oh um she Janet says she can't join the meeting can Pam resend the link by email please um I'm going to give it a go I'm not as sure if I can just resend it it's possible doesn't doesn't she get those multiple reminders like the rest of us yeah you could sent a reminder this afternoon she's here she's here in the attendees I'm gonna move her over okay thanks for having me I'll never be able to explain that but all right uh Pam am I right that we are live we are live we are recording you have a quorum uh I had seen amoris media is here with us um 634 you look good to me thank you all right all right welcome to the ammer planning board meeting of May 15 2024 my name is Doug Marshall and as the chair of the ammer planning board I am calling this meeting to order at 6:35 PM this meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via ammer media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 this planning board meeting including public hearings will be conducted via remote means using the zoom platform the zoom meeting link is accessible on the meeting agenda posted on the town website's calendar listing for this meeting or go to the planning board web page and click on the most recent agenda where the zoom link is listed at the top of the page no in-person attendance of the public is permitted however every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the meeting in real time via techn logical means in the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town's website board members I will take a roll call when I call your name unmute yourself answer affirmatively and return to mute Bruce Cen I'm here Fred Hartwell I am here Jesse major I'm here uh I Doug Marshall I'm here Janet Macwan here Johanna Newman here and Karen winter here thank you all board members if technical issues arise we may need to pause to fix the problem and then continue the meeting if the discussion needs to pause it will be noted in the minutes please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment I will see your request and call on you to speak after speaking remember to remute yourself to the general public the general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not on tonight's agenda Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited if you have joined the zoom meeting using a telephone please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star n on your phone when called on please identify Yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking residents can express their views for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning board chair if a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time their participation may be disconnected from the minute from the meeting okay time is 6:38 we'll go on to the first item on our agenda for this evening and that is minutes uh however I don't believe we have any minutes this evening uh is that correct Pam and Chris that is correct we were close but uh unfortunately they were not completed okay all right then we'll go ahead and move on to public comment um time is 6:38 and I usually read the names of the people that I see in the p as members of the public at this point and at this evening I see four names Chris Chamberland from Berkshire design Erica Johnson Jane Wald and Monica Perez Del Rio I know several of those are here for the next item on our agenda do any of the members of the public want to make a public comment at this [Music] time okay I am not seeing any hands from the few people that are present so I guess we'll go on on to uh the next item on the agenda uh the time now is 6:39 uh we're going to the public hearing for a site plan review in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 40a this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted it is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for sit interested citizens to be heard this public hearing is continu from May 1st 2024 it's a site plan review [Music] 2024-25 Main Street request site plan review approval under Section 3334 of the zoning bylaw to construct a two-story building approximately 1630 Square ft including wood siding and metal roof including incidental utility work on 81 lesie Street and site improvements located on map 14b parcel 24 Parcels 24 and 26 in the RG zoning District uh do any members of the board want to make a disclosure this evening okay I made a disclosure when this meeting opened uh regarding I my relationship with some donors who uh to the museum for this project but uh I do believe I can be impartial and objective on on this matter before us all right um Chris I see you are back on behalf of the museum welcome hello and actually Pam if you could add Monica Del Rio Perez um she's from edmd architect okay anybody else Chris um no I no Jane's in the audience but I I think I'll be covering everything that's left okay all right I assume you have uh do you have a presentation you want to make to us as an opening or um yes I uh yeah I can follow up quickly on a few items uh that were brought up and kind of left outstanding last time um there I think there were four of them that planning staff had forwarded just to make sure we followed up on um and so first was the fire department comments um shortly as you remember there were u a hint full of um really restatement of the code that were uh given in a letter to the planning department um shortly after our meeting two weeks ago um the uh Museum and ammer college folks met with the fire department to go through the plans um they had a handful of requests and clarification that were really all having to do with uh components of the architectural part of the project um things like ensuring there was a noxbox uh clarification of smoke detectors that sort of thing we summarized the co the meeting uh in an email and sent that off to the fire department and copied uh Chris brep on it um to make sure that that everything was uh clearly communicated there um I'm not sure if any acknowledgement from the fire department was given but uh essentially they they had a few requests and we um are happy to provide all of them although they're not really related to any of the drawings in the site plan review they're they're sort of building related uh and will be integrated there and presumably get reviewed during the building permit process um the discussion of bike racks um we as we indicated last time um the museum uh is happy to provide um bike racks for the property um the proposed location which uh I'm going to show on the plan uh and and Janet may also appreciate that we added this sheet to the plan that shows the entire Museum property uh which clarifies a little bit more where our project is as that was a comment she had on the site uh meeting but we've indicated the location of bike RS right here um and as we indicated um the preference from the museum is for these to be a rail mounted style that can be moved out of the way uh in in the winter for snowplowing purposes so um we we'll be adding um this or something very very much like this um to that location near the homestead building um there was a request to follow up with DPW on the couple items there um most specifically the you know acceptance of the drainage um we did try to email and call with DPW did not end up getting any response to those um what I can say specifically about the capacity the drywell is early in the design we did speak directly with Jason skeles um about the drainage layout and the fact that we were going to gather roof runoff in um downspouts direct those to a dry well which would overflow to the storm drain um and he indicated that that was perfectly acceptable at that time although we don't have that in writing that was a phone call um and then uh there was a question about back float prevention um on the sanitary pump um and yes just confirming um for certain the the E1 pump system that we've speced for the project um has a check valve that's a pretty typical um setup for these sanitary pumps that would prevent the the water from flowing back down into the pump station when the pump turns off um and then aside from that I did provide um updated plans to Chris breast and included a list of all of the changes that were included most of which were um related to the Conservation Commission um we've Incorporated all of the requests for mitigation measures that they had made and we received our Conservation Commission approval last Wednesday at their meeting um and then I believe the only other changes were related to um a couple of those items that I just mentioned um and Bruce will note that we added uh clarification on that stoop on the western door uh we have decided that we're going to construct that out of granite pavers uh the the occupancy the building is small enough that that does not have to be an accessible entance so we're going to use that sort of historically appropriate material to build That Door pad all right um anything anything else before we move along I believe that's all I had to update on okay uh board members I think we were about ready to go through findings and conditions at our last meeting uh before we do that does anybody have any questions for Chris or Monica Janet um I Chris I wonder did you say that the build the the carriage house won't be accessible or you're just using Granite bavers it's accessible but you're using materials that aren't sanctioned so there are yeah so there are two entrances the main entrance will be fully acceptable the second entrance by code is not required to be acceptable because the occupancy is low enough that we don't need that that second and the building small enough that we don't need that second entrance to be fully accessible although the the pavers that we're putting out there uh will be flush with the first floor um so it could be used uh by anyone really it just doesn't technically meet the uh the full accessibility code okay thank you thank you yes the the uh hello I'm sorry because last week um in May 1 I could not attend and one of my colleagues Tim withman was uh able to attend the meeting so hello to everybody uh just to complete the information yes the uh visitors entry would be fully accessible we modify and and did the the threshold and all of the uh architectural details in order to provide uh completely the first floor accessible to the public okay thank you Monica and Chris all right uh if there's no more questions uh I think we could go ahead and start going through the draft findings Chris uh do you want to lead us through that sure yep and Pam is going to bring them up yep yeah so did you say we're going to start with findings yes the findings okay all right I see them do you yes yes okay so I will read them and then if my voice fails which it's been doing um maybe someone else could take over like Bruce um and I wanted to note that we incorporated Bruce's suggestion of making the um material that was written in section 11.24 in italics so that could be distinguished from what the actual finding is all right great um so do you are you going to read both the italics and the plain text or just to find that was uh I was going to read both unless someone has an objection and I think Bruce has yeah yes I thought uh we had this discussion last time wasn't a discussion it was really an observation that uh possibly from Chris Chamberlain that that we would be the only town that systematically read through all of these and much of this is um I mean we've read these things coming into the meeting um so I'm wondering whether we have to whether we feel that we have to be so uh um uh diligent so to speak uh because I was thinking that we could highlight we instead of reading them all you could uh give a basically take us through the the points of contention because much of this is is not really contentious at all uh and and it seems like a lot of time spent reading everything if it's uh if this if it's if it's not um contentious what do what do people think about that well I have no objection to that um you know it seems like that's been the usual practice here and um I don't know Chris how do you feel about that n um I have no problem with just sort of summarizing what's here um if that is suitable for other people all right well when I saw Jesse has his thumb thumb up um Karen has her thumb up is there anybody that particularly wants to read all of these Janet I do see your hand Janet why don't you speak I'm sorry so I actually agree with Bruce and I I just have like one add to two sections a little thing that says lights will be turned off when not in use and that was my only thing I thought these were really good all right I would love to skip reading them unless people feel otherwise all right all right so Chris why don't you start your summary and Janet uh why don't you put your hand down and put it back up when we get to the sections you wanted to edit and Bruce do you yeah are you all set okay if everyone's good with them do I need to read them or no I think we've decided we don't need you to read them um in in whole I think we would want to scroll down and see if we can if you can help us stop at any spots that you think might be cont ious or uh substantive enough to have a conversation about okay um well the first one has to do with whether it complies with the zoning bylaw and goals of the master plan and it does um the second one 11.24 one is um minimizing detrimental or offensive actions which it's not likely to produce um the third 11.2 402 is um not having a negative impact on AB buding properties um Janet so I would just add where that little section that little closet says exterior lighting will be minimal and will be downcast and I would just say lights will be turned off when not in use because that is a requirement of our bylaw okay um provision of adequate recreational facilities well there's a lot of open space and land escaping around this um property um that's 11.24 3 11.24 110 um protection of unique historic Scenic features um that's what this project is all about is protecting unique historic features and natural and Scenic features will be maintained um 11.24 111 um refuse disposal is considered to be adequate um 11.24 12 um water and sewage disposal is considered to be adequate the 10 engineer has reviewed it 11.24 one3 um has to do with drainage and the uh Town engineer has agreed to the drainage proposal um 11.24 one4 adequate Landscaping um they're taking down a tree but they're adding um at least one new tree and several shrubs to the property and the property is already well landscaped 11.24 one5 um the soil erosion plan is considered to be adequate I believe that the town engineer would find it to be adequate and it's been through Conservation Commission review so that's a pretty good um indication the Highlight that's on that text does that should that be removed I think it should be yeah remove highlight yep and you mentioned the conservation commission but they are not referenced here so you'd like me to reference the conservation well if you think that's a significant fact that we should include yeah um I will include that 11.24 one6 uh screening um is this does Janet want us to add anything about uh I guess there's nothing about lighting in here so this is I guess the next one is the lighting 11.2 417 um exterior lighting that it's been satisfactory because it's all downcast um and there are two goose neck lights and Janet would like us to add her I would just yeah lighting will be toast downcast and turned off when not in use and will not shine so okay very good um so that's 178 is protection from flood head ards this is not in the flood prone Conservancy District um protection of wetlands it's been through the Conservation Commission and they granted the um order of conditions so they they're fine with it um 11.24 to0 talks about the ability of the planning board to use design review board criteria but um we didn't think that that was necessary in this case because the local historic district commission has reviewed the proposal and granted a certificate of appro appropriateness um 11.24 21 um setbacks and placement of parking landscaping and entrances is all satisfactory 11.24 22 building sites um avoid steep slopes flood Plaines Scenic views and grade changes there's no apparent problem here 11.24 23 U more than one building on the site they there are going to be two buildings on the site with the addition of the carriage house and they will be um historically compatible did someone have something to say um I don't see anyone's hand so okay 11.24 to4 screening is being provided um particularly for the HVAC system that will be behind the building 11.24 30 um convenience and safety of vehicular and pedestrian movement um we've seen the whole we've seen the vehicular access we haven't heard anything from the fire department that access for them is not uh available and pedestrian access has been described so we think that's that Criterion has been met 11.2 431 location of curb cuts um there's only one curb cut to this site there's another curb cut to the uh site at 280 Main Street those appear to be adequate 11.24 32 location and design of parking spaces bicycle racks Drive AES Etc um we found that there is are two handicap parking spaces on the adjacent property at the homestead there's a drop off space at the Evergreens and we know now that there is going to be a bicycle rack at the homestead so this um this highlighted air uh item can be deleted um 11.2 433 access to adjoining properties there is access ACC to adjoining properties the two properties are connected and there's a stone dust path that connects them um driveways located in commercial and business districts is not really um uh applicable here join access driveways uh again is not really uh applicable each property has its own driveway um the traffic impact report is going to be waved I believe uh there's not much traffic coming to the site and so the uh aspects of the traffic impact report that would have to be met are not um applicable so those are the findings all right um board members any any questions or comments about those before we move on to the conditions Bruce only to say that I think that was a really well- conducted uh guide Chris I commend you I think you had perfect pitch on that so thank you very much and uh we did our job and we did it in 20% of the time any point in taking a vote on those findings or do you want to just wait until the end why don't we bundle everything okay so now we're going on to conditions draft conditions um the pro so um General conditions number one project built substantially in accordance with plan submitted and approved on today's date project shall be managed substantially in accordance with the management plan um approved on today's date substantial changes will be uh brought to the U planning board for its review and if the planning board decides that they are Minimus that's fine and if not they would come back for a modification of the site plan review approval um that probably should strike out reference to special permit so I see that now uh landscape being installed in accordance with the landscape plan um Disturbed areas to be loaned and seated um number five s plan review approval shall expire in two years unless it's acted upon number six um work shall be completed within 24 months from the date of issuance I guess you might want to ask the applicant if that's an appropriate amount of time or if they will need more time yeah um Chris do you think that the the applicant expects to commence within 24 months she be completed within completed um sorry I believe the uh construction would be we do have some Provisions for conservation that extend out three years from the start of work uh which may not be relevant here it's it's invasive species mitigation and that sort of thing um but I think we're we're certainly confident that the the actual construction will will be completed by then okay uh Chris is there any reason we shouldn't make ours three years just to be consistent with the uh Conservation Commission I don't see any reason why not but um does anyone else object to that Janet I see your hand so this the two-year um substantial completion or construction is a requirement under state law for site plan for special permits and so I think we probably do have the discretion to give them an extra year but I think it's just our convention maybe actually maybe it's two years in our bylaw too I'm forgetting two excuse me it's two years to be acted upon it's not two years to be completed even for permit you have two years to start construction and then um continue it in a diligent manner yeah so there's that yeah and I think that might be in our bylaw for both but I just think if they don't need I mean I I don't know not against three years I just wondered if you know why would we do it here and we always do two years for all our other permits but I just I do think our bylaw has language about you know substantial completion or construction within two years or whatever so okay all right I'm fine with leaving it it just seemed like if there was work was required by the Conservation Commission that could be done between two and three years from now you could probably construe that that's work under this site plan review and I don't yeah I think I'm not I'm not an attorney and I'm not gonna argue about it so let's leave it alone and go on um just to note that if more time is needed they can come back to the planning board and ask for it at a public meeting okay um okay number seven uh on-site utility shall be underground number eight all exterior lighting shall be dark sky compliant downcast shielded and not shine onto adjacent properties Janet did you want to add um something to that about um your note you know I yeah why not because I think we've already said it but sometimes you can't say things enough as someone said in a meeting yesterday so that's fine no I think it's more more important in the conditions than in the findings yep air conditioning Etc shall be screened uh you know it is um utility work shall be conducted following the regulations of the town of ammer uh applicant shall provide the planning board um with specifications about bike racks site Furniture benches so we have specifications about the bike rack we don't know if there's much site Furniture but I think there was a bench mentioned some where and um so if you could if they could um submit the bench uh they don't have to come to a meeting but if they just submit the bench then you can approve it at a at a public meeting okay Chris number um Monica can correct me if I'm wrong I believe that the bench was uh a hold over from an original idea we had about demarcating the front end of that ADA space and instead uh We've proposed Boulders there so we don't actually have um a bench proposed anymore so the bench has been deleted okay right and that's reflected on the plan um it may have ended up in the in the written application okay um number 12 repairs and improvements to the right of way shall be completed um by the applicant um if in if necessary uh number 13 crosswalks sidewalks and parking spaces within the town ride of way that are Disturbed shall be reconstructed to match existing um in the management plan number 14 um all that activity that's described there shall happen between 7:00 am and 7 PM Monday through Saturday except for emergencies number 15 um project shall comply with the management plan and alterations to the management plan shall be approved at a public meeting number 16 no work including demolition shall take place prior to all approv all all approvals and permits being issued um and then the construction are kind of the boiler plate things that we normally include I'm not sure that number 17 is actually necessary but it probably doesn't hurt to leave it in and let the building per uh Building Commissioner say that it's not um necessary so um that has to do with a meeting that we hold prior to construction right and then whether there's a written fire management plan and I don't know in this case whether that will be necessary it's certainly necessary for some of the high-rise buildings that we see not high-rise but fivestory buildings that we see around town but 17 and 18 I had questions about and I didn't get a chance to ask the building commission do you want to just insert something like if required if required by The Building Commissioner how's that right or the fire chief or fire chief yep okay that's good um then the construction Logistics plan is described which is pretty much the same as it always is um we often we often don't read all of these skip these we need to are there any that are really specific to this project I don't think so okay I think they're all kind of boilerplate um 29 30 31 32 those are boilerplate 33 yeah all boiler plate so I don't think you really need to scrutinize those too much all right okay all right [Music] um so I'm see I'm I've I've heard three things that we're going to want to uh approve and then we're going to want to close the hearing uh we're going to want to wave the traffic impact report we're want going to want to approve the findings as uh the draft findings as but as edited in our meeting uh and likewise for the conditions uh approve them as edited in the meeting and then close the hearing um board members and does anybody else want to make any more comments about this project any questions any anything else for Chris and Monica while we have them okay all right so um why don't I go ahead and say say make a motion um actually before I do that I will I I think it seeing who's in attendance I'm not sure I really need to do this but are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment on this hearing uh on this topic uh before we close the hearing Bruce you're not a member of the public I'm seconding your motion oh well hold off okay I don't see any hands from any of the public so I will go ahead and and say I would make a motion that we approve uh site plan review 2024-the tonight and that we approve and adopt the conditions uh as drafted by our staff and approved and edited in this meeting tonight and then that we close this public [Music] hearing Bruce Chen thank you Bruce all right board members any any further conversation you're all very quiet tonight all right all right we'll do a roll call uh starting with you Bruce I approve and Fred I approve Jesse I approve Janet I approve this particularly attractive pro project I think it's going to be a great Ed and Johanna approve and Karen proof all right and I approved as well at seven in favor no abstentions no opposition and I'll Echo Janet's comment to Chris and Monica and Jane who's in the audience looks like a great project and we hope to see it soon great thank you thank you so much everybody thank you good night have a good good night okay time now is 711 and we can move on to the fourth item on our agenda which is the ammer historic preservation plan Chris uh do you want to introduce this or is Nate in the audience in order to do this Nate is in the audience so if Pam could bring him over that would be good I also want to say that we heard from Shannon Walsh from Piner Valley Planning Commission who uh wrote this plan and she has to jump off at 7:20 so maybe we should um truncate the introduction and let uh Shannon speak for 10 minutes and then Nate will handle it after that so I'm not seeing [Music] Shannon oh what's what's that Pam maybe this Erica you don't see Shannon at all oh so why don't you bring Erica Johnson over and she's got her hand raised yeah may maybe you should bring Nate too I did you did bring Nate he didn't he didn't come he didn't come he remote panel people can say no thank you which Nate must be saying No thank you Nate might be on his phone he might be child driving to do oh there's Shannon there Shannon hi all right welcome welcome Shannon hi there sorry about that my we share a zoom here at pvpc and I frequently come up as my colleague Erica Johnson and I could not figure out how to change it when I was in the waiting room so my apologies for being Incognito um I will just say that um I'm happy to be here tonight I'm excited we're at this point in the process we had a great meeting with the historical commission recently and just kind of went over the final plan I haven't really come with anything to say Nate just invited me to come if there were any questions but I unfortunately do have to jump off I have a commitment for my daughter at 7:45 so um I'm here though until that time until about 7:20 725 um I think I can make it home from then if if any questions come up okay thank you oh Nate has his hand raised let's bring him over drag him over here let's see if if he'll come Nate I'm trying to promote you oh here he comes okay all right here we go hello Nate hi how you doing good how are you good uh do you do you have anything you want to say to us about this reservation plan as an introduction Shan has to leave quickly I'll just I'll also make it short for now you know the idea to bring it to the planning board is to have the board look at it and then vote it to uh incorporate as part of the the master plan and so you know that doesn't have to happen tonight but we wanted to bring it to you for discussion it could be continued but you know we think that there's some nice action steps and implementation strategies that you know the historical commission will follow from this plan and it's something that the planning board could then discuss uh you know in the next few years too uh so that's that's really part of it really and you know there's a 2005 plan this is an update uh that we focus really on making it an action plan with achievable goals and strategy IES I think you know if you use the 2005 plan and then this plan I think it gives a really nice comprehensive history of ammer and so some of the focus here was also more on what you know what can the commission and town do moving forward and not you know an exhaustive research on the history of armmer so okay all right so it sounds like we can have some conversation tonight we don't need to vote to recommend that this be part of the m plan or did you say Nate that we need to vote voted into the master plan or we recommend to Town Council that we vote that they adopt it I think the planning board could vote to incorporate it into the master plan um it doesn't that doesn't have to happen tonight but I think eventually it'd be nice to have that you know be be part of it it's it's a direct vote we're not recommending to Town Council right right yep okay all right Janet I see your hand so I skimm this this this afternoon and it just looks like a great document I stopped myself from reading all the history I'm going to do that on an airplane tomorrow um so I just skimm through it I've read the previous um preservation plan I wondered like I was a little overwhelmed with the number of action steps or the priorities and I was wondering for each of you like what would you be your top five or your top three action steps or that things that really have to be done I would say top three but I think that'd be too hard Janet are you addressing that to the members of the board or you're asking Shannon and Nate because it seems like maybe the historic commission would be the ones to set the priorities um I was gonna ask Shannon because I know she's in a rush but also Nate because he's he's deep in he's deep in this process so just to you know just like what do you think those top five are um and if you don't want to answer it you don't have to well I I'll jump in just real quick that um some of them are there's phases of of what can be done so it it just depends on what what the priorities are so they're not there's we have have short-term midterm long range um so that's what we were trying to spell out in this and one of the things that the historical commission gave us feedback um for what they wanted to see in this plan was don't like don't it could be great to give a whole laundry list of all the things to do but if they're not achievable it's not not really going to be a practical um plan for them to follow so we Tred to look at what the priorities were also based on Outreach from the stakeholders from the survey to the community from the meetings we had with you the meetings we had with the commissions and figure out um also in the framework of state federal and state recommendations for preservation planning um so this isn't really directly like you know give me the short list of what we should do first it's some of the things you have to back up like you have to back up update documentation because even though ammer has a massive amount of documented resources it's considered outdated by the state um so we Nate did this great map where you could see the ages of um properties to kind of give a sense of of the way that ammer was built and the patterns of development but also the ages of when this documentation went into Mass historics database if it was anything earlier if it started with a one and a nine it's it's outdated even if it started with a two and a0 it's outdated so there's a lot of different steps but um it's not just something you can give a a quick short list of what to do first okay there yeah I will say that the commission has taken this and the chair has made a matrix and the commission has been talking about it what would be the first you know three priorities and looking at making subcommittees to implement this and so you know one has been like a barn tour they've talked about uh you know do some doing some public engagement around you know some of the pieces of the plan um updating the inventory forms is really important you know even looking at like midcentury modern homes you know say 1940s to 60s uh outbuildings is still something that's interesting they they're kind of Disappearing as they lose functionality uh you know parts of the history that were never really researched um but I think you know the public Outreach and education component is something that they've talked about how can they get the community more engaged and then that could also then lend support for projects whether that's you know CPA funding or you know if it's a private uh project and so you know the so many of the resources are privately owned and held and so some of it is kind of you know what you know what can happen how do we how do you educate the public about that or the owners themselves and you know when Shannon was doing the out building survey and some of this plan I mean some of the farming uh families you know they have so much history and they're they actually would you know I think they would welcome it seems like they're always excited talk about the history of the of the property and so that kind of inspired like okay what can what could the commission do to uh help you know more people learn about it or hear about it and so they're they're kind of they're going through that but I think there's definitely a few that they would love to do in the next year or two and we did on page 50 it's chapter four the action plan and implementation strategies which it's a it's a lot to digest um we tried to break it down historic resources inventory survey and designation priorities and there's a couple couple of suggestions cultural resource priorities and then Municipal bylaws regulations and policies priorities and that so we try to break it down into different categories um and then it's really just like Nate said the the work begins with okay what is the what is the the current capacity able to do first I mean I tried to make the people responsible for these things or the groups or whatever not all just fall on the historical Commission because that was also something the commission said like we in the 2005 plan there were great suggestions but they're all volunteers like we can't possibly do all these things um so it really is a you know Community Municipal wide effort with a lot of different people kind of being part of this process okay um so so you know I I see that the report is 124 Pages uh and I doubt of us really had a chance to go through it all uh before this meeting Chris would it make sense for us to put this on the schedule in another month or something yes uh and you know give people a chance to look at it on on however many planes they're on Janet um between now and and the middle of June uh Fred I see your hand uh yeah uh to anyone that can answer I was looking at the uh cultural resource inventory uh the appendix H and I um again I haven't had time to really get into this but I noticed that there is a difference of color code uh in the uh I guess it's the one of the columns has a color code that changes and I'm was wondering what the what the significance of that is and I was also just wondering generically how the the this uh is organized and how you get a property on it or off of it so appendex H is the the highlighted red section is the date that the inventory that the documentation was done so that's the example that I was talking about these were done in 19 in the 1970s um so that was just something that we highlighted and then I believe this came from your office Nate because there were different colors by decade um just as a way so Mass historic doesn't currently have documentation this kind of important when they'll always ask you okay when was the inventory form done especially if somebody once National register listing or something like that but the documentation standards have changed so drastically or if a the commission's trying to determine maybe let's say a demolition has been proposed what's the history of this property is it locally significant if they'll look at something that's older it might not really have any information at all so that color coding was something that originated um with planning when they were trying to help us give kind of a visual of of what all of these properties when they were documented um what was the other thing I was oh you were talking about as you go through this document if you're able to go through it online I tried to put as many links in as possible just so that there would be places to go when when there's something that um is referenced that has a link it's somewhere that you can then go on to get more information about whatever the link goes to um and I do apologize because I have to jump off but um Nate and Christine can follow up with any questions we're doing just some housekeeping with putting links in table of contents so that it will jump to those things within the document but other than that I and some other maybe bullet points and things to make what you're looking at a little clearer but feel free to send any other questions my way my apologies for jumping off thank you yeah I was going to say that the um um uh the inventory so she mentioned we have you know there's over a thousand properties and you know the inventory gets filed with the state and then it could be used for other purposes but most of the forms like she said if they're completed even 20 years ago for an architectural description it might be one line for the for the history of the say the owners or any cultural history it might be a line and there's really no appendices and so now Mass historic wants you know a little bit more thorough research and so it does take a bit of time to complete these and updating them is important I think Fred you may have asked like how does a property get on or off of it and I guess I I'd want I guess I want to know more about that there's really no um you know once a property is inventoried it's it is in this database that the state maintains macis and uh it's available online it's a public thing but it the the completing an inventory form doesn't designate a property one way or the other it's just it's kind of an inventory record of of properties and so you know I'm not sure what what do you mean like how I don't know you know if like a property owner doesn't want to be living in a historic house they want they they don't want it to be inventory I guess I I if you have a further followup question I'd be curious uh well yeah I just I'm just again I'm I'm woefully ignorant here about this and I want to get un ignorant and I'm just curious how how the contents of this were assembled um and whether that is an ongoing process and if so how does it work do you mean the the the Thousand properties that are listed or yeah I mean um how does the 1,00 F and First Property uh show up on the next edition of this yeah Yes actually the commission's been talking about that so what what a town will do is um we've talked about trying to get some funding for it you can do a you know it's like a survey to prepare for for inventorying property so you look at you know the decades when homes were built what's been inventoried where are their gaps and you know what might be threatened resources whether it's say out buildings and so we had pvpc a few years ago look at you know 150 out buildings barns carage houses whatever corn cribs and identify priorities uh there um so it's it's you know there isn't um there's probably many different ways but right now the commission is actually looking at trying to you know look at every all the properties that have been inventoried where are their gaps what do we think's important and then kind of coming up with some lists and just to exactly that and so it could be that you know a homeowner could complete an inventory form they could say wow you know I live in this 1960s you know great example of you know some period architecture and you know I don't see it anywhere and they could start it and then they could request it and then the town can submit it to the state so you know voluntarily properties can be added but if the town for the commission they want to have you know right like I said a plan an outline and you know say for you know get $20,000 from a gr or CPA and say we're going to inventory the next you know hundred few hundred properties whatever that can get us so you're saying it's predominantly the historic commission that surveys properties in town and thinks about priorities and then either they or or someone assisting them would help set the priority and and do the uh the information form right and you know as Shannon mentioned unfortunately probably it's probably like a thousand of those 1300 forms are now considered outdated by mass historic um you know they were with a typewriter or by hand and so what Mass historic has done and they've scanned those and attached them to this online map but uh they would like it now to be you know a digital like you know character recognized digital copy file that could be keyword searched or something or added to more easily in the future and so it's actually it's actually it's a lot of work we um Shannon was doing it for studying n the expansion of the East Village National register district and most of those properties are in older form forms and mass historic said we won't even consider the expansion until every property is on a new form and so it you know becomes like okay well you know we have to spend time doing 50 new forms uh you know just to get and I guess you every 20 years that you have to redo them because the standards are going to change I'm hoping yeah I mean technology might change but hopefully if it's in a database that they they can draw take the information from that in the future they could then you know take that information and update it themselves as opposed to putting it on the communities like they don't want to sit there and type over well I don't know that they have a lot of resources of their own either right okay Fred uh are you all set well I just uh again I'm uh wul ignorant here uh I'm thinking uh just for example the the house that I own uh I've done extensive historic research including looking at the original 1868 deed uh which is fascinating because for the first 80 years of The house's existence it was entirely in the female line even though and there's no mention of the husband and we don't know why that happened but nevertheless uh it was entirely in the female line first the mother and then uh her daughter and um it's it's fascinating and I written all that up and documented it and so you know I look at the I'm just wondering how that information might get into this kind of a resource well it sounds like maybe if you touched uh contacted the historic commission they could give you some advice on that yeah yeah I would say email me and then you know we could uh send it to mass historic so that's the kind of research that you know for a new inventory form people might do the deed research to just see something like that um whereas before they might just say oh you know Mr so and so lived there and he you know was a shop owner and that that was it but Mass historic wants a little bit more uh deed and you know genealogy research on properties okay uh Janet so just to get people excited about reading this report there's in the History Section there's a lot of new information about African-American families and slave holding in town and also indigenous people and so that was just fantastic to see like all this new history it's coming back out or being written up or finally read and so that was really interesting the other thing I was thinking about because you know I kept on looking at this the work plan or the action plan I was just I if I was on the historic commission I'd be overwhelmed and I I began to Wonder Could is you know we have three academic institutions um in town and I even in the high school like when my son took there's a Chris G has this whole project where you take a building and you write up the history of it and someone did that for our house and my sons did it for houses in downtown and I just wonder if there's some way to kind of activate the history departments of the high school and the the colleges to see can they participate in this or parts of this plan to make it you know they it'd be great projects for students you know research projects and things so well that's a suggestion that the historic commission could take up yeah I I'll I think I'll I'll bring it to them okay uh Chris I see your hand I had a question for Nate um I know that recent research was done for the Lincoln Sun local historic district and if people wanted to find out what a real good form would look like is that a place to look because I know you know people like Moran Adams and others did a lot of research to you know establish that district and I know they did research at the library Etc so with those um that information from the local historic district commission be useful for planning board members to see what those forms might look like or is that just completely different yeah no I was going to um if uh this is the uh State you know uh put made an online map so you could click on a property and you can click on a form and so you know if you download it oh I should have done this before um it will load and you can get a PDF it looks like it's not going great right now so yeah if you're on if you search Mac maps and just click through ammer you could see what a nice inventory form is um this is probably an older one and so they you know they've digitized the front page was yeah so here's one that was completed a while ago and it's just you know um I'll zoom in you know most of the fields are blank uh you know so this is this would be you know this is probably done in the 80s yeah 88 we had a lot done then and for oh they have a little bit more for the architectural description so they have a little bit here but for right for Lincoln Sunset you know Susanna fabing musrat um and some of the residents of the district did a really nice job so what you'd see here instead of being a few lines it' be a full paragraph they would have maybe uh here for the historical significance more of a chronological um history of owners and what how it played into different you know time periods of town and then their bibliography is would be like you know eight sources not just one or two and so so uh it does take a little bit of time special collections is a great resource you know now with online databases so like newspaper.com or different ones that can happen too um but yeah a new one and then you know updated pictures and a map and all those fields are now digital so they want that's where they want the you know a new form so that I think essentially to make that that map work that was just there they have a you know everything goes into a database that mass historic manages okay uh Bruce um just to commend Janet's suggestion to you Nate uh um in in my fourth year of six-year architecture uh studies in Melbourne in Australia 506 quite a while ago um we had uh as students to produce uh uh a study through the course of the year on one of our courses uh exactly that either a building or an architect or something and it was a terrific resource over many years uh and and I think just looking at what you put up on the screen it it uh the level of uh research and so forth that we did as fourth year students was pretty sophisticated relative to this document but this does seem exactly the U plane of sophistication that a high school student could handle or well you know or or somebody in the an undergraduate for example so I I think the the usually I'm I'm less enthusiastic about the idea that you can tap into educational facilities to do things that we want because I always have to remind myself and others that the uh purpose of uh that the students are basically their priorities as to is to is for their own studies and we can't expect them to prioritize down needs over their but this is one of those conditions I think where the two would be very much in parallel and I don't think there'll be a lot of tension or between the interest of the town and the interest of the student here and and and so I think that as jenet says that uh finding the right faculty and one or other or many institutions around and and and getting them to develop programs that we can continue and and can be you know can happen year after year is really the way to do this I mean it really is we have a unique opportunity and uh and and it's it's it's staring Us in the face I couldn't agree with more with you Janet this is the way to do it yeah and I let me just share my screen again just so here's a newer form just you know I clicked on some property on Lincoln a you know similar format here updated picture and map and then you know the research here the um you here's this historical narrative much longer in more detail and then the bibliography if you look at it here is really extensive right so you know so even if so this is what that what could be found and sometimes there's a continuation sheet with additional photographs so here's the older form so what you saw here was you know not a ton and what they added was you know a lot more research uh and typed up in a form than that you know this is what Mass historic want so yeah I agree I think it's interesting I you know can this be combined with a certain curriculum or could it just be a goal of having a few so many forms a year tied to certain research and so you know it's a big job or if you chip away at it it can you know it's manageable all right any more conversation about the historic preservation plan Karen uh as part of the local historic Commission of sunset Lincoln we were trying to do this EX L This research on the North Pleasant Street houses because we want to we were considering how we could perhaps expand the district and we I spent a lot of time in special collections as a matter of fact the special collections person did most of my work but it it it's very time consuming you do learn a lot uh if you do it right the the modern way there were a lot of contradictions and um it was wonderful to be constantly sort of going to all the books and the special Collections and trying to find our way in but but without guidance you're pretty much lost so I do see maybe educating some of the social studies teachers uh the Civics teachers at the high school um and then having a project where every student could do one I see that as as a real great exercise I I learned a lot and I also see how frustrating it is because some of the things just really didn't add up and you could see that the form over the years some of them were contradictory so it was interesting that's the great thing that they learn is that everything is in a straight line I mean that's the fundamental lesson in doing this kind of stuff it's it's really is a fabulous opportunity I think all right thanks Karen and thanks Nate for leading this conversation with and absent um okay so Chris you think we can put this back on the agenda in another month or so we have um dates in June of June 5th and June 26th I would suggest the 26th because I think the fifth is getting kind of full okay is that okay Nate does that s suit your timeline yeah I mean I was goingon to say that the document is long there U you know half of it or more than half may be appendices and so you know uh you know there's an U an executive summary and then the chapter four The Action step and implementation strategies is not you know a few pages so not that I would say to skip everything else but you know as you're reading it if you know if you want to you know the document can be managed in in chapters or sections and so um you know some of it we like the historical commission like way pvpc organized it and then that you know you could take chapter four and that would be a standalone piece that you know could then be distributed to different organizations or people and so you don't necessar have to get all the background uh but it is helpful I think it is a nicely written plan all right Jesse thanks um I just wanted to clarify so it's going to come back in a month and our our goal will be to have a vote to recommend as part of the master plan that's want a bud time to look at it that's that's what we're gonna try and do okay thanks y okay all right so we'll move on to the next item on our agenda uh University Drive the potential housing overlay Zone continued discussion regarding concept for an overlay zoning District to allow more housing with a mix of apartment buildings and mixed use buildings and ideas for streetscape design um Nate I think you've been leading this conversation you want to introduce what you what we might talk about tonight sure yeah thanks yeah so what I was going to you know I wanted to take a step back and talk again about kind of the purpose of the overlay and what the intention was and I I actually think we're kind of going astray here so I think on University dve we have a unique opportunity to actually house students uh and have greater density than we would in other places in town and so you know what I'm seeing is you know we people were worried about Barry's project on down and down town There's the petition on North Whitney where people were concerned about fearing Street and it's like I think we have to have a conversation about where can we allow density and where do we want students to live and so I think you know right now what we're having what what we have in the overlay actually I don't think would get used and I think it would actually limit the development potential there and so I'd want to step back and say you know limiting the building footprint requiring certain amount of open space beyond wetlands and setbacks having parking requirements uh stepping back upper floors having a 50% commercial requirement all those things I think are to the detriment of actually getting housing and so in my mind you know the magnitude of what we want to have in terms of Housing and for students I think we need to talk about students is you know more than let's try to do 20 units here 20 units there and so to me if we move on and say let's talk about rezoning East ammer we want to have four stories and three stories and all this different housing in um East amest that housing to me is going to be students because that's where the market is right now and it's really hard to zone for end users and so I I don't think we can get too upset at someone who's going to propose an apartment building somewhere and then find out that most of it's going to be students because that's where the market is going but I think with University Drive I think we have the ability to say let's actually try to say we're going to create a thousand units a thousand beds um you know to start start creating a dent in it you know Hadley's looking at some zoning I think you know we can bring this to the university and say look here's what we're trying to do can there be another public private partnership and even if there was that might be years away but I think the private Market on University Drive would move faster than a P3 at UMass and so there's already a variance that was granted for the corner of University Drive in Amity that'll be coming to the planning board and you know there were no there's no opposition at the zba and everyone seemed to really like that project and so um in my mind you know that's the kind thing we want to have happen with the overlay and I think where we're going right now that kind of project actually wouldn't happen uh and I actually think apartments in on University Drive can be okay maybe having some distance requirements or even limiting the number but you know requiring only mixed use buildings to me is something that may not end up getting used and so you know that's where I want to go I want to step back a little bit and say that if every time now a project is going to come up in downtown and we're like well what happens when it becomes 90% students can we can it come back to the planning board and have a new management plan I think we're missing the bigger opportunity to say well how can we house students somewhere utac identified this a previous study identified this I mean there was a study in 1990 it was like Regional Housing Commission H College housing or housing affordable housing and college communities sponsored by the state and it looked at Amis and a number of communities and so I feel like you know we've been have the town's been having this conversation for decades and it's not getting easier but I do think that it's something we need to discuss and so before we keep working on the overlay and getting into all the details I just want to have that conversation again uh the Housing Trust picked it up they're going to talk about it next month they talked about it the other week and so they're in support of you know density there uh you know they haven't gone down to specifics but kind of like the planning board in general they really think this is a great idea for infill and Redevelopment they haven't jumped on it but you know they they think well why couldn't we have a Target number of beds and really push for it because it could actually then start changing the equation so that other areas in town might see relief from uh the pressures of student housing so Nate I I assume that your sense that we're going astray is coming from some of the comments that you've received from the planning board right and at and it's been a while since we've discussed this I think it was in February and then afterwards I received comments but you know there was discussions about limiting the building coverage to still around 30 or 35% and I think you know we could be more flexible uh I think having certain parking requirements is a way to say no because if you still want to have two units for you know two parking spaces for dwelling unit then you know that might actually be a deterrent I think we have to be flexible on parking I think developers because there's no streets nearby that offer parking someone's not going to come in and say well they can just park on Lincoln and walk half a mile I think they're actually going to have to consider who's the user and how that parking space and property will be developed and you know that's what um you know he's talked with attorney REI that's what they did on the project that came to the variant you know they are pro you know providing a lot of parking um that because they think it's necessary for that project in other parts of town they may not require that much because they think well there's different options whether it's on street or public transit or what have you so you know those are the types of things you know we have usable open space I think we say 20% of a building footprint needs to be usable open space and you know is that really do we have to require that of every site in every project and I so those are the things that I think are actually going to become detriments to the overlay and actually I think if we passed it the way it was now is now actually not sure any developer would use it I actually think it would be something we'd go through this effort and it actually wouldn't be an advantage to to actually get used okay um all right so I see hands from Janet Bruce and Jesse so and Karen so why don't we start Janet you know it was kind of like watching one of those shows where like people you know those singing shows or you people just hit the buttons and and quick AR right Nate I'm really glad you brought this up because I was um thinking similar things like what are the goals of this district and we did talk earlier about whether it should be a student housing District which I think is a recommendation in one of the housing studies the market study or the production plan um you know I think one of the goals is to increase density like what is basically a Village Center in order to take the pressure off of residential neighborhoods and I would suggest that as we increase density we should decrease density in the residential neighborhoods or else the whole town will just become this buildout and hopefully not just filled with students hopefully a good mix of people um so I you know I think you know I also really appreciated the way you put the the um the information together because it's like there's we you know it seems like the planning board has sort of a a vision and an set of ideas and the planning department has a different set of the ideas I think if you did a VIN diagram you know probably 80% or 60% you know is in the middle and my thought was you know we don't have to go back and forth like this I think it's our next step is to take these ideas and these issues which are hot and interesting and contact the property owners who are there contact the businesses contact the residents who live in the area or in literally in the district like at the Arbors um and the adjoining area and you know invite the public but to say you know here's what we're talking about what is what ideas do you have what's your reaction um should it be a student housing District should we say no you know parking let the developers decide invite developers because you know Barry Roberts has more expertise in this than obviously me and just have a a step where we just talk to people and get their input and ideas and then go forward with something more concrete and I just think it's that time to we have two visions they're very similar but there's different you know I know people want on the planning but want to see a really active Street of commercial properties and people walking day and night and having beers like they do in Belgium even in the in the winter with a blanket and just a very vital Street and you're you know what you're saying now feels to me like let's just get some students let's just you know siphon some students off here and I don't know where we're going to wind up but I think it's time to talk to the people who live there work there own property and have businesses there and so that would be my suggestion is just have a a next step in our planning process which is to talk to people most directly affected uh Janet um you know we hold these hearings we hold these meetings they're advertised everybody's invited and so but nobody knows we're doing this like do you do the property owners know this does the Arbors know this do the you know like let's this is planning I mean we get people p attention but this is not I mean a normal planning process is to contact the people who live there work their own and the developers I don't know how we always skip over this process which my husband calls planning 101 who has a planning degree and it's just let's let's just take our ideas we have two visions that are very similar but different and just see what people think and then that will give us a better sense of what we should how we should go forward and also build some unity and and and community in the process because you got to pass it whatever it is okay Bruce um I Nate I substantially agree with everything you put down except that uh the only point and know that I would challenge is I think uh as Janet said U I'm probably one of those that feels that we should uh um strive for maintaining an ex an extending Street uh uh vitality and so forth so far I think that some portion of the lower floors needs to be commercial but I don't I did uh you know I thought through parking and various other things because I wanted to see what the impact would be if we had any parking requirements and clearly even a small parking requirement generates a fair amount of space for parking so uh uh and and I listening to Barry's presentations I did to the zba for his variance request uh it seemed that it was reasonable to uh put that in the hands of the developer in this particular instance I really support the notion that we should uh this should be focused for student accommodations I think that seems to be the principle thing I learned from the six or eight discussions I've had with people from other towns like us um that uh this was one of the ways in which uh their the problems were being uh addressed their their problems being very similar to ours so yes we should uh describe a target of accommodation yes I think it should be focused on students yes to most everything else on your list about how that happens in terms of aiiing density in this DES in this particular place but I think we should give uh I think higher priority than you giving to uh maintaining Street vitality and I think that's simply a matter of of uh encouraging in whatever way we can uh commercial activity on the front of the ground floors so I don't think we're very far apart if we're apart at all um as far as Jan ordinarily I would agree with Janet on this idea that we need to uh talk to the neighborhood but what I've thought about in recent years as we've been doing zooms and so forth um I know when we were doing the uh zoning sorry the the comprehensive plan back in the uh late 90s I mean when when I I was part of it and it was started it was very difficult you had to work really hard to get uh people to come to these kind of meetings that you're advocating Janet and uh typically what happened was that 80% of the people that came to the meetings were the people that you'd already been talking to and you got to you got a you got a handful of folks who for him it was a new experience nowadays that we have zoom and so forth we would do this by Zoom probably anyway but it's so much easier and I agree with Doug you know that this is a um there's not a whole lot of difference between doing a public meeting and there's no difference between doing a public meeting for this project and and and having an agenda item on our on our uh regular meeting except perhaps possibly we would uh do a little bit more work to solicit solicit solicit attendance and perhaps we could promise that there would be a greater fraction of the meeting given to public comment uh I don't know so already we give a pretty good fraction so I don't see that as being a big deal either so I think that we should manage our public comment and our public engage engagement process through the through the mechanism that we already have and uh and and certainly make do our best to get folks in um I always found it was difficult to get property uh owners because for whatever reasons of their own they they didn't want to be part of a public group and so you really have to talk to them independently as far as I can tell so that's a beer on a Friday um with folks um but I'm I'm with you in in in what youve laid down with that single slight uh change of emphasis sure yeah if I could just respond quickly Doug I um I still think we should require at least 30% you know non-residential as we do in other parts of town and maybe it's even a little bit more and have some requirements in terms of how it faces the street and so I'm not saying abandoning say um some minimum for mixed use buildings and you know at one point I was saying let's just call this student housing but I still think we would just call it mixed use buildings or apartments and not you know it can be for non- students too it's just that I think the market will lean heavily and so I'm not sure I'm ready to say well let's just qualified as like you know we have a use category in the bylaw as you know a social dormatory but um you know just knowing that you know I also like the idea of still making that Western Access Road The Pedestrian way and so I think it's really important to maintain those Street trees try to have an off-road um pedestrian walkway uh that's you know a to to 10 plus feet wide you know right now there's like a two to three foot sidewalk right along the western um curb and it's falling apart I think we should abandon that and have a wider green strip and so you know I'm not saying let's you know have seven story buildings here and just like this monolith I think that you know we could still have some requirements and even some design standards but you know we kind of rethink some of um some of the things we have in the overlay in terms of our standards and conditions and so yeah I mean I just don't want to you know like like I said I wasn't saying just say no to mixed use or some requirement I still think we should have some and I think that you know someone who knows that will come in and and make it work I think I just think 50% might be too high because if it's required of every building and we it has to be it can't be parking or something then you know the concern would be is it vacant space or will they actually work to fill it or is it okay if it's vacant for a long time because eventually there'll be enough people that they'll fill it anyways and so but I just don't want to be so high that it becomes a deterrent or something that you know works against everything else in the in the overlay or in the zoning so all right thanks Nate um two one sidebar um Pam would you make me a co-host yes all right and then um you know where and then I guess I just want to remind people that we're the first step on the process whatever we do Goes to Town Council it they probably refer it to CRC it goes back to Town Council and then it comes to us for actual hearing um so there are we're just the first step in what we're talking about now and to get through that whole thing there's multiple hearings there's probably you know the Gazette would certainly pick it up at one or more steps and I think um you know people would hear about it and um you know Janet if you want to take the time to to talk to people at the Arbors or whatever and say hey we're having these meetings uh you know go for it um you know but I think in terms of using our staff resources wisely I don't think that's a real good use at this point so I I know your hands up Janet and we'll get to you in a minute uh Jesse you are next thanks um thanks Nate for framing the conversation that way I yeah I think I for the most part totally agree um especially with what Doug said I think we should try and just get to a place a little more quickly where we can move it on to the next step um so I think I do agree that developers should drive what happens there my my two reservations are this came up in our first discussion about this making sure doing what we can to make sure it's a part of town that the student residents will still benefit from also and that to me is about the commercial space and the some of the design standards and but but just reducing I think is totally fine and it could still accomplish that I just think it'd be a real shame if we eliminate all that which is not what you're saying and it really just became nothing but apartments and not useful for the rest of us as well I do think there's a middle ground there somewhere okay thanks thanks Jesse Johan thank you very much I am so glad that we are coming back to this project um I think the longer we wait the more we end up feeling cornered on other things whether it's fearing Street or South Whitney Street as a town the longer we have tax revenue problems so I'm really glad we're coming back to this and I am really interested in actually having a timetable for action on this because you know I think we started almost a year ago now in our conversation about housing we reduced that to this I think we're you know we're close and I think um I think we should come up with a timetable to get it to the next step and get it to the the Town Council um Nate I appreciate your focus about like okay really part of why we ended up at University Drive is this is a spot where we kind of broadly agreed that we want to add density I can't remember where we ended up on four Stories versus five stories or you know whether there's a stepback approach um I'll just go on record saying again I think five stories makes a lot of sense if what we're primarily trying to do is add density and then even if all of the housing generated here is student housing I think it'll deliver significant benefits to year round residents both from reducing pressure on the existing neighborhoods and from The increased tax revenue um I am a little bit agnostic on the like Apartments versus mixed use I think um having some apartments in the center of the block could make sense but I think mixed use is really nice around the intersections um so that is one thought that I'll share if we are thinking about making adjustments there and then yeah all four no parking requirements personally if uh developers think that they can create housing and have people live in there carfree and that they can rent those units that just seems like a net benefit for people in the planet that's what I got okay thanks Johanna um Nate are you is your hand up to respond to some of these things uh I mean generally I was going to just say that um uh you know as Janet was talking previously mentioned that you know and and I brought up the other neighborhoods you know say fearing North Whitney you know in the comprehens of housing market study mentioned that if you upzone some areas maybe you become more restrictive in other areas and they mentioned a number of communities that balance that approach and so you know I I'm you know we haven't necessarily discussed as a planning board or staff but I you know I've often thought that especially with the conversations that are happening around town we have the additional lot area per family but you know it could just be that we have a a more prescriptive formula that says you know this many units here and um you know with some some kind of massing uh standards so that you know even if you own a Big Lot in RG you know you can't just try to get 10 units right because it seems like that's not what people want right you really you know it seems like the worry is that our zoning could be flexible enough that the actual streetcap and character of a number of neighborhoods could be really changed and I think some of it is we there we don't have certain standards the lots and the properties we have weren't developed on a grid system you know so you know C like St Paul and in California I found where they actually have you know standards in terms of directionality of the units and how they have to be placed on the lot and in the driveway and certain things but we just I feel like we weren't developed in that that way but I do think that if you know we're moving forward with University Drive I think there could be some other considerations for zoning um and I think it's like a whole Suite of things I'm not saying we're going to try to propose five different housing amendments right now but I think you know part of the conversation can be okay well if we're you know we're looking at a few areas in town and talking things what are some other Corel amendments that we could be also considering and so I mean it goes kind of to the other the next agenda item kind of the housing issues in general and the Housing Trust has been talking about this too really about you know what's appropriate how do we move forward they're talking about their goals and how many affordable units in the next so many years and they're really pushing they want to push for say at least 200 affordable units in the next five years uh and then there's also market rate units and so you know I I I mean I'm kind of thinking well if this is just apartments on University Drive does inclusionary zoning apply do we increase the percentage or not and so I mean those are like some details that still need to be worked out but I think that you know there are many pieces to this um and University Drive is one of them for this housing discussion all right uh I will note that we're just a little past 8 o'clock and we usually take a break uh so maybe Janet and Karen will hear from you and then we'll take a five minute break Jan could Karen go first because I've already talked she hasn't I just I I really agree with Joan and and you Nate and I'm wondering how we can move forward most quickly and I'm thinking maybe the best thing is to put down that that you for example uh put down a few things that we can discuss specifically and move on such as are we going to limit to four or five stories that would be the first thing and then the parking thing are we going to leave it up to the developers just put get specific so that we can really uh move forward all right thanks Karen Janet so I I I do think we could do a simple thing like email and mail do a mailing um using the materials that Nate have make May me make them a little bit um more like you may not know you know because you don't look at the planning board agenda every every other week um this is what we're talking about we' love your ideas email them back come to our next meeting that we're going to talk about it um I think you know if nobody shows up okay then then we've done our due diligence on the other hand we're spending $100,000 in two years tweaking design standards in downtown amoris which frankly we could actually pull out of the Northampton book or the Dennis book or the Somerville book they're all done you know Rhode Island has a design standards things we could have just done that and said hey we like these design standards let's get them to town Council but instead we're spending two years talking to people so I don't understand how you can say we we we've spending all this money and time on this process and then by the way there's this huge area of town you know nobody really you know like let's just get something done so I do think it wouldn't be hard to do some Outreach and mailing emailing and contacts and so I literally you know we can if Nate would do maybe more of a summary or I could work on it I would literally lick envelopes I don't I don't understand this strange I mean I've just watched in town meeting time and time again where proposals come to people they haven't seen them they haven't responded then they have information that we all need to know and it just hits the wall and so I think we're really close in terms of agreement I think that we want to see density students are not um you know I think you know the na people in the neighborhoods are crying for Less density and more control over what's happening in terms of students um you know too much student housing and things like that but I do really think it could be a simple step just to talk to our community and kind of build community in that conversation and the developers don't have to show up in a meeting I know they don't like that but they could send comments anonymously you know and just say hey this is what I need this what works this is why we think this parking is needed we'd like to decide by ourselves because we're developers and we could say as a planning board like okay go for it or no we'd like to talk to you about that to make sure it doesn't become a place where nobody can park so they wind up parking everywhere so I just I would really urge I mean I would that we just consider involving our community in especially people who work there own property um run businesses live there um it's it just seems like I don't know to me it's so fundamental that it seems presumptuous that you don't involve people in key decisions that affect their lives okay um I guess before we break Nate I'll just say I agree with car and that maybe the best thing to do is for you to put something together based on your perception of what might be used and you've heard the comments from the board this evening and earlier uh and you know give us something concrete and we'll you know try to make some decisions and but keep it viable you know yeah that's what I was hoping from this conversation you know to go back with Chris and Rob MOA and staff and put pen to paper and say okay here's here's another draft and let's you know as Doug said there there'll be many chances to amend it and change it but at least you know here something if the planning board wants to move it forward we can and then that kind of starts the process um you know I I think you know Janet it's interesting about the Outreach I'm um you know there's we talked to a few stakeholders I think it could be better um and so yeah I mean I I think this could be a big change I don't want to um you know I want you know I think what the important thing with Dodson in downtown you know they really like consensus and so at least with that project you know there we we really want a lot of input and some of it is the BG District it's not that they're designing just for the BG District it's like okay where else could the downtown be is it in transitional zones is it BL is it residential uh this overlay is pretty uh defined you know uh right now that's not saying we wouldn't reach out to Property Owners but it's not as if we're trying to say well let's creep up um too many areas the board kind of already outlined this area which I'm staying within you know route n to Amity uh properties on either side of the street but I think Dodson we're really hoping that they will investigate and assess an area that's bigger than BG because you know where we want their expertise on saying well what could happen north of triangle and how far north does that go based on conversation different stakeholders and people and what does the community think um so anyways yeah I mean I think once I we once I get pen to paper the next time this comes back I hope it's something that the board can then really discuss and then you know maybe maybe at that point it's actually you know ready to be presented to council or to property owners and a bit more people okay Janet one more word before we break so Nate I'd be happy to work with you on that but I don't want to work on because I think what you're right is really clear and really you know it's really pointing out the issues of indifference and things like that I'd be happy to work on something that's maybe shorter but I don't want to do it if there's no P public process if we're going to say as a planning board like we're not really going to talk to any the stakeholders because we want to get moving then we can do that but I really do think this could be a night just an opportunity to reach out people get them involved get their ideas and get them informed and you know it's their town but i' I'd love to work with you but I don't want to do it if it's if the board doesn't think it's important and it's fine just to proceed without public involvement for outreach thank you Janet Bruce and then Chris uh Janet I have to say that you can't say that there's no public process I absolutely refute that I I I think it's um it's just ingenuous to represent this having no public process I think we definitely have a public process and this is it and uh and we've had uh a number of these meetings and they've always been public and we've taken public comment we have a public process now I will discuss with you how we could sharpen that process but I think it's it's just not right to say that we have no public process and to let that get out and for people to imagine that that's true because it's not true we do have a public process and I think it's important that we respect that and I think it's also important that we understand that the the the the era of Zoom has made it uh an order of magnitudes uh more flexible more useful more uh uh all embracing yes I'm sure we can do better and how we can focus it but that's where I think we should be that's how we should characterize it please let's do it that way all right Chris I just wanted to say that we could put a um public uh public release what do you call press release out about this um we could say that we're going to discuss this on a certain day in town hall in town um planning board meeting and um you know just put it in the paper and I don't think right now certainly we don't have the capacity to be you know creating lengthy email lists or sending out a lot of um mailings you know the planning board is really the planning department is really strapped we just lost another planner even though we now have a a planner but another one left so we are not in a position to do a lot of extra work but putting together a press release about planning board is going to talk about this topic on X date at X time if you want to come and talk or listen fine that would be easy to do so I'm I'm happy to do that all right thank you all right uh let's take a five minute break we can continue this topic when we come back I will at least ask for public comment from the few members of the public who are attending and so the time now is 8:15 take five minutes come back at 8:20 and at least turn on your camera and let us know you're back when you return thank you e e e e e e e e e e all right time is 8:21 please turn on your camera if you are back does anybody have the Celtic score it's close oh no guys what's the score 5148 how can this be oh sorry but it's not live we're watching it on delay or they are watching it on delay I'm sitting in the office on the planning board meeting could this be close all right looks like we've got all the board members back see if we can get Nate back for the last few coners me comments for tonight on this topic I will I would like to let the folks who are listening in as attendees in the public uh my next request will be uh an invitation to for you guys to make public comment if you want to make one okay looks like Nate's back we're all back so I see three people in the uh public as attendees do any of you want to make a public comment okay Janet Janet Keller you raised your hand yes okay Pam could you bring Janet over and prepare the [Music] timer hello Janet please give us your name and remind us of your street address welcome sure thank you Janet Keller um uh 120 Pulpit Hill Road in North amest I very much appreciate this all the previous discussions that the planning board has had and the work that Nate has done um and I would like to put a plug in for in enhancing the Outreach um I don't know how much more work it is for the staff to do an in-person meeting as well as a zoom meeting um but um I would very much welcome that and um I know some people are interested in this but have um been too busy to participate um so I hope you would consider that um um and uh have Nate's latest presentation and um that's basically it um I I I think I I think people are extremely busy um and with more Outreach through the The Gazette and um offering an in-person meeting um I hope it would not be too burdensome but offer a chance to hear the public thank you thank you Janet anybody else want to say anything okay all right uh let's see we left before the break uh I think we we had talked Nate about sort of charging you to go back and do would do a draft based on your best uh understanding of what the market would respond to and keeping in mind the concerns that the board has had so is there anything else we want to say about this particular topic tonight no thanks everyone for the discussion and you know as always if you have any comments after the meeting can email them to staff so I think I think it's helpful okay thank you all right so it's not a whole huge change of topic but we'll go to the next items listed here housing issues discussion and um so first we have listed Janet's ideas then we have Karin's letter and then we have uh I think it was from just to a conversation about whether a housing subcommittee of this group would be useful so uh why don't we start with Janet's ideas and um Janet is there do you want to introduce this or should we have Chris or somebody else introduce it um I actually my idea was just to continue talking about housing issues um so I you know basically you know I know Bruce was doing research and um I also know Bruce is in his retirement become an Uber volunteer of many many boards and um building projects um and I don't think the burden should be on him to continue his research and coming up with you know different you know contacting different planning directors or what you know what's worked in University towns um and then I think it'd be great so I just think that um we need some way to continue that work um I also think you know sort of I think it I think that from what we've been seeing and hearing is one of our goals should be in the housing is to stabilize neighborhoods and I it's just nebor you know there hous there are neighborhoods in town that are under pressure and changing and you know I just think that we need to continue that Master Plan vision of a mix of people economically where they are in life you know ethnicity um opportunities for you know young families or single people to to live in neighborhoods and you know we have people who are older who want to stay in their neighborhoods and because of changing circumstances in terms of the market and student housing feel driven out of neighborhoods and so I think my goal was just to put it back on the agenda again and talk a little more holistically so I'm super happy just to go on to Karen's letter or you know the idea of housing sub committee okay well um you know we had the the multiple in-person meetings last year and um you know we could resume those in person uh we could uh just agree that we're going to have a housing conversation on the agenda every one of these meetings and then we can talk about Jesse's suggestion of a of a separate housing subcommittee as well um Jesse you have your hand up do you want to talk about that already yeah if you don't mind just because it's yeah I think it's pretty related so the the reason I asked to bring that up was basically what you two both just said which is we had a couple of meetings almost a year ago to discuss um the rental pressures in certain neighborhoods and if there's any planning we can do about it and then we haven't really got back to it and so I would really be interested in in helping that conversation and any kind of recommendations we're going to make to Town Council or to the full planning board to to move a little quicker right got pretty transparent part of the reason I got involved with playing board was to try and address some of these issues that many of us in town are feeling urgency about and so I would just be happy to be involved in that effort completely respecting Town staff's time um I would want to do it in a way to minimize extra work and so I I don't know what the actual rules are about that but I want to make that clear that that that should be a priority also I understand how strapped you all are and don't want to just add more okay yeah the idea was to make a subcommittee that could really focus on a lot of the work that Bruce has done and just bringing recommendations rather than just conversations okay Nate yeah the trust is going through kind of an action planning process right now and it's interesting they you know they might have three that right now they're kind of focusing on three main goals and one might be housing production uh you know funding uh you know uh fundraising and you know say public uh Outreach and certain things um but you know they're not as familiar with zoning and and regulations and say some of the things that the plane board members and the research Bruce has been doing and so I think when they look at housing it's from a different perspective than board members and so you know I what I see this happening it could be that if there's a subcommittee or the plan board discusses it you it's picking up the comprehensive housing policy from that the town uh Council adopted a few years ago the the studies we have and say okay well if the trust is looking at generically kind of production you know what are the things we might talk about is it you know certain measures in residential neighborhoods you know what does that mean and so you know they're uh you know they're complimentary conversations and so um I think it could be benef icial and every once in a while bring them back uh two quick other things the Housing Trust has uh been discussing you know what they would provide to the town manager's office in conversations with UMass and so you know they formulated a list of questions or things they'd like to have whether initially it's like some data collection and then I don't who knows where it'll progress from there but you know as the town manager's office said they they're kind of the conduit to UMass and so the trust is trying to use that uh the other one is we're hoping by next week to have a consultant under contract to start a new housing production plan and so that'll be an eight-month process to really get updated information about you know the housing um characteristics in town demographic information and then kind of the need for affordable housing and kind of actually a range of income levels from extremely low income up to you know 150% or 200% of Ami and you know the capital A and lowercase a affordable and so we're hoping um uh we get some responses that are due next week and we can quickly move on that but that you know that could also be part of you know I think it'll really lend itself to this kind of conversation later this year okay Bruce Jan and others have mentioned this uh calling around that I've been doing and so forth and I guess I want to be clear that this was done for my benefit uh I never promised that uh I would it's done for my benefit to be a better member of this board that's for sure but it was entirely kind of orchestrated by me and I didn't feel that I needed to relate to anybody else on this it was just me trying to be understand the issues that I felt were going to were were crashing down on us particularly after the the the uh the out of left field uh uh proposal that came from Mary M Mandy Joe and Pat dangeles um however um since it it's you obviously been aware of what I've been trying to do and what I have done and what I've set out to do and haven't yet fully completed for quite a while would it be helpful or would it be even appropriate if I was just to send you the nested group of files uh folders in fact that I have I basically it is a a nested group of about 15 folders for each of the towns that I identified and some of them have got little in them some of them have got the master plans and various things from those towns housing studies and stuff that I read or intend to read and others them have uh in addition to that reports from conversations with maybe the planning director and others so but I'd be happy to share that if it was useful I hadn't thought it would be useful but I I confess that I made that uh tentative judgment myself so I thought well if anybody would be interested then in having this bundle of stuff that I've got I'd be happy to uh share it I think it's probably fairly large from a from a digital point of view but I could probably figure out a way of putting it on the Dropbox or something like that and getting it around would that be helpful is that is that even appropr I allowed to do that so let me let me start by just asking Chris um what are the rules around circulation of information on the planning board do they does it I mean if Bruce wants to share it with Jesse that's fine but if Bruce wants to share it with half or three quarters of the board is there any issue with open meeting or public you know he should share it with us our staff and then we can put it in a place or distribute it um I think you know sharing it with one other member probably is okay but um I wouldn't go any farther than that and so if Bruce wanted to give it to us we could find a place on the website to put it and then everybody could um have access to it and um that might be the way to do it and Pam would have to help out with that and maybe Nate as well okay yeah so you know information sharing isn't a violation of open meeting so you can share anything I think the concern would be if in the notes or somewhere there's recommendations or Bruce's opinion and then board members start you know working on a document online that isn't public then there there that that becomes a risk right so um but I think you know we through we don't we can't use dropbox in the town anymore just because of security reasons so we use a sh one drive or shared folder but we could set that up I don't think that's a problem at all um but there shouldn't be email flying back and forth among planning board members it should come to a central repository and we'll put it somewhere yeah I mean yeah I think I could set up a shared folder Bruce where we you could have access and download everything and it becomes really easy uh then to share that um and then you know to me it's you know the local historic district study committee you know I had this with uh discussion with the the state and a town clerk about how much can you share on a shared folder and really it's just you know any information is fine once it becomes kind of a say a working document or something that the committee or board will discuss or vote on then it becomes a possible violation so information sharing only is fine to have kind of the shared folder this is pretty clearly information I there nothing opinionated it's it's purely data and documentation and you can you can set it just for viewing and downloading and not have editing allowed so nobody's working together on a common document so I'm looking at a something I got excuse me from KP law it says ideas feelings beliefs and concerns should not be shared but documents can be shared okay and Bruce I I actually envisioned that at some point we'd get a kind of 10 to 15 minute report from you here's what I found you know anything that was a common issue that towns had or common solutions that seemed to work um but if if you if that really is not where you ended up that's fine so quickly I'll jump in I think sharing it would be helpful Bruce as the consultant gets on with the housing production plan we went beyond just the general scope that the state requires and ask that they do a more in-depth study of say student impacts to the Amorous housing market and you know looking at comparable community so you know we could take some of the information you've already done and provide it to the consultant and say here can you look at these three communities as you know comparables or something and so you know I'd appreciate it you know just even for that purpose um because I think it's you know you you've kind of already done some of that initial assessment and research I think we might as well use it to you know leverage it with whoever we can okay I'll I'll do that uh Chris categorically there's none of those KP lore adjectives in there it's simply a bin of uh of of material uh secondly um Doug I'd be happy to put something together I think is be just on the basis of what's there I had hoped I would do more but but what was the uh added uh appointment to the uh Elementary School building committee and which I I just spent about 20 25 hours reviewing 5,000 pages of documents it's just astonishing how many pages of documents are in construction during these days and and a few other things as well but and thirdly I'm I'm Pro I could be a little embarrassed about how sloppy and and personal this uh this this this thing is uh but I'm going to I'm going to bag that and just uh give it to you Nate as it is I'll continue to add my stuff to it to my pile I probably and so forth so it it might get updated and so forth but I'll if you send me if you send me some uh I I'll deal with you in order to um just to get you the pile of stuff that I've got and uh and and uh I'll perhaps write a readme file or something just to help people understand the structure of it and and make it a little more sensible I I I uh I want to manage expectations around this it's uh is this is not really set up for prime time but I'll regard you folks as not prime time okay than thank you all right so we'll go on to Jesse I was just going to say thanks Bruce that's very generous um as long as happy to have you share those and so we can see it as long as it does not stop you from using sharing what's in your brain that you learn from all of that as well so hopefully you'll continue to be part of the conversation as well all right uh jamet I think um in a way that whole talk about what we can see and share in terms you know we can always share information with each other right um but not you know the beliefs ideas feelings and concerns and I think that kind of supports the idea for perhaps for the um a housing subcommittee where we could sit down and look or members could look at what Bruce has investigated saying hey we need more research um or I think there's been those you know International University meetings like let's get the minutes of those because those were super useful here comes my colleague um and and um you know and have a discussion about like what looked like good ideas what we should maybe look at further bring back to the planning board you know here's what Boulder is doing or here's what you know UNH did you know we talked to the planning director Bruce did it looks like a viable thing should we look into this idea more and you know kind of working more intensively without adding to staff time and it's hard for us to discuss stuff during planning board meetings because there's so much stuff that comes up and so I do think it'd be good to have a committee just focusing on you know housing issues and you know answers that will fit ammer you know and you know anyway so I do I do think this is a really good idea and I'd be interested in like Jesse's thoughts on like who should be on it because I was thinking maybe the H person from the Housing Trust or somebody like J John Hornick who was on the Housing Trust who has a vast res you know knows a ton and stuff like that would be good to have an ad uh Chris yeah so I think we'd have to think carefully about this because if it's um if it's just members of the planning board then the planning board can designate those members as a subcommittee but if you start including other people and you call it a subcommittee it's not really a subcommittee anymore it's something else and I think perhaps the town manager might need to get involved because he's the one who appoints members of multi-member bodies um the other thing is that we're stretched pretty thin right now as far as um supporting Zoom meetings so if you were to meet in person you know and you were to um take your own minutes and publish your own minutes and send us an agenda that we could post but if we didn't have to actually be at the meeting that would be doable um so you know we need to think about some of these Logistics but I think it's doable but I don't think that the planning board planning staff can participate a lot in this right now okay um Jesse yeah thanks Chris that that that all sounds reasonable to me as well and doesn't require a lot of work from you that I feel like we could totally do that in person take our own minutes um question about something you just said so if it's three or four or whoever wants to be part of it from the planning board I'm assuming it can run similarly that other people can attend and participate just not be appointed to the subcomittee is that correct yeah so Chris I said yes okay all right so I guess one other or one maybe the next question from my perspective is how many members of the board would be interested in participating because if it's if it ends up being basically all the members maybe we should just have a fifth Wednesday meeting every month of the board um where somebody takes minutes and there's an agenda and um Chris and Pam don't have to run it so uh raise your hand if you'd be interested in being on a housing subcommittee uh group I guess so we have uh I see Fred and Karen and Jessie and Bruce um not Janet and not Yanna is that if I got that right so I I'm actually my term is ending at the end of June so I could be a very shortlived member but as is so I'm very I'm very interested but I don't see it as you know being that helpful this moment okay all right um Johanna uh you raised your hand is that go ahead I just I wanted to make a comment I mean I'm interested in the housing issues um but I think I don't know maybe I'm mischaracterizing the process we went through with our in-person meetings but I feel like we you know came up with a rubric identified some areas of town and I'm a little bit interested I guess I'm more interested in let's get University Drive done and then let's move on to the next area that we've identified as kind of being ripe for rezoning and so the idea of a subcommittee to do you know another round of information gathering when I think we have a lot of really good information historic information and expertise that we can already draw one to me feels process heavy at a time when we need action okay uh Jesse uh yes I think I feel the same and so I did I think I was envisioning a subcommittee as trying to make some action recommendations rather than um doing that same thing over I totally agree uh it and it just doesn't seem to be space on regular planning board agenda very often to come back to the some of those other ideas and so rather than do sequential I'd like to attack things in parallel right so that's what I'm thinking about so on the topic of our of our agenda Chris how does our agenda look over the next say two months are we pretty heavily booked or could we in fact have conversations at least once a month you know at least one of our two meetings each month have a substantive say one hour conversation I think that is doable um what we have coming up is we're not going to hold a meeting on May 29th as far as I know I don't think we've we didn't have time to advertise anything um we're having um two s plan review meetings on June 5th but they're not heavy lifts one is a community home uh for disabled people and another one is emmer College Fields doing some things on their fields um so yeah June 5th it seems like you could spend at least an hour talking about this topic and then um I don't we we do have a couple of big ones coming up like we have um the Barry Roberts project at the corner of Amity and University Drive I've understood that that is imminent as far as they're submitting something so um that's going to take you know at least an hour to hear a presentation and my guess is she'll probably continue that public hearing that might come on June 26th but other than that I'm not aware of anything big but maybe Nate is all right um Nate did do you want to comment before we go to Karen yeah I mean I think that you know um to me I I see the advantage of a subcommittee in that they could meet you know every week if they wanted I could set up the zoom meetings hand it over to someone to host it I jump off after five minutes um and the advantage there is it could be you know two four whatever number of members and they can really uh discuss an issue in depth and then bring it back to the planning board at those one hour sessions I think just one hour a month may not progress something um and then it always seems like we end up getting a hearing and so even on the next meeting we say oh we two site plan interviews but you know that's that's like that could be three hours you know even if it's simple right just it takes time to go through everything and so I would just I don't I think it's you know we're have the trust is we have um one subcommittee of the trust right now and it's been pretty manageable again because uh staff you know we'll set up the zoom meeting but I'm not there necessarily we don't take minutes uh we can help post the agenda it's pretty quick um and so you know I think that structure it works and still have you know try to have you know an hour once a month to talk about it where the subcommittee would report back and there'd be a little bit more of a discussion uh you know like I said sh spray Road solar wayfinders comence of permit may be coming this summer uh I think there's like four site plan reviews two coming two in the wings and so to me that right there is you know that's four or five meetings of uh pretty pretty full stuffff um okay all right uh um so may I say something yeah so this this would mean that um committee members and I think we listed them I can't remember who they are Karen Jesse um Bruce and Fred um would make up an agenda and send it to Nate and he would post it and then um you would also take your minutes and write them up and send them to Nate and he would post them and that's all that staff would have to do other than setting up the zoom meeting and then you would report to um the planning board at regular meetings about what you discussed is that am I getting this right and you would uh then you wouldn't have to meet in person if Nate's willing to set up the zoom meeting I think that could work okay so Jesse do you wanna I mean does this sound yeah yeah sounds great absolutely so would Chris I assume we would need to have a some sort of vote to uh or to appoint to to create a subcommittee and appoint uh some members to it yes okay all right before we do that Janet you've got your hand up I was actually going to make a motion that we take the idea as described by Chris and vote on it so I don't know if that's quite proper but I I was just thinking that sounds like a great motion so but I don't have to make it are we ready to vote go ahead and make it I make a motion to start a housing subcommittee of the planning board with the activities as outlined by Chris and members consisting of Fred Jesse Ken and Bruce and yes with other members free to come free to come free to visit right all right um anybody want to second that uh BR I see two several fingers raised Bruce I think I saw yours first Jesse uh what did that mean Bruce that meant to take Jesse but I realize no one knows where Jesse is on my screen so I suggest Jesse second the motion since he's been second okay all right um all right any further discussion before we have a vote all right um we'll go ahead starting with Bruce I approve and Fred I approve and Jesse I approve Janet I Johanna I and Karen Karen clicked the wrong thing I okay thank you all right and uh I'm an I I guess yep so that's seven in favor and no abstentions and no opposition all right so uh we'll look forward to to seeing the notices of your meetings and hearing your reports so maybe I can ask offline but how do we how are we allowed to communicate with you're allowed to schedule you're allowed to communicate and schedule things so ask everybody in in that group are you available on Wednesday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon you can do that um I I think you can also set up an agenda you just can't discuss it okay and do we do we Loop you or you Nate in on all these emails as well I think so yeah just for our information yep they can copy me and uh yeah I mean you know so yeah we Jesse you and I can talk offline or email if you want we have a phone call about you know getting that set up and you know um yeah I don't it's not I think can work pretty easily okay uh Janet so just a little legal advice so if you're putting together an agenda you can say I would like to have this on the agenda or could we put this on the agenda just don't say I think this issue is really important I would liken on the agenda because that happened to a school committee member who said that and that went up to the AG and it was an open meeting law so you know I mean obviously you think it's important you want it on the agenda but you just can't say that so all right you've been warned okay uh so let's go on to Karin's letter and um Pam maybe you could bring that up on the screen and Karen you can maybe give us uh any any commentary you want to share as we get into the conversation so yeah we can see you we could see your Windows Explorer there for a minute Pam yeah and it then it went [Music] away now it's back to share so hold on sorry about that can you see that I'm opening the folder yes okay all right so here you are sorry it took a minute all right great okay Karen yeah okay so we we talk often about if we're going to develop um University Drive then maybe we have some leverage with UMass and say look you know we're doing this what are you going to do and I just think it's really important for us to have some sort of um kind of formalized group doesn't have to be planning board members only or uh just there should be outside people that join this group but there should be some way to communicate directly with people at the University about how urgent it is that ums starts addressing on their own land and and using us to help them figure out how they can house students uh and and particularly on that Olympic Drive I'm thinking um I know that the student government is very interested in in helping here I think there could be representatives from from many different areas and that we sit down and sort of see how we can work together probably most urgent is I dke has pointed out that the university would probably love to build housing but they have only have a certain amount of funds and they have maybe certain things that are more important to build and so they're Limited in how how quickly they can address this issue but maybe if we all work together we could find a way to to talk directly with the government and see is there any way that they can also uh help fund help help you know us really get this thing going faster um so that we don't have the problem that Jesse is also addressing of the Town rapidly sort of losing the population that it has in the schools I see it's really urgent there are less students enrolled all the time and as a resident of downtown I see uh the dir of little children the the DAR of young families that are able to live here so I think the best thing that we can do is to sort of have some um some concrete group that works together and they should then work together with the university and I just wondered if the the um if we as a planning board want to um support this kind of effort that doesn't mean that we as planning board members have to be on this group but that we are in favor of urging that a group like this of residents of people from from housing from planning board from from wherever um see if there are members that could meet directly and the town manager when we met with him um and sort of represented it as a planning board uh issue that we meet with them he said no you're not that's not your function uh it's my function to represent you know the town to the outside entities so I I I heard what he said and uh I thought that maybe this would be a way that we can address this in in a in a time where you know it's urgent to not waste a lot of time it's a little bit like Jesse saying he he joined planning board because he saw that that were kind of in a housing crisis this was my way of approaching it too um so I guess given what what Paul what Paul Bachman said are are you perhaps saying we should uh we should vote to recommend to whether it's Town Council or the or the town manager that such a group be formed and empowered to uh communicate with UMass yes yeah thank you for formulating that's exactly what I think okay uh Bruce um I think I think this is a good letter um uh but I don't uh necessarily agree I didn't quite I I it seems to me that this is an this this feels like the the beginning of a an informal committee or or or pressure group of of people in town it it seems that it would have more relevance more appropriate more obviously the the the the obvious chemistry of this from a Civic process point of view is that this arises out of uh um the people directly I I can imagine trying to create a town committee around this would deaden the deaden the uh the purity of it or the the the the the the the sh of it Karen I think you've written a good letter I mean I would suggest the removal of seven adjectives uh I think it would be more powerful uh because some of the adjectives are rather uh strong and and I think people would uh reading this letter would be inclined perhaps to take exception to seven adjectives and forget everything else um and they shouldn't because it's it's a nicely stated uh um it's it's it's a nice statement of the problem they're facing um Bruce are you just suggesting that that Karen put it put it in an envelope and send it to the chancellor uh no not necessarily although that would be one course of action uh but it's less likely to to uh I think you use this letter to uh excite other people and you get uh U an active group of folks who decide uh they want to do something um and then maybe it's uh pushed into Paul's uh Court as a representative of the town he's he in his conversations with the chancellor says you know we've got a a small and growing uh group of uh folks who are um very concerned about certain things and and they have a right to be and they've clearly stated the problem and they've clear really identified it and we need to uh do something about this and so I think a letter like this and is used to uh cohere a constituency and that constituency is used to pressure the uh the the the appropriate Authority which is the town manager um uh uh that's the way I see this would see this working um but I also see that um the the the goal of is to suggest that the university should build more housing and I think in a wholly different uh um frame of mind you would look at this and you say well hold on do we really want uh the all of the students who who come and live here to live in a place where they don't contribute to taxes or is it better that we do what you know we have them all living on University Drive where they contribute to the tax base of the town and therefore paying for the the emergency services for example that they need so I I don't think it's quite a straightforward but I think it's a nice statement of the problem and and certainly the the situation of the moment that is causing pressure to destabilize uh uh traditional and established neighborhoods is not is something we want to do something about which is something we should be concerned about and so forth so but I don't think that necessarily the approaches to to for the planning board to be press to be put into service of persuading that the the the town manager to do something about this I think this is the this letter is to cohere a constituency and I think we ought to be clear about whether um how how strongly we believe that the solution is for this for the University to build houses as for us to do it ourselves or what combination certainly there's a need that would suggest that both solutions would be appropriate but I think we have to remember that uh the more students are on campus the fewer of the less their accommodation is contributing to the tax base of the town okay thanks Bruce [Music] um I think the next person I think was Janet um I agree with Bruce that if this became a committee it would just take the life out of it and it would just go to the process and the the secret the the opaque citizen activity forms and then it would you know go to the town manager and the interviews and then it would go to Town Council and I think it would die a death um and maybe not um but I do think that it it's it's like it's like a call for focusing on housing um issues and ammer and and you know there's 30,000 UMass students and they have I'm losing track of it I think it's close to 15,000 um dorm units the students want to be on campus more um and they don't want to be on campus in a studio apartment that is 2,400 a month that also has a problem with um the fire alarms going off as I've recently heard and so that's not affordable to people and so it's calling for affordable campus housing on campus for students um I I I find it hard to I don't think I mean even if they built 3,000 units they still students that will be living in ammer but it's kind of had to create space for different types of people to live here and so I do think this is like a call to action I see it sort of as an open letter to the chancellor and I think I think we could vote as a planning board saying yeah we need more housing on campus I mean if anyone disputes that I just find that hard to understand we have had a student you know sit in on this a year ago um the students want housing we have all sorts of people in neighborhoods who really feel overwhelmed by you know student housing too many students in their neighborhood um I don't know I just I mean the question to me is does the planning board support this and I think this is a very collaborative letter it's not like pointing fingers it's like saying we know that UMass needs money to build build this housing we know that we need to work through our state legislators and we need to work together I think the housing we could ask the Housing Trust to sign this or a housing activists I think this could be a very powerful letter of like let's work together as a group as a community to fulfill a need and you know I think students would sign this and um I don't think we'll lose Revenue you know I think there's plenty of people who want to live in ammer um and there's a lot of tax revenue producing by people who live in their own homes and you know arguably at least half the tax base is based on people who live in their own homes who really want to live in strong neighborhoods and not see this constant erosion so I do support this letter um and we can create a small Committee of people working together with all these people that you've listed I would support the planning board signing as a group to show a really how strongly we feel about this okay thanks thanks it Karen Karen you are still muted yeah thank you Janet and Bruce yeah my question is how do we take a letter like this and and make it go out there and be effective and uh um uh rally people how is it just going to go to the chancellor is it going to go into the newspaper um who who's going to sign it is it going to be just from me is it going to be supported by the planning board those are those are the questions when I wrote it uh Bruce you said I didn't sign it and that's was parly because I thought I wonder who all would sign on to this letter uh it would become much more effective if it was signed by multitudes of people from different areas okay um I'm not seeing any more hands [Music] um and I haven't heard unanimity about kind of how to proceed with this would it make sense to have this on a you know our next meeting or to refer this to the housing subcommittee um any thoughts from anyone on what we should do next and not okay Nate I mean you know would this be um recommended to give to the town manager now to provide to you mass at one of whether it's the weekly or monthly meetings I mean is it you know does it need to be um you know maybe um updated or um you know edited a bit but is this you know is this something that the board would vote to say let's just provide this to the town manager to give to you mass and you know that doesn't have to be the end of it but um you know is that maybe the first step and maybe it becomes as Janice said an open letter I was kind of reading it like that is it just something that you know can then be put out there um in different Publications but is it you know that was that was my thinking is that it could be voted to be provided to the um Town manager and you know see you know and if depending on that response if it if they if it moves forward or not then you know there's another discussion at the planning board okay well that that would be an option Jesse excuse me I don't know what the format would be Karen but maybe trying to gather signatures not just from planning board but from other whatever sources you can and then delivering it to town manager for example might be more impactful I don't know anything about that process but I would imagine that might be make more of a statement maybe canvasing at Big Y as people come in and out or Stop and Shop or the Drake or somewhere I I guess that's true not not maybe canvasing but uh having this letter signed by more than just me personally would be important and do we just give it to the town manager or do we send it directly to the uh to the chancellor I guess if we sign it as a planning board we'd have to go to the town manager I understand that I would think so that's the end of it though with my experience with the town manager uh Johanna thanks this may run contrary to opinion on the rest of the board but to me this seems like an advocacy letter that is tangential to but not Central to the jurisdiction of the planning board and I would just as soon take it offline and you know like I I I don't think it's um I don't think it's appropriate for us as a body to be taking this action so if folks want to do it separately apart from the planning board you know by all means but um you know we've gotten pretty clear guidance from the town manager that the university relationship is something that is his role that he sees it his role and I for one feel like we should respect that okay uh Janet so I've always been perplexed by this idea that the town manager is the only person who could talk to the university because I don't see anything in the charter that says that I think it I could see how he'd like it that way and how it makes things easier but I don't I don't see that we have to report to the town manager anything really I mean it's you know you know of course we invited him to a meeting about housing and of course it's appropriate to communicate our concerns um you know the central issue of ammer is student housing and affordable housing and you know and neighborhoods and so I I think it's you know we're supposed to be under State Statute writing a report every year to the Town Council about what we see as issues and things that could be happening you know problems in the town and Sol Solutions and so we are an independent board and we can speak that way and we could speak to anyone that we want to and that's why I think um I don't I don't understand this idea that we only have to communicate with the University through the town manager I don't see the legal basis for it the structure and I don't see the utility of it because it really isn't working so you know it's just I don't think there's anything in this letter and I do agree with Bruce about you know maybe ramping down some adjectives um but I do think that we should think about making a statement that we really think the students need more Camp housing on campus and their residents of her town they want it we have people who feel like their neighborhood is overwhelmed so I don't I know it just it seems appropriate the planning board from where we sit you know me for five years listening to people and coming writing us and telling us about this problem and watching buildings go up that are you know producing income but are really expensive you know and you know how do you find that sweet spot in a capitalist Society of who's building moderate income housing well nobody and if the state legislature understands this is a problem in our in our state we go to the state and say listen you've funded these gorgeous buildings at UMass but you need to House people we need to house more students it just seems like pretty simple statement it doesn't seem political it just seems like we're saying what we see what we know and just articulating that uh Nate you know the town and UMass have a strategic partnership agreement and that outlines Communications and so there's a few different um steps there and so you know the Housing Trust was was you know as at the same time that the planning board was meeting in time housing last year the trust was also talking about how can they have a better communication with UMass and you know we were you know the question was asked well could we just have different UMass Representatives come to trust meetings or have these working meetings and uh the response really was well you know Tony and Nancy are happy to come to meetings and we can engage them in certain ways but you know UMass is going to work through the Strategic partnership agreement and the Town manager's office for communication right they're not going to have you know some decision-making um you know Representatives come to a trust meeting and agree to do something right that's just not how that process works and so you know that's why I was suggesting voting this to send to the town manager so that that can be this can be provided to you mass and as you know maybe there's other ways that it becomes public you know there's the petition on Whitney Street through change.org there's other ways to make this public but if you wanted to get it Mass the you know the partnership agreement really outlines that kind of communication method if it's coming from the planning board to mass that should follow that process not you know vote on it and then you know come from Doug or me or someone that you know I wouldn't feel comfortable as staff sending it directly to UMass and not going using the town manager's office because that's the way the role is been designated so I you know I wouldn't take this and just forward it to the Chancellor's office because the planning board voted it right that's not kind of the process that's been outlined okay Karen so um yeah I understand that so it seems that if we as a planning board um sign off on it then we can only send it to the town manager and so the question becomes do I not have the planning board do it and just as a personal person um try to rev up as many people together and have it be like an open letter to the chancellor is that something that I can do and as a private citizen if I'm on the planning board uh oh let's see I guess I think as long as you don't claim that you're acting on behalf of or you know related to the planning board I would think you are free to have other initiatives in your life uh you know without too much limitation that's my personal opinion without any legal uh uh advice Jesse Yeah I was just going to say R again I think it would be more impactful if you did that if you were to gather many signatures and then deliver it in that format rather than trying to go through the town okay Janet I'm not and not I don't feel certain about anything right now so I wonder do would it make sense to talk about it at our next meeting again sure we could do that yeah because I I'm not I'm not I can understand why the Housing Trust which is the committee of the town and um the town manager appoints those people is sort of maybe in a different situation where we are creatures of State Statute and sort of more independent so but I do think you know basically what you want to do is get the point across and get it the ball rolling and I'm not 100% sure what the next step would be so I'm not sure how we'd vote right now but um I don't know if we should talk about it again all right and I mean it's not clear to me I I think if we referred it to Paul and said we'd like you to give this to UMass he would probably do that I don't know that it would die with Paul uh Bruce um uh I agree with Jesse and so as I said earlier these are not mutually exclusive Karen you can do both uh and and and uh perhaps to repeat I think uh the planning board is the uh is is the um the is this is the subordinate act um you taking this and creating uh a constituency and pushing it through that is the way to do this I seem to remember in my youth when uh we were doing this all the time and uh and I'm sure your youth is similar to mine so just think back uh 50 years and see what how you would have done it then and do that because that's the way you do these things you know um all of this you know Freedom right all everything that was happening in our youth don't forget that do it that way that's the way to do it and the planning board is just a a little piece of something else if we happen to vote for it and send it on that would be just a a sideshow I think like your good Sideshow but it's not the show Good Lord no it's not the show you're the show all right thanks Bruce I am thinking that we probably ought to one way or the other wrap up this conversation in the next eight or nine minutes um Karen your hand was up for a little while do you want it you all right with us just this thank you thank you all for reading it and and uh thinking about it and your comments are really helpful so um I'm not sure we need to talk about it we probably personally I'll talk to a few people and see what I plan to do but I like the idea Bruce of you're saying it's not mutually exclusive so the idea of you know sending it to Paul ask him to present it to the chancellor uh along with taking the letter and getting as many people to sign it as possible and maybe putting it in the paper or just getting a movement going that would be great thank you all all right okay so time uh I think we're done with that topic at at the moment for this evening and so we'll go on to the next item on our agenda uh old business topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance Chris or Pam do we have anything I don't have any old [Music] business okay similarly any new business no new business no form a anr subdivision application no we just received one today but we'll give it to you at your next meeting okay how about zba no I don't have anything new to report okay all right no news I could tell you about a couple of things that are coming up to the zba but maybe Pam told you about these already there's a flag lot on Redgate Lane and there's a two family house on North Whitney the two family house on North Whitney has received a lot of attention we've gotten a lot of letters in opposition to it because it's a non owner occupied duplex and those are being considered by the zba next Thursday okay along with a nine unit um mixed juuse building in South amoris which I think we've already told you about too it's at Ron Le verdier's ammer Office Park and he's already got some buildings there that are pretty big but that's another one that's coming before the zoning board okay Janet is that is that by pot wine or on off of Route nine I always get a little confused that is uh on West Street it's at the intersection of West Street and pomoy Lane just North building y I'm sorry I always reverse po why and pomai sorry okay okay um any uh special permit site plan [Music] review Su applications looks like Pam's saying yes well we have we have things we sort of mentioned them earlier and that was 51 Hunter Hill Circle which is the residential living and then the amoris college athletic fields y those are two okay all right those are in the immediate future okay so it sounds like that'll be in June yep June 5th okay all right planning board committee and liaison reports Bruce anything from on pvpc uh no um there was something uh which uh um I'll just look here to the uh um there was some something I received today which I i' I've asked it has to do with the um cyber golly come on C them get it here um upcoming to assist in navigating and learning about uh um cyber security Grant that's the a new cyber security Grant and I uh wondered whether you all knew about that whether I should forward this note to you I can say I don't know anything about it I think it's more doesn't doesn't sound like a planning board type of thing no and I I I and I deleted two or three other things that weren't and this one I wasn't sure about whether the staff felt that cyber security was something that uh you needed to uh know about or not well other than our Zoom meetings they need to be secure yeah it is an issue if I may interrupt for a minute but we do have cyber security training that all staff is required to take and it's pretty ongoing so we're we're always in in the mix of of doing this cyber security training that is given to us by Our IT department and this was a this was a grant for that purpose and that was why I it was money so that's why I paid attention otherwise maybe send it off to Chris and see if she I'll rep it to you Chris and you can board should see it or not no no no I'm not thinking the board should see it I was only reporting of the I'm supposed to be the link through the so sometimes it's a link to the staff I think and not to the board but to the extent that that's right then I'll do it otherwise no that's it Doug I'm good all right uh I'm have nothing to report on the CPAC committee uh Karen anything on design review board no no we meet again on Monday okay and then Chris anything from CRC yes we met with CRC last um when was it Tuesday evening and we're working on the um a kind of U refinement of the solar solar zoning bylaw we're making slow progress but we're making progress and Janet attended that meeting so that was good good okay um report of chair I don't really have anything but I I've noticed this evening there seems to be a lag in my video compared to my audio is is everybody having any trouble understanding what I'm saying or getting disoriented because it's not synchronized or anything no no good all right then I'll just not look at myself during these meetings um Chris anything for report of Staff well only my tear jerk uh report that we lost Rob waill to East Long Meadow and so um that was very it was a difficult um thing to absorb but um Nate and Pam and I and the other members of conservation and development are working hard to um take up the slack and we also have a lovely new planning board member who went to the CRC meeting not planning board planning department member she went to the CRC meeting with us yesterday her name is Jinta Williams I think I told you that she was coming but now she's really on board and she's wonderful she can do a lot of different things um her main assignment will be to help Nate with Community Development block grant and eventually take that over but right now she's jumping in and helping us with things that um Rob Chilla uh left behind so we're unfortunately we're struggling again but we'll do our best so you have another person to train uh well I hope we can meet her at some point yes I'd love you to meet her yep all right uh unless anybody has any anything else time is 9:30 and we can adjourn thank you all enjoy the rest of May and we'll see you in June thank you good night good night right maam stop recording yes I want to