor. This is a minimum for the amount of non-residential use other than enclosed parking that would be allowed on the first or ground floor to require any dwelling units or enclosed parking on the first or ground floor to be located toward the rear of the building and designed to produce visibility from the public right of way. And to add a requirement regarding the size bedroom count of units and to authorize the permit granting authority to determine which floor is to be considered the first or ground floor for sloping lots and lots with multiple frontages. All right, is there a presentation, Chris? Nate Maloy is, Nate is here if people have any questions, if you would like to have a presentation by Nate, he would probably be happy to give you one but I'm not sure that's what he planned. And I also wanted to note that the public hearing for this zoning amendment has closed and this is the opportunity for the board to discuss it among yourselves and vote on a recommendation to town council. So thank you. And I guess I could turn it over to native with the chair's permission. No, that's fine. I don't think Nate needs the, you know unless, you know, if I see a raise of hands if you want to refresh on this from Nate from the board members raise your hands. All right, see none. Okay. So just getting into this, I know I have some concerns with the mixed use building as, as written with regard to, you know the demand for retail, you know I understand that, you know, Hadley has retail, it's, but it's, you know it's a different market. I just have concern that being all empty spaces within Amherst given, you know what the, you know, you know economics of leasing areas are. So I'm a little bit concerned about setting limits on that first floor, whether it be 40 or 60% for the retail, I would be looking for a little more flexibility. I think there's some thought with regard to what about if there's a rooftop, you know retail or commercial area and it's, you know and obviously the frontage of the property should be retail, but how much sort of thing but if there's a rooftop or second or third floor option for capturing a lot of commercial retail, you know how is that incorporated? So I'm just, I have my concerns on that level and how, you know, parking may be, you know discounted, it provided, you know beneath the building. So those are my initial concerns and I'm looking for comments from Mother. Andrea looks like he's back online. Yeah. Can you guys hear me okay? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I mean to me the bigger concern is less about the percent of floor area as it is the percent of frontage. Right. I mean, the idea is you're walking up and down the street and you want to be presented with the street front that presents itself as retail and retail friendly. The percent of square footage is going to be so widely variable based on the shape of the building. I feel like, you know the 40% it's probably better to round down as long as we have the strong language protecting the frontage because we don't want to ask the developer to have to like artificially create a bowling alley space which is going to be difficult to lease or it'll have to lease at a discount because it's not really usable. The idea is that we want people to walk through town and feel like there's some vibrancy here. So I think like the frontage is the most critical piece to me personally. I've totally forgot about the rooftop component of this and I'm not sure where we landed on that. I think it's fascinating idea, but again to me frontage is key. I think the language seems like it's okay to say, you know, that we would limit the amount of residential facing the street to essentially doorways. I'm not sure what else we could do to change it. I think I feel comfortable with it. Hopefully, you know, someone wouldn't want to try to put multiple doorways to residential or create like a large residential lobby that faces the street. I'm not sure if that would fall within how that would be handled relative to the language. But again, frontage to me is the most important thing. So I'm less concerned about the square. And then maybe, Nate, you can refresh us on the open space component of this bylaw because that's also would be a factor. Sure. Well, I think that was removed. So I was wrong. Okay. The mixed use building, you know, really has, you know, a definition, a new definition, right? In Article 12, which is, you know, a building containing, you know, any, you know, one or more dwelling units in combination with nonresidential uses or parking. And then there's the four conditions. You know, the ground for first floor proportion of space and then, you know, the reduced visit or, you know, minimized visibility of parking and then bedroom count. But there's no open space right now. I think the, you know, right now the standard really is the first floor. So I know people are talking about upper floor uses. Those are, you know, would be allowed. So those aren't prohibited and they are encouraged in the bylaw. It's just, you know, it may not count towards the 40%. So someone can always do, you know, multiple floors of nonresidential use. Thank you. Doug. And then Tom and then Andrew. Yeah, I don't feel like there's any reason for us to specifically mention mixed uses on any of the upper floors. They are permitted. And if there's demand, somebody will figure out whether they want to put some of those uses on some of the middle floors or up on the roof. And I agree about the, with Andrew that the vibrancy of the street, the first floor is really the key. I would be perfectly happy with us recommending the town council that they adopt the bylaw with some consideration of replacing the area percentage with some percentage or fraction or, you know, limit on, you know, on the linear feet of frontage of the first floor. And, you know, we could, you know, I'm not sure there's sort of a minimum width you would need for a residential entry and lobby. So it could be simply, you know, no more than 20 feet of the frontage could be devoted to residential entrance. And then the rest of it has to be retail or some sort of non-residential use. You know, that could be a pretty simple way and you don't have to sort of cause a potential problem if you've used a percentage and the percentage is just, the numbers just don't work in terms of a residential entrance. But, you know, I think we've gotten far enough and had a lot of conversation about this and the intent to use a percentage of the floor area so that if everybody felt like that momentum we ought to just continue with and see how it works. I'm willing to go ahead, I'm going to go along with that for right now. But, you know, I think the linear feet of frontage basis is really more applicable. That's really all I would change. Otherwise I would vote for the thing as it is if it has enough support or I'd vote for making just the one, you know, alterations from the area to the frontage. Tom. Thanks, Jack. So I agree with both Doug and Andrew and in the sense that I do think the linear footage along the front is a primary concern and that the gross volume is of secondary concern in the sense that it has to be on the first floor. So one of my questions maybe for Doug or Andrew or other people to discuss is if we were to recommend could there be an either or meeting a certain number of linear feet on the frontage and then 40% of the building. And so that way people could put stuff on the second floor or third floor or roof deck instead of having 40% of the ground floor be full of that because the proportions might be different for different buildings. So I'm wondering if there's a sense of whether or not it makes sense to give options in either or so meet this condition or that, whichever is greater. Thank you, Tom. Maria then Janet. I do agree with the sentiment about this being all about the first floor and activating the first floor. I worry we would be all over complicating it with adding too much more math and requirements rather than just keeping it a little more flexible and saying the 40% minimum as non-residential because every parcel is very different. Some are cornered, bought some of only a, as we see a narrow strip of street friends some have a lot more. So I feel like this is the least specific. Once we started saying linear footage of frontage, what if it's like the project we have in front of us and they only have, well, I forget what it was now, 40 feet, I can't remember, but to say 20 feet of it could be non-retail then that's most of the friends. So I would worry about adding more specifics because of the diversity of parcel that we have both in downtown and village centers of the other zones that this is allowed. So I'm wondering if we, we've talked about this for many meetings now and I wonder if we push forward with the percentage as presented and leave it at that, but I do agree with the sentiment. I just worry that adding too much more requirements muddies it a little bit. So that's my sense. Okay, I'm gonna bump Nate up, you have your hand up and then Jana. Jana, I didn't mean to jump you. You know, I was gonna say in the chart that was sent out with different communities, they might often have it that 75 or 85% of the frontage has to be developed as non-residential and then they might praise it as the corollary no more than 15% of the ground floor can be residential. So it depends on how you say it. I guess, you know, staff's concern there is, you know, speaking with certain developers, you know, right now they would say they only wanna develop 20 or 25 feet deep along the frontage. And so, you know, that may not be deep enough for a restaurant. And so even if you have, if you require 85% of the frontage of a building at a certain depth, whatever that is, that ends up being a, you know, some percentage and we don't know what that is. And it may not be 40%, but, you know, staff's concern was that if you just say 85% of the frontage, they might develop narrow spaces that are actually not very usable for possible future, you know, uses. And so, you know, what we're seeing now is, you know, stores that have no backend storage or anything. So you can get away with a 20 foot deep space, but if a restaurant wants to come in, you have no space for a kitchen or storage or anything else. And so I agree it's a balancing act and you know, it's hard to anticipate what future uses may be. But I think if we, I mean, I think having some frontage requirement could be useful. I mean, that is kind of the point of this. The thought is the way it's worded now, the planning board could still condition that on every project. It's something that is in the forefront and it can just be part of the review, as Maria said. So without being too prescriptive, that is just part of the review. If we want to make it standardized, we could have some percentage, you know, a frontage needs to be developed. But I just, you know, I think there's, the way it's worded now, there is some flexibility in terms of how that could happen. That's it. Thanks, Jack. Thank you. So we have Janet and then Andrew, but I'd like to come back to Tom for clarification of his thoughts. I'd like to hear it again. So Janet. So I feel like we're thinking about the non-residential use to narrowly as, you know, a retail shop with a storefront on a sidewalk. And so I want to just present two examples. The carriage shops, which was an old motel, had very little frontage on North Pleasant Street. And yet they had 12 or 15 businesses in small retail shops all along. And actually, also on the second floor, and they weren't all retail businesses. There was a mosque, there was the Kestrel Trust, there were barbershops, there were, you know, there was a lot of different kinds of retail businesses and offices or, you know, I used, my tailor used to be there. And so that, so I think that if you're just thinking about retail shops along the frontage, I think you're sort of losing the whole purpose of the business district. And it's getting too narrow. You would never have a thorns not marketplace if you only had to, you know, have shops along the front and think about, that is like an engine for the entire center of North Hampton. And so I just wanted to read something from the master plan, which I think is talking really about the purpose of Village Centers and the center of Amherst is the section E1 says, develop zoning that encourages sustainable high density mixed use and residential development within Village Centers and downtown. A higher density mixed use development can be encouraged to enhance and revitalize the Village Centers and downtown connect residents with businesses that provide good services and jobs. We're not just talking about like selling handbags or shoes, but actually, you know, there's a lot of reasons I go downtown and it's not always just to buy something from, you know, CVS or, you know, Hastings. And so there's a, you know, if you think about the number of businesses there are downtown, most of the downtown buildings we have are entirely commercial are almost entirely commercial or business on the first floor. And so we're gonna lose, you know, laughing dog bikes or professional offices that, you know, fill up the rest of the downtown thing. So I, you know, when I looked at this chart about other examples of the percentages, all of these places have really strong downtowns and good shopping areas, but also they have a lot of professional offices and services and none of them are less than 60% non-residential uses on the first floor. And so I was thinking based on our last discussion that I feel like we need to go back to the 60% from that was being recommended by the Planning Department and the Planning Board in 2016. So I just think, I think that if we cut it to 40% and we're basically turning mixed use buildings into apartment buildings and we're, you know, there's a strong, strong residential demand in Amherst and the goal I think is to ride that and use that to create more spaces for businesses and services. And so I, you know, I would think we should be at 60% non-residential stick, you know, there's no real reason to cut it down to 40% other than, I mean, I haven't seen that argument. I don't know why we would deviate from the pack of this and, you know, go lower and lower to like below every example here. The other thing is that Amherst has more people living in it than it did 10 years ago and so we have more people downtown. We're going to have more demand for services. We have more people coming from out of town to restaurants. And so I think we need to strengthen the amount of spaces available for businesses. And we also have these huge national investment companies coming in to, and we have like four, you know, Harrison Street has built four or five buildings in Amherst. Their goal is to build student housing and they can afford to let the first floor be largely business. They don't want to, but they easily could afford it because they're pulling so much money out of their apartment buildings above. And so I think that, you know, we shouldn't be, you know, sort of saying, oh, retail is dead because it's not. In fact, retail sales have been up beyond, like last month or beyond or the month before, beyond, you know, pre-pandemic. But I think we need to create spaces. And I went around and, you know, there were 16 businesses at 11 East Pleasant Street and then 15 East Pleasant Street and one East Pleasant Street that have closed and only one or two have replaced them. And I think that we need to create space for small shops, for professional offices, for, you know, architects. And I just don't see why we would go below 60% because no other town I see here has done that. Thank you, Janet, Doug. Well, I'd love to have more space for architects in town. But, you know, I'm fine with the 40%. If there was a lot of support for 60%, I would go along with that. But I certainly, you know, I think the sense we got from Archipelago and it seems to me there was one other input in one of our meetings that in the developer community, there certainly is concern about pushing the percentage too high and not really being able to fill any of those spaces. So, you know, I guess at the moment, I'm feeling like we should follow the advice of our planning department, start with 40%. You know, if the retail market is super strong, you know, somebody could take the units that they built on the first floor that were residential and convert them back to being retail space. And I guess the more I think about it, by using a percentage of the floor area, we are, if the facade is relatively narrow, we are inviting people to make use of the side facade. And, you know, we all have seen that at that strip behind Barts next to the Unitarian Church. So I'm persuaded, you know, I guess I would say why don't we just continue with what's drafted here? And if people feel they really want to roll the dice and go up to a higher percentage, we can talk about that. Thank you, Doug. Andrew and then Janet. Can folks hear me okay? Yes. Yeah, so I don't think we make changes. I'm comfortable with the 40%. I think that if we are essentially, if we increase the number too high, we might be forcing developers to build commercial spaces. And I should apologize, Janet. I've been using retail as an actual, so like I don't necessarily make me tell be some of the other non-residential uses, but if they have to create spaces which are too large and they'll need to price it accordingly, we might actually be causing the residential rates to go up and see that look to make the investment hold by recouping the lost costs from having to essentially subsidize an oversized retail space. Just a thought that I would say that I think 40%, again, I feel comfortable with the planning department research for you. I guess I'll pull myself in Doug's camp as well. If folks feel like we do need to increase that, I wouldn't find it, but I feel like there's been a lot of research put into this. Again, frontage is the most important thing to me. I don't think anybody who walks down the street says they don't perceive that there's 1,200 square feet or 2,000 square feet of retail. They just perceive it as, this is what's visible. Thanks. Thank you, Andrew. Janet. So I understand the fears that people have, but I'm looking at numbers that are other towns use that are really strong towns. And I know that we already, in 2016, we went through this process before the previous planning board recommended 60%, non-residential, the planning department was on board with that, the select board agreed with it. And I think a majority of town meeting, but it didn't quite go over the, I think over the line, I think mostly because the issue about parking may be being in front of the, in the front as I remember that discussion. And so I would like to make a motion that the minimum floor area is 60% non-residential and the maximum amount is residential on the first floor. Maximum amount of residential on the first floor is 40%. I just don't see the argument for dropping that percentage below any other town or city that we've looked at, other than we haven't really been asking developers for that much lately. So I guess I made a motion. Okay, Tom. Am I responding to that motion? Who needs a second? I guess we can, we're gonna have discussion if anyone wants a second that motion. Andrew? No. I was, yeah, I got some additional comments before. Okay. I don't see- Sorry, I couldn't hear Andrew. I don't know if others had problem too, but I- It's a little bit patchy. I got the gist of what he was saying. Chris, how about you? Jack, can you tell us what Andrew said? I don't know what Andrew said. You did. Wait, let me try again. Can you hear me? Yeah, that's much better, yeah. Yeah, I again apologize for the spotty coverage here, but I just, I was commenting, I had additional comments. I'm not ready to second it yet, but if we want a second and just continue the discussion within that motion, that's fine. But I won't make the second at this point. Okay, Andrew, do you mind just kind of like, since we have a better connection, kind of like restating your prior comments? Okay. I'm sorry, which comments are- Yeah, you're still choppy. So let's, we'll come back to you if that's okay. Okay. I don't see a second at this time. So let's move on to Tom. Sure, thanks. Just for your comment, I think to clarify, I was going along the lines of, I think what Nate was referring to, which is, you know, you offer somebody 75% frontage or 40% gross of the floor. Or whichever one is smaller, right? So that people can't go under the 40% and nor can they go shorter than the facade. But again, I don't need to promote that. I think one of my primary comments here is just that two things. One is that we don't, compared to all of the other towns that are cited in this list, we don't have a residential downtown like those places. So those places have active businesses because of the sheer volume of people that are actually living in the urban downtowns. And so those are the people that are active in the downtowns most of the time. Secondly, I think we had a visit from Gabrielle from the BID who informed us during a site visit and a sort of information session that actually leasing spaces is incredibly hard and they're going well sub market rate just to get people in and the people that are there that are small businesses are on longer leases that haven't been raised in 20-something years. I don't have actual numbers. But the point being that filling out businesses downtown is actually really challenging pre-pandemic in Amher. So I think it's important that if we're saying where's the data, I think we have the data and I think the data shows us right now it's really hard to do that. And that we're putting out something that says 40% which is substantial and we'll have an impact given look at the project that is on the table going in downtown, that's a substantial increase for that particular site. So I think there are things that there are positive influences that are coming from this but I think we can't overreach because we're not gonna wind up filling those spaces and we're not gonna invite developers in a climate where the BID is saying we can't lease these spaces. So I guess I'm working off of the data that we have in front of us and that's what it's telling me that 40% seems like even a lot but I'd like to propose it to push more businesses downtown. Yeah, and in the back of my mind I'm still thinking about someone that has businesses in the second third or rooftop that gets no credit for that commercial retail development within a building and I'm kinda hung up on that. Chris, I'm gonna, and then Janet. So I'm channeling Andrew and he asks, do we have a sense of how many new buildings have been built in the communities that were referenced in that chart that have very high percentages of required non-residential on the first floor? He wonders if it's just on paper but has it actually caused people to invest in buildings in their downtown? And he says he can't recall any new buildings being built in Northampton Central Business District in his lifetime. So does anyone have an answer to that? That was a good question, Andrew. And I don't, you know, I know some of the communities I know Watertown, Waltham have had new development. I can't say for sure, you know, if it was pursuant to the bylaw examples that were presented. So can I answer to your name? Janet, you're next and then Doug. So to answer that question, I'm not sure exactly where the lines of Northampton Central Business District but the street that leads to Northampton Coffee which I frequent whenever I'm in Northampton has built several new buildings that are mixed use and residential. They're all, I think they all look commercial on the first floor and the upper floors. I mean, there's like two or three buildings. I can think off of the top of my head plus this big performance art space that they just built. But anyway, so I think that, you know, all due respect to the bid and their heroic efforts in this pandemic is that, you know, Gabriella has only been in town for three years. Amherst is not a place that has a lot of empty storefronts in the almost 20 years I've been here. I have talked to small businesses and I've always asked them, is Amherst anti-business? And three people have said to me, no, the town is not anti-business, but rents are really high. And, you know, obviously I have a little less people walking through than in downtown Northampton. And I think that we do wanna keep the rents lower for the first floor. We wanna encourage small businesses to come in and start and flourish. And I don't wanna have zoning based on a pandemic. And I know we don't know when this is gonna end, but we know that we have tens of thousands of students coming back in a few weeks. And we know that we have new buildings with residents going in. And we know we have a really strong group of residents who are willing and able and want to shop downtown. And I think we need to do is create those spaces. If it's not working out, we could back down to 40%. And so I just think we, like I still don't understand why we've dropped or the planning department, I mean, did the planning, like Chris, did you guys go from 60% to 40% or was that the CRC? Like, how did we get to such a low number? And, you know, are we gonna just keep, you know, kind of choking off the business and commercial and professional, you know, parts of the downtown and village centers? I see Doug. Yeah, I guess I initially raised my hand because I don't have the list in front of me of the different communities that were cited, but if they are mostly made up of towns like Watertown and Waltham, that's just a completely different world, you know, as part of the Boston market, which is exploding. Both of the, you know, Waltham's on the commuter line, Watertown's on the electric bus line, or at least has really good bus service. So I don't see those as comparables to this market out here in Western Mass. Okay, there's the list. Thank you. But anyway, I think, you know, there is no prohibition on anybody putting more retail or more non-residential space into their building. And if the market supports that, great. So I don't think we should be trying to mandate more than is, you know, sort of our best effort to be reasonable. So I do not support going to 60% at this time. I'd like to see a couple of buildings that get to 40%. And then let's see if those storefronts are filled. And then let's talk about going to 60%. Thank you, Nate. Sure, Doug said what I was going to say. I think that, you know, staff, Jenny, you know, the 2016 amendment didn't pass. And I think 60% from speaking with a bid and other developers is a high hurdle. And so we've said, right, start at 40. And if you do get a few buildings, you could always increase to 50 or higher. And, you know, I was gonna say what Doug said that they can always voluntarily do more than 40% if they have a use for that ground floor, first floor. So we're not prohibiting it. We're setting a minimum of 40%, which, you know, based on conversations with people in the area, that seems reasonable. I think the, you know, 60%, but you know, to me it would be is too much, is too high. And so, you know, there's been a few tries that makes use building standards and none of them have passed. And so, you know, in 2016, parking was still really not visible from the street. It was part of the first floor use and it still is. I think the, you know, I think there are a few other little, you know, changes made since then in terms of the conditions, but, you know, the planning department, you know, I found 40% to be reasonable. And, you know, it's not, we're not prohibiting a higher percentage. What did you base it on though? Just, you know. Yeah, so, you know, based on prior projects in the last five years on speaking with a few local developers and the bid. And, you know, that chart to me, the takeaway from the chart also is that every community does it differently. And so, you know, there's no right answer for what a percentage is. And so some of them have, you know, different overlays that allow for different things. You know, Cambridge has many different types of mixed use building standards, depending on what zone districts you're in. And so the sample that was provided has a few and, you know, South Hadley, for instance, is basically a 40-hour district. You know, it's a smart growth overlay. So I think that, you know, there's many different ways to have a mixed use building standard. And so the 40% is what seemed like it would work in Amherst without deterring development. So currently, though, the mixed use building has no such percentage requirement. It just says that it has to have some sort of commercial entity on the first floor. So we're jumping from like an undefined or unrestricted sort of requirement. But definitely, there seems to be like there's been some, you know, taking advantage of that, we're expecting more than say an ATM or a small, you know, micro sort of commercial entity. So, but I just, the 40% kind of gives me pause without, you know, different stipulations for what else is going on in the building. So Chris and then Maria. I just wanted to mention the three buildings that come close to 40% and one is Kendrick Place, I think has 42% if I'm not mistaken. One East Pleasant Street has somewhere around 40% and Barry Roberts building at the corner of University Drive and Route 9 has about 35%. So those buildings are the ones that really come closest to even meeting the 40%. And to stretch it to 60% I think is really going beyond what's reasonable in my opinion. I just wanted to offer those examples, thanks. Thank you, Maria. Thanks, I feel like we've vetted this quite a bit and talked about pros and cons a lot and I'm pretty comfortable moving forward with it. And I think with all of the zoning bylaw amendments we've been discussing the whole planning department staff has always sort of emphasized that this is, you know, we push forward if we find in a few years it doesn't work or it's a lot of projects are being hindered by something we've suggested and amended, we can come back to it and amend it more. And I think that that's a good way to look at it because I've, you know, I had problems with some earlier amendments but hearing that told me, okay, even though I don't agree with 100%, let's push this forward because it's an improvement. It's a huge improvement from what we have as people have said. And if something doesn't quite work right with the market and the way the market develops we can come back and amend it. So I'm very comfortable moving forward with it as is. And yeah, just keep in mind that this is a work in progress and that we're, you know, a new government and new bylaw amendments process. And so this is a great sort of big step for us. And so I'm comfortable with that as written in. I'm sorry I missed that bid site visit. I'd love to hear more about it or if there, it wasn't on video since the site visit. So if maybe I could just get a summary sometime at some other point from someone I'd like, I'd love to hear the data on that meeting. There was a link that Chris forwarded that was in mass live that is very good. It kind of gives a vision for what bid is anticipating in the downtown area. I don't know if you've seen that yet. That was, you know, a good percentage of what Gabrielle, you know, spoke to but Janet. So I just wanted to basically make the point, two points is that one is I feel like the tail is starting to wag the dog. And that the whole purpose of mixed use buildings was to encourage commercial uses on the first floor and allow much more residential. There's no cap on the amount of apartments. And that has been a huge boon in the sense that we've had a ton of new buildings come in. The rents in those, the apartment rents in those are really high. Aspen Chase is charging $2,000 for a studio that's 500 square feet. So we're not gonna dampen that because these are like, you know, I mean, this is there. And I think what we can get in exchange is really vibrant in village centers in downtown. Almost all the buildings that you see in downtown and village centers have no residential space on the first floor and no residential uses on the first floor. And also a lot of the buildings are completely non-residential. And so obviously those have thrived and survived. And we just don't wanna kind of cut off for the future, you know, commercial uses on the first floor. I actually am afraid that if the residential development is so lucrative to rent to students and apartments that if we only have 40%, not 60% or even saying all the first floor, we're providing incentive to take down older buildings because there can all be apartment buildings virtually except for 40%. And so I just think that we, you know, we have to think of our village centers not just for residential uses, but also for businesses. And we wanna have more and more space. And I think people are sort of fearful, but, you know, there's 37 businesses at the intersection of College Street and Southeast Street. It's not, you know, it's like, there's not one residential, I think one building has residents above. You know, these businesses are all functioning and operating, but they don't have super high rents. And, you know, if somebody wanted to come in and take that building down, fill it with the storefronts and the businesses and build two or three stories above, I'd be honored with that. But let's just keep the, let's keep our business space for our businesses, keep people coming. You know, I read that, I read through that study about the economic analysis is that, you know, $214 million of Amherst residents' money goes out of town. You know, and 22 million of that is for grocery stores, you know, groceries. It's like, let's bring those spaces back into town. I'm happy to spend my money here and not in Hadley. Thank you. All right, any other, we have Doug? Well, it sounds like we've all had a chance to talk. We had a motion proposed and it didn't get a second. So I guess I was gonna make a motion to recommend the town council that the proposed bylaw be adopted as is and just see how people feel about that. Thank you. Very good. Do we have a second? Second. All right, Maria. So for the discussion, I guess, you know, for me, I feel like the 40% is restrictive. But again, this is, nothing is ever written in stone. I like some of the rationality, give it a try. You know, it always can be changed in the future. But I appreciate all the effort that Nate and Chris's group has put into this. So without any, any other further discussion on this, take a roll call, Maria, Andrew, thank you. Doug? Approve. Tom? Hi. And Janet? Approve. And myself all approve. So that's six, zero. Thank you. Nate? Sure, thanks. And your team? So Janet, do you have a comment? Yeah, so when, I have two things. Is that, you know, there's a planning board report that's going to go to town council. And so one thing is I really would like a section that says how long we debated this issue of the percentage. And there was support for 60%, like in the last meeting in this meeting. And I know when the town council looked at this, this issue came up where councils were saying, why is this percentage so slow? Sorry. Anyway, and so why is that so low? And I think I'd like to see that in, that a really strong section in the report, talking about the reasons for a higher month amount. And then also I really would like to see the report before it goes to town council. Cause I know that Doug has asked for that before and reports are going to town council that the planning board hasn't actually read or corrected or anything like that. And so I'm not sure how that's happened, but I think I'd like to make sure that we get to look at that before it goes out and make comments on it. Sounds reasonable. Janet, thank you. Chrissy, are you good with those requests? Okay, so let's take a like a five minute break. It's eight o'clock and then we'll get into ADUs or supplemental units. So yes, just take yourself, vlog video and mute. Hey, when did you guys have that site visit with Gabrielle from the bid? Well, that ad up on two numbers. It was, it was in prompt two. It was a continuation of our site visit. There you go. Yeah, Janet had asked for another site visit to the Lebanese Pleasant Street. And then we immediately thereafter, we had Gabrielle join us. And we were going to do a tour, but we just end up just having a conversation there. And you said there was a link that was sent out of something. Yeah, it's on MassLive. A link to an article that Jack found, right? Yeah, it's kind of a vision that most up-to-date vision that bid may have. And I think it spoke to the recreating the drake within the high horse. August 10th. Yeah, yeah, I see it. Okay. Yeah. All right. And other things. I see it. But, you know, she was discussing statistics, which Chris, I think you summarized, I'd have to look that up, but you took really good notes that she said, yeah, you got it all right. I could send that out to the planning board members. Yeah. Yeah, no worry, but yeah, I think it's great to see. 806, are you ready to go? Yes. Let's do it. Mr. McDougall. Yeah, Ben, Ben has joined us. Doug, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I do, Jack. Should I say my piece an hour wait? Well, let's see if we're online, if you... You are online, Jack. Okay, so we just completed the hearing for the mixed use buildings, which is approved 6-0. And Doug, you have your hand up. Well, I was just thinking about Janet's statement that I had complained that I hadn't received a report that went to town council. And I'm having trouble remembering making that statement. So... No, no, you didn't complain. You had asked that we see the reports before they went to town council. Oh, okay. It wasn't a complaint. Okay, good, because I... Much more positive. Oh, good. Okay, thank you. Great. Okay, so I think we can proceed in the second deliberation that we have of hearing that was closed during a joint hearing with the CRC, and that's the zoning bylaw, article five, accessory uses, section 5.011, supplemental dwelling units. And again, we're gonna have a discussion and vote on a recommendation to the town council on this to see if the town will vote to amend article five, accessory uses, section 5.011, supplemental dwelling units to repeal the existing 5.011, supplemental dwelling units and replace it with a new section 5.011, accessory dwelling units to change the name of this use category to accessory dwelling units to increase the maximum square footage allowed per unit to 1,000 square feet to create a more streamlined permitting pathway to add design guidelines and to require that the principles and standards of the design review board be applied to all new accessory dwelling units. So let's open up the board. Again, we're in this deliberation phase and anybody wanna kind of follow up and we have Ben. It looks like that's gonna assist Chris on this. Hi, Ben. All right. Any discussion? Sorry, I don't see my raise hand feature, but... Oh, I don't either. Yeah. Can I? Yeah, because the board is not jumping in right now, so if you wanna say a few words, that's fine. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Hello, everyone. I just wanted to note that the planning department did make a few minor revisions to the bylaw as it was presented at the public hearing. So we've updated it since then. So we're asking for that the planning board vote to recommend this newest version of the bylaw and I'm happy just to go over those few minor changes. We don't think they're that substantial, but... They're not on our packet. August 4th, so it's subsequent to August 4th. August 4th, 2021 revision. Yeah, that's the one. Oh, okay, that's in our packet then. Okay, yeah, that was slightly different than what was presented at the public hearing. Yeah, I don't think you need to take over that unless there's questions. Okay. Yeah, they look pretty straightforward. So, okay, so we have Andrew and then Janet. Oh, excuse me, Chris. Can I have Chris go, Andrew, first? Of course. Okay, so I just wanted to mention that we did speak with Joel Bard, our town attorney about changes that can be made after the public hearing is closed and before things actually get voted on by town council. And he said that that's perfectly reasonable as long as the changes are within the scope. So we consider these changes to be within the scope of the amendment that was presented at the public hearing. So I just wanted to mention that, that we did go over that with town council. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. So, Andrew and then Janet. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. I was gonna say if there are a few changes in my, and or maybe we could just pull over them so for transparency. Would you like to? Okay, so Ben, you have the floor. Great, thanks, Jack. I can share my screen. Let me know if I need to zoom in here. I'm happy to do that. But here, the first page is essentially the same. So accessory dwelling units, we lay out the three types contained, detached and detached for just a, you know, a refresher. For detached, they're allowed by right, if they're less than 50% of the habitable space of the primary dwelling, allowed by special permit, if they're greater than 50% of the primary one, one family dwelling. Down here, we get to general requirements and here's the first change we made. So kind of going through this list of many of the requirements, they don't necessarily all apply to all accessory dwelling units, as is indicated here. So the following standards shall apply to all accessory dwelling units. That's not necessarily true. Some of these only apply to contained accessory dwelling units, some of them only apply to detached. For example, and that's actually, if you go through each one, it's spelled out exactly whether it applies to all accessory dwelling units or just certain types. So we thought by eliminating this qualifier, it just made the bylaw easier to interpret as is intended. So secondly, this was just a grammatical thing. I thought I had changed all the references to supplemental dwelling units because we're changing the terminology to say accessory dwelling unit. So I must have just missed this one here. So just crossing out supplemental and changing it to an accessory dwelling unit. And then finally, as you know, we've, the planning department has submitted a proposal to alter article seven, the parking bylaw. And so basically not knowing whether or not that'll be adopted, we thought basically just to change the language in the ADU bylaw to reflect whatever happens to article seven because we wouldn't want there to be a conflict between the ADU bylaw parking requirements and what it says in article seven. So we just, by putting this language back in here, which is original, you know, this is actually the original language essentially was parking shall be provided in accordance with article seven, putting that language back in here. We felt whatever, regardless of the fate of the article seven, ADU bylaw will be in accordance with that. So whether article seven requires two parking spaces per dwelling unit with the option to waive it by a special permit as is required now, or whether article seven moves in a direction towards, you know, more saying adequate parking in the board that gets to determine that the ADU bylaw will be in accordance with article seven if we have this language in there. So it was those three changes that were made. Thank you. Yes, yep. Thank you, Ben. Discussion part of our deliberation we're on the board. Any, anybody, anybody want to make a motion? All right, I see Maria and then Janet. Oh, I wasn't going to make a motion, but maybe there's more discussion, but I guess I can make a motion and we can still discuss it. Correct, correct. I move that we approve the August 4th revision to this proposed amendment of the ADU bylaw to town council. Very good. Do we have a second to that motion? And then we can have discussion. I'll second. Janet, okay, very good. Janet, you had your hand up so you can. So I raised this concern before. I'm concerned that I support this zoning amendment, but I'm concerned that people will not have notice of what's of an ADU in their neighborhood. And so our supplemental dwelling is attached dwelling, supplemental dwelling, I get my language correct. And so if someone's applying for a special permit they're required to notify all the butters and the butters have an opportunity to participate in a hearing before the ZBA. And so for the permit applicants in front of the building commissioner to going to try to streamline the process, it has sort of an inadvertent effect of disappearing the process for neighbors. And so they may not know that their neighbor has applied for a permit before the building commissioner and they may not know it's been approved and they may not know what anything's gonna look like until things like the bulldozer comes in or somebody starts digging a hole in their yard next to them. And so this is very similar to sort of my concerns with the temporary zoning where businesses next to, may not know that the restaurant is now on the street and that could affect them. And so they have a chance to talk to the building commissioner and raise their concerns or give a cheer. So I did a draft amendment at the last time we talked about this and then I did a revision. I tried to make the language a little cleaner and it's not perfect, but I think basically the purpose of the amendment, which I will make a motion to do in a moment. I guess I should make the motion first and then talk about it to. Well, I guess you seconded Maria's so we need to kind of address that. Well, maybe I can just talk about this and then I'll make a motion to amend Maria's motion if that makes, is that okay? I'm not a great Roberts rules person but I don't want to. Yeah, Chris, help me out here. You're on mute. I think you can have a discussion about Maria's motion and then if Janet wants to make a motion to amend Maria's motion, that would be in order. Okay. And then someone would have to second Janet's suggestion. Okay. Okay, Janet. You're in mute. Sorry, I'll wait until there's other discussion then I'll make my motion. Okay. Let me get the people up here. Okay, I don't see any other board members that have comments at this time. So you're welcome to, Janet if you would like to proceed. I would like to make a motion to amend Maria's motion with the following language. At the time of their application, applicants seeking a permit for a supplemental dwelling unit shall provide to all the butters within 300 feet of their property. One, written notice of the permit application. Two, all related documents or information about how to obtain this information. Three, notice of who will make the permit decision and when it will be made. Four, how the public can have input into the decision. And five, any rights of appeal of the permit and time requirements to file an appeal. And so that's the language. And as I'm reading it aloud, I wonder if I should just have limited it to permits before the building commissioner. But anyway, the whole purpose is just to make sure that people have notice of the application if it's not going through a special permit procedure and to get people know how there can be involved who to talk to. And the appeal rights or the timing of appeals are different for special permits or a building permit. And so that is arcane and I can't expect anybody to know that or know to look up one versus the other. And there's even a different appeal time for site plan review. So permits. So the purpose of the motion is just to make sure people, neighbors are involved and know what's going on. So. Yeah, I mean, that seems like a worthy indender, but I know Rob more of the building commissioner would be have the discretion as proposed. Is that correct Chris? And you have your hand up and then we have Andrew and then Doug. So the staff has had considerable discussion about this. You know, we recognize why Janet is proposing this amendment, but we don't necessarily think it's a good idea. And there are a number of reasons why and I can go through them. And then you can perhaps call on Rob more to elaborate on some of them. So, so here are the things that we came up with as staff as to why you may not want to do this. Notification to a butters is not required for construction of similar structures, including a single family home or in addition of any size to a single family home or in addition of a garage or anything like that. So that's one. Second one is notification to a butters is not required for contained and attached ADUs as these are allowed by right. So why would we add a butter notifications to those two things? Three is that one of the goals of the bylaw is to expedite the approval process for detached ADUs. Because we think this is a really good idea. It's a good way of expanding the housing stock in Amherst. And requiring a butter notifications and an appeal process would hamper the approval process and would slow down the approval process. Pam, would you mind putting up the janets? Yeah. Thing again, please. Yes. So we have that. So the another thing is that Article 14 has required a butter notifications and staff has spent a significant amount of time posting a butter notifications and waiting the required time to approve the applications. And so far there haven't been any complaints, inquiries or questions that have come about as a result of these notifications. Another one is that town staff process notifications to a butters and posting of legal ads and property owners may not be set up with the right equipment to be able to print and mail perhaps dozens of letters, nor is it appropriate for them to bear the expense. And the last one is, while in a butter could appeal the issuance of a building permit, since most detached ADUs will be allowed by right, there's no public forum for in a butter to voice their appeal. They would really only be able to speak about that for a detached ADU that was larger than 50%. So 50% greater than 50% of the existing habitable space of the existing house. So those are counter arguments to requiring the notification and you may wish to ask Rob Mora for further elaboration on that. Okay, we have Andrew and Rob. If you wanna speak before Andrew, you're welcome to add to Chris's comments. Thank you. I think Chris covered it well, but happy to answer any specific questions. Thank you. Andrew. Thanks, Jack. Can you guys hear me? Yes. I think Janet's motion seems pretty common sense to me. I would second it. Okay. All right, so at this point, we have a second of one motion in the addendum and a second of that. So I guess the thing that we would want to vote on is Janet's supplement sort of language to the existing. Maria, you have your hand up, and then Doug and then Janet. Thanks. If we're still in discussion about Janet's motion, I can do that or are we in voting mode? I'm not sure, Jack. Well, we can always after a second motion, we're always in discussion. So we can take it to vote when everyone calls a question, but it seems that the vote would be with Janet's addendum to the town proposal. I guess I still want to discuss it. Is that possible still to do? No, absolutely. Yeah. So I think everything Janet proposes basically counter to the definition of what by right stands for. Basically by right means you don't have to go through this process of announcing to a butters to getting public comment, to getting more steps in the process. The whole point of making this ADU proposed amendment is to make certain types of ADUs by right and then certain types with special permit. And so it's clearly defined which is which. And I think that adding all those steps that were listed is sort of negating the definition of this amendment as far as what we're trying to make easier and by right. I think that the ADUs are a great idea. I think it's a bonus to the town. We've already been through all the great reasons why. And as far as it announcing to a butters, I think this is actually a preferred way to add in fill housing to our various residential zones. And so I don't think this extra step is necessary. So that's my part of the discussion. And I guess we're not running out of time. Great. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Doug and then Janet. Yeah, I guess my comments were pretty closely in line with what Maria said. It seemed like there was a misunderstanding of what by right meant. You know, by right means there really isn't any public. There isn't even a decision to be made at all. You know, there's a review by Rob to make sure it's in conformance with the building code and the zoning code. But there's no decision to be appealed. And so I, you know, in order to, I mean, I think sort of the text of it doesn't even make sense in the in the situation of or in the context of the by right situation. Now, for when the ADU exceeds 50% and there's a special permit, I assume that process is the regular process with notifications and public and advertisement and hearings. And so, you know, we already have that for when we have a special permit. But when it when it's just a site plan or review, when it's just a review, it's not even a site plan review. You know, I don't see the point of this. So I don't think I could vote in favor of this amendment. Very good. Thank you, Janet. So we, I hate that expression by right, because it sounds like you're just kind of going in and getting a permit. And so when we do a site plan review permit process, those are considered by right. We have a public hearing. There's notice people can participate. They can see what the information that we're relying on. They can, you know, ask questions. And so we do that by right process all the time. And we make sure, you know, the bylaw is complied with. If it's just going to the building commissioner, of course, he's going to be, you know, applying the same criteria for site plan review. It's, you know, by right in the sense if you comply with everything, you get your permit. But there's a lot of flexibility and interpretation. I think that, you know, I understand what the planning department is saying. And I just a few responses to the specific is there's no new appeal process. So anyone has a right to appeal a building permit. So there's not a special appeals process. It's just informing people that they have a right to appeal a permit, building permit, and, you know, the timing of that. It is building a new unit and a new group of people are moving on to your property. And there's lots of times that we have hearings for that for converted dwellings and duplexes. And we know the neighbors want to participate in those things. It's great that everybody has gotten information about an ADU and not been involved. But that's actually I think kind of good sign that, you know, people feel like they were informed. They knew what was going on. They maybe talked to the owner and things like that. So I also think that the notice issue is like, you know, we don't have to worry. The planning department doesn't have to worry about the notice. They can just, we can do what we did before, which is have sort of a template notice saying, you know, you know, you know, giving the information required, mailing it to the butters, the applicant has to do that. I think the hardest thing for them might be to figure out what's 300 feet from their property line. I'm sure the planning department would help with that. So it's not adding a huge layer, but it's just giving neighbors the opportunity to kind of understand what's going on and weigh in if they have concerns or good ideas. And so I don't think it's adding a huge burden to the process. And then if you think that process is burdensome, then you kind of wonder why people with smaller homes would have to go through the special permit process. And so, which is, you know, can be more expensive and arduous, but I do think that I think that, you know, having an addition on someone's home is one thing, having an entire new apartment being built on someone's home or in the backyard is something I would like to know as a person living next to someone. So I actually have a question for Rob. So with the right billing permit of this nature, what are the notifications, if any, for this, you know, under this ADU bylaw? Would there be any at all? Rob? No, there wouldn't be any, no butter notifications. So these applications currently for contained or attached that we deal with as by right now in the bylaw, come in in the form of a building permit application with enough information or management plan or something associated with it to respond to all the criteria in the bylaw. So that's how it works as part of the building permit application process. Okay, and then a question to Chris or Ben or Rob. Now, if you do one, say, you know, 1000 foot build out and you decide to do a second, how does that work in to the workings of this proposal? Where this bylaw, the current bylaw and this proposal only allow for the provision of one accessory dwelling unit as a supplemental to a single family home. So there couldn't be a second ADU. Okay, but if he did, it would go through the ZBA or something. It's not possible. Yeah. Not possible. Okay, you're locked at just the 1000, okay. Thank you. Let me see, we have Tom and then Andrew. Sure, I just wanted to comment that I support the original proposal without the agenda. Okay, Tom, thank you. Andrew. So really good to hear from Marie and Doug. I hadn't thought through the by right to as much as you have. So I appreciate hearing that. I think to me, this is really around notification, right? It's like giving folks a heads up that this is happening and it may be your next door and that is going to, that ADU is going to be right next year back for fire pit, right? I mean, like maybe you want to sell your prop, maybe you don't want to be next to an ADU and you'd like to move. It's just, it's sharing that information upfront. I don't see how that can be perceived as a bad thing. I get it. It's by right, you can do it. At the point, I'm not, I don't want to put words in the chair's mouth, but to me, as she described it, it's giving folks a heads up that this is happening. It's not trying to discourage the ADU being built. It's just, it's trying to be as transparent as possible. So those are my thoughts. Thanks. All right, thank you, Andrew. So we have Doug or Ron, do you have your hand up? Yeah, I just wanted to mention a response to Andrew's comments is that this proposal actually does a little bit more than that number of four states that how the public can have input into the decision that's being reviewed under the application. So I think that can be problematic, not knowing what the timing is for this notice, how long you wait before you issue a permit waiting for that, that public comment and what would I do with that public comment, if anything. So I just wanted to mention that. Okay, I'm going back. You said number four. Number four in Janet's amendment. Oh, okay, all right. I actually meant a butter. I'm sorry, I put that in there. Okay. I was just thinking about public notice, but I, yeah, so. All right, Doug and then Janet. Well, I guess I wanted to say that if I were building one of these in my backyard, you know, I already know my neighbors and the chances are that I probably would talk to them and let them know I was doing it. So, you know, I think in reality, you know, maybe I'm unusual, but chances are, you know, all the people that are in wonderful neighborhoods and know their neighbors, there's probably gonna be some notification or some communication before this happens anyway, just because people try to be good neighbors with their neighbors. Thanks. Thank you. Janet, then Tom. I'm sorry, I had my hand up for saying to replace the word public with a butter. I'm sorry. Okay. That was it. All right, Tom. Sure, just a quick comment to piggyback on Doug's. I think if I didn't know my neighbor, I probably wouldn't want their opinion about whether or not I'm putting an ADU in my yard or not. So, I think, you know, if I'm allowed to do this by right, I would like to maintain that opportunity and the path to do that in the most efficient way. Yeah, it seems like there, you know, several avenues how this, you know, goes, but to me seems fairly innocuous. So no other hand. So on the motion that for on Janet's amendment to the ADU as proposed by the town, let's do a roll call. Maria. Maria. Oh, no. Okay. Andrew. I'm here. Doug. Nay. Tom. We're voting on the amendment, correct? Correct, correct. Nay. And Janet. Aye. Did Tom say nay or aye? Is that a conclusion? Tom said nay. Oh, okay. And then I'll go nay. So that's four or two against the amendment. So at this point, I think we can make a motion again to go back to the town proposal and see how that goes. Anyone want to make a motion to the article five accessory uses section 5.011 supplement dwelling units as proposed Tom. That was already made. The motion was already made and second. Okay. So we can take a vote on that without a second or anything. Okay. So let's vote on that the original motion and which was seconded for the proposal as presented by the town. Maria. Approve. Andrew. Nay. Nay. Is that nay? Sorry. No, that was approved. Approve, okay. Doug. Oh, approve. Recommend. Recommended. All right, Tom. Janet. Recommend. Okay. And I'm going to approve there. So that's six zero. Good discussion. And that concludes our deliberation on the couple of the bylaw hearings that we concluded a couple of weeks back. And so the next item is old business. No old business. Okay. New business. We have an SUV 2020-01 11-13 East Pleasant Street Archipelago Investments LLC. Discussion and vote on a request to extend the 45 day review period for a preliminary subdivision plan. The application is described as follows. Request approval for two lot preliminary subdivision plan under MGL chapter 41, sections 81L and 81S. And that includes map 11C-275, 276, 277, 309, 310. And this is all in the beach zoning district. So may I speak to this? Yes, Chris. So Archipelago submitted a subdivision application, preliminary subdivision application for 11 and 13 East Pleasant Street. And it is the intent of it is to freeze the zoning on the property. The planning board is required to act within 45 days of receipt of this application. The application was received on July 12th by the town clerk. And the 45 days expires on August 26th. So Archipelago is asking you to extend the 45 day review period. And they are asking that you actually hold a public hearing in late September or early October, preferably at your meeting on September 29th to hold the public hearing on this. So that's their request. And then I have some more explaining to do after you vote on the request. Okay, Doug? Yeah, I guess I'm puzzled why they submitted it if they don't want us to act on it. And I'd like maybe Chris to explain why we wouldn't want to just act on it. Well, you need to hold a public hearing in order to act on it. So that's the second part of my explanation. I've actually scheduled a public hearing for I think it's next week, next Wednesday, August 25th. But my understanding is that we would not have a quorum. I reached out to planning board members to find out if they were available on August 25th. And four members said no. One member said yes. And I think I didn't hear from one or two members. So anyway, my current plan and what we've proceeded with is to advertise a public hearing for August 25th with the understanding that we would open the public hearing, not take any testimony and continue the public hearing to September 29th. Now, you can vote. So tonight you can't vote on the subdivision plan since the public hearing wasn't advertised for tonight. If a quorum of you shows up next Wednesday on the 25th of August, you could vote on the subdivision plan. You can also vote tonight to extend the time in which to review. And I don't know why. Well, I know that the applicant wasn't available tonight for a public hearing, which is why we didn't advertise a public hearing for tonight. I don't think he's available next Wednesday either, but whatever. So exactly why he wants to extend the 45 days and why he doesn't want you to act on this application. I'm not really clear on that. And he's not here tonight to explain him so I can just talk to you about the mechanics of this request. Rob Mora may have further description of what it is we're doing here, but I have not heard from the applicant about why he's requesting to extend other than the fact that he wasn't available for tonight. And tonight was one of the dates that I offered as a public hearing. Kind of a complicated Maria. I guess I would like to know the mechanics. I'm not, what is the, do you have any idea what the technical result of this ask is? Like I don't understand the sort of logistics of what this is doing. I probably should at this point. I don't quite understand. Is this something that's part of, in order for him to get a one East pleasant, sorry, 11 East pleasant to fruition, or does this have to do with something else? I don't not clear on how this is part of that process. Yes. May I further explain? So the planning board has been considering two amendments that would affect 11 and 13 East pleasant. And one of them was, inclusionary zoning and the applicant has bought into that and is proposing 11 units of affordable units as part of his 90 units overall. He didn't know how the mixed juice building would turn out. He knew that the planning board was considering it and, but he didn't know what the result would be. And so I don't exactly know what his thought process is there. Now that you've made a recommendation to recommend the 40% of the ground floor be something other than residential. And you have also put in a condition on your site plan review approval that. If such a change were to come about, then he would have to come back to you with a revised site plan review. So essentially he's trying to preserve the zoning as it is. And as I said, he's agreed to going along with inclusionary zoning. He may decide to agree to go along with mixed use buildings. I don't know. But he wants to kind of. Preserve his options. And the way this. This mechanical mechanically works is that when there's a change in the zoning bylaw proposed. A landowner can submit a preliminary subdivision plan on the property that he owns or is concerned about. And then. That preliminary subdivision plan goes through a process with the planning board. Usually within 45 days and the planning board either says, yes, we like it or no, we don't like it. But whatever the outcome of that preliminary review is. The applicant then needs to file a definitive subdivision plan within seven months of. Of the end of the process with the preliminary plan. And if he does that. And I think then would need to get approval on the definitive plan. Then the. Zoning on his property is frozen for a period of eight years. So it is kind of a convoluted process. And I've seen it happen before. I think. What's his name? Scott Nielsen used it on the property on. Southeast street when there was a pro proposal to rezone that property. So. That's, that's kind of my understanding of the situation. You know, I'm, I'm like utterly confused why you are speaking. For the developer. And the developer isn't here. It doesn't make sense to me. But thank you for that, Chris. Janet. So I think, like maybe the, maybe the, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So I think, like, maybe the, I think I'm right on this Chris is so if the town council did adopt the mixed use zoning amendment now. It would apply. To 11 East pleasant. If he hadn't. If they hadn't done that. And so. So that's kind of, it's kind of like a checkmate in a way. So that's what I understand. And then there's all these different. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm totally in favor of delay. I think it serves us well on this board since we're overworked and the planning department is too. So. I'd be happy to push this to October. So I wouldn't have to think about it. Until then. But September 29th is fine with me too. Any other discussion. Thanks to board. Okay. So when I'm, when I'm going to motion to. Continue this to. The 29th. Of September. So what you're doing tonight is you're not moving it to the 29th. What you're doing tonight is agreeing to an extension of the 45 days. Then next Wednesday. I and some planning board member need to appear. In a public meeting to open the public hearing and then immediately continue it to September 29th. Okay. Okay. So that's a five day delay. Doug. Well, I wasn't going to be responding to Janet's motion. I wondered if only one of us like me shows up next week. And we don't have a quorum. Can we even open a hearing without a quorum? Yes, you can. I'm not going to do it immediately is because of. The fact that you don't have a quorum. Okay. And then. So let's suppose that the planning board decided to continue. The hearing for another 45 days at the end of September. And then another 45 days after that. How long could we do that? And at the same time. Does the eight year. Duration of the freeze. Keep getting pushed back by 45 days or is it fixed from the initial date of submission? So here's my understanding. You are agreeing or tentatively agreeing to an extension of the 45 days tonight. You have a letter from the applicant making his request. So if you vote to allow the 45 days extension, the applicant will be able to do that. And the applicant will be able to do that. And the applicant will be able to do that on file with the town clerk along with this letter that I believe Pam already put on file with the town clerk. And the town clerk will know that everyone has agreed to this 45 day extension. If the applicant applies for another 45 day extension. Then. It's really to his advantage to keep to the 45 days because, you know, he doesn't want the planning board to drag out the review of his application. So the 45 days is really to protect the applicant. But if he were to come to you and say, I want another 45 days after the 29th of September, you could either agree to that or not agree to it. So I don't foresee that this is going to go on. Uninfinite him. All right. And then my last question is. Usually when we get subdivision plans, it's in the context of an A and R approval not required. But I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. Is this actually a controversial subdivision plan? As you see it. And lastly, could we deny it? You could. You could deny it. Yes. And would that have an impact on the, on the zoning? I don't think so because I think he could then come in and file a definitive. Subdivision plan. Subdivision plan. It's been around for the last 10 months. Now that it's, it's not something that I have ever experienced. So again, we have Rob. Morra here who probably has more experience on this than I have. But my understanding is that there's not a requirement for the planning board to approve the preliminary, preliminary subdivision plan. In order for the, um, applicant to then submit a definitive subdivision plan. And then submit the definitive plan. And then I think that the planning board needs to approve the definitive plan. So we don't actually need to take any action at all. You need to take action to extend the review period and you're supposed to take some action, either deny it or approve it with conditions or approve it. Thank you. Yeah, I'm kind of confused by this. But. Any further discussion. Would there be any sense to having. I hate to do this, but suggesting that the town. Attorney. Give us a synopsis of what's going on. Since, you know, I know Jan, it's an attorney, but. I haven't heard sort of clear explanation from her. So maybe we need some legal advice or not. Is it. I don't think we do. I think, again, Rob is here and he's probably had experience with these things before. So he might. You know, why don't you ask Rob for his, his point of view. He studies the law as it relates to planning. And he's probably capable of answering your question. Well, you know, I mean, I think from the planning board's perspective is to handle the preliminary subdivision plan application as they would any other. So, you know, unless it was in a condition where the board was going to flat out reject it. The definitive subdivision, the definitive subdivision plan filing that would come within seven, seven months. We'll be developed after you start the discussion of this preliminary subdivision plan filing. So I think, you know, we don't know what the developer is going to do. It's definitely, you know, the strategic move to freeze the zoning. It's commonly used all over the state and has been for years. They never proceed with the, the definitive subdivision plan and in fact they don't have to build whatever is approved ultimately to keep the zoning frozen so they can still build their building and not the subdivision plan that they're filing. So to me, you know, you just go ahead at, you know, as you normally would and hold the hearing and work with the developer to finalize a subdivision plan if they're choosing to do that. Thank you. Janet. So this is, I think when, when the time comes, hopefully in October, September, I think I think we could all use a little help on subdivision plans and the requirements and things like that. So I think we could probably use some background information on that. Having personally never dealt with a subdivision plan, I'd love that. That's fine. Yep. All right, so Janet made a motion I don't. I don't think we got a second there Doug. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion. I see none. So let's do a roll call. Maria. Approve. And Andrew. Approve. Doug. Hi. Tom. Hi. Janet. Hi. And I will approve as well that's six zero. Yeah, I asked a question. Yes. Is it the case that Doug is available to appear with me next Wednesday to open the public hearing and continue the public hearing on this. And does anybody else available that night. Doug. It is the case. Yeah, I'm actually available. I'm not sure why I didn't respond, but it'll be via zoom, correct. So the two of you can. Maria's Maria's available as well. Okay, that's good. Okay. Tom, are you shaking yes or no. No. I'll be offline next week. All right. So we might have a record short planning board meeting. I hope. Let's hope so. Pam would like that, right. I think I've recruited Nate to help me with zoom that night. I have next Wednesday off. Oh geez. All right. I'm here for the record short meeting. Okay. All right, so next items topics not reasonably anticipated 40 hours prior to the meeting. No topics. Okay. So we have a couple of slides. A&R subdivision applications. No A&Rs. Upcoming ZBA applications. Yes. Okay. And we'll make it short and sweet. Cause I actually made a couple of. Or a slide, honestly. One. So. There we go. So there's actually two. Okay. So the ZBA applications that are going to go before the ZBA on September 9th. The first one is for a property at 37 Fairview way. And it is a request for a special permit. To allow an increase of the number of residential units. Converted dwelling from one to two under sections. The proposal is to convert an existing garage studio. Into a one bedroom dwelling unit. So currently there is a garage space that is, has been converted into a studio, which is being requested to convert it into a one bedroom dwelling unit. That's going to be primarily used by family. So that's going to be used as a rental unit. So that's number one. And then number two is 149. Which could be familiar to you. The planning board actually endorsed an A&R plan back in February of this year. So these folks, the Powell's, Michael and Adriana are requesting. They are proposing to build a five bedroom home on that lot. So those are the two coming up on September 9th. So the question would be, does the planning board want to review either one of these? And that would have to be on September 1st. That you would review them. So I have, there's a question. In the first one on 37 Fairview way is, is it kind of like dealer's choice, like the owner's choice, whether to go with an ADU or converted dwelling? Is there, is it kind of, because that could be an attached supplemental dwelling unit, right? So it's just, it's not an attached. It's unattached is my understanding. Oh, it's a garage. Okay. Okay. So they could, but they could take either route. It's just up to what, which one they want. Assuming that it's under the square footage requirements. I think converted dwellings don't have a square footage limit. Okay. I'm not mistaken. I think you're right. Okay. Um, Doug. Well, first I wanted to say that the street is far view, not fair view. And, um, and then, and then I wanted to ask Chris, I don't, I don't think the first one is really worth our time. But the second one, uh, I guess I was wondering whether Chris thought it was unusual in any way, or might be educational for us to look and think about it. If you wanted to know more about how flaglots work, um, it might be worthwhile for you to ask for a review. Yeah, that's kind of, I think I would be in favor of that. So should I ask, um, the applicant to come to you on the 1st of September. To present this plan. But we looked at it. On February 3rd. You looked at the ANR where they were carving off the flag lot from, they own a big lot. And, um, they're, they're, they have a frontage lot where they exist, where their existing houses, and they created a flag lot as part of the, um, you know, they carved off a flag lot on which they want to build this new house. And so you saw the ANR plan, which is just merely property line changes. And now they're coming with, um, a location of their new house. And they're showing the driveway to the new house and they're going to be showing, um, the grading plan for that driveway and probably some planting around it. And, um, so that's what they're required to do. Okay. Uh, Andrew. I just, we're trying to take advantage of the fact that we're, um, we haven't even hit four hours yet. I was going to just make a joke about Christine giving her a free pass. Nothing serious. Sorry for the extra time. Okay. Uh, Doug. Yeah. If the flag, I mean, I guess I, if the flag lots already created, then maybe we wouldn't really learn anything by looking at the Pomeroy Lane property. Um, I guess I am, I would be interested to know why, if the flag lot was legal, why they have to come to the ZBA to build a house on it. That's what the zoning bylaw says. Um, any flag lot. If you want to build a house on any flag lot or build anything on any flag lot, you have to have it approved by the zoning board of appeals as a, as a buildable lot. Um, and in the old days, there weren't very many requirements to do that. You really just needed to come before the ZBA and present the A&R plan. But since then, um, we've gotten more strict about it. And now we require location of the house, um, location of the driveway, probably location of walkways to the house from the driveway, grading plan. If there's any kind of a peculiarity with regard to drainage, they would show that although that isn't really required for a single family house, but often the ZBA does ask for information about drainage. And then they also, um, request a planting plan and a lighting plan. So, um, because these flag lots, uh, allow houses to be built behind other houses, they don't want the new house to be, uh, annoying to their neighbors. So, um, they require a public hearing where the neighbors are invited to come. And they have to present more information than, um, a normal single family house. A normal single family house doesn't require, uh, this kind of scrutiny at all. It's just a building permit from the building commissioner. Thank you. And based on what I've heard, I, I'm not sure if this is worth our time either. Yeah. Other people disagree. Yeah, I agree. I think both of these items are. Going to be adequately regulated by ZBA. I don't. I mean, I, I don't see why we would encumber either of the. Uh, developers with an extra meeting. Um, as ZBA is going to. You know, have the purview on this. So, uh, Andrew. I completely agree. Okay. So I think we're, I think we're okay. Um, Chris with not seeing these. That's good. Okay. So, uh, upcoming SPP SPR SUB applications. You have, um, a review of Mr. Robleski's changes to, um, um, um, 446 main street and that's a special permit because, um, that property is newly acquired by him and it does have special permits on it already. So, um, he's going to be. What's the, what was the address again? It's 446 main street. It's right next to 462 main street. It's where John Robleski is proposing to have a little, uh, driveway connection into, um, um, a public property. And so he's coming before you on the 29th of September about that. And you also have, um, Amherst college coming before you on the 1st of September. And they're going to be showing you, um, a way finding sign system. And, um, the planning board is required to review any signs that are on the 12 or 16 signs that you'll be asked to review, but they're going to present to you their entire way of finding sign system. And then we'll narrow it down to the, um, particular signs that you're going to be reviewing. And other than that, I. Oh, uh, there may be some, um, There's a property on main street. We just met with the, uh, applicant today who's going to be applying for site plan review. Um, it's the building that has a fitness together in it. Um, it's at the corner of high street and main street. And they're making some changes to the use of the inside of the building. So they're going to be, uh, coming to you to present that, but that probably won't happen until October. Okay. Uh, not jumping the gun, but we are talking about the next meeting September 1st. We're going to deliberate the apartment and parking zoning bylaws at that time. Correct. Yep. All right. So planning board committee and liaison reports, Planner Valley planning commission. There's been nothing. Uh, the CPA Andrew. Got no updates. Okay. At commission. No update. Okay. Design review board. Yeah, we, um, we had a meeting earlier this week. I don't even remember. Um, we reviewed a small signage and, uh, art installation change on boltwood. Um, the parking garage that, uh, pops up the entry way in the middle of the boltwood parking lot. Had a piece of art on it that was, um, didn't work. It was an interactive piece of art or a projection piece of art that didn't work, but it had, um, the, the author's name or the artist's name engraved in the brick out there. So, um, the art commission produced a frame and they're going to, they're going to, um, they're going to, um, they're going to be working on this again with new artists. And there's a sign that's adjacent to it that, um, We'll be. Roughly matching the design standards for. Downtown. That's all. Thank you. Um, and then the CRC. CRC met twice in the last two weeks. And I think we'll see what the, what the project looks like. At the end of the week. And I think, I think we'll have a great opportunity to hear. Maybe able to give you a rundown. Nate. Yeah. Sure. The CRC met yesterday and, um, they discussed the, um, mixed use, uh, Bylaw and accessory dwelling and apartments. And you know, I think for apartments. Uh, which you'll be discussing. cap and the, you know, what could happen in the residential zoning districts. I think they were, you know, they, they like to know if the dimensional standards, you know, are enough to prevent, you know, massive buildings. And so Maureen Pollock has developed some build out scenarios. They also asked some questions about whether or not apartments lived in the cap in the downtown given the, you know, as was mentioned earlier during the makes use building discussion, the demand for housing would, would lift in the cap in the downtown and the BG or business zoning districts. Is that actually, is that a good thing? You know, do we want, you know, so they even question whether or not we should allow keep the cap or even prohibit apartments, you know, and encourage makes use building. So you know, they they're still, you know, they're trying to go through the, you know, the zoning amendments, you know, post hearing. And so they're, you know, they were meeting just to have a discussion. They still said they would wait for the planning board's recommendations on these, but they wanted time for themselves to, you know, to talk about the about the amendments, because there are a number of them. And then previously, I think the planning board, this is maybe a maybe a cash they've met a number of times the CRC, but they did adopt the Conference of Housing Policy, but they recommended adoption of it. So, you know, that was reformatted and changed a little bit. So they actually may have been like, they're three meetings ago, they recommended this Conference of Housing Policy. So it's not just affordable housing, but, you know, there's goals for, you know, different types of housing. And so that's, that's some of them might be moving forward. Thank you. Doug, you have your hand up. Yeah. If Maureen has developed additional analysis of the department bylaw proposal, would it make sense for us to want to see that? And I gather from Chris that once we've closed the hearing, we're not allowed to see any new material on that subject without reopening the hearing. So would we want to do that? Good question. Chris? I think you can see information that clarifies things. And I think that's what Maureen has been working on. There were a number of questions that came up about, well, what would apartments look like in, you know, this place or that place? So those are the things that she's been working on that were answers to questions that have already been asked. I don't think she's presenting anything that isn't an answer that clarifies a question that's already been asked. So that kind of information is allowed after the close of the public hearing. So yeah, sorry, just to clarify, Doug, there's no proposal to change the zoning amendment. It is, you know, you know, information in response to questions asked at the public hearing. So it's just right to aid in the deliberation. Yeah, I just, I mean, I think I'd like to see it. And if we have to reopen the public hearing to do that, which was my understanding from Chris, but sounds like there's some nuance to it. But if we could see that when we deliberate, that'd be great. Thank you. Janet? I think it I think Doug is raising an interesting question because the apartments and the parking also were not super fleshed out. We were doing kind of a marathon session there. And I think that probably members of the public would like to see the the build out and the analysis by Maureen. So I think we should consider reopening that hearing. So it's just a mean, I don't know what new information is, if it's not, what would be new information that wouldn't would require opening a public hearing if it wasn't material like that. Any thoughts? Um, what would what would happen if you decided to reopen the public hearing is that you would tell us that. And then we would advertise it in the teleemption because that and we wouldn't be able to hold the meeting on the 1st of September, we'd have to put it off probably till the 29th of September, because that's your next meeting. We've already missed the date for a legal ad for the 1st of September. So it's the 29th is pretty full and the 29th is full. So maybe you'd have to go to October. So how do you feel about that? So maybe Nate could elaborate a little on exactly what Maureen is proposing to present on the 1st or what she was proposing to present on the 1st. I think it's images of buildings that could be possible on various properties. So I think, you know, the questions were asked, well, what, you know, what is lifting the cap do? So what, you know, essentially what's the maximum build out on properties in an RG, the RG district or in the BG district. So she has gone through in certain areas and said, okay, we'll give him the setbacks and the dimensional standards. You know, you're building the envelope is this big. And this is, you know, if a unit is, you know, a certain size, you know, I think she did like, you know, a range of sizes 550 square feet and 700 square feet, you could get, you know, 50 units on this property, right? That just given the, the, you know, the floor area, and in the number of floors. So it's just some, you know, gross calculation based on the dimensional standards. So, you know, that was asked at the hearing. And so that's what she's done for a few properties. And she's gone a little further just to do some massing models to show what that looks like. Awesome. Because there were comments about, you know, how, how close or how big could an apartment be in an RG? And what does it look like from a neighboring property? There are concerns about the height and massing of buildings in certain districts. Janet. So very late in the day, Christine sent us something from Pam Rooney, and it looks like a proposed change in the apartments thing about, I didn't really look at it very closely about apartments can't be in the BG, a building can't be within 500 feet of another apartment building. So is that an amendment that's being proposed? Or is that the planning department proposing that change? Or So no, that was something that, right, that the planning department had would offer in during the discussion. If the planning board, for instance, with the CRC, they were, you know, they were concerned that if lifting the cap in the BG, then there could be a proliferation of apartment buildings, you know, as opposed to makes these buildings. And so one solution for that was to say, limit apartment buildings for one building within every 500 feet or something. And so it wasn't, it's not necessarily a proposal. It's just ideas or strategies that could be part of the deliberation if there's concerns about apartments in the BG. And so, you know, it's not necessarily an amendment to the zoning, you know, proposed amendment to the zoning, it's just it's something that, you know, was asked or brought up at the hearing concerned about apartments going downtown in place of mixed use buildings. So the planning department thought, what are some other strategies to counter that? So it again, the thought was that that's part of the deliberation would just be something that could be presented during the deliberation. So what is new information then? Like, if it's what, what would be new information that would trigger a hearing? And I'm kind of lost. Chris? You're muted, Chris. So my, yeah. As I said earlier tonight, we did have a conversation with our town attorney, Joel Bard, about what kinds of changes can be made after the public hearing is closed, but before the town council actually votes on something. And he said that there could be changes that are within the scope of what is what was originally proposed. And we consider that this would be a limitation on allowing apartments in the downtown and therefore it would be within the scope. So it would be something that the planning board could consider. If the planning board feels that it would be advantageous to have public comment on this particular item, the planning board could choose to reopen the public hearing. But I guess what I'm telling you is it's narrowing the scope of where apartments, where apartment buildings can be allowed. It's not broadening the scope. So it's really something that's more limiting. And that means that it is within the scope. So I wouldn't necessarily think that. I mean, you're more likely to get negative responses from developers than you are from residences, residents, in my opinion. But if you felt that it was enough of an issue, and you wanted to invite public comment, you could reopen the public hearing. Right. Yes. So the town attorney thought there was quite a bit of flexibility in terms of what's new information. You know, for instance, if with the apartments, all of a sudden we were modifying a completely another chapter or section of the bylaw, that may be out of scope, right? If all of a sudden we're trying to pull in, you know, some article that isn't part of what we're doing now. But, you know, what we're what we're suggesting in terms of geographic limitations of proximity or other things, those are all within scope. So it wasn't, you know, it's not something completely different. All right. Thank you, Doug. Yeah, I guess, based on what I'm hearing, it seems like it would be great to see that material from Maureen on September 1st, and that we can do that without reopening the public hearing. And that would be my suggestion. That's what we're proposing to do is to give that material to you for the first. And then if you decided on the first that you wanted to reopen the public hearing, you could do so at that time. Okay. Any objections to that on the board? I don't see any. Okay. Anything else? No, I just had one quick thing for Andrew with the CPA committee. I thought, although maybe no updates now, but I thought the CPA round was being changed that the proposals would be available starting next month or maybe at the end of this month. Is that I don't remember, Nate, honestly, like our last meeting was a couple of months ago. There have been some emails that have circulated, but we've not we've not grouped since then. Okay. So yeah, no apologies for not having a good update on that. And also, I know people have been asking because there's been, you know, right, some, I guess, just some, I don't want to say rumors, but people remember from last year when they said, oh, they might have the process start in September as opposed to December. So, right, it'd be a few months earlier than usual. And I mean, we are looking to sort of be a bit more transparent, treading for more applicants. So we have looked to start the timeline a little bit earlier, but I don't want to detail in the dates. Everybody hear that? Looks like he says something about being more transparent and getting that information with with reference to Nate's comments. Is that Andrew? Yeah, I could both hear anyone. Yeah, actually, you know, I'm on the CPA committee website. It looks like they just posted some new information saying that you have the application open September 1st. Sorry, Andrew, and closes October 1st. And then they have looks like they're trying to set up a meeting schedule and just have it, you know, be online. Right. So I think that's part of the transparency is just putting a schedule up there, which hadn't been before. So they there's some upcoming or new information they've posted. Yes. Thank you, Nate. You cover that well. Good. All right. So that's it for the CRC. Yes. Yeah. All right. Yeah, they're still waiting. I said they're still waiting on the planning board recommendations for zoning amendments. So, you know, it's an interesting thing where there's a dual, you know, a joint hearing and then both boards deliberate independently, but they're still waiting to hear from the planning board on the zoning amendments. OK. We got through two tonight. So something. So report of the chair, Chris Brestrod brought to my attention that, you know, every year we elect officers kind of an annual reorganization thing. It's it's that. But I just I want to give everyone a heads up that I would like to step down from the chair. If someone like like Doug Marshall, who is the vice chair, wants to step up, I'd be supportive of that. But I just I would like to kind of like take a load off my plate for this next year and just want and want to know that. Those are my intentions. So. But yeah, so that'll be September 1st. We'll we'll elect, you know, officers again and, you know, it's not a big deal usually. So I just want to give. People, you know, where where I was at. So and that's it for the report of the chair, report of staff. So just Doug, Doug has this and I'm sorry. I'll wait until another point in the meeting. I have a couple of questions about things that have been just mentioned. OK, well, the meeting's coming to a rapid close. You might want to speak now. OK, the the two questions were, why are we not having a meeting in the middle of September? And are there other additional zoning amendments that the planning department is working on and will be coming our way? You know, I know there's the two we talked about tonight. There's two more we deliberate about. But there's there's been at least one other, the one on the BL. And then, you know, there may be additional ones that original list we got from Town Council was much longer. And there's about six dog that are coming in October. No, we're up to 18 at this point. So we have the BL BL overlay that we haven't finished yet and that Nate and Rob are still working on. We have demo delay, which is something that Ben Breger is working on with the Historical Commission. We have converted dwelling, which is something that Steve Schreiber asked us to work on. We're said he would work on with us. He originally brought a proposal to Town Council and he withdrew that proposal in order to work with planning staff on a new zoning amendment. And we also have been asked to look at kind of smaller changes to the apartments, such as creating a triplex or quadruplex use category. And so we will probably be looking at that. And I'm sure that there are other things as well, but they don't come to mind immediately. But may I also continue on with train of thought, which is attached to what Jack was talking about. And that is that in addition to electing officers on September 1st, the planning board traditionally either confirms or changes its organization with regard to these things that we call Planning Board Committee and Liaison Reports. So in other words, you would be asked if you're representing the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission or the CPA or AdCom or DRB or whatever it is you're involved with. If you want to continue to do that. And if you do, you know, everybody is usually very happy to say, oh, yeah, we vote for you to continue to do that. But if you don't, then this would be your opportunity to say, no, I'm tired of going to DRB meetings. I want to do something else. So I just want to have you think about that for September 1st. OK, thanks for that clarification, Chris. So is your reporter staff. I had no kind of covered. Yeah, yeah. Janet, you know, I have a quick question for Christine. I wasn't sure where to bring it up, but. About the consultant and is has is is the money allocated and is the RFP written or is it being drafted? Because I know Doug had asked to that we see that. And I was just wondering, I'm a little confused about the scope of work the consultant would do it. So I'd love to see the RFP to so I will be speaking with you about that. We have the money. The money is allocated. We have not drafted the RFP. We do have input from people who know about these things. And we have an idea of what we want to put in it, but we haven't put that together yet. And I do intend to bring it to the planning board. OK, thanks. Very good. I think we can adjourn at 933. A relatively efficient three hour meeting. Wonderful. Yeah, everyone have a good evening. Great job. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Another year, Jack. It travels through. You've got a good meeting. The meeting's adjourned, Doug, so. Can travel on his way. I mean, I realize that for chair. Jack, for chair. Doug, for chair. Doug, for chair. I have a flag around here somewhere. I should be waving it. Yeah, Doug, you've got a really great.