But that was my book. Oh my goodness. Let's see. Okay, Mr. Marshall, we are recording. You are the co-host to this meeting. Amherst Media is with us tonight. The attendees are coming on in. You have a full house for board and it is 633, according to my clock. Good to go. Okay. Thank you, Pam. You're welcome. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of April 3rd, 2024. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 633 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live streamed via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, this planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. The Zoom meeting link is accessible on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda where the Zoom link is listed at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and then return to mute. Bruce Colton. I'm here. Fred Hartwell. I am here. Jesse Major. I'm here. I dug Marshall in present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. Here. And Karen Winter. Here. Thank you all. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. For the general public, the general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If the speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. Okay. All right. The first item, it's now 6. 37. And I have a question for Pam, actually, or Chris. Customarily, we would do minutes at this time. I see Pam that your opening comments say there that the January 31 minutes were in, are ready for approval. However, I don't believe I received them in my packet. Were they in the general packet? No, because those actually were approved at the last meeting or the meeting before. So that was just a holdover. Okay. I know Chris, Chris has something to say. Yeah. I know she distributed another set of minutes. Yeah. Chris, is that what you wanted to say? Yes. I sent up the October 4th, 2023 minutes. It was either yesterday or the day before. I apologize for them being so late, but they seem to be very much of interest to people who are interested in the should spray road project. So that'll be coming back to the zoning board soon. So it would be good if you could review the October 4th minutes either tonight or your next meeting, which is April 17th. Thank you. Okay. So board members, have you all had a chance to look over those minutes? I know I did take, did look at them. I've seen, see, just raise your physical hand if you looked at them. One, two, three, maybe four of us, five. So maybe everybody but Fred looked at them. Yeah. So board members. I did, I did look at them. I have my hand up. Oh, you have your digital hand up. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's what, I thought that's what you meant. Okay. So do people feel comfortable reviewing and possibly approving them this evening? Or do people want to wait? I guess. I'm seeing Jesse's thumbs up on going ahead. So please get in on that. Thank you. Johanna, Karen. So that leaves Janet and Bruce to, Doug, I was not at the meeting. So although I read them, I will abstain. So I'm good with reviewing them. But that's why I didn't put my hand up. Okay. Thank you. Janet. So, is, so could we wait till next week for Bruce to see them or was Bruce. Well, it sounds like I've seen them. I've read them, but I'm, I'm, I'm in no position to determine whether they're accurate or not because I wasn't at the meetings. Oh, okay. I was a little, yeah, I read the January minutes and I thought I've seen these before and I was, but now I realize it wasn't just me. You know, we can vote on them. I don't really remember everything from that meeting, but, you know, then. Okay. All right. All right. So does anybody have any comments on the minutes as drafted? All right. This is probably the benefit of doing the minutes long after the meeting. Very few comments. It's also helpful that we have a recording. So, you know, I thought the details looked good and I moved to approve the minutes from October 4. So that's a motion to approve. All right. Jesse. Second that. Okay. All right. Any, any more, but any more comments from the board, or shall we go right into our vote? Okay. All right, we'll do a roll call.  I love saying yes. Okay. Fred. I vote yes. Approve. Thank you, Jesse. Approve. All right, Janet. Yes. Approve. Yes, approved. Sorry. Johanna. I'm an eye. Thank you, Karen. I approve. That's an eye as well. And I'm, I'm an eye as well. So we have six members in favor, one abstention and no, no's. Great. All right, the time now is 642 and we'll go into the second item on the agenda. We have a great, let's see, we have, it looks like we have 18 participants this evening. We'll read their names and then we can. During the time I read the names of members of the public, you can start raising your hands if you want to make a public comment about an item that's not on a later item on our agenda. Gary Roberts, Brad Hutchinson, Hutchison, Bruce Ehrlich, Elizabeth Veerling, Eric Bach Rock, Gail flood, heady startup, Jamie Gruber, Jenny Calick, Jonathan Salvon, Kathleen Bridgewater, Kenneth Roberts, Mara Keen, Michael Lepinsky, Michelle McArda, Renee Moss, Robert Azuka, and Sharon Pobinelli and Mary Brawl as one, one participant. Okay, any members of the public, do you want to make a comment on this time about something that's not listed later as a topic for this meeting. Okay, I don't see any hands from the public. And with that, I guess we'll go ahead and move on to the next topic on the agenda. Okay, time now is 643, and we will go to the comprehensive permit for Belcher Town Road and East Street School Project eligibility letter. Excuse me presentation discussion and opportunity to offer comments regarding the project eligibility application submitted to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and liveable communities. A preliminary review of their proposed development, including approximately 78 mixed income apartments at 31 Southeast Street and 70 Belcher Town Road. Chris, your hands up and I hope you're going to make an introduction to this topic for us. Yes, I have an introductory statement. I hope it doesn't overlap too much with Jamie Gruber, but I'll, I think it'll help you to put this in context. Good evening. My name is Chris Brester planning director. Wayfinders is proposing to develop approximately 78 mixed income apartments at 31 Southeast Street, which is the site of the old East Street School and 70 Belcher Town Road. These locations are proposed to be permitted and funded as one project. The project is seeking a comprehensive permit or 40 B for the development of affordable apartments at these locations. This is a similar process to the one we used for home, the home ownership project on ball lane and the support supportive apartment project at 132 Northampton Road. Wayfinders is a local nonprofit corporation that has been in existence for 50 years. I think they used to have a different name. They used to be called hap housing, if I'm not mistaken, and hap housing helped the town to develop Olympia Oaks affordable housing project in North Amherst. The proposed development will provide affordable apartments for extremely low, low and moderate income individuals. The project has been in the works for a long time. The town has been working with the housing trust for years on the possible development of affordable housing at the East Street School. The town also recently purchased property on Belcher Town Road with the intent of using it to develop affordable housing. The town purchased the Belcher Town Road property with about $730,000 in CPAP or CPAC or Community Preservation Act funds. In addition, the town has agreed to contribute an additional hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the development of the site. This is a good location for an affordable housing project since it is located on the edges of the East Amherst Village Center. There will be a new school built nearby. There are services, including shops and restaurants, and both sites have bus routes that go right by them. There are community gardens nearby as well as conservation lands to provide a place for people to grow food and also for recreation. The project will be split into two sites with the Southeast Street site reusing the East Street School building and adding units there for a total of about 31 apartments. On the Belcher Town Road site, there will be one new building with a total of about 48 apartments. The comprehensive permit process consists of two main phases. One is the state level project eligibility determination and the second is the local review process by the zoning board of appeals. So the state subsidizing agency in this case is EOHLC, Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. We used to know them by another name. Wayfinders submitted an application for a project eligibility letter, which we call a PEL to EOHLC and that agency will provide a written determination of project eligibility. EOHLC then forwarded the PEL application to the town for comment and the letter was received by the town on March 21st and the town has 30 days to submit comments to the state. The documents or excuse me, the comments are due to the state by April 22nd. So the planning board is being asked to review the project in general, in a general way based on tonight's presentation and based on the materials that you've reviewed either online or in your packets. Planning board members should take into account the things that the planning board normally looks at when reviewing a project, but keep in mind that the project is only in the conceptual design phase. Things you might consider are whether the site in this location is generally appropriate for residential development and whether the conceptual design is generally appropriate for the site. The planning board may choose to make a recommendation to the state that this is an appropriate project to be built on in this location in town. However, the planning board is not required or obligated to make a recommendation. If the board chooses not to make a recommendation on this project, individual board members may still submit comments as residents of Amherst. And the place where individual comments can be submitted can be found by clicking on the link that is on the planning board agenda for tonight's meeting. The project, if it goes ahead, will eventually come back to the planning board once it has been fully designed and submitted to the zoning board of appeals for a comprehensive permit. So the planning board will have another opportunity to comment on the project at that time. Now I'd like to introduce Jamie Gruber of Wayfinders to present the project. Thank you. Thanks Chris and welcome Jamie. Yeah, thank you. Thank you Chris for that introduction and I'm going to share my screen here and start the presentation. Can you all see my screen? I believe we can. Great. Thank you. Good evening and I'd like to thank you all for having me here tonight to discuss or propose development and Amherst. I'm Jamie Gruber, a project manager of Wayfinders and I will start with a brief overview of our organization and then move on to the development plans. Wayfinders builds and advocates for a thriving and equitable region by improving the stability and economic mobility of families and individuals together with the developing and managing a wide range of housing to support strong communities. This is our mission statement and our organization provides services in the housing arena from homelessness through home ownership. The real estate development team that I am a part of focuses on the creation and the preservation of affordable housing. Our main offices are located in Springfield and we provide services throughout Western Mass. Wayfinders currently owns and manages approximately 800 rental units of Western Mass across multiple sites primarily up and down the I-91 corridor. Here are a few of our developments that include butternut farms, Olympia Oaks and Amherst. In Northampton we have live 155 in the Lumberyard on Pheasant Street along with Sergeant House on Bridge Street. Library Commons is one of our Holy Oak developments as well. In November 2021, Wayfinders answered the town of Amherst's request for proposals to develop two town owned properties, the former East Street School at 31 Southeast Street and the town owned land at 70 Belcher Town Road. As part of the RFP process, the town reviewed Wayfinders proposal and selected Wayfinders as the preferred developer. We have completed much of our due diligence and have progressed the design and preparation of permitting the development via the comprehensive permit process with the town's zoning board of appeals. The proposed development includes two sites to the east of downtown Amherst. 31 Southeast Street will create 31 units and includes an adaptive reuse of the school and 70 Belcher Town Road create 47 units. In order to maximize the housing provided, we looked to be most most efficiently used the buildable area at each site. Our plans include buildings that will provide barrier free housing and elevator access to all floors and units. The buildings will be designed with sustainability as a core goal and will incorporate energy efficiency measures consistent with passive house and enterprise green communities. The buildings will be all electric and will seek to install solar arrays for onsite renewable energy. Once the buildings are complete Wayfinders property management team will be onsite allowing for a meaningful presence for future residents. Here's a table that shows the income distribution of unit types and some of these numbers may change but this is generally where they will fall. Approximately 68 of the 78 units will be income restricted while the remaining 10 will be reserved as market rate units. These income restricted units will be designated for residents based upon their household income. The household income is in terms of a percentage of area median income or am I and the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD publishes values based upon a geographic locations each year. Currently in the Amherst area the 100% am I for a family of four is just under 100,000. So based on the chart chart, 23 of the units will be for families. And then individuals with earnings of 30% of the am I or less and seven of the units will be for families or individuals with earnings 50% or less of the am I. 19 of the units will be for families or individuals with earnings 60% of the am I or less and 19 of the units will be for families or individuals earning up to 80% of am I and then 10 of the units will be market rate. Here are a few photos showing the existing southeast street school site. You see the school and, and, and the area in the front. It's across the street is the common in the foreground there. And the proposed development at southeast street school create 31 units ranging from studios to three bedrooms. The development involves the adaptive reuse of the school. And it's in that will have six mixed income housing units, and it includes an addition of 25 mixed income units, and it'll be connected to the existing school and share an elevator creating a total of 31 rental units. The school includes replacement of all the windows repair and repointing of the exterior masonry reconfiguration of the interior of the school building to create residential apartment units. The new construction will seamlessly connect to the school featuring a central patio main entrance equipped with an elevator for accessibility across all levels in both buildings. Here is a rendered site plan for the southeast street location. The proposed construction is shown along the along the road connected to the existing school and the field in the rear or western portion of the property will be retained by the town and will be undervalued. Here is a closer look at the southeast street site plan, the footprint of the existing school is shown in red, and the new construction portion is shown in tan along and aligned with the road. The onsite parking area will be located in generally the same location as the existing schools parking, and they'll be a pedestrian path along the southern side of the property. That will allow for access to the town field that would be in the upper left hand portion of the screen. The new construction will have a community room for residents that will open up directly to the outdoor patio and courtyard area. The other site on Belcher Town Road. Here are some photos of that site that the town had purchased for affordable housing and the current site has two vacant single family homes that will be removed or demolished as part of that as part of the redevelopment. At the Belcher Town Road will be entirely new construction. The three story building will create 47 units with a mix ranging from studios to three bedrooms as well. And the building will have a combination of flat and pitched roofs, echoing traditional barn architecture of New England, while creating the appearance of a series of connected smaller buildings. The building's configuration will provide several resoriented for solar arrays. Similar to the East Street School, elevator access will be provided to all levels and there will be indoor bike storage, laundry room, community room for the residents in addition to a management office. This is the rendered site plan of the Belcher Town Road location. This is across the street from Colonial Village. The building is sited, aligned with the road and with the parking and drop off pickup area to the rear of the building here. And then it backs up to the conservation wetlands area back here. The U shaped footprint allows for a common patio courtyard area for residents that will also connect directly to the community room within the building. And here's a closer look at the Belcher Town Road site plan is noted before the parking is located in the rear of the building and the U shaped footprint allows for the common patio with the community room in this area for the residents to use. Here's a schedule. The development is curling in the design due diligence phase and we have submitted our application to the state to start the permitting process with the town. Following the permitting with the town will pursue our financial and funding applications with the state's executive office of housing and livable communities or EOHLC, formerly known as DHCD as well. Due to the competitive funding round process, we expect the financing to be complete, leading the development into construction in that 2027. And with the start of construction, we anticipate 18 month construction period wrapping up and being fully released in 2028. As mentioned before, we recently submitted our project eligibility application or PL application to EOHLC or HLC, which is the first step in the comprehensive permitting process. And I would like to thank the town and planning board members for providing us the opportunity to present the proposed development and welcome any comments that you may have for discussion. I hope this presentation this evening has provided you with the information that will allow for your support of the development at both sites. If there are any additional questions, I'll be happy to address them. And thank you very much that concludes my presentation. Thank you, Jamie. All right, board members. I guess we'll open the floor for questions and comments. Bruce. There are four questions, but I'll take three of them and then let others in. The fourth one is a little more elaborate. The first is Jamie, the open space behind the East Street project. You mentioned what it was intended for. But I didn't quite hear it. That space there, a very large space kind of tied in behind houses. I don't know how accessible it is, but it could be all sorts of possibilities. But what did you say the intended use is for that space? All right, so when the development was put through the RFP process, the town wanted to retain that portion for whether or not they, for some use that they wanted. They wanted to maintain the access along the southern portion of the property line here so that people would be able to get back there. This site is, and there's also a wetlands line that you can see right here. This is shown in red, which sort of goes around the existing parking area. So the whole field is sort of a wetlands area that would not be developed and the town is looking into, it's my understanding of the town is looking into how best to utilize that space. Okay, that's quite sufficient. Number two. Oh, sorry. Chris has her hand up, maybe she can elaborate on that. Yeah, there are a couple of issues about that property. One is that it has, it's currently considered a wetland because water has been backing up there for a long time. There's a blocked culvert that is being proposed to be cleared and it's possible that at some point in the future that area will be more dry and able to be used for play fields. Not formal play fields, but you can see from this picture that was just shown previously that Watson farms and the townhouses on Main Street, as well as a lot of single family homes. Surround the project and it would be very nice to have a play area for children who live at Watson farms or the Main Street housing. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. All right, thanks, Chris.  Number two, Jamie, you mentioned passive house. And I'm not sure how familiar my colleagues are with that, but to me, passive house is a brand for a building performance and it's an exceptionally high it's the highest, at least it was when I retired 10 years ago. So have you mean the actual brand passive house performance you're going to pursue a passive house registration? Yes, that is that is that is correct. Yep, we are in the process of that and we're working with a sustainability consultant that's a passive house consultant that is working with our architect to pursue that at both sites. Will this be the first project that you've sort and hopefully achieved or have you achieved sort or achieve this standard before. Um, for, for, for the way finders team, it will be, it's my understanding that will be the first passive house for our sustainability consultant and our architect. It's one of, in our, in our development team, it's one of projects that they've, they've worked on and have been able to, you know, Well, congratulations. Just so everybody knows this is quite extraordinary standard. I mean, for example, the, the tightness and so forth is probably four times as tight as or three times as tight three or four times as tight as the average well built house currently is achieving. So it's a difficult standard to achieve or it was 10 years ago. Number three, and then I'll start for a moment. The, I, this is a good one because I think the site plan you've used this site quite nicely. The building is close to the street, but it's a is a common in between that and the main thoroughfare here. And I think it fits very nicely. And they're very nice and full some use of the site. Can you flick to the site plan for the belcher town road site. It this one seems to me that the building is pushed way up close to the road. It's a big building. And this is a fairly open. Roadway. I mean, the space around the building, you can see it from here how and so this is a gateway road to ammest and I'm just a little concerned that this kind of it'll be a little shocking to suddenly encounter this building pushed hard up against the road for what looks like a couple of 100 feet of frontage at least. My question is, are you forced to do this by wetlands or site constraints or would you have the option of pushing it back as much as pushing it back to twice the distance that you've currently got. Yeah, yeah, so that's that's an excellent question and there is there is wetlands a wetlands line there as well that that we are working with and in order to, you know, put the parking area there. And that was we are constrained with with space and for, you know, different, different drainage measures and designs and that sort of thing. And I also believe that there was some input, possibly from the from from the town as as as it related to that area and being considered sort of a, you know, a village area so entering that so they had asked that we had cited it closer to the road. We had, you know, other plans that that showed it, you know, in different kind of configurations on the lot and that's, and that's, and that's where it landed. Thank you, Jamie. I will probably at least from my personal presence on the board be agreeing that certainly I personally and perhaps my colleagues would argue to the town officials who are pushing you up against the road to push you further back but more of that later. That's it for me. I've got one more question but I think I'll wait and let others have a shot. Alright, thanks. And Chris, I see your hand again. Did you want to comment on some of those last questions? I wanted to comment on the idea of pushing the building up towards the road. I think that that's in keeping with creation of a village center. It gives you more of a feeling of when you're walking down the street that you have, you know, a building next to you. And we hope that other properties to the west as well as to the east will be developed in a way that this feels more like a village center than just a place where, you know, there's parking in front of buildings and the buildings are way back. I think that's one of the, the, the previous plan showed parking in front of the building and the building moved way back. So the planning staff as well as I believe the town manager was more encouraging to have the building. To have the building towards the road and the parking behind the building. So that's where that came from. Thank you. I'll continue to argue that but a little later on, I don't agree with that at all. Alright, Bruce, why don't you take your hand down if you're, if you're done. Okay, sorry. And on that subject, Jamie, what, what is the distance from the. Say, from the edge of sidewalk back to the building. If you bear with me here for just one moment. I'm looking it up right now and I think it's, I think it's on the order of what the, what the current setback is, or right, which I want to say is either 10 or 15 feet, but hold on one moment and I will pick up at the point I'm here. Yeah, it looks like it, it ranges, but right around 11 feet from me. From what amount I couldn't quite hear you. 11 feet from the front front front property line. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Jesse, you are next. Thanks. Thanks for the presentation. I had two questions comments also one was exactly the same. I was wondering why I was so close to the road. I was imagining that those apartments, it would be nicer than be pushed back as well. But sounds like there might be more conversation about that later. So I'll move on to my second question, which had to do with, can you flip back to the income distribution side you had. And it may be premature question, but I was wondering how that split between the two sites and will it be an equal mix at both properties. Is that too early to think about the distribution or is that too early to think about. Um, well, that is, um, yeah, it is, it's split up. I will say that the 10 market rate units are going to be at the 31 Southeast Street site due to the income restrictions that are placed on the belcher town road site as it was purchased for affordable housing. So the market rate units will be at 31 Southeast Street, however, the, and there will be a mix of 6050 and 30s at that, at that site. And then with, with I believe some 80s, but we kind of those numbers sort of, you know, move around a little bit, but this is this, this depicts what they are kind of overall. And I'd be happy to, you know, send you kind of what the preliminary mix is, but, but there are. I'd have to check to see to make sure that there's 80% am I units at East Street site, but that I will say that the all the market rate units are East Street site and then there's a mix, I know of 60s and 50s and 30s as well. So. Okay, thank you. That's fine. So Jamie on that subject. Does the designation of units. Is that fixed at the time of the opening of the project like, you know, if a if a unit is a market rate unit on day one, is it always a market rate unit is a if a unit is a 30% am I unit on day one. Is it always a 30% or does, is there some flexibility over time. The understanding is that the income restrictions are are are are put in place from the start of it and, and it will maintain that in this, these, these properties are through a 99 year lease with the, with the town of Amherst is how way finders will be gaining site control of the properties to construct it. And for that, for that period, it will be, they will be income restricted as, as, as they are, you know, initially. Okay, so in that sense, or in that case, you know, is the 30% am I unit a great deal smaller than an 80% am I unit. I mean, if I looked at a floor plan, could I figure out which ones were for smaller rents and which ones were for bigger rents. No, you couldn't and that's actually one of way finders design standards that we try to do is to keep all the units, almost exactly, exactly the same if we can so there isn't that, you know, difference between a 30% am I unit or a market rate unit or a, you know, a 60% unit or an 80% unit, the only units that are any larger are the ADA accessible units that that that need to be larger just due to the, you know, the, the area, you know, additional area that's provided for residents for their for movements. Okay, thank you, Janet. Thank you. Um, I have a few questions and some comments. One of the things that we were talking about when we were looking at the new Fort River school was the question of access from this project and some of the other residences on the west to Fort River. So, I know that's going to be kind of worked out later but have you given some thoughts about how kids can safely walk across that that street to get there, or is that part of it. Yeah, there is a sidewalk on southeast street here, and then there's a crosswalk here. Is that so you were thinking kids would go to the north and then cross at the crosswalk and not just go across the common and try to get to school. Is that Well, I'm saying that there is a there is a path that's provided there is a sidewalk provided and a crosswalk here. It, as far as in this school is over in this area, correct, is that it's actually, it's going to be further south. You see where the whole parking lot is for the school it's going to be south of that. So, oh, okay. So, and then there's going to be a driveway access where it's kind of hard to see there's just like a gray, long gray building to the bottom of your thing and that's, that's going to be where the school is going to be adjacent to that. And so I wonder if people are going to kind of go south and try to cross to get there instead of making a big loop. So, um, maybe, maybe this is suggesting that you guys talk to the Fort River school people and stuff like that because they're doing some kind of track maybe Chris can help out they're doing some kind of traffic analysis and trying to figure out how people are going to move around. So I think I could just see instinctively kids or families wanting to walk to the south and cross over the common to get to school like as quickly as possible because as we know often children aren't really leaving early and stuff so I think I just want to tag that as a future issue. The other question I had is, I would assume people who use that field are either living around there or might drive and park there and use the field to play like soccer games and things like that so if people want to use that field would they be able to parking the spaces, or is that, or they would have to park along the common has thought being given to that. Yeah, my understanding is that if there was, if people were to access the field that that they would have to look for public parking. The other thing I want to say in the beginning is, it's really nice to see this project moving forward. I remember hearing about this and housing trust meetings. I want to say five years ago, could it easily be eight. And I know how much effort this takes. I thought, you know, I thought the appearance of the Southeast Street school, like, did a really nice job of fitting into the houses around there which are mostly white for some New England reason.  I love the fact that you're saving the Southeast Street schools, because I think that's kind of a cool building. Unfortunately, when I looked at the Belcher town. Building, I just, I just all I could think of was the phrase it's singly unattractive it doesn't seem to fit any kind of New England style it seems like too close to the road. Very generic looking kind of it doesn't look like a barn it doesn't look like anything in the area. And that is actually one of the criteria for a special permit is that, you know, the project does not create disharmony with respect to the use scale architecture existing buildings in the vicinity. And I just, I just, I just, you know, I went on the website of the architects. And, you know, cranberry manor and carpenters gland look in East hot and look great. Olympia Oaks looks great. A lot of the low income housing in the area is really well designed. And I felt like this wasn't up to that standard and I wondered if it was moved back if the building was actually maybe taller but had some peaked roofs and kind of a more New England style. It would not only look better as you in the people in the neighborhood but also for the people in the building. I'm afraid that this is going to be seen as so unattractive that people aren't going to be supporting low income housing in our town like, you know, I, I, you know, the project that you've built on Main Street in North Hampton people think is fantastic and I just don't think this is up to that standard. And so I really would hope for some more design that would fit into the neighborhood more and look more New England the, or if it was going to be looking like a barn that it looked like a barn. It just doesn't, it doesn't, I don't know, I just, I just, I felt like that was really just not a very attractive building that I don't think I want to live in and doesn't really fit into the neighborhood, which is, you know, kind of harsh to say but I just feel like someone has to say that. Well, we're here for comments. So, so I appreciate, you know, I appreciate the comments and I can definitely relay that information back to our tech as well. I also wondered why the roof on the kind of big bulky gray part. If it seemed like it should be slanted the other way to catch more, catch more solar but I might, I'm not, you know, I might be missing something but I think that's facing north facing. I would, I wouldn't mind more height with more detail. And maybe that would shrink the physical size of it or it could move it back more. Okay, Janet. Thank you. And we'll move on to Fred. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Just a couple of things. One, Janet made a great point about with the new, the location for the new school building on southeast street. The, the pedestrian traffic is going to be well to the south of the existing crosswalk at Main Street. And, but the thing is, I think it'd be so much to the south. I think it's actually where the that extension at the south end of the town commons where the, the road that runs on the west side of that common curves and go and rejoins southeast street proper. And so there is actually a logical place for a crossing that would lead directly to the new school building. So there may be a very simple fix to that issue. Now, the, I do want to comment on the amount of parking. I think particularly on southeast street, I think the amount of parking there is completely unrealistic. And you've got that large piece of property there. I understand that you got some pushback from the town. Because of wetlands, it probably isn't actually a wetlands. It probably won't be wet when the culverts fixed. But I think a fair portion of the north end of that should be additional parking for the, for the building. I think it's magical thinking to think people are going to want to be there and not be able to park a vehicle there. And regarding Beltertown Road, I'm 100% with Bruce Coultham on that one. That building, again, this is magical thinking on the part of some people in the town, I guess, that think that, okay, if we, if we put this up there, this close to the setback that somehow we will magically create a compatible construction all the way around on either side, you know, and I think that's just not going to happen. And I think the building should go back and as Janet said, there's solid support in the zoning bylaw for something that is more consistent with the prevailing construction. I think this is asking for trouble. And it looked to me that the, I like the idea of the parking in the rear, and it looked to me like there's room to move the whole thing back and and not disturb that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay, thank you, Fred. And I just make one, one correction. I believe I misspoke earlier about the distance of the to the setback there. I was just double checking the plans and I realized that it was on the order of approximately 20 feet from the property line. The 10 feet was the East or the 11 feet was the East Street school was a little bit, a little bit closer so just correct myself. 20 feet. Okay, thank you. Bruce, I guess we're back to you. Okay, a couple more things. First of all, just further to Fred on the school, the East Street school site and the parking. I'm not sure whether I agree with him or not or whether others, but it's possible that more parking could be asked for. And, and as Chris has pointed out that there's a culvert that's created the wetland problem, if that's essentially accurate. I would hear, I think, urge the town who I guess it's the town who owns this parcel or wherever it does to unblock that culvert more or less immediately because you can, you know, the the the parcel can revert to non wetlands gradually, but it's gradual. And so it would be, if it were done now, you would have three or four years for the for the for the for the wet areas to gradually become formally and and not so. So I think that in order to give the possibility for a little more parking to exist on that parcel, moving expeditiously to unblock that culvert would be a good proactive strategy. But what I really want to do is to, to refute Chris's. I'm not to refute it to actually speak as powerfully and compellingly as I can against the logic that's currently being put forward by town officials, whether it's the town manager or the fall. I don't know if it's Bob Mara or whoever it is, as Fred used the word magical thinking I think that's a pretty good one. The idea that you can make this place villagey along. It's it's a main road. It's a it's a state road. It's the main road into Amherst it's got traffic streaming past it, all the time. You can have an intimacy associated with anything vaguely village center. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's madness.  He tried to demonstrate that he couldn't stop the tide from coming in. It's that level of hubris I think that would be associated with the idea that you would push a developer to push something in that location. It's as big and massive as that to imagine that there's going to be some intimacy created when you're 20 foot away from a heavily traffic travel main road into Amherst with such a massive bulky. And I agree with Janet on appealing building. So this logic that apparently Chris is referring to was applied at the Mill District on the Coles Lane side of that development. And once again, up there, we have a built example of the fallacy of this particular endeavor or proposition or wishful thinking. And you've got this wall of forced door in this right up against the street casting a shadow right across the street and it's, it's tremendously oppressive and it has the absolute obverse of creating an intimate sidewalk space. So I probably haven't ever before on this board and maybe hopefully never will have to again make such a an attempt at a passionate plea for common sense and to just completely dispatch the idea that pushing that wall against the road is anything but a supreme fallacy. Okay, that's enough of that. I think further to that though I agree with Janet that this, whereas the East Street building is quite nice and in scale and fits well and so forth. And we find this has done a good job in other places, Olympia Drive and so forth. But that building, as it is proposed here on Belcher Town Road is clunky and awkward, unappealing, it really doesn't have any grace, not any grace at all really. It's formulaic by someone who doesn't understand the formula I would suggest. And it does risk having the effect of turning people off affordable housing. It'll, it'll, it'll give the nimbies an extra dose of tonic and and that's not a good idea. I want to create public affordable housing that people can point to and say we don't want more of that. That's really a disservice in all sorts of ways. So I would ask that the developer improve the look and feel the elegance the grace the scale and intimacy of that building, as well as pushing it back from the road. If we put as a town hundreds of thousands of dollars into this building, of course, others will be putting millions. But even for that relatively minor fraction, perhaps of the total cost, we deserve better. It's our town. It's the entrance to our town. We deserve better. I believe. That's it for me. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. Janet, right, Janet, you're still muted. Oh, thank you. Sorry. I can't believe I'm still doing that. How many four years in. I was going to say, maybe the, the, the part of the building gets on the street could be, you know, like, obviously improved in its appearance, but less big and put, you know, more of an extension in the back or more of like a courtyard sort of situation just to make the it's not so oppressive to the street. The other thing I just wanted to say as a legal issue is that once a wetland is created, you can't kind of uncreate it with just by unplugging things. And so I think the town would have to go to the conservation commission if it wants to clear the culvert. There's a, there's a legal case for, and Hadley, I think next to the target, there's a big sump that, you know, I think they just didn't clean it enough. And it turned into a wetland and then there's this court case, which basically says it's a wetland.  And so I think in this situation, you know, the plants, the soil, the wetlands plants and soils is like, it's not like we can just clean out. I think it's too late to clean out the culvert and just hope it goes away. And I think the town will have to go to the concom. So we can't look to that area and say, oh, there's more parking there, though it might be more parking depending on where the wetland is. So legal caution. All right. Thanks, Janet.  Is there anything that's been said you wanted to respond to? Yeah, a couple of things. I'm not going to argue about the building being close to the road or not, but I wanted to point out two things. One is that Belcher Town Road is a town road. It's not a state highway. It's a town road all the way to the Belcher Town line. So the town has control over what happens along Belcher Town Road. And in fact, we have a grant to improve sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities along Belcher Town Road. So that's a good thing. The other thing is on the wetland issue, the wetland issue on East Street School, I'm not saying that it will no longer be a wetland if the culvert is cleared out. The town has gone to speak to Aaron Jacques about actually taking the culvert out and recreating a stream that was once there. And that would be a natural mechanism for draining that area. I'm not promoting a parking lot there, but it could be turned into a place where it would be more usable for children to play. And the town is going to continue to mow it. So I don't think the town has an intent to change it from being a wetland to something else. The town has the intent to return it to a more natural condition where it doesn't have an unnatural culvert draining it and would have a more natural stream. So just those two things. And one more thing is that Nate Malloy is in the audience. I don't know if he's available to speak to you, but he was very much a part of the conversation about pulling the building up to the road. And so you may want to hear what he has to say about that. And this would be in regard to the Belcher Town Road site. Thank you. Okay. Pam, maybe you could bring Nate over into the panel.  Sounds good. I'm looking forward to hearing from Nate. I have a question and then I have some thoughts. So first my question is with regard to the AMI, I'm just curious what happens if a tenant's income goes up beyond that. Are they grandfathered into that apartment or if they get a more lucrative position or like do they have to leave their apartment? How does that work? And then on the Belcher Town Road project, when I first saw the design, my first thought was this reminds me of some of the developments that have popped up in Northampton where Route 9 meets Cones Street. It's certainly different from anything that's on Route 9 right now, but I am trying to keep an open mind about it. And I think it has the potential to be the start of more of a village center type feel in East Amherst. You know, I'm excited that the sidewalk is going in there. I think the new school is going to have a little bit more of a modern feel as well. So, you know, if Jamie is willing, I'd be interested in hearing more and like hearing his reaction to the comments about improving the elegance or the grace and what else was considered. But I also, I'm interested in keeping an open mind about this. And then on the Southeast Street site, I really love the idea of thinking about how this new building integrates into how people walk by, you know, around the new school site. So I think the town is doing some work around thinking about how those intersections are going to work north and south of, you know, at Main Street and at Route 9. If at some point the town could give a briefing to the planning board about what's planned there. I think that would be really helpful. That's the end of my comments. Thank you. Thanks Johanna. And I can speak to the LITECH questions over the income restricted units. Once they, if they enter in the LITECH agreement, they can stay there if their income goes up. They don't have to leave. And yeah, and as far as the school, not as the school, but as far as the Belcher Town Road site, I know that we've worked with the architect to, you know, have them sort of develop these presentation sort of renderings and things like that. You know, like to get a more of a feel for the, for the building, but it is just sort of a, you know, computer generated rendering. So, but yeah, I appreciate all the comments and, you know, I'm happy to take that information back to, you know, back to our design team to discuss further. Okay. Do we have Nate? Nate, are you with us? And if you, if you are, could you maybe give us some thoughts about how you've guided wayfinders on the sighting? Yeah, I was going to share my screen quickly. All right, Jamie, you'll have to stop sharing for a moment. Is that visible for everyone? I was going to do East Street School and then Belcher Town Road. So, everyone, I'm Nate Maloy. Yeah, I was listening. Sorry, I was in the car for a bit and then I've been just eating dinner. So at the East Street School site, this whole backfield is considered a wetland. It's not developable. It probably won't ever be. And so, you know, the town's idea was to keep this as passive open space for lots and farms housing here for Main Street housing for the neighbors here. There's open gates in the fence and this is used now for informal recreation. This backfield and the intent, the intention is to always use that as, as kind of informal passive recreation. Maybe picnic areas, you know, it's not going to be used by the rec department as a, as a, you know, regulation size field that hasn't been for a number of years. But the idea is that this is going to be open space in a pocket park for this neighborhood so that you don't have to cross the streets to go to the playgrounds at Fort River.  And then in terms of what's happening with the circulation, we have block grant money. The town's applied. Gordon received a fair amount of block grant money. And some other funding to repave Southeast Street, improve the water line and sewer lines on the street, make connections, service connections to the six properties on this extension here. And preparation for this project. And so there's been discussions about, you know, right now it's unregulated parking along the street. And so we've had discussions about, you know, could it become resident permit parking, right, a sticker permit for residents of this development? Or could there be ways to increase parking on the street that would serve this development or some of these, the few residents here. Right now it could be that anyone can park here and then catch the bus, right?  They're here because it's free parking and they can catch a bus. And so we're looking at ways to address that, you know, in concert with this development. In terms of pedestrian circulation, the idea would be to improve the sidewalks north and south and create a better crosswalk here to the south to the main entrance. And create a better crosswalk and intersection here so people can go north and come in this way. There's a pedestrian access to the school that'll come down here to the new school. And then there'll also be a pedestrian connection along here to the new school. So that's something that's been, you know, is being considered. I don't, I won't, you know, the final designs aren't there yet, but that's something that, you know, where the town is looking at. And, you know, the block grant money will get us to here, right? It's not going to cross out the street, but it'll provide pedestrian sidewalks to the point where there's a new crosswalk north and south, and then there'll be other funding that have to address that. You know, the town was really pleased with Wayfinder's design for this site. We stipulated that the East Street school needed to be saved. We thought that their new building kind of townhouse style.  You know, the Historical Commission looked at this this week and they asked about, you know, could the school be more visible, but because this is all wetland in the back here, you know, if you were to maintain a pretty big cone of visibility to the street, you'd really limit the development potential of this site. And so for the town, you know, the benefit is we're reusing this school into six units and we're also getting 30 units of new housing here and right in the village center. The Belcher Town Road, the properties are right here. One of the original concepts was parking in front. And honestly, it looked like an office park to have a double loaded parking in front of the building. And so the town staff and as was mentioned, the town manager really wanted to bring the building closer. So in terms of, you know, is it is it at the right distance now I mean that's something I think that could be discussed so in this aerial image we could see, you know, Southeast Street Commons over here and what the distance is granted this is still part of the right of way this is kind of a vestige of the historic comment down here but you know what is this distance and you know could it be mimicked over here if you want to have some distance from the Belcher Town Road I mean Belcher Town Road is busy and loud and so I think those are some nice comments. I think the issue in terms of the architecture is one that's been brought up before and I think it's something to investigate I think that the Belcher Town Road. Building could, to me it's actually the courtyard facing the parking lot is actually more of its front entrance then facing the street and I think that there could be some, some, you know, some consideration for how how it faces the street breaks down in terms of building roof lines or other things and so that's something that happened at North Square is something that could happen here. The town has mass works money, block grant money and other money to redo Belcher Town Road. The idea is to put five foot six foot sidewalks on both sides of the road. That's the full extent of the right of way so the sidewalk and where it is now will be pushed into the property by five feet about or whatever it is that's what the right of way is. So wider sidewalks, bike lanes on both sides of the street and really trying to get Belcher Town Road to be, you know, kind of multimodal. The bus stops and Colonial Village will be improved there'll be a crosswalk here so residents can exit this building and then catch the bus bus stop either way. Route nine is still too narrow to have an inroad bus bus stop so it's really not it's been investigated by public works and TVTA. But you know as Chris mentioned, you know this is will be one building through a comprehensive permit the planning board has been looking at East Street East Village. And so perhaps in the future you know this is a different zoning and you know three four story buildings would be allowed and so this building would be in better context but I think the idea about what you know what does it look like now I think is a good one. And then, oh just one last thing about the units so the units are fixed, depending on the subsidy, a specific unit may have to stay at a certain AMI right so if it gets other subsidies, it might always have to be like a 30% AMI unit. But typically if someone incomes up if they're 140% of air meaning income they they will then no longer be income eligible and that unit won't be considered affordable. They can stay in that unit, and then essentially the next available unit of the same bedroom count has to become the affordable unit. So if someone at the household in a three bedroom unit, you know they they they're there and the earners start making more money and they are no longer income eligible. They're not addicted but that unit doesn't you know no longer is affordable and then the next bedroom size when it becomes vacant has to be marketed as affordable. And so that's typically how these developments will work. We don't necessarily call them floating units but you know it's the idea is that when it's designated. There'll be the proportional mix of one two's and threes or whatever it is in the income limits and then in the future it could move a little bit so you know if you know unit 212 is affordable it might not be affordable and 10 years but a comparable unit would be and it's still have the same unit mix you still have the same number of one two's and three bedrooms at those income levels, but it may not be the same, you know, units and for each floor plan. I don't know if there's anything else. Touch on or we we you. You can say what you needed to say right now and I know I have a few comments and then if you want to comment further. That'll be an opportunity. So I will offer a few comments it looks like everybody else has had their, their say. First of all, on the southeast street property. I was disappointed that the old school is partially obscured in a way that doesn't look very intentional it just looks like the front building just sort of ended part way across the old building and you know I guess I, if you haven't thought about turning a corner with the new building and so that it's an L shape and and connects to the old building on the, on the north side of the old existing building. I would encourage you to look at that because I suspect you could get a couple of additional units by turning the corner there that would replace shortening the building and moving the end of it farther to the north. So, you know that was disappointing. You know the old school building is not a hugely, hugely attractive building. It's not really charming in its own way but it's not an architectural monument. So, you know, that's not a deal breaker for me but it did look sort of unplanned, I guess I could say. First of all, the, we didn't see any floor plans for the, the southeast street building, but, you know, it's sort of, and the rendering didn't really tell me but I, it looks like there really aren't any unit doors on the east side of that building facing the street. And so, you know, what kind of residential building is that that that doesn't have any front doors facing the street, especially on that in that setting on that common. So, I would encourage you to have some units on the first floor of the unit of that building that face the street. Maybe the units upstairs do something else.  But it didn't seem like a very urban, very appropriate solution response to that context. Next, I guess I wondered whether you thought about having an additional story on the building. You know, there, there seems to be a pressing need for additional units in this town that are affordable. And could you put another story on the unit on the building and keep it relatively contextual. I think that would be worth at least considering, although maybe, maybe we're past that point. Again, moving to the Belcher Town Road property. I disagree with Bruce about the absolute fantasy of putting the building where it's shown, especially hearing that it's 20 feet back if it were 11 feet back I'd have some qualms myself. I think 20 feet is plausible. I'm not sure that Belcher Town Road will never be four lanes. As long as it's two lanes. Okay, maybe I mean I'm open to that. I, I, but I share Janet's qualms about the architecture. It looks to me like a holiday in that brown brick and with a little bit of white trim looks like half a dozen. And I've, I've seen and some of which I've stayed at. So, I think you've really missed it on the architecture. And I think if the architecture were better, we'd be less worried about the setback. Although, I don't know about Bruce. And again, you know, you've got a sort of nominal front door on Belcher Town Road. And, you know, I can understand, you know, maybe this is a larger scale building with internal units that are internally accessed. So maybe it doesn't really need to have individual units facing Belcher Town Road. But right now it's just just giving us the very minimum nod to addressing the street. And I wish it were a little more deliberate about that. I guess that I think is pretty much everything I was going to say. Actually, I was going to just ask about, did you consider putting another story on that building. The only one in the room who, you know, wants to increase the number of affordable units but particularly on that site I think I could see a fourth story. And, you know, we have, we have talked as a board of after we finish with University Drive, looking at this stretch of Belcher Town Road. And I at least envisioned that we would be looking for larger buildings that were relatively close to the road, parking behind or beside or not at all. And so to me this is not out of character with where I think we had where I had envisioned that that part of town going. So, I see Bruce's got his hand up and Chris you're you're you're next you've got your hand up. I just wanted to encourage you to think about how the ratio of parking to unit would be changed if you added a fourth story so I'm not saying anything negative about that idea but that does have repercussions if you feel that there isn't enough parking on some one or the other of these sites than adding a fourth story would exacerbate that problem on the other hand if you think there's a fine amount of parking and there's bus service then that wouldn't be a problem just reminding you of that issue. Okay, well, one sort of reference I was thinking about was the, the new affordable housing complex on Northampton Road. And my recollection of that site plan was that the amount of parking was not, you know, was pretty minimal there too. And so, so what I saw what I see in these plans doesn't look particularly out of character, if it's the same type of complex. And that complex was more. It seemed to be more geared toward people who've been homeless and, and maybe this is their first living unit, since they've been homeless so maybe there's an expectation that fewer of them would have a car. But I don't know. You know, to some degree I, I trust wayfinders to know their market and to know how many cars they need, as I do with most landlords. Bruce, is this time for counterpoint. No, no, I'm not at all. No, I'm not interested in having the final words on anything now. Two things, I agree with Doug and particularly what you said last about when I think the message that if we were, you know, if we were fully supportive Doug of your suggestion, which I think we probably could be argued into. It then gives the developer an opportunity to think out of a box or beyond the box that he may think he's in. So yes, I think we should see whether the developer would prefer two reasons for that. One is that I understand there's already elevators in the building. So that's that's that's so why not use them. That's number one. Number two is part of the opportunity to improve the elegance or interest or whatever you want to call it. Particularly of the, let's say of the Belchartown road building would maybe to have part of it for story and part of it to story or in other words to have a more dramatic contrast in massing and having an additional story on part of that building would would be one architectural solution concept for achieving what much most of us I think have been arguing for here, which is a more interesting and a more engaging building. Coming back on the street, simply a question, Jamie. Could you bring up the elevation of the rendering? It's just something that I saw which I think I understood. It seemed to me as though the roof of the east facing side of the building where the rendering is from the east. It seems rather dramatically the the second story windows of that of those of those units. And it seems as though and I think you can even see it in the in the rendered shadowing is is pretty dramatic. And it seems as to me as though that roof line comes right out from the face. It looks it appears as though it's almost a six foot or overhang. And that seems as though those upper story windows are being severely shadowed. And I wondered whether that's just something that you haven't got around the thinking about before or whether the reason why you've got such such a dramatic overhang on that side. That's just a, I was puzzled when I saw that. Yeah, and I'm happy to speak to that and yeah that was discussed and we can definitely discuss that further with the architect one of the reasons was is how some of these peak roofs and valleys come into and how they meet and in that sort of thing so they were they were kind of designed with that that taking that into account. And one of the reasons I guess there is a front entrance here a front entrance door here and a front entrance door over here, and the units, you're right they they they open up to a common hallway and that's the way they're accessed and one of the the reasons for that or the idea behind that is that we're trying to create the units that are that are the same I know that the question came up before, and as far as you know these units are similar to these units and not to have sort of any, I guess, you know, any inequities between the you know the residents that might be in a one bedroom on this floor versus that floor or wherever so the there is a front entrance right here the door that you cannot see and then another one here and then around the around the corner here is where that that that kind of that courtyard area is and I can. Sorry, get to the right screen here. And then so so there's a there's an entrance here and this is this is sort of where the community room and community area is, and it opens up to this nice nice courtyard area for for the residents and yes there is a hallway that that that travels through here and then another another entrance, you know to the street over here and. And then sort of a you know corridor that the management office and in the corridor to the elevator that's based here and then here there's there's there's six units like pretty much. This is sort of like an elevator lobby area, and then on both floors and then the other three units are across this portion of it so. So, so yes there there were, you know, certain things that were discussed as to how, you know, in an effort to keep, you know, similar sized units of, you know, with the same amenities for for the, you know, for for the residents that that was taken into account and that's, that was one of the reasons how we, you know, decided to pursue that path. Okay, thanks Jamie. Let's see board members any more comments at the moment I see one hand in the public. So I'd like to get to that before we break and we are approaching eight o'clock. So Fred. Thank you. Regarding Southeast Street. Just a thought regarding parking I would. Try and find as much parking if you can consistent with the the wetlands situation. And the reason is that some of these units of course are designated as market rate. And I can tell you if I were thinking about paying market rate for an apartment in Amherst. I would want to know that I can park a car there. And so I think there's this really needs to be given some more thought regarding Southeast Street I agree that there's a difference between 11 feet and 20 feet. But I'm not convinced it's really enough. And I think there's been a, I'd like to commend particularly Doug's comments about thinking about a fourth story and about the idea of maybe making the fourth story not everywhere but use it to provide some visual attractiveness to the unit I think. I think there's a lot of virtue to those comments. And I still, I like the parking being behind it and it looked to me like that.  Right. Thanks Fred. All right, so, Pam, I think we'll go to a public comment at this point. So members of the public, if you want to make a comment on this proposal. This is a good time for you to do that. And at the moment I see one hand that's been raised for a little while. Pam if you could bring Pam Rooney over. And we'll give her three minutes.  Thank you Pam Rooney 42 Cottage Street. I really, I'm very excited by these projects and I am delighted to see the project this far along. I completely agree with many, many of the architectural comments that have been made. Starting with the southeast street building. I appreciate the fact that that the roof overhangs, they may be, they may be big but but the roof overhangs over at least create some sort of a tier effect on the building to make it a smaller scale. And that that characteristic was not applied to the belcher town road, and the belcher town road is also essentially three stories in the front yet it has a very, very different feel. It is very boxy. The first thing I thought about when I saw it was North Square. Not to say that the North Square, however, has in its in its sections of facade has much more of a variety of materials and much more differentiation between segments, so that it does not appear like a, a just a bland shed. So I, I really appreciate the detailing on southeast street. Don't see why that can't be applied in part to the belcher town road. I appreciated the idea of having an additional floor makes a lot of sense. If, if in fact it could be in a sense the dormer style that faces away from the road. You get a little additional height, but you don't necessarily have the noise of the traffic, and you don't have the visual height that might be off putting to people entering town. I definitely appreciated the comments about setback. So, while you were talking earlier about the setback proposed for belcher town road, it is a, it is a major road major traffic. It is very different from southeast street, the west side of the common. So I looked at the setback on the southeast street building appears to be pretty acceptable within within the comfort range of some pedestrian walking down that sidewalk. So whenever on belcher town road, I always see people walking from further east, coming in toward town or vice versa. And so as you were talking I walked outside and measured the setback on cottage street cottage street is a 25 mile an hour road street, and the houses on cottage street are about 30 feet from the, from the edge of sidewalk. Okay, I'm almost finished. So, from edge of road to the front of the house is about 30 feet in that space is a sidewalk. But at least it feels like it's setback belcher town is a much more is a much, much busier road. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you, Pam. Are there any other members of the public that wanted to comment at this point. Okay, I don't see any other hands. Janet. If we're looking at possibly four stories. I would hope that it would be stepped back and so what's presenting on the street is three stories because that sort of fits the village center vibe. And I just say I do. And both of these buildings actually back on to basically trees and a farm in one case and so I think, you know, building an extra story further back would be helpful to housing but also not. And if it was stepped back, it wouldn't impose on the street and just seemed so big and kind of out of context. All right, thank you. So Chris, I think in your, in your introduction, you said we had the option of recommending this project. And are we recommending it to town council or are we recommending it to the state agency that received this application. And are we recommending it to the state agency they're looking for comments from the town and they will accept individual comments as well as comments from boards and committees as well as comments from town staff and the town manager. Okay. So, Chris, when you've done this before. Do you, you know, put together a letter with some of the comments that we've given this evening. I'm imagining something that sort of says the board generally supports the project and can recommend it. However, there were a variety of suggestions or concerns raised. And, you know, here's 10 bulleted items that were talked about in the meeting or something like that. That sounds very reasonable. Okay. Hi Doug. Yeah. So the, the, the town's letter will come through the town manager to the state. And so it doesn't necessarily involve council. And so in the past, what we've done is we've synthesized all the public comments into a cover letter. It could be anywhere from, you know, five to eight pages. And it tries to summarize the general themes of comments. So if, for instance, in this one it's about the architecture setbacks parking. And then there's some detail. The planning board could have a separate memo. As you just mentioned that summarizes this discussion. And so the town, then we'll have a cover memo. And then it'll include all the public comments received.  And so there's an online form. There's been a few comments submitted through that there's been a few emails and so we'll take those all, you know, on like April 17, the week before the 22nd. That's a Monday and staff will start to synthesize and read through it kind of categorize all the comments, including the planning boards, you know, historical emissions, housing trusts and everyone else's. Okay. All right. Do we need to formalize this as a motion. Yeah, I was thinking that's kind of where I think I'm headed is, is that we, you know, I guess, if I were to make the motion, it would be something like, you know, I moved that the board express its general support for these projects. And that we charge Chris to, you know, summarize the conversation this evening with the dominant points of concern. And, you know, draft a letter to it sounds like it goes to the town manager. To record, you know, our support and our general comments. To achieve to achieve saying I would simply say so moved, because that I think is what and I haven't added that we should like to see the draft before it goes, because I think we can trust Chris to handle that. But so I would move your motion as you articulated it. All right, we'll see if anybody wants to second that. Janet you're next. Um, I would, it's kind of, I mean, I support these projects. I think if it was clear that we panned the, the Belcher town road building or had serious concerns about the design and massing and want to see significant improvements. It's hard to support something like, I'm all for this project and I've been for it for five or eight years I can't remember, but it's that building I can't support that building being built and I would love to see something go there so I don't know if you can convey that. I think that what Doug said is just numbers of this concerns, maybe we should say our support is conditional upon the resolution of at least some of those concerns. We don't have to, that makes it non specific. I think that's probably helpful because we could have a quite a long discussion about where the consensus is on what we concern because clearly I've got some things that are more important to me and Doug's got some for him and you've got we've all expressed things with different levels of concern. And some of them rise to the point where, as I said, I don't think affordable housing should be tired with a particular type of brush and so obviously my, my, my expression of support falls short of just a little short of that, but I think that the applicant is here to hear what we have to say. We know the, this applicant is not somebody who's just arrived in town or in the, in the region. I think we can trust that they will take what we've said that I think that our support conditional upon resolution of some or all of the concerns would be a reasonable way of proceeding. So I, I could, I guess we could amend the motion slightly to that effect if you like but I will second your original motion with amendments if that's procedurally okay. You can take friendly I'll take those friendly amendments to Doug's, Doug's verbalization. Chris, your hand was up and did you want to say something I know Nate's is up to you. Well, I just wanted to mention that this project will come back to you when it is more finely designed, you know, this is really a first pass and it's really at the conceptual level so I think it was really great that you made all these changes and we'll try to incorporate them all but what you're doing really is just giving the project a general vote of support, in my opinion, with concerns listed. I basically think we we've supported it by spending an hour and a half talking about it if we didn't support it, we wouldn't have spent this long. All right. Let's see I see Nate and Fred so Nate why don't you go next, and then we'll go to Fred. Yeah, thanks Fred for your patience. Yeah I was gonna say that at this phase. You know the state looks at is the site generally developable is the concept plan generally appropriate you know it does their pro forma budget. You know is it financially feasible so it's kind of these general, it's like seven to 10 or whatever, kind of general criteria. So, you know the specifics right now are can be important so I think, you know, and like Chris said they'll have a chance you'll have a chance to look at it again so I think these comments are great. And the state often will then reference back in their letter saying, yes this project is eligible, but please bring back you know, new designs or ideas for the ZBA that relate to some of these comments and so if you know parking and architecture concerns, we can note that in the town's memo and then the ZBA and the state may also recognize that and so I think you know generally it sounds like yeah we're okay with the, you know the number of units the size of the building is, you know, then kind of how do we manage it and make it so it's a better fits what we want that the contextual part of it and so, you know, that's getting a little more detail than this, the project eligibility phase, but I think that's it's fine to have that and to know where we're going. Yeah, I think that's that's all I was going to say is that the state will often then, you know, take those major comments and then put them back on the ZBA. And then any comments made during the project eligibility phase will be submitted to the ZBA. So even if the planning board looks at it again. All the comment letters and everything that were discussed during this 30 day common period gets forwarded to the ZBA so they look at it as well so that it gets resubmitted as formal comments when it gets to the comprehensive permit phase so people don't submit everything twice, we just bundle it and make it one of the first comments sent to the ZBA so they'll see it all again. All right, thanks Nate. Fred. Yeah, I'm, I'm good with all of that I am my understanding that the there's a, I mean the devil in these things is always in course in the details. Chris, do I do I understand that we would get a look at the letter before it actually goes out. Yeah, we, we would, we would ask that. Yes, I can draft the letter and send it out to you all you'd have to respond individually to me. And the alternative is to have it brought to your April 17 meeting. Nate, would that be too late. Yeah, that would be fine. So we could bring it to your April 17 meeting and you'd have another chance to look at it. Okay, well, if that's the case, then I'm comfortable going forward. Okay. Great. All right. So we have a sort of emotion had that was post that was put forward and amended. And a second. Do people feel clear enough about the, the motion to have a little roll call vote about your support for that. Okay. All right, so why don't we just run through the through the board here and see if you guys are in support of Chris drafting a letter that she can either send to us or include in the packet for the next meeting. That expresses our general support. Kind of conditional on addressing some major, you know, some sort of the major concerns that were expressed this evening. So, Bruce. I approve. Fred. I approve. Jesse. I approve. Janet. Yohana. I. Karen. I approve. And I'm an eye as well. That's a unanimous vote of support. Jamie, thanks for coming and putting up with an hour and a half of not all, not entirely positive comments, but you, you kind of have a preview of what we're thinking about when you come back. Well, I appreciate every, you know, all the time that you would take into discuss this and, and, and, you know, I thank you all for it for your comments and. All right, good luck and we'll see you soon. Okay, time is 818. Why don't we take a five minute break. And we'll come back at 823. Please turn off your camera and mute your microphone and when you return turn on your camera at least. All right. My clock is showing 824. Looks like board members are returning. And we can move on for this evening. I'm going to keep my screen off for a few minutes, but I'm here. Okay. Wait for Fred to get back. Here's Fred. Okay, all board members are back. I see Chris and Pam. So we'll go ahead and do the intro for the next item on the agenda. Now is 825. And we are going to item four on the agenda, a joint public hearing with a site plan review and special permit. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law 40 a chapter 40 a this joint public hearing has been duly advertised and noticed there have has been posted. It has been held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard. This public hearing is continued from March 6 and March 20, both in 2024 site plan review 2024 dash 05 and special permit. So joint public hearing to request site plan review approval under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to redevelop a mixed use building including rehabilitating the existing mercantile building, also known as the Hastings building, removing a rear L of that building and the adjacent Brown building, and constructing a new five story residential building at the new at the rear of the site. It to contain 22 dwelling units in combination with ground floor retail and commercial space, and a connecting structure containing a lobby and elevator, a stair and, and a stair, and to request a special permit in accordance with section 9.22 of the zoning bylaw to allow a reduction in non conforming lot coverage from 100% to 97% and to relocate the non conforming retaining wall and section 5.171 of the zoning bylaw to allow payment in lieu of affordable units. The property located on map 14 a parcels 250 and 281 in the BG TC and DR and MPD zoning districts. Board members are there any disclosures at this time, or this project. I see no hands. All right. I feel like Chris you've got your hand up you got something you want to say before we turn it over to Tom and his team. Yes, I would like to say something. So on March 20. You held a continued public hearing that was continued from March 6, but you didn't take any testimony. So I wanted to remind the board of that. Essentially, that meeting doesn't count in terms of public hearing process. I wanted to note that Jesse major and Fred Hartwell miss the March 6 session of the public hearing. And I heard from Fred via email that he had watched the video from March 6 and felt that he was eligible to vote. And I think Pam reached out to Jesse and I'm not sure if she got a response. So I just wanted to clear that up before we started so we would know who was going to be voting tonight. Okay, Jesse. Yeah, so I watched the videos I did catch up on the meetings. Apologies. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Chris, thanks for that. And I guess at this point, Tom, welcome back. Thanks for having us. For the record Tom Reedy attorney with bacon Wilson out of Amherst here on behalf of South Pleasant Street LLC and its application is the chairman mentioned site plane review and two special permits for 4555 South Pleasant Street in Amherst. With me this evening, Barry Roberts, the developer and Jonathan Salvon from Cune riddle, who's the architect. So, last we were here March 6 we got, I think a very good reception of the project and we got some very good comments from the board, we went back to the drawing board, we were prepared for the marks 20th meeting. But measure twice cut once and so we're now here before you. So in the interim we did appear in front of the Amherst municipal housing trust affordable housing trust, and they unanimously unanimously recommended that or supported the planning boards issuance of a special permit for payment in lieu of those affordable units. What I will do now is take you through some of the changes. If you've seen the plans, and I also sent an email to Chris that outlined what those changes have been since the sixth prior to the 20th and then subsequent to the 20th. I think I think maybe the 2526 is when we sent in just a final iteration of the plan based on some back and forth with the town will go through those comments and plan changes, the biggest of which is going to be that entry Plaza. So I'll go through the other ones first, and then I'll let Jonathan talk about the entry Plaza because that initially got the most feedback from the board. So with that, I will share my screen and walk you through some of the site changes. Okay, so if you see my screen it should be an updated grading plan, and these are really the site plan changes. Here, or if you recall, we only were planning to use this catch basin to collect all the drainage on site. What we've done is added a trench drain in this area here. And so trench change are much just much more effective at capturing any water and run off. And so this is going to capture all of what's coming around the corner and it's being piped down to this catch basin. We also got a letter from Jason skills, who wanted us to put in a deep some put it catch basin with a shallow top, which we've agreed to do. And so that's what this it's the it's in the existing location but it's being replaced. And then we also extended the limit of work to accurately show what that limit would be and so it includes this bump out here we had some utility penetrations earlier but now that limit of work as you'll see, actually takes all of this bump out of this area, including that tactile warning strip. Additionally, on each side and I think this was Corinne had made a comment about folks entering and exiting and folks at this intersection walking across that right of way, we've added tactile warning strips on each side of this access way, as well. Not shown on this plan shown on the utility plan but instead of switching pages, we're putting a waterline into the landscape area, just so that there is in fact irrigation, and on the erosion and sediment control plan. So we have a fence that's keeping the right of way here open, and on the northerly side of that we're proposing straw waddle so some erosion extra erosion and sediment controls for during the construction. So one of the other changes you'll see and I'll let Jonathan really talk about it but besides this entry Plaza generally is this entry way right here and we're proposing two granite steps as along with a railing and the railing does come out of a small bit into the public way the sidewalk, but that's not necessarily given the ADA access requirements and Jonathan can talk about that a little bit more. I will then go to the architectural plans. And so what you see here is that entry Plaza that that Jonathan will talk about, but I'll skip past that just at this time and go on to. Just for a slide that shows or confirms that the commercial space is at least 30% this blue area is that commercial space, and the green area is the residential space. We've got a calculation down at the bottom showing that that ground floor area of the commercial space is 42.2% of that entire first floor floor area. What we've got is the charger shown on the back of this support. Instead of putting it here where it could interfere with the ADA access. We've cited it on this side. And then also we've got a six foot high metal screening fence which we can show you what that looks like. This is to screen some h back equipment for this existing site. So I'll show a comment about the electrical meter meters and so this is, you can see over here this is the north side so Amherst cinema is to my right, electrical meters there, not shown in this rendering but shown here that's where that metal screening is going to be for the H back equipment. So we've updated the management plan just to show exactly the number of total units that we were having in their breakdown. Identify the use of those two parking spaces that we showed before one at ADA, and then one really for loading and drop off unloading. The tenant move in logistics plan and also a parking and alternative transportation plan, which would be given to the tenants which shows town parking PVTA bus routes, bike paths, etc. We can get into that if anybody has any questions. And then I think it was Bruce comment Bruce's comments last time. We update the lease to include that information which we've done and I know that Fred and his email had some additional lease changes we're happy to make those changes we haven't yet. We're happy to make those changes that he had suggested. And I think with that I'll turn it over to Jonathan to talk about the the entry Plaza if anybody has any questions on those. Well, you know we're not going anywhere so we're happy to answer them at any time. But I'll turn it over to Jonathan to talk about the entry Plaza. Thanks. Can everyone hear me. Yes. Great. Um, so, you know, we had some good feedback at the last meeting where we were all presence. Um, and we were talking about expanding the area potential for seating. As part of the entry Plaza also trying to open it up a bit our sign was kind of seed is as a visual block. Yes. If you move down to the more detailed ones. Thank you. Um, and, you know, asked us to look at maybe some lower plant things that didn't kind of make a visual wall. And so we've responded to those and hopefully, you know, get your feedback tonight on that. Again, I guess we'd start with that that location that had mentioned earlier, connecting our pathway directly to the public sidewalk. The way it comes in on that rather steeply graded part of the public sidewalk requires us to put a couple steps in. And you can see the two handrails there that that Tom was referencing earlier. But adjacent to that is a seat wall that will vary in height and varying in texture. With combination of sort of large concrete or not a large granite blocks and some kind of laid up or masonry laid up sections as well. Tom, could you pan to the right and kind of see it from the other angle there kind of from from back on the site looking back towards the street. And I guess I probably should have prefaced this with one of the big changes we made here is to take the L shaped ramp that we had and turn it into a more of a viewer U shapes. Arrangement and that that allowed us to kind of freed up some, some area to do some different things with Tom, why don't we move back to one of the, one of the plans I think I there we go. Maybe moving too fast here and go back to the plan and just make sure we hit the basics here. You probably recall that prior to this we had, again, an L shaped ramp. And we're still, you know, we still have what we're going to call a fully accessible pathway that comes along the street at the at the south end and moves up this now be shaped ramp. But we have this stepped accessible connection.  We move the transformer to the back, a little further away from the street and and changes some of the planting around there I think we had, like, grasses initially. We're going a nevergreen now. Holly that would, you know, have all all season color. See, we zoom out a little bit and take a look at the new signage proposal down there in that lower right. Instead of a kind of a a monument sign with with letters applied to them or get sort of a free standing letter that would be in probably a stainless steel finish. That's a little bit more open and allows us to kind of see back into that site better. I'm certainly at a point where I think I could, people could ask questions if they're if they're ready to. I think I've hit all the major changes that we've made since the last time. We've also provided updated materials. So we've provided a specs for papers, bike rack, handrails, and then some examples, right of what you're talking about with the granite and the style. Okay, and we updated that planting plant as well. All right. All right, thanks for addressing the concerns that we've raised last in the last discussion. Questions, questions and comments first. Tom Barry Jonathan. Yes, I, I commend you. I think you've been very diligent in addressing a lot of the things that were said and I think quite successfully. I'll simply ask one question just for clarification here, because I think you said this in passing last time, but clearly the, what you didn't say now but it's evident from looking at the illustrations there. The wall and the two steps down to the street sidewalk do extend beyond the face the current face of the Hastings building. I think you said that although you hadn't taken advantage of this in the last drawing that the property line actually was a couple of feet out. And so, do I correctly understand therefore that the limit of those handrails is at the limit of your property line. The, it's a little bit more complicated than that the edge of our steps and our plant and bench and planting that is the property line in our discussions with with the building department. I felt strongly that that that transition from a from the site, you know from the private side of it, as it were to the public side occur at the property line, but they were okay with the handrail sticking in for the extension length that that it's going to have into the public way and that that was looked at by both Rob more and I believe Jason skills that correct Tom. Yeah, I think the way to say it is, you know, Bruce, the request was to make the site ADA compliant. And that's what was done so it required. With the work being done like here, we went right to the property line. As a result of that, the handrails extended a bit beyond and so we talked with Jason skills and he had no issue with their extension into that sidewalk. Thank you for that. I don't think I have any problem with that either. And as I say I like to the rest I know the what you the the way you've created it now is that you've got more of a walk from the street to the entry, and the ramp is really a diminutive design element. Whereas previously the ramp appeared as though it was was was it the it was different. I think I like it better this way. I the seating is is nice. It's not as salubrious as I had imagined. But I think this is fine. I like the way that it's quite a lot of it because of the way in which you've got the capstones on the walls and people can sit and I note that the guy with the long legs can sit further to the south. And so far so it feels to me and I think that the I particularly appreciate the way you've made the sign equally conspicuous. Maybe more so, but that it's not nearly as obstructive and I didn't even really have so much of a problem with it before as obstructive but but now that I see what you've done here I think it's it isn't it is a definite improvement. I'm I'm I'm a happy camper. Thank you. All right, thanks Bruce. I also like this design a lot better I like that the transformer isn't kind of in the middle of everything and tucked away and I think the plantings are more attractive. I like the the sign with the letters. I wondered if that the sort of seat the wall that curves around if it could if it could stay wide so it's still it's still attractive and more inviting to sit and I could see people kind of kids kind of curving around that so I just wondered if that could be the same with all around. So thinking about the EV charging for bicycles. I don't know if you're planning on having EV charging in the indoor bike stuff but I wondered if you could do an EV charger as part of the charging for the cars like I don't know if you can do that it seems like these EV charges are going to be super used. So I wonder if that might be a good tweak so people could charge outside and things like that. I think this is really much, you know, more elegant and attractive and you know really answer concerns and I think it's going to be really, really nice. The good ad. All right, thanks Janet. I don't see any other hands from other board members so I'll put in a couple of comments. One is I am in agreement with Bruce and Janet this looks much better and I think it looks really good so I think this is where it should be. I guess one thing that I'm just wondering about that seems more evident than it did before the canopy or the awning that's covering the walkway. Is there down lighting in that so that it at night that's going to be a well illuminated area that I'm comfortable walking down. And is it probably illuminated enough that it isn't going to attract people who are trying to get a good night's sleep outside. Well we like to think that we will manage that last part as well. I believe in this that we have an updated photometric did that make it into this. That's fine. I'm not, you know, I don't need to see that many foot candles you've got. I expect you will have enough but you know you that that awning feels like an optional element, you know you could have people keep their umbrella up for another 100 feet as they go to the front door to the building. But you know it's a nice touch so. Put it on myself. Oh good. All right. So yeah so you'll see soffit lighting in here and then the foot candles underneath it and I, you know I don't want to put my architects hat on but I think as far as design goes that awning goes a long way to separating, but also joining both buildings, you know so you've got the front building with the the in earnest three stories the back building with a foe three stories because of the way they've designed it elevator piece and this ties it in but also separates it so. Okay, it's well lit. I'll invite you to my next review. Okay. Thanks for that. That response will move on to Karen. So the the seating is basically this wall and the people are going to be kind of sitting facing the outside the street is that right is that. I think you have the ability to really to sit the intent is to be able to sit along that whole kind of our circuit so the first you know piece that kind of isn't the street allows you to face the street you could continue to. Sit on the other parks and some that fall that access drive. I think the view is going to be more attractive towards the towards the common. Yeah, is there any way that you can have also seating. So, I don't know, is there a possibility of having some way that people could face each other that you have a little congregation or is it shouldn't be just. Is that impossible. I think we would end up having to lose planted area to do that I'm afraid. Yeah. Okay, I like it I guess I pictured in my head I always sort of picture congregating in a group across from each other and, but this is also nice thank you for all your work. Okay, thanks Karen Fred. Yeah, I strongly support this. There was a comment made at the prior meeting, which I watched online from Vince O'Connor, which intrigued me and a potential problem with four bedroom apartments, turning into some kind of a rooming house situation. I tend to think that that is a management issue and I don't think we have a management problem in this instance but I would be curious if town staff or anyone has any additional comments that that address that comment from Vince was it intrigued me. It's not something I had heard before and so I'd be curious. Yes, I'm having a hard time remembering the specific comment, but Fred you're saying that it was concerning the four bedroom units and whether they pose any sort of management issue or public safety or nuisance issue. That's the way I understood he made two comments he asked that we consider rather than the the payment in lieu of affordable units that we insist on affordable units in other buildings that Mr. Robert's owns and I think Chris adequately addressed that by pointing out that all of those units have been subject to town proceedings in various ways and there's no way to reopen those accordingly. And so I think that has been fully addressed. The second comment he made was from memory. It was about mostly on four bedroom units and whether they end up becoming some kind of a rooming house. And I'd never heard that before. And I'm just curious whether there was Vince tends to know a great deal about these things and so I just curious whether there was any additional response to that. Okay, so a rooming house in the sense of maybe renting the bedrooms individually and not renting the unit as a whole.  I don't know for sure. But I thought it was intriguing. I've not heard that before. And so I thought I would follow up on it. Okay. Chris, I'll give you a chance to comment if you want, but I think Tom, your lease for this building. Would it allow someone to rent the whole unit and then sub lease individual bedrooms or something. I haven't considered that that situation is a potential. I mean, I think typically landlords like to maintain as much control as they can and so the sublet and assignment are usually not allowed unless specifically allowed. I have to look at the lease to see exactly what it says but that's traditionally how we approach these is it's not allowed. Unless the landlord specifically allows it so you retain that control and that ability to say no, there are some circumstances where a sublet is appropriate right if somebody's renting it and they're going away on sabbatical or semester away. If they don't want to be responsible and they want to get somebody else. I can tell you that Barry said other properties that allow that so I would imagine practically that's how it's addressed. Okay. And Chris has not raised your hand so I'll assume that at least she has no comment on that earlier comment.  I think that maybe Vince's concern is if you're renting by the bed. And so, you know, and so I think the lease is everybody on the lease is liable for everything. I don't I think that's what I read. But I think when you're renting by the bed, it's what's the difference between that and a rooming house and when we have a rooming house in Amherst, there's somebody who's running the rooming house who lives there. So if there's nobody living in the four bedroom apartment and people are just kind of coming and going, then it's a rooming house. It's not an apartment. It's a rooming house. And so I think that was maybe what he was thinking about. And it's kind of a good point. I did have once somebody who wanted to rent an apartment I have, and I sent my husband out to meet him and it turns out he was like, planning on like renting, you know, renting the whole apartment and then renting out to like 10 or 15 people to live there. And so we found to be a very unattractive idea, and we're glad that he was so clueless as to tell us so I think my neighbors would have told me so I think that situation everybody, every landlord will want to avoid. I have a situation this sort of segues into a concern that I had and I think it could go into a condition, which is what happens when if this, you know, there's only 22 units but there's lots and lots of beds and so if this building is rented out to 90% or 100% students, it's basically turned into sort of a private student dorm. And I think, which is not allowed except for in this one little tiny part by Olympia Place but my concern is that if it is almost exclusively students, bad things happen at night in students lives and on weekends. And I would like to have a condition in the management plan if 90% of the tenants or students that you come back to the planning board and we talk about a supervision plan, which could be on site supervision 24 seven, having a super who lives in the building. Here comes my cat. And I just, I do think that, you know, my fear is that downtown is going to become like UMassville and if it does become UMassville that every building is making sure that they're maintaining control over the students so I'd like to see that condition. Go into the into our conditions. All right, thanks, Janet. Tom do you have any comment on that. Suggestion. I mean, if Janet wants a condition that says if more than 90% of the units are occupied by students then we'll come back and have a further discussion about a management plan. Yeah, or 90% of the tenants because there's just a lot of beds there.  I hope I'm not making that right. No, you're right. It's 22. You know, I mean, it could be 90% of the units or 90% of the tenants, you know, it's just that at some point we need, we need some big people there to make sure people are making good choices and our stop from bad choices they're making and for their own safety and, you know, all the good, all the reasons we know. So let me think about units versus beds or tenants. Okay, Tom, do you even know whether. I mean, how do you even know if a tenant is a student. You know, in terms of their application to you want to know if somebody has a job or what's their income and you always you always know when you have students. Yeah, I mean I think you would, I think you would know you do have to be careful. Fair housing laws and asking the wrong questions. I know that, you know, in other developments we've done 180 fearing streets so at the corner of fearing and sunset, we've got obligations to identify what the unit breakdown is. And so I think if if if Janet is saying listen, if it's 90% or more that and more we can figure out what that is if it's tenants or units but if it's 90% or more than of, let's say undergraduate students then.  Here's what it is we've we've reached that threshold and here's our implementation plan. I mean ideally, we don't have to do any of that stuff. But if, if it ultimately gets us the approval this evening then you know we're willing to accept that. Okay. All right. Fred. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure that we need to do anything with this. As I think the board knows I've been a landlord for 52 years. And I have very clear and always have had very clear. Language in my leases that. You know, you collectively are renting an apartment and. You're not. You're not running a bed you're running your, your, this is a group and you're renting an apartment. Period. And. The only persons who are permitted in here other than occasional visitors are the people who are on the lease as a tenant. And I have enforced that relentlessly for 52 years. And I haven't had difficulty enforcing it because I make it very clear when I'm interviewing perspective tenants. I, I, you know, and I think the language that I did go through the leases pretty carefully. And I think that this is probably clear in the, in the leases, but if it's not, it should be. All right. Thank you, Fred. Bruce. I think this is one of those situations where when you have an applicant who is such as Tom and Barry and demonstrated who are comfortably willing to embrace and accept a condition like this. It's because they have the experience and the confidence that they don't need it. And so it is one of those things that if we, if, if, if you have to argue with the, the person that's probably because you actually do need it in this case, the track record of, of, because we've seen Barry before and, and, and his fearing street units that Tom mentioned and so forth. We had a similar conversation and I can't remember whether it was in the planning board or I'm also on the, as is current on the local district commission and they were though it's not our real Bailey wick because because the local district commission always or seems to always get these projects first because people want to make sure that they can get the certificate of appropriateness and then they move on to bigger and better things. This conversation happened with Barry's project down there as well. So I, I'm, I'm of the position that I don't think we need it. But, but maybe we could with a, an applicant who's, who's willing to accept it actually imposes as a condition. And then we have a precedent that we can look to if there are circumstances where we perhaps really do. And it doesn't therefore become a novel condition that, that indicates that it's not a novel condition that becomes something that is like many of the other conditions that we have on the draft list. Something that is not unusual. Not unusual. So I'm, I'm broadly in support of what Janet proposes, particularly because Tom is willing to accept it. Tom and Barry are willing to accept. Thanks, Bruce. Karen, you're next. So I'm, I'm maybe I'm shouldn't be mentioning this at all. I keep looking at this plaza.  Look at at Amherst coffee how willingly people are sitting scrunched against that building just to be outside and to sit outside and enjoy town. The plaza to me is such an exciting thing. And I'm now looking at it and I'm just going to throw this out and you can throw me under the bus if you want. That vertical, if you eliminate the plantings in that and make that another sort of bench so that people can also sit there. And that little bit of planting, although I agree, green things are beautiful. You just put a couple of pots of flowers there to make it nice. And you have a space where there's more possibilities to sit out there. Okay. I thought I'd better say it because I keep staring at it wondering. Okay, thanks, Karen. Janet. Well, I think it's Jamie's turn, but I was going to jump in and first ask Karen where she's talking about, but also, I think when we think about these conditions it's not to me it's never personal like who the applicant is. It's like 50 years down the road or 25 years and people are buying and selling buildings all the time. And to me it's like that will give the board and the building commissioner authority to come and say okay this building is out of control. Plus, you have a condition here you're not complying with. And so I think I would love to see this on all the buildings because I think we just need to always have, you know, people in charge and responsible, and it's not always the people we run to. We also can't say undergraduates because we can't discriminate on the basis of age, unless you're 55 plus and you can favor those people. So we can say students, because that's not a protected class. Anyway. Okay. Jesse. Thanks. Yeah, I'm going to comment on the other condition also. Well, I don't disagree with the intent. I'm struggling with how we can make that condition and then how that would be implemented. Yeah. I think that becomes a big logistical nightmare too. Are we then asking the manager to provide the town every six months with an update of the percent students as they define students. I see a lot of problems with time to even manage that. Just confuse me how that could actually happen, I guess. Okay. Chris, don't we already have a sort of problem building program that if a property has more than some number of complaints in a certain period of time that they get increased scrutiny from inspectional services and other town departments. I believe that's part of the rental registration program that's being altered. And I don't know if that's been accepted yet. Maybe others know, but I know it's being considered by the CRC and the town council. Right. And so, I mean, it seems like we may already have a way to identify and force a conversation with properties that are out of control. At least if they are exhibiting behavior that qualifies as out of control. So, I guess I'm, I'm not inclined to push a condition like that. Karen, Karen, you are muted still. That's a legacy hand. Sorry. Okay. Bruce, you're you're next. To what Jesse was saying. Am I right in understanding the practical nature of conditions is that I don't think a condition such as Janet proposed would manifest itself in an annual obligation on the town to check and so forth. To make sure that the condition is being complied with. I think it's the kind of condition that is there so that if there's a problem. There's a mechanism with legs or with teeth to deal with it. So, I don't think it should necessarily be complicated because it probably with a decent landlord probably sits there and is only enacted or is only pursued if there's if there's a problem. I certainly wouldn't expect that we are generating by putting these conditions in. I hope we're not generating for every condition we put in some kind of annual obligation on the town to check all this stuff. Okay. Thanks, Bruce. Chris, I see your hand. Yeah, I guess I'm trying to imagine how this would occur. Are you asking the applicant to report to the town. I'm asking the applicant to report how many students he has in his building on an annual basis or a six month basis. The building commissioner is not going to go looking for that information. He's got many other things to do. So how are you imagining that this would be met be handled. That's what I'm asking. Yeah. So, when we did the, one of the buildings at Olympia Oaks, one of the building, one of the buildings already built has 24 seven supervision, right, because it's full of students. And so that condition was also imposed on the new building, which I think actually has a live in person. And so if, if in fact the building becomes 9095% students, it's effectively a private student dorm, which isn't even allowed in the art BG, but it's there. And my idea would be, when you hit that threshold, come back to the planning board and say, here's my management plan, here's how I'm planning. You know, maybe we say you need to have somebody there 24 seven or one, you know, one of the apartments, there's a super. But I remember Karen saying, you know, she was an RA and things go south very quickly with young people on a weekend and you know people could be drinking suicidal or whatever. And that's why we have our A's. And so if we're basically having dorms downtown, we need to acknowledge that and treat it as a safety issue for the people in the building. It's not just out of control people but just their own safety and making poor decisions. So that was my thinking. And so it's the burden would be on Mr. Roberts or whoever the owner is in the future that, you know, I assume there's going to be a mix of people. Right. But if it turns into a student dorm, let's, let's come back to the planning board and let's have a discussion saying, okay, now you're listening to student dorm downtown. We normally require 24 seven someone there because it's a safety issue. That's what I was thinking.  Most of it is student housing and we're not really regulating it like that. Okay. But if you get the guinea pig, I say, let's do it. Alright, thanks, Janet. Fred. I'm not clear that we need to specify students. I would prefer to do this by a by reviewing the lease and, you know, we do get a look at the lease. You know, I think we just make sure that the lease has the kind of language in it, which I think it does. That that basically prevents the kind of out of control turnover that was positive at the prior hearing. Alright, Tom. Sure, so maybe I'll try to reign this back in a little bit. I mean, there are mechanisms in place already in town should should there be any issues that there are opportunities for enforcement. I agree with Fred, right? There's a lease, there's a condition in the proposed conditions that says if this lease is changing materially, you've got to come back before us and talk to us. And so I think that plus I can't get beyond the fact that this is also site plan review. And so we're not talking necessarily special permit zoning board of appeals for the underlying use right the underlying use is mixed use, which is site plan review from the planning board so you know when I take all of those pieces together. I think you're sufficiently protected to to guard against or to correct any issues that may occur should, you know, because I think there's a 95% students and there's not a peep right just because it's it's well managed already right so you're anticipating that well it's students and it must be bad so I'm saying well, we've got a management plan in place we've got a lease in place it and then you've got the enforcement mechanisms through rental registration nuisance house and just we're right across from town hall. So if they're if there are issues. There are enforcement mechanisms that the town can use to make sure that it's run properly. All right, thank you Tom Fred. Yeah just for the record I currently rent to apartments and they are currently 100% student rentals. And they are not problems. So, and partly because of the way I drew the lease. So. Okay. Karen. I think partly they're also not problems because you're living very close to it and I think our concern is how do we get more families and non students who also want to live in town and design things that are attractive for them. And we have that mix, because really that's what we're fighting we're fighting, having losing our historic town to be coming a kind of a student ghetto, and having the downtown part be that and it doesn't need to be in, in, you need diversity and you need to build in a way so that people like me will want to rent one of those apartments from Barry, and design it in that way. Nate. Yeah, so I mean, I think that this conversation is, you know, the complimentary pieces the university drive overlay or other places where we actually are talking about density right so we're not going to solve the student housing piece on a 22 unit development and there's infill development if it's all going to be students we need to say well where can we put thousands of beds for students to have developments like this be, you know, proportionally not all students and so I think we're getting stuck on, you know, we talk about university drive now we're saying well maybe we don't want it to be as dense as it could be. But here's the problem every time there's going to be a development now we're always worried just going to be students and so I think we have to start saying well what are the other pieces of the conversation. We can actually allow students in density and so the other piece would be inclusionary zoning, you know there's ways to say can we have, you know, you know, perhaps a revised inclusionary zoning by a law to have more units be bigger up to maybe 120 or 150% AMI, it's not capital A affordable it's a local enforcement piece but then we get a percentage of units that are non students so right now it's up to 12% of the units. What if we said it's up to 20%, but that 12 to 20% is 150 AMI or something. And we see you know does that actually deter development. And so there's really no way to regulate students out of housing. I actually think more housing is good housing and so I feel like we're, you know, we're not going to solve it here and I think we've had conversations about it. You know we don't allow off campus doing dormitories except for right in the in the RF district the fraternity residence district. And so what this is is market rate housing that may or may not be rented to students. It's the case for probably any rental or any, you know, opportunity housing opportunity in town I think it's really difficult to regulate end users with zoning, especially with site plan review. I think Board will say, you know, 12 months leases, nothing less no subletting, you know, maybe all, all less ease on have to be, you know, on the lease at the same time right or something right there's certain conditions you could have. But that doesn't say that they still can all be students I think that it's really difficult to say, you know, these units cannot be students. It could be their parents might rent them then and then you know I mean, I don't know I feel like there is just. It seems like we're trying to really, you know, get at something that's really difficult to regulate right now. And so I think we have to start looking at other things when we talk about how do we provide housing for students well we have opportunities elsewhere and I think we could address that differently than just trying to talk about this development. Okay. Thank you. Fred you're next and then Janet. I have to agree. I think it's a fool's errand to try and say that somehow we're going to limit this and address students in this way. One thing this property necessarily by its location, essentially has no parking. You're not going to put families in an appreciable number of these units without parking. So they're going to be students. The question really is, how are they going to be managed and they can be managed in a way that is will, I think, address the problems, but I don't know how we're going to avoid that. Okay, thank you. So I think I think we this conversation has sort of ranged past what I'm what I'm trying to do is, I think that when I was thinking we need a trigger for when a building becomes effectively a dorm and there's not a functioning experience to the building to take care of the students who might need help. And so, you know, it could be 95%, it could be 90%. But that, you know, so, you know, I'm not saying not I'm not anti student. I'm actually really pro student. I want healthy safe students. And so if you're building becomes effectively a dorm, we have been requiring 24 seven make supervision. And so, you know, this, this could be encouraging landlords to have a more diverse group of people. I don't know, whatever. But basically, if you're building, I forgotten how I counted all the beds but I couldn't find my notes. So there's like 60 people in the building they're all all students, come back to the planning board and we can say, how are you going to keep these people safe after 11 on a Friday or Saturday night. Is there somebody there, if something goes south. And so it could be just maybe somebody there for the weekend on weekends Thursday because Thursday is also now weekend Thursday Friday and Saturday night.  So I think this could happen to any building in town. And let me just say these student rentals are the most lucrative highest per square foot rentals. And I'm just saying, it's not a huge burden or it may not be necessary. You might have great students that don't drink themselves or have bad decisions. I don't know I raised two really good kids that made some really crappy decisions. And I was glad that there were people around to kind of help them out. So I'm just trying to say, if we're if buildings are going to turn into dorms that basically we have a mechanism, we come back to the planning board we're like okay what's your management plan for the weekend. Is there somebody there on call or present who is going to help with these people. That's it. If you don't think that's important for those students are in that building. But it's not about creating family housing it's not about inclusion and zoning it's just saying, if there's mostly students in the building they need more than the average bear and they're also by the way paying a lot more than the average family. So let's put some protections it. But if you don't buy it you don't buy it. I just think it's important. Okay, thank you.  I suggest that someone come up with wording for this condition and then that you take a vote on whether you want such a condition or not so maybe Janet could come up with wording for the condition that she's recommending and then you take a vote on that condition and then you can move on with the conversation. Okay, thank you. That's exactly what I was going to say absent the clearly worded condition. I think we should move on and stop. I'm ready to move on myself. I don't know. Chris, did you think we were going to get through findings and conditions tonight. Or did you hope I had been but I hadn't been expecting the comprehensive permit discussion to go on for quite such a long time. So, yeah, I think it's going to take at least an hour to get through the conditions and findings. Yeah, I guess I'm, I'm not eager to get into that tonight if we can push this back to April 17. What's, what's the position on your, your team's and are you guys chopping at the bit chopping at the bit for what that's worth and I've got also for what it's worth and thank you for accommodating me this evening, even though my hat field hearing, they missed the notice so it was continued anyways. I've got a four o'clock hearing on Wednesday, the 17th, and the six o'clock in person hearing on Wednesday, the 17th. And so, you know, that kicks us over to Bay at some point and Barry's taking the buildings down. April 22nd, maybe. So yeah, we're, we're chugging along. Okay, we'll leave it to the board, but. Okay, well, so do people want to spend, let's say it's an hour to get through these findings and conditions this evening. Bruce, you up for that. Yes, reluctantly, but yes, and I hope we can get through this condition thing Howard Lee. All right. All right. Thank you. Sure. I do need to give the public a chance to talk. So, I think I will at this time ask for any public comment people want to make on this project. I see one hand so far and as this first person makes their comment if anybody else wants to comment please raise your hand during that period. So, Pam, let's bring a heady startup over. Heady, welcome if you would give us your repeat your name and give us your address. Hello everybody. My name is heady startup I live on Allen street in Emma's and tonight I just want to particularly thanks to Roberts for the tour of the site as a member of the MS historical commission both 55 and 45. It was really helpful. I was hoping in my question as it were to see if Tom really could go back in the drawings to the plan of the apartments in the part of the scheme which is in the back of the site where. Yes, thank you. And I'll tell you when to stop. So if we could look at like what would be the apartments at the back where 45 is going to be demolished. Yes, that's right. Yep. Yep. Can you scroll down to. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you, Tom. This may be flogging a dead horse, but I've been listening to the meeting tonight since the pretty much the beginning and I was very intrigued at one point when you were talking about 70 belcher town road to hear a fourth story mentioned. And I'm just wondering, and as I said this may be flogging my dead horse about the history of this building which is dear to me now that I know more about it. And also, because I think the building is in a really pretty good condition and I'm just curious to know from Barry and from Jonathan on the sort of design team about. Do you really need to pull this building down in order to get your apartment