Until the, oh, Pam's just starts the meeting. Yeah. Oh, I was just saying any panelists either. You're right. All right. Mr. Marshall Amherst media is in the house.  My clock says 633. The attendees are coming in at this point. We have about 12 of them that I see. It looks like we are good to go. Okay, thank you. Welcome. All right. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of August 16 2023. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst planning board I'm calling this meeting to order at 633pm. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is accessible on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting, or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts. We will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and return to mute. Bruce cold. I'm here. Thank you, Fred Hartwell. I am here. Thank you, Jesse Maeger. I Doug Marshall I'm present. Janet McGowan. Here. We believe that Johanna Newman will be absent for this meeting. And Karen winter looks like, looks like we lost Karen. Oh, there she is. I'm here. You're here. Okay, good. There we go. Thank you all. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem. And then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, we meet remember to remute yourself to the general public. The general public comment item on our agenda is reserved for public comment regarding items, not as specific subjects on tonight's agenda. The chair of the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. To zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, so the time now is 637 and we are, we've come to the first item on the agenda, which is approval of minutes. Tonight's minutes are the minutes from our meeting of July 19. Anybody have any comments on these minutes as drafted by our highly capable staff. Janet. I just wanted to say I thought they were excellent and the minutes have been really great lately, and then I'm happy to make a motion to accept them. Okay. Why don't I go ahead and second that. Sorry, Bruce.  So I received an email today from the applicant on the ever source project. And I had sent him a copy of the decision. And he noted that college street was spelled cottage street in the decision. So I see that it's also spelled that way in the minutes. So that would be on page five. Possibly another place. I'm not sure. Anyway, so I'm suggesting that that. That war that spelling be corrected. Oh yeah. I see it on page five under the site visit. All right. Bruce you're right with the amending or. Janet. Janet with amending your motion for my motion to make the spelling correction. Okay. And I agree with that as the seconder. Thanks, Chris. Anybody else have any other comments on these minutes. Okay, we'll go through and have a vote. Bruce will start with you. I approve and I also thought they were very thorough. All right. Fred, Fred, you are. Yeah, I just unmuted. Unless my vote is required, I will abstain because I was not on the board for this meeting. Okay. Well, let's see how that goes. Jesse. Excuse me. I believe Mr. Hartwell was on the board for the July 19th meeting. It was the June 21st meeting wasn't on board. Yeah, my bad. Sorry. You are listed as present. Yeah. For some reason I, I read that and I read it as. Nevermind. That's on me and I'll vote yes. Okay. Thank you. Jesse. I approve. All right. Janet. I. Thank you. And Karen. I approve. That was good. I don't think we're allowed to have time and I as well. So the motion passes six in favor one absent. Great. Chris. Are we entirely up to speed on minutes or are some of them outstanding? Some of them are outstanding. I think the August 2nd meeting is not. 29th meeting, which was the last time the planning board met in person has not been. The minutes have that of that meeting have not been done, but I think other than those two. That we're good. Field Sadler agrees with me. I do agree. Okay, and are you. I promise I will write it and we'll get caught up 29th meeting. Okay. We're about to have another, you know, third meeting of the month and I don't want to. Get in the situation we were in last year. Okay. Good. So that's, that's it for minutes. Time is 641. At this time we'll go to public comment period. And so members of the public. Actually, before we do that members of the public, if you want to say anything during this public comment period, Bruce, I see your hand. Why don't you make your comment. You are muted, Bruce. Possible point of order. We're in a situation where there's an item on the agenda, which we may decide not to have on the agenda. And it may be that folks in the meeting were waiting to have that. So I was wondering how you would want to handle that. I guess if we were to say we didn't want to consider it tonight. Could we still have public comment on that item or. I mean, how do you, how do you think we should handle it?  Massachusetts solar project. Was not going to be a public hearing. So actually public comment would not be required to be given for that, for that topic. I think, you know, We, we will, when we get to that, probably. We will explain that the, the. The applicant has withdrawn the request. You know, has declined to show up tonight and wants to reschedule that for another time. So members of the public. We are really not going to talk about the shoot spurry solar project tonight, I believe. And so if, if, if you want to make a public comment about that. At this time, I guess go ahead and put your hand up. And as I said, we're really not going to talk about that this evening. So thanks Bruce for bringing that up. So with that discussion at this point, I see one hand raised for public comment. And actually at this time, I usually read the names of the people who are in the participant list. Or in the attendee list rather. So I see that there are 12. Attendees. So Eric Bacrock, Bruno, Carlos Fontes, Conor Burgess, Larry, Martha Hanner, Mara Keen, Michael Lepinsky, Pam Rooney, Renee Moss, Shane, Ben, Bajnochi. I'm sure I butchered that and someone first named Tom. Okay. So Eric Bacrock has his hand up for making a public comment. Pam, if you could bring Eric over. And just a reminder, this is for topics not on tonight's agenda. So that can include the shoots very solar project, which we're probably not going to be discussing. So welcome Eric, please give us your full name and your street address assuming you live in Amherst. I do Doug. Thank you very much. I assume you can hear me. Yes, we can. My name is Eric Bacrock. I live at 277 shoots very road in Amherst. And in respecting the, the procedures of the planning committee, I was not going to refer to the third, the third agenda item, the solar project on shoots very road, which was the application was withdrawn for at least from discussion. I was going to ask why, because I was given a heads up recently that this application was continued for a discussion by the planning board. To September 6. So I'm wondering how, how are the planning board. You know, it was, it was moved off of today's agenda because it was an incomplete application. And how that application. It will still be incomplete as of September 6. How it could be considered. For discussion by the planning board. And make making recommendations on the application. It will still be an incomplete to the ZBA on September 6. So I am confused. And I, my, it defies my imagination as why, if it, it was removed from tonight's. Agenda item, how it could be considered. Nonetheless, on September 6th. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bacrock. Thank you. As I said earlier, we typically don't respond to public comments directly. Chris, I saw your hand. Do you want to say anything now? Or do you want to wait until we get to the next item on the agenda? Oh, wait. Thank you. Okay. All right. With that. The time now is 647. We'll go to the third item on the agenda. Okay. So this is the ZBA FY 2023 dash 18. Project with ASD shoots very mass solar. LLC. The request for a special permit. So Chris, do you want to say anything to. Oh, I, I'm sorry. You're, you're coughing at the moment. Caught you at a bad moment. The email that I received from Tom Reedy today. And Tom Reedy is the attorney for the. The applicant in the case of the shoot spray road solar. He says, Chris, and he's really addressing the planning board. Please accept this email as a request for a continuation of the shoot spray road solar discussion. Currently scheduled for this evening with the planning board. As you likely know, we are confirming our wetland delineation and intend on presenting the project concept to the ZBA next Thursday, the 24th with the expectation that it will be heard in earnest in October. In the interim, we will be working with the conservation commission toward an updated order of resource area delineation. We'd be happy to present the project to the planning board on September 20th. Please let us know if that is acceptable. And I will ask the planning board to let me know if that is acceptable to hear about this project on September 20th. All right. Thank you, Chris. And thank Tom for the email. So Chris, my first question to you is whether we have other agenda items that are planned for September 20th and whether we have time that evening to talk about it. As far as I know, we do not have other items planned for that night. So. Okay. And September 20th would still be in advance of the. Majority of the zoning board deliberations on the project. Is that expected to be true? That is correct. Okay. All right. So board members. Are there any objections to us planning to discuss that on September 20th? Anybody. Bruce. I don't have any objection, but I'll be out of the country. I don't know if that's possibly should to be said, but I think since the members of the public is still here, I think it's important to point out that. We have on occasions in as recently as last meeting. Conducted a hearing and it was in our case, a hearing at not even a consideration for recommendation to another authority having jurisdiction. I think it's important to point out to completion of a conservation commission hearing. So there's nothing magic about needing. All other agencies, particularly when we are sitting to make a recommendation, you want to get that in earlier. So there seems to be confusion, at least in the, in the public, the fraction of the public have been sending us emails that somehow or other, there's some sort of protocol or law or etiquette or maybe even common sense, but that's kind of our business about whether we should spend time on these kind of things before all of the allied agencies have completed their work. And the answer is we frequently do this. So there's nothing untoward about this. I just thought I would like to say that. Well, thank you, Bruce. I appreciate you bringing that up. I just wanted to, you know, repeat or remind people that this, our, our decision to hear about this project was entirely. Optional. We could have simply said, well, we don't want to hear about it and ZBA can just go ahead and deliberate without any input from us. And in fact, whenever we do hear about, about the project, we may decide not to give any recommendation. So we're not doing this on September 6, which was the one email. So now we're on the 20th, correct. And then. Okay. And then vis-a-vis the wetlands delineation. You know, I, unless they're like, to me, if there's a huge difference between what we're presented with and what the con con is, you know, that might be something we like, that might change our outlook on the project or significantly change the project. If it's not expected to change much, I don't think it has a huge impact, but, but I do think, you know, like. That might impact the ZBA's decision about whether to go forward with the hearing, because sometimes we kind of wait on our decisions and wait for the con con to come in and things like that. So, you know, I think it's a little bit of a murky area, but if it's a really different. If there's like a street, or they're moving the array really significantly, that could affect how we look at it. And I guess we could just see it twice then, right? Yeah. I mean, we could talk about it. What they've submitted so far and have comments on that. And then, you know, see what, how it changes. I guess I suspect that within. Between two, two, a period of two years, it's not likely that the delint, the extent of wetlands has actually changed that much. Although it has been very rainy this, this past year. So. Yeah. Okay. We'll just have to see. And. I doubt I will bother to compare the whatever we get in our packet on for September 20th. With what we got tonight, you know, it's like, that's, that's old news. I don't need to see that. Okay. Are there any other board comments on, on that topic? If not, we'll, we'll just go ahead and move on to the next item on our agenda and plan to revisit this question on the 20th. Okay. I don't see any hands. All right. And so the time now. 653. And we'll move to the item for. Old business. The first item on old business is. Concerns SPR 2023. From service net incorporated. At 1012 and 20. Belcher town road. Revisit this question on the 20th. Okay. I don't see any hands. All right. So we've got a question on the 20th. The city of Belcher town road. Review of conditions of site plan approval prior to issuance of a building permit. When we approved the. The site plan for this project. We had a couple of conditions. One concerned the lighting plan and, and the photometric plan for the site. We wanted to see catalog cuts of the exterior lighting. Prior to the issuance of the building permit. So, it looks like we have Larry has joined us and so welcome Larry if you can unmute and introduce yourself and maybe you can lead present the materials that you're back to show us tonight. Yes, thank you. My name is Larry Tuttle. I'm the architect of record for service net on the particular project. I've had submitted some of the initial drawings for the proposed work on the building but have focused primarily on the building and and not on the site that was handled by the back. And as such, some of the items we had called for a pre construction meeting as part of the conditions, a few weeks back with a miscommunication because we were really looking to secure a permit to do some investigative work on the building that consisted of some control demolition of the finishes so that we could see structural issues that we had some questions about that unfortunately followed suit with with the communication problems because we did not receive that authorization to proceed promptly enough to have before the committee right now, finished architectural drawings because we did discover much to the dismay of the owners, some structural issues that have to be addressed and engineered. So those drawings have not been completed. We had at the time of that early meeting had been encouraged that we would be able to investigate the conditions much sooner and we had a chance for finished drawings submitted before you. But we did try to address as we've interpreted the conditions of approval in so far as that we have provided missing pieces that were identified and Chris has been very helpful in that process I've, I've sent some drawings to her. I just pointed out some of the discussions that happened at the earlier meetings that I was not part party to. And so I've made some of those corrections that that she has been looking for. So I think before the board right now, there is a photometric study. We do have the light fixture cuts, we have two options for the parking area, one where it's a pole mounted fixture that has cut off so it does comply with dark sky requirements. There is minimal lighting into the parking area. And so the alternative is to have the fixture mounted on a projecting arm from the pole. And it gives up still a soft light on the parking area, which, again, we've submitted quarter metrics for that. One thing that Christine had pointed out was that we did not address the gable end of the building the West end of the building. And by program that is right now paved and was part of the the restaurant parking lot, but is not necessarily parking area that is to be utilized by the current applicant. And so we were hopeful of just putting as at the entries to the units of photo emotion sensitive wall scots that would just wash down the building and immediate foreground and not project out in towards the street at all. So that that's where we stand with the photo metrics. This is also a question about the ramp. And I initially sent in a ramp scheme that was of concrete ramp. Unbeknownst to me has been discussed and is the preference of the owners to do a framed ramp. And so I had a secondary sheet sent into the board with a framed version of that. And we were viewing the acceptability of a decking material that the applicant has used on other projects, but I want to make sure is compliant with the conditions that we're proposing right now but it is. A decked wood framed and railing combination that I think had been discussed and was the more favorable response that the board was looking for. And it is also the same railing and decking material that would create the stairs and small landing at the entries of each of the humans. So, Mr. Tuttle, I should I conclude you're not going to be sharing your screen and showing us any of your materials. I wasn't prepared to do so I thought that by sending it into a Christine that that was that was potentially. If something had to be distributed so I apologize if that was an expectation. Okay. When you say sorry, I was just going to say I have all the documents available to share. Yeah, so if there's something you want to see, just let me know. Okay, well it sounds like there's a couple of alternates on the light fix the exterior light fixtures illuminating the parking lot. And as I look through my packet here I'm seeing what may be those alternates but I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly. Yeah, the biggest difference in the alternates on the lighting is the the armature from the pole that will give a more even light more to the center of the parking. And then the very first photometrics that I set sent with the set was just a strict pole mounted fixture that has the cut off angle, there was no spill on to the butters, but it also because of the cut off didn't carry as far into the center of the parking area. So that that was a question of whether we wanted more of a soft light at the perimeter but then you lose that some of that light value towards the center of the parking versus if you have it on this projecting arm, you we bring that light level more to the center of the of the lot. All right, so can you see the screen at the moment Mr. Tuttle. Back catalog cut. Yeah, it was the same fixture. It was just that that fixture would be on an arm that would be projecting from the pole. Okay. All right, and then. Right. So, and we wouldn't, we wouldn't have to have the sharp angle that it's shown there to throw the light forward, it could be more horizontal. Okay. All right. Board members, I see a couple of hands, Bruce, you got there first. So Larry, I guess therefore the two photometric plan diagrams we have the one of them represents the lighting with the fixture as configured as shown. Yes, and the other represents the lighting with the arm. Now this arm how long is it. It's about eight feet, I believe. Okay, so basically it's working just to push the light, the light source. Yes, the light source center of the. And we can lessen the angle of the fixture itself. So it's more horizontal. So, can we can we look at those two. Photometric diagrams. These before and it seemed to me that the that this is the one that gives the this is this is the one with the that's pole mounted pole mounted without the arm. Yeah, right so that you can see the intensity adjacent or surrounding the poles and projecting only a minimal amount into the parking area that would be used so that's why we investigated an armature mounting. Yes. So, it's, it's not hugely different but it's improved it's improved. One woman. It's, I mean, basically the bulk of the area of the parking area is at least one woman. Yes, we have foot and from my memory when I used to wander around with light meters and so forth to kind of get a sense of all of this stuff that one lumen per square foot in my recollection is what you would expect to see. I don't know about five or 10 feet outside of a Well, it's, it's, you can actually see a fair bit at one woman unless you've unless you've just been staring at a bright light. Right. So, so either of those photometric diagrams would seem to me to be satisfactory in terms of the light lighting levels. But it sounds to me as though we might prefer from from the general glare control point of view to have the to have the more horizontally mounted fixture so it's it's it's so that it's not facing people. Some from some aspects, if it's slightly inclined or tilted upwards, it's going to be more of a glare source for people in certain areas and probably in the parking area behind the building. So I would, I would think that the, the, the option with the arm might be a more satisfactory end result. Not so much from the lighting level that distributes although to some degree but mostly because of the glare reduction from certain aspects that would probably happen as a consequence. Well, is that so I guess Larry I could ask you would you agree with that. Well that that's why that second one was looked at. Yeah, because it did make the fixture horizontal, or more so, and not angled to try to push that light level into the center. So, so I agree with that assessment and accordingly I think I would recommend that we prefer the second option, the second option, the one that's other one that's not this one. This is the one that shows the I think if I recall. Yes, yes, yes. So this is the, this is the photometric diagram that the chords to the arm, arm mounted fixture and with its configuration more horizontally. Let me ask about the, what the pole height is, when you mentioned that there's an eight foot that the arm option has an eight foot arm. How does it what sort of how does that compare to the height of the pole. It is near the upper part of the pole just where the fixtures are mounted presently. But what I mean is how high is pole, how high is the fixture. I mean, if, you know, if it were a 16 foot pole and an eight foot arm, I would think that would look pretty strange. Oh, I see what you're saying the proportion of the height and yeah, the way the pole looks and whether it looks odd. Yeah, we were attempting to utilize the pole position for the utility that exists there versus a placement of a new pole. This is an existing pole. Yeah, so we're working from those fixed points and trying to get the best wash of light in that parking area. I see. If I could submit about in for a moment down at the bottom there is says mounting height and 16 feet. The mounting heights are given. Yeah, so at the end of that. I don't know I guess I also noticed that with this arm option. Some of the lumens are actually lower right in front of the main building there's a whole bunch of them that are below one. So that that too is a study done with the parking lot lighting with limited input from any of the sconces, because that's what we were we were evaluating in this second application. Okay. If there are, if some of the sconces were on, you'd have an increase of lighting level there. Right. Right at the building. So do you guys are the service net have a preference. I guess that's addressed to Larry and Connor. Connor here I'm going to say service that does not have a preference. Okay. Alright. Okay. Yeah. I, looking at the photometric plans I just wanted to clarify what I think is my understanding. The little red dots are the polls where the polls are going to go. And the sconces are not on this, did not shown on this plan, the sconce the sconces are shown at the face of the building at the entry ways of flanking the entry ways. Connor, are they just that little, they are also a red notation. Okay, at the face of the building. So that each entry way and the only thing missing on this would be a couple of those same sconces on the gable and where we don't show any lighting. So one of my thoughts was that the lighting on the with the tall arm for the for the few units to the right is very low but but it's I presumed it would be lit well by the sconces and you know be kind of so I that's that was my understanding so I hope that's true. And then when I looked at the, the site, the overall site plan I had trouble locating the lights on that so I wonder if PIM if you could go to that. I think it's W, maybe F, and says overall site plans. Maybe indicated by something I just, there's no color to it so I just wanted just to have an assist on transferring to like where the parking lot is and the green space and things like that. Let's see. Thank you Pam. You're welcome.  I'm remembering. Yeah, there's one over here. Yeah. And there's one at the very bottom. It's not a green space right around in here. It is in the, in the green space it's just above the, there's a tree, it's like in the middle of that row of trees that parallels the street.  Is that. To your left, to your left, to your left, to your left, down. Straight there, there's a little dot above the right here. That's the pole. Okay, challenging challenging me to understand it. Okay, so that, okay that that helps me and that pole exists now. I remember where there's going to be new green space on the right hand side there was a pole there. And are you, are you set disappearing and just have to remember or is that just being repurposed. That's being reused it's not going to impact the green space but, and again, with the armature it's bringing the light out onto the pavement more so than just in the green space. Okay, and then I can sort of extrapolate where maybe if I can look at the one in the parking lot. I'll find a dot there. Okay. Yeah. So I was just a little concerned for sufficiency of lighting for the people who, you know, have the units on the right but if the sconce is lighting them. It's probably nice not to have a huge amount of light over the green space for the beasts and there's a stream there and things like that so I do have I do slightly share may do share Doug's concern that it looks like kind of a giant me like a giant insect arms coming out but maybe just if it's dark it just disappears I don't know. I would go with the. I would hope that it's not going to draw attention it's going to be that the light source is not directly mounted to the pole is real you're going to you're going to sense the light source more than the pole at this point. You're trying to put the light where you want it not. And I understand that. Thank you. All right. You know, board members. Do you do we think that we want to make up express a preference to service net about the two lighting conditions or just let them decide. I know Bruce has expressed one preference I think I actually have the opposite preference so maybe this is something others may have an opinion about Bruce. I don't think my preference is not strong and it might be I don't think mine is either so you know I think and who knows it might look better if it had a six foot arm or a five foot arm and an eight foot arm. I was thinking however that particularly in the in the one that the that the let's just say the bottom there in that triangle the white space. We've got these trees here and we thought that they would be no higher than 15 feet. So but we do have a 16 foot mounting height so these getting the getting the, the, the, the fixture out beyond the trees with at least some almost at least four feet or five feet probably would be a good idea I don't know how the vegetation will grow up in the certainly in the one on the upper left hand side. There are no trees in that area so that's not in pinch but in the over to the eastern side, the right hand side. I'm not sure how that vegetation would affect the light so but probably an arm there would push it out a little bit beyond whatever vegetation might be grown. I still have that mild preference. Okay, that's not strong. Well let's see what what Fred thinks he's got his hand up and he's work got the electrical background. Yeah, I'm weekly with Bruce on this. Okay, and I could be talked out of it but I will point out that I have considerable experience with the town street lights, having retired as the general division supervisor for the DPW. And there are a number of places and public streets in Amherst where street lights are on eight foot arms, quite frequently, more frequently shorter but there are a bunch of eight foot arms and it doesn't seem untoward to me so Okay, I'm going to support Bruce on this one. Okay, sounds good. So we've got have looks like we have a preference as as in terms of board members who've expressed a preference for the arms. Does anybody else want to weigh in or should we just say we have a slight preference to service net for the arm solution. All right, I don't see anybody any any other hands so let's see Larry was were there any other decisions that we needed to make sounded like you were still working on the structure of the ramp. Yes, it is going to be a framed ramp we do have a depiction of it it's really a selection of decking material. And that we are confirming since we're using it on a handicap ramp that it's compatible with ADA and AB regulations within the state because it is a Canadian made product so we're, we're doing our due diligence on on that usage. Okay, but it's it's location and configuration is is not altered. Alright, what what is depicted here. Great. Okay, so board members are there any other, any other comments or feedback you want to offer to service net Bruce I see your hand. I'm just bringing up my email. Chris said that in a in an email from August nine said that the stairs that entryways need handrails. And I whoops that shown. And I, I just want to confirm that that that this is this diagram that we're looking at now which is more recent than August nine. We, we now so Chris's comment is now moved because it is currently shown as I mean when I looked at this I thought well, it appears to me to be a handrail shown and so forth. So, so we're comfortable in saying in approving this diagram that we are. I guess this is a question for Chris, if we approve this diagram Chris we're comfortable with the handrail requirements. I think is that correct. I do not think so because I believe that the handrail is supposed to project out beyond the step. Isn't that correct. If you're, if you're really having a handrail is complying with handicapped requirements. That's a that's a code. I would put that in Bob Morris department, rather than ours, but very likely yes. So that is my understanding so previously Mr. Tuttle had sent a drawing which I think you had in your packet. Showing a metal handrail. Yeah. Yes, yep. I wondered why you wouldn't just have keep the metal handrail in all the locations rather than switch to a wooden handrail in a location where the where the stairs are. If you have a metal handrail along the ramp. And then Mr. Tuttle had sent a drawing that showed the stairs coming down from the ramp as having a metal handrail. Why wouldn't you also keep a metal handrail that's the stairs that come out of the building for the entryways. In other words, make it all compatible. I don't care which choice you make, but make it compatible and make it comply consistent requirements. That's what I'm saying. Okay. All right, well that's that's fair because we were scrambling after we showed the concrete with the tubular handrail. We learned that it had been the preference of the owners and Connor can can speak to this, that the framed met the framed unit was the preferred. And so we quickly submitted that what you see in front of you with the frame, but we could, we could still put the grasping handrail portion could be that tubular material. It could be mounted to the face of that. The wood rail. That's a conversation that you would have with the planning board. It needs to be. They need to decide what they're going to approve you need to tell them what you want to do. Okay. That's fair. As I say, we were scrambling and, and as I say it's not an excuse for our office, but we were focusing on the interior layout of the building for the owners and jumped onto the site issues. A little bit late in the game. So, so are you thinking you want to cut you're likely to come back when things are finalized. Well, what I would like to, because of the compressed time, if there are much smaller list of items that if we will certainly copy the board with all of the material, I don't know if it warrants a return to the pre construction. You know, we would like to certainly initiate some of the work and get a building permit so that the units and the structural remediation can take place before we get too far into the season and we lose weather. So, it's more, you know, it's, we're within a very short number of options right now if it's if it's down to these handrails that and I'm already trying to determine the decking material that the owners would like to use in its suitability. I could certainly come back to the board with a single sheet that is not dependent on the building permit being issued for the bulk of the work. Right. Well, we could also basically as a condition require you to make the handrail detailing consistent. Across the entire front of the building. So, yes, they all feel like they are part of the same aesthetic. That's fair. I mean, I have no problem with that and it will be more heavily guided by the frame versus a concrete mounted rail. Right. Okay, so we've, we've now got three hands up.  I think you just resolved the issue if they make the handrails all consistent and they all comply with ADA requirements. I think that's fine and I can put that in the letter. Okay. All right. So, board members let us know if you don't agree with that solution. Janet, I see your hand. So, you know, the idea of having concrete tubing for the handrails and concrete walkways sounds very institutional to me and this is kind of a little colonial style building. And it's like a transitory home for people. So I would go with the decking that looks like wood. I would go with the handrails that you'd see commonly on someone's house. And not to the tubing and the kind of institutional look, I think we're trying to make it, you know, fit into the colonial vibe of that part of Amherst and make people feel like they belong in a home, you know, and there's some plantings and there's some grass and it's just not this institutional setting. So that would be kind of a strong preference on my part. I don't know if other people think agree. Okay, thanks Janet. I would be concerned about this being not someone's individual home, but more of an institutional type of building, even though we may not like that characterization, but my concern is that the handrails meet the handicap requirements. So I guess you could say that you're good with whatever type of handrail that they want to use, as long as it meets handicapped requirements. That makes sense. Yes, you know, I just I'm just stating, you know, make it look as good as possible for people so they feel welcome and, you know, like cared for. Yeah, not not the cheapest or most institutional looking thing which I think happens a lot for people at the sort of lower economic scale. Okay, thanks Janet. Larry. Yes, and I would just comment that that is precisely what the applicants have put before me I was, I was going for. We were going to do something that we is tried and true and and more mass produced, and they were looking for that residential level and aesthetic. And so that's what we're, we're, we're going to meet in a common ground area. It's going to be code compliant, but we'll happily share that with. Okay, thank you. Chris. I want to point out that there was a drawing D dash to a that showed an ornamental steel handrail at the steps. So it wasn't just the tubular version it was something that actually had posts, and it had kind of a circular pattern at the top. So these included in your packet. Yeah, drawing D dash to a so that would be kind of a third version of a handrail to consider. Was that part of the original submission or part of the latest. I think it was part of the original. That was in the original. So really they're showing three different types of handrails they just have to decide on one. There it is up in the upper left hand right. It could be a more decorative type of handrail. It's similar to what I have at my house. It's not the typical tubular, but it does have those tubular protrusions at the top and the bottom which satisfy the handicap requirements. And it could be painted any color that you like. So I'm just putting that forward as a, as an option. That satisfies my concerns. Thank you. So, so are you willing to use this type of detail throughout Larry. Oh yes that I mean that is compliant with the safety of the use of the stairs and or ramp. So it certainly is capable of doing that and it can be fit to the depiction is a mounting that is in. It would be a concrete pier or something of that nature but we would be doing a wood frame. Right. So yes that can be adaptable to that. All right well it sounds like Janet would be okay with that and I think I share Chris's concern about having consistency across the front of the building so. Maybe we can just reference that as the type of the style of railing we'd like to see. Okay, are there any other parts of this project that we need to focus on Chris. What about the gable. What about the light at the gable end of the building the suggestion had been I think it was Mr McDougal, who suggested that light, because there is going to be a trash dumpster. In that location and he thought the dumpster needed some light because people may be bringing their trash out at night so. Right. Share that memory and also the concern. I see Bruce nodding his head as well. Bruce. I was going to say that until Chris said because we wanted to make sure that that if we ask whether it would be possible, the African said it would and I think we made it therefore a condition and so therefore, all of that deliberation was done for that reason and we should not abandon it. And I saw the this galleon wall mounted fixture in the packet so is that the type of fixture you would put on the gable Larry. What we were hopeful of doing is similar to at the entries we would use the wall sconce with the motion detection, so that it was not something that would be lit on a constant level. It is more. I don't know if there's a depiction of that wall sconce it's it's those are the parking lot lights that were going through. But it, this would be a cylinder fixture that would direct light predominantly to the ground level with a minimal amount of throw. According to Connor and other staff members that the staff is controlling the access to the dumpster so it would be during specific times it would actually be a locked and gated dumpster it's not on a whim that someone just goes and dumps a bag of trash in there. So there would be some element of control when when that would be utilized, but there would be lighting there that would be activated by motion. So if someone did feel the necessity to get out there with a bag of trash that they would not be in darkens, but a constant light coming off the building was looked to be a negative because it would be directed straight out towards the street. Well I'm also seeing on the photometric plan that the that fixture at the west end of the parking lot. Yeah, is providing some level of light. Yeah, I mean you're over in many locations that looks like you're at least one lumen and it's closer to two in several cases. Yeah, so I don't know if the that light on the building is as positive a source. There is a light presently that's in the decorative framing that is in the bow shaped overhang of the roof, but it is directed straight out at the street. We were going to eliminate that and do something on the face of the building so it would be consistent with, as you turn the corner and go down the south exposure near all of the entries you would have similar light levels on the building. All right, Fred I see your hand. Yeah, how high above grade is the gable and light. That right now is probably, I'm going to say it's about 15 to 18 feet above the ground. Because it's up in like the collar tie area of that frame roof. Yeah, I got to say the sconce feels like it's sort of inadequate to really do much. Well it is it's just that bringing that consistency of light level at the face of the building. And as you pointed out, we are getting some row of light and measurable light levels from that poll light. Yeah, but the sconce is sort of a human scale. Yeah, that's, you know, adjacent to the doorway at the stoop. It's sort of the lighting for the fire department connection on the end of the building and the bulkhead that's on that end of the block. Fred, what do you think. I, I think it probably should have a little greater amount of light projection I don't. I'm missing the ISO foot candle drawing of that gable but I, I question, whether a conventional sconce that's 16 feet above grade is going to be all that helpful someone trying to do.  The sconce would be mounted in a similar height as along the face the front or south face of the building, like at the entry so it would be the human scale someone was walking towards the dumpster. It would be illuminating that walking path alongside the building of that's, that's why I asked the question about how high it was and I was told no that's where the current light is. When I asked the question, I was referring to the one that we're talking about. Oh, the sconces would be mounted more at like the top of door height so seven 70. And this one for the trash would be the same height. Correct. I got you thank you. Sorry, sorry for the confusion I thought you were asking what the current light is and it's, it's an LED light that just shines directly out from the building. And it's up in that height of the gable. All right, Bruce. I think that you could use a 20 or 30 watt LED wall pack type fixture the one you've got shown, and you could have it horizontal or even tip slightly toward the building. And if you were to mount that about 12 feet, they would substantially illuminate the wall and then the wall would reflect the light back more generally. And I think that would probably be the best way to create the kind of illumination that we're talking about on that end of the building. I agree with Doug that the sconces out of character there it's it's it's it's it's the end of the building is not like the doorways are no intimate entries there. And it would be confusing to have a sconce there I think it would look rather silly. So I would suggest that you use the fixture that you've already scheduled you. And, and then just make sure that it's mounted or tipped so that the plane of the light is delivering itself against the, against the face of the building because I don't think there are any windows there are there certainly not at that. No, there's not going to be windows on that end. Okay, renovation so that you're not shining into any of the units. Could that be on a motion detector. So that it's not on all the time because it just seems. Yes, I would think so I mean, because then you can always change that that's a control thing and if anybody, but I think that the, you know, the, the, the, the, the lighting design. solution concept there, particularly with no windows at that end would be to use the plane of the building. As a sense of the, the, the, the, the, the reflector. So you, you put a strong light against that wall and then the wall reflects it out and you don't have any glare you do have light and everybody's happy. Okay, everybody but me because I'm looking at these elevations and I'm looking at the West elevation and there's three windows on the end of the building and there's a unit. There's three existing windows that are being in filled. So it will be a solid wall. So this is correct. That is correct. That is one of the, the corrections that we're, we're rapidly trying to complete. And so that the building, in fact, we had that discussion on Tuesday, as to whether or not they wanted to retain one or all of the windows or none of the windows and the consensus from the applicant was none. So, all right, well that you realize that prompts me to ask what else about these elevations is not correct. We, we are going to be, we drew the, the roof in the, what is the eastern section of the parcel that is owned by the applicant. There are some structural issues in the roof, we are going to basically replace that damaged section of roof, so that we can match the existing profile of the building. So we are, we're going through that process and have those details, which is what I why I prefaced that we had not building permit ready drawings at this point, because of discoveries that were made only days ago. All right, so you're going to rebuild it in the profile. So that the slope matches the rest of the roof, but it will right over as shown on this drawing. Yes. All right. There are all the windows that are shown on the south and north elevation. They should be, they should be correct for the units at this point. I wonder if Pam could bring up that drawing it's a 201 exterior elevations. I was trying. I don't, I don't see it. It was in the architectural package that was sent. That's why. There we go. Yeah, it's probably like eight of 10 or something like that. What was the number again a what a 201. There it is. Go back. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I think those are correct with the exception of the west elevation. All right. All right. So now I'm happy. All right, Bruce, are you all set? Oh, yep. All right. So, so we've asked you to use a wall mounted sconce. Yep. 12 or 14 feet up. In the gable, but use the same fixture as in the rest of the parking lot. On a wall mounted basis. Yes. Yep. All right. All right. Pam, you think you have that. Those notes. The only thing that I missed was. How high up did you say, did you say 12 feet? Well, I said 12 or 14 feet.  So 12 to 14 and Pam, I think it's important to also say that the plane of the light be directed back slightly toward the building. Okay. Okay. Okay. Excuse me. Okay. I have one other question just to clarify because I thought we talked about this earlier. We talked about this earlier. Okay. Yeah. And moving toward wall pack. Does that matter? As long as it's the same fixture as being used in the parking lot. I would not use the words scum. So I think that does have a domestic interiors sound to it. Okay. Exterior fixtures fine. Wall mounted exterior. Wall mounted fixture. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if anybody have anything else we need to talk about on this submission. I think we've touched on all the areas that we asked you to come back for. And in, in the conditions, and again, it was. On the fly interpretation that there would still be conditions that would be present or required for. That would be a requirement for the fire department or building department. Is that a correct interpretation? Yes. Okay. Anything to comment, Chris? Are you on board with that? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So are you on board with that? Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. In that case. So I would, I would guess that I would forward. The corrected elevation. And. Call out the. Incorrect photometrics. Okay. As well as provide a sheet of a consistent railing to Christine. To satisfy them. The board. Yes. Okay. Yep. We'll get those put together. Receive it and review it and decide whether we need to see it again. Okay. But thank you. And good luck with your project. Thank you. We're working diligently to get that done. Great. I hope you make your winter deadline. We've got, we've got quite a crew out there working diligently. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Okay. So the time now is 748 46 and. Next item on our agenda is also old business. Any topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance. No topics. No topics. All right. How about new business? Any similar topics that it anticipated? No. All right. Okay. Form a and our subdivision applications. Anything new to share? No. Okay. ZBA applications other than the shoot spurry project that we've all talked about. We do. I have a couple of slides that I made. I was just made aware of a couple. Let me. So this, the first one is. Let me start by just saying that both of these applications I'm going to show you are expected to go to ZBA on September 14th. The first one is. At 19 research drive, which you might recall. Why do I say existing to family? I think I didn't do something correct here. So what's happening is this particular building. It has a manager's apartment on it. And they want to increase the size. Of the manager's department. It's going to go. They're proposing to increase it from 660 square feet to. 1106 square feet. And that increase. Triggers the ZBA to grant a special permit. And then they're going to have a little extra room. The increased space is happening because the office suite adjacent to it is actually downsizing. So they're going to have a little extra room. So they'd like to make that manager's apartment a little bit bigger. And they're saying that is only living space. They are not adding an additional bedroom. And, and am I right? The expansion of this apartment will be. So, so the, from the outside, the building won't look any different. That is correct. All right. So. Board members, I don't know how you feel. I can say I'm not. Particularly interested in seeing that. Doesn't sound like. Anything worth our time. Okay. So I see Bruce shaking his head basically in agreement. What's, what's the next one? So this next one is at 65 Taylor street. And it is an existing two family. And what they would like to do, see if I can show you a better picture. They have this barn space and this converter space here. They actually want to add a third unit. This connector space would be totally rebuilt. So they would take the, the barn, they're actually going to keep the bones of the barn and the unit. Would be sort of a second floor. Floor unit. So here's the existing house, which has. Two units in it now. So they would take the connector unit, which is about here. The first floor, the connector unit would be the kitchen. And then there would be a bedroom area. At the top of the barn, sort of a loft area and underneath, they would retain two parking spaces. They're actually proposing eight parking spaces for this area. So there's four existing to that are in that lower barn area. And then they're going to reconfigure and take away. Some of this driveway area to add to more parking spaces. I could not find a picture of that though. Okay. All right. So the overall mass of the building will not change. That is correct. Nope. All right. Does anybody think this is worth our seeing? Janet. I feel like I should know it after all those zoning amendments, but will there be owner occupancy on this converted dwelling to three units? That is correct. It is owner occupied now. Okay. So the owners will actually occupy the new unit. Unit number three. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Fred. Well, this brings back memories because I used to own this building. And. And I, I think it's a good plan. But yeah, there's many stories I can tell about this building that I owned. In the 1980s. So. All right. I know all about it. Okay. So does that mean you maybe don't need to hear more about it? No, I don't, I don't think. I think the ZBA can handle this. Yeah. Okay. Bruce. I think probably ZBA can handle this as well. I'm just a little curious because if I understand the building code correctly, this becomes a triplex. Which would mean is I think that the whole building would have to be fitted with a residential sprinkler system. And so it was the more most of though it would be better to have sufficient separation between the existing two family and what's new in order to avoid that. Yeah. Disruption of the two existing units, which would be considerable. So it. My guess is that. Anyway, I just find this very peculiar. And I, but I think it's clear that they are proposing one big massive building. I just wonder whether they. I don't know whether my analysis is correct or not. And if it is, and they don't understand it, they might come back with a different solution at some point. Yeah. Mr. Colton, it is my understanding that part of their project and proposal is a complete sprinkler system. Chris, you may correct me if I am incorrect. I don't know that for sure, but I would suspect it is because I have talked to the REC team as they are working on their project. And my friends in Maloy and Rob Mora have talked to these. Applicants. Quite thoroughly about what's going on here. All right. Fred. Yeah, that is quite true. It'd be a 13 is not a full. NFPA 13 system. It's a 13. Our system. Which is. than a regular NFPA 13 system, but yeah, there are going to be sprinklers in there. Yeah. All right, so actually Janet. Can Fred interpret, explain what he just said in lay terms. Janet, I think the basic message is that this, the type of sprinkler system that's required in a residential building like this is not as comprehensive and expensive as a sort of commercial or institutional sprinkler installation would be in that type of building. I believe you can use plastic piping, for example. Yeah. Do you have a sense of how much that would cost? Because I hear this issue raised often, like the cheaper system. I do not. I used to, but I bet it's wrong now. Yeah. Okay. More than it used to. I can confirm. I'm looking at the application here that a wet sprinkler system in accordance with NFPA number 13D installation of sprinkler systems in one and two family dwellings and manufactured homes, installing sprinklers on exposed piping in all areas where concealing the piping is not feasible. Installing concealed pendant sprinklers in all areas with new finished ceilings being installed. And it will be and it's going to be tested. Yeah. All right. Well, I have, I'm sure that Rob more can work out the sprinkler system details with the applicant. It does sound like they're aware of it, but I haven't heard anybody on the board say that they particularly want this to come back with the applicant explaining what they're doing to our board. So I think we can let this one go to Pam. Okay. Super. That's all I have for you. All right. All right. Great. Time now is 7.56. I'm thinking we probably don't need to take a break and we can probably get through the rest of our agenda pretty expediently without the break this evening. Anybody that wants to stop, please raise your hand. But if not, I'll just continue here. So the time now is 7.56 and where we're up to item eight on the agenda, upcoming SPP, SPR, SUB applications. So the only one that comes to mind right now is the 395 West Street. It's property owned by Ron Lavertier and his father and it is just north of a new building that was built a few years ago down in the Pomeray Village intersection. Ron is proposing a nine unit apartment building at 395 West Street. And he's coming in, I think he's coming in tomorrow to show me and Rob Mora the application with the hope that he's going to be submitting it soon and it would be a site plan review because it's in the RBC zoning district. There's a little chunk of RBC zoning district just north of Ron's property. So that's the only one that I can think of. All right, and when do you think that'll actually come to us? Will it be September or October or? I think it will be probably September depending on how many other things you have going on. And Nate is here and he may be able to... Yeah, Nate's been raised his hand. What do you want to say, Nate? Yeah, I want to say 86 Gray Street is another site plan review application that's I think pretty much ready to proceed. It is an expansion of a two family on a rockified duplex. And so it's, you know, we're putting on a first floor addition. Okay. And that's one. So you think that'll actually sooner than the other one? Yeah, I think that one could happen sooner. Okay. All right. So we'll move on. Planning Board, Committee and Liaison Reports. So just as a reminder, we're gonna, we'll probably be electing our officers and the representatives to the various committees at our next meeting. The one in person on August 30th. So feel free to think about whether you want to volunteer for a committee or you want to nominate someone else or as an officer. So of the people we still have on the board and Bruce, you want to say anything about PVPC? No meeting, nothing to record. All right. So we have CPAC and the DRB vacant. Janet, anything about the solar bylaw? I missed the last meeting. So Chris would have a bigger update. I do know that we had the town attorney met and talked to the committee about like, you know, what about farms and forests can be regulated and things like that. And so I think I'll defer to Chris. I'm listening to the tape now. But I wonder where Chris can fill in for me. Yeah, we sent the attorney some specific questions about what could and couldn't be regulated and how and he responded in writing and then he came back and gave a presentation about it. So after that, it was a very long meeting. It was a three hour meeting. So the first hour was the attorney. And then we talked a lot about, well, what does this mean for farmland and how could we regulate that? And then I can't remember how the last part of the meeting went, but there were some public comments. And the group as a whole is really zeroing in on how to regulate solar arrays on farmland and in forest land. Okay. All right. And then Chris, anything on CRCV you wanna share? I don't accept that they did deliver their proposal for the rental registration update to town council and town council, I believe referred it to the finance committee and one other committee, maybe GOL, I think that was right. But anyway, it's being evaluated by the committees of the town council. And then it will come back to town council for the discussion. All right. Okay. The next item, report of the chair. I don't have very much to say this evening. I will say I had heard from Chris that there was some maybe confusion or questioning from some of the public about what kind of conversation we are likely to have at our next meeting and the other two in-person meetings that we've agreed to hold to talk about how we might change the zoning in town. I gather there was some thought that maybe we would be taking the duplex, triplex proposal that Mandy Joe and Pat DeAngelis had proposed and focusing on that. And I at least thought we would be going in a probably a different direction, looking at where we could up zone areas to allow greater density, much greater density than just going from a single family to a duplex. So board members, I guess if you have any expectations about what we might talk about at the next meeting, you could share them now or you could just arrive with those expectations and help us guide the conversation. But I thought we might be going further afield than duplexes and triplexes. Bruce. Yes, so did I, but I've got two things that I could bring and Doug, I'll forward them to you sometime in the next week or so. One is that when I started thinking about this, I felt it was important to me anyway to try and understand a little clearer, a little better and simply just what are the levels that we as a planning board have to pull, so far metaphorically speaking, so far as creating or inducing and incentivizing of affordable housing of one sort or another. So I wrote a, I wrote myself a memo of all of the things that I thought we could and I was thinking about it differently than I used to think about it as an architect or as a consultant supporting development professionals. And I thought about it more from a citizen planner and governance civic to governance point of view. What levels do we have as a planning board or as a municipal entity, as opposed to, I don't know, a developer or an architect or a builder, because there are certain things builders can do, there are different things that we can do. I better understand what I thought our opportunities were.  And the second thing is I've had another now five conversations totaling with people, planners from other towns. And I'm hoping that Bob Mitchell will help me get to the person in Burlington. And I've, I'm going after people in Mankato, Minnesota and then Oxford, Ohio for Miami University. And so by the end of the month, I'm hoping that I'll have six or seven, I've had six or seven of these conversations with Constance. So I could give some, not specifically their report, but I can feed that, that what I've learned from those conversations into the conversation that we as a board would have. I'm praying to be able to do that. Okay, that sounds great, Bruce. And everyone, bring your ideas. I will say that in the last such meeting that the board had, we had focused, I think a lot of our conversation on Belcher Town Road and whether that area from its intersection with East Street, even just starting at the ever source substation and going East from there along College Street and then it turns into Belcher Town Road on the far side of East Street, whether that whole stretch could be up zoned for greater density, probably four or five stories and how deep would we go and should it be they made mixed use or could they be purely residential? So that seems to be the direction that the previous board was thinking about just for Jesse and Fred's information. All right, so that's really what I wanted to say in my chair's report. Janet, I saw your hand for a moment. Did you wanna say something? Yeah, did you, I missed that meeting and I don't think, I think those are the missing minutes maybe, but did they talk about increasing density at existing apartment complexes? Because there's a few, even at East, at that intersection, there's a couple there and they're already developed and I just wondered if that was part of your conversation. Yeah, we didn't really, I don't remember us focusing on or really talking about the existing complexes. I think there was a lot of discussion about how I think it was Tom Long who lives at the East end, somewhere up off of Belcher Town Road and drives past that stretch a lot and noticed that a lot of it was all, most all of it was all student rentals already and was just thinking that it could be more, probably more densely developed and more professionally managed if they were larger complexes. We did, I think we talked about that derelict commercial property that's on Belcher Town Road and I know at one meeting you had talked about trying to contact that owner and I don't remember that happening. I don't think that was me. It was Karen. Was it Karen? Okay, so anyway, I don't remember too much discussion of the existing larger complexes although we acknowledged that they were there. Chris. So we do know that Colonial Village is planning to add units to their development. I think they have 90 units now and I believe they're planning to add 84 units. So that would be a pretty big development there and they're gonna be including affordable units. Nate might know the exact number but I believe it's nine or 10. So that will be a big influx to that area and we also have a mass works grant to improve the sidewalks along both sides of the road of Belcher Town Road for about, what is it, 1,000 feet or 1,500 feet, something like that. And yeah, it seems to me that we're asking someone for money to do something else in Belcher Town Road. So there are other things happening there and of course the Fort River School is going to be built and so there are a lot of changes that are happening in that area. So it's a good area to focus on. And this is not to say that we have to focus on that. I just wanted to bring everybody up to speed on where we were in the last time. And we obviously have a new board we can go whichever way it wants. Okay, report of staff, Chris. I don't really have a report tonight, excuse me. Okay, time is 8.09, Karin, I see your hand. I wanted to, since they're putting in sidewalks and adding all those apartments, I wonder if we can, before it's too late, request that they take a look at adding a bicycle path on the sidewalk as part of the sidewalk. So we have a real bicycle path into town, just coming back from Berlin where this is done all over the place. I keep thinking, we need to really watch out now that the sidewalks, when they're made, that part of them can be bicycle tracks because people like mothers with children, just people are too timid to ride their bicycle on the street. Yeah, is there anything we can do to let them look at that right now? Chris? I think that's gonna be part of the design for that part of the road. Again, Nate may know more about it because he's the one who made the application to MassWorks, but it tends to be these days that either we have bike lanes on the road or we have a multi-use path. You'll notice that the new work that's being done along route nine between the center of town and University Drive includes one side of the road where the sidewalk is very wide and that's going to be a multi-use path so people can ride their bikes there and they can also walk there. And I think that there are also going to be some narrow bike lanes on either side of that road too. So I believe that we will be, if not required, then it's very strongly encouraged to have bike infrastructure on that portion of Belcher Town Road. Okay. That's great. Great. Thanks. All right. Thanks, Karen. Okay. I don't see any more hands. We've gotten through our agenda. Time is eight, 11. Unless anybody objects, I think we can adjourn. Good night. Thank you all and have a good summer or the rest of your summer. I'll see you in two weeks. We'll be in person. Bye-bye. Good night. Okay, bye. Bye. Bye. Good night. Just stop recording.


The red carpet will be rolled out at Breezy Point Resort on Saturday night as the Brainerd Area Theater and Actors Guild will hold its inaugural red carpet gala. The gala will feature an awards ceremony similar to the Tony Awards or Academy Awards with categories such as Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Best Director. The event is already generating higher than expected ticket sales. Well, when we started, when I started selling tickets a few months ago, I was really hoping for about 50 tickets. I would have been really happy with 50 people coming, but right now we have about 145, 150 people attending. I'm also really excited to say that we've had a lot of just people from the public reach out to me or through the Guild and want to come just to mingle with the people that they see on stage throughout the years. The Guild is over two years old and includes a network of three theater groups in Brainerd and Pequot Lakes. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Good morning to you all. How are you? I hope, I think we have an interesting mix of, let me say, people who are active in one of the most challenging parts of this over-regulated sector. I think I've had an interesting experience in that I have been working in telecommunications all my life, and by definition, this is a me too licensed, regulated, zero innovation business, because the only form of innovation you could be doing would have to be in sales and marketing and what people call products which were not really products. But the growth of this sector, which is very exciting, that I find very exciting anyway, is the prospect of what connectivity can provide. So I had an interesting experience in the fact that I come from network engineering as a background, but the last time I did any network engineering was a very, very long time ago, and I got into telecommunications and I could easily see that investing in this company, which is the first thing that I did in the country of Turkey, I myself did not come from there, was the privatization of a fixed line operator that had a very weak mobile, which was a merge of the third and the fourth. So here you have a case of you have a fixed operator in presumably a so-called dying business, which is in decline, that's 2005, and yet you have people telling you that the future is mobile. And therefore, because the future is mobile, you have to pay a premium to buy a mobile. So what happened in that particular country is that you had two major investments got in there. One is the privatization of 55% of the fixed operator that had a very weak mobile, which in the end we said, let's buy it at fair value. We were lucky enough to win that auction process. And the second one was the full ownership of a mobile operator, which Vodafone were lucky, quote unquote, enough to buy at a very high premium. Now, if the future is mobile, my problem with mobile, frankly, to share with you, all of you, is that even back then, I never believed in a service that the access, meaning the air interface, cannot be monetized by what you give to the customer. So that was the part that disturbed me technologically with what was known as a mobile service back then, whether it was 2G and then 2.5G and then we knew that 3G was coming and all this stuff and now 4G and now great, now we have 5G coming. So it wasn't the question only that we have inefficient capacity driven through a limited bandwidth channel. My problem was how you can monetize that bandwidth for what the customer wants, which in fixed line is very easy because if someone wants a lot of bandwidth, he pays for a lot of bandwidth. If someone wants a lot of capacity, he pays for a lot of capacity. But if all you can monetize is capacity, data I'm talking, and if you cannot monetize the bandwidth, now that's a very dangerous business model because we all know what sales and marketing people do, they just keep lowering the price. That's the only tool they have and they will make very fancy ads and I will say, I have a better network than the other one. Just make that mistake and say you have a better network than the other one and deliver on that, which will be costly. And the problem is that the high ARPU customer is happy to pay you more if you can give him the bandwidth that he needs. He doesn't want to have a poor service. He doesn't need the excess capacity that you're offering him, but he wants the bandwidth. So I figured a long time ago, frankly, more than 10 years ago, that the future is going to be on monetizing bandwidth and that was a reason why I was skeptical about a premium on mobile, meaning buy a mobile at a high premium. On the other hand, I also believed that the provision, cost-effective provision of any meaningful amount of bandwidth because people's bandwidth requirements will increase can only be provided by a cable, a cable access. And therefore, if you have ducts and you have cables, you are able to access to the customer where they need it. So for me, the future is not mobile. The future is sort of fixed by that. I don't mean fixed that you can't move, meaning it's in the home or it's in a business. What I mean by so-called fixed is that you as a customer generally need a lot in certain locations. In those locations, the only cost-effective provision that can be provided to you is by a form, and by the way, some of this stuff can be also wirelessly provided. So I'm not talking about the technology of the provision of a fixed service. You can very well provide it purely with the wireless means at the access point, which is the edge point or the point of access, or access to the access point, which is what people are doing even with Wi-Fi. So I'm not talking about those things, but what I'm trying to say is that my major difficulty conceptually is that if you're investing money in a sector, you have to be able to monetize bandwidth. That was my problem with mobile. The second is that there is no future without mobile, meaning you have to have mobile customers, but then at a certain point, everybody will have a mobile phone, so you've achieved your penetration, and then now they're telling us that IoT is going to be the savior of this sector. But who's going to provide that? So I had this privilege of exiting the telecom sector 2011 and be away from all of this stuff and invest more in venture capital type things that I felt were building a future away from conventional telcos, and I was very happy to be doing that. But unfortunately, I was called back into the same company because of the acquisition loan default, and what the company needed was a transition CEO, and we're a public company, so what I'm saying is basically public is that, I mean we're listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, is that to take the company now from where it is onto its next future. And initially when I came back to the company, obviously I hadn't changed the way I was thinking, but I made four acquisitions in 2006, seven and eight for this company, which were basically IT technology companies. We managed to convince one in particular called Argella that's established now, and let's see a company in the US, that we needed to invest in the next future of monetizing what we give to the customer in a form that we should control because there was no vendor doing that for us. So that was the role of this particular company. Then we also invested in a system integration company, and then we invested also in an education content and platform company, so we're about 2,000 people working in these companies, but these were not inside the telco, they were in their own. The founders were convinced to remain in the company, and obviously the only way we could keep them there without having any shares is that you would monetize your contribution and share, rather than, I mean, an exit value share, is that you got a salary and a bonus and realize your dream as opposed to build a company and sell it, because telcos cannot do that. And then we all have to be employees with our own kind of like options within this company, which is our own company. What's interesting to me is that these guys were working on that, and they were asking me when they meet me, what's the EBITDA of the company next quarter, the big telco, they start to thinking because that's where their value is, and we built some things. The fourth company, unfortunately, was a game company, they didn't look after it. When I left the company, I invested in that, and that's now 100 times the value that they lost, that particular game company, so these were things that I believed in. When I returned to the company, one thing exciting I found, I had spoken to the Netsia guys or the Argella guys in 2012, I left in 2011, and I went to visit the guys, and as we were talking about what they're doing, they told me they're working on SDN, and I said, are you crazy? This was 2012. You're going to need five, seven years to get any return on that investment. Will they support you? That's not that I don't believe in it, but so definitely there's a direction there, but will the company continue because telcos do not invest in these things. Telcos, by definition, are cash cow companies. Most of them get nothing by innovation, so all they do, they innovate in the areas that have the least value, and obviously, luckily for them, they were able to get an important contract relating to a local base station requirement and all that, so they were able to fund it. So when I came back, I went to see what they did, and I couldn't believe it. Now they're part of this open network forum that we met on app is an incredible opportunity, I think, for telcos. They're key in it. Netsia guys established a U.S. presence, and they were telling me what they've done on radio slicing, radio slicing. That's exactly what I was talking about earlier on when I was mentioning to you how you can monetize bandwidth.  I mean, that's the way if someone says, I want my 100 megabit per second come what may, and I'll pay you a premium for that, a customer, I don't care. I'm going to pay you for capacity. Of course I'll pay you for capacity.  It's like fixed. If you pay me for high bandwidth, do I calculate how many gigabytes you use? It's unlimited with some level of fair usage, obviously, right? Because it is the bandwidth that has the value, not the capacity. The same thing happened with voice minutes. You're going to charge minutes and package, and all of a sudden, we all knew that voice has no future. So they mentioned that. They mentioned the on-app program. They had done proof-of-concept installations with Verizon, with Telefonica later, with Orange. So I was very impressed with what these guys have done, which also proves that I made the right investment on behalf of the company back in 2006-07 with these people. So that was the right move. I'm not saying every move we did was right, but this particular one was right. Obviously, we are going to make mistakes along the way. But I have to tell you that when in 2012 I told them, are you crazy? I was even skeptical about seven years. But I thought, maybe five. And that's just six years ago. So we are now right there. And telcos, I'm also finding, are starting to wake up. So I'm very proud of what telcos are now doing as well. And realizing that we are in a limited vendor world right now, because obviously, the vendors ended up eating each other as well. So there's an interesting future coming. And one of the things that telcos do complain about are regulators, for example. I'd like to say, just spend maybe just half a minute on that subject. Regulators are doing the job that was given to them. The mistake is in what is given to them to execute. It's not them in particular. But I think that societies speak about now a digital future or digital transformation future and who is going to provide that cost effectively to the people. So basically the public interest part. That is the part that the competition model that we all have to understand where it came from was get the highest license price you can, but ensure that there's competition. So you have multi vendor, multi license, multi network, and then ensure there's competition so that the people of the country can enjoy a service at a competitive price. Simple enough. The problem with that model going from where we are now to go to where we need to go next is that these particular telcos cannot sustain the same old model cost effectively to go from where we are now, let's call it the LTE world to the so-called 5G world. Because then duplication of infrastructure becomes very, very costly and dangerous. Also, the competition model is a little bit complicated. So the regulators will have a very difficult job to do. The other thing that telcos complain about are OTTs. I don't share that view because if it were not for what so-called OTTs have done to create demand for traffic, and I'm not talking about bandwidth now, this is more consumption type traffic, which is perfect for a telco, is all of these OTTs. Now to complain about OTTs who are the ones that took a risk, made investments, provided a free service, didn't charge for it, found a way of monetizing it, fine. Ethical or unethical, that's not a telco problem. I'm not praising the OTTs, but I know on what grounds I can complain about them, but not as a telco. Not as a telco. You can complain about them because of their wrong behavior and not respecting customer privacy and so on. That's another subject. That's a legal issue, and for that they deserve to be blamed. But for a telco to claim that someone is providing a free service that customers are happy to use and you are having to monetize it, then think what it is that you are monetizing. You are monetizing capacity. These OTTs don't generate that much capacity, my friends, and they don't need that much bandwidth. But your customers of the future are going to need that quality of access, which means they're going to need the bandwidth. They are going to need the latency limits, and that is where, if people have a skill, they should be able to provide that service over a limited bandwidth device, let's say up to 100 meg. I'm not talking about the 1 giga and very complicated things, but even I'm talking about mobile devices that are still 4G. And if you do radio slicing with small cell, you can do a lot that you can monetize from the customer in what I said so-called fix.  If an OTT now smartly comes and comes up with an amazing future health solution that is bandwidth hungry, don't then complain that you are now having to bear the cost of that because now your customer will be paying for it. Otherwise, be creative and build that future instead of just complaining about this hidden enemy, and then they create all this, in my opinion, nonsense about things like net neutrality, that they believe that net neutrality is something which is against the interest of telecom companies, that I believe that the role of telecom companies should not be the ones that complain. They should be the ones that find a solution for their problem, and the people who are using their bandwidth, just you need to know who's going to pay for it. If the customer is paying for that bandwidth, if that's the model, so be it. If an OTT wants to buy bandwidth from you, I think that also can be a model, by the way, because OTTs try to invest in access, and they realize that there's no future in that. This new technology excites me a lot, in fact, that I can tell you in 2012 when I visited the office of the Netsia guys who were creating all of these things, and they were the R&D arm of the company, so they were always doing things that can be monetized, let's say three years ahead, let's say, but SDN scared me because I said it's going to take a long time, it's just like, can you survive that length of time? Will the company keep feeding the money you need to develop it? And luckily for us, first of all, they managed to sustain themselves, and secondly, the market also, realization happened, and they proved themselves to third-party operators, and I'm very open now to the idea of partnering because telcos cannot do these things themselves. This part really does excite me in the sense of what I see other telcos now beginning to do. I think AT&T and Verizon have recently announced, for example, their first so-called 5G direction, and we've seen what that is. I mean, that's fixed, what I called fixed, and they're right, they're absolutely right, they're doing it the right way, and of course, that suits to their particular market. The future of devices is also worth spending a couple of minutes on because devices have also been, I mean, just imagine that today a person on a very low ARPU is using a 50 to 100 dollar smartphone that does way beyond what this person needs, and within his affordability, he can do a lot.  Do they need a lot of bandwidth? I don't think so, right? But he needs capacity. That's amazing. Now, we know what happened to voice and monetizing voice by minutes, which is also capacity because voice doesn't need much bandwidth, and that's the part that I think should help people plan their future of monetization on their wireless access network. Clearly, the future is mobile in relation to how customers perceive the service, but the form of connectivity and selling that bandwidth will be a mix of different types of technologies that open opportunities for telcos and people who partner with them, and even people who will be able to monetize, help them monetize onto this type of access. So, while I thought in 2010 when I was doing my last business plan and I left the telecom sector, I can tell you that I presented to the board establishment of a new digital plan, which required exactly 600 million dollars, 300 million were coming from a partner, 200 million, this was going to be a new company, 200 million were coming from the company I worked for, that I was the CEO of, which had that stake in Turkish Telecom, and Turkish Telecom were going to be taking, contributing the 100. And of this plan, I don't know what happened had we done it, actually, but I remember looking at my board and seeing that they were scared to say yes because of the money, but they were also scared to say no, because in my previous working for them, I got every cycle right, and then I realized that my best option is just to get the hell out of that sector totally and do something else. Now that I'm back into it, I have to say that, you know, one part of it excites me, I have to say, because it's exciting to try to fix something, but the other one is to see that finally we're going to be able to monetize bandwidth and service quality, but in the end that's bandwidth and latency, but in the end bandwidth is the key over a wireless access form. That is what excites me, thank you very much.


What do the English, Sanskrit, Russian, Spanish, Persian and Irish languages have in common? Well, they are all Indo-European languages and they speak to the fascinating ancient ancestors many of us share. In fact, nearly half the world's population speaks in Indo-European language as their first language, by far the highest of any language family. This family of languages can be broken down into 10 main branches, which are Celtic, Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Italic, Germanic, Armenian, Tolcarian, Baltic, Slavic and Albanian. Similarities can be found amongst these languages in many places, with words for family members being particularly striking. In Proto-Indo-European, for instance, the word for mother was metar. We can see in Gothic languages is modar. In Latin it was matter. In Sanskrit it's matter or metar. Apologies for any pronunciations in this video. In Iranian languages, this is an older Iranian language. This is New Persian, I think, and this is Kurdish. It's metar, madar or mac, depending on the language. And even in ancient Celtic languages, in ancient Gaul, it was metar or matter. Now, we can also see the similarities when it comes to the word father. In Gothic, it's fader or fader, something of that ilk. In Latin, it's petar or patar. In Sanskrit, it's petar or something of that ilk. In Iranian languages, there are a few different versions. Peta is one, pedar is another one. As you can see, there are so many similarities in these languages. And in the European languages, languages you probably wouldn't think were connected in any great sense, given the geographical distances between the people that speak these languages. But it's pretty fascinating the connections that still exist in these languages. Now that we have seen some of the striking similarities between these languages that are separated by thousands of miles, the Gothic languages that are now extinct were part of ancient Germany, for instance, compared to the Sanskrit language of India. How did these languages spread across the whole of Eurasia? Well, there are two main theories. There is the step hypothesis, which proposes an origin in the Pontic Caspian step around 6000 years ago, and the Anatolian or farming hypothesis, suggesting an older origin tied to early agriculture around 9000 years ago. A new study last year from the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, looked at these theories and also tried to date the age of the Indo-European language family. The study estimated that the Indo-European language family was approximately 8100 years old, with five main branches already split off by around 7000 years ago. They found, however, that the results were not entirely consistent with either the step or the farming hypothesis. The authors of the study therefore proposed a new hybrid hypothesis for the origin of the Indo-European languages, with an ultimate homeland south of the Caucasus and a subsequent branch northwards onto the step, as a secondary homeland for some branches of the Indo-European language entering Europe, with the later Yamnaya and Corded Ware associated expansions. Ancient DNA and language phylogenetics thus combine to suggest that the resolution to the 200 year old Indo-European enigma lies in the hybrid of the farming and step hypotheses. Remarked one author. Various cultures are associated with the spread of Indo-European languages and other cultural traits as well as genetic information. Two of these cultures are mentioned earlier in the form of the Yamnaya and the Corded Ware cultures. This map shows a general overview of the spread of the Indo-European languages and the various cultures that helped to spread those languages. With the horse probably being a key vehicle for its spread in some instances at least. An increasing body of evidence suggests that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian steppe in approximately 3500 BC. I'm going to make follow-up videos on many of these cultures in more detail, but one culture I have previously covered is the Bell Beaker culture. Beginning around 2700 BC, bell beaker pottery became widespread across western and central Europe in the shape of inverted bell before it disappeared around 1800 BC. This culture appears to have introduced a large degree of new genetic information into Britain. As a study published in Nature Found, the spread of the bell beaker complex introduced high levels of steppe-related ancestry and was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east to west expansion that brought steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe over the previous centuries. The spread of the Indo-Europeans is a massive subject and I'm going to delve into various different elements in future videos, but please let me know your thoughts in the comments below and what areas you find particular interest in this massive subject of the Indo-Europeans and the migration of the Indo-Europeans. Thanks for watching, please subscribe and hit the bell and I'll see you next time.