Okay, Mr. Marshall, I see the attendees coming on in. It looks to me like you're good to go. It's 635 by my computer and you do have a quorum. Alright, thank you, Pam. Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of September 20th, 2023. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order. At 636 p.m., this meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, this planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. Zoom meeting link is accessible on the planning agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the Zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call when I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. We know that Bruce Coldham and Johanna Newman will both be absent this evening. Fred Hartwell. Can you hear me? Yes, Fred. Okay, because I don't have access to mute and unmute at the moment, but I am here. All right, great. Jesse Magar. I'm present. Thank you, Jesse. I, Doug Marshall, am present. Janet McGowan. Here. Johanna Newman. She's absent. And Karen Winter. Here. Great. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. 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. 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 the 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 a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. All right, first on our agenda this evening, we have minutes. And Chris, I want to start by asking you a question. Two of the sets of minutes we have in the packet. Have as their header, the word minutes. And the third one, the one from March. Says draft minutes. It should say minutes, I must have a draft so that I would remind myself. Okay, so all three of these are ready for approval this evening. Yes. All right, great. All right, so why don't we start with the March 29 minutes. So anybody want to make a motion to approve those minutes. All right, I'll make the motion to approve the March 29 minutes we can have edits in the discussion. Anybody want to second that. Karen. I second. Okay, great. Thank you, Karen. All right, any discussion about these minutes. So I'm going to make one edit, which is that we remove the word draft from the title. And otherwise, I don't have any other comments on that. Board members, were there any other comments on those minutes? All right, I'm seeing a couple of Jesse. I think that's not really about content. It's just that Fred and I were not there. So should we not approve them and then we don't have quorum for a vote? Is that correct? Or does it not matter? Well, Chris, what do you think we should do? I mean, we can have an entire board turnover. You know, and. Everybody be new. Before the minute vote on the minutes. I don't know if Jen, it was there either. Were you Jen? No. No, you can vote on the minutes if you think that they're. You know, adequate. Can Chris, could we, would they be approved if we had. Say three votes in favor and everybody else was absent or abstained. Or do we need five. We don't need five. The new zoning bylaws says that in order to pass something, you need a vote. The majority of the members who are present. Okay. So. I and Janet and Karen could. Vote to approve and that would be a majority of the members present. And that would pass. Okay. Good. Okay. All right. Janet has a comment. Yes, indeed. I see Janet's hand. I was just wondering if we just put them over to the next meeting when Bruce is there and. I just. So it'd be, I'm trying, we need like either three or five people or three or four people or four of seven, you know, four, six or something. I just don't, I mean, they look like good minutes to me. But you were absent too. Yeah. And then hopefully we don't have, well, Johanna would, oh, she was gone too. This is awkward. Wait for the next meeting. That's fine. Yeah. So why don't we, why don't we do that? So. All right. So I'm going to withdraw my motion to approve. And. Chris, do we need to do anything else with those to close that and move it on to the. No, but I must say I was very proud of myself for finally getting around to doing those. Yeah, yeah. They seemed excellent. They were very helpful. Yeah, I was ready to vote in favor of them. So we'll just have that on for the next time. You can just feel good that you got that done and behind you. Okay. So the next set of minutes are from August 2nd. Does anybody else want to make a motion to approve those minutes? All right. Nobody wants to make our emotions. Jesse.  Move to approve August 2nd minutes. All right. Karen, will you like to second? I second. All right. Great. Thank you. Did anyone have any comments on the August 2nd minutes? I thought they looked good. Okay. So then we'll go ahead to a roll call for the August 2nd minutes. Starting with Fred. Hi. Jesse. Hi. Janet. I'm going to abstain just because I was listening to that meeting. I wasn't really present and I didn't, it wasn't there for the whole meeting. I was on the. I was in a parking lot somewhere. So. I think you have a majority. So. All right. Abstain and Karen. I. Okay. I'm an eye as well. That's four in favor, one abstention and two absent. All right. Moving on to the August 16th minutes. Anybody want to. Put their hand up and. I will. I move to accept the August 16th minutes. Okay. Jesse is that hand to second it? All right. Anybody have any comments or notice anything about those minutes? Excellent. Other than that they are. Pretty timely. Okay. All right. So we'll go ahead and vote on those starting again with Fred. Hi. And Jesse. Hi. I'm an eye as well. So that's five in favor. With two. Two absences. All right. Thank you all for that. All right. We'll move on. To ask to the second item, which is our public comment. Period. So it looks like we have. Two attendees. This evening at this time, one is Robert DeCarlo and the other is. Tim at BDG probably Berkshire design group. I suspect these are both here. For the public hearing on the site plan review coming up later. So unless one of them want to make a public comment, I will conclude we have no public comment. Okay. All right. So no public comment. So the time now is 647. And we'll go on to item number three, which is a public hearing site plan review. SPR 2024 dash zero one. Bonnie and Robert DeCarlo at 86 Gray street. Request site plan review. Under section 3.321 of the zoning bylaw. RG general residence zoning district. Map 11 D parcel 107. All right. So you've brought Mr. DeCarlo. So we'll go on to item number one, Bonnie and Robert DeCarlo at 86 Gray street. Request site plan review under. Site plan review approval to construct an addition to an existing owner occupied duplex. So you've brought Mr. DeCarlo in and maybe you should bring in Tim at Berkshire design group to Pam. He doesn't want to come over. I think Tim is here for the A&R. Oh, you do. Okay. Yeah. All right. Then we will leave him. In the public for the moment. All right. So Mr. DeCarlo. Welcome to our meeting. You can unmute yourself. If you have a. Camera you could show us your. Your face and. Do you have any sort of. Introduction you want to give us to this project. Pam unmute him. Okay, there it is. Am I, can you hear me? Yes, we can now. Yep. Yep. Do you have a camera or not? I got, it says my name up there and I'm one. But I'm on my computer and I was, it showed me, I don't know why it's not showing me. Can you hear me? All right. Yes, we can. Okay. All right.  Remember that we really can't see you. And if you want. Pam to bring up any of the drawings that you submitted. You can direct her as you do your presentation. Oh, okay. My name is Robert DeKal. I live at 86 Gray street in Amherst. Been living here since 1989. And we are putting in a request to put an addition on the house. So I can, and my wife can basically be able to age in place and have. Um, on the first floor of the house, um, a bedroom and a bathroom so that we can be able to, um, to, to move on with our lives and enjoy Amherst. Okay.  Okay. So we're seeing, uh, at the moment, we're seeing the survey. Um, and that the proposed addition is toward the rear of the existing two family dwelling, uh, extending out to the south. And that that it's in front of the existing barn and shed and barn addition. Uh, Pam, why don't you go, uh, onto the second one. So this is the site plan. Showing the addition. I guess it's a roof plan. So I'm seeing the three renderings of the addition. Um, view from the southeast view from the south view from the Southwest, maybe. All right. And then here's an architectural drawing of the floor plan. And the, maybe the ground or the foundation of the demolition plan that is showing the bedroom. Um, I'm seeing a small room to the right of the bedroom. Maybe a laundry room beside that. And then the existing bathroom. I'm, I'm saying those. Spaces from left to right. Does that seem right, Mr. DiCarlo? Yes, that's what the plan says. Yes. Okay. Great. Can you see the, uh, plans on the screen? Yes. Okay. You can. Okay. Great. Okay. Okay. And then maybe I don't need to go through them in quite so much detail. All right. And then now Pam has brought up the, uh, Photos of the existing. Lighting that I think you, we at least received this afternoon. The first page had a, a fixture on the end of the barn. Uh, the second page, which we're looking at now has a pendant fixture on the porch. Um, And Bruno the Greedo. I'm sorry. Bruno's I Greedo. Oh, that's your dog. Okay. There he goes. Yes. He's part of the family. Uh, moving on to the third image is a nighttime image of the house with the front porch illuminated by the pendant fixture. And then moving on. I think there's a nighttime image of the pendant right up close to the porch and moving on an image of the fixture on the barn. Uh, at night. All right. So, uh, maybe we should consider that the introduction to the project and presentation of the materials. Um, I know we did a site plan review or at least maybe one only or maybe two of us did a site plan review. Uh, did Jesse and Fred both make it over there? Yes, we did. You did. Okay. And Chris, did you join them? I did. Yep. Okay. So Fred or Jesse would either of you like to describe the site plan review and what you saw. Well, it was, uh, And, you know, as, as described, uh, it's a. Uh, and it. As someone who, uh, lives two streets over in a comparable building at, uh, it's this concept of aging in place is something that I'm intimately familiar with. And, uh, basically I certainly support the, uh, the application. I had, I have a couple of questions. When we get to that, but, um, basically, uh, there's, uh, there's, uh, There's no reason not to go forward with this. Okay. Were there any aspects of the project that you were able to understand better when you were there on site and that the rest of us might not appreciate yet. Jesse. Not, not really. Uh, it's, uh, You know, it's, it's adding to the, to the area of the first floor. And, um, the. We have limitations in the bylaw regarding lot coverage, but the, we also have the calculations. That were circulated and, uh, that does not appear to be in question. So. Okay. I did have a question on the, uh, parking space count. I, I can't imagine how you'd ever get 10 cars there. I'm a little curious how that was done. You only need for, uh, under the bylaw for the situation. So I'm not really concerned about it, but I am curious how they got to 10 cars. Why don't you with that? Yeah. Why don't we hold that question for a minute? What just Jesse's got his hand up. Maybe he has something from the site. He wants to share. Yeah, I was just going to add that simple addition in the back. And it does add more visibility from the street. So it does bump to the south quite a bit. But, you know, really not concerned at all. They have a nice big yard and the design is very much in character with the house. So it'll, it'll look totally fine. Okay. Thanks, Jesse. Okay. So, um, I think we'll be ready to move on to the next slide. Um, Now's the time to have board member questions and. Fred sounds like you've got the first one in here. Um, Mr. Decarlo. Do you want to comment on 10 parking spaces? I, I don't know where that came from. I don't know anything about 10 cars. I have no idea where that came from. I don't know what that is. All right. Um, Fred, do you remember where that was? You know, next door, there's a house and they, I don't know whether you're going to get confused with them, but they, um, put a big area in the back. And I don't know whether you're confusing. Not 86 with the house next door that has a bunch of students living there. And, um, and I don't know the numbers, but I don't know where that figure came from. I don't know about 10 cars. Okay. Well, I'm trying to remember where I saw it at the moment. Chris, do you remember where that showed up? Yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, On the, uh, The color rendering says 86 Gray street parking plan. And in a black pen, it says n equals 10 space number of spaces 10. Yeah. Okay. I do see that. Um, Yeah. I have no idea. Um, and it looks like my handwriting, but, um, I don't know why that number is in there. I really don't. It's, it's my, I did it. Um, I don't know why. I mean, I just don't know. Chris, does that figure have any official status? It's from the rental registration, um, application. So it's the plan that was filed with rental registration. I think Nate must have gotten it from that. Is that right? Right. Yeah. So this was the parking plan with the rental registration permit. So I think it was just, you know, the assumption that it. It's a hundred feet long. You can fit five cars. If it's double wide, it's 10. Um, I don't think there was any. Okay. Um, I mean, you know, any more than that, I think it was just a show that I had ample parking for the two units. All right. But it's not like you're asking us to approve a parking plan for 10s, 10 cars this evening. We don't have 10 cars. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. So board members, are there other questions or things you'd like to discuss on this? I do do see that Chris had suggested some things to talk about in the. Development applications report. So.  Thank you. Um, I have one question, but I just have a comment, which is, you know, this looks like a really attractive, well-maintained house. And I thought the addition really fit in. You know, in terms of the look. Um, and, you know, and so I just, it looks, you know, and if it helps. I think that's a good question. Mr. Carlos and his wife to stay in Amherst and his house longer. I think that's great. Um, Mike, I have a quick question just about, um, how many bedrooms are in your, um, rental unit. Is it upstairs? I couldn't tell because the house is quite large, but I couldn't tell. We, we don't have a rental unit. Um, we have. Yeah. We did have a rental unit. Um, and, um, right now we don't rent it. It's all our own family. We don't have any renters. Okay. So, um, when you rent it, how many bedrooms are in the space that you rent? We rented upstairs at the time is a one bedroom. Um, unit. Okay. Only part of the house. It was not the full upstairs. Okay. So it was a one bedroom. Self-contained unit. Yes. Okay. Janet, any other questions? That was the only question. Okay. Uh, Fred, I see your hand. Uh, yeah, I, I, um, No big deal, but I think somewhere. In the, uh, final site. Plan approval action. It should somehow mention that. Uh, the, uh, We are satisfied that the, uh, driveway area. Uh, will. It's sufficient to accommodate. Not less than four cars. And four vehicles and, uh, and let it go with that. I think it somewhere. Because that's the, that's the minimum in the bylaw. Uh, for a two family. And, uh, and, uh, and, uh, I, I think that the number four should be there somehow because the number 10, I, I just. Uh, I, I don't think it's right to have the number 10 in there. Okay. Uh, Chris, I see your hand. You could make that a finding. You could make a finding that the driveway can accommodate for the four cars. Yeah. That's what I would like to do. Okay. So that's one finding. And may I say one more thing? I just wanted to acknowledge that, Mr. Maloy, Nate Maloy wrote the development application report. Oh, okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Chris. And thanks, Nate. All right, Fred, are you, did you have other items? I still see your hand. Okay. All right. Well, why don't we go through the development application report and just make sure we touch on each of the items that Nate suggested we. Look at here. So starting, um, starting on page two of that report. Um, waivers, uh, request for waivers of landscape plan, soil erosion plan, sign plan, lighting plan and traffic impact statement. So we'll want to. Make sure that we're okay with that. Maybe I'll just turn off my video for a while. Um, issues. I don't see any under. Proposed use and changes to current to previous permits. None under building and architecture. None under special permit to modify dimensional standards. So, um, those are all being met. Accessory structures. Issues to consider. There are two existing sheds at the rear of the property within the setbacks. The applicant has stated that these will be removed. The board could make this a condition. Mr. DeCarlo, I would, I will you in fact be. Do you intend to remove the two sheds? Yes. Okay. All right. So board members, uh, Fred, you see your hand. Yeah. I. I certainly agree that Mr. DeCarlo can remove the sheds. Um, I have a little bit of a problem. Making that a condition because. I would approve this with the sheds or without the sheds. I don't see how they bear on the approval. So I would rather not go there if we don't have to go there unless. I'm not thinking of something. Okay. Nate, I see your hand and I was going to ask you about, does that affect the lot coverage that you're. The, um, they, the sheds are, are too close to the side setback. So if he was willing to keep them, it would have to be a special permit from the planning board. For the, for the setbacks where the. The two sheds, the one behind the barn and the one next to the barn. And so. So even, so why would you need a special permit. For something that exists. And he's not touching. Because there was never a permit to have those built, right? So they're one of them, I think is on the property line. And so we wouldn't allow that. In terms of its height to be located where it is. So nothing is grandfathered. Right. And so if, if in fact, he had not come to us for a site plan review. Those sheds could remain and be there for decades to come. Right. So if they're small enough, they don't even have to have a building permit. And so that would be something that would only be brought to our attention through something like this. So it's a retroactive review of, of something that's already in place. Hmm. Okay. Well, let's see. I'm going to let Chris go next. I see her hand. I just wanted to mention that the barn did receive a special permit to be closer to the property line than was. I don't know if it was the previous owner of what those in or not. Okay. Janet.  You need to move them. Like just he would be enforcing the building code. But this kind of feels like the ever sourced thing where, you know, in the course of, you know, looking at their application, we noticed this huge pile of debris in the backyard. You know, just accumulating and we sort of added that to the permit as, you know, I don't know if it was, you know, I don't know if you're allowed to put a huge pile of debris in the end of your property, but it was just sort of kind of a cleanup kind of thing. So this sort of feels the same way where the applicant is agreeing to the application. And remove the sheds or move them somewhere else, you know, within. And so we're just kind of making sure things tidy as we go forward. I mean, otherwise we would sort of kick it to Rob more and, you know, back and forth and stuff like that. So. Right. Well, Mr. DeCarlo, I, since you are. Are willing to remove those sheds. I guess we need to make that a condition. I mean, if you were not willing to remove the sheds, we'd need to have another hearing. For a special permit, but sounds like we don't need to go that way. I agree with you. I didn't want to make an issue of it. And I didn't want to. Pursue. Special permits $500 a fee. Extra time. It just wasn't worth us for all of this. Worth. Worth it to us. And it's okay with us to take it down as long, you know, we just want to comply with what you guys want us to do. We're going to do it. It's a really simple for us. All right. All right. Well. Thank you. That simplifies life for us. So, so that would be a condition. To remove the sheds. All right. That was the bottom of page two of the development application report. I don't see an items, items under. Particle six. Paragraph seven. Utilities. Will there be any equipment or utilities on the exterior of the structure? And. Nate, are you thinking of like an electrical line that comes to the wall of the building and then drops down or. Well, I'm thinking, you know, I think for every product now, especially with electrification of homes, you know, is there going to be an outside compressor or mini split or. Something of that nature. So the.  Mini splits. And it's, you know, it's becoming more prevalent. So I just think that. For every project we should be asking this, right? Because it could all of a sudden go on the front porch or it could go. Somewhere where we aren't looking. And so it's something that can be considered. And so that's, that's why it's there. All right. Well, Mr. Do you have any. Exterior mechanical equipment that you were thinking of. Using. In association to, to heat or cool this. Addition. Yes. We currently have too many splits in an outside central day condition. And we intend to put in a. You know, a. A means to, to heat and cool. And we were considering a mini split. Yes. All right. And would that be where on the, on the site, would that new mini split be located? We, right now. As of this time. I know final decision is made because we haven't decided on the type of mini split, the type of unit.  Ways to do it. That's at this point in time. Undecided. Okay. When we come along with it and, you know, And look at everything at that time, we're going to have a better vision of how, you know, you see it all together. And then you'll be able to figure it out. Does that make sense to you? I understand what you're saying. Pam, do you think you could bring up the site plan? I'd just like to find out where the existing mini splits are. Okay. Well, maybe that first one with the colors that. Better to look at. So, Mr. Where are the existing. Units that you have. One is. Is you. Okay. It would be. See you with it. See the indentation. Right there. And it's, um, I don't know. Okay. It would be. See you with it. See the indentation. Right there. It's, um, Right there. It's in that indentation. Okay. It's in the recess on the south side of the house. It's on the ground. Yep. And where's the other one? The other one is on the back porch. Of the, um, of the house. Okay. So that's up at the top of this plan for the house. Yeah, it's in the top of the porch. Yes. Okay. Um, Chris, do we need to know the other one could possibly go right where the other one is on the ground. Um, In the recess. And the recess, which is probably the, uh, The best place to put it aesthetically and mechanically. And there's some room there that remains. Yeah. It's recess. There's plenty of room. And it's it. It has a better aesthetic effect because it's sort of hidden a bit, you know. Okay. Um, Chris, from your point of view, do we need to know where this. Additional unit might go in order to approve this site plan. Or you could make a condition that says, um, That if the mini split is not put in that recess that Mr. DeCarlo would come back and show you a plan as to where it's actually going to go. Okay. Uh, are you willing to do that, Mr. DeCarlo? Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with that because I think, um, As we're discussing it. I think it does make more sense to put it here than any place. Yeah. I think that's going to be the place it's going to be. Okay. And Chris, uh, when you word that we should. We shouldn't limit it to a mini split in case the decision is to do something else. So equipment. So the, yeah, the mechanical. Any exterior mechanical equipment should be located in that. Recess on the south side of the house. Otherwise they should come back. Okay. And may I just say something that, um, He probably won't know until he talks to the, um, mechanical people. That's exactly where that has to go because I know that they have very specific. Specifications. Yep. Well, I mean. So that's fine. I'll just give him where he's at and that he came to us now. This is how we should, I guess we should deal with it. Uh, Fred, I see your hand. Uh, yeah, I, um, I, I agree with what we did with the sheds, but this looks to me like micro management. Uh, if he finds out from the HVAC people that they need to put it a little somewhere else, uh, he's going to have to come back and we're going to have to modify the, this site plan approval. No. That is just, it is excessive. I would not include it as a specific condition. So quickly. I'm just going to jump in. I think if it's not there, we could say that I should be shielded from view. So I think the issue is that we're seeing a lot of these happen where someone will put in an addition or maybe a few units. And during the site plan review process, we don't look at any of the utilities. And then they go in someplace that just ruins the whole thing. They put it like right on the front of the house or on the roof. Or someplace that actually, you know, obstructs the view. And, you know, I've spoken with the building commissioner a few times about it. And it is something that is totally valid to talk about during site plan review. And so I don't consider it micro managing. I get it. It's only could be one unit, but what if, what if he ends up deciding that he wants to put, you know, electrify the whole house and put five mini splits in five outdoor units. And so I think something could be more generic about just having it in a place shielded from view, but I think it's something that planning board, you know, I'm going to start putting it into every development application report as a consideration, you know, outdoor mechanical equipment. So I think you can have a really big impact on, on a site plan. And when you say shielded from view, you mean from a public way. Right. I mean, so I have the Google street view pulled off of what it looks like now. And you know, it's pretty difficult to see that one unit. And so, but, but let's say the unit ends up on the rear of this addition on, you know, on the west side. That wouldn't that would be shielded from view. By the addition. Right. And he wouldn't need to put any shrubs around it or a fence or anything. Well, I'm saying that's the condition could be that could just be that right in a location that's shielded from public way or shielded from view of the public way. Not, not specifically saying this nook here, but any. So.  And this seems like we've touched on something that the board is, hasn't thought much about. So if I'm a homeowner and I decide to. Electrify my mechanical system and I want to put in a mini split. Do I need a site plan review and I do nothing else to the house? No, this, the use requires a site plan review. That's why it's here. So if it was just any, any other instance that wouldn't. Okay. So if let's say he did his addition now and he used the existing steam system that's in his house. And just extended it or bought a bigger boiler. He could do that. And then he could come back in five years and say, now I'm going to want to electrify. I mean. Yeah. But I think it's, it's more relevant to bigger projects. Like say the one on one 33 South East street, you know, they put 60 mini splits on the roof and it was visible. And it's something that hasn't looked at. And so. You know, like I said, I think it's, this is a smaller case, but it's something I think the board would be asking. Okay. All right. Well, I guess to keep the thing. Well, it's Janet, you want to interject here? I just, I'm kind of in a way, glad we're talking about it. Mr. DeCarlo may not. I just, I'm a little, I had sort of the same question as Fred or concern. And I'm wondering if. The building commissioner is requiring, when people apply for mini spits to shield them, if it's in view from the street.  And they did put up some nice screening. So is that something that building commissioner is requiring? And which makes sense to me, but I just. Is that in the code or is that just a recommendation or should it be? And, you know, it does seem different to have one mini split versus, you know, it's 16 or so, but I just, I just a little. I'm interested in this topic, but not really clear on it. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. The code doesn't necessarily require it unless it's a noise thing, right? So if you have to attenuate noise, some decibel level, but there's no. Code to screen it.  So if there is screening, it has to be set back a certain distance, but, you know, for instance, if it's just a little bit of noise and then you can. They're talking about not extending the whole city, so if they're not naszego district commission. These are things that they look at because, you know, oftentimes the contract will put it the most convenient place for them. But maybe not the best place in terms of a site plan or aesthetics. And so that's the only reason why it's been brought up. And I don't. I don't really have an issue if it's only one here. It's just really something to consider for every project. And some might have more of an impact. Yeah, I can, I guess I can get my head around some very general language about shielding from view or something. But I don't want to go beyond that. I think it's, and if there is a policy issue here, then it is frankly, I think it's something that we would need to look at in the zoning bylaw so that the people who are involved in these projects have a, you know, a basis to know what's what they're looking at ahead of time. Right. Again, if we have general language about shielding or something from out of the way, I can get my head around that, but I don't want to be any more specific than that. Okay, let me let's hear from Jesse and then maybe we'll try to work on that language. Yeah, I was going to say something very similar. I think a general statement about being sure that you're from public way is great. Just to let the applicant know that's an issue, it's like anecdotal when we did ours, we weren't aware and then suddenly we had to go get approval to actually make a shield to cover ours, but just so that the discussion is happening from the beginning, I think it will be very useful. Right. All right. So, Chris, maybe a statement that any new exterior mechanical equipment should be located so that it is not visible from a, from a public way. Is that sufficient, I guess, knowing this parcel? I can imagine that even that recess, you know, if you come, if you're farther down south on that street down toward the corner, you probably could see what's in that recess and I'm not sure that would be a problem from my point of view. I wonder whether if we just said it shouldn't be visible from the public way within the, you know, it directly abutting the parcel or something so that, you know, if you're just right in front of the house or right along the street between the property lines, it's not visible. I just like, can I make a comment? Sure. One of the things about this is just for your consideration, is that with many splits, there's a certain distance factor and you just want to get into that area where you're requiring it to be beyond that. Yeah, you can only extend that line for so long and beyond that, it's not going to work. So that's just my two cents worth from my understanding of many splits. Yeah, you're talking about the refrigerant line. Yeah, you can't run it longer than it's designed for. If you go beyond that, you're going to be in trouble and the wiring on that also, you can't split and tie that together because the signal won't go through up through properly. So there are some mechanical and electronic issues. I'm not trying to, you know, tell you what to do, but I just think you should understand the consideration of what the application is going to involve. Right. Well, it's not uncommon for a site plan review for the applicant to have some idea of what they would be putting outside the building and where it might go. Yeah, the place you're talking about now, that's okay. I mean, that space, I think, you know, I think that's going to be an okay place for it. I'm not concerned about that. I'm talking in general, Donald, I'm trying to help just give you some information and that's all I have to say about it. Okay. All right, Chris, what kind of language have you got at the moment? Chris, you're muted. Chris, you are muted. Sorry, I went through all that language. Any new mechanical equipment shall be located so that it is not visible from the public way directly abutting the parcel or immediately in front of the parcel. So board members, how do you think, does that seem okay from your point of view? Does anybody object to that? I guess I should say raise your hand. Done? Yes. So she's saying it can't be in view of the butters or I didn't quite get the two different views. Well, no, the idea was that if you're on the street, essentially right in front of the parcel itself between the two east-west property lines that you can't see the unit. That way, if you're farther down the street toward the corner, you know, you're looking obliquely toward the side of the house, you could see the unit, but you're farther away and it's not as obtrusive. I can't hear you, Janet. Thank you. Okay. All right. Good friend. Yeah. I'm thinking about the compressor condenser for the full house air conditioning unit that is, uh, that cools my residence and it's tucked in a, an interior corner between a one story addition and the main body of the house, but it would be visible from the street, except for the fact that I have a nice thick hedge that runs all the way along the sidewalk on the, on the front lot line, but, um, you know, I don't think that this is all that objectionable, um, you know, and I, I admit that there is a point, you know, and the point Nate brought up about, uh, southeast street, uh, that is certainly a case of point, but so for this one, maybe you would just not bother.  I, I don't like this precedent. Uh, I, I understand on a major project, it's, and I applaud Nate for raising this and making it maybe a standard part of, uh, a report, but on a, on house this size in a neighborhood like this, it's, I think it's excessive. But, you know, and then just, you know, raise it on the development report. And, uh, but, uh, you know, this is our job to decide whether or not it, it really is necessary here. And, uh, the, the owner makes a point, uh, about there, there are mechanical limitations on refrigerant lines. So, right. Anyway, my preference, thank you, Fred. So board members, uh, Fred's taken a different, uh, approach and suggested we not do any sort of condition associated with a mechanical unit on the house. Uh, how do you feel about that? So I'm not seeing any hands raised and I'm not, uh, Karen. Um, am I muted? Wait a minute. You are not muted. We can hear you. Oh, okay. Uh, in, in this case, I feel perfectly confident that, uh, Mr. DeCarlo is going to be, uh, concerned about the aesthetics of his house and it's going to do the best he can to make it pleasing. So even without conditions, I, I would approve this, but, um, I don't think to put this general wording in is, is necessarily a bad idea because as Nate said, we should kind of focus on in the future, uh, that we're concerned about not giving just a green light to all electrical things, um, that anybody wants to do. So in this case, I would approve it without, um, any conditions. I feel confident that it's not going to become a problem here, but I would also welcome the fact of having, uh, a general comment saying, um, you know, uh, if electrical equipment gets added onto the house, uh, there's a concern that it will be done in a way so that it will not mar the, the, uh, be, be a hindrance or a distraction from the public view, something like that. All right. So you could go either way. Yes. All right. Janet.  But I think for one house, it's sort of an odd thing. I think it makes sense with a larger development. If someone has a whole line of compressors and mini splits to say to shield that, I think we did that for the Unitarian Church. We, or that maybe the design review board or did that, but I do think it's sort of an odd thing just out of nowhere, just for a single family house to bring that up. I think Karn's hit a nice balance. So it sounds like you would fall on the let's not bother to do a condition. I think so. I kind of, I kind of, you know, I kind of agree with everybody, but I think I'm leaning towards Karen. Well, I, I, I didn't interpret Karen as saying we should not do a condition. I think she said we should. So you're putting down on the opposite side and everybody in every possible way. So I'm sort of, I'm going to agree with Fred that for this particular situation, we shouldn't bother to do a condition. I'm going to say, I agree that it's great that Nate brought it up and we should bring it up on each project and have a conversation about it, but I don't think we should always make a condition about this. So Jesse, where do you stand? I think I'm a little mixed thinking of my own experience. We had a new one put it in and they showed up and I said, well, the company didn't have the size you want. So they gave us the bigger one and they installed a massive presser in my driveway, which I didn't want to see. So we ended up building a screen, right? And it's very visible from the front. I'm sure my neighbors didn't want to see that either. So I'm sure they're glad we built the screen. So I, I, I would be okay with a very general condition of if it's visible from the public way, efforts should be made to screen it or it needs approval, if not, or something like that. All right. Well, that's okay. I don't think it actually pertains to this particular case. I think we're talking about precedent more than this example. All right. So Mr. DeCarlo, we've heard a variety of approaches here, but it does seem like there's at least a couple of members who think it would be worth us doing a condition that says, if it's visible from the public way in front of your house, that you would be required to screen the, the mechanical unit from, from view, is that acceptable? If that's what you want, if that's what you want, I'll do it. Okay. All right. Chris, why don't we record that as a draft condition at the moment? As we go through these topics. All right. So unless anybody objects, I'm going to go on to further down the development report here. Um, the next item was stormwater management and, uh, Nate was suggesting we ask how the runoff from the roof is going to be managed. Mr. DeCarlo, will you have gutters? Will you have downspouts? Uh, where will the downspouts discharge if you do? Um, we don't, we have, um, gutters in the front of the house for the, uh, for the walkway. And we're going to put gutters on the, uh, the addition. And, and those will drain into downspouts that are going to, we're going to put that on and those will discharge to onto the surface of your property adjacent to the house. Correct. All right. Um, I don't see any hands from people. That sounds like an acceptable management. Lighting. Uh, so I did notice in the, in the, uh, photos that the fixture on the barn is not, uh, certainly not dark sky compliant. Um, and are you, are you putting any new lighting on your property exterior lighting? No, the existing lighting that we have should cover everything. Okay. Um, does anybody object to the existing lighting and want Mr. Decarlo to change it? Okay. Not seeing any response. Uh, no, number 11 site plan, no, no issues, site management plan. Uh, no issues parking and circulation, no issues traffic, no issues work within town and right of way, no issues and no, no further issues. All right. So it sounds like we have one finding for, uh, parking, uh, that there are at least four cars accommodated in the, in the, uh, driveway, one general condition for the mechanical unit to be screened if it's not, if it's visible from the public way in front of the property. Uh, and then Chris, you had sent a couple of addition, additional conditions. Uh, one was that the project shall be built in substantial accordance with the site plan approved by the planning board on this date. Second, the project shall be managed in accordance with the management plan approved by the planning board on this date. And then, oh yeah, the third one had to do with, uh, removal of the sheds in the back yard that do not comply with exist, with current setback requirements and that those should be removed. All right, board members, are there any additional comments that anyone wants to make at this point? And I still don't see any other members of the public in the attendees, uh, less Janet. Um, I just wanted to note that in the, um, applet management plan, they said that the lighting around the house is motion activated. So it turns off. It's like, you know, activated it's for safety. And so it sounds like off at night, unless somebody's creeping around. Right. Good. Okay. Chris, do we need two votes, one on the findings and one on the conditions? Could wrap it all in together and I would suggest that you make a finding that it meets all the, uh, relevant criteria of 11.24. Yeah, I was thinking that we put down a little, um, motion on that email that I sent. Right. Okay. Janet, um, we should close the hearing too. Right. Thank you. Okay. So, uh, let's see, let me, let me see if I can cobble together this motion. Uh, we, we would find, um, that the, that the, let's see, the project meets the relevant criteria of section 11.24 and that the driveway can accommodate the four cars required in, uh, by the bylaw, we, uh, we impose the conditions, the three conditions, um, actually four conditions, one substantial accordance of the site plan, one in accordance with the management plan, that the sheds be removed and that the, any mechanical units on the outside of the building be screened. And then finally, that the hearing, uh, be, be closed. Um, and that you, um, approve the waiver, yeah, or if we approve the application with the conditions as, as discussed and the waivers and the waivers as right as requested. So that was the four waivers that I read off earlier. I guess it's five landscaping plan, soil erosion plan, sign plan, lighting plan and traffic impact statement. So did that make sense to everyone? Chris, are you, do you think you have that between him and me and Nate? I think we are reasonably recorded. Okay. All right. So I guess since I've been doing all the talking, I will say I, I, I make a motion, I move that we, uh, adopt the findings that we've described, adopt the conditions that we described, uh, approve the waivers that were requested, um, and, um, that we close the hearing. I will second. Nicely done. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Janet. Uh, any further comment from anyone? Okay. So we'll go through and in what has become the usual order for tonight. Um, Fred, how do you feel about that motion? Uh, well, yes. All right. Thank you. Jesse. Yeah, approve. All right. Janet. All right. I think you said I, I, sorry, I was cut off, uh, Karen. I, all right. And I'm an I as well. So that's five in favor. Two members, uh, continue to be absent. All right. So the time is seven 40. And we'll go to item four on our agenda. Uh, this was, uh, entitled planning for housing growth. And, uh, Chris, do you want to just basically bring up the, I think it were three plans that you had, you and the planning staff had put together? Yeah, these are really in preparation for the meeting in person that we have in another week, I guess. Um, and what we thought it would be worthwhile to just show them to the board, give you some time to think about them before we all come together next week. Great. Nate was, Nate was the person who drew these plans. So maybe he would be the better person to, um, present them. But they're really to give you an idea of places that we thought would be worthy of, um, examining for, uh, rezoning, um, either, you know, for an overlay district or something that's sort to allow more housing to occur in these locations. Uh, Pam, could you, uh, adjust the zoom on this so that we can see most of the page? I can only, I can only see maybe the top third of the page. Nope. Yeah. If you go to the, uh, line of controls at the top, you see where it says a hundred and three percent. No, I, I don't see that, Doug. I don't, I don't see my PDF controls. I only see the share screen controls. So. Oh, because the share screen controls are covering the PDF. Yeah. And I'm trying to put them at the bottom, but I can't get them to go there. So Nate, if you have these as well and want to share your version, um, what is this? Well, um, now I can do it. Look at that. Yeah. Why don't you go to like 50% all right. So this is, this is university drive. And, um, so Chris, uh, I assume or Nate, I guess these boundaries are the areas you are thinking we might consider for an overlay district that might be geared toward housing. Is that right? Right. Yeah. I mean, Chris said it, I, yeah. I mean, the idea would be, um, you know, there's three areas, university drive, East Amherst, and then, um, you know, say, we'll say North Pleasant Street and the idea would be, you know, uh, they don't have to be rezoned the same thing, but we've talked about rezoning both East Amherst and areas for possible student housing or denser housing.  You know, really what are the appropriate areas? Um, I think also Doug, you mentioned if there's areas adjacent to the university, if we meet with Tony or Nancy or other representatives from UMass, you know, is there a way to say we're trying to bring something to the table, right? What kind of collaborative effort would we have if we could rezone areas near campus? Um, how could that be an incentive for them to do anything else? And so, you know, that's part of the consideration for this one, especially. Okay. All right. Well, um, I think that's, you've shown us all three images and, um, kind of introduced the topic. Um, actually Janet, yep. I saw University Drive and then I'm looking at the Amherst Center. Was there something, was there a second one that I missed? Uh, yeah, this one. Okay. College Street East Amherst, it's labeled University Drive, but it's really East Amherst Village Center. So yeah, that's the Web GIS. Like I said, I didn't change the title when I was making these. Okay. So you can discuss how to shrink or expand this, but this was our idea of the area that you might want to look at. I would love to see each of these in larger maps. Um, I don't have, like if I look at it on my computer, it's just, I see pieces of it, but especially for the meeting, I think it'd be good to have not just an eight by 11, but a larger map of each area, because, um, it's complicated. There's a lot of complicated zoning there. Um, are you, are you recommending this red part here, College Street, as for densification? I think it's, I think it's, uh, it's that it's everything within the black boundary, the depth, the thick black line that goes from, uh, close to the railroad tracks all the way down Belcher Town Road. Okay. Right. Right. I mean, so there has been discussion about East Amherst and, you know, there could be, it could be simpler to say, well, the commercial, that's the red, you know, just be changed to BVC, right? That could be one approach or one approach could be, is there an overlay zoning that has, um, discrete sections or districts within it that has different design standards or different, you know, densities or something. And so, you know, instead of just focusing on one zoning district, it's really about what is the area that would be appropriate to say for East Amherst to help encourage redevelopment, you know, Bruce Coldham said, uh, he'd love to see a gateway somewhere, you know, something designating a village center. And this is the main entry into town from the south on along with nine, you know, is there a point at which we'd want to see, you know, three story buildings or something and have a streetscape as opposed to some, you know, that was there now. And so really it is, I guess Chris mentioned a starting point for discussion. Right. So we can think of it as a uniform, uh, response or, or break it down into smaller parts that are treated differently. Is Janet, I see your hand. Um, is that Stanley Street at the tip of the Belchutown Road thing? I can't. Yeah, that is Stanley Street. So that, okay, that's all single. Okay. Okay. And Jesse. Yeah, thanks. Question for you, Nate. Um, maybe there's not a simple answer. I'm just wondering, you know, how you just, since you put these thick black lines as sort of consideration, how, what guided, you know, the nuances of where those lines went. So for example, when we're looking at now, why not Whitney Street, but why, I guess, to the street, to the East, sorry, West. Do you understand what I'm asking? Like, how does these shapes determine? Yeah. I mean, some of its existing zoning on the ground, uh, you know, uh, boundaries, the one on the West, there's the railroad, you know, it's the railroad and that's the commercial district where, uh, Hamshaw Lumber is located. And then railroad street right there. And so, I mean, at some point, you have to consider, right, what is a natural break or what was, what makes sense. And so to your point, Jesse, if, if the planning board says, well, why couldn't we have more, um, of South Whitney Street, then that's a possibility. Uh, you know, the planning board I'd really talked about was along the Route 9 corridor, uh, and, you know, it wasn't necessarily rezoning all of East Amherst. And so, you know, that could become part of the discussion. So really it was trying to follow some of the pattern that was there already in terms of properties fronting the road and what, you know, what some good setbacks are. All right. Uh, thanks. I'm just curious a little kind of. Yeah. Great. Thanks, Jesse. Karen. Yeah. I wonder if it would make sense to, uh, and when we approach this to first look at these three zones kind of, uh, and then try to discuss which one makes the most sense for us to concentrate on, uh, which would be maybe the least problematic. Um, so in the first meeting, I agree. It's a good idea to look at the three of them and maybe big maps would be necessary, but at some point then we should decide which, which, yeah, you know what it is. Priority. Exactly. Sure. That sounds good. Uh, Janet. So, you know, looking at East Amherst Village Center and, you know, this used to be the Village Center, the original Village Center of Amherst way back when, when I think it was still part of Hadley. And I'm kind of surprised at the exclusion of the common, um, all the commercial buildings around Main Street and Pelham Road and Northeast Street. I mean, that's, that's the Village Center. And so as well as, you know, the core commercial pieces, that just sort of surprises me. But whatever we pick, I think we have to also, um, not just say, you know, here's what we're talking about and here's what we'd like to rezone or do an overlay. But I think we're really initiating as a planning process to work with the neighborhood businesses and the residents and, um, to involve the public and stakeholders. And so I think it could be a really exciting project, but I don't think it's just going to be us sitting around saying, oh, let's draw these parts in the map and up zone or down zone. So I just want to, you know, I'd love to do this for any of those parcels. But I think, um, you know, to me, East Amherst seems to be on the cusp of some really exciting developments with the new school. That's going to be a community center. You know, the common can use some TLC and in the businesses to the, um, I think my direction is right to the, um, north, you know, and just, I know that's being considered also for historic districts. So to me, it's like we can kind of revive that whole core and bring in, um, College Street and all the businesses there. And I think it could be a really cool place to hang out and walk, which it isn't right now. It's hard to walk around there. But I do think we should look at this in the context of a more formal planning process that really involves our community and the store owners and the people own properties and people who live there. Yeah. I mean, I will say quickly that, you know, probably half a dozen property owners in East Amherst have approached the town and said they'd like to have something rezoned. So they're not happy with commercial or the residential zoning. And so some of the, some of the reason why East Amherst would be appropriate is that we've already had interest from a number of property owners saying that they're, you know, they really can't do much given the zoning that's there. The zoning is just weird. It's just all over the place. I know there's six zones in, in the, in the, in that black area. So it's really, you know, it's really inconsistent in terms of how it's zoned. Um, you know, I think you mentioned the common. I mean, we might say that RBC is appropriate for that part of the common, that part of East Amherst because it is older and it's a residential structures. And so it could be, again, something that Penny word looks at, you know, do we want to extend anything north? Or are we, you know, happy with how it's zoned now? Yep. Okay. Thanks, Janet. Karen. Um, no, I forgot to put my hand down. Sorry. Oh, okay. All right. Chris. I just wanted to note that this is one, um, section of town that does not abut the university, but the other two sections do abut the university. And so if we were to do something on university drive or on North Pleasant Street, it might potentially spur the university to do something in those two locations. So just think about that. And maybe, you know, that's worthy of a discussion with Nancy and. Um, Nancy Bifone and Tony Maroulas when they join you. And I hope that they're going to be able to join you on October 25th for your October, um, in person meeting. Okay. All right, Nate. Yeah, I mean, I would say that the other two areas are things where, you know, I mean, I would consider that something where we could have student housing, right? Or something dense and different than e-sammers. And so it's a whole another conversation that the board talked about last time, you know, where do we, where would we want to encourage off campus student housing? There was the article that was forwarded to you about what's happening in Canada. And so those other locations are something where your staff had said, could we be more creative in terms of allowing density, uh, and allowing that kind of, um, those apartments? And so, you know, that's just something to consider as well. You know, it's not, it might not even be a zoning district we have right now. It's really about, you know, how can we help this housing problem and start trying to, you know, get a little bit more balance in the market and demand. So, okay. Thanks, Nate. Chris. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't, I meant to lower my hand. Okay. Jesse. Yeah. It's just to echo what Nate said a little bit, um, look at the university drive map and something my household we've talked about for years that that feels somewhat under developed, especially, uh, and it might have less thorny issues in that area, because it just doesn't abut as many neighborhoods. Right. And I think that's a great, great place to sort of start with some more density towards, towards the student idea. All right. Um, don't see any more hands and, uh, we can continue the conversation next week when we all get together. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Nate and Chris for bringing those to us this week. All right. Time is 7.54. Uh, we often take a break when we have a long meeting expected. And, um, I guess I'm, I'm not sure how long the meeting's going to go tonight. I know we have the one. A and R, right? Um, we actually have two. We have two A and R's. Okay. So maybe what we should do is just take a five minute break now and we'll come back at eight o'clock. It's by my clock. It's 7.54. So call it a six minute break. Um, please mute yourself. Turn off your phone or your, uh, camera and, uh, come back at eight o'clock and turn on your camera when you are back. Thank you. All right. Uh, I have eight o'clock on my clock here on my terminal. Thank you. Anybody that's around Chris, uh, you are not muted. Sorry. It's okay. So Chris, should we wait a minute for Nate or should we go ahead? Looks like everybody else is back. Um, I think we can go ahead. Pam has, um, illustrations of these A and R's. And you have one in your packet and I don't, I don't think you receive the other one in your packet, but, um, we'll just mute it to you. Okay. Well, at the moment, the next item on the agenda is old business. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. So we'll go ahead here. All right. So the time now is eight o'clock one and we will resume our meeting, uh, after, I guess, the total of seven minutes of break. And, um, next item is old business, uh, topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance. Anything. I don't have anything from Chris, nothing from Pam and then, uh, new business. Any unanticipated items? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, unanticipated new business. Okay. All right. So now we're at item seven. Time is eight o two. We can do the form A and R subdivision applications. I'm also going to, I just brought Tim over. I believe it's Tim Armstrong. Okay. From Berkshire design group. Yeah. I'm not seeing him over yet. He's coming. It takes, there he is. Okay. It takes a hot second. It's kind of funny. Okay. Um, so now I'm just going to, I want to share my screen. Yep. Chris, so Chris, uh, yeah, it looks like this is, okay, this is the one that was in our packet. This was the one that, is this the one that Mr. Armstrong is here for? I think he's affiliated with both of them, if I recall correctly. Tim, Tim, have you made it over as a panelist? I can start to talk about this one. Okay.  These are two properties in South Amherst that on West Street. In fact, the gray line that you see on top of the Western, the leftmost drawing is the driveway into the Crocker farm school. So these properties are just south of Crocker farm. And last winter, um, the zoning board of appeals approved, um, a duplex on the property to the south, um, and in order to be able to have a duplex in that property, uh, they needed to add land area, add lot areas. So, um, the property is being reconfigured to give the property to the south the appropriate amount of lot area to accommodate a duplex. The, um, building to the north is already a duplex. And the land that is left, um, after the reconfiguration will still accommodate a duplex to the north. So there'll be two duplexes. Um, so Pam has drawn, um, a blue box around the northern property and a yellow box around the southern property. And then on the right, you see that the southern property will take, um, a piece of land that's shaped kind of oddly. I don't know how you would describe that shape. It's almost like a dog's bone or something. Um, but that property will be added to the southern property to create a larger property. And it says the combined lot area will be 26,001 square feet. And that will be enough to accommodate a duplex on that property. And if Mr. Armstrong is, um, here now and can speak, maybe he has some more things to add. I think I'm here now. Welcome. Thank you. Um, I think that sums it up pretty well. Um, I think the weird lot shape of the parcel A is to get around the kind of features of that lot to the north to make sure we clear and give them enough room for the what's going on on that lot. Is the new property line as I go from west to east, uh, is that following the southern edge of the driveway and then the parking area? Um, I believe as part of the special permit for the house on the south, they were going to remove parts of that driveway. Um, okay, this line itself was part of that special permit package. All right. So this is identical to what the ZBA saw. Yes. Okay. All right. Um, and it's, it looks like both parcels have frontage and would not be subject to subdivision, uh, uh, bylaw. So board members, do you agree that I can go ahead and sign that that our approval under the subdivision bylaw is not required? Uh, maybe I'll ask the reverse, which is, does anybody object to my signing? Oh, yes. Fred, now I see your hand. Yeah, uh, thank you. Um, I have a question. Um, the, uh, drawing made by this looks like it was made by a surveyor seems to show, uh, definitely that the southern, uh, property has the, uh, 15 feet, uh, required setback to the sidebound. But the, uh, GPS of the same, uh, uh, property looks a lot closer to the sidebound. So I'm just, is, is our GPS that far off? But I just have to ask that question. Yes. The GIS is really far off in some locations, particularly the farther that you get from downtown. It's quite, um, quite noticeable. Okay. Well, I just, I just wanted to ask, thank you. Okay. Thank you, Fred. Any other comments from the board? Okay. So, Chris, I'm not seeing or hearing any objections. So I guess we can consider that the board is okay with me signing that we do not need to review this. Okay. Partial number two. So this is an upcoming ZBA application. Yeah. Now that's not, that's not what I'm trying to share. We're not there yet. Yeah. No, no, that's actually leftover. It's not part of tonight's presentation, not this one. So here it is. Here is property that is on West Bay Road, as well as West Street. It is 11 parcels are involved. Um, and they're actually, this property is all in the ED. It's owned by Hampshire College and they're going to be changing boundary lines that we're going to create one parcel here, the bottom left and another parcel here. The upper right. And then what is left is a third parcel right here. Do you agree, Tim? Did I say that correctly? Yes, that is correct. As far as I understand it. So that the one, two, three parcels down along the corner are not changing? Correct. The two of those parcels, one is the Eric Carl and the other is the English Book Center and the one in the very corner is a parcel that has been previously an arred and has their solar field currently. OK. So, Pam, do you have a second drawing showing how it's being changed or not? Or simply the changes that the two large parcels at the sort of extremity all the way to the left and the one in the upper right are being carved out of the of a larger parcel that includes a bulk of the property? I think I can explain it a little bit if you don't mind my jumping in. Hampshire College a few years ago carved up their property. You can see some faint property lines on this. They don't show up very well on this image here. But the faint property lines carved this property into lots of different gerrymandered parcels. And I think that what Hampshire College was trying to do was to have the ability to mortgage some of those parcels. And what my understanding is now is that they don't need that configuration anymore. So they're going back to a more normal way of configuring their land. And out of these 11 gerrymandered parcels, they're going to three parcels that make more sense. That's my understanding this situation. And maybe Tim Armstrong has something to add to that. Yeah, so I believe part of this is they are looking to refinance some of it. The bulk of campus is on the remaining land at this point. And I think that was there. I believe is their intention is to redo parcel lines to help enable some financing to keep the college going. But it sounds like. Are the dotted lines depicting what now exists? And we're we're actually consolidating. There are. Currently, multiple long narrow parcels that run through this entire property. OK, almost like a bowling alley state, starting at West Street and running across it. There are very old boundaries that were not determined by the survey since they're all interior. The lines we showed are all from recorded and our plans that the college has done over the years surrounding buildings and parking lots and those kind of things. They're the only things that are easy to identify on the ground at this point. OK, I'm just going to show you how it looks now. And it's really kind of crazy. OK, those are the property lines now and you can see that they're long skinny properties, but some of them have very odd shapes. And this was a this was an A&R plan that Hampshire College did a number of years ago to carve this property up into all these different lots. And now they're kind of putting them back together. OK. All right. Yeah, that's that's helpful to understand. That's a good image. Yeah. Janet. I have three three one thing to say is that I don't know if this is the lots we're looking at are. New kind of long skinny lots. That's actually how the whole town was carved up in these kind of long shoe bar box parcels during colonial times. And so that's a really traditional kind of looks. I'm not sure if that's from like the 1700s or if that was just a weird thing. But, you know, all the parcels along Southeast Street were carved up that way.  So I don't know if that's like leftover. They just had a really wild idea. So that's one thing. But I'm a little confused about what it's going to look like afterwards. Is that also shown? I mean, usually Pam does a nice yellow marker. So if you can just show me what it's, you know, I could see what is there, what it's going to my third, my third thing is, are they planning to sell any of that or just kind of just feel like adjusting their lot lines? So what's the point of it? And is there a plan to sell parcels? I don't think there's any plan to sell. I think it's really a question of refinancing, which is what they did a few years ago. That is by understanding of it as well. And there are college buildings on all of the parcels. So to sever it would require more work on their part. Somebody just showed me the three new parcels. I think I was looking at them, but I'm a little, who's a little confused. If you bring the plan up, Pam, I can just annotate it on Zoom quickly. Because they're also in the online packet. And I don't know what I didn't put them here. So hold on. OK, so not to. Yeah, it's basically the remaining land and lot one, right? This is one. This is lot two. OK. And the remaining land is this. OK, thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. So the remaining land is the one that has the least frontage. Correct. And it has one narrow set of frontage on West Street and maybe a little bit on West Bay Road. Kind of tiny sliver on West Bay Road in the very center. It's the Uber flag lot. There's no requirement since this is in the zone. There's no dimensional requirement requiring a certain moment of frontage. So the fact that it has very little frontage is not. It's not antithesis to the zoning. All right. All right. OK, members. I guess Chris would like me to come in and sign this too. Yeah, it's funny. Any any objection? All right. I'm not seeing any hands. Hope you're all still out there. All right. So I guess we can consider that this one is acceptable to the board and that we don't need to approve this in some other format like the subdivision by law. Thank you, Tim. And sorry to make you wait so long this evening. Thank you all. It's better waiting at home than it is when I have to show up to these in person. OK. Have a good night. You too. All right. Moving on. It's now eight seventeen. We can move on to item eight upcoming ZBA applications. Anything we might want to consider. I don't have any new ones to tell you about. OK. Well, just quickly, the Valley CDC submitted their comprehensive permit application for the their product on, we'll say Ball Lane, but it will be Montague Road, the corner of Montague Road and Pulpit Hill. And so a transmitter will be going out for that next week and the planning board could add an opportunity to review that in October or November. OK. Next item upcoming SPP, SPR, SUB applications. Anything coming in? Yes, we have the Jones Library that's coming in. I think they're. I don't believe they've submitted it yet, but they're planning to submit it soon and they're hoping for a session with you either in late October or probably late October. And that would be a site plan review. That's a site plan review. Yes. And they've been to the Design Review Board and they've been to the Historical Commission for the demolition of the 1990s building. And I think they're still conversing with the Historical Commission about the historical preservation restriction. So that will be coming before you soon. OK. All right. Moving to item number 10, the Planning Board Committee and Liaison Reports. Why don't we? Why don't we? Well, let's see. OK. PVPC. Bruce is not here. CPAC. We did not nominate anyone last meeting. And I know there was discussion about trying to twist Janet's arm because she wasn't there. But we didn't. We didn't vote you in without you in the room, so to speak. So does anybody feel more inclined or in the case of Janet inclined to volunteer for CPAC? What's Jesse doing? I think it's a really we're trying to break him in slowly. OK. I think it's a really interesting committee. It's I think it'd be kind of fun. But their busy season is the fall, which I think he's still working on the solar bi-lock thing. So that was my main issue. It's the fall. It's my busy season. This is a bad fit. What about Johanna? She's not here. Yeah, I don't I. She she declined last time. Oh, OK. You know, how many times a week do they meet, Chris, these days? The CPAC? Yeah, in the fall. They are more familiar with their schedule than I am. Is it basically no more than once a week and it's not on Wednesday nights? And yeah, they they meet probably once every three weeks. I was trying to I think they their busy time is the fall. So proposals are due on the 30th and then they'll start meeting in October for a view them. And they hope to have recommendations done by in January, I think even. So it's a few months of meetings. I was just trying to go to their website. I thought they had listed their schedule and people are were interested. But you know, there is you have to read proposals, review them, make recommendations, and then there's hearings. Yeah, so I'm going to say, yeah. So I'll volunteer and we'll just see if I can keep up. It looks like, yeah, it looks like they're they're going to be busy November, December and into January. So maybe two and a half months, three months of meetings. OK. All right, so I will volunteer. Does anybody want to second that motion or that action? Also. All right. Jesse, I saw your hand and I think I heard Janet. So. Pam, you can pick. You can pick one of them as a second. Any discussion? Does anybody want to? Well, OK, so I guess we need to vote. So. Shall we go through and vote on my volunteering to be on CPAC? Starting with Fred. Oh, did we lose Fred? Oh, there he is. Yes. All right. Jesse. Yes, thank you. Janet. Yes. Karen. Yes, thank you. And I will I will abstain. So that's four in favor, one abstention and two absences. I quickly dug, I was going to share the screen. I found it in their recent meeting packet. All right. So proposals are due on the 30th of September. There is an internal review in October where committee members would submit questions by.  So they're going to meet six times. I guess the hope is to get reports, everything done by the by the 21st of December. OK. Well, I have another family member who's on the ZBA and I can't tell whether some of those dates overlap. So I know we only have one terminal here to do this. So OK, well, let's try that. And I'll see if it works. All right. Thank you all for doing that. Moving on to DRB, Karen. I think the first meeting is on Monday that I'll be part of. OK. Janet, solar bylaw.  We perceive that we're towards the end of a first hard draft, but I can't guarantee that. And you know, there's sort of a. The tough issues are farmland and forest lands and, you know, how much solar to allow or whether to allow. You know, on lands that have other purposes in themselves would also help towards climate change and resilience. And so that's kind of an issue dividing the committee. And Chris is working very hard to draft language that kind of brings the bridges that divide or, you know, whatever. So it's really tough. It's a tough issue. And anyway, I also appreciate your comments, Doug. So. Chris, here's something to add because you're really on the front lines. No, but I'm working towards getting a clean draft together. I had I have a draft that has everybody's comments in it. I just put Doug's comments in today to that draft. And now I'm working on putting a document together that's easier to read that doesn't have all those comments. So I'm going to give both of those to the solar by the working group, which I think is meeting on Monday, Monday at six, I believe, the 25th. So, yeah, so we're we are zeroing in on a final draft. And will this draft or the eventual draft come to the planning board before it goes to town council or will it go straight to town council? And if they are OK with it, they'll refer it to us for the public hearing. It could come to the planning board. Would you like it to? Well, you know, I guess I guess the question is, do you guys want us to have a chance to edit and meddle with what you've done, you know, as a filter before it gets to town council or or not?  Yeah, it's a great question because it it's a great question because. You know, once it goes to town council, the town council will shoot it to us to the TSO to CRC. But I would think the more groomed the draft is, the better, you know. That makes I mean, you know, I've said I think I've said this before, I'd hate for you guys to spend a year, do a draft and have the board here, the planning board not recommend it. You know, that that would be kind of. You know, like we wasted a year. And we actually not resolve the the issue in a funny way. I mean, you know, it's we may not be saying this is our recommendation, it might be sort of divided too. So I guess the other thing is if your committee is is really evenly divided between a couple of different approaches, you know, it might be worth to hear from us on what we thought if we could break that break that tie, so to speak.  But, you know, at some point at some point it'll come to us and and hopefully it will be something that we can support. You know, it's a great question. I would like to bring it to you before it goes to Town Council, if not for. What should I say, edits, but more to get to have you understand what's being proposed and to give comments. And so but your schedule going forward is very busy. You're supposed to have a presentation of the Shoots Berry Road solar project on October 4th. And then you have Jones Library on October 18th. So that leaves sometime in early November because October 25th is your next in person meeting. So, right. Anyway, I'm going to be talking to the town manager about about I think that's it's worth just batting around how to route this thing. Yep. And I guess I, you know, I can imagine the Shoots Berry project will be pretty time consuming and could be a long meeting with lots of public comment. And but I actually don't really have a sense or I don't really know what to think about the Jones Library and whether that's going to be highly controversial or not. You know, it feels to me like the design has been maybe less controversial than the funding. So, but I could be wrong about that. So, you know, is that a possibility that we tack it on to that meeting? I don't. You know, I don't know. I'm just sort of thinking whatever you guys know what your timeline is. And if it if it can wait until after we get through those two projects, great. I'm not sure we know what our timeline is. We're aiming for the sixth. I'm not sure we're going to. Right. OK. All right. Well, Fred, I see your hand. Yeah. First, maybe I should just take some time and come in and discuss this with you. There's a there's a small but to me important technical issue in the draft bylaw and that is there is a reference to the applicable applicability of the National Electrical Code. And that technical reference is absolutely wrong. And it should be it should point to an entirely different code. And it's going to get this. I realize it's in the model bylaw. The model bylaw is equally wrong. And I say this is the secretary of the committee that does the National Electrical Code in the state of Massachusetts. And that reference is wrong. And so I I just want to make sure that we we track that. And maybe I should just come in and chat with you about that. Sure. I'd be happy to chat with you about that. Yep. Chris, would it make sense to have Rob in that meeting? Or or, you know, one of the electrical inspectors. Yeah. Somebody from from the town electrical side. Yeah. Somebody who understands the technicalities. Yeah. Because I don't. So Fred, why don't you give me some times that send me an email with some times that you're available to meet. And then I will arrange something with Rob. Will do. All right. Good. All right. Janet, I think that was all about the solar bylaw working group. So I'm sorry to have gone on so long. I actually think this is a really important question. So. Yeah, we want to take your last year of work seriously. CRC, Chris. The CRC brought its rental registration bylaw to town council and then it went to the finance committee. And I'm not clear on where it is now. Unfortunately, I haven't been going to the CRC meetings. So I don't know if anyone who's more knowledgeable knows the answer to that question. But I don't really know where that is right now. Okay. All right. Are you no longer participating in those meetings or you just have missed the last couple? I participate in those meetings when they deal with something that I'm directly working on. But Dave Zomek is their official staff person. So I don't staff the meetings. I just attend when they're dealing with zoning amendments. Okay. All right. So one way to say it is they haven't been dealing with anything, any zoning amendments lately. So. So you don't have anything to report. I could have said that. That would have been shorter. Okay. All right. Next item, report of chair. I don't have anything to report. Chris, report of staff. I don't have much to report, but we are interviewing for a housing planner. We had two interviews today and we're going to have a couple more coming up and we're happy about that. The housing planner is an associate planner position 25 hours a week. And we're hoping to get some help for Nate in the realm of increasing affordable housing and staffing the municipal housing trust. So that's going to be, you know, really helpful to us here in the planning department if we can get a good person in that slot. So I'm very optimistic about that. Okay. All right. Unless anybody has anything else to say, I can say it's eight thirty four and we can adjourn. Thank you all for joining us this evening, and we'll see you in person next week. And are we starting at six o'clock again? Is that the plan that's we would like to do that seem to work OK last week? So and Bruce will not be back, right? So we will. We will be six members. OK. All right. OK. Thanks very much. Thank you. Goodbye.


We just made this fall porch post directional sign, but it's interchangeable so it really could be any season. It could be Halloween or we could go ahead and just make it Christmas and we'll show you how we made it right now. What is up? Welcome back. Do you like to do a build or make it? We do too. And we have a new video each week. This week we're making a seasonal post directional sign. I know that sounds crazy, but we're taking one of these fence posts and we're going to put some directional signs on it and we're going to make them interchangeable for the season. So we're going to start with a fall one and we're going to add a Halloween and we're going to add a Christmas version and I'm really excited about this project. I've been looking forward to it. We haven't yet tested whether or not it works a hundred percent. Projects mainly theory. Surprise. We'll see. We'll find out together, but I think it'll work and I'm really excited about it. Step one. We're going to gather all of our supplies. We needed, well we're making it interchangeable, so we needed seven fence pickets. This four by four post fence post thing, it's only 48 inches tall. We needed some kind of base. So we had a scrap two by 12 and we picked up a little base trim for the post, make it look all nice. This beefy magnet, this beefy magnets, you'll see, we hope. And some washers, oh and some paints and some odds and ends and stuff. You know how it is. We'll continue our use of our country chic paints. So these are the big ones.  So we'll be using those as well. Step two. We're going to make all of our cuts. We're really just cutting down the pickets and they're 48 inches so we're just going to cut them in half. We have a couple of 24 inch planks and I think I'm going to go ahead and cut these with my pocket saw. You guys were missing my pocket saw weren't you? I was missing my pocket saw. And Brad, we'll see. Maybe we'll see Brad later. You've seen Brad. I don't know. It's been a while since we've seen Brad. Safety first. And to save on time we'll be cutting two at a time. We use the other side of the pickets for the Halloween signs and then for the Christmas signs we cut one at eight, one at 12, one at 16, 20, and then one at 24. While we're at it I cut some little feet. I just use a scrap piece of picket, cut them in squares. For one of the Halloween planks I drew on it with a pencil and then cut it out with a jigsaw to make it look like the plank had been broken off. I use the Kreg AccuCut and a circular saw to trim off a piece of spare 2 by 12 we had. And I just made it square so it's 11 and one eighth by 11 and one eighth. But there's another alternative so these cuts are really simple. All we have to do is cut those pickets in half and your local home improvement store that will do that for you. And for the base if you don't have the 2 by 12 we were thinking you could just as easily use one of these wood rounds that you get from Home Depot, Lowe's, any of your home improvement stores. This one's 18 inches. I think it'll work but I know you can get them as large as 24 inches. Garrett made some giant side at 1.4 with a 24 inch one. So I know that that'll have a wide base. Yeah I think that base would be a little too big. We did a video last year, I'll put it up over here, right over Kim's head, where we made a porch post also and we just took a 1 by 12, made two pieces and glued it together. And you couldn't even tell. Look the same. So there's a couple of alternatives I'm just trying to make it super easy so that anyone can make this. So a base like this will help or you can get the home improvement store to cut you some 1 by 12s. The 2 by 12 was pretty expensive but we just happened to have it. Just happened to have it from a project that didn't pan out. Sometimes that happens. Step 3. We're going to drill some holes. I don't know why that's drill. That's drill. We're going to use a 1 and 3 eighths inch Forstner bit and we're just going to kiss the wood. We're just going to make a little indent. So I took this paint marker, paint marker and I drew a little line around the Forstner bit so that I'll know exactly how deep to go ish ish. We're just making space to insert or inset the magnets for each of the boards that we're going to put across at each of the directional boards. Safety first. Safety first. Safety first y'all. Made a mess. Yes. There's a ton of wood shavings everywhere. We'll vacuum this up in a second. But holes. That's it. We just made a giant candle holder. Put some tea lights in there. What do you guys think? Step 4. We're going to glue down some magnets, glue down some magnets in the little holes we just drilled out. You want to try to separate the magnets or put glue in the holes. You want to separate them? I did put the spacers back. And that makes it easier. What? You didn't record yourself using glue. I'd like to see you me using glue. Tell you what, we just squeezed it. What? You're giving up the secrets. Oh, this is the one with no spacer. Oh man, there's no leverage. There you go. That helps. I used this to help to get it back in there. I feel like you're just squeezing all the glue out. I said to clamp it for two hours. So I was just trying to make sure it was down tight. Two hours? No. Okay. Now that it's dry. Yes. Sorry, babe. Good thing you had your hat on. Protected me. Now we're going to paint. We're going to use this great country chic paint. It goes on with one coat. And that's why it's great. That and again, a lot of colors. A lot of these great farmhouse colors, which is perfect for this fall directional sign that we're going to use. We're going to make here. So I'm going to start by painting these pickets each in fall colors. So let me tell you what we're using. Hollow. Hollow hill. With a twist. Dark roast. Cheesecake. And fresh mustard. Fresh mustard and cheesecake. And then we're going to stencil our design on top once these dry. So let's start with painting the pickets. We'll flip the colors around. We just have some words and some graphics to put on here. So Garrett created this stencil for us. It says bonfire, hay rides, corn maze, apple cider and pumpkin patch. And I'm going to go ahead because this Ormask 813 has this grid on the back. I can see through and I'm going to go ahead and slice this up and we'll cut it so that one fits on each board and we'll add the stencils to each of these boards. The one I was just flashing actually has a little mistake on it. Somebody didn't peel it correctly. So I had to create another one. All right. Now let me decide. Now let me decide. I want green. I want them pretty much in reverse order, I think. Do we like that or do these go this way? No. No. Yeah. That looks good. Okay. And oh, I have them backwards now. This is going to go this way. This is going to go this way and that way. And. That way. All right. Bonfire goes on. What color? Orange maybe? It's going to get, I kind of thought it through. That's going to get a green, green paint. Green paint. Will that work? Let's see. I guess we can decide. Which one is getting orange paint? Hay rides. Orange letters. Cream. Corn maze. We'll get the orange letters. Apple cider. Oh, you want no, I guess pumpkin patch. We want pumpkin patch up here on the green one, don't we? Bonfire will go in the brown. That's good. Yeah. That's good. Does it really matter which way they're pointing? Do I really need the arrows? So our stencil has the arrows, but we've made the pickets have like a built in arrow. We can cut the arrow off and then put it inside this picket area. Yes. I say let's do that. All right. Because now I have three pointing this way and two pointing that way and I grab them. Well, did you get the little of scissors that you could find? I did.  I knew it was going to be a delicate job. I guess we're just going to eyeball it, right? It doesn't have to be perfect. Should I put the pumpkin on the inside now? Oh, yeah. Well, I guess that's a good thing about these stencils is you can cut them up like this. We had pumpkin on the right, but now we're going to put pumpkin on the left. So here we already have the transfer tape on our stencil and now I'm going to peel off this backing with the grid marks on it. The white paper backing. Yep. Put it face down and give it a tight pull back. Keep it tight against the transfer, the A31. The stencil material. Yeah, just do a tight roll against the stencil material. Oh, look at that. It's like the perfect place for that. The center of his A is in a knot, a knot in the wood. It's not in a good place. It's not. It is not. So do you think this should be down here like this? I'll try to center it in the picket. All right. So the stencil is down. Yep. That's to use something to make sure it's down real tight to this wood. We didn't do much sanding to this thing. None. And now you're going to peel your transfer tape up. That's the clear tape on top if you can get to it. And again, nice tight pull, keeping it like all the way back, like 180 degrees. It starts to lift up, go in reverse, press it back down and continue on. Try to pull the transfer tape in a different direction to see if it'll stay. That's to keep your fingers as close to the pull spot as much as you can because if you get way back here, you start pulling up on the stencil. And you don't want to do that. Now, I have a couple of options here before I actually paint my stencil. Oh, are you going to try to apply all the stencils? Can I start painting? Yeah. You can either, because this is a painted surface and not a stained surface, you can either put a coat of the base paint right over top of the stencil to help seal it so it doesn't bleed or you can add a coat of Mod Podge. So, since I have this wet brush here, I think I'm just going to add a coat of the base paint. Base paint. Base paint. Base paint. So, another good technique while you're painting is to dab. Don't swipe the paint because that kind of pushes it under the stencil. The best way to do it is just to dab straight up and down with, we use these sponge brushes often and they really help you dab on the paint when you're using a stencil. You see I'm using this heat gun to get these to dry a little bit faster, but you have to be very careful with these stencils. They do not like the heat, so I make sure I keep it moving the whole time. So, when you peel off your stencils, the tip we have here is peel against the green, not with the green because if you can, with the green will kind of pull the green up so you want to go across the green. And you do not have to wait for this paint to dry completely. It's actually better if you pull it up just a little bit wet, but be careful that you don't get your fingers in the paint on your board. Step six. Now we're going to glue the washers down to the little signs that we made. I didn't paint my packs yet. We're going to use a gorilla glue, a clear gorilla glue. Put these somewhere to dry. Step seven. And now we're going to paint our post and all the pieces to the post. Post and post pieces. We're just going to paint it white. Everything is going with this coat of white. What color is it? Cylindrical. Crenolin. Crenolin. I think it was something to see. Okay. We have this wood post base trim, which we're going to use to put around the bottom of this thing. So I'm going to paint it. These were like four dollars or something. But it's already cut perfectly. Trim. That's the way I like it. Glue it in around. And now we're going to assemble it. We're going to put some pilot holes with a countersink in the bottom. I'm using some three inch screws. Four of them. Put them in the bottom. Now to have these little scraps, these little square scraps from a picket. We're just going to glue them. Put them in the corners. Now we're just going to tag it with an inch and a quarter of Brad. The nail. Not the guy. It's been so long. It's been, we missed you Brad. Let's put this puppy over. We're too tall in here to be on this stool. Oh yeah. Stool is a good idea. Well, you didn't put your base cap on. Are we just going to glue it or are you going to Brad nail it? Oh, we're going to Brad nail it. We've got our base cap. Now I think we're done. Hold on. Let's go get the sign pieces. All right. Ready? Moment of truth. Let's see if our theory works and the magnets will hold these boards up. Oh yeah. I don't know. Is this how they go? Yep. Looks like it's inset pretty far. I think it's stuck on it. Yeah. You cannot see the pumpkin on top. Oh, you guys can't see the pumpkin. It's a pumpkin pumpkin. Look how cute that is. And we have a surprise for you. I'm going to move the camera so they can see the whole thing. Okay. All right. I'm back with some Halloween ones. We'll take off the fall. Oh Christmas. Look at that. Interchangeable. The magnets worked. Yes. I love it. It's exactly what I was envisioning in my head. So good job. And they're all beautiful. I love all of them. I love that the magnets allow us to swap it out. We can make it anything we want. Like porch rules. We can put the magnets closer together and make it porch rules. You can make it an Easter bunny. An Easter bunny. You can do all kinds of things with it. It's late and time. So we're going to go eat some dinner. And we'll see you next week where we'll do a building and make it again. Ooh, you think I can balance it? You think all the things will stay on it while I balance it? No, I don't. Yeah, I think so. Oh, no. It's a quick one. Oh my God, it's so heavy. Woo!


I'm excited to be here today with Sue Cunningham. She's the president and CEO of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education or CASE. CASE is a global nonprofit focused and dedicated to the advancement of educational professionals literally around the world. Sue, it would be great to hear you talk a little bit about CASE in your own words as well. Well, John, thank you so much for welcoming me here. It's great to be with you and a little bit about CASE. Well, CASE, as you expressed, is the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. We're going to be 50 years old next year. We have about 3000 members around the world and now members of schools and colleges and universities in about 80 countries and each of our member institutions gives us a roster of the people they want to engage with. We're approaching 100,000 in total who want to engage in some shape or form of CASE and we focus on advancing education to transform lives and society. So our members work within advancement which we categorize as communications, marketing, fundraising, alumni relations, advancement services, sometimes enrollment management. So it's the whole piece that is about external engagement for institutions and we all know how critical that is to advance education here and in many other parts of the world. So it seems to me that this work that CASE is involved in with philanthropic work and alumni engagement, that within our careers has transitioned from an art to a science and I'd love to hear the role that CASE plays in sort of evolving and maturing this data and research practice. Data is critical in determining strategy. We have a number of surveys around the world measuring philanthropic engagement but we also developed four or five years ago alumni engagement metrics which mean now there are metrics for alumni engagement which historically the only engagement for alumni metrics was the donor participation which as we know is an incredibly blunt metric because the denominator gets bigger every year and alumni engagement can manifest and benefit institutions in myriad ways at which philanthropy is an important but only one. So I think that's a critical piece. The other thing I just reflect on in terms of data in the community of advancement professionals who are focused on this area is growing immensely and CASE took on a conference a number of years ago our drive conference which happens every spring in the northern hemisphere where we have over 450, 500 people signed up already for this conference who are really coming together to focus on how critical data is in our work and how it is is driving so much decision-making now.


Noah, give it back! No! I said give it back now! Noah! You just- That is not what I'm talking about! Barry!