The appointed hour is 6.30 having been reached. I want to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. My name is Steve Judge. As chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals, I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on a link in the town web page. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40A and Article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, this public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call of the regular members of the ZBA who have been in panel for consideration of items on tonight's agenda. Steve Judge, I'm here. Mr. Langsdale? Here. Ms. O'Meara? Ms. Parks? Here. Mr. Maxfield? Here. Ms. Waldman? Here. Mr. Barrick? Mr. Greeny? Mr. Meadows? Here. Also in attendance is Maureen Pollock, planner with the town, Christine Brestrup, Planning Director, and Rob Mora Building Commissioner. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 40A of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning By-law is Section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the Board during the hearing after which the Board will ask questions for clarification or for additional information. After the Board has completed its questions, the Board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raise hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the Board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the Board. The Board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the Board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the Board feels it has enough information in time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the Board is distinct, evaluated on its own merit and the Board is not ruled by precedent. Statutorily for a special permit, the Board has 90 days from the close of the hearing to file a decision. For a variance, the Board has 100 days from the date of the filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting Board members and is filed with the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there is a 20 day appeal period for an agreed party to contest the decision with the relevant judicial body in superior court. After the appeal period, the permit must be recorded at the registry of deeds to take effect. Tonight's agenda, a public hearing on ZBA FY 2021-01, Harmsway LLC, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 48, Section 8 and 15, as well as Section 10.1 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, the petitioner is requesting an appeal of the building commissioner's advisory opinion regarding Section 6.6 and 3.330 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw. In an email correspondence dated July 1st, 2020, submitted to the Amherst Planning Director in relation to properties identified as map parcel 14B 250 and 14B 251. This is continued from September 3rd. ZBA 2021-03, Pioneer Property Services, requests a special permit to convert the existing detached garage to a residential unit, which will increase the number of residential units or converted dwellings from one to two under sections 3.324, 9.22 and 10.38 of the Zoning Bylaw, located at 275 East Pleasant Street, Map 11B, Parcel 63, Neighborhood Residential RN, Zoning District, and ZBA FY 2021-04, Greg Stutzman requests a special permit to allow a supplemental detached dwelling unit as an accessory to a one family detached dwelling under sections 5.0111 and 10.38 of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw, located at 1325 Southeast Street, Map 23D, Parcel 12, Outlying Residence RO, Zoning District. We will also have a general public comment period and any other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours. The first order of business is ZBA FY 2021-01, Armsway LLC. I'm accusing myself from this matter and Mr. Langsdale will be the acting chair. Alternate members, Ms. Waldman and Mr. Meadows, will sit on the panel. Mr. Langsdale, you have the chair. Thank you. So for this application, we have submissions from the applicants, notice of appeal of interpretation of building commissioner prepared by Daniel J. Finnegan of the Bulkley Richardson attorneys at law dated July 29th, 2020. We have an email correspondence from the building commissioner, Rob Mora to planning director, Christine Brestrup subject, Amherst Media sent July 1st, 2020. We have email correspondence from planning director, Christine Brestrup to Bucky Sparkle PE of the Zenegear at all subject, Amherst Media setback issue sent July 10th, 2020. We have submissions from the town of Amherst. We have one project application report dated September 30th, 2020. Email correspondence from attorney, attorney, Joel Bard to planning director, Christine Brestrup at all subject, Amherst Planning Board, Amherst Media setback issue sent August 2nd, 2020. We have email correspondence from attorney, Joel Bard to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject regarding ZBA FY 2021-01 Armsway LLC sent August 28th, 2020. We have an aerial map, map 14B parcels 250 and 251. We have planning board SPR 2020-11 approved site plan planning board SPR 2020-11 approved landscape plan. We have then submissions from the attorney, Michael Pill representing Amherst Media, LLC. We have an email correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC scheduled for public hearing September 3rd, 2020. Legal memo to Amherst zoning board sent August 18th, 2020. We have an email attachment correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill subject regarding ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC scheduled for public hearing on September 3rd, 2020 dated August 18th, 2020. Then we have email to and the two attachments email correspondence from attorney, Michael Pill to planner, Maureen Pollock at all subject ZBA 2021-01 Armsway LLC schedule for public hearing September 3rd, 2020 article in today mass lawyer's weekly newspaper sent August 18th, 2020. Then we have the email attachment Henry W. Comstock Jr. trustee one and another two versus zoning board of appeals of Gloucester and others. And then finally a variance not needed to exceed height requirement, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly dated August 13th, 2020. We have also today from today an email from attorney Finnegan that was sent to Maureen Pollock at 1.58 p.m. today, August 1st. We have also an email from the attorney Michael Pill sent also to Ms. Pollock today at 3.23 on October 1st, 2020. So now is there anyone representing Armsway? Yes, good evening members of the board. Stephen Holstrum representing Armsway LLC. All right. Would you like to present your application? Certainly, thank you. I don't really need to belabor the point. I don't think essentially my client has informed me that they would like to withdraw this application. All right. So then the board we need to make a motion to accept the withdrawal of the application for the ZBA 2020-21. I move to accept the withdrawal. All right. Is there a second? Second. Okay. So now we have to go, of course. I'm Keith Langsdale, acting chair. I vote I, Ms. Parks. I. Mr. Maxfield. I. Ms. Waldman. I.  So that's a unanimous five out of five. So the board then has voted to accept the withdrawal of this application. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Langsdale. The second item on the agenda is ZBA FY 2021-03 pioneer property services LLC, requesting a special permit to convert the existing detached garage to a residential unit, which will increase the number of residential units converted dwellings from one to two under sections 3.324, 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaws located at 275 East Pleasant Street, Map 11B, Parcel 63, Neighborhood Residence, RN Zoning District. Alternative member, Mr. Meadows will serve on this panel. Are there any disclosures? I was unable to attend the site visit with the other board members, but I did visit the property yesterday afternoon. Is there somebody who'd like to summarize the site visit any of the board members? Who attended the site visit? Yeah, I'll, we met with the applicant and he showed us the area in front of the garage where the concrete is to be taken up and a new curb is to be put in. The, where is concrete parking now will become grass. Then there will be a new cut in the curb to the east of the one that's in now so that they can build the driveway to the back of the property where they're going to make the parking area. We walked around the barn down through that area and he showed us, he specified different places where doors would be put in, where there's a proposed 20 foot deck. Then we went on around the barn, I mean the garage and he pointed out one of the lights that is on the house that is existing now. And we talked somewhat about what kind of lighting will be put there. We then went around to the front again and he had pointed out the trees and shrubs and such on the property. There were some questions asked about the size of the garage and the layout that would happen there. I can't remember others at the moment. Has anybody else, any other members can remember questions? We also looked at where the proposed parking would be and looked at the space below that the owner may use for storage and I think we discussed that the attic will have utilities in it. It won't be a living space and there will be a walkway that goes from the parking area into the center of, so there's a near the entryway of both of the structures. Ms. Maxwell, anything else you wanted to add? Yeah, that was most of it. I guess the last thing I would just say as well that I remember from that was, the staircase in the basement area that goes up to the first floor that that staircase will be removed and ultimately the floor expanded was what we were told would just go and be done. I guess that pretty much comports with what I, my experience at the site visit. We received the following submissions. The special permit application, the management plan, a project summary. For the existing building, we've received exterior building photographs and a floor plan of the existing one family detached dwelling. For the existing detached garage, we've received exterior building photographs of the existing detached garage, interior building photographs of the existing detached garage floor plan of the existing detached garage. We received proposed converted dwelling units of unit 275B converted from the existing garage. The floor plan of that, the basement plan for the proposed converted dwelling, exterior elevations, North, East, South and West, a site plan, exterior lighting fixtures for both the entrance lighting and a parking lot and pathway lighting. We've received a parking lot, a mock-up of parking lot signs for 275A and 275B. We've received photographs of the trash recycling area, a lease agreement, a complaint response form, interior building photographs of the existing one family detached dwelling. Staff submissions have, there's a project application report that we're working off of tonight. And there's comments from the Amherst Health Inspector, the building inspector, Edmund Smith, dated September 10th, 2020. We've also received five public comment submissions, a comment from Mr. Bruce Carson, dated September 22nd, 2020. Comments from Mr. Bruce Carson, dated September 30th, 2020. Comments from Jonathan Holton Cohen, dated September 30th, 2020. Comments from Ray LaRaja, dated September 30th, 2020. And comments from Richard Rosnoy, dated September 30th, 2020. Those are the submissions to the, and the documents that we have regarding this application. Does the application, the applicant wish to speak regarding the application? Mr. Chair, I do not see the applicant in attendance. If for some reason I'm just not able to see you in the list of attendees, please use the raise your hand feature. Or if you're calling in, please press star nine. So Jennifer Mendelson has her hand up. Okay. Jen, can you hear us? Okay, here we go, okay. Wow, you had his nervous there. Sorry, I just saw Jennifer and I didn't think much of that. Okay, sorry about that. All right, is it okay to, we can speak now? Yeah, please identify yourself for the record. Okay, I'm Neil Mendelson, and this is Jennifer. And I'm Jennifer Mendelson. And I want to first open by just thanking the planning department, the zoning board, and our neighbors for considering our application for a special permit to convert the garage at 275 East Pleasant into a three bedroom, one bath rental unit. My wife, Jen and I live on Gray Street in Amherst, which is about a mile from this property. We have a small business, Pioneer Property Services, which specializes in property maintenance, remodeling, and property rentals. I work at our business full-time and Jen works full-time too, but also works at Hopkins Academy in Hadley. In 2019, we purchased 275 East Pleasant and made significant improvements to the grounds and the existing farmhouse. The lot in the house were badly neglected when we bought it, but we did a lot of things. We remodeled it, we got a permit, round permit with a town and all the appropriate building permits to change it from a two bedroom to a three bedroom house. If the board grants us permission to pursue this project, we pledge to the town and our neighbors to do everything in our power to keep the grounds and buildings in very good condition and in harmony with the neighborhood and to select responsible tenants. We feel the movement of the parking area to the rear of the property and restoration of the front of the garage to lawn will be particularly beneficial as the existing parking area is very close to the sidewalk. Under our site plan, the sidewalk and curb in front of the garage would be restored and only a 15 foot driveway cub would be needed to the left of the garage. The parking lot would allow drivers to pull directly forward onto the street instead of backing up as they do now. So I feel like the parking area would be a good thing regardless of if this is approved or not, something we want to do just to make it safer. Our goal is to not only construct a very nice rental unit inside, but also to give the building good curb appeal. I plan to put four inch white trim boards around all doors and windows and I would freshen up the clabbered siding, put a nice front stoop and a nice grass front yard. The grade of the area in front of the garage would be changed from slope to flat and consistent with the yard surrounding the farmhouse and the patio. Before I go through our application, I would just like to say that Jen and I take a lot of pride in what we do. We are very engaged with our tenants and enjoy providing quality housing and good customer service. We would assume all responsibilities associated with the maintenance and rental of both units on the property. Although there would be an appointed resident manager, we would respond immediately to any issues as soon as they are brought to our attention. We know there are impacts and concerns and we want to work cooperatively with the town and our neighbors if we are given this opportunity. And I'm reading this but I truly mean this. I mean, we're willing to give our numbers to all our neighbors in the area and it's a pleasure for me to respond. This is what I do. I love property maintenance and management and I like to solve problems and be responsive. And so I did get, I know there was a lot of comments received like today or within a couple of days. And I have looked at them and I take them to heart. And I mean, we live right like 50 feet from a rental property. There's rental properties on our street, everywhere on Gray Street too. And so I, we understand. I mean, I understand how neighbors may not be thrilled about it, but I think in the grand scheme of things, we're only asking for six bedrooms and two baths. I mean, on the whole entire property. So some of the comments I saw were like, we're asking for six units or something. And I just want to set the record straight that what we're asking to add one additional small rental unit that we would make very nice. And I don't know, but that would definitely take pride in selecting responsible tenants and ensuring that they're abiding by all the town rules and regulations at the rental properties. And the parking, we could have asked for four. We feel that three parking spaces per unit would be reasonable. So now I'd like to go to the application itself. So we're share a screen. Yeah, the application first. And can everybody see that or? No. Nothing yet. Not yet. Okay. So in the center, in the bottom of your screen, there you go. There we go. Got it. Okay. All right. So maybe start with the site plan. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, so we can go directly. So we don't need to go line by line through the application. No. Okay. All right. So let's just go, we're going to close this and open up the, okay. All right, so I'll start up where the existing house is. My mouse isn't working too good here, but there's pavers going up to the house. The trash receptacles, which I had pointed out, there will be another partition to separate the trash. So it won't be seen from the street. I built, yeah. So I built an existing partition to give privacy to the patio area that's connected to the front unit. And I plan to make something similar to shield the trash totes. The area in front of the garage, that's where it's sloped now, but it will be at least like eight inches below the slab of the garage. And then it will be seated. There's a asphalt path proposed from the driveway to the front door. The sidewalk and the curb will be restored in front of the garage. And then a new curb cut will be done. And also, I just, also this reminds me that I had spoke to the town, public works, Jason's skills about the parking. We first bought the house because I had proposed to put the parking on East Pleasant since the address is 275 East Pleasant. At that time, Jason told me that that would be not good because of the intersection and to have a curb cut that close to an intersection would be unsafe. And he suggested that we put the parking where we have it now. So that's why we had proposed this area. And because of the Arbor Vitey that screened the parking area. So as you can see, also the deck will be off the back. That's the second entrance to the dwelling and their stairs going down to the driveway. So there will be those two access points from the parking area to the new unit. And we would like, we had initially started with two spots for the front unit and two for the 275, and four for the 275B. But we feel like three and three would be probably the best setup. And then if we could have flexibility to change based on how many tenants are in each unit. And so I would propose my, I would have my parking signs like I have in my plan, but I would maybe have like magnetic numbers that I, so I could change out the designation for the parking spots. We do have an area for snow plow, excess snow, excess snow at the rear of the lot. So it would be pushed straight down. The 20 foot separation there between the parking spaces would be ideal for backing out. So they pull straight into the parking area and then they can back up and, you know, back towards the rear of the lot and then straight out to the street. There is also an asphalt path that goes from the parking lot up to the house, that the existing house that would be accessed by the patio. And all this development would not need, we would not need to alter, like every tree that's on the lot stays, it's only grading of the area for the parking area. And like I said, we did keep it to three, to six and we didn't, I think, which I think is reasonable. The lights also are shown on the site plan. So there's a legend on the, on here that shows the flood lights are on the corners of the, no, those are the signs, but the, the, on the corners of the unit are these motion sense sensing night sky compliant lights. And then the entrances where we will make all the lights the same on both properties and the barn lights are going to be at the entrance doors. So there'll be barn light here, barn light there and then these two. And so we feel that the pathways and entrances will be adequately lighted, but they won't. They'll be downcast and night sky compliant and everything and should not be a nuisance or anything. And does anybody have any questions about the site plan. I have one quick question. What's the grade between the end of the parking proposed parking lot and the, and the boundary, your property boundary off to the, I guess that's the south. Yeah. What's the grade there your, your, your cursor is showing what I'm interested in. Yeah. Let me, I didn't see it on any of the maps. Does the town, does the town map have. Oh, yeah, there's a topography. Overlay that we could run it with that we could put on there, but it does slow. It does slow down. It's not, I wouldn't say it's steep, but I would say it drop, you know, it drops maybe five or six feet. We don't have to spend a lot of time on that. We don't have one right now, but we should get one from them. The time we may want to. Okay. We probably want to know what that is. We are proposing asphalt on the driveway. I think that's on there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Miss parks. So the parking area is going to have asphalt on it or concrete or what's the medium for the parking. Okay. And then you were saying that people could pull into the space and then pull out and back into. Like where you have the, the first excess snow pile. Is there going to be any kind of asphalt there? Yeah, that would be grass, but I was thinking putting, maybe it would be good to put a gravel or some. We just wanted to keep the paving at a minimum. But yeah, it would just be for the end for the end to spots. Would be backing in into that area, but these would have room to back up and pull forward. Okay. Okay. So we go maybe to the floor plan. Is that. Could we. Excuse me. A couple of questions. First of all, on the, on the lighting. The barn lights over the entrances. Are those motion sense. Sensitive. Yes, I would put those on. Yes. Okay. Yes. The, the floods. Are they dark sky compliant? Yes, I did. I did make sure when I. Spec those out. They are. And what, at what height. Will they be a fixed. Yeah, they will be all on the first. The top plate. So it's like eighth, eighth foot. For on the, on the building. Okay. Except for the one on the. The house. The present house. That one's up near the gable. And that's the one you showed us. And that's. I don't know exactly how high it is. It could be 18 feet. High off the ground. Right. So I'm concerned about that as a flood light as flood lights. But, and, and so all of these lights are motion sensitive. Right. Right now, the ones that are on the existing house now are not. They're not motion sensor, except for the front, the front one is the other two that are on there now are switched. So I would change those. Right. Okay. We'd make that a condition, certainly. But I'm concerned about the height of, of this one on the house. They're flood lights. And. Putting a put, putting them up that high on a building. So I'm concerned about that. Is there, is there another place to put them. On the building that. Does not. Exceed that the height at the present location of the light that's there. Right. Yeah, I think actually. We could remove that one and then do a light post. By the stairway up onto the patio. Right. So I think that would accomplish the same thing because that, that's why I was thinking that that light would illuminate. The pathway to the stair up onto the. Right. Concrete. So I could put just a post. A lamp post there. Okay. And take that, remove the other one. Okay. And that, that then could be a, one of the barn light type. Yeah. Instead of a flood light. Okay. Okay. Now the other question I have is, uh, from, uh, that comes from, uh, one of the, uh, butters, uh, their response is. You've said that. You were told that. A curb cut. Up on, um, Southeast street. Uh, would be too close to the intersection to. The parking area. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So I was, I was, but for the parking lot, but would, would there be a place that you could bring the driveway from Southeast down to the parking area rather than on strong street? I mean, that was one of the concerns of, of one of your neighbors is that, uh, this, uh, the proposed entrance to the parking area. Um, Um, Um, In terms of, in terms of you thinking about that, and I guess partly an answer for me to the, the butters is, um, Where the parking exists right now. You have three cars there. I mean, Um, Um, In terms of that, in terms of you thinking about that. And I guess partly an answer for me to the butters is, Um, I agree. I agree strongly with that. Ever since we bought it, that parking bothered me. And I, I have wanted to get. Right on the sidewalk.  Would there be something. I guess part of the question is, street and somebody drives comes up the driveway towards Strong Street, if they don't stop, it then creates a problem, a dangerous problem if there are kids who are just stepping into that area. As opposed to the existing parking to back out of there, you're just starting to move and you have to look and to back out for traffic as well as for pedestrian as well as street traffic. So would there be something that you could do at the head of the driveway so that whoever's coming out of there has to stop and make sure they stop look both ways as we always were taught and then move on. I guess that's the only difference that I can see in terms of the danger of what you have as opposed to what you're proposing. Yes, I guess on your first point about the driving off of East Pleasant, if we made like a path to the driveway or to the parking area, it's extremely close to the house. The site plan actually doesn't show it that well because the Arbor Vitey, if you remember any of the board members remember from the site visit, they're pretty close. It would be like you could barely drive a car between the Arbor Viteys and the house and then it's making this the turn by that large maple right here and there's a roots all around the stairs up on the patio so I think if anything it would be the parking would need to be in the front yard of the property on on the East Pleasant side and like I say that's what we proposed when we first got the property and we're told that wouldn't that would not be approved. All right. And then oh and then yes that's a good point on the pulling out with children in the area and pedestrians and you know we could put a stop sign at the top of where it pulls out and we could also you know I would definitely advise all the tenants and I could even put that in the lease and you know highlight it and yeah I'm willing to do it. I think for me I think that would be a good idea to put it into the lease only because you're gonna have at least you're gonna have six people in with six cars who don't know that area particularly and maybe over time they get to know it but the fact that kids are walking by that not at the moment of course but hopefully sometime in the future in the near future that's a very heavily traveled path for kids. In fact there's on at the corner strong in East Pleasant there's a crossing guard isn't there? Yes. So so it's a heavily traveled it's that heavily traveled that traffic that I'm concerned with when they come back to school so that if something like a stop sign would be good but if you could also make that part of the the lease agreement so that people who move in understand immediately what the possible problems are. I mean for me that I think that would be a good idea. Even with the current tenants that we have I give them a printed map of the sidewalk and where they cannot be parking and that there is a school nearby and that to for them to be aware of that definitely. We can make something like that part of the conditions. Yeah thank you. Go ahead Mr. Mendelsohn. Oh Mr. Maxfield. Yeah I guess I think we're pretty much everyone has that concern of children crossing right there because I know it's also an incline so people are gonna be coming up a hill to that sidewalk. So I definitely like the idea of some type of stop sign maybe some type of rounded mirror so people can can see farther if there's any obstruction from the house. Even just a careful of children walking sign but I know at the bottom we were saying that that section just off if we're looking at the map just to the left where people would be backing into. I'd suggest maybe putting pavers in there the type of things that you can go on but grass can still grow in between them if you wanted to extend that parking lot because I would like to see it mandated that because I know anyone who'd be parking in you know 275A or 275B those those spots at the back if they don't have that area to back out they they might attempt to back out and I definitely like to see anybody leaving that parking lot would have to be leaving forward rather than backwards so kind of ensuring that that's in there as well that anyone knows they have to pull forward out of that lot. Yeah all good stuff I like it. Alright can you be amenable to a condition requiring some kind of additional area in the parking to facilitate backing up? Is that right?  Yeah another thing came to mind also when we're discussing the public comments and our neighbors to the east the larges and they're the headlights that may shine into their house and I would propose I'm happy to put a tall fence that would actually block it so the arborvities aren't good enough then there's another solid wood fence or you know some way to block the headlights completely from from going over that way so I'll just offer that and what else? You asked while you're thinking that you asked for two waivers if I'm right one is the you had two waivers that you were looking for one is landscaping and then a sign plan waiver is that correct? You didn't come up with a landscaping plan and you've asked for a waiver from the requirement for a landscaping plan and also the sign plan can you explain that? Yeah I just because of what we've gone over with the existing landscaping and the signs it I guess it's just since it's a smaller project so the only changes you're going to make if I could maybe a better way to say this the only changes you're going to make is in that little front sec landscaping changes aside from the parking lot is in that little lands patched in front of the garage you're going to remove the asphalt and plant something there put green space there and then on the side and everything else stays the same. I can't hear you Mr Mendelson. Right yes yes everything that's on there on the map on the site plan is what we're proposing and your way you just said is accurate. And then on the signs you you would have six signs that are 12 by 24 for parking is that kind of big it looks it almost seems that's a that's a large that seems commercial to me more so than what you'd see in a normal residential place maybe you can talk to me about why you chose something so large if there's a reason for that. Yeah I guess I was just like looking at a piece of I said 12 by 24 on one and then I said 12 by 18 on another I was just looking at like an 11 by 17 pay I just pulled it out of my I'll make it smaller I yeah smaller would be better I guess two I mean yeah but like nine I just by 10 you can suggest something I think that's it just it just seemed large to me and it just adds sort of a commercial look to a to a residential neighborhood. Yeah I agree. So let's let's look for a smaller sign that would be you know I don't know what signs are there less than 11 by 7 something like that. How does that work? Matt may have to find something. All right. Okay. Yep. It's it's my understanding that you're intending to use the basement for a workspace and storage for your business correct. Yes that's correct. Which would lead me to believe that the trucker van that you that you use for your property management business would of necessity probably have to go down into the parking area while you're in the basement working. Is that correct? Correct. Correct. Are you intending to reserve one of those parking spaces for yourself so that I know that we see a lot of other applications that have less than one parking space per per bedroom which is what you you essentially have got here. And if you're intending to use a parking space for your own use which would be logical are are you expecting then to reserve one of those spaces for yourself and only have five spaces for tenants? Well you bring up a good point and I would be willing to do that to take away one tenant to get me one parking space because if I use right now I use the garage as my shop I'm in and out of there a lot I'm sure all the neighbors would agree with that statement and so I would I could I would agree to a condition where I give I give two to you know front unit and I take one and then three for the other unit and I would I would like the idea of like making magnetic signs so that we could change we could change up the parking spaces as needed based on the tendency. I think if you just if you limit it for the our purposes if you limit five and one five for your renters and one for you and then in your each of the leases you decide where who gets two and who gets three that's fine with us I think that would be fine you don't have to designate that in perpetuity right now right but if you're doing five and one that makes sense to put that is there is a condition or some other kind of as a condition you should do it as a condition or anything else that you want to describe to us Mr. Mendelson you know I think I think we covered that pretty good Marines I know that the Marine said that she had the topographical she texted me that she got the topographical map for the property is that right can you do we know what that slope is behind the parking lot Maureen sorry just bear with me for one second okay so this is this is East Pleasant Street and this is Strong Street to give you a reference I think this was the area someone was asking about where the drainage where the part of it where the drainage flows as is so here is 365 contour and then it gets decreases here so and this is the line for 260 so currently a water flows like this and like this yeah it flows in this direction okay but we have approximately a three-foot drop from two to three foot drop from the parking end of the parking lot to the end of the property yeah yeah okay thank you gentle yeah I think oh I'm sorry no go ahead I'm just gonna tell you can finish up it or um it's just something else you have to like to present I think I think maybe if we just show the the floor plan that would pretty much cover what we wanted and I think if you can show the exterior of the house exterior pictures as well but that floor plan is great to start with okay all right we'll start with Mr. Chair Mr. Maura is raising it again oh sure but he's he's muted oh okay Mr. Maura Mr. Maura I think he's still muted on he's still he's still let you do it yeah I don't know I do it if I can yeah I think I'm good um yeah a couple just a couple of uh points I wanted to make on some of that discussion uh first I'm headed with the extension of the parking area I just wanted to um point out that it looks like the lock coverage is almost maxed out as proposed so there would be need to be some sort of adjustment if the applicant was going to extend the parking area some adjustment in another location and the other piece was the discussion about the owner's uh business use of the property that's not part of this application so I would probably suggest that we don't get into conditions relative to the business use because it's not a buy right um allowed activity because the owner doesn't live there so that would have to be handled in a different application and Rob do um those those um pavers that have cement pavers that have spaces for grass to grow are they considered hard is that considered a hard surface so that counts towards the surface uh lock coverage number a portion of it a percentage of it does they can be anywhere from 20 to 50 percent usually it really depends on the design but some of it is counted in lockers so we we need to look at the manufacturer's stack and determine what that percentage is yeah okay and then you'd have to take a because you are at a tenth of a percent I think off the um the maximum lock coverage you'd have to look at taking some hardscape away someplace else if you're gonna do that right right okay quick why don't we go to the the floor layout of the the converted dwelling so yeah there's the exterior photos this is the existing farmhouse uh we we're not seeing we're not seeing we're just seeing the file do a new share so stop the share and um do um do a screen share screen yeah the top top left top left yeah that probably will help you out and then there now we see the exterior photos of the bombard garage okay all right so there's that and these are photos of the garage existing um you can see the construction of the garage has these tie rods that go up to the ridge um and forms like a truss type of situation there and then the basement has got large pilings steel reinforced like a five inch concrete slab the turnbuckles this is where the tie rods are connected to the beam and go up to the ridge and then the existing floor plan these are the stairs that we intend to remove and then put make that the floor of the third bedroom so you come in the front door into the great room kitchen living area bathroom three bedrooms right there and the deck and stairs down to the parking area does anybody have any questions about the floor plan you can proceed okay excuse me go just to the as i'm looking at it to the left of the deck there is seems to be an appliance what is that yeah that was the fridge and um i was thinking that could be a pantry area also probably electric panel in there um that's the area if you look at the elevations at the elevation outside and meet just to the right of the patio is stairs that go down to the basement so that that is that's that bump out the only part of the garage that bumps out and it's over stairs to the basement okay thank you front elevation east south so that's that area question yes mr. Langsdale uh one of the butters excuse me in their comments talked about the condition of the siding of the garage and saying that it hadn't been dealt with in 30 years or more they're figured not mine but if could you go back to the the north elevation okay thank you right now there are two large garage doors there they obviously are coming out new windows are being put in and a front door how will you match the siding when you have to take out those two large doors and the same applies for the rest of the building in the back where it's changing out and wherever windows are put in how do you plan to deal with the siding well um i can tell you i replaced um several uh boards along the front of the building when we first bought it and i found the stain that matches it and i think you barely notice it um so i did i did do that when um and i can even share with you before photos from when we bought it and show you that because that was mainly where the rot had happened on the siding because you have the driveway going directly up to the um to the foundation and so the water was running off and hitting the pavement and splashing up onto the siding and rotting it out so i did replace um quite a bit there and i went around the whole building and um i feel like it's got character and i really love it and i would just fix what needs to be fixed and blend it in nicely and i like i also said i um the elevation doesn't show it but i plan on using nice wide trim boards around the door and windows and really give it a nice look um i'm excited if i get approval i i'm excited to make it look really nice for the neighborhood okay thank you thank you any other miss parks i just have a quick question um what medium is going to be under the deck i um i think it's two two slides down from where you are right now right now it's it's grass um and i would i would plan just to keep it as as grass um i don't know how well it would hold up um but i would like to try just to keep that area as grass okay well you um if i may add with your coverage you're so close to the lot limits you're gonna have to maintain it as a soft surface grass or some some kind of vegetation because you're you're getting close to the limits on your lot coverage okay is there anything else you want to present mr mendelson now that that was it and i um let me just um in closing i just want to that again thank the board our neighbors and the planning department especially marine for her many emails and phone calls and helping us navigate this process um we appreciate the opportunity to explain our application hope to address any questions or concerns and connection with this project thank you thank you thank you um do the board members have any questions of mr mr mendelson yeah one thing that we didn't oh excuse me yes mr langsdale yes one thing we didn't uh address when we were talking about the parking area that was also again from one of the abutters a question about the drainage with the asphalt of the parking lot area as well as the the driveway to the parking area because that's on a downward slope so is there any consideration uh toward what drainage problems there might be and also uh in the winter if you have excess snow stockpile at the southern end of this parking area uh as it melts and other snow melts and or rains come there's going to be a considerable runoff of water off of this driveway and parking area so i wondered if there's any consideration has been given to uh what kind of uh mitigation could be done to keep water from flowing into other properties yeah address that yes yes okay um we don't have a a plan for that um so i i would be happy to do some mitigation there to prevent that um i don't i mean it is yeah i'm not i'm not an expert in this so i can't speak to it i would have to if if the board would like us to have another um you know study or something done i guess we could you know look have this um um reviewed and well there are there are people who can take a look at drainage and help you design something whether it's a rain garden or slope or something that would mitigate the runoff to the neighbors and that is something that we may hear about in the in the comments from the public um you should think that may be something that is a concern to the board um and i would encourage you to give that some thought i mean if you're willing to do that that may be a condition or it may be something that we'd want to see before we vote on final passage of of the special permit to see that it's done but i would i would encourage it we'll i think that'll be brought up i'm assuming it'll be brought up by the public comments any other comments or questions for the applicant from board members or from staff all right um we should open it up to public comment then um marine if you put the identify marine will identify you if you wish to comment if you do if you do wish to comment raise your hand through the the function on the zoom meeting app the raise hand function please identify yourself and for the record and have your comments for about four minutes if you would okay so we have uh ray love reha um who would like to speak ray sure i'm ray larrage at seven strong street thank you mr chair and board members well i appreciate the efforts to this point about how the menelsons have started to fix the property in some ways we're moving some overgrown weeds painting the house and some interior stuff since taking over um by the way as an aside he told my wife about a very different plans for this house but that's a that's a different issue i have several objections to this new project if there's going to be an exception for a permit for a residential manager raises a lot of issues first we're going to need assurances about qualifications in the context for this manager he or she should be living in a separate house not mixed with other occupants because i think that creates conflicts of interest in a psychic barrier to reporting violations and managing other problems it's also important to see a management plan for the property including a specific role for the residential manager the relationship to the tenants how long they're going to be there on the contract and any other demonstrations that they're going to be responsible for the property in fact i would argue the property manager should be a certified property manager or a licensed realtor or something similar um uh second i'm really troubled uh by the parking lot that's going to be built for six cars right up against my property at seven strong and my adjacent property which i own well i don't look i don't want to have six occupants few people do especially on a small property and structures and i under but i understand that policies to increase housing density in the downtown campus area are public good but this argument about public good and the exception for granting high density permits really becomes less tenable when there's not an offsetting commitment to limiting cars and parking spaces on property i mean these residents have easy access to public transportation they can walk uh there's campus parking across the street these will be students uh a significant argument for allowing high density is to minimize traffic pollution noise and i see the applicants is getting all the benefits here of high density without the aligned benefits the community of reduced car travel noise there's going to be more of all these other things so i think it's an unfair trade-off and poor public policy the neighborhood is going to get all these costs plus children walking a wild which is additional danger we see the students peeling out from the other side it's very concerning to us there should be no new driveway no new parking there should be no more than three cars six cars will have to back onto strong street right at the intersection dangerous dangerous um and i agree with what mr lansdale said about the children walking by every day we see them we watch them go into school our children used to do this again umass parking lot across street they can apply for passes there uh third i would want to know the proposed surface area this was brought up um you know it's going to cause runoff on our properties which sit downhill how's it going to be mitigated thanks again mr lansdale for raising the issue we already have some water settling in those areas even without that fourth if there's a problem there's going to be a problem with lighting there's no doubt with car beams you know my house is right there with a bedroom right there a study where i do most of my work right there and i work into the night facing that where the applicant wants to put a parking lot and i expect headlights coming and going uh turning on the floodlights the tree line is spotty um so that if anything's got to be filled in but i still again i appreciate mr lansdale's question on this about the lights and the high floodlights i'm really concerned um that's going to be a problem aside from even the dangers of pulling off uh into the street and then last two short points um you know we would like you know mr ventelson said he provided phone number i think that should be on the rental permit permit to have the name of the owner and the phone where they can be reached uh 24 7 not the name of the lc and i don't know how the the uh the occupant perm renting is going to work but it should not be rented by bedroom uh at all um so for all these reasons i urge you to reject the planned conversion of the garage and property at 275 east pleasant street uh thank you uh for listening to me board members thank you mr la raja um next week um miss la raja let me uh hello hi can you hear me yes okay so i just want to echo the concerns that my husband um just stated um you know initially when the Mendelssohn's moved in they were going to do it air bnb in the existing house and then there was talk of making like a stone house farm like afterschool program and summer camp in the garage which if i could just say your neighbors would be jumping up and down for joy if that was going to be the plan um there's it's just way too small of a lot and in a way to on a busy corner with schoolchildren walking by um it it's just way too big of a plan for that lot and i just really want to um just echo the concerns of every neighbor who lives on property surrounding this one that it's just this should not go through um again we're we're really happy about the house that is existing there and why not make the garage a garage keep it a garage it could be for the parking for the people there who are already existing there and potentially maybe it could be a one bedroom unit above that but to have three bedrooms six cars um all this water running off onto my backyard and my property slamming doors lights i am 100 against this thank you thank you mr beloraja marina it looks like we have um oh yes um we have jonathan cohen um one second uh jonathan can you can you talk hi yes thank you so much and um i want to echo the comments that have been stated previously uh we do my partner and i live um on east pleasant street and we do also really appreciate the renovations that have taken place it has the yard has been better maintained and we do really appreciate that um we are also concerned about traffic and noise um we already have these issues here but i hate to add anything that would contribute to that i'm also in favor of additional renovations that make the place nicer for the people who are living there one bedroom place over a garage sounds great having using the garage as the garage i think would actually make it by the point you put a stop sign and that's actually at the point where people would be coming out of the garage anyway so they would actually be stopped already and they could just look both ways the way that the garage is intended and uh i also agree that it feels like there's just too many people there i understand that the limit on a single dwelling is four people um and i understand that these are two separate dwellings and at the same time they seem like they're going to be connected and they're cramped up against each other we will not have the exact same issue of the lights because we're a little bit further away but we do experience noise and uh cars and traffic and i think that putting the the um the driveway on on the east pleasant side is also not a great move not just because of the arbor vitae but also because that's exactly where the crossing guard is um and as i mentioned in my letter that crossing guard is an important part of this community as are the students um crossing and so i just um want to echo my uh my urging for the uh the board to please reject the proposal and also to encourage the mental sense to you find another way to um increase the value of the property which we would very much appreciate okay we have uh uh richard ron ron no sorry uh richard mr ross know we ross now would you please identify yourself yeah i just uh hidden unmute can you hear me now we can yes richard ross noy um 11 strong three first first i'd like to um note that uh i i submitted a written statement and uh you did acknowledge it and uh there was an error that i used in the syntax referring to six units and of course the reference should have been to six six people um so i'm the one responsible for that and sorry about that um i'll i'll uh i'll support my neighbors but i wanted to also uh note that for these six part hold on uh we lost you one second richard hold on hold that thought richard okay okay there we go our start over again sorry richard right so i wanted to acknowledge for these six parking spaces there's no accommodation should someone come to visit and there's no parking on the street around there and certainly not on east pleasant and the nearest street is a wildwood court that where there's also no parking during the daytime and so it's really an unworkable situation i am not in favor of the solution being a stop sign at the end of the driveway before entering onto the street i mean it's a great it's a great idea and in theory it should work but let's face it um in the morning when people are late to get to class or to get to work there's going to be just uh a non non-compliance with any sort of a stop sign you can put all the word that you want and a lease about it but uh it's just not going to be there um and i want to strongly encourage that you do not issue a waiver for landscaping there should be a landscaping plan for this uh this parcel you've heard a lot of a lot of information about how the lights lights are going to be affecting neighbors and the neighborhood how parking is going to be affecting neighbors in the neighborhood and how they have maxed out on the lot covering if there's ever a site that needs a landscaping plan it's this i'd also note that we haven't heard much about the management plan and you haven't none of you have really have queried the applicants much on the resident manager requirement and what they intend to do about this i think just about everybody who submitted comments had grave concerns about who a resident manager would be the duration of what this person would be how they would be related to others in the living units this is a very important part of this and really it has not been flushed out there's not been there's not been adequate discovery on your part as to what the qualifications of a resident manager would be and uh so so i encourage you to uh to address it further i i don't think it's been adequately addressed i don't think according there are standards in your bylaws for uh standards and qualifications for what is required of a resident manager and uh in my view in my view it has not been adequately addressed uh secondly we'll get you mr. lion's tail when he's finished yep go ahead mr. rosnoy doesn't this deck expand the footprint of the building beyond um what it needs to be for uh expanding a non-conforming footprint uh doesn't this go beyond what a special permit can possibly uh can possibly award uh i'm i'm not sure about how this the footprint of the building was and what the status of this building was in regarding its non-conforming status but i'd like to hear an answer to that one uh in closing i'll just say this is not site plan review this is not this applicant does not have the ability to put in three living units in a previous previous garage as of right you have great discretion in determining how to handle this particular parcel and as neighbors we are asking you to exercise that discretion and and uh if anything ask the applicant to come back with a more modest proposal uh with fewer parking places and with fewer tenants thank you for your work thank you any other comments i'd like to hear what the response was about the resident manager i think somebody had some mr. langsdale we'll we'll speak to it but we want to get public comments and then we'll then there's um the opportunity for us and for the applicant to respond to the um public comments i think there's uh bruce yep one second let me okay one second okay bruce can you please identify yourself can you hear me now yes yes first carcin eight strong street i would just like to echo what my neighbors have said that i do appreciate the efforts that the mental sense have made in improving the existing house but i do think this proposal for another apartment is is too much for all the reasons people have said too much traffic too much noise i i would urge the board to ask them to come back with something more modest and and thank you for your for your uh good work that you're doing and um thank you very much um and then we have susan um hold on a second and let me find it was okay wait hold on i saw her yeah okay susan can you state your name and your address um sorry uh susan your susan rosna you're muted now i've unmuted okay okay ready to go yes uh susan rosna rosna at 11 strong street i've lived in this on this street longer than um my neighbors have and i have experienced significant drainage from that western elevation everybody's sellers are wet um and this is only going to increase the problem with drainage unless it's mitigated um and so i echo all of the concerns that my neighbors have had and um we we really do feel like this should be reduced in size it's just too much for this small lot it's a lot that's smaller than required now and it's just going to make this whole corner more congested especially with the parking and traffic and the people coming and going so i hope you will um oh especially especially do a landscape plan to require that because what you're calling our braviti are not our braviti they're hemlocks and although that's an evergreen tree um i i think you should be able to identify what is being discussed so you absolutely have to have a landscape plan thank you very much for your work thank you any other members of the public that wish to comment on this application mr langendale you had um a comment you wanted to make in response then we'll ask the applicant if he has anything he wants directly just respond before we um move on go ahead yeah i think it's important that the the butters understand that while we haven't addressed certain things that we're not done yet we haven't addressed the the management plan we haven't addressed the lease we haven't addressed the thing about the the uh onsite manager all of that is to yet to be addressed so not to worry stay watching and listening that's our job we know how to do it and we're going to do it thank you mr mendelson do you wish to respond to anything of the public comments any other comments okay um uh one second uh richard um wants to say something again richard can you state your name and your address again for the record right uh richard rosnoi uh coming back again thanks very much for that clarification from my experience when we had planning board public hearings we dealt with all of the issues and then um we ended the public comment period so i had the impression all public comments and all of your deliberations were going to be completed um let me just ask uh are you considering that there's going you're going to continue this hearing and and address those other issues the management plan and the other mentioned the other points that were mentioned uh further thank you mr langsale for uh clarifying that the hearing is still open uh whether we continue this to another time has yet to be considered uh so there's no answer to that at this moment all right so are there further questions from the board for the applicant okay now's the time let's go to management plan is the first thing go ahead yes mr langsale that's right i was just going to say we should go over the management plan um you have the trash trash pickup you've um identified who's going to do that i i think you have verbally said that you want to put additional screening in but i don't see it on on the plan that um you've provided us that there's i think you don't need to put more specificity about where you the screening that you would would have around the the trash the trash um yeah we did have that in the application um fancy match uh can i speak now or is that sure yes yeah fencing matching the existing and the porch will be installed in front of the trash to conceal them from the street and we'll have um usa trash pick up the trash and on our management plan we do have um that we are the number to reach our business is on there and um should i go through line by line on the management plan yes that would be valuable okay um so i'll just go down the application well if you you can fill it in just don't read the i mean do what you you should do which is most advantageous to you but you don't have to just read the management plan you can describe it to us okay um so the lighting um i you know that that's the the night sky compliant lights that we had and we did discuss taking the one off of the farmhouse which i think was a good idea to put that on up on a post and um i am committed to um you know putting the building a fence adding that as one of the conditions to build that fence uh on those east parking spaces there's three parking spaces that may be offensive to or to the larajas and um so i would be happy to do that um so the lighting discuss the signage the landscape maintenance landscape yeah so i would be doing all the all the uh the landscape maintenance mowing um making sure it's no greater than three inches i do i do take pride in keeping night of property in good shape you know i mean i even sweep the street in front of the curb in front of it um and seems like a lot of you know a lot of the comments are are about the resident manager and contacting us and i just want to again say that i am very happy to give all my neighbors my direct number like i don't i don't want any problems and we are selective with our tenants i mean as a matter of fact you know we culture like this mutual respect with all our tenants and i want to continue that and so um you know we would we would play we i i my word is everything i mean i am committed to this i don't want any problems i want to select good tenants and um make sure that that we're not having issues and if there is then 24 seven call me i i will be on it you know i mean ask jen she she knows like i'm i don't let anything sit so so do you have responsibilities laid out in your do you have an agreement with the the resident manager what the responsibilities are i did put that in the lease so this is what i have written and i'm looking for it and i just i i didn't see a lot in the zoning bylaw about the resident manager a matter of fact i think it's like one it's like one paragraph it doesn't go into a lot of detail but i have the onsite manager that um the landlord here by designates so and so as the onsite manager was also attended under the lease as the onsite manager the person agrees to serve as the point of contact for the landlord bringing to his immediate attention any tenant conduct or maintenance issues that may arise at the property to ensure compliance with this lease so um you know our goal would be to have a long term um long term tenants in this unit and you know have that consistency that everybody knows who the onsite manager is everybody knows my number you know and one way or the other we're gonna get we're gonna solve any you know any problems and also our you know tenant or um our lease specifies that all the conditions that are now in place because of the uh the rental permit system in amherst which i think is has done a lot for our town in controlling um the parties and a lot of this stuff and also we have in our lease that only 12 people can be onsite at the property at any any given time um so we have that i also heard comments about the um uh one of the parking so people come to visit well that would be strictly enforced and i think there's a lot of parking right across street umass that that we've heard from people associated um with the university that um you know i've said that that parking is available over there and so i would i'm sensitive to that information about you know you don't want people parking on the sidewalks and and all that and and the parking that's existing now is so close to the parking lot or so close to the sidewalk and the fact that somebody has got to turn their crank their neck around to see like if there's somebody behind my car you know i want to eliminate that that situation i don't want to have that parking there and i do think that having the parking area would make this a safer property by allowing people to back up and pull out forward and i will like talk you know i will definitely make sure the tenants are aware of of our expectations with that um is your business are you are you saying that your business is property management and so you you are the professional property manager in this case is that what you're yes so i am a license construction supervisor i have my home improvement contractor license um i have many customers i do home improvement projects for routinely i also have customers that are um that are landlords themselves and they contract with me to do strictly the maintenance end of it and that's what i really uh that's what i really enjoy doing most and um yeah so i feel like we we have you've got you've got two of us here that are um really uh you know involved and or it's not like we're handing this over to somebody else and this is our baby you know and we want to and we want to get you know work with everybody to make sure that it's um everybody's happy with it um all right any other questions from the panel and the board members yes mr meadows it it seems as though um a large part of the comments that we're getting are in relationship to the number of um the number of tenants that are intended and the amount of parking that is expected there um if as was suggested by the butters a more modest proposal was to come back where the space was primarily tenanted by a resident man separate resident manager the number of parking spaces reduced down to just those spaces that are facing to the west towards uh east pleasant street um um and uh and a and a complete landscape plan was developed to encompass that and uh any problems that might occur with runoff uh might then resolve a good number of the issues that have been brought up i i think you heard um mr meadows concerned any response from mr mendelson well um we feel we do feel like the i mean the parking having three three people in this unit and the expectation of having three three cars um is is reasonable and we have you know we followed what the zoning law you know provides for i mean we understand this is not absolute and there's a lot of discretion here with this so we are open um but we strongly feel that the unit is it's not a it's not a ramshackle bar it's a well solidly built structure um the existing farmhouse um i would argue like there that's 900 square feet and this is 900 square feet and this has a modern foundation with you know reinforced concrete extremely well built solid has not moved since you know it's square it's um and i feel like it makes a great unit i i'm kind of surprised that other people don't have my vision i i see it as being an attractive point essential new england cape look at that with the clabbered siding and i would make it nice and make a nice green green grass in the front but i think i run off some i'm i'm some of the other issues that that are not just the appearance but the the other issues such as run off the parking and others are what people are expressing concern about and what some of the board members have expressed concern about mr langsdale uh the uh uh garage you have down as 916 square feet you have the house at 758 square feet does the 916 include the basement and sorry go ahead does it include the basement is my question um no i think what's that that is is actually the footprint is 758 but then you've got the second floor the two bedrooms up there that bring it up to the making it the nine nine and change okay because my what i'm looking at the floor plans of both of the house and the garage as it's proposed and in the house you have a living dining area of 382 square feet a kitchen of 183 a bathroom is 64 a laundry is 61 a bedroom of 195 and on the second floor you have two bedrooms once 232 square feet the other one's 233 square feet plus closets in the proposed floor plan which you say is 916 square feet on one floor you have a great room of 432 square feet and each of the three bedrooms are 85 square feet and the bathroom is 83 square feet these these proposed bedrooms in the garage i mean 85 square feet is i'm not as opposed to the ones in the house which are all at 200 or over square feet why are you to me cramming three bedrooms which each are 85 square feet into this small garage um and it brings up i i think the the question of if you have a site manager where do they sleep with whom do they bunk and are these are these two different houses than to be rented by the room or by the house um yeah it just it just seems to it with the discussion of of the size of the property the size of the parking area and the size of the garage which is one floor with three bedrooms is to me it's it's uh i think it's it's like reaching for too much three bedrooms at 85 square feet is questionable to me can you so can you talk to why you're going to put three tiny tiny bedrooms into this garage why why are you going for three why not one um because i feel like i can it's safe there is egress there there's windows that would be compliant with the building code these this meets residential building code you have a closet and i think it's nice a lot of people tend towards are tending towards smaller dwellings now and um these are dorm rooms i i feel like i can make this nice and i you know i appreciate your comments but i feel like it's it's reasonable and it's it's compliant with it will be compliant with code building code and i think we're i'm we're picking up some concerns in the part of both board members and and others about the project and i see some things myself that i would like to have more information on before i vote on this such as i'd like to know more about drainage and a landscaping plan the ability to not affect your neighbors i'd like to know a little bit more about some of this others some other aspects of this before we before we vote on it that's i'm expressing my opinion here and the other board members may have a different feeling but i i'm i feel like we should there's some work that can be done that maybe make this a more attractive and more possible application but certainly the drainage runoff and the parking areas is something that that i'd like to see some more information on before but i and um i suspect some of my other board members feel the same so i would encourage you know i would encourage you if you're if you're interested and i i wouldn't want to speak for everybody so leave this up ask my fellow board members to speak but i would encourage you to maybe look at at least going back and getting some more information on the um on the drainage and the parking um i would also and what you can do with landscaping to mitigate that because you are you have quite a large hardscape that you're adding and there will be a runoff there um and that can be determined by having less parking spaces you'll have less runoff that may be something you want to look at and whether you have rain gardens or some kind of collection of the water so you don't have an increased runoff to the neighbors would be important um i don't that's one concern that i have lights are another concern um we want to make sure that that that they are the downcast and that they're not spraying into the neighbor's property and we should probably have a little bit more information on that before we go forward as well um any other board members have comments at this point yeah i think i think they need to come back with a um specs on the fence uh that they're proposing um and i would say that given if if we're to go ahead with the parking area as it is that fence is not just for those three little those three parking spaces it need to needs to extend beyond that so that as cars come down and swing in the the lights are going to go beyond those three parking spaces so i think that has to be you need specs and we need to have a uh a photograph or a uh something uh along the lines to show us what it is you're proposing i think you need to look at the lighting i think the flood lights are given the proximity to the other the other uh butters i think flood lights are not a good choice they're flood lights um i think the the thing about the the manager um i think that needs to be really thought out because i i tend to believe that if you have three bedrooms in each dwelling and there are three different unrelated individuals i think to put the manager in one of those three bedrooms um and in one of those houses um if they're all if they're all students i i don't know how you're gonna get a responsible person who's gonna stay there more than seven or eight months nine months whatever the school year is um and i think that's a problem in terms of managing the property um i i i would like to see given given the garage the size of the garage i would like to see um something a different kind of layout with fewer uh bedrooms um 85 square feet is really tiny um yeah okay so i my i would encourage that we i would encourage you to consider um holding off on this uh that we should perhaps suspend consider further consideration of this um but i'd like to get comments from the other board members if they're comfortable with that but i would suggest that we suspend this allow you to come back with some other uh some further plans work with the town in terms of what could be expected um at least from resident manager's perspective and also from the drainage and parking and lights and come back with something that may reduce the amount of concern that we have in the center of the butters have mr maxfield yeah i'd definitely like to see um and i'd like to see some changes that the uh the butters can definitely get on board with there where my my typical inclination is anyone comes to a board um with any project i like to see it and say you know how how can we say yes to this and you're kind of a kind of a guideline i like to use for myself as a you know seven foot fence rule if you want to build a seven foot fence at the um on your property uh you got to come to us it's not by right but if your neighbors don't have a problem with it you don't have a problem with it great you got a seven foot fence if your butters immediate butters have objections to it i i i do have to take those into serious consideration and it it sounds like from what i'm hearing uh obviously the drainage of the parking is definitely something that would have to be looked at um and i'm not entirely sure if if the idea of having three bedrooms in there uh is is a no-go for the butters as well so i definitely would like to see some consideration in a way that this can make this more palatable for the immediate butters and the neighbors in the area mr meadows i i would agree with those comments and and add that i think a uh a complete landscaping plan for the entire properties is is necessary in addition to the other considerations that have been brought forward all right um it seems like we have a consensus to um suspend this for the time being or continue i always use i use the wrong word every time i will get this right we're going to continue this um marine do we have to continue to a date certain or yeah we do don't we are we have to restart the whole thing so we um i think we probably can't continue this until sometime at the end of november at the end of october or what's what's our schedule like so the next available uh meeting date would be november 12th yeah and that could give you enough time to work on those suggestions um and come back with something that may be um more may have more support of the board and so i'd encourage you to do um so i move that we continue the public hearing on this until november 12th correct if the applicants agreeable to that yeah yeah um my only concern is getting um you know a landscape plan get ready and that uh i don't know i why don't we set that as a date and i'll i'll get working on this stuff and and then um i will keep in communication you know let moraine yes and if you can't make it let us know and we'll we'll continue it to a different to a later date okay all right the applicant agrees mr maxfield i second your motion all right all in favor roll call vote um i vote i mr meadows hi mr parks hi mr maxfield hi mr langsdale hi motion is unanimous um we'll see you back here in november good luck the next order of business is um zba fy 2021-04 greg stutzman requests a special permit to allow a supplemental detached dwelling unit as an accessory to a one family detached dwelling under sections 5.0 111 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at 1325 southeast street map 23d parcel 12 outlying residents district ro zoning district on this manner um miss wallman alternative ultimate member miss wallman will serve on the panel are there any disclosures as in the first case i was unable to attend the site visit with the other board members but i visited the property myself yesterday um is there somebody who would like to summarize what the board members saw on the site visit if i can go through me and mine and then you can add we i walked around the property with the owner we looked at the um existing house we walked up through the the back through the the garden and the rock way up to the building site we explore the trees that would be taken down we marked off generally the the um the site of the house and of the and the boundaries of the garage we talked about the trees that were going to be removed from the front the arborbites and removed along to the side yard for the abutting for the neighbor abutting the property we also talked about a a um a fence i think a fence that runs from the street back along the property line we looked at um the we discussed the floor plan and the the siting of the garage versus the and the roof line of the garage versus the the house being used for solar collection for the i think it was the house and the use for solar collection the roof um and we looked at the um i think it's mont pollocks drive the the road running alongside the property that does not have a sidewalk on it i noticed that that's those are the things that we discussed uh and on the site visit uh but were there other items discussed by members of the board at their visit that i did not mention here judge this is uh Sharon will i yes sorry you got going and i didn't catch the disclosure i have a disclosure my youngest son is friends with the knee butters uh to the west grandson but i don't think it will affect my ability to be impartial thank you any other disclosures or additional comments on the site visit um i just want to go through what we have received from the applicant in terms of submissions we've received a special permit application a management plan a plan set which includes a title sheet a topographical plan an existing site plan proposed site plan a landscape plan um basement first floor and roof plans and exterior elevations dwelling unit prepared by all these were prepared by chow design and dated um either august 18th or september 12th and a garage exterior elevation we've gotten a landscape narrative prepared by wellnessness wellness scapes design dated august 12th a plan schedule prepared by them light fixtures specification sheets um we have a sample lease agreement an addendum to the residential lease a complaint response form specification sheet for proposed fence as well as the um i guess a picture of the fence an email correspondence from greg sustenance to planner marine pollock uh subject 1325 southeast street additional materials staff submissions include project application report of october 21st the 29th and 25th those was updated the comments from the emmer's health inspector the building inspector and endman smith comments from the town engineer jason steels dated september 24th and september 29th i don't think we have any public comments filed on this do we moraine correct okay that's what we have um so who would like to present for the applicant no mr judge oh mr reedy mr judge uh so good evening mr chairman members of the board mr moraine is pollock i'm tom reedy an attorney with bacon wilson and amherst here on behalf of the applicant greg stutzman and his application for a special permit for a supplemental detached dwelling um as an accessory used to a one family detached dwelling at 1325 southeast street in amherst with me this evening the property owner and applicant greg stutzman we've got maria chow from chow design and then on the phone we've got tom benjamin who is our landscape architect and so you know rarely am i afforded an opportunity where i'm able to present an application that is i think straightforward and really fits into the zoning bylaw and the master plan specifically relative to infill development but you know that's what we've got here um it's an 800 square foot supplemental dwelling with one bedroom you know not three with 916 square feet um and it's got one and a half bathrooms and it's on a 33 000 square foot lot um on mount pollock's drive in southeast street and i think you'll find this if you walk the site and i think as you'll hear that that the design has really been informed by the landscape and i and i think there is you'll see a lot of thought that you know greg and tom and maria put into this to make sure that it was located in a in a place that made sense topographically preserved the maximum number of mature trees sought to screen the the westerly neighbor via the garage and also our varieties and as you'll see a fence um and really to fit into the existing terraced garden so every time i look at it i'm more and more impressed with it and hopefully you'll be as well as you'll see if you've read through the project application report it it satisfies all the requirements of the bylaw um you don't have to worry about a resident manager here because he's going to be living there it's greg stutzman it's this is one of the beauties of the supplemental dwelling is that the it has to be owner occupied and so as long as i've been practicing in this town owner occupancy is is key because it really does provide um its ownership but it also gives the person who probably cares the most about the property the ability to control that property and that's greg and he's going to be there um he would be residing in the supplemental dwelling and he would be leasing that existing dwelling it's a perfect setup because the new dwelling where he's going to be residing acts as the natural buffer to the neighbors in the existing dwelling is what's up on the roadway on southeast street um i think you'll find that it's a pretty complete presentation with with specifications and um you know floor plan topography materials etc stop us during it ask us questions we have like i said they've done a really good job of preparing uh thoughtfully for this so with that i'll i'll turn it over to maria to share her screen and walk you through the proposal hi everyone um i'm maria child architect working with greg stutzman and tom benjamin on um the design for this house um i will share a screen now so i can walk you through the project um okay so uh and thank you tom for a really nice introduction that pretty much covered how we got to where we are um this is a sheet i think it was in your set um you guys can see the screen okay it's l11 okay maria could you uh exhale the page thumbs to the left ah sure i think anyway i'll be bigger okay so um as tom described we tom benjamin and i and greg worked really hard to cite it in the most appropriate place on this large parcel and um greg is going to be living here in this 800 square foot structure there's a two-car detached garage here exterior porch exterior porch and then a screen porch here and so we wanted to make sure that you know from um southeast street that this new structure was very much sort of secondary to the main house here and so this is a view from southeast street and you can i actually couldn't even there's so much vegetation on greg's property already that there's actually you can't even see the house back here actually but i wanted to show something so you know we put the shortest side of the house um addressing southeast street and the long side facing south because usually when i design i tend to put the long side of a building facing south to maximize natural light and also if um an owner wants to use full of otex you know it's oriented properly and so um i think someone had mentioned there'd be we were planning the full of otex to be on the garage roof and um the house roof actually slopes so that the high side is facing south so there will be no full of otex on the house and this is that little screen porch you can see so it's really nestled in the trees and um you know backed away a little bit more from this front set back just so there's a little more sort of privacy for greg and like tom reedy mentioned this garage is sort of a buffer between the neighbor and and greg's house and this is that really large terrace garden probably saw on the site visit um and we wanted to make sure the deck and the porch didn't hover over it too much and this was as close as i could comfortably get it without it you know shading the plants that greg already has pretty well established there and um and tom will go through the landscape so i will move on to the house this is tom's landscape plan but i will talk about the architecture so this is the first floor plan um this is the detached garage do you come in there's this sort of um l-shaped series of steps that lead you in and uh there's an entry area that uh opens into the living and kitchen dining space that's all one very large space um this connects to the screen porch which also goes out to this back deck that has a really nice view to the north where it's like a thick forest and then to the east is the terrace gardens um this is a hallway where there's a laundry closet um this is the one bedroom with more closet space and then this this is actually a full bath that um we designed in a way where greg was hoping that you know you could shut it off and it could be used when people are visiting or you know so that really we're just making one bathroom one full bath but um i suppose you could call it one and a half but in a way it's it's really one bath that has two sinks one toilet a tub and a shower and that opens up onto another outdoor deck that's very um sort of we purposely put the garage here to sort of keep this a private space and kind of shield the bedroom from the neighbors to the west so so everything was sort of placed with you know what's adjacent as far as the site views the solar orientation the neighbors um you know keeping privacy to the east and west neighbors um and as well as uh just trying to keep a very small modest footprint so that um you know as far as economics it's just a simple rectangle a shed roof that's sloping toward the north on the house and toward the south on the garage as you can see in the roof plan here um this is the basement it's going to remain unfinished it's just restored and it does walk out to the um north where you'll see later in tom's plan we've made it so that the um existing grade is peeled back just slightly enough to get a small flat area here and then these are the posts for the deck and screen parts above uh garages slap on grade and these are posts for the uh the deck that's between the the bedroom and the garage and let's see and these are the let's sit that a little bit these are the exterior elevations this is the side facing south um it's the the front door this is sort of where the living kitchen dining has a lot of um southern light but with this four foot overhang it actually will let very little south light in in the summer and in the winter it will hit this back wall pretty much um this is that screen porch so this is the face that's facing east yes east where greg's current house is um and there's that deck that's sort of uh hovering over some of the gardens um just the sort of back corner of his garden this is the side facing north um that was that walkout little space i was talking about with the basement where we've peeled back just enough grade so that you can um have a flat area there uh this is the garage this is the bedroom that's the stair to the basement that's to the kitchen and this is the kitchen and then this is that screen porch and this is um cutting through this deck here so that you can see the uh west elevation and this is that back deck that's toward the north let's see i think that's it oh wait sorry and then there's the garage just because they're cranked at two different angles i put the garage um on another sheet so you can see all four sides this is the side facing mount pollock's drive and this is the side facing the dope uh yes the dwelling unit and then this is the side facing north and this is the side facing west so um that's the house in a nutshell uh let's see i'm gonna see if um unless that you want to talk tom some more um should we see if tom benjamin is available to go through landscape design yeah if if tom's available that'd be great and then we can hop if you've got those colored elevations maybe we can show those and just point out some uh where the lighting is gotcha yes let me dig that is that real quick i uh tom benjamin should be able to speak okay and maybe maria do you want to share your screen and go through the landscape plan while talking yeah let me tom benjamin um are you able to talk i i don't hear you yet maybe i allowed the wrong person hold on a second um uh is tom benjamin's last four digits if is point number one one three five yes okay uh tom hold on i don't see him on the list there it is i'll ask him to unmute so he's he's muted i don't know why hon um okay one second folks unmute oh we hear you can you hear me yes hi uh this is tom benjamin from wellness scapes design landscape architect um thanks tom reedy um and to maria chow for the um descriptions of the project i'll just uh touch on the landscape um can you can you all hear me okay yes all right i apologize i'm i'm traveling as i'm speaking so starting on the mount pollock side the south side of the house is primarily in lawn as is the case now we've tried to preserve as many trees as possible particularly to the southeast relief side moving towards the terrace garden of mr stutzman um and we are proposing to have some screening tall a bed with tall shrubs possibly some small trees along the mount pollock's frontage i believe that is shown on the plan to uh help buffer the street a little bit and um moving i'm going to go around from there uh clockwise so moving to the west will drain into a very west of the garage that will capture uh the driveway and also from a downspout varies all of the substantial plant schedule which provides just many options for places on the site but particularly thinking about um visually screen to add some more shrubs there canopy trees then moving a little bit more easterly to the north side of this tended for a long time and uh that will appreciate having um some more water uh its way especially in the summer like we've just had um and then then that brings us back around to the front of the house i guess maybe i would suggest mr chair while we've got tom on the phone because everybody knows how finicky cell service can be sometimes if there's any questions relative to the landscaping plan i would just ask that maybe now we address those you're muted mr judge you're muted yep mr langsdale okay uh tom the uh downspout on the uh north east side of the house that goes into the existing terrace garden yes is that above ground or underground that would be um at grade basically would drain into into grade um there is the possibility um you know obviously in the field there can be some adjustments that have to be made so that it's possible that it might um require just a little bit of a like a piped extension just to get it over maybe another 10 feet into the garden but that the intent is to have it run on the surface and i believe we have we can make the grade there too for that to work you only really need one to two percent to send water in the direction that you yeah to go yeah i understand the grade would only need to be one to two percent but what would you be since it's above ground what would you'd be digging a trough to go into otherwise there would be a very shallow swell a very shallow probably like a gravel swell the gravel okay yeah yeah okay you're moving um tom you're moving a lot of trees that are along mott pollocks drive can you talk about where those trees are going and the reason for it yes those are um i just was uh anticipating that you know there'd be concern about screening the neighbor to the west in particular so it seemed that they would serve a better purpose by being more clustered on the west and basically helping to thicken up the existing row of trees that's already on the west side but adding adding more would seem to just help a deeper buffer mr langsdale as long as we're on that side when we walk the property the owner spoke about adding a fence there has i don't know if this is your purview but since we're there and we're talking about screening yep is there to be a fence what kind of fence we don't as far as i know we don't have any pictures about that or any information about that uh what would that be uh how high are you asking for uh and what would it consist of um i believe that we submitted um and i think it was mentioned in the at the beginning of the hearing that we submitted um some a spec sheet on a potential fence uh and i'm gonna let okay uh jump in on this one i believe you have that yes i do let me uh share my screen again so many screens okay um this is the who illusions v 300 vinyl privacy fence it comes in varying heights four five six eight we're proposing to work with those owning bylaw what they allow which is four foot within the front 25 foot setback and then six feet from that uh beyond this is sort of um what one panel looks like between the posts hunter green is probably the color we're going with although uh late yesterday tom benjamin said forest green blends in really nicely with uh the vegetation in our area so it's a green um and here is hunter green in action um so uh yeah that's basically it's vinyl because um i think greg had a concern that you know uh let me see i don't know if i'm doing this right but i'm gonna jump between sharing screens to uh okay here we go let me share back this screen is this the right one are you guys looking at the site plan now yes okay so um this is the 65 foot length that uh of area that where um uh mr i can't remember the last name uh the neighbor to the west um put a stake and um greg and and the neighbor agreed on this being sort of the the endpoint and they'd go all the way to the front property line and um so it would be yeah four feet for the front 25 and then six beyond and then like tom benjamin was saying there's going to be a lot more planting there um oh and back to the point why it's the vinyl fencing is that um greg had a concern that you know it's between this row of two sort of really dense trees so basically brought if it was wood so um so tom benjamin suggested a really good solution of you know um a hardy material and making it green so it just sort of disappears into the um sort of double row of trees there um so miss chow is that right on the property line or is it off the property line off by two feet yeah because there is an existing uh cluster of trees right now and so we're going just to greg's side on his property where we'll be putting the fence where you zoom in so they can see that two feet it's to mention here and here and the property line is so thick that it's hard to see you know where the first tick mark is but the second one shows us this is the fence uh line the square dash square dash kind of symbol that's where the fence is um i can go back to the landscape plan if you have more questions for tom benjamin about the landscape oops this is right there we go yeah if you have more landscape questions while we have tom i just want to echo what maria said about the fence i i think um that it's a good choice for durability um and aesthetics um i think it works any other questions regarding the landscape plan before we lose the person on the phone tom on the phone mr reedy is there anything else that you want him to present on the application yeah maria i don't know if you want to get the colored elevations okay if you if you have them um i just think they're very impressive and really give a sense of the kind of the feel um and if not i can probably share my screen and bring them up yeah do you want to do that i have so many emails yeah i've got it all right all right i'll try can you see a screen yes yeah so um is it the right one it is yay yep um so you can say i've tried to show how um you know on the north side and all the elevations there's a it's it's like a forest in the back and then um the idea is that uh you know there's a lot of outdoor living for this dwelling unit because it's only on 800 square feet we Greg and i designed a lot of outdoor decks the screen porch so that you know expands the living space and it's a really beautifully wooded site so we're trying to take advantage of that um the materials for the exterior cladding is all wood um two different tones as you can see um and uh and actually i forgot to mention lighting um the uh south elevation shows the um lights in the root uh the soffits there's um yeah exactly right there come so yeah those are all downcast and they actually have this little adjustable gimbal trim which points it directly down um and in fact we can angle it even more so it sure sort of just washes the front face but that's actually just really low level general lighting there is a little light right by the exactly right there by the front door that actually lights the space um and by every front door there is that same fixture and it is dark sky compliant um i think there is one by the door on the west one on the north um yep in the base by the basement door and um uh and the only other lighting i think is also um on the if you're looking at the south elevation it's the west side that sop roof soffit as well has sort of like a low wash of lights for the deck that's between the garage and the um house um is that it for the lighting i believe it is maria is there is there soffit lighting in the garage for the garage oh yes you're right well you know the part like the way and i do oh yeah um i think there are three or four downlights the same ones as on the south face and i think they're also on the east side of the garage so that you know that deck between the house has sort of a light wash of light from above yeah perfect are these um miss chow are these the colors that you're pretending to use um as close as i could get it with a computer the wood stain is going to be a more natural tone and then the black is this um really cool um japanese technique where they lightly char the wood and it's a technique that's been used for hundreds of years in japan and it's catching on on the north uh west coast uh northwest a lot and um basically it's the slightly charred wood that protects the wood so that you install it and then you don't do anything to it for you know decades because it's it's basically putting a protective coat onto it as well as adding that color so um yeah it's a really interesting material all right mr langsdale do you speak to the uh the soffits lights on the house and the garage uh specifically what's the pitch of the roof and what is uh the fucking shit i'm sorry um the uh the soffit lights are are made to be under roofs uh or ceilings um but at the height that many of these are there's it's it's a it's a wash of light rather than a directed light uh the lights you have at the doors are all uh dark sky compliant and uh very downcast and they light the area for which they are intended but the soffit lights there are one two three four five six seven eight eight on the house at least i don't know if there are any on the east side i can't tell that uh and then on the garage you have them as well um and are those also then the question is uh are they on from uh dusk to dawn or okay so um i can answer now or yeah yes okay so the roof slope is um four and twelve it's a pretty shallow slope and um i'll share my screen really quick oh sorry can i share screen tom i'll stop sure okay okay so um yes the uh whoops these are the ones by all the doors providing the actual sort of you know um safety light level that's for safety um the ones on the soffit you can see they're adjustable and they're slightly recessed and they have um at that height that i'm proposing which is around 16 feet they're only like um two foot candles at the center beam they're very very minimal just enough for sort of ambient light and they would be switched they would not be like motion detector you know not like flood lights they're literally just for when greg you know maybe um if he has guests come in where they can see the house you know when they're driving up or something um or he can turn them on if he's going out to the garage they're really just general ambient light and they're pointed they're i chose a trend specifically to work with um sloped roofs and um and yeah they're they're about at the 16 foot mark and they will not trespass beyond um they even showed one with like a 40 foot diameter and that was only 0.2 foot candles so it's it won't go beyond their front yard at all um they'll just be sort of on the surface of the house but the given the pitch of the roof and the angle that it shows that the lights can attain they're not going to be are they they're straight down they're straight down yeah straight down yeah you have a gimbal in them is it are they gimbal yes that's exactly what i call a gimbal switchable uh trim and uh they are designed for sloped roofs so that you can point them um i think the angle is up to 20 degrees and you know 4 and 12 roof is uh i think it's like 18 so it's pretty much exactly you know it goes we can even crank it a little further to wash the walls but um yeah it's it's adjustable and designed for this this specific purpose well it's designed to go under under under ceilings and uh like porch thing but not for a 18 degree slope of a roof at 16 to 18 feet off the ground uh i'm just concerned that you've got uh a lot of these lights uh actually doing what they're not uh designed to do and that it's a spread of light with that number of them it's a spread of light that um is not on the house um i mean like the the the on the front elevation of the house the top of the roof is 21 21 and a half feet so given that the roof is maybe i don't know let's even say 18 inches you're still you're well above 16 feet for those especially for those across the front so i'm concerned that what you're doing is lighting the yard and that if you're if we're concerned about the butters especially the man to the west to the west who's made objection uh what is what is necessary about these lights as opposed to uh their function or what is their function as beyond beyond aesthetics their what is their function beyond aesthetics um so they would not be lighting the yard they would be either washing the space directly below or the face of the house and um that is a very aesthetic about 20 feet across the front of the house 20 feet to the to the ground level i mean looking at right here it says 25 21.5 feet from the grade level to the top of the roof and the roof isn't the roof isn't that thick so those lights are going to be at i mean at generous we're talking 20 feet off the ground so they're not going to be i just want to they're not made to light straight down for 20 feet that's right so there's not a focus that they have that will that will transmit over 20 feet they'll spread and they spread the light and now you and you've got five of them five of them across the front plus the others uh on the on the sides i'm concerned about the the the pollution of these lights and are you i mean are you concerned about because there's two different things there's light trespass onto an adjacent property which these won't do or there's the ability of folks who are off-site to look onto the site and see the light which certainly that will happen here which i think happens with all lights and you know if you drive down the street and somebody has their bedroom light on you can see somebody has their bedroom bedroom light on so i mean yes the lights will exist but they're they're not going to trespass they do not leave the property from what i heard from Maria it sounds like they could be angled to wash the house to ensure that they're not flooding out onto the grass and and potentially it's a condition that you say they cannot illuminate the grass they must either be straight down or tilted back towards the house for accent lighting i suppose and that's that's what it is it's accent lighting it's not even going to reach the grass as you've pointed out i just measured it's 19 foot six from the soffit to the grade and there is no chance it would trespass to a neighbor of course you would see it from the street mount pollux because like tom rick was saying you know you see lights um and then okay that's stated that stating the obvious and that's not what i'm talking about because obviously you go by anybody's house they have a light on inside you see the light that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about their function which is is it just aesthetic and if it's just aesthetic is it something that is possibly trespassing on the night sky we're talking it's not just about whether it it interferes with the neighbors it's about the night sky that's what dark sky compliant lights are all about okay so my question is these the function of these lights are to be they're made to be under uh roof lines ceilings but not on an 18 degree tilted roof at 19.6 and i question whether the the the the tilting of these lights will shine on the house and not uh spread at 19.6 feet off the ground it's like a floodlight it becomes like a floodlight because it you you have you lose any ability to focus them so at that height is there a way to know how how much the how how big a circle of light is and how and how intense that light is 20 feet away um i went off of that foot candle diagram and um it was only one foot candle at 16 feet below the light and then it was point two foot candles at a 40 foot sorry not a 16 diameter and then at 40 foot diameter it was only point two so it's not a floodlight um the angled gimbal trim is designed specifically for slope surfaces so that you can then point the light straight down um it is accent lighting it will serve a purpose over the deck between the house and the garage where it is sort of a light for that space when it's occupied um the south face um it's for the walkway between the garage to the house so that that has some more ambient light for safety um because the light at the door is really just lighting up the stoop area so it it yes it's an accent light but it's also serving a purpose for the safety of people walking between the structures um uh so i i hear what you're saying i can't agree with 100 of it but i definitely you know know your concern and i'm all about dark sky come play i've done a lot of research on it in my past and um this there was just no chance that this is a floodlight it's just too low a level uh for camels so in terms of purpose if you leave the garage the only way you can leave the garage to go into the front door is to at night is to be lit by those there's not you can't go out the back of the garage any other way so arguably to get from the garage to the front of the house you at night you this would light your way sure yes yeah all right but they can be tilted to just wash the house right and have very little very little um a little more yes they could be tilted a little more to wash the house and to not spread onto the beyond the walkway or much beyond the walkway at least they'd be very low candle power that's correct yep so mr langsdale um should we be looking at a condition that has the lights trying to wash the house and minimize some way minimizing the the spread beyond the walkway and into the yard yeah i i also i also have to say that the the explanation that these lights at the heights that they are all granted they're they're they're graded from a lower to the 19.196 that that they are needed to light the way from the garage to the house uh there are many ways to do that without having this kind of light this high in the air on an angle on a slanted on a very slanted roof uh i i just i i would you know personally i would like to see some kind of a uh uh uh rethinking of this um i understand that uh architecturally and design wise it's um desired and thought to be a good idea my concern is about the sky it's about the lighting and it's about putting lights that are not meant to be almost 20 feet in the air 20 feet in the air so um it's a it's a concern for me it's a real concern and and i other than uh maybe or probably or we could do this or they're gonna tilt i don't know i haven't heard anything about uh what this light's going to do to the uh area to the uh to the night sky i don't know i just like to see more it's a point of phrase all right uh any other do you have other stuff you want to present time or should we start with questions mr rea or should we start with questions yeah i guess i what i would just say is as far as the the management goes you know uh greg stutzman is the one on the complaint response plan he will be living in this dwelling he's gonna um uh stodged landscaping is going to be doing the snow plowing and then we also have i think you saw maybe the floor plans that the trash and recycling is going to be in the garage and those are just a couple of things just to kind of round out the the management of the property so i think with that we've touched on everything um maybe i'll mention parking because it was in a project application report there were there are two parking spaces in the garage and then also two parking spaces surface parking spaces on the driveway and i think that's where the arbor vities and the fence all help with that screening kind of similar to the resolution from the the previous hearing uh and those concerns so i think greg was you know with his westerly a butter had some forethought there and proposed that fencing so so i did have a question about the parking we got four parking spaces for for this unit the dwelling and only three people can live there a maximum of three but it's a one bedroom unit and so i'm wondering how many people are anticipated to be living there um and why do we have four and why why there's a need for that many parking spaces so i could actually speak to that if it's okay what's that greg greg'll okay i'll speak to that yes mr just identify yourself first time to speak greg stutzman here thanks for hearing us tonight really appreciate it um so a couple notes on the parking it is envisioned as kind of a dual purpose uh maria had the good sense to recommend there'd be a way to turn cars around so it serves that purpose it also serves for guest parking and we didn't include snow management on our plan by envision one of those spots being the location for excess snow if needed and something we hadn't talked about was kind of the conditions on the street with the on-street parking in our neighborhood just driving over here tonight we had probably nine out of state vehicles uh parking on the street people like to walk up to mount pollux it's pretty common uh some of our neighbors use on-street parking when they don't have room in their driveway and i think it we really beneficial that we have sufficient space when we do have some visitors or we do have snow on the ground that we're parking on our property and not on the street and the other you have is there a basement to the in what will that be used for again that's not finished and it's just going to be for storage correct is that correct that's correct are there other questions for the applicant is this for any questions any questions we're it's wide open in the sparks wide open so i guess i'm just wondering about the other the house that will be leased and i'm wondering um uh i don't know how many bedrooms are in there are uh is there a maximum number of people who you'd be leasing to yeah i can speak to that so it's technically a five bedroom house but we wouldn't be renting to more than four unrelated persons and my guess would be we actually end up with a smaller group i'm pretty familiar with the rental market and with all the health issues going on right now tends to be smaller groups or family groups instead of unrelated persons um looking for housing um so that's our plan for it my experience with management having managed and leased properties over the year so i look forward to being on site there and being the go-to person both for my neighbors and for the tenants and and there's parking on that side as well there's yes number of spots there okay there's at least four spots in the driveway and two garage spaces for the main house okay mr maxill would you have a question no i guess not i thought to raise your hand other questions i think you've answered most of mine and i've got so many pieces of paper in front of me i've got to find my notes so does anybody else have a question we can we can stand silence for just a few minutes while we look through our notes so you're limited this is limited to 800 square feet of development which is the legal limit for the supplemental detached dwellings that's correct and we don't count the basement in that square footage right correct and we don't count the garage correct okay and in the the applicant intends to own up to occupy the the supplemental dwelling unit and there's one person living intended for one person to live in that unit intended for two no more than three no more than three no more than three can i ask um a question yes mr parks so it occurs to me that it was it's two building lots and you've chosen to call one of them a supplemental building and i'm just wondering in the future would it be possible to divide that and sell those as separate lots that's one building lot actually it doesn't have sufficient building area for two lots it's i think around 70 or 80 000 square feet no it's less than that it's in the it's in the high 30s around 38 we have those figures you've got 30 000 in the auto zoning district for a building lot you need 30 000 square feet greg for this whole lot has about 33 000 square feet so that's that's the issue here is that while he's got sufficient frontage he doesn't have sufficient lot area so that's where the supplemental dwelling piece comes in so it can't be divided and sold is okay i'll just say that for to me a supplemental building is attached to the other building and so i'm looking at that idea that's different than what i'm used to so that they that the building that you're building will always have to be attached to the other house correct okay unless there's something by law changes but under this zoning bylaw this is this is exactly what it is it'll always be on this property attached to that single family home and with one of the two being owner occupied okay and it has to be owner occupied because it's supplemental correct okay you couldn't have four unrelated people in each building that would be like a non-owner not owner occupied duplex but then even under your bylaw there has to be like some connectivity between the two so this would be effectively like where we started in your question a separate building lot but it doesn't meet the requirements so that's why the only way to do this it's i'll use the word parasitic but i don't think that's exactly the the the idea i want to conjure but that's what it is it just occurs to me that it's in in the future if it gets sold it's it's an unusual property it's a package deal yes mr maxfield oh yeah i just saw the history on that when you um mr sessum when you when you purchased this property they were two separate lots and then you merge them into one lot of my was i correct about that uh yeah i purchased the main lot in 2010 and the additional lot i believe in 2012 and then there was a an r done in 2017 which combined them into one parcel which would happen eventually by default with them being in the same ownership and then i guess the the follow-up on that so that second parcel it never had enough space to be developed on that parcel that i purchased was never large enough to be developed or interesting okay this part and will it have the same address as the other house or is that an additional number that's a good question and i think that's a conversation with the town where we when we apply for our building permit and tom correct me if i'm wrong that issue would be addressed and they'd want a number assigned to that i would say that as far as mail delivery that all the mailboxes for mount pollock circle are currently essentially on my property near the main house or in the public way immediately next to it so folks up on that cul-de-sac are already used to walking down to the mailboxes other questions for the applicant from board members all right let's open it up to public comment if there's anybody in the public that wishes to comment at this time please indicate your raise hand function identify yourself Richard I believe is raising his hand Richard yes thank you Richard Rosnoy from 11 Strong Street in Amherst and I just want to go on record as supporting Mr. Sussman's project I know what he's seeking to do I know the kind of work that he does and I know what Maria Chow does in architecture and it's a very worthy project I think I leave I leave the question of lighting to you but as as it's proposed they don't bother me so I don't know how you how you want to handle that secondly I want to thank you for this fine meeting you've you've spent a lot of time on things and it's been much more pleasurable watching you than listening to the news tonight so thank you I think you're damning us with freight praise on that one but thank you anyway um next next we have Joyce Duncan just please identify yourself Joyce Joyce are you are you there I don't hear anybody all right any other comments we have nobody else that's raising their hand oh she Joyce has raised her hand again all right you've muted yourself there okay Joyce we'll try it one more time try it again no we don't hear anybody they don't hear a comment okay Joyce all right okay so next we have uh Michael Morgan um oh hello can you identify yourself am I muted can you hear me yes I'm Michael Morgan uh 25 Mount Pollux Drive I'm here with my wife and Rothschild well she's hello and this has been an interesting few hours you folks work really really hard it's very impressive to watch um I know that Sam and and Joyce next door did want to speak so I hope they can get through that a lot of things they wanted to say we just moved here very very recently after 37 years in North Amherst so we're not long-term neighbors but I do have a couple of questions about this one is I don't understand why he needs to come to the board what he's looking for permission to do that wouldn't just be under normal zoning issues I just don't understand why he has to get permission for this another question is I don't understand why the driveway has to be so close to Sam Gladstone's property it's like four feet away or very very very close to why he has to be so far to the west why it can't be a little bit more to the east why it has to be so close to it um I was very interested in the discussion of the lights I hadn't even thought about those I got the impression I could be completely wrong that those lights are going to be on all night all the time or just when someone is going in or out because if they're on all the time that's our bedroom and the house next to Gladstone's where the lights would be shining that was news to me and very very interesting and concerning yeah and concerning and I was also really struck about the notion of there being nine cars out in the street which I don't see once in a while I see one car very rarely too and just finally I'll ask though just for your information my mailbox is in front of my house on my politics drive not out on southeast but I'd like to hear more about these questions and especially I do hope you get to hear from Gladstone's and Joyce Duncan oh I just want to back that up we so we are just identify yourself please any Rothschild and I live with Michael Morgan and um we we are not abutting we are so but we are on now we abut the abutters so we abut Sam Gladstone and Joyce Duncan Joyce Duncan they are they live next but we would be we would be seeing we'd be seeing the proposed construction from our bedroom right so this is a small cul-de-sac and we're the only neighbors except for the Gladstone's except for the Gladstone's and except for Sam Gladstone and Joyce Duncan um so yeah we're wondering why the drive proposed driveway is so close to Sam and Joyce's house I mean it sounds like it that would be a problem with sound for them and privacy and um I don't see why there's additional turnaround needed we back into our quiet cul-de-sac with no traffic on it from our house I don't know why you would need to turn around um additional guest parking well that's on the street there's not nine cars on the street or in the driveway or in the driveway there's not nine cars there's at the most two cars people do not seem to park here go up Mount Pollack's they they come on the Mount Pollack's thinking they're going to Mount Pollack's then can't find the parking lot and leave so um I see about two one or two cars a day parking here in their Sam's family um the lights do really concern me and I really appreciate the discussion about it I don't understand from what Keith is saying it sounds like they're going to be on all night is that true I would like an answer to that no that's why it sounded like it's and why are they not sensor lights motion like motion lights motion sensor lights um so that Greg can walk to his car or garage whatever um so I I'm really concerned about the light I love to go out the moon is is toward the east and that certainly affects the night sky I really really appreciate the discussion of that I so appreciate that thank you okay thank you any other comments from the public could you try okay we have uh Joyce Duncan Joyce you're muted I thought I did it hold on a second okay Michael I'm muting you now okay uh who's next I said uh Joyce can you you can go now Joyce you should be able to speak now Joyce I wonder if your microphone and your computer isn't working because you're you're a lot you're unmuted so we should be able to hear you but we can you know what I'm going to do uh hold on a second hold on oh don't look at that um okay Joyce this is what we're going to do Joyce is um hold on so it seems that Joyce your your laptop or computer is having issues so I suggest that you call this phone number listed here three one two six two six six seven nine nine and when uh enter the webinar id when prompted which is listed here nine four four six three five zero two eight one eight and then once you get in you're going to press when prompted to enter applicant uh participant number press pound to indicate you wish to make a comment press star nine so call this number then type in this webinar id then press pound and then press star nine let's see here if that she does that um well she raised her hand again so we're gonna try but it's it sounds like it's from her computer so let's see Joyce you are able to speak if you are you are not muted we can't we can't hear you Joyce um well Joyce you should try calling that number and we'll we'll watch for you if you get back on I know you wanted to speak so we'll watch for you we can go to what I'd like you to do in the meantime until Joyce is able to get online I'd like to um have the applicant respond to some of the concerns that were raised by the uh the public and any comments from the board as well for um Mr. Stotsford is there anything you'd like to just anywhere you'd like to respond maybe Greg I could hop in here if that's all right um and Mr. Chair if it's okay so maybe as far as uh I think the first question was why why do we need permission to do it and I think it's as it's as simple as looking at the zoning bylaw understanding that I think it was town meeting at at that point had after planning board had uh proposed and the town ultimately approved this supplemental dwelling and then said that in these certain zoning districts here's the process that you have to go through so it isn't allowed use it just has uh a little bit more review than other like just a regular building permit um why is the driveway so close to the abutting property uh I'll defer to Tom and Maria but my I would think that is because of the topography of the site and this is really where that site flattens out otherwise you're talking about a lot of cut um you're probably talking about additional engineering costs um and you're probably also you know I don't want to start talking about drainage but as you start to getting into earthwork you're starting to talk about different drainage so this seems like the natural place on the site to actually put the driveway and out of all sorts of uses the driveway is probably one of the most um benign of those and then uh why have why have a turn around why not just back out onto Mount Pollock's Drive and I think the best design is not to back out onto a roadway regardless of how busy or not busy that it is and I think you know you'll you'll see that in the zoning bylaw and I think just good planning practice is if folks don't need to back out they shouldn't back out and to have this additional area on site um and avoid having people avoid parking on Mount Pollock's Drive to keep that public way clear fo