The appointed hour is 6.30 having been reached. I want to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. My name is Steve Judge. As chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals, I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on a link in the town web page. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40A and Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call of the regular members of the ZBA who have been in panel for consideration of items on tonight's agenda. Steve Judge, I'm here. Mr. Langsdale? Here. Ms. O'Meara? Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Maxfield? Here. Ms. Waldman? Here. Mr. Barrick? Mr. Greeny? Mr. Meadows? Here. Also in attendance is Maureen Pollock, planner with the town, Christine Brestrup, Planning Director, and Rob Mora Building Commissioner. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 40A of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning By-law is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the Board during the hearing after which the Board will ask questions for clarification or for additional information. After the Board has completed its questions, the Board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raise hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the Board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the Board. The Board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the Board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the Board feels it has enough information in time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the Board is distinct, evaluated on its own merit and the Board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the Board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file a decision. For a variance, the Board has 100 days from the date of the filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting Board members and is filed with the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20 day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body in superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, a public hearing on ZBA FY 2021-01, Harmsway LLC, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 48, Section 8 and 15, as well as Section 10.1 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, the petitioner is requesting an appeal of the building commissioner's advisory opinion regarding Section 6.6 and 3.330 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw. In an email correspondence dated July 1st, 2020, submitted to the Amherst Planning Director in relation to properties identified as map parcel 14B 250 and 14B 251. This is continued from September 3rd. ZBA 2021-03, Pioneer Property Services, requests a special permit to convert the existing detached garage to a residential unit, which will increase the number of residential units or converted dwellings from one to two under sections 3.324, 9.22 and 10.38 of the Zoning Bylaw, located at 275 East Pleasant Street, Map 11B, Parcel 63, Neighborhood Residential RN, Zoning District, and ZBA FY 2021-04, Greg Stutzman requests a special permit to allow a supplemental detached dwelling unit as an accessory to a one family detached dwelling under sections 5.0111 and 10.38 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, located at 1325 Southeast Street, Map 23D, Parcel 12, Outlying Residence RO, Zoning District. We will also have a general public comment period and any other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours. The first order of business is ZBA FY 2021-01, Armsway LLC. I'm accusing myself from this matter and Mr. Langsdale will be the acting chair. Alternate members, Ms. Waldman and Mr. Meadows, will sit on the panel. Mr. Langsdale, you have the chair. Thank you. So for this application, we have submissions from the applicants, notice of appeal of interpretation of building commissioner prepared by Daniel J. Finnegan of the Bulkley Richardson attorneys at law dated July 29th, 2020. We have an email correspondence from the building commissioner, Rob Mora to planning director, Christine Brestrup subject, Amherst Media sent July 1st, 2020. We have email correspondence from planning director, Christine Brestrup to Bucky Sparkle PE of the Zenegear at all subject, Amherst Media setback issue sent July 10th, 2020. We have submissions from the town of Amherst. We have one project application report dated September 30th, 2020. Email correspondence from attorney, attorney, Joel Bard to planning director, Christine Brestrup at all subject, Amherst Planning Board, Amherst Media setback issue sent August 2nd, 2020. We have email correspondence from attorney, Joel Bard to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject regarding ZBA FY 2021-01 Armsway LLC sent August 28th, 2020. We have an aerial map, map 14B parcels 250 and 251. We have planning board SPR 2020-11 approved site plan planning board SPR 2020-11 approved landscape plan. We have then submissions from the attorney, Michael Pill representing Amherst Media, LLC. We have an email correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC scheduled for public hearing September 3rd, 2020. Legal memo to Amherst zoning board sent August 18th, 2020. We have an email attachment correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill subject regarding ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC scheduled for public hearing on September 3rd, 2020 dated August 18th, 2020. Then we have email to and the two attachments email correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC schedule for public hearing September 3rd, 2020 article in today mass lawyer's weekly newspaper sent August 18th, 2020. Then we have the email attachment Henry W. Comstock Jr. trustee one and another two versus zoning board of appeals of Gloucester and others. And then finally a variance not needed to exceed height requirement, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly dated August 13th, 2020. We have also today from today an email from attorney Finnegan that was sent to Maureen Pollock at 1.58 p.m. today, August 1st. We have also an email from the attorney Michael Pill sent also to Ms. Pollock today at 3.23 on October 1st, 2020. So now is there anyone representing Armsway? Yes, good evening members of the board. Stephen Holstrum representing Armsway LLC. All right. Would you like to present your application? Certainly, thank you. I don't really need to belabor the point. I don't think essentially my client has informed me that they would like to withdraw this application. All right. So then the board we need to make a motion to accept the withdrawal of the application for the ZBA 2020-21. I move to accept the withdrawal. All right. Is there a second? Second. Okay. So now we have to go, of course. I'm Keith Langsdale, acting chair. I vote I, Ms. Parks. I. Mr. Maxfield. I. Ms. Waldman. I.  So that's a unanimous five out of five. So the board then has voted to accept the withdrawal of this application. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Langsdale. The second item on the agenda is ZBA FY 2021-03 pioneer property services LLC, requesting a special permit to convert the existing detached garage to a residential unit, which will increase the number of residential units converted dwellings from one to two under sections 3.324, 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaws located at 275 East Pleasant Street, Map 11B, Parcel 63, Neighborhood Residence, RN Zoning District. Alternative member, Mr. Meadows will serve on this panel. Are there any disclosures? I was unable to attend the site visit with the other board members, but I did visit the property yesterday afternoon. Is there somebody who'd like to summarize the site visit any of the board members? Who attended the site visit? Yeah, I'll, we met with the applicant and he showed us the area in front of the garage where the concrete is to be taken up and a new curb is to be put in. The, where is concrete parking now will become grass. Then there will be a new cut in the curb to the east of the one that's in now so that they can build the driveway to the back of the property where they're going to make the parking area. We walked around the barn down through that area and he showed us, he specified different places where doors would be put in, where there's a proposed 20 foot deck. Then we went on around the barn, I mean the garage and he pointed out one of the lights that is on the house that is existing now. And we talked somewhat about what kind of lighting will be put there. We then went around to the front again and he had pointed out the trees and shrubs and such on the property. There were some questions asked about the size of the garage and the layout that would happen there. I can't remember others at the moment. Has anybody else, any other members can remember questions? We also looked at where the proposed parking would be and looked at the space below that the owner may use for storage and I think we discussed that the attic will have utilities in it. It won't be a living space and there will be a walkway that goes from the parking area into the center of, so there's a near the entryway of both of the structures. Ms. Maxwell, anything else you wanted to add? Yeah, that was most of it. I guess the last thing I would just say as well that I remember from that was, the staircase in the basement area that goes up to the first floor that that staircase will be removed and ultimately the floor expanded was what we were told would just go and be done. I guess that pretty much comports with what I, my experience at the site visit. We received the following submissions. The special permit application, Darling Park's management plan, a project summary. For the existing building, we received exterior building photographs and the floor plan of the existing one family detached dwelling. For the existing detached garage. We've received exterior billing photographs of the existing detached garage interior building photographs of the existing detached garage floor plan of the existing detached garage. Unit 275B converted from the existing garage. The floor plan of that, the basement plan for the proposed converted dwelling. Exterior elevations, north, east, south, and west. A site plan. Exterior lighting fixtures for both the entrance lighting and a parking lot and pathway lighting. We've received a parking lot, a mock up of parking lot signs for 275A and 275B. We've received photographs of the trash recycling area, a lease agreement, a complaint response form, and interior building photographs of the existing one family detached dwelling. Staff submissions have, there's a project application report that we're working off of tonight, and there's comments from the Amherst Health Inspector, the building inspector, Edmund Smith, dated September 10th, 2020. We've also received five public comment submissions, a comment from Mr. Bruce Carson, dated September 22nd, 2020. Comments from Mr. Bruce Carson, dated September 30th, 2020. Comments from Jonathan Holton Cohen, dated September 30th, 2020. Comments from Ray LaRaja, dated September 30th, 2020. And comments from Richard Rosnoy, dated September 30th, 2020. Those are the submissions to the, and the documents that we have regarding this application. Does the applicant wish to speak regarding the application? Mr. Chair, I do not see the applicant in attendance. If for some reason I'm just not able to see you in the list of attendees, please use the raise your hand feature, or if you're calling in, please press star nine. So Jennifer Mendelson has her hand up. Okay. Jen, can you hear us? Okay, here we go, okay. Wow, you had his nervous there. Sorry, I just saw Jennifer and I didn't think much of that. Okay, sorry about that. All right. Is it okay to, we can speak now? Yeah, please identify yourself for the record. Okay, I'm Neil Mendelson, and this is Jennifer. And I'm Jennifer Mendelson. And I want to first open by just thanking the planning department, the zoning board, and our neighbors for considering our application for a special permit to convert the garage at 275 East Pleasant into a three bedroom, one bath rental unit. My wife, Jen and I live on Gray Street in Amherst, which is about a mile from this property. We have a small business, Pioneer Property Services, which specializes in property maintenance, remodeling, and property rentals. I work at our business full-time and Jen works full-time too, but also works at Hopkins Academy in Hadley. In 2019, we purchased 275 East Pleasant and made significant improvements to the grounds and the existing farmhouse. The lot in the house were badly neglected when we bought it, but we did a lot of things. We remodeled it, we got a permit, round permit with the town and all the appropriate building permits to change it from a two bedroom to a three bedroom house. If the board grants us permission to pursue this project, we pledge to the town and our neighbors to do everything in our power to keep the grounds and buildings in very good condition and in harmony with the neighborhood and to select responsible tenants. We feel the movement of the parking area to the rear of the property and restoration of the front of the garage to lawn will be particularly beneficial as the existing parking area is very close to the sidewalk. Under our site plan, the sidewalk and curb in front of the garage would be restored and only a 15 foot driveway cut would be needed to the left of the garage. The parking lot would allow drivers to pull directly forward onto the street instead of backing up as they do now. So I feel like the parking area would be a good thing regardless of if this is approved or not, something we want to do just to make it safer. Our goal is to not only construct a very nice rental unit inside, but also to give the building good curb appeal. I plan to put four-inch white trim boards around all doors and windows and I would freshen up the clabbered siding, put a nice front stoop and a nice grass front yard. The grade of the area in front of the garage would be changed from slope to flat and consistent with the yard surrounding the farmhouse and the patio. Before I go through our application, I would just like to say that Jen and I take a lot of pride in what we do. We are very engaged with our tenants and enjoy providing quality housing and good customer service. We would assume all responsibilities associated with the maintenance and rental of both units on the property. Although there would be an appointed resident manager, we would respond immediately to any issues as soon as they are brought to our attention. We know there are impacts and concerns and we want to work cooperatively with the town and our neighbors if we are given this opportunity. And I'm reading this, but I truly mean this. I mean, we're willing to give our numbers to all our neighbors in the area and it's a pleasure for me to respond. This is what I do. I love property maintenance and management and I like to solve problems and be responsive. And so I did get, I know there was a lot of comments received like today or within a couple of days. And I have looked at them and I take them to heart. And I mean, we live right like 50 feet from a rental property. There's rental properties on our street everywhere on Gray Street too. And so I, we understand. I mean, I understand how neighbors may not be thrilled about it, but I think in the grand scheme of things, we're only asking for six bedrooms and two baths. I mean, on the whole entire property. So some of the comments I saw were like, we're asking for six units or something. And I just want to set the record straight that what we're asking to add one additional small rental unit that we would make very nice. And I don't know, but that would definitely take pride in selecting responsible tenants and ensuring that they're abiding by all the town rules and regulations at the rental properties. And the parking, we could have asked for four. We feel that three parking spaces per unit would be reasonable. So now I'd like to go to the application itself. So we're share a screen. Yeah, the application first. And can everybody see that? Or no. Nothing yet. Not yet. Okay. So in the center, in the bottom of your screen, there you go. There we go. Got it. Okay. All right, so. So maybe start with the site plan. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, so we can go directly. So we don't need to go line by line through the application. No. Okay. All right. So let's just go, we're going to close this and open up the, okay. All right, so I'll start up where the existing house is. My mouse isn't working too good here, but there's pavers going up to the house. The trash receptacles, which I had pointed out, there will be another partition to separate the trash that won't be seen from the street. I built, yeah. So I built an existing partition to give privacy to the patio area that's connected to the front unit. And I plan to make something similar to shield the trash totes. The area in front of the garage, that's where it's sloped now, but it will be at least like eight inches below the slab of the garage. And then it will be seated. There's a asphalt path proposed from the driveway to the front door. The sidewalk and the curb will be restored in front of the garage. And then a new curb cut will be done. And also, this reminds me that I had spoke to the town, public works, Jason's skills about the parking. We first bought the house, because I had proposed to put the parking on East Pleasant since the address is 275 East Pleasant. At that time, Jason told me that that would be not good because of the intersection. And to have a curb cut that close to an intersection would be unsafe. And he suggested that we put the parking where we have it now. So that's why we had proposed this area. And because of the Arborvite that screened the parking area. So as you can see, also the deck will be off the back. That's the second entrance to the dwelling. And their stairs going down to the driveway. So there will be those two access points from the parking area to the new unit. And we would like, we had initially started with two spots for the front unit and two for the 275 B. But we feel like three and three would be probably the best setup. And then if we could have flexibility to change based on how many tenants are in each unit. And so I would have my parking signs like I have in my plan. But I would maybe have magnetic numbers so I could change out the designation for the parking spots. We do have an area for snow plow, excess snow at the rear of the lot. So it would be pushed straight down. The 20 foot separation there between the parking spaces would be ideal for backing out. So they pull straight into the parking area. And then they can back up and back towards the rear of the lot and then straight out to the street. There is also an asphalt path that goes from the parking lot up to the house, that the existing house that would be accessed by the patio. And all this development would not need. We would not need to alter like every tree that's on the lot stays. It's only grading of the area for the parking area. And like I say, we did keep it to three to six. And we didn't, I think, which I think is reasonable. The lights also are shown on the site plan. So there's a legend on here that shows the flood lights are on the corners of the, no, those are the signs, but on the corners of the unit are these motion sensing night sky compliant lights. And then the entrance is where we will make all the lights the same on both properties. And the barn lights are going to be at the entrance doors. So there would be barn light here, barn light there, and then these two. And so we feel that the pathways and entrances will be adequately lighted, but they won't. They'll be downcast and night sky compliant and everything and should not be a nuisance or anything. And does anybody have any questions about the site plan? I have one quick question. What's the grade between the end of the parking, proposed parking lot and the boundary, your property boundary, off to the, I guess that's the south? Yeah. What's the grade there? Your cursor is showing what I'm interested in. Yeah. I didn't see it on any of the maps. Does the town, does the town map have? Oh, yeah, there's a topography overlay that we could run it with or we could put on there. But it does slope. It does slope down. It's not, I wouldn't say it's steep, but I would say it drops maybe five or six feet from there. We don't have to spend a lot of time on that. We don't have one right now, but we should get one from the town. We may want to. OK. We probably want to know what that is. We are proposing asphalt on the driveway. I think that's on there. Can I ask a question? Yes, Ms. Parks. So the parking area is going to have asphalt on it or concrete or what's the medium for the parking? Asphalt. OK. And then you were saying that people could pull into the space and then pull out and back into like where you have the first excess snow pile. Is there going to be any kind of asphalt there or would they be backing onto grass to turn around? Yeah, that would be grass. But I was thinking putting maybe it would be good to put gravel or some. We just wanted to keep the paving at a minimum. But this is why I don't think I'll bring it up. Yeah, it would just be for the end for the end to spots would be backing into that area. But these would have room to back up and pull forward. OK. OK. Should we go maybe to the floor plan? Is that? Could we? Excuse me. Go ahead, Mr. Lineskill. Couple of questions. First of all, on the lighting, the barn lights over the entrances, are those motion sensitive? Yes, I would put those on, yes. OK, yes. The floods, are they dark sky compliant? Yes, I did make sure when I specced those out, they are. And at what height will they be affixed? Yeah, they will be all on the first floors at the top plate. So it's like eighth foot on the building. OK, except for the one on the house, the present house, that one's up near the gable. And that's the one you showed us. And that's, I don't know exactly how high it is. It could be 18 feet high off the ground. Right. So I'm concerned about that as a flood light, as flood lights. And so all of these lights are motion sensitive, right? Right, now the ones that are on the existing house now are not motion sensitive, except for the front. The front one is. The other two that are on there now are switched. So I would change those. Right. OK, we'd make that a condition, certainly. But I'm concerned about the height of this one on the house, their flood lights. And putting them up that high on a building, is there another place to put them on the building that does not exceed the present location of the light that's there? Right, yeah. I think actually we could remove that one and then do a light post by the stairway up onto the patio. And this area would accomplish the same thing. Because that's why I was thinking that that light would illuminate the pathway to the stair up onto the concrete. So I could put just a post, a lamp post there. OK. And take that, remove the other one. OK. And that then could be one of the barn light type. Yes. Light. Yeah. Instead of a flood light. OK. Now the other question I have is from that comes from one of the butters, their response, is you've said that you were told that a curb cut up on Southeast Street would be too close to the intersection for safety reasons. Is that correct? That's correct. OK. So I was but for the parking lot, but would there be a place that you could bring the driveway from Southeast down to the parking area rather than on Strong Street? I mean, that was one of the concerns of one of your neighbors is that the proposed entrance to the parking area would have cars coming and going across when there are children because of Wildwood School. And my daughter went there. I know what that's like with the kids walking and everything. In terms of that, in terms of you thinking about that, and I guess partly an answer for me to the butters is where the parking exists right now, you have three cars there. And they're literally almost back onto the sidewalk. And how would your proposed driveway be more dangerous than the existing parking? I agree. I agree strongly with that. Ever since we bought it, that parking bothered me. And I have wanted to get it away. Right on the sidewalk. Now, the only thing I would say for me that I would say about that is you have cars coming out of the parking lot up to enter on Strong Street, either direction. I guess part of the question is if children are walking along that street and somebody comes up the driveway towards Strong Street, if they don't stop, it then creates a problem, a dangerous problem, if there are kids who are just stepping into that area. As opposed to the existing parking, to back out of there, you're just starting to move. And you have to look and to back out for traffic as well as for pedestrian as well as street traffic. So would there be something that you could do at the head of the driveway so that whoever's coming out of there has to stop and make sure they stop, look both ways, as we always were taught, and then move on? I guess that's the only difference that I can see in terms of the danger of what you have as opposed to what you're proposing. Yes, I guess on your first point about the driving off of East Pleasant, if we made a path to the driveway or to the parking area, it's extremely close to the house. The site plan actually doesn't show it that well because the Arbor Vitey, if you remember any of the board members remember from the site visit, they're pretty close. It would be like you could barely drive a car between the Arbor Viteys and the house. And then it's making this the turn by that large maple right here and there's a roots all around the stairs up on the patio. So I think if anything, it would be the parking would need to be in the front yard of the property on the East Pleasant side. And like I say, that's what we proposed when we first got the property and we're told that wouldn't that would not be approved. All right. And then, oh, and then yes, so that's a good point on the pulling out with children in the area and pedestrians. And, you know, we could put a stop sign at the top of where it pulls out. And we could also, you know, I would definitely advise all the tenants and I could even put that in the lease and, you know, highlight it. And yeah, I'm willing to do what I- I think for me, I think that would be a good idea to put it into the lease only because you're gonna have, at least you're gonna have six people in, with six cars who don't know that area particularly and maybe over time they get to know it. But the fact that kids are walking by that not at the moment, of course, but hopefully sometime in the future, in the near future, that's a very heavily traveled path for kids. In fact, there's on the corner strong in East Pleasant, there's a crossing guard, isn't there? Yes. During the year. So it's a heavily traveled, it's that heavily traveled that traffic that I'm concerned with when they come back to school. So that if something like a stop sign would be good, if you could also make that part of the lease agreement so that people who move in understand immediately what the possible problems are. Right. I mean, for me that, I think that would be a good idea. Yeah, even with the current tenants that we have, I give them a printed map of the sidewalk and where they cannot be parking and that there is a school nearby. Right. And for them to be aware of that, definitely. We can make something like that part of the conditions. Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Mendelsohn. Oh, Mr. Maxfield. Yeah, I guess, I think we're pretty much given everyone has that concern of children crossing right there. Cause I know it's also kind of an incline, so people are gonna be coming up a hill to that sidewalk. So I definitely like the idea of some type of stop sign, maybe some type of rounded mirror so people can see farther if there's any obstruction from the house. Even just a careful of children walking sign. But I know at the bottom, we were saying that section just off, if we're looking at the map just to the left where people would be backing into, I'd suggest maybe putting pavers in there, the type of things that you can go on but grass can still grow in between them if you wanted to extend that parking lot. Cause I would like to see it mandated that cause they know anyone who'd be parking in 275A or 275B, those spots at the back, if they don't have that area to back out, they might attempt to back out. And I definitely like to see anybody leaving that parking lot would have to be leaving forward rather than backwards. So kind of ensuring that that's in there as well, that anyone knows they have to pull forward out of that lot. Yeah, all good stuff. I like it. All right, and you'd be amenable to a condition requiring some kind of additional area in the parking to facilitate backing up. Is that right? Okay. All right. Why don't you continue on your presentation on your application? Yeah, another thing came to mind also when we're discussing the public comments and our neighbors to the east, the larges and their, the headlights that may shine into their house. And I would propose, I'm happy to put a tall fence that would actually block. So the arbor vitis aren't good enough. Then there's another solid wood fence or some way to block the headlights completely from going over that way. So I'll just offer that. And what else? You asked, while you're thinking that, you asked for two waivers. If I'm right, one is the you had two waivers that you were looking for. One is landscaping and then a sign plan waivers. Is that correct? You didn't come up with a landscaping plan and you've asked for a waiver from the requirement for a landscaping plan. And also the sign plan, can you explain that? Yeah, I just, because of what we've gone over with the existing landscaping and the signs, I guess it's just since it's a smaller project. So the only changes you're going to make, if I could maybe a better way to say this, the only changes you're going to make is in that little front sec landscaping changes aside from the parking lot.  You're going to remove the asphalt and plant something there, put green space there. And then on the side, and everything else stays the same. I can't hear you, Mr. Mendelson. Right, yes. Yes, everything that's on there, on the map, on the site plan is what we're proposing and what you just said is accurate. And then on the signs, you would have six signs that are 12 by 24 for parking. Is that, that's kind of big. It almost seems, that's a large, that seems commercial to me, but more so than what you'd see in a normal residential place. Maybe you can talk to me about why you chose something so large if there's a reason for that. Yeah, I guess I was just like looking at a piece of, I said 12 by 24 on one and then I said 12 by 18 on another. I was just looking at like an 11 by 17. I just pulled it out of my, I'll make it smaller, right? Yeah, smaller would be better, I guess, too. I mean, but like nine, like 10. You can suggest something. I think that's, it just seemed large to me and it just adds sort of a commercial look to a residential neighborhood. Yeah, I agree. So let's look for a smaller sign that would be, you know, I don't know what signs are less than 11 by seven, something like that. How does that work? Matt may have to find something. All right. Okay. Yep. It's my understanding that you're intending to use the basement for a workspace and storage for your business, correct? Yes, that's correct. Which would lead me to believe that the trucker van that you use for your property management business would, of necessity, probably have to go down into the parking area while you're in the basement working. Is that correct? Correct. Are you intending to reserve one of those parking spaces for yourself so that, I know that we see a lot of other applications that have less than one parking space per bedroom, which is what you essentially have got here. And if you're intending to use a parking space for your own use, which would be logical, are you expecting then to reserve one of those spaces for yourself and only have five spaces for tenants? Well, you bring up a good point and I would be willing to do that, to take away one tenant to get me one parking space. Because if I use, right now I use the garage as my shop, I'm in and out of there a lot. I'm sure all the neighbors would agree with that statement. And so I would agree to a condition where I give two to the front unit and I take one and then three for the other unit. And I would like the idea of making magnetic signs so that we could change up the parking spaces as needed based on the tendency. I think if you limit it for our purposes, if you limit five and one, five for your renters and one for you, and then in each of the leases you decide where who gets two and who gets three, that's fine with us. I think that would be fine. You don't have to designate that in perpetuity right now. But if you're doing five and one, that makes sense to put that either as a condition or some other kind of, as a condition, you should do it as a condition. All right, anything else that you wanna describe to us? Mr. Mendelson. No, I think we covered that pretty good. I know that the Marine said that she had the topographical, she texted me as she got the topographical map for the property. Is that right? Can you, do we know what that slope is behind the parking lot, Maureen? Sure, just bear with me for one second. Okay, so this is East Pleasant Street and this is Strong Street to give you a reference. I think this was the area someone was asking about where the drainage, where the topography, where the drainage flows as is. So here is 365 contour and then it gets decreases here. So this is the line for 260. So currently a water flows like this and like this. Yeah. It flows in this direction. Okay, but we have approximately a three-foot drop from two to three-foot drop from the parking, end of the parking lot to the end of the property. Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you. Gentle. I think, oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I was just gonna tell you can finish up or if there's something else you'd like to present. I think maybe if we just show the floor plan that would pretty much cover what we wanted to do. And I think if you can show the exterior of the house, exterior pictures as well, but that floor plan is great to start with. Okay. All right, we'll start with the- Oh, Mr. Chair, Mr. Mora is raising his hand? Oh, sure, but he's muted. Oh, mm-hmm, okay. Mr. Mora. Mr. Mora. I think he's still muted. Hold on. He's still muted. I'll let you do it. I don't know how to do it. If I can. Yeah, I think I'm good. Yeah, just a couple of points I wanted to make on some of that discussion. First, I'm headed with the extension of the parking area. I just wanted to point out that it looks like the lot coverage is almost maxed out as proposed. There would need to be some sort of adjustment if the applicant was gonna extend the parking area, some adjustment in another location. And the other piece was the discussion about the owner's business use of the property. That's not part of this application. So I would probably suggest that we don't get into conditions relative to the business use because it's not a buy-right allowed activity because the owner doesn't live there. So that would have to be handled for a different application. And Rob, do those papers that have cement papers that have spaces for grass to grow, are they considered hard? Is that considered a hard surface so that counts towards the surface lot coverage number? A portion of it, a percentage of it does, they can be anywhere from 20 to 50%. Usually it really depends on the design, but some of it is counted in lockers. So we need to look at the manufacturer's stack and determine what that percentage is. Yeah, okay.  Right. Okay. Quick, why don't we go to the floor layout of the converted dwelling? So, yeah, there's the exterior photos. This is the existing farmhouse. We're not seeing. We're not seeing. Oh, we're not seeing that. We're just seeing the file. Do a new share. So stop this share and do a screen, share screen. Do a screen, share screen. Yeah, the top left. Top left. Yeah, that probably will help you out. And then there, now we see the exterior photos of the bombardment garage. All right. So there's that. And these are photos of the garage existing. You can see the construction of the garage has these tie rods that go up to the ridge and forms like a truss type of situation there. And then the basement has got large pilings, steel reinforced, it's like a five inch concrete slab. The turnbuckles, this is where the tie rods are connected to the beam and go up to the ridge. And then the existing floor plan, these are the stairs that we intend to remove and then put, make that the floor of the third bedroom. So you come in the front door, into the great room, kitchen, living area, bathroom, three bedrooms right there, and the deck and stairs down to the parking area. Does anybody have any questions about the floor plan? You can proceed. Okay. Excuse me. Go ahead. Just to the, as I'm looking at it to the left of the deck, there seems to be an appliance. What is that? Yeah, that was the fridge. And I was thinking that could be a pantry area, also probably electric panel in there. That's the area. If you look at the elevations at the elevation outside and meet just to the right of the patio, is stairs that go down to the basement. So that's that bump out, the only part of the garage that bumps out and it's over stairs to the basement. Okay. Thank you. Front elevation, east, south. So that's that area. Question. Yes, Mr. Langsdale. One of the butters, excuse me, in their comments, talked about the condition of the siding of the garage and saying that it hadn't been dealt with in 30 years or more. They're figured, not mine. But could you go back to the north elevation? Okay, thank you. Right now, there are two large garage doors there. They obviously are coming out. New windows are being put in and a front door. How will you match the siding when you have to take out those two large doors? And the same applies for the rest of the building in the back where it's changing out and wherever windows are put in. How do you plan to deal with the siding? Well, I can tell you, I replaced several boards along the front of the building when we first bought it. And I found the stain that matches it. And I think you barely notice it. So I did do that when, and I can even share with you before photos from when we bought it and show you that, because that was mainly where the rot had happened on the siding because you have the driveway going directly up to the foundation. And so the water was running off and hitting the pavement and splashing up onto the siding and rotting it out. So I did replace quite a bit there and I went around the whole building and I feel like it's got character and I really love it. And I would just fix what needs to be fixed and blend it in nicely. And like I also said, the elevation doesn't show it, but I plan on using nice wide trim boards around the door and windows and really give it a nice look. I'm excited if I get approval, I'm excited to make it look really nice for the neighborhood. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Any other, Ms. Parks. I just have a quick question. What medium is going to be under the deck? I think it's two slides down from where you are right now. Right now it's grass. And I would plan just to keep it as grass I don't know how well it would hold up, but I would like to try just to keep that area as grass. Okay. Well, if I may add with your coverage, you're so close to the lot limits, you're gonna have to maintain it as a soft surface, grass or some kind of vegetation because you're getting close to the limits on your lot coverage. Okay, is there anything else you want to present, Mr. Mendelssohn? No, that was it and I, let me just, in closing I just want to again thank the board, our neighbors in the planning department, especially Maureen for her many emails and phone calls and helping us navigate this process. We appreciate the opportunity to explain our application and hope to address any questions or concerns and connections with this project. Thank you. Thank you. Do the board members have any questions of Mr. and Mrs. Mendelssohn? Yeah, one thing that we didn't, excuse me. Yes, Mr. Langsdale. Yes. One thing we didn't address when we were talking about the parking area that was also again from one of the abutters, a question about the drainage with the asphalt of the parking lot area, as well as the driveway to the parking area because that's on a downward slope. So is there any consideration toward what drainage problems there might be? And also in the winter, if you have excess snow stockpile at the southern end of this parking area, as it melts and other snow melts and or rains come, there's gonna be a considerable runoff of water off of this driveway and parking area. So I wondered if there's any consideration has been given to what kind of mitigation could be done to keep water from flowing into other properties. Yeah. Can we address that? Yes, yes. Okay. We don't have a plan for that. So I would be happy to do some mitigation there to prevent that. I mean, it is, yeah, I'm not an expert in this so I can't speak to it. I would have to, if the board would like us to have another study or something done, I guess we could have this reviewed and... Well, there are people who can take a look at drainage and help you design something, whether it's a rain garden or slope or something that would mitigate the runoff to the neighbors and that is something that we may hear about in the comments from the public. You should think that may be something that is of concern to the board. And I would encourage you to give that some thought. I mean, if you're willing to do that, that may be a condition or it may be something that we'd wanna see before we vote on final passage of the special permit to see that it's done. But I would encourage it. I think that'll be brought up. I'm assuming it'll be brought up by the public comments. Any other comments or questions for the applicant from board members or from staff? All right, we should open it up to public comment then. Maureen, if you put the, you can identify, Maureen will identify you if you wish to comment. If you do wish to comment, raise your hand through the function on the Zoom meeting app, the raise hand function. Please identify yourself and for the record and have your comments for about four minutes if you would. Okay, so we have Ray-La-Reha who would like to speak. Ray? Sure, I'm Ray-La-Rajat-Seven Strong Street. Thank you, Mr. Chair and board members. Well, I appreciate the efforts to this point about how the Mendelssohn's have started to fix the property in some ways. We're moving some overgrown weeds, painting the house and some interior stuff since taking it over. By the way, as an aside, he told my wife about a very different plans for this house, but that's a different issue. I have several objections to this new project. If there's gonna be an exception for a permit for a residential manager, raises a lot of issues. First, we're gonna need assurances about qualifications in the context for this manager. He or she should be living in a separate house, not mixed with other occupants because I think that creates conflicts of interest and a psychic barrier to reporting violations and managing other problems. It's also important to see a management plan for the property, including a specific role for the residential manager, the relationship to the tenants, how long they're gonna be there on the contract and any other demonstrations that they're gonna be responsible for the property. In fact, I would argue the property manager should be a certified property manager or a licensed realtor or something similar. Second, I'm really troubled by the parking lot that's gonna be built for six cars right up against my property at Seven Strong and my adjacent property, which I own. Well, I don't, look, I don't wanna have six occupants. Few people do, especially on a small property and structures, but I understand that policies to increase housing density in the downtown campus area are public good, but this argument about public good and the exception for granting high density permits really becomes less tenable when there's not an offsetting commitment to limiting cars and parking spaces on property. I mean, these residents have easy access to public transportation, they can walk. There's campus parking across the street. These will be students. A significant argument for allowing high density is to minimize traffic pollution noise. And I see the applicants is getting all the benefits here of high density without the aligned benefits of the community of reduced car travel, noise, there's gonna be more of all these other things. So I think it's an unfair trade-off and poor public policy. The neighborhood is gonna get all these costs plus children walking wild, which is additional danger. We see the students peeling out from the other side. It's very concerning to us. There should be no new driveway, no new parking. There should be no more than three cars. Six cars will have to back onto strong street right at the intersection, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. And I agree with what Mr. Delano said about the children walking by every day. We see them, we watch them go into school. Our children used to do this. Again, UMass parking lot across the street, they can apply for passes there. Third, I would wanna know the proposed surface area this was brought up.  How's it gonna be mitigated? Thanks again, Mr. Lansdale for raising the issue. We already have some water settling in those areas even without that. Fourth, if there's a problem, there's gonna be a problem with lighting. There's no doubt. My house is right there with a bedroom right there, a study where I do most of my work right there and I work into the night facing that where the applicant wants to put a parking lot. And I expect headlights coming and going, turning on the floodlights, the tree line is spotty. So that, if anything's gotta be filled in, but I still, again, I appreciate Mr. Lansdale's question on this about the lights and the high floodlights. I'm really concerned. That's gonna be a problem. Aside from even the dangers of pulling off into the street. And then last two short points, we would like Mr. Mendelssohn said he'd provide a phone number. I think that should be on the rental permit to have the name of the owner and the phone where they can be reached. 24 seven, not the name of the LLC. And I don't know how the occupant rent is gonna work, but it should not be rented by bedroom at all. So for all these reasons, I urge you to reject the planned conversion of the garage and property at 275 East Pleasant Street. Thank you for listening to me, board members. Thank you, Mr. LaRosha. And next we have Ms. LaRosha. Let me, hello. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so I just wanna echo the concerns that my husband just stated. You know, initially when the Mendelssohn's moved in, they were gonna do it Airbnb in the existing house. And then there was talk of making like a stone house farm, like afterschool program and summer camp and the garage, which if I could just say your neighbors would be jumping up and down for joy if that was going to be the plan. There's, it's just way too small of a lot. And in a way too, on a busy corner with school children walking by, it's just way too big of a plan for that lot. And I just really want to just echo the concerns of every neighbor who lives on property surrounding this one, that it's just, this should not go through. Again, we're really happy about the house that is existing there. And why not make the garage a garage? Keep it a garage. It could be for the parking for the people there who are already existing there. And potentially maybe it could be a one bedroom unit above that. But to have three bedrooms, six cars, all this water running off onto my backyard and my property, slamming doors, lights. I am 100% against this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. LaRosha. Maureen, it looks like we have... Oh yes. We have Jonathan. Come in one second. Jonathan, can you talk? Hi, yes. Thank you so much. And I want to echo the comments that have been stated previously. We do, my partner and I live on East Pleasant Street. And we do also really appreciate the renovations that have taken place. It has, the yard has been better maintained. And we do really appreciate that. We are also concerned about traffic and noise. We already have these issues here, but I'd hate to add anything that would contribute to that. I'm also in favor of additional renovations that make the place nicer for the people who are living there. One bedroom place over a garage sounds great. Having, using the garage as the garage, I think would actually make it... By the point you put a stop sign in, that's actually at the point where people would be coming out of the garage anyway. So they would actually be stopped already and they could just look both ways, the way that the garage is intended. And I also agree that it feels like there's just too many people there. I understand that the limit on a single dwelling is four people. And I understand that these are two separate dwellings. And at the same time, they seem like they're going to be connected and they're cramped up against each other. We will not have the exact same issue of the lights because we're a little bit further away, but we do experience noise and cars and traffic. And I think that putting the driveway on the East Pleasant side is also not a great move, not just because of the Arbor Vite, but also because that's exactly where the crossing guard is. And as I mentioned in my letter, the crossing guard is an important part of this community as are the students crossing. And so I just wanna echo my urging for the board to please reject the proposal and also to encourage the Mendelssohn's to find another way to increase the value of the property, which we would very much appreciate. We have Richard, Ron, no, sorry, Richard. Mr. Rosnoy, would you please identify yourself? Yeah, I just hit an unmute. Can you hear me now? There you go. Now we can, yes. Richard Rosnoy, 11 strong feet. First, I'd like to note that I submitted a written statement and you did acknowledge it. And there was an error that I used in the syntax referring to six units. And of course, the reference should have been to six people. So I'm the one responsible for that. And I'm sorry about that. I'll support my neighbors, but I wanted to also note that for these six parking... Hold on, we lost you. One second, Richard. Hold on, hold that thought. Richard? Okay. Okay, continue, start over again. Sorry, Richard. Right. So I wanted to acknowledge for these six parking spaces, there's no accommodation should someone come to visit. And there's no parking on the street around there and certainly not on East Pleasant. And the nearest street is a wildwood court that where there's also no parking during the daytime. And so it's really an unworkable situation. I am not in favor of the solution being a stop sign at the end of the driveway before entering onto the street. I mean, it's a great idea and in theory, it should work, but let's face it, in the morning, when people are late to get to class or to get to work, there's going to be just non-compliance with any sort of a stop sign. You can put all the words that you want and at least about it, but it's just not going to be there. And I want to strongly encourage that you do not issue a waiver for landscaping. There should be a landscaping plan for this parcel. You've heard a lot of information about how the lights are going to be affecting neighbors and the neighborhood, how parking is going to be affecting neighbors and the neighborhood, and how they have maxed out on the lot covering. If there's ever a site that needs a landscaping plan, it's this. I'd also note that we haven't heard much about the management plan and none of you have really have queried the applicants much on the resident manager requirement and what they intend to do about this. I think just about everybody who submitted comments had grave concerns about who a resident manager would be, the duration of what this person would be, how they would be related to others in the living units. This is a very important part of this and really it has not been flushed out. There's not been adequate discovery on your part as to what the qualifications of a resident manager would be. We address this. And so I encourage you to address it further. I don't think it's been adequately addressed. I don't think according, there are standards in your bylaws for standards and qualifications for what is required of a resident manager. And in my view, in my view, it has not been adequately addressed. Secondly. We'll get you, Mr. Linesdale, when he's finished. Yep, go ahead, Mr. Rosnoy. Doesn't this deck expand the footprint of the building beyond what it needs to be for expanding and non-conforming footprint? Doesn't this go beyond what a special permit and possibly award? I'm not sure about how the footprint of the building was and what the status of this building was regarding its non-conforming status. But I'd like to hear an answer to that one. In closing, I'll just say, this is not site plan review. This applicant does not have the ability to put in three living units in previous garage as of right. You have great discretion in determining how to handle this particular parcel. And as neighbors, we are asking you to exercise that discretion. And if anything, ask the applicant to come back with a more modest proposal with fewer parking places and with fewer tenants. Thank you for your work. Thank you. Any other comments? I'd like to hear what the response was about the resident manager. I think somebody had some... Mr. Linesdale, we'll speak to it but we wanna get public comments and then there's the opportunity for us and for the applicant to respond to the public comments. I think there's Bruce. Bruce, yep. One second, let me... Okay, one second, okay. Bruce, can you... Please identify yourself. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Bruce Carson, 8 Strong Street. I would just like to echo what my neighbors have said that I do appreciate the efforts that the Mendelssohn's have made in improving the existing house but I do think this proposal for another apartment is too much. For all the reasons people have said, too much traffic, too much noise. I would urge the board to ask them to come back with something more modest. And thank you for your good work that you're doing and thank you very much. And then we have Susan. Hold on a second and let me find... Oh, wait, hold on. I saw her. Yeah, there she is. Susan, can you state your name and your address? Can I cross a bit? Hold on a second. I'll mute. Sorry. Susan? You're... Susan Rosina, you're muted. You have some mute, there you go. Okay, now I've unmuted. Okay, okay, ready to go? Yes. Susan Rosnoy at 11 Strong Street. I've lived on this street longer than my neighbors have and I have experienced significant drainage from that Western elevation. Everybody's cellars are wet and this is only gonna increase the problem with drainage unless it's mitigated. And so I echo all of the concerns that my neighbors have had and we really do feel like this should be reduced in size. It's just too much for this small lot. It's a lot that's smaller than required now and it's just going to make this whole corner more congested, especially with the parking and traffic and the people coming and going. So I hope you will, oh, especially, especially do a landscape plan to require that because what you're calling arborvite are not arborvite, they're hemlocks. And although that's an evergreen tree, I think you should be able to identify what is being discussed. So you absolutely have to have a landscape plan. Thank you very much for your work. Thank you. Any other members of the public that wish to comment on this application? Mr. Langsdale, you had a comment you wanted to make in response then we'll ask the applicant if he has anything he wants directly to respond before we move on. Go ahead. Yeah, I think it's important that the butters understand that while we haven't addressed certain things that we're not done yet, we haven't addressed the management plan, we haven't addressed the lease, we haven't addressed the thing about the on-site manager, all of that is to yet to be addressed. So not to worry, stay watching and listening that's our job, we know how to do it and we're going to do it. Thank you. Mr. Mendelson, do you wish to respond to anything of the public comments? Any other comments? Okay. One second, Richard wants to say something again. Richard, can you state your name and your address again for the record? Right, Richard Rosnoy coming back again. Thanks very much for that clarification. From my experience when we had Planning Board public hearings we dealt with all of the issues and then we ended the public comment period. So I had the impression all public comments and all of your deliberations were going to be completed. Let me just ask, are you considering that you're going to continue this hearing and address those other issues and management plan and the other points that were mentioned further? Thank you, Mr. Lancel, for clarifying that. The hearing is still open. Whether we continue this to another time has yet to be considered. So there's no answer to that at this moment. So are there further questions from the Board for the applicant? Okay, now's the time. Let's go to the manager. Management plan is the first thing. Go ahead. Yes, Mr. Lancel, that's right. I was just going to say we should go over the management plan. You have the trash pickup you've identified who's going to do that. I think you have verbally said that you want to put additional screening in but I don't see it on the plan that you've provided us. That there's, I think you need to put more specificity about where you're the screening that you would have around the trash. The trash? Yeah, we did have that on the application. Fencing match, can I speak now? Or is that sure? Yes. Yeah, fencing matching the existing and the porch will be installed in front of the trash to conceal them from the street.  And on our management plan, we do have that we are the number to reach our business is on there. And should I go through line by line on the management plan? Yes, that would be valuable. So I'll just go down the application. Well, if you can fill it in, just don't read that.  You can describe it to us. Okay. So the lighting, that's the night sky compliant lights that we had. And we did discuss taking the one off of the farmhouse, which I think was a good idea to put that on a, on a post. And I am committed to, you know, putting the, building a fence, adding that as one of the conditions to build that fence on those East parking spaces. There's three parking spaces that may be offensive to our, to the larges. And so I would be happy to do that. So the lighting, discuss the signage. The landscape maintenance. Landscape maintenance. Yeah, so I would be doing all the landscape maintenance, mowing, making sure it's no greater than three inches. I do, I do take pride in keeping night of property in good shape.  And it seems like a lot of, you know, a lot of the comments are, are about the resident manager and contacting us. And I just want to again say that I am very happy to give all my neighbors my direct number. Like I don't, I don't want any problems. And we are selective with our tenants.  And I want to continue that. And so, you know, we would, we would play. My word is everything. I mean, I am committed to this. I don't want any problems. I want to select good tenants. And make sure that we're not having issues. And if there is then 24 seven, call me, I will be on it.  She, she knows like I'm, I don't let anything sit. So. So do you have responsibilities laid out in your, do you have an agreement with the resident manager what the responsibilities are? I did put that in the lease. So this is what I have written in the lease. I'm looking for it. And I just, I, I didn't see a lot in the zoning bylaw about the resident manager. As a matter of fact, I think it's like one, it's like one paragraph. It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but I have the onsite manager that landlord here by designates so-and-so as the onsite manager was also attended under the lease. As the onsite manager, the person agrees to serve as the point of contact for the landlord bringing to his immediate attention any tenant conduct or maintenance issues that may arise at the property to ensure compliance with this lease. So, you know, our goal would be to have a long-term, long-term tenants in this unit and, you know, have that consistency that everybody knows who the onsite manager is.  And also our, you know, tenant or lease specifies that all the conditions that are now in place because of the rental permit system in Amherst, which I think has done a lot for our town in controlling the parties and a lot of this stuff. And also we have in our lease that only 12 people can be onsite at the property at any given time. So we have that. I also heard comments about the parking. So people come to visit. Well, that would be strictly enforced. And I think there's a lot of parking right across the street, UMass, that we've heard from people associated with the university that, you know, I've said that parking is available over there. And so I would, I'm sensitive to that information about, you know, you don't want people parking on the sidewalks and all that. And the parking that's existing now is so close to the parking lot or so close to the sidewalk. And the fact that somebody has got to turn their cranked their neck around to see like if there's somebody behind my car, you know, I want to eliminate that situation. I don't want to have that parking there. And I do think that having the parking area would make this a safer property by allowing people to back up and pull out forward. And I will like talk, you know, I will definitely make sure the tenants are aware of our expectations with that. Is your business, are you saying that your business is property management? And so you are the professional property manager in this case, is that what you're saying? Yes, I am a licensed construction supervisor. I have my home improvement contractor license. I have many customers I do home improvement projects for routinely. I also have customers that are landlords themselves and they contract with me to do strictly the maintenance end of it. And that's what I really enjoy doing most. And yeah, so I feel like we have, you've got two of us here that are really, you know, involved. And it's not like we're handing this over to somebody else. And this is our baby, you know? And we want to get, you know, work with everybody to make sure that it's, everybody's happy with it. All right, any other questions from the panel and the board members? Yes, Mr. Meadows. It seems as though a large part of the comments that we're getting are in relationship to the number of tenets that are intended and the amount of parking that is expected there. If, as was suggested by the butters, a more modest proposal was to come back where the space was primarily teneted by a resident, separate resident manager, the number of parking spaces reduced down to just those spaces that are facing to the West towards East Pleasant Street. And a complete landscape plan was developed to encompass that and any problems that might occur with runoff might then resolve a good number of the issues that have been brought up. I think you heard Mr. Meadows concerned. Any response from Mr. Mendelson? Well, we feel, we do feel like the, I mean, the parking, having three people in this unit and the expectation of having three cars is reasonable. And we have, we followed what the zoning law provides for. I mean, we understand this is not absolute and there's a lot of discretion here with this. So we are open, but we strongly feel that the unit is, it's not a, it's not a ramshackle barn. It's a well solidly built structure. The existing farmhouse, I would argue like there, that's 900 square feet and this is 900 square feet. And this has a modern foundation with, you know, reinforced concrete, extremely well-built solid that has not moved since, you know, it's square. It's, and I feel like it makes a great unit. I'm kind of surprised that other people don't have my vision. I see it as being an attractive, quite essential New England Cape looking thing with the clabbered siding and I would make it nice and make a nice green, green grass in the front. But I think I've run off some, I'm some of the other issues that are not just the appearance but the other issues such as runoff, the parking and others are what people are expressed in concern about and what some of the board members have expressed concern about. Mr. Langsdale. The garage you have down as 916 square feet. 916 square feet. You have the house at 758 square feet. Does the 916 include the basement? And- Sorry, go ahead. Does it include the basement is my question. No, I think what's that, that is, is actually the footprint is 758, but then you've got the second floor, the two bedrooms up there that bring it up to the making it the nine, nine change. Okay, because Mike, when I'm looking at the floor plans of both of the house and the garage as it's proposed and in the house, you have a living dining area of 382 square feet, a kitchen of 183, a bathroom is 64, a laundry is 61, a bedroom of 195. And on the second floor, you have two bedrooms, one's 232 square feet, the other one's 233 square feet plus closets. In the proposed floor plan, which you say is 916 square feet on one floor, you have a great room of 432 square feet and each of the three bedrooms are 85 square feet and the bathroom is 83 square feet. These proposed bedrooms in the garage, I mean, 85 square feet is, as opposed to the ones in the house, which are all at 200 or over square feet. Why are you to me cramming three bedrooms which each are 85 square feet into this small garage? And it brings up, I think the question of, if you have a site manager, where do they sleep? With whom do they bunk? And are these two different houses than to be rented by the room or by the house? Yeah, it just seems that with the discussion of the size of the property, the size of the parking area and the size of the garage, which is one floor with three bedrooms is, to me, it's, I think it's like reaching for too much. Three bedrooms at 85 square feet is questionable to me. Can you talk to why you're gonna put three tiny, tiny bedrooms into this garage? Why are you going for three? Why not one? Because I feel like I can, it's safe. There's egress there, there's windows that would be compliant with the building code these, this meets residential building code. You have a closet and I think it's nice. A lot of people tend towards, are tending towards smaller dwellings now. And these are dorm rooms. I feel like I can make this nice. And I, you know, I appreciate your comments, but I feel like it's, it's reasonable. And it's, it's compliant with, it will be compliant with code, building code. And I think we're, I'm, we're picking up some concerns in the part of both board members and others about the project. And I see some things myself that I would like to have more information on before I vote on this, such as, I'd like to know more about the drainage and the landscaping plan, the ability to not affect your neighbors. I'd like to know a little bit more about some of this other, some other aspects of this before we, before we vote on it. That's, I'm expressing my opinion here and the other board members may have a different feeling. But I, I'm, I feel like we should, there's some work that can be done that may be, make this a more attractive and more possible application. But certainly the drainage runoff and the parking areas is something that, that I'd like to see some more information on before, but I, and I suspect some of my other board members feel the same. So I would encourage, you know, I would encourage you if you're, if you're interested and I wouldn't want to speak for everybody. So leave this up as my fellow board members to speak, but I would encourage you to maybe look at at least going back and getting some more information on the, on the drainage and the parking. I would also, and what you can do with landscaping to mitigate that because you are, you have quite a large hard escape that you're adding. And there will be a runoff there. And that can be determined by having less parking spaces, you'll have less runoff that maybe something you want to look at and whether you have rain gardens or some kind of collection of the, of the water. So you don't have increased runoff to the neighbors would be important. I don't, that's one concern that I have lights or another concern. I don't want to make sure that that, that they are the downcast and that they're not spraying into the neighbor's property. And we should probably have a little bit more information on that before we go forward as well. Any other board members have comments. At this point. Yeah, I think they need to come back with a. Specs on the fence. That they're proposing. And I would say that given. If, if we're to go ahead with the parking area, as it is, that fence is not just for those three little, those three parking spaces, it needs to, needs to extend beyond that. So that as cars come down and swing in the, the lights are going to go beyond those three parking spaces. So I think that has to be, you need specs and we need to have a, we need to have a, we need to have a, we need to have a, we need to have a photograph or a, something along the lines to show us what it is you're proposing. I think you need to look at the lighting. I think the flood lights are. Given the proximity to the other, the other, uh, butters. I think flood lights are not a good choice. They're flood lights. Um, I think that the thing about the, the manager. That needs to be really thought out because I, I tend to believe that if you have three bedrooms in each dwelling and there are three different. Unrelated individuals. I think to put the manager in one of those three bedrooms. Um, And in one of those houses, um, if they're all, if they're all students, I don't know how you're going to, uh, get a responsible person who's going to stay there more than seven or eight months, nine months, whatever the school year is. Um, and I think that's a problem in terms of managing the property. Um, I, I, I would like to see, given, given the garage, the size of the garage, I would like to see, um, I would like to see, um, I would like to see, um, something a different kind of layout with fewer, uh, uh, bedrooms. Um, 85 square feet is. Really tiny. Um, Yeah. Okay. So I, my, I would encourage. That we. I would encourage you to consider, um, I would encourage you to consider this. Um, I would encourage you to consider this. Um, I would like to get comments from the other board members if they're comfortable with that, but I would suggest that we suspend this, allow you to come back with some other, uh, some further plans, work with the town in terms of some, what it could be expected. Um, at least from a resident manager's perspective and also from the drainage and parking. Um, I would encourage you to consider this. Um, and lights and come back with something that may. Reduce the amount of concern that we have in the center of the, the butters have Mr. Maxfield.  It's not by right, but if your neighbors don't have a problem with it, you don't have a problem with it. Great. You got a seven foot fence. If you're a butters, immediate butters have objections to it.  Um, And I'm not entirely sure if, if the idea of having three bedrooms in there. Uh, is, is a no go for the butters as well. So I definitely would like to see some consideration, uh, in a way that this can make this more palatable. The immediate butters and, uh, the neighbors in the area. Mr. Meadows. And, and add that I think a, uh, a complete landscaping plan for the entire property is, is necessary in addition. To the other considerations that have been brought forward. All right. Um, seems like we have a consensus. To, um, suspend this for the time being. Or continue. I always use, I use the wrong word every time. I will get this right. We're going to continue this. Um, Marine, do we have to continue to a date certain or yeah, we do. Don't we are, or we have to restart the whole thing. So we, um, I think we probably can't continue this until sometime at the end of November, at the end of October. Or what's, what's our schedule like. So the next available. Uh, meeting date would be November 12th. Yeah. Um, I don't have time to work on those, those suggestions. Um, and. Come back with something that may be more, I mean, may have more support of the board. And so I'd encourage you to do. Um, so I move that we continue. The public hearing on this until November. 12th. Correct. If the applicants agreeable to that. Yeah. Um, my only concern is getting, um, I don't know. Um, I don't know. You know, a landscape plan. Ready and that, uh, I don't know. I, why don't we set that as a date and I'll, I'll get working on this stuff and. And then I will keep in communication. You know, let Maureen. And if you can't make it, let us know and we'll, we'll continue it to a different, to a later date. Okay. All right. The applicant agrees. Mr. Maxfield. I second your motion. Okay. All in favor roll call vote. I vote aye. Mr. Meadows. Hi. Ms. Parks. Hi. Mr. Maxfield. Hi. Mr. Langsdale. Hi. Motion is unanimous. Um, we'll see you back here in November. Good luck. Uh, the next order of business is, um, Um, ZBA FY 2021 dash zero four. Greg Stutzman request a special permit to allow a supplemental detached dwelling. Unit as an accessory to a one family detached dwelling under sections 5.0111. And 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at 13, 25 Southeast street map 23 D parcel 12. Outline residents district. Um, On this manner, um, Ms. Waldman alternative ultimate member, Ms. Waldman will serve on the panel. Are there any disclosures? As in the first case, I was unable to attend the site visit with the other board members, but I visited the property of myself yesterday. Um, Is there somebody who would like to summarize what the, uh, the. Board members saw on the site visit. I can go through me and mine. And then you can add. Um, I'm going to go through the existing house. We walked up through the back through the, the, um, Garden and the rock way up to the building site. We explore the trees that would be taken down. We marked off generally. The, the, um, the site of the house and of the, and the boundaries of the garage. We talked about the trees that were going to be removed from the front, the arborbites and removed along to the side. Um, and then we looked at the, the, um, the, the, the, um, for the neighbor of budding the property. We also talked about a, a, um, a fence. I think the fence that runs from the street back along the property line. Um, We looked at, um, The, um, we discussed the floor plan. Um, and the, the sighting of the garage versus the, and the roofline of the garage versus the. The house, um, being used for solar. Um, was the house and the use for solar collection roof. Um, And we looked at the, um, I think it's Montpollack's drive, the road running alongside the property that does not have a sidewalk on it. I noticed that. Uh, that's, those are the things that we discussed. Uh, and on the site visit. Uh, but. Was there other items discussed by members of the board. Uh, at their visit that I did not mention. Here, judge, this is a share. Yes. I'm sorry, you got going and I didn't catch. Uh, the disclosure. I have a disclosure. My youngest son is friends with the knee butters. Uh, to the. West. Grandson. But I don't think it will affect my ability to be impartial. Thank you. Any other disclosures or additional comments on the site visit. Um, Um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Any other comments in terms of submissions? We've received a special permit application, a management plan, a plan set. Um, Which includes a title sheet, a topographical plan, an existing site plan. Proposed site plan, a landscape plan. Um, Basement first floor and roof plans and exterior elevations, dwelling unit prepared by all these were prepared by child design. Um, 18th or September 12th. Um, and a garage exterior elevation. We've gotten a landscape narrative prepared by wellnessness. Wellness scapes design dated August 12th. A plan schedule prepared by them light fixtures, specification sheets. Um, we have a sample lease agreement. An addendum to the residential lease, a complaint response form. Specification sheet for proposed fence. An email correspondence from Greg Sussman to planner Marine Pollock. Uh, subject 1325 South East street additional materials. Staff submissions include project application reports. Of October 1st, the 29th and 25th, those was updated. The comments from the embers health inspector, the building inspector. And Edmund Smith. Comments from the town engineer, Jason Steele's data in September 24th and September 29th. I don't think we have any public comments. Uh, filed on this. Do we Maureen? Correct. Okay. That's what we have. Um, so. Who would like to present for the applicant? Nope. Mr. Judge. Oh, Mr. Reedy. Uh, so good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Uh, Mr. Moore, Ms. Pollock. I'm Tom reading attorney with Bacon Wilson and Amherst here on behalf of the applicant Greg Stutzman. And his application for a special permit for a supplemental detached dwelling. Um, as an accessory used to a one family detached dwelling. At 1325 Southeast street in Amherst. With me this evening. The property owner and applicant Greg Stutzman. Um, I'm Greg Stutzman. Um, I'm Maria Chow from Chow design and then on the phone, we've got Tom Benjamin, who is our landscape architect. And so, you know, rarely am I afforded an opportunity where I'm able to present an application that is, I think straightforward and really fits into the zoning bylaw and the master plan, specifically relative to infill development. But you know, that's what we've got here. Um, it's an 800 square foot supplemental dwelling with one and a half bathrooms, and it's on a 33,000 square foot lot. Um, on Mount Pollock's drive in Southeast street. And I think you'll find this, if you walk the site, and I think as you'll hear that, that the design has really been informed by the landscape. And I, and I think there was. You'll see a lot of thought that, you know, Greg and Tom and Maria put into this. To make sure that it was located in a, in a place that made sense topographically preserved, the maximum number of mature trees. Sought to screen the, the westerly neighbor via the garage and also our varieties. And as you'll see a fence. Um, and really to fit into the existing terraced garden. So every time I look at it, I'm, I'm more and more impressed with it. And hopefully you'll be as well as you'll see. If you've read through the project application report, it satisfies all the requirements of the bylaw. Um, you don't have to worry about a resident manager here because he's going to be living there. It's Greg Stutzman. It's, this is one of the beauties of the supplemental dwelling is that the, the, it has to be owner occupied. And so, as long as I've been practicing in this town, owner occupancy is, is key because it really does provide. Um, it's ownership, but it also gives the person who probably cares the most about the property, the ability to control that property. And that's Greg. And he's going to be there. Um, he would be residing in the supplemental dwelling and he would be leasing that executive property. Um, he would be residing in the supplemental dwelling and he would be leasing that existing dwelling. It's a perfect setup because the new dwelling where he's going to be residing acts as the natural buffer to the neighbors in the existing dwelling is what's up on the roadway on southeast street. Um, I think you'll find that it's a pretty complete presentation with, with specifications and, um, you know, floor plan, topography, materials, et cetera. Um, so, um, I think it's a great way to, uh, stop us during it, ask us questions. We have, like I said, they've done a really good job of preparing, uh, thoughtfully for this. So with that, I'll, I'll turn it over to Maria to share her screen and walk you through the proposal. Hi everyone. Um, I'm Maria child architect working with Greg Stetsman and Tom Benjamin on, um, the design for this house. Um, I will share a screen now so I can walk you through. Okay. So, um, and thank you Tom for a really nice introduction that pretty much covered how we got to where we are. Um, this is a sheet. I think it was in your set. Um, you guys can see the screen. Okay. It's L 11. Maria, could you, uh, exhale the page thumbs to the left? Ah, sure. Thank you. I'll be bigger. Okay. So, um, as Tom described, we, we're going to be going to talk a little bit about this. Um, Tom Benjamin and I and Greg worked really hard to cite it in the, um, most appropriate place on this, um, large parcel and, um, Greg is, uh, going to be living here in this 800 square foot structure. There's a two car detached garage here, uh, exterior porch, exterior porch, and then a screen porch here. So, um, I'm going to be going to talk a little bit about this. Um, I'm going to talk a little bit about this. Um, from, um, Southeast street that this new structure was very much sort of secondary to the main house here. And so this is a view from Southeast street and you can, I actually couldn't even, there's so much vegetation on Greg's property already that there's actually, you can't even see the house back here actually, but I wanted to show something. So, you know, I'm going to talk a little bit about this, um, because usually when I design a, tend to put the long side of a building facing south to maximize natural light.  And so, um, I think someone had mentioned there be, we were planning that a full of a text would be on the garage roof and, um, the house roof actually slopes so that the high side is facing south. So there will be no full of a text on the house. And this is that little screen porch you can see. Um, you know, backed away a little bit more from this front set back, just so there's a little more sort of privacy for Greg. And like Tom Reedy mentioned, this garage is sort of a buffer between the neighbor and, and Greg's house. And this is that really large terrace garden, probably saw on the site visit. Um, and we wanted to make sure the deck and the porch didn't hover over too much. And this was as close as I could comfortably get it without it, but we had a lot of time. So, um, we had a lot of time to get it done. And so, um, I'm, I'm going to be recording the plants that Greg already has pretty well established there. And, um, and Tom will go through the landscape. So I will. Move on to the house. This is Tom's landscape plan, but I will talk about the architecture. So this is the first floor plan. Um, this is the attached garage. Do you come in? There's this sort of, um, a lot of space. Um, um, which opens into the living and kitchen dining space. That's all one very large space. Um, this connects to the screen porch, which also goes out to this back deck that has a really nice view to the north where it's like a thick forest and into the east is, um, the terrace gardens. Um, this is a hallway where there's a laundry closet. Um, this is the one bedroom with more closet space. Um, this is the one bathroom that we designed in a way where Greg was hoping that, you know, you could shut it off and it could be used when people are visiting or, you know, it, so that really we're just making one bathroom, one full bath, but, um, I suppose you could call it one and a half, but in a way it's, it's really one bath that has two sinks, one toilet, a tub and a shower. And that opens up onto another outdoor deck. That's very, um, you can purposely put the garage here to sort of keep this a private space and kind of shield the bedroom from the neighbors to the west. So, so everything was sort of placed with, you know, what's adjacent as far as the site views, the solar orientation, the neighbors, um, you know, keeping privacy to the east and west neighbors. Um, and as well as, uh, just trying to keep a very small modest footprint so that, um, you know, as far as economics, it's just a simple rectangle, a shed roof that's sloping toward the north on the house and toward the south on the garage, as you can see in the roof plan here. Um, this is the basement. It's going to remain unfinished. It's just for storage and it does walk out to the, um, north where you'll see later in Tom's plan, we've made it so that the, um, existing grade is peeled back just slightly enough to get, um, a small flat area here. And then these are the posts for the deck and screen parts above. Uh, garage is slap on grade. And these are posts for the, uh, the deck that's between the, the bedroom and the garage. And let's see. And these are the, I'll set that a little bit. These are the exterior elevations. This is the side facing south. Um, it's the front door. This is sort of where the living kitchen dining has a lot of, um, Southern light, but with this four foot overhang, it actually will let very little self light in on the summer. And then in the winter it'll hit this back wall pretty much. Um, this is that screen porch. So this is the face that's facing east. Yes. Uh, where Greg's current house is. Um, and there's that deck that sort of, uh, hovering over some of the gardens. Um, just the sort of back corner of this garden. This is the side facing north. Um, that was that walkout little space. I was talking about with the basement where we've peeled back just enough grade so that you can, um, have a flat area there. Uh, this is the garage. This is the bedroom. Um, this is the kitchen. That's the stair to the basement. That's to the kitchen. And this is the kitchen. And then this is that screen porch. And this is, um, cutting through this deck here so that you can see the, uh, West elevation. And this is not back deck. That's toward the north. Um, Let's see. I think that's it. Oh, wait, sorry. And then there's the garage just because they were cranked at two different angles. Um, So this is the garage. Um, And then another sheet so you can see all four sides. This is the side facing not Pollock's drive. And this is the side facing the. Yes, the dwelling in it. And then this is the side facing north. And this is a side facing west. So, um, That's the house in a nutshell. Uh, Let's see. Um, Unless that you want to talk, Tom, some more. Um, should we see if Tom Benjamin is available to go through. Landscape design. Yeah. If Tom's available, that'd be great. And then we can hop. If you've got those colored elevations, maybe we can show those and just point out some, uh, where the lighting is. Gotcha. Yes. Let me dig those up real quick. I. Tom Benjamin should be able to speak. Yeah. So, um, Um, If you want to share your screen and go through the landscape plan. Yeah. Tom Benjamin. Um, are you able to talk? I don't hear you yet. Maybe I allowed the wrong person. Hold on a second. Um, Uh, is Tom Benjamin's last four digits. If his phone number one, one, three, five. Yes. Okay. Uh, Tom. I don't see him on the list. There it is. I'll ask him to unmute. So he's, he's muted. I don't know why. Um, Hey, one second, folks. Unmute. Oh, we hear you. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. This is Tom Benjamin from wellness scapes design landscape architect. Um, Thanks Tom. Thank you. Um, And to Maria child for the, um, Descriptions of the project. I'll just touch on the landscape. Um, Can you, can you all hear me okay? Yes. Right. I apologize. I'm, I'm traveling as, as I'm speaking. Uh, so starting on the Mount Pollack side, The south side of the house is primarily in lawn as is the case now. Um, we've tried to preserve as many trees as possible, Particularly to the southeast early side, Moving towards the, uh, Terrace garden of Mr. Stutzman. Um, And we are proposing to have some screening. Uh, tall, uh, Bed with tall shrubs, Possibly some small trees along the Mount Pollack's, Um, frontage. I believe that is shown on the plan. To, uh, Help buffer the street a little bit. And, um, moving, I'm going to go around from there. Uh, clockwise. So moving to the west will drain into a very west of the garage. That will capture, uh, The driveway and also from a downspout varies all of the Substantial plant schedule, Which provides just many options for places on the site, But particularly thinking about visually screen. To add some more shrubs there canopy trees, Then moving a little bit more easterly to the. North side of this tended for a long time and, uh, That will appreciate having some more water, Uh, its way, especially in the summer, like we've just had. Um, and then that brings us back around to the front of the house. I guess maybe I would suggest Mr. Chair while we've got Tom on the phone, Because everybody knows how finicky cell service can be sometimes. If there's any questions relative to the landscaping plan, I would just ask that maybe now we address those. You're muted, Mr. Judge. You're muted. Yep. Mr. Langsdale. Okay. Tom, the, uh, downspout on the. Uh, North East side of the house. That goes into the existing terrace garden. Yes. Is that above ground or underground? That would be, um, at grade. Basically would drain into, into grade. Um, there is the possibility. Um, you know, obviously in the field, there can be some adjustments that have to be made so that it's possible that it might, um, require just a little bit of a, like a piped extension just to get it over. Maybe another 10 feet into the garden, but that the intent is to have it run on the surface. And I believe we have the, we can make the grade there to for that to work. Yeah. I mean, I think that would only really need one to 2% to, um, send water in the direction that you need to go. Yeah. I understand the grade would only need to be one to 2%. But what would you be, since it's above ground, what would you be digging a trough to go into? There would be a very shallow swell, a very shallow, probably like a gravel swell. Gravel. Yeah. Yeah. You're moving, um, Tom, you're moving a lot of trees that are along Mont Pollock's drive. Can you talk about where those trees are going and the reason for it? Yes, those are, um, I just was anticipating that, you know, there'd be concern about screening the neighbor to the west in particular. Uh, so it seemed that they would serve a better purpose. Um, by being more clustered on the west and basically helping to thicken up the existing row of trees that's already on the west side, but adding, adding more with, um, seem to just help, uh, a deeper buffer. Mr. Langsville. As long as we're on that side, uh, when we, uh, walk the property, uh, the owner spoke about, uh, adding a fence there has, uh, I don't know if this is your purview, uh, but since we're there and we're talking about screening, um, is there to be a fence? What kind of fence? Uh, we don't, as far as I know, we don't have any pictures about that or any information about that. Uh, what would that be? Uh, how high are you asking for? Uh, and what would it consist of? Um, I believe that we submitted, um, and I think it was mentioned in the, at the beginning of the hearing that we submitted, um, some, a spec sheet on a potential fence. Uh, and I'm going to let Maria jump in on this one. I believe you have that. Yes, I do. Let me, uh, share my screen again. So many screens. Okay. Um, this is the. Um, who illusions V 300 vinyl privacy fence. It comes in varying heights for five, six, eight. We're proposing to work with those owning by-law, what they allow, which is four foot within the front 25 foot setback and then six feet from that, uh, beyond. This is sort of, um, what one panel looks like between the posts. Yeah. Um, although, uh, late yesterday, Tom Benjamin said four screen blends in really nicely with, uh, the vegetation in our area. So it's a green. Um, and here is Hunter green in action. Um, So, uh, yeah, that's basically it's vinyl because, um, I think Greg had a concern that, you know, uh, Let me see. I don't know if I'm doing this right, but I'm going to jump between sharing screens to, uh, Okay. Here we go. Let me share back this screen. Is this the right one? Are you guys looking at the site plan now? Yes. Okay. So, um, this is the 65 foot length that, uh, of area that were, um, Mr. I can't remember the last name. Uh, the neighborhood to the West, um, put a stake and, um, Greg and in the neighbor agreed on this being sort of the, the end point and they'd go all the way to the front property line. And, um, so it would be, yeah, four feet for the front 25 and then six beyond. And then. Like Tom Benjamin was saying, there's going to be a lot more planting there. Um, Oh, and back to the point why it's the vinyl fencing is that, um, Greg had a concern that, you know, it's between this row of two sort of really dense trees. So basically brought if it was wood. So, um, so Tom Benjamin suggested a really good solution of, you know, um, a hardy material and making it green. So it just sort of disappears into the, um, sort of double row of trees there. Um, so, um, Mr. Chow, is that right on the property line or is it off? Off by two feet. Yeah. Cause there is an existing, uh, cluster of trees right now. And so we're going just to Greg's side on his property where we'll be putting the fence. Zoom in so they can see that two feet. It's to mention here and here and the problem line is so thick that it's hard to see, you know, where the first tick mark is, but the second one shows us, this is the fence, uh, line, the square dash square dash kind of symbol. So that's where the fence is. Um, I can go back to the landscape plan. If you have more questions for Tom Benjamin about the landscape. Oops. This is right. There we go. Yeah. If you have more landscape questions while we have Tom. I just want to echo what Maria said about the fence. I think, um, that it's a good choice for durability. Um, and aesthetics. Um, I think it works. Any other questions regarding the land state plan. Before we lose the person on the phone, Tom on the phone. Mr. Rudy, is there anything else that you want him to present on the application? Yeah. Maria, I don't know if you want to get the colored elevations. If you, if you have them. Um, I just think they're very impressive and really give a sense of the kind of the, the feel. Yeah. And if not, I can probably share my screen and bring them up. Yeah. Do you want to do that? I have so many emails. Yeah. I've got it. All right. I'll try. Can you see a screen? Yes. Yeah. So, um, Is it the right one? It is. Yay. Yep. Um, so you can say I've tried to show how, um, you know, on the north side and all the elevations, there's a, it's, it's like a forest in the back. And then, um, you know, there's a lot of outdoor living for this dwelling in it because it's only an 800 square feet. We, Greg and I designed a lot of outdoor decks, the screen porch so that, you know, expands the living space and it's a really beautifully wooded site. So we're trying to take advantage of that. Um, the materials for the exterior cladding is all wood. Um, two different tones, as you can see. Um, And, uh, And actually I forgot to mention lighting. Um, The, uh, south elevation shows the, um, Lights in the root, uh, the soffits. There's, um, Yeah, exactly. Right there. So yeah, those are all downcast and they actually have this little adjustable gimbal trim, which points it directly down. Um, And in fact, we can angle it even more. So it sort of just washes the front face, but that's actually just really low level general lighting. There is a little light right by the, Um, Um, Um, Um, I think exactly right there by the front door that actually lights the space. Um, and by every front door, there's that same fixture and it is dark sky compliant. Um, I think there's one by the door on the west one on the north. Um, Yep. In the base by the basement door and, um, Uh, And the only other lighting I think is also, um, um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, I think there are three or four downlights. The same ones as on the south face. And I think they're also on the east side of the garage. Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, are also on the east side of the garage so that you know that deck between the house has sort of a light wash of light from above. Yeah. Perfect. Are these, Ms. Chow, are these the colors that you're intending to use? As close as I could get it with a computer, the wood stain is gonna be a more natural tone and then the black is this really cool Japanese technique where they lightly char the wood and it's a technique that's been used for hundreds of years in Japan and it's catching on on the north west coast northwest a lot and basically it's just slightly charred wood that protects the wood so that you install it and then you don't do anything to it for you know decades because it's it's basically putting a protective coat onto it as well as adding that color so yeah it's a really interesting material. Alright. Mr. Langsdale. Do you speak to the the soffits lights on the house and the garage?  I'm sorry. The the soffit lights are made to be under roofs or ceilings but at the height that many of these are there's it's it's a it's a wash of light rather than a directed light. The lights you have at the doors are all dark sky compliant and very downcast and they light the area for which they are intended but the soffit lights there are one two three four five six seven eight eight on the house at least I don't know if there are any on the east side I can't tell that and then on the garage you have them as well and are those also then the question is are they on from just to dawn or okay so I can answer now or yeah okay so the roof slope is 4 and 12 it's a pretty shallow slope and I'll share my screen really quick oh sorry can I share a screen Tom? Sure okay okay so yes the oops these are the ones by all the doors providing the actual sort of you know safety light level lights for safety the ones on the soffit you can see they're adjustable and they're slightly recessed and they have at that height that I'm proposing which is around 16 feet they're only like two foot handles at the center beam they're very very minimal just enough for sort of ambient light and they would be switched they would not be like motion detector you know not like floodlights they're literally just for when Greg you know maybe if he has guests come over they can see the house you know when they're driving up or something or you can turn them on if he's going out to the garage there really just general ambient light and they're pointed there I chose a trend specifically to work with sloped roofs and and yeah they're they're about at the 16 foot mark and they will not trespass beyond they even showed one with like a 30 foot diameter and that was only point two foot candle so it's it won't go beyond their front yard at all they'll just be sort of on the surface of the house but the given the pitch of the roof and the angle that it shows that the lights can attain they're not going to be are they they're straight down they're straight down yeah straight down yeah you have a gimbal in them is it are they gimbal yes that's exactly what I call a gimbal switchable trim and they are designed for sloped roofs so that you can point them I think the angle is up to 20 degrees and you know 112 roof is I think it's like 18 so it's pretty much exactly you know it goes we can even crank it a little further to wash the walls but yeah it's it's adjustable and designed for this this specific purpose well it's designed to go under under under ceilings and like porch thing but not for 18 degree slope of a roof at 16 to 18 feet off the ground I'm just concerned that you've got a lot of these lights actually doing what they're not designed to do and that it's a spread of light with that number of them it's a spread of light that is not on the house I mean like the the on the front elevation of the house the top of the roof is 21 point 21 and a half feet so given that the roof is maybe I don't know let's even say 18 inches you're still you're well above 16 feet for those especially for those across the front so I'm concerned that what you're doing is lighting the yard and that if you're if we're concerned about the butters especially the man to the what to the West who's made objection what is what is necessary about these lights as opposed to their function or what is their function as beyond beyond aesthetics there what is their function beyond aesthetics so they would not be lighting the yard they would be either washing the space directly below or the face of the house and about 20 feet across the front of the house 20 feet to the to the ground level I mean double looking at right here it says 25 21.5 feet from the grade level to the top of the roof and the roof isn't the roof isn't that thick so those lights are gonna be at I mean at generous we're talking 20 feet off the ground so they're not made to light straight down for 20 feet that's so there's not a focus that they have that will that will transmit over 20 feet they'll spread and they spread the light and now you and you've got five of them five of them across the front plus the others on the on the sides I'm concerned about the the pollution of these lights and are you I mean are you concerned about there's two different things there's light trespass on to an adjacent property which these won't do or there's the ability of folks who are offsite to look on to the site and see the light which certainly that will happen here which I think happens with all lights and you know if you drive down the street and somebody has their bedroom light on you can see somebody has their bedroom bedroom light on so I mean yes the lights will exist but they're they're not going to trespass they do not leave the property from what I heard from Maria it sounds like they could be angled to wash the house to ensure that they're not flooding out onto the grass and and potentially it's a condition that you say they cannot illuminate the grass they must either be straight down or tilted back towards the house for accent lighting I suppose and that's that's what it is it's accent lighting it's not even gonna reach the grass as you pointed I just measured it's 19 foot six from the soffit to the grade and there is no chance it would trespass to a neighbor of course you would see it from the street Mount Pollux because like Tom Rick was saying you know you see lights and then okay that stated that stating the obvious and that's not what I'm talking about because obviously you go by anybody's house they have a light on inside you see the light that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about their function which is is it just aesthetic and if it's just aesthetic is it something that is possibly trespassing on the night sky we're talking it's not just about whether it interferes with the neighbors it's about the night sky that's what dark sky compliant lights are all about okay so my question is these the function of these lights are to be met are they're made to be under roof lines ceilings but not on an 18 degree tilted roof at nineteen point six and I question whether the the the the tilting of these lights will shine on the house and not spread at nineteen point six feet off the ground it's like a floodlight it becomes like a floodlight because it you have you lose any ability to focus them so that height is there a way to know how much the how big a circle of light is and how and how intense that light is 20 feet away I went off of that foot candle diagram and it was only one foot candle at 16 feet below the light and then it was point two for candles at a 40 foot sorry not a 16 diameter and then that 40 foot diameter it was only point two so it's not a floodlight the angled gimbal trim is designed specifically for slope surfaces so that you can then point the light straight down it is accent lighting it will serve a purpose over the deck between the house and the garage where it is sort of a light for that space when it's occupied the south face it's for the walkway between the garage to the house so that that has some more ambient light for safety because the light at the door is really just lighting up the stoop area so it yes it's an accent light but it's also serving a purpose for the safety of people walking between the structures so I I hear what you're saying I can't agree with a hundred percent of it but I definitely you know know your concern and I'm all about dark sky can play I've done a lot of research on it in my past and this there is just no chance that this is a floodlight it's just too low a level of foot candles so in terms of purpose if you leave the garage the only way you can leave the garage to go into the front door is to at night is to be lit by those there's not you can't go out the back of the garage any other way so arguably to get from the garage to the front of the house you at night you this would light your way sure yes yeah all right but they can be tilted to just wash the house right and have very little very little yes they could be tilted a little more to wash the house and to not spread onto the beyond the walkway or much beyond the walkway at least they'd be very low candle power yes correct yep so mr. Langsdale should we be looking at a condition that has the lights trying to wash the house and minimum some way minimizing the the spread beyond the walkway and into the yard yeah I also I also have to say that the the explanation that these lights at the heights that they are granted they're they're they're graded from a lower to the nineteen points nineteen six that that they are needed to light the way from the garage to the house there are many ways to do that without having this kind of light this high in the air on an angle on a slanted route on a very slanted roof I just I would you know personally I would like to see some kind of a rethinking of this I understand that architecturally and design-wise it's desired and thought to be a good idea my concern is about the sky it's about the lighting and it's about putting lights that are not meant to be almost 20 feet in the air 20 feet in the air so it's a it's a concern for me it's a real concern and and I other than maybe or probably or we could do this or they're gonna tilt I don't know I haven't heard anything about what this light's gonna do to the area to the to the night sky I don't know I just like to see more to point a phrase all right any of you have other stuff you want to present time should we start with questions Mr. really or we start with questions yeah I guess I what I would just say is as far as the the management goes you know Greg Stutzman is the one on the complaint response plan he will be living in this dwelling he's gonna stodged landscaping is gonna be doing the snow plowing and then we also have I think you saw maybe the floor plans that the trash and recycling is gonna be in the garage and those are just a couple of things just to kind of round out the the management of the property so I think with that we've touched on everything maybe I'll mention parking because it was in a project application report there were there are two parking spaces in the garage and then also two parking spaces surface parking spaces on the driveway and I think that's where the arbor varieties and the fence all help with that screening kind of similar to the resolution from the previous hearing and those concerns so I think Greg was you know with his westerly a butter had some forethought there and proposed that fencing so so I did have a question about the parking we've got four parking spaces for for this unit the dwelling and only three people can live there a maximum of three but it's a one bedroom unit and so I'm wondering how many people are anticipated to be living there and why do we have four and why there's a need for that many parking spaces so I could actually speak to that it's okay what's that right Greg to that yes mr. identify yourself Greg Stutzman here thanks for hearing us tonight really appreciate it so a couple notes on the parking it is envisioned as kind of a dual purpose Maria had the good sense to recommend there'd be a way to turn cars around so it serves that purpose it also serves for guest parking and we didn't include snow management on our plan by envision one of those spots being the location for excess snow if needed and something we hadn't talked about was kind of the conditions on the street with the on-street parking in our neighborhood just driving over here tonight we had probably nine out-of-state vehicles parking on the street people like to walk up to Mount Pollock it's pretty common some of our neighbors use on-street parking when they don't have room in their driveway and I think it we really beneficial that we have sufficient space when we do have some visitors or we do have snow on the ground that we're parking on our property and not on the street and the other you know is there a basement to the important what will that be used for again that's not finished and it's just gonna be for storage correct is that correct that's correct are there other questions for the applicant for any questions any questions we're it's wide open miss parks so I guess I'm just wondering about the other the house that will be leased and I'm wondering I don't know how many bedrooms are in there are is there a maximum number of people who you'd be leasing to yeah I can speak to that so it's technically a five bedroom house but we wouldn't be renting to more than four unrelated persons and my guess would be we actually end up with a smaller group I'm pretty familiar with the rental market and with all the health issues going on right now tends to be smaller groups or family groups instead of unrelated persons looking for housing so that's our plan for it I have experienced with management having managed and leased properties over the year so I look forward to being on site there and being the go-to person both for my neighbors and for the tenants and and there's parking on that site as well there's yes number of spots there okay there's at least four spots in the driveway and two garage spaces for the main house okay mr. Maxfield you have a question no I guess not I'd like to raise your hand other questions I think you've answered most of mine and I've got so many pieces of paper in front of me I've got to find my notes so is anybody else to have a question we can we can stand silence for just a few minutes while we look at look through our notes so you're limited this is limited to 800 square feet of development which is the legal limit for the supplemental detached dwellings that correct we don't count the basement in that square footage right right we don't count the garage correct okay and in the the applicant tends to own up to occupy the the supplemental dwelling unit and there's one person living intended for one person to live in that unit intended for two no more than three no more than three yeah more than three can I ask a question yes it sparks so it occurs to me that it was it's two building lots and you've chosen to call one of them a supplemental building and I'm just wondering in the future would it be possible to divide that and sell those as separate lots that's one building lot actually it doesn't have sufficient building area for two lots it's I think around 70 or 80,000 square feet no it's less than that it's in the high 30s around 38 you've got 30,000 in the auto zoning district for a building lot you need 30,000 square feet Greg for this whole lot has about 33,000 square feet so that's that's the issue here is that while he's got sufficient frontage he doesn't have sufficient lot area but that's where the supplemental dwelling piece comes in so it can't be divided and sold is okay I'll just say that for to me a supplemental building is attached to the other building and so I'm looking at that idea that's different than what I'm used to so that they that the building that you're building will always have to be attached to the other house correct okay unless there's something by law changes but under this zoning bylaw this is this is exactly what it is it'll always be on this property attached to that single family home and with one of the two being owner-occupied okay and it has to be owner-occupied because it's supplemental correct okay you couldn't have four unrelated people in each building that would be like a non-owner-occupied duplex but then even under your bylaw there has to be like some connectivity between the two so this would be effectively like where we started in your question a separate building lot but it doesn't meet the requirements so that's why the only way to do this it's I'll use the word parasitic but I don't think that's exactly the idea I want to conjure but that's what it is it just occurs to me that it's in the future if it gets sold it's an unusual property it's a package deal yes mr. max Hill oh yeah it's a little bit history on that when you on Mr. Sussman when you when you purchased this property they were two separate lots and then you merge them into one lot of my was I correct about that yeah I purchased the main lot in 2010 and the additional lot I believe in 2012 and then there was a A&R done in 2017 which combined them into one parcel which would happen eventually by default with them being in the same ownership and then I guess the follow-up on that so that second parcel it never had enough space to be developed on that parcel that I purchased was never large enough to be developed or interesting okay this part and will it have the same address as the other house or is that an additional number that's a good question I think that's a conversation with the town where we when we apply for a building permit and Tom correct me if I'm wrong that issue would be addressed and they'd want to a number of signs of that I would say that as far as mail delivery that all the mailboxes for Mount Pollock circle are currently essentially on my property near the main house or in the public way immediately next to it so folks up on that cul-de-sac are already used to walking down to the mailboxes other questions for the applicant from board members alright let's open it up to public comment if there's anybody in the public that wishes to comment at this time please indicate your raise hand function and identify yourself Richard I believe is raising his hand Richard yes thank you Richard Rosnoy from 11 Strong Street in Amherst and I just want to go on record as supporting Mr. Sussman's project I know what he's seeking to do I know the kind of work that he does and I know what Maria Chow does in architecture and it's a very worthy project I think I leave I leave the question of lighting to you but as as it's proposed they don't bother me so I don't know how you how you want to handle that secondly I want to thank you for this fine meeting you've spent a lot of time on things and it's been much more pleasurable watching you then listening to the news tonight so thank you I think you're damning us with freight praise on that one but thank you anyway next we have Joyce Duncan Joyce please identify yourself Joyce Joyce are you there I don't hear anybody all right any other comments we have nobody else that's raising their hand oh she Joyce's raised her hand again all right you've muted yourself there okay Joyce we'll try it one more time try it again no we don't hear anybody I don't hear a comment okay Joyce all right okay so next we have Michael Morgan I'm here with my wife and Rothschild and this has been an interesting few hours you folks work really really hard it's very impressive to watch I know that Sam and Joyce next door did want to speak so I hope they can get through that a lot of things they wanted to say we just moved here very very recently after 37 years in Northamers so we're not long-term neighbors but I do have a couple of questions about this one is I don't understand why he needs to come to the board what he's looking for permission to do that wouldn't just be under normal zoning issues I just don't understand why he has to get permission for this another question is I don't understand why the driveway has to be so close to Sam Gladstone's property it's like four feet away or very very very close to why he has to be so far to the west why it can't be a little bit more to the east why it has to be so close to it I was very interested in the discussion of the lights I hadn't even thought about but those I got the impression I could be completely wrong that those lights are going to be on all night all the time or just when someone is going in or out because if they're on all the time that's our bedroom and the house next to Gladstone's where the lights would be shining that was news to me and very very interesting and concerning yeah and concerning and I was also really struck about the notion of there being nine cars out in the street which I don't see once in a while I see one car very rarely too and just finally I'll ask no just for your information my mailbox is in front of my house on my politics drive not out on southeast but I'd like to hear more about these questions and especially I do hope you get to hear from the Gladstone's and Joyce Duncan oh I just want to back that up we so we are identify yourself please Rothschild and I live with Michael Morgan and we we are not abutting we are so but we are on that we abut the abutters so we about Sam Gladstone and Joyce Duncan they are they live next but we would be seeing we be seeing the proposed construction from our bedroom right so this is a small cul-de-sac and we're the only neighbors except for the Gladstone's and except for Sam Gladstone and Joyce Duncan um so yeah we're wondering why the drive proposed driveway is so close to salmon Joyce's house I mean it sounds like it that would be a problem with sound for them and privacy and I don't see why there's additional turnaround needed we back into our quiet cul-de-sac with no traffic on it from our house I don't know why you would need to turn around additional guest parking well that's on the street there's not my part on the driveway or in the driveway there's not nine cars there's at the most two cars people do not seem to park here go up Mount Pollock's they they come on the Mount Pollock's thinking they're going to Mount Pollock's then can't find the parking lot and leave so I'm I see about two one or two cars a day parking here in their Sam's family the lights do really concern me and I really appreciate the discussion about it I don't understand from what Keith is saying it sounds like they're going to be on all night is that true I would like an answer to that no that's why it sounded clear and why are they not sensor lights motion lights motion sensor lights on so that Greg can walk to his car or garage whatever so I I'm really concerned about the light I love to go out the moon is is toward the east and that certainly affect the night sky I really really appreciate the discussion of that I so appreciate that thank you any other comments from the public could you try okay we have Joyce Duncan Joyce you're muted Michael I'm muting you now okay who's next I said Joyce can you you can go now Joyce you should be able to speak now choice I wonder if your microphone in your computer isn't working because you're you're a lot you're unmuted so we should be able to hear you but we can't you know what I'm gonna do hold on a second don't look at that okay Joyce this is what we're gonna do Joyce is something so it seems that Joyce your your laptop or computer is having issues so I suggest that you call this phone number listed here<PHONE_NUMBER> and when enter the webinar ID when prompted which is listed here<PHONE_NUMBER>8 and then once you get in you're gonna press when prompted to enter app applicant participant number press pound to indicate you wish to make a comment press star 9 so call this number then type in this webinar ID then press pound and then press star 9 let's see here if that she does that she raised her hand again so we're gonna try but it sounds like it's from her computer so let's see Joyce you are able to speak if you are you are not muted we can't we can't hear you Joyce well Joyce you should try calling that number and we'll we'll watch for you if you get back on I know you wanted to speak so we'll watch for you go to what I'd like to do in the meantime until Joyce is able to get online I'd like to have the applicant respond to some of the concerns that were raised by the public and any comments from the board of as well for though Mr. Stotsman we do is there anything you'd like to anyway you'd like to respond maybe Greg I could hop in here if that's alright and Mr. Chair if it's okay so maybe as far as I think the first question was why did why do we need permission to do it and I think it's as it's as simple as looking at the zoning bylaw understanding that I think it was town meeting it at that point had after planning board had proposed and the town ultimately approved this supplemental dwelling and then said that in these certain zoning districts here's the process that you have to go through so it isn't allowed use it just has a little bit more review than other like just a regular building permit why is the driveway so close to the abutting property I'll defer to Tom and Maria but my I would think that is because of the topography of the site and this is really where that site flattens out otherwise you're talking about a lot of cut you're probably talking about additional engineering costs and you're probably also you know I don't want to start talking about drainage but as you start to getting into earthwork you're starting to talk about different drainage so this seems like the natural place on the site to actually put the driveway and out of all sorts of uses the driveway is probably one of the most benign of those and then why have why have a turnaround why not just back out onto Mount Pollock's Drive and I think the best design is not to back out onto a roadway regardless of how busy or not busy that it is and I think you know you'll you'll see that in the zoning bylaw and I think just good planning practice is if folks don't need to back out they shouldn't back out and to have this additional area on site and avoid having people avoid parking on Mount Pollock's Drive to keep that public way clear for the public I mean it's just good design if there's a fire or some other emergency at the end of the cul-de-sac in a fire truck or on Mount Pollock's and somebody needs to get up there and you've got people parking on both sides of Mount Pollock's Drive then you know I don't I don't think anybody wants to see what happens there so having on-site parking the way that this has been designed is really just good design and as far as the lights go again we would suggest that there's a condition that requires that these be downcast and to not cause we'll say light pollution and I think hopefully with that you know the board feels comfortable enough to allow it understanding just how minimal these lights really are I think those are the those would be the items that we address like a chime in really quick there first I want to apologize to my neighbors for not realizing I had a mailbox outside their house it's probably why we haven't crossed paths outside on the street but I look forward to meeting you and regret this is kind of the the first opportunity we have you've done a great job with the house over there which kind of sat quiet for a long time I would just add to Tom's reasons about the parking that we did consider a configuration where the garage might be to the east of the house and of course the parking and the driveway are going to be associated with the garage and in that condition we end up with the houses essentially right next to each other and we felt it was preferable to have the garage as a bit of a screen between the two houses we do know it's an ongoing concern for the neighbors with the potential light and sound pollution we saw that with the last project and we think we've come up with a good solution by proposing the first go around a significant amount of vegetative screening and then adding in some fencing and I agree with Tom's comments on the lights as well I think that a condition that makes sure that we're not spreading light out beyond the property it's enshrined in the bylaw already and we plan to meet that criteria and not pollute with light onto the street. Mr. Chair there is a new another person that has joined us by phone yeah