Okay, so we'll, um, Madeline, can you take over? So they just want our. I stroke. So will we write historical commission MHC a letter or. Yeah, we could write to way finders and they could. Include it. I mean, we. Essentially the town had looked at it, you know, during their request for proposal process. And the commission was a part of that. And. You know, we were, we required that the school be kept and that it was okay that the other property that the house be torn down. So I don't, it's a little surprising that mass historic. Once a little more review, but I think. You know, it can just be a little, a quick memo or something. But they've documented the school. As a historic property, I'm assuming. Right. Yeah. Yeah. This is just for section 106. I'm probably. Right. Okay. Sure. Yeah, I can lay that fine. Okay. So we want to get started. I'll read my long preamble here. Or do we need to wait one more minute? Wait one more minute just to see. Sure. There's three people in the audience. Okay. There we go. Especially 635. Okay. So it's 635 calling to order the Amherst historical commission meeting. On April 1st, 2024. And pursuant to governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general law C 30 a section 18. And pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022 and extended again by the state legislature on July 14th. 2022 and signed into law on July 16th, 2022, this public meeting of the town of Amherst historical commission. As being conducted via remote participation, members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by a zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. By technological means, a hyperlink to the hearing has been posted on the town's online calendar. So the first item on our meeting is announcements. Nate, do you have announcements for the commission? I don't. Okay. Anyone else have any announcements that they'd like to share? No. Okay. Okay. So, um, agenda item number two, a presentation and discussion of wayfinders affordable housing project at 31 Southeast street and 70 built your town road. This is a review of, uh, the projects with, um, Comments to, uh, MHC. Um, so as an employee of MHC, I'm going to recuse myself for this portion of the meeting. And, um, uh, my share will be taking over. If there's anyone here from wayfinders, can you raise your hand and you'll be promoted to panelists. Hello. Hi. Thank you all for having me here tonight. I'm Jamie Gruber and, uh, from wayfinders. I'll be presenting a little bit about our development in Amherst. I'm going to share my screen. Great. Great. Yeah. Let me just make sure that's possible. I try now, Jamie. Okay. Yeah. Let's see. You all see my screen. Yes. Okay. You are sharing. Can you see my notes as well or just this slide? Just a slide. Okay. Great. Perfect. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, so good evening. I'd like to thank you all for having me here tonight to talk about our new development in Amherst. I am Jamie Gruber, project manager at wayfinders. And I'm going to give you a brief overview of our organization and provide an, uh, information on the development plans for each site. Wayfinders builds and advocates for a thriving and equitable region by improving the stability and economic mobility of families and individuals together with developing and managing a wide range of housing to support strong communities. Um, is our, that's our mission statement and our organization provides services in the housing arena from homelessness through home ownership. Um, I'm the real part of the real estate development team with the creation and preservation of affordable housing as our goal. And our offices are located in Springfield and we provide services throughout Western mass with an emphasis on the communities located along and up and down the I-91 corridor. Um, wayfinders currently owns and manages approximately 800 rental units in Western Massachusetts across multiple sites. As I said, primarily up and down the I-91 corridor. And some of our developments include butternut farm and Olympia Oaks and Amherst. In Northampton, we have Live 155 in the Lumberyard on Pleasant Street along with Sergeant House on Bridge Street. Um, Library Commons is also one of our Holy Oak developments. These are just a few of our, um, our properties. Um, in November of 2021, wayfinders answered the town of Amherst's request for proposals to develop the two town-owned properties, the former East Street School at 31 Southeast Street and 70 Belcher Town Road, formerly known as 72, 76 and 80 Belcher Town Road. As part of the RFP process, the town reviewed wayfinders proposal and selected us as the preferred developer. We have completed much of our due diligence and have progressed the design in preparation of permitting the sites via the comprehensive permit process through the town's zoning board of appeals. The proposed development includes two sites to the east of downtown. The 31 Southeast Street will create 31 units with an adaptive reuse of the school and at 70 Belcher Town Road, 47 units will be created. In order to maximize the housing provided we looked to the most efficiently use the buildable areas at each site. And our plans include buildings that will provide barrier free housing and elevator access to all floors and units. The buildings will be designed and built with sustainability as a core goal and will incorporate energy efficiency measures consistent with passive house and enterprise green communities. The buildings will also be all electric and we will seek to install solar panels and arrays for onsite renewable energy. So our development will have an onsite property management once complete allowing for a meaningful presence as well. Here's a quick look at the apartment income mix approximately 68 of the 78 units will be income restricted units 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 AMI. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD publishes the values based upon the geographic areas each year. Currently in Amherst the AMI for a family of four is just under $100,000. And the apartment income mix across both sites is shown above. Some of these numbers may change, but this is generally where they'll fall. So each, so 23% of the units will be for families and individuals making or with an income 30% or less of the area median income and seven of the units will be for families or individuals making 50% of the area or less of the median income. And 19 of the units will be for families and individuals making 60% of the AMI or less. And then 19 of the units will be for families and individuals earning up to 80% of the AMI. And 10 units will be reserved for market rates. So at our first site at the 31 Southeast Street, here's the existing site. There's a photo of the school, the front yard, and then kind of an overall of the area. And what we're proposing there is the 31 Southeast Street school site will create 31 units with a mix of units ranging from studios to three bedrooms. The development will involve the adaptive reuse of the historic East Street elementary school creating six mixed income housing units within the school. And it includes an addition of 25 mixed income units that will be connected to the existing school and share an elevator for the total of 31 units. The work to the school includes the replacement of all the windows, repair and repointing of the exterior masonry, the reconfiguration and rehabilitation of the interior of the school building to create residential apartment units. The existing school will become six new energy efficient buildings and have a common laundry and area designated for indoor bike storage as well. The new construction will be seamlessly connected to the school, featuring a central patio and a main entrance equipped with an elevator for accessibility across all levels in both buildings. Here is the Southeast Street site plan. The footprint of the existing school building is shown in red and the new construction portion is shown in tan along the road and aligned with the existing road. The on-site parking area will be located generally in the same location of the existing school's parking lot and there will be a pedestrian path along the southern side of the parking lot or left side of the screen that will allow access to the town-owned field that's not shown that would be in the upper left portion of the screen. The new construction addition will have a community room for residents that will open up to the outdoor patio and courtyard area in between. The other site is on Belcher Town Road about a quarter mile away and here are some of the photos showing the existing site and the two vacant single-family homes that are currently on the property. One was built in the mid-1990s and the other was built around 1930 based upon the assessor's information. So at this site we're proposing 47 units of all new construction. It will be a three-story building with a mix of units ranging from studios to three bedrooms. The building will have a combination of flat and pitched roofs echoing the tradition of barn architecture of New England while creating the appearance of a series of connected smaller buildings. The building's configuration will provide several roofs oriented for solar photo arrays. Similar to the East Street School, elevator access will be provided to all levels and will provide indoor bike storage, laundry room and community room for the residents in addition to a management office. This is the site plan for the Belcher Town Road site and the site will have the parking and drop-off pickup area in the rear of the building and the U-shaped footprint of the building allows for a common patio courtyard area for the residents that will also connect to the community room within the building. Here's a schedule of the development is currently in the design due diligence phase. We have submitted our application with the state executive office of Housing and Liveable Communities, EOHLC to start the 40B permitting process with the town. Following the permitting with the town, we will pursue our financing and funding applications for the development with the state and due to competitive funding round process, we expect the financing to be complete leading the development into construction in around 2027. And we would expect an 18-month construction period wrapping up and being fully leased in 2028. As part of our permitting due diligence work for this proposed housing development, we submitted our project notification form, the Massachusetts Historical Commission for each site. As part of the response to our PNF, the Massachusetts Historical Commission requested that the Amherst Historical Commission review and comment on that project notification form for the proposed development. These and that these comments would be both submitted back to MHC and the Executive Office of Housing and Liveable Communities who will eventually be the funding source for helping provide funding sources for this project. And we will continue to do that. I hope this presentation has provided some information about the development that will allow for the commission to comment favorably and in support of the development of both sites. And if there are any additional questions, I'll be happy to address them. And thank you very much. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thanks for that. Yeah, why don't we turn, can we go back to your slide that has the plan? We'll start with 31. South Street. Yeah, maybe this, maybe the one with the plan. The site plan. Sure. The site plan. And maybe we can all just discuss, discuss it using this. Right now. Does anyone have any questions for Jamie? I'll start. Will the, the entrance. So I'm, I think we're primarily just interested in how the, the school building will be. Adaptively reused. And just sort of what, what that will entail and what, what it's going to look like on the exterior. And then we'll move on to the next slide. On the exterior. And so this is a 1893. It's the old East street school. So I mean, I'm, I'm interested in the, this sort of entry way that faces South East street to building. Will that still be in use? Do you know? Will there be a door there? Yes. So the, the current, the current building, the, the front entry way was. The removed. And as part of our plan, we intend to, you know, build a set of steps up to that. And that'll be sort of the first floor in the, in the school building. You can't really see it here, but in the site plan. Let's see if you can. Right in. Can you see my pointer here? Right. Yeah, right in there. So yeah, we're planning on having an entry way into the school. And there'll be a unit here and a unit here. And a unit over here. And this portion right here is sort of. This is where the elevator, the proposed elevator will be. And then there's kind of a hallway that will lead to the new construction portion and another hallway. So there'll be apartments in the rear and apartments in the. Front of the building. So yeah, we plan to. To, to rebuild the stairs and have that entrance into this area. And there's sort of a, I guess, a little elevator kind of lobby in this, in this zone where in the elevator is, would open up on either side on this, because the floors will be at different levels. So they put it in between the building. So on this building, you'd be able to exit off this way. And on this building, you would exit over here. So do you know if the sort of brick work archway will be kept. That frames that. Yes. Right. Because you're just. Repointing and repairing the exterior brick work. Yes, right. Right.  You know, window fenestrations over here that we were going to open up and actually put new windows in. So you're retaining the like. Fenestration pattern of the original. And the, the brick work. Yeah, right here. They'll be, they'll be, I believe that they'll be new windows installed. And what is the exterior? I'm going to ask one more. The exterior material of that connector piece that connects on the east side or the. I don't know if it's east. The north side of the. Of the original. A school building. If you want to go back to the plan. Yeah. That. Elevator. Right here. Yes. So in order to kind of differentiate between the. The front school, the front building and the school building, this will have, I think it'll be sort of a flat panel. To give it sort of to make it stand apart from the school. A more sort of, yeah. Is that. Yeah, I think that's, I think, I mean. I think that's a good thing to contrast with the original building. Yeah, it's just following kind of secretary of the interior standards. So, okay. Great. Does anyone else have a question? What was that Jamie? I was just going to say in our, in our architect, the narrow gate is, is, you know, has, has done these types of. Historic kind of. You know, reuse of schools and things like that into affordable housing in the past and. Oh, great. Yeah. They've been great to work with. So. Pat. Well, because you've started with the Massachusetts district. I'm assuming that the original school building is. Fully documented on macros. There is a macros form. It's. Have you seen it's at the end of the PNF. It's an older form. From 1980. Yeah, I wondered whether it had been updated at all. I don't see any updates. Because that, that might be critical given the. Use of the building to us to have a more full deck. Over the decades since it was built. Is that something that way finders would be fine. Be willing to do. To update the. I would have to look into, I guess, maybe what's involved in that process. And, and, and, you know, explore that. If that is something that way finders could do or how we would go about.  So I would have to get some more information. Do we know what the use of the building has been since 1980? If there would be a reason to have. To need updated documentation. It was used as an annex school. Yes. To Fort River and I'm, and, and obviously there have been changes to the fenestrations and to the. Main entrance and I'm just even, even just a pictorial documentation as to when those changes. Were made. Because it is a historic building and I'm not sure. I'm not sure those changes were made. With that consideration. Because I don't fully know the history. I just know that it was used up through the. Middle nineties as an annex school to Fort River school. How do you. Do you have a comment? Yes. Thank you, Jamie, for your presentation. Way finders is a great organization in our area. And I'm happy to see you addressing the affordable housing issue for Amherst and other areas. You may already know this, but the east village in Amherst is actually the. The part of town that was sort of first created as the center of town rather than where it is now. And. For that reason I'm sort of. Sad that the. The way the school and the new buildings. Connect to each other kind of obscures the. The older of the two buildings I guess I. Would I guess what I want to ask is whether there was ever a way of pivoting the new addition. So that the school building would have been more prominent from the street because the street is not just a street. It's also the east village common. And our new school is going in across the street.  I think going forward. So I just that was it's sort of a comment and it's sort of a question of whether there was ever any discussion about. How to make this the school building kind of talk the old school building to the new school building across the street across the common. Well. So I guess maybe the new school building is. You know, across the way and I know that they look to kind of keep as much of the kind of the historic elements of the existing school that they could, while also kind of trying to, you know, utilize the site the best they could to, you know, provide as many, I guess, housing units as. That we could with the with the new construction portion. And the way that the lot is situated, it kind of falls off to the back and then the property line is sort of indicated by the, you know, by the extent. So the green shading here. So we were, we were sort of working within the, you know, the buildable area of the site to kind of come up with a, a plan that sort of, you know, worked well for everything. And I know that, you know, they tried to create this sort of patio area here and, and, you know, the, you know, the view from, from this portion of the, I guess, you know, of this, this side, you know, would kind of open up to so that wouldn't kind of totally obscure it, but that's what the, the rendering. I do believe though that the lot is much larger to the rear. Oh, it, it, you're absolutely, you're absolutely right. Back here, but this is, this is actually, this is a wetland. So it's not developable at all. So this is, this is pretty much the extent of the existing. The, the wetland line here and this is, this is already sort of pre-developed area. So it allows us to, you know, just kind of make improvements in that area. And so the, these playing fields is going to actually, that portion of the property is being retained by the town for their use. And that's the idea of the access way here to, to be able to access that. For the community. Right. Oh, Nate. Nate, do you have a comment? Yeah, I'm going to say that when, you know, the trust I looked at this years ago, I mean, when we started looking at developing housing here. And we had, you know, develop concepts for the, for the site, you know, some were keeping the building and some were demolishing it. And the town, when we disposed of this for housing, the requirement was to keep the building and try to maintain visibility, which, you know, and have units, you know, this design we think accomplishes both of that. It would be really hard to open up the view anymore along the street. You wouldn't get any units. And Jamie's right that the back of this is all wetland. And actually, if this building in this parking area, everything in gray is already developed. If this weren't already developed, you wouldn't be able to put anything but the new building on this site because it all be in wetland or resource area.  I mean, just on the other side up, you know, nor, or it's west, but on the upside, yeah, that's all wetland. It's actually, you know, seasonally, you know, there's standing water and there's a culvert underneath the parking lot back there. But there is a stream back there that drains like from Spalding Street down. And so, you know, I think what Wayfiners has done is, you know, keep the building new, you know, new windows and other treatment on the interior, but really keep the building. They're not seeking historic tax credits, right? So it's not as if they're trying to maintain the interior layout.  And, you know, Mass Historic has asked that the Amherst Historical Commission provide any comments.  I mean, those are the things that we can provide to Mass Historic. I mean, there could be others maintaining at least this visibility of the structure from the street. You know, there's probably a few other things that could be summarized from the conversation so far. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting that there are plain fields back there. And this will kind of create a public corridor with, I see a sidewalk that's sort of, right, there's sort of this public corridor that this creates from Southeast Street to the plain fields.  And it will kind of highlight this building in, in that way. At first I was a little bit, yeah, also disappointed, as Heidi said, that it doesn't have a straight view to the street anymore. But you're certainly like able to interact with the building with this sort of enhanced corridor that goes along sort of the south side of it. And you can see it still from the street. And I think the new building does sort of come, it meets the sidewalk in a way that is sort of, is in context with that neighborhood, the other houses along the, the common also sort of have that smaller yard. So, yeah, it's reflective of, of what's going on with the other buildings. So would that be the primary kind of access to those plain fields is just along that sidewalk that extends from the street back? Is that how people get there? I don't, I don't actually know that. I think that that's, you know, that, yes, that's the general, the idea that this did the accessible here and Nate might be able to speak to it, but I think that on the, on the opposite side, there's an entryway from the, through the other development there. Right. As well. Yeah, right now, so, you know, we're considering this like a little neighborhood park. So Watson farms and Main Street housing, two developments off Main Street, you know, with, you know, 20 to 30 units, they have two gates in the fence. So they access the field here just from their property. And so there isn't any other access. So this would be the public access. There is an old gate to the south, but like I said, it's all wetland and it's overgrown. So you really can't access it. Except for here or from the other property. Okay. So. Do we have any more questions, comments on this one? Do we want to discuss more about this concept of documentation, Nate, or is that not in keeping with what, what we're doing right now? Yeah. The town, we had done a report on this building. A little bit more history of it. You know, originally it was a mansard or a roof and then it burned and then now it's a flat roof. You know, there's been some, it was the Yiddish Book Center at one point. There's an elevator put in the, on the west end in the stairwell. And there's been a few changes on the interior, but largely it's a, it's actually a really small school building. It's only two classrooms per floor on the south side, which was where the windows are on the north side, which on the right side of the building is office and stairwell closet and some administrator space and rest room. So I first, I thought this might be like a quad building where you walk in and there's four classrooms in a central hall, but it's not, it's a, it's a kind of an asymmetric layout. And so for documentation, I mean, I think, you know, if not a new inventory form, at least probably, I mean, I think photo documentation would be good to have from the street before the addition and then maybe from, you know, the four corners or four sides, I think would be good. I mean, you know, the documentation right now would be like staff going out there and taking a photograph, but maybe we could have a little bit better imagery done. Nate, that was, that was what I was considering when I asked for more documentation, just, just kind of the, you know, the history of it. And if the town has done some of that in the process, and maybe some current photographs so that we can appreciate that that entry is being opened up again. And, you know, that it's documented the state it's in before the reconstruction and repurposing. Yeah, it can be good taken from even, you know, the few, you know, along the frontage of the, you know, along the street. So from, you know, the corners and maybe a few from the middle of this property before the building goes in. So you have kind of all that, that context. Thank you. So let's move on to the next to 70 Belcher town. Okay. I guess we could go to those. Yeah. That plan would be good. Okay. And so this is just a removal of that 19 circa 1930 house. Yeah. Right there. Okay. Which is visible from Belcher town road. So that would be a change. Do we have any questions or comments on this one? The documentation that we got in our packet says that the mass historical commission says there is no. I mean, historical preservation documentation need for, for both of those houses. So I, I don't know that we need to question that. Right. Right. I saw that as well. And I, I, I mean, I agree with their assessment. Is there anybody else that wants to make a comment on that? I think we all sort of an agreement that we don't need photo documentation of those buildings. And I think that's really just all of that. This comes down to for this one. Yeah. I mean, the building that it is inventory to, you know, says that maybe it was constructed in the mid 20th century. 19th century. There's kind of some unconfirmed dates. It really has like a one line description of the architecture and nothing else. I don't think it was ever, you know, it was kind of a worker style housing that was prevalent on in Belcher town. Road and Sunderland road and an Amherst and neighboring communities. And so it doesn't really say a lot about it. I think when the town, again, when we put, you know, the town purchased these properties, the three of them for housing, they done a little research on it. There wasn't, you know, the say the historic nature of the house didn't outweigh the need for housing. And so we, you know, we required the reuse of the East street school, but we didn't necessarily require saving this house. We did. We reached out to a few people to see if it could be moved. If there was any possibility of moving this one. And then the one where the parking lot is in further back, it's a modular house from the mid 80s. And so we, we looked at moving them. The town owns a property on old farm road or one or two properties and in another location as well, but the cost and feasibility of moving them. And then, you know, site preparation wasn't, you know, it didn't make it really feasible. But we did look into that to see if, you know, we contacted a few developers to see if they'd be willing to move the properties, the two structures. The older of the two properties, the 1930 house has always struck me as very kind of woodsy. And sort of summer camp looking at the aesthetic and the paint job. And is it, is it cedar shakes on the, on the exterior? I'm trying to remember. Anyway, it just has that very, there it is on the right. You know, it's, I think that kind of, for want of a better word, palette, the color scheme of that house is so prevalent from that period in, you know, areas on the edges of our New England towns. And, you know, it's very characteristic of that, of that, that era, that kind of road development out to Belchtown, as Nate was saying. So, you know, again, I can't, I can't see that it would have been possible to save the house. And it doesn't sound like that was ever a question. But it's just, it interests me that the, the, the nuke development is not even attempting to pay some kind of homage to the, to this kind of earlier architecture of that, of that area, the Fort, the Fort River neighborhood near there is, has lots of woods. And when it isn't open meadows, it's like these little woods that are sort of straggly. And it just, it's just charming, you know, of, of that time period. And, you know, I understand that it's probably going and, you know, here's the sort of juggling act always of preserving the nature of the sites and the properties, but also, you know, being a modern and accessible town going forward. So, you know, I'm not really asking a question. I'm just kind of commenting on, on is, is that, is that architecture not valuable at some level, maybe then as a color, a color for, you know, some kind of interior treatment or exterior treatment? It's just a question.  Maybe there's, there's some, maybe it would be worth a conversation to look at what the colors are of the, of the land around there. There's some really nice allotments in the back by the new school building that's going in that I know the town has an interest in and I've worked there as a volunteer. So it's just a really, it was at one time an incredibly rural part of Amherst, you know, and it's not going to be like that, you know, 10 years from now. So how can we, how can we remember that? Yeah, it's so true that it's, it's hard that, you know, it sees these, when it comes down to these individual buildings making decisions over the individual buildings, you certainly, it's not an argument that this, this isn't where, you know, this won't be preserved. But when you chip away at it, it just slowly erodes that sense of the feeling that we have in this part of, you know, in each part of the town. And we don't know how to keep that. Right. But this isn't the mechanism to do so. So, but yes. I'm probably wasting time even talking. No, I appreciate that as well. Yeah.  And that's, and that's kind of how, you know, we, we develop this to, you know, to, to kind of fit on the side and in that. So, but yeah, no, I appreciate that. The thoughts on that and, and, and the information. And I know that it were a little bit out on, on color palettes to kind of start, you know, you know, to talk, talk about that. But we've, you know, I'm sure that'll come up, you know, as well and, and, you know, moving forward. I'm happy to relate that, you know, that information. And maybe it's also a, I mean, the landscaping and just the setting around, around the building can also sort of evoke, evoke that, that character. Okay. Well, I have our notes. I think I can write, you know, we can put together something for MHC that supports. Well, shall we have it, do we have it out for a vote now, Nate? Is that how it works? Or we just compile these comments? Yeah, I guess we can have like an agreement by consensus. I mean, I do think even this building, maybe we ask for photo documentation just to, to have it. You know, yeah, looking at old aerial photographs, you know, at one point along the stretch of route nine, it was kind of these smaller homes. You know, I do think it's interesting the 1930 day on the SSWIS card. Yeah. In Amherst, there's like two, two dates on SSWIS cars that are three that are pretty erroneous. It's 1900, 1930 and 1966. And that's like when we went through like an assessing database upgrade or something. And so I do think the house is, you know, earlier than that, it's hard to confirm exactly. And we haven't, you know, we did some research and there wasn't really a lot there. So at one point there was like a small garage out back. We assume it was like worker housing. You know, we tried to research it. We know what, there's anything else on the property, but it was always just a small residential property. It was never really tied to a larger farm necessarily. But I think, you know, I think photo documentation of both structures would be good just to have those before they're gone or the, for the views change, you know, this one, and then the, the East street school. And there's a few more things said about East street school. Yeah. You know, and this will come back to the commission. So as a comprehensive permit, you know, the commission would have a chance to give an opinion on that as well. The ZBA might actually ask about that. You know, in the summer or early fall. Okay. All right. I'll hand it over to Robin then. I think. Thank you, Jamie for. Presenting this information of us. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for that. Thanks for this information of us. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Well, well, well, thank you. Thank you for having me here and, you know, and showing your support of it. And I really appreciate that and provided me with your, your comments for sure. Definitely. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks, Madeline. Looks like Hilda has her hand raised. Okay. We are not in public comment, but do we want to go ahead with that or? Sure. Why not? Hilda, you can beat yourself. Yeah. I wanted to ask a question about this project while you was still on it. And that. Nate, you apparently have been inside the building. And I'm curious as to whether there's anything 1893 left on the inside that's worth saving. The, the schoolhouse. Yeah. Yeah, there's, well. Yeah, there's some interior trim work, you know, some bigger chalkboards. And that would probably be about it. So the floor. The floor and a number of things, I think has his bestest. So it's not, you know, it's mid 20th century. But I think some of the woodwork. You know, it's not like I said, trim and maybe, you know, the chalkboards look pretty old, but that's, I think that's probably about it. Worth saving. I mean, if you want to. As we talked about that, we even talked about it with the Jones library of like storing the trim from the Jones library. I think we're actually going to store it down at the East Street school. Some of it. And so, you know, if we, if we talk about, I guess we'd have to figure out where we could store it. And I don't know, Jamie, if you, if you looked at it, if you're looking at any of that, I mean, I won't point we had discussed it, even like some doors, maybe. But there hasn't been, it was never a clear answer of if it was worth, you know, trying to. Save a lot of it, but maybe some of it. Yeah. And I guess maybe as part of the documentation and the design of it, you know, I don't know if there's anything that the town, you know, sees in that that, you know, they would, they would like to flag, you know, we could, we could be made aware of that. And that way there, we can kind of work that into. However, I know, as you mentioned, there is quite a bit of abatement that has to be done on the interior of the building just because of the, you know, asbestos in other items that are in there. That, but it's definitely something, you know, would be open to discussing and. Yeah, and happy to do so going forward with the town is to, you know, work with you all to kind of, you know, make sure that if there are items in there that, you know, you'd like to save and how do you like to save them? That we would be open to that. Thank you, Hilda. Thank you for that. Good question. So I think with that, we're ready to move on to our next agenda item. Thanks again, Jamie for the presentation. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you. Okay. So our next agenda item is a review of the final draft of the preservation plan. Nate, did you want to start us off with any comments from the town? Yeah, I was going to say, if someone is here from PVPC, you could raise your hand.  I think it's, I think it's pretty good. You know, I, I, there was a few formatting things I felt like near the end, but you know, like the way it's structured, I think the executive summaries nice and clear. I think it can help frame action steps and goals moving forward. And so, you know, I think the, the housing trust has a technical assistance grant with mass housing partnership and we're working with a consultant from them to come up with an action plan for the trust. And they're really, you know, what this person was saying is like, you know, you have these big goals, right? Like same with preservation, but like increase affordable housing and then you just get stuck after that. Like, what do you do? So the action plan for the trust is really trying to get concrete steps, you know, you know, goals and objectives and strategies. And I feel like this plan has a nice similar format.  So, yeah. And then this is also going to the planning board. We are thinking maybe in April or May, but you know, it would be that they would then adopt it too as part of the master plan. So it's been on their agenda. We kept them up to date that it's happening. Okay. Welcome, Shannon. Nice to see you. Yeah, it's really great to see this coming to final fruition. You know, it's been a long time overall. Do other commissioners have comments at this point? No, okay. Oh, are you thinking? Yeah, I mean, I, I think the chapter three is, I think that's going to be really helpful for us moving forward, just so thorough to have these real like concrete strategies. And then each one has a resources section, which is really nice. There's some examples there that you can, that are hyperlinks and just sort of guidance documents. And I think that's, that's just really meaty. And I think that'll be, that'll be really good for the town to just sort of be able to actually bite into some things. Yeah, I think there's the, there, let's see. I think the beginning of chapter two, there's kind of this like one section that's very small. That's just about sort of challenges. And then I don't see those addressed elsewhere in the, in the plan. I was just wondering. Maybe if that could just be clarified. But yeah, I think. I think it'll be really helpful for us moving forward. And then I was just trying to wrap my head around. Our commission's sort of informal adoption of our. One year and 10 year goals and thinking about those in terms of. This plan. And the challenges of, of. The challenges of making progress. So it's good to have another larger map. It just feels much more user friendly now that we've got to this point. And readable and it seemed like things that we had asked for were addressed. So thank you, Shannon. Any other comments? I just agree with all of the comments that have been made. I think it's very well done. And I think it would be very useful to us. So thank you, Shannon. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was my pleasure working on it. Nate, did you have anything further? To discuss some. No, you're muted. No, everything was good. I was going to, we have one last invoice. I was just going to, I was waiting for this meeting. I thought it would happen a few weeks ago, but we'll just process it. Okay. Thanks for your patience, Shannon. No problem. Okay. Okay. Well, I think that's it then. Thanks for joining us. And we look forward to our next interaction with you. Great. I do just want to mention, I know this has come up in the past. There is a small amount of money that we still have. From the documentation. It was really interesting to hear about that East street school project of the East village expansion documentation that I did. And there's just over $1,000 left from that, that we were holding on to waiting for mass historic to respond. And I know Nate and I have spoken about this, probably a year or two ago when they finally did respond. They've really had a lot of edits. And I think there's been a change. And I think that that nomination was interesting because it was an expansion above and below. And to the left and right of the existing national register district. And policy has shifted that now, in addition to identifying the buildings in the existing district, they now really want. We sent new photos and we did all of that, but they want more. So the amount that we held on to for that nomination, that we had, that we had a railroad depot and the Dickinson district expansion, the $1,000 won't quite cover it, but I do want you to know that there's about $1,200 left. That we've just been holding on to. From funds from that. So that's something for you all to discuss. What you would like to do with that, but it's there. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the hard work that you all put into putting this plan together. And I really enjoyed working on it. I'm going to take a look back at that section about challenges and see where that connects to in the plan. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah. So my only comment she didn't was. Same thing was I mentioned the formatting and. And not like the. I was trying to find a page number of documents, so to load. You know, you don't have in some places you have bullets in some places you don't. And so. You know, is a. There's like one spot where I thought maybe it could either be a line break or have bullets. When you have. Under like the goals or the action steps, you have like the primary. The main. That would be the first entity that would be responsible and supporting timeframe resources. I don't know if bullets or. Something would help call that out. Okay. So if you're thinking that so, because you know, like, the way that structured is really nice and clear, but then I feel like people might get lost in. You know, reading it. And so. You know, typically, right? When you apply for grants, it's nice to say, Oh, here's. And I think it might be, it's not as visible given, you know, how it's formatted now, but if there was like bullets or something there or some type of, you know, outline or something, I'm not sure, yeah. Okay, maybe we can have a talk on the phone and I'll have it in front of me. Yeah, yeah. And I can make some adjustments. I also, I really wanted to hyperlink the page number to that section. And I just ran out of time and I couldn't figure out how to do it. And I've done it for other plans. So if I do make any changes, I'd like to do that too. So if you're on the table of contents, you could just click on the page and it will bring you to that section. All right, well, thank you so much. It was very interesting hearing the presentation before me. So I appreciate the invite. Thank you. Have a good night. Okay, take care. Okay. I'm four on the agenda is to discuss the Amherst College sign on the town common. Oh, yeah. So the, you know, this had come before the historical commission a long time ago as part of the way finding system for the town. Yeah. And it was maybe three years ago or so the commission wrote a memo to council saying town council saying that it was fine. And, but it was brought up again. I think it's actually trying to, you know, it's moving forward. So there was, you know, a bit of a delay. And so I just, I thought it'd be worthwhile to revisit that with this commission. And so I just, I can, I'll share my screen in a minute. I have a question. Since I go to Amherst College, should I vote on this or? I think you can just disclose that. And if you, if you find that you can't, you know, if you're uncomfortable or cannot be impartial, then you could recuse yourself or not vote. You could be a part of the discussion or if you think that it's not, you know, if it's not really impactful to you as a student, then it's fine to. Great. Yeah, I work at Amherst College. And so do you feel like you can review this and be impartial if you need to be? I mean, yeah, I'm sure I can. Yeah. You know, someone else on another board or committee at the local district district used to be and he was a neighbor of Amherst College and things would come off and you'd say, yeah, that's fine. I don't really care what happens. I'm going to review it as part of the commission. Yeah. Yeah. And as there's no obvious conflict of interest, I don't think Antonia or Mikhail have anything to gain. Right. There's really not. Right. But it's good to have practice or disclosures. Right. So the sign, if this map is visible, here's route nine and south is to the bottom and on the corner here. So if you're coming up the hill, you would see a sign right here, facing, you know, west. And that would be a, you know, a type of gateway sign for the campus. And so here is an architectural drawing of what it would look like. You know, it's on two bases. It's elevated and it's curved. And here's a photo rendering of what it would look like. And so, you know, what isn't if I go back at one point with the town had, yeah, what the town had, looks as part of the way finding system was having, you know, another kind of gateway sign here, but that's been moved further down on route nine and then having some other new town signs along this side of route nine. And so there still might be an opportunity to have one of the signs here. There's been some discussions with the utility company about what visibility and, you know, other poles here, but that's not really part of this project, but, you know, we are also aware of like how many signs do you want along the street, but, you know, this is for the college specifically. And so, you know, here's another rendering of it, you know, just a plan view showing the block and, you know, what the sign looks like. It's actually, you know, it's not really a heavy material, the actual sign display area. So that's it. It's challenging to get a sense of this, excuse me, of the scale for some reason. Was there another iteration of it, Nate, that looked slightly different? This was the one that came from the council packet in the recent council meeting. Okay.  Oh, there we go. So this is, you know, three and a half feet tall. Yeah, three and a half feet worth of grade change. You know, I guess, right. It levels the sign off with the grade change. So, you know, on one end it's not as high, then on the other it's, you know, a bit taller.  It's funny. Yeah, I'm wondering if these white shadows are meant to be like six foot, a six foot height. So can I just ask a question? This is on town property, not on the college property. Right, so the town common, you know, extends, you know, what, you know, where they're doing the work now in front of town hall, then the main part of the common, this part of the area is still the common as part of the right of way.  Amherst College has part of it. But yeah, this is still part of the common. There's some, I don't know how, you know, what kind of, there's been an agreement or a long-term understanding that Amherst College would maintain this part of it. Right.  I don't have an issue with it. Amherst College also has a different kind of sign on the road leaning up to Johnson Chapel that signifies Amherst College, but that's Amherst College property. And, but I think also that Amherst College is an asset to the town and to signify that it is and where it is, is, you know, maybe a good thing. Yeah, I'm trying to sort of conceptualize what are of the historical commission, kind of what were, what aspect of it we're weighing in on. I guess that's kind of what I'm confused about. Just because it's an alteration to the common. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Can I, can I wade in literally and just take the discussion back a little bit? You know, we live in an era when everyone has a phone and on their phone, they have something called Google Maps and they have other kinds of wayfinding information. How would you not know in the present day that that campus of historic and wonderful buildings, as you say, Pat, a real asset to our town is not Amherst College. Because that would be very obvious on a digital, via our digital, you know, information and resources. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a sign there. There could be a sign there. I think I remember saying the same thing I'm going to say now, which is it doesn't have to be this big. Yeah. Big. I think the scale. 18 feet tall, 18 feet long. Right. I remember being, it's the formal art historian in me that looks at that drawing and at, you know, what's happening around that corner, which I think could be very nice with what they've done with the sidewalk. But it just looks too big. For us, for Amherst. We know it's Amherst College. Everybody here and who, people who aren't here, they're going to look at their phone. Yeah. No, I think of it as comparable to the signs that they're sort of gateway signs. They're signs that tell you you've reached the perimeter of Amherst College. You know, UMass has them as well. And so I, I see that. Like I get, I understand what it is the college is trying to do in that regard. And then I'm just trying to think of what, what our purposes is to say within the historic context of that landscape, how do we feel about this particular iteration of that design? Is that, is that am I heading in the right direction with what we're kind of weighing in here? And also I'd, I'd say that it seems like we all have a sense of hesitancy about the size. Yeah. I mean, if we, we wanted to, I guess, you know, this was referred to a subcommittee of the council. We could have Amherst College come, you know, so back in 21, the commission reviewed this and said, you know, that generally supported Amherst College's wayfinding system along with the towns.  And so the wayfinding system, you know, some of its up, you know, Amherst College is now working through their, their system. And so, you know, I put this on the agenda. I didn't really reach out to anyone. And if we think that we'd want to discuss it more, you know, I think we could work through the town manager's office and have some, you know, representative from Amherst College come at the next meeting if we'd want. You know, if we, if we think that generally it's good, but maybe, you know, decreasing the scale is kind of the overall consensus we could, I could convey that. I agree with Robin that gateway signs are valuable. And so I don't oppose it on that basis. But I would leave it to further discussion or to others who, who have designed historic design backgrounds to, to lead the discussion on the size. But I think it's tasteful enough. It's modern, but it's on granite, granite blocks, which is, you know, consistent with what, how other things are done, the steps of the town hall, et cetera. So it's a mixed, it's a mixed bag, but I think gateway signs are valuable even though we have GPS because people are visual and they're looking around to see what, what's there, where they're going and maybe just pass by and say, haha, that's Amherst College. But it, but I see it as an, as an asset to the town. It's very historic in our town. And a gateway sign is something that with our input, I would support. Yeah, I think I would ask maybe, maybe Hedy and Madeline too, just to, if they had further thoughts on, you know, how the structure would or should interplay with the common. And, you know, like what's going on in the development. The North Common, is there some way, I don't know. I'm just thinking about that. Right. I mean, I think you'd want to consider if it was like blocking the views or obstructing or creating sort of, if it was really changing the prominent primary views, you know, we already have, if it's too visible because it's too big or I'm just sort of proposing sort of a framework for thinking about this, just right. I mean, it really changes sort of this whole sense of the common, but I don't, not sure. Yeah, I mean, even the granted that Pat mentioned, I mean, we could recommend that it just be a similar color to the one that's being used on the rest of the common, right? So that it's not, you know, if it's, there's some, you know, some consistency in material. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking was sort of, I think we were talking earlier about, you know, how, how new things talk to and reference older things. I mean, it is true that like people, when they drive through this area, they're going quite slow. There's lots of pedestrians. It doesn't have to be the scale of the UMass signs, which are on really busy streets up north, like on Mass App, Massachusetts Avenue, which is, you just have to have it big because we're going 40 miles per hour. And it is just, it, I really can't tell what this is going to look like necessarily if it's too prominent. Because, yeah, Hedy, what do you think? I sort of feel like I've said enough. I wondering if responding to something to do with, yes, we are visual Pat, I was thinking of, is there a certain kind of level of visual acuity that's needed for the scale and size of the lettering? I don't know. I'm not an expert in, you know, this kind of thing at all. It just, it bothers me that that sign has to be so big. Amos College is an incredibly erudite and important resource for our town and for our country, actually. It's an amazing higher educational institution.  We know that they're important. We, you know, maybe I'm looking at this wrong, that I'm looking at the sort of the symbolism of a sign. Is it big because we want to emphasize its importance? Well, you know, Amos College has many, many ways in which it's doing that. Is if it's a simple wayfarer, wayfinding sign or gate way sign. I still don't think it needs to be that big. I just, you know, it's hard to tell, heading from the renditions, exactly how imposing it is. We have the dimensions, but it's hard to tell that on that particular place, how imposing it would be. And that's, I think we're just grappling with that idea. Is it really going to be imposing? Should it be not quite as high, not quite as long? I would imagine that Amos College did some, I don't want to say a study, but I imagine that they had experts who advise them as to what the sign should look like. But we don't know their thinking. And so it might be good to appreciate that. Yeah, I think this has been, and I wanted to invite McKayla and Antonia too, who have a different perspective on Amos College, but to just help, you know, form our kind of questions about what, you know, what a different direction would look like to have a conversation about it. So as opposed to, yeah, just to give more form to feedback to say, you know, can this speak to the comment a little bit more because we feel it's a little oversized. But McKayla and Antonia, do you have any thoughts you want to share? Personally, I don't know. Looking at the plans, I don't think it seems oversized. I think that because the area it's on is on a slope, the highest part kind of has to be that high. Otherwise it wouldn't be legible from the other side of the road. You know, it would like be tucked behind the hill. Yep. If it weren't sort of lifted on that. And even on the tallest side, it's only three foot six at the top. I just don't think that that's. So that's essentially an extravagantly large for a sign. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I guess back on the, like, I try and understand like the reasoning behind why like the sign needs to be put. I know there's the other one. What there's one sign already, the like white kind of square one on two pedestals. Or two like posts. That's further up. But I guess I understand the need for. A sign closer to route nine just in the sense of I remember when I was first like driving by MRs. Like, yes, I had my GPS and knew it was like on the right, but didn't know the entrance because there are just many ways to get to it. So it is kind of confusing. I guess if you were trying to understand how to enter, I don't know if that would be that sign is actually helpful in trying to enter onto the main quad. And yeah, I guess this, I think maybe will be helpful to have a rendering with like a person in the scale. And maybe hear from Amherst, the rationale behind the sign. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I consult and roll in. Do this. I mean, it is interesting that there's a rated speed limit for route nine. But, you know, when you approach the intersection, you are going much slow.  And is that could that still work at, you know, a proportionally smaller sign? You know, I think that this really, you know, this is, I think really right. It's kind of a one of those first entry signs is really just to cue people in that they're, you know, they're now, you know, approaching Amherst college. So it's not like, you know, there's not going to be any, no directionals or anything else associated with it.  So just, this will be a standalone piece. Yeah. It sort of announces the college's presence. You know. Okay. I think that is that, that's some good feedback to, for you to take back to move that conversation further. Any other. We want anyone from Amherst college to come to another meeting if we, you know, to discuss this, or do we think we're, you know, for instance, what if, you know, we could recommend a smaller sign and some other drawings, but you know, what if there's no other, you know, what do you want to have a discussion with a rep for Amherst college? Or we do think there's sufficient comments now. I think having some understanding of the rationale of the design of the sign, the size, obviously the placement is obvious, but there may, there may be a reason for the visual aspect of it, that you can read something this size when you're driving past, but if it's much smaller, it's not as visible. And so I'm more interested in the rationale. They obviously had people design this for them and, and there's a rationale somewhere. Yeah. I mean, I think a back and forth might be useful just because of factoring in, you know, the implications of the historic character of the common. I don't know if other people agree, but yeah, I think I'd like to know how visible it is from a distance. It's a 36 inch or 30 foot long. It's 18 foot long purple sign. So. And it stands three and a half feet from the ground. On the ground, it's struts. So the sign is not as big as that. It just is raised so that it's visible above the grade of the earth. So I think we're in agreement that yes, we would like to have. Yep. Yep. I'm seeing a lot of nodding heads, but that would be useful. But I think, I think we've kind of fared it out our questions. So. Yeah. To work on this. Okay. All right. Next on the agenda is reviewing furnishings amenities for the town common project. Yeah, I just wanted to update the commission. So, you know, the work outside of town hall is ongoing and hopefully. We'll be completed this summer. You know, there's going to be a, you know, the parking lot will be removed. There'll be kind of an amphitheater with. Granted retaining walls, you know, there'll be 18 inches high with, you know, I don't know, five or six feet of lawn behind them. There'll be three terraces. And then in the main comedy car, you see there's a central sitting area and there's some crescent shaped sitting areas. With some internal walkways. And we presented to the designer view board just to get final opinion on kind of the furnishings and materials. And so. The perimeter walkways along the street will be concrete as they are now in the interior walkways would be asphalt. The sitting areas and in the outside of town hall, those are large Plaza area. So bolt would walk in that area would be raised. It would be. Like the new crosswalks at UMass or in front of the Jones library.  Tactile covering. At one point we thought it might be separate pavers, but just in terms of longevity and maintenance, it's easier if it's, you know, a pay surface with this thermal plastic applied. You know, the furnishings actually just mimic what's. Say at Kendrick Park. The benches are what's there. The trash receptacles are the same. They'll be same decorative light poles with a new fixture top. It's an integrated led. I could try to pull up an image. And then. You know, we have ballard lighting on boltwood. It would be the same decorative posts as the lights, you know, just 42 inches high with a.  And so, you know, I could, I could share the screen. There's something in the packet.  There are tables and chairs in the central sitting area. The designer view board asked if we could have chairs that would match the benches. And so we're working with a vendor on that. They could do that. There's also a question of if we could have curved. Rounded tables with curved bench seating that can see, you know, sit like two people per per seat. And that's something we're looking into. So what we had. And so what we had to do was, you know, we had to do that. And so what we had to do was what the DRB was, you know, here at the benches at Kendrick. Their metal, the color could be changed, but this cup, this is a kind of a washed out image. For tables, you know, what it typically you'll see is like a fourth piece set. So the table and chairs are all attached. You know, this wasn't an ideal. Style. The hope was either to have something that looks similar, more similar to the bench. Is what we're working on. Different color. There will be two interpretive signs on the common to talk about the fountain and then also about the removal of the parking area. You know, in terms of heat island effect and other things. And so we'll use the writer's walk signs as our kind of our template in terms of scale and everything else. The idea would be that the color, though, would probably match the benches and trash receptacles. So this is actually more of a. Kind of a gray looks brown here, but you know, have some consistent color palette to the furnishings. Here is what the ballards would look like, which, you know, mimics the light post base bases. And for light fixtures, the designer of your word really liked this, this image right here. So it's a new, it's, there's no glazing. It's open up above and it's an integrated led fixture. You can put a screen on it. So you can't actually see the led fixture. It's 2700 K color. What we have now in the downtown, oh, here's what the new traffic lights will be like. So this is also down by the roundabout. And we're, you know, it'll be a slow integration of these downtown instead of the Cobra heads. So it'll be this decorative arm and assemblage here. Well, we have now downtown for the lights. I guess I don't know if I maybe don't have it. It's a, they're all glass. The pedestrian lights, the walkway lights. It's an acorn light. And there's an interior shield. They often are, they often give off a different glare. Some, and there's concern that they're not, not dark sky compliant. And so, you know, this newer, this is, I mean, the really only new element here, it would be the use of this kind of fixture top. So the post is the same one we've been using downtown. It's just this kind of new fixture. Right here. Right. So I don't know if there's any comments or questions. I think you have a comment. Nate, would you run the. Text for the fountain by us at some point, or would someone do that? The rationale for the removal of the cars. I'm just writing about the North common right now. Yeah. It's really interesting that the common over its lifetime, especially from spring street to main street. And so, you know, the city of South Korea has been more like an urban park. And it's undergone a lot of changes with, you know, in the 50s, there was a pretty large one-way parking area. And then it was changed.  When the town was looking at this, I mean, then we had this product actually is like 10 years in the making. And originally we're going to keep the parking lot. And then, you know, after going through different iterations is probably.  You can have parking downtown parking rates and other things. And even, you know, a number of business owners were a part of it. And they actually said, why don't we get rid of parking? The consultant actually said that, you know, as the, as kind of the front front, you know, welcome math at the town. It's actually the geographic center. They actually said it was hard to access that parking area. And it actually didn't beautify town hall. It wasn't necessarily a unanimous decision, but most of them supported removal of the parking. You know, the hope was at the town and plans to restrike boltwood and other areas downtown. So the net loss is minimized. So, you know, there's inefficiencies in how some of the downtown parking is, is outlined.  It's just kind of parked at will. And so if you actually stripe it, you could gain, you know, seven or eight more spaces around the common on boltwood, and on spring street or whatever. And so the net loss might, you know, I think there's 29 spaces there now. And the net loss might only, you know, it's going to be, you know, like half of that or something. And so yeah, I mean, I think, you know, for what we saw as a really great opportunity to, you know, beautify the town center and actually make it more of a common, more usable space, right? More green space. It could be the hope is, you know, behind me you can see the town hall, but in front of that doorway, that's, like I said, that section of boltwood will be, could be close to traffic and it'll be a plaza. And so where the parking lot is now will become, you know, an amphitheater or a place where you could have, you know, people sitting for events or for, you know, proclamations. And so, you know, we just thought it was a great opportunity to do that. You know, I know, I know there's still concern about the loss of parking. I think we'll, we can address that as it moves forward. But I think what we'll have in place is a really nice common. What's the expected completion date again? July 1st. I'm optimistic. No, you know, we have some grant funding tied to it for that. But it should be, you know, done by that. It might just be that there's, you know, loose ends, you know, a punch list to tidy up, but the contractors started again this week. So they're pretty anxious to get moving. And then the fountain will be functional. That's the hope. Okay. Yeah.  To make sure it all works. But the idea is it'll have a sitting area with it, you know, some benches around it and then the sign. And so yeah, the commission can work on the sign. You know, like we said, we like the writer's walk template in terms of layout and structure, right? An image and narrative and everything. So we could mimic that. But yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. Any other. Any other comments? Okay. Next item on the agenda, discuss UMass Panna for Tottenham Jim. And I did not cannot find the PNF for Tottenham Jim in the packet. I had to go back to the March agenda to find it. And it's in that packet. Robin. Okay. Yeah, I thought I moved it, but I guess I didn't. Oh, I'll forward it to you. UMass has done a few PNFs actually just another one was arrived the other day. And so. I see. I mean, I find that the work to Tottenham Jim was pretty minimal.  You know, You know, I think there. It's been another one where they're actually, I think we're moving a building. And so, you know, this one is more of a modification to the structure, but. Do we have a. What is our, our. Per view, I guess, in terms of what happens at UMass, I think just look for our. Our comments, but we don't. Yeah, so. Yeah, a few years ago, Preserve UMass worked with Mass Historic and Amherst Historical Commission to have, you know, most of the campus inventory. And so now when they are making changes, they submit product notification forms in the state. Often, you know, I, they will ask for a local review. And so. I think on one of these, they did ask if the Amherst Historical Commission had any comments. And so. I think there's three PNFs right now that are under review by Mass Historic from UMass. And so we could, you know, Look at the Tom and Jim and we could look at the others. I guess they one just came in pretty recently. Maybe last week or the other week. But. Yeah, I mean, it's an advisory role to Mass Historic. Okay. Any comments from commissioners? I think this is one of the more forbidding buildings on campus is very severe sort of. Streamline, modern art, sort of, with slight sort of art deco. We kind of look to it.  And I think there's a there's one facade, which just really looked. It looked. You know, the windows were almost almost like prison windows. You know, the windows were almost like prison windows. I'm being really outspoken tonight. I apologize. That's a descriptive phrase. But that's just, I just was looking at the PDF that was part of that agenda packet and, you know, those were the two things that really stood out to me. Okay. Other comments. Yeah, myself right now. So is that is the, is the new building attached to I'm looking at it, but I'm trying to tell. What this West elevation is that the side. Which is the rear of the building. I guess, I mean, it's not a primary facade. So that's just my question for anyone who knows this building. Interesting, the juxtaposition between the two styles. Yeah, so is this available for everyone else sharing my screen if that's, yeah, yeah. It is thanks Nate. Certainly is a juxtaposition of styles. Yeah, yeah. It's the original one not being that charming.  Yeah. So what are we supposed to. There was any, I guess, big concerns. I mean, I guess I don't, they're not really, they're not demolishing the building. Right. Well, it, it then it becomes kind of, is it considered an addition? It is. Yeah. So it is connected right here. You know, yeah. You know, it's just connected by this right here, this passageway. And it's, it's being reviewed by. MHC. Is that correct? Yes.  I mean, we dealt with this with the, with the library is that a, in addition should be subservient to the main building, which seems like this doesn't quite, doesn't quite make that. I guess I'm not, I'm not surprised. And I just, I don't have enough of an architectural design background in terms of, you know, new architecture, but I'm a little bit surprised by how it doesn't, I can't really, I personally can't see a reference to the original architecture. I don't necessarily dislike the new building, but the contrast between the two seems a bit alarming to me. It's hard to find a reference between the two Robin, you're right. Yeah. They're entirely different. They're just utilizing the land. Right. Nate, do you have, if the architect for this, for this edition is the same as the field stone, private public partnership on, is it Mass Ave or university drive? I think it's university drive. I don't actually know that. Yeah. I mean, I do think there are some, some similarities in terms of the, the massing of this, you know, this building has some steps, step down in massing, you know, some kind of punctuation and form. And so I think there's some relationship in terms of, like I said, overall massing and form.  Now it mimics other windows, but it really is kind of a modern adaptation of, of the gym. Yeah. I mean, I guess I, I'm, this is an area where I'm always, I'm always curious. Just what, what are, what, what the thinking is behind. Architectural design and it's, you know, it's not necessarily obvious to just the naked eye for the lay person. I mean, you know, then I look at it again, and I think about, you know, how such a big part of the UMass campus is, is, is, I don't know if it's considered modernist or post-modernist, but learning when Heady and I went to the Doka Momo, Doka Momo conference, there was a great session that I went to all about kind of how universities like UMass exploded in the 1970s due to, due to rising student populations and changes in financing and how that created, I'd never really understood the context for, you know, Whitmore and Herter and the Fine Arts Center and that whole design. So I wonder, I wonder if there's, you know, some of that thought that goes into the design choices here, but those are, those are my thoughts as, as somewhat inarticulate and unformist they are. Nader, are we supposed to weigh in on this? I think we can look at it again next meeting, but I mean, if there was anything like really, that we thought we really want to comment on, we could.  Because the original building seems to be intact. Right. And so that would be what we would be most concerned about, even though there really is a contrast to the new and the old. Well, the, the guidelines around additions would be, would be the next thing that whenever a historic building has an addition attached to it, there are secretary interior guidelines, or I don't know if their guidelines are, I think they're considered recommendations. But they do, you know, there are a lot of stipulations around basically the idea is to, they created these recommendations to say, you know, when you have one historic building and you're adding on to it, you don't want to have a modern addition compete with it. You don't want to have a modern addition that looks so different that there's no connection between the two of them. And you also don't want to have one that completely mimics it. So they don't know that it's not historical. So those are, that's kind of the basic of, that I remember Madeleine, maybe you could speak to it a little bit more. But so that's, you know, even when you're doing an addition, there's some, some argument around being able to look at a building and read. I mean, that's, you know, there certainly be no question which is confusing. Building is a historical one. But whether, you know, that the surprise, the size surprises me, but, and, you know, that it's, but that that's really my only comment. Those are my only comments. Petty or Madeleine, do you have any? I'm looking at, I figured it out where I found it on Google, but where the primary, where it's like the front looks like of this building. And yeah, the proposed addition is set back from the, from, from the, you know, primary facade of the original building. And it's, it is very separated by that. Like what we call it a hyphen. Yeah. So it's the new and the old are connected by a narrow strip called hyphen. So I, and then the older one is quite tall. Actually, it doesn't look like that in the drawings that they sent us, that they attached in the PNF, but it had, and it has this sort of like glass, like raised, the glass story and the bed. Anyways, but yeah, I don't really have many comments regarding this. I don't really find many issues. Okay. There it is. Yeah. Which is, didn't appear really well in the drawings that they have this upper. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Actually. Right. So this, the new building will probably be. From there, what really it'll be visible is, you know, from. You know, it. Let me move along here when you're, wow, the trees are really. The way here. In the new building will be right here where this parking lot is. And so. You know, that's where it'll. Right. We would be concerned about like, if it was blocking a, a view of the historic building that was significant. Yeah. It really won't, it'll block the view of the, you know, the apartments back here, but it won't block any of this view. And with the trees, it can't see it much anyways, but yeah. Right. That's, that's just the secondary facade. That's not that. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.  They're probably, they're actually a little taller. And so. But it can be up to two feet of floor. So, you know, it's hard to.  So the fact that the streetscape of the historic building is a little bit different. Right. So moving on. Next item is updates. Documentation of 4555 self pleasant street. I have nothing on that. How do you really work me working on that? No. No, okay. Yeah. I have had hope to be a little bit more on top of these items, but.  There's been enough pictures and everything. It's just kind of assembling it, or do you want to make another site visit? Are we, are we. Oh, no, I think, yeah. All right. Demo is the eighth, isn't it? Isn't that what they said? I forget. I thought it was more like the 15th or something. Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think there's anything else we needed from the physical standpoint. You know, doing an updated form B would be. A possibility, but. Other than that. Sorry. Questions there. Okay. Barn tours and assessments. I don't have an update there, nor do I have an update for inventory, forms and demolition. So. That brings us to public comment. I see we have one attendee. Attendees in the public would like to make a comment. They can raise their hands and they will be recognized. Not seeing a hand raised. We will go on to. Unanticipated items. And the only unanticipated item that I, well, that gets to a second thought too. Unanticipated item I wanted to just briefly mention was that. They had a conversation about looking at. My focus has been on, on Amherst's inventory, inventory updating and. Expanding the historic inventory forms. I was wondering if the commission. Would be interested in learning more about, and if the town could support something called the preservation survey plan. So one option is to just go forward with survey, hiring a consultant, picking an area. Like we're doing with it. East Amherst expansion. And doing survey there, but the survey plan. I'm not going to go into that. Actually, the consultant takes a look at the whole town. And develops a plan so that one. So that a town can go forward in phases. Area by area. So it gives priority to certain things, whether there's. Development pressure or. Items that haven't been inventoryed yet. In the last, in the last couple of weeks, I think we've talked about the modern housing and. I don't know how much inventory we've done on some of the. Housing developments, like. I think of, like, Orchard Hill is going to be coming into kind of historical significance, those kinds of areas. But. There's the possibility that we could request. From, I think, I think when Nate and I talked about this and he can correct me if I'm wrong, to request funding for the survey plan, and then the survey plan could be used to help move forward in phases. Survey documentation and that we could that the time could compete for through the survey and planning grants at MHC. To provide not only consultant but also the back and forth with the state commission to further develop and expand and update our survey instead of us trying to figure out what we want to do here and there to have a plan beforehand that would give us recommendations on just distinct areas and different areas to go forward with and kind of chronological order and it would, again, with being able to compete for surveying planning grants that would take some of the funding pressure off the town because those are matching grant programs. So, that was, that was a thought that I had and Nate you can talk maybe just talk briefly about the possibility for the town funding that without using CPA funds for a survey plan. The planning department's been putting in requests capital requests every year for 30 to 50,000 for, you know, study user projects like this, you know, smaller scale, whether it's, you know, assessments or even you know other other projects so I think there's some funding that could be available for this next, you know, as of July one. And so, you know, some of it would be, you know, how how, you know, if the commission thinks this is a priority we could develop a scope of work and then with the new preservation plan to kind of how do we frame that. And as Robin said that would help guide, you know, the commission's request for CPA funding in the future and then make it competitive for grants and so, you know, I think it would add some structure and reasoning to why we're, you know, moving forward with certain documents. And I think it could give you know a little more credibility to CPA requests and so, you know, you know CPA documenting properties is eligible and then you know especially now that macros is online everything becomes public I think the CPA committee is that Ben more welcome to supporting that documentation as part of preservation. So I think, you know, Robin are saying this is probably a good first step to have this kind of study done for the town. I would agree with that. Okay, so we'll keep that as an agenda item moving forward maybe. Good idea. Okay, thank you. And then, I just wanted to make a quick sort of question about and, and thinking about probably the, the work starting to see a lot of development happen. What's happening with affordable housing and new rental units and we know that Amherst, like most cities and towns across America is facing a housing crisis and how important that is, and my question is, how could the Commission engage in some sort of conversation around design that reflects me, I'll just say in my, in my opinion something other than sort of you know standard colonial. And, you know, in talking about work worker housing earlier, you know how can we start to get that piece of it into the conversation about creative ways to address the development of new buildings so that we're not not taking into consideration the historical character of the town and we're not also just creating a rough patient of the historical character of the town so I don't know how we would have those conversations and you know whether that's stepping on architects toes or if you know there's a preference for kind of the least common denominator. I just wanted to throw that out there as a question and see if anybody had any comments we don't need to discuss it at length, but something to think about maybe. Yeah, I mean, I was, when I was reviewing the preservation plan. It did strike me that there's those two pages of responses to the survey section that is just the public's responses there's sort of comments regarding, and they're basically all to do with new development and just there's clearly just in further discussion about like out of scale construction or just how to how these should be designed, what info should look like, you know how we can do this in a, in a more thoughtful way and it would be nice to like have open up the space for this discussion. And talk, you know, maybe that's something we can do, because it is to do with, you know, it's changing the, it's, it's, yeah, I think it is a historic preservation issue. So downtown design standards process of Dotson Flinker, you know, is holding is beginning the outreach process for that so it's you know it's like an 18 month long process with them where they want to come up with design standards for downtown, and you know there's a, you know, a rough area that they're looking at but some of it is, you know, kind of this question, and then my hope would be that what they come up with can be extrapolated to other parts of town or could be incorporated into other design guidelines or standards for you know all of town and so. Yeah, I would say that you know some some of you may have been contacted by them for stakeholder groups. The Historical Commission is one of the groups that would be you know pulled into as part of kind of town boards and committees that would be involved throughout the process at various stages. And so what they're looking at, you know, a streetscape right of way standards in terms of say sidewalk with and furnishings and other things but then also the architectural treatment. You know building massing style, you know windows roofing all that stuff and so. Yeah, I mean when we've met with them staff has met with them a few times get the project going. You know they say that they use Kendrick place, you know the newer building in north downtown as a sometimes as a part of a kind of photo survey for communities in that building always rates pretty low in terms of its aesthetic and it's like well is it. You know to me it's like are there a few things there is like the window pattern is really inconsistent. You know there's no kind of roof line or cornice. The, there's not good banding between the first floor which is commercial and upper floors and some of the, although it's brick and glass and wood some of the brick is heavy and so it's like okay well, you know, if there was like six weeks to that building and it sounds easy but if there was different you know if it was a little bit different would it be would it be better received right would it look better and is it and what does that mean and so I'm hoping that Dodson kind of. They don't say they didn't say why it is poorly rated but those kind of my assumptions you know looking at attic with the rest of the buildings in downtown. So I think they're going to be doing some of what we're talking about you know how you know what is the right kind of formula what are some thoughts here and so they've done it in other towns and they just worked with North Hampton for a long time for their form based code and zoning and Florence in the downtown and they've worked. It's about they're doing when towns and so we're pretty excited to have them so if you know if you're not asked personally but you know keep an eye out for that you can always attend any workshop or public meeting or. You know through the commission if we want to have it be a running agenda item we could always provide comments to that way. I mean I was shocked by the buildings, I guess what is it one is pleasant. I don't know the names of all them. But for the first time I got the view between the two new buildings, where you can really see that I have to say I thought it looked great. I wonder how much, you know, what Kendrick place that I don't know that I was thinking of it as the flat iron building. I wonder, you know, how much, how much of it is, it's out of placeness because that area hasn't filled in yet, you know and how that will change the way you receive things but it was interesting to me because my feelings about that area have changed over time, but it was really was really nice to see the graveyard I mean it's really great sight line when you're walking out of protocol and you come down that way. Anyway, that's just inside. I mean it's interesting because the dots and asked like oh do you ever have complaints about Amherst College buildings and I said not not typically right I think they're, you know there's just a little, you know, a little bit maybe more thought in terms of its, you know, relationship to the context of Amherst or to its, you know, and it's not saying that they're not modern buildings right so the lyceum is a modern take on that, you know, an old house and, you know, but when so when they mentioned that it's like okay I drove by a few more times and it's like right so, you know, there's a pattern and rhythm to the windows and openings. You know they use shade screens and different, you know, new modern material but it's done in a way that it relates and so it's like you know is it. Right it's just like that sensibility is lost and some of the other buildings and you know and I don't know like, you know how prescriptive the design guidelines are standards will get but I'm hoping it's to the point where, you know every time there's a new building or an old building so the planning board or the permitting boards and staff have, you know, something that's really relatable that we can use right I don't, you know, because we've been guessing at this, or we've been you know, looking at this for, you know, 10 years now since zoning changed 15 years and allowed new buildings, but it would be nice to have something that is really helpful. Here, here's what can happen, you're right so it's like we're not second guessing every time there's a new development like oh goodness we too bad we hadn't thought of something you know like. Yep. Any other unanticipated items. I think we should probably plan our next meeting. There are general preference for Mondays over Thursdays. I would prefer Monday. I think we're seeing into an issue, I guess. Me. But one day's fine with me. Okay. So, Nate. Oh, I had one question. What happened with a mirror, who is going to be at the last meeting they were looking for an extension on their demolition. I think I'd encourage them to apply for a building permit, because, you know, as long as the building permit was issued, but I don't know if they did I think they had a lot of questions. I spoke with the son and then the contractor but an email but I just said you know get the building permit going and we could issue it with conditions. Okay. But I'm not sure that if that happened. Okay, okay. So, I'm thinking in terms of timing of the next meeting, do we want to wait the first of April? Do we want to wait until the first week of May? Or actually it would be the Monday would be the seventh would be the first Monday in May. Actually the six. Six. Yep. Sorry. Six. Thank you. Yep. Does that work with everybody? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we will have our next meeting Monday, May 6th at six 30pm. Okay. So it's 833. Unless anyone has any objections, I will adjourn our meeting and we will see each other again in May. Thank you, Robin. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thanks everyone. Good night.


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Know it's trendy right now to anytime. There's a new contract that comes out in the NFL. Oh, it's an overpay Oh, you shouldn't have paid him that much But I think there's certain guys that you kind of just have to give them whatever they want like yeah negotiate a little bit But give them whatever they want and that kind of goes for every field in every industry You just there are certain people that you just can't afford to lose the effort that goes into replacing them is not worth it So today we're gonna go over every single team in the NFL And I'm gonna give you guys that they absolutely have to pay no matter what blank check And we're gonna start with the Buffalo bills since we have Josh Allen up here Josh Allen Obviously already got paid deserved every penny He got when you get a quarterback especially one that is this talented in this game breaking you can't let him go You just can't along with your elite quarterback It's usually a bad idea to leave him out to dry with no elite receiving threats now on defense I think everyone's a little bit expendable even Trey White to some degree But Micahyde and Jordan poyer have irreplaceable chemistry. They're the best safety duo in football and they're the anchors of this defense