Okay, Mr. Marshall.  We are recording. The attendees are starting to come in at 633. You're good to go. Okay, thank you, Pam. And I hope you feel well enough to get through the meeting with us. Thank you so much. Alright, so welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of June 1, 2022. My name is Doug Marshall. And as the chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 633 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken. We're pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022. This planning board meeting, including public hearings, will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. The Zoom meeting link is available on the meeting agenda posted on the town website's calendar listing for this meeting. Before go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the Zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. 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.  Maria Chow. Present. Jack Gemsack. Present. We know that Andrew McDougal will be joining us probably half an hour to 45 minutes late. I, Doug Marshall, am present, Janet McGowan. Present. And Johanna Newman. Present. Thank you. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause temporarily to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your raised hand and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remute yourself. The general public item, the general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment can also be heard at other times during the meeting when determined appropriate. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address, and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. I can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation will be disconnected from the meet from the meeting. All right, so the time is now 636 and we'll move into our agenda. First item on the agenda is approval of minutes, and we have one set of minutes, which are for our last meeting on May 18. Does any board member have any comments on the draft minutes that were circulated in our packet. Janet. You are muted. I'm on a typo on page two or missed word on page three sorry. Under the discussion. The second bullet says she's of the opinion that this version is very strong and encompasses encompasses current concerns that were raised. Kind of a minor thing. And then a longer comment which is on page 11. So the second paragraph. I had said that while the goal of mixed use buildings with having residential units. The use buildings was meant to support the commercial activities it seemed like the residential units were starting to replace commercial activities because we had less and less commercial space. So just add that. So this is an additional sentence on the second paragraph. Yeah, which starts although appreciative. Yeah. Could you repeat that sentence. Yeah, so although the goal of mixed having residential units above mixed use buildings was intended to support businesses. Now it seems like the residential units are replacing the commercial spaces. It's not a quote but that was is that appreciably different than that their commercial space is minimal. I actually think it's getting, I think I do think that we're losing commercial spaces. We're going, I think specifically I said we were going from like seven to two or three, but I don't quite remember. This is because of the house demolition. And our mixed use buildings like I could, you know, this isn't what I said, but downtown we have like 15 fewer commercial spaces after getting three buildings built. So just a point but I thought it was an important point. That's it. Chris, do you have a reasonable record of what Canada is proposing. We do we have a recording of what she's proposing. So we'll listen to the recording. We got the gist of it. All right. Are there any other comments. Johanna. It feels absurd to me to have staff go back and spend time watching the recording. And but is that what you're right. It sounds like that's what's being requested. Is that right. So may I say something, Janet just send us the sentence that she wants to include and we will include it. And it will say essentially what she just said, but if she could send that to Pam and me in an email that would be helpful. All right, Janet, are you willing to do that. Of course, but I think, I think last time when Tom added something it was just put in so I hate to like belabor these minutes. I think, I mean, if you had a specific sentence prepared that you wanted to add, we could add it verbatim in this meeting, but since you don't, it's kind of hard to know exactly what you want to say. Okay, I can do it then. Okay. Thank you. Janet, we just lost your video. And I don't know if that was intentional. Okay, Jack, I see your hand. Yeah, I just, I'll have to stay in obviously but I think you guys did a heck of a job without me. Thank you, Jack. All right, any other comments from board members on these minutes. All right. I think we have a motion to approve these minutes. And the person making the motion can decide whether they want to move that the, that Janet's two edits be included or not. And how to describe those. Tom. I will move to approve the minutes with Janet's edits that she will submit to Chris and Pam via email. Thank you, Tom. Anybody willing to second that. I see Janet's hand raised. I'll let that be the second. All right, any further discussion. No further discussion. All right, we'll go ahead and have a roll call vote on these minutes with the amendments. All right, Maria. Jack. Thank Tom. Right. Janet proof. Johanna. Hi. And I'm an eye as well. Andrew is not yet present. All right, so we've, I think that's it for the first item on our agenda. The second item is the public comment period. We have a total of five attendees in the attendees area of the zoom. Window so members of the public do any of you want to make a comment and if so please. Click on the raise hand button so that we can recognize you. Okay, I am not seeing any hands raised. And so we'll move on, I guess. All right. Item number three. Is a continuation of a public hearing. Advertised at 635 and the time now is 644. So we have not. Started early. And it reads as follows. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law chapter 40 a. Chapter 40. And it is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding. SUB 2022 dash 07. John Roblesky. 446 and 462 main street. This has been continued from April 6th. And May 4th in both in 2022. And it is a request for approval of a three lot sub definitive subdivision plan. Center East way under mass general law 41. Chapter 41.  To the center of a cul-de-sac. All located on map 14 B. Parcel 66 and parcel 68. In the BN zoning district. Do we have any board member disclosures? Chris, would this be the time to. Just note that Jack was absent, but has reviewed the. Recording of our last meeting and. Can can vote on these topics this evening. Yes, the topics that were. Discussed on May 18th. Or the topics for which he was absent. So yes, he can vote on those. So that's actually, so this actually is not the time because this topic was not discussed on May 18th. My apologies, but we've now got that in the recording. All right. So we had no board member disclosures. And Janet, I see your hand. I think I missed May 18th and I haven't watched that recording. Okay. So we may not. Be. Counting your vote this evening. Thank you for bringing that up. In fact, we could look at the minutes and see whether you were present. Okay. So the applicant's presentation, Tom, ready, you are now in the, on the panel, you want to go ahead. Or thank you very much for the record. Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Wilson here in Amherst, here on behalf of the applicant in its application for definitive subdivision plan approval with me this evening, John Roblesky from center East commons. So last we were here, I think it was May 4th. We had recently before that meeting submitted some updated subdivision plans. I know the board at that time wanted to review those subdivision plans. And then we also appeared in front of the board of health the following evening on, on May 5th. Had a discussion with them. I believe they voted to recommend approval. They had some comments. And then subsequently we updated our waiver letter. If you recall, we initially had a waiver letter. And then hearing the board's feedback at its April meeting. We decided to really just go ahead and provide most of that information. And so you've got to revise the waiver letter that I would say dramatically reduces the number of waivers that we have requested. And so really, you know, with that, I think the seeding, the board is probably, you know, after discussion, the board is probably ready to approve the plans. And then there are certain conditions with Ms. Brestrup that Ms. Brestrup has shared with us that we are completely comfortable with. And so, you know, we're very happy to be able to do that. And we would be happy to, to get away tonight with the, an approval with those conditions. So I'm going to answer any specific questions. That you have. But that's really an update of, of where we are. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Board members, did you have any questions on the material that was provided in the packet? There was a fair amount of material here, some revised plans. So I'm going to go to the health board. I will say I had a couple of questions and I, but I'll hold those until we go through everyone else's. Assuming there are others. So not seeing anyone raising their hand in any hurry. So Chris, I'll have a couple of questions for you, maybe since I assume you were participating in the correspondence with the health board. Okay. So first of all, first of all, the letter from the board of health dated April 29th. Is it correct for me to assume that all references to grant street are in fact to gray street. That's correct. Okay. Toward the bottom of the first page, I'll have a couple of questions. I think it's about a percent slope. That cul-de-sac and railway track period. Is that supposed to be like perhaps a comma and continue into the next sentence? As in, since the slope is fairly, or since the site is fairly sloping. I don't know if that's correct. I don't know if that's correct. Intercept flow accumulation. Direct me to the correct place in that better. The bottom of the first page. Second to last paragraph. Oh, I see. Yeah. This is the letter from the board of health. Yep. Yeah, which I realized you didn't. Right. But. My assumption is that that fragment should be the introductory document that follows it. Seems like there should be a common that comma there instead of a period. And then. Let's see. There was a. Back and forth about the width of the road and whether it met the town standards. I believe it was in the. I think it was item eight. So the letter that's cut started some observations based on mass GIS for this parcel. Yeah. So there are different types of roadways that are listed in the subdivision regulations. And the widest one is the 49.212. With, and that is the right of way with. So this road would be a secondary road. 39.37 feet, which is adequate for this type of road. Okay. Which is essentially equal to 40 feet. Okay. All right. So. So you and the health board and. Have all found Mr. Reedy's responses to the health board to be acceptable. Yes. Okay. Great. Tom, with, are there any appreciable sort of significant or noteworthy changes in the revised plans that you've now submitted? No, I don't think so. I think we just added some material and brought them into compliance with what the rules and regulations asked for. So it was documentation. In terms of the information in the drawings, no change to the actual design. Yeah. I think we updated the size of, I think the water line to maybe eight inches or the sewer line to eight inches. I think it's the water line. But I mean, those types of things to come into compliance with the rules and regulations, but otherwise no, no substantive changes. Unless John, if you, I don't know if you disagree with the level of the changes. All right. It doesn't look like John disagrees. Good. No, I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I don't. No, I think everything is kind of addressed in there. Okay. Thank you. All right. That covers what I wanted to touch on. Your honor. Thank you. I had a question about the parcel being highly corrosive to concrete. How do you mitigate against that? So I'll answer to say, I have no idea. This was a new one to me. So this came from one of the members of the board of health, which I thought was excellent to know that there's actually a mapping system out there that shows that certain soils are corrosive to concrete. I think as a practical matter, what, what John will do is just have a, you know, as structural engineer, make sure to take a look at as I would expect that they likely would do the corrosivity. But I don't know what sort of chemical composition of that soil, what the soil would have in it that would cause this to happen. All right. I'm seeing John's hand. Perhaps he knows a little more about that. Yeah. The structures that they're referring to are mostly like drainage or sewer manholes, that type of thing. And when they're made at these prefabricated concrete places, they're sealed on the outside. And, you know, to be upfront, all the town structures are in the street in that area and so forth. They've been in there for years. When we excavated out front to run some drainage lines, there was a Verizon trunk line. They call it that was wrapped in concrete. That was still very solid. So I think that's been addressed through the manufacturing process and how these structures are actually made and sealed around the outside. All right. Thank you. Tom. I just actually had a spelling error that you guys want to catch on page 33. So we're going to probably redo this, but the, these are the possible draft conditions, number 19 wiring and spelled wrong. Just wanted to call that. Thank you. Oh, yes. Associated ring. All right. Jack. I just had a, like a process question because. I don't recall board of health. Being involved. In this, you know, in this type of approval. I mean, I know Jason skills would give comments. But we would kind of review this, but. Just wondering, maybe Chris can shed some light on that. All right. Thanks, Jack. Chris. So yes, the board of health, it's a requirement of actually state law and of our town rules and regs governing the subdivision of land. And I think that we need to, or the applicant needs to deliver a set of plans to the board of health. And then they have a certain amount of time to review the plans and come back with comments and recommendations to the planning board. We ran a little short of time. So Tom really actually requested of the board of health and extension of that time. And we met with them twice. And I think the. The best requirement is that often subdivisions have. Wells and septic systems. And so the state and towns and cities want to make sure that all the regulations with regard to wells and septic systems are dealt with. In this case, we don't have wells or septic systems. We have town water and town sewer. And so the board of health didn't have that to comment on, but they chose to comment on other things. And so their comments are recommendations and observations to you, you obviously have the final say on what is approved or not approved, but that's why we went to the board of health, because it's required by state law and by the town rules and regulations. And so it's unusual. We do send all of our applications to the board of health, but it's not required. We just do it as a courtesy. In this case it is required and they responded. So that's that. Yep. Okay. Thank you, Chris. All right. I guess I, I'm not seeing any more hands raised from, from the board. And I'm wondering, let's see. Do we have any public comments? Are there any members of the public? We have four people in the public attendees area. Do any of you want to make a comment on this application? All right. I'm not seeing any hands from the public. So should we go through your findings and conditions, Chris? Yes, that's a good idea. So in this case, we don't have any findings, but we do have draft conditions. So we can go through those and we can also go through the waivers that Mr. We just submitted. He was submitted a revised list of waivers. So why don't we look at his revised list of waivers first, which is a letter that we received. I believe it was yesterday. And I think you all received copies of it in the email. But. It's a letter dated May 31st. So those are the draft conditions that just showed up first for a moment. That's not the right. There we go. That's for you, Mass five. Yeah. Sorry, Pam. I can just read them. I can, if you want, I can share my screen if you want to. I've got it right here. If that's easy enough. So hopefully everybody can see. Letterhead here. Okay. I'm going to read it. I think Mr. Reedy would like to present his waiver request. Maybe. Why don't you go ahead, Tom? Okay. Thanks. Thanks. So here are the waiver requests.  So there was nothing added. So that's just a waiver request for three overlay. Acetate's depicting flood prone prone areas, aquifer recharge areas, soil slopes greater than 25%. And vegetation types. We had requested a waiver from that. A waiver from the scale from certain datum. From the requirement of having a seal and certificate number of their surveyor, it's, it's Randy Iser. If we had to get it, we could get it. That's not a huge deal. But we had a sketch plan showing potential development for any adjacent land owned by the applicant. He doesn't own any other land that isn't already developed. The providing street lights. And then the last is waiver from strict compliance. With this section. And this was the section that required us to put actual money up. And I can get the exact. Language. But it required us to put up. All of that. And then we'll move on to the next slide. Let me see. Let me see. Eight C. Okay. So it's the cost of inspection shall be born by the sub-divider and the inspection fee shall be established by the planning board based on a set fee per linear foot of street, as we're on along. The center line. On an approved definitive plan and shall be paid to the town for the sub-division fee. So it was just really the timing of that inspection fee. Requiring him to post it prior to endorsement. For subdivision. He's not going to build. Would I think be burning some to him. And if we shifted that timeline. And so we would be fine with a, if you want to add a condition that prior to constructing the subdivision and inspection fee should be provided. So it was just really the timing of that inspection fee. Requiring him to post it prior to endorsement. For subdivision. He's not going to build. And if we shifted that timeline. To after endorsement, but before he actually constructed it, if he ever constructed it, it would still protect the town because the town would have inspection fees. At a time when they would need them, but it wouldn't overburden. Mr. Roblesky. So. Those are the requests. I think we heard from Jason skills on most of them that he was, he was fine with them. And I think the street lights we've asked for a waiver because he was fine with them. He was fine with them. He was fine with them. He was fine with the street light at the intersection with the street. All right. Thanks, Tom. Chris. Since this doesn't change any, or they haven't added any waivers. I don't remember the correspondence from Jason skills, but he was fine with these. You seem to be fine with the waivers that are being. Proposed at this time. Okay. So there may be some changes to the conditions now that I understand exactly what the waivers are. So I have conditions that I sent out with the packet. And then I revised them today and I only sent them to Doug and to. Pam and maybe to Nate, but we can review them tonight. If you wish. Right. Well, we're probably going to need to. All right. So board members. Do you have any comments on these waiver requests? Much no, no hands raised. Okay. So. Chris, would it be appropriate for us to vote on these waivers before going through the conditions? Yep. All right. And do we need to vote on them individually? You could try voting on them all together and see how far you get. All right. I guess I'll go ahead and make a motion to. That we accept the three waiver. Or the however many you want to count here. Sound. Let's see they. Maybe just as presented in the letter dated May 31st. Yeah. We accept the waivers. Okay. Proposed in Mr. Reedie's letter dated May 31st. Does any board member want to second that motion? Tom. Okay. Thank you. All right. Board members, any discussion on this? All right. No discussion. Thanks for taking the letter down. Mr. Reedie. We'll go through and vote on the motion then. All right. Starting again with Maria. And Jack. That was an approve. Yes, it was. Thank you. Tom. Right. Janet. I'm going to abstain because I missed hearing. All right. Thank you. Johanna. I. And I'm an eye as well. All right. So the motion carries. So we now know what waivers we are dealing with. And when we go through the conditions. All right. Chris, do you want. Do you or Pam want to bring up your latest conditions? Do you want me to share a screen and do that? Or how would you like to? There's Pam. I believe we have it. Correct. All right. So we're going to need to have it a lot bigger than that. Okay. Maybe. Maybe fit the width. Hey guys guide me. Remember, I don't feel well. Yeah. I appreciate you're sticking with us. Maybe Nate could show them. I just need to know how to make it bigger. Okay. So why don't you go over to, to view. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be good. Let's see. Thank you so much. No problem. All right. And. Chris, does this look like the latest version? Yes. It's the version I sent out today. All right. Good. All right. The application shall be built in accordance with the plan developed or approved. And so that would be tonight's date if we approve. Second one prior to the endorsement. The applicant shall provide a performance guarantee. So this is the. Financial obligation that we have now waived, right? No, you haven't waived it. Okay. Okay. So the applicant needs to provide a performance guarantee in order to have the plans endorsed by the planning board. So you may improve the plans tonight, but then. The applicant is going to present. Final. Definitive plans that you need to actually put your signatures on. So in order to have that. Accomplished the applicant needs to submit a performance guarantee. And there are four different kinds of performance guarantees. One is a covenant, which allows. The. Lots to be held by the town until. Released by the planning board. One is a bond that can be purchased by the applicant for a certain amount of money. One is a cash deposit. Putting cash into the application. One is a cash deposit. Putting cash in escrow. And I forget what the fourth one is, but I'm sure Mr. Reedy will know, but in this case, I believe the applicant is proposing to. To put. Put forth a covenant contract. Okay. Mr. Reedy, is that correct? It's correct. Sorry, I couldn't find the mute. Yeah, that is correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. So we can. Pam, can you scroll up a little bit? Or. Yeah. All right. That's good. So this would be a covenant. So item three would apply. Do you want me to read these? Oh, I'm wondering. Yeah. I mean, if you would like to, sure. All right. If the applicant chooses the performance guarantee that involves a covenant contract prior to the release of the subdivision that's going to be approved, then the grant will be approved. And then the sub division will be met. The reason I added the word subdivision lots was I didn't want it to be confused with the lot that will exist on which Mr. Roblesky wants to build his new building. A covenant shall be granted or adequate. Security shall be posted in an amount approved by the planning director and the town engineer. To cover the cost of public improvements. So that would be the cost of constructing the road and the infrastructure that's involved with that. Mr. Roblesky has been working on the construction of the water. The water maintenance, maintenance, maintenance, and maintenance pavement course for the road installed. This is all prior to the release of those subdivision lots, which of course, Mr. Roblesky is not planning to. To make or construct. All inspection fees shall be paid to the town. Water mains and hydrants shall be installed. I'm working. All public instruments of ownership, easements, access, sewer, water conservation, or preservation restrictions, to the town and recorded at the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds, all trees shall be installed. And prior to the release of the final subdivision lot or a security sufficient to cover the cost of their production, four copies of final record drawings as the plans shall be submitted to the planning department. The next item, the applicant has requested a waiver from this item. And this has to do with the acetates that were going to be required that would show soils, information, vegetation types and where flood zones are located. So the applicant has requested a waiver from that requirement. And the town engineer said that would be fine. Number five, the applicant has submitted this information prior to the endorsement of the definitive subdivision plan, subsurface conditions on the tract, location and result of tests made to ascertain subsurface soil, rock and groundwater conditions. Depth to groundwater and location shall be provided in accordance with the rules and regs. So they submitted that information. Yeah. One question about this document, will it retain the language that's been struck through? No, and it won't retain the blue notes after the item, but it will retain the other words that I put in up above. So is that confusing? In other words, there's no point in having a condition for which the applicant has already provided the information or for which the applicant has requested a waiver. Right. So will item three or rather, will items four, five and five basically be gone in their entirety? They'll be deleted, yes. Okay. And six. Okay. Thanks for asking that. Okay, prior to the endorsement of the definitive subdivision plan by the planning board, the location of the gas utility, if any, shall be shown on the definitive subdivision plan. The next one is prior to the endorsement of the definitive subdivision plan, the applicant shall submit drainage calculations and a stormwater management plan. So they've already submitted that so that that condition would go away. The next one is, if you could scroll down so we could see nine. Where am I? Hold on, hold on. Nine is, so this one I wasn't sure about. I'm not sure if Jason said that this didn't need to be done at this time, but what it says is prior to the endorsement of the plan, the location of all permanent monuments shall be properly identified. So I added on the definitive subdivision plan. I thought at least they could be put on the plan. And obviously they're not gonna be put in the field because the subdivision isn't going to be built. But I wanted to make sure that Mr. Reedy and Mr. Robleski were agreeing that these things could be put on the plan locations. All right. Mr. Reedy, is that any objection to that? I'm just gonna, if you carry on to the balance I'll look back at my email because I thought there was some back and forth on this. I just don't recall what that resolution was. Okay, we'll come back to this item nine. The next one, prior to the endorsement of the definitive subdivision plan, profiles of the proposed street and sanitary sewer shall be submitted. So that's a standard thing that comes along with a subdivision plan. The next one is prior to the endorsement, roadway cross sections showing paving crown, berm and shoulder right away line with walk shall be provided. And this is like every 50 feet or every certain number of feet you do a cross section of the road and it shows what the grade is and the grades are gonna be as it ties back into the surrounding land. And I think we're agreeing that this is needing to be provided but it can be provided prior to the endorsement. It doesn't have to be provided now. The next one is prior to the endorsement the applicant shall obtain a report to the planning board from the board of health. So this has been accomplished. He submitted this so that condition would go away. The next one is the applicant shall present the final definitive subdivision plan for endorsement by the planning board within six months of the definitive subdivision plan approval. And the point of this is that sometimes applicants can wait an uncertain amount of time before they get their endorsement and the zoning freeze doesn't actually start until they get the endorsement. So they could sort of indefinitely postpone the beginning of their zoning freeze and therefore get numbers of years in addition to the eight years that they're entitled to. So our town attorney recommended that we put in some time limit. It could be six months, it could be 12 months. That's open to negotiation if Mr. Redie wanted to negotiate that number. Number 14, one street light shall be installed at the intersection of East centerway and Main Street. Now Mr. Redie is asking for a waiver from that requirement which I didn't quite understand until tonight. So you've agreed to that waiver and I think that is reasonable. And so we can make a note that this condition will be struck, number 14 will be struck. Number 15, sign information related to emergency 911 shall be adequately provided if the subdivision road is built. Number 16, final engineering utility and stormwater management plans and related details shall be subject to the approval of the town engineer. Well, that's if they're gonna build the road. Number 17, final grading plans shall be subject to the review and approval of the planning director. Any changes in grading beyond that shown on approved plans and any proposed cut or fill exceeding 5,000 cubic feet shall require the review and approval of the planning board at a business meeting. Well, that's not going to happen but it's a requirement that can remain in place. Number 18, the locations and specifications of water mains and hydrants shall be approved by the town engineer and fire chief. Another reasonable one, but since it's not gonna be built it actually won't come to pass. Number 19, street lights if any and associated wiring shall be approved. So this one can be struck because you've agreed to the waiver of the lights that Mr. Reedy requested. The next one is landscaping and planting plans shall be submitted to the planning department and shall be subject to the approval of the planning director. Landscaping shall be installed and maintained and shall be replaced as necessary. Well, they did submit planting plans for trees but they haven't submitted other planting plans. So that one can stay. Number 21, prior to the endorsement of the definitive subdivision plan by the planning board, two street trees shall be shown on the plan. Well, they've already submitted that information so this condition can go away. Number 22, four copies in a mylar of the final revised definitive subdivision plan shall be submitted to the planning board for endorsement. So you would actually want to keep that because you'll want to get the plan so that you can endorse them and then the applicant can record them at the registry. Then the number 23 is the street name shall be approved by the planning board at a business meeting and that's if the street gets built. And number 24, after all street construction is completed, two copies of the definitive plan revised into an as-built plan shall be submitted. So that's in the case that the street does get built but we know it's not going to get there. So those are the conditions and maybe you want to go back to number nine. Talk about whether Jason's skills had said we don't need that or not. I don't remember. Yeah, so I found the email and the question that we posed to Jason was do the plans comply with the location of all permanent monuments properly identified as to whether existing or proposed, blah, blah, blah, blah. And his response was did the surveyor pick up any road right of way bounds or property pins? And so I've got a chain of emails somewhat internally and then we heard back from Randy Eiser who's the surveyor saying, Jason does not have any issue with the boundary portion of the plan set. So my guess is that they're already on the plans and so whatever we've provided is sufficient. So I don't know that it needs to be a condition because it probably is already sufficient. But if you want to keep it then I don't think we have a problem with it because I feel comfortable giving what Jason said. Why don't we just leave it then? All right, that's good. So now you would want to vote to approve those conditions. All right, and that would include the new deletion of number 14 beyond what's shown on this document. I believe it was 14. Yes, number 14 would be waived and number 19 would be waived. So you can delete number 14 and number 19. Okay, Mr. Roblesky, I see your hand. Yeah, just to follow up on that, there is currently a street light right over the railroad track itself. So it gives plenty of light to where this proposed road would be entering Main Street. All right, so that supports your request for the waiver to provide. Correct, yes, thank you. Good. Okay, board members, are there any discussion about the conditions as drafted with the amendments or the edits that we've discussed in our discussion this evening? Okay, not seeing any hands. Mr.  Sounds good. All right, are there any additional public comments that are wished to be made? We now are up to nine public attendees. I would like to make sure that everybody's okay with the six month period between now and endorsement, or do you want to extend that to 12 months? Well, I don't think I have any reason to want to make it longer. As long as Mr. Reedy and Mr. Roblesky are okay with that, I don't see a reason to change it. Of course, we'll take the 12 months, but I don't see an issue with the six months. Okay, then why don't we leave it? Okay. Okay, board members, no further comments. We had no public comments. Are we ready to vote? Let's see. You'd be voting to approve the subdivision plan, the definitive subdivision plan, and with the conditions that we just went through. Right, and do we vote to close the public hearing after that vote or before that vote? You could do it before the vote. All right, so we really have two votes needed at the moment. All right, would anybody like to, Tom, I see your hand. I'll move to close the public hearing. Thank you, Tom. Anybody want to second that? Jack. Okay. All right, thank you. All right, we'll go through a roll call on closing the public hearing. Maria. Excuse me, Mr. McDougal has arrived. Oh, good, just in time. All right, I'm gonna go ahead through the roll call and we'll see whether Andrew's actually present by that point. Maria. Jack. Aye. Tom. Aye. Janet. Stain. Johanna. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. All right, so that passes five in favor. Can you hear me? Abstention, Andrew, yes, we did hear your voice. Oh, great. It's a little bit garbled. Actually, it's more than a bit garbled. It's a lot garbled. Yeah. It's gonna abstain on the vote. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. So the time at the moment is about 7.25, so Andrew, you are not intelligible. You sound like a keyboard. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I'll abstain. That came through pretty well. Okay, thank you, Andrew. All right, so we've now voted to close the public hearing. So now we need a vote to approve the sub-division plan with the conditions as drafted and amended this evening. Anybody want to make that motion? Johanna. I will move to approve the sub-division plan as discussed this evening. Thank you. And Maria. Second. Thank you. All right, so we'll go through another roll call. Maria. And Jack. Hi. And Tom. Hi. Andrew, can you hear us? And looks like we lost Andrew again. I think Andrew would have to abstain because he wasn't here for the public hearing. So we'll move on to Janet. I'm going to abstain also because I missed May 4th. Okay. Johanna. Hi. And I'm an I as well. It passes with five votes in favor. One abstention and one absence. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Reed. We'll see you again shortly. Yes. Thank you very much, board members. Have a good evening. Thank you. Good evening, John. Hi, John. Okay. So the time is 7 27. We will now move on to item four in our agenda. The next public hearing is concerning a couple of zoning bylaws for the FEMA floodplain maps. I'll read the introduction here. And Chris, I think you wanted to introduce this after I do this part. Yep. In accordance with the provisions of mass general law chapter 40A, these public hearings have been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to be heard regarding Article two zoning districts. Article three use regulations and Article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district to see if the town will vote to add Article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district to the zoning bylaw and amend Article two zoning districts to add FEMA floodplain overlay district and amend related sections of Article three use regulations to regulate activities in the 100 year floodplain as shown on the flood insurance rate maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the administration of the National Flood Insurance Program. The flood insurance rate maps indicate areas that have a 1% chance of flooding in a given year. The purpose of the floodplain management regulations is to protect the public health, safety and wealth and general welfare and to minimize the harmful impacts of flooding upon the community. Should we go ahead to the second one at the same time? Chris? Is it after seven? Yes, you can open the second one. Yeah, so the second one is the official zoning map FEMA floodplain overlay district to see if the town will vote to amend the official zoning map to add the FEMA floodplain overlay district for the purpose of regulating activities as described in Article 16, floodplain overlay district. All right, so is there any board member disclosure of this topic? I do not see any. Chris, why don't you go ahead and do your introduction and I think Nate will probably be part of that too, I would guess. That's right, and I'd like to point out that Andrew has joined us as an attendee and he's on to the phone. So I don't know if you can add, if you can add him as a panelist if he's on the phone or how you deal with someone on the phone. But anyway, there he is. And he joined about five minutes ago. Okay, and I assume he is the... He's the telephone. Yeah. He's the attendee. Okay, the one on the telephone with a phone number. Pam magically brought him in. Okay, good. All right. Oh yeah, good. Can you hear me? Go ahead. Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, thank you. Okay, so I have an introductory statement to this project here and then Nate will join me in presenting the information. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Chris Brestra, Planning Director and I'm here to talk to you about the flood mapping project. I have with me, Nate Malloy, Senior Planner. And I was hoping that our AECOM Engineering Consultant could join us, but I don't see her in the panelists or the attendees. But I think we can do fine by ourselves, two of us. On February 28th, we gave a brief presentation to this project to Town Council members. I think over the years we've given presentations to planning board members as well. And on April 28th, February, excuse me April 28th, 2022 the Town Council referred the zoning portion of this project, which is Article 16, the FEMA floodplain overlay district and the associated changes to the official zoning map to the planning board and the CRC for public hearings. On May 2nd, the Town Council referred the firm map or flood insurance rate maps and the flood insurance study to the CRC for a recommendation. They didn't refer it to the planning board because the planning board isn't required to make a recommendation, but you're certainly welcome to it if you would like to. These are two different but associated items for the planning board and the CRC to consider and adopt. And one of these items is the zoning amendments, both the text and the map. And the second item is the FEMA maps, the firm maps and the flood insurance study. So the town of Amherst has been a participant in the national flood insurance program, which is administered by FEMA. And this program provides flood insurance for property owners whose properties are subject to flooding, if the municipality in which the property is located participates in the flood insurance program. The town has been working on this project of updating the flood insurance rate maps and flood insurance study since around 2012. The purpose of the project is to create accurate, federally approved maps for land affected by flooding in order to provide information to banks, which grant mortgages to landowners, to the Amherst Conservation Commission and the planning board and other interested parties. Amherst flood maps were last updated in 1983 and new and better technology for mapping flood prone areas is now available. And town meeting appropriated funds during several town meeting cycles to update the Amherst flood maps. Our consulting firm, AECOM was hired by the town and has been working with town staff and FEMA to create more accurate mapping of floodable areas along rivers and streams and Amherst. In September, 2017, the preliminary flood insurance rate maps were presented to members of the planning board, the conservation commission and the public. And at that time, the town became aware of a new method of analyzing flood data and determining flood boundaries. The new method had just come into use in the spring of 2017 and the town decided to go ahead and appropriate an additional sum of money to update the maps further using the new 2017 method. Those of you who were town meeting members back then may remember this vote. The mapping using the new method has now been completed and three appeal periods have elapsed with only the first appeal period generating an appeal by a property owner. Most of the preliminary flood insurance rate maps have been available for review since July of 2020. And three recently revised panels, numbers 170, 351 and 334 have been available for review since July of 2021. The maps were presented at public meetings, the last of which was held on June 25th, 2019. At that time, we sent notifications to all those who owned property in the floodplain as depicted on the new flood maps. The old 1983 maps were based on USGS topography with 10 foot contour intervals. Some of you who hike may remember the old USGS maps that we use when we're hiking. They were also based on data gathered up to the early 1970s. The new maps are based on town of Amherst GIS topography which has one foot contour intervals. And they are based on more recently gathered data. And this means that the new maps are much more accurate in terms of where flooding occurs. So what does the town need to do? The town needs to adopt the firm maps in the flood insurance study produced by AECOM and FEMA. And the town needs to adopt the zoning amendment and the changes to the official zoning map. Staff with the assistance of our state flood hazard coordinator Joy Dupereau at DCR, Department of Conservation and Recreation, I think is what that stands for, has developed an amendment to the zoning by-law in which we're calling Article 16, FEMA floodplain overlay district. And we've developed an amendment to the official zoning map showing areas that will be included in the floodplain overlay district. Nate will show you this map later. The zoning amendment and changes to the zoning map have been proposed because for municipalities that are part of the flood insurance program, they need to show that they can and do manage and control development in flood prone areas. We had hoped to receive our letter of final determination from FEMA with a final set of firm maps by early May. But due to an issue with paperwork and the federal government, the letter of final determination won't arrive until sometime later this summer. But we're meeting you with you this evening to hold the first session of the public hearing regarding the zoning amendments and to look at the firm maps and the flood insurance study. We'll be back to you later this summer or in early fall to continue our discussion. I just have a little bit more to go. What will happen if we don't adopt the maps? If the town fails to adopt the new maps, the town will no longer be able to participate in the flood insurance program and people in Amherst will not be able to purchase flood insurance through the flood insurance program. In your packets, you received copies of presentations that were given by our consultant, Jennifer Moss, and by Nate Malloy in February. I think one of them was given to town council and one was given to the planning board. If you'd like to hear these presentations, Nate can give the presentations. But whether or not we review the presentations, I recommend that you use this time this evening to hear questions and concerns from the public and to ask questions that may comments on the project yourselves. And then we recommend that you continue this public hearing to a date certain and we're suggesting September 7th. So by telling us your questions and concerns today, we can be prepared when we come back in a few months to provide answers to your questions. We understand that there are some people in town residents as well as council members and there may be planning board members as well who have concerns about the Tanbrook area that is located in the center of town. And when you look at the firm maps, you'll see that the Tanbrook area is blank in the center of town and people have been raising concerns about that. They're concerned because no floodplain is shown in that area along the Tanbrook. So I'd like to talk a little about this. FEMA has a threshold for mapping that requires an area of one square mile of watershed in order to be mapped as a floodplain area. And the Tanbrook doesn't come up to that threshold. It doesn't have a square mile of watershed. The conservation commission has recently been talking among themselves and also with DEP about Tanbrook. And I think they've determined that the watershed exceeds a half a square mile, but I'm not sure about that. But this relates to whether Tanbrook is a perennial stream or not, it doesn't relate to whether it should be mapped by FEMA. So that's a different issue entirely from whether the area qualifies to be mapped as a firm floodplain. Aside from the fact that the Tanbrook doesn't qualify based on this watershed size to be mapped as a firm floodplain, there are some other facts that I'd like to share with you in case people are still concerned about this. And that is anyone who owns property in a municipality that participates in the firm flood insurance program may purchase flood insurance. So as long as Amherst stays in the flood insurance program, anybody in town can purchase flood insurance through this program. The property doesn't need to be mapped as a floodplain. The other thing is flood insurance only covers damage to buildings. It doesn't cover damage to properties. And I understand that some people in the Tanbrook area see that there's flooding in their yards, but their yards, the damage to yards wouldn't be covered by flood insurance. And then another thing is most property owners in their country would be more likely to request that their properties be taken out of the flood zone rather than be added to the flood zone for several reasons. One of which is that the value of property can decrease as a result of being added to the flood zone. And another one is that properties that are in the flood zone may be required to purchase flood insurance in order to obtain a mortgage or get a home equity loan. And another thing is properties that are in the flood zone would be subject to more scrutiny when making changes to property and may need to apply to the conservation commission for permission to make changes. This may be true anyway, if the conservation commission can show that the property does exist in the 100-year floodplain, but it won't be mapped on the FEMA flood maps. The 100-year floodplain is considered a wetland resource area under the Wetlands Protection Act. So the votes that are needed are the adoption of the zoning amendment and the change to the zoning map requires a two-thirds vote of town council. And it requires a recommendation from the planning board because it's a zoning amendment. The adoption of the firm maps and the flood insurance study requires a majority vote of town council. And the planning board is welcome to offer a recommendation on the firm maps and the flood insurance study if it chooses to do so, but such a recommendation is not required. So I wanted to thank you for hosting the public hearing and to answer any questions that people have and to suggest that once the questions have been asked and answered that you continue this public hearing to September 7th. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. This has been a long process. Janet, I see your hand. I have many questions and comments, but just about the tanbrook. I was wondering if Chris could tell us where does the tanbrook begin and end? Because I know it goes under wildwood. It heads under the high school fields. It goes across Kendrick Park. We see it around Fearing Street. So I don't know if it's, if you can say where it starts and where it ends, since so much of it is sort of underground or it's been undalated or whatever the opposite, it's been covered over. So I can answer that, yeah. That's one question. Do you want me to answer them question by question or answer them all together? Why don't we take them one at a time? So the tanbrook starts at a pond, which is up near the Wildwood Cemetery. It's on the north side of Strong Street. And it does go underground part of the way and above ground part of the way. But Nate has done his best to map the watershed and has not been able to come up with anything close to a square mile. And we've been told by our FEMA consultant from AECOM that it doesn't meet the threshold of one square mile watershed. So it ends, does it? Can I also make that? Oh, sorry, it ends at the campus pond. I forgot about that. And I'll make one other comment just about a piece of knowledge that I have from my work at UMass prior to the start of the construction that's going on down at Mass Ave for the new housing project that's under construction there. The university did submit an ANRAD application to the Conservation Commission that at that point indicated that tanbrook was not a perennial stream based on the work of UMass's consultants. And that was accepted by the Conservation Commission. So that had to do with the area of the watershed as well. Okay, Janet, did you have another question? Oh, you know, I have a lot of questions about the bylaw, Article 16, but I could go on for a while. Does anyone else have wanna come in with anything? I don't see other hands. Are those questions that you would be comfortable emailing to Chris and waiting until the continuation of this hearing to get your answer, at least in a hearing. Chris, how would you like to handle that? I wanna suggest that Janet could come in and meet with Nate and me and go over the questions and then we would provide the answers, the questions and answers to the board members. Does that make sense? I think that might help to have a conversation about it. Chris, is it accurate that my memory is that when you presented this topic to us before, you said that Article 16 was based on some, was based on a pretty definitive template that FEMA had or maybe the state DCR had for how that zoning bylaw needed to be written. That's correct. So at least the way you presented it, we didn't have a lot of flexibility on how it was done. That's right. We can add to it, but we can't subtract from it. Okay, thank you. Oh, okay. So Janet, would you be comfortable emailing your questions to Chris? Yeah, I wonder, one of my over like questions, you know, I had a lot of confusing questions about the word floodways and how it appears in the bylaw, and then it shows up here. But one of the questions I had was just, maybe it would be helpful to the board to hear is, can you outline the process? Like say everything's in place. I'm a person who wants to, you know, build something or alter something either in the, you know, zone A or AE or the floodway of it, which I don't know if they're exactly the same.  And so when I was trying to track through that process, I got quite confused. And so I just wondered, does the person apply to the concom, you know, ZBA and then who for a permit? Is there another permit? And so that could just be a drafting problem, but I couldn't track the process in. So I don't know if someone can just say, hey, this is how it would proceed or this is how we want to describe, we wanted to proceed, but maybe we didn't describe it super clearly. So Nate might be able to answer that partially, but I can say that if it were in the 100 year floodplain, which is a wetland resource area, it would have to go to the conservation commission. And if it's in the floodway, I don't think anybody's allowed to build anything in the floodway, except potentially the state, if they're building a bridge or something like that, but no average citizen would be allowed to, or a resident, I should say, would be allowed to build anything in the floodway. So could you explain the difference between the floodway and the floodplain then? Maybe Nate can explain that. The floodway is the actual waterway. Oh, here's Nate. It's actually the river. So when you see, so I'll share my screen quickly. So this is the FEMA data center, and the maps are up there. They're available for download. The conservation commission can use them for review. So if you went to the FEMA map center, you can see what's available. And what it looks like is, so here's what the new maps look like. So they're over an aerial image. They're really detailed. And if we zoom in, it's a big file, it might take a minute. The floodway is what's in this cross-hatching, right? So that's actually the stream. And then the blue would be where the floodplain is. So, you know, the area of the 100 year floodplain outside the actual water force. And so, and then the orange here is the 500 year. So anything that's within the blue here is considered regulated by the overlay district. Proposed overlay district. In terms of a permit, FEMA wants to know and the state wants to know that any development in the floodplain is regulated. And so in the bylaw, it says a permit, but it says that there's a checklist. And so we're designating a floodplain administrator, which would be the planning director or their designee. And that position just makes sure that whatever type of product is happening in a floodplain gets the appropriate permits. So whether that's a conservation commission approval, if it needs a ZBA permit, it may just need a building permit. So, you know, we're not asking for a new permit to be created. It's really done through our permitting software as a checklist to make sure that any product that happens in that geographic area is getting the right set of permits. Okay, so that, okay. So that might be something with language then. Okay. And then one of the questions I had was when I was reading through it, it seemed logical to me that the designee would be like the conservation agent or somebody who deals with the water issues like wetlands and rivers all the time. What are other cities and towns do normally? Like, is it usually the conservation agent or is it usually the planning director? I think it varies. So sometimes actually you have the building commissioner because they are responsible for issuing a building permit and also complying with FEMA regulations. So I think it's really, you know, different communities do different things. You know, we thought the planning director is a good position just because it's more of a coordination role, you know, to make sure that someone is, you know, getting a permit, whether it's from conservation, whether it's from public works or from, you know, a building permit. I agree that the conservation, you know, the wetlands administrator for the town is really knowledgeable and so we work closely with that position. So it's not as if that they wouldn't assist the, you know, this administrator. They're just not named as it. Also the plug plan administrator signs letters to FEMA and does a bit more, you know, sends out notifications to budding properties so in towns. And so we just think that the planning director is in a good role to, you know, have that coordination effort. Okay, so sometimes do one thing and, you know, they would do the wetlands administrator. Some people do the building inspector. Some do the planning director. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I would love to go through this.  So I'm glad to hear it's coming back. I would love more eyes to look at it too. So, but I have eyes. Well, we could have a general invitation for everyone with questions or comments to send them to Chris. Janet, you don't have to be the only one to do that. You know, I wouldn't mind even sitting down. Like it's kind of useful. I mean, useful to me to see other people's comments too because as you look at stuff, you just kind of dig and read things differently and things so anyway. Well, I know we, I mean, Chris, would you be a verse if we have a fairly light schedule later this month or this summer to having a sort of general conversation about it or should we really hold everything until September? You could have a general conversation about it. I'm trying to think if you continue the public hearing to a date certain in September, you may not be able to have an interim conversation. So maybe we could continue the public hearing to some date that is between now and September and you could have an actual public hearing session but you could be talking about it. And I don't, I don't think we're gonna get a lot of public comment on this, but we may. But anyway, that would be a possibility that you could continue it to July 20th or August 3rd, something like that. I may find a way to September like to have the whole planning board way to this September 7th and I could send you questions or anybody else is sending stuff in as long as it's not more than four people, I think we can look at it and stuff. Or I could just, you could be the point person for conversation or communication. I wanted to say that I thought it was really successful when we were dealing with the preservation bylaw and Janet got together with Ben, Breger and myself and I don't know if Nate was involved or not but we really looked into all the details of the language and Janet made some very good recommendations and we incorporated those and that was kind of on a small scale, we met together. I don't remember if it was on Zoom or in a meeting room but I thought that was very helpful. And so I'm saying that we're open to that kind of a dialogue if Janet would like to do that otherwise we can wait till September. Maybe we can do is if I can get like an open copy of this bylaw, I could write comments on it and then we can meet. So because it's, you know, when you're going line by line you don't wanna hear it, you wanna see it. I could just put it in red or ask questions and then we could just meet later. That would be the word document to Janet. Yeah, yeah, we can do that. Okay. All right, thanks Janet. Sure. Jack, I know your hand's been up for quite a while. Yeah, I just, I know that Chris has put a lot of work into this and I think the overriding new information is the increase in topographic information we have but I was just wondering for the powers that it be how they are treating climate change with this because I know it's a moving target, you know but and I'm just wondering if the rainfall, annual rainfall is being adjusted based on what we know now and, you know but I just think it's impossible. It's just a question that I'm curious with, you know Nate or Chris, can it, can it be? Well, Chris has put out her hand. Maybe she's got an answer for us. Well, I can say that it's more accurate than what we have now, which is 1983 based on data that was collected up to the 60s and early 70s. So the data that we have for this latest set of maps is collected much more recently than that. Unfortunately FEMA doesn't look ahead. FEMA only looks back on what has already happened and so they base their maps on flooding that has already occurred. They don't project forward to the future or I shouldn't say it that way. They base it on what they expect based on what's happened in the past. They don't try to project forward into the future about what might happen. So we've asked that question but that's the answer that we get. FEMA is not going to give us a set of maps that predicts anything. Well, I was just gonna jump in, sorry to know quickly that, you know, so yeah, the consultant said that they have 40 years of data now new data to, you know, put into their equation. And so some of that is in stream gauges in New England and in New York state. So region one. And so, you know, whether or not it's, you know, trying to predict the future, you know, they actually have, you know, more accurate data in terms of rainfall events in, you know, in the 2000s and early 2000 teams that were factored into the equation. So that's why there was this delay from 2019 until now because we realized FEMA had updated their regression equations.   So, I mean, Chris is right that they don't have like a variable for climate change, right?  Well, all I was gonna say was that since there are certainly large constituencies that do not want to be in flood areas and don't wanna have to get flood insurance, it would be politically unpalatable for FEMA to be making projections that would be questioned and objected to. I see Janet and Maria's hands.  Thanks, Diane. Congratulations, Chris, on this long journey you've had. I know when I first started, you were just starting on these flood map provisions. And I can't remember the answer to this, but I feel like we've asked this question before. Maybe you or Nate know, was there a way that we can see like a flip-flop between like, you know, the FPC zone and the new one? Are we gonna be able to like compare old and new in any way or is it just, here is the new one? Like, is there gonna be a way to compare the two? Chris? May I answer that? Yes. So I should have explained that this set of maps is only vaguely related to FPC. So FPC is a different animal. FPC is a zoning district that was created back in the 70s, I think. And it is in some ways contiguous with these maps and in other ways, not at all. So what we would wanna do is compare the old FEMA maps with the new FEMA maps. And Nate has been able to do that and he can bring up a map that shows what that comparison is and that might be helpful. So if you would permit Nate to bring up that map and the new map, this map that Nate is gonna show is actually representative of what we would be putting on the overlay FEMA, what are we calling it? FEMA floodplain overlay district. That's what this would be. Okay, Nate, do you wanna bring that? Share your story. And also say that our IT department is working on an interactive map. That would be on the website so you could see it more closely. So we had one previously where it had three different colors. One was unchanged. So things that were in both the 80s maps and the new maps, stuff that was taken out and then stuff that was added, area that was added. And so we're working on developing that in terms of what Chris is saying. So the town would be adopting our new flood maps and what they would show and then what the zoning, the corollary part, the zoning overlay is what's shown in blue here on this map, it's all zoom in, but really the blue is the new flood area, the new floodplain that's regulated by FEMA. And so it's not, it's just the areas around the major streams and rivers in town. So it's not a significant area in town. I'm just gonna zoom in quickly. The crosshatching is the older 80s maps. So for instance, this is the North Amherst Village Center. You can see where the new blue area is a little bit more refined and accurate based on topography and data, where the old one in some places, because they used 10 foot contours, maybe it wasn't as accurately mapped, right? Or, and so that's the difference. If we went around town, you could see that in a lot of places it's pretty similar, but there's little spaces where the new maps are more accurate in terms of where the flood hazard is and where that, so this is up Cushman Brook. So the 80s map, maybe because topography wasn't as accurate included much of this area, which is now not part of the floodplain. And so that's, this map I think was shared or can be emailed around, but we're hoping the interactive map, you could zoom in and have a lot more detail to understand what's taken now and what's in or what's added. So Nate, based on what you just showed us, it looks like the new limit of flooding is actually smaller than what the old one was. Is that a generally true statement? I think so. It's also true that the number of structures in the floodplain has been reduced by something like 60%. So previously there may have been, you know, over 400 structures and now I think there's, you know, a little over a hundred or something. So it's also that on the 80s maps, they didn't identify structures very well, right? Someone maybe looked at some old aerial flyovers and put a pinpoint where a structure might be, but now it's actually, you know, overlaid accurately geo-referenced on aerial imagery. So we know exactly where a structure might be in terms of that boundary. So it is a lot more accurate in terms of structures in and structures out. All right, thank you. Janet, why don't you go ahead and Tom, after that. I want to reiterate or repeat, like Maria's request, because I think it'd be really interesting to look at, you know, the current proposal, like the current FEMA flood mapping and where the FPC is. Like, can you put that together?  We want to keep it bigger. It looks like some parts that have flood, we don't have any kind of FPC designation. And so I'd just like to see that just for the information of that. I'm not sure we would do anything about it or what the next step would be important just to see what it is. Okay, so I'm just going to jump in quickly. I created a map that showed the FPC conserved lands, so lands that are permanently protected, whether it's town owned conservation or agricultural preservation restrictions and the flood mapping. And so, you know, we're only looking at North Amherst now, but, you know, for most of the town, what you'll see here is, you know, I'd say like 90% of the flood plain is in permanently preserved land. So whether or not it's an FPC or not, you know, there's a restriction on development in these properties. So, you know, for instance, in the center town here, there isn't as much protection. You know, this is Amherst College land, but in most of Lawrence Swamp, you can see the green coloring, that's all protected land. So it's not, you know, there's not really a lot to change. And the difference between FPC and the flood boundary is the yellow cross-hatching. So the FPC, as Chris mentioned, is his owning district unto itself. It's a base owning district. And so those regulations would still be in place even with the FEMA. So for instance, you know, this section of town right here, here's Fort River School, here's the FPC zoning district in the yellow, FEMA in the blue. So, and then North Appellum Road here, there's FPC that extends beyond the FEMA. So the FPC would still be regulating development in these areas. And so there's little pockets like that around town where the FPC and FEMA are not, you know, proterminous. So for instance, in Lawrence Swamp, a big portion is FPC, where it's no longer in FEMA, right? So this whole area that's all cross-hatching yellow is FPC. Now the blue is just the FEMA. So all this area outside of it is no longer in flood plain, but regulated by FPC. So... We're not changing FPC. We're not doing anything FPC. Could we look at the North, like the North Corner, West Corner of town? Yeah. Sorry for if the scrolling is dizzying. So here's Poffers-Pond, Cushman-Brook. I think Janet mentioned Northwest. Oh, sorry, Northwest, yeah. Okay. Sorry, I'll just zoom in. So here, you know, FPC in this area is a distance off the Bank of Stream. So I think it's 75 feet from the bank on either side. So this is really about 150 feet wide. And then here's Mill River Recreation Area. So here's FPC is just a linear designation. And then the FEMA boundary, you know, goes in and out a little bit. So it's pretty grainy here.  All right. We'll go on to Jack.  And, you know, a lot of that is due to more infrastructure, similar to potholes on our roads and sites. So there's culverts that, you know, probably need repair and, you know, that are 50 to 100 years old. And that's not representative of what this, you know, this FEMA update is all about. Because that's, you know, it's a big picture. It's looking at larger watersheds.  All right. Thanks, Jack. Tom, you had your hand up at one point. Did you wanna try again? I was just gonna call attention to the fact that Pam Rooney has her hand up in the attendees. Just calling attention to that. Thank you, Tom. All right. Certainly not seeing any more hands from the board. We can call on Pam. Go ahead, Pam. Thank you, Tom Long. Appreciate that. I actually have a liaison question as it relates to the process downstream from your conversation tonight. And that is, if you put a date certain for September, whatever, September 7th, is there still enough time to make changes after that, that will be able to go through the CRC and then the town council process. So that's my liaison question. And then I have a couple of public questions. Chris, do you wanna talk about the timeline? Yeah. We're not sure that we can get the letter of final determination until sometime in July or August. So we thought that a September and early September date would be a good time to aim for. And we also know that the CRC continued its public hearing. It held the beginning of the public hearing this past Thursday on May 26th, and they've continued their public hearing to September 8th. So it seems that if we have ours on the 7th and they have theirs on the 8th that we're kind of in tandem. And then moving forward, I don't think there's a timeline that comes into place until one or the other of those bodies closes its public hearing. And then we have a certain number of days in which to write our reports and the town council has a certain number of days in which to act. But as long as we keep our public hearings open we can keep talking about this. And since the CRC and the planning board will be back to back in the beginning of September we felt comfortable with that. All right, Chris, Nate, I see your hand. Did you want to elaborate on that? Sure, I just want to say that the town has, well FEMA has six months from the letter, the date of letter of final determination to approve our local bylaw and regulation. So if the letter of final determination is issued on July 1st, within six months we have to have an approved bylaw by the town and also approved by FEMA. So the state recommends the town approves the regulations five months after the letter of final determination to give FEMA and the state one month to review it and approve it. So if July 1 is the letter of final determination we have until December to take a vote by the town. And so there is time to change it. I will say that the draft regulations, the overlay that is before you was sent to the state and they reviewed it and had minor comments. So if we make more changes we'll have to just send it back to them. But as we mentioned, most of that language is quite standard. It's a format from FEMA and DCR. And so we can add to it. But if we want to delete a definition, say for instance or change something, they might disagree with that or say that it has to stay in there. So if we need some clarifying language it may just be in addition to what's there. But there is time after September. That's a very thorough answer and I appreciate it. So we don't need to worry about it. May I continue with my public question? Yes. Okay. I had a question about the definition of historic structure on page two of the actual article. And I couldn't find any reference to historical structures in any of the actions or uses or subsequent sections. So I was kind of curious why that was in there. And while I was pondering the fact that I couldn't find it anywhere I also wondered if it wouldn't be relevant to refer to our newly or almost newly adopted demolition delay or historical structure by-law that is being worked on so that we have actual reference to our standards for historically significant structures. Thank you. All right, thank you. Nate, do you have a comment on that? I'll make something up. No, the definition of historic structure, they say if it's individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and then there's four sub-definitions like parts A, B, C, D or something. And so FEMA doesn't maintain that. That's something that the town or the state maintained. So in Amherst there's only nine individually listed structures and then they list some other ones. To your question about if it's in any place in the by-law I'm not sure and it might not be. And maybe that there's an allowance for a variance, an appeal of the floodplain. And so maybe that's a, if you submit an appeal of variance request that historic structures can somehow get a variance. But yeah, I'm not sure that it's really referenced in any part of the regulatory piece of the by-law other than just the definitions. All right, thank you. Thank you, Pam. All right. We also have a public comment hand from Janet Keller. I wondered if we could bring her in. Janet, you should be available to speak to us. Let's see. Yeah. Please give me your name and your address. Sure, Janet Keller and I live on Pultahill Road. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I have a comment and a couple of questions. My comment starts with the observation that we're already experiencing more storms, more intense storms and what conditions in low-lying areas. And we had flooding last summer at the intersection of 116 Meadow and Maple Street and points north and then on University Drive. That was only a nuisance level at the time, but there's definitely a pattern and it's happening all the way through New England. So I think it would be good if we keep that in mind as we go through this. My comment is that I would urge you to change paragraph two in section 16.31. What it says is local review may include approval by the Conservation Commission. Now elsewhere it says that they will review things, but then there's this section that comes after it that says it may include Conservation Commission. I urge you to change that to a shell. And actually it seems like the Conservation Commission should be the first review since the other reviews are going to be looking to their findings. So I hope you'll consider that. And my questions are, can we submit comments after this hearing? Is there a deadline? And will it be possible to see other people's comments? All right, thank you, Janet. I will note that the sentence you are referring to in 16.31 says it may include approval by the Conservation Commission Planning Board or Zoning Board Appeals. So that I think the May refers to all three bodies and we may or may, you know, there may be situations where they don't all need to render judgment on the permit. So would it be correct to say that your comment is that you would like to see the Conservation Commission to always be required to comment on the permit and the other bodies could be optional? Yes, Doug, that is my concern. And I also had a concern about the sequence. It seemed like the first thing to determine is what's going on with this piece of land where people want to do something. Is it feasible or not? And we've seen where a company went through two years of process and spent money and then they concluded that they didn't have enough room to do what they wanted to do because it was covered with floodplain. So it seems like for everyone's good, you want to do that first and get that out of the way. That's my thinking. Yeah. Okay. And then Chris, did you have any comment or response to Janet's question about when you're willing to receive comments from the public on this draft? We're willing to receive comments anytime between now and the time the public hearing closes, which will be sometime after the next session, which I'm recommending would be September 7th. Okay. All right. Janet, I think we, have we covered your questions? We did and I thank you for covering them. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you and do feel free to send some additional comments to Chris. All right. So Chris, we've opened the hearing. We've had some questions. We've covered the public questions that have come in. I don't see any further hands raised by either the board or the public. Would, have you gotten what you need from this and we should perhaps vote to continue the hearing at this time? Yes. Okay. So we'd like a motion to continue the hearing to the planning board meeting on September 7th. Is there a time Chris that you would like us to include in the motion? You can include 635 in the motion since that would be the first meeting, first public hearing on that night. Okay. 635 on September 7th. Would anybody like to make that motion? Don't I'll jump at once. Tom, so moved. Thank you. Johanna. I'll second. All right. All right. So we have a motion on the table. We have a second. Any further discussion before we vote whether to continue this hearing? I don't see any new hands. So doing a roll call. Maria. Jack. Yeah, I'm kind of feeling like a little bit of a lame duck here, but I'm going to say aye. All right. Tom. Aye. Andrew, can you hear us? I can and I'm an aye. All right. Thank you, Andrew. Janet. Aye. And Johanna. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. That's unanimous seven votes in favor. So the hearing is now closed or continued to September 7th. And the time is 822. I think we'll take our eight o'clock break now. And please mute yourself and turn off your camera and we'll come back in five minutes, 827 or 830 at the latest. Thank you very much. All right. So the time now is 829. Looks like people are trickling back in. If you're waiting for others to start talking, I've started talking before turning on your camera. So I see everyone that we had before the break except for Nate and Jack. So Jack just came back, his video and I don't know whether Nate is essential to the next item on our agenda. So Chris, do you feel we need Nate in order to resume the topics and move into the next item, which is the five college credit union? You are muted. I think that the applicant can make a presentation but Nate should be involved with whatever analysis or questions come up. I see that he is here in shadow form but I'm sure he's listening. Okay. Okay. So the time now is 830 and we'll resume the agenda. We're on to item five, which is our public hearing. This concerns site plan reviews and special permits. First item is SPR 2022-13 with the UMass five college credit union at 398-406 Northampton Road. This hearing, this public hearing is continued from May 18th of this past, you know, this month. Request a site plan review approval under sections 3.35, 8.0 and 5.0431 and 8.5 of the zoning bylaw to redevelop 398 and 406 Northampton Road into a credit union branch, including drive-through facilities. Project includes 34 parking spaces, bike racks, wall signs, landscaping and an oversized monument sign. Map 13D parcel 47 and eight BL zoning district. All right. Who is here? Tom Reedy, should I assume you'll start us off? You've got it, Mr. Chair. For the record, Tom Reedy, attorney with Bacon Willson and Amherst here on behalf of the applicant UMass five college federal credit union and its application as the chairman noted for a credit union branch on Northampton Road. With me this evening, Elan Tierney, principal with Cune Riddle, Rachel Leffler, also principal with Berkshire Design. And we were here May 18th and I think the team made a pretty strong presentation. They had some really great elevations, renderings. They walked you through the project, the landscaping, the lighting, the signage, the building, the floor plan, et cetera. And we left that meeting with a little bit of homework and Ms. Brestrup was kind enough to provide Mr. Malloy's comments to us in email. We had responded to them just this morning. So we're obviously gonna go through them this evening.  Cause as we discussed the last meeting we were likely to and actually didn't make modification to that. So, you know, Mr. Chair, I don't know if you want us just to go through Mr. Malloy's email and our responses if you'd like us to present the plans as revised. If I could make a suggestion, I might say the email is probably a better grounding so that we can go through the list and have a discussion because the plans will relate to those points but however you want to do it is fine with us. I think it would be fine to go through the email questions and responses. There may be some points where we want to see a graphic to understand what changes you've made. Sure, certainly. And so, you know, one of the bigger more overarching points was a comment from Mr. McDougal and it wasn't a Mr. Malloy's email but it was relative to the location of the drive-through and they're citing at the rear of the property as opposed to let's say the side of the property.  And they did and confirmed that they are comfortable with the siting with the location of those ITMs and ATMs at the rear of the structure given kind of a host of issues and really trying to balance the site. And so, you know, from a risk mitigation standpoint that rear of the structure is very wide and very open and that is in itself a deterrent to thieves, to robbers. In addition, the fact that if someone were to leave the site, they'd likely leave it, travel, you know, they'd be assuming in a vehicle, they'd leave the site and be in a write out only scenario because there's that divided highway and then end up at an intersection. They've got sufficient surveillance cameras and sufficient lighting and hours of illumination as we'll talk about, they're gonna be illuminated 24 hours a day. They are downcast, dark sky compliant lights but they are illuminated 24 hours a day. And then really balancing the site, you know, when you see a lot of these larger banks, they're typically national chains and they will have, with all due respect to UMass 5, deeper pockets and able to buy corner lots and therefore able to maybe put those drive-throughs on the side, here there's, you know, given the site layout or the way the site is oriented, and where the Route 9 traffic is and that these are ITMs which actually, for a part of the day, which have tellers associated with them so you drive up to them and you actually interact with a teller, part of the idea was to mitigate that Route 9 noise. And then it really just provides better flow of traffic, safer flow of traffic. And so when they weigh all of that plus the discussions with their safety company, they felt comfortable with the location of these drive-throughs where they've proposed them. So just because that's somewhat of a fundamental discussion and so we just thought we should kind of hit that right on the head and talk about it right away. So we did have that discussion with UMass 5, they did have that discussion with their security team and they came back and confirmed for all those reasons why they're comfortable with it where it's being cited. So with that. Okay, it's, I'm sorry, can I jump in?  Yeah, thanks, sorry, I can't raise my hand just being on the phone here. Thanks for the follow-up, Tom, I appreciate that. Andrew, can you speak up? Yeah, I just went through a tunnel, can you hear me better now? Yeah. A little better, okay. So I guess a couple of quick thoughts. One is that, you know, the relative to the positioning, you know, foreign savings bank just up the street under nine did not have a problem accommodating the side-loaded ATMs. One of the things that I had, I kind of had a hard time visualizing, I wasn't on the site, but so that may, that may be a strike against this, but my concern is more that if you're in the drive-through lane, you're totally invisible from route nine, based on the way the building is positioned, based on the vegetation at the adjacent property that you could be in that lane and essentially, you know, your car could be stalled, you know, you could have some sort of incident and you could be there for hours overnight and no one would know. And so one of the things I was curious about is had you consulted with the police department to see whether there's any sort of mechanism you could put in place, that would allow like more of a live surveillance of what, correct me if I'm wrong, it is completely invisible from route nine, right? Rachel, could you bring up the site plan if you've got it just so we can actually take a look? Yeah. Can you see this? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately, I should know. Andrew cannot see it. Right. He can't. But maybe you can describe one. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, I mean, so as we look at the site plan, if, I guess in the hypothetical scenario, if you were looking to use an ATM after hours and pulled into the ATM to use it, and I mean, if your car stalled, then you would be stuck there, but I would suspect that someone would get out of their vehicle and maybe walk along the site, and I don't mean to be flipping about it. I'm just trying to think of like, what scenario would it be when somebody would be just marooned in behind the credit union without the ability to do anything? I guess is where I'm wondering. Sorry. Yeah, so that wasn't a good example. But it's more to one of your early points around just the criminal is that if, and I bring it up because this is something that's talked about at all of the national banks where I feel like I've worked at all of them, right? Is that if you are back there and if some criminal activity happens, no one would see it and no one may know about it until the next day, right? Because if you can't see it, if the site's not being patrolled, that's my concern. And so I guess to follow that, the question would be, I guess it's prevention versus response. And if there's any bank that can prevent a robbery, I just haven't found anybody completely successful at it because bank robberies still happen, right? People will still walk into a bank and try to steal, attempt to steal from a bank. And so I don't know that the siting necessarily of the ITMs, ATMs would prevent that necessarily. And so then if somebody were to pull up and if a robbery were to occur, whether it was in plain sight or not in plain sight, I guess I don't understand the difference between somebody finding out about it the next day versus somebody finding out about it immediately because the robbery has already occurred in both scenarios, if you follow what I'm saying. So I think as far as deterrence, we've got surveillance cameras and lighting. And then as we talked about from the back of the building to where that drive aisle ends, it's a pretty wide area. And that's what we're talking about, that being open and wide and not enclosed or right up against another building or an alley or anything like that.  And I think, I would suspect that there will be signs on the site that this area is surveilled 24 hours a day, which is going to be the term. And so I'm just, because when I think of all the balance and I'm not a professional here, so I'm only speaking from what I can speak from and having the discussions with UMass 5 who had discussions with some professionals. And then also talking about the professionals given the balance of the considerations of the site, this just seems like where these ITMs, ATMs should be. From a design perspective, that's clearly where there should be.  It's just, that's the choice that's being made. I do think that their location is not as safe as they could be. And again, that's why I would love to know whether you had a chance to connect with the police department just to see if some type of surveillance schedule can be put in place or to get their opinion, frankly. While I'm in this industry, I'm not in the law enforcement sector, right? So I'd love just to hear not only from your internal security team, but from the town's police department that they're comfortable with this. So Tom, is that something that you'd be willing to follow up on? Or should we be talking to Chris about maybe getting comments from the police? We certainly can. I'm just thinking, frankly, timing of everything. And if there could be an approval conditioned upon us getting, I can talk to Chief Livingstone tomorrow. I can give him a call and send him the plan and walk through and see what concerns that he may have. We did months ago have a pre-application meeting. I don't know that the police department was there. Fire certainly was there. I don't know that the police department was there. To make comment, but yeah, we could certainly, we could certainly get feedback from them. Chris, I see you. I would really appreciate that. Sure, sorry. Chris. I wanted to ask, you say there's 24 hours surveillance. Is that surveillance monitored on an ongoing basis? In other words, if something did happen, would someone immediately know that something had happened? Or is this monitored so that you could go back and replay something that happened? I believe it's the replay. So I don't think somebody's sitting there and watching the video cameras 24-7. If an alarm is triggered, then yes, that's 24-7. But I don't think anybody's sitting there behind a monitor and watching what happens at the bank 24-7. All right. Janet.  You know, if you were gonna rob somebody, I mean, I think about this, but never about the ATM even during the day, it's if you were gonna rob somebody at an ATM, this would be the best place because it's a way traffic is going by quickly. It'll be night, it'll be kind of dark, you know, in the wetlands and no one, you know, so I think it would make much more sense to put it on the side and, you know, hopefully you can move your outdoor space with it, but it's a great point. I just didn't really think about it is, you know, and, you know, I know there's a deterrent effect to lights and cameras, but this is, it's kind of a nice spot if you wanted to rob people at ATMs. And so if it was on the side, you know, say coming around on the West side, they'd be much more visible from the street and somebody could, it's much more less likely, I think somebody would see that as a good spot or if something was happening, maybe someone can look up and see. So I think that's a great point. I wish I had, you know, we, I know you're kind of late in your design process, but we don't wanna create a situation where people, it's an attractive place for a robbery or if you got robbed or hurt, you're just sitting there till the morning. And I do think that's a great point, unfortunately, you know, because of the conditions that we live in. Thank you, Janet. Jack. Yeah.  Anyway, I just feel like we're going to like a big brother route here. And again, Tom said, I mean, they talked to their risk management people and they were comfortable with it. So, I mean, if something happens, I'm sure that there might be some, you know, changes made in terms of the surveillance or, you know, the degree of, you know, response to something, but we're just like, I feel like we're projecting way, way beyond what the planning board should be doing right now. So, I mean, if five colleges is comfortable with it, they're the ones taking on the risk and their customers. I mean, would they want to put their customers at risk? No. So, and they're comfortable with it. So, I'm comfortable. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Jack. I will say that I at least view some of our charge to ensure the public welfare. Tom. Thanks, Doug. I'm going to have to kind of agree with everybody. I don't necessarily think this is something that you should reverse your plan about, but I can tell you that I would not be willing to go to this ATM to make large withdrawals or deposits. So, I might want to keep your customers in mind. So, from a customer perspective, it's not, it probably won't happen, but I would say from a planning board perspective, if you feel that this is safe and willing to take on the liability, then proceed. All right. Thanks, Tom. Mr. Chair, if I could just respond to a couple of these, if you don't mind. Thank you. So, I mean, first point is that they're, I guess I'll back up and say first point is free will. And so customers have the ability to use those ATMs or not use those ATMs after hours. I don't know the frequency of how often ATMs through drive-throughs are used after hours during nighttime, which sounds like really the only time that we're talking about here. So, this time of year was at like 8.30, 9 o'clock till 4 a.m. AB, there's also an ATM in the front vestibule so that if somebody was felt uncomfortable and needed to go to the UMass Five College Federal Credit Union to withdraw funds or to deposit funds, they could park and walk into the front entry vestibule and utilize that ATM, which is right along Route 9, also well lit and surveilled. And so I think, a lot of the times, and I can let the designers talk about it, but when they design, they don't necessarily design for the, let's say 1% chance of something to happen. Because if they did, then who knows what, if anything would ever get developed because you'd always be wondering about that 1% chance. They look to develop it or look to design it for the majority. And I think that this design, again, on balance, really promotes all of those kind of, all of those items that UMass Five was looking to promote. So I think that's a little bit of a response. Okay, thank you, Tom. Maria. Thanks, Doug. I think I wanna, let me call that, expand on Tom's point, not just for this project, but for moving forward. That's exactly what I have said on several previous projects where we can think of every hypothetical situation and try to solve every 100% of the scenarios. And that's not the planning board's purview that said, yes, of course you wanna think about public safety and think about, yes, this is a bank where money transactions happen, but that's again, sort of more of a, I forget, Tom Long has said, it's something that the management of the facility has reviewed with their internal teams who do this kind of thing. So I'm kind of like, thankful that we're being thorough, but we can't solve 100% of the scenarios that could ever happen to this project. And I've said that on previous projects where, yeah, 90% of the time, hopefully more, this will be a successful project. And I don't know that people do huge financial transactions that the wee hours of the night. So I just think that that hypothetical situation is not worth redesigning this project for by any means. So I'm comfortable with this ATM at the front that's accessible, the people who use this building know the building. So, I think the design as is for the sort of, maybe, yeah, it had been a smaller building on the site. It could do what Florence Bank is doing. I was looking at it, it's a much smaller building does not have all the amenities that this building has. And so I think it'd be a shame to sacrifice all the great things about this project to try to have this 1% of the time hypothetical situation resolved. So that's my take as far as if we do have a vote. I forget what the process is tonight. If we're just continuing or if we're trying to come to a vote tonight. We are trying to get to approval of a site plan review. So I'm just saying that for me, I don't have an issue with this ATM, ATM in the rear of the building. Okay, thank you. Janet, actually let's let Alon, she just raised your hand. Do you have some responses? Yeah, I just, I want to emphasize what Maria just said. That's exactly what we think about as designers is what is, first of all, as an architect, it's our duty to protect the health safety and welfare of the public. We're licensed to do that. So of course we think about the safety of our buildings and we take into consideration how people are going to use it throughout the day and into the evening. And everything that Maria just said is spot on. The primary use of those drive-through ITMs are during the day speaking to a teller. And the most important thing is to mitigate the sound on route nine and placing the building between the ITMs and the route nine traffic is really important. In the evenings, people may choose to use either location. It will be very well lit back there. The cameras will be on. We have reviewed this with the security team at UMass 5 to confirm that they do not have any concerns about this as it was raised. Moving the ITMs to the side would not be functional. People would not be able to hear as well as they can in the current location. I realize other ITM or ATMs on other banks where you don't necessarily have that interaction in the same way that you do with a teller maybe doesn't have to have the noise mitigation as importantly. Obviously, moving the ITMs would be a significant change to the design. So I just, you know, we were very intentional about where it goes. It's also great in terms of separating the traffic. So pedestrian access to the building is really safe and separated from the ITM locations. So I hope you'll take that into consideration. Thanks. Thank you, Raelyn. Janet? So I would be interested since, you know, Andrew's in this business and the industry and people talk about this issue, obviously there have been incidents. So I'd be interested in some research on that. So I appreciate your security team, but I also think, you know, if this is, you know, if it's much more likely that people are robbed at an ATM behind a building on the side and sort of an industry practice to put it on the side, I can get some important information. I'm not an expert on banks, but I use banks all the time and I have used that Florence Bank on route nine and talk to the tellers.  Obviously you don't want to because it's such a, it's going to be difficult. But even if the ITMs were sort of towards the back of it in the lanes, it seems like that could work well. But I do think the safety issue is important. And, you know, we all live in different worlds. I personally have been robbed several times and my house has been robbed.  If it's 1% of the time, that's one out of a hundred ATM things. And so I don't know, you know, I just think that if we can forestell problems now or something being hurt at an ATM and sitting there all night long, why aren't we doing that? Why, you know, and I don't think it's like hysterical or nerve wracking or anything, but I just do think we all live in, you know, we want it the best and the most safe building. And if you can hear somebody on a side ATM or ITM, why wouldn't you put it there? You know, the site isn't tiny. And I just encourage to take a hard look at that. If Chief Livingstone thinks it's a problem, if you do some research and you see that, yeah, when they're in the back, you know, there are more incidences or there have been many, that's information we should, we need. And I'd like to, you know, collect that before we decide. I'd like to hear more from Andrew too, maybe if he goes to the site too. Thank you, Janet. Chris. I just wanted to note there's a difference between this site and the Florence Savings Bank site. The Florence Savings Bank site doesn't have noisy neighbors. This has a really noisy neighbor across the street, which has a vacuum, has like six or eight vacuums that run 24 hours a day. And they're very loud. So you can't really compare this with the Florence Savings Bank building up the street in terms of noise level at an ATM. I just wanted to offer that as a thought. Thank you. Certainly, Chris. Jack. I don't want to transgress on Andrew's territory here, but if there's an overriding concern on the board with regard to the safety back there, can't, isn't it a simple solution to just turn off the ATMs at a certain hour and force people to use the front part? I mean, just ask it. Okay. Thank you, Jack. Chris, is your hand a legacy hand? Okay. All right. Let's see. We have one attendee with her hand up, one of the public. So, Ham, could you bring Claire Bertrand over? And maybe Rachel, if you could stop your share. Hello, Claire. If you could give us your name and your address. Yes, hi. This is Claire Bertrand. I live at 610 Bay Road in Amherst. And I do bank with the five college credit union. I didn't intend to speak, but I do want to ask based on this conversation, have there been any ATM robberies experienced at the present five college credit union site? And I ask that as somebody who has used the ITMs, I know it's further from route nine than what would be proposed in the move down to Amherst. And I'm familiar with using that ITM. And I know it's far away from kind of anything there on that, whatever that road is it's called. But my guess is the answer is there have been no robberies. And so I think it would be fair to state that although concern can be expressed, that the history has not shown an issue in its use and that this would be a safe, well lit, well camera area in a rather busy area. And I think it's a good design. As a user, I can state, I would have no problem with it. And I just wanted to share that. And if there is any information about robberies that I'm not aware of, that would be helpful. Thanks. Thank you, Claire. Tom, do you have any? Yeah, so there have not been. First of all, it's always nice to hear somebody from the public, not expecting to speak in favor. So we'll thank you very much, Ms. Bertrand. And no, there have not been any robberies there. We're talking of UMass 5 right now and they've said no, there have not been any robberies back there at their Westgate Center Drive location. Okay, thank you. All right, so we've had a fair amount of discussion from the public and the board. And I guess I'd like to know if the sense of the board is that we should proceed to a review of the draft findings from Chris as she's prepared them or are people feeling so uncomfortable with this that we don't even want to go toward that this evening? Johanna. I'd be inclined to move towards the draft findings. Okay, thank you, Maria. I'm the same boat. I'm fine moving forward with the draft finding. All right. Does anyone strongly object to moving toward to that part of this discussion? Okay, I don't see any hands. Chris, do you and Pam have the findings available to put on the screen? We do. I would prefer it if Nate were to go through the findings. He's the most familiar with this project. So if you wouldn't mind. Okay, he can lead our discussion. He gets to read them tonight. Yep. How are we really fast so we can make it quick? No, the, Tom also in his email responded to a number of other points that I'm not, you know, I don't know. I just want to make sure that the board is comfortable with. So, you know, you're, you're absolutely right, Nate. We did have other comments that you had made and do you want to give a synopsis of those?  I can go, I can go quickly, whatever Nate, whatever you want. Why don't you go ahead, Tom? I know we, that's where we started and that conversation wandered away from that. Sure. So first Rachel, I don't know if you want to bring that planting plan up as I'm talking. So first question was return with more plant or first comment was return with more plant things along Greenleaf's property for screening and what Rachel's showing you right now is updated proposed trees that they're looking to propose. And we'd also accept as a condition something along. So, so nursery stock, you know, getting things from the nursery, the plant nursery is somewhat hit or miss. So we would just want a condition that we could substitute, you know, and this one seems more for the neighbors, the Greenleaf's neighbors. So if they're okay with it, we'd hope the planning board would be okay with it just to allow us to appropriately substitute. And I've suggested some language that they're locally adapted to the climate zone, meet the evergreen requirements and are considered within the context of the adjacent planting. So these are those additional plant things that we're proposing. Okay. I see Janet, I see your hand. I'm thinking it might be good to let Tom go through this and then come back with questions. Chris, what would you like to say? I just wanted to ask if Tom had sent that sentence to us, that he just... Yeah, it's in an email, Chris, from this morning. So I sent... Yeah, so if you look, it's in the response to number one, 10, 22 a.m. from this morning. All right, why don't you go ahead through that, Tom? Sure, so next one is return with plans for the back deck to show planting, seeding and lighting. And so I think the last time we had shown that there's just under-railing lighting and outdoor seeding for employees only, so it's movable, there's nothing affixed there. And that's not formalized at this time. And so I think also we just wanna be clear and this bleeds into the next one which says explain the use and programming of the community room and deck for events and outside organizations. So again, the primary use of this site is for a bank, it's for a credit union. The primary use of that deck and the community space is going to be for bank use. There could occasionally be something like, and I think I called out and we probably mentioned it last time, an Amherst Chamber of Commerce after five event, but that would be occasional, maybe no more than like four times a year. But we really don't know what that programming looks like. This is primarily a bank and maybe there's a community event like that. It's not gonna be out there for rent. There is gonna be bank personnel on site if that deck is used. But I don't wanna make, I don't want it to make it seem like this is some accessory used to a bank. This is a bank just like any business might have after five for the Chamber of Commerce. That's really what this is. So I don't wanna overcomplicate it. So to that end, we're not saying it has to be done by a certain period of time and it will be X frequency during the year because there's nothing like that out there. And then as far as in the event of those events, we think there's sufficient parking on site and if for some reason there's not, let's say there's an open house, UMass five is right down the street and so they would provide shuttle service from their West Gate Center drive location to avoid any parking issues. And so the next one is new dumpster location orientation and show the traffic flow. So you'll see that's, if you wanna, there you go. Perfect. So we have the dumpster location has been rotated 90 degrees at no longer faces, route nine, it now faces East. And we have the direction of the traffic flow, the truck flow around the site. And so it would actually pull in face of frontwards. Yep. Pick up, reverse, and then leave this, pick up from the second one and then leave the site. And so the next one is, do any requirements of the order or conditions change the site plan? So we have not received the order of conditions yet but that'll be next week, I believe June 8th but we don't expect any changes or any order of conditions that would change the site plan. And we've talked about that with the conservation agent. There's a question about, would we have a condition that there would be in agreement with Hawkins Metal to maintain the evergreen hedge? And our suggestion is not to have such a condition just because the evergreen hedge is on Hawkins Metal property. And so by all means, if we cause the hedge to die, we'll replace that portion of the hedge. I think that could be a fine condition. So we would be responsible to replace it but if Hawkins Metal removed the hedge, they would do so knowing full well that there's a bank right next door. And in making that decision, I don't know that we should be responsible then to pull the hedge back up if the neighbors are okay with it. So that would be our response is that there shouldn't be a condition to that end. The next one is to confirm the new hydrant location approved by Townfire, engineer and show on the plan. And we have that from the fire department. I'm sure we'll get it somewhere, there we go.  All right, indicate which existing trees will be removed or trimmed on the green leaves property. And that's on the demo plan. So we've got it called out what is going to be removed. And then the new tree planting takes into consideration to protect the existing root ball and drip line of existing trees. So we're working with what's there to protect it. All right, thank you. Can there be traffic coming at entrance? That's just a change in pavement texture. And so we had talked about it, we thought about it. That's likely DOT jurisdiction. So we don't think that they'd go for change in pavement or change in texture. But what happens is that it's a slope. And so we're actually requesting a waiver because you have a requirement. I realize I have a typo in here but there is a requirement that we don't exceed. I think it's 5% within 30 feet of the roadway and we're at, let's see. I think we're at 30%, Rachel, is that correct? Because I've got a typo in my, for the first 15 feet. Yeah, we're at 3% within 15 feet. And then we have a short segment that's around 10% and the rest of the parking lot is fairly level. Perfect. So folks will feel as they're entering the site there will be a grade change of 10 to 12% after that first 15 feet, which we think, I don't wanna say a speed bump, but it has the effect of that speed bump. So it'll certainly be noticeable in lieu of a change in pavement texture. Yeah, it'll feel like a table like when you're driving the table on the road. Yeah. The next one is would staff parking be moved to the eastern row of parking spaces? And so we've said staff parking is not currently identified but we'll consider it. I don't think we can promise that it will occur there but I think for all the conversations we had before it made sense. So we'll certainly consider it. Bike location, could we move closer to the entry and have a covered shelter? We'll give you one out of the two. We can keep it where it is and give you a covered shelter. It just seems to make sense. And as we were talking internally, if folks are riding their bikes there, I think being able to park where they're parking and not necessarily right in front it's gonna be somewhat immaterial. And I think that covered bike shelter will be more appropriate tucked away back there. Can the sidewalk along North Hampton Row be wider from five to eight feet? And we'd like to keep it at five feet because there seems to be existing utility poles that if you were to widen it it would impact the utility poles. And I don't know if anybody's ever tried to commission or get utility poles moved but it's incredibly difficult. And we think that the five feet is more than sufficient. And then the next question, the next comment is have the site security lighting dim at 11 p.m. And this was something that we had talked about just earlier in the discussion where given the lighting as part of the comprehensive security package we would like to keep it illuminated for 24 hours a day. Or maybe I shouldn't say 24 hours but from dusk till dawn at least. The next one is explore new design for the front entrance by moving the location of the chairs and seating, animate the front entrance area with shrubs and plant things to reduce the noise from the car wash in North Hampton Road. And Alana or Rachel, jump in here if you want but we've talked about this. We looked at alternatives and I think we're resting on our current design. I think it's important to know that those chairs are also not fixed. The chairs and tables are also not fixed. And so it is movable. We think that what we're proposing, again balances sight line visibility native and ecologically adapted plantings, the stone walls, the seating areas.  So we looked at it and I feel bad because we keep saying like we like what we've done but I think it has been a really thoughtful design. So Rachel or Alana, I don't know if you have anything else to add to that. Yeah, and I think the point is not necessarily that folks are gonna spend a lot of time out there. It's more an invitation to stop and pause and gather yourself or maybe you run into someone that you know and you have a brief conversation outside. It's not that we anticipate people are gonna hang out there with a book and have a deep philosophical moment. But I think the space that's allocated is nice too. There's a wide pathway with little spill out areas, little eddies on the side for people to stop and look at the rain garden or think about going in the building. And if they happen to have deep philosophical thoughts while sitting there then that's also wonderful. The next is explore options to prevent or reduce bird strikes on a large front windows. And so we are and Alana could probably walk you through the different, I think it's film that can be applied to the windows but that is something that we've taken into consideration. Explain use of the security cameras on site. So we're not gonna show a map just understanding the sensitive nature of security cameras but they will be on 24 seven. And as I explained a little bit earlier they're not live monitored but they are reviewed and so they'd be accessible. And I'll ask and hopefully I'll get an answer in a little bit just how long that tape is saved for. So if something were to happen we could certainly coordinate with the police department. Explain how to design meets or will meet the conditions from the town engineer letter. So what I had done is I had attached an email that I had sent to Jason maybe a month ago and he hadn't responded which to me said he was probably satisfied with all of our responses. And then lastly a condition will include the operation of maintenance of the property according to the plan such as no sanding the permeable paving which we're fine with and mowing the grass once per year in the late fall. It's just that one that we would not want in there just in case for some reason I know Rachel had talked about the type of grass we intend to use but if for some reason the grass doesn't take or the grass isn't available or another decision is made I think we'd be fine with appropriate maintenance of the landscaping but I don't know that we wanna say moan once annually that to me is more appropriate for a different scenario than what we have here. So those are our responses to all of the comments that Mr. Malloy had brought from the last meeting. Thank you, Tom. Nate, have you seen these responses before and are you okay with them? Yeah, I mean, I think the board can go through and discuss them. There are draft conditions that still had that the lights would be dimmed at 11 and so I think that's something that could be discussed but for the most part I'm satisfied with them. The slope into the entry is a traffic calming. So I think the findings are good in the conditions. A lot of them are, I don't wanna say boilerplate but they say that the design and the plans should be followed and anything. So what we heard tonight, everything will be incorporated. So the revised plan set becomes part of the approval and then if there's anything that we wanna add as a part of a condition, it can be. So I'm satisfied that those have been addressed. Okay, thank you. All right, so now we can go through the findings and conditions, I guess. Nate, do you wanna lead us through that? Sure, I'll share my screen. All right, it looks like that's probably visible. Yeah, that's good. Sure, so there's quite a few findings on 11.24. I'll read through, I mean, I can, I'll read through them. I guess if there's questions after each one, we can pause if that's, Doug, if that's, works for you. Yeah, that'd be good. So 11.2400, the project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning by-law. And so, you know, this is, says the applicant has applied for site plan review approval for the principal use of a bank office under section 3.3580 and for a drive-through aisles as an accessory use under 5.0431. All right, 11.2401, town amenities and abutting properties will be protected through minimizing detrimental or offensive actions that propose use of the property is unlikely to create detrimental or offensive actions. The bank will operate during normal business hours, parenthetically, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and 9 to noon on Saturdays. Hey, Nate. Yes. I guess I'm realizing we've got probably eight pages of text from you between the findings and conditions. Right. And the prospect of you reading all eight pages is starting to bother me. So I'm wondering, do we have to read them or could we in fact ask for each one? Does anyone have a question or comment on, you know, 2400? Sure. Okay, now, 2401. Okay, 2402. But can I mention 2401? Can we just do 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for those if we're gonna put parentheticals in there? Nate, do you have any objection to that? You know, in the narrative, they said 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I think if the board thinks 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. is reasonable, I mean, often banks have one night a week or two where they are open sometimes to six or seven or later, I don't have a problem with 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thank you. Yeah, so, you know, these findings and conditions were sent to the, you know, before the previous meeting and there were very minor changes to the findings to this document. So it, you know, remains relatively unchanged since it was, and it was also sent last week. Well, I had a couple of sort of editorial questions about a couple of them. Sure. If you wanna just go through it on that basis. Janet, I do see your hand. The first one that I had a question on was 24-12. And it was basically the last clause that starts with a condition of the site plan review approval will require that the project comply. Why doesn't it simply requires? Sure. It sounds like that's something in the future and it's not, it's part of this approval. Janet, did you have a comment on this page? You are muted, I'm sorry. I keep on forgetting. So I have a quick question because Chris usually reads everything aloud. Or remember, Christian Gray Mullins used to read everything aloud. So I wonder if that was a legal requirement. So that's one. Yeah, that's kind of what I was wondering. And so that's my first question. And Chris was shaking her hand. I don't believe it's a legal requirement. We did it as a kind of a tradition of practice, but I don't think it's required. Andrew, I hear you trying to make a comment. Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't raise my hand. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I will not, my circumstances, I can't follow along on numbers. I don't have a copy of the front of me. Oh, right. Okay. Well, would you like us to read each one? Yeah. I use pages, there's a lot of pages, but I don't know if there's any other way we can make it through it more quickly, but yeah, I will not be able to follow along otherwise. All right, and Janet, it sounds like you would like us to read it all. I would like to be courteous to Andrew. And then my question or comment was sort of about the vegetative screening in 2402.  I wanna help everything go, but in a way that works for everybody. All right, Nate, it looks like you're gonna be reading. So let's go back to 2402. Sure. So 11.2402, abutting properties will be protected from detrimental site characteristics resulting from the proposed use. Exterior lighting will be downcast and or shielded and will not shine onto adjacent properties or streets. Landscaping will be used to buffer adjacent properties. So my question was, since the vegetative screening for the apartment complex, whose name eludes me, is not in the control of the bank, do we wanna put an alternative that if there's no vegetative screen putting up some kind of wooden screen or fencing, would that be a normal thing or a good idea? I think that would be a condition. This is a finding. So as it's proposed now, they are proposing plantings along all sides of the property and there's existing vegetation to be used as screening. So I don't know if it can be a condition later, but just saying if the vegetation on the apartment complex is removed to put up a fence or something. So that was just my point. So that could be a condition. Okay. Chris. I was gonna say that it's required by a certain section of section seven that you have screening of at least three feet, but you can make that decision when you get. Chris, you cut out kind of halfway through the sentence, but- I muted myself by mistake. Yes, I was just saying, talk about it when you get to the conditions, but I just wanted to recognize that their bylaw does require the screening of at least three feet. So if the shrubs go away, I think you're required to put in a three foot fence. All right. Sure, 11.2403, provision of adequate recreational facilities, open space and amenities has been addressed. The project provides seating walls and chairs for customers. Now also utilizes the deck of above the drive-through aisles as open space for employees. The applicant is proposing a new sidewalk along North Hampton Road and a location for a permanent fell shelter and bike racks will be located next to the building. Janet, is that hand a legacy? Thank you.  Is that a numbering? I have 11.2410. I'm just curious now if that's it. I guess that is probably the right numbering. I just quickly check. And in the event what's written there is unique or important natural, historic or scenic features will be protected although much of the existing site is currently paved or covered with impervious material. The applicant has taken steps to protect the wetland to the rear of the site and to keep mature trees. The applicant is proposing to keep mature trees and vegetation along the side property lines and toward the rear of the site. Rain gardens and permeable paving help manage storm water and limit runoff into the wetlands and a comprehensive planting plan is also used to reduce impacts to wetlands. 11.2411, the project provides adequate methods of refuse disposal as described in the management plan. 11.2412, the project will be connected to town water and sewer or sewer and water. The town engineer has reviewed the proposed plans and has issued a letter of comment dated May 11th, 2022. A condition of the site plan review approval will require that the project comply with the town engineer's comments and recommendations outlined in his letter. And so Doug, you had recommended a change here. Well, yeah, I just didn't know why it was future tense. Right. That's all. I mean, but maybe that's the way these things are done. I mean, the project, I mean, so we've got enough to get through. That's a minor thing. All right, 11.2413. So these are findings. We're saying that the application and the material presented has satisfied these. So the proposed drainage system within an adjacent to the site will be adequate to handle the storm water. The town engineer has reviewed the project and has issued a letter with comments, the storm water report completed by Berkshire design. Notice that the design balances pre and post construction site runoff and the applicant has proposed rain gardens, permeable paving and sufficient plantings to help manage storm water. 11.2414 provision of adequate landscaping has been addressed. The project includes new plantings on site adjacent to the building and along the parking lot to screen a budding properties. Existing evergreen hedge between the property and adjacent residential use will be retained. Existing mature trees along the perimeter of the property will be protected and also retained. 11.2415, the soil erosion control methods are considered adequate to control soil erosion both during and after construction. The town engineer has not expressed concerns about the soil erosion. 11.2416, adjacent properties will be protected by minimizing the intrusion of various nuisances. The proposed uses do not generate nuisances and a construction logistics plan is required to be submitted prior to the issuance of a building permit. 11.2417, adjacent properties will be protected from the intrusion of lighting because a condition of the permit requires that exterior lighting be downcast and are shielded and not shone onto adjacent properties. And the applicant is proposing to use landscaping to help protect adjacent properties. 11.2418 is not applicable. The property is not located in the flood prone conservancy district. 11.2419, protection of wetlands in accordance with the Wetlands Protection Act, chapter 131, section 40 and the Amherst Wetlands Bylaw has been provided a