I work on maintenance on police cars, TPW, all of our fleet vehicles. I do anything from diagnostics to heavy repairs. It's worth working for the city. Mostly my biggest thing is the retirement. Being able to know that I put in 30 years and a strong 30 years and have a good retirement at the end. The coolest thing for me is probably the personalities, the new people you meet between anybody that works for TPW order or even the police officers that come through. My favorite thing about working for Fleet is it's easy to promote. It's easy to take advantage of the things that they provide for us. Since I've been with the city, I've grown pretty much a lot. I started off as a back two, moved up to senior within a year and from there it's been pretty good. To any new team members just come in with the mindset that hard work pays off and strive for greatness. On a daily basis, we diagnose and repair the customer's vehicles as needed whether it is a minor repair or a major repair. What makes it worthwhile is being a part of a team and bringing your knowledge in and sharing your knowledge with others and taking the knowledge from others as well and using that information to repair the automobiles correctly. Meeting new people is probably one of the coolest things working for Fleet and being able to help somebody out in need when their vehicle is down. Working for Fleet at the end of the day when you've repaired a problem and you've got a unit back out on the street, you know that you've done your part as a member of the community to ensure that the units are in working order. Working for the city has allowed me to find a place within a team that accepts your knowledge and helps you grow. My best advice to a new team member would have them come in and just kind of get to know everybody and be able to share their knowledge to help repair the automobiles. My job description is basically I oversee two service centers. One is the body shop that oversees all the maintenance repairs on all city vehicles which is roughly over 4,000. I have three employees there and on the north side of Fort Worth and the second shop is Water Service Center and I have roughly over 20 employees, two shifts. All water department equipment is maintained there. What's worth working here is the knowledge that you learn, the different variety of equipment, the staffing that you deal with. It's all internal, all employees that drop off vehicles are city employees. So you build a relationship not only with the equipment but with employees. The knowledge that you learn not just from the techno skills you learn through the years of service but also from the fellow employees, the staffing and also what's available online and anything that the schooling and training that is available to us. The rewarding part to work for the division that I currently work for is it's not a very large group. It is spread out somewhat but there is a bond and it feels like more of a family after a sense. When you start working you get a better relationship, not just a working relationship but a family relationship. I started at the entry level 30 years ago. I worked up every level, a mechanic to, a senior, a crew leader, a supervisor and I was able to maintain several service centers, the police garage, the fire garage, the body shop, the water department, Southside Service Center. So I worked actually on every piece of equipment the city has owned and I've managed quite a few different people who have come and retired and that relationship I built has also lingered on to after retirement which I still have a relationship from those I worked in the past and those who moved on to other jobs. One of the best advice is ask questions and listen. Some of you have been around at least like myself 30 years. Somebody come in with one year, two years, ask a lot of questions. How did you make it for 30 years for the City of Fort Worth? Well, I listened a lot to those older than me with the advice they gave to me and it paid off because I'm still here. Welcome to Property Management Fleet Division.


This is the Cat Ba Langer, one of the most critically endangered primates in the world, found only on the island of Cat Ba in Vietnam. Over the last 40 years, thousands of these monkeys have been hunted, caught to be kept as pets or poached to be used in medicinal teas. Their forests have been logged, demolished for farms, cleared for development and continuously encroached upon until their habitat, once covering over 280 square kilometers, now covers a few fragments totaling the size of Lake Belly Griffin. The Cat Ba Langer is on the brink of extinction, with only 60 left in the world. And to add to their problems, this tiny population is split into two main groups, which are reproductively isolated from one another and facing serious genetic problems as a result. As a biological anthropologist, I study human and primate evolution and behavior, specifically focusing on the conservation of critically endangered species like this one. Right now, we know very little about the habitat of Vietnam's primates, but we do know that if species like this disappear, their entire ecosystems could collapse. So my project is the first ever study of the Cat Ba Langer's ecology. It is important to know, though, that there are no simple solutions to saving these monkeys or their habitats. So our team is out there collecting as much information as we can to try to solve this complex problem. And to discover more, I went out into their habitat in Vietnam. I climbed limestone mountains, clung to cliff faces and got caught in rock slides on summits, all the while counting thousands of plants, measuring their vegetation and modeling their distribution. And it was worth it, because now I have the first ever ecological profile of the Cat Ba Langer helping us to understand their habitat needs. Now we might never fully understand why these monkeys sleep on cliff ledges over the ocean, why their babies are bright orange, or why they drink seawater using their tails. But I have discovered that they can adapt to less than pristine forest, and I've confirmed there is a viable vegetation corridor that could be used to unite the two groups. This would dramatically improve our ability to plan for their ongoing conservation and reduce their genetic problems, which is good news for all of us, because by preserving some species like this, we're safeguarding the world's biodiversity for future generations. So while the plight of this monkey might seem dark at first glance, bit by bit, tree by tree, I'm working to bring the Cat Ba Langer and its forests back from the brink. Thank you.


So now that you understand the power of the zone let's talk about how to realistically go about applying and triggering the zone productively in your day to day life. I was going to talk mostly about zone triggers in this video but after reading all the amazing comments you guys left in the last video it seems like most of you already know about this trick so if you've already figured this out I've also thrown in some extra mental tricks that you can do that might help you further but if you're new to this and you're worried about the fact that you can't really stay in the zone for very long then don't worry like every anime ever has portrayed it takes a lot of practice and training before you can maintain your bonkai for extended periods of time but there are lots of small things that you can do to make the zone easier to enter immediately and in my experience the most important one is letting the people you hang out with know when you're about to enter the zone. You don't necessarily have to explain to them that you're practicing to unlock your bonkai but just let them know ahead of time that hey for the next 30 minutes I'm gonna be hardcore studying and working on this project so if I don't respond just know I'll get back to you as soon as I'm done. You could also just have a voicemail or something on your phone that says sorry I'm currently in the zone we'll return your call as soon as I'm out. I know that sounds dumb but really the best way to do this is to try and make sure that the zone is on a schedule. Like we said in the last two videos find that one hour a day that you want to dedicate to building your dream. If that hour is 9pm then just make sure that all your friends know from 9 to 10 that you won't be taking any calls and you would be surprised how much easier it is to stay in the zone when you've prepped your community to be aware when you are in it. Another good trick is to create a comfortable zone trigger. A zone trigger is whatever it is you like to do to prepare to get into the zone. My personal trigger is a cup of coffee. When I know I'm planning to enter the zone I usually go to Starbucks I grab a coffee and when I get back I make sure my computer is ready all the software I need is open ahead of time and as soon as I take that first sip that is when I've entered the zone and all of my friends and family know if you see coffee in my cup I am still in the zone do not bother me. So find your trigger and have it ready five minutes before you plan to go in. Also if you have trouble staying in the zone for prolonged periods of time I recommend you practice zone bursting. This is a technique where you enter the zone for a short period of time like three minutes or 10 minutes. Bursting is a really important technique if you just don't have an hour to chunk out of your day.  Sometimes those little chunks of time are all that you're gonna have so if you can enter a zone burst for just those seven minutes you can get a lot of work done in that and the trick that I like to use when entering a zone burst is the same one that most of you seem to have already found and that is music. If you're new to the zone find a three minute song that gets you pumped or gets you in the mood and time your trigger with the music and just focus on work until the song is over. If you're new to this I recommend a you know two minute three minute five minute song. I think you'll be surprised just how fast time flies because when you're in the zone you got your coffee and your song is in the back playing.  You know my playlist in the beginning was like 10 minutes long and now I have a playlist that's about 30 minutes long but the trick is to make the playlist last as long as you would like to stay in the zone. Now up to this point we've talked about zone bursting based on a timer but you can also zone burst based on objectives. This is how I usually operate in my day to day. I'll have a list of things that need to be done in the day and once I sit down I'll look at the first thing on that list and just tell myself okay I'm not gonna do anything else until that thing is done.  Now I only recommend entering the zone this way when the thing you're trying to accomplish can be done in less than an hour because after that it starts to become really unhealthy and draining you start neglecting things you really should be doing. If you find yourself entering the zone this way but the task you're working on is not coming together it usually means your task was unrealistically big to begin with and it needs to be scaled down. For example if your zone objective was I'm gonna create the environment for my game but after one hour you really know we're near being done with the environment that means your objective was too big. Of course you're not gonna finish the environment in an hour because even the best professionals would struggle to do that so you need to change your goal from I'm gonna finish the environment to I'm just gonna finish placing all the trees not the mountains not the sky not the lighting not the water just the trees you have to be realistic with your objectives set yourself up for small success not big failures mentally it feels much better when people ask you what did you do today and you say something like I finished putting all the trees in my environment and tomorrow I'm gonna put all the water that sounds much better and feels much better than when you say something like well I'm still working on the environment it's not really done yet and you know I still gotta put in all the water right don't focus on what you didn't do turn what you did do into the objective because remember the zone is a mental thing it's based on momentum and the more positive momentum you have the better you'll be at kicking ass so to sum up let people know when you're heading into the zone figure out what some good triggers for you are have a playlist of your favorite music that gets you hyped and in the mood and make sure your objective is reasonable and achievable within the amount of time you think you can maintain the zone so I hope that helps and as always hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around


I can remember playing war when I was young. I would run around outside, turn my backyard into a battlefield, my driveway into a makeshift airstrip, and then my garage would always be the headquarters. I'd go on missions, complete campaigns, and at all costs carry out my orders. I could cast myself as whoever I wanted, but I'd always choose to be a sergeant or a lieutenant. I didn't want to be a general or an admiral. I didn't want to play war room. I wanted to re-enact the action. I wanted to be right in the heart of it, fighting alongside the dashing heroes I'd seen in movies who could calmly light a cigarette and flirt with all the foxy French resistance agents in the face of danger. I learned to read off the subtitles of cheesy World War II movies. I'd always watched them with my father and my grandfather, and my favorite one of all was this Frank Sinatra flick. It was called Von Ryn's Express. And in it, this group of allied prisoners hijacks their prison train and tries to drive it into Switzerland. Usually, my dad would read the subtitles to me, but this night, he'd fall asleep, leaving me to struggle through the words myself. I remember how awkward the muscles in my mouth felt trying to form every letter, feeling my lips wrap their way around the phonetics of each word as they appeared in yellow block letter at the bottom of the television. The words I said aloud were the orders of this Nazi officer commanding his men to open fire, gunning down Frank Sinatra's character, shooting him in the back as he tried to catch the train. This was the first time I realized heroes could die. And not only could they die, but didn't have to be in any climactic final battle scene between some antagonist who could just be a random bullet from a random soldier. Someone listed in the credits as Nazi number two. Before then, I always thought being brave kept you alive, but I learned that war is indiscriminate. Yeah, I saw a werewolf.  And I'm not talking any change with the moon, pagan bullshit, no. See, I was stationed out in Turkey doing some intelligence work on the Russians and whatnot.   It looks human, except its face was elongated, narrowed to a point like a snout.   So I'm just lucky that that thing didn't see me before it saw the goat, you know? Danny would always tell me these stories when he babysit me. He was an army veteran who served in Vietnam and then worked intelligence on U.S. bases in Turkey and Japan to watch Russian troop movements. But Danny has always been more wizard than warrior to me. He's had gray hair and a long gray beard for as long as I can remember. And when he tells a story, he sits down, casts a spell and wraps you into his world with a kind of magic.  Now, see, he remembers what he could do, so now he can only imagine what they can do.   It's all going to the Stalinists. He's still sour about San Francisco. Without coming home to his good old USA and having to drive straight to the nearest Vietnamese dry cleaner so that he can get the red paint out of his uniform before it's stained. Hell yeah, I believe in the draft.  No, sure, war is fucked. Sure, Vietnam was fucked, but do you know why it's fucked? Because once upon a goddamn time, we had to fight it.  Now we've trivialized the thing.  If no one feels lost anymore, people don't understand for themselves how fucked this is. It's not gonna stop.  He used to let me watch all the movies my parents would. So one day after school, I went over to his place and we turned down Zulu Don. And in the end scene where the entire British regiment is getting slaughtered, this Zulu warrior comes rushing through the camp and kills the chef. I couldn't understand. He was just a cook. He didn't have anything to do with combat.  To which he just said, it's war, Donny. Everybody dies. And it was like my question was a full moon. And I watched Danny change right before my eyes. He cast his head back on his chair, stared up at the ceiling as if he wanted to howl, as if he wanted to shout at something, but he just stepped in. He couldn't complete silence until the credits ended. Then he turned to me as if nothing happened. He started telling me about the Swap people who lived in the Huzetonic, how they had mutated because of PCBs, but if I wasn't careful, they would come and get me. It was just nothing changed. As if he thought, I didn't see him, lose himself in thought, see him sit there and try to understand that to some people he'll always be remembered as more monster than man. Have you noticed that we have this tendency to make a timeline out of wars. We use them as landmark events in our history and shape the rest of our facts around them. Even in my American history class, there are sections labeled things like post-World War I literature, post-World War II journalism media, the economics of the Cold War. Now, I don't want to belittle any of these events, nor do I think we should, but I'm not sure if placing so much significance on them really does more harm than good. We institutionalize war and violence to the point of our everyday. Whenever there is a piece of infrastructure, a bridge, a park, a road read, a school, it's usually named or dedicated after some war or warrior. I believe in honor, not glorify. I think it's important to remember these men and women to honor their sacrifices, but not do it by romanticizing their experiences. After Danny graduated from boot camp, my grandfather wanted to take him out to eat, so he brought him to some pizzeria to celebrate. He was proud of his son. While they were there, these four biker tufts walked in, decked out in Nazi memorabilia with swastika bands wrapped around their arms. It was the sixties, and this is how they wanted to rebel. Seeing my uncle dressed up in his army casuals, they walked over to my grandfather, stuck out their chest with pride, shoved their medals into his face and said, What do you think of these, old man? So, which my grandfather put down the piece of pizza he'd yet to eat? He looked up at them and said, So the last time I saw four guys dressed up like that, I lined them up against the side of a barn and shot them. Then he turned back to in France, my grandfather and some men from his unit had snapped. After they were just sent back for R&R, there was shell shot. This was World War II. This was the just war, the one war that had real cause, a real reason to fight behind it, but at nineteen, my grandfather executed Nazi officers and soldiers who had surrendered. Unarmed German men. This wasn't news. This wasn't some scandal. It was never reported. His lieutenant just suggested him and the other men involved, meet the front. He gave him quartermaster staff positions. There were no official sanctions. My grandfather just had to live with his actions. The danger in making things like these standardize is that mixed war seem like something that literally shapes and builds our community. And war has always been a destructive force, which is why it should be a last resort, rather than a first option. But we're reactionary people. And if you don't believe me about that, you should try driving on the mass pipe, someone from Massachusetts. Yep, that's okay, just go ahead. It's not like I was driving this lane anyway. Oh yeah, George, George, don't use your signal.  God damn, man.   Jesus Christ. It's like no one can drive in this goddamn... Access information. Whenever there's a tragedy that happens within minutes, the news, the internet, has all sorts of explanations, possible answers at our fingertips, and our curiosity, our desire for answers, makes us seek them out in the better house, and sensationalize as seriously as they might be. The sad truth is that tragedy brings us together like no other force. Empathy is the greatest gift we have, but we so often forget that. Caught up in this rat race, it's so easy to develop the mentality that, well, my schedule is way more important than yours. We let our compassion be the first thing to go, and we convince ourselves that it has to be that way. But whenever a tragedy happens, we think differently, only for a day or two. It opened letter to the editor of Rolling Stone Magazine from a little brother. My brother and I used to make shadow puppets. We'd hide flashlights into our pillows so that after our parents went to bed, we could pull them out, stay up late, and create an entire world just out of our hands. And like all things, even these had to come to an end. Eventually, my brother did some things that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to forgive him for. I made myself a promise that I would never grow up to be anything like him, but it's funny. Now that I'm older, and I can look back, I realize that we have, and always have had, so much in common. I'm not suggesting Sanayaf is like this. I don't think his older brother made him do it. I don't know their relationship, and quite frankly, I don't want to.  How many times do we see Osama bin Laden's face pasted on the covers of newspapers and magazines after 9-11? How many action movies come out every year with Hollywood hunks and attractive actresses? There has been a celebrity of violence long before your issue. All you did was make it evil. You ensure that people will never forget about him, and never forgive him, either.  You didn't make him some rock star. You made an image that people are willing to lose their very livelihoods, their careers in order to discredit, but your cover also made me remember that the first person I called the night after the Boston Marathon bombings was my brother. I wanted him to know that I was alright. It's funny. I spent so much of my youth wishing you didn't even exist, and now I can't even begin to wonder where I'd be without him. I don't think people set out to be evil. I think they have to believe that whatever they're doing is right, and good and bad is all just a matter of sight. Because, you know, our grudges cleared off a lot of our shadows. In the right kind of light, we can make them look like the atrocity we want, but when we take the time to really look at them, we give ourselves the chance to understand. We see that they're just these things that we make out of our own two hands. When people ask me about my political affiliation or where I stand on controversial issues, I just want to tell them that I'm a part of the Leave Each Other Alone great sex party. See, we're primarily composed of rogue Democrats and sexually repressed Republicans, but I think it's a premise most people can get behind. No pun intended. You see, it's pretty simple. Just leave each other alone, mind your own business, and have fantastic sex. Whether that sex is within or without the confines of a marriage is up to you, your moral convictions and your religious affiliation, but I don't particularly care because that's your business. I'd like to imagine, I'd like to believe and hope, in fact, that there are men and women all over the world who think just like me, that whenever there's some sort of violent act, they just say to themselves, can you just stop?  But then again, you know, scientists, naturalists, philosophers, biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and on the entire other list of this, I'd like to suggest that war was made out of some necessity for resources. I'm not totally sure that I agree with that. I think maybe there is some shrewd, politically minded, homo-safiation who just figured out that if, in fact, you wanted to get this entire band of nomads together, you need to give them someone else to fight and other to ban around foreign forces in order to defeat. And I think this, this was the beginning of war as community. After accidentally fighting myself homeless in Boston halfway through the semester, I realized that I would need to crash at some friends' places because getting an apartment halfway through the semester was just going to be way too expensive at this point in the game. So, most of my close friends happened to live in the Mission Hill Roxbury area of Boston. That's where I spent most of my last semester. Now, when I tell people this, I normally get the question, isn't it dangerous there? But what do you think they mean? Is it important? Sure, it's dangerous and you have to be careful. But you have to be careful anywhere you go. I mean, nowadays you can even get shot just for walking through suburbia. There is this stigma surrounding lower income neighborhoods that all the people who live there are just waiting for the right opportunity to snatch whatever it is you have.  People there are trying to get by.  Whenever there is some act of violence in one of these communities, like what happened in New Orleans on Mother's Day at 1.45 in the afternoon during a second line when 19 people were shot out in the street, we just shrug and say, oh, well, I mean, that just happens there as if the situation somehow makes it acceptable. It's as if media measure is worth by life insurance. And as if someone's income is directly reflective of their life's value. And we buy into this policy by just smiling, accepting it and saying, well, this is Rock Ferry, Brooklyn. Just Bear Hill, Hopewood, Park Heights, Woodside, Bankhead, College Hill, Whitehaven, South Central, it's just Central City.  Things like arthritis, Alzheimer's, yoga pants, and only other things in this life that only seem to torture us. If we were to try to objectively explain life to some alien from some other plant who had no conception of humanity or civilization, it would just sound almost sadistic. Um, yeah, well, when we were born, and then, uh, then we work in school, and, uh, well, then we work during work, and then, uh, that's about it. But this is why we can't just think objectively. It's important to remember all the people and all the things that come between these little victories. That's living. Without them, all we can do is survive. You know, you would have made a damn good scientist, but I guess there has to be one writer out there I have some use for. These were the last words Mr. Children said to me after I graduated high school. He is my ninth grade chemistry teacher, and, well, I'm not sure I learned too much science. There's one thing I specifically remember him saying, and that's that he loved teaching about chemistry because it meant he could talk about anything. I have always been fascinated by thermodynamics.  It blew my mind. Everything is just trying to absorb energy to gain heat, and I wondered if that was the same with people. Because some days I couldn't seem to get energy from anywhere. Not in a bad way, but not in a good way either. I was just going through the motions, filling out the formula for normalcy that I knew so well. Smile, be social, raise hand, answer question. It was so easy. They say depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, and that's the nice, polite, medical way of saying it. As though it's some equation we can balance out with the right elements. Add lithium to one side, slow the process of sodium on the other, but sometimes you just want to add.  People don't like hearing it when you talk about suicide. They prefer to pretend that it just doesn't happen.  If we're ever going to move forward, if we're ever going to really help people, it's important to open up a dialogue, to share, to let them know that it's nothing to be ashamed of, that it is nothing to hide, that everyone goes through things.  A chance for you to test out every possible hypothesis. I know it might not sound perfect, but hey, it's only my working theory. Nobody asks for existence. As far back as we can remember, there wasn't some divine being who handed us a contract and said, uh, yeah, just sign here on my lines for roughly, I don't know, 80 to 90 years of consciousness, full of existential crises, some drunk texts you're going to regret, and I guess I can throw a pavish kid in there, too.  Every particle in you could have been a part of anything else, but instead it decided to make this. And it's a fact that no two bodies of mass can occupy the exact same space at the exact same time, so please understand that you are actually irreplaceable.  I'm not some therapist. This is ninth grade science. This is the first time you actually got to flirt because someone needed help on their homework. This is using a Bunsen burner for all the things it's not supposed to be used for, but public schools think it's fine to give teenagers fire and who are you to tell them otherwise? This is understanding. This is realizing that you are actually good at something, even if it's as boring as chemistry. Sure. I could have been a scientist, but I've always been awful at math. And I remember reading somewhere that this whole entropy thing, it's not just about gaining energy. It also requires that you're ready to give all of that energy right back. My mom feeds ducks. This is important. Every day after work she goes down to the Cove with a bag of corn and throws it out to them. She even has a couple out of a bunch that she affectionately calls Daisy and Daffy. She's a vegetarian. She kind of runs in the family. Her favorite saint? It's Saint Francis of Assisi. The patron saint of animals and nature and all that kind of stuff. Now my parents live in North Carolina. If there's one thing North Carolinians love more than a NASCAR, it's hunting. By doing all of this feeding, my mom quite literally turns them into sitting ducks. So inevitably, when the hunters come, my mother will grab an air horn and go running down, blowing it so the ducks can scatter before these hunters have a chance to set up their blinds. And usually this seems to happen early in the morning, so I'll just be sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal and watching my short, fiery Irish Catholic mother have it out with these hunters, trying all the while. Give them hell, mom. The ducks aren't actually important. In fact, none of this is. At least not by itself. I'm a poet. I make my occupation exploring stories, extrapolating meaning from actions and making cheap puns of my own expense. I can't end violence. I can only suggest possible reasons why it might happen. I can't stop people from trying to balance out the body count of human history. I can only ask that we start to forgive each other. I can't break any cycles. I can only point out that they exist. The truth is my words only have as much meaning as what you choose to do with them. Change has to start here with you right now. And so though these curtains or this camera might close there remains too much work left for there to be about.


to start your opening statement. Okay. The appointed hour of six o'clock having been reached, I call this meeting of the Amherst zoning Board of Appeals to order. My name is Steve Judge. As ZBA chair, I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. Additionally, the meeting recordings may be viewed via the town of Amherst YouTube channel, as well as the ZBA webpage. 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 members of the ZBA and paneled for this meeting tonight. Steve Judge, I'm here. Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. Here. Mr. Meadows. Here. Mr. Barrick. Here. Also in attendance tonight is Marine Pollock Planner and Dave Washevitz, Senior Building Inspector. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of chapter 48 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 bylaw is section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all of 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 to gather 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 raised hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide 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 is heard by the board is distinct and 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 filing to file its decision. No decision is final until the written decision is signed by the sitting board members and is filed in the town clerk's office. Once the decision is filed with the town clerk, there's 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 deed to take effect. Tonight's agenda, ZBA FY 2021-21, Narayan-Sampath requests a special permit in order to allow a non-owner occupied two family dwelling on a preexisting, non-conforming lot under sections 3.3211, 9.2 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 2123 Kendrick Place, map 14A parcel 2241, general residence, RZG zone. ZBA FY 2021-17, College Street 1957, LLC, requesting a special permit in order to allow a change of views from a one family detached dwelling to a non-owner occupied duplex dwelling, extension and alteration of the lot coverage and building area on a preexisting, non-conforming lot, modification of the required additional lot area and slash family under dimensional regulations. Footnote A, section 3.211, 9.22 and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw, located at 187 College Street, map 14B parcel 169, general residence, RZG zoning district. This has continued from our meeting on May 27, 2021. After that, we have public comment period, other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours and adjournment. The first order of business on the agenda is ZBA 2021-21, but I would like to move quickly to dispose of FY 2021-17, College Street 1957, LLC. The applicant has requested a continuation until August, until our August meeting on the grounds that they are gone from or they could not attend. This seems to be normally something we do ministerially at a meeting, just the chair acknowledges it, but since we have a full panel here, that is something I would entertain a motion that we continue this to a date certain. Our meeting is August, is it 12th, Maureen? August 12th, I would entertain a motion to move, to continue this matter until August 12th. At six o'clock. Yes, at six o'clock. Mr. Maxfield. Is there a second? Second. Roll call vote on this would be, I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. There were only four members for this panel. Mr. Barrack, excuse me, you're here for this. Precisely, that's why I want this. And it's not clear to me that I can be here August 12th. I'm not sure. So we'll talk about that right after we finish this vote. Well, actually, so if he's not available, this would be a good opportunity to talk about what date would be available, you would be available. Oh, let me check my calendar for August 12th. And so it would be virtual via Zoom. Okay, hold on, take me a minute. I'll take the prerogative to suspend the vote while we figure out exactly what date we're continuing this to. I believe I could do an August 12th meeting. Okay. And does that work with other members? Mr. Meadows, does that work for you? As far as I know it does, as long as we're Zoom, then that's functional for me. Okay, all right, and we will be Zoom. Okay, so we'll resume the vote and the vote is with you, Mr. Barrick. And my vote is aye. All right, the motion carries. The motion, the application has continued till August 12th at six o'clock. Thank you. Great. And just to say, so Peter, if you're welcome to stay in the meeting tonight, but since you're not on the panel for the next case, you can leave the meeting if you have. I will leave the meeting. Okay. And wish the best to all of you. Thank you, Peter. Bye. So the first order of business tonight is a public hearing on ZBA 2021-21, Narayan-Sampath requesting a special permit in order to allow a non-owner occupied two family dwelling on a pre-existing non-conforming lot under sections 3.3211, 3.22, and 10.38 of the zoning bylaw located at 2123 Kendrick Place, map 14A, parcel 241, general residence, RG zone. The members sitting on this panel are myself, Ms. Parks, Mr. Maxfield, Mr. Meadows. And since this decision to approve a special permit requires four affirmative votes, we have only four members sitting on this panel. So this application will require unanimous vote of the ZBA in order to be approved. Are there any disclosures? If not, the site's visit was conducted on Monday, June 7th. We toured the property. We entered the house, saw the first floor, second floor, Mr. Sampath described as what he wishes to do with the house and why he bought the house. We walked through the back door out to the patio. Saw the patio and the walkway. We came around to the front of the, walked through the house again, came around to the front, viewed the front of the house, talked to him about parking, looked at the garage and looked at those areas. That's pretty much what we discussed at the site visit. I don't know if any other member has anything else that they wish to add for the site visit. Okay. The following submissions have been received by the town staff. The applicant has submitted a ZBA application, a management plan, additional information required for apartments, site plan prepared by Randall Eiser, dated September 12th, 2018, a floor plan prepared by the applicant dated May, 2021, a parking plan, a lease agreement, a complaints response plan and photographs of both the interior and exterior of the property. The staff has submissions of a zoning map, a property map, an aerial map, a topography map, project application report dated June 30th, 2020. The applicant is requesting waivers from section 3.166, building plans of the ZBA rules and regulations which require a Massachusetts licensed architect or professional designer to prepare the floor plan. We previously, he has submitted a floor plan that we previously approved in 2018 when we offered, when we approved special permit 2018-34 and there are no changes to that floor plan. A waiver for a landscape plan, dimensional plan for parking spaces and an assigned plan. We also have received one public comment from Ms. Joan Griswold, which was submitted via email on Monday, June, of July 5th. That's all the submissions. Mr. Sampath, do you wish to proceed? Yes, please. So please identify yourself for the record and let us know how much time you think you'll need for your presentation. Hi, my name is Narayan Sampath. I live at 23 Kendrick Place, Amherst, Massachusetts, and I'm guessing 30 minutes. I'm not sure. Do you want me to present my case for the house or run the slides through or what would you like me to do? Yeah, whatever you want to do. The key thing is for you to tell us what you wish to do. Sure. Have more discussion than we had at the site. Is it run through? I think it's important in this case for you to go through and talk about why you bought the house and why you're asking for the special permit for a non-owner occupied to family home and talk about what your goals are. I think there's not a lot. And then why you don't need any changes, why you're not requesting any changes to management or other plans. Sure, sure, thank you. So I'm guessing we would need at least 30 minutes, depending on how many questions we have. But before I start, I want to say thank you to Maureen for all the help that she's given me over the last, I guess month or so in getting all the paperwork together. So thank you, Maureen. Good. Okay, so I've been, I used to live in South Amherst at 46 Palmer Island since 2013, since the summer of 2013. And over the pandemic, like with all the other challenges that people faced, my wife and I went separate ways. So I signed a site unseen lease with Ian Walsh, the previous owner back in September. And because I couldn't even tour the place because of COVID and the tenants then were not comfortable of anybody visiting. So I signed the site unseen on a place just because it was close to my now ex-wife and I could stay close to my kids who are a mile and a half. And we didn't want to rock the boat and have a lot of changes for them because they still have their same friends who are actually one on Orchard Street, one on a wood side and one in the house behind. So it really helped with the transition in our kids. So we moved in in September. And then I wasn't ready to buy a place of my own in Amherst but looking at the property market, I was very afraid that I was gonna get priced out because of the way the market is today and how expensive buying a place at Amherst would be with the way the property market is. And I think it was a cold February morning when Ian Walsh, the previous owner, sent us a note saying that he was gonna sell the place and I was gonna, I had to think about what to do. And then I figured we did the math and I figured it makes sense for me to make an offer to purchase the place, which he agreed. And we finally closed on April 29th. The tenants at 21 Kendrick Place are a couple who one of them is a librarian of the Jones Library and we have a lease till the end of August and they intend to continue as well because of the location. I have no intention of moving anywhere in the near future because like I mentioned in my application, my kids are 11 and 14 at the Crocker Farm Elementary School and the high school. The place has been very helpful for us in our transition and the kids' lives has not changed a whole lot. But when we went through the paperwork for closing the house, I was notified by my lawyer saying that there's this zoning application which expires or is not in place when there's change of ownership. So which prompted me to apply for this permit just so that to have it in place because it was recently approved rather than go through let's say five, six, seven years. If and when I plan to move rather than go through the whole process I wanted to use the same application because nothing much is changing. I have no intention of moving in the near future. Like I mentioned in my application, I work at Holyoke Community College. I am the CFO and the Vice President for Administration and Finance. It's pretty close about 20 minutes from where I live and previously as to work at UMass Amher so I'm very vested in the area with all our friends and family here. So that's the reason for my application and I'm happy to answer any questions and also about the landscaping and taking care of things around the house since I don't intend to move anytime in the near future. I will be responsible for snow removal and making sure that the yard is taking care of. Fortunately we have neighbors who are very interested I take care of like the snow and the mowing all the part that is not pretty, that needs to be pretty whereas our neighbors really like taking care of the dandelions and the flowers so they're helpful as well. But as I mentioned in my application, if and when I do move, I have the contacts of all the individuals who worked with the previous landlord Ian Walsh that I'm more than happy to engage if I have to but I don't foresee that happening in the near future. So Mr. Pat, Sam path, you realize that if you do move out and it becomes a non-owner occupied, you no longer can be the responsible person for taking care of this and you have to come before notify us if we should approve this application. Notify the town and you may have to come before the ZBA for a hearing to approve a new management plan to approve perhaps a landscape plan, parking, other things could happen if we approve this. You have to and you become a non-owner occupied structure. There'll be additional, there might be some changes to them. There will be changes to the management plan which need to be approved. Okay. Got it. Do you understand that? Okay. I do. I though if there are any changes then I would come in front of the board and provide the new management plan and the landscaping plan. Okay. Another thing. Yep. Mr. Sam path you're proposing no changes to the property, no changes to parking. You have four spaces for parking and two in the garage and two on the driveways. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Does anybody have any questions of Mr. Sam path? Ms. Parks. It actually might be for you. And that is at this time, the house would be considered owner occupied. And so the point that you're making is that if Mr. Sam path moves out then it's no longer owner occupied and that he would then need to come before the board. Well, it would substantially change. The house right now is non-owner. He's asking for it to be continued to be considered non-owner occupied even though he is there. And so if he moves out and has a tenant and this becomes non-owner occupied then other things have to happen. The management plan must change because as he's no longer there to do that he's got and he's represented to us that he would hire additional people to take care of the landscaping, take care of the snow, do other things that a non-owner that a non-residential manager would normally do. And so he'd have to come to the board and have that approved either by the board or by the building commissioner if it seemed to just seem to be insignificant. But those kinds of things are what it's have to come to the board for. So he's asking for, it's, I mean, this is unusual in that we're having an owner occupant ask for his property to be considered non-owner occupant because he may want to move out sometime in the future but it's undetermined. Yeah. Go ahead, Mr. Sandpath. Yeah, Ms. Parks. I also wanted to apply for this because I know like for example, Ian, Ian Walsh the previous landlord engaged professional surveyors to come up with documents which is an expensive exercise as well. And since I was not proposing any changes at all and it was since there was a relatively new application so I wanted to put forth my application this time around. Okay. It seems, I mean, the point you're making I don't want to make your case for you, Mr. Sandpath. I mean, that's the job for you to do and for us to ask questions. But what you're, I think what you're saying is that you, since there are no changes to the land to the building, to the landscape, to anything that you don't want to pay the, you don't think you need to pay the extra expense to do this. And you just would like to renew the existing special permit. The weird thing is, is that for a special permit of a non-owner occupied in the RG is one case where it voids upon transfer of ownership and you have to come back. It's unusual. This isn't, we don't do this with other areas, other zoning districts and with very many other types of ownership. But in this case, in the RG district, you have to come back and get the renew the special permit for change of ownership if you have a non-owner occupied duplex. And that's what he is, that that's the situation that he's facing. So we have a choice. Anyway, that's, that's what's unique about this kind of this case. Thank you. All right. So just to clarify, his status is not, the status is not changing, but by us, if we were to approve this, it's still with the caveat that he would have to come back if he were to move out. Yes. And it's also a condition that we're willing to, I think it's a condition that we're going to impose upon the special permit. Right. If I may, Mr. Parks and Mr. George, I guess. So, well, I love to go through the whole application if there are any changes, of course, like the landscape and the management plan, for example, and a few other items in the list would need to be updated when I come to, if and when I come to the board again. Mr. Meadows. I guess I'm just confused as to why there has to be an application at all. The only, because we have an owner occupied dwelling. I mean, why is there a need for a request for exemption? Maureen. Maureen. So, in the, this property, 21 to 23 Kendrick Place is located in the General Resonance Zoning District. And for owner occupied duplexes, it's allowed permitted by site plan review. And it's, if it's non-owner occupied, it's allowed by special permit. And upon the town council some years ago, I'm not exactly sure when in the last, you know, 10 years plus or minus there was a zoning amendment change to require that upon change of ownership, a duplex within the General Resonance would lapse and a new special permit would be required for a non-owner occupied duplex. And that's only in the General Resonance Zoning Districts. You know, the previous chair, Mark Parent, when dealing with these applications would repeatedly say, I don't like this, how it's written in the bylaw, but it is what it is. And it is something perhaps maybe the town would like to revisit to see if that really, you know, makes sense opposed to then requiring, in this scenario, requiring the applicant to resubmit a new application, new fee, public hearing, we glad all that, or if it would make better sense just to have the new owner come back with an updated management plan and complaint response plan and any other substantial changes. But as the zoning bylaw to date, this is the requirement. And so when Mr. Sam Path reached out to the planning department, he had indicated that he, you know, is intending to buy the property with the intention of moving, relocating, you know, in six months to a year, because we did talk about, you know, if you want this to be an owner occupied duplex, he had the option of going through the planning board for a site plan review, but he had indicated that he does intend to move in sort of the near to, you know, near future if you were to think a year from now is in the near future. So we decided that it would make sense in the long run that he could just apply for a special permit for a non-owner occupied duplex since that is sort of the long-term goal. And so that's what is in front of you today. I'm sorry. Mr. Meadows. It still makes no sense. Yeah, well, we're just- I hear what you're saying, but it does not make any sense. He's not a non-owner occupied dwelling. He's an owner occupied dwelling. And as an owner occupied dwelling, he's entitled to justice site plan review. And then if he moves, it needs to come to the ZBA, but I don't see that it makes any sense for him to be here at the ZBA now. Mr. Wysewicz, did your hand raised? Yeah, I'm thinking the board shouldn't get hung up on whether or not he lives there. What he's asking for is the ability to be able to leave two months from now if he wanted to and be able to rent that space out. And what he's explained already is the fact that all of this information has been provided in the past about three years ago and it was granted to the previous owner to be a non-owner occupied dwelling or a duplex. So that's all he's asking is the ability to do that so that he doesn't have to do it, go through the process, should his plans change dramatically in a couple of days or weeks and he has to move and doesn't have an option. So this is just to pave the road for the future. It's a benefit that the fact that he actually lives there because you'll have a better eye on the property but don't get hung up on the fact that he does live there. But- But I do hear what you're saying, Craig. He does live there. Yeah. And if he moves out, then he's gonna have to come back to the ZBA anyway. And- But just for a public meet, but would probably just be for a public meeting to approve a new management plan. There wouldn't be the whole application. I think his point is that he's trying to, I think what he's trying to do is to minimize the amount of application cost and headache if he decides to move later on. And I understand your point. When I looked at this, I said, why are you doing that? Why is this happening? He's gonna live there. Why are we granting him a, why would we grant him a non-owner occupied building special permit? Yeah. It's only because he doesn't wanna go through the hassle of applying for a special permit in two months, six months, or a year from now. When the property was already that. Yeah. That's what that's the reason. Yeah. I can understand that. But let me make a different point. Sure. If I in my house decided to rent part of the house and say, and suggest that at some point I may wanna move, does that make sense for anyone who is in an owner occupied dwelling to come up and do preparatory work in order to avoid having to do it later? And it seems to me that it's essentially a waste of his time and our time to do this. If I may jump in Mr. Judge. Yes, Mr. Sampat. Yeah. So like you mentioned, when I looked at the application, when I got a copy of the permit and I looked at what Mr. Ian Walsh had been through and I looked at all the survey plans, for example, that would cost me a couple of thousand dollars to get this whole application together, which is relatively new. And there's no change in place at the moment. So that was one of the main reasons for me to apply because it's a relatively new plan, no changes, I'm not going anywhere and to have it in place. And I think the changes that would happen if and when I were to move, whether it's two months, two years, or four years, five years from now, I think there are just three or four documents that would need to be updated that I would have to present to the zoning board rather than go through the whole process of a parking plan and have a surveyor come in and go through all that paperwork again. And I would like to add that if the board, is inclined to hear more about this application, you could, and wants to entertain a decision regarding this, you could certainly put a condition on the special permit saying that the property owner needs to live elsewhere within six months or a year. If that is of importance that this, truly is a non-owner occupied residence because Mr. Sampath initially did indicate that this would be a temporary situation and he was just sort of preparing for the transition of purchasing the home and sort of figuring out where he would be living and that this would be sort of a temporary thing. It wasn't indicated that this would remain a owner occupied duplex on a permanent basis. It was indicated that this was a temporary thing. Also, Ms. Pollock, I did not know a year ago that I was gonna move out and have to find a separate place. We don't know what's gonna happen, right? I had no idea that I was gonna leave my house for eight years from South Amherst to move. So right now I have no plans to move, yeah, sorry. You have no plans, we understand that. So I think, look, we have a couple of options here that we should explore and talk about as the board. So let's, this is a good opportunity for you to summarize anything that you think you need to say to the board and then for the board to discuss amongst ourselves various options if we wanna come back to you and see, get your reaction to them. So I'd like to ask you, is there anything else you wanna present to the board? And then I would like to have a discussion amongst board members about this application. Sure, thank you, Mr. Judge. All I would like to just reiterate that we are very happy where we live. I don't foresee us moving anytime soon. The only reason I wanted to submit the application was because when I saw it in the last week of April, I figured rather than go through the whole process, I would like to piggyback on a relatively new application, a relatively new application which is about three years ago and submit it. So I have it in place. You have time to understand. So it seems to me that amongst board members and staff, we got a couple of options here to think about this. Number one, I'm not sure that we have the four votes for approving the application. That's the first thing. The second thing is the applicant does have the opportunity to go for a site plan review, which is my understanding is not very costly and it could be done through the planning, done through the planning board, is it not? Yep. That option exists. The other option exists is that if the application is approved, we could require as part of any re, excuse me, if the site plan review is approved, any wishes to change to a non-owner occupied rental property and it has to come back for a special permit. We could at that point, waive the requirements for a landscape plan, a management plan for a site review if you have a situation where nothing has changed, they're all as it looks like today. There would be an opportunity to, for him to request waivers of the things that are expensive and come back in a year or two when he decides he wants to move or unless it wouldn't necessarily be as costly as it would be starting from scratch for a special permit. So that is a possibility if you go to site plan review that I'm not saying that that is assured, but that is a possibility that could be done that way without having incurring a lot more costs than that would normally occur. Is that right Dave? Is that how that would work? Could the board could after it, he went to site plan review and he wants to, then he wants to become an on owner occupied property. We could waive some of the, he could ask for waivers of some of the requirements for a special permit. Well, that's certainly an option to go that route, but it is more steps for him to do in order to go back to the current status. Well, I shouldn't say current, but what the previous owner's status was, which was a non-owner occupied duplex. So I think that's the thing that he's trying to do now. And it seems it might be more efficient to do it this way now, because everything's in place. But that's certainly up to the board to decide. And I understand the metals point. Yep. Other discussion about where we wanna, where the board is headed on this application where the members have comments or thoughts. Mr. Maxfield. Yeah, I mean, what I think about this, it sounds like previous board had dealt with these questions about the marriage of just being, which is a good area to have a non-owner occupied duplex. And it looks like they had decided, yes, this was appropriate, it did meet the necessary findings that if we have somebody coming up to us saying, I'd like to keep this, I think any homeowner, if they can have that as an option, would definitely want that. And where, yeah, a board, this board had already decided that this was appropriate years ago. And it does just sound like a case of, if you want to move in the future and does wanna go with this route, I think anyone in this position would wanna keep that option open. So I definitely support, I support this plan. I trust the board's judgment from three years ago and I'm willing to extend that now, in this case is where I'm standing right now. Ms. Parks, do you have any comment? Yeah, I'm okay with this application as well. I guess what I was thinking is it's too bad we don't have that management plan so that we could approve this once and for all. But I understand if it's owner occupied, you're not going to have a management plan yet.  So Steve, I'm sorry, Ms. Judge, what do we need if this is approved and Mr. Stapath moves, then what does he need to come back with? He would need to come back with a new management plan that talks about everything from having a person to contact in case of a problem, having a management plan for the landscaping, for the snow removal, for trash, for the lawn landscaping, I said, lighting plan, those kinds of things, they may not change and he may ask for a waiver since it wouldn't change but he needed for the typical stuff that a non-owner occupied property has to provide as opposed to an owner occupied property. The irony of it is that all those things are included in the management plan that he's putting up as an owner occupied except that some of those functions that he wouldn't perform once he moves out of the property. All right, does that answer your question? Yes, and so if this were approved then there would be a condition that he would need to come back when he moves. Is that correct? Yes, yes, there would need to be a condition that says that and we can put a condition on, he'd have to do it anyway because the management plan substantially changes. So he'd have to come back no matter whether it's a condition or not but we should put a condition on it to make it clear. So Mr. Meadows, I can see you still think that this is crazy. I think it's crazy, I'm sorry but if this were a non-owner occupied I would feel comfortable with it but it is owner occupied. And just as though anyone else in town said, oh, maybe I'll come to the ZBA and see if I can get myself prepped for 20 years from now. I don't see any point to this. So I'm gonna vote no. Mr. Meadows, may I connect? No, Mr. Sandpath, just a second. Not right now, we're having a discussion above the board. And so one option, a good option may be for the applicant to ask for this to be withdrawn. We do need four votes for this and we, right now we don't, there are not four votes to approve this. That's one, and then to seek site plan review, he could and or he could withdraw and come back at a later point in time. But I, that would be the other option for the applicant is to ask for it to be withdrawn and then go for site plan review rather than risk a negative determination on a rejection of a special permit application which nobody wants to have the special permit application defeated. That it keeps you out for two years from applying again. Any other comments from the board or from staff before we open this up to one last comment from Mr. Sandpath? Mr. Westchewitz. Yeah, I just wanted to ask Mr. Meadows if he thought there was a benefit to the homeowner not living there and having somebody else come in. I mean, I'm trying to understand his point of view. My point of view is that we have a number of owner-occupied dwellings of this sort in towns. Am I correct? And as such, what this logically means to me is that if it is that anyone else who is an owner-occupied dwelling says, well, you know, I might move at some point. Why don't I do this now? And avoid what I'm in an attempt to avoid something in the future. This is a good case for a non-owner-occupied dwelling, particularly the fact that nothing is changing. However, it is an owner-occupied dwelling and he doesn't really need a special permit. All he needs is a site plan review. And so it makes no sense to me to be asking for special permits and waivers when you don't need them. I would rather see when he comes back if we wanna suggest that if he has site plan review that we would, and nothing at all is changing and it becomes non-owner-occupied, then we only review those documents that are additionally needed. But he's gonna have to do that anyway. So I just think that it's not his fault. He was, I believe he was led in the wrong direction and should have just gone to site plan review and been done with. So it might be to his advantage to withdraw without prejudice then. Yes. Because in the future, it's gonna be looked at as a denial otherwise. Right, absolutely, it should be. It would be to Mr. Sampas' advantage to ask for this to be withdrawn and to go for site plan review. And the one question I would have is site plan review is a less formal or less, there's less procedures and less bureaucratic for lack of a better term, processes you have to go through for a site plan review than for a special permit. Is that correct? I would say perhaps, perhaps they wouldn't ask for the lease in the complaint response plan. It's really up to the planning board themselves, but it would be in essence the same application and submissions, but there may be some subtle differences. It was to staff's understanding that it was the applicant's intention to live off site in the near future and that this wasn't gonna be a permanent owner-occupied duplex. And so that was why it was recommended to go through this path since if it was gonna just be sort of six months to up to a year while the applicant was trying to figure out where to relocate. But if it does sound like this could be, it sounds now that this is kind of up in the air that maybe you'll move, but maybe you won't, it does seem that it might be better suited to go through the site plan review if your intention is to make this a owner-occupied duplex on a permanent basis. But please correct us if that's incorrect, but that's what we're hearing. We're hearing that you are unsure of what you want to do that this may be permanently a owner-occupied duplex or maybe in the future you'll reconsider it. Mr. Samford. Sure, thank you, Mr. Judge.  I know I'm not going anywhere, right? If you had asked me a year ago, would I move from South Amherst? I would have said no way in hell, right? So there's nothing that we know for sure. I know that I'm not going anywhere. My kids are 11 and 14, right? So there's no question to me moving there. And I go back to the point. The only reason I did this is because I thought it was a good idea to have it in place. If and when in the future, because I do not want to spend $3,000 or $4,000 that Ian did and spent all that money getting this application together. So if we're going to go to a site plan review, and if that's what you recommend, I'm happy to do it. But if I'm going to have to spend a fortune, small fortune to get these things in place again, then that's unfortunate. No, you wouldn't. It's the same materials. Okay. Yeah, you would be, in essence, you may need to fill out a new form, a planning board form, but the same site plan, all those supporting materials would be the same exact information. It's just that you would specifically be asking for owner occupied duplex. And so what that means is as long as it's owner occupied duplex and the planning board approves that, you would be able to live there. But in the future, when you officially decide to move off site and make that a non-owner occupied duplex, then you would need to come before the zoning board of appeals and ask for approval of that special permit. Would I be able to use the same documents I had, Maureen? You know, we can't promise you that. To a large extent. No, wait, Mr. Sampath, we can't promise you that. But if that occurs in the near future, we do take, you could ask for a waiver for a new site, for a waiver for a new site plan. You could submit the same management plan. You could ask for a waiver from a landscape plan. Those, and given the history, those might be approved by the board. And given, you can make your case. We do grant waivers for these things. So here, not all the time.  I think if the board members are sitting in the same time and you come by, I think there's an inclination to do that. But I can't promise that. And nobody could promise that. So it seems to me that if we look at this, the best thing I would recommend, and this is your decision, but it seems to me the best thing for you is to ask for this to be withdrawn without prejudice. That gives you the ability to come back and ask for a special permit if within, you know, anytime you want for a non-owner occupied, pursue a site review plan because you don't have the votes for it and you don't want, I don't think the votes are there and you don't want to denial. Denial means you can't come back to us for two years. Okay? For this specific plan. So you don't want to do that. So my suggestion is that you ask for it to be withdrawn without prejudice, you pursue a site plan review and should your circumstances change in the future, work with staff to make sure that it, the documents that haven't, that the situations that haven't changed are identified and can reduce the cost to you of an application for a special permit to allow a non-owner occupied property. That's what I would suggest is the best course for you. I appreciate it. No, I appreciate your, I mean, I'm looking for guidance or I'm not here to take advantage of anything or I just want to follow the process, right? So I completely agree and I just want to clarify when you said, so is there anything I need to do now that I'm living there? So this current zoning application permit expires. So we just leave things as is. And in the future, if I want to change it to a non-owner occupied, I provide a site plan review assuming not a whole lot has changed. Is that correct? I'm not sure I followed that. What I tell you is that what you should do is apply for a site plan review as soon as possible because you want to have that done by the planning board. And then if you wish to change in the future, deal with, you can work with staff to try to minimize the documents that need to be created or contracted. Sure, and can you please tell me what a site plan review is for? And what does that entail? Like what does it give me with? Like what is a site plan review? I think Maureen's work is just more than I thought. So a site plan review is an application through the planning board. The use, which is a owner-occupied duplex, is a use by right. And so the planning board would be reviewing the site plan. And so they would be looking at the submittals that you've already given, looking at the parking and the landscaping and where the lights are, those sorts of things. Opposed to the planning board, which opposed to the ZBA, which is also looking at the site plan, but they're also looking at the use and the use is allowed by special permit. And so the zoning board of appeals has a discretionary power to see if that use is compatible with the neighborhood and if it's in harmony with the neighborhood and whether it would be more or less detrimental to the neighborhood. So the zoning board of appeals is really trying to see is the use is that compatible with the neighborhood and with the town, opposed to the planning board, which is looking at a by-right use and so they're just looking at the site plan and sort of the specifics of how everything's laid out. And that is more or less sort of the distinction between a site plan and a special permit application. And then just to add, so the planning board again would be looking at similar, if not all of the documents that you've provided to the zoning board of appeals. And in the future, if you decide that you do wanna move off site and seek a special permit for a non-owner occupied duplex, if those submissions that you've provided, if there are no changes to it, then it probably would be reasonable for you to resubmit the same information. So you wouldn't be starting from scratch unless you are, you know, have some sort of elaborate plans of, I don't know, doing something. Let's just significantly change the property or the building. Yeah, which I'm sure you're not, but just to say if you suddenly wanna, I couldn't really think of anything unless I wanted it to be goofy of, you know, adding, I don't know, like a 40-foot, you know, slide going down your backyard or something elaborate, unless there's something substantially very different to the makeup of your property. I'm sure that what you have submitted would be substantial, would be sufficient for either the boards to review. I thank you. So I'll work with you on the site plan review. Thank you. Yeah, so sorry, sorry for any potential confusion on our behalf about this. So Mr. Sampath, if I understand you correctly, you're asking for permission to withdraw this without prejudice, is that correct? Yes, that is Mr. Church. Okay. So we have before us, what I'd like to do is close the, close the meat, not close, I'd like just to keep the public hearing open and move to a public meeting to deal with the requests from Mr. Sampath, Maureen. Well, before you do that, I think you should see if there's any public comment. Oh, thank you for reminding me. Yes, good point. I appreciate that. So if anyone has a public comment, they could raise their virtual hand or press star nine, I think, if they're calling in. And I'm not seeing anyone raising their hand. So I'd entertain a motion to keep the public hearing open while we move to the public meeting to discuss and vote on the question of withdrawal of this without prejudice. Do I have such a motion? Mr. Maxfield, do I have a second? Second. Ms. Parks, it's roll call vote. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Ms. Max, Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. We're now in the public meeting portion where we can discuss this, but I would entertain a motion to accept the request of the applicant to withdraw this without frauds application without prejudice. Is there, do I have a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right, is there any discussion on the motion? There being none, the vote occurs on the motion. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. All right, the motion to permit the withdrawal without prejudice has been approved by a four vote unanimous, four votes. So good luck, Mr. Sampath. Please continue to work with the staff and I would encourage you to do the site plan review as soon as possible. So you can put that out of the way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yvette, thank you. Thanks. Can I leave? There being. Okay, and we can be in touch tomorrow about setting you up with the planning board. And so you would be working. Chris Brestrup is the staff liaison to the planning board, but I can put you in touch with her tomorrow or on Monday to set you up with that. So luckily everything that you've done is good to go. So we would just need to set up the meeting. So I'm sorry for. Live and learn. Thanks a lot, Murray. Okay, we'll talk soon. Bye. Good luck, Mr. Sampath. Thank you. Bye. The next order of business on the is any public comment on matters not before the board tonight? Maureen, do we have anybody who wishes to speak on a subject that is not before the board tonight? No. There's no other item, but. And the other issue is any other business that's not anticipated within the last 48 hours? No, other than just to say, we, we are getting new additional members. Additional members. Yes. Full member. Gilbert is his last name. John Gilbert, maybe. Let me see here. John Gilbert. John Gilbert, yeah. And he'll be a full member. And then as Mr. Meadows will become a full member. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you, Greg, for stepping up to do that. And for associate members, we'll have a Eric. Crochran, maybe. Is his pronunciation. Ocarine, I don't know. Yeah.  And so I don't have their, you know, phone numbers or email addresses, but once they're sworn in, I will like to suggest having a administrative meeting, really for them, but for everyone, just to kind of go over, you know, the roles and responsibilities of being on the board and kind of just, and then actually that might be a good opportunity to have a tutorial about going through like a site plan, looking at a site plan and understanding like a plan set, looking at the site plan and the landscape plan, like a stormwater plans, things of that nature. So we could deal with that. And then if folks have any sort of general questions, we could, that would be a good opportunity to have sort of a Q and A, but so stay tuned. So maybe that could be in, well, we're already in July. So maybe in the next month or two, we could hold an administrative meeting and I can certainly send out a doodle poll to figure out when that meeting could be had. And one other note, we don't have any applications that I know of that are scheduled for the July 22nd meeting. So with that, I'm gonna say that we're going to cancel that meeting. And then so the next meeting would be August 12th. And we know that the college street application would be continued until that date. And perhaps we'll have other applications that come in in time for that date as well. So I think that's... And that may be an opportunity if there's no other applications, that may be the opportunity for an administrative meeting to piggyback upon that. Yeah, exactly. We might be able to do that. Yep. And although I don't really have any more information about the whole virtual meetings versus in-person meetings, I do know that the town manager said that boards and committees will be meeting virtually until September. And then at that time, we'll reevaluate both like the state regulations on it, most importantly, and then see if we have any flexibility about continuing to hold virtual meetings or if they could be hybrid meetings or if they have to be in-person. So I'm sure as the weeks and months go on, we'll figure that out and I'll certainly let everyone know as that information comes available. Ms. Parks. If we'd like to give input about that, is there anyone specific to direct the comments to about continuing with Zoom? Yeah, that's a good question. You could certainly... I would say email the town manager. And I think that's like a generic town manager at AmherstMA.gov. And you can certainly copy me on the email if you want. Or you could certainly just email it to me and then I can forward it to the office. So whatever you feel comfortable about with, brother. Okay. Do you know, Maureen, would it be all or nothing? In other words... I don't know. Is it technically capable of being both? I think that the town would like that as an option. So for folks... So I think the town would like that. What does that actually mean? I don't know. But I think the town would love to have the flexibility both for board members but also for members of the public to choose whether they come in person or tune in virtually. So the most important thing is just we need to make sure that we meet the open meeting law and then that will help sort of dictate where the sort of flexibility can be held had. So, but I do know that the town manager would love to be as flexible as possible but we just need to make sure that we abide by the law. So, yeah. Hybrid would require lots of bandwidth. So that's the key thing I think just for the town who we have the bandwidth for. All right, I myself would much rather have the board in person more often than less. I think it would be great for us to actually be in a room to work with each other, see each other's body language actually have, I think that would be a much more we'd be a better board if that could happen. And we can still find a way to get public comment from perhaps Zoom or other not in person public comments to increase the transparency and accessibility of our meetings to the public. But I like the notion of us getting together as a board physically as often as we can. All right, any other comments or questions? I'm just gonna say, I agree with that sentiment. I look forward to when we can actually all finally get in the room again together. It'll be nice. Hopefully this new iteration of the board coming up will finally be able to have a chance to all meet. Yeah, we spent a year on virtual and some members have had like Mr. Meadows and Mr. Maxfield. Ms. Parks, you've been totally Zoom. We've not met in person, I don't think. You're Zoom babies. Yes, you have, I'm sorry, you have Ms. Parks prior to your first term, that's right. Okay, all right, everybody, unless there's anything else, I would entertain a motion to a... Marina, it looks like you're gonna suggest something that we're missing. Oh, just I will be working on the decisions from the last meeting, which was about the cemetery and two other applications perhaps. So I'm gonna type those up in the near future and we'll send out an email hopefully next week for you guys to review and to come in to sign. So just stay tuned for that. So, and for some of you that may be away, you know, we do allow, although I have asked multiple times to our town attorney about e-signatures, I will ask again about having an official comment about that. I might reach out to the Registry of Deeds to see if they have an answer, but in the interim, if you're ever away or just very busy for work and you can't sign a decision, it is legal for me to sign on your behalf and then I initial your name. So I just wanted to just mention that if there's ever a time that you think that you're gonna be away for extended time period, that is an option. Great. Okay, well Maureen, take care of your back, get better.  So take care of yourself. And I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. Do I have one? Don't move. I've got three of them. I've got three, do I have a second? Should we do it in unison? All right, there's no discussion on the motion to adjourn. I vote aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Mr. Meadows. Aye. We are adjourned. We will see you on August 12th. Thanks very much everybody. Have a great month.