Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of June 17th, 2020. Based on Governor Baker's executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, GL, Chapter 30A, Section 20, and signed Thursday, March 12th, 2020, this planning board meeting is being held virtually using the Zoom platform. My name is Christine Graham-Mullen, and as chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 6.33. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Inverse Media. Minutes are being taken as normal. I will now take a roll call, board members, as you hear your name called, unmute yourself and answer affirmatively, and then please place yourself back on mute. Michael Burtwistle. Here. Maria Chau. Here. Jack Jemsik. Here. David Levenstein. Here. Doug Marshall. Here. Janet McGowan. Here. Board members, if technical difficulties arise, we may need to pause to rectify the problem and then continue the meeting. If you do have technical issues, please let Shawn of IT or Pam know. Discussion may be suspended while the technical issues are addressed and the minutes will know if a disconnection has occurred. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see you raised hand and we'll call upon you to speak. After speaking, remember to please remute yourself. Opportunity for public comment will be provided during the general public comment period at the beginning of the meeting and at other appropriate times throughout the meeting. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during the general public comment period. If you wish to make a comment during a public comment period time, you must join the meeting via zoom teleconferencing link. This link is shown on the slide on the screen and can be entered into a search engine. The link can also be found on the meeting agenda, which is located in two places on the town website. One way is through the calendar listing on the main home page. Find this meeting and then click on event details and the link will be there. A second way is to go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda link on the agenda. There is a link towards the top of the page where it states virtual meeting. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raised hand button when the public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using the telephone. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called upon, please identify yourself and state your full name and address and then put yourself back into mute and finish. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes and at the discretion of the planning board chair. If these guidelines are not complied with or the speaker exceeds their a lot of time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Included on tonight's agenda item three is the joint public hearing with the community resource committee of the town council CRC. The board and the CRC will discuss and hear public comment regarding a proposed amendment to the zoning by law article 11 administration and enforcement section 11.25 planning board decision. The proposed amendment would allow site plan review applications to be approved by a majority of the planning board members participating in voting. Also scheduled tonight is a presentation by the Valley Community Development Corps for ZBA FY 2020-39-132 Northampton Road. Tonight's presentation is an opportunity for the planning board to review the project and to offer recommendations to the ZBA. While this is not a public hearing, the planning board will take limited public comment at tonight's meeting for a maximum period of 30 minutes. The planning board will not be responding to the public comment, but the director of planning, Christine Bester may reply with clarifying additional information at her discretion. The ZBA will be opening a public hearing on this project on June 25th. Written comments may be sent to the planning department email planning at amherstmass.gov and by using the online comment form. Moving onward, the slide will now show the meeting agenda. Again, note the virtual meeting zoom link. We will go to item one minutes and I believe we have one set of minutes dated April 29th, 2020. I can see that we had all members of the planning board in attendance, none were absent. So we had these in our packet and hold on. My screen has disappeared. Let me see if there's hands. Yes. Were you planning to do have public comment on the agenda? I am, but that's item two. Minutes is item one, Chris, and then general public comment is number two. Okay. You just threw me for a sec, but then I'm like, you're right. You're right. Okay. So at this time, I'm looking for hands from the board for anyone who either has a comment on these minutes correction or wants to make a motion to approve. I recognize Doug. Motion to approve. Okay. And I jacked. Second. Second. Great. Okay. So we have them table. Are there any comments suggestions? As of right now, I'm seeing no hands. So I believe we can just take a vote. I will do roll call again. So I first Michael Burt whistle. Yes. Maria. Yes. Jack. David. Approve. Doug. Approve. Janet. Great. And myself also. So that's unanimous. So we're doing those. So at this time, I'll move to item two, which is the public comment period. So I'm looking for any hands. This is a time where the public can speak on something that's not on our agenda. So if there's someone here who's just here to make a statement at this time, I'm seeing no hands. Chris. I mean, sorry, Pam, do we have any phone calls? I'm seeing no hands. I am seeing no phone calls. So at this point, I'm seeing no hands. Okay. So at that point, I have six 40. So we can move to item three joint public hearing with community resources committee. When I do have something to read for that. Before you read it. Yes. I have to call the meeting order. Oh, good. Oh, let me see. Okay. I was looking at one, the call to order that was like the big meeting. Okay. So. Okay. I'm going to have a six 41 p.m. and seeing a quorum of the community resources committee of the town council present. I am calling the meeting to order. For June 17th, 2020. I'm at this time. I will just go through all of my committee members names to make sure they can hear us and we can hear them. So I will start with a Shawnee ball mill. Here, Yes. And Sarah Swartz here. So at this time, we are agenda item would be moving to a joint public hearing. So I am going to pass the presiding of the CRC meeting to the chair of the planning board in order to open the public hearing for both bodies and then preside over that public hearing. Thank you. So now I'm going to move to actually opening the public hearing. So I have 642 in accordance with provisions of MGL chapter 40 a and the Amherst own rule charter this joint public hearing of the Amherst planning board and the Community Resources Committee of the town council town council have been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding proposed zoning bylaw article 11 administration enforcement section 11.25 planning board decision to see if the town will vote to recommend the zoning bylaw by amending section 11.25 planning board decision to allow site plan review applications to be approved by a majority of those planning board members participating in voting. So at this point, so I'll be talking to both the CRC and the planning board. Are there any disclosures or statements that need to be made at this time. I don't see any hands. So as far as a presentation, I'm just going to give a short introduction and then I'm going to pass it on to Chris Bester who will give a historical background of where this bylaw has been over the last 30 plus years. And then it will come back to me and we'll open it up to board discussion. So I just part of this is for the benefit of the public and and maybe part of CRC. We're all familiar with the citizen planner training collaborative. We, they help provide a lot of training and our experts on zoning and planning issues with the state, and they have a definition for site plan review that says it establishes criteria for the layout scale appearance safety environmental impacts of commercial or industrial permit in an attempt to fit in votes larger projects into the community site plan review usually focuses on parking traffic drainage roadway construction, signage utilities screening, lighting and other aspects of the proposal to arrive at the best possible design for the location. In the usual situation site plan approval must be obtained before the building or special permit is issued. Mass General Law chapter 40 a the quote unquote the zoning act establishes a system of permits to authorize uses and of structures variances special permits and building permits site plan review is not mentioned in this zoning act, it does not operate alone to authorize a use or structure. Accordingly the site plan review usually operates in conjunction with one of these other devices site plan review is about details, regulation of use, rather than a prohibition, and that denial is only an exceptional circumstances. Just to give a little background what we're actually talking about to clarify with people, it's different than special permit they're totally two different things and we'll only be talking about SPR site plan review tonight. So to go a level deeper, I'm going to pass it to Chris Bestrup, who is going to give us historical background on where this bylaw has sort of come from. I'm Chris Bestrup planning director, and I wanted to give you a little history of where we are with this. When, long time ago, back in the, I don't know, 70s doesn't seem that long ago to me but anyway, the town had two forms of permits one was special permit and that was based on as Christine said, chapter 40a of the mass general laws. The town also had something called plan approval and plan approval was the building commissioner and the planning director got together and looked at plans that didn't require a special permit and evaluated them for the same things that special that site plan reviews are evaluated for now. Traffic landscaping, lighting, placement of the building on the on the property, dimensional requirements, etc. That was really only two people who were reviewing things. So, along about 1988, the town introduced site plan review, and that time town meeting was voting on these things. And when site plan review was introduced, it was felt that it was best to mimic both the process and the voting requirements of the special permit because people were quite familiar with special permit but they weren't yet familiar with site plan review. So in 1988 town meeting adopted site plan review, and they use the same voting quantum that was required for a special permit. At that time, the planning board had nine members. So the requirement was two thirds of the membership, which ended up being six members needing to be needing to vote. Then, it was actually two thirds with more than, excuse me, two thirds. I'm sorry, I'm getting a little mixed up. So it was a two thirds vote that was required because we wanted to mimic the special permit. So then later on in 1998, the town had become a little more familiar with site plan review, and they decided to change the wording to say the concurring vote of at least two thirds, but no fewer than five members of the planning board should vote to approve a site plan review. And at the time that made sense, two thirds was six. But if you only had eight members present, you could potentially, or even if you had, yeah, if you had eight members present, you could go with a five member vote to approve something. So that was in 1998. And ever since then, the wording of the of the requirement for voting has been the same, the concurring vote of at least two thirds, but not fewer than five of the members of the board participating in voting shall be required for any decision on a site plan application abstain being considered not to be voting. So then along came the town charter and the town charter in 2018 changed the number of planning board members from nine members to seven members. And in January of 2019, the planning board started to look at the issue of, should we change the voting requirements to be more in line with the fact that we have fewer planning board members. So the planning board held a meeting in, I think it was January 16 of 2019 and they began to discuss this with regard to the rules and regulations, the planning board rules and regulations, as well as talking about potentially changing the zoning bylaw. In June, I think of 2019, the zoning subcommittee and the planning board came up with a voting requirement that they wanted to present to town council and they were getting ready to schedule a public hearing but then they became aware that town council wasn't really ready to receive zoning amendments yet so they sort of put it on the back burner. Since then it has become, it has come back to the front burner again. So we have a current, current language that is being proposed as part of this zoning amendment and perhaps Christine Gray Mullen can talk a little about that. Okay, thank you. So, it's Chris said this is evolved and more time has gone by. It is given some of us, you know, because it has been being kicked around and planning board for, like Chris said for a year and a half it's given a lot of us time to go look at best practices what other towns are doing, especially towns that are trying to be more attractive to economics, smart growth. There's a lot coming out of Governor Baker's initiatives regarding both SPR but special permits and also requirements for towns to change their bylaws so. So, we have come to this, what is being proposed, it did go to town council who didn't see any problems with this other towns have this kind of our closest neighbors, North Hampton has this also East Hampton.  Some of the planning board members were older realized that we're no longer getting as much signs and maybe fences stuff like that because we recently, a couple years ago changed the bylaw to allow administration, mostly the building commissioner to have a little more power to review things. And this is happening on a larger and larger scale Hadley does this and North Hampton and we could go into lots of other towns. So, this is being presented, and we want to open it up, open it up to both planning board and CRC for general discussion right now. So, please raise your hand if you have questions or a statement you want to make about this, or ask questions to Chris. Yep, I see a hand. I have two questions. One of them is if Chris could maybe help with a Christine Brestrup could explain when we do site plan review versus special permit. Like what's the difference like why would you go into one process and not the other. And then I'm wondering why what is the reason to change the two thirds requirements I know other towns use that for site plan review. That's my two part question. So, I can say something to the second part. A lot of towns do still have the two thirds, but in my research what I've found is they are in the similar boat to Amherst where that was determined as a bylaw from the 80s or 90s, and they just haven't modernized or re contemplated and changed it but ones that do the new best practices to go with a simple majority. So, Chris, if you want to, you know, give again the difference sort of between why a special permit, and they continue to be a much more rigorous. So a special permit is considered to be a use that is not necessarily fitting within the zoning area, the zoning district that it is allowed in it. It may need special consideration it may need special kinds of conditions in order to have it fit in the other thing about a special permit is that it can be denied. For the site plan review there's an assumption that the use is suitable for that particular location that it's allowed, and we often use the term by right, and we use that in quotes because you still have to go through the site plan review process. But it's a use that's considered fitting in that particular location. The only thing is that you want someone to look at the proposal carefully to make sure that it complies with the zoning bylaw. And that, you know, it sort of it is correct kind of presentation or correct kind of arrangement of the things on the site and so the planning board often makes comments about parking for instance moving parking or lessening parking or increasing parking they might make comments about rearranging lighting, making lighting stronger shielding lighting whatever, or possibly, you know, asking people to put walkways in various locations that they might not have thought of. So it's really, you know the assumption is that the use is allowed, and then we're just looking at the plan to make sure that it fulfills all the requirements that we needed to. And we're also looking at the building or the structure that's being proposed to make sure that it fulfills the requirements and then it will be an asset to the town, but we're not looking at the use. So that is the difference. So having the two thirds vote for a special permit really makes sense, because it's a little bit more. It's a higher bar that you have to cross to to have a special permit approved. And the site plan review is considered to be already allowed, you just want to tell someone how to do it. So that's why it seems reasonable to lessen the requirement from two thirds down to a majority. Now I will say that when the two thirds was originally required. The reason it was required was because the people who were proposing site plan review didn't want to sort of rock the boat. They wanted to have something that was similar enough to a special permit that you know town meeting members and others wouldn't be fearful about adopting it. And then when the when the vote was, you know, eventually changed to allow two thirds, but a minimum of five members, five members was considered to be a reasonable was a majority of nine really but was considered to be a reasonable number to to approve a site plan review. So I'm sorry because thank you for that that is really helpful. So can you give me like two or three buildings that were special permit because the use wasn't, you know, normal for the area. I'm like, so I'm just trying to figure out tease out why you're going, why we go one route versus the other. Like what, like what buildings got a special permit, because the use wasn't considered quite appropriate or allowable. Is that what you were saying. Yeah, go ahead and answer that. So, aspen Heights on North Hampton Road I think it's 408 North Hampton Road it's a building that's going up between green leaves and dominoes pizza. And that building is the use is not allowed in that zoning district. And the way it was permitted by the zoning Board of Appeals is because there was an original use there of a motel and an apartment. And so the applicants use the section 9.2 of the zoning bylaw to say that the use that was there is similar enough to the use that's being proposed that it's not identical to the neighborhood or very dissimilar in character. So they're going from a motel and an apartment building to a larger building that is an apartment building so that's an example of a special permit being required for use. Other types of special permits for use include class two restaurants where restaurants are open after 1130 and serve alcohol, and maybe in the vicinity of a residential unit in a residential zoning district gas stations usually require a special permit because they, you know, they can be kind of a disruptive item in a neighborhood, but sometimes they're also allowed by site plan review, depending on where they're located so, you know, uses that are considered to be a little deviating from the norm in that particular location would require special permit versus site plan review, which would be considered normal in those locations. Does that help? It does. Thank you. Thanks. I'm going to go to the next one, but Pam, could you put up the slide for people to see that showed all the SPRs that we dealt with from last year? Yeah, just to show, okay, you've got them on dual. So the other, can you see them? I think someone can speak out if they can't see them, but the one on the right just is a summary of all the SPRs and the types that came to Planning Board last year. So that gives people a little bit of insight, noting that there were 15 and two of them were buildings, but we did have four that were, that came back to us like a second round for a modification to an existing SPR and then the other ones there. So I'll call, I see Michael and then I see Steve Shriver. Okay. I'm wondering what the problem is, what the need for changing this bylaw is in my limited admitted to admittedly limited time on the Planning Board. I can't recall a situation where a site plan review was objected to by more than one person. Which would have been a two thirds majority, a two thirds majority, plurality would have been passed whatever the numbers in the bylaw states. So I'm really wondering what problem we're trying to solve here by making this change. It seems to me that when the bylaw was originally written back in 1988, the notion of two thirds to mimic or at least to mirror the special permit bylaw seemed reasonable. It still seems reasonable. I think finally, the notion that the largest possible buy-in from the Planning Board is in the best interests of the town and other developer for that matter. If a developer is faced with opposition, significant opposition, then there's a problem there. If we're just going ahead with what's happened in the past, there seem to be no real problems here. So I guess my question is why are we making, why are we trying to make this change? May I say something about that? So if you require a vote of five members of the Planning Board, you're actually over two thirds. You're something like 71.5% of the board. So that's actually a more of a requirement than is required for special permit. So it just doesn't seem like the right thing. Just to add to that, there's been lawsuits over the last decades. I think one of them, the big one that people refer to using Chris Memo, the Osberg versus the Planning Board of Sterbridge, that that court case said that site plan approval requires only a majority vote. So anytime you go more rigorous on that, if you were to deny an SPR, it opens up the possibility for a lawsuit. But like you pointed out, I don't even ever know of a site plan review that has been denied and it is discouraged from, it's supposed to be you're working and proving the details. Michael, do you have anything else? Yeah, I think consensus is the goal. It seems to me that's been the goal. And if we're, if we have two votes against, but that's not really a consensus, whether it's nine people or seven people. But that's still, that's still good enough. If we have a flat out, just a straight majority, then we could have as many as three people objecting, and it would still be a legitimate approval. So I, if we're not going to go with a three, a two thirds majority, two thirds vote, I think we should at least keep the not fewer than four. Part of the, of the, of the, of the bylaw change, that would at least go a little bit toward, toward satisfying what seems to me to be a concern. And now, as it now stands, if we're only, if only five people are voting on it, it could be only three people to approve. And I don't think that's a good idea. I think that's puts us in the wrong position relative to the town. I think, whether lawsuits aside, whether, I think our primary obligation is to the people in town and not to the legal community in this, in this regard. I'll move to Steven Shriver, and then next up will be Jack. Hi everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So just a few comments in part for the previous speakers. So the, what's determined to be a site plan review and what's determined to be a special permit is by the act of town meeting. So it wasn't Chris I made that decision. It wasn't the planning board that made the decision. It was the legislative project. So that's an important distinction. So town meeting decided that these particular projects shall be site plan review and it determined that these particular projects shall be special permit. Special permits also used for things like height and bulk and, you know, things like that, but that is how that decision was made in the zoning code. It wasn't the planning staff. It wasn't the planning board. It was a legislative body. The other thing is I was on the planning board for almost 10 years and we had lots of problems with quorums. In fact, we had lots of problems with core. I'm sorry, I actually spoke that we had lots of problems with Quora. And, you know, good for the current planning board for probably not having that problem. But certainly Chris and before Chris Jonathan Tucker remember lots of times it was hard to get six people to show up. There's another problem of continued hearings. So virtually no site plan review hearings are heard in one night. They're heard over multiple nights. Massachusetts law requires your participation in all hearings. There are some exceptions to that now than from the good old days that you can miss one and watch the video of it. You can miss one hearing. You can participate remotely now. So these are things that have changed. So my, my last statement before I yield the floor is democracy. So I love democracy, right? And the basic principle of democracy is that a quorum is 50% plus one. So everyone has an ability to participate or everyone who's qualified has the ability to participate. As long as more than half of those people show up. In almost all cases except for special permits. Well, actually, in almost all cases of quorum is 50% plus one. And almost all cases of democracy of vote of affirmative vote is that quorum or that I'm sorry that group that showed up to participate 50% of that group plus one. I would absolutely right that a quorum of a seven person planning board is four and a majority of that four is three. So a site plan review under the proposal would only would be three members. If the other members chose not to show up or couldn't not show up, or could not participate in the many ways that are available now. So I'm in favor of the changes as written. Just to point out something that Steve had mentioned on the chart on the right, the parentheses at the end of the specific projects that tells how many meetings, it came back to planning or just to give people. So you can see the ones that are just an asterisk that's one night, and they tend to be very simple ones but people can know that Jack is next and then I have Evan. So, yeah, Steve mentioned the related issues with the quorum which is something I wanted to point out. I mean I see a situation where, you know, people have to recuse themselves. We have, you know, we may not have a full planning board. Given certain scenarios, you know, we may be down to a skeleton crew say if five people, and if one person has to recuse himself we're down to four. And so I, you know, I'm in favor of the majority in that situation say there's four that three would be a majority and pass that so that's just, you know, basic mechanics of the size and and making it work and I agree with the by right aspect of site plan review versus the special permit. And, and also I just, I feel it's like it would be a bad look for Amherst to not go with the majority because you know we do we are we are in a housing crisis. And, you know, locally I think we have an economic development struggle, basically with, especially now with with the downtown and potential, you know vacancies, etc. And I guess my last point is I feel very strange as a planning board member, you know, dictating our rules.  And, you know, I feel like we're, we're voting to how we should be doing things but I think that's the town council's responsibility I think, ultimately, it is, but I just wanted to say that I'm not going to stand on the vote or anything like that, but I just feel like this is the town council's decision and obviously we're just offering a recommendation. And I think that's, yeah, that's it so I'm in favor of it as written. Okay. Evan, and then next I see bandages. Okay, thank you. So I just wanted to say, I served on the second generation of the bylaw review committee which was tasked with bringing our general and zoning bylaws into conformity with our new charter. And this was something that was briefly discussed because the fact that we reduced the size of our planning board, but kept this vote quantum felt like it was, you know, it felt like part of part of bringing our bylaw and took the bylaw review with the charter would be looking at something like that and we didn't take action on that we didn't end up making a recommendation on that because to some extent it wasn't it's a, there are other options and what we have before us is that there are several options and we felt like that was something that really needed to be in the domain of the council and the planning boards to discuss this most basic to me the decision to do something is very much in line with the transition to the new government and recognizing that it doesn't make any kind of sense to keep the same vote quantum after having shrunk the size of the planning board by two members so I think there's there's a whole lot of rationale to do something and so I'm hoping that all of us on CRC and planning board can agree, at least on that, and the debate is really over what that something is what the number is. I'm supportive of the simple majority. I'm supportive of it for the reasons that Jack said which is that we are in the midst of a housing crisis and that I think we do need to send a message that when we say something's by right. We're not going to erect unnecessarily burden some barriers to those things and if we want housing if we want economic development. I think that we need to show that when we say something's by right we're not going to hold it to the same standard as the special permit, and also for what Steve said about the fact that if you have an absolute minimum number. If you have issues with quorum if you have issues with conflict of interest on that number all of a sudden becomes more significant. It's easy to say, Oh, it needs to be a minimum of four, until you only have a quorum of members show up for something that's usually pretty So I hope there's agreement that we have to do something and I'm supportive of the simple majority. Thank you, Mandy and then I see David sand. Yes, thank you. I'm going to try not to repeat what others have said, but you know, Michael asked why now and I think Evan covered part of it, you know, we changed forms of governments the size of the planning board reduced five is now a large number and Evan and and doesn't necessarily reflect at all the reduction in planning board size. But I, I go back to what Christine Gray Mullen said that there are legal rulings out there that say site plan reviews have to be a majority. And so if we don't adopt the majority. We are opening up ourselves as a town to a lawsuit. If say, you know this if this buy, say in the last year if the planning board had not adopted a site plan review not passed it because the planning board of seven members got four votes instead of five and the applicant could come and sue the town because it's in direct violation of legal rulings that say site plan reviews are majorities. And so bylaws need updated occasionally, they should be updated to reflect the current best practices the current legal rulings and it seems like this one, whether it be two thirds or five members both of those numbers are out of date with the current size of the planning board and the current legal rulings as to what site plan review means. And so that's, to me, reason enough to bring this in front and say we need to update it we need to fix this so that we're not opening up ourselves to lawsuits. David. Well, I support the change to the language for reasons that have been spoken to but also I think sort of for substantive reason as well not just for the changes in the numbers of the membership but I think in the there is a difference that has evolved as I've learned I believe my short time on the board between a site plan review and special permit special permits in the chapter 40 a site so and there and there are rules and regulations from state statute about that site plan review something adopted by towns by municipalities and is not a creature of state statute but is a creature of local law and and I think what's evolved is that it's as Chris either or both of the Chris's earlier said it's a regulation of the use rather than its prohibition and so it's it's a it's a way to influence design that is already permitted for that design and use that is already allowed for that particular site. And that part of the bargain there is to get the applicant to come to the table in order to be influenced by the board in charge and and and fit their plans in with a broader consensus of the community and that's great and but that shouldn't be the same kind of hurdle. I think is what is involved in the over over time over the past few decades that this has been established in Massachusetts is that special permits have a higher higher bar a higher threshold that has to be satisfied by it by the applicant before the appropriate special permit granting authority. Because the use that the applicant is requesting for the special permit is not clearly allowed under the zoning law the site plan these those uses are allowed under the under the zoning law and and and the applicants coming and and it's now subject to reasonable conditions and that's the influence that the process allows. And I think that maintaining that difference in the voting requirements making the site plan review a lower threshold voting threshold in order to pass is consistent with that model of review and influence that applicants have when presenting these matters before the relevant municipal body. And so that's why I I think it's compelling and necessary that the numbers and the quorum and the side is to is to be clear that to to applicants that when they apply for site plan review. It's not as the bar is not as high for as it is for a special permit and we want to and I think we want to encourage that so that the boards can have that that potential influence. There are other issues I have with this that are that are ripple effects of looking at this change but I'll speak to that later I don't want to further muddy my comments but thank you very much. Maria. So yeah I agree with David and actually that chart you have right now on the screen on the left shows exactly why I think we needed to just majority and not two thirds and not minimal four because I really appreciate that chart because it shows exactly what happens when we go from seven members present to four members present. It becomes more difficult than a special permit which everyone has been saying the past. Yeah, I'll echo it. Yeah, it's in site plan review is not a special permit and so the numbers literally tell you that that's what makes the site plan review review becomes as it becomes more arduous than special permit. So I just yeah I appreciate that chart because you know a math alone I think is the reason why I'm going to support it as written. That's it. I see no more members hands up right up so I'm going to switch to the public questions right now so I'm clicking on the attendees. If there's any attendees that would like to ask a question or make a comment about this right now. I'm watching and Pam are there. Watch if there's any phone call. I'll just ask do we have anyone on phone call right now. We didn't. And I'm just getting back in there. Hold on. I don't believe so because I believe they're usually at the top. Okay. And I don't see anybody on phone and I don't see any raised hands. I do not either so I will come back to the board if there's any other comments. We do have the pan if you want to put up the order form that came from Mr bar today. I know you have one of those. I do. Christine may I make absolutely didn't see your hand sorry Chris. I don't have the ability to raise my hand since I'm a co host. So I'm sorry to just burst in but oh good to know. Thank you. I'll walk on the screen more for you. So I would actually be more comfortable with wording that included the words, but not fewer than four of the members of the board. I feel that's more in keeping with the history of what we've done. And when I look at some of the projects that are site plan review projects it makes me a little uncomfortable to think that they could be approved by only three members of the board and I'll mention a couple of them. Kendrick place which has 36 units at the corner of triangle and East Pleasant. One East Pleasant, which has 135 units at the carrot shops location. Boltwood place which is in the boatwood garage area. The southeast commons, which is a mere mac cheese project that had 57 units and 462 Main Street John Roblesky's project that had 24 units I feel like those projects are. I'm glad that they are approved by site plan review but I don't think I would feel comfortable. Having those projects approved by three out of a total of seven members of the planning board I think that, you know, when we say majority, I think we really need to stick to the majority of four being majority of seven members. Another thing I wanted to mention is that over time the planning department has worked with the planning board to lessen the number of special permits. And in response to a huge wave of development back in the 70s 60s and 70s town meeting made all kinds of things by special permit and so we've been trying working hard to make that not a requirement anymore and to little by little to change things from requiring a special permit to requiring site plan review. And I feel like there's going to be resistance to doing that in the future, if the voting requirement is only three out of seven members. One thing I wanted to say is, I believe that some of these other cities and towns that have a requirement, just a majority of members present and voting may also have more up to date zoning bylaws and I think, you know, we certainly need to update our zoning bylaw. Some of these places have design guidelines in place so a group of three members could look at the design guidelines and say oh yes this project fits with the design guidelines let's go with it, or has more clear parking requirements and so we would say yes well this project meets the clear parking requirements so let's go with it. But given the fact that we have a bylaw that really needs updating and a lot of work. I feel like it's, it's really challenging for for me to accept the idea that three members of the planning board could vote to approve something that's pretty big and pretty, you know, has a big impact on other people. So that site plan review is required for is cluster subdivisions so we've just been through a review of a cluster subdivision down in South Amherst that required subdivision approval, and then it also required site plan review, and that was a development of eight homes along the street going south to South Hadley and that required site plan review so I don't feel that I would be comfortable with that being approved by three members of the planning board so I'm just offering those comments to say that I would be more comfortable with four as the voting majority. Mandy Joe, and then I see Michael Burt was after that. Yeah, I mean I understand in some sense where that sentiment is coming from, because it can sound jarring if we're going from nine members two thirds we'd need six on that board to now majority of those voting, and that could allow for three. It sounds like it's a big change but again, all of the plant all of the projects that the planning director just mentioned are all mixed use buildings and so it makes me wonder. Maybe the problem isn't with our voting quantum. Maybe the problem is with the bylaws a whole for mixed use buildings or the problem might be with the parking design regulations and so I guess I'm not in favor of tracking a voting requirement to not do what is best practices and what our neighboring communities are doing you know what Northampton does affects whether some sometimes affects whether someone chooses to apply for that site plan review in Northampton or in Amherst. And to not do this, because our zoning is old and doesn't make sense to me I'm just going to say that. And, you know, it to me that would say we need to update the rest of our zoning to get better in line with best practices for today across all of the zoning. And then I also go back to if we put that wording in, which at this point I don't support. If you only have five people present and voting because one person had to recuse themselves and another person couldn't comply with the Mullins rule and so they missed part of the hearing. And finally, you need an 80% voting quantum four out of five in order to actually get a site plan review approved that just again opens us up to a huge number of lawsuits or say one person is in the hospital and can't participate one person had that Mullins rule that they couldn't missed a different hearing because it lasted eight times and one person had to refuse themselves or maybe two people had to refuse themselves and you've only got four people that are actually eligible to vote. Now you need 100%. I, I just that to me is not in the spirit of site plan reviews. Okay, Michael and then next I see Jim. Well, all these hypotheticals. I would, I would, I would, I would like to move a an amendment to the bylaw, which would reinstate but not fewer than and change the five to four. And I make that as a motion. Can we do a motion. I think that's not in the middle of a hearing. But I think what Michael saying is he would like to add a line about no fewer than four. So that's out there if other members are in agreement with him. So I'll keep calling on hands. Janet, I'll call on Janet and then I have Steve Schreiber. So I have a few things to say. I just read Osberg versus planning board of Sturbridge, which may be the shortest decision in history. And it doesn't stand for the ruling that towns can't require a two thirds vote for site plan review. And it literally says, we're not deciding that. So I don't think we have a legal issue here being sued under this case, which also is the appeals court. And not the Supreme judicial court. So it doesn't say that. I don't think we're opening ourselves to legal liability. If we stick with the two thirds site plan review requirement, which, you know, towns, a lot of towns have kept. I'm actually heartened that the planning board hasn't had problems with reaching that two thirds. And I wanted to just talk a bit because I had heard a year ago. When the planning board was discussing this question before I was on the planning board and I was watching at home. And I heard Michael say talking about like the benefits of having a lot of people agree, even though some people disagree with the decision. And I started to reflect on that and it, it reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my neighbors who's Quaker, who said, you know, if we're making a decision. It's really close. There's a simple majority, but there's a lot of people in opposition. We would not go forward that action because it would create too much division and there's something wrong with the decision. There's some problem that needs to be addressed and they would go back and continue talking or find some other solution. And then also that comment maybe reflect on two votes. You know, we're a simple majority one or lost. In our town, the wildwood vote was super split, you know, with things going back and forth and a lot of divisions from that. Brexit is a phenomenal example of a simple majority vote that has almost torn a nation into two. And so I think that there is some benefit. And I think what Christine Brestrup was saying is there is a benefit to having a lot of people on your board behind a decision. And we just offer that idea that, no, we don't, I don't think as a planning board of seven, we really want to have free people making a decision on a big, you know, thing like Kendrick place or one East Pleasant just because we had trouble, you know, having people there. It's easier to have a quorum because of the Mullins rule. And, you know, apparently we can just zoom into meetings over on a phone call now and so I think that, you know, we could think of every possible problem with quorum and, you know, I haven't seen it in this group at all. And we have been in reduced circumstances. And so, you know, I'm, I'm leaning against, I'm leaning towards keeping the two thirds but definitely not dropping down to three people making a decision we haven't had that problem. You know, this looks like a, you know, it's, I just wanted to offer that those ideas thank you and I would support the amendment by Michael Burt whistle. Steve Schreiber. So I totally get the idea that the more people you have the more right the decision seems like it is like there's nothing like a good old nine zero vote. It's the Supreme Court, but Amherst planning board during my 10 years, some of the most controversial votes that we took were nine zero. And whether it was a site plan review or a recommendation recommendation for a zoning bylaw. And so I'm all for consensus it sounds good, but the way that those nine zero votes were taken was not the way that we hoped it would be that it was the the nine zero vote was seen as of nine people that had the same mindset so I completely disagree with that interpretation but that's how that nine zero vote was interpreted. We have to, we have to face the fact that the consensus is may not be achievable that some projects are controversial that that a vote is necessary and that's where democracy steps in. So democracy again just to really assumes that a quorum is 50% plus one, and then a positive vote is a 50% plus one vote of the forum. So just another thing is the up until recently the zoning board of appeals was a body of three. So it took three people to approve Aspen Heights, it took three people to approve all of the special decisions that we were just talking about. So we have trusted three people to make decisions about very large projects and very controversial decisions here in New York. So I'm standing by the bylaws read. Thank you. On the other hand and see up is Janet McGowan again. So, I would like to gracefully differ that democracy means 50% plus one because there's tons of situations where a two thirds vote is required.  So the body can decide itself what a vote will be and that's kind of where all the gamesmanship can come. And you know let's face it votes are power and so I'm kind of making a plea for a more cooperative sort of situation where whenever we make a decision as a body, a lot of us agree and I think that will create a lot more harmony I know I have had dissenting votes votes. So I think the situation where my vote could have on a special permit could have shot down a project, and Christine Brest have very delicately just rescheduled for a time when there were more people and I think that was the correct thing to do that one person shouldn't have that kind of power. But I think for the functioning of the board. It makes sense that a majority, at least for our agreeing with a project and there's a lot of expertise on the board there's some differences in the quality, but I do think there's a lot to be said for having a real majority of the board behind every decision, if not two thirds. Thanks that's all. I see Maria. So when we're talking about majority and democracy, of course, everyone's for that but we are talking about numbers here that are units, the actual units are really low we're talking very small like one number changes the percentage dramatically so I think, you know, in the spirit of course we all want majority and and as much consensus but we're talking about a five member board possibly as it won't right now we're seven. So, you know the two thirds is five. Again I'm referring to this really great chart of math, but for down to a five member board, you know one person missing makes it either an 80% or 100% and site plan review is supposed to have that kind of a threshold. Of course, you know, hopefully we're down to that number and we don't need to go through every hypothetical situation but it's just placing that for I think suddenly makes site plan review a different animal and that's not what table three is about where all these uses in different zones have been designated SPR versus SP. So, I mean, because we're dealing with literally like one person missing makes the whole sort of requirement of a difference between site plan review and special permit, a completely different relationship. I think it's. Yeah, I again I'm just going to commit to that yeah the majority because we're dealing with such low numbers here so small units. I recognize Doug. I've obviously not been on the board for very long and haven't seen any meetings where we dropped below maybe six people. And at least a couple of those meetings I was not allowed to vote because I was new and I had not could not comply with the Mullins law so we definitely were down a couple of times there. I think when you sign up to be on a board you take on an obligation to show up. And if if you're particularly worried about a project that's coming up and having only three people decide then you need to figure out how to get there. So, I basically support the language as written and hope that if people are concerned they will make sure that as board members they show up. Thank you. Steve Shriver. So among the hypotheticals is the changing of the board. So the planning board so this is the time of year where there's normally some transition of the planning board. I think that's one of the most important problems that actually Doug kind of referred to that circumstance. So the natural place where the planning board changes is at the end of June. And so you can obviously if you if you're replaced then you can't continue on a hearing, but developer development doesn't have that same schedule as the planning board change. So that was one other thing I forgot to mention is to account for that. I move we close the hearing. Okay, is there a second to that. I see Doug's hand is second. So at this time, we can move to close the public hearing. Mandy if you can just confirm that we're closing it for both the CRC planning board. So that's what I was going to do. This is a motion to close the joint hearing of both committees. So I think our, our plan is to try and streamline this and so it will be one vote recorded. And, and we'll go from there I think, right Christine. Okay, that's good. Should I do a roll call and then we can do yours. Sure. Michael Burt. Michael Burt whistle. Yes, can you hear me. That's a yet. Okay. Yes. Close the public hearing. Yes. Yes. And Maria. Yes. Jack. Yes. David. Yes. Yes. Yes. And myself, Christine. Yes. Mandy is a yes. Evan Ross. Yes. Steve Schreiber. Yes. There are sorts. Yes. And Michelle. Yes. I think Christine unanimous from both bodies. So 12, zero. Okay. So the public hearing is not closed. I see no hands up right now, but just in regards to motion, I'm under the understanding will probably do two different motions, one for planning board and one for CRC. I see no hands up right now. I'm under the understanding board. I think I should go first. And then. And then CRC. David, I see a hand up. Oh, thank you. And thank you for recognizing me. So I understand that the public hearing is closed. It's now a discussion among the joint. Committees. Is that correct? Yeah. There can be more discussion and each of the committees will be making a motion. Okay. Okay. I've got something to say. Okay. You've got, you've got the floor. I support the, I support this revision. And I agree with, I believe it was Mandy who said earlier, but I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's going to work. Shoot. I lost the where I wrote my notes, but that design by law needs update. It needs broad updating. And that's going to that we need the town will need help for that. I submit that that's his town. A town council. Initiative down the road. Once the plague is passed us a little bit. However, I want to point out. The, the, the matter, the issue. While I agree, I think that the site plan review. Voting requirement for the planning board should be lowered. To a majority of the planning board members present. I think in order to distinguish between. The site plan review. That an applicant has been coming before the body for a planning site plan review versus a higher burden, a higher threshold to meet for a special permit. Things get. Once you start pulling at threads, other threads become weaker and or become apparent. Because the site plan review. As I understand it. Any decision of site plan review. Under section 11.41 can be appealed by an agreed party. Within. Within 30 days of an issuance of a permit by the building commissioner, which is a much longer. Appeal period than a special permit. And it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not mistaken. And I don't think I think that that needs to be corrected as well. That if a site plan review decision is made and approved, there's a, there should be a limited time. Rather than an indefinite time. Practically. Effectively. For appeal. That that's inconsistent. That that. And these things become apparent once you start. And then we have to improve the pro-law. And we have to improve the pro-law. The pro-law. And I think that's a good point. Because they are all interwoven. Or many of them are interwoven in places. And so, so we need a, we need a much bigger. By-law update, which is a lot of work. And there are people who've done that work that. I believe the town. Should look to hire in the coming years. That's all. Thank you. I see no hands up right now. so we either look, I see Janet. Would this be the time for Michael to make his motion or did he already make a motion? He did not, at the time it was not the appropriate time to make a motion. If he wanted to make the motion he could now go home. Or someone else can. I see, hold on, hands, Michael. I'm going to just, Andy, Joe, I just want to say do you have a protocol issue or is it? I was going to say with a recommendation, if the motion is made, I think it would be to recommend a motion from the planning board is to recommend or not recommend the council amend. So if Michael wants to make his motion I think it would be to recommend that the presented bylaw be amended to read whatever or to add that clause in prior to the council adopting it or adopt the proposed amendment with an additional amendment or something like that. That's how I'm sorry. Adopting the existing what we have is the order and then adding what he wants to it and that would be the motion. Okay, thank you. Recommend that adoption with that addition. Hopefully that makes sense to you, Michael. I'll call on Michael. Actually that doesn't make sense. It seems to me that what we need to do is we need to put the motion on the floor of the order as it's been written and then I would move to amend that motion that's on the floor. We can do it that way too because you're right. If you pitch it then we have to go through the whole process. Okay, so I'm going to put Michael's hand down. So is there a planning board member who is ready to make a motion? You'd want to read a potential motion, Christine? I can read that. Here's one. What about to recommend that the town council amend zoning by law 11.250 planning board decision to delete the phrase quote at least two thirds but not fewer than five and quote and replace it with words quote a majority so that section 11.25 reads the concurring vote of a majority of the members of the planning sorry of the board participating and voting shall be required for any decision on a site plan application abstaining members being considered not to be voting. That would be a motion. Jack, I see your hand. Jack? Sorry, my thing was covering so I'll go with David. Sorry. I'm sorry and then Jack. I'm sorry. My little lower hand thing. It's sorry zoom issue. David, I recognize you then Jack. Yeah, I'll make that motion that you just read to Christine. Okay, Jack. So now we have a motion on the table and I will look to see for hands for comments or discussion. This is the planning board motion right now and then after CRC will do theirs. I recognize just Michael Burt Wilson. Yes. I move to substitute the phrase to reinstate. I move to reinstate the phrase but not fewer than and substitute for parentheses for current five. Okay, are there any other board members planning board members who would also like that change to be made in the motion? I recognize Janet. I second the amendment if I need to. So Mandy, we're stepping into town council land here so I might how do I handle that now? I think what you do is vote on that amendment first to see if the planning board would like to modify the original motion made to make the changes Michael just did and if that motion to amend receives a majority the changes on the planning board on that are added into the planning board motion. Thank you. So I will now take a roll call. We have an existing motion and Michael has made an amendment to it and Janet has seconded it and I'll do a roll call whether you're just in favor of the amendment yes or no and then we'll go from there so. Isn't it appropriate to have some discussion at this point of the amendment? That's true. That's true. Thank you. Sorry, I'm so into that. So first I'm going to put down Janet and Michael at this point so they have their amendment. Are there any board members who would like to speak to this right now? I'm only seeing Michael's hand. Is there anyone who has who would like to share an opinion? David keeps seeming to raise his hand in video. Raise his physical hand. Oh, David. David. Oh, I'm not muted. Shoot and I'm on video too. Do you have anything you'd like to say? Yeah, I was equivocating. I'm sorry. I think if we're building this on a scenario on the hypothetical that it's possible that there is a quorum of a planning board meeting called with four members present and that three of them vote positive, I think I find that highly unlikely. But deferring to kind of the board members and Chris Brestrup's experience, I think that while I support the simple majority, I would also support the amended language. That's all. Any other members too? Okay. Michael, I'll go back to you. Thank you. I don't think it's so much a question of what we can expect to happen. I think over the last three or four years, the planning board, whether nine people or seven people has essentially all been there all the time. There's been an occasional absence and there's been an occasional recusal. So I think the hypotheticals of being down to a three-person vote is extremely unlikely. I do think though that the possibility of a five-person vote is a little more likely. Again, not terribly likely, but a certain reasonable possibility. And a five-person vote with a resulting three-person, three-to-two vote gets at the issue that Chris Brestrup was talking about a little while ago. I think she has been in this business a lot longer than any of us have. And I think the sensibility that she was expressing about, which I interpret too, have been about the need for a... I can't use the word consensus because it wouldn't be a true consensus. Consensus is in the Quaker meeting tradition. Everybody ultimately agrees to agree, whether they really agree or not. That's not what this is. This is asking for a reasonable, but not absolute, a reasonable level of agreement on an issue that will ultimately, or that may ultimately, significantly affect the overall feel of what the town is like. I think if you want, if you really... No, that's that's what I want to say. Thank you. Steve Sharper? So we have to look no further than the Amherst College Fields project that was fairly recent because I believe that there were two abutters within 300 feet on that project on the planning board and there was one absent. So immediately you are down to four people on the planning board. So basically the two abutters, two abutters, had to get a... As far as I remember, they had to sign something to... I don't remember what the process was, but these cases of conflict of interest come up much more often than you would think in the small town. Maria? One point when Maria was one. I think Steve actually raised was... The ZBA is three members voting and deliberating with four or five people present is not an unusual way to get things approved. So I think being afraid of the three is coming from a stranger place. That's all I have to say. Janet? I just wanted to say is the ZBA, it's three of three. It's 100%. One member can torpedo a project and so the ZBA has been able to reach that 100% voting threshold. The other two members are sort of associates or kind of in the waiting in the wings if they're needed because of a quorum issue. I think I just wanted to get back to that point and also to Michael's first point, which is we've been able to reach two-thirds the planning board for a long time. And so we're moving away from two-thirds to a simple majority of to three votes. I don't even know why. I don't even know really what the problem is. This hasn't been a problem in the past. And so we seem to be moving to three or a few people on a yay vote when it hasn't been a problem reaching two-thirds for site plan review. So I just want to put that context in here. It just does, I don't really understand what the problem we're trying to solve other than a little bit of a smaller board, but at least having a four-people vote is more like the way it's been and it's always been successful that way. And so it's been a working two-thirds for site plan review has worked for decades. Other towns do it. We're dropping below two-thirds. Now we're dropping below an actual majority and I don't know why and I don't know what the reasons would be. So I would just recommend at least we stay at a majority of the entire planning board. Thank you. Shalini? Yeah, this might help. I'm looking at mass.gov under smart growth and in that they recommend that site plan review should be not should be. They say many communities and adopting smart growth are moving towards or have simple majority, but they also have this idea of major and minor site plan review and that might be something we could consider because they say for minor site plan reviews, because we're looking to a smart growth and zoning by-laws that expedite processes and not treat everything and then bringing in the quicker idea is like yeah when things are really major and substantial we want to include more people, but maybe for things that are not that great can we move faster with those things? Just throwing that idea, but it does say that site plan review is typically simple majority. Approval of site is usually a simple majority vote of the read reviewing agency. Thanks. I just want to remind everyone of what I said in the beginning about site plan review that it's about refining the details. It's about aesthetics and environmental impacts and getting the owner, builder, developer to do due diligence at addressing those issues before starting as much as possible. It's not about prohibition. So the truth is all those buildings that have been built so far, even with this restrictive two-thirds, they were all approved and they all happened because it's not about not approving them. It's about making them the best they can be. So yes, you know, some people are saying why are we going with this lower number? Well, my reason for it is because it sends a message out to the world that we are trying to do smart growth and we do care about our economic development. And now in the time of COVID, I feel even more strongly about this. When I contemplate where we might be this time next year and the empty shops and the abandoned downtown that we might be dealing with, we want to be attractive and I want people to come and risk their money and their time and effort to reestablish here in Amherst and the ones that have survived this to be able to be encouraged that maybe they can improve their building or their site without the fear of overcomplication of Amherst. So that's why I'm not concerned. I of course want as many people on the planning board to vote something in approval. The ideal is seven. That looks wonderful. And we can still have that, but it's not going to change whether or not the building is built. We're just mostly trying to change it to make it the best it can be. And my last statement is what I really think the system needs is design guidelines.  And when I did my research and more and more towns are even going just to administrative SPR review, they're doing that because they've told me time and time again because they have good, strong design guidelines. And that helps set a framework for developers to come in and already be trying to achieve. So I do think, you know, this is one layer, but we're identifying a lot of issues that need to be addressed in the near future, fixing and improving a lot of our zoning bylaws and getting design guidelines. So I just thank you. I see David and then Jack. David, I'll go with Jack. David on mute. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the unmute part. I'd like to move to a vote, but I have a question before I do. I believe the first motion to vote on is Michael's proposed revision. Is that correct? Correct. So I'd like to move to vote on Michael's proposed revision to include, but not fewer than four. Okay. Christine. Yes. Yes. That will require it's not debate, if it gets a second, it's not debatable. And it goes directly to the motion to call the question goes directly to your board and requires a two thirds vote of the board to stop debate. What happens if there's not a second? Then the motion fails. So it's so continue talking. And you just continue talking. So David's just asking to call the call. The question is to call the question. Yes. I'm seeing if there is, is there a second to that to call the question? Second. Okay, Jack. So at this point, we, I will do a roll call for the motion amendment that Michael has added that. No, your motion on the call. The question. Your motion on whether or not to continue debate. So all call vote will be on whether to continue debate. If you vote, yes, you want to this is. Yes, you want to finish debate. If you vote, no, you want to continue debate. And if we vote, yes, then we, and we have two thirds, then we vote on the substantive motion of Michael's language. Okay. And then we vote on the amendment. Okay. So this is just the first part. So I'll go with Michael. Yes. Maria. Yes. Jack. Yes. David. Yes. Doug. Yes. Janet. Yes. And myself. Yes. So that's part one. Now we'll move to part two, which is the actual amendment, which is to refresh. It was on the motion to re put in, but not fewer than and then add four. Okay. So that's what the amendment to the first motion is. And I will take a roll call vote for that. So I'll start with Michael Burt whistle. Yes. Maria. No. Jack. No. David. No. Doug. Opposed. Janet. Yes. And myself. No. So that's five. No. Our two yeses five. No. Zero. I'm staying. No. Majority. Yes. So that motion failed. So we are the amendment failed. So now we go back to the first motion, which I don't see any hands up right now. We could go to a roll call for that motion. Still don't see any hands. So the moat, do I need to read the motion again or? You probably should. Okay. So the motion is to recommend that the town council amend zoning by law 11.250 planning board decision to delete the phrase quote at least two thirds, but not fewer than five and quote and replace the words with quote a majority and quote. So that the section 11.250 reads quote the concurring vote of a majority of the members of the board participating and voting shall be required for any decision on the site plan application in parentheses abstaining members being considered not to be voting and parentheses and quote. That's the motion. I will go through a roll call. Excuse me. Who made the motion? Oh, that was David. I can tell you. Well done. I think it goes back to me. David and then Jack seconded. Jack seconded. Thank you. Yes. And this is for a recommendation to go to town council just to be clear on what this motion is. It doesn't actually make it happen. Michael Burt whistle. Is there any more discussion? Well, I didn't see any hands until right now. I think we have had discussion, but if you want more than there's been no motion to close debate. Do we need motion to close? So what I would say is Christine asked if there is more discussion before saw no hands. So she was moving to the vote because she didn't see any hands for more discussion. So when you don't see anyone, I asked twice directly to it. Yeah. I asked twice and I still see no hands, but I do recognize you, Michael, before I start this, if you have anything else you want to say. Thank you. I do. And I'm surprised that you're moving immediately to a vote on this because we had a discussion of the amendment. Now we need to have a discussion of the motion, it seems to me. Feel free.  So thank you. I agree with a number of people who said that a zoning bylaw revision of major proportions is what's needed. And I think that's absolutely true. I think that's a long process and I don't know how long, but it's going to take a while. Whether or not we should remain with the existing bylaw, which says two thirds, but not fewer than five, as opposed to changing it to what the current proposal is, is a different question. I think maybe we'd be better off staying with what we have and working on changing the bylaw to the level that many people are suggesting it needs to be. And I would support that. As it is now, I don't think that this bylaw change is either a good idea or necessary at this point. And I guess that's about all I needed to say. I recognize Jack. We're an hour and a half into this. I've heard a lot of recycling of ideas and things like that. So I'm going to call the question. Okay. And I see no more hands up. So I will roll call on any the second. I do see. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Second to call the question. Okay. Call the question. There's a second. But do we now we need the the roll call the two thirds to call the question again? That's right. This is a new motion. And then once we get that, then we can maybe go on to the the actual vote. But what we need, we need two votes now. Not being a robbers kind of guy like me, but but this is good. This is like, I was never town meeting number. This is so this first roll call is just for calling the question. Right. Whether we should then move to the motion. So I mean, it's been seconded by Doug. So I'll go through the roll call again. Michael Burt whistle. Yes. Or yeah. Yes. Jack. Yes. David. Yes. And myself. Christine. Yes. Okay. So now we will move to the motion. Which you can see it's actually up on the board too. So I will call the roll call again. This time it's for the motion. Michael Burt whistle. No. Maria. Yes. Jack. Yes. David. Yes. Doug. Yeah. Janet. No. And myself. Christine. Yes. You got frozen in the middle of that Christine. Yes. Sound got frozen. Can you go through that again? Michael. Sorry. We'll go through it again. Michael. Oh, no. Maria. Yes. Jack. Yes. David. I'm miming. Yes. Okay. Doug. Yes. And Janet. No. Okay. And myself Christine. Yes. So Chris, I hope you heard I heard five to zero. Five to zero. Thank you. So the planning board were done with ours. At this point, I'm going to turn the meeting over to Mandy Joe because it would be easier for her to call on her own people. Thank you. I am not at this point seeing any hands for continued discussion. If there's no desire for continued discussion before a motion, I do see Sarah. Sarah. I'm just going to say that I think that I would bring up that amendment again to have no fewer than four. And I'd like to explain why I feel that way. And I think that I always try to fall on the side of consistency. And one of the things that is a new town council we have continually been told is that taking guidance from staff that have been here for a long time and have seen how things work and to see how things work with the public is something that we should pay attention to. And the fact that Chris has been here in Amherst working in the planning department for so very long, the fact that she said that she at this time would feel most comfortable with the language of no fewer than four. I would like to respect that because I think that she's sort of seen how things go and the fallout of that. That being said, I also really hear a lot of the voices from the planning board. And I think that the planning board now is seven people. And to think that you that you would need three is like the the biggest sometimes that you can get for a majority out of seven. I think that speaks to the fact that what what has been brought up is that maybe something's broken with the number of people or maybe of the process, which is something CRC is looking into. And also, you know, maybe we I think that we do need to look at the zoning bylaws and maybe overhaul them. But I just think that dropping from four out of seven to three out of seven without having looked at what might be broken about the planning board and also about the zoning bylaws, I don't I think that that would not be as safe. And I I'm just I feel like I'm just trying to listen to what Christina said, and also to the underlying problems that I think that the planning board is feeling about their own job. And the fact that a lot of our planning board is also moving on or hasn't stayed makes me think that there's something that they need to feel more ease in their job. So that's that's cool. Thank you, Sarah. I just want to ask if you'd be okay with the motion as the planning board passed it being made and then the motion as Michael made that you making that as a motion to amend just for clean this sake. And I see a nodding as as to that as a process. Yes, I think that makes more sense. Yeah. So I will I if I don't see any other hands, I will move to making that motion myself, the the original main motion. And then I'll look for a second and then I will I will then immediately go to reading the amendment because I'm guessing you don't have it in front of you that that Michael made. So I will read it for you to be able to make that motion as a so moved and then seek a second for that. Okay, Sarah. So the motion that I'm going to make I move to recommend that the town council amend zoning by law 11.250 planning board decision to delete the phrase quote at least two thirds but not fewer than five and quote and replace it with the words a majority so that the section 11.250 reads the concurring vote of a majority of the members of the board participating and voting shall be required for any decision on a site plan application abstaining members being considered not to be voting and quote the motion is by me do I hear a second are my members around second shall any seconds. And and now we will move to a motion to amend. I will look for a motion to amend to reinstate the phrase quote but not fewer than and quote and substitute the word quote for and quote for the current word five. Do I hear that motion Sarah I so move and is there a second so for the purposes of having a vote I will make the second okay since I was not seen anyone else do we have any discussion on it Sarah can't hear you that was a legacy hand and I apologize for it I'm sorry we have those problems sometimes don't we shall any oh could could Chris speak a little more to what were the benefits of making it for for something like that plan review and what were you what would be the consequence like what were you what was going on in your mind when you proposed the minimum of four thank you so I think you know partly it is the public's confidence in the planning board and the planning department I feel like the more planning board members who vote in the affirmative for something the more confidence the public has that planning board did the right thing I feel like if if I saw a vote in the dilly ham sugar set that the planning board had voted to approve one east pleasant street on a vote of three members positive one member negative I would not feel confident about that vote I would want to see a majority of the planning board voting for something that's that big and the majority would be four so that's that is in my mind about about why we would do this I really feel like um it's a vote of three out of seven just doesn't really stand up in my mind as something that the public is going to feel good about how many do you have any follow-up I'm thinking about it okay so I will go to Steve and then come back to you if you desire Steve so the vote that speaks to me as a five out of seven planning board members I just voted in support of having three members minimum of three members approve this so that speaks volumes to me if this were a site plan review it would have passed if it were a special permit it would have passed so that's a basically a super majority and so with all due respect to with due respect to that process I respect the vote of the planning board I'm good I appreciate Steve's response that clarifies something for me so I'm good okay and I do want to point out one thing that I think is accurate um before we might move to a vote that the buildings that Chris Brestrup originally indicated she would be concerned about one east pleasant Kendrick place I think or some of these other ones that were mixed used buildings almost all of them had special permits attached to them I believe and that special permit still requires two-thirds I believe so even if the site plan would be if only five members are voting a required three the special permit that goes along with that site plan review would require four um correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's the case and I'm not hearing anyone correct me I think I saw nodding from Steve the council's resident expert in zoning I think a seven times point six six is now I was saying if five were voting it would be three for the slight panel review if we don't do this amendment but it would be four for the special permit attached to that same application I think you'd need five for the special okay you'd need even more five seven okay oh because it's based on seven not the number voting okay it's two-thirds of the minimum of five okay thank you for that clarification so it would still need five even if the other one needs three that's right any more discussion on this motion to amend seeing none I will take a roll call I think we are down to um Evan starting first clarification sorry I just want to clarify what we're voting on this is on Sarah's this is the motion to amend to add back in the phrase but not fewer than and then it would be four got it okay so Evan yeah um Steve no Sarah yes uh Shalini no and Mandy is a no that is a one to four vote so that motion to amend fails um any other discussion on the main motion I'm sorry Mandy can I interrupt you oh sure I didn't catch I could not understand what Evan said I'm very sorry so Evan was a no no so Sarah voted yes and the other four members voted no thank you for asking for that clarification um I am seeing no more discussion on the main motion so I will move to a vote on that which is a vote to recommend the language that is on the screen unchanged at this point the the proposed language because the motion to amend failed uh we are starting with Steve yes and then we go to Sarah no uh Shalini yes Mandy is a yes and Evan yes and that is a four to one vote so that motion to recommend passes um at this time I will say the CRC has no more items on its agenda so I give the rest of the meeting over to Christine for the rest of the planning board members agenda thank you for hosting us for a joint meeting and I am adjourning the meeting of the community resources committee at 8 23 p.m thank you CRC thank you good to be here with you all thank you I know you guys had a lot of meetings already hours in this week so thank you good night um at this time I have 8 23 um oops so how about we use that slide Pam and I'll announce to everyone that will take a five minute break um if people need to go on and um we'll come back here at 8 28 and we'll resume with item uh four the review and recommendations to zba on valley community development court 132 northampton road so I'll see everybody in five minutes thank you CRC okay all right so I'll at least call the meeting back in we took a brief break um so I'm just going to say now we're moving on to uh item four review and recommendations to zba zba fy 2020-39 valley community development court 132 northampton road request for a comprehensive permit under mgl chapter 40b to construct a new two and a half story residential multifamily building containing 28 small studio apartments and related common areas on an approximate 0.88 acre property located at 132 northampton road map 14c parcel 8 general residents rg and educational ed zoning districts okay welcome um I I think we have a few presenters if you want to introduce yourselves um welcome we're glad you're here um and then after uh I just want to know do you want questions at the end or so that means this is presenters yep so uh this is Laura Baker I'm the real estate project manager for valley community development corporation uh Rachel can you introduce yourself too sure uh this is Rachel Lepler I'm a principal landscape architect at Berkshire design group um um and tom uh yeah hi tom chalmers um austin design um architect I am I at whatever the committee prefers uh if you want me to run through the full presentation and hold questions till the end that's fine if you want to call out questions as we go along that's fine too uh it might be a little easier that way because sometimes they have to do with a particular slide and once we've passed that slide we have to go back and find it so I guess that's my suggestion okay and approximate how long is your uh presentation it depends how many questions you have I can get through it in about 20 minutes um I'd like to suggest that I move briskly um because you've had a long discussion already and we've been to the planning board prior for this project and already given a presentation so I think of this more as an update but let's just launch it and see how it goes so if I see hands raised during your presentation I will let I'll say there's a hand raised and it will only be at this point members um and before you start I just jack gem sick you have your hand up is there something you want to say yeah I just want to say I um I've said this before I did you know a project you know a year or two prior regarding this site but it's a recommendation and um you know I have no vested interest in this project uh at this time and just want to let that be said thank you for your disclosure jack that's good yes um sounds like it was in the past so okay great and it's just recommendations today so and um at this point now I'll turn it back to um Laura thank you I was about to say Laura everyone's saying Laura but I'm like Miss Baker so welcome back thank you very much thank you for having us so what is noteworthy on this first slide is um if you want to know even more than you're going to learn tonight um there is a wealth of information there is a town web page specific to this project with uh a lot of material um just because you're the planning board we wanted to make sure that you noted um that the proposed project is consistent with other plan documents planning documents in the town of Amherst I tend to put a lot of writing on my slides so we can send them around after because you may not have a chance to read everything that's on here as we go but just noting that this need for these very small single person units and units for homeless persons has been identified through the years in a number of different Amherst town planning documents and there is a long history of Amherst efforts as a municipality and in its departments trying to foster especially housing for homeless individuals going back to 2008 when Amherst issued an RFP to study the creation of these kind of units valley conducted a study and actually made an offer at that time on a property close to town and the property owner refused the offer and wanted considerably more um and so that just fell through um more recently there was a town forum on homelessness in 2016 the town planning department did a tour with a number of developers trying to kind of spur some interest in developing this kind of housing and then ultimately the town awarded valley a $50,000 planning grant to try to locate a site there were several townwide forums on affordable housing with highlights on this topic and then the zoning subcommittee and planning board held hearings to discuss a zoning amendment to facilitate single person occupancy housing development that was approved at the spring town meeting in 2017 we looked at multiple sites probably about two dozen during 2018 and eventually acquired 132 northampton road in january of 2019 we sought funding from the town so the Amherst cdbg advisory committee held hearings recommended a $200,000 cdbg planning grant and then ultimately the cpa recommended a $500,000 grant for project implementation at that point there was pretty lively local debate there were a number of community events there was an open town meeting of residents with more than 80 people there there are multiple letters and newspaper articles written and following that kind of period of intense activity a town council approved the cpa recommendation by a vote of 11 in favor and one abstention this year the town council provided a letter of support for our project eligibility letter to the state three town counselors came to the state site visit and again multiple groups and community letters were submitted both pro and con during a 30-day public comment the level of community participation I think has been pretty high we valley has had public meetings with these various municipal boards in addition we've met with butters and neighbors we've met with a number of local groups and I won't read them all but we've been door knocking we've been in consultation a lot with the planning and zoning department but also with other town departments you know dpw fire department things like that the methods that we've used to inform the community have been this wonderful webpage that the town planning staff has set up public meetings over 30 articles opinions and letters that were published in local newspapers we also did radio interviews and we have more than 60 letters and written comments both again pro and con that have been submitted and dozens of speakers again pro and con at public meetings and we have powerpoint presentations that are on the town website prepared by neighbors and butters as well as by valley people are hopefully familiar at this point with the site it's here in late green it's on north hampton road it's approximately halfway between university drive and up here at the town center directly adjacent to the conway field house and pratt athletic field uh this is how we look at the site and its benefits it's four tenths of a mile from the town center in the closest bus stop six tenths of a mile from downhill to the major shopping centers and walking distance to multiple service providers including the community health center at the bang center it's on a major road it's connected to public water and sewer it's a just under an acre lot it's cleared and relatively level for north hampton road butters are primarily residential both single family and multifamily both owner occupied and rental it's right at the junction of three zoning districts ed rg and rn and for most of our planning we thought we were entirely an rg but there's a little tiny sliver that's in ed that we think was just kind of a mapping overlay glitch that happened at some point in time there are several other dense housing uses nearby some condos residence halls and a senior housing development what is proposed are 28 small studio apartments designed for single adults each apartment includes a bathroom and a kitchenette common areas include a central kind of common living and dining area multi-use room a laundry outdoor patio and some gardening space we're providing two onsite offices one for property management and one for a resident services coordinator it is a two and a half story building the half story is a full living level but it's partly below grade 28 units two of the 28 units are fully handicapped accessible the average unit unit size is 235 gross square feet and the accessible units are significantly larger all in the building is just under 12 000 gross square feet the income restrictions were attempting to have a number of tiers of income levels so that this is a mixed income property um one of the main incentives obviously was to provide a units that have a homeless preference for folks who are very low income 30 of the area median income and would have a project based rental subsidy so people who live there pay approximately 30 of their income for rent two units that would have a preference for clients in the department of mental health again with a subsidy um eight units restricted to people 50 of the area median income or less with a fixed rent um and eight studios for people 80 am i less with a fixed rent um and these rents include all of the utilities uh heating cooling hot water electric uh these are the current income restrictions 30 percent am i just under 18 000 50 percent just under 30 000 80 percent just under 48 000 this is what those people earning those amounts kind of forwarded they paid 32 percent of their income for their rent and utilities um and so this is our um look at the affordability ranges for these different units but the development there's been a lot of discussion about kind of who is homeless um and what are their characteristics um so the development can house but is not limited to people who are chronically homeless which is defined as people who have long-term or repeated homelessness coupled with serious mental illness substance use disorder or disability nationally about 24 percent of homeless persons meet this definition um the overall definition for someone to be homeless is much broader um it could be someone who's doubled up someone living in substandard housing someone who has a domestic violence in their current residence someone who's at risk of homelessness because they're paying more than 30 percent of their income for rent and a variety of other ways that someone might be defined as a homeless individual this is supportive housing and so we've spent a lot of time developing a supportive services plan that draft plan is available on the town's website these are just some highlights of it we will provide an on-site resident services coordinator 27 half to 30 hours per week and their primary function is to help tenants connect with community based services to coordinate on-site functions for tenants to coordinate and or provide transportation property management we'll have an on-site presence about 20 hours a week they have kind of a different um objective uh there to maintain the property collect rents enforce the terms of the lease we have memorandums of understanding with several other community agencies in place that specialize in serving low-income and homeless persons uh department mental health will provide kind of comprehensive wraparound services for any clients that they refer so homeless tenants will be referred into the property from local agencies and those agencies need to commit to provide these kind of transition services for typically the first nine to 12 months of tenancy and then as they withdraw from that level high level of service they will be connecting tenants with ongoing community-based services uh the zba hearing schedule is here the opening hearing is uh next week on thursday june 25th at 6 also on zoom and the continued hearing date has already been set for a week later you are all of course welcome to join um we brought some information about a comparable project that is just now finishing construction it's in north hampton at 82 bridge street like the amherst project it's located on route nine walking distance to downtown it's a significantly smaller parcel it's less than half an acre it's a historic house that's being renovated with a large new addition it's converting from 15 bedroom lodging house to 31 studio apartments it has less on-site parking than is being proposed in amherst as 14 parking spaces or 0.45 spaces per unit the apartments are similar in size and scale it will house homeless persons uh department of mental health clients and other low-income individuals and there's less on-site staffing so two days a week of property management about 15 hours a week of resident services coordinator we held a lottery for tenants who were interested in moving to this property in january of 2020 where 250 qualified applicants apply and of these 152 reported that they were homeless um this property it's called sergeant houses due to complete construction within the next week or two and lease up to tenants beginning the end of june uh the tenant profile at that property is somewhat similar although it's a little more slanted toward the very low income end of the spectrum um and the highest income group is 60 percent am i rather than 80 percent am i you may have driven by the site i hope that you have and i hope that you will um because it's very beautiful uh it's a historic 1820 building that was basically taken down to the bare bones and is being lovingly restored um and then it has a more contemporary style addition on the back that's the view from the back this is the view looking at the front of the building it's just two doors down from historic north hampton and it is in a national register historic district this is the interior of some of the units um that are getting finished up at that building just to give people a sense of what a unit might look like it's a little hard to tell from photos how big they are um but this is a typical kind of kitchen at just so someone might see what that looks like um it's a it's a full-size but small refrigerator it's a 24 inch range in oven it's a microwave it's a sink you know it's some counter space and some a little bit of cupboard storage so it's kind of all the basics and it's small but it's it's quite functional so these are excerpts from the plans that we've submitted for the zoning permit there is within their zoning application uh several pages of lists for zoning waivers many of which are very kind of um i would say technical in nature the ones that i listed here i'm calling them highlights are the ones that i think of as being a little more substantive if you want to see the complete list um it is available online so uh the number of units in this building is 28 whereas the apartment building limit is 24 the density of units per lot areas higher than would be allowed normally the parking is 0.57 spaces per unit 16 space is total uh the maximum lot coverage for uh all pervious and impervious surfaces is 45 percent as opposed to the the norm of 40 percent and we're asking that as part of the comprehensive permit process the zba brings in and encompasses other town permits and here are a few examples of those kinds of other permits and so the zba is kind of the funnel and they consult out with the various boards so the style of the building um we would call traditional slash victorian um the inspiration for it was we looked at a variety of residents kind of dorm older residence halls on the amherst and smith college campuses um these are some 3d renderings of the building uh this is looking this is the driveway area um and this is the facade that would be facing north hampton road um this is the facade that would be facing the conway field house no sorry this is the rear of the building facing the track and this is the side of the building that would be facing the conway field house when we came to the planning board in i believe it was february there was a suggestion that we prepare some graphic to try to illustrate the size and scale and massing of the proposed building building as proportionate to its neighbors so here we are this is north hampton road going to hadley going to amherst this is 132 so this is what you would see if you were standing here on the sidewalk looking across north hampton road at the new building this is what you would see if you were standing directly in front of it and we did this the architects did this with a variety of neighboring buildings now one thing that you'll notice is the building looks teeny and it's partly because it's set so far back on the lot it's about a hundred feet back on the lot um so it does but it is a neighbor to um a larger structure which is the conway field house as well as a slightly smaller structure which is this victorian house here i think i'm going to hand it to rachel to talk you through just the basic elements of the proposed site plan you there rachel yeah can you hear me i can and i'll point for you if you want okay great um one thing that we wanted to take into consideration is improving so the site had an existing house on it um and the house was really really tucked up close back to the to the field on it was it didn't meet the setback requirements um and we also were taking in consideration the massing of of the building in relationship to other yards along north hampton road and we felt that if we if we've inched it forward into a lot closer to north hampton road a little bit we could um give a little bit more breathing room between the apartment building and the adjacent uses of college um we also were taking into consideration accessibility so early on many of the discussions uh we're looking at the existing grades on site and how we could place the finish floor of the apartment building so that we wouldn't need steps into the building so anyone coming in um on a wheelchair or who um is mobility challenged would have an easier time getting into the building so all sidewalks are fully accessible they're less than five percent so no railings or landings are needed um we also looked at trying to make sure that uh any of the service elements were kind of tucked away from visibility from north hampton road as much as possible um so the units the hvac units are tucked away behind the building massing um tucked way out of sight from the hampton road um additionally be you know the dumpster area which we have capacity for an eight yard and four yard dumpster or eight yard and six yard dumpster that is screened with fencing and tucked away in the back of the site um across the site there's nine feet of grade change so coming from north hampton road after driving up or down your sight lines would not encounter the dumpster area it's only for those driving into the site that would see it um and we placed it in that location we heard comments from the planning board before that um you may wanted to tuck that somewhere else but there was a feasibility issue of getting the dumpster truck to pick it up and turn around so that's where that needs to be also back there we're accommodating things like the storage shed for gardening equipment and some salt um and we're anticipating a need for a transformer on site and we're placing it back there as well so it's not in the in the streetscape along the hampton road um in addition uh we have some bike storage covered bike storage in that area and and um we have we're also trying to minimize the impact of the parking area on site and kind of keeping with the residential feel of the neighborhood so we were using asphalt surf surfacing because it's fairly durable for half of the spaces and their full size spaces um but then the other areas for parking that we don't anticipate having a heavy use um we're using grass pavers as an alternative there to soften that um and also areas for for turning around in the back of the site we're using that as an alternative to again minimize the impact of paving on the site um we anticipate potential gardening for residents here there are two garden areas zones one to the south and one to the west as Laura's pointing out now to take advantage of different lighting conditions for different types of plants um additionally um on the lower level so I shouldn't mention that as as someone enters into the apartment building they enter into a lobby that's at the mid level um and the building has an elevator um and stairs that go up and down um so at the lower level there there is more um there's a gathering area and a connection out to a lower level patio so that patio area is fully accessible from the building also and that area has seating and screen evergreen and deciduous planting this plant has a very high density of planting which we're really excited about to help screen this area from the neighbors and make it much more therapeutic for the residents who are there in addition um this user group has a need needs a smoking structure still feeling pavilion um and that is being shown on the site plan tucked away facing away from the apartment building um with a bench and then more additional screening between it and the apartment building and screening between it and the and the um field house um stormwater on site like we are trying to use low impact development techniques uh so as much as we can we're trying to get away from piped systems and infrastructure systems not only do they only add cost um but if we can we like to use lighter methods uh so the plan the majority of the plan we're using grading to define a detention area um towards Northampton road because subtle depression in in the front um we're also using a rain garden adjacent to the parking areas to deal with stormwater quality and clean up clean up any water coming off of the parking area before it goes into that attention retention basin Laura if I anything else I should mention sure um we're showing these this main pathway coming in and this main pathway as being in concrete and then using a permeable kind of I don't know what it's called the shredded rubber shredded rubber for these pathways and we've scaled them down a bit to a more residential kind of you know scale people probably know on the planning board that this there is an existing sidewalk here it's in kind of rough condition um and there is a mass DOT plan to improve sidewalks on both side of Northampton road to five feet wide uh they're all supposed to be handicapped accessible according to mass DOT um and there will be two crossings with lights that are planned one at Orchard Street and one at Hazel Street so again we have connectivity into what will be an improved pedestrian access um system I think I think you did a good job Rachel I think I'm going to go on I do see one hand up I take a question from Maria Chow of course I'm not a landscape architect so I don't know what this term means uh level spreader see yeah is that a wall or is that at grade what is that exactly that little ship it's a it's a fancy word for um a area of riprap that is level that takes any channelized flow that's coming out of a pipe and it distributes it evenly across gravity flow across a larger surface so that you don't have scouring down the slope of the pipe okay so that sort of um sea shaped thing is not a wall or anything no that's like a that's like riprap yeah okay but it's gonna sit Rachel correct me if I'm wrong it you wouldn't see it as a passerby so much it's kind of sitting pretty much at grade yeah yeah and then my other question is maybe this is something more for the architect but the little condensers for the mini splits right by the smoking pavilion no yeah I was wondering if those could you know they can be noisy they're made pretty well nowadays where they're not super noisy but if there's just another spot that's not right by where people are relaxing outside but yeah it's a pretty minor thing so yeah we definitely we may play around with them a little bit it's always challenging to find a spot they can't be near windows they can't be near it you know it just it's it's one of the challenges that we'll struggle with a little bit with a building that has peaked roofs flat roof buildings you just throw them on the roof but we didn't want a flat roof building so we're trying to find places for them around the site so this is the elevation that you would see this is on the driveway side so you would be coming in as Rachel described on grade into a main lobby area and it's essentially a split level you know the lobby's on on grade and then you have a choice of going up or down stairs or up or down within an elevator we're trying to pick up some of the traditional cladding materials like the the fieldstone kind of look facade that is present in the Conway Fieldhouse and then a traditional clabbered look this is the side of the building that would be facing North Hampton Road and this isn't an exact representation of grade it's a little more gradual than this but it is kind of looking across the building that way and so this is the side that would be facing the the fieldhouse here are the doors that would egress onto that patio space that we looked at and then this is the back of the building that would be looking toward the track Tom maybe I'll let you chime in in terms of this is a little small to look at but in terms of the cross section as well as the roof height um sure can everybody hear me yes yeah so one of the one of the features of the building is that you enter into the building at the at the along the side kind of at the midpoint so when you enter to the building you're basically in the center horizontally and you can and it's quick to get to either section of the to either area for your apartments and we're doing the same vertically in section so um at the uh this here is the covered portico at the entrance and this is at the grade that the driveway is at basically and then as you come in you come in at grade and you have there's an open stairway and you go either down to the ground floor level or up to the second floor level by stair there's also an elevator that stops at the lobby the ground floor first floor and the second floor and so you're kind of you're kind of entering the building at as close as we can get to mid height as well and this also allows us to have the uh common spaces the common area room on the ground floor also exits out at grade um to go directly out in that patio so there's no no step or ramp required so most of its lab on grade construction there is a small kind of sub basement for utilities um for the and then in terms of the roof height this is just a diagram that shows that the this is the allowable roof height and this is the mid height that we're achieving and that is taken from actually the basically the lowest point on the building um so it's along the street a lot yeah it's pretty conservative along the the street elevation is is quite a bit higher than this um the average across the street elevation is a little bit higher we took it from the from the lowest point here so tom can you can you i keep i couldn't read these but this is showing where a 40 foot high building would be a roof height right mid the mid of the gable right and this is where we are at i can't we're maybe almost two feet below the maximum is that fair okay so this is the uh ground floor um again as we've been describing you would enter here be able to go up or down um on the ground floor we have most of the common use areas the common room is here which is kind of a multi-purpose room it can serve as a gathering space workshop training space eating space and it leads out to the patio the resident services coordinator office it would be directly next door to that room we have a guest or public bathroom here and down this corridor is a shared laundry room this is a mechanical room so the things that are most below grade are down here mechanicals laundry stairwell so that all of the units themselves can have good um full windows for daylight so everywhere you see a number b1 b2 b3 these are individual units um this is the first floor and stacked above that common room is the handicapped accessible unit which is a larger unit um with a larger bathroom and living area and again units all around here um but you can see there's a little bit of furniture layout in the rooms just to give you a sense of kind of what someone might put into a unit this size um they do have each one as a closet a little row kitchenette and a bathroom with a stand up shower uh and this is the upper floor which is uh all residential oops i missed one element here we have the property manager's office right on this first floor kind of adjacent to the lobby where you come in and then upper floor is unit stacked on top of the floor below any comments you want to make tom on the floor plan um i think you have it pretty much there's the on the uh the open stair only goes up to the goes between the ground and the first floor there are two enclosed egress stairs one at either end um you can on the ground floor there's an entrance uh at the street that um tennis could go in if they wanted to go down that path and there's also an entrance out at the back at the patio at the patio and then also out here to where the garden gardens are there right um this is just kind of an enlarged version of some sample units they have slightly different sizes but they're approximately the same square footage and definitely the same types of you know fixtures and features and finishes one of the emphasis for this project is energy efficiency um low carbon footprint and trying to not use fossil fuels so we have a goal of being passive house certified which means we have low energy use per person a super insulated building envelope uh efficient air source heat pump sometimes called mini splits for heating cooling and for domestic hot water mechanical fresh air through an energy recovery ventilator serving all areas so the building is very tight which means in order to have good air quality we're not relying on people just opening windows so it'll have circulating fresh air to every space in the building efficient lighting and some solar powered lighting site lighting uh energy star appliances PV panels uh to the max that we can get based on the roof uh that we are dealing with as well as the budget that we have to work with uh again a goal of all electric utilities with no use of fossil fuels uh a low carbon footprint through small efficient units in a walkable location and close proximity to services shopping etc so reducing the number of tenants who own cars and reducing the number of vehicle trips per day uh in terms of our timeline this is just a quick snapshot this is our best case timeline uh where we're doing permitting through the summer applying for funds potentially in the winter if we were fortunate and and well prepared getting funded in the summer that the following year choosing a GC going under construction spring of 2022 um expecting a little over a year of construction period we would be doing marketing and and lotteries leading up to the completion of construction um and then an occupancy lease up period and then what we call stabilized operations which is typically three to six months of full occupancy um I just wanted to revisit some of the comments that we had from the planning board members when we came in February and these were um uh captured in a letter that uh was written on behalf of the planning board or letter of support thank you very much for our project eligibility letter to the state so one comment was to include one bedroom apartments as well as studios and so we did a number of floor plans and budget scenarios for building that kind of combined different sizes of units on both the construction and operating side the budgets did not look viable um and making fewer units reduced uh valley's ability to provide on-site services there was less revenue uh another comment was to install a roof over the smoking area which we've done uh we have kind of an open-air pavilion currently um that's provided in the plans there's an image of it there that you can see uh we talked about relocating the dumpsters and our our failure to do that to find another good place to put them um we do think because they're so far back and screened by offense and due to grades they will not be a high visibility kind of item on the site and we did look at the graphic depiction that we did of how this massing of the building would appear in relative to neighboring buildings and I think that brings us to the end of our presentation thank you that was an excellent well organized presentation um I still see no hands but if there's any board members that have a question right now on this and then I'm gonna turn it over to Chris Bestrup who has a few words to say I see hands changing sorry I see Doug and then Maria hi thanks for that that was really a great presentation I have one comment uh about the exterior elevations I wonder if you could go to one of those sure give me one sec yeah so um the band the white band that separates the uh stone or whatever the base is from the siding that's above it the first floor windows look too far above that makes it look like it's a really huge really high first floor and like typically that kind of band is is closer to the floor line inside okay so so it seems to me that it would look a little more natural if that transition point happened a few feet higher and closer to the first floor level okay thank you um Maria um I just want to thank you I don't remember if last time this was passive house with a goal but um it really shows your commitment to energy efficiency and sort of that you know this is a building to stand the test of time and it's really um meeting the challenges that we are currently have with energy and carbon footprints and so I do appreciate that because it's a passive house is a really stringent certification of most of it it's like this way of designing houses um where you can like for a single family home heat the whole house with a light bulb for the whole winter you know it's that well insulated and airtight and so yeah um fresh air is a real uh issue with houses or buildings this type but um but I'm sure you have a experience team that can handle all that yeah we did we did not have the passive house goal the first time we met with you um it's I think it's it you know it's just becoming um more done in our world there are entered there are incentive funds to do it and the sergeant house project that I showed you is so well insulated it wasn't designed as passive house but I think we're really close to meeting that standard and so we we figured we should reach for it um in this one yeah yeah I think it's a really good sort of message to the community and to the people who'll be living there um I don't know if you're gonna ever get to the lighting plan that was in our packet but it wasn't in your presentation and I can't read any of the numbers and I'm assuming there's no I think one of your said there's no light spread to the neighbors yeah but I want to make sure there's enough light on this yeah so the blobs for the um I don't know if Pam you have our but basically I think yeah just more clarity on how well the site is lit for the next go around or yeah yeah so we'll we'll review that photometrics plan as part of our presentation to the zba and I know when that when we the size that we gave out it's really hard to see the details so we'll try to we'll try to do something about that our intention is to be um fully dark sky compliant no lights bill onto neighboring properties and to have a kind of even soft light um so it's not a lot of light but what I've learned is it's easier to see when the light is fairly even across the site rather than having a bright light somewhere that creates dark spots somewhere else yep that makes sense right okay and we yeah I do appreciate all the visuals about showing how far back this building is set so even though the scale meets all you know except for um I forget what part didn't maybe all of it matched the zoning bylaw requirements but that the scale feels a lot smaller than these elevations are showing I mean elevations are a very abstracted way to look at buildings anyways because there's no perspective or no depth but um but yeah I appreciate the street views because it really shows it's set back um the the shape and massing of it kind of fits the neighborhood so you know only when you're right up against it would you ever see it the way elevations portray it um exactly but um even so I mean the perspectives they're a little isolated I mean I don't remember if I mean the comment or someone else saying that comment but I was hoping that the perspectives would be a little bit more like in a context with building rather than um the photo but I feel pretty secure in knowing that because of how far set back it is that it really isn't going to dominate uh route nine you know it's really set back pretty well and so um I guess the perspectives are more just to show the building not necessarily how it fits with the context but um right overall yeah it's a great project I um yeah I think that uh you you've designed it in a way that really you know articulate you could have just made this really smooth box but you really sort of you know went out of your way to make it articulated and match the context language and then yeah then the passive house goal is just really sort of shows you shows the commitment you have to making a really good building so um yeah thanks for your presentation thank you Doug I see your hand still up do you have a an additional question or is that just a left over hand left over hand my apologies I look no worries just wanted to make sure after you had something um I don't know if any other members so at this point I'm going to move it to Chris to sort of let her uh she can tell us what we're to do next Chris are you there yeah hi um so this is a comprehensive permit um application that's going to the zoning word of appeals comprehensive permit is sometimes called 40b and um many towns fear 40b because it means that a developer can come in and you know do something that the town may not like and um get waivers from their zoning requirements in our case um we have over 10 affordable housing um and that that means that over 10 percent of our housing units overall are um affordable uh based on the state affordability criteria so um so 10 percent I think it's actually over 12 percent of our housing is affordable and is on the state uh they call it the subsidized housing inventory which doesn't necessarily mean that the housing is subsidized it's just that it's been recognized by the state so in any event Amherst doesn't um is not subject to what we call unfriendly 40b applications so but Amherst does welcome um good um projects that provide us with affordable housing and we have many of them in town we have um mill valley estates is one of these um chapter 40b projects um butternut farm which is at the corner of 116 and long middle drive is another one um olympia oaks which you might be more familiar with because it was a recently done project up in north Amherst provides about 42 or 44 units for families um we also have the um the north square at the mill district which was done by beacon uh communities recently and I think I'm missing one but I can't remember but anyway so we have a number of these types of developments that have been presented to us um and it was I think most of them except possibly from mill valley estates was done after Amherst reached its um goal of 10 percent of affordable housing units so this is a way of um encouraging affordable housing in Amherst and um so what a comprehensive permit does is it allows the zoning board of appeals to kind of take over all the other boards or committees or even some of the town staff um permits and reviews and kind of bundle them all together which makes it um slightly easier for developers to get through the process obviously this developer is doing a good job of going around to all the boards and committees and presenting the project so everybody knows about it and now um you're being given an opportunity to review this project and to make recommendations to the zoning board of appeals the zoning board of appeals is the permit granting authority in this case and um you already did make comments back in February I included your comment the letter describing your comments from your February 19th meeting included in in your packet today it's towards the end of your packet um but anyway if you wanted to um add to those comments and recommendations or just take a vote to um support this project um that would be uh welcome thank you Chris for um those helpful instructions so um I so I assume so we can just support it but if we have specific recommendations to the zba now would be the time to raise your hand and put them out to the board to see if there's general um agreement that that should be added on and I just want to say uh especially to Laura thank you for really listening to us obviously the last time and coming back and really showing I had forgotten some of the things we had asked so um thank you it you know this seems really well thought out so um thank you so I don't know if there's much to comment on but um well may I may I offer a comment that one yes one neighbor called me she's been interested in this project and concerned about it and one of the comments she made and this may be a minor thing but I'm going to mention it anyway because I told her I would um but the smoking um the shed that is designated for smoking um she's concerned that it will be um too visible from the amherst college side of the fence um which is on the west side of this property and she wondered if the smoking shed could be turned around so it's oriented towards this building and then she also suggested um strong screening between it and the amherst college property and I think you know she's she's worried because in amherst we generally don't encourage smoking in this case it's important to have this facility available because of the population who lives here um but she just wondered if that could be managed and I noticed that you did talk about smoking structure and amherst college but what kind of screening is that is it um penetrable is it ever green just so the comment has come to us as well in writing and verbally from the neighbor and so we've been talking a little bit with each other mainly myself and Rachel and I think we can accommodate some of those requests we can certainly have you know if we had deciduous plantings we can do more evergreen type plantings um the the pavilion is open it's like a little it's like a little pavilion but tiny um it would certainly be possible to put some siding on that not necessarily solid siding but um you know some staggered boards or something that would give it a little bit of screening but still not put people into a you know box um we our preference is that it face um the view rather than the house next to it um if you've ever had the privilege of walking on this site it has a wonderful long view down the hill to the mountains um so that's kind of why we were wanting to orient it that way so I think you know we can continue to think about it and massage it and discuss it and I certainly think we can easily meet part of that request um I think it would be a shame to turn it around and face it you know toward the building that's next to it we think it could have a nice you know almost therapeutic quality um being able to sit in it and look down into the valley so those are our thoughts so far on that Laura can I just clarify a little bit on that smoking shed so you said all four walls are open yes so when you say facing you just mean like the benches or whatever are looking out that way so even if you turn the bench around it's still open walls but just to add on a comment that Maria had said earlier she was commenting on the splits that are there um and she had mentioned noise but now I'm thinking because it's not a scale on the story but um intake you know I wouldn't want it close enough that the smoke could get sucked into the units and then inside could smell it that was my but I know you're trying to balance where to put it but um I just want to add that so just to clarify currently it's an open pavilion with no walls uh in response to this neighbor's comment we began brainstorming about could we add some cladding on it and where would it go the intake for the fresh air is not where the many splits are they they do the heating and cooling and I believe all of the ERVs um I think Tom correct me if I'm wrong the intake and outtake is on the front of the building um so there are two kind of segregated systems the heating and cooling and then the fresh air circulation you're muted Tom just not if I'm right uh you are right there may be some on the back but they're they're up at the upper levels and they're very high in the building and and they're not adjacent to this the the smoking area and the the mini splits don't have any air so smoking is always a hot topic we we have we have made properties non-smoking before entirely and then we have folks standing on the sidewalk out front smoking so we thought that would be less desirable um than what we're proposing but it's always a tricky issue it is I'm not seeing other hands so I'm just going to ask one more question about the smoking room so on the I'm looking at the it sort of shows the lens of the illustrative site plan um so it looks like trees in front of it or is that low bushes you mentioned a view to the west but if the trees are too high that sort of blocks it but also I think what this neighbor is saying is you know if people are walking by at Amherst College will they be able to see people sitting on a bench smoking so just clarifying the landscape yeah so um I went I pulled us back to that site plan page here's the smoking area so this distance I don't know Rachel help me out are we looking for about 20 15 20 feet going this way yeah yeah right 15 or 20 feet and then we have another you know maybe 15 feet and the