Janet is in the attendees. Yeah, I'm moving her over now. She's coming on over, I think. She is. Yep. Okay. We good, Pam. We are good. I was just looking to make sure we didn't have anybody else that we should have in. The attendees. So, okay, Mr. Marshall, you are the co-host. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of July 20th, 2022. My name is Doug Marshall. And as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order. At 6. 36 PM. 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 22 of the acts of 2022. And extended again by the state legislature on July 16th, 2022. This planning board petition include this, this planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing. For this meeting or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda. Which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public 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 offer. Or video recording. Transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings. As soon as possible after the meeting on the town Amherst. Website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself. Answer affirmatively. And return to mute. Bruce Colvin. Yeah. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. I dug Marshall and present. Janet McGowan. Here. We do know that Johanna Newman will be absent this evening. And Karen winter. We did. We have not seen her. I believe. And she hasn't shown up while I have been reading this. So she is at the moment absent. And I don't know. Pam, if you can let us know what time she arrives. If she arrives later, that would be helpful. We'll do. I understand that she's in Germany. She's not. Oh, no. Not yet. Nope. Okay. Board members. If technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem. And then continue the meeting. If the discussion is over, we can continue the meeting. If the discussion is over, we can continue the meeting. We may need to pause temporarily 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 raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. The general public comment period is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please use the raise hand function to ask questions during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. If you are not on the meeting, please use the raise hand function to ask a question during your meeting. Please make a comment by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds there a lot of time, Our first item on the agenda this evening is approval of minutes. And I believe we have the June 29th minutes, which were from our last meeting. Board members, does anyone have any comments on the minutes? And I realize that we only have four of us who were present at the meeting. So I'm seeing a few heads not turned in terms of no comments. I'm not seeing any hands raised in Zoom. So would anyone like to make a motion to approve the minutes as drafted by Pam and Chris? Tom. The move. Thank you, Tom. Andrew. Second. Thank you, Andrew. Any further discussion from the board? Doug, I wasn't at that meeting and neither was Jack. So do we have enough to vote for it? Do we need four people or is three in the five? Bruce is, Jack is not on the board anymore. Bruce is the one who is new and was not in attendance. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I understand from another meeting that I was at last week that it is fine for members who weren't present to vote on minutes. Okay. So we would need four votes in order to pass it, correct? Actually, how many of you are here? One, two, three, four, five. There are five here. You need a majority to pass something that's not a special permit really. A majority of those present in voting. So three would be majority. All right, great. Thanks, Chris. So I don't see any other hands. Janet, I think your question was answered in terms of who needs to, how many votes we need and how many people are here. So, okay, then why don't we do a roll call vote on the minutes and why don't we start? Let's just start with Bruce. You can abstain if you were more comfortable doing that. You are muted. I'll abstain. Okay. And Tom. Hi. All right, Andrew. Hi. Janet. I will nervously say I. They seem like excellent minutes. It really helped me understand what was going on. Okay, thank you. And I'm an I as well. So we'll have four in favor, one abstention and two members absent. All right. So the second item on our agenda this evening, the time now is 642 is discussion of zoning amendments. And this is a concerning article 14. Actually, I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. The second item on the agenda this evening is the public comment period. So why don't at this time members of the public, if you would like to make a comment on something that is not on our agenda this evening, you are welcome to do so. And I will look for raised hands on the zoom participant list here. Looks like we have nine participants. And no raised hands. Right. Okay. So I don't see any raised hands for public comments. And we will move on to item three on the agenda, which is the zoning amendment section where we talk this evening about article 14, temporary zoning regarding permitting for certain uses during the COVID-19 emergency and its aftermath, a proposal to make permanent certain aspects of zoning article 14 temporary zoning. So Chris, do you want to introduce this or should we go right to Maureen?  She gave a presentation at the last meeting, but it was at the very end when people were tired. And I think it would help to explain it better if you permitted her to give a presentation tonight. Okay. All right, Maureen, you have the floor. Okay. Thanks everyone for the record. My name is Maureen Hollick. I'm one of the staff planners with the town of Amherst. And I'm here to talk about possible zoning amendment, making permanent aspects of article 14 become permanent. So it's a temporary zoning section of the bylaw that we would like to make permanent. And so to give you some background on this, article 14 was originally proposed to expedite the permitting of new and existing retail businesses, restaurants and personal care establishments to more quickly emerge from the economic disaster that we are so clearly still continuing to see related to COVID-19. Since its adoption, article 14 has been successful in allowing existing businesses to continue to operate or expand and to allow new businesses to come to Amherst open without having to go through the lengthy site plan or special permit processes that are normally required. Article 14 has been instrumental in keeping Amherst businesses alive and even thriving throughout the pandemic. There's been no reported issues that have arisen from these administrative approvals. And there's great interest to explore making aspects of article 14 permanent through the CRC and they recommended us the planning department to look at this months ago. And Ben and I gave a presentation with the CRC on I believe June 23rd, where they had a brief discussion just sort of indicating that they liked where this proposal is going. And they look forward for us to come back with a specific language. There's also interest from town staff and from the business community, including business owners themselves and from the Amherst bid and the chamber. So the purpose and goals of a possible zoning amendment is to explore reducing the lengthy and costly permitting requirements for business types that support our downtown and our village centers where restaurants are allowed we want to encourage business owners to consider locating in Amherst. So provide an incentive for them that makes a process, permit process and cost more sort of friendly and would hopefully attract more business owners. There's support by the bid and the chamber and these efforts. And we would like to take prior practice and effective procedures of land use board review to make it into standards and conditions and to ensure properly conditions approvals and to recognize more impactful uses and alterations for continued land use board review. It should be noted that Article 14 is valid until the end of this year. So after December 31st of 2022, Article 14 will expire. So we really would like to explore these zoning amendments and hopefully have them approved if the town so chooses. So the planning staff would like to review the permit path and classification of the food and drink establishments under our current zoning bylaw and to consider reclassifying these uses that are based on the intensity of the use and its impact to its surrounding neighborhood and whether food is served and what's the occupant level of like how many customers would be allowed at any given time and to consider changes to the standards and conditions for each use type and consider changes to the permit path for each use type to streamline the permitting for less impactful uses. So, well, what does the zoning bylaw say today? What are the food and drink establishments? So the zoning bylaw classifies it, has three classes of food and drink. One is restaurant, cafe, lunchroom, cafeteria, or similar place. And those are allowed by site plan review for new construction. And if it's existing building and there just needs to be some interior modifications and just limited exterior modifications to the window and doors and signage that would be by site plan review waiver requests. And then there's a class two which is a restaurant or bar and that's allowed by special permit and a class three is a drive-up restaurant.  You just drive up by the coffee at the window and drive away. And so class one and class two are allowed in all the business zoning districts and the commercial districts. The class three, the drive-up restaurant is only allowed in the commercial district. And so what classifies, what's the distinction between these three classes? It's hours of operation, whether it's open past 1130, whether alcohol is served or not and it's proximity to dwellings located in residential zoning districts. Excuse me, can someone move the slideshow ahead because I think you're on the next slide, so thank you. Oh yeah, thanks. So as this slide says, these are sort of the distinctions or factors that distinguish the differences of the class one, two and three. So it's not a lot. So for instance, that class two, the restaurant bar that's allowed by special permit, those restaurants or bars are open past 1130 and they allow alcohol to be served after that. That would be one big distinction. Maureen, is class two restaurant and bar or is it a restaurant with bar? It is. Is that two different categories or is that one thing? It is one thing. So it's a combined restaurant with a bar. It could be a restaurant or I believe it could be a bar. So like classic example would be like moan and dove. They, I believe they have to provide like peanuts and the Drake, the Drake is a class two restaurant currently under, I'll go back to the slide. The Drake is, which does a lot of music, but under the zoning bylaw, the closest use that we could classify it under for the permit process was a class two. And so they have a bar, they have seats and I believe that they have popcorn. And so these sort of requirements are actually about the popcorn and the peanuts or is not a requirement under the zoning bylaw, but is a requirement of the Amherst Licensing Commission. Maureen, I see that Janet has her hand up. Do you wanna go all the way through this and then take questions or do you want to get them as they pop up? If I could, it's just a correction that you can have a class two restaurant or bar in business neighborhood BN or neighborhood business. And then also, I think it says under class two, it says restaurant or bar. Okay, thank you for those clarifications.  Yeah, I wanted to point out that Subway, the corner of Main Street and North Pleasant Street is considered a class two restaurant because it's open late, it's open till about, I don't know, two o'clock or something like that. So that's an example of a restaurant that doesn't have a bar that is a class two restaurant. Thank you. Thank you, okay. Okay, so then moving, moving right along. So we propose to consider reclassifying these uses, the food and drink establishments based on other factors such as the intensity of the use, queuing, noise, as well as whether food is served or not, and the capacity of occupants allowed at any given time. And so here, if you see, let me, oh, hold on a second. Oops, let me, oh, here we go, I'm looking for this. So we have some, each of these bullets represent a type of use that we would like to consider. So there could be a restaurant, cafe, bar with food. And for this sort of use, there would always have to be a food menu available at all times. And then we would like to, and so that would be one use type. We then, after creating the slide, were thinking, how about the little guys? How about these little restaurants, these little small food establishments in the existing buildings, they have maybe 20 seats, maybe 30, we're not really sure of the exact number. Could there be a use type that's really geared to these small restaurants such as like MoMAs, Tibetan restaurant, Pita Pocket, Lily's restaurant, they have very limited seats. How could we make the permit process easier for these sort of establishments? And then the next bullet is a bar with food served. So serves food only with minimal pre-packaged food or allows takeout food. So another example for this actually is the spoke. You can bring, you could go get a burrito and bring it to the spoke and watch a baseball game. So I only learned that one recently. So that's another example of how the licensing commission currently makes a condition of those sorts of things, of having pre-packaged food and takeout. And so we would like to be supportive of the licensing and consistent with other boards. So we would like to mimic that the licensing standard condition. And then a nightclub as defined by the building code would be another use type that we would like to provide. So currently the zoning bylaw doesn't have a use type for nightclubs. And so sort of classic characteristics of a nightclub probably don't need to say, but low lighting, levels, loud music, a lot of people, a dense amount of people standing only doors open at specific times. At the beginning of when the nightclub opens, the door's open, everyone comes in. Sure, people can come in and out at any time, but then at the end, that's when the door's open again and everyone needs to leave. And then the last bullet is any of the above food and drink establishments with more than 250 occupants. And that would be another use type. So if I go to the next slide, you know, so we want to, you know, the current standards and conditions are limiting under the zoning bylaw. It could be expanded upon to make the process more clear, predictable, coordinated and timely. You know, the ZBA, the planning board and the building commissioner have gradually built a set of effective boilerplate conditions as part of the approved permits. You know, so, you know, I'm the staff liaison to the ZBA and we're closely with the building commissioner. And so in my time here in Amherst, we've been picking away of making these conditions better and better and that have been really effective both for the, you know, the restaurant proprietor and also for the surrounding neighborhoods. And so typical conditions that have been placed on special permit decisions and have now been added to most, if not all of these Article 14 approvals are related to queuing, crowd control, ID checking, noise, outdoor dining, live entertainment, how it's being managed, parking, delivery and pedestrian access. There can certainly be others. These are just things that I was just jotting down. And so this approach has been implemented successfully for several years and by referring to, you know, sort of standard conditions that the boards have used has been the sort of the process of how we went about it last year with the zoning amendment related to the accessory dwelling units. So a lot of the criteria that we applied and you can see in today's zoning bylaw for the ADU section are sort of these standard conditions that the zoning board of appeals placed on special permits or if the use type was by right that the building commissioner would place on standard conditions. And so that has seemed to be a really effective way of going about it, of looking at now food and drink establishments. And so let's see here. Is this still the same? Okay, so next slide, sorry. And then that, okay, sorry. And then to consider changes to the permit pathway for each use type. So restaurants and bars that serve food and bars that serve food at all times, we're suggesting that they would be by site plan review for smaller restaurants that serve food or bars that serve food with, you know, seats of 20, 30, you know, something in that range. We would like to explore making those by right uses. And again, those would be in existing buildings. So if it was new construction, you know, we would want, you know, either the planning board or the ZBA to take a look, a close look at that floor plan and take a close look at how everything's being, all the sort of nooks and crannies that we would want to see with new construction and have that control over the use. We would want to have, we would recommend that there would be a land use permit. But, and then bars with foods not served would be by special permit. And night clubs would, we would like to have that allowed by special permit and then establishments with more than 250 occupants by special permit. And so if we were to make a chart, you would see that this, the way we're going about it, actually the little tiny bullet here would probably be listed first that would represent the low intensity use. And as we sort of expand to then restaurants and bars in general that serve food, now it's by site plan review. And then those last bullets would be by special permit. So you're seeing a sort of spectrum of low intensity to medium intensity to a higher intensity. And so for those special permit applications, those are discretionary special permits that we would want to have a very specific review and approval process that we can add conditions to those. So there would be more scrutiny. Yep. I think for the next time you present this, it might be useful to have, you know, the five categories on the left and a column for what the current review process is and then a column for how you wanna propose to make it so that in one slide, we can see what it is now and what you would like it to be and the change is easily understood and remembered. Sure. Thank you. That's a good point. I'm jotting that down. Okay, so, okay. So now, and we can certainly go back to slides if that's helpful. And so, you know, when you explore one section then you suddenly might need to tweak other sections to make everything sort of jive. So other zoning amendments and procedural changes that would need to happen to amend Article 11 to detail the administrative approval decision and filing of the town clerk and how we would like to consider how to publicly post administrative applications and associated approval decisions. So I'm sure, well, I won't assume anything but the town created this new online permitting system called OpenGov and it seems like it's very interactive and we would like to explore maybe how can these applications and decisions that go into OpenGov could then be shown on the town's website. So anyone at any time could access those and watch the process. And then looking at, yep. I'm sorry, I'm confused. What decision, I mean, I understand that you wanna change the uses and then some of the uses will go to special permit. Some will go to site plan review but I don't understand Article 11 changes. Like what's gonna be, like, where does, what does the administrator approval? Are we talking about the planning board's approval and changes? No, it'd be the one that we mentioned about the smaller restaurants that are in existing buildings that have like maybe 20 or 30 seats. So those are proposed to go from a special, from a site plan review to- By right. To being administratively approved without board involvement. Correct. Is that right? Okay. Yep.  Yes, I wanted to refer you to a section in the Article 11, it's 11.214 and it already gives the building commissioner authority to approve minor alterations to building exterior site. So that is the section of the bylaw that would be expanded to include administrative approval for these types of uses. Which uses? This would be for restaurants that do not serve alcohol and have fewer than 20 seats. The proposal is that that category of establishments could be approved by the building commissioner without planning or zoning board involvement. Is that accurate, Marie? Yes. Yep. And then we would- 20 tables or 20 seats? Seats. Yes. And we would like to be consistent with how the building inspectors look at occupant loads. So, and that's by seats or individuals. And if, so actually the 20 seats actually came out of, I guess if you have more than 20 seats, if you have 21 seats, then the restaurant is required to have two bathrooms. And so that was the simplified way of thinking of it. But then we actually got it, we got data of all the, what are the occupant loads for all restaurants in Amherst. And those restaurants I had mentioned before, MoMA, Lillies and Peter Pocket, they were all in the low 30 range. So, we would wanna consider maybe just taking, we wanna be careful of maybe expanding a little bit. So, to make sure that we have the sweet spot of what number of seats would be applicable there. And then last, I think lastly on this slide at least is to make article, we want to, so the CRC reminded us that they want us to look at if possible, looking at the current accessory uses, seasonal outdoor dining and live or prerecorded entertainment and making those consistent with the permit path. I can't hear what Maureen's saying. Can anyone else hear? Yes. I can hear. Try to speak up a little Maureen. Sure, sorry. So, we want to just explore accessory uses to make sure that they're consistent with where we're going with these food and drink principle uses. So, just taking a look at that. And then actually at the June 23rd meeting, the CRC reminded us that they also want us to look at temporary uses. And so, this slide doesn't, Slector doesn't get into that, but basically it would be looking at farms, for instance, we don't, farms in our zoning districts where they're allowed, I guess all of them maybe. A wedding would not be part of a farm and there's been times that a wedding vendor would has reached out to the town and said, oh, can I have a wedding take place at a farm? And there is no permit path for that. And other sort of examples would be having food and cheese and beer and wine tastings at farms, things like that or pop up art and craft events. These are sort of these temporary uses and we don't have a way to regulate that. So, we want to explore how, if and how those should be regulated under our zoning bylaw or other bylaws in town. So, to help, to see, yeah, see where, if those are the types of events that Amherst residents would like to see, it seems like fun, creative sort of things that could be attractive in terms of, getting visitors to come to Amherst and whatnot. So, I think, am I going the right way? So, in summary, we want to make Article 14 clear for, make clear that more uses could be permanent successfully either administratively or by site plan review or by special permit. Again, Article 14 expires in six months. This is a good opportunity to improve the permitting process. There is a large student population in recent development which will continue to support these establishments in downtown and village centers, close to residential areas. And we want to try to find the balance in having reasonable oversight into high-intensity uses, i.e. nightclubs, i.e. restaurants with a capacity of 250 occupants or more, and to support economic development in downtown and village centers. Oops, keep on going the wrong way. And so lastly, as I said before, we have received feedback and direction from the CRC and we would love to hear your feedback. We would like to return back to this board and to the CRC with draft amendments, language in September by the end of September. Thank you. So tonight you're not making specific recommendations and it sounds like you're hoping to come back to us and at the end of September with specific recommendations. Is that right? Correct, yes. So this is really just an informational presentation similar to the one we had the other night when we were so tired. Yeah, yes. Also before Bruce came on the board, so Bruce has now heard this. And how would you like feedback from the board between now and September? Well, if you guys have feedback now or if you wanna send us emails, either way works. All right, Chris, I see your hand. I think we would appreciate any verbal comments that you have tonight and maybe have a little discussion about this. And I also wanted to point out as well as receiving emails that you can direct to staff and we will distribute them. But I also wanted to point out that the few things that Maureen mentioned at the end of this presentation such as having events on farmland and that type of thing, that's something that we're gonna look at in the future. That's not part of this specific proposal here. So we are exploring that with a representative from Pioneer Valley Planning Commission but it's not part of this Article 14 expansion at this time. It's a separate thing. I just wanted to make that clear. Thanks. All right. Andrew. Thanks Doug, thanks Maureen. I don't have a specific question but hearing what you've talked about sounds kind of no nonsense. What would you anticipate? Someone who, I guess, would you think that there's someone who would be against these changes and why? Ooh. Who would be against them? Yeah, I mean, if it's simplifying, I guess like if it opens us up to additional risk or something to that effect, I would get it. But if it's just, anyway, I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm just curious, like what do you think, why might someone be against this? I don't know. Well, I do love to play the devil's advocate but I would have to think about that one and that's a really good question and so that's something that we would want to work on together as the planning board, as the CRC, as the planning department and hopefully ultimately the town council to make this zoning amendment as polished and as possible to make it. And then working with the business community and reaching out to them, to business owners here in Amherst to see how can this zoning by-law be helpful for them but also help serve the public interests and help be a safeguard to the neighborhood. So it's a good question and sort of a good point. So I don't really have a rebuttal or- Yeah, I know it's very open-ended. I didn't really expect you to but I'd love to hear down the line help kind of round out that argument just again. Sure, yeah. No, I'm writing this down. I'll think about it. So just so that I try to get at this in my head I understand now that restaurants of 20 seats or less that don't serve alcohol would go from site plan review to administrative approval. What about restaurants that have more than 20 seats? You know, are they gonna go, where are they now? Are they a site plan review or are they a special permit? Cause you're saying they're gonna be a site plan review. Good questions. So for the restaurant type that would have 20 seats roughly currently, you know, if they didn't weren't open after 1130 and didn't sell alcohol after 1130, those would be if they were open after 1130 and served alcohol, for example, those would be allowed by special permit. If they were more like breakfast shops like coordination cafe, that's about, that would be if that was new construction that would be by site plan review. I'm trying to get in my head, what are the changes that you are thinking about? And that's what I kind of need to be able to comment on how I feel about it. Yeah, so I mean, I'm kind of fine with the general goals you have seem good. And until I'm clear about what the actual changes are, I guess I can't say anything else. Bruce, I see your hand. Doug, I agree with you. I think you need to know what's being proposed. And I think your suggestion of a single chart that would show that in a single image would be very helpful here. But that's not what I put my hand up for. Maureen further to what Andrew was saying, I think I heard you say early in your presentation that there hasn't been, I think I heard you say there hasn't been any complaints or resistance to this. So I guess I would, did I hear you correctly? Because this is an unusual thing, I think, isn't it? Where we have a bylaw that's been introduced as a temporary measure in this instance, I guess it was because of COVID. So an extraordinary situation drives an unusual process of creating something on a temporary basis. And now we are thinking of making it permanent. I can't think of any instance, but maybe I'm wrong here, where we had a chance to try something out before we implemented it. Usually we try and imagine what's gonna happen and we vote on what we imagined and then we see whether we were right. But if I understand you correctly, we've had a chance for a year or two to test drive this and you're reporting that there is largely or entirely positive response. Certainly you were saying positive from the business community, but Defander's question, which I am also interested in answering, you indicated earlier that there had been any resistance. So is that correct? Did I understand you correctly? Because that would be for me rather important if we've had this thing running for a while and there hasn't been any objection. Yes, the planning department and inspection services has not received any complaints about the permitting and then the actual use them in operation with article 14 approvals. So it has been seen to be successful. And restaurants that serve food currently, they're defined on whether they have alcohol or open past 1130 or not. And we kind of wanna get away from that. We wanna say, restaurants, if you serve food and you meet our criteria and I went through some of the criteria that we would want to specify, we would say, let's make it by site plan review. And- All I wanted to know was whether I heard you correctly and I think you answered that idea. Yep, yep. Okay, great. Thanks, Bruce. Janet. I like the idea of consistent standards and guidelines that are printed up and that the boards can use and applicants can see. And so the applicants can prepare and shape their business plan and their restaurant seating or whatever before they come to a board. Cause it does take a long time if somebody doesn't know what they're expected of. And I think we've seen that with the marijuana grow operation and a few other projects where it was like the first time for the applicant and it took four or five hearings. I am also perplexed about what exact changes that you're suggesting. So I think that chart for Doug would be great. I don't really understand what parts of Article 14 you wanna be make permanent cause there's about like, there's probably like eight or nine different types of uses and classifications and that the building inspector can now make decisions on that previously was the planning board and the ZBA. So I really, what I would love to hear is some examples. Like, you know, when you say PETA pockets I know exactly what you mean. And so could you give me some examples of small 20 seat restaurants that the building commissioner approved that would normally, I think, I think have gone to the planning board. And then that would be helpful for me in a concrete way.  Bruce. Can you hear? Janice is breaking up for me. I don't know whether that's true for everybody. Not for me. Oh, where did you- Orin broke up for me as well. So maybe I better have to, better watch my connection. You may have a poor connection, Bruce. Do you wanna try to come back in? Maybe. If it happens a third time, I will. So the other question, I've never been on the planning board where in existing business, there's been a restaurant that was in a building and a new restaurant was coming in. And so I wondered, like, what's the problem? Like, has the planning board taken somebody through hearing after hearing for like the PETA pockets? Or, you know, because there's some of an implied suggestion that the current process hasn't worked well. It's been full of delays or it, you know, there's some, there's like a kind of a suggestion that the current process that we've had for decades, there's something wrong with it. And there's something that the planning board or ZBA isn't doing right. And so, so I'm just wondering, like, can you give me an example? Like, are there examples of a restaurant has gone out of business, a new restaurant came in and there was a long lengthy process that they went through? All right, thank you, Janet.  Yeah, I'll have to collect them and come back. Okay. Unless Chris maybe has some examples. All right, Chris, I see your hand. Unmute, okay. So I just had some comments based on the questions that were asked. I don't have examples right now, but I wanted to address Janet's concern about the number of uses that are in Article 14 and what are we proposing here? So we're focused on food and drink establishments which are in the first group of uses in Article 14 and it's really just that one line, 3.352 food and drink establishments. We're not thinking about outdoor, well, we are thinking about outdoor dining and live entertainment as they are related to food and drink establishments, but we're not thinking of farm stands or churches or libraries or medical or any of those other things. We're just focused on food and drink establishments. So I wanted to say that. And in response to Doug's question, essentially what we're doing is collapsing class one and class two restaurants into one use. And that is a restaurant that serves alcohol. And it can be open late, it can be open past 1130 but it's just going to be one use. And that would be allowed by Site Plan Review. Right now, class one restaurants are allowed by Site Plan Review. The class two restaurants which are open after 1130 and serve alcohol are allowed by special permit. And we think we have enough well used sets of conditions that we can have all of these types of uses go through a process with the planning board for Site Plan Review and use these conditions that have been developed over the years. I also wanted to mention the fact that the building commissioner already has the ability to have a waiver of Site Plan Review for uses. And in this case, we're talking about restaurants that are going into preexisting buildings where only signs and lighting are being changed. So if you're going into an existing restaurant space or even if you're going into an existing retail space and you're not making any changes to the outside of the building and you're changing your signs and your lighting, he can grant a Site Plan Review waiver because there's no change happening to the site plan. There's only a change inside and to signs and lighting. And in the downtown, of course, the design review board reviews signs and lighting. So I guess my point is that we're already doing some of this via waivers of Site Plan Review by the building commissioner. And we just think it makes sense to do a little bit more. And now that we've had the experience of having his ability to permit certain things, we think it's been working really well, but we would still hold restaurants and bars to Site Plan Review and the other more intense uses to special permits. So it's really just the very small restaurants and the restaurants and bars that are going into an already suitable place and they're not making any changes to the exterior that would potentially be approved by the building commissioner. I think I've got that right. All right, Chris, thank you. I will say as I'm listening to you, an existing storefront that had a restaurant that did not serve alcohol and a change of that restaurant to one that does serve alcohol, that might be something we'd want to have a little bit more robust review process about even though there's no Site Plan changing. I think maybe the neighborhood or somebody might wanna be allowed to object that a restaurant that was not an attractive alcohol venue might change the neighborhood. I'd also say that if you have this robust or well-developed set of conditions that you think would be applicable to guide development that doesn't need Site Plan review or maybe some to do, I would include those in the next packet so that we can see what you are thinking are reasonable rules. So I guess that's a couple of comments. I do see one public hand and I see Janet, you have your hand up. So we'll continue with board comment and at least for a little while longer before we open up to the public. Janet. So I was gonna say the same thing about wanting to see the conditions and the guidelines because it seems to me we could adopt those or the ZVA could adopt those. It'd be nice if they were both the same. But I would love to see that because it gives me a sense of what's going on. I'd also like to see if it's been a problem for a small restaurant not serving alcohol to come in, like I think we had one hearing for fitness together who is moving businesses around the building and I think we approved that in one hearing. And so I just wondered, my first question always is what is the problem we're trying to solve? And if it's not really a problem, maybe we could focus our zoning changes on other things that are like kind of more serious or more of an issue or something like that. So if there are examples that a small restaurant has tried to come in and went through an arduous procedure, I'd like to know what that was. And sometimes the arduous procedure is because they're just not ready to come to the board and maybe the guidelines and standards would prevent that. The other thing I just wanted to plan a seed which is sort of what Doug has said several times is this might be sort of a good moment or time to consider reviving the zoning subcommittee because this kind of nitty gritty questions and analysis is where things are working with the planning department with a few planning board members, it was the work of the zoning subcommittee. And so maybe we should, at some point maybe in the next meeting consider reviving that to kind of ask those kind of questions and kind of talk to the planning department or make suggestions or collect information. Thank you. All right, Janet, thank you. This time I don't, oh yeah, Nate. Sure, thanks. I just want to say that without having certain examples I think the point of the zoning changes so that the planning board can focus on restaurants or venues that are big enough or may need a site plan or view and have conditions same with the zoning board. So some of it is to streamline workload and put things that actually should be getting site plan or view or special permit going through those hearings. And so if we have a standard set of conditions and criteria that 99% of restaurants can operate under if they have a certain capacity then it's really not necessary to go to the planning board or ZBA. And if enforcement it handles any complaints through inspection services then applying those standards and conditions means that's one less hearing that the planning board has to deal with. But if there is a venue that is large enough or has certain needs or certain things then they do go to the planning board or zoning board for review. So I think it's really about actually streamline the process for both planning board and applicants. And so what we're trying to make it so that what really needs review is having review and not things that don't necessarily need it. And so right now in the zoning bylaw there's no way to distinguish that. So anyone who has to come forward there's not a clear definition of restaurants or bars as Maureen said. So we're trying to clarify definitions and then clarify and streamline permitting processes. So I see that as a benefit for the board because you'd actually be hearing cases that need to be heard, not ones just that can be done kind of pro forma. So I see that as a benefit. Great, thanks Nate. All right, I'm gonna go to the one hand among the public. Hilda Greenbaum, let's move Hilda into the participants so she can speak onto the panel and Hilda, give us your name and your address. Maureen, before I can do that I need you to take down your slide. Oh, sorry, yep. Thank you. I apologize to Hilda. Hi Hilda, I hope you could be able to speak. Yes, we can. Okay, Mr. McGoogle wanted to know who would be against this, me. And I'm thinking about Laura Thamers and I'm working real hard to try to beautify this puppet downtown village center because it looks horrible and it's looking more horrible by the day. Hopefully the library will help turn it around but a restaurant or any kind of a venue of 250 people would be a horrendous impact on this little village center. There are places on Coles Road that I could think of would be big enough for that many people. And if we can get Cinda to restore her bond, that's a place and there's also the other Charlie bond there that would be big enough for this kind of a challenge but the number of students that already live up here and the number of renters, if you have a restaurant that's bigger than 100 people or a bar that's bigger than even 175 people it's gonna have a huge impact on our neighborhood. And I do believe that that number of 50 to only 95 or 100 to require a public hearing and a special permit because that's a horrendous change for what was a very small village center and it is rapidly growing. And if we didn't have a couple of places where they would fit, I wouldn't think about it but it looks like it could very easily happen. There were people who would go there and it would make a huge impact on the traffic at the intersection, the noise of 12 and one o'clock at night, et cetera, et cetera. All the things you've heard about the students in single family rental homes, this would just add to that. And so I think you really gotta look at that too.  You could call me dog and we'll discuss this. Well, I think I do think I understood the gist of your comment, which was that we need. Maybe Bruce knows what I'm talking about. Yeah, we need to think about that 250 number and whether there might be some smaller thresholds beyond which, or, you know, maybe we think about it the number differently downtown versus out in the village centers. I think so. Amherst, Pomeroy Lane might be a similar situation of a lot of traffic added to what's already there in a family neighborhood. Okay, thank you very much, Elder. All right, at this point, I don't see any more hands from attendees. So we'll move back to the board.  So you're next. I think that the big change also is changing from special permit, which is discretionary, easier to deny, for the ZBA to deny and to SPR, which goes in front of the planning board and has more limited standards. And so I think we have a chart that was done last year that shows the differences between the two and, you know, what changes, the standards change, one's discretionary, the appeal period changes and who you appeal to changes. So I think the next time we see this, we should see what the impact is in terms of process and legal stuff. Thank you, Janet. Bruce. I'm new here, of course, but further to your chart, Andrew, they are the one that summarizes everything in a single document or a single table. Listening to Hilda, I'm thinking that, if I understand it correctly, that the 200-person establishment is in the temporary and as a special permitting and we would make it permanent, if I understand correctly. But Hilda, I think, is objecting to the idea that this thing that was done permanently changed something prior to its introduction as a temporary provision two years ago or whenever. So it might be helpful to know what of these temporary changes how much of a change this is from, let's say, three years ago prior to the temporary. It may not be possible, but I just found myself asking myself that question because I wasn't sure whether Hilda was objecting to the idea of making something, changing something a little from temporary to permanent or whether she was objecting to the idea that this temporary provision was made in the first place. Maybe I've just got to catch up here, but that was a point of confusion I had when I was listening to Hilda. All right, thanks, Bruce. I will say that I was thinking of the chart as how the zoning code worked before we adopted chapter 14, kind of how the usual process has been for however many years, a decade or more, versus what they're proposing for the next decade. And we've had this little interim trial period, but that's really maybe not the information to include in the chart or you could have three columns, but anyway, Tom. Thanks, yeah, I mean, I think following up on what Hilda noted, what you were referring to, Doug, I see that on slide one, I think it is, that when you're defining class one, class two and class three, there are specific zones that apply to those. And I'm wondering if we need a chart or a map that starts to tell us where the trigger points, right? Where something triggers special permit, where does that happen and at what scale? And so maybe that's where when you get outside of downtown, it's a hundred seats that trigger something when you go. So if we knew this, these thresholds, not just by type or class, but also by zone, I think that would be super helpful to start thinking about as well so we can assess the impact at a much more specific scale in each area of the town. Great, thanks, Tom. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I just wanted to give some examples of large venues. So one of them is Garcia's and I don't know what the seating number in Garcia's is but I'm gonna guess it's a hundred or more. And then we have, what is it called? The Hanger, is it called The Hanger? It used to be called Amherst Brewing Company but the place on University Drive, that's actually 400, around 400. So that gives you a sense of that scale. And 400 is probably not a number that you would wanna have near a residential neighborhood. And I don't know if you would wanna have- Then one site plan review on that. Probably not. And maybe, I don't know if you'd wanna have site plan review on Garcia's but that was approved by the administrative approval by the building commissioner because it had been, well, it was during the period of Article 14. So it could be approved that way. And since it was in the downtown and it had been a restaurant already, it made sense to just let that go ahead. But those are the kinds of things we'll be thinking about. And Hilda's probably right that you don't want a 400 seat venue up in North Amherst Village Center but maybe you do if it's a little bit outside of the center. So lots of things to consider. Just wanted to give you a frame of reference, that's all. All right, thanks, Chris. I see Hilda's hand again. So maybe Hilda has another comment. Sam, could you bring her over? Yeah, because before Chris brought it up, I was gonna say that I was, Jim, at least one of the times that we did endless brewing over there. And I guess the point I was trying to make that people weren't getting is the threshold between site plan review and special permit goes to a restaurants over 250. And that's the number that I'm objecting to. I think a number a lot smaller than that should be a threshold for special permit so that the neighbors would be informed and would have some kind of cloud, whatever it is, crafting what kind of conditions they wanted to put on it. If it's site plan review, you don't have to listen until it'd be nice if it did but you don't have to try to make some kind of a negotiation agreement between the developer and the owner. But when you get to a restaurant up to 250, I think these kinds of issues where the neighbors could arise a lot smaller and therefore that threshold should be a lot smaller than 250 so that you got it. I think so. I don't think it came through the first time. Okay. And you came through loud and clear this time. Thank you Hilda. Okay. Maureen, do you think you've gotten some reasonable feedback this evening? Oh yeah. Thank you. Excellent. So we can, is there anything else you want to talk about on this topic tonight? No, I think that's it. So I thank you for your time and we've been Chris, Nate, Pam and I have been writing our notes down. So tomorrow we'll share notes and then we'll work on how to get you more information next time. Great. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that Janet Keller sent a kind of long email this evening right before the meeting, which I did forward to you and it's related to this topic. So you might want to take a look at that before the next time we meet. You sent it this evening? Oh, you're muted. It came in pretty late at about four thirtieth or so. Yeah, I sent it after she sent it to me. So it was late. It was after four. Well, I received one of the emails that I occasionally get that are complete coding gibberish about five 30. So that may have been that email. So maybe I should change that into a PDF and send it out again. Yeah, that might be worthwhile. Okay. But I did not see an email from you that forwarded from Janet. I did receive something at 444. Okay. Okay. So we'll consider this topic closed for this evening. Thank you, Marine. Appreciate your time and your efforts. All right. So the time now is 743. I guess we can go ahead and start the next item on the agenda. We are getting up close toward our eight o'clock usual time for a break. But why don't we move on to item four in the agenda, old business? And the first item is the SUB 1989-9. The Meadows, their definitive subdivision plan. And Hopbrook Road and Kestrel Lane, the issues about the roadway and infrastructure. Chris, do you want to introduce that? I know we have Guilford here. We have Guilford and we have a number of people from that neighborhood. We have Doug Donald, Felicity Hardy, who is the attorney for that resident group. As we said, Guilford and Connie Krueger. Yeah. And we'd certainly want to bring Guilford over. And I think that that covers it. I don't see anybody else here for that particular topic. Unless George Tanzer is related to that topic. But anyway, we talked about this a few meetings ago. It was brought to the attention of the planning board that while the roadways were finished in the Meadows subdivision, that was, I think, 20 years ago and the town has not accepted the roadways. And the roadways have deteriorated over the years. And the residents of this neighborhood are trying to move towards getting their roadways adopted by the town. And last time we met, we talked about getting a punch list from the DPW that would describe the work that needed to be done. And what we did get was something from Ted Parker listing three items that needed to be worked on. And I think I put that email in your packet. Maybe not. But one of you. Yes, you did. So the email lists three items that were outstanding as of the, I believe it was the 2004 punch list that DPW put together. And otherwise the DPW, I think felt that most things were, well, I don't know, Guilford can probably explain this better. But what we're trying to work towards now is an agreement between the town and the developer Tafino associates to try to get whatever needs to be done so that the town would be comfortable in accepting the road. And I understand that the town, given the length of time that this whole thing has dragged on, that the town may be willing to take a less than perfect road. So Guilford can probably describe the situation better than I can because he has been more intimately involved in it. So I wonder if you would recognize Guilford more. Certainly, Guilford. Welcome. Good evening. Actually, Jason in our office has been handling this more than anybody else, but we are moving towards conclusion with a subdivision. There's just a few things, the things on the list. And I think there might be one or two other things. Basically, they need to provide us a survey. The final survey is a big thing. But we are moving towards conclusion and towards having a recommendation to the council and whether to accept this or not. So you just need to, you have your part you must do as well. So that's, it's moving right along. So do you have a timeline that you're aware of or that you're working toward? I believe they're working, trying to get this so we can go to the council sometime in the fall. But I may, it may be a sooner or maybe trying to get it in late summer, which is actually almost here, but I think it's more of a fall timeline. Okay. Well, I think that would be reassuring for the residents. I know it seems like the pace of getting this has been the primary issue. So, is there anything else you wanted to say, Gelford? Or is that best really the message for right now? That's the message. That's it. Okay. All right. Chris, would it be reasonable for us to put this on the agenda sometime in say the beginning of October to so that we can check in on how things are going? I do see some hands that have come up and I'll call on you in a moment. That seems reasonable to me now, but I think it would be good to hear from the people who wanna speak and then make that determination. Okay. All right. So I saw Felicity's hand first, followed by Doug Donald and Janet, you were third. So we'll start with Felicity. And I think if you wouldn't mind giving us your full name and at least your role in this. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. My name is Felicity Herdy. I actually am an Amherst resident. I live at 574 Station Road here in Amherst, but I'm here in my capacity as council for the Meadows Association, which is a homeowner's association of the individuals who own homes in this subdivision. And it was great to hear Mr. Mooring say that progress is being made. What would be helpful, I think for our group to hear and with me tonight, I should call out is Doug Donald, who is the president of the association and Connie Kruger, who's a member of the executive committee of the Meadows Association. I think what would be really helpful to know is exactly what the timeline is for coming to an agreement about what needs to be done and when it's going to get done. Because regrettably, we've had a number of stops and starts. The progress that has been made has been very intermittent. And it's great to hear that I think it sounds like a dialogue has started between Ted Parker of Tofino Associates and the town. But if we could get a little bit more concrete about kind of when there's going to be an agreement about what needs to be done and when it's going to actually be done so that our organization can have an understanding about when the project might be in a position to be presented to town council for the acceptance of the roads, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Donald, you are muted. Yeah, there you are. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Doug Dinell and I live at 46 Hopbrook here in Amherst. Thank you, Mr. Moring, for the information. It's great to hear that you're optimistic. I just want to add a little historical context we met in with the DPW and with Tofino Associates as the road committee of the Meadow Association in on October 29th of 2021. And there was an agreement then that Ted and Jason would try to establish a compromised punch list because there's a fair distance between the two parties about what the punch list ultimately should be in order for the road to be accepted by the town. That did not occur, has not occurred, and now here we are the summer of 2022. We had a meeting in June 15th and Ted assured us that he would make progress on this. He sent an email that day with saying that, the next day saying that there were three items which was new to us. We had originally gotten a list from the town that was quite a bit more extensive. At the meeting in October, Ted indicated there were five elements on the punch list. The town thought there were more. So the punch list, I mean, I don't mean to focus on it, but it really is the critical path towards moving this whole process forward. And it even to just get an agreement between the town and the, and Tafino on the punch list has proven to be challenging, frankly. So as Felicity said, I wanna just provide that background because I don't want us to seem like we're being kind of arched and unreasonable. We've really tried to be patient and tried to allow this process to go, but it just, we feel stymied every time that months go by, years go by, we're 20 years into this. Numerous presidents, numerous people who lived in the neighborhood have made attempts to have this happen. So it would be great to get a little bit more specific information. It's definitely news to us to hear Mr. Moran say that we could possibly be considered for adoption in the fall. That would be wonderful. We would all be very grateful if that were the case. So that's what I have to add. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dinell. Guilford, would it be unfair of me to ask you kind of point blank are the three items that are listed in the email from Ted Parker on June 16th that are listed, you know, and it says that Jason's in agreement with that. Does that true from the what DPW's point of view? Are we down to three items? And I believe we're down to three items. Okay, so that's good news. So we sent an email to Ted Parker which outlined the process. Was that not for? It also went to the planning department, I understand. Jason sent it to you as well, Chris. I don't remember getting it. So could you ask him to send it to me again? The process? It's basically the process, yes. I'd love to have that, thanks. And it's from our town attorney. I asked the town attorney for a process a while ago and I received something from the town attorney. Is that what you're referring to? There's a while ago, yes. So I should look for the email that... I'll forward it to you. Okay. All right, well, thank you, Guilford, for that clarification and confirmation. I think that's a little bit of progress right in the meeting.   I would love to see the email from the town attorney because I was wondering what authority or options we had as a board to push this process along or just put some requirements in. And then I also had questions about, I think we were talking about how much this costs because we only have a $20,000 surety. And I think at the last meeting we were saying, people were saying, not me, that this was much more expensive. And so I thought we were talking about maybe increasing the surety to make sure it's done. So I would just love some like more information that's more definitive because I'm not sure what we can do with this. And I could see, you know, be great if this was all done by the end of August and there was an agreement for that. But we all, everybody agreed what the work had to be done and we knew what was going on. I don't feel like I'm in that place right now. Thank you, Janet. Chris, do you wanna comment on any of Janet's comment or not? No, I don't have any comment on those comments, no. Okay, thank you. Connie Krueger, you may unmute. Hi. Connie Krueger, 15 Hot Brick Road. I just wanna say, well, what Ms. McGowan said is kind of part of our issues too. We keep having expectations that we're gonna hear things. You saw tonight, we didn't even know that town attorney had responded. So all we got was three items from Mr. Parker, nothing from the town acknowledging that there had been progress. And, you know, here we are, we get to October, we've lost another year of resolving this. So while trying to be patient, the frustration is not being in the loop. And we have 28 households, any number of residents represented in that who care very deeply about getting this resolved. And we keep being not part of the communication loop, not knowing that town attorney had even weighed in, not knowing that DPW perhaps was going to agree to three to five items, what those items were. So as frustrated as we've been with Tofino, it also feels like the town could represent us a little better in keeping this moving. We also invited our attorney to attend because she was going to, if needed, speak to the role of the planning board in all of this, as Ms. McGowan alluded to. So maybe I could ask if it's all right with the chair to recognize Attorney Hardy, so we could get that perspective. Sure, sure, Ms. Krueger, Ms. Hardy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The thing I would say about that, and perhaps this is somewhat responsive to Mrs. McGowan's comment a moment ago, the planning board has ongoing jurisdiction with respect to any approved subdivision. So to the extent that there was a thought that the existing surety is not enough, I guess I would say one thing about the surety, the surety that was posted did not even match what the planning board ordered or voted on 18 years ago or so. So in the first instance, the planning board certainly has the authority to order or to vote to have Tofino increase the surety that's posted with the town. One of the reasons we didn't speak to that last time is that we don't necessarily want to be punitive about this, what the surety should be is a guarantee of performance of the things that the town and Tofino agree need to be done. So part of the reason that we were sort of focused on the punch list was to get an agreement between the town and Tofino about what was required then somebody can figure out what it's gonna cost. And it might make sense for the planning board to revisit the issue of the surety at that point. If Tofino is gonna actually do the work, none of that is necessary. I mean, if there are only three things, that's great. And we would appreciate the planning board's ongoing involvement in encouraging, incentivizing, doing whatever the planning board can do to get Tofino to do what it needs to do so that we can get the roads accepted. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Hardy. Hey, Gelford, another question for you on these three items that have been listed as the punch list, is it your understanding or do you know if there's been any conversation with Tofino about whether they would do the work or that those items are small enough that the town would do the work and spend the surety rather than return it to Tofino? You may not know at this point, but if you do know anything, if you could comment. So the discussion is for Tofino to do the work. The town will not do the work right now. That's not, I don't think that is, there might be one item the town may add into our contracts and Tofino has to pay for, but we're not planning to actually do the work to do it. Okay. All right, so then the question is what timeline would they do it on? My understanding, they have a timeline to be done with both this subdivision and Amherst Hills by this fall and this winter. And that may change. Mr. Parker does change every once in a while and the situation in the work environment right now is changing drastically. Sometimes you can't get somebody to come to work when you really want them to come. You have to wait from there, ready. You're probably getting that UMass too. It's quite the market for people to work. Yeah. But there's a couple of things that also need to happen besides Tofino. As far as the public works as department is concerned, the letter that the residents gave to the town council back in March 8th and accepted by the council is their petition for acceptance. And the town council needs to now start a little process which then mandates the 45 day review period that comes from the planning board. So I sent all this to Chris. She'll have the short list of auditions she can share with everyone. But that's our understanding is that we're really in this, we have multiple things that have to happen. Council has to take that and do something with it, your request. And then that triggers something for the planning board to do. Okay. Then there's a time period where yes, if there's still things that are undone, those things can get worked out and worked into the process as well. So there's several other things that can be going on at the same time. We seem to have stalled, which I thought the other track was moving and obviously is not moving. So I apologize for that. Okay. Thank you, Gilford. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. Actually your question got to a little bit of mine. I just wanna make sure I'm following correctly from the email that Ted sent Chris on the 16th. So the punch list of three items has been in existence since 2014. The punch list has changed often since 2014. All right. It just says confirm the three construction items on the punch list from our first meeting 2014. Well, those are the three that are still relevant from maybe the 2014 had 17 items. And now we're just talking about the last three that are still applicable. Got it. Okay. No, that makes sense. But that said, these have been on the to-do list for the last eight years. I guess, and I think you might've got to this one, Gilford, but I was, I guess kind of curious, is there any sort of time horizon where we say that we are gonna step in and do it or maybe not, and then is the next step is the next step for town council to act, the sort of kind of call the question, I guess, so to speak. So let me go back to the, actually, actually just wiped it out. I didn't mean to do that. Hold on one second. While you're looking for that, I had a friend on Hopbrook who sold their house a couple of years ago and it had an orange construction barrel sitting in front of their mailbox as they sold it. So anyhow, I feel some of the pain through my friend that the residents are feeling. So I did forward the email that Gilford forwarded to me. I forwarded it to the council members and to Felicity and Connie and Doug. Thank you, Chris. I guess sort of the broader question is, how long we have the surety? Is there any point? Is there like a statute of limitations where you just say, it's over, right? We're going to do it because you haven't done it. That is up to the planning board and the council once they wanna get to that point. So if you haven't opened that email, Chris has said, if she sent to you, I mean, the layout process is the first process, which starts by the residents sending a petition to be accepted. And we assume that the letter they sent to the council on March 8th qualify as the petition for acceptance. I'd have to do with Amherst Hills. Yes, it had to do with Amherst Hills because they're talking about Linden Ridge Road and Station Road. No, I believe there was also, maybe it wasn't March 8th. There was one that came from the council too. You haven't sent that? Then I would say the first thing that the residents need to do is send a letter asking for acceptance to the town council. And then once that goes, then you can push the town council to start the process and get the clock rolling more than it is now. I wonder... Yeah, Connie's got her hand up next. Can I finish my... Okay. I'm sorry, Doug. I was just going to say then, you'd mentioned Guilford that you weren't planning and if the council says we will accept the roads, you will adjust, I'm posing, this is the question, but you would adjust your work schedule to account for that and do the work. There would be, if the council says we're going to accept the roads and somehow that has these items will be taken care of by the town, that's the town council's decision and that wouldn't get worked in somehow, yes. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Doug. All right, thanks, Andrew. Sorry, Janet. You know, I know we're looking at an email which nobody else can see in the audience, but I just want to clarify. Chris Brestow sent us an email from the town attorney explaining how roads are accepted and we had that in our last packet. So is there a new email about what the planning board can do or powers in this situation? Or is that, are we all talking about the town attorney email that we already had received? Which Bruce wouldn't know about. Thank you, Janet. So the town attorney letter we have is from June 25th, 2020. And from that, Jason came up with this short punch list to how an acceptance would go. And we know it would go for both Amherst Hills and for this subdivision. And I thought that letter's been submitted on both of them. Okay.  And maybe you can tell us whether that letter has ever been submitted. I do not believe the meadows ever submitted that letter. It would have been very helpful to know that that was a step in the process. We could have done that, certainly. In fact, I was just texting Mr. Dennell to say we didn't send a letter asking for road acceptance. So again, we've been before you. This is our second time. We've sat in on a number of hearings for Amherst Hills and we're kind of out there on our own not getting the help to get the process going. So I'm really glad to hear that we've got this boiled down to a couple of items. And then we can go ahead and submit to town council. That's great, but unless I hear from my team that we did send a letter, I do not believe we have. Okay, thank you, Connie. Sure. Mr. Dennell. Yeah, I just confirmed what Connie just said, which is that one, we have not sent the letter and we were not aware that this was an integral part of the process. Our understanding was is that the bunch list was in that there was a wide gulf between the town's expectations and Tofino's expectations. And there was some manner of difficulty arriving at an agreed upon middle ground. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I don't see any further hands. I guess I will, I'm just gonna comment that from my perspective, our primary role at the moment is facilitating and trying to can make the connections that don't seem to have been happening. So I view this conversation this evening as a positive event. So Mr. Dennell, you... Sorry, I just not quick on my Zoom protocols here. I would reiterate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And us too, we're not contentious. We just wanna see this resolved and this is as much progress as we have seen in a very long time. And as a result, we're really grateful. So thank you to all the parties involved. It may be a cautionary tale going forward in the future for the town to consider, but all we want is to have the roads taken by the town. And this is a great step forward. So thank you for all who contributed to that. Right. You're welcome. All right. So maybe in a later meeting, we wanna talk about having a moratorium on subdivisions. Okay. Is there anybody that wants to say anything else about this topic this evening? Bruce. Yes, I just wanted to wait for the last. I was part of the vote apparently that voted 10,000 per lot for 13 lots for $130,000, which blah, blah, blah. So I'm kind of interested, I suppose, that only two of those $13,000, $10,000 installments were taken. Have you, Doug, as a board, or is the board aware as to why that, those 11 other $10,000 deposits weren't taken up? Is this something that sounds like we should, if this is a problem, we shouldn't have, this shouldn't happen again. So I'd be interested to know, or I'd be interested that the board and that the town knows why this happened, and presumably makes sure it doesn't happen again. All right, thanks, Bruce. I will say at the last meeting that this was discussed, it sounded like there'd been a previous planning staff involved at the time and we didn't hear any more specifics except that it just seemed to have been missed. So, Chris, is there anything else to that you want to say? No, I just wanted to say that it did fall through the cracks in the planning department, obviously. And I apologize for that. It was before my time doing this type of work, but that shouldn't have happened. I also wanted to thank Guilford for coming to the meeting tonight and bringing his point of view and his information, that was very helpful. So hopefully we can keep talking about this and keep moving this forward. All right, thank you, Chris. Guilford. Yeah, just one little quick comment. In other communities I've worked in, what they do is they have time limits on their plans. If you do a preliminary plan or a final plan and you submit it to the planning board, you have like two years or a year to get certain things done. And if you don't, it stops and there's no building permits issued. There's no nothing allowed on the subdivision until you move forward and meet the requirements that you're supposed to meet. That would have been kind of helpful with both these subdivisions if there was some time limits, but there are not in Amherst's subdivision rules. So that's a suggestion for another zoning change, it sounds like, at least the option to put a time limit on subdivisions. And maybe offline we can get from Guilford some models of how that's done in other towns. And Guilford, I will reiterate what Chris, Chris's thanks to you for coming. I appreciate it. Janet. So I would love that the next time we talk about this, everything is wrapped up. If the work isn't done, there's a timeline and an agreement, but I do just in time, like adding to what Gilbert said, the last time when I first came on to the planning board, this is sort of the Amherst Hills problems where the planning board voted to release lots, but all the work hadn't been done. And I had a long conversation with Christine Gray Mullins afterwards on the phone. And she said that she was recommending having a checklist for subdivisions, like what work has to be done, just so everybody knows what's going on. So the planning board wouldn't release lots unless X, Y, and Z was done. And maybe I don't know the DPW and planning department coordinate on that, but she's an engineer and she had a whole bunch of ideas about how that could be done. So maybe someone could call Christine and talk to her about that. Sounds like a topic for the Zoning Subcommittee, Janet. Fascinating topic, I'd be, I love systems. Okay, all right. So anybody else wanna say anything on this? Time is 8.17, thank you all for coming. Those of you not on the board, I hope you, and so we'll take our eight o'clock break now. As I said, it's 8.17, if the board members who are, and staff who are returning to the next topic can come back at 8.22, that would be great.  All right, I've got 8.22 on the clock on my computer. Anybody that's back, if you could turn on your camera so we can see that you have returned. I'm gonna go off camera for a minute, so I'm here. All right, thanks, Andrew. I've been appearing and disappearing based on my dog as a medication schedule. So I've been carrying the meeting around with me, so I apologize for that. Not a problem, Janet. Oh, I forgot my, I'm gonna go ahead and mute you. All right, I see Pam's back. Chris is back, Janet's back. Andrew's back, although he had to go off camera. Tom's back, Bruce is back. Great, so Chris, I think we could go ahead, right? I don't see Nate back yet, but is he essential for the next item about the downtown design standards or is that, should we wait for him? Here he is. Here he is, he's always essential. Let Nate handle this one. All right. Thanks Doug, should I start or? Well, I'm not sure about Bruce at the moment. I know Andrew said he had to go off camera, so I believe he can still hear us and wouldn't miss whatever you said. Here's Bruce. And so there's Bruce. So I think you can go ahead, Nate. Sure, luckily it's on. So as 824, we'll go on to item B on our fourth agenda item, which is old business. And this is downtown design standards RFP. And Nate's gonna give us an update on the status of that RFP. Sure, I have nothing to share on my screen, just to thank the planning board and the public for comments received after the last time we presented them. I incorporated them into the document and I sent that around to staff for another round of comments. So right now it's going through internal comments with staff. The hope is by the end of the month we'd have a document that's pretty close to being finalized and it could be reviewed again, but it's taking shape quite a bit. And so that's the update, really, that with the comments received and everything, it's in pretty good shape. Okay. And you said by the end of this month, so it would be reasonable for us to put this on the agenda in August or? Yeah, I think so. So, yeah. Have time in August? August 3rd. The only thing is I might not be here. That's close to the end of July. You might want the next one. August 17th. Does that feel comfortable, Nate? Yeah, I think I'm on vacation August 3rd. So I could present from vacation, but I'd prefer the 17th. All right. All right. So unless anybody has any questions for Nate, that's, oh, Janet. I have a quick question. Do we need to see it again? Or I would love to just see it go out and start that process, but is that rash? Just to say. That's, I mean, that's a decision on the planning board. I think we ought to see it again, Janet, just. Okay, okay. You know, Nate, we're not sort of completely messing up the schedule you had planned for this, right? No, no. I mean, I think that we're going to take a week's vacation anyway, right? Yeah. I mean, if this were reviewed in August and say with other comments it was done by early September, that's still, you know, it'd be great to have some, you know, have it released, you know, solicited in September, October and have someone on board in the fall, late fall. And then, you know, I think that that's fine. The, you know, as Doug mentioned previously, the scope of work, we're asking a lot. And it may, you know, maybe that what we want is more than the money we have available. And so I think it is good to get it out. We can, you know, there can be a discussion process with consultants too, you know, we're trying to look at what tasks could become, you know, workload of staff, right? If necessary, because, you know, we want to rely on the consultants to do, you know, the design guidelines and a number of things. And, you know, some of that is building up to it, right? In terms of public meetings, maybe surveys and other things, but perhaps through the RFP process and contract negotiations, it could be that, you know, the consultant could help say formulate a survey or, you know, a visual prep and survey, but maybe staff helps implement it so that the consultant isn't spending time, you know, putting it out there and gathering responses, maybe staffed as the, some of the data collection. And so, you know, that hasn't been decided, it's just some of it, you know, will kind of shake out in terms of how the responses come in. Because we don't honestly, I mean, we've tried to streamline the process based on the comments, but it's still, you know, I'm still expecting this to be, you know, an 18 month could be longer, right? It's a two year process where there's, you know, a series of meetings and, you know, we have different stages and phases. And so I don't want to truncate that or really try to take anything out. So, you know, we've tried to eliminate things that may add to the cost, but in general, the process is the same as it was when presented. Well, if you want that sort of option one way, I mean, in your RFP, you could put in a sort of format with a list of the scope items and ask them to indicate which ones, you know, which ones could be done or assisted by staff. And so, and maybe even break up their fee proposal by line item, so that you've got some sense of how they might be willing to work with you before, you know, when you get the proposals, you'll already see these are, you know, we can do all of this or we can start to farm some of this back to you. And here's where we would propose. So I don't know, just on the top of my head, that was something that came to mind. Yeah, no, and we, the town, you know, put out a request for proposals for the E Street School in Belcher Town Road to select a developer for affordable housing. And one of their, one of the responses actually went through our, I mean, it's just like what you did, what our criteria were and everything and they had, you know, they made their own little checklist and checkbox and they would add annotations for every point and said how they thought they met it or where they would need to have worked on it, but it was really interesting that, you know, they included that just to show, you know, kind of where they fell on it. And I hadn't really seen that before where they would take what we'd written and turn it into a checklist. Yeah, well, I mean, certainly I've experienced receiving proposals that were more than could be afforded and then we review the scope and look, talk about what we can peel out. So, you know, one way to start that is just set it up for that conversation. Okay, anything else on this particular item at the moment? Okay, so we'll look to hear from this more about this on the 17th of August. Thank you, Nate. Chris, the next item on old business is topics not reasonably anticipated. Do we have any? Well, I just wanted to mention that Nate and I are working on getting three decisions ready for your signatures and the fact that you approved the minutes for the 29th of June, allows us to do a couple of those decisions. One is the dog park and the other one is the Main Street project. And Nate has now prepared the decisions for 463 West Street. So we hope to be sending those to you in the next few days and then ask you to come in and sign them. All of you who participated in those and we'll let you know which ones you participated in, so which ones you have to sign. But I just wanted to let you know about that so you'd be ready to come on into town hall and sign some decisions. Okay, I was gonna actually, I'm gonna backtrack to the RFP. If there's any way to send it to us a little bit sooner than when the packet usually goes out, I don't know what your ability to do that is, but sometimes the window between the packet arriving and the meeting is a little bit short. And particularly if it's a lengthy RFP, it might be nice to have a little more time. Or conversely, I guess you could receive comments after the meeting for a couple of days more. Right, we could plan to say like by August 10th, right? So a full week. Yeah, that'd be nice. Okay. Okay, on to item five, new business on the agenda. The first item was the parking garage consultant structural analysis of Boatwood garage and the update on that. Who would like to update us on that? Well, I will, my muted no. I will attempt to do that. This was really an idea that the building commissioner had. So he and I need to work together to put together a scope of work for that consultant. And we haven't done that yet, but we did just get the money as of July 1st. So we'll be working on that shortly. And he's really the person who has to do most of it because he understands what's necessary for structural analysis. But like I said, we'll be working on that together. Okay. Janet. Is that just going to be looking at, you know, how many layers can be put on Boatwood? But is it, or is it also in looking at other sites in the downtown? I believe this is a structural analysis of the existing structure and the sort of site analysis of other possibilities would be some other scope for some other process. Is that right, Chris? That's right. There was talk about looking at other sites in the downtown and we do intend to do that. We're not going to do it to the extent that a consultant would do it, but we can certainly do that. And I've had some email with Pam Rooney about that. So yeah, that's something that staff will be looking at, but we haven't made progress on that one yet. But that's not included in this structural analysis of the Boatwood garage. That's specifically for the Boatwood garage. All right. All right, well, it's good. You got the dollars to be able to move forward with that. That certainly has been a nagging question in that whole garage conversation.  Do you, we should move on? Yes, I think so. I have a question, but I think I'll wait until the future meeting. Okay. All right, thank you. All right, the next item, Chris is the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Assessment Letter. Anything you want to say about that? No, it's just an interesting thing to note how much Amherst pays for the services that it receives from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and to note how it compares with some of the other towns. You can see that, you know, some towns pay more and some towns pay less than we do. We're kind of, I would say kind of in the middle $6,993.29. And then in addition to that, we are able to tap into their skills for technical assistance. So Maureen started to make allusions to that earlier in the meeting. We're working with a planner from Pioneer Valley Planning Commission currently on a district local technical assistance project and he's helping us to figure out how we could set up our zoning to allow certain temporary uses to occur both in the downtown and in outlying areas.  So we're exploring what other cities and towns do and then that's an example of how PVPC has helped us. They also helped us to write the bicycle and pedestrian network plan and they also consult with us from time to time on different things we can, you know, call them up and ask them questions about, well, who else in the Valley does XYZ? And they're a good source of information about demographics as well. So it's really worth it to, you know, be a member of them and be active. And you all should think about, and I think we talked to Bruce about this a little bit. We also talked to Karen. Jack is not a planning board member anymore. So he will need to be, he wants to be the alternate commissioner on the PVPC but the town needs a full commissioner from the planning board. So it needs to be a planning board member. So one of you may be interested in stepping forward to volunteer to be that planning board member. And when we talk about our elections, that would be something that would come up during the election. So just think about that. And when we have that conversation, do you have good information on the frequency of their meetings, the time of day, whether they are doing them all by Zoom or whether travel is involved? Because I think all of us, at least I'll just say I would need to know about the type of commitment that's involved in being the representative from that, from the board. So I can certainly find out those things. That'd be great. And I'll also say the thing that I found most interesting about the assessment chart was that we are the third largest community in the Pioneer Valley. Right after Springfield and barely below Westfield makes me wonder if we should be calling ourselves the city of Amherst now and stop pretending that we're a town. So anyway. In town hall, we call ourselves the city known as the town of Amherst. Yeah. It's kind of weak. Okay. So that takes no unanticipated agenda under new business. Well, there is one item. We need to hold these elections and we wanted to know if the planning board members would be around on September 7th. So I can send an email out about that, but it would be nice if all the planning board members were available for the elections. So I guess right now, if planning board members want to say yes, I'm available, that would be good. Bruce is available. Andrew, looks like everyone who's here. Looks like everyone here is available. Good. So we just went out about Johanna and Karen.  So that's why you didn't propose some a date in August, right? That's right. Johanna is going to be gone on August 17th. And I think that's it. Oh, Tom is gone on August 17th as well. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, August 3rd is a possibility if we wanted to do it, it sounds like. You could do it then, but Karen won't be here. Karen's changed her plan to go to Germany. She's going, I think on the 31st of July, but she'll be out of the country until the 7th of August. Okay. Andrew. Yeah, I'm also on the 17th, I did not. But two and two together. Okay. So that's three members that'll be absent on the 17th. So unless, so if we, if we lose one more, we won't have a quorum. And so far you don't have anything on the agenda for that night. So we may skip that anyway. You may. Okay. So that sounds like a good plan. All right. So great. That's it for new business. Time is 840 and we'll go on to the next items. Do we have any form A or A and R subdivision applications? Yes, we do. And Pam, we'll bring it up on the screen. This is the property that you looked at a while ago for John Roblesky. He has- No, no, Kyle. I'm sorry. This is for Kyle. Tom Reedy is everywhere. So Tom Reedy is part of this. He was part of that. So I conflated the two. This is Barry Roberts on Fearing Street and Sunset Ave. Two properties that are being combined to, he's going to build, I think, either 14 or 17 or maybe more than that units. It's been approved by the zoning board of appeals, but in any event, he needs to combine the two properties. They both have houses on them. So you can see if Pam wouldn't mind using her. Oh, there, oh, Pam, thank you so much. So that illustrates the existing properties. The red line is the existing property line that separates the two properties. The houses are going to be moved off these properties and the two will be combined into one. And the one property will be, it says over on the left here, 89,000 square feet. So the question before the board is, will you authorize Doug Marshall to sign this A&R plan and as not needing subdivision review? So it's not forming a subdivision. That's the acknowledgement. So are there? Usually with these, we ask for a consensus or anybody who objects to raise their hand and be allowed to express that. So please raise your hand, I guess if you have an objection and you want me not to sign. Janet, you're objecting. No, no, I have a question. So I think from looking at that plan or map, there's three properties on there. So if we take away the, if it becomes one lot, does it meet the code? I think that the vertical line is not a property line. Isn't that right? Vertical line is a zone line. Oh, okay. And the line that goes down the middle is a dimension line. It's 200 feet off the front property line back to where the zone line is. So we're not violating any rules of the bylaw by making it one big lot. That's my basic question. Cause I think there's three properties on it, but I'm not quite sure. I can hardly see this map. Now, if you look in your packet, you will see and Pam can show you. Can you go to the GIS map? Yeah, there's the GIS map that shows the two existing properties. So there aren't three properties. There are only two properties as shown on this plan here. There's one. I meant homes. I meant homes. Sorry, Chris. No, not three homes. No, there may be a garage, but... Yeah, there's three structures. Okay, so we're, everything's kosher. Okay. And all the buildings are going to be removed. So is everybody okay with Doug coming in to sign this plan? I see no objections. Already. All right. Any, I assume that's the only A&R for this evening. That's right. Yep. Any ZBA applications you want to give us the chance to hear about? No, I have nothing new to report then tonight. Okay. How about SPP, SPR, SUVs? You will be seeing the new proposal for 47 Olympia Drive at your August 3rd meeting. So we'll have to have a site visit before that. That's the apartment style dormitory that's being proposed by Archipelago. Okay. All right. So that's it for item eight on the agenda. Item nine, planning board committee and liaison reports. Jack's not here to talk about PVPC. And we'll skip that. Andrew, anything you want to say about CPA? No, no updates. Design review board? No, just that we also reviewed the dog park signage and had the same issues obviously that we had here in terms of scale and type size and things like that. So that's all coming back for a second round of discussion, I believe. And then we saw a couple of small signs around town. Nothing too daunting or crazy little law firm in a bank. So that's about it. Okay, great. Janet, solar bylaw. Or hold on, Nate, did you want to comment on that? Yeah, just quickly about the dog park. You know, we received useful comments from both the design review board and planning board and I spoke with Dave Zomac today. And so the town had been planning to hire someone to try to come up with a sign package for the town, right? So that there's more consistency. And so, you know, the signs I had shown were kind of temporary signs. There is a soft opening at the end of the month. And those signs will be up temporarily. And then, you know, in the fall or, you know, sometime in the next few months we are hoping to try to at least develop a, you know kind of a template to use and that would come back. So it may not be that it comes back, you know in August or September, maybe later. I just wanted to alert the design review board and planning board that that it's not, you know an imminent return with the final design but it is something that would happen, you know in later fall and then, you know perhaps the signs wouldn't be installed until the spring or something but it is something that we plan to bring back. Okay. All right, moving on. Janet, solar bylaw working group. So we met and it had a really good meeting. People kind of, we had introductions around people talked about their backgrounds. So we have a forester from the state, you know somebody who's an, you know an energy economist from UMass, a solar developer who Jack the hydrologist who wasn't there. Another geologist who works on lithium issues in South America, another depressing area but you know has to be resolved. And then a space scientist. And so it was a good group, a good background good discussion. We looked at the two model bylaws the 2014 one put out by the state and the more detailed one by Cape Cod commission. And so we're launched, we're ready. One of the questions the chair had asked is what do people wanna know about? Like what information, you know someone, I think it was me wanted more information on the state incentives and the economics of solar arrays. Other questions about research and carbon sequestration in the state the new state policy or new state plan. So if there's any questions people think is important for research, please email me or tell me right now and I can send that to the committee. I had a couple of questions for you. Who is the chair? I'm gonna, Chris, can you help me? I'm kind of blanking completely. Sure, it's Dwayne Breger. Dwayne Breger, thank you. Ben's father. Ben's father, he works at UMass. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Yeah. He's working on this type of thing for municipalities throughout the state. So he's really knowledgeable about what we're doing. Yeah, I'm a UMass policy, yeah. So it's a good group and we have a lot to do in nine months. But if people, anything you want to know more about or think is really key for us to look at I would love to hear that and I can pass it along. And when is your next meeting? Our next meeting is next Friday, a week from tomorrow. So that's something like the 29th? Yes, and we meet I think from 12 to two right now but I don't think our meeting time is certain. We're kind of going two weeks out or a month out every time. All right, and I assume they are publicly noticed? Yes, yes. And the public can attend and make comments? Well, they can make comments and sort of incredible we had an in-person meeting because we were in that little slot. So there was kind of a shocking and nice experience. Well, it's good way to start your working group. It is, it was. Okay, good. Thank you. And then Chris, update on the CRC? So the last meeting of the CRC, I think was last Thursday and it focused on the rental registration by law and John Thompson was there as the staff person. I did not attend because that's not something that I've been focusing on recently, but he's a person who's got, he's out in the trenches, you know, he knows he does house inspections. He knows all the pitfalls and the good things about, you know, the housing and the students and issues related to rental housing. So he's a good person to advise the CRC on this by-law. Great. All right. Next item is report of the chair and I really don't have anything. Report of staff, Chris. Well, we had Nate and I met with Bruce and we also met with Karen and we were very happy to welcome them. And I would think that they're gonna be great new members of the planning board. I was expecting Karen to show up tonight, but it could be that she just didn't get sworn in in time, but I think she's gonna be, she's full of energy and the intelligent and has a good background. She taught German at the Hartzburg school for a few decades. So she knows a lot of people in town and Bruce of course has been an architect in our area for many years and has taught. And so I think it's gonna be an exciting infusion of energy into the planning board. So we're very glad to welcome them. All right. I just noticed that we have one hand raised from our public attendees. So Pam, if you could move Pam Rooney in and let her speak. Hi, thank you. I was going to follow up on Chris's report on the CRC and the fact is that we canceled the meeting due to lack of a quorum, but we were going to in fact, talk about the rental registration. I wanted to alert everyone that there will be a public forum on Monday the 25th at seven o'clock to talk about rental registration and the goals are to upgrade what is currently on the books. And there will be a little bit of background provided and then about a half an hour's worth. And then there will be a guided comment and discussion period starting at around 7.30. For rental registration will include what should permitting requirements be? What are your thoughts about inspections? What would an equitable fee structure look like to you? What would an equitable incentive system look like for good behavior? And then any ideas about permitting requirements that would help safeguard neighborhoods and the health and safety of neighborhoods. So good things to think about and look forward to having folks attend on the 25th. All right, thank you Pam. All right, so that's the last item on our agenda. Unless anybody has any other comments we can adjourn. No, I'm not seeing any hands raised. We will adjourn, the time is 8.53. Thank you all for coming. And I guess we'll plan to see you August 3rd and please let us know if you won't be attending in case we lose our quorum. Good night. Good night. Good night. Bye. Bye.