Okay, Mr. Marshall, let's see. We are live. We are recording. You are the co-host to this meeting. I see 634. You have a quorum of the board. You look good to go to me. Okay. Thank you, Pam. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of March 6, 2024. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 635pm. 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 2 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 website's calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda where the Zoom link is listed at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce Colden. I'm here. Let's see, no sign of Fred Hartwell yet. And we know Jesse Major is absent tonight. I, Doug Marshall, I'm present. Janet McGowan. Yeah. Johanna Newman. Here. And Karen Winter. Here. Thank you all. For members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to re-mute yourself. Please do the general public. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comments may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the public meeting, the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Please quickly express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, the time now is 638. And we will start with the first item on the agenda, which are the minutes of February 7. Just everyone had a chance to look at those. Does anyone have any comments on those minutes? Bruce. Yes, only that on page 13 there was a reference to the number of polls on the athletic field and as everybody knows I'm being kind of interested in those. But the minutes record that there are four of them and I believe there are actually six. But other than that, they seem to be as usual quite accurate and quite service. All right. These are light poles. Yes, they are light poles they're very big ones but yes that's what they're for. Okay. Chris, are you okay with that edit.  In that case, are there any other comments. All right, would anyone like to move that we adopt these minutes with this one edit from Bruce. I move that we adopt the minutes from February 7 as amended. Okay, and I will second the motion. Any further comments before we go to our vote. All right. Bruce we'll start with you. I approve. All right, thank you. Janet. I'm going to abstain because I didn't attend the meeting. Okay. Yohana. Approve. Karen. Approve. And I as well approve. So we have four in favor one abstention and two absences. Chris. Excuse me. Hi. Apparently there's someone in the building who wants to come to the planning board meeting. I don't know who that would be, but I need to go and check. So I will be back in a minute. All right. Thank you. All right. I guess we can go on to our second item. Time now is 640. And we'll go to public comment. And I'm seeing. That we have. 17 attendees in the public. And I guess at this time, if anybody wants to make a public comment, please raise your hand. I typically read the names of the people that I can see. As attendees at this time. So I'll start with that. And while I'm doing that, again, people who want to make a public comment, please raise your hand. I will remind you that public comments at this time should be about things that are not showing up later on our agenda. So we have Leticia Lafollette, Barry Roberts, Brad Hutchinson, Carol Lewis, Claire Bertrand, Gabrielle, Gail Flood, John Cune, Jonathan Salvon, Kenneth Roberts, Kent Farber, Pam Rooney, Patrick Cobbs, Phillip Henry, Ruioki Zong, Sharon Povinelli, and Tom Reedy. All right, so I see one hand. Pam, if you could bring Leticia Lafollette in. Hi, can you hear me? Leticia, please give us your name and your street address and you have three minutes. Okay, great. Thank you. My name is Leticia Lafollette. I live at 18 Dana Street. I've lived at Dana Street for 35 years. And I wanted to comment on, I'm sorry, when I came into the meeting, I couldn't see the agenda, but I wanted to comment on the site plan review of the Barry Roberts building in the, in the, the old Hastings building. Okay, so that is going to be on our agenda. So I shouldn't comment on the next item. Okay. So I will ask you to hold your comment on that. Okay. So we'll, but I'll have a chance to talk later. You will. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. All right. Are there any other members of the public that would like to make a comment? Okay. So I guess I don't see any hands. So we will assume there are no further public comments this evening and move on. I'm now a 643. And we will go on to the third item on the agenda, public hearing site plan review and special permit. So this is a joint public hearing to request a site plan review approval under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to redevelop a mixed use building, including rehabilitating the existing mercantile building also called the Hastings building, removing a rear L of that building and the adjacent Brown building and constructing a new five story residential building at the rear of the site. The project to contain 22 dwelling units in combination with ground floor retail, commercial space and a connecting structure containing a lobby and elevator and a stair and to request a special permit in accordance with section 9.22 of the zoning bylaw to allow a reduction in nonconforming lot coverage from 100% to 97%. And to relocate the nonconforming retaining wall and section, okay, and a special permit in accordance with section 515.171 of the zoning bylaw to allow payment in lieu of affordable units. Map 14A parcel 250 and 281 in the BG, T.C. and DR and MPD zoning district. So this is all, I guess I should have started with the subject which is the SPR 2024-05 and SPP 2024-04 all at South Pleasant Street, LLC located at 45 and 55 South Pleasant Street. Okay, so it looks like we've brought in Tom Reedy, John Kuhn and Barry Roberts to represent this project. Welcome, gentlemen, and I don't know which of you wants to give us the start, but you have the floor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, members of the board for the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Wilson out of Amherst here on behalf of South Pleasant Street, LLC. And it's, as you noted, application for site plan approval for a mixed use development at 4555 South Pleasant Street. We are also asking for only two of those three special permits. We're asking for essentially a finding on the lot coverage. So the lot is currently 100% covered. We are looking to reduce that to 97%, 95%, what's allowed in that zoning district. So even though we're making it better, we're not achieving that 95%. And so we need a finding from the board that the change, the reduction is quote, not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing nonconformity, which obviously we would suggest that you can make that finding. And we're also asking for a special permit to allow the payment of $1,124,400 in lieu of providing three affordable units within the building. The last special permit that was mentioned was the relocation of that retaining wall. Barry's decided not to relocate that retaining wall. So we no longer need any relief from the rear yard set back for that relocation.  Pam, we also have Jonathan Salvon in the audience. If you want to bring him on as a panelist. So hopefully there's a smooth transition between John and Jonathan. We also have Phil Henry in the audience. He can join to answer any questions. He's the site engineer. So if the board has any questions about drainage, accessibility, any site related comments, he's the one to answer. And then obviously Barry Roberts is here as well. The developer. And so I'm going to share my screen. And I'm going to let John, let me see, take it away from here. John, direct me as you will. And I can hopefully drive the bus. John, you are. There we go. I'll start over again. Good evening, playing board. It's a pleasure to be here. And we appreciate this opportunity. To present this project. I thought what we would do is I would give a brief, sort of a history of a little bit of a brief history of, of the building and then of the project itself. And there is a, an aerial photograph. Or rendering that I think is probably helpful for telling the story here. I think you can all. Locate the Hastings building there. This, this section of Amherst along South Pleasant street is called merchants row. Most of it was designed by an architect named William Fennel Pratt, who's, it was very renowned in the area. He designed Northampton city hall, the, the Dickinson house, the Hills house. And most of these commercials, they were designed by William Fennel Pratt, who was very renowned in the area. He designed Northampton city hall, the, the Dickinson house and most of these commercial buildings as, as well as many of the, the, the beautiful buildings downtown North Hampton. These were all built in the late 19th century 1879 to 1890 or so. In 1914, ASAJ Hastings opened. Hastings store on South Pleasant street, not at the present location. He opened in 1914. So the business was in, in Hastings was in business for 108 years. In 1937, he moved it into the present location at 40 Fox out Pleasant street where it was until 2022. He passed the business along to his son, Don Hastings. And he and his wife Phyllis ran it for, for many years. And interestingly enough, an alum of Amherst college lived on North Prospect street. And I remember when we first moved to town, I used to see him and Phyllis walking to Hastings many mornings. Don and Phyllis eventually turned the store over to their son, Dave, David, who was married to Mary Brawl. David unfortunately died in an accident in 1997. And Mary took over the store. In 1988, Sharon Povinelli, who had graduated from UMass, also started working at Hastings. And so when, when David passed away, Mary and Sharon took over the running of Hastings and, and they own the building today. And as you all know, they, they ran it until the June of 2022. At which time they had to close it, which is kind of, I think everybody has felt the passing of Hastings.  It's, it's their legacy in many ways. And so they have been wondering what to do with the building. Early last year, they, they asked me to come in and, and take a look at it and, and discuss what they might do with the, the upper floors and particularly the, the L to the rear. Before I jump into that, however, I think I should also point out the Brown building, which is at 55 South pleasant street right there. Was also a historic building at some point in time, but it's probably undergone so many changes over the years that there's, there's nothing of any note left there. That building was a bookstore that many of you may remember the Jeff, Jeffrey Amherst bookstore, which I believe opened in, in 1937. Its last owners was, were Joy and, and Howard Gersten. And they closed the bookstore in 2009. While it's had a couple of tenants upstairs, the first floor of tendency has been vacant. And for 15 years. So that, that, that building comes into play in the, in the discussion here. So I met Marion and Sharon, early last year. To look at what might be done with the building and the L in the back, they were interested in maybe putting a couple of apartments. But I was struck by two things. One was that it was going to be very expensive, especially given today's codes, particularly energy codes. And the other thing was that it was going to be very expensive. And so it was going to be very expensive to convert that into apartments and for a reasonable amount of money. And secondly, I was, I was. I guess I'd always seen the, the, the parcel back there, but as you, as you can see on the, on the map to the right there. That kind of highlighted gray spaces, the parcel. And if you take off the L and you take, you can see that the existing building is about a quarter of the site. So it really is a site that's fairly large and, and in many ways underutilized. So I suggested that they, that we should really look at building a building behind. The existing building. Restore the building that is there, the historic structure itself. And in that conversation, Barry Roberts got involved and suggested that perhaps we should look at seeing if that the, the building, the Brown building at 55 could be, could be purchased. And that did take place. And that opened up a lot of different possibilities. As we, as we got into the, into the design of this, the zoning allows five story building at 55 feet. And one of the problems with that is that a five story building at that. You know, which is approximately 11 feet per floor. And a building like the existing Hastings, which has floral floor to floor heights that are 12 or 13 feet. The two, the two buildings don't line up. So what made sense was to try to create a connection between the, the new building and the old building that would allow for those differences in floor heights. The first thought was really to look at perhaps expanding the existing building over where 55 South pleasant is now. But in reality, that didn't really allow for that much additional square footage. It was going to be expensive to add there. And what made the most sense was to clear that building out and, and create a nice space between the Brody building to the south. And 45 South pleasant to the north. And if we go, I guess to the next slide, I think you see a good, this is a good site plan. So here you can see in the upper right hand corner, the existing Hastings building. To the south of that. That's, there you go, that's a 55. And then up there to the left is the, the, the existing L to the back of it, which was three stories, but also didn't line up with the existing building. So our thoughts were to demolish these two buildings. A demolition permit was applied for and a demolition delay of six months was put on both structures. And that six months will be up in April.  And connecting it with a building or a section, a connector that allows for elevators, stairways, entries and that kind of thing. And the space between the two buildings. And Jonathan will get into the details of this, of this design, which is, which is a lot of work, but it also allows for us to maintain vehicular access, one-way access that's there now, pedestrian access, a transformer, bike racks, entries, and that type of thing. So in the end, it makes more sense to be respectful of the existing building. Both the, the East facade toward the common, but also the South facade and push all the new structure to the rear. I did some, some drawings with Mary and Sharon and Barry and work through some, some concepts. And over the summer. And then in the early fall, this was turned over to Jonathan Salvon of Cune Riddle to develop what you'll see now.  It's how to, how the, the design came to be. And Jonathan, if you want, I'll plug in here and there as needed. But if you want to take it from here, you can begin to talk about the more, more details about the design. Sure. So what we're going to do is we're going to kind of walk around or go around the building a little bit in the next slide with a little bit more detail. We're going to look at some exterior views and then we'll get into a little bit of the organization of the building and the inside, which I think will kind of tie back somewhat to what John was talking about with this notion of a block in the back, a block in the front, and a connector piece. I should make sure that now I'm, that I'm prattling on that folks can't actually hear me. The last time I was on a meeting, I was sounding like a chicken, apparently. So this next slide is very similar to what John was just showing you, but with a little bit of color to kind of differentiate some of the different pieces. So again, at that right hand side fronts, you know, along South Pleasant streets is the existing Hastings building. Do south of that or down on the page is that kind of new entry plaza that we've been talking about, which takes you, you know, an accessible path from the sidewalk at the streets up to the, to the front door, which will be in this connector part of the building, which will serve as the vertical circulation for both parts of the building. The front part of the Hastings building, the first floor of the Hastings building is going to continue to be a mercantile space. Folks have seen the papers. I'm sure you know that, you know, the Amherst College store is coming into this space. The rear first floor will be amenity space and we'll have a more detailed plan of that coming up in a little while, but that, that's all going to be related to the residential uses. So the, the front portion remains mercantile. The rear portion is amenity and support space for the residential spaces on both all the floors above this in both the existing building and the new building. Just to kind of continue to walk around the site a little bit here as shown in that kind of light gray as John was saying along the south side is the driveway. It's really the same with driveway that there is today. It just isn't a building right up against the edge of it for the first third or half. And then continuing north and then back east is, is going to be new heart escape paving that will replace the asphalt that's there today. That'll get all chewed up during the process of construction at the southwest corner of our new building.  And it's just one more convenient space. We're not obviously going to be able to meet the parking demands of potential residents on the site, given its constraints. I think we can move to the next slide. So this is this sort of reproduces the, in the upper left here, we have the same image that we had on our cover, but calling out some of what we're doing. Obviously the yellow pastings building remains in the front. We're taking the, that pink color and extending it around the south side of the building to kind of highlight the historic piece, especially once that brown building comes down. It's probably makes sense to kind of make a cohesive whole out of it. Behind that you can see the vertical, what's actually a stair tower and lobby space at each floor. The elevator is actually tucked deeper into the connector, but we'll get to that in a moment and see we're trying to create a, some seating opportunities and some, and bicycle locations in this front plaza. And we have a covered walkway. And you get a good comparison of kind of the before and after here. You know, it's a relatively narrow space, but we feel like placing the main mass of the, of the new building at the back kind of draws your eye in and does a great job of kind of reducing the scale of what is a five story building. Let's move to the next slide. This is a view, these are some views from the south, but we also have tucked in the upper right here, some examples of the materials we're going to be using. The base all the way around the building will be a brick masonry, except at that, that tower. And then the upper levels will be a combination of different colors and different textures of a metal panel system. Again, on that, you know, the front part of the site where the Hastings building is we're going to be adding some additional windows, where the Brown building is now to provide better, you know, natural light into the apartments that will be created at that level. I think we can move on and feel free to interrupt me with questions. If, if, if folks want, and I want to lose it folks to have to, you know, lose thought through moving around the building on the upper right is a view from the cinema parking lot. Jonathan, you have your first question. Bruce. Jonathan, one of the questions that we raised at some point, I think is the rooftop mechanicals. I think you've got screening, but these are excellent images to point out. I particularly, for example, was interested from the fleet or Bank of America parking lot here in the upper right. It looks like it looks like you can't see much on the roof from there. These are these other rooftop. Are they screen mechanicals? Yeah, let me, let me, let me point them out. So if we, if we look at the, what we're calling the West elevation here, the first, that first sloped object you see that, that's actually the stair access to the, to the roof. Then the long linear piece that, that is the screening. So that is, that is the screening that we're providing for the, the rooftop mechanical equipment. I paid your two down, we actually have a section through it, but I think we're proposing something that's either four, six or five feet high. And then that last piece, that, that's really the, the parapet of the tower at the front. And again, when you look at it from the north, you can kind of see the, the, the access stair and the, then the longer side of the space or the screening for the, for the mechanical equipment. And the, you know, these, obviously these are computer renderings and peer views, but we have in fact modeled the, the size of the, the screen on the roof. So that view that you're seeing from the cinema parking lot, we feel accurately depicts the fact you won't really even see the screening, nevermind the equipment from, from that side of the building. And just so we're clear here, the top two images are West elevations of the, the, the, well, West elevations. The one on the left here where your arrow is, is a, is a clinical elevation. Yes. So you see the mechanicals up on the top there, but the, the one on the right, as I understand it is a perspective rendering and probably because the mechanicals are set back, you don't actually see them. So although what we see here in the West elevation shows very clearly is that if you're scanning those, it's, if I'm understanding it correctly, you won't actually see them from the ground unless you get, unless you get back quite, quite far. You can get back to Williamsburg or something like that. Maybe not quite that far. If you go all the way to Hadley, that's the point. If we, if we scroll back a page. Just, just so that we, we finish this topic before we get too far. You know, you have that flat on view down at the bottom of the page that shows the screening. You can actually see the little bit of the door when it comes to the, the kind of rooftop access, but again, from the ground, you'd have to be back a significant distance to see it. And if we go back to the prior slide, a little bit more, there we go. You can just barely make out a tiny little piece of the, and that's actually the overrun on the elevator in that case. And so it will be, it'll be difficult to see the screening. Never mind the equipment. Good. I thought that would be the case. And I thought this was a good opportunity to make that very clear to everybody. All right. Thanks Bruce. Johanna, you've got your hand up. Thank you. Dangerous to open it up for questions this early. Could you go to the next slide, the ASICs? Perfect. I'm just trying to, I worked in the Hastings building for about five years. So have a lot of spent, I'm just trying to understand what's happening on this view one. So the white building kind of block is that's where laughing dog is now. Yes, that's what the bicycle shop is. Yes, exactly. And then what is the gray grayish blue blob to the left? That is. I'm not John, I recall what it's called, but it's, it's on the neighbor. It's Bill Gillins building. Yep. The white one. Okay. Yep. And the retaining wall is there. So the cars are up to it. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Helpful. All right. Scroll back down. Bruce, do you have another question or are you still to have your hand up? Sorry, Mr. Chair. I think I just should, should have let you ask that question. Well, I know Bruce well enough to know that's a legacy. Go ahead, Jonathan. So I think this is where we were. I think we've touched on much of it, but again, you can see in these views that we're bringing that, that brick band around. And we're, we're trying to break up the, the, the kind of facades here by grouping some of the windows together. You know, instead of just having lots of little punched openings, we're using trim and different textures of the metal siding to create some larger scale form and order on the facades. Let's move down one more. So we have some detailed views of the entry plaza. I'm going to start at view one. You can see the, we have our signage and talk behind the signage is the start of the, of the ramp that goes under that canopy towards the, the, the front door. We're going to make out a little bit of a, of the bench and the bike rack is well there and the plant, the three different planting beds, which we'll touch on a little bit more. Moving down on the page to kind of a view from above with the canopy trimmed off. You can see the pathway of the ramp that front bed and sign location, the larger, longer planting area that has some evergreen plantings to screen the transformer. And then a last planter by the building as well. So we're proposing as part of this project that, you know, obviously the Amherst college store is going to go to the DRB with their own signage. I don't know that they've put that application in yet or not. But as part of this project, there's going to be two pieces of of signage that we're suggesting one is kind of a building marker for the residential piece. That's the brick sign with the 55 letters on it. And then as a kind of a historic acknowledgement of the, you know, century long presence of Hastings in the building, we're adding Hastings 1914 in the upper part of the, of the upper part of the front elevation that probably should have pointed that out when we were a little further back. But if folks want us to scroll back, we can do that and show that at some points. Let's move on. Jonathan, was the historical commission okay with your naming or marking the building in that way? I'm going to ask Tom to draw his memory on that one. There was, I don't know that we showed them this rendering. We're just talking about the existing buildings that were coming down. So we have not asked them whether or not they're okay with it. We deferred to the building owners and they were okay with it. So that's why it's up there. Yeah, I don't think that had been developed yet, but it was reviewed by the design review board. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Let's move down to the next sheets. So in a little bit more detail, this is kind of a combination of things. This does have some of the detail on the, on the species of the plants, which unfortunately, at least on my screen, I can't read, but I can describe them if necessary. But I think the piece that's probably more important for kind of understanding the building is the notion of how this, the new piece and the, and the existing building kind of work together. So let's just scroll out a little bit and, you know, folks want to talk about the plantings we can return to that. But again, you know, on the, on the right side of the page, we have the existing bookstore. And at the left side, we have the block of the new building in between there is that this lobby space and elevator core. As I was describing earlier, the rest of this floor at the back is either amenity space or support space for the residential uses above.  And then we have our second egress. And what do you mean by tenant amenity space. I sort of thought of as kind of a lounge space that we probably need some soft seating in there. It's, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the newer residential multifamily residential buildings have them sometimes they do gyms I don't think that that would be the case here but but the full use of that space has not been fully programmed out yet. I don't think there's anything to add anything to that. Could it, could it potentially be commercial. No. No, so this is going to be residential space in, in one of the in Ms. Breastrips development application report. She asked about the mixed you meeting the mixed use definition and Jonathan you can correct me if I'm wrong or if you have the numbers in front of you. The bookstore and its commercial nature is sufficient and meets that 30% for the entirety of what you have here so there is no need to have any commercial space here. And so this would be dedicated to the residential news. Yeah, as I recall we were at something like 37 or 38%. Right, no disagreement about all that I could just, you know, I could imagine that it might actually be viable as commercial at some point so. At some point in time, it's, it's residential. Correct. And we can, unless folks have other questions on this I think I'd like to show you an example of one of the, the typical start showing you some examples of the typical upper levels just so folks understand the relationship between the kind of the front and the back. The risk of repeating myself. The old building is on the right. And we're able to fit the three units on two floors in the historic part of the building. These are connected via new hallway to an elevator core and short stare so that, you know, because as John said that, you know, the old floor to floor is at 12 and 13 feet. So, you know, don't line up for very well with with floors that that are at about 10 six at the moment. And so we've got kind of a front and back elevator to allow folks to come in the one lobby at the bottom. And if they're in a wheelchair or need other help, they're able to get off at either the front side or the back side gets them at one of the, or other of the floor levels. At the rear of the property, we're able to fit four units in a in a variety of layouts we have a two bedroom a three bedroom and two floors at the back and then at the front. I think this is consistent between the second and third floors at the front there's two one bedrooms and a three bedroom. I see that there are two doors between the two elevator lobbies and the old old building. Yes, so there's a firewall at that location, and those doors will be on hold opens. And in the notion that either building would have to be able to kind of fall away if there were ever a catastrophic fire which with a sprinkler system, we would hope will never occur. That's that's what the two sets of doors are. The other option would be to have kind of one of those fire shutters. But at the moment we're doing pairs of doors. Alright, Janet I see your hand. So, so far you're asking all my questions, but I'm one of my first questions when I was looking at through the packet the first time is, are these two buildings or is this one big building. Is this like an addition to the, the Hastings building. So I don't really understand so if I was a tenant on any of the floors in the Hastings buildings, could I walk and go visit my friends on the same war. So, so the doors could are freely opening. I didn't know what the doors would be on electronic hold opens so they would be the open position, unless the alarms go off and the doors shut. Okay, thank you. There are other ways to do this, you know, there are these things that come down kind of rolling shutter that can come down from above. But this is probably the simplest solution. So you wouldn't necessarily experience them on a day to day basis. You wouldn't have to physically open them. But, you know, if you come up in the elevator. You can either get off as I say in the front, which is the lower side. And that serves the new building, or on the backside. That's about depending on the floor, two to three feet higher. And so, you have to kind of connect those two. And if you're just walking, there's a set of steps between the two please places. That's that's all I wanted to know. It was very clear. But you are keeping the existing stair in the old building. Yes, it is going to in fact serve as one of the ways out for that part of the building. And is that a fire stair. It is, it is a fire stair today. You know, if we, if, which we're not going to do, if we were doing a gut rehab, the building, we would, we would have to build that stair differently. But because it's an existing condition, we're permitted to keep the historic character of it. Okay. All right. I think we can move continually. Just one quick question that has to do with the stairwell in the front. Yeah, my understanding of the existing building is there are state. The stairs come in kind of off the street. Yeah. Oh, there they are. Okay. Yeah. Great. And then it goes to the curling staircase. That is correct. Okay. We're now at the fourth floor. We're now at the roof level effectively of the existing building. So that we no longer have units on that side. And we have just the four new units in the new part of the building. Do you actually have an elevator lobby on the north of the elevator? That's not going to be a lobby. Whether we build that space out, or that's really just the, I think what we're seeing right now, honestly, is given the mismatch in the levels. That door you're seeing is actually the door below. And this is the upper part of the third floor lobby. Okay. Very, very similar plan at the fifth floor. And the fifth floor will actually have a roof access to the roof of the, well, there's the roof access up the stair of the roof roof, but also the roof of the Hastings. And well, Janet, you go ahead first this time. Thank you. I'm wondering, I'm looking at the layout of these buildings. Are these, are these three and four bedrooms aimed at students for family living? And I guess maybe I could ask this question too about the prices of rents. Like who, who do you think the tenants are? Or who are you aiming at? Because that looks kind of, that looks student aid to me for when I understand this, in this town. Sure. So I, I mean, it's market. Designed. As far as Ransco, I think, and I hate to say it, but it's, it's market. And so that's, you know, two bedroom, you're probably at $2,500, $2,900 a month, three bedroom, $3,500, $3,900, four bedroom, $4,500, $4,900 is probably what you're looking at per month for these. And I think one of the things is that distinction, this has four beds, two baths, oftentimes, you know, when I'm in front of this board or the zoning board, bed bath parity is one of the things that folks really look for as indicative of it being students. No separate living facilities, et cetera. So this has its, its four bed, two bath. And how do I say this? It, I mean, it's a, I think a 6,000 square foot footprint. And so I give Coon Riddle an incredible amount of credit for fitting in what they were able to fit in based upon what we're actually dealing with. It's an urban design that can only go up five stories. What is bed bathroom parity? I've never heard that term.  So like that's parity meaning one for one. So if you have three beds, you'd have three baths.  Student housing, undergraduate housing, particularly. That's typically what you would see is a two bedroom bathroom parity. Okay. Thank you. All right. Looks like a question from Karen. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm happy to hear that. I wish that was going to be my question. How many bathrooms because that I'm, I'm looking at what kind of. Couple or pool would perhaps be there instead of students. And I have a question. I have a question that I talked at all. I talked at this site review a little bit about that. Is there, have you ever looked at any possibility of putting something on the roof? Making a kind of a roof garden. If you could do anything like that, that would make it so much more attractive for family. Or professor who wants to live in town in a, in a condo. The way they love those condos that are on Amity street. And I heard, yes, you have to put all the other things. And so maybe it's not possible, but it sure is nice on those residential buildings that you see in Manhattan or other cities where you have the possibility of going upstairs and going outside. And I'll defer to Jonathan on, on that just as a practical matter, what I can say behind the scenes is if we could Barry would, and there are a couple of other projects that he's contemplating in, in town and in downtown that would have such a feature. I don't know that this is the right one for it though, but I'll defer to Jonathan just about the space on the roof. It's a little tight on the roof. The current energy code requires us to dedicate on the at least in the new building because new construction, 40% of the area to potential future rooftop PV. That's the area that's that kind of medium gray. And then we have our enclosed roof, you know, zone within the screening for the rooftop equipment. There is some additional space up there, but it tends to be towards the edge of the roof. I'm not sure that this is the right project for that. I'd be reticent to try to put it on the old roof because I think we would probably trigger structural upgrades, but I tend to agree with Tom. I think it'd be better in another project. Okay. Bruce, I see your hand, but I want to say just to remind the board that this is a predominantly a site plan review. So the interior of the building is, you know, it's helpful for us to understand it, but it's not really the area in which we have authority to, you know, suggest changes. Bruce, go ahead. Oh, well, you'll understand why in a minute, I hope, Doug, but I'm about to go right back to where you have warned us off. I'll drop down a slide if you wouldn't mind Jonathan said there. I was going to say that I think we should make some observation about the suitability of this for family housing. And the reason is because we're being asked later to approve by basically an in lieu, a purchase in lieu of provision of affordable units. And despite what was said earlier, I think there are two factors here that suggest pretty clearly, at least to my sense of how the world works or would work, that suggests that this is more likely, not inevitably, but more likely to appeal to students. And the first observation is that all the bedrooms are the same. In family housing, you very often have the way we typically, we think we work as you have a married couple or a couple of some sort who are sharing a room and then you have kids who frequently don't share rooms. So you look for one of the bedrooms being a little larger than the others. And the second is the aggregate proportion of bedroom space to living space and the proportion of bedroom space to living space in these units is quite markedly in favor of bedrooms where people can have some degree of individual privacy and that's given at the expense of living space which has been diminished to some degree. So I'm not saying that this is inappropriate. I'm just observing that this is what's likely. And so I will make the observation or the argument I think later on to my board colleagues that insofar as this project is not being developed suitably for family housing and it's in a location in town that perhaps makes that not so surprising. I mean, there's not a lot of recreational availability around here for young kids, but there is for older kids. It seems that this is probably not the best place in town for affordable housing. So if that's true and I'm proposing it as an argument to be tested later on, I suspect. But insofar as that's true, then the layout that we've got here is kind of consistent with a request from the applicants that they should be, that they would be seeking to purchase in lieu of providing affordable housing. So that's the only reason why I think we should look inside these, see what we think the likely market is and make some judgments later on about whether we think that making this purchase in lieu is appropriate. I may have gotten confused. I may be talking nonsense, but that's at least the moment anyway, the way I'm thinking. Thanks, Bruce. And I certainly read the plans the same way. I do want to mention that I didn't see, or I don't remember seeing any sort of summary of the actual unit mix in the building, like how many four bedrooms, how many three bedrooms, how many two bedrooms. Is that something Tom or Jonathan you have at hand? Yes. So it's four one bedroom units. For two bedroom units. Five three bedroom units and nine four bedroom units. 22 units and 63 beds is the total. So that was four, four, five and nine. Correct. All right. Thank you. All right, Jonathan. I'm just trying to remember if there was anything else that I wanted to point out. Is this the section through the screen we're referring to? Yeah, and we would make that, I mean, I think the backup, the structural part of it would probably be wood, but we would clad that in the same sort of metal panel that we're putting on the skin of the building. At some point we'll have to review that with a structural engineer. They may want us to use a perforated panel, but it would still be the same color and textures of the other pieces. There would be a similar piece, which I don't think we've highlighted yet on the existing building. Obviously, there's going to be some mechanical equipment on the existing building. But there we also have the benefit of, you know, the traditional high parapets that a typical 19th century building have so we're kind of built in suspenders there a little bit but better safe than sorry. Okay. And I think so. We had so we had worked with a working through Barry, and some of the suppliers we have done a kind of tentative lighting layout of the tentative photometric, which is always a challenge on these calls to kind of read. Did you make that bigger? Or are we going to? Yeah, is there anywhere in so I mean I'll start maybe I'll start at the front and we can, as Jonathan says walk around the building a little bit.  But, you know, from there from the person who ran the computer software at zero because they didn't input anything. They were downcast goose neck lights along the front as they exist today. And that's what's proposed when Amherst college goes in front of the DRV. And so, you know, when we're close to the street, these are the light levels that the lighting we're installing would cast and doesn't count necessarily the light that that that street light would have but we have a row of ballards. I think they call them the mh fixture here to kind of line that the entry path. We have some recess cans underneath our canopy. I believe there's some step lights. I'm pretty sure we had another light kind of on the back side of that sign kind of illuminate the side of the ramp there as well. Yeah, I'm just not seeing the fixture number for some reason. And continuing kind of up that arcade. There's some additional can fixtures that eliminate the arcade and, and there's the roof over the parking spots. And then as we move a little further west and then north. There's kind of a wall or building mounted light fixture above each of the doors so above that trash room service store, a couple here at the corners. There aren't doors but the otherwise very dark little corner between the various buildings, and then one at the egress point there. Jonathan is the trash door is the trash exiting the building on the west side or on the south side on the west side. If we can we can move back to that plan if you want to see it in the more detailed view, but it would be kind of in that space that's that sidewalk space. And your trash hauler is okay with that that seems kind of convoluted.  We did want to mark ding up vehicles that might be parked in the in the parking place or assume that they're not going to be there at the time the trash needs to go out. And so it was felt that the best decision was to simply take it out of the building directly and bring it around it's going to be in kind of rolling bins as it is, you know, you're not going to get the big it's not going to be room for a dumpster so they're going to have to be enrolling bins unfortunately and the toters will stay inside the trash room until the trash. Or they will come out beforehand. And I don't know if you want to talk a little bit to the management plan but that's that's as I understand it. Yeah and I'll ask Barry he I know he does this on new drive south. So that hasn't in if you're familiar that's the three story building across from gender garden corner of the university drive south and nine.  Oh, it's the night before the morning. Yes. Yes. Okay. Janet I see your hand. So, a question I forgot to raise, which I think is for 11 he's pleasant was, how do people pull up a moving van and unload, or, you know, their mini van, or whatever, and especially if people are moving in on probably the same day or the same few days without like blocking access other people's access to this little road here. Scheduling scheduling just setting up blocks of time when folks are able to actually unload their vehicles. I can't I don't know how it would be done like, you know, first floor or second floor or if it's a little bit between and amongst, but that's how it's done is that there's a schedule that each tenant would get when they would have the ability to get in and get their stuff out and then move out of the way to allow another tenant to move in. But where would the trucks sit is my question, would they. I would suspect drive probably in here. Is that a road. No. It is a right away, right, but it is part of the property of this project. But it's a right away for the everybody behind it right in the buildings behind it so yes. But I think they have alternative access if I go to the, to the aerial. Yeah, there you go. Right so you there's another way to get around from this, you know, the Brody building so called, they could come out this way so they wouldn't be pinned in, if there was a vehicle that was parked in that access. Tom, I assume that the Brody building has easement rights to the, the drive in your property. They do. That's correct. So it would be something that you would need to probably coordinate or at least as a courtesy, let them know, you know, on September 1, we're going to be blocking with our tenant unloading and you'll know, we're one way on the south side of the Brody building to way or something. Precisely. Yes. And in, in your experience is the fire department okay with that kind of event. I think we would be coordinating with them as well but I think they'd be okay with that various had conversations with Chris Baskin at the fire department just about this site, generally and they were okay with it. But we did have comments from the fire department in our packet. So, perhaps you could put that in the management plan but so in terms of the, the other little, the, the other way the other way in and out of the Brody building, I kind of remember that it was one way. Is that a one way or two way egress. My experience is that it's been one way going in on the north side and coming around and then out on the south side. Yeah, need to be, you know, temporarily marked. Otherwise, if they were blocking space. I suppose it's possible is it not Tom to, or even Chris to request to block off a couple of parking spaces on South Pleasant Street. You know, you can, you can make that request to town hall and reserve a couple of spaces for for your use. Yes. Okay. All right, Jonathan we've continued to interrupt you but go ahead. That's all right. I think I think we were at the end of what I'm going to call the architectural package. I'm glad to entertain questions but I think then there's there is, we do have a short site package to my site package. Well, before you leave, and we go to any more package. I'm going to ask you a question about something that the site package showed the site package showed a prefabricated concrete stair with a what looked like a non, or it's a precast concrete step assembly and it had a railing show that was not x ADA compliant or mab compliant. And I just wasn't sure where that particular piece would show up. I know where that is on sheet nine. But that is actually right near our front door. You know the ramp comes up one side and well I don't know I don't. That's not that though. I think I not to speak for a site designer. I think that may be a kind of standard detail that that just landed on this sheet doesn't correspond to our stairs. Okay. All right, I will say there, you know, we need to do some coordination with the site designer on which one of us actually has the final details on the on the ramp and and stair railings. But I expect they'll probably be in the architectural right. Yeah, I guess I'm, I suppose one question I could ask Mr Roberts is. Oh, actually never mind. I don't. I'll then I'll just say, you know, sort of what level of design quality are you striving for in this for court and sort of pedestrian experience approaching the building is it. Is it pretty low low end, you know, something like that prefabricated precast stair or is it more, you know, crafted. I think we're looking for something that's more crafted. I will certainly defer to Barry and and the finances to come along with the project but I the intent is not to have a precast stair. You know what we presented to the DRB is that the retaining walls around the planters would be stone of some sort. I'm showing sort of a granite but you know the final construction details are not done on that portion. All right. Well, I think. You know you showed us some of the materials for the building. Do you have any are you at the point of having materials for this for court. I think we could probably present some more. Our intent is to, as I say, do it out of stone. The railing and the, and the site walls and, you know, how what are what kind of materials are you using for that. Yeah, you know, is the ramp and asphalt ramp or no let's let's actually we went past it. Yeah, let's let's go back to the architectural package Tom if we could. Now the intent is to do. But I'll let it come up. Well, that's not it. It's a beach. Here we go. Yeah, so if we scroll down to I think it's a eight. We have that kind of blow up view I must have moved. I must clearly move too fast through that. So our intent is to do stone kind of edging to the planting beds. Free cast concrete pavers for the kind of walkway surfaces that are the ramp. And then obviously the sidewalk, the repairs of the sidewalk that are on the street will be in concrete. The sidewalk along the south side is intended to be cast in place concrete. We have a wooden bench and a bike rack along that south edge. And then if I didn't touch it before we've got the evergreen plantings around the transformer, some more seasonal kind of ornital grasses that'll make up the rest of that block plus a tree that would have a higher canopy this we can see underneath it. And then at the front of the site we have a kind of a mixture of perennials and annual something that they'll have color during the warmer seasons of the year. The intent with that canopy the canopy is going to be a metal metal framed canopy. And similarly, we would do metal handrails for the ramps and stairs. And there's lighting under that canopy. Yes. Yeah. I think they'd be recessed. Maybe we would do a surface, but the moment we're looking at a recessed. All right. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I just wanted to say, and I think Jonathan said this already that there needs to be a coordination between the civil drawings and the architectural drawings because there are differences. I think the walls that in that in case these planting areas are labeled concrete walls on the civil drawings. So, if you intend something else, they should be labeled appropriately on these drawings. So there's just some coordination that needs to happen that hasn't happened yet. Thank you. All right. So, Jonathan, I guess one one more question. I do see the list of recommendations from the design review board. And I wondered whether any of what we're seeing incorporates those comments, or how, how in fact you've responded to them. So we have explored a number of the things they looked at, or they suggested some of them when we looked at it, we didn't necessarily agree with them. For example, they suggested painting or using a yellow brick at the base of the new building. We really like the contrast of the red brick versus the yellow brick and like tying in the color of the brick at the base to the tower. And while I have your notes up on my other screen here I don't know that I, I opened the the DRB's comments. I mean, I could, I could read them for you. Yeah, if you would would be so kind. All right, so the first one the applicants should consider a method to make the elevator shaft feel less independent, whether it be through color scheme or blending of materials. Let's go back to the the earlier 3D views that show the whole Billy. That's one honestly, as the design team we we, we don't necessarily agree with we like the the the architectural separation that the tower has as a separate color and a slightly taller form. I don't know that there was necessarily unanimity on the part of the the DRB on that topic. Okay. Okay, so the next item consider incorporating more outdoor lighting into the arcade area. And I think I think we've responded to that I don't know that we had that that photometric or or the lighting plan at the time that that they reviewed it. All right. I'm sure we did. I guess, Karen, I know you're on the DRB and I see your hand. Do you want to say something before I go through the rest of these. I was at that meeting and you're right Jonathan, there was not unanimity about that. I personally am on that board and I agree with you. I like the separation too. But I wanted to say this arcade coming in. I don't know it looks different to me than on the other pictures that I said, have you considered having that that that brick thing in the front is just a sign is there any reason for that to block it off.  Unfortunately, and we may still have a stepped connector there where we're still going back and forth a little bit with the with the site designer on that, but unfortunately the cross slopes. If we brought the ramp straight down into the sidewalk at the street that the cross slopes don't meet accessibility guidelines unfortunately. So you need the longer run. We need the longer run and to meet up at a level or spot on the sidewalk. The sidewalk at the end of that that ramp if it came out straight, not only is it is it's a little steep in the north south direction but it also pitches in the east west direction. And so it's a rather warped plane. Okay, Janet. I agree with Karen on the I know that ball with the number on it just seems, you know, it's, you know, I first saw this plan I thought oh this is great. Here's this place that, you know, kind of invites you in and that that brick wall just says don't come here. And then behind it is this kind of wall of kind of boring grasses and I thought it's sort of to me sort of a missed opportunity to sort of tie in the street people passing by and the people who live there and I think it could be more of a plaza. And I don't suggest, you know, getting rid of the ramp because obviously it's important but I would get rid of the wall and kind of the tedious, but I would think of as almost corporate plantings of grasses and the same evergreens and making more of a garden, maybe with more seating for people in the building or somebody who's going to come up with a cup of coffee and maybe not to someone like that wall just makes it, it's, it's, it kind of pushes the interaction away from the street. That makes any sense. I just wondered if you could make that plaza more of a nice community meeting spot or a place where the tenants can sort of sit. I love the idea of perennials and different ones and I just think there's different grasses and forget the grasses I hate grasses but different shrubs that, you know, bloom at different times or just kind of a nice garden there's some really pretty gardens in downtown Amherst the one by share coffee is beautiful the one by first church is amazing. It'd be great to do something a little more exciting and something that invites people in to the community, you know, to tie it into the community more. All right, thanks, Janet. If I could weigh in here quickly. And one thing that is different from what the design review board saw was that the ramp under the arcade connected out with the street. And this is a change that was made I think when when dealing with the civil engineering and grading part of it, I still think we need to make that ramp connect to the street or maybe there's a couple steps there. But I like that that brick wall and that sign but the fact that that that you have to come down and make a right hand turn to get out to the street is just doesn't work. So I think that's something that will be modified. Hopefully soon as this gets as the design gets developed. All right. You know I could imagine moving that wall to the backside of the ramp. I think that's a good question for that. As you think about it further. The other thing we could explore is, is, you know, the, our property line actually isn't at the face of the Hastings building. We could enlarge the size of that, that planting bed towards the street by two or three feet and still be on the project's property. And, you know, maybe you develop that as a little bit deeper of a planting area, maybe you can develop it into a bench as well for a seating opportunity. Yeah, I feel like, you know, if you're sitting on the bench you've got now, you're looking at the blank wall of the Brody building. And, you know, despite, I guess, Janet hoping that we draw the public in there and maybe perhaps more benches. I think we need some benches out at the street where you actually get some sun and you've got some people walking by to look at. So, I mean, I think that would be worth considering. All right, we have two hands up, Bruce first and then Karen. Well, I was. Well, first of all, I say about this whole entry and the way in which it's designed the existing building, the graceful kind of human scale development of this southeast corner that goes through to the building, the new building at the back. I agree with you, Jonathan and Karen, I think the red tower is fine and it would be sad to comply with that element of the DRB that wants it to somehow be muted. I do like the whole way in which this works and is offered, but as we get down to the very small scale right at the street, I agree with you, Doug, I think that we could do better. I think that having the seating over there now, it's nice that the the rendering shows the sun that I'm going to guess 9am. And if the seating and seating now is quite nice and far as the sun is concerned, but it does offer the blank wall and there's not much people. If the if the seating could be put in the area against the street where you've got the grasses and so forth. I did a little sketch that it's not terribly proud of it because I did it just to make a point and it may not be necessary to show it because I think one set is fairly easy to understand. But it does seem to me that the place to put seating that would be a real benefit to the public. It would be a nice gesture, a nice public gesture to put seating along some of the length of that grassed area that's right against the street. Yes, there. You could move the wall if you wanted to have a pillar at the end with 55 on it or you could do as I think Doug just said you could push it to the backside of the ramp rather than the front side. But if seating was offered here in some portion of that, it might be half of it or it might be two thirds of it, but certainly to the northern end of it. I think then as the sun came around to 11 o'clock and noon, you would still get the last vestige of sun would be shining in that area on that seating. The southeast is a really golden quadrant because that's where the warm morning sun comes and it really is a lovely way to sit because you are sheltered from the north and the west winds in this location. You've got the morning sun. You've got people walking by. You've got the common. It just seems to be a place that is begging to have a seat so that someone can enjoy everything that's on offer there at certain times of the year. So I would ask whether that has been thought about or whether it might be thought about and whether that's whether that's not such a good idea or that I've been mentioning and I guess I'm kind of advocating for it as well. There may be good reasons why that's a bad idea, but I don't see them at the moment and I would like to know if they're if it's not a great idea because I think this really nice design that you've got here that that brings people off the street and into this building, gracefully integrates the two buildings, manages a lot of things very well. I think I think it could be made just a little bit more perfect by making this public offering in a sunny, sheltered spot with plenty of opportunity to look at people as you're sitting down, perhaps having your bearer cruiser or whatever is in that shop next door. I hope that's considered an attraction for undesirables, because I would love to see that I could think of sitting there at some point as you know I used to work for three or four or five years above that right above three stories above that corner and I'm quite familiar with this part of the world and particularly this corner because my office was in exactly this location but 25 feet above it and I know what the morning sun feels like from that quadrant. Well, Bruce, when when Tom and I were talking this morning about the about the review in the in the development report that we were we were getting to talk about just that. I think we would be certainly open to looking at, you know, further development on that, certainly in that front piece, and I'm not going to dismiss any of the other ideas that folks have put out about other aspects of this. We're, we're still very much open to, to making this this kind of. Yeah, I don't quite call it a pocket garden because it's not quite big enough to be that, but for a pocket park I should say. But, you know, I think you're right this has the potential for being a great amenity not just for the project but for for this little slice of the town center. We'd be glad to continue to explore some ideas here. Yeah, I think these are all really good points and this needs more development. And I'm repeating myself but I think it's really important to to connect the arcade directly to the street and not there still may be need to be a ramp there but I still need. There needs to be a connection directly to the street not have a planting bed in the way. I'm, I would argue with you on that John, but we got plenty of time to do that and I'm just on the board here and I, I don't usually want to advocate for architectural solutions that's not why I'm here but this just seems to be such a perfect opportunity and and you know I've, I've, I've spent a lot of time. Just as your honor has living in this place here in recent years.  Thank you Bruce. Alright we've got another hand up from Karen and then I see one hand from someone in the public that we need to get to at some point, and I also see that we are approaching eight o'clock when we often take a break for a few minutes. So, board members think about whether we're far enough through this that you want to continue it after a break. So, Karen, go ahead. Yeah, very short. I think you've, you've chimed in with exactly what I think this is for me, one of the most important features of adding this whole complex is getting this arcade right and I think there should be a lot of brainstorming how to get as much city and make this a cozy really inviting beautiful place. And I think you've got the message and look at it from all sides getting rid of that, making seating in the front making a lot of seating. Yeah, just hope I'm really looking forward to different solutions here. Thanks.  My quick chime was I was thinking of it in both ways in, you know, connecting the people who live in the building with the community and like that would be a great place or come out and have some coffee and sit in the sun and sit and some, you know, look at some flowers and see people go by or maybe talk to them and so I was thinking more of a plaza kind of thing for the people who live there and also, you know, for, you know, people walking by so. Alright. If you see the car in your hand is still up, you have anything else. All right, and Janet, I'm going to drop your hand to. All right. Why don't. Hey, why don't we call the one person, Johanna, go ahead. I've been sitting in the back of my mind and I was trying to figure out whether to ask it or not. So Doug, if you want to put the kibosh on it by all means do. But to me, this seems like just an absolute prime location in town and I under. I, I don't know enough about how you decide what is market rate. But why is there not a million dollar penthouse. I think it's a luxury. Ash cow apartment in the top of this thing that would bring in tons of revenue for the town. Well, I guess you'd have to ask Barry Roberts that I think part of that is it can't go to six stories. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. First of all, I think Jonathan, that's a great point. Let us go higher. But this project. It's going to be rental. There preview of coming attractions and Jonathan, I think knows where I'm going with this. There's a project that Cune riddle and Barry have been working on that is a downtown space that is going to be proposed as condominium units. This just isn't. I could go into all the factors why but I think I was suffice to say that, you know, fingers on the pulse of what could be and it's 37 North Pleasant Street is the is the site for it and Cune riddle has done a really nice job with some plans, parking underneath commercial at the front and then, you know, four stories of residential really nice apartment units, you know, figuring out is there a rooftop space is there, you know, first floor second four space so yeah I mean again, really thinking about it this just doesn't this just isn't the one. Okay. I suspect, you know, to some degree the fact that you don't want to put another story on the on the Hastings building. Is also part of it. There's a pretty substantial financial penalty for having to reinforce that structure. That would require us to, you know, basically do a gut reconstruction of that building and there's actually on the upper floors, a lot of still original would work. You know, we know moldings and that sort of thing that that, you know, we as architects want to preserve and I know Barry as a building owner building manager would want to preserve as well. Okay. All right. I don't see any more board hands so why don't we go and do a couple of public comment hands. I'm going to bring the person with the phone number over to let them comment. And why don't we see. Welcome to our board meeting and please give us your name and your street address you have three minutes. Hello. He's muted. Can you unmute yourself. Yes. Star nine. Star nine allows him to raise his hand, but I'm not sure how he gets unmuted. Yeah, Pam, I can hear you but I can't hear the. Hi. Hello. Pam, why don't we bring in the next person and and give this person a few minutes to think about how to, how to unmute himself. Pam, welcome and give us your name and your street address. Hi, Pam runy 42 cottage street. This has been a great presentation. I'm looking forward to seeing this work done. I had a couple of nitty gritty questions and one has to do with the operation of the bookstore. to be any clear route from the bookstore to the trash room at the back of the building and that probably wants to be fairly seamless to make it easy for Amherst College to function smoothly. Secondly, I will add my voice to the conversation about seating at the front of the building along South Pleasant Street. I think, as everyone has said, it is a wonderful opportunity to have some viewing to sit and watch, to sit and engage, and to have a place for those Amherst College families who are going to spend lots of money in the store, just hang out while they're waiting for something else to be happening. I think it will add to the conviviality of activities on South Pleasant Street, which, of course, we want to enhance. I'll just leave it at that, but I think that front area could go a lot farther. Corporation of some seating into that area that is shown in Slower Bed. I would discourage anyone from thinking about approaching further into the walkway along South Pleasant Street. I think that's an important activity zone for pedestrians. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Pam. Next, let's bring Letitia Lafollette back. Letitia, we can now take your comment. Hello, Letitia. Please unmute yourself. I did now, fine. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Letitia Lafollette, 18 Dana Street. This was a great presentation and really good discussion of the entrance arcade. I strongly support the project for three reasons. The first is that it's going to create 22 new residential units in the center of town, along with, obviously, maintaining the Hastings Building and making it actually even more attractive. Amherst needs both the housing and that commercial space. The second reason that's especially important to me is the nearly $400,000 in annual yearly tax revenue that the project is estimated to bring Amherst. The town needs this kind of revenue. For far too long, Amherst has relied on residential property taxes to pay for its budget. We need to diversify the revenue sources of the town and development like this one is an important way to do so. And finally, something that hasn't really been discussed much, is the proposal Mr. Roberts has made to pay over a million dollars to the affordable housing trust. I think this is a visionary idea. Doing this instead of creating three affordable units in this complex, which is problematic for several reasons, I think the additional money, the AHT funds, could be used to help with home ownership over apartment rentals, which is something I think many of us want to encourage. So for these three reasons, as well as the very positive reviews the project has received from the Design Review Board, I would urge the planning board to move ahead on this proposal. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Latisha. And thanks for waiting to deliver your comments. Pam Rooney, I assume your hand is no longer needed and that you don't have a second comment to make. But I'll go to Kent and Pam, if your hand is still up then we'll come back to you. Kent Farber, let's bring Kent over. Kent, please give us your name and your street address. Yes, Kent Farber, 481 Station Road District 5. And thank you for the opportunity to comment. This has been a very interesting and thorough presentation. And I basically want to second Latisha's comments, particularly concerning the way projects like this will help with pretty severe financial problems being encountered by the town right now. Financial problems which end up because revenues don't match expenses by such a large portion end up pitting one segment of the town, one group of interests against another, just exacerbating the kind of divides that characterize Amherst and our society today. And also strongly support the payment in lieu of the affordable housing units because it will give the housing trust the flexibility to solve the affordable housing problem in a way that they're much more capable of figuring out than we are and it gives them the flexibility to do that. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and I hope you'll support this project. All right, thank you, Kent. All right, I don't see any more hands from the public and I don't know. Okay, and then from the board at the moment. Board members, do you want to continue this conversation this evening? Jonathan, is there more material you want us to go through? Did you want to go through the civil drawings in more detail? I know there were some questions in the development report about the stormwater management and we could spend the time tonight to go through that and through the rest of the design review board comments. But it seems like we've already gotten to a point where you're saying, hey, we need to think about that some more and maybe you'll be coming back anyway. And if I could, Mr. Chair, I think for what it's worth with our engineer here tonight, why don't we get into the site plan just to talk about drainage and see if there are any real concerns if any modifications need to be made because what I've heard so far is go back, particularly really look at that front entrance seating, et cetera, which is really more of an architectural piece of it, obviously site plan component so that ideally we come back on March 20th and with all due respect to Phil Henry, maybe we can give him the night off. Okay, all right. So in that case, Bruce, I see your hand. I am going to suggest maybe after Bruce makes a comment that we take a break and for five minutes and then we'll come back and go through the civil drawings. Bruce. I was just going to observe that we did have a site visit on this and we haven't mentioned that. I mean, we typically have a short report from those. Right. I lost track of that. So why don't we start? Why don't we start on that when we come back from our break? Perfect. Might want to do that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Time now on my clock is 8 11. Five minutes from now is 8 16. Please turn off your cameras and mute your microphones and come on back and turn on your camera at least at 8 16. Thank you. All right. I looks like it's 8 16. And if you are lurking behind a camera that's turned off, please turn it on. Doug, I'm back. I'm just getting situated. It's Johanna. All right. Thank you, Johanna. All right. Tom, are you comfortable going forward at this point? I see Barry and Jonathan still have their cameras off. I'm not sure whether they're back. Yeah. I know Barry's back. Okay. Jonathan, I'll trust that he's back. But we can turn it over to Phil. There he is. Okay, great. We'll turn it over to Phil. I'm going to put the, I'm going to share my screen. I'm just going to put up the grading plan and if there are, until I can say this myself. Okay. Well, so before you do that, let's do the site visit report. Sure. And Bruce, and I'm not sure who else attended. Is there anyone that wants to be the spokesperson or do you want to just start, Bruce? I could do that. I mean, I think that at this point it's important just so that the record shows that four of the planning, the planning board didn't conduct this hearing without anyone having actually ever been there. Four of us did. Janet, Karen, Karen, Fred, who's not here for some reason. I hope that everything's okay in the life of Fred and myself. So we toured the outside of the building. We didn't go inside. We walked around. We had Jonathan and Barry were there. Jonathan, you were there, weren't you? Yes. No, it was me. It was me, Bruce. Oh, don't insult Jonathan like that. Oh, golly. Yes, that's true. Jonathan, you had more hair. So, but Barry was there. And so was Chris. We did notice the extent of the building and so forth. And so we stood where the corners were. It really is a great increase in the coverage of actual building. The site coverage is going down, but the building coverage is obviously going way up. We did look, as we'll mention in a minute, there's a drainage proposal that basically has a good portion of the drainage wrapping around the west, the northwest, and then the south side of the building. As best we could stand and see, the grave was pretty solid and the water would run pretty quickly around that very long trajectory. We can talk, but we did see that and we discussed it. We noted the pressurgery that would retaining wall that was staying and why, and the trees that were there. And Barry, I think, decided that moving the wall would basically mean the trees would go away. I think he thought that he could deal, that the trees were worth keeping and could be kept. And so they will be kept. And the only thing that I'll add, and then Karen or Janet can say something if they choose, I suppose. But what hasn't been mentioned yet, but was very evident when you were walking around the building was that the space on the north side of the building, which leads around and into the plaza behind or alongside the cinema center, which opens out into the whatever the name of that restaurant is now, that alleyway is going to be substantially increased in width. It's about four feet, if that at the moment, it's probably going to be closer to 14 feet. So a really substantial increase in the, and if you looked on the lighting plan, you'd see that the lighting levels are really quite substantial. I think it will feel very safe around there.  But it seems that there might be a case if the longer they're on, probably the better for the town, I think. Anyway, we noted all of that. And I don't know whether others would add anything I've forgotten. Cara? No, but I'm hoping that that alleyway evolves into a nice sort of an outdoor space behind the Bank of America. I keep mentioning that. I like the fact that it's getting bigger and that it's going to be a safe place to be outside. Okay. And Janet, I assume you don't want to add anything. I don't have anything to add. Thank you. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks, Bruce. And Tom will resume your presentation. And thanks for waiting. Perfect. And maybe to answer one of Bruce's questions, the lights will be dusk to dawn. So that's the idea with those lights, those wall packs on the north and westerly side is that they would get on the dusk and then come off it at dawn. So they'd be on timers that way. All right. I think that's a generous offering on part of the owner. Others might, but anyway, we'll see. But it's, I think they are lights that will be, they'll bet betterment if they're on. So what I'll do, let me, you know, I'm going to start with the demolition erosion control plan just to kind of highlight what Bruce had said. So you'll see in this gray that I'm hovering over right now, that's the existing L of the building. And you see to the north of it is the Amherst Cinema Building. And so this is, you know, for those on the sidewalk, this is where we had walked and we stopped about, you know, right here where we had a little bit more breathing room, you know, to the north, this is that area behind the Bank of America is over here, but some Bank of America parking is right here. And you'll see where this black dashed line is, that's the extent of the new building. And so you'll see, and I think you're right, Bruce, and I'll flip down to it in a minute when we're going to turn over to Phil, but I think it's about 14 feet from building to building in this area. And it's certainly, you know, 10 feet at least from the property line. So you can see where it is currently, and then where it's going to go and what that dimension is going to look like, especially in relation to what's there now. Hey, Tom. Yes. Before you leave that, something just popped into my head. And maybe this is a question more for Jonathan or even even John Kuhn. You've been so respectful of the setbacks of the 10 foot setbacks, you know, which which on the one hand I appreciate, you know, it's fewer waivers or variances or permits, but could the project be substantially better in some way if you shifted it farther north or, you know, went farther west or, you know, were those constraints that have been obstacles or did everything really go smoothly? No, you know, at times we were struggling against that 10 foot boundary, but, you know, it's there's building code constraints that come as well as you get closer to a property line, and the 10 feet really worked out to be a good balance point between, you know, not having to do not having to reduce the amount of glazing, for example, that would happen as you get closer to the property line.  Yes. But I think it's a reasonable trade-off. I'd rather have bigger windows than say another six inches in the length of a room or something like that. So we did certainly look at it. We, you know, we spent a lot of time saying, well, what if we do this? What if we do that? But it really was in the end the best balance point. Okay. I'll add to that. On the south side, you really can't go further because that's a right away. And that's where your vehicular access comes in. On the north side, if you go closer, you're up against the backside of the cinema building. So there's really got to be some air space between there, especially on the lower floors. They're going to be looking at a wall as it is. So keeping that back certainly makes sense. And on the west side, the existing retaining wall, as you can see there, is already several feet over the property line. So that's not a 10-foot, that's not going to feel like 10 feet back there. It's probably going to feel more like six or seven feet unless that wall is moved. So it seemed like this was the right balance for all those reasons. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Tom. Thanks. So I'll bring up the rating and drainage plan. And I'll turn it over to Phil just to talk through treatment of water on the site. Thanks, Tom. For the record, my name's Phil Henry with Civil Design Group. We were the civil engineers on this project. I think a lot of what I would talk about has already been discussed as it's quite obvious. The proposed condition, as compared to the existing condition, obviously we have a lot more building which equals cleaner runoff because a rooftop is considered a clean runoff and it's captured via a drain pipe that's directly connected into the catch basin. So in the proposed condition, there's a lot less, what I'll call surface runoff, runoff that is traveling via sheet flow or concentrated flow on the ground. However, with that being said, I think one member had indicated that... I don't know if I could draw on this. Well, I'll try to direct Tom. There's flow arrows or little arrows that are shown on the grading plan. So where Tom's hand is on the north side, water does traverse around via in a westerly direction on the north side and then basically is conveyed in a southerly direction on the westerly side. And then as you get around to the ADA parking space, it travels easterly along the southerly side of the building and then eventually makes its way into that catch basin via some re-grading of the driveway. Well, somebody can make an argument as to add upstream infrastructure. The way we looked at it is if you look at... I understand this is an urban development, but it's akin to say for instance, if you look at subdivision regs, which may be in this town or some other towns, catch basins are to be placed at every 300 feet on roadways. And the lineal footage from catch basin traversing around the building along the north side is about 300 feet.  So while water has to travel a serpentine distance, it's not a significant watershed. There is a catch basin just to the north of the project that is on the cinema parcel that will take any offsite water. But that was the thinking behind not adding any infrastructure was the fact that this is the watershed contributing to that catch basin is really no larger than say a typical subdivision road, although we understand that this is not a subdivision road. So I'm happy to take any specific questions as it relates to that. Okay. Actually, my first question is for Chris. First of all, I assume the conservation commission does not need to look at this project, but have you solicited any comments from the town engineer? We have solicited comments, but we haven't received any. And so I think I would recommend to Tom Reedy and maybe Barry Roberts to get in touch with the town engineer and prompt him to send the planning board a note saying that he's looked at these plans and that they are sufficient or give us comments on them, because I think sometimes when the applicant prompts the town engineer, he responds better than when we do. We can certainly do that. Okay. All right. And then you know, I guess one scenario that comes to mind is, you know, if it happens to be raining heavily on September 1st, when all your tenants are parked in the drive and they're trying to walk into the building, you know, having that sheet flow coming around the corner of the building, you know, is going to make for a whole lot of really wet feet. You know, and I can imagine just not finding that very pleasant to have to walk in and out of the building when that's happening. So it may be okay, but it could be kind of unpleasant. Janet. I have a question for Mr. Henry and also for the town engineer is, you know, we're all going to, all the predictions, are we going to see more water and more rain and, you know, more extreme rains? And we're always dealing with a building code that's based on the past.  Can we process it? What happens if we have a real, you know, an extreme rain? And where does the water go? And it doesn't just go on to North Pleasant Street, you know, and is there just an argument for saying, let's put an extra one in for those events? Or are we not making them big enough now because the code hasn't caught up to the reality that we're seeing? And so I, you know, I've heard people raise this issue over and over, and I know we, even when we did the FEMA maps, we're always looking at the past and not looking in the future, which makes sense, but it's making less and less sense not to consider, you know, you know, how many hundred year rains have we had in the last 20 years, you know. So I would just wonder is are people starting to think, let's just make them bigger or put some extras in just for some insurance? All right. Mr. Henry, do you have any comment about our response to that or? Yeah, yeah, I guess what I would say is we're governed by the regulations at which an applicant or an application is submitted. I will tell you that these stormwater analysis and the stormwater report, the HydroCAD is based on the NRCC Northeast Atlas stormwater requirement or rainfall data. So the, for instance, the two 10 and 100 year storm have been elevated from previous, you know, traditional type three runoff rainfall data. So this is the more intense or the more heavily derated storms, if you will, that we're analyzing. We're also governed by the metric that we need to mitigate our peak flow off site. So if there is any bypass in a catch basin, it has to, we have to make sure that we, it is, the peak flows are mitigated. And we do that by, although being minor, there is a reduction of impervious area on this site. So this site is considered a redevelopment. So under MAS DEP standards, there's a different sort of standards, if you will, in terms of mitigating or meeting redevelopment standards, by which peak flow mitigation is still required, and which is shown in the HydroCAD calculations. So I guess my question is, do you think it's enough for, you know, it's sort of, I mean, I can't, no one can predict the future, but I understand what you're saying about the changing standards, but isn't enough 20, 30 years from now when we're seeing much, much more rain?  I would say yes. It is sufficient because we're governed by the regulations that are before us. 20, 30 years from now, that means all infrastructure in town would need to be upgraded. Okay. But when you say that you are governed, the regulations give you a minimum that you have to do. It doesn't preclude you from doing more. And I think the gist of Janet's question is, would it be good engineering to perhaps do more than the regulations are requiring at this point? Sure. I mean, I guess I'll defer to my client on that. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I also note that it looks like the grade toward the south across the property line is falling. And so will, is it likely that some of the water that's coming around the southwest corner is actually going to keep going south rather than turn the corner? I would say it all depends on the fine grading. I'll admit that asphalt really is tied into the abutting asphalt directly to the south. You'll notice though that I'd argue that if you look at Tom, if you can point to elevation 321 right there. So the dark contour, the darker, thicker contour is the proposed contour where the existing contour is the dash contour. As you could see there, we're creating more, I'll call it a ridge or a high point in that southerly lot line. And we're more inviting or encouraging the water to stay on our property and head more in an easterly direction, as opposed to a southeasterly direction. So while there may be some bleed off in the southerly direction, I would argue that it would be no more than the existing condition. Okay. All right, Tom, you want to, is there any more of what other drawings do you want to show us? I don't know that there needs to, I mean, we really covered a lot, I think, through the architectural piece and to a certain extent, the site is what the site is. So I don't know that we need to go into anything more, as far as I'm concerned, with site plan, but I'll defer that. Chris, I see your hand, and I had one other question. I wonder if Mr. Henry or Mr. Reedy can talk about the roof drainage. I think some of the roof drainage goes into the catch basin in the driveway and some of the roof drainage goes in a different direction. So just, you know, give the board a sense of what happens there. Yeah, I could talk about that. The new portion of the building and the overhang along the colonnade or the arcade along the front will be captured and piped into that existing catch basin in the alleyway. The Hastings building has, as I understand it, has a roof drain leader and Jonathan may have to help me with this in the back right corner or the north-westerly corner that discharges in a northerly direction. So essentially that the mercantile building is, that watershed in that capture area is remaining unchanged from the existing to the proposed condition. So essentially the existing building to remain is heading north and the new building is heading south. Thank you. All right, and then I was just going to ask for the vehicles that are supposed to be potentially using the two parking spaces, are the turning radiuses adequate? Is there adequate room for them, for those vehicles to actually get into those spaces? You know, it looks like they would have to go over into the Brody building area in order to, you know, get into the space. Yeah, I would say that's a fair assessment. Pulling into the space, they could probably pull into the space backing out a typical car probably needs 22 feet to probably back out and then come out of that area. So yeah, there might be a temporary backing out onto in a southerly direction. Okay, and has that fact been discussed with the adjacent property owner? We haven't talked to them yet about that, but I think there's existing conditions that probably do where the same thing is done. Yeah, okay. All right, Janet. In the development application report, the question was raised about like, who are those spaces for? Are they for the use of the tenants? Are they for commercial people who are using, you know, is it parking for people using the Hastings building? And then, you know, how are those being allocated in a certain way? And then if there's EV charging, and it's going to be ADA spaces for tenants. So that's, you know, sort of what's the thinking there kind of thing? How are they being used? So there is going to be an EV charger, I believe it's going to be against the building. And Chris, we can show that on the next plan if we need to, but it's going to be on the building, not just out in this sidewalk. The ADA space is an ADA space. I don't think these are dedicated to tenants or visitors. I think it's more, as Jonathan had mentioned, drop-off is more likely what these are going to be, not somewhere where somebody could come park. You know, any tenant is going to have it, and it's not related to that commercial space. Will they be signed for, you know, 15-minute parking? Keep your blankers on or get a permit from the Hastings building? Yeah, they'll be managed appropriately. I'm not sure, frankly, what that looks like, but they'll be managed appropriately. Why would you put an EV charger in a temporary spot? It seems, I mean, unless it's a super charge. I think we have to. I think it's a code. Yes, I'll try them in here. The latest round of energy code requirements mandate a minimum. Yeah, I think, obviously, if we had no parking, we wouldn't have to provide it. But once we do, I think we have to provide that minimum one. It seems unfortunate that you couldn't use it for overnight charging by one of the residents or something, but I can see the need for the drop-off, too. So kind of a little lost. Yeah. Okay. Bruce? I've been thinking for quite a while about not on this project, but generally, societally, why how people in apartment buildings charge or will come to charge their EVs, because if, as we have been told, that the transition away from fossil fuels happens, and it's going to happen well within the first half of the span of this building. So reasonably, we should be the people who are building buildings these days should be imagining how they're going to function in a fully renewable energy economy. And I think, clearly, the world is a long way short of that, but it doesn't mean that we can't pick away at the edges of it. And one of the things I've been wondering is how do buildings like this support people who live in them who own EVs? And I think there's probably going to be lots of questions to that and that they charge them in remote places and so forth. But I think giving some thought to how this eventually you could put more EVs charging in here, and maybe both of those spaces would be, but I think it's a somehow or other, I'm sure there is going to be changes in the way these parking gets used as time goes by related to, for example, the need for people to charge their vehicles. And I think we probably just have to accept that that evolution will happen out of our control. But if the Barry or Jonathan have any ideas about how we could facilitate that transition somewhat, it would be a nice thing to be thinking about. I'm not asking for a response to this, I'm just making a public comment, really. So in this case, I would expect that we have two places. There would be one charging unit and often those come with two heads, although, depending on how this one is actually used, which is admittedly a little clearer to all of us at this point as we go through this transition, the cords, if it's placed centrally, the cord can reach either vehicle, even if it isn't a dual headed one. Okay. Janet, are you coming back? Yeah, is it possible that you could meet the new code by putting the EV charger in front of the Hastings building? So people, it'd be actually useful to people. Because it just seems like you're putting- The company would be on town infrastructure. I think that would be the challenge. Yeah, it just seems like they're going in and no one's going to use them. And it just seems kind of tragic to me. And I wonder if you could put it in front of the Hastings building, someone can charge for at least two hours. What? I think he said- I mean, it may be that, I suppose, Tom, that maybe the landlord might schedule its use for allow tenants to park there long enough to charge. And I don't know. I think it's going to be an evolution. Without getting into, I just, I think to Janet's point in Jonathan's, it's a little bit of a transition and we're trying to navigate how to best utilize it while balancing non-abuse of folks parking there, just to charge when somebody else may be- For free. Better, etc. So I guess one question that this drawing brings to mind for me is, you know, it looks like if you removed the section of wall, right, exactly, you could get at least one more space, if not two more, probably not only one with the ADA requirements, but would it be worthwhile putting in a beam across that and getting a third space out of it? And I don't want to talk for Jonathan, but I'm going to a little bit. I mean, we, if we went back to the elevations, looking at it from the southerly facade, I mean, you've got a lot of consistency with the spacing of those. And then I'm going to put my engineers hat on. And we're talking about, you know, this is an accessible path also. And all of a sudden, if you put, I think I would just be hesitant to put another parking space in here, because what does that then do to the path from this ADA space to here to get in, right? So there's, there's landing, there's slopes and grades that we have to take into consideration. So I think those are two, we actually did not have that peer there for a while. We had a large opening and it just, it looked rather bizarre and it's a huge beam to go that far. So it, we added it back in because we could still get the two spaces easily and it improved the appearance from the, on the south side. Okay. And the walkway that's running inside sort of under the building that's east of the parking spaces, could you bring the first floor plan back Tom? Sure. I'm just wondering, is there window from the? Yes, there is. There's under that arcade as Tom gets that up. There are, there's sort of a storefront from the amenity spaces. Yeah, that's correct. So you're not going to be just walking between a blank wall and some piers. There we go. This in here? Yeah. All right. So those are windows. Okay. And you're saying that the western most of those, of those doors is the accessible entrance to the first floor? Just bring up that more detailed plan. Thanks. Yep. There we go. So yes, the western most door is the, I think if you zoom in a little at Tom, the clarity gets at least from my screen gets better. There you go. Okay. So if you're in the accessible parking space, you, you, you'll have a fob or some way to get in that door. That's correct. If you live there and you can come in that way. All right. Okay. It's all a little unusual in the sense that, you know, two parking spaces is, is atypical for this many apartments in a sense. So. Yeah. Bruce? Good question to ask while this plans up the bike storage. Is there any intention to provide charging for electric e-bikes and so forth in there? And I asked that because I understand that at the moment, there's some concern about the instability of these batteries and so forth. And so is that, is that a possible, is it possible to put bike charging in there without improving the via rating of the walls there and closing it, for example? I have to say we have not gotten to that level of detail in my head. At least it was, we were designing it around your typical human powered bike, not a, not an electric powered bike. But the folks who live here without cars, I'm going to guess are going to be perhaps a strong market for e-bikes than average. And this is also nice and secure, which is another thing that e-bikes would want. If you've got this valuable bike you would like to have a place like this to store. So it really is the dominoes are leaning towards e-bikes, I thought. And so I'm just asking whether that might be a feature that is provided. And hopefully it can be done. So I mean, at least from a regulatory standpoint. Yeah, good point Bruce. All right, I'm going to go back to the member of the public with the phone number only and see if we can bring them in and give them an opportunity to speak again. So Mr. or Mrs.<PHONE_NUMBER>. Let's try to bring that person over to allow them to speak. And Tom, you can stop your share for the moment. All right, welcome to the planning board. Please give us your name and your address. My name is Vincent O'Connor. I live at 175 Summer Street in Amherst. And I have a number of declarative statements and I'll be happy to clarify them after I make them. And I think the first thing I would say is that the somewhat rubed Goldberg nature of the parking and vehicular access issues could give the planning board pause about rendering its approval. With respect to affordable units, rather than accept cash, my view is since the developer, the applicant, has other units within town, some under construction, others already constructed, that the board require that the applicant make available on a one-for-one basis. At the same time, the if the building is granted a occupancy permit, that the units, that the affordable units in other buildings owned by the person, be made available for as affordable units and not have it be done by cash. If this were a different situation, the cash issue might be the only way to do it. But this is not and the owner has plenty of other units in town that he could set aside as affordable and make available on the very same day when the occupancy permit is granted. On issues regarding rainfall and so forth, I would urge the board to look at the standards, the former standards, the one that are being referred to now and make a judgment about whether they should order more. If you know that within the lifetime of the building, there's going to have to be an upgrade. I think the board is absolutely within its power to order that the drainage be sufficient to cover the lifetime of the building. Additionally, I have other views about downtown buildings, looking to the future rather than just to the immediate present related to the university's need for housing for students. That in fact, in downtown buildings, the bottom two floors should be required to be built to commercial use standards. That would mean make it the second floor available for commercial use in the future. I would say that one of the Jones building on Coles Road, the one on the north side of Coles Road, the only building of theirs there that's newly built, they regretted not having built the second floor for commercial use because they had people wanting to use it, but they couldn't because the second and third floors of that building, the three-story building, were built only for residential use standards. Mr. Connor, your time has elapsed. I have more to say that it's not a repetition of anything and that are substantial comments. I've been listening on this phone for two and a half hours and I will not repeat myself or repeat something that somebody else has said, and I would request that the board allow me to present the information, the concerns that I have. I will give you two more minutes. Okay, I have not heard anything about the level of energy efficiency of the building, and maybe I missed it, but solar access and so forth. The four bedroom issue, I would say they repair to Kendrick Place and the Jones building on Coles Road. They have had, both have had troubles renting out the four bedroom units, and quite frankly the board needs to prohibit the owner from renting out the individual bedrooms in these four bedrooms or any other bedroom as essentially and running a rooming house when you have approved an apartment building, and that is being done in town completely out in the open. And the other concern that I didn't hear about was a serious flaw in the Kendrick Place building where the enclosed stairwell, you know, fire safety stairwell and so forth, instead of opening to the outside, opens into the lobby. The billing commissioner, when I made comments about that, he said that the board in that case had tied his hands and that he was unable to order a different means of egress. I do not think that the safety and closed-doorway stairwell should be exiting into the lobby of the building, that it should exit to the outside, and as it does in some of the other buildings have been built since. All right, you have 15 seconds. Yes, and I would say that I do not agree that in essence the upper limit prescribed by the zoning bylaw should in fact be the lower limit and that the board would have to justify doing something other than the upper limit. I think I have not heard a good, I don't really agree with the five-story building. Okay, all right. Two commercial floors and two residential floors would be more appropriate. Thank you. Okay. So, board members, anything else you want to share, anything else you want to say with the design team this evening? Bruce? There's a couple of things in the development application reports that was circulated that we might want to mention. I think we're clearly headed towards a continuation here, but for example, the staff say that we should have clarification on the ground plane location so that we get an average finished grade. In other words, there should be some, I would imagine, diagrammatic or computational support for how we are measuring the height for the building. We're asking for, anyway, it's pushing the boundary and so we should make sure that that height computation is clinically documented, I think. I think that's what the development report is asking, and I mention that only because apparently it hasn't yet been so, and I think rather than bringing it up at the next meeting, it would be good to do it now so that it's done. Bruce, I see Chris's hand go up. She may have a comment about that. Sure. I was unaware that Mr. Riedi had provided that information and so we do have it, and it looks correct. The building commissioner hasn't looked at it as far as I know, but we will do that before the next meeting, so thank you, Mr. Colton, for bringing that up, but I think that we have the information that we need now, and I think Pam has put it in the packet. Okay. Yes, I have to say, I only get my packets online, and I wasn't able to find the DRB report in the packet online, and I haven't seen anything from the fire department, so it seems that folks that have their packets nailed to the back door of the town hall are doing better than I am. That's a change. I think I'll go through that DRB and see what, because quite a lot of it has been answered in the conversation and so forth, and if there's anything that I think might need some preparation, I guess I could email it to you, Chris, and you could forward it to the applicant, so I guess we don't really need to go through it anymore. Well, I mean, Chris, I assume you've shared this draft DRB development report with Mr. Riedi and the design team. We have shared it. There was some mix-up last week. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but it turned out that some people who got paper packets got more information than people who got electronic packets, but I think we've got that straightened out now, and the electronic packets do contain everything, and so we apologize for a little bit of a mix-up, but I think we have more information now than we had when I wrote the development application report. Okay. So, we could go through that draft that you prepared and make sure we've touched on each of your questions. Mr. Riedi, wouldn't that make sense to do this evening, so that you've gotten the fullest conversation this evening you can get? We'd appreciate that. All right. So, I guess before I start, Janet, your hand is up. Is there something you'd like to say before we start through the development application report? Well, I kind of think, I mean, it seems like we're going to go to another meeting anyway, because we don't have anything from the town engineer, and for me, the outstanding issues would be the affordable housing, the inclusionary zoning units, whether they should be in the building. I would love to hear from the housing trust their thoughts on that, and then also, if it's this building is like 22 units with, I don't know, 75 students, that brings up the issue of having on-site management 24 hours, which is a requirement we've had for other buildings that have admitted or are intended to be for students. And so, I don't, I think that's an issue that we need to discuss. I don't think we need to discuss it tonight, but I think those are things I see that are on the hook in terms of what I'm concerned about, so. Well, Janet, my memory is that we talked about the on-site supervision in the projects on Olympia Drive, which is in the, I forget if it's called the fraternity zone or whatever the zoning is, where it's explicitly limited to student housing. I think living in East Pleasant, we also required it. I'm pretty sure. I don't think so. But I mean, certainly when I walk by that building, there is no staff person at a front desk. I thought there was somebody living there, but maybe I should double check. But yeah, I think that's an issue to talk about, like if there's 88 students there, you know, as as Karin has said, things can go wrong very quickly and usually on a weekend. So, so those are issues I think we need to discuss. I don't think we should maybe go tonight because it's on. Okay. Well, I guess, you know, I think Tom was clear that it is a market development and whoever responds to the market offering, it's not automatic that it would be all students, but it certainly could be the majority. We're not far from the police department. So anyway. And they're busy on a Saturday night. Yeah. So I just, I'm just sort of, you know, issues to discuss at our next meeting. So. Bruce? For the record, I think I should say that my observation earlier applied to the apartment layouts in the new building. There are five apartment layouts in the older building, which are far more, what you might say, family appropriate. Okay. All right. So let's see, maybe I'll just, does everybody have the development application report that they can look at? Or do we need to put it on the screen? I guess if anybody wants it on the screen, you can raise your hand. And otherwise, I'll just sort of work with my paper copy, Bruce, and see what we want to talk about here. So the first page is the request and the project data, not having had any previous permitting on the site. Much of the second page has to do with the the dimensional requirements. And Chris has highlighted the issue about the building height, which I guess is now basically moved. Continues with a project description, the site, third page site visit and waivers, traffic impact statement has been requested as a waiver. That's still the case, right Tom? Correct. Okay. Then under issues, we have architecture, a description of the architecture issues, mechanical equipment. Do we want a detail of the screening? Obviously, Jonathan's package had a section through the screening. And I guess if members want any more detail on that, we should have that, you should raise that comment. Chris? That detail I didn't have, I may have had it, but I didn't know I had it when I wrote the report. So now we have it. So if you need more, you can ask for that. All right. The next question you had was about the parapet on the stair and elevator tower. And the fact that the parapet on that section of the building is higher. Chris at least is asking whether it ought to be lowered. I think it may have also been one of the partial questions from the DRB too. I think there was some back and forth on that. Yeah. I mean, I assume you did that for architectural reasons to make it, to distinguish it from the rest of the new building. That's correct. All right. That was a conscious choice. And how much does that higher parapet contribute to the higher building height that you are asking permission for? It doesn't, as the way we've understood the definition, that's to the highest point of the roof. But items like parapets, spring fencing, penthouses don't count for that. All right. All right. How will the ground floor doors on the west and north side of the building be prevented from staying open?  Yes. All right. I think the next comment had to do with the residential support spaces and you've now labeled the plans more than we originally saw. So I think that's been taken care of. Site improvements. Description of site improvements. I'm going to page four. Issues to consider should the proposed bench on the south side of the building match the new benches installed on the common? Maybe when you come back, you ought to have some cuts for the benches and the bike racks. And if there are any outside, I think there are. There is at least one outside. So that we have a little more complete picture of the site accessories, if I can call it that. And then are the concrete pavers going to be installed on a concrete bed to be keep them from heaving? You know, I think at least when you do bricks, you often have at least a bituminous, if not a concrete setting bed underneath it. Here we will. Here we would like to have a stone bed so that we can adjust them and make sure they stay level. Barry has a similar series of ramps in the cinema building that he did out of pavers. We're looking at a larger format paper this time, but they've stayed nice and level. Again, like this, they'll be covered. Coordination of the bike rack locations between the drawings. Here's the here's the request for the details on the rack and the bench and the handrails. Concrete walls and the screening, which we already have. Historical Commission. Yes, we know. Tom started with that description. Landscape plan. I'm going to page five. Issues to consider. Have a more detailed landscape plan for the number and species of plants. I will ask if any of the plants that are proposed, are they considered invasive or are they by and large native plants that are considered benign? As far as we know, we have not included anything that's invasive. The screening right around the transformer is called out as an Inkberry Holly, which I believe is a Native, North American Native. The bed closest to the door has rhododendrons, and some rhododendrons are or are native, some are not. Okay. And what about irrigation? Are any of the beds proposed to be irrigated? Not yet. We'll put a yard hydrant in, so they'll be irrigation. Oh, and then there's a question about potentially having some shade tolerant plantings on the north side of the building. Do we have space for that, or do you need to keep that hardscape? Personally, I think I would tend to keep it hardscape. I think people are going to transit through those areas. That's at least my take on it. Yeah, and I think as a practical matter, you're on the north side of the, I mean, I don't know that those plants are going to survive even if they're shade tolerant, given where they were going to be. So I think hardscape there makes the most sense. All right. Lighting plan. Will the lights on the exterior be motion activated, or do they have a time at which they will be turned off? It sounds like you'll probably be on either a light sensor or a timer to go from roughly dawn to dusk. Yes. Or dusk to dawn. Dusk to dusk. Okay, a question about the lighting levels on the north and the west sides that they appear to be actually pretty high. You know, I don't remember exactly the numbers that were in that area. I did see some pretty high numbers, I think on the south side. You know, we have had projects where we thought that the lighting was actually too intense, and that it might be better to be slightly less. Bruce? They're about candle lumens, I think, for candles, that's much the same.  So outside that's, but I think that in that location, particularly on the north side, and I think it's channeled between walls. So I think that that level of lighting would make one feel secure in a space that I know having walked around there these days at night, you know, particularly when I was leaving my office late and walking around to the cinema or something like that, I used to use that passageway quite a lot after dark. And this is why I'm looking forward to having a brighter. So I think the lighting level is actually a generous allocation that would probably be appreciated. Yeah, the lighting levels are at their brightest kind of where, as Bruce said, between the cinema and our building, or this proposed project, they drop off as you get towards the adjoining buildings along Main Street. Do you think you'll end up with a camera back there? You know, we haven't talked about that yet, but it wouldn't surprise me. It's certainly around those doors. It's another way to, other than an alarm going off to kind of know if someone's prop the doors open or someone's, you know, building a nest back there someplace. Right. Well, it might be worth considering. Okay. More on the lighting. Let's see. Nope, that was that was everything on the lighting erosion. Will there be additional erosion control around the perimeter of the site to prevent siltration of surrounding properties during excavation and construction? I'm not sure what they, Chris, what you mean by additional? I assume there will be the whatever is required to control the site during construction. They really just showed protection of the catch basins, as far as I could tell. So I wondered if there was something more that needed to be done or should be done around the perimeter of the site. Maybe the team could look at that and, you know, just think about whether that's needed or not. And then come back with an answer next time. Okay. Utilities. Okay. So then location of the electrical meters, we might want to know where that is. Some concern about the trenching for utilities. And that maybe there would be more site trenching than you suggested. So may I talk about that one for a minute? Sure. It looked like that they were only going to repair or replace the sidewalk that goes across the driveway and whatever is in front of the existing building. But in fact, they're trenching through that bump out. And I think on the site visit, Barry agreed that yes, he would be rebuilding that bump out. But I think it needs to show on the plan that that is going to be rebuilt and not just, you know, left in a kind of hatchwork fashion. Okay. I assume everyone else understands what the bump out is, because I actually don't. But if you all do, that's fine. I don't need to have it explained to me. Okay. Drainage. Okay. We have talked about the drainage. And you know, I think Tom and Barry, you probably ought to recognize that I think there's some concern. You know, I think a little more, another catch basin or two would probably be much appreciated. Let's see. Drainage from the canopy. Jonathan, I assume at some point you'll have a a downspout or. I think we're going to bring it back to an internal drain and it'll go into the same drainage that the upper roof will go into. Okay. So I don't want the risk of something backing up and we're spilling off the edge and then icing up on the tail end of that ramp. So. Okay. All right. So that would be good to at least give us your strategy and on the graphics. Yeah. Parking. We talked about the EV parking station. Who will use them? It sounds like we don't really know yet, do we? But I think if there's any way to elaborate a little bit on the management plan about how you intend to manage those, you know, I think that would be appreciated. And then we'll be applicant provide information for tenants on where to find parking downtown. I assume that's, is that a flyer, Chris, that the town produces that landlords can then provide to their tenants on when they sign the lease? We have a map showing where parking is available downtown and I think the library is passing that out to their, to the users of the library. And they've come up with a kind of elaborate explanation of the fact that, you know, they've got so many buses going by and what routes they are and different things. If Tom would like me to do that, I can send him a copy of the library's parking management plan, which includes all this information. So I would be great. Thank you. Yeah. I think that would, that might be something that, you know, in your spare time, Chris, if the town had a publication like that, that would be great. Bruce, I see your hand. Did I pass by something you wanted to comment on? Well, I think Barry's lease that we were given, which I can't say I read, but I skimmed through it. And there's a number of things on page 16 that the lessee acknowledges receipt. And one of them is a parking or could be a parking plan. It's not. But on page 22, there is a statement that the town, that the parking plan is being. So there seems to be references in the lease document that the landlord intends that the tenant acknowledges receipt of parking plan. At least that's what it says on page 22. It should probably also say it on page 16. So I think it sounds like they're actually doing that. Okay. Thank you for, thank you for looking at that. Okay. I'm on page seven. The ANR plan. Is that something that'll be coming at some point soon, Tom? Or or does it not need to happen until you've got drawings farther along? I think the latter. So we would accept the condition of approval that prior to receipt of a building permit, we receive an endorsement of an ANR. Okay. Yeah. Chris, that would be good for us to note when we're putting together conditions. Okay. So then about the inclusionary zoning and the affordable units, they offer the request to make the payment in lieu. Tom, have you had any conversations with the housing trust at this point? Not yet, but I know they meet next Thursday night and I reached out to Nate Maloy and he had just suggested that we get on the agenda. I think Nate's on this call. So hopefully we'll be there next Thursday to have that conversation with the trust and to come back to this board. You know, ideally we're back on the 20th and having this conversation, hopefully for approval that evening. So right. Yeah, it'd be helpful to know their position, whether it comes probably directly from them to Chris, preferably. Bruce. I hesitate to ask this, but because I know Barry, I think I will. I also know Vince. And we don't usually necessarily respond to public comment, but sometimes we do. And on this one, I guess I would like to ask Barry whether he thought that Vince O'Connor's idea that people who established developers in town could be not expected to, but asked to do something along the lines of Vince suggested this. Barry, I think that's a good idea. Or is this something that should be discouraged and that we should simply rely on what the actual bylaw says in article 15, which is that there's a formula for doing this. But it was a question and I would be interested since we have the horse here in the room to ask whether this is a good idea or not. Yeah, I get Barry, before you, before you respond, I wanted to say, went through my head that even though Barry's involved in both of these, you know, in this project and other projects, the actual ownership may differ across projects so that it may not be quite as easy to move the chess pieces around as we think. So I suspect that that's true. And that's why I thought, because that's probably the people listen to these things and they watch them. I think it would be good to put this to bed if there was a bed in which to put it. Okay. All right, Barry. I think you're right. One of the problems is that all the projects don't have the same partners. I mean, I have to be lead in most of them, but they're not the same partners. It might be something really be able to work out in this instance if it came to that. I think we're very interested to go to the meeting with the Housing Trust Fund and really talk with them and see what they believe is the most important. I would make a comment about Vince's comment about, if it's all right with you, Mr. Chair, about preparing the second floor for commercial. As you know, or as I know, and Jonathan knows, the codes to develop for commercial and residential are completely different. So it's very expensive to prepare for commercial on a second level and then use it for residential. I mean, you have to have cast iron and copper plumbing, as opposed to plastic and PVC. So those, I really don't think the market is calling for that. I think the market is more calling for residential units. And I'm fine with putting a commercial on the first level. Okay. Chris, you've got your hand up. Yeah, I wanted to mention another reason that it would be difficult to transfer the affordable unit requirement from one property to another, because each property has its own decisions. And in those decisions is written how many affordable units and at what level of affordability that particular project is required to have. And so if you tried to move affordable units from one project to another, you'd end up having to read you the permitting or modify the permitting on the project to which the units were going. So it's more complicated than it seems on the face of it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, I can say as a member of CPAC this past season, I think they came to CPAC looking for about a half a million dollars in funding to continue their work. And I'm sure they, I expect, I'm not sure, but I expect that they would be pleased to have this influx of money. But I think it's an interesting conversation with them about whether they'd like to have some money in hand to do kind of for them to decide what happens or whether they'd prefer to just see three or four more units happen in town soon. So, okay. Special permit, I'm on page eight, related to lot coverage. So this would be a finding. You were saying, Tom, that the reduction in non-conforming lot coverage is not detrimental. Substantially more detrimental, yes. All right. How many adjectives and negatives can we put in one sentence? Get those lawyers in a room, right? Don't do it. Okay. Moving further down, the mixed use building, the 30% mixed use. And I think we will want to see, if it's not already on the drawings, Jonathan, we will want to see some actual calculations with a, with a stamp at some point that we