Okay. Okay. You know, Pam, did I get opening? Oh, there they are. I need to open the opening comments. Yeah, they were a little bit lengthy because there's two public hearings. Okay. Okay, so I'm good to go. I do believe you are good to go. We're recording. We have Amherst media. You have a quorum. 632. You're all good by me. All right. Welcome to the Amherst planning board meeting of April 19, 2023. My name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the Amherst planning board, I am calling this meeting to order at 632 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst media. Minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended again by chapter two of the acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. This planning board meeting, including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform. The zoom meeting link accessible on the meeting agenda posted on the town websites calendar listing for this meeting. Or go to the planning board webpage and click on the most recent agenda, which lists the zoom link at the top of the page. No in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town of Amherst website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively and return to mute. Bruce called him. I'm here. Tom Long has notified us he will be absent this evening. Andrew McDougal. Present. I, Doug Marshall, am present. Janet McGowan. Here. Yohanna Newman. Here. And Karen Winter. Here. Thank you all. Board members, if technical issues arise, we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting. If the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment. I will see your request and call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to mute yourself. For the general public. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished. Residents can typically express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair. If a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time, their participation may be disconnected from the meeting. All right. So the time is now 6.35. And we'll go to the first item on the agenda, which is the approval of minutes from past meetings. Tonight we have two sets of minutes. One for our February 21st meeting and one for March 1st. Why don't we go with the February 1st meeting or February 21st meeting first. And are there any board comments on that set of minutes? Andrew, I see your hand. Not for comments. I was going to make a motion to approve. Okay. Do you wish to make that come that motion? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I would like to make that motion. Motion to approve. Yes, please. Okay. Does anybody want to second that? Janet, you got your hand up second, but I suspect you have some comments. Do you want to second it and then go ahead and give comments? Yes, I'm happy to do that. So I happy to second. And I have two. A question and a correction. Okay. Or enhancement maybe. So on page three. Bullet number three. It says, according to Mr. Marshall's tracking. 1,504 bedrooms have been created since 2010. And I wasn't sure if that meant dorm. Beds or just bedrooms in. That was, that was beds in the community. Okay. So I would add that. Say maybe add in. You know, 1,504 bedrooms in the community. So I just was, I wasn't sure. Yeah. And then one, two, three. I think it's the eighth bullet down. Um, I think it's the eighth bullet down. Um, I think this is a comment that I may, I made. And I, it was that, um, it seems as if we have met the housing production plan. Goals for units. But it's mostly for student housing. That was my general statement. And I would just, so I thought it, I think I sent some language to Chris just adding in. Goals for. For units, but it's mostly. And just add that in there. Is that. I guess I would add that. I would question whether the folks that built that would, would agree that it was. Primarily for students.  Archipelago say that. Um, you know, their, their. You know, Units are available to anybody in the market to live in Amherst. Yeah. I mean, we could talk about it, but I'm just saying this was my comment. Yeah, so I think, you know, to me, one East pleasant and Kendrick place are mostly students. Um, and then we have all the things on route nine. So yeah, I mean, we could argue about the fact, but that's, that was just my comment that it's mostly student housing. All right. I see. Yeah. Does that make sense to you, Pam, or. Chris? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we could talk about it, but I'm just saying this was my comment. Yeah. Does that make sense to you, Pam, or. Chris. So that's, that was my simple ad. If that's what she said, then I think that's okay to include it. Because we include other things that people say, which may be controversial, not everybody agrees with them. To be great. I don't know that we can check with the recording right now. So, uh, you know, is it something we can vote on contingently or should we just delay the approval of this set of minutes. Until the next meeting. Contingency is fine. Uh, Chris, can we, can we approve those edits and approve these minutes. On the condition that. Probably you or. Uh, Pam agreed to. Verify the. That those were in the recording. Yes. Okay. Andrew. That's fine. I was, I mean, I was just going to say Janet. That's what she said. I would. I don't know that we actually need to verify. Turn for minutes. Okay. All right. Anybody else have any comments on the February 21st minutes. Uh, Johanna.  Joint motion. Um, But defer to you. Okay. Chris, you see any problem with that, or would you rather have two, two votes? I think you might as well have two votes. If you do quickly. Okay. All right. So are there any more comments on the February 21st minutes? Okay. Yeah. I think that's a little unclear to me. Are we voting this contingent upon a fact check? Yes. Okay. For the two edits that Janet. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So. Andrew, are you okay with a friendly amendment to your motion that the approval of the minutes. Be with Janet's edits and. And contingent on checking that those. Be with Janet's edits. I think she did. I'm sure she spoke to what she thought she did. I mean, I'm, I'm fine. Um, It just seems like it's actual work. I would, I would prefer just to not have the verification in there and just say, let's. Okay. To what Janet's. With Janet's. All right. Well, let's go ahead and vote. Bruce, we'll start with you. Okay. No contingent necessary. That's just putting load on the staff. Yep. Okay. Thanks, Bruce. That's a, that's an eye and then Andrew. Hi. I'm an eye. Janet. I am an eye. Hi, Johanna. Hi. And Karen. Hi. All right. Thank you all that passes six votes in favor. Thank you. Thank you. I'll move on to the March 1st minutes. Were there any comments on the March 1st minutes? All right, Bruce. I move to approve adoption of the minutes as presented. All right. And Johanna. I'll second. All right. Thank you both. Any comments? Any further comments before we vote. All right.  I'll, I'll let to approve, but I do want to say, I want to, I want to make it, I have a question at the end of this. So I'll leave the hand up for that. Okay. So it's a yes. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. And we'll continue with our roll call vote. Andrew. Hi. And I'm an eye. And Janet. Hi. Johanna. Hi. Hi, Karen. Hi. Okay. Once again, six in favor and no opposed. Tom's absent. Bruce, you had a comment you'd like to make at the end of this. Really a question for Chris and Pam. I noticed a number of times over in, since I've been on the board that. Having bulleted having bullets in, in lists and so forth. And Janet just brought it to mind because she counted down one, and it was, I think it's the eighth bullet she said, I would suggest if it's, there's no reason not to that. Instead of using bullets for this, we use numbers because it's going to make it a lot easier, particularly as we are remotely talking about these things. It would I think be easier to be clear quicker if they were numbered rather than bulleted a suggestion. That's all. Yeah. Letters can also be used. So, okay. Thank you, Bruce, for that. And with that, we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is public comment period. The time now is 644. And let's see, I often read the number, the names of the participants who are attending the meeting at this time. So I will read that and then we will open up for public comment from the public. So this is the time to raise your hand if you had something you wanted to say about a topic that is not on tonight's agenda. So I see Elizabeth Veerling. I see Frederick Hartwell, Hilda Greenbaum, someone with the words or the text H startup as one word. I see John W. Kaylee Brow, Mandy Joe Hanneke, Mara Keane, Nancy, Rachel Bollinger, Stella Yuan, Susanna Musbrat, and Thomas Hartman. Okay, so I don't see yet any hands for public comment this evening. So I'll make one more call for that and then we'll move on. Still no hands. All right, each startup has added, put her hand or his hand up. Pam, if you could move that person over. Okay, each startup, you are able to speak. Please give us your name and your address. Hi everybody. My name is Hetty startup. I live on Allen street in Amherst. And I just wanted to raise the issue of whether the proposal tonight on the agenda is really the best way to address our two local historic districts and our historically recognized downtown area. I haven't read the document in full detail, but I'm just particularly concerned about how these may impact areas that are particularly sensitive and also particularly rich in terms of their historic value. And I hesitate to use the word character. Yes, the time for comments on topics which are not on our agenda this evening. I'm sorry I misunderstood. Okay, thank you for the redirect, Doug. I'll, I'll, I'll stop right now. You can hold that. I don't want to take up anybody else's time. Yeah, if you have more you want to say later, we can certainly entertain you then. Okay. So I don't see any other hands for our general public comment this evening. So the time now is 647 and we can move on to the next item on the agenda, which is item three. Regarding the zoning amendment. That's the wrong. The Amherst college pavilion project. Yeah, I need to find the agenda. I'm looking at the minutes. Okay. Yes. Here we have it. The public hearing site plan review. So SPR 2023 dash zero one, the trustees of Amherst college. 425 southeast street. Request site plan approval to construct a new wood framed open pavilion at the book and plow farm owned and operated by Amherst college and to relocate a portable toilet. Map 17 B parcel three and eight. In the RLD and FC and RN zoning district. All right. So the time is 648 and. I see Tom Hartman and. I think we're we not going to be bringing over. There's somebody else Rachel, I think is part of this presentation. As well as Kylie brow, if you could, please. Okay. Kaley brow. Yep. And Bruce, I see your hand. Would you like to say something as we get started with this topic? You are muted. Bingo. Just a declaration that the firm that Tom's. In charge of these days has got my name on it. I used to work there. I see my desk behind him is. Still empty. So obviously I'm a hard person to replace, but I haven't been there for eight and a half years. And I do feel that. Quite capable of making an impartial determination. Okay. Thank you, Bruce. All right. So with that, Tom. And your team welcome to our meeting this tonight. Would you. I would you like to make any sort, would you like to make a presentation of the project? Absolutely. And I'd like to introduce Rachel Blanger. She's the project manager. She's the assistant manager for Amherst college and Kylie Brown, who's the assistant. Brown is the assistant farm manager. So I think they may have some additional information beyond what was in the application. As a result of some questions, I think that we're raised recently. Pleasure to meet you. My name is Tom Hartman principal here at Holden and Hartman architects. On the common here in Amherst. We've been before you many times. So if I can, I'll give a short presentation. If you have any questions, we can take any questions. Okay. So just for your reference. So this is the parcel in question. Here's Southeast street. Here's the railroad tracks. The parcel is here. You come up and access drive. And the book and plow farm is here. This road, if you can see my cursor connects to the. The south end of the campus near the tennis courts. So it's not a very visible site to the public. And I think several of the people who visited with the planning board hadn't been there before at all. Here's a little reference of what the project is like. So this is the access drive coming up. This road goes over here to a higher vista. A couple of hoop houses and. A couple of buildings. And a couple of fields here. And so the entry drive comes here. And then there's a couple of spaces with gravel parking and overflow parking onto the grass that's here. So. The actual site. That we're looking at for the building is, is approximately in this location. Okay. So this is a small wood pavilion. It's a small wood pavilion on a concrete slab. Open with the exception of these screened areas on the. On the entry side of the building. And. Another view. This would be. Looking from the south to the north of the building. You'll notice in the plans we provided, I'll show you in a little bit more detail. So this is an alternate for a terrace here. A Goshen terrace with a retaining wall. I'd like that to be in the permitting process, although at this time we don't think that alternate will be pursued. But my understanding is this permitting would be valid for two years, I believe. So in the event. This does happen. I'd like to just make that a provisional approval. If you're so inclined. I'd like to make that a provisional approval. I'd like to make that a provisional approval. Okay. Tom, does that wall show up in the plans? It does. Yeah. I'll show you in a second. So here's the existing context. Here's the entry drive that comes in. We're looking at the site right about here. There's an existing portable toilet located up the hill a little bit. The proposed. Site plan. Again, there's that hoop house. So our. Our structure is located right here. So that's it. And the other thing that we have, we have a total of 15 parking spaces. Which by architectural access board does not require an accessible parking spot. I believe the town may have a stricter threshold on that. Perhaps it's 10. But I put in the, the application that we have approximately five spaces, which we can talk about a little later as to how they're defined. But the notion is that if a person was to arrive in a vehicle on an accessible route, we would relocate a portable toilet to be an accessible unit. Adjacent to the drive here. Because the, the, the grades up to where it was before are just slightly too steep. So here's the base floor plan. 20 by 32 concrete slab. Here's the all-in-one access board. And then we have the base floor plan. 20 by 32 concrete slab. Here's the alternate that we proposed, which has this small retaining wall and a Goshen patio. In addition to that, a very simple timber frame building. Larger rafters, wood decking asphalt roof. And the lighting on the interior of the building is. There's no light trespass above the roof structure. There's no outdoor lighting. From the management plan, I can relay that all trash and recycling are performed directly by Amherst college facilities parking. Again, we're proposing approximately five parking spots and Kylie can talk about how the CSA works and when people make those pickups. So, no signage is proposed, no landscape is proposed. And snow removal is directly by Amherst college. So with that, are there any questions? All right. Thanks, Tom. So am I right that the, the structure itself is identical in the two alternates? Correct. So the only difference is the landscape. Yes. And, and, and how it would be integrated. So, we're going to go back into the concrete slab at this point, we're proposing we're going to start construction. This is, we can, we're going to do the 20 by 30 slab. So it might be a hard edge here. And I think nothing would happen. This construction season. I think it's just a provisional for the future. Okay. Could you clarify about the parking spaces and the five versus 10 parking spaces? I don't think we need an accessible marked parking space. Well, with respect to the architectural access board. If there are not more than 15 parking spaces. A designated accessible parking space is not required. So on that basis of Amherst, Amherst town. You know, bylaw. I think we are more stringent than that. I don't know off the top of my head. Chris, do you know? The number is. We would require a handicap space if there were 10 parking spaces. In this case, there are only five parking spaces. And so a handicap parking space would not be required. But the building commissioner would like to see a drop off. And I understand that Mr. Hartman is providing a drop off. Maybe he can describe that. Yes. And you can see in this image here, this is my experience of being up there and, and Rachel and Kylie can speak more to it. This is the typical pattern of cars that I've experienced up there. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And you can see there's, you know, decent parking for three of them on gravel. With respect to a drop off location. I'm proposing that the drop off would be in this very. Level area directly south of the, the hoop house. So where are the five spaces. That are. That are being mentioned as opposed to the seven or eight or more. Yeah, they're not organized parking spots. They're not marked. There's a gravel area for three. And then, you know, that parking occurs on the grass for pickup. So perhaps Kylie, you want to speak about the frequency of vehicles and how CSA pickup to work. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. So as Tom is saying, we have a gravel space that's wide enough for three cars to comfortably park next to each other. We have a 75 member CSA share that runs in the fall. We usually have pickups on one day. But the five, the five, the five folks are kind of moving through over several hour period. And as you can see in the photo, it's sort of how folks arrange themselves. They can also park up. Kind of along the road. Yeah, we have like three, like space for gravel space for three cars. And then everything else is just parking on the grass. So there aren't actually any spots that are. Striped on the premises. No, they're not. Okay. And then about the porta potty. Is this a year round or more than six months of operation facility. Each year. We do keep it year round. Yes. And is the porta potty the only. Restroom facilities on. On site. Yes. Okay. All right. Well, as long as I guess the plumbing inspector is fine with that because I know in my experience at the university, this would require a plumbed restroom. I guess then I don't have any more questions. And I believe there was correspondence with the plumbing inspector and with respect to a permit that may be required by the town and there was follow up with Rick Mears. And I think it was resolved positively. Correct. Yeah. Rick Mears who's the Amherst college director of environmental health and safety. I know was in touch with Ed Smith. A few weeks ago. On this matter. Okay. All right. Good. So I see three hands for, from other board members. We'll start with you. Great. Thank you. So first of all, yeah, thanks for sharing this proposal. I know this site really well, you know, have watched the farm. Into existence and then have watched it develop. It's very close to where I live and I ride my bike up that hill almost every day. So really familiar with the site. My questions are. I'm curious to learn a little bit more just about the function of the Pavilion and what you see as the need and like how, how will it serve the farm and the college? And then. I was honestly a little bit surprised to hear that there would be power in the Pavilion. So it sounds like it will have access to electricity, which then begs the question, have you thought about putting solar on the roof? Or is that something that college has considered? Yes. Pardon me. We have considered it and just for your reference power, the gear, electrical gear is right here. So it's a quick conduit over. But yeah, we have actually done a study and it's well cited for photovoltaics to be brought in. We're providing the conduit to facilitate that. It's, it's a matter of funding and timing at this point, but everything will be set up. And, and Kylie, if you want to talk about how you envision the Pavilion will be used, it's been designed for 30 occupants and be used in very, a variety of ways. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. We, as you can see pretty well in this picture, we don't have a ton of kind of like covered non-production space for people to gather. We have a lot of classes come up to the farm to do tours or lectures. During the COVID pandemic, we had this sturdy tent erected kind of to the right of the greenhouse in this photo. And it was used really heavily for students to just hang out together, but also classes were held there. And it was a place for our crew to also gather. So we envision the Pavilion to be used in that way to have classes come to run workshops. And to just be a nice and shaded space for students to be. Okay. Johanna, any other questions? Nope, that answers them. Thank you very much. Okay. Next, we have Andrew. Thank you. Doug. Thanks, everyone. I was actually going to mention. Doug that Karen, Chris and I were, were on site earlier this week. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I think that Tom did a great job. Summarizing what was there. I think the only pieces maybe that. That he didn't touch upon were. So when we talked about the two. Potentially the two phases of whether there'd be that kind of seating retaining wall or not is that. Essentially the, the, the Pavilion is. Essentially at grade with the gravel right there. And that. As you move to the east kind of across the platform. Yeah, that's a good view right there, Tom. Yeah. I mean, it's just that the. That the natural grave will be brought up to the edge of the. Pavilion so that there wouldn't be, despite the fact that there, there would be a change in grade, it's going to be tapered in. So there's no need for any type of railing or enclosure to, to keep people in place. The, and then I guess he, the only other pieces we talked about were just, there is some existing vegetation that goes along the. Yeah. Yeah. You've got some of it right there, but yeah, that that would largely stay in place. But those. It looks better than that. I promise you. I believe those raised planting beds. You said that that might be cleaned up a little bit, Tom, but I'm trying to. Yes. That's correct. With the, the fill that's going to be brought in to create the level pad. Our grading is going to extend over here a little bit. And then we're going to keep it coming down this way. And then we'll push it around the corner. On that side. As well. And we have erosion control in our. Documentation with Tiagno who's doing the work. So we'll be very mindful of that as well. And then I think the last piece was just. You had mentioned that. You know, there's very little visibility from the road. We could see a car or two driving along Southeast street on my way. I drove past and took a look and yeah, it looks like it would be limited. And frankly, like it would actually sort of be in front of the hoop house. So you could argue that for folks who are glancing up there. You know, Depending on, you know, your sense of style, you might actually find that it's a nice review looking at that. That architectural wouldn't feature as opposed to the hoop house, but. Oh, don't fan my ego, please. But essentially visible to your point. So as you leave the entry drive and you turn left and go north on and go under the next bridge, if you looked left at Stanley street in the winter time, you'll see it, but she won't see it at all when it's leafed out. That's Doug. That's all I just heard. Say overall, very, very pleased with what we've seen. Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Janet, you are next. I just wanted to. Say what I think I heard you say, which is that there's three six parking spaces in that line. Three of them are gravel and three are just informal. That the ground is pretty flat. And then on the other side of the road. I'm not really sure that I'm sort of missing the information about how many people usually come during a pickup. Like, you know, is that like pick up on a Wednesday afternoon and 75 people show up or people come in dribs and drabs. So I'd like to hear about that. And then I'm also just concerned that if somebody did have a walker or a wheelchair. Is it all flat enough that they could just park there? I'm not really sure. I'm sort of missing the information about how many people have a walker or a wheelchair. I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure. Is it all flat enough that they could just pull into the gravel space or one of the dirt spaces and get out. And make their way to the pavilion or to the pickup. I mean, what's your experience with that? And. You know, is there a problem with maybe marking out one wide spot for a handicapped person. Again, here are the three gravel spaces. And I think that those spaces are, are fully compliant. They're, they're perfectly comfortable for an able body person getting in and out of a vehicle. This area right here is more level. And that's where we're proposing the drop off. Adding signage for, you know, accessible drop off could, I think easily be accomplished. Okay. In that location, but again, this is all trap rock gravel. So we really don't want to get into a marking specific. When we're looking at a lot of different spots and Kylie, if you can talk about the flow vehicles during pickup and how that, how that works. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about that. We, it is kind of dribs and jobs over our CSA pickups run Wednesday afternoons from three to six 30. period. It is sometimes if you kind of look out at the part of like the parking zone it can be a bit crowded but we haven't had any like issues with people not being able to park or real congestion. We have had folks with walkers and they kind of will park a little bit closer like kind of right in front of the pickup and come out and get their veggies and get back in their car that way. Generally speaking for a space without any lines and any real structure aside from the three gavel spaces it works pretty well and we haven't ever had any accidents or problems or anything like that. And also just for reference this is the parcel in question but the adjacent parcel is also owned by Amherst College which is where the access drive comes in. Here's the drive to hoop houses right about here. There's plenty more parking spaces up on top of the hill as well but I don't think that that's been a concern at all in terms of pickup and again my experience of being there is that it's more or less three to seven vehicles at the most that I've seen there and a typical arrangement. And I'll just add as it relates to the use of the pavilion the use being for classes and group activities organized by the college those groups tend to come through the back road that connects directly to campus which is walkable and bikeable and so that's really a separate use from the CSA operation that's already been in place that isn't changing as a result of the pavilion. So you know I would like to see you know a handicap drop off marked you know not just to be welcoming but to be practical and you may have students who are you know need to come out you know in a van or something like that but I think it'd be nice to maybe do it in the flat service just to mark that so people know this is the flat spot to go you know to get anywhere so even though it's not legally required. We can make that happen. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would I would support that too partly to keep other people from parking there and obstructing that area and to make it visible to somebody who might be driving in a car and arriving at the spot and not knowing where they should be putting their vehicle to to start from it on an accessible route. Okay Janet thank you and Bruce you had some comments. Yes I guess I can't help it be interested and curious about the roof. Tom since you've mentioned that it's asphalt shingles proposed and then also a little later that it's being set up for PV perhaps future PV. So it seems to me always odd to put a 25 or 30 year surface under a 50 year surface which is to say the PV which is going to last much longer than the roof and is there thought to if the preparedness for PV would make a metal roof a better idea? Funny you mentioned that Bruce that's where we started and the budget has dictated our proposed application with an asphalt roof. Okay just asking. Yep. Anything else Bruce? Nope okay thank you and Karen you're next. I just wanted to say if you're really at this site and you see how pastoral it is and how open I'm sort of against the mandating any kind of signage it just seems like such a natural place to come up with somebody handicapped as close to the pavilion and I like to see the space as uncluttered as possible so I don't see the necessity of putting sign up for handicapped parking at all. I think this isn't the place that people are going to park that much it's really it's really a kind of a not a place where there are that many cars people come pick up students come there and it should be as free of clutter as possible that's my input. Alright thanks Karen. Have we got any more comments from the board? Alright maybe we'll go now to public comment are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this proposal? We are we have 17 members of the public and I at the moment I don't see any hands. Do any of you like to make a comment? Okay no hands there. So Tom having heard some a couple of comments in favor of a sign for accessible accommodations for the vehicle and one objection how do you feel about what you're hearing? I think a simple typical parking sign would would be appropriate if the board would like to propose it as a condition however it was deliberately not included in our application. Okay. Alright board members sounds like we may need to get a vote on whether we support a sign like that or not. Does anybody want to make any more comments before we I guess have a vote Bruce? I'm swinging towards agreeing with Karen it is a farm and and the traffic will always be in the climate weather so the the stresses on parking and and the the usual concerns that we have are often generated by the fact that parking has to work all year round but it doesn't here and it seems to me that it isn't broken and we don't need to fix it. Okay. Alright so why don't I take a take a poll here? So starting with Andrew you want to comment? Yeah I mean you probably would come in but I would like if this involved like a significant amount of construction or cost I would agree with that but it's just a sign. My vote would be to put this on. Alright so why don't I just consider you in favor of the sign?  Bailey. Okay and Janet are you are in favor? I'm in favor because I spent years you know driving my mother around with her walker and it's just fantastic to know where to go and you know a lot of times people don't get out and because they're afraid they can't park and things like that and so I know it's a farm you know it's not you know but I just think it's nice to make the community welcome and make it easier for people who are struggling to with their mobility. Okay thank you Janet and Karen we know you are opposed to sign and that leaves Johanna. And it would be next to the hoop house is that where the sign would go or would it be next to the building? Just east of that hoop house or south maybe it is. It'd be adjacent in the most level spot. So I think we have three in favor of the sign and two against so you can either make it a tie or it'll be a clear requirement for that for the one side on the property. Sure let's make it a requirement I'll be a guess for the sign. All right. If this is an appropriate time I just want to ask for clarification of what you intend is the sign to be designating a spot for accessible parking only or is it a sign that says no parking here accessible drop off keep this area clear? Well I think I think words to those effect. Yeah I mean I'll venture that I think most of us were thinking about a sign that said it was an accessible drop off location and that others should not be parking there. Yeah. Now you know if someone who's in a vehicle and needs to park and it needs an accessible route you know maybe they do park there for however long they're on site but it doesn't need to be signed as an accessible parking space. Thank you. I hope that's helpful and board members if I've misconstrued your intent let me know. Johanna. I think that's right and then I just be curious to hear from Kaylee whether that would screw up operations at all. Okay. Kaylee? I don't think so. I think that that it sounds like a good idea. I think it would be really fine. Okay. Great. Thank you all. Janet. I was just going to say it could be a pretty wood sign that looks kind of farmy. Okay. I bet you it probably is tied into the campus signage program. Sounds good. All right and if I recall there was no lighting intended with this pavilion is that right or is there there's lighting under the roof and that's all there's lighting attached to the rafters they're each only about 30 watts. It's not a very high foot candle level deliberately by design and I think that the majority of the year the building would not be occupied when it comes to sunset to begin with. Right and so you know basically all the lighting is shielded by the roof or it's pointing down to start with so we don't need to worry too much about dark sky issues. Not a bit. All right. Janet. So our bylaw requires the dark sky and that when it lights are off after business hours unless it's needed for safety so that would probably be a condition we impose. You're not planning to light it all night. Oh no. Okay. Okay. Chris have we have we got enough in terms of discussion about this to go ahead and vote. I think we've talked about some of the issues that you had put in your email. I'm surprised about the restroom and if but if everybody's fine with that I'm not going to push that but certainly as you accumulate activities out there you know at some point somebody's going to say why isn't there a actual plumbed restroom out there. So when you make a motion you might want to reference 11.24 just that this complies with the relevant sections of 11.24. All right. I guess we are at the point where we ought to be making a motion and I don't know if anybody in particular wants to make it but I will venture I will let's try try to put one together here. I guess I would I would I would I will move I guess that we approve the site plan review for this project with the one requirement that a sign indicating the accessible drop-off locations be added to the site adjacent to that flat area. Chris is that an adequate motion? I think Jen had also had an idea about that the lights would go off after business hours. Okay so including a requirement that the lights under the pavilion only be operated during the CSA business hours or during the farm business hours during whatever activity is happening there. Okay. Doug do you need the reference to section 11? That we find it in compliance with section 11.24. Thank you Bruce. It takes a board to get a motion together. And that you close the public hearing? Oh good yeah that we okay that we I guess having a month off I'm pretty rusty tonight we close the public hearing. All right so having cobbled that together Chris do you think you have enough notes to actually write it out as though it were a coherent motion to start with? That you move to approve the site plan review application with two conditions one is a requirement that there be a sign for accessible drop-off location and two that the lights within the pavilion go off after business hours and that this application complies with the relevant sections of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw and that you close the public hearing. That sounds good to me. Board members any other comments before we go through our vote? I was going to second the motion. Oh good. All right Janet seconds it's official. All right well why don't we go ahead Bruce are you in favor of that motion? I am. All right and Andrew. Hi. And I'm an I as well Janet. Hi. Johanna. Hi. And Karen. Hi. Okay the motion passes we can close that public hearing. The time is 7.23 and we thank you Tom and your team and Kayla. Thank you. Good luck with the project. Thanks everyone. Thank you very much. Be well. Okay so now let's see it's 7.24 and seems a little early to have our 8 o'clock break but I know the next topic may take a little while so we'll go ahead and start and then we'll try to take a break at around eight or maybe a little after eight. So time now is 7.24 and we'll go ahead and continue a a public hearing on a zoning amendment. The it's regarding zoning bylaw article 3 use regulations and article 4 development methods article 9 non-conforming lots uses and structures and article 12 definitions. This is continued from March 1st 2023 and April 5th 2023 to see if the town will vote to amend article 3 use regulations to change the permitting requirements for owner occupied occupied duplexes affordable duplexes non-owner occupied duplexes converted dwellings and townhouses to create more streamlined permitting pathways for these uses to remove the use category subdividable dwellings to add a use category three family detached dwelling or triplex to add a permitting pathway and standards and conditions for triplexes to modify standards and conditions for other housing use categories to amend permitting requirements for housing use categories in the aquifer recharge protection overlay district to amend article 4 development methods to add three family dwelling where appropriate to amend article 9 non-conforming lots uses and structures to add a reference to three family dwelling and to amend article 12 definitions to add three family detached dwelling unit or triplex and to delete subdividable dwelling as i said this hearing is continued from two dates earlier this spring all right um looks like we've got pat and mandy back with us and chris i know you've been in consultation with them and you have a document that you released shortly before our meeting this evening um let's see chris do you think do you want to start or do you want to have mandy and pat go first i think mandy and pat should go first and then i'm happy to go through what i think are the changes that i wanted you to be aware of it was a little hard to sort of separate out what was different from the march first version that you saw so that was most of what i was trying to do with my memo was to make it clear what was changed since march first so why don't you let mandy and pat go first and then i'll pick up when they're finished okay thank you all right welcome mandy joe and pat thank you and i'm going to be asking mandy joe to go for thank you um first i'd like to thank chris and nate and rob for speaking with us multiple times and working with us we have actually i believe here the latest revision is generally supported by the planning staff except for one area which i know chris will talk about what she would like to see there and we're going to talk about what we would like to see there and what's in the proposal but when you're looking at this draft which is revision 11 the stuff in highlighted yellow is a change from the draft that was at the original hearing and so that's that's also indicate that's also things that were in the april 5th packet and then you know so if it's in yellow it's a change from what was presented in early march if it's in blue it's also a change but it's a change since the last revision that was in the april 5th packet um so so the only thing that changed between april 5th's packet and today's packet is what's highlighted in that aqua color um all the other stuff in yellow was presented in the april 5th packet that i know there wasn't a hearing for and so we've basically reached agreement it's the indication in that teal color where pat and i um haven't been able to reach an agreement with chris and the staff and so we're basically presenting you two options and we'd like to hear the thoughts between what chris would like to see and what we would like to see on that but basically we've brought back our proposal from the the wide ranging scope that it was in early march you'll see that in non-owner occupied duplexes we have reverted to basically no changes to the permitting pathway back to special permits except we're removing the no in the aquifer recharge protection district so that change is still there that would allow duplexes in aquifer recharge protection districts but under a special permit but other than that that that item is highlighted but it wouldn't actually be a change to the bylaw other than that deletion of the no in parentheses so we're back to the current zoning for most of non-owner occupied duplexes for triplexes this is a new category so everything's new but we've actually changed in all of the residential and the business air the business neighborhood area to special permit except in the ro and rld we're proposing no triplexes so that's a change from i believe we were originally at site plan review so we've we've moved back towards a special permit in those areas the change and then i'll go through the condition changes but i thought i'd start with the permit pathway changes in townhouse um we've actually there's only now two proposed changes to the current zoning in townhouses we have changed we've proposed a lot more changes um and so what we've reverted to all those yellows are revered reverting to the current zoning so we're actually all of that yellow that changed from the last um proposal to this one is going back to essentially not proposing a change and and so in townhouses the only changes we're now proposing are in the rn to allow townhouses um by special permit which matches the current zoning in rvc and rg and in the bg to actually move from site plan review to special permit which would match the apartment zoning that we just changed about a year and a half ago in the bg area um that is a summary of the changes to the permitting pathways um since the proposal from march we have added at the request of the planning staff in the general duplex and triplex categories and conditions and standards a requirement for design guidelines that would be adopted by the permit granting board and so the planning board and the zba would be able to adopt design standards for duplexes and triplexes um regarding the things that are in there this is a language that the planning staff provided um and then the written decision was moved up into the general categories that was already there in many of the conditions for duplexes and triplexes it just moved up into applicable to all um owner-occupied duplexes the the only change and this is where um the planning staff and pat and i um we haven't been able to reach an agreement on what the language should be um and that's in this teal and we are proposing so so there's what we have found out from these conversations is that in amherst multiple buildings and principal uses are allowed on a single property and pat and i in proposing these changes really wanted to make duplexes particularly owner-occupied duplexes and affordable duplexes by right with just a building permit so the yes but when we were proposing that our thinking was one building on a land one building on a parcel that building should be by right and so we in our zoning allow multiple buildings on parcels and so what the teal language basically does is say when when thought in conjunction with the permitting pathway above of yes um says in these zones the first building up to two dwelling units essentially if it's the first new building um is a by right yes but once you get above that we're basically pat and i are proposing that the permit pathway remain basically what it is now um not quite exactly what it is now but right now without any changes to the zoning um in the rg rvc you're allowed to build as many duplexes as you want on a parcel as a special as with site plan review and in the rn ro and rld you do it by special permit we are proposing that once you get over one building or essentially two dwelling units that you need a site plan review just like you would right now in the rg rvc and rn although the rn goes from special permit to that site plan review um because right now it's a special permit and in the ro and rld our low density districts that you would need that special permit if you want to put more than two dwelling units on that property we believe it meets that that proposal meets our goals of um removing single family only by right yeses exclusive use of yeses for single family only zones from our bylaws it gets us to having a yes for duplexes but recognizes that that's that yes is appropriate for one building not for two three four six buildings on a parcel and and that once you get above that one building we should keep the current zoning in place which is site plan review or special permit basically um so that's the condition chris is going to talk about what her proposal is for that particular teal section and non-owner occupied duplex is the only change from the previous one was in reverting back to special permit you revert back to the section of the bylaw that refers to special permits not site plan reviews so that's why that's highlighted it originally had a section 11 2 4 i think in it affordable duplexes is the same the addition is the same teal um and similar things affordable duplexes the first building we want as a yes that's one of the goals we started with in making this proposal but after that given the concerns of the planning department and our recognition and our goals um the second essentially the second building if it's dwelling units in duplexes and beyond in duplexes um would be special site plan review for rvc rg and rn which would actually match the current zoning that we have in those areas and special permit for the ro rld which would actually be stricter than the zoning we currently have in those areas for if we don't change the bylaw at all what your what your permitting pathway would be to build two three four five duplexes on a parcel and the triplex change is just that reference to the section to correct that when going back to special permit from site plan review the biggest change in conditions um is in the converted dwellings and the goal of these changes which has been supported by the planning staff um is to bring converted dwellings first of all it was a very complicated thing you'll see section five is proposed to be removed a new section four is added a couple of other conditions are added section the current section i think it's the current section five is quite confusing when you read it and it talks about percentages of adding and you can get extra additions and things like that um in in our discussions with the planning staff we really said we want what what people think of a converted dwelling and what we think of it is converting a current building to from if it's got one family in it from one to two or if it's a garage from a garage to a single unit or something like that but dealing with the building that's already on the parcel and so the goal with the changes to these conditions is to basically bring converted dwellings back to that of you're converting an existing building and that's what you're doing with conversion if you're looking to add on to an existing building an extensive amount of extra structure well you're no longer in converted building or converted dwelling you're now in a new development a duplex or a triplex and so the bulk of these changes are to bring it back make it a little more comprehensible a little more easy to follow um more standard and all of that these these were the this is the language that was requested when we talked about that by the planning staff and the building commissioner so that's why that's there and with that that is all of the changes from here as I said the Chris and Nate and Rob we thank them so much for all the work they've done with us and talking to us uh we were able to get this proposal to something that other than those questions about the permitting of more than two dwelling units duplex two dwelling units for duplexes on a parcel other than that we basically are in agreement with this proposal and I'll I'll let Pat say anything if she wants to and otherwise I think it's off to Chris to explain her request on that language no you did a great job and I like being quiet okay Pat thank you and thank you Mandy Joe Chris you want to yeah hi um so I provided a memo to the planning board highlighting the changes that Mandy Joe has just described it's it's kind of hard to listen to it and it's probably easier to go through it one by one and what I would suggest is that the planning board take the copy of the the proposal that they received in their March 1st packet and compare that to the proposal that they received in tonight's packet and then follow along with the changes that I've listed in the memo and that should help you to understand you know each one of the changes or at least maybe not understand it but at least know what it is it's kind of hard for me and others to look at a proposal and kind of try to figure out what does blue mean what does yellow mean what does red mean and all of that so anyway I'm just offering you this my rendition of what has changed since March 1st I'm not I hope it's helpful but the second part is that we have recently and I would say in the last few years had instances where we've allowed and if you're looking for the page reference Pam it's the bottom of page three where we've allowed more than one principal use on a property and I can give you examples of that at 32 North Prospect Street it is at the bottom yeah there you go at 32 North Prospect Street the zoning board of appeals allowed one single single family home to be converted to a duplex and at the same time add four townhouses to that property and it turned out to be a very nice development and it fits well in the neighborhood but it was you know really clearly scrutinized by the zoning board of appeals another one is 1147 North Pleasant Street which is Michael Holden's property up in North Amherst and what he did was he had an existing duplex and with his growing family he wanted to add a single family house to the rear of the property and the planning board actually did look at this project and make a recommendation to the zoning board of appeals and the zoning board of appeals eventually approved what was proposed and they did make a finding that adding the single family house to the property with the duplex was complementary that they were complementary uses so the zoning board also made that same finding for 32 North Prospect Street and then on 164 174 Sunset Avenue which is one that people are more familiar with since it happened fairly recently there were two different types of buildings one was a non-owner occupied duplex and the other was a three family or excuse me a three apartment buildings and three non-owner occupied duplexes and the zoning board of appeals made the finding that those two types of uses those two use categories could exist on that property and they would be complementary let's see I think there was one other example maybe not for the zoning board of appeals but there was one other example where the planning board made a similar determination um boltwood place which is that building that some people call the icebox behind old Judy's I actually think it's a nice looking building but in any event that building was proposed as a mixed use building on the same parcel as Judy's restaurant and the planning board as part of site plan review made the determination or the finding that those two uses were complementary now this was in the downtown area where density is expected it was in the PG general business owning district so the planning board made that determination through site plan review um the the concern that we have in the planning department is that there could be a proliferation of different use categories on a single parcel without benefit of a special permit review and a special permit allows the permagranting authority to deny the application if it believes that it is inappropriate for the location or that it doesn't meet some of the other criteria listed in section 10.38 of the zoning bylaw the other thing that a special permit does is it allows the abutters to appeal a decision so those are two things that make a special permit different from site plan review site plan review is basically saying we welcome this use in this particular location and we think that the only thing we need to do is help you to figure out how many parking spaces you need and how the site should be lit and you know how it should be landscaped etc but we welcome the use in this particular location and I think the planning department feels that allowing multiple buildings on a site um is something that really needs to be scrutinized carefully so we have proposed um different language from the language proposed by Mandy Jo and and Pat um they Mandy Jo and Pat have seen this language previously um and they they decided to go with with different language but in any event um our language for owner-occupied duplexes would say in the RG RBC and RN districts any development with more than two but not more than four dwelling units on a single parcel would require site plan review so in other words you could have the first duplex by yes which is we agree that that's okay um but the second duplex would require site plan review um however in the RG RBC and RN district any development that has more than four dwelling units or more than two duplexes on a single parcel would require a special permit and we think that's important because um you know it really there is an expectation of what um what zoning is going to do in in your neighborhood and you should not have um the opportunity to be completely surprised by having something that is very different from what your expectation is so a special permit really allows careful scrutiny by the zoning board it allows the zoning board to say no and it allows um neighbors to appeal if if something seems amiss um so let's see um you want to scroll on down Pam um oh okay so you can stop there in the RO and RLD districts any development with more than two dwelling units on a single parcel would require a special permit and we think that's reasonable um and then for affordable duplexes we're saying basically the same thing that we don't that we think that it is necessary to have some pretty clear control over how many units can be on a parcel there could be um you know a development say you wanted to develop under the proposal that is being put forth by the proponents you could have a situation where you have um affordable duplexes and you could have any number of them on a parcel as long as you met the um the dimensional requirements you could have any number of them on the parcel by site plan review and the planning board usually doesn't deny an application as long as the application meets the dimensional requirements um and meets the other criteria of the zoning bylaw it usually grants the permit it's very rare for the planning board to deny a permit and usually that would be because the applicant hadn't provided the information that was necessary or was clearly in violation of some particular requirement of the zoning bylaw so we really feel that in order to control the number of units even though we all love affordable units and we all want to have more of them we're just concerned that we don't run a proliferation of more than um an appropriate number of units on a on a property and and Mandy Joe has brought up the issue that um well it's already allowed in some districts by site plan review well I think that's an unintended consequence of a decision that was made a long time ago to allow owner occupied duplexes by site plan review rather than special permit in certain districts um I don't say that decision was um misguided but what is what was unknown or an unintended consequence is that later on years later um there would be a new interpretation of the zoning bylaw which would allow um multiple uses on a property um if they were determined to be complementary so it's kind of um it's a correction now that we know that we can have more than one building or one use category on a property this is an attempt to correct the idea that then you could have any number of dwelling units on a property as long as you had site plan review so I guess that's all I have to say for now but our recommendation is that you you know have your discussion and you hear from the public and then take a chance to um review this memo so that you really understand what the changes are from March 1st and I must say along with Mandy and Pat that it was um it was a good process that we went through and we did resolve many of our issues and I think this is the lingering issue that we have but that you don't make a decision tonight to um you know recommend or not recommend this proposal but that you think about it and come back and continue your public hearing come back maybe May 3rd or May 17th whenever you feel that you will be ready to vote on this because this is an important um proposal it's an important change in our zoning bylaw it will really allow more dwelling units to be built in town and that's a good thing but we want to be able to control them and control where they go carefully so that's that's all I have to say thank you okay thank you Chris uh board members does anybody have questions they want to ask this evening um as as Chris mentioned I think I'm hoping that we will continue this meeting to a date in May and uh during that you know in in between will we each have a chance to sit down with the all the documents and review this on our own Andrew um I did if you don't mind Doug I did have a question about the design standards in section 3.321 do you mind if I just ask that um which is it you know it mentions if yeah I'll say this I think you know feedback we've heard from letters that are been written in and things that we've talked about here as well is that we want to make sure we have design standards in place there's a great interest in having design standards in place and just the language here it just it it makes it seem like this is premature so if we come up with rules we'll apply them why not wait to see if we come up with rules first and then have language that's definitive right so it says you know if adopted in rules and regulations of the permit granting board they shall be applied why don't we let that process play itself out and then modify the language based on outcomes of that okay Andrew um you know my suspicion is that this is an attempt to avoid having to go back and change the language later and just save a you know sort of procedural another round of procedural things but I uh Mandy Jo or Chris or Pat does anybody any of you want to give your opinion and you know better why this was put in this way um shall I call on you Mandy Jo I think Chris might have a better answer than I or Pat okay all right we'll we'll turn to Chris so right now we have a reference to design standards that are in the design review section of the bylaw those standards really relate more to either a downtown or a village center than they do to you know rural or semi-rural residential development and so we think it's important if we're going to have a lot of multi-family two family three family townhouses whatever um that there be some design standards particularly with regard to two family so right now two family houses need to adhere to um or the board who reviews them is is asked to look at the design standards that the design review board looks at we're saying you need to come up with design standards that really relate more to residential dwellings than downtown and um so we intend to get those design standards on the books but we don't have them yet so it would it would involve the planning board and the zoning board of appeals coming up with design standards and hopefully they'd come up with the same because we would work with both groups um part of the reason for putting this in is because um in some cases we might face a situation where the building commissioner was involved with um approving things I guess not in the case of two yeah in the case of two family if we're saying two family dwellings are a yes in all districts then who approves them the building commissioner approves them so we wanted to give the building commissioner some um guidance as far as what kinds of design standards he could look at and discuss with an applicant and not have the applicant say well you don't have any authority to talk about the design of this building with me um so this would give the uh building commissioner as well as the as well as the planning board and the zoning board of appeals the ability to use these design standards so we think it's an important addition the fact that we don't have these written right now you know we're saying well we'll write them soon and we don't think that's a fatal flaw in this proposal so I guess that's that's all I have to say about that I guess if we and thank you for the clarification I guess if we think we're gonna write it soon then why not wait right to me the again the way it's written it seems like there's now there'll be an open window where you know this goes into effect things can happen without having design standards in place um again if we think it's gonna happen soon I would I would say let's let that happen and then we can have some very clear language in the the the zoning because otherwise I mean this might exist for the next 15 or 20 years right with that same language in place seems like an opportunity to address concerns we're getting from citizens as well as have language that's that's clean and concise so that would be my proposal or my recommendation is that we don't uh we we wouldn't use language like that and we would prioritize the design standards so that we could have this be clean thanks all right thanks Andrew Chris did you want to say anything else I think um part of this was a response to um Andy Joe and Pat um thinking that duplexes particularly owner-occupied duplexes should be treated um in a way that's similar to single-family homes and that um they didn't think that design standards would necessarily be appropriate because single-family homes aren't required to adhere to any design standards and so but we felt that it that we in the planning department felt that it was important so this is how we arrived at um a compromise that we would come up with design standards that were suitable for two-family homes and so this is what we came up with but we don't have them written now so that's it and am I right that the town council would have to adopt those if they were drafted by the town council would not have to adopt them the planning board and the zoning board of appeals would adopt them because they would be embedded in the rules and regulations rather than in um zoning okay all right so at the moment the way it's written we on the board could adopt some standards and implement them kind of over the objection it sounds like of Mandy Joe and Pat who really didn't want standards to be part of the process of doing a duplex as of right is that accurate I think that's accurate but they can speak for themselves I'm not you know I just want to be sure I understand it Mandy Joe I see your hand yeah I would say it's not quite accurate because what we're presenting here includes this ability right and so while um yes our initial proposal indicated we had removed design standards for specific reasons particularly that single-family homes don't have them and we would like particularly owner-occupied and affordable duplexes to be treated similarly to single-family homes through our conversations with the planning staff and the building commissioner as you see we have added this language in so I I don't think it's accurate anymore to say over objection um you know we have put this language in as a compromise we have worked really hard to get to a compromise proposal and a proposal that both Pat and I and the planning staff and building commissioner could get behind and as I said the only thing that we haven't quite been able to reach an agreement on is that one part that's in teal in the two sections where Pat and I wanted to just hear what the planning board thought on those sections all right thank you uh Bruce you want to go next uh yes I will I've got a couple of things Doug the first I think I generally agree with Andrew I think that on the subject of design standards and I know I imagine Hilda will have something to say on this as well so we can look forward to that because I read her piece and I think she's got some interesting experience here but it seems to me that as we are moving towards increasing the density in some of these older parts of towns particularly that having design standards is a good idea and whether it starts with duplexes or try or triplexes or even if it's if it's brought in to give some guidance and assistance to a single family I don't know but some some kind of assistance as we in pre-stensity by having some design standards I think it's a good idea and I would say its reference in here is probably a good as a kind of a driver or providing impetus for us to do that as I say I agree with Andrew that that it makes sense to me that we would do those first and then we would adopt this or whatever form of this it seems to me that this whole set of proposals on zoning changes is what we should expect should take some time I think many Joe a month ago said that or mentioned that the the rental viral revision has taken a year and this seems to be vastly more complicated than that although I can say I studied the you know I haven't I haven't attended the CRC meetings on that so but still this is complicated and so we should expect that this might take some time the second thing I want to say is more actually on that is that this is a very wide-ranging broad sweeping set of proposals that involves three or four residential types over I don't know six or eight or 10 zoning districts so you you get a sell or a matrix of 30 plus or minus individual cases and I'm just finding that this is impossible for us to consider these this whole package simultaneously I think it's just beyond it's beyond my abilities to do this intelligently and when we meet once every couple of weeks usually not even face to face so I would suggest that as we move forward that we consider breaking this up and so for example considering duplexes and triflexes maybe in certain zones but certainly doing the duplex-triplex consideration doing that completing that and then moving on say to the townhouse similarly maybe in sequences across in certain bundles of zoning districts as opposed to all of them at once and then finally the more complex of the three the converter dwelling and if we were to be able to focus quite into a series of I don't know six or eight topics dispatch one before we begin another we can register that some of the conversation in parcel or at least a topic area one might relatively might usually inform something future in townhouses and we can create and make a note to make sure we don't forget to bring that up at the appropriate time but from my point of view I think then I could actually imagine coming to some court of useful conclusion on this but otherwise I'm just going to be asking for continuations and nausea okay thanks Bruce Mandy Joe I saw your hand go up during that I'm going to call on you before we get to Janet yeah I just wanted to say the the issue of adopting design guidelines through rules and regulations before a zoning bylaw is amended I would I would caution that the boards are only allowed to adopt rules and regulations as enabled by legislation whether that be state legislation or zoning bylaw legislation and it can only be adopted within the scope of the enabling legislation and I don't know whether design guidelines right now are enabled under any legislation to be adopted by rules and ranks and so unless this amendment is adopted or until such amendment is adopted the permit granting authorities may not legally be able to adopt design guidelines through rules and regulations and so the revision that enables the adoption through rules and regulations legally might have to happen before any rules and regulations that include design guidelines are actually adopted okay thanks it sounds like that's that's what you think is the case so we're not really sure but it also sounds like if we really wanted to have them in place essentially simultaneously you know we could get them all ready to go and you know five minutes after the zoning was approved we could adopt the the design guidelines which you know since so okay all right uh Janet you're you're the remaining hand at the moment thank you um I appreciate the changes in the amount of work this is taking I I want to echo like everybody's comment so far is I actually feel really lost and so when we're talking about the design guidelines when I looked at the first page of the most recent revision I thought that all duplexes and triplexes had to follow the design guidelines in 3.204 and so there wouldn't be any difference regardless of who's occupying or not occupying and so that just is completely unclear to me why that extra like why we're waiting to adopt design guidelines I just I'm lost there but I also know that the master plan says like at least 16 times that we should adopt design guidelines first before increasing density and a lot of what happens in this zoning amendment is an increase in density in the RN the RO and the RLD and the RG and so I think we just have to bite the bullet and adopt some design guidelines and I think they should be uniform across all multifamily housing I'm happy to throw single family housing into that I would adopt the guidelines in 3.204 and just had them applied by anybody so that's again that so that's my first comment but I'm just I'm in a struggle to understand this the changes on the changes but also you know this creates a triplex and we already have triplexes in the bylaw they could be converted dwellings or it could be a subdividable dwellings and both the converted dwellings and subdividable dwellings add extra conditions that get strict stripped away for triplexes in in here and then you could have a converted dwelling it's a triplex and it's going to have different conditions than the triplex that you've created and then you know you can have a triplex I mean it's just really confusing to me like we're adding triplexes well you know it's like you go into different zoning districts and different types of housing and multi-using and they're all sort of treated differently and I I'm struggling to explain it and I can sort of sit down and say your increase you know but I don't know how to take this all as a piece so if we have a triplex that's a converted dwelling it's going to be different than a triplex it's built as a triplex and for some reason we've dumped some dividable dwellings which are triplexes and are permitted in certain districts and not and then also we're changing where they can go or what permit they go and I have no idea why so I didn't know how to I'm in the Bruce camp of like I don't know how to approach this um you know I could write a long thing about all these different things I see but I don't know how we talk about it in a meeting that hopefully does go into 17 hours and then also this is a public hearing and it's for the public to understand the zoning amendment and to respond to it and so my I feel like if I'm struggling and Bruce is struggling I assume other people might be struggling I don't know how the members of the public would ever kind of grasp this um and so you know I and so basically I'm just I'm just struggling I don't understand why there's increases in density in this bylaw in the RO the RLD the RG and RN and do we want that like what is the density increase what does it look like on the ground and do we want that um and we need to know what those numbers are and why they happen and then you know if we telescope back and just say the framework is that your goal for the zoning amendments which is incredibly laudable which is to increase housing for low and middle income people year-round residents is probably not going to happen because we know that most of the new housing in Amherst has either been extremely at the high end or its student housing which is also at the high end or very high rental prices and the people who can afford to build or convert or add by build a triple X are going to be probably wealthy developers who are looking to maximize their investments and so um you know so I just I just think we're not going to get there and that that was kind of the conclusion or the thoughts of a lot of people at the last meeting and I still don't see how this very complicated series of changes which are extremely difficult to understand and we're not able to talk like about I would love to track converted dwellings I'd like to talk about subdividable dwellings I'd like to talk about what happens the RO and RLD why some density is allowed in one form of a building but not um or previously you weren't allowed to build it and now you can but I also just um I don't think we're going to you know we can spend weeks and years on this but will we achieve the goal of more housing for low and middle income people like for just regular folk and the answer is probably no because we have this huge intense student demand and that's not being addressed and there might be ways to limit the new housing say 50 percent of the occupancy has to be non-students um you know there might be ways to limit that but they're not here and without them being here there's no there's no real controls I will stop talking thank you Mandy uh your hand went up again yeah um perplexes right now they're permitted currently under the current zoning under townhouses and apartments and I guess converted dwellings can be converted to a three-family building so they're currently under three different depending on how you look at it three different uses with three different sets of conditions as Janet said our proposal creates a new triplex category which removes triplexes from the townhouse and apartments and adds a new use category and under the converted dwelling category which you know can still create a three family or a four family or in some business areas a six family up to a six family it actually changes to require the conditions under whichever use it's going to end up most closely related to so if it's going to go to a three family it would require under our proposal that all of the conditions under the triplex use be enforced under the converted dwelling so in actuality our proposal combines and makes more uniform the conditions required for all three families and all two families because it would require under conversion from a single family to a two family even though the use category is under converted dwelling the conditions required under the proposal we've made would require that all of the conditions of duplex be followed and so we're trying to make it so that all three family buildings in town have the same conditions and all owner non-owner occupied duplexes no matter whether done through a converted dwelling or the non-owner occupied duplex use category have the same conditions so I just wanted to indicate that to clear up that confusion thank you mandy joe um caron you were the next hand i'm sorry janet so could i respond to that because i to talk about to stay on one topic for a bit about this so in converted dwellings in subdividable dwellings there's all sorts of extra conditions that are stripped away by moving them into triplex and why and so do we know what we've lost by moving you know a converted dwelling or a subdividable dwelling which is a triplex we've taken away all sorts of extra conditions um you know that you know like in terms of changes to exterior the limits of you know additional um extra square footage per extra unit um you know it has to be on a you know a busy way or i mean there's all these different things and you know there's pay there's lines and lines of xed out conditions that would be attached or limits be attached to subdividable dwellings and converted dwellings and so there's a huge loss there so okay that's the question so first of all we're proposing an elimination of subdividable dwellings as a use category completely at the request of the building commissioner um so that would not be a category anymore um as for converted dwellings yes there are some conditions i think you're talking about this condition five about involved demolition and removal of an existing structure that's currently there that is newly proposed for removal is that correct janet is that the one you're referencing well there's pages there's like two pages of conditions and then why are you getting rid of subdividable dwellings just because the building commissioner said i mean that that's what i'm saying is that that level of conversation needs to take place with the board do we want to get rid of the restrictions and the limits on these two types of multifamily housing um well that that'll certainly be part of the you know the deliberation that each of us will have as we review this so you know if there's things in this proposal that you object to then you know they'll have to be balanced against maybe there's some of the things that you like so at the moment we have to consider it as a whole but do we understand it well i guess we'll all find out as we get as we dive into it mean you know to the extent we do we understand our own zoning bylaw already you know this isn't doesn't seem all that more complicated than what we've already got well let's go through converted dwellings you a resident manager or owner occupied heavily you had to be in a heavily traffic street close to businesses um it was just there's paid there's like two pages of conditions and they're clearly proposing that those those be eliminated and that we follow the if it's a triplex that's being converted then we follow the rules in the triplex and so that's a change yes and so do we understand that does the public understand it to the board members do we agree with that isn't that the discussion that we need to know in depth and and also it depends we're just opening the conversation tonight i mean i'm i'm not prepared to say i understand every bit of this yet okay car and so and actually after car and we're going to take our eight o'clock break okay i mean this this almost seems to me watching from like it could be a saturday night life skit because i totally agree with bruce in order to go forward we have to take this one thing at a time uh mandy you impressed me with your intelligence how you're bringing this and that but i can't follow that i can't go from this to that to that to that like that even studying it for hours i it's it's too complex it's too broad to make progress take one thing and discuss that the changes and stick with that in these residents areas that are also broad then we can move forward incrementally otherwise i agree with bruce i'm just going to keep moving it down the line because it's uh it's like a algebra 204 to end it with many consequences so um that that's my proposal okay thanks caron all right so that was the last hand from the board we will we will take a five minute break now i'm seeing that the clock says 818 so if you can all turn off your camera mute yourself and come back at 823 we will resume the conversation um and most likely go to public comment so those members of the public that are uh attending and want to make a comment about this topic uh be ready with your comments when we return thank you okay board members if any of you are waiting behind your dark screen to come on back and let us know that you're here time is 823 and we can resume the meeting when everybody's back at the moment i only see pam field saddler i do see chris now okay okay i see caron i see bruce bruce i see your hand up i just wanted to make a short statement before the public uh hearing let's wait for andrew and then yeah and we'll resume after i tell you what time it is when we resume i'm here okay andrew you're back all right you got you got yourself a snack i can see okay uh mr marshal do you know um i just want to recognize that yohanna newman is not with us yes i did notice that uh i can't remember at what time i noticed okay yeah so we'll probably have to go back to the recording and find that thank you for pointing that out sure okay so the time is 825 and i see everybody back so bruce you wanted to say something it's just briefly i mean i think some people might be thinking why is the board giving so much time to uh proposal from essentially two private citizens it's the mandage joan padd have been clear but it's not coming from the crc it's coming from them and uh and why is the planning board uh uh committing so much time to two public citizens well my answer to that folks who've raised with me has been uh here's two people who put in a tremendous amount of work and i think it deserves our reflection um and finally i'm reminded perhaps of the most heroic example of this in my experience in town there's peter kitchell who pretty much drove the parking garage through town meeting all by himself i mean initially so this is not without precedent is what i'm saying and and i think it might be helpful for folks who are wondering whether there's some special uh uh dispensation that's given to counselors to free range i i'm choosing not to consider that at all i i'm i'm looking at two people who have decided to put a great deal of time and effort into this and i'm thinking we've got another peter kitchell okay thanks bruce hat i see your hand yeah i just have a very short statement to make uh there is a housing crisis and in amherst and that's part of what's driving it and we're looking you're the planning board and you're throwing your hands up about zoning that is incredibly complicated and i think what mandy joe has done and is doing um and and and and really expresses trying to simplify and um level the system in some way infill development is critically important to address the housing crisis capitalism is its own problem and unless we have rent control and things like that you know more power to michelle will uh we we have real problems in this town what i see is a lot of fear and not just in this group but in terms of the community at large and i really really want us to take some risks to address issues of need for housing in this town and and do you know that's enough for now okay thank you pat all right um janet do you absolutely need to say this whatever it is before we have some public comment i kind of do um first of all i'm not afraid of change and i don't have any fear um but i i do think we need to talk as a board about how we go forward and what's our plan to how to address this very complicated proposal and so and for our own sakes and for the sake of our recommendation and also just help the public understand it too or to dig into it so i'm not sure what the next four but that's just seems like we're i need to see where we're going or how we're gonna do it all right okay thank you thank you all all right at this point we have 14 members of the public that are attending and i'm ready for public comment from them so please put your hand up if you would like to make a comment so far i see three hands pam interestingly enough your timer is has a mirror image i don't know how you did that time's up pam i think we can we can keep track of it that way but are you sure quite a trick i don't know how you did that so i see four hands from the public and if there are others that would like to put their hand up i'm interested to know if all you know 14 of you want to make a comment or if there's really only four of you and at this point we're up to six seven and the more you know i think maybe we'll start with two minutes rather than three minutes pam if you can uh put up two minutes rather than three on your timer great okay we'll start with we hold a green house green bomb uh come on over and give us your name and your your address and please keep your comments to two minutes if if we get through this pretty quickly we can come back and have some more comments from the public but i'd like to start with uh two minutes and i think Pam's going to bring you over yeah here she is hello okay thank you for unmuting me um i want to really thank the planning board for all of the time they're putting into this because this project is taking a considerable amount of time from very busy very intelligent people and i really appreciate being heard and i mentioned bruce and i mentioned andrew particularly for having read my memo and understood what i was saying um a very quick note that you need to be aware of is that there is does not seem to be from my experience any market for these owner-occupied duplexes for the various reasons that chris has already brought up and others and so the regulations of duplexes should be taken as a category because chances are 99 out of 100 they're going to get converted to non-unoccupied and then the last thing i want to say very very quickly is this is way too premature there is no consensus yet that we need this kind of massive zoning change that are being proposed by two people i'm sorry to have to say this who have had no practical on-the-ground experience with any kind of permitting and don't really know the real estate market in this town and don't really know other than hear say what what's going on with the rental market and so i think what we really need to do is do what it's been on the books for a while moneyed having been appropriated for a consultant that we need to bring in somebody like Dodson and Flinker which Northampton did and build consensus so that we can put in if we want to make massive zoning changes put in what people can agree to rather than having something imposed on us that nobody understands and so i just plead that when it comes back and watch try to find a way of consultants coming in like in Northampton over a period of time meet with the groups of people or the public have multiple and come up with a proposal that we can live with thank you okay and the next person with their hand up is uh fred fredrick hartwell hello mr hartwell please give us your name and your address you are muted let's see if we can unmute you no i have to ask you to unmute so uh there you are can you hear me now yes indeed yes excellent the last time i couldn't get my mic to work so now i'm here good yeah i want to talk about subdividable dwellings could you could you give us your address before yes certainly 60 north whitney street in amherst okay thank you in 1868 victorian and i want to yeah subdividable dwellings the concept that i created the last time i was on the planning board actually so i i actually wrote this and i live in a building that if i were starting over i would have approached the permitting authorities for permission to do that it has enabled me to stay in a building for over 50 years and i've raised four children at various times i have taken over parts of the building and included them into my dwelling and then subsequently redivided the building back to its more original layout it has allowed me now on a fixed income to have a stable uh rental income that is not only stable and significant it is also tax advantage there are huge advantages to this people don't generally understand this and uh but please don't remove it because it makes all kinds of sense and it will promote uh stability in neighborhoods thank you okay thank you very much uh the next person we have is janet keller hello janet please give us your name and your address and you've got two minutes sure janet keller 120 pulpit hill road um i live in the co-housing here um it's a planned unit development that was a 40b um and it's wonderful uh so um the the proponents say this will make housing more affordable but there isn't any evidence to support this claim and instead um despite lots of zoning changes that have loosened requirements uh only those with high incomes can even afford to rent here let alone to buy and begin to build some of that equity that could be a cushion for all kinds of emergencies in their lives and in their uh older years um and worse still the proposal would further weaken critical protection such as planning and zoning board hearings and a butters notices um removing these protections would make it impossible for our butters to even know about plan changes let alone request improvements in development proposals or change a decision of the permitting authority and as noted uh previously the these proposals are enormously complex small type um impossible i've spent days um trying to prepare for this hearing and i still feel very unprepared but my final thing that i want to point out and basically beg you to consider is the only type of zoning that has actually produced affordable housing in amherst is article 15 the inclusionary zoning that requires builders to reserve 12 of the housing in each project um with more than nine units for affordable rental or ownership units um and it works um and i could cite numbers numbers of of uh projects but um i'll just make one that there will be 11 affordable units and i think you need to stop let me just finish the sentence at the building under construction at east pleasant street downtown that wouldn't happen without um updating article 15 thank you okay thank you all right our next person um i believe it's heady startup oh it's susanna must prod is what i oh i'm sorry yes you're right yeah yes susanna hello susanna must prod 38 north prospect street counselor d angela said we have a housing crisis in amherst and i would just like to say that we have a housing crisis in amherst that's largely driven by student demand for housing and i would like to see you all concentrating first on how we're going to deal with this issue of the pressure that's the demand from students is putting on the whole housing picture in town before you get into adjusting the zoning chris breaster on march first said that she didn't think the proposal was going to solve the problem you set out to solve of making housing that's affordable for low and middle income people and i think until you do something about the student housing issue um and relieve that pressure to some degree uh it's even more hopeless to think that any number of zoning changes is going to accomplish the overall goal so even mandi joe i think has said recently that we need to deal with the student uh situation whether it should be a district for students or regulating how many students can be next to how many non-students or whatever we should be looking at what other university towns have tried and see what works and uh other people not maybe not the planning board should be talking to the university the students themselves are now protesting and staying intense so let's tackle that and then get on to how do you make the housing that is here more affordable for the uh workers and uh families we'd like to have here year round thank you thank you susanna okay now we now we have miss startup please give us your name and your street address hello Doug and everyone on the planning board and fellow members of the public sorry to um dive in earlier in the meeting i didn't mean to do that but it was just following the agenda um so uh thank you mandi joe and pat for this document and also to chris for her um thoughts about it and uh i was very happy to share the covid memorial um event with pat and i play and sing music with mandi joe so um what i'm going to say really comes more from me as a citizen living in amist rather than being a member of the amist historical commission and while i was while i have been on the commission i did for a while attend some of the design review board meetings so i've been privy to some of the discussions about i think it's 160 or 180 fearing street where i felt there were some really good mechanisms in place to come out of that process with the developer who was fantastic to to kind of end up with something that was going to provide um hopefully some affordable housing i i know we're going to we are going to have to de-dance of we're going to have to densify in town and around the village centers um i know we have an affordable housing crisis but i just think that in this particular instance we're putting the cart before the horse i really want to echo what Bruce and andrew said about design design standards um towns like ours brookline north hampton um conquered massachusetts these are places that i think of as commensurate with amist historically um and i think they've taken the a different approach which is to look at their very substantial historic fabric and then build some design standards in place and then kind of tackle all of these um additional issues um as that happens thank you okay thank you very much all right uh next person is john varner welcome john oops where did he go did we lose him here he is or this is john w which yeah yeah no i don't have any comment on this section yeah um there's there's john varner okay uh john varner 54 jeffrey lane yeah i would also agree that the proposal is way too complex i'd encourage that it be broken into pieces and and um introduced in stages uh considered in stages and uh i would also say that the proposal's lack of oversight around or loosening of oversight around some conversions uh sort of it means that butters will not have as much input into what goes on and what will affect their day-to-day lives and their property values and i think the town has a duty to protect um people in neighborhoods where changes are happening uh certainly the housing crisis in Amherst is related to student housing uh needs distorting the real estate market here in town and yet the the town seems reluctant to get adequate data on student housing where students are going how how dense they are infiltrating infiltrating neighborhoods and any kind of behavioral or uh societal problems that that they are bringing with them into the neighborhoods Amherst is not collecting that data so it's hard to evaluate the effects of students expanding into the general population is i would encourage that the the town get more serious about collecting that kind of data and that's all i have to say thanks okay thank you very much and our last hand is from uh elizabeth virling hello elizabeth please give us your street address as you start hi hi all um elizabeth virling at 36 cotter street and not to beat a dead horse but um i did want to say that i do greatly appreciate the intention of the proponents of the bylaw changes to increase housing which is clearly needed um however as we know the housing crisis and availability and causes state and nationwide and these even a priority of our new governor however as stated by other people this evening the crisis in amherst is overlaid um on this crisis is the pressure of over 10 000 students wanting to live near u.s. amherst and so as others have said until the town really deals with this issue i don't think any amount of zoning bylaw changes will bring us the kind of housing that is desired so to me these changes do not get to the main issue of the amherst housing crisis and i would like to see the same amount of time and energy that has been spent on all this discussion of zoning changes spent on understanding how to deal with the very real need for nice student housing for massive student housing which is the main driver as stated by others of the amherst housing market thank you okay thank you elizabeth uh i see another hand it's uh freddy manning welcome to our meeting freddy if you'd give us your street address before you start and you have two minutes freddy you'll need to unmute yourself there you are i live at 61 fearing street that is at the corner of fearing and nutting avenue um i just want to quickly describe the situation that has happened immediately you know in recent weeks the property diagonally across fearing street from me has been purchased by a developer um it has we have had a very wonderful family who has lived there since the purchase which happened i think last fall and i have just learned that the rent has been raised so much on the house that is on the property that the family is going to have to move that is very disappointing because that means that the developer is going to go ahead and and raise the rents to a point where no family can can afford them i have lived here for 50 years you may ask why i stayed in this house it's a wonderful neighborhood i am surrounded on all sides by permanent renters um and i have it's been a wonderful place to live but it's not going to sustain itself in this condition or if if it becomes more populated by unregulated student housing i love the students i go out on the sidewalk and i talk with them daily i have you know it's it's a very lively environment that i love and i would like you to all know that we do not dislike students in this area i'm very very fond of the the energy and the life that they bring to it and um i i would hope that you could somehow figure out a way to to honor the permanent residents and make life livable for them going forward without just thinking that it's fine to cram in a whole lot of student housing into this neighborhood thank you okay thank you freddie um elizabeth i see your hand is that a legacy elizabeth virling you'll need to unmute if you want to speak again elizabeth are you there okay pam why don't we put her back in the attendees and um maybe she that was just a legacy hand okay okay so let's see let's come back to the board um i wanted to since i hadn't made any comments i wanted to just make sure of one thing that i understand about the two competing clauses that are uh not yet sort of come to consensus about so i i own a single family home in the rg district and um it's my understanding that if my parcel were large enough under the proposed language that's in aqua i could as of right put a second unit on my parcel so i'd have two parcel i'd have a duplex i guess if i added on to my house and um but if i put more than two units then i would need to do a site plan review and if my parcel were large enough to put 10 more units i could still do that as of right with a site plan review so that's that's my understanding of the language proposed by Mandy joe and pat um and then if i went with the language that uh chris was suggesting it sounded like let's see it sounded like i could right now as of right put up two more units i could put a duplex on my parcel uh as of right but if i wanted to put more uh i'd have to do a site plan review and um maybe let's see i'm i've lost the language there but uh but yeah so i could do i could do a total of three without doing okay so i know i'm wrong so i could do two with i could do three with site plan review i could do one now as of right the second one would be site plan review and then chris's language would after three i would need to go to special permit so is that i'm sorry for the confusion there but it sounds was that basically accurate um Mandy joe and chris i see your hands Mandy joe why don't you start um basically accurate i i would um say that yes in the rg um if the the difference in the rg rvc and rn between chris's proposal um and pat and i's proposal the only difference is in the rg rvc and rn and the only difference is when you get above four dwelling units on a parcel yeah pat and i are proposing that that remain site plan review in the rn rvc and rg um as it is actually in the rvc rn rvc and rg currently today in the rn it's its special permit um and chris's proposal is that when you get above four dwelling units on the parcel you need a special permit um that is the sole difference between the two proposals there's some different language chris i think put all three sentences in um we have two sentences um but the third sentence of chris's sentence is actually the same as our second sentence the rorld there's no difference in that proposal at all in the rorld um i would mention though currently with owner occupied and this is only owner occupied duplexes and affordable duplexes not owner occupied duplexes are back to what the current zoning is special permit um i would also mention that the current zoning for owner occupied duplexes for example um has the language for an owner occupied duplexes one or uh or both of the dwelling units serve as a principal residents it's unclear whether that means if four buildings are built only one of them needs owner occupied our proposal is requiring um that it clarifies that to say each building must have an owner occupant in it um and so dug when you're talking about if i were to build two more duplexes on my rg property and all site plan reviewer special permit well both of those duplexes to fall under the yes slash site plan review would need to have owner occupants in them okay so i have to otherwise they would fall under the non owner occupied duplex and by default be a special permit okay so i'd have to send sarah to one and my daughter do another or i'll side spend uh you know monday tuesday and one wednesday thursday and another and we we rotate um which may not even be allowed chris did you want to say something on a more serious note yeah i just wanted to say that um i'm imagining that a developer could take advantage of this and build um a development that contained owner occupied duplexes as many as you can fit on the property and condoize them and so you'd have a condominium um development and it would probably have a homeowner's um what do you call it homeowner's association but in any event it's larger than anything that has previously been contemplated for this type of development for um buy site plan review and i think it is a an oversight um in my language i'm proposing to correct what i think is a negative oversight that might currently allow numerous innumerable owner occupied duplexes on a property buy site plan review i think that's the wrong thing i think that we didn't intend it that way to begin with when we created owner occupied duplexes we never contemplated that there would be more than one on a property and this is a new interpretation of the bylaw so my language corrects that what i think is um is is an error okay thank you great all right so i see i'm seeing hands uh popping up from more board members um i will note that it's now nine o'clock um and you know we could we could go for hours tonight if everybody's got the energy um but i personally don't think i'm gonna have the energy so we we you know let's kind of all think about when do we want to stop uh for tonight and we can somebody can prepare a motion maybe better than i did earlier uh that uh that we continue this hearing to some point in may and chris i know you gave us a couple of dates to think about um so okay with that uh at the moment i just see bruce and janet so bruce why don't you go ahead Doug you read my mind um i uh given that uh much of the material that we've been considering tonight we only received hours before the meeting um i would move that uh we continue this uh uh um hearings to whatever the date is insert and that at the continuation we uh deliberate on the duplex triplex section of the proposition in uh in a selected uh zoning districts and and i would say selected zoning districts because i'm thinking perhaps not all of them maybe it would be all of them but i'd like to give i'd like you as the board chair and to give some thought as to whether we would uh uh continue the meeting on the duplex triplex question in a in a discrete uh bundle of zoning districts but i would the motion would suggest that you make that decision as chair okay so i think there was a more concise motion in there yes i'll say it again do you actually want to make the motion now or do you want to hear from janet and then we'll come back to the motion well we can still hear from janet okay let's hear from janet then then the motion can be uh so great so we will come back janet um i i agree with bruce and i'd like to talk i want to figure out some way that we talk about this in kind of a logical sectional like ways of sections but to me when you say triplex or triplexes we also have to talk about converted dwellings and subdividable dwellings because those are three forms of those are two other forms of triplexes that are being changed and so i think we have to see how they work against each other or what's what are we losing and so it might be just columns and like subdividable dwellings has this converted dwellings requires this triplex i just need some logical way of talking about things and then realizing how things play out differently in different districts and so it's like this is like a game of like it's like we're jumped into one of those kids things where there's just a whole bunch of balls and we're just jumping around and they're all moving around and these things all you know these changes every single change connects to other parts of the bylaw and the changes themselves and so i feel like i need some way to talk about things and if you're going to talk about triplexes i want to talk about converted dwellings and and um why we've gotten rid of subdividable or can we take some of the good qualities of subdividable and bring it over and so i just feel like i need some coherent path or some discussion that's really tightly to you know honed i'll take that as a friendly amendment and i'll move that we continue this meeting to the date the crystal insert well we had may third or may 17th as the proposals for the possible dates given the amount of conversation about this i you know i'm going to suggest that we go to may third so that we can keep this moving along it continued to to uh times on may third and that we continue the discussion uh focused solely on the duplex would you be okay with changing solely to with a focus on the duplex yes you know it's going to be intent the intent is to give you the power to guide the conversation in in a in a in a much more discrete and channeled topic area so it's really this this this is intended to give you power to to help us do that job all right does anybody want to second that i see janet's hand i saw that a moment before andrew's hand okay i'll second that could we also have some information about like how many duplexes we have and you know is it a popular thing lately things like that something i don't know chris is that something that we actually track as data that's easily retrieved or would that involve a lot of staff time to understand the population of duplexes in town you are muted there you go i can ask the building commissioner if he has an easy way of figuring that out all right we have a motion on the table mr marge could you restate that motion i'll take i'll take a pass at it i believe that bruce made a motion that we continue the hearing to may third i'll i'll put in 635 just in case there's nothing on the agenda yet and at that meeting we focus our conversation on duplexes the portion of this proposal that addresses duplexes and you know okay bruce i know you were interested in also limiting the number of zoning areas not so much now that we've narrowed the the house the the the dwelling type with duplexes wherever they were discussed yes and and i was only intending that we might consider to narrow the the districts to give you the power to do that so if you don't want that then it doesn't matter yeah um you know i think i mean personally i'm not as concerned about breaking this up so oh okay if you want to if you know if people want to just limit us to duplexes uh for next time as the kind of area that we can study on you know we'll uh we can do that um assuming everybody wants to go that way um so that's the motions okay uh pam does that it does get there reasonably well yes thank you um so where did we land on the duplex was that you know for class for next time we read the chapter on duplexes not the chapter on townhouses or triplexes or whatever else and we will have a class discussion about duplexes the other stuff can be extra credit i mean i i do think we let's we should have something that we're focused on so we can try to get some stuff checked out the box okay sounds great all right um i have a question that i wanted to ask mandy joe and pat um and and because i came at this whole thing in a different sort of philosophical lens you talked about the housing crisis in town i come at this from the point of view of the climate crisis and the fact that we use too much energy moving around to get to the things we need to get to and so i've always felt like we would be better off not increasing the density of outlying parts of town that are not served by public transit and that we should be building up along our main routes probably around the university areas that people can access public transportation use a bicycle or walk to their primary destinations and not be increasing the density in outlying areas why should i not follow that path uh mandy joe or pat you could do you have an answer to that so i wouldn't say we're not following that path with the most recent draft i think you'll notice i i believe the packet includes revision five of our flow chart for uses that puts all of the um proposed changes and and even non-proposed changes right all of the use categories with all of the permitting pathways in one page um and when you look at that with the most recent draft you'll notice that most of the changes in permitting pathways are now focused on the rn rvc and rg which are those more dense areas of town you'll notice that really the only changes in the ro and rld having listened to concerns and worked with the the planning staff and all are some removal of nose or some changes in permittings in the aquifer recharge um but then the yeses of the duplexes that that triplexes are no longer you know are not a proposed use category allowable use in the ro rld anymore um townhouses are not a proposed allowable use that it's not right now and we've reverted back to the current zoning in that um converted dwellings are still a special permit that's what the current zoning is although we've changed some of the aquifer recharge protection areas um so you know i i would say to your concern dug um we brought the focus more closely to both uh the increasing the opportunities for housing um and potentially owner occupied and affordable housings um in some areas but now many of the permit pathway changes are focused in the more dense areas of town okay thank you uh karin um i i applaud moving ahead on this in a kind of a concise breaking it up so that we can understand it and make some decisions and not get stymied with the whole thing um but i also think that we have to listen to the people that have called in we can't just focus meeting after meeting on these um zoning changes they've asked us again and again to deal with the student housing problem and i'd like to see that on the agenda too how are we going to um deal with the university in perhaps a more forceful way having or or in a way that we consult with them more so that they can use some of their land they have vast amounts of lands that they can access from 116 for example to provide the kind of housing that the students are demanding and asking for they want to be there they want to be together we also want to protect residential things so i think we can't just devote meeting after meeting to this zoning things there are bigger global things that we also have to consider well karin um i guess i would challenge you um you know it to come back to a meeting with uh you know something you wanted to talk about as a particular proposal um you know and most of what we deal with is zoning and so um our ability to actually talk to the university is is mostly indirect in that we we talk to chris and chris uh can talk to paul and paul talks to the university um so um you know i i i think if we have specific proposals we'd like to do to zoning that maybe affect the university in some way you know maybe there's some leverage there but um at least this this committee or this board is you know kind of focused on that that's part of the town regulation okay so i i'll come back with a specific proposal we may get more clear thanks okay um janet so i i would love for us to to um follow the master plan and i feel like we don't have to keep on revisiting and remaking the wheel and dug the master plan says direct density into the village centers be nice if we delineated them and did design standards which also says and then bring people in and not just bring students in it says we should have mixed neighborhoods right mixed districts and so if we focused our goals on that um and just followed the master plan we wouldn't be adding density to neighborhoods we were trying to bring people into the village centers and we could you know we are going to spend hours and hours on this and you know which puts more density in a lot of neighborhoods and so and you know and the the parts of the bylaw that say yeah you could have more density but put it on a busy street are gone with these changes and so you know i keep on you know we the master plan the town has adopted you know did it the um and and also just you know we're not just a zoning board we're we're a planning board and we are part of town government but we are independent of it and so if we had some recommendations to anybody to to the manager to UMass chancellor to you know whoever wants to listen i think we could we could do that and just make recommendations people can ignore us but we don't need permission to do things from chris who is you know staff to our committee or from the town manager we're an independent board and i think we should sort of think freely of solutions because we can offer them up based on their experience and hearing people and their day-to-day struggles in their neighborhoods and things like that but i do think we should just get density and build the centers let's focus on that and make sure everybody can live there not just you know pack the you know downtown with students but have people living there and creating what we're supposed to do in the master plan okay um bruce that with respect i'd like to call the question you would okay all right so we haven't called the question too often on this board so i think we have to have a vote to no no i we can forgo the formalities of it if you choose to i'm sorry go ahead what did you say bruce i think we can forgo the formalities i don't want to force you to take the question but i would i think it's time did you have a second for the amended version of your motion yeah that came from i think from janet janet okay yeah all right well okay in lieu of having a formal vote to call the question if any of the board members want to object to that why don't you raise your hand or you know wave your hand at me so i'm not seeing anybody who wants to continue the conversation informally at least okay so all right uh not seeing any more hands maybe we can go ahead with our vote and so this vote would a vote in favor is to continue the meeting to may 3rd 635 did that work chris yes okay yes um and uh at which point we will continue to talk about this this revised proposal uh with a focus on the changes proposed to the regulations for duplexes in all zoning districts that are proposed okay uh bruce we'll start with you again nice all right uh andrew hi janet hi yo uh yohan is gone uh karen hi and i'm and i as well all right thank you all um members of the public we are going to continue this hearing on may 3rd uh feel free to keep sending us your comments your concerns and if you come back on may 3rd you can tell them to us all right so the time now let's see thank you mendy joe and pat for joining us you're welcome to stay but we're going to go ahead with the rest of our agenda and uh we thank you for the time and effort you've put into bringing the proposal to this point all right uh next item on our agenda item five is old business and it's regarding spr 2022-14 with center east llc 462 to 446 main street uh in accordance with sp with the aforementioned spr decision condition number 29 i believe we have john robleski here to update us regarding parking additionally he will discuss changes that are proposed to the front sidewalk material parking configuration and the windows for units 26 and 27 signage for the buildings and associated site changes uh so welcome john welcome back uh that seems like a long list and i'm hoping it's not going to take us two hours to get through it absolutely not all right what have you got to show us well if you want to start maybe with that condition number 29 and camera am i on video or do you want that or just want me to speak uh i think it's really up to you we can hear you um okay that's fine you're not feeling visually presentable tonight that's fine uh yeah regarding that the condition number 29 that's actually from the original permit from 2020 so it's an 18 month requirement to come back to you folks uh just to review the parking and see whether we need that additional six spaces uh so in a nutshell i don't think we do it's been working out quite well we still kind of maintain that ratio of 50 bedroom to cars i checked with the management company yesterday and currently there's 18 cars listed to the tenants for 35 bedrooms then uh i counted them this morning on the security cameras at the 2 50 a.m there were 17 cars parked in a lot and as you know we've had construction going on there for the phase two building and a lot of contractors have been parking some in the front spaces just for convenience and getting their tools and stuff and we've had no issues uh with the tenants not having a place to park or being able to get in and out so i think everything is working fine regarding that condition and you know if you have any questions on that particular thing let me know so you're saying it's you're saying first that this condition was put in with the 2020 uh site plan review for the first building correct and and that uh so it's been 18 months since since that uh that complex opened and that the parking seems to be working well and that you're roughly at 50 occupancy on the parking spaces uh 50 ratio of the bedrooms so the number of actual cars okay all right yeah great and you know looking ahead i think the management company doesn't anticipate any change to that so with the new building we're going to end up with the a different scenario with a number of spaces but it's still going to be around that 50 ratio which seems to be working you know in that location everybody is using public transportation or going up gray street to value mass so like i said before i think they have an app on your phone that shows them where that bus is coming up main street because all of a sudden there's like six people heading down to the bus stop and the bus gets there and they get right on so it works out really well okay all right uh i see jenna's got her hand up maybe she's got a question for john hi john um i do have a couple of questions because we went around the the circle on this one and i just some things to remind me are are you um saying by least that tenants can have parking is there like a lease restriction if you remember we had 47 parking spaces in the uh i'm sorry 32 parking spaces in the original plan yeah for 35 bedrooms so the ratio wasn't quite one to one uh so we had a lot of discussion about that and i did those surveys early in the morning went out checked out parking space so forth so the bottom line is it seems to be working the way it is and we don't anticipate seeing any changes in that for the new building either so the tenant any tenant can bring have a car then right there's no lease restriction there's no extra charge no we're not charging an extra charge so the tenants can there's no lease restriction saying they can't have a car well they're not assigned any space by right um if you remember there was language in the management plan regarding that so we're not conveying any parking rights it's like first come first served okay and then um so you're just saying that and then you are renting to students then because i thought you weren't going to rent to students well it's mostly grad students um i think we have like 11 of the units are international grad students which stands for reason they they're here to do one thing and they don't really have a car they're used to using public transportation and seems to be working okay and then do you have any idea how people food shop do they just take the bus and come back with bags because i know we were talking about that a lot of deliveries okay like food and i'm saying well who's this you know all of a sudden they're they're on their phone and the people run out they get their food and go back into their apartment okay and i think that's again you know just a method of how the international students are used to doing it so do you also have people who are tenants who are just like regular joes like working kind of thing yeah i've got a gal there that moved in in september she lived in amherst years ago and then lived somewhere else in the u.s wanted to come back so she's renting a one bedroom unit and i would say she's probably in her early 60s but she loves it um she's like you know having like one lady said earlier having that young population around her and seeing the activity and um so yeah we got that person we got the person still there from florida that is getting her second degree at amherst college there's another working couple there's the two units i'm renting to kensaki paper now they're an international paper company from japan so there's that mix you know that i had at the spruce ridge also and still have there okay thank you all right thanks janet all right so that that covers condition number 29 so you want to move on to the parking or to the sidewalk material and the parking configuration and the rest of those items sure yeah if actually to sidewalk we'll get right at that i decided to go back to the concrete um you know they kind of convinced me you know why would you want blacktop that cracks and so forth so we're gonna have all the sidewalks will be concrete i think you have the latest site plan with the amendments that jason uh skills had looked at and had no issues with so some of those items have actually already been done so i'm looking at the email here that i sent so if you want me to just go down that quickly sure so the second transformer is not needed so we had a space out in the front kind of behind the bus stop where a transformer was going to go to feed the new building uh they're able to swap out the existing transformer for a bigger one to handle both new buildings so we don't need that area uh the sewer line servicing the existing old 446 building goes out to gray street couple of trees out there and so forth and i said you know what it'd be a good idea to cap that and have a new sewer line tied into the new sewer line to go out to the street so jason thought that was a good idea that's already done the roof drain structure we actually we're not able to put that in we don't have one at the other site next door where all the roofs gutters go into it uh there's a mainly a grating issue there and the elevation issue we couldn't put a structure in and it hasn't been an issue as far as gutters is not that many tall trees that um you know drop leaves and stuff that are going to plug up the system and there's inspection ports that we've been keeping track of so and then the existing sewer pump that used to serve the building that was demoed was not servicing anything now so we're going to remove that and just cap that according to jason where he wanted to cap on the sidewalks we've just talked about that there'll be concrete walks and wood ramp going up to the existing handicap entrance to unit 50 which is the old first floor 446 and that'll be all done for ADA requirements as far as slope and so forth the window changes so I think you have pictures of those in the elevations so one of them came about because we went to put the shower unit in unit 27 and the window was too wide and we couldn't move it at all so we had to put in a smaller window there which kind of makes sense in a bathroom anyway that's something I really just didn't see in the initial drawings and put it together that that was a big window in the bathroom so that was the reason for that and then in 26 it was a balancing issue because we got two double windows in the front and I perceive that if we ever rent it it's going to be like an office with two sides basically so instead of having two big windows in the front and then another window like four feet away from it on each side we kind of move them back so that's on the west side elevation that you see there yeah and then on the east elevation th