Oh, there they are. Okay, Mr. Marshall, we are good to go.  You have a quorum, it's 633 when you're ready. Right. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of June 29th, 2022. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 634 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media and its are being taken. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022, 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. We will post an audio or video, oh, I'm sorry, in the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and return to mute. Maria Chao. We know Jack Gemsec will be absent this evening. Tom Long. Present. Andrew McDougal. Present. I, Doug Marshall, am present. We were informed this afternoon that Janet McGowan will be absent this evening. And Johanna Newman. Present. Thank you. Board members, if technical issues arise, 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 item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general comment period. Public comment can 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 phone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your telephone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meeting. Okay, so our first item this evening is approval of minutes. And I believe this afternoon, Chris, you sent out draft minutes for our June 15th meeting. And board members, if you have had a chance to review those, we can vote on those this evening. Could I have just a brief raise hand from board members if you've read the minutes that we're gonna approve? Well, I see at least three. I don't see that Tom or Andrew have read those. All right, however, Tom and Andrew, okay, Tom, you raised your hand. Yeah, we were not there, so we might have stayed on that anyway. Okay, thank you. Chris, is there any problem with three of us approving minutes that would be a majority of the members present this evening? That's correct, yep. Okay, good. All right, Johanna. Thanks. I had just a couple of like little typo things in the minutes. How important is it that we fix those? Like it doesn't affect the comprehension of them, but it does just make them look tidier. Well, if you've found some things, you could tell us what they are or if there's 25 of them, you could send them to Chris. There are three little things, Pam. So the first is on the board members present. There are just a lot of extra commas there. I think probably where names were copied and pasted. On page seven, there's an extra space in the second line after the 826 public comment. And then on page eight, there's a typo in Janet McGowan's kind of initial response on board discussion about special permits. Those are the three things. Other than that, I think the minutes look great and would be happy to make a motion to approve with those edits as suggested. All right, why don't you do that? I'd like to move to approve the minutes from June 15th as amended. All right, Maria. I can. Thank you. Any further board conversation about that? Not seeing any. All right. So we'll go through roll call. Maria. Approve. Tom. Abstain. And Andrew. Abstain. I'm going to approve. And Johanna. Approve. All right, the motion carries three in favor, two abstentions and no nays. All right, so the time now is 640. And we'll go to the second item on the agenda. That is public comment period. So I will remove, remind all the public that this is the time for comments on, for items that are not on our agenda. So anything related to the dog park or 446 to 462 Main Street, those comments should be held until later in the meeting. Are there any public members who would like to make comments at this time? Please raise your hand if you would. All right, I see one hand from Hilda Greenbombe. Hilda, if you would give us your name and your address. Yeah, Hilda Greenbombe. Who not need one of you wrote. I just wanted to say that Amherst Media is not recording tonight. Unless they're recording from town hall and not on the TV. If anybody is looking for it to tape it or something, they're not playing tonight. They're least probably up as of today, but I just thought I would mention that in case somebody is confused. Okay, thank you Hilda. Pam, do you want to pause and communicate with them? I'm going to reach out to them right now. Yeah, because my impression is they are here. I do see them in the panelists. They are in the panelists. Yeah, the TV isn't working. I tried it on both TVs. And it says they're off the air. It may be a Comcast issue. So, okay, so Amherst Media says that no, we're moving and we will be off the air. It's on our website. They're live on YouTube. Oh, okay. Okay. Other people will know that too then. That was probably good, I told you. Thank you. Yeah, I did not know. I knew they were here, but I didn't know that there was a discrepancy in being on YouTube versus TV. Thank you, Hilda. So thank you, Hilda. Are there any other members of the public who wish to make a comment? I do not see any. All right, so time now is 6.43. And we'll move on to item three, the first of our public hearings. So in accordance with the provisions of mass general law chapter 40A, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding. Site plan review 2022-15, town of Amherst Dog Park at 95 Old Belcher Town Road. Request site plan review approval to amend the previously approved site plan, which was SPR 2019-06, to revise the site layout, grading and drainage plans, to revise the kiosk plan, to reduce the number of parking spaces, to request a zoning bylaw section 7.9 waiver to modify the length of parking spaces and a section 8.5 waiver to modify the size and number of size. Parcel located on map 21B, parcel 8 in the PRP zoning district. Are there any board member disclosures? All right. Chris or maybe Nate, do you wanna make the presentation for the town? Nate, we'll make the presentation. Sure, thanks everyone. I'm Nate Maloya, planner with the town. I'm bringing the dog park back to the planning board. So it was reviewed and approved almost two years ago, site plan review. And so during construction, there were some changes made. I'd call them in the field adjustments, but there was a number of little changes I added up to, I don't wanna say significant, but more than de minimis in the opinion of the building commissioner and staff. So we wanna bring it back to the planning board for review. I'll share my screen and I can, I'll share the plan, the updated plan. Nate, before you go into the design, I was wondering if you could explain why you're coming to us now, as opposed to before the changes were constructed? It's a really great question. No, once it was under construction, public works, the town engineer and staff worked with the contractors. You know, to make amendments to the plan. And there's a dog park task force as well that had some input. And so I think there was just, I don't think there was realization that the changes were happening and that they needed to be approved. So, you know, when we originally came to the planning board, there was an assumption on this plan, there's a thick dotted line. And that's where the limit of the clay cap. So this is over the old, essentially the old dump. You know, it's over where they used to have the stump dump and where they put organic material. So anyways, when we, when this was first presented, the extent of the cap wasn't known, nor was the depth of it. So the depth from the topsoil. So while they, as construction was starting, they realized that the cap extended closer to the road and was, you know, six to eight inches closer to the surface in some places, maybe more than what was anticipated. So public works ended up digging a few dozen test pits, you know, hand holes to determine where the clay cap was to get a sense for it in this whole area. And that's something that hadn't been done beforehand. So I think if, you know, if that was done beforehand, these plans would have been adjusted before the planning board, you know, for the initial review. And so, you know, when that was happening, I don't think there was an awareness that it needed to come back. Was there something that they, you know, they accommodated what was in the field and made changes. So is this the kind of thing that always happens on projects and it's not unusual for a project to come back to us after construction for retroactive approval? I don't say it's, you know, I guess it's the, you know, the question is, you know, how substantially similar or dissimilar is this to the original plan? And so I think the building commissioner really thought that what was unique is that there was a loss of parking spaces and some of the parking spaces are now shorter than the 18 feet, which is a standard depth in there. And, you know, that there's proposed signs and the, you know, the number and size of the signs may need to come back. So it wasn't necessarily that, you know, for instance, the walkways change and other things. And those would be considered in the field adjustments that would be reported on as bills that would come back to the inspection services and, you know, be on file with the town and public works. And so I think it's really the parking spaces and the signs that, you know, were reason-wise coming back, you know, the loss of parking spaces, not that there was adjustments to some of the elements in the plan. Okay.  Sure, Chris. Oh, I just wanted to note that usually on projects, we have our inspectors out inspecting projects while they're being built and making sure they're built according to the plans. And I think in this case, inspectors weren't there. There's no building. And it was left up to DPW to, you know, monitor what was going on. And that's why it's kind of a, I guess it was something that slipped through the cracks, the fact that these changes needed to come back to the planning board. Thanks, Chris. I think the main reason I'm kind of asking about this is whether we as the town, as the constructor of this are giving ourselves sort of a pass or treating ourselves more leniently than we would treat someone who's in a, you know, a private project. Right. I will say that I wasn't aware necessarily that these changes were made until they were already done.  And so it wasn't something that, you know, perhaps if it was discussed beforehand, maybe it would have come back. Okay. Well, let's go on and hear what happened. Sure. So I'm going to, I think I'm going to annotate this as we're going just so it's easier to see where I'm discussing. If the plan is visible or legible enough, I can zoom in a bit. In any event, there's a berm here, an existing curb that remained. And so the parking spaces went on this side of it. So originally this berm was going to be removed, but the cap, this dotted line extends much further out than we thought and so, and it's higher. And so the decision was made not to dig into this area and make it level with the road right now because we would get too low to the cap.  The handicap spaces are still a full depth, but, you know, these parking spaces, some are 18, but some of them are not. And so that, you know, that's a change. This entryway right here, originally this wasn't here. Originally the sidewalk was going to come straight across, but with the change in the depth here, the handicap spaces are offset and now there's a curb ramp here to get up onto the sidewalk area. So originally the handicap spaces were right dead center with the gate and they were shifted over to accommodate grading and elevation. Also on the plan, originally there was five additional parking spaces in this location and they were eliminated, again, because of the cap and the possibility of moving a hydrant. And so there's no specific requirement for a number of parking spaces for a park. And so currently there are 17 spaces proposed, including two handicap.  You know, the other changes are the fence here, the perimeter fence along the outside has a concrete base. It has a ballast that runs along the fence. It's essentially at grade. It's a visible in a few spots. For instance, right here, might be two or three inches above grade, but the fence posts couldn't be buried deep enough to secure them. And so, in much of the fence, there's now a concrete footing, a continuous footing and the fence posts are actually then cord into the concrete and set into the concrete for stability. And the shape of these internal walkways, these are internal walkways and these are shade structures. So originally, you know, the shapes of these were slightly different and the location of the shade structures were moved to accommodate, you know, change in topography and drainage. So, you know, this shade structure here was originally over here where the boulders are. And this one was also in a different location. And so to keep the pass accessible and working with the grade, you know, those, the shape of that path has changed. And the location of the perimeter fence, you know, was moved a bit again just to work with topography and drainage. So, you know, I think those are, those are the changes. The, you know, the big one is then out that these parking spaces are not, don't meet the nine by 18, you know, standard size of a parking space. And Nate, the berm that you mentioned first. Yes. Does that mean there's a grade change between the road and to drive into the parking spaces? Right. So if this, you know, this is the road, there's a little bit of a lip and then the parking spaces like this. So there is a transition area. It was eliminated for the handicapped spaces and the access aisle. And what happened is the pavement then extends into the roadway a little bit like this. There's a, you know, a transition area. And so instead of having this extend the whole way into the roadway, it's really only happening here. So there is a little bit of a transition area between the parking and the road. Okay. Thank you. And I think the goal would be to, when old Belcher town road is repaved, there's also some puddling in the road, not, not because of this project, but you know, when Belcher town road would be, old Belcher town road is repaved and this would be adjusted. So the road itself would probably brought up a little bit to make these spaces more consistent with the grade. All right. So those are the site changes. I was, you know, I guess if we moved around, for instance, you know, this perimeter fence originally, there was another vertex here. So it came out and then, you know, had a little bit different of a perimeter line. Okay. I think that's really about it. The irrigation system change that actually originally we thought we might have to run power to the site, electrical power and have a meter. And we found, I think it was a town engineer found an irrigation system that runs off solar. And it's actually has a very small footprint. It's a, it's probably like an eight by 10 box and the solar panel is only about five inches by five inches on top. And it uses water pressure from the water line and then a really small pump in timer just to, it runs one head at a time, but it can irrigate the site without electricity and without a typical irrigation pump. So it saves on electricity and probably water as well. I was going to just go over the signs. And so I guess I'll annotate it again. So the dog park task force has come up with a series of signs. They'd like a rules and regulations sign, an etiquette sign, a welcome sign, and then possibly a freestanding sign to the site. And so, and then there's a kiosk. And there's this main fence here and there's a vestibule as you enter. And so the idea is to have a rules and regulations sign here, an etiquette sign here so that they're, as you walk in, you see those types of signs. They would like a welcome to the dog park sign on the fence here.  And the idea then would also be have a freestanding sign somewhere along the road, old Belcher town road. I'm not sure the exact location, something like this. So someone driving would see it. At the site visit, it was discussed that would it almost be better to have the sign closer to Belcher town road?  So I'm not, there can be some discussions about that sign. In terms of what they look like, I guess I have to delete my annotation. It still stays, I think I move, all right. So the rules and regs, and I had emailed the board. So this is something that the dog park task force came up with, trying to zoom out so it's all visible. So they would want this sign on one side of the entry gate. They're envisioning it as a four foot by four foot sign. And so there's rules about just the hours and what not to do. There's an etiquette sign, which is more about the behavior of dogs. And so the dog park has two areas, one's for a small dog and one's for a large dog. And so most dog parks have some delineation or some distinction between that. So that here is 30 pounds, so dogs under 30 pounds and dogs over 30 pounds. And it has what's expected of behavior of the dogs. So those are two signs that would be near the entry gate. The idea is to have a kiosk that's actually an eight sided kiosk. And it would be the same one as that graph park. And so I think that's probably easier if I just show the images of that. And so here's actually the kiosk installed at graph park. You said eight sided? Well, the display area.  And so what it looks like is something like this, it's about two feet by four feet. And, you know, and from a distance it looks, you know, you can't really see that it's, you know, two different planes, but the idea for the kiosk is to have the list of donors, have a map. And then, you know, some of it might be actually spaces for, you know, community postings or other information because the rules, the idea is to have the rules and the etiquette on the fence. And then back to the final sign is a welcome sign. And they're calling this a temporary sign, but I think it would be something similar. So they would like a larger sign, kind of in a banner format that would be on the fence and also incorporate it into a freestanding sign. Nate, this said it was temporary. Right. Is this the same as the permanent one? It's a good question. I only know it labeled as temporary in part because it's been printed on a piece of plastic that's, you know, on the site now, just as a temporary sign. So although it's labeled temporary, you know, I was told that these other signs are final and that this one, not final, but, you know, the language and the design is final. And I'm assuming that this is the same, that it's pretty near final in terms of what, you know, what would be going to production, you know, subject to comments by the planning board and this is going to the design review board in July. So it's not as if they would just completely change the design, you know, this is something that is in draft form and, you know. So if I have a dog, if I have two dogs, one of which is over 30 pounds and one of which is under, do I have to make two separate trips or leave one dog in the car? Geez, that's a really good question. There's the, yeah, that's a good question. The, you know, there's this entry vestibule here within the park. And so it may be that you'd have to leave one dog there or if the dog can be under voice control that you could be on one side and the other dog can be on the other. So. All right, so that's your presentation. Why don't we hear the site visit report? Who was present at the site visit? Tom, you, how about you? Sure, I agreed to do that since it's Maria's last meeting. She doesn't need to do a report. So we, Maria, myself and Chris arrived and Nate was there as well to sort of give us a tour. I will say that from the outset, we were all just standing on this entryway. So on the outside of the dog park, which appeared to be locked at the time. So we were just on the, in the entryway or on the paddy, when we call it, I don't know, the sidewalk, right by the parking area. And Nate pretty much walked us through all of those things that he discussed, like on site. So, you know, pointing towards where the signage is going to go, where the foundation for the fence is going, where that is visible. He pointed out where the kiosk is going to be located. There are markings on the ground for that. So we can get a sense of where that was.  It's really no different than some of the things you'd experience in a, you know, downtown parking area. And we also, there are also some significant sized cars. I mean, I have a medium SUV and it fit just fine in the spot and there didn't seem like there were any big, big problems. And I think, you know, we just, we're discussing the six or eight inches that are shorter on some of them. Nate talked to us about where the cap was and how that actually did affect all these changes. It really was about the fact that we couldn't dig into the site in all of these different locations that caused the shift of the parking and caused the shift of the entryway to be moved over from in front of the handicap area and the change in the shape of the plan of the parks and the location of the covers and the shelters and things like that. So, I mean, that was pretty much it. It was really just, you know, we were kind of sitting in our standing in one spot, kind of going over all those things. I think one of the things that we paid a bit of attention to, which we'll probably get to a little bit today is the signage that the, we discussed the scale of the sign as a four by four, but also the proximity with which you would view it and whether or not it needed to be quite so large to actually view it and how big the type might need to be. So that might be something we wanna discuss that no one's gonna be viewing the sign from really far away cause you can't really get that far away from it. So, you know, you'll probably be pretty close as you enter the dog park. So the type doesn't need to be huge and the sign may not need to be huge either, but we're able to kind of visually measure that and get a sense of what might be necessary there. But I think that's pretty much it from our view, but we're there for about 20 or 30 minutes going over all the details. All right, thanks, Tom. Okay, time for questions from the board, Nohanna. Thank you. I'm sorry I missed the site visit, but I did have a chance to go today and look at the site and that coupled with Nate's presentation, I think of me a pretty good sense. I have two questions. So my, well, three questions. So my first is why were we not able to push the park up more onto the old dump? Cause it seems like if the, I understand that we can't dig into the cap, but I don't understand why we couldn't just, you know, nudge it up five or 10 feet from the road to preserve the original design and why all these changes were needed. So that's the first question. My second question is, I noticed that there were two gravel areas and I think the plan only denotes one. So Nate, I don't know if you can talk a little bit to the two gravel areas and what benefits having gravel areas offers the dog park. And then my third question has to do with the signing because I feel like when we were reviewing the signage for Kendrick Park and some of the way finding signs, there were, there was a very clear uniform standard that we were hoping to bring kind of all the signs that we had been immersed into. And I just wanna verify, these signs look a little bit different than those. And I wanna see if there isn't an opportunity to sync it up. And then my last thought on signage and maybe we'll come back to it. So there might be more thoughts as once you're on old Belcher Town Road, it'll be obvious that there's a dog park there. So in my mind, the signage in an ideal world, there would be some kind of presence on route nine. To notify people of its existence. That's all I have. Nate, do you have some responses to those? Sure, I'll share my screen again. I think one of the reasons, well, there's a few reasons why we couldn't push the park into the transfer station or the old transfer station is that the area beyond the fence is habitat for a grasshopper sparrow, which is a threatened species. And so we needed to maintain that field. And then I was also just gonna say that it's uphill. So here's the grading plan. So this becomes a pretty steep hill here. So to push it into the site would, would actually make it more difficult because we couldn't excavate at all on the site. You could only scrape the grass. I mean, it was DEP, mass DEP. I'd actually thought about not even removing, letting you remove grass, just mowing it and keeping the roots there. So they almost didn't want any removal of topsoil. So that made it really difficult to change location. So that's that one. In terms of the gravel area, so the plan always had two gravel areas. So within the walkways here, there's pea stone. And so maybe it wasn't shown clearly, but originally as it was permitted and then as it was built, there's always two, there's a gravel area in each dog section and a grassy area. And most of the funding for this part came from the Stanton Foundation. It's a private foundation that funds a few different priorities. And one is dog parks, it's canine health, but they recommend pea stone as a surface just for, it's easy to clean and the dogs can use it. And it doesn't get eroded like grass. So oftentimes, if you have a grass surface here, it requires more maintenance in terms of just maintaining lawn and turf, so it doesn't erode. And so these gravel areas were put in there just for that purpose, just as a easier maintenance, the dogs tend to use it and it's recommended as one of the top three surfaces for a dog park. And with the signs, your comments on the signs, I think that's something that the board can discuss. Chris and I had talked about having a condition that, the signs come back to the planning board before being produced and made. So I think there can be some discussion about location and right size of the signs. All right, thanks, Nate. Andrew. Thanks, Doug. Thanks, Nate. Couple of quick ones. I would just plus one what Johanna said about signage on route nine if possible. I think that would be huge. I stopped by the site today also, sorry, missed the site visit. And I wouldn't have known that it was there because I would have no reason to go on that road unless I was trying to get into Amherst Woods in the back way. I had a question on the rules sign also in terms of standards is, we've got like a private email address on there and is that something that we've done in the past? We would do that seems like it's out of place to have people sending emails to a Gmail account if you have questions because I imagine many people would probably do that instead of picking up the phone. And so I would think that that would be a town address if we have one on there at all instead of amherstdogpark at gmail.com. I don't know, thanks, Andrew. Good point. So yeah, the dog park task force is, there's gonna be a friends group that will be maintaining it and also perhaps responding. But I think to your point, we could have, we've done in the past for other things we've set up a, could be a town email that is just rerouted to an email but at least that it's the same format. So we're not, it's not going to an email that could change. We could set it up to an amherstma.gov email that we have control of. Yeah, cool. I think that'd be a really good idea. And I just, I had to follow up. You mentioned the five parking spaces. I have no idea whether 17 is enough spaces or not. I imagine if it's not, people are just gonna park on the street. When I was looking at the previously approved plan it looked like there was an allowance for that fire hydrant. And it seemed like those five spaces are actually kind of further away from the cap where it seems as though from my reading and what I understand you said, they actually could go there. I'm not advocating that you do that now. Again, not knowing what the capacity would look like but it seems to me like it actually was called for and accounted for in that page we got in our packet that said previously approved in 2019. Yeah, I'll share my opinion. I think the, do you have the 2019 version handy? If it's in the packet, I think what happened though is that the caps here and the sidewalk is here to push the parking spaces here would make it difficult to then have a continuous sidewalk at the right range because the cap is so high. Okay, all right, I missed on the sidewalk piece. That makes more sense now. So to have five spaces here, right, we just... Okay, all right, thanks for clarifying that. Right, there was an island for the hydrant. I think there was some concern though about if you're paving it and we were putting parking spaces there, if it was disrupted, where would it go? But... Nate, Johanna had mentioned the package of town signs we saw a year ago. And questioned why these signs don't look more like the standards that the town is trying to implement. So I wondered if you could come back to that. Sure, I think that's a really good point. Some of it is the task force helped develop these signs. And so I think, I actually think that's a really good recommendation. So, whether it's the same, the same font, whether the motif of the logo or something, I think I agree that some similarities would be good to have some consistency. So I think the idea was to not always use the exact same format for conservation areas, recreation areas, but to take some of the themes of the signs and carry them through. And so I just think that hasn't been done yet or verified that it is. Yeah, we also reviewed the signs at the parking area on Bay Road that led to the conservation area. And this feels more like a conservation area that you'd go for a walk. This time you'll take your dog and let it off leech. So, Tom. Yeah, thanks, Doug. And Nate, I think I agree with that. I know that the standards are made for a reason. And I think we should double-check these with those standards. I think the other thing in terms of the signage that we're missing is seeing them at scale on the fence. So in elevation, I mean, I know they're not there. So I'd like to see that presentation, whether it's a sign schedule or elevations before we approve that. And that might give us an opportunity to rethink the scale of some of these and some of those graphics to build some more consistency. I do think it's fine to have the temporary sign. I think that some kind of temporary information about etiquette and rules would be really helpful if we are opening before permanent signs are installed. But I do think before those permanent signs go up, I'd like to see them in context and have them match the standards a little bit closer. And then for the board, one of the other things that came up is that about, I don't know if you'd call it 200 yards, down Old Belchertown Road is an access point for the Robert Frost Trail, which actually the connector is Old Belchertown Road. And when you cross over to get to the other side of Route 9, you actually have to use Old Belchertown Road in front of the dog park as a connector on the Robert Frost Trail. So that there are, you know, people might wind up parking here to use those trail heads as well, since it goes in both directions.  So it's just something to consider in terms of parking. Nate mentioned that they are, you know, thinking about putting additional parking spots on all the trail heads along the way. But that's just something I want to consider. Again, I don't think it's going to have a huge impact. I don't think 50 cars are all of a sudden going to park for the Robert Frost Trail because of this year, but it's something I think we should keep in mind. Thanks, Tom. Andrew. Yeah, 36, I did want to just point out, I agree with what Doug mentioned also in the intro in terms of the, you know, the process and how we're making this, this is coming to us now. I hadn't thought about the angle from the private resident and I think it's a really good one to point out that, you know, we need to make sure we hold ourselves to that same standard. And then, you know, cynically, I was wondering, what if like we didn't approve what was brought forward, what happens? I mean, like something would happen, right? And anyhow, I understand how it happened or why it happened perhaps, but I think we do need to really work hard on process if we think that there's a gap here to make sure something that this doesn't happen. Because it seemed like it was pretty, there's a pretty clear difference between the two plans from the parking spaces at least, that someone would have caught it beforehand. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, it kind of makes you wonder whether we need to be a little more suspicious or diligent or whatever you wanna say about town built projects. Tom. Sorry, just a quick comment on that. I think what I took away from our meeting with Nate and then clarify this for me, Nate, but I feel like what we're presented with is an aggregate of small changes and then a bunch of those smaller changes would have just, we would have never even noticed them. They're just like on the field decisions that were made, but because there were a lot of smaller onsite changes that were made in the course of construction, I think that's why it's coming back, not necessarily because there was some plan to like, I guess I just wanna be clear that my interpretation was someone stopped and realized that all of those little things might add up to a significant change as opposed to like, oh, we got rid of these two parking spots or we had to move this fence and change the angle of it. But when you have to do all of those things together, it feels substantial. And it might not even be the same person who knew that that thing was happening, that that's also happening and so on. So I'm not defending anybody, but the story that I got felt more like it was like an awareness of the growing aggregate of changes as they're happening, all of a sudden cautioned everybody to stop and bring it back to the board. And that's the way I interpret it. Thanks, Tom. Chris. So I just wanted to mention that we're going through a process change and for Graf Park and for Kendrick Park, Nate was on site almost every day monitoring what was going on and DPW was there too, but Nate was really writing heard over everything. And in this case, the decision was made to have Nate kind of back off and let the DPW manage it on a day-to-day basis. And I think there was a lack of communication between DPW and our department about these changes that were going on. So I'm sure if Nate had been there on a day-to-day basis, like he was on the other two projects, these things would have been caught early, but that didn't happen. So I just wanted to explain that that we're being, it's being told to us that Nate needs to be part of the design process.  And so that's kind of things fell through the cracks as a result. So I'm sorry about that. Thanks, Chris. Maria. Thanks, Doug. Yeah, that's what Tom was saying. I got the same sense that it was just a collection of changes. And I suppose the one thing that could have happened was the test fits and locating the cap. But it's sort of a 2020 hindsight, right? Because we didn't know that the cap would be so far off from where it was shown in the original plans. But that's, you know, it's hard to predict that would have happened. But otherwise, yeah, I felt like even if Nate had been there every day, what could have happened? You know, the cap had was where it was. And there had to be changes made on the fly. And luckily, it's still got the same conceptual design. There's nothing too major than them. Yeah, I was like, oh, we're losing five spaces. But since there wasn't a requirement for a minimum number anyways, it's kind of, you know, as they change old Belcher Town Road, I'm wondering at that point, maybe they can assess, you know, whether they do need more parking at that point. And also, I guess at that point, they could probably make it so that the spaces are what is it, eight by nine by 18 size once they get rid of that firm. But otherwise, yeah, all the comments from the rest of the board made perfect sense as far as the signage being on the road and the size being sort of really examined. Because I think when we were there, Tom, Nate, and I and Chris all were kind of like, wow, the sign size proposed seems a little large. So it'll be good to have that going for the DRB and possibly back to the planning board to take a look at that again. But yeah, it would be great to have it all be cohesive because, you know, we spent so much time getting this standard for the town. So I would really like that too. Yeah, it's kind of ripple across the whole town. So I can't remember what it looked like, but I just, I feel like that's the right move. So, but yeah, thanks for this. When we're on site, I was just in awe of, you know, this used to be a brownfield site and now it's this really great park. So it's just really great to see it, you know, finally. So I didn't realize it had been two years. It looks really great. Yeah, I mean, I think that could have been some of the reason for the changes just not being so apparent is that it happened over two construction seasons. There was an initial grading and then it was wintered and then it came picked up again. And I also think this was a more challenging site, you know, just because we didn't know all those variables. So Kendrick Park, actually, public works went out there, they surveyed it, we ground truth it with the trees and roots. And so when we asked for as bills, they said it's basically what was put on the original plan and the contractor could, you know, they lasered it, used, you know, put it in there, you know, on their machines and everything was perfectly GPS. And so there really wasn't any change. I think, you know, I think Tom and Maria said, right, it's kind of the aggregate and collection of changes. You know, I think it's also the change in parking spaces, you know, number and size. If it was, you know, the perimeter fence moved a little bit and the entry shifted a little bit to the gates, I don't think that would be coming back. But because, you know, really it is because some of the parking, you know, the changes to parking that we wanted the board to look at it. Well, I don't want our comments to make, to give you pause about bringing future projects back. So I thank you for doing that. I think it's a good point that I'd like to, you know, think that, you know, as more town projects, if we do think that we see changes, you know, before construction that they would come back, not after. All right. So I think we've, I mean, there's been mention of the signage going to DRB and that maybe it would come back to us. Chris, what do you want from us this evening? Well, I would like you to approve the plan as it's presented, but put in a couple of conditions. And I did send out some conditions just late this evening that you may consider. And maybe Nate, or Pam can bring them up, Nate can bring them up, because Pam's busy writing down what we're talking about. I do have them, Nate. Nate, I do have them out there there. So I think one thing we wanted you to do was to acknowledge that the revised plans are now becoming the approved plans for the dog park and that the dog park is going to be managed the way the management plans said it would be managed. And that was approved the last time around. So I wanted to bring that forward. The landscaping has been installed, but there's a point that it has to be maintained. And then the last item is that the proposed kiosk and sign designs shall be submitted to the planning board for review and approval after they've been reviewed by the design review board but prior to installation. And one of us will probably bring them to the design review board along with Maureen so we can pass along your comments with regard to trying to make them more similar to the signs that the town has been working on the wayfinding signs. So these would be my suggested conditions if you would choose to adopt them. All right, let's see. Why don't we see if there are any public comments on this project? At this time, public attendees, would you raise your hand if you would like to make a comment? Okay, I don't see any hands raised from the public. So I guess we'd like a motion to approve the plans as proposed and adopt them as the final plans proposed by the board. And Chris, you're suggesting we include the conditions that you have drafted. Would anyone like to make that motion? May we also include the findings that this is consistent with the relevant criteria of 11.24 and to close the public hearing? We can throw it all in the mix. Yeah. Yohana, can you remember all that? Oh, gosh. All right. I move to approve the plans as proposed with the conditions suggested by Chris Brestrup confirm that they are in compliance with section 11.24 and close the public hearing. Great. Tom. Back in. All right. Any further discussion from any board members? All right, we'll go through a roll call. Maria. Okay. And Tom. All right. Jack is going to, is absent. Andrew. When he's first, Yohana, that was awesome remembering that. And I'm an I. Thank you, Andrew. Yep. Janet is absent and Yohana. I. And I'm an I as well. Thank you, Nate, for the presentation. And again, thanks for bringing it back. All right. So we have closed that public hearing. All right. The time is 729. And we will go to the next public hearing on the agenda item four. So in accordance with the provisions of mass general law, chapter 40A, this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding site plan review 2022 dash 14 and special permit 2022 dash 05 center East LLC 446 to 462 Main Street request site plan approval under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to construct 17,000 square foot 27 unit residential mixed use building including three affordable units with site lighting and landscaping and to request a modification of the number of parking spaces required for the mixed use building under section 7.000 and 7.9 of the zoning bylaw and seek small car parking under section 7.104 of the zoning bylaw to co-locate with the existing mixed use building known as 446 Main Street and the mixed use building known as 462 Main Street authorized by site plan reviews 2022 dash 01 and 2020 dash 05 and any subsequent amendments and request a special permit to extinguish all special permits associated with parcel 14B dash 66 all on map 14B parcel 66 and 68 in the BN zoning district. So this hearing is continued from May 18th and June 15th. Are there any board member disclosures? Don't see any. Chris is it reasonable for me to state for the record that we received statements from three board members who were absent at the last meeting that they have listened to the recording of the previous meeting and are eligible to vote this evening. Thank you. All right. Not having any disclosures I'll turn it over to John and your team for your presentation. Okay. Good evening. Yep. We are missing Tom Reedy tonight. Is that another meeting? But hopefully we'll get through it. We've had a number of changes based on your comments and I think maybe best thing to do is we have a slide show put together and Google slides and maybe just go over that kind of highlights some of the concerns and how we address them. Does that sound like a logical thing? Sounds good, John. I just got to figure out how to do it. I know I got a share screen or something, right? Yeah, you should see a share screen button at the bottom of your Zoom window. It's green. If you drag your cursor down to the bottom that toolbar pops up. All right, but I lost the video here. Well, when you click share screen, it'll bring up the screens that are available and the applications you have open and you can select the Google. I can do it, John, if you'd like. All right, yeah. If you can get that up, Christine, please. Mm-hmm. And maybe introduce yourself. Not sure all the members know who you are. Sure. My name is Christine Orwell. I'm an architect and I'm working with Maple Street Architects and John on this project.  Thank you, Christine. I'm gonna go into presentation mode, John, and then you can talk away. All right. Can everybody see what I have on my screen or should I just talk about what you have on yours? Yeah, you should talk about what Christine is showing us because we can see what she's got on the screen, but we can't see whatever you're looking at. All right, I got a box that says you will have to leave this meeting to join the new meeting. So join meeting, let's see. I'm tempted to suggest that you ignore it. Indeed. John, are you able to see what I shared to the meeting now? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I was just having the cover slide up. Maybe I have the zoom thing on my screen on the bottom here, but it's not letting me get into the video. John could leave the meeting and come back in. John, you can't share your screen at the same time as Christine is. So I believe Christine is sharing the video or the slide presentation that you're referring to, is that correct? Yeah. So we should be good to go. Oh, okay. Okay. Now, I got you here. If you want Christine to move the presentation forward to the next slide, just say you're ready to do that. Okay, I think we're ready. So this here, I know Doug, you were concerned about the, I gotta leave Levin with her. About the view coming down Main Street. So we took a bunch of photos and kind of imposed the future Amherst Media Building. And again, to remind you, I did have conversation with the director there and they do intend to start in the spring of 2023. So that building is kind of where it shows on this presentation here. And this is about from in front of Bruno's at the bottom of Triangle Street. So as you can see the Amherst Media Building and then the other arrow proposed center East Commons, you can just kind of see the roofline in behind it from this eastbound traveling. And also, you know, the various rooflines in that area, they all kind of blend in. Okay, next one, Chris. This is about the same view. It's actually from the opposite corner of Triangle and Main looking kind of straight down at the Amherst Media Building, which kind of shows you the view that we anticipate it's gonna look like. And you can see right now, right there is the current building that we did last year. So you can kind of, if you can imagine that roofline moving forward for the new building, it's gonna be almost in that same direction, just heading west. So that's about probably what you'll see. But again, that's looking in between the Amherst Media Building and the Big White House to the north. And also to remind you on that corner of Dickinson and Main just to the before Bruno's, that before the yellow building on the right, there is that big gray three-story. And next to Bruno's it's only separated by about 16 feet. Okay, Chris. So these are some of the changes from the original submittal. We now have a nice courtyard in between the buildings. And again, that area that Chris is kind of going on now, that's like 34 feet between the existing building and the west wall of the new building. And that total area there is about 900 square feet up to the front porch on the existing building. So we're able to add that patio in there. And we're using some of the stones that are currently around the lampposts in the parking lot that are gonna need to be removed. So that has to be built into that little slope where that person is standing on the patio. And so we're gonna use those, it'll be kind of like a whole sitting, L-shaped sitting area. And we also have the granite stones from the previous foundation. Chris, I'm not, this here shows the old representation, doesn't that, does it not with the new building with a full front? No, this is the updated presentation. Yeah, this is just the two-story reduced map. Just kind of looks, yeah. And as part of that, we did the single peak over the office door. We made that whole first floor office area versus the studio and an office. And we kind of separated the windows, spread them out. So it kind of mimics the historic building on the left. And we provided some screening as you'll see on one plan, relocated a lot of the heating and air conditioning units, pulled them together, put some shrubs and some of the white vinyl fence that is actually on site that we need to move. So we repurposed that for screening of the AC units. There was one tree on Gray Street that was hopefully going to be saved, but we were going to work on that. I did meet with Alan Snow out there earlier in the spring about that tree, but now since we redid the parking lot and have the exit out to Gray Street, it actually falls in the perfect spot in between the mature maple trees there. So we're able to save that tree. And this shows the view from, Chris, can you go back to the previous slide please? And then again, to highlight the changes that we did to the building itself, we did lose four apartments, so we're 15% fewer there. We lost the total of three bedrooms. Just by reconfiguring one of the stairways, we're able to add a bedroom and have a two bedroom. So right now we have one two bedroom, then mixed up studios and one bedrooms. And the total building, given that we eliminated the third floor on the front, we're down by 9% there, then the front elevation was reduced by 60%, looking at it coming up Main Street. Okay. And this is the rendering again, looking from across Main Street, kind of looking directly straight on where the new building will be. And it kind of shows the rendering by computer, which a lot of times, you don't get that proper depth of field type thing. So I took the picture from across the street that actually shows the view. And the wall for the new building will be just about, even with the end of that hedge right there, right about there and then behind the transformer. So it's pretty much where the building that we tore down was in that space with the patio is kind of in behind those beach trees. John, John, the new building is also on the same plane, parallel to Main Street that the old demolished building was, just to clarify that. Okay, thank you. Okay, next. Okay, here, we were thinking about how, to add things to the site. One thing that I actually did in my house several years ago, if you notice the top of the slide there, we always had the site hill and it goes down about 50 feet and it's 150 feet long. That was the PIA, the Moe and take care of and burn off every couple of years and all that. And the farmers, they were having trouble with pollinating and bee colonies disappearing. So I said, why don't we just plant wildflowers there? So we got a bulldozer, we graded the whole thing down, added some loam and I had a hydroceder come in and took about 30 minutes to spray 7,000 square feet of wildflowers. But now this is what you see, they're really coming and getting thicker. So we got a whole mix of bees and different birds, all kinds of things going through there now, which I think serves a purpose. And we're kind of doing that just for a little area along the corner there that just to dress up the corner a little more when people are there waiting and the bus are walking down Gray Street. Okay, next. Okay, these aren't the actual mini split units that we will be using. The one on the left, as you're looking is a 6,000 BTU unit and the one on the right is a 9,000 BTU unit. Again, because these units are so small, the dwelling units themselves, they don't need a lot of heating and air conditioning because they're pretty much air tight also. So each one is controlled by a separate thermostat. It's a one-on-one situation. So the bedroom has the 6,000 on a one bedroom and the 9,000 is in a living room. And they're 22 inches high or just under 22 inches, 21.6 and 11 and a quarter deep and 31 and a half wide. So like I said before, it's kind of like a big suitcase and we're able to stack them. They don't have to be above one another. So we're kind of offsetting. So we'll have one in the front, one just above that, just behind it and then a third one just above that and behind that. So a one foot stand like that and three units above it is just about the height of a six foot vinyl fence. So it'll be pretty well screened and I think adding the shrubbery and sections of vinyl fence kind of gives a nice look to that whole interior area where the people can sit and relax. Like it says there, they're comparable as far as the DBA and the noise to your refrigerator. I mean, I'm sitting here and I can, refrigerators over there, I can hardly hear it running. So they are quiet. Next, on the parking front. Again, I did a lot of thinking on that and a lot of research and all that. I said before, pretty much what you read here. And then looking at it realistically, asking for the number of compact spaces here is only 5% more over the 50% that you're allowed in the bylaw. Anything is waivable. So that comes out to about two and a half compact spaces. And as I said before of the 239 vehicles I surveyed there, 72% of them were 15 feet, six inches or under, fit perfectly into any compact space. In this area, it has the direct access for transit. Towns got great sidewalks, great area for biking. And I was gonna approach valley bike. I don't know any area down here would be a good spot to have them add another rack of bikes for that valley bike rental thing. Something that I was gonna kind of pursue. And we are gonna do parking stickers. I talked with Vertex Property Management. They've done that in the past. And as I said before, I've got the parking stickers for Spruce Ridge next door just never had the reason to use them because we've always had less cars than spaces. And there is a plan if there is a problem in the future. And this is also on a building that we did last year if you remember the people around the board then. 18 months I think it says in the conditions that you can come back and look at the parking situation again and if we need more parking then we had like ghost parking on that plan which we did indicate the two spaces on the north of the parking area as part of that. Well, we also came up, I guess I came up with a plan that if it really comes down to having a problem we do have an area right in the front where the beach trees are and I have it on mine. Chris, I don't think you have the shadow parking or Mike, you must have that, right? I do, but I don't have it here with me at home. I have to try to access my computer at work and email it to myself if you want me to do that. If I can figure out how to share a screen, I don't know. But basically I think the deal was that John came up with a layout where the parking lot as John is calling it shadow parking would be parallel to Main Street between 446 and the Main Street sidewalk. So that would be what a net of six or seven spaces because we'd lose two of the spaces on the west side of that entry driveway where the handicap space is shown right below CEC2. We could only maintain two of those spaces and then we'd have to have an entry drive that went from east to west and served parking spaces that would be head in pointing at 446 and the south end of CEC2. We'd get a net of six spaces or something in that location but we'd be losing the beach tree. I mean, we can engineer it to work. We might need a little wall to hold it up because there'd be a changing grade from the sidewalk. So we thought about that, but obviously we stated at the very first hearing that we really like to maintain the green space that's at Main Street and Gray Street to the west of 446. Yeah, that would be a net of seven additional spaces. Okay, seven. And it would kick in a fourth handicap spot. The plan that you see on the screen now has the three handicap because it's below 50 spaces. If we end up adding the seven that would give us a total of 54. And we would just add the handicap space that is up in front of the new building we did last year back as a handicap because we took it off now because we added a handicap down in front of the new building in the sidewalk for the office areas down there. So just a possibility, it would be behind the front setback of 10 feet, well behind that, plenty of area between there and the travel lanes of Main Street. And while we're on that, the fourth parking space there we added down in the front of the area there. From that south edge of the parking spot right down on the entrance driveway, Chris. Now that spot there, from that spot right there to the travel lane white line starting is 29 feet. So there's plenty of room there for cars to approach Main Street, see what's coming up or down and exit safely. And again, there's 25 parking spaces available along the west side of Gray Street. And I'm a firm believer in less pavement, the better, not because of expense, but once it's there is there. And I think everything meets the guidelines that's the design standards that Mike looked at and everything. Next, this is that the parking data sheet that I had done, it is what it is, I guess. I did it three times, once in 20, found it for the other building and then twice this year. And the last one being May 3rd where I thought all the students would be here, getting ready for finals and all that. So I figured out what was a good time the last day of UMass classes to go through and anybody that was here to take exams certainly would have their car if they have a car. So these numbers I think are pretty representative. And the property of 22 High Street that I own, that's been proven for many years now that for 40 bedrooms, I've got 34 spaces there and it's always fluctuated between 23 and 27, 28 cars at the most. Christine actually lived there for eight years and maybe could attest to has there been any parking problems dealing with that ratio? So I think these numbers are pretty realistic. They are a good representation of what's out there today based on the car sizes and the number of cars that tenants actually have. And with the increase in gas prices and so forth, that stays where it is. I'm sure there'll be even fewer. So that's kind of what I based the numbers on. The two new things that I added there, Presidential 2 and Crestview up in North Amherst, they both have a bus stop right at their driveway. So I thought those would be more comparable than doing the three family or a four family in the area of Main Street that is probably rented to undergrads like Salem Place. I mentioned that before. People ran into a situation there, they bought them as condos and they went to resell them, couldn't sell them. So they were getting high rents for undergrads and that's not my thing to do. So I think these are pretty realistic and honest numbers. And I think the parking that we presented would be more than adequate. Next. So Chris brought up, in one of the findings, I think, why are we changing the lights? Well, it was a learning experience for me. The photo on a right was taken at the 9.52 p.m. from the onsite surveillance cameras, security cameras. And it shows the light on the north end of the parking lot, which would be off to the right between if just follow that aisle right up. No, right up to the north. And that light you can see shows halfway up the fence and halfway up the wall of the building. And I said, that's way too much light. These people got to sleep at night. So that's why I kind of went to a different style that I have at Spruce Ridge next door. And Christine, again, can probably say, is there enough light there at night time? Just having those font and post lights, like you see on the left side of the screen. Those are okay, Chris, Christine. And it's not a high use or high volume turnover where people are going through the parking lot all night long type things. So these lights, so they're right there. I have them set up now, so they dim to 20% at 11 p.m. And you really can't tell that much because they're LED. The guy had to be flown in from Indiana or Illinois to program these things. And he says, I said, well, drop them down to 50%. He says, 50% won't see any difference. So they do dim down just a little more bronze colored light at 11 p.m. But then the emergency lights that you see in front of the sidewalk there, those stay on dust to dawn and they're bright, as you can see. So only the bollard lights along the sidewalk and the big pole lights dim down to 20%. But you can see the ones on the left there that are lit up at night, that's actually at my house. I like the way they looked and they provide plenty of light. So that gives you an idea of the pattern of the light, of the actual lights. And I think I have a 75 watt LED bulb in those fixtures. And the one in the lower left are two of the lights actually at 22 High Street, just how they're spread out. Next. So what we did for the buildings, we do have that 20 foot separation between the main north wall of the existing and the new wall. And the only area is that eight by 22 foot area. This serves as the handicap entrance and bathroom. The front where the patio is there, again is 34 by about 30 feet, I think, up to the porches. That's all open. And then there's only that area of an open porch of five feet and the 18 foot wall. So really the 18 foot wall by 3.6 feet is like 72 square feet of space versus the 20. And that's assuming you folks feel that the 20 foot separation is probably where they should be only because that townhouse buildings could be three stories. And the townhouse by-law says they need to be at least 20 feet apart. And if these both lots were in the BN zone and I kept them separate, the old house was 4.9 feet off the property line. And I think if I read the zoning right, I could either have a zero setback, build on the property line or have 10 foot from there. So 14, 14.9 feet.  And it just makes for a nice setting for everybody there. And we add the back doors to all of the stairways except one. So there's only one unit that doesn't have direct access out of a back door down the stairs to that open area. John, do you have a site plan you could show us when you, to explain these things you're saying? Yep, there's one coming up. Great. So here, you know, we feel that it fits the neighborhood really well. And it's actually, I feel that's probably one of the only sites you're gonna find with mature landscaping on both frontages on the corner lot. So it allows for any new building there to be pretty well screened from pretty much all directions. I think we've met, you know, all the requirements of 11.24, I guess there was a question on the 3.2040, but looking at those, I think we kind of meet all of those also. The town engineer has approved them with some comments. He meets the building code, the fire separation of fire department, meets the setbacks and height requirements. And the master plan calls for infill, you know, in these areas, I think it's pretty clear with that. And when you do an infill, you have to blend existing buildings with other buildings that are maybe already on site. They're proposed rather. So I think we've done that pretty well here, blending the existing and the two new buildings. And I think if we had filed for a demo plan on 446 Main Street, that would have been very poorly received by the historical commission, but probably everybody in the neighborhood. So we're trying to, you know, make everybody happy and not change the environment on that street corner. Okay. Next, on that other slide, this shows the height of the building that was moved from Amherst College there. You follow that straight across the power lines, almost even with the top of those maple trees that will buffer this new proposed building. Thank you. So the master plan, I looked that over and, you know, part of that, the priority implementation of it, I mentioned several things in section two E. And if you read that, the following actions represent the initial priorities for implementation of this master plan for members of town boards and committees, elected and appointed town officials, town staff, town meeting, and all interested citizens. And one of those underneath that two E is sub paragraph four, and it said areas to be developed, the areas available and suitable for infill to redevelopment and or more intensive new development for housing, commercial activity, public facilities and infrastructure. So I think, you know, it really nails it on the head there. And Janet had done that survey about the number of businesses in the area. So, you know, we're fitting into the BN priority that was passed in 2013, you know, higher density housing and service areas. So there's a lot of services in the area and so forth. So I think, you know, we've done a decent job with meeting those goals. That's the video. Yeah, I think I've lost it for some reason. Yeah, Rachel did a video simulation of a car driving from Triangle Street, East on Main Street.  I think I'm just taking a moment to load. It's like slowly filling in. Look, I just said it couldn't load the YouTube player. Well, I have that on mind, but I don't want to mess things up here. Why don't we skip this for a minute and go through the rest of the deck and then we can pull up the YouTube separately. Yeah, one request from you folks was to see some of the trees with no leaves on them. So this is just a slide to kind of represent what that might look like. Bear in mind that the beach trees, the three in the front, those two and the one on a corner, they kind of maintain about half their leaves during the winter time. I've got some pictures of them doing the borings in February and it shows them pretty much the bottom half was pretty thick with brown leaves. And you can kind of see where the pollinator garden is there on a corner. So this is like a big overview and aerial shot shown where the site would be in the next one. So this is I think a good representation of what the site will look like and really kind of stands out the amount of green space that we have. We are under the 65% by about 4,300 square feet, I think, that we could add more paving or whatever and I don't see any need for it. I think this really blends well. It has a good traffic pattern, a good pedestrian walkway system and allows for a very adequate site maneuvering for everybody there. And the bus stop being right there on this property, the shelter itself is on this property and we're going to work on our neisman there. I think Tom has kind of pretty well drafted up and we'll work with Jason and get the details on that and file that along with the easements for the sewer and water on the other building. So it just shows, can you folks read that enough about the existing parking, the new parking and building numbers? Yeah, the text is legible, John. Yeah. John, if you, or Christine, if you go back to the previous overview slide, I mean, if you kind of look at this, the density of this proposed development versus what you see at John's High Street development, what you see across the street at the Bruno's commercial area, that's what I refer to it as, the cluster of houses at South Whitney and Main Street, to the bottom right, the commercial development that, I don't know, is that still a frame store on High Street and Main Street? Yeah, that whole complex there. Yeah, that and the residential behind it. I mean, and even the three residential houses on the west side of Gray Street, if you squint and look at this, it's a very similar density overall, if you were to take, what is the total part? It's like 2.2 something acres, John, of this piece, this land. That's one point. For 1.9 or something like that? Yeah, it's 52,131 square feet. I mean, even though these are residential in nature to the north and a lot of residential along Main Street, it's of a similar density and pattern of some of the clusters of development that have occurred along Main Street and the side streets going off of Main Street. So just kind of wanted you to be aware of that. It's not foreign. It's not something foreign that's being proposed by John. All right, thank you, John. Is that your presentation? Are there more slides? No, there are a couple more. So yeah, this is kind of a summary. I feel that we now have a great plan after implementing the comments and blending the existing historic mixed use with a much needed new housing that will have the three affordable units in there and more open space. I think everybody on site there will have plenty of area to choose to have a quiet time or whatever. And the patio in the front of the buildings are actually, I wanted to maintain that too. And so they're 50 plus feet off of Main Street where the 10 foot setback is only required off of Main Street for any building. And we do have that nice option that's beautiful mature trees already. It's not like Amherst media where they're planting two inch caliper trees that are gonna take 25 to 30 years to look like what you see on that picture. And we dealt with the HVAC units as best we could. We thought about an area of flat roof. It just doesn't work architecturally and insurance-wise they frown on third floor flat roofs. We added the little wildflower area and we meet all the requirements I think. And looking actually at the new mixed use bylaw we're only 962 square feet of office space short of the 30% of the total floor area on all three buildings. So even though we're under the old bylaw we're not too far off the 30% and most of the parking is in the rear as the new bylaw kind of wants to. So all in all, it's a very safe and efficient site for the tenants, for vehicles for trash recycling all that. And I just, I think it's a nice building with higher density and it's a mixed use building where it makes the most sense I think in any area of town at this point. Yeah, so the next one just kind of has all the other submittals and some renderings if you wanted to take a quick look through on. I'm hoping you'll show us the site plan cause I don't understand what you did with the mechanical units yet and some of the clearances that you went described earlier. Mike, do you have that site plan? Well, if we look at what's on the screen right now I can't use the pointer I guess, but if you look at- We'll blow that up Chris. We can, I can point to this one and where the HVAC units are or my answer- There are one, two, three, four there are five locations where the AC units are proposed. If we look at the new building to the west end closest to Gray Street there's a cluster, you see the gray rectangles that's, those are pads where the AC units will be proposed off four feet off of the pad you can kind of see a white line that's the fence that's being proposed. There's some shrubs to the north and south of that area it's not totally enclosed with fence so it's a little bit easier to get in there for access they're just shrubs at either end. If you follow down in a counterclockwise direction in the crook of the building, the L shape there's another pad right there with a short piece of white fence to the west so you wouldn't see that from the street or in and also further blocks in the view from some of the residential unit windows on the south side of that building. And again, there's a cluster of shrubs in front or on the south side of that pad. If you go down straight down there's another cluster there, two pads with AC units and again, the white fence there's shrubs on the south side there that more like a hedge that would continue across to the other side of that walk and enclose the patio area, which is right there. And if you continue around to the east side of the building, don't come back down yet right there there's another pad with AC units. Again, the white fence on the east side you can see a section there with shrubs again and closing the south end of that mechanical pad. And then finally, if you continue all the way around to where the bike rack is located right there is the fifth pad with AC units. And I don't know if you can see the fence, but... I can switch to a different... to a PDF if you want to zoom in. I believe there is a fence there just blends in with sidewalk. But that obviously that cluster of mechanical units is invisible from the public way but there's a fence on the north side of that pad. Thank you. And that's right next to the bicycle storage with no windows there and it's in a three foot setback and a building walls there. So it kind of fits in a little nook there. So all of these areas are well away from any tenant windows, stuff like that the ones on the west side. Since we moved the building east up in a northwest corner of the new building that's like 15.7 feet I think or something off the property line. So it's away from the trees better save the roots and all that. So I think all in all it makes a good layout for all of the mechanicals. Do we have the site plan to actually show for those are? We can, I guess they must be at the back they're the black and white plan set. If you want to look at some of the distances and dimensions they're labeled or the setbacks. I can also... Yeah. Down there or not on this light show there's a separate thing. Yeah, I can stop sharing this and pull up another drawing in the meantime. So all in all, that's the way we're looking at it. Again, just trying to blend old and new. And I think with any infill you kind of have to have a little give and take. And I think it just worked out pretty well with the way everything is laid out now and just makes for a nice development and I would look for your approval. So any questions? So board members, we're a little bit after eight o'clock we usually take a break right around eight o'clock. Would you like to do that now? Or would you like to continue the deliberation? Yeah, then we can get up that file maybe so you can have a better look at that. Okay, well then why don't we do that? We'll take a five minute break. Everybody can turn off your camera and mute your microphone and we'll be back at... I have 8.13 now so we'll try 8.18 or at the worst 8.20, thank you. You were off for like five minutes. All right, the time is 8.18 and any folks who are back can turn their cameras back on so that we can get a sense of whether we're waiting for anyone to return. Christine, were you able to bring up the video? I do have it. All right, so once we've got everyone back looks like we've still got Johanna to return. Okay, so why don't you cue it up? And John, you are muted as in case you intended to say something to us. It's seriously thinking about code. Still. Still. I just ran it while we were on break without an issue. So, this is Murphy's block. I was thinking maybe I could trick it. Oh, there we go. You did it. I tricked it. So you don't see it until you get to the intersection really. Then all the peaks, I think, you know match pretty well through there and just makes for a nice... Whether you're coming in a town or leaving town, it's like looking at any of the houses along Main Street or any other street. You see them for a little while. Pedestrians, I think, will have a good view. And looking up Gray Street, you know, all the mature trees and everything all the way up Gray Street kind of blends in with the backdrop of all the houses and roof lines along there. Okay, great. Thank you, John, and thank you, Christine. Then we have, I think, the site plan up too to show the locations of the AC better. It's a little bit clearer, black and white, the ones that we were looking at, the shrubs and the fence lines. Can you expand that and make it bigger? I can make it bigger. You just have to move all of you first. The ones on the west that we talked about, the ones in the crook, the ones on the side, and this dot is the fence, and these are the shrubs, the patio as described, the fence, the shrubs, another chemical pad there, and then the last one. Yeah, and these units don't need a lot of clearance. From the back of the unit to a building wall, they only need three inches for air circulation. And I think they need 18 inches from where it's blowing out the front of the unit to any obstruction. So that's why the fences are placed about two feet apart. And it makes for service work also. And as you can see on this slide, it's 15.2 feet off the property line. And I think when we started, it was 10.7 feet. And that's why I met with Alan Snow about the best way to deal with the trees there and save the roots and all that. So now they're pretty well protected. Just makes for a nice layout. Those back doors, you can see, that's why I put those units in the corner. The two exit doors for the stairwells there to kind of tucked in there against the mechanical room and right in the corner, interior corner of the building. In the crook. Right there. Yeah, so we got the two exit doors. And again, those serve all of the apartments and those two blocks will have access to the patio area and the green space there. And I actually moved, we had four hemlocks along the corners of the existing and new building. And I said, well, let's put them out against the property line there to better screen that space there. So tenants will have a better private area there and look better from the street. Okay. Is that everything? Yeah, I think so. All right. Thank you very much. So board members and who'd like to go first? I know several of you missed the last meeting. I'll have some comments that I'll make at some point. Andrew. Thanks Doug and thanks everyone for the presentation. I've got no issues with the massing. I thought like the way you did the rendering actually was useful to see. I think for some folks who might not appreciate what the Amherst meeting is doing to that, I think it's clear to me that this is not going to be an overwhelming out of scale building. So totally comfortable with that. I didn't want to comment though on something I heard from the Zoom last week on the rear parking. There's comment about one way entrance and two way entrance. And I think someone said that the exit on Gray Street is wider than it needs to be for a one way. And the reason why I ask that is the only thing that gives me really sort of heartache it's not even the number of spaces. I think actually this is a good project to lean in with a small number of spaces but to have 20 of them be subcompact to me seems a little ridiculous. And I'm wondering if there's like two extra feet of exit and I thought there may have been a comment to that effect like we needed 14 and they're 16. Could you just make that a true one way exit and pull your spaces back into the parking field a little bit more and convert at least some of those from subcompact to compact even if it means losing a space or two. I think like the subcompact to me is going to be a parking issue. I'll let John consider that but one of the reasons we kept it at 16 was just and it's true you can make it a little narrower for one way with angled spaces because it's easier to maneuver and back out but John might know a little bit more about access for fire trucks. Potentially that's a way for a fire truck to pull in from the Gray Street side but my personal feeling is that they would probably not pull in and stage themselves so close to a burning building. They probably stage on Gray Street but as John might want to comment on that. Well, I think yeah, that's part of it but the other part is in between the actual parking spaces at 16 feet. So I don't think we want to kind of channel that down anymore and again, we're only talking about two and a half spaces over the 50% that could be allowed in the bylaw and again, you do have the option of waving any part of the bylaw. If it comes down to brass tacks, we can make those three southwest spaces two feet deeper. They're far enough away from the building and we can move them one foot west and then on the east end of the parking lot, create two more feet there. So we have, then we get down to the 50%, a little under the 50% but to me with the amount of vehicles out on a road they're in the actual sizes of the vehicles that are in use today. Small SUVs, compact cars, the mid-sized cars are 15 foot, six inches or less. So I think it really serves the population of cars that are out there and having that couple extra compact spaces if it's a big issue, yes, we can deal with it and get it back down to the 50% but I don't think it's really worth it. I think having a couple more parking spaces compact. And I'm not even thinking about the ratio. It's just more like the actual application.  I think it's actually more about the width. To me, it's more about the width than the depth where you pull in and you may not be able to open your door because somebody had, didn't do a good job parking. That's often my experience with those sub-compact, with the compact spots as well as with the angle which people aren't necessarily used to using. I think if you get a couple more in there, I think it would be worth it. Somebody comes in and parts an F-150 in that first spot, you're kind of screwed. And I know some people who aren't sub-compact will just go into those. Yeah. Well, I parked my F-150, it's a crew cab, not a crew cab, but an extended cab. I've parked that in the compact spaces over there and the other realistic point is, the realistic point is, when you have a truck like that or any bigger vehicle, I mean, one of the tenants at the building we did last year has a grand marquee, an old boat from Florida. And she pulls in and her tires are almost up to the curb in a compact space and if it's fine, they're still eight feet wide. And I think that car is 78 inches versus like an average of 72, but that's the other realistic thing is cars generally will pull up, not maybe hitting the curb, but so they're actually using less of the space than the 16 feet. But if you think that's a big issue, then we can make those three spaces, I think, full spaces. Do you see anything with that, Mike? Well, yeah, we might, we'd be... Could you pull up the plan, maybe, just so we can... I think I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, we'd be pushing it closer to that tree that we tried so hard to see. There's only another foot, I think we have room there. And then add two feet to the east side. We need, if we did two spaces, we'd have to push that curb two feet to the west closer to that maple tree. But I think we have the depth to add the two feet to make those 18 feet deep. Right. And still have the 16 foot aisle. Right. I'm saying add a foot to the west side and then move the rest of the spaces east. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, we could... Because they're at an angle anyway.  Yeah, we had an article circulate amongst the planning board that just talked about whether it's always appropriate to build kind of one to one or two to one or two to these fixed ratios. And it was a pretty thought-provoking article. I'd seen it a couple of weeks or two, I think, but I think that sort of helps corroborate my view that I think it's okay to lean in with fewer spaces here in total. But again, they got to be usable. And I think if we can get, squeeze a little bit more depth in some of these or squeeze a little bit more width or even if you pull out a spot, like to make them wider, I think I'd be amenable to doing something like that, going from whatever, 47 to 46 or something like that. I feel like it'll be difficult for people to use that on a regular basis as is. Okay, we can certainly look at that. I mean, I think it's doable to add two to three standard spaces. Just to convert what's there to standard, not to yeah. No, no, that's yeah, exact. That's what I meant. Sorry, John. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Maria. Thanks, Doug. And thanks to the team for the presentation. I just want to say, yeah, this is my last meeting. I'm so glad we're ending on this project because I feel like this was a whole different plan award when you brought your earlier project to the East. And I'm so glad that these two, through iterations with the planning board and the planning department and building department, I think it's really improved a lot. I mean, I like the latest change where you put the office all on the first in that front piece. So it really feels like it's addressing the street, the public, and I like the change you did with, well, this was from before in the last meeting, but just bringing down the scale of that front piece to match the, I mean, it really showed in the video how clearly it matches the context and the scale. I still have issue with how close it is on the north side of the existing, but you're doing the best you can with the space you have for this parcel. And I feel like this is like the perfect project for the zone it's in and for what you can do with the site. I think that you've done a lot of improvement through these sort of interactions with different boards. And so I really appreciate you listening and responding. And I think that point you brought up, I think it was you, John, who said that from your earlier project, you had this sort of condition of like the 18 months check-in on like how the parking's doing. So if there are still all these sort of worries about what you're proposing is gonna work, maybe we could add that. And it's also just good information for this board to have moving forward as far as, whether this ratio is working and whether the size of the parking spaces is working. So maybe, I don't know what I'm proposing, whether it's change the design or just leave the design as is and have that condition, but just sort of, I like that as a solution because it's kind of like, it's at the property owner's risk, right? They're the ones proposing this if it's a problem moving forward, whether it's from the abutters' complaints or the people who are using this property can't make it work. Then they realize, all right, we need to make something or we need to make an adjustment sometimes. So I like that, that 18 month thing and what was the other thing? I like the idea about maybe getting some valley bike racks there. The more you can promote, you know, other means of transportation, I think is a good overall thing to do anyways. So I like that idea, but, but yeah, I think that, you know, just, it's clear you've done a lot of work as far as, you're probably, didn't realize, John, that you would be such an expert on parking counts and patterns, but no, I think that it shows that you really do care about, you know, finding the best fit for this parcel for the town. And I think that, you know, putting housing first instead of parking makes a lot of sense, especially for this location. Maria, we just lost your video. Or are you, we lost your sound mid, mid, mid sound? Oh, sorry. I don't know when I kind of turned my monologue. That's just the last, just the last 10 months. Yeah, I know. I think that, you know, it's clear from the, sort of the video you showed and from the elevations that it really fits the scale of the site. There are some areas and corners that are tight and, you know, kind of not as good as maybe some other portions of the project, but overall, you know, I think it really is solving a lot of challenges that this parcel presented. And I think it's come a long way when it was started back in May. But I guess, yeah, if maybe we can do that, sort of the condition about, you know, a check-in with the parking, I think it's probably a good thing just because there were concerns. And also, yeah, it'd be good educationalized as far as having the board sort of aware of how parking is doing in the downtown and village centers. So, yeah, thanks again for all the effort. It was really neat to see this project evolve. Thank you. Thank you, Maria. I don't see other hands. I'll make my comments. I think it was slide five in your slide deck that had the image from Main Street looking slightly northeast. And that's kind of the image that for me is a real sticking point. And that's where it looks like the north wing of the building is really looming over the house. So I still have a problem with that. And I feel like the house is just getting overwhelmed. I appreciate all the views you've done. And I appreciate you're, you know, hearing me last time and doing the views from Main Street. But I'm still uncomfortable with that. I wish that wing was farther back, that the house had more breathing room. I'd actually sort of flip that wing of that building and the parking and put the parking between the house and the building.  But if I'm the outlier, so be it, I will say I would be much more comfortable getting a little more input. So I would really like to see the design review board look at this and even the local historic district commission look at this. So when we come to the point of making motions I am likely to request that we refer it to them for their opinions. And then- I have a question. Would you be comfortable with that building if it was 20 feet away wall to wall, like a townhouse zoning bylaw allows? 20 feet away from the street? No, 20 feet away from the existing building to the new wall. Well, and this is the north, south dimension? Yeah, the north wall, the eight by 22 foot area right now is 12.2 feet I think off of the new building wall. So is that your major concern there? Yeah, my major concern is the east west wing and how it looms over the house. Well, that eight by 22 foot area is not part of a historical review because it was added in 1980. So it doesn't meet the 50 year requirement. And I can apply for a demo of that, take the walls and a roof down, make that a slab for an entry, move the entry door, move the handicap bathroom to the inside, then you got your 20 feet. Oh, I see what you- See, I don't think- I think it's such a small point that, and to say you're looking at Main Street driving down, again, the Amherst media building has got an American elm tree planted on that northwest corner that eventually is gonna be big. So I think, I don't understand you're interpreting that as really a mess, I just don't get it. Really good, okay. So that's how I feel about it. All right. Those- So when we get to the findings and conditions, some of the by-law requires harmonious relationships between the buildings on the site, I have a hard time saying that that's a harmonious relationship. But it's on the north side that only the tenants are gonna see, unless you happen to walk up the sidewalk and stop and actually look at it. That's not the concern. You could remove that north piece of the existing house and that would not change my concern. Okay. Okay, other board members, Tom. Thanks everyone. Thanks for the presentations. You know, I'm in the same camp and I've been that way for a while with Doug and I think Janet somewhat. And the notion I think, John, of this quality of looming has a little bit to do with the clearance of space, right? The 20 feet or 12 feet. I think it's the scale of it vertically and it's proportion to the building in front of it. And I think that that's something we've had a problem with and it's visibility and there's no effort to break down that facade either. It just is a massive wall and the roofline is continuous. And I think that's where the presence of it as this kind of looming wall is something that I think is, it feels like it's confrontational with this smaller building that's in front of it. And I think that's the toning quality that it's giving. And I think that's why, and I'm someone who this would get referred to, thanks Doug, on the design review board. But it's something that I do have a concern about to whether this does, if this is harmonious with the building next to it based on its scale. But I mean, what I do think is impressive is how you've responded to all these other conditions. I think the front facade has had a huge improvement in changing the scale there. And I understand the sacrifices you have to make in square footage and room numbers to make that happen. And I applaud you for that. And I think there's a lot of juggling around. I think people do have concerns with parking unless in that camp, I think people will figure out where to put a car if they have one. I think you're close enough to downtown, but I think some effort to break that facade to make that not feel so, to not make that scale shift so dramatic in just a short amount of feet. I think that's something that I'd like to see looked at. And like I said, I think you've done a great job breaking down the facade in other places and changing scale and adding elements that do change the scale, but in that particular condition, I don't see that effort. If I may, just for a moment, pull up on Google Maps so that we could look up Grace Street and at the Tuttle Farms house that was relocated there and the way that that building sits with its mass thing. Because I think that this is similar. I think the difference in the roof heights is like 13 or 14 feet. Yeah, it'd be similar to that roof line going straight across, but again, all the trees are gonna be covering that roof pretty much. Those trees are almost as tall as the roof line itself. I mentioned them with, I put 10-foot pipes together and pushed them up along the trunk of the tree near like 34 feet. And I believe the highest peak is 41 feet. If I remember, Mike, or? I don't know that it's like that. Well, I'm pretty sure it's 41 feet on that West end. So if it's gonna take a year to build, those trees are gonna grow another two feet. So they're almost as high as the peak of the building. Though those are maple trees, which will probably reach 50 feet height, a 50-foot height, the red one in the photo there. Right. Yeah. But if you just, in your mind, keep this massing and scale, I'm gonna stop sharing this and then I'm gonna pull up the slide that we put together. We can remember where I put it. The other thing you're looking at is coming down Gray Street. You're looking at new building and new building and they match. You're looking at the same colors, the same three stories, et cetera. So, look at it from different angles and not just from that one angle. Yeah, Christine, I think for me, it's the large roof expanse that's behind the house and the height of that gable end. If the building were further back, it wouldn't be. But that's exactly what you see on that slide that she had before. That house as I was moved from Amherst College has a two-story and then the rest of that house is built up above it, almost exactly what you're looking at here on the other side of the street. Well, it's not actually the absolute elevation that I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the relative elevation to the house. All right. And that's, you know, if the building were farther back, you wouldn't have that close juxtaposition of the three-story pitched roof with the rather diminutive house. The house really feels tiny. Well, the peak on the front of that house, I believe is about 27, between 27 and 28 feet from finished grade. And again, I think we're looking at 41 feet because we have a wider building in the 712 pitch. Right. Are there other board members that would like to make a comment before we move to public comment, which I see one hand raised for? Maria. Yes, I'll just push one more idea, which is that, so if you look at it, I mean, I'm not an urban planner, but if I look at it in the context of a larger lens, from the public faces, it really responds well to context. I agree that, I mean, like I said, there are some portions of the project that just aren't quite as successful as others. And that is the one part, the sort of canyon you've created on the north side of the existing. But like the suggestions you've made, Doug, without drastically changing this project, and I would definitely not want the project to not happen or to make major sacrifices because of this one portion that's not necessarily the public space. It's something that the, of course I want everyone, even the people using the space to have the best experience, but that is the one sort of, not as ideal experience, I guess, when you walk through the site. And so if you weigh that to everything else, as far as like the accommodations they've made to maximize parking, to make the scale on the two streets matched opposite the buildings on Gray Street, the buildings across from on Main Street, I feel like those are the more critical elevations, not that it means I can get sloppy in other areas, but without a drastic change, you're not gonna change the scale of that space that dramatically. If you gain that, the extra feet you're saying, Doug, where if you push the parking back or decrease parking, it seems to me a little bit like a, is it worth that kind of sacrifice for that one experience in that slot, you know? So I'm kind of torn about that. Again, I feel like overall, the project has done a lot of amendments and edits to make it better and better, but to solve that one, that's almost, I don't want to say redesign, but it's a major design change. And so I'm a little wary about that. I mean, if it's something like just add some more fake dormers on the roof, that doesn't really resolve it either. It may visually, slightly from, when you're really far away from the project, when you're up close, you're never gonna see that roof. So if you're like way over by, maybe down by Bruno's looking at an angle and you catch that roof, you might see the dormers in the distance, but when you're on those two streets, you're kind of either passing quickly, if you're in a car, or the roofs are so high that you really won't catch that sort of experience. So unless you're walking through a canyon, yes, it will always feel looming. I feel like even if you added 10 feet, it will still feel looming. So yeah, I'm torn about it because I think this is a really reasonable project for the space that it has available. So I guess I'm just repeating myself, but I just wanna throw that out there that what we're trying to achieve may not be attainable without a drastic change. So. And any drastic change, just to remind you, any further reduction in units, we lose another three units, you lose an affordable unit. And really the only way to accomplish Doug, what you're, if I'm reading you right, is to lower that roof line or something, then you're losing units. And the economy of scale, you build up as much cheaper than building out. And that's the whole reason of three story, it just makes economical sense and it gives good space to the tenants versus a knee wall or something like that. It mimics the building that we did last year. Okay. All right, board members, I don't see any more hands at this time. So we'll go to public comment, Pam. A. Takun is the first hand that I see, Takun. So if you would please give us your name and your address. Hello. Hello. Pam, I think he left the attendees. I think he did too. Okay. We have Gabrielle. All right. Gabrielle. Name and address, please, Gabrielle. Hi, Gabrielle Gould. I'm speaking as the Executive Director of the Business Improvement District. I just would like to make a couple of points about this particular project. As we all know, we remain in a housing crisis in Amherst and building density in our downtown is an imperative goal for, I think all of us in the master plan, especially down on Main Street. We've got a lot of retail, some of our only remaining retail along Main Street. So the kind of density really helps those businesses stay. We have a business on Main Street that's considering a brick and mortar restaurant as well. And this would help them sort of strive to achieve that goal. I'd also like to just say that Roblesky seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a really remarkable landlord. His buildings have a lot of integrity. They're very, very well-tempt. And he is a scholar community member as well as a great member of the bid. The bid has full support behind this project. We're very excited about it. We love its proximity to the bus stops. I also live in the neighborhood. So as a resident, I can say that I drive by that property several times a day.  And I think that that is because it is within walking distance to town. And when you look at the cost of gas and used cars right now to have people be able to live in our downtown and not have to drive their cars or not have to own cars, I think it's going to be a really important thing to bring people to our community and into our downtown. I just wanted to say that I think it looks great. I've looked at all the elevations I've driven around. I even went up to the Dickinson Museum last week and took a look from there. And John, I think it's a great project and I really hope that it passes. We need the housing desperately and we need the density in order for economic development to thrive and for our downtown to remain and become more vibrant. Thank you. Thank you, Gabrielle. Okay, I don't see any more hands raised in the attendees. Mr. Grubowski, your hand. Mr. Marshall, excuse me. Dorothy Pan's hand has popped up. Okay, all right. So John, we'll hold on you and let Dorothy speak. And Dorothy, can you hear us? Yes, can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay, so I want to say that it's clear that a lot of thought has gone into this project. And I wasn't able to tell from some of the drawings, how much the public space was for the tenants. When I looked at one drawing and I saw the patio, it looked like a very small thing, but it was near a larger green area. So it just wasn't clear to me how much space the tenants could actually access. I am concerned that what's happening in that small area is getting denser and denser. We have the wonderful Dickinson houses. We have the Amherst Woman's Club. We have the former Boys and Girls Club. And then we have, as Mr. Roblesky mentioned several times, the possibility of the Amherst media building, which I don't personally think belongs in that space. And then we have the houses that are on Gray Street, which had been brought in as historical remnants. And so that's our historical downtown, a very, very important area for the finances and economic development of the town in terms of that's what people come from around the world to see. So I could see that there's been a lot of care and attention. I just would, just to say, if there's a way to put in a little bit more green space and perhaps to make it not quite so clouded and crowded, it looks as dense as what I would expect, say in a much bigger town, a town like a subway, kind of like parts of Queens. And seemed a little bit dense for Amherst, but I do want to applaud Mr. Roblesky's sincerity and his hard work on trying to make a plan that will work for him and the town of Amherst. But if there is a possibility of just putting a little bit more green space in there, I would really love that. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Or thank you, Dorothy. Let's see. So that was the last hand in our public attendees. John, do you want to say something? Yeah, just a couple of things, I guess. As far as the public comment and so forth, I mean, all the neighbors were notified of courses of butters. And part of the requirements was that I notify any existing tenants. So I did notify all 35 tenants by posting a notice in the common hallways, I think seven or eight days prior to the meeting with the meeting, the link and so forth on it. So everybody knows about it. And apparently there's not much public comment about it. And what Ms. Pam just said, we are maintaining that whole corner. I mean, I could have built up close to Main Street and got rid of all that green space, proposed to something like that. But that wasn't my intent. I think my intent was very sincere is you're driving into town, you're approaching a cultural district, a historic district. So leave that corner the way it is. We got a new building there that mimics the architecture style and so forth that blends in well. Then you look at the historic building next door and you go up Main Street, you're going to see Amherst media eventually and then you're into the view of the Hills House and so forth. I just think the intent and this plan the way it is has a lot of green space. It's got 4,300 square feet more that we could have covered that we're leaving as a green space and just that whole front corner, mature trees and green space and so forth and access to the bus stop, a sidewalk to Main Street. Just I think it makes sense. And I think that's what the town should be looking at coming into town. And you're going to look at other parcels probably down the road. If the RG district allows denser housing that you're going to run into the same situation and how do you weigh infill with existing buildings and new buildings? You got to kind of give a little bit somewhere, I think to make everything work and have a nice site design. And I think that's what I actually tried to do here. And I think it'll work pretty well. And I will guarantee it'll work pretty well as long as I'm alive. All right, thank you. Okay, so board members, I suggested I'd like to make a motion and I guess I'll go ahead and make that. If you're not in support of it, you can vote against it and make a motion to approve the project this evening. It's probably the alternative. So I will move that we refer this project to the design review board and to the local historic district commission for their opinions about the project. And that would involve, that would include continuing the hearing this evening. And I would look to Chris for a date certain on which to do that. So that's my motion. Does anybody want to second that or not? Tom? And if I second that, do we have discussion? Sure. Okay, I second. Okay, all right. So we do have a motion on the table. Anybody want to make a comment? Tom? Yeah, I mean, I'm curious, Doug, because I agree with you, I think it would be wise to take this step. I'm wondering what that's going to add to this process. Like what do you, what are your, like what kind of outcomes do you hope to get and approval from those groups? I mean, like I said, cause I'm on one of them, so I'm curious what's gonna happen as this gets passed on. So what are you hoping to hear back from those particular groups? Well, I guess, you know, if they come back and say, we're generally in support of this project, I will conclude that I'm an outlier that I'm overly sensitive to the adjacent masses of the building and, you know, we'll just go forward. If they come back and say, yeah, we think this is a really objectionable project, then I think we would need, you know, I would hope we would talk to Mr. Roblesky more about making more substantive changes. And I don't, you know, I had, that's what I would hope for. And the sense is that it wouldn't go to these, either of those two organizations or groups on its own, right? We would need a, we would need us. That's right, you know, we're not in a local historic district. So the local historic district commission doesn't have any jurisdiction or obligation to look at it. And it's not in the design review boards area. I simply thought of them because we have the option of applying the design review board criteria and who better to consider those criteria than the board itself. Okay, thank you. Okay, Mr. Roblesky, we'll get to you, Johanna, next. I'm sorry. Yeah, I understand you do have the power to, I'm not sure if you have the power to send this to the board or just to look at those standards according to 11.2420. It says within the BN district, et cetera, et cetera. If the board deems the proposal likely to have a significant impact on its surroundings, be permitted to use the design principles and standards set forth in the design thing. So I think you have to agree that for some reason that this has a significant impact on its surroundings. And I don't think you have to look at just that house. You had to look at the neighborhoods around these as I'm assuming that's what that means. And again, I kind of looked at those and I don't see any big issues with them, but to postpone this again to another committee, am I a financing in place? And I understand you probably don't care about that, but with today's interest rates and so forth, that would have a major, major impact. So, you know, please take that into account, read that section over, maybe Chris, rest up and you have a comment on that. That's the way I read it. You can go by those standards, but I'm not sure you can review, refer it to that committee. All right, thank you. Johanna. Thank you very much. I guess. Well, I understand Doug and Tom, the concerns about massing in relation to the existing house. It's not a huge concern for me. I think it's not, I don't think it, you know, it's not orders of magnitude in terms of jarring. The architecture is similar. And ultimately for me, the housing crisis in town is very real and it seems like John has engaged with that trade-off of massing versus housing and has decided to prioritize the number of units, which honestly is a conclusion that is consistent with what I think the town needs to be doing. And then I am concerned about just adding additional bureaucracy to a project that has been vetted by sending it to two other committees. So at this point, I would not be inclined to support your motion. Okay. All right. Let's see, I don't see any hands at all. Why don't, since we have the motion on the floor, why don't we go ahead and vote on that? And then I suspect we'll go on to another motion. So, Maria. No. Okay. Tom? No. Andrew? No. And Johanna? No. Okay. And I'm an I. So the motion fails. Does anybody have another motion? Or do we want to have more discussion before we move to the next motion? Johanna? I move to, I hope I don't screw this up, but approve the plans as proposed. Say they comply with section 11.24 and close the public hearing. Okay. Chris, does that meet the motion requirements that we're likely to have? I would encourage you to go through the findings that we've already prepared. I don't know if you all had a chance to look at them, but they were included in the packet. So rather than the blanket statement that we use for smaller projects, I think this project probably deserves to be looked at carefully with those findings. And then also consider the conditions, which haven't been reviewed yet. So I wondered if you wanted to review the conditions and the findings and then vote. Okay. So we, thank you. We have Johanna's motion on the floor. I think we should get a second. And then we can go ahead and go into the findings and conditions. Would anybody like to second that motion from Johanna to approve the project and close the hearing? Maria, I see your hand. Looks like you've slightly made it, Andrew. Second. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Chris or Pam, can one of you bring up the findings? That was in the packet, Chris. Is that correct? That's right. Yep. It's right after the town engineer's letter. May I also make a point that there are five of you here tonight. And the site plan review needs a majority of the five, which would be three. And the special permit, which you'll be considering later to extinguish the previous special permits requires a vote of five. So for this portion, the site plan review only requires a vote of three, affirmative. Do you want me to start reading these? I guess so. Okay. And if my voice fails, maybe Nate or Pam could take my place. So the board found under section 11.24, the zoning bylaw as follows. 11.2400, the project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning bylaw and the goals of the master plan. The project is requesting waivers from the requirements for the size of parking spaces to provide compact spaces in place of standard spaces for a certain percentage of parking spaces and is presenting the information to support an alternative ratio for the number of parking spaces. And I would pause after each one in case anybody has a comment. Maria. Should we do a similar condition like we did for the adjacent project where we asked, you know, if they can sort of give a update on how the parking's going? Did we do that for the first project? I think we did. I think we did. And that would be part of the conditions. So right now we're reviewing findings. So- Okay. All right, sorry. All right. So 11.2401, the town amenities and abutting properties will be protected through minimizing detrimental or offensive actions. The proposed use of the property, residential and office uses is unlikely to create detrimental or offensive actions. These uses are both allowed in the BN zoning district by site plan review. 11.2402, abutting properties will be protected from detrimental site characteristics resulting from the proposed use. Lights will be downcast and or shielded. 11.2403, provision of adequate recreational facilities, open space and amenities has been addressed because there is adequate space on the site for recreation. 40% of the site will be landscaped and drawings presented on June 15th, 2022 showed locations for proposed outdoor recreation and sitting locations. Do you want to change that to June 29th? We could accept that the actual plan was shown on the 15th and do you feel that you discussed it enough tonight? You could say both dates actually, June 15th and June 29th. Do you want to do that? Yeah, it feels to me like we got much more detailed information tonight than we did on the 15th. Okay, so we'll scratch that and put the 29th. All right. 11.2410, unique or important natural historic or scenic features will be protected. Previously demolished structures on the site were reviewed by the historical commission prior to demolition. 11.2411, the project provides adequate methods of refuse disposal as described in the management plan. Trash will be collected in an enclosed room at the rear of the new building and will be picked up by USA waste twice a week. Should we be referencing a specific hauler? Seems to me we ought to be just saying it will be picked up twice a week and removed reference to the hauler since that could change over time. Okay. 11.2412, the project will be connected to Towns Suer and Water. 11.2413, the proposed drainage system within an adjacent to the site will be adequate to handle the stormwater. A stormwater drainage report has been submitted. The town engineer submitted a letter of comment dated June 16th, 2022. It contains comments but no serious concerns about the stormwater drainage report. I think there was a comment about some inconsistency between a plan and what was written in the text, but essentially he agreed with the report. 11.2416, adjacent properties will be protected Oh, sorry, did I skip one? Yeah, 2414. I'm sorry. 11.2414, provision of adequate landscaping has been addressed. The project includes new plantings on site as well as preservation of some of the existing mature trees. 11.2415, the soil erosion control methods appear to be adequate to control soil erosion both during and after construction. The town engineer submitted a letter of comment dated June 16th, 2022. It does not contain comments or concerns about soil erosion control methods. 11.2416, adjacent properties will be protected by minimizing the intrusion of various nuisances. A construction logistics plan is required to be submitted prior to the issuance of the building permit. 11.2417, adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of lighting because a condition of the permit will require that exterior lighting be downcast and or shielded and not shine onto adjacent properties. 11.2418 is not applicable. The property is not located in the FPC flood prone conservancy zoning district. 11.2419 is not applicable. The property does not have wetlands on site or within 100 feet of the site. 11.2420 within the BLBVC, BN, COM, OP, LI and PRP districts and any residential zoning district for the project in question occurs within the boundaries of a National Historic Registered District. The permit granting authority shall if it deems the proposal likely to have a significant impact on its surroundings be permitted to use the design principles and standards set forth in sections 3.2040 and 3.2041, not one through nine to evaluate the design of the proposed architecture and landscape alterations. These principles and standards were included in your development application report and you've had an opportunity to review those. Would you like to review them now or do you want to just say that you've had an opportunity to look at them? I suspect we should just say that we've had an opportunity to review them. Okay. 11.2421, the development is reasonably consistent with respect to setbacks, placement of parking, landscaping and entrances and exits with surrounding buildings and development. The development complies with the dimensional requirements of the zoning bylaw. 11.2422, not applicable. There are no steep slopes, flood plains, scenic views, grade changes and wetlands onsite. 11.2423, there's more than one building on the site and the buildings relate harmoniously to each other and architectural style, site location and building exits and entrances. And the reason I highlighted this was because I think this was a subject of discussion during these meetings. I don't know if you wanna talk about that now or if you feel like you've talked about it enough already. I guess my sense is that the majority of the board is accepts the relationship of the two, of the buildings on the site and would support this statement. Are there any board members that would disagree with that? Okay. Okay, 11.2424, screening has been provided as appropriate via hedge along the Northern Property Line adjacent to the parking lot on 446 Main Street and via a white vinyl fence around the parking lot that currently serves for 62 Main Street. I would also add, since we've seen the drawings tonight that the screening has been added for the HVAC. The mechanical units, yeah. Okay, let's see, 11.2430, the site has been designed to provide for the convenience and safety of vehicular and pedestrian movement, both within the site and in relation to adjoining ways and properties. The parking lot has been carefully designed to allow backup and turning movements and pedestrian circulation. The portion of the parking lot that lies north of the new building is proposed to be one way. 11.2431, the existing curb cut on the property from Gray Street will be relocated and improved. The existing curb cut on the property from Main Street will be retained. 11.2432, the location and design of parking spaces, bicycle racks, drive aisles, loading areas and sidewalks has been provided in a safe and convenient manner. 11.2433 is not applicable. Provision for access to adjoining properties is not an issue here. 11.2434, where possible, driveways located in commercial and business districts shall be located opposite each other. The driveway into the property from Gray Street in the BN District will be approximately opposite the driveway on the opposite side of the street, at 14 Gray Street in the RG District. 11.2435 is not applicable. There are no joint access driveways needed between adjoining properties. 11.2436, the requirement for submittal with traffic impact statement will be waived. However, the applicant did submit a statement from Berkshire Design with estimated trip generation figures. And that may be something you wanna talk about. Do you wanna talk about that? Whether you wanna waive that traffic impact statement? Any board members have a comment on that? And the last one is 11.2437, that's not applicable because that relates to what is required in a traffic impact statement. And if you're not requiring one, then you wouldn't have to follow those requirements. Okay. So it sounds like these... Sounds like we're gonna waive them. Yeah. And those findings with those two notes are acceptable to most of you, to the majority of you. I think that is the case. Okay, I'm gonna go through the conditions then. And we can craft a condition if it's possible that I missed this when I was reviewing the previous decision. And I wonder if Nate might possibly be able to do some research to find the previous decision and find out what the wording of that condition was with regard to coming back in 18 months to review the parking. So I'm gonna make that request of Nate if he could do that from where he sits. So in terms of the conditions, general conditions, the first one is the development shall be built substantially in accordance with the plan submitted to the planning board and approved on whatever date they're approved on. And in substantial field changes may be approved by the building commissioner. Number two, the development shall be managed substantially in accordance with the management plan submitted to the planning board and approved on whatever date you approve it on. Number three, parking shall be managed substantially in accordance with the parking management plan submitted to the planning board and approved on whatever date. And Mr. Roblesky has submitted a couple of management plans, a couple of parking management plans. And so we would take the latest one and I would put that date in here as well. Number four, upon a change of ownership or if the property is no longer managed by John Roblesky or Vertex real estate, the new owner and our manager shall submit a new management plan to the planning board at a public meeting for its review and approval. The purpose of the meeting shall be for the board to determine whether conditions of the permit are being complied with and whether any modification to the site plan review approval or management plan is required. I guess I'm missing number five here. So the numbering will have to change but what is labeled here as number six, all exterior lighting shall be dark sky compliant, exterior lighting shall be downcast, shielded and shall not shine onto adjacent properties or streets. Number seven, the property shall be registered and permitted in accordance with the Amherst residential rental property bylaw. Loss or suspension of a rental permit shall constitute a violation of this condition. Number eight, changes to the project and or substantial changes to any approved site plans or to the exterior of the building's building shall be submitted to the planning board for its review and approval prior to the work taking place. The purpose of the submittal shall be for the planning board to approve the change and or to determine whether the changes are de minimis or significant enough to require modification of the special permit or site plan review approval. In this case, there wouldn't be a special permit so we would scratch that. As the special permit has to do with extinguishing previous special permits. Number nine, landscaping shall be installed in accordance with the landscape plan and once installed shall be continually maintained. All disturbed areas shall be loomed and seated unless otherwise specified. Number 10, one hard copy and one digital copy of the final revised plans shall be submitted to the planning department. Number 11, the office space shall be available to be rented by a member of the public and shall not be used solely as the management office for the proposed mixed use building. Again, we have a problem with numbering here. We're missing 12 and 13, but we'll fix that. And number 14 is listed as the applicant will investigate the installation of solar panels and install solar panels to determine. Yeah. Shouldn't we just investigate the installation of solar panels to determine if it's feasible? To determine if it's feasible. Yes. So we've got a phrase, an extra phrase in there. The applicant will investigate the installation. Hold on, hold on Chris, Andrew has his hand up. Oh yeah, no, just curious with this one, like what if it is feasible? What does that mean, what does it mean? Yeah, what's the point of this actually? I mean, if we fix the wording to just look into it, I mean, why would we require that, John? Yeah, the building I did last year, I oversized the system there. And my intent was to provide enough power to take care of all the common electrical expenses, you know, heat in the hallways, the mechanical room, the exterior lighting and so forth. So I have 94 solar panels on that building that I feel will take care of any additional lighting in this additional building, electrical load, also as far as the common areas. So there are 94 panels. So would you object to this condition? I don't, I wouldn't say object to it. But you're unlikely to ever put panels on this new building. No, I wouldn't say that. I guess I would have to look at it and see how much of a bill I have, you know, for all this additional stuff. And you know, you got to realize that the payback on those, like it cost us like 26 cents a kilowatt hour for all the electric in our homes when you average out all of the whole list of charges they have, take the last number and divide it by kilowatts. They allow, when you get these reserve renewable energy credits, REC, they pay you back at 10 point something cents a kilowatt hour. So, you know, it's gonna take a long time for it to pay for itself, but it is paying for the actual electric that's being used. So, so I guess I would look at it depending on wh