##VIDEO ID:AtpUlrVGXV8## for [Music] okay Mr Marshall you have a quum of the board it is 6:37 by my cluck ammer media is with us here um the attendees are coming on in I think you're good to go okay thank you Pam you're welcome welcome to the emmer planning board meeting of November 20th 2024 my name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the ammer planning board I am calling this meeting to order at 6:37 p.m. this meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via amest media minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter two 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 technological means in the event we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts we will post 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'll take a roll call when I call your name unmute yourself answer affirmatively and return to mute Bruce Cen I am here uh Fred Hartman artwell is here I'm sorry sorry Fred uh Lawrence clutz I am here Jesse major present I Doug Marshall I'm present Johanna Newman has notified us she will be arriving late and I do not see her yet 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 in the minutes please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment and I will 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 deed 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 star9 on your phone when called on please identify Yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished 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 a lotted time their participation may be disconnected from the meeting okay time is 6:40 and we'll go on to our first item which is the minutes uh the uh minutes of October 16th uh were were circulated by Pam early this week I believe um maybe Monday day so uh I hope you all had a chance to look at it and um does anybody have any comments or does anybody let's let's just ask for comments first and then we'll go to the motion all right I'm not seeing anybody who wants to make any comments Bruce um a comment maybe uh since I was away not for the meeting it would happened just before I left but I did gather that there was a fair amount of conversation probably arising from Ken's comments and so forth and there was the concerns I recall that um we may have overstepped the mark in creating something of a precedent for uh dormitor in zones that they hadn't been intended now I read through the minutes and didn't see um anything that specifically indicated that we had done that neither did they see in our findings specifically that we were aware that we may have inadvertently been doing it so I think the minutes are fine but since I haven't been privy to that I just want to make sure that we're reviewing this minutes with a view to subsequent uh not that we can change them but we want to make sure that in certain aspects I think that we are very clear about what these minutes uh say uh in other words the base is this is the base uh report record of uh what might be future conversation so I just U I couldn't see anything that would cause me to uh um seek to adjust anything but um that's just me okay uh I see Lawrence and then we'll go to Jesse yeah as uh I'm I'm gonna recuse myself from this part of the discussion okay thank you um Jesse I guess just responding to Bruce I also think the minutes are fine my recollection is that this does not mean the definition of dormatory so there was not that yes that discussion point was raised but I thought that's where we ended was that no this was this project was not did not fall on that definition so we were not changing anything yeah um I guess I'll let Nate go and then I if he doesn't I will I will give you my summary of subsequent conversations about this topic yeah say or we just don't talk about it because it's not on the agenda and you know it's not something we need to start deliberating now for this project so you know I think if we have comments to the minutes I would just keep it there and if we want to talk about it at a future meeting we would have it as an agenda topic uh but you know I think the board discussed it at two meetings and covered it uh Bruce so you know if you look at the minutes and the board votes them and thinks they're accurate the videos will also be posted online of those meetings if you'd want to watch but I don't I would recommend not having another discussion about it okay thanks Nate yeah I was just going to say we did talk about it at two the two subsequent meetings uh pretty reasonably extensively so um maybe if you can find the recordings and uh you'll see the minutes when those come out for those meetings but but we probably have a little bit at least a a little bit of Unfinished Business about this topic Jesse I was going to move to approve the minutes okay uh did you move yes I moved to approve the minuts thank you H Bruce second thank you both uh any any further comment anyone okay we'll go ahead with a with a with a roll call vote starting with you Bruce I approve Fred I LA or Lawrence is recusing himself uh Jesse hi um and Carin I and I'm an i as well and so that's five and favor uh one recusal and one absence all right time now is 6:45 next item on our agenda is public comment so I will read the names of the attendees as they've they've arrived at this point in the meeting and then while I do that if you are a member of the public and would like to make a comment at this time about something that does not appear later in tonight's agenda this is the time to do it so uh Barbara Roberts uh B Json Christine brep Sid shampo Alissa Rubenstein Jonathan Slater Judy posar Kyle Louise C Rob and Walker those are the names I see among the 10 attendees at this point in the meeting so I don't yet see any hands from anyone on that list who is interested in making a comment at this [Music] time I will give you a minute to think it over and then we'll move [Music] on okay all right we'll move move on to our next item item three on the agenda under old business this is site plan it's regarding site plan review [Music] 2023-24 47 Mather drive this is a review of the conditions of the site plan approval prior to issuing of a building permit we're going to review chap condition 13 regarding the submitt of a landscape plan showing quantities of specific plants for review and approval prior to the issuance of a building permit and conditions 28 and 29 regarding the submitt of a photometric plan excuse me for the site as well as catalog cuts of the exterior lighting fixture for review and approval prior to the issuance of a building permit um Fred I see your hand what would you like to say um I will be abstaining from this uh this uh public hearing uh and action took place before I assumed membership on the board and so I have no basis for uh acting uh at this time okay thank you um I'm not sure you actually have to do that [Music] um um I might Nate I might want you to to weigh in on that yeah no I agree with Doug's um assumption that you know this is a public meeting and as part of the conditions it was the would uh come back to the planning board at a public meeting and present you know a few items landscape plan and lighting plan to confirm that they're sufficient so that a building permit could be issued so it's not as if the hearing is reopened or um you know we're taking on new evidence um in terms of like a hearing format so it's really just to satisfy the conditions as the board laid out so Nate um you don't expect that we need to vote on this tonight we simply need to receive this additional information uh no I I um no the board could take a vote but I'm not saying it's not I'm not you're not I'm not saying you're going to reopen the hearing right you're you can vote to say that the conditions are satisfied is what I you know how I would vote not that we're reopening the hearing for the site plan review just that those conditions are satisfied so a building permit could be issued okay Fred your hand is still up uh I just raised it again based on that analysis I will participate okay well I I hope you had a chance and took the time to look at this material before the meeting um as well as the other folks who may have thought they were not eligible to participate all right um Pam uh do we H looks like we have Kyle Wilson here from archipelago welcome Kyle good evening how you guys doing we're doing well um maybe you could uh go through the the the material you're you're submitting this evening sure I'll uh share a screen uh thanks for having us uh we're excited to be at a position where we've applied for the building permit for 47 Olympia it's a project next to 57 Olympia which we open in 2016 and you can see just north of the uh project here uh this is the landscape plan that we have to submit uh as part of of the building permit process uh and we've also got a photometric plan uh the element of the landscape plan that we did not have when we got this building approved was the number the quantity of plants uh for each plant species specified so this is a plan that the landscape architect did uh that showed a quantity of every plant um and you can see that in this column here uh no other changes just uh simply graphic representation of every every plant their quantity and their size okay um what about the photometric and light fixture information I can do that as well the photometric plan is uh great number of ones and zeros um as shown here um the there are the entrance to the building is through the courtyard the main entrance is is here uh there's a service drive on the South Side um and the lighting in the courtyard is a series of ballards there's two different ballards and the cut sheets I can show you as well uh bega is the manufacturer there's a directional 180 and then there's a full 360 um the three light fixtures on the south side for the drive aisle are uh directional wall lights um there's a there's a single uh in in uh concrete um uh Flor light as it were uh that is that is right in the middle of this to kind of give some lighting in a place that could not be lit well by the ballards and then we've got the same light fixtures that we have installed U just north of here at uh 57 Olympia uh shown along the sidewalk there's one here there's one here and there's one here um the light uh none of the uh I think we've also got some ballards up along the bike path that are here there's four ballards to uh light the the bike area that are on the north of the building um and I think all of the we can zoom into the photometrics but uh they vary obviously based on location relative to the ballards uh we worked to make sure that we didn't have any spillage we are able to light the service area adequately and keep it safe but also prevent light from going over the property line on the south um and as far as photometric plans go they're tend not to be the most exciting um and the light fixtures are pretty straightforward I wanted to also show you a shot of where the site is for Google Maps um this is the existing uh was the the existing sorority uh this is our 57 Olympia project this is the uh fixture that we've installed next door that we would install three of those along the front here the service Drive is approximately where the existing service Drive was uh there remains uh existing street light that um ties back you can see the shadow of the the wire here on Mather uh that will remain and we haven't modeled but uh that will be an addition to the light as we've shown all right it's uh pretty straightforward I just we didn't have that information at the time when we submitted and um have subsequently put that together so my my packet uh as was mailed to me had uh cuts of each of the light fixtures um in addition to the small images you showed us uh so if we want to see the individual light fixture Cuts you have those a ailable too I do I can pull those up all right well let's see if anybody wants to see those members uh any any questions or comments about the the landscape plan including the quantities of of plants and the uh light site lighting information Bruce um I think on I'm going to pass on quantities of plants I'm going to assume that since the the numbers seem to be large particularly the pakas Sandra that if the pandra is any indication I think we're probably fine plants tend to grow and often there more plants than you need rather than fewer with time so I'm probably going to be satisfied with the plants um I did look at the uh the photometric benefit of uh the electronic uh files these days as you consume and you can really see all of these little numbers and so forth around so it it seemed to me to be um pretty satisfactory and as Kyle said the spread at the edges seems to be zero at least according to the photometric results um the um fixtures I I thought seemed to be um appropriate and and I didn't realize that they were a continuation at least on the pole uh fixtures a concerned of what's next door which seems to be a a nice thing to do um I only had one question Kyle and that is in the courtyard you've got uh some bards that are labeled te um but you also got T and t1s and the in the uh so I guess I just want to be assured that they're more or less the same as the uh as the fixture cuts and that uh uh there there there's not a fixture that you're intended to use that you haven't shown us no they they are all either the 180 uh uh view of the Ballard or the full 360 okay I'm uh I'm satisfied thank you all right thank you Karen yeah I don't know if this fits in the discussion at all but I thought I would bring it out um why when you when you do a project like this with lighting and everything is there ever a consideration just bring the wires underground uh because I don't know we're so behind the times in having so much ugly wiring above and it just seems that new buildings there should be an effort to get the electricity or is that not in in your power all of the Power for the building will be is underground will come out of a new Transformer that will go here in this location so all of these any of the lighting that we're installing will will have all wiring underground the existing street lights that are outside of our purview um uh we we have no control over okay that's good to hear that all that everything you're doing is underground thank you thank you all right uh anybody else any other any other comments or questions uh I guess I'll open it up to the public are there any comments about this this information about this project uh that anybody would like to comment on from the public okay so in that case I guess we need a motion to accept this additional material uh and uh I don't know do we need to say that we we are we accept it and therefore do we need to mention that now the building permit can be issued or not yeah so the uh decision says for review and approval so you could say you know was accepted and approved satisfy the conditions okay uh Bruce I was going to make the motion to approve I was thinking that it would be approve the conditions of the specific uh sorry the the visions of the specific conditions um there were two conditions I think or that said that we needed to um see and approve so I would say that uh move that we accept the submitted uh material as uh satisfactory and and sufficient to uh um validate the satisfaction of uh conditions X and Y it be conditions 13 28 29 yeah that's the motion okay um I think you could make it a little more concise when you actually write it down Pam I'll do my best promise Jesse I'll second that motion okay all right anybody one last chance for additional comments any hands no all right all right uh Bruce we'll start with you again I um approval yes is to approve the material as satisfying the conditions yes and Fred I Lawrence hi uh Jesse hi Ken I I'm an i as well that's in favor one absence thank you very much Kyle thank you for your time tonight good luck with your meeting all right all right uh time is 7:01 you can now move on to the fourth item on the agenda not quite we need four we need four more minutes I got four minutes to kill well Jesse can get some dinner maybe um you had a Part B under old business right yeah yeah Topic's not reasonably anticipated anything there no no okay how about uh new business are we going to have any topics not anticipated under new business I am not Nate are you no okay well I'll ask a couple more hopefully simple questions before we hit 705 um form a anr subdivision applications anything coming our way um no well we have the preliminary subdivision hearing on December 4th for you know you drive in Amity Street 422 Amity street but other than that I'm not aware of anything okay uh Karen um if we have some time I want to discuss at some point the uh and Nate I don't know if we have any power about this at all the parking by the uh by the playground somehow there should be probably time meters there because right now families that that come with their kids to play can't find parking because it's you know other Park that should be discussed I don't know if by the planning board or there's something wrong there it has to be rethought well would that be something that maybe car and an email to Guilford would be in order would he be the right person to talk to Nate yes yeah you can copy myself and okay okay thanks yeah we don't get into meters very often yeah I just wanted to know how to do it it's it's I mean every time I come into work I look I go by there I've gone by there the last few days I'm amazed it's parked up in the morning too it's just really no spots right it's it's not the parking isn't there for the families for the playground all right now I know how to do thanks car I'm glad you raised this we're we're frequent flyers there and we can never find parking right Ken are you are you referring to Kendrick Park yes okay and that could be you know I mean the planning board this could be a the plan board wanted this to be an agenda item at a future meeting it could be something we discuss more um in general you know about you know parking for kind some of these amenities downtown yeah Karen would you want to do that sure all right uh Karen I'm going to move on to J Jesse is that all right yes yes sorry Jesse I'm a very much related really just questioning um who who's the right who who issues permits for the food trucks for example at Kendrick Park I just have no idea and who to contact about that maybe that could be part of our discussion as well if it's within our purview and Lawrence you can come to my house when you go to the playground there's um the board of license Commissioners uh and Town Council so there's a few different you know review for for food trucks you know there's also then inspections of the food truck themselves but in terms of where they're located uh there's you know probably two different so who want who wants comments about it is the real question sure send them to me and I'll for them around okay deal all right well we successfully filled our four minutes uh and I guess we got maybe we got through new business not anticipated um all right so we'll come back to those it the later items there all right the time is 7:05 and we're gonna reopen a public Hearing in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law chapter 40a this public hearing has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested citizens to to be heard regarding University Drive overlay District continued from October 30th 2024 to consider amending the zoning bylaw by adopting the University Drive overlay District as article 17 and amending the official zoning map by adding the University Drive overlay District the overlay District would include properties on the east and west sides of University Drive between Northampton Road enity Street and establishes its own requirements for only mixed use buildings including dimensional standards standards and conditions and design guidelines is there any board member disclosure I do not see any um do we need do we have an applicant presentation Nate or do we just go right back into our conversation um you know I could walk through it again I mean there hasn't you know so Nate maloya planner with the town uh I'll share my screen in a minute there haven't been any changes so what was presented previously and then presented you know initially the Town Council and then what the planning board discussed a few weeks ago hasn't changed you know there have been public comments submitted with concerns about um you know the Big Y Plaza and other businesses and what the impact could be from the overlay there are concerns about wetlands and storm water and so you know there have been comments submitted there's some in the packet we've tried to upload them as they come in and make them available um you know and um you know but in terms of you know anything now is you know it's kind of up for the discussion of the board right so if we want to um that the purpose of the hearings is for the board to take public comment and then discuss amongst yourselves how would you recommend this to Town Council so you know we have a zoning Amendment proposal and a map and would you want to make changes no changes would you not want to recommend it you know you can discuss it you know over a number of hearings and so this is the second hearing for it um as was mentioned earlier I would recommend continuing this to December 4th the CRC won't really discuss it until December 3rd and so it it would be helpful I mean it could be helpful for the board to keep the hearing open to see what discussion is generated at the CRC hearing um and so you know I'll just share my screen quickly and just show the boundary of it and I can just um talk about it a little bit and so as Doug mentioned in the description uh you know it's from AMD Street South to Northampton Road uh on either side of University Drive and so this you know the black line is the boundary it applies to mix use buildings only so you know as an overlay all the base zoning remains so there's limited Business Office Park and an R&D overlay it has its own dimensional standards and so you know allows for multi-unit uh buildings with the requirement for mixed use uh and there's you know different setbacks so the the West Side the access Drive could become a pedestrian way we have some architectural standards uh and then you know it um has flexible parking and so you know like I said none of that has changed and so if we wanted to discuss it we could um and then here's you know the Big Y property which is in amorist and in Hadley uh and so you know I know uh the Big Y owners themselves have been contacted and they said they're excited by the overlay the owners of the property um staff has reached out to and we're hoping to discuss this with them early next week uh Big Y doesn't own the property it's another organization so um we're going to talk to them about it and all property owners were notified when the first hearing was held so typically we wouldn't send um you know public hearing notices to property owners for a zoning change but because this is you know a discrete number we sent them the map the memo and the actual I think the actual bylaw language in the public hearing notice um maybe just a memo in the notice and anyhow the owners were provided a mail a mailed um public notice uh and you know we've we had some comment ments from property at the last one and I haven't heard from any others in terms of questions or comments but they were notified of this yeah maybe for for Bruce's benefit I'll just mention that the the the owner the uh commenter at the last meeting was was associated with the healthc care facility on the corner uh at Route n and University Drive um he was worried about uh new development affecting groundwater and um you know potentially flooding below grade uh spaces at their property which um they apparently have already had some issues with okay so I see Four Hands this is a popular topic tonight um so we'll start with you Bruce um I just wanted to be sure that it's you know that's realized that I wasn't at the previous hearing and and often that uh and I haven't watched the the I didn't think to watch the video of the previous meeting I probably should have I don't know why I didn't think to do that I but does that affect my ability to participate um I want to make sure that we're all about bored here no and if we you know continue the hearing to another night then as long as you you know you can get caught up you still V I mean this thing obviously has been going on for a very long time and all I would have missed was probably some public comment I think so it seems to me since it's not a um it's not a hearing with that kind of a decision that it's a recommendation that are probably okay but I just wanted to be sure about that yeah I think you're okay tonight if we were going to vote tonight it might be an issue okay um but I'm not even sure of that it's unclear that it actually is an issue it's not you know it's a different or a um you know a regulatory permit or something yeah okay I have a a couple of comments that I could make one was I was just going to report on the discussion that I had with uh Mary Joe hanii um we spent an hour discussing a specific aspect of this that was concerned of hers and uh and and it has it's it's article it's it's 17.41% [Music] did she make a known and so forth no we haven't I mean some of the uh counselors attended uh one or the other of our meetings but they have not commented well it was an interesting uh uh discussion I think uh her concern and she could say it I suppose but I thought it was probably important it might be shared by others her concern was that the uh provision she was concerned that in uh requiring um kind of business retail use uh on this on the first floor and along the street front that this evidence her evidence is that this will remain empty um she was perhaps thinking forever but anyway for a long time and that uh she just felt that this was not a good idea and that we should uh question the commitment to retail uh in that floor I said uh I'm summarizing an hour in a minute or so I said uh that may be in the short term but it's the long term these buildings are going to last way longer than five years if that even takes that long for the Vitality to be established uh I think we mutually recognized that it would certainly take some time and that the housing would fill up much F faster but my sense is that we still should maintain our commitment to that uh uh the wording of 17 .41 um because ultimately uh it will gain traction and the Vitality will have a chance to grow and we also have a chance to incentivize perhaps the uh the various developers who to who who could if they choose perhaps take a more proactive stance in trying to find uh um um people to F those faes rather than just just wait because they wouldn't be driven perhaps by strictures of um income cash flow and so forth because we imagine that that's going to be taken care of in the stories above so uh just to report that there was a a strenuous conversation interesting and engage one about that particular issue I don't think they changed Mandy Joe's mind uh she didn't change mine but we thought more about each other's position okay um I will say that at the Town council meeting where that where the where the provision was referred to us she commented in a similar vein about uh her support that we allow apartment buildings in a in a portion of this and not require the retail and also that if we if we allowed apartment buildings that we still require the first floor floor to floor height to be sufficient to accommodate uh commercial space in the future um and so I think she was thinking why don't we let commercial or residential go into that first floor right off the bat and once you know if the commercial Market ever returns in strength somebody might convert it back or into commercial space uh so just to give some background on on position she made that argument to me too and my my response was well once you uh once you fill it up it's going to be harder to back out and I felt that uh that that was not ideal so um okay all right Jesse thank you uh I think that that topic did come up and I'm definitely in agreement with you on that Bru that uh I think we've seen from town certainly as long as I've been here I'm probably longer than that once Things become student rentals they don't come back um so I would support keeping that provision as it is um I was going to the main comment I wanted to make was that given all the conversation I would definitely support uh moving the boundary to not include the Big Y Plaza and my main thinking is to just have this move forward hopefully uh and and see what develops because we could always revisit that section a year two 3 5 years from now to see if we wanted to then include it in the overlay based on how things are being developed on the rest of the the strip so yeah I would I would propose we move the boundary that's all all right and would you propose moving it uh north of CVS or up up to CVS I was thinking north of CVS and what we do with the first two properties you know on the corner I guess would be excluded now also there's there's possibility to include those but I would think just move it North just beyond CVS okay all right um [Music] Fred yeah um a question to Nate I thought um I remember this conversation and I I basically support the intent of it but um I thought I recalled that you had a different solution relative to uh the The Narrative that describes uh the activity within the first I think was 400 feet or whatever is appropriate uh I my impression was you had a different way to accomplish the same objective and so I'm just wondering where that stands at this point there yeah I guess you I made a note to myself after I said nothing had changed I guess you know there were things discussed but say that weren't voted on so one was actually the height of the buildings yeah you know we after we after this was referred by Council staff discussed uh this with a few developers and 65 ft is not enough for the number of floors we want so so it's either we add five more feet or maybe seven to 70 or 72 given how the buildings are framed and built now uh what Fred is mentioning you know I discussed that within you know could be 300 feet or whatever some radius of that Northampton Road University Drive intersection and it could just be on the west side that you know 100% we could have you know different standards and conditions for different parts of this overlay you know we had discussed at some point right allowing Apartments Within certain areas or having separation between Apartments so we could say that within a certain side of um you know certain side or distance of the intersection that you know I had two ideas one is that the ground floor be 100% non-residential uh and so that you know it can't guarantee that Big Y or something won't move but you know it really requires then that you know you have Spa the whole Space would be non-residential use and the other one is that you we could also narrow down what non-residential use means in that area so we could actually then specify certain use classifications in the bylaw whether that's you know retail or consumer uses or anything else and so you know there is that flexibility to get more specific in certain areas um mean I will say that right now in the Big Y property given its size and the zoning there could be 60 or 70 units constructed and it just it hasn't happened um you know maybe the overlay would incentiv um something because of you know the flexibility and ability to get more density but there is given the size of the parcel you know there is there only allows for things to happen all along that stretch of University Drive right we the town implemented the R&D overlay with thoughts that it might encourage something it it didn't change um you know we tried looking at rezoning the Northern end of this section A few times because uh seems like development hasn't couldn't use the zoning that was in place and so you know I think this is one more you know one more look at it Nate if you narrowed the residential definition for an area wouldn't wouldn't the other zoning on this property work counter against that and and make that kind of a pointless step no not not the residential I meant the non-residential oh okay so if um um you know if let's see if this if this works so you know if you know we could say that we could just say that in this section of the overlay 100% of the ground floor has to be non-residential and we could say and that non-residential can only be these specific use categories from our bylaw you know retail and consern consumer uses or you know whatever right it and so that way it you know right now what the way um it's defined is that you know 75% of the facade length to a depth of 24 feet can be any non-residential use that could be office that could be um you know stores it doesn't have to be you know um you know some things that you know it could be anything really um that's allowed within the zoning here so whatever is allowed in the base zoning and so we could be more specific okay all right thanks all right um Jesse thanks I think Laurence was up first well okay all right Lawrence yeah so I I just I I have a couple of questions here and and um you know acknowledge that I'm I'm relatively new to all of this so uh and this is the first time that I'm I'm substantively commenting on the planning board so if I um uh um am in any way uh asking a foolish question or or speaking out of line um please bear with me but um I I read the public comments and and um really consider them uh pretty pretty closely here and it seems that a lot of the concern obviously um as Jesse noted before is is around um uh potentially losing the Big Y potentially losing CVS potentially losing um uh the medical facility across the street um is there and and I I also note that that you know Nate mentioned a minute ago that that the Big Y owner is excited about the possibility here um I'm I'm intrigued by what Nate said just a second ago about adjustments that we could make to um uh the requirements for for just that part of the overlay um do we have any evidence to suggest that that you know an overlay like this would um increase the likelihood that those um those businesses would would leave or is is this just um speculation at this point I don't I don't know if that's a well this is my first substantive comment so I I have no idea if that's a stupid question and and if it it's not a stupid it's not a stupid question um uh I will say Big Y didn't really come up to within all the months of conversation the planning board had about when this was kind of being en developed Big Y didn't come up as a consideration at all um uh I at least first heard about it in the uh in the town council meeting when they referred it back to us and to the CRC um and then I don't know where those concerns came from but you know they were communicated by Town counselors and not by Big Y ownership or you know somebody who was more close to the real estate business all right um Bruce will go to you and then Jesse and then Lawrence if you still want to speak again J well I just wanted to just respond to that really briefly if that's all right Jesse I'm sorry I I don't again like bear with me here everybody sorry um but uh it would it would seem to me that that uh what Nate described terms of adjusting the requirements for for that piece of the overlay um uh could address or assuage some of those concerns that have been raised uh I also hear hear Jesse's point that um you know if the planning board feels like this is a this is a um a a good step forward then you know we should consider what it will take to to get it moving forward rather than than hung up further but um uh it it seems that that you know there could be a a viable path forward here um with the sort of uh adjustments that Nate described okay all right thank you Jess's before me oh Jesse's oh sorry Jess put his hand down no no I I I dropped it when I went off mute sorry I would like to come oh okay I'm sorry Jesse I'm I'm having trouble keeping up yeah yeah apologies um [Music] um first comment on Laur but you brought up I I haven't heard any actual concrete evidence um but again if I look at what's happened in town whenever any project has been built in the 18 years I've lived here the stores that were there go away and don't come back there are some new things but they they just they don't come back and we have no control over that right um we can't zone for that as far as I understand we can't influence that at all and so even with plan he just laid out which I think I I agree is reasonable but I still think there's a very good chance that in the construction if something were going to happen Big Y would leave and it who knows what would come back who knows if the new owners of a 60 unit place there wouldn't care about what goes in the first floor for three years and wait until something happens just like we've seen in town four or five times so again that's all pushing me towards moving the boundary just to to help this project move forward just as you just said all right uh Bruce why don't we try you now um this is an interesting question I think I uh to hadn't heard anything about Big Y that suggested that it was under threat until this came up in town meeting and then I did think about it a bit and I I I think a little as Jesse does or maybe a fair bit uh that uh it's hard for me to imagine that you could develop that site in the way in which we're enabling um without having the the the retailer leave and then whether it would come back again is not clear it might um but on the other hand um this is um available and and uh scarce shall we say site or opportunity in town there not many places in town that we've been able to identify that you could put with um to to to to to to Broad consensus of the town uh this level of create the opportunity for this level and density of Housing and specifically that would be uh very suited to student housing so um and there are not many Lots along here so forgoing the Big Y opportunity seems like we're uh just whittling away at what is already a fairly small slice of real estate so I think that those two are uh important and they're kind of opposed positions and I'm trying to reconcile what I think about this and uh and wanting to move the thing forward I think is important but we might not have to give up on that straight get away uh because uh um I think we should try and figure think this through but I think on balance at this point I'm trying to I'm inclined to keep Big Y in I'm I I think Nate's suggestion is a really positive and constructive uh uh thought that would support the argument that um that would at least give it make it possible and and would create some incentive for Big Y or a Big Y to retain remain um particularly you know we're putting a lot of housing back there it it it's really hard to read the future well they say it's hard to make predictions especially about the future so we don't know but the the the the prance seems to me to be that we should we should um back the horse that has the biggest opportunity to provide housing in the place where we in the limited opportunity in this place that we have so I uh think I'm inclined to keep Big W in at least for the all right Bruce I guess I will say you know we can do we can recommend whatever we want um you know the the politics or the the how Town Council views it there were a number of counselors who were worried about big why so I'm fine with keeping it in there requiring 100% first floor retail or commercial and uh but it I think the odds are that they're going to strike that out um and that's fine you know we recommended more housing there and if Town Council wants to limit the potential for housing you know some some people may accuse them of not you know of of implicitly encouraging more houses to flip over because you know we didn't find a relief valve but um that's that's their call all right um I will say just if I can interject I was during the deliberations when we were developing this I did wonder about the health care across the street which I view as a little a little more precious actually than Big Y and I think it's more geographically positioned because it's right on Route 9 ambulances can go from there straight to Dickinson and so you know I hate I hate to uh expand the exclusion Zone but you know if we're going to cut back if we were going to cut back the extent of this to include Big Y how would we do anything on the other side of the street I'll just put that out there as a question Lawrence yeah so I'm I'm I'm I'm glad you raised that Doug uh uh because that isn't uh I think um a concern that's on on my mind too and and I I I wonder Nate I I just I I have in my head the way that I've seen things like this unfolds other places and uh you know anchor retail that that was previously one floor surrounded by parking becomes you know the first floor of a develop vment where there's a great deal of of mixed use housing and and it works really well um uh and so I could imagine a situation where where that that works um uh quite well here too um I I guess the two questions that I have two sort of interrelated questions are um if if we did decide to have the appetite to um uh to you know call for um uh a specific use of the first floor in that Big Y piece of the parcel um how specific can we be uh you know can we say is there a certain type of retail that we can call for I mean could we say it has to be a grocery store again this is my this is my ignorance of of um uh of being a recent addition to the the committee here um so forgive me if that's a ridiculous question um and then similarly across the street I I've seen you know other places where there's there's you know dedicated medical development that happens you know part and parcel with with um mixed use developments um similarly could we require that that that piece of the overlay is is used for that purpose again I'm I'm probably betraying quite a bit of ignorance here um but I'm just trying to think creatively about how we can assuage the concerns the the reasonable concerns I would I would hate to lose Big Y um that that people have uh while at the same time ensuring that we can use the maximum am amount of this geographic area for for this needed housing uh Nate do you want to comment on that sure yeah so like in the zoning bylaw we know we have used classification so we you know we could be specific in terms of that you know we you know um you know it it could be then that that limits development and so it could be that it gets so specific that nothing really changes because no one will come in without specific use which is maybe what people would want or someone who comes in has to then you know give it some serious you know consideration before they actually just try to develop it me I will say what this overlay what this overlay isn't doing is forcing this to happen right it's just providing another opportunity right so like I said there's already zoning there there's already an overlay Zone and so this would be another overlay Zone and then really it's up to the owners if they're willing to accept an offer from a developer or from another owner and so you know if if coly Dickinson wants to remain they can remain we're not saying well all of a sudden you have to build a mixus building but what we're saying is the overlay is providing if someone voluntarily decides they want to use the overlay they can use the overlay for mix use buildings only if someone wants to put an office building in they have to follow the base zoning that's already there if they want to do something else other than a mix use building they just use the zoning that's there and that could already happen right so if someone wanted to put in a big office building they could and they they could have done it years ago and they could do it now um so I think the concern right though is that the market amoris is so heavily skewed to housing and housing is very profitable that uh you know it it could attract a lot of developers and it could then change the minds of the owners or businesses and so it is really hard to you know kind of predict how that would work you know is would the overlay make a property so valuable that someone who's invested millions and millions of dollars be willing to you know accept an offer at some point I you know who's to say right I don't know um how you know what what those kind of thresholds and criteria are it's probably different for every owner um so it could be specific on either side of the road I think you know the more specific you get kind of the more complicated it could get in terms of you know what what's allowed there and so um but that is a possibility um you know changing uh the boundar is a possibility I think um and as Doug mentioned the planning board makes recommendations to Town Council and so you know at some point the planning board might make recommendations the CRC might have a different set of recommendations and then it's a discuss at the council in terms of how they would want to vote this and so um you know if the planning board can't get to a consensus but a majority vote then that you know that's what would win the day um and you know it sounds like there's you know a few different ideas here and like I said if we continue the hearing we could hear what the CRC discusses and what's discussed there maybe there's some other ideas as well all right thanks Nate Jesse thank you I had two questions but now I have a third based on the last conversation so I looked at our classifications and I didn't see how we could be that specific you're saying we can Nate that we could say oh this has to be a retail establishment that's sells food no I'm saying we we use the use categories in the zoning bylaw so we would say you know like 3 35.0 or 3 35.1 3. 35.2 I mean that that's where I would go with that not but it's but it's still not that prescriptive right I mean it has a category of use but it's not like it wouldn't ensure there would be a grocery store there well you know one is a retail store one is a grocery Bakery Deli butcher shop Fish Market or similar establishment for the production and sale of food and beverage I mean we don't have a use category that is specifically but we can sorry we can be that specific to say okay this lot has to be 3.35 point2 we could and that or you know those lots or that I didn't I didn't think we could do that so that's something to consider but my two questions are really just informational one about the whole overlay district and I brought this up last time I'm not sure if you had a chance to think about it n which is if we do the whole thing don't change the boundary and every square inch gets built to the maximum capacity that we're allowing what's the number of units we're talking about and then likewise if we do move the boundary how does that what percentage does that change because that to me is an important calculation in this decision just like how much are we giving up if we move the boundary of the potential and then the second question is procedural around the council um so we're make a recommendation can the council change that and then pass it or then if they change it it has to come back to us again no typically that would you know it they could refer it back to the planning board and CRC for further discussion they could uh accept or not accept all the recommendations and vote something that is you know a compromise between what the planning board and CRC recommend and so it doesn't have some of you know as some or not all or you know there's a few different Vari ations typically with the zoning amendment process you can't expand um or go beyond what the scope of The Proposal was so um but you know in terms of what we're discussing now they could you know for instance what if the council's like actually we want to keep the big why clause on the plan board says not to they could just vote to keep it in or they could vote to change it you know the reverse is true too if we if we did not recommend moving it they could just move it the boundary yes without coming back to us thank you and so in terms of the number of units you know some of it's difficult because you know every developer has their own formula right some developers might say well you know I'll right I will put absolutely no parking and I'll get you know 200 units on a property where some other developers might say actually want to do a one toone ratio parking to unit and so then um you know that changes and so you know I do think that in terms of the land area the properties we're talking about are you know say it's a 30% of the overlay or you know how depending on you know if it's one side or both sides of the road so you could say well it's you know proportionally if you thought we could get a thousand beds you know are we losing 300 beds but is that 30% is the land use oh I'm it depends on how big we're talking but um you know if we're talking to the CVS property line and then across the street to me it it does look like you know at least a quarter to 30 you know a third of the um if we go all all the way to Route N9 so let me um me just and yeah sorry to belay the point but in terms of actual buildable land use because all the wetlands and like you know I think that calculation probably changes a little bit right [Music] so sorry go ahead Nate yeah here's the property so you know I wouldn't you know you know I wouldn't you know you know the overlay I wouldn't draw it through a property right so we said we follow this property line and then exclude the rest of it then you know that then this whole area would be removed and so you know what you know if we say okay what is that you know if if we think this was going to remain is there maybe a Redevelopment potential here and there could be some here and so you know what's left is you know I think there's we already seeing a development here you know there could be maybe you know something here and you know maybe here maybe here right it's hard to say exactly but there are land use constraints that would limit what we see I mean maybe in addition to this building right I mean I who knows what a developer what kind of creativity they would have but you know there definitely would be you know three or four or five uh properties that could be redeveloped that wouldn't be if that overlay was moved yeah I mean it feels like um you know you've got the post office which I presume is owned by the federal government and they don't sell things a lot um and then the next building to the north has a lot of wetlands on that parcel um and that parcel goes a kind of a little bit it goes a ways North actually it's a pretty large parcel and there's Wetlands kind of through it all the way through it right I all the yeah yeah so you know I mean it feels to me like that southern end is actually where most of the potential is and it may only be 30% of the of the area but it's probably 50% of the potential um that's so that's just just a comment uh Jesse are you set or should we than thank you okay all right Fred yeah um I think the cleanest way to do this is to keep the overlay the way you know from uh uh Amity Street down to Route n the way it's always been but to uh go with uh Nate's approach in terms of uh the limitation within X number of feet maybe 400 or something of the the southern uh boundary uh I think that uh it would tend to protect uh uh Big Y while uh making the uh the overlay uh more more of an integral hole so that would be my my preference uh and this is something that I know uh Bruce and I had had had talked about briefly about highest and best use and uh whether we could we would be inadvertently uh creating an incentive to uh uh shift the use of the southern end of this away from the grocery store and we we can address that using approach and still keep the overlay where it's now drawn so that tends to be wor I'm coming out on this but we'll we'll see okay Fred thank you um Lawrence actually Lawrence before you go I just want to mention one thing that came to mind uh when we were developing this we did actually start with this whole overlay going south of route N9 and um I the board was slightly differently cons you know the membership has changed a little bit since then and so there's probably there could potentially be less objection to that than there was before uh and I know there was one member of the Town Council who wondered why we didn't go south of Route n so uh as long as we're throwing out things I thought I'd just mention that um you know if we're if we're if we're worried about the big n Big Y parcel getting struck maybe we should expand the zone and then there'd be more remaining when when that happens okay Lawrence you're on yeah so so uh just a couple of quick things um uh um first it it would seem to me if I'm hearing this correctly based on the current zoning somebody could you know buy the Big Y parcel and tear it down and build an office building right now is is that is that right Nate what you're saying so by saying that you know a developer has to if if there's going to be a mixed use development there in the future that there has to be a grocery store there which it sounds like we could recommend we're actually protecting the Big Y more than we would be if if it weren't part of the overlay District in a sense um so so from my perspective I think that's a that's a really interesting option to explore I I um agree with others but but admittedly I'm I'm I'm laid to the game here um the other question that I had is uh since it sounds like we we probably need some more discussion of this and and we're probably not going to come to recommendation tonight uh is does somebody need to make a motion to continue this to December 4th if we decide to do that yes we will we will do that but I wanted to get through you know however much we want to talk about it tonight sounds great sounds great I'll I've I think I've taken up too much air time so I'll stop no no that's you're you're just doing what you need to do uh Bruce I'm I'm noticing that it's uh hitting towards and my guest Doug is that you'll take public comment and shortly and sometime after 8 we'll finish we'll take the motion and and move to a break but uh just before we do I I thought it' be worth mentioning one thing just for the uh perhaps our general Enlightenment I don't know but I know that Architects and I used to be one are not uncommonly particularly in builtup areas are asked to uh and and site planners and and so forth asked to do some quite interesting and somewhat complicated uh um design projects where for example you would imagine how could we uh um develop that site and keep Big Y uh functional um and I would say that it's not impossible to imagine that you could come up with a scenario or two that would make that um possible uh it may it may take a little bit of the store away but there are other stores in that block that would go so it's it's not inconceivable to me anyway and not even at all inconceivable that um uh if we provide the kind of uh restrictive uh structure that Nate talked about uh that couple that restrictive structure that would incentivize retaining a large retail store like Big Y or occupy along with the extra opportunity to build above that and exploit the upper part of the the air rides of that site shall we say for for profit that it would be possible to um uh to to U develop that site and retain Big Y retain its operation until uh some kind of new facility was created that they could be moved into um and then the second phase or the third phase of the the development would take the big by portion down and and and continue it you would have all sorts of issues about parking and so forth uh maybe the developer would have to uh purchase an adjacent site to make it work maybe they would uh have U CVS go away for a while or forever but it is possible uh because I've been involved in these sort of things in the 50 years that I was doing this uh these sort of uh architectural and site planning and design challenges so we shouldn't just assume that it's impossible uh it's certainly nothing that we can require or regulate but it is something that we can incentivize and we should I think preserve the um the understanding that it is not uh beyond the B is not Beyond possibility that a development project or verment challenge like that could be set and positively responded to okay thanks Bruce uh Jesse last comment I promise um so on if we did that let's say we left it in and we said that corner lot has to meet 3.35 .2 which is grocery Bakery Deli Etc that means that could also be purchased demolished and build a 200 foot convenience store that sells sandwiches and it would meet that requirement if I understand correctly like we can't we can't be so prescriptive as to maintain the size in any way is that correct Nate it's really just an information question right so we we couldn't I guess we could try to say a minimum square foot but typically we we're not going to get into that you know that level of detail I mean my my real point is we still we can try and do that but we really can't control any of it and as we keep coming back to with this project and others developers are creative and so you know look for the loophole that them you know and my got tells me with the market right now if we let it get developed we're not going to retain this function that's that's what's partly fueling my thought on the on this well we did we did talk about having a 100% requirement that the first floor was retail or whatever but but it's it's an unknown what would be and how soon it will be populated as we've discussed yeah I mean the owners of that property they own a number of properties around Massachusetts in New England and a few outside of the region uh they don't they don't um operate residential or you know I don't even think they mixed use facilities it's all shopping plazas and so they are redoing a shopping plaza um you know in in um on route two right now they've done some around 495 with new buildings like things that look like they were just completed in the last year or two and they'll do you know a grocery store with you know two restaurants and something else and it seems like that's what their uh primary objective is and so you know they purchase the properties there's two I think they own maybe it's three but for 20 million or more five years ago and so to me they're you know they're invested in this site and they're probably invested in it because of big why right it seems like that's what they do they manage a lot of properties at are Stop and Shop properties um you know Shaws or other grocery stores is really what they do not as far as I can tell on their portfolio online you know even because in some of the other communities I think they could probably have done mixed use buildings but they hav't that's not to say right that they wouldn't right who I mean it it is really difficult to kind of guess what would be what would happen here and so what is the highest and best use it could be that the owners in Big Y say wow this is going to be really great for us if the rest of the overlay gets developed and then maybe maybe then they would see what would happen but I don't know I you know I could I would say wow I'm G to have a lot more customers that will walk to my store but you know we don't know if that's the prerogative of the owners or you know a developer might come in and say well you know I'll offer a lot of money because I also have will have a lot of people that could walk or live there um all right all right [Music] um I guess I will go to public [Music] comment so at this point if you are in the public and would like to make a comment we will give you three minutes if I see a just a ton of hands we might take a f minute break first but that's not to dissuade you from putting your hand up all right uh Pam why don't we bring Al Alysa Rubenstein over hello Alyssa you hello oh um okay um so give us give us your name and your street address and you'll have three minutes okay Alisa Rubenstein I live at 25 green leaves drive and uh I just want to pull the zoom lens back a little bit and uh inform you that there are over 300 units of housing senior housing very close to Big Y and stop and shop and the CVS and people there many of them have limited access to transportation and so these two stores these two grocery stores and CVS are extremely important to um our survival we don't have the option to just go anywhere and reading in the newspaper and some of the discussion afterwards about your earlier planning meetings it was kind of oh this is just a strip mall there other grocery stores we don't need this but the residents nearby really do need it and if it would be a tremendous loss so I think instead of just focusing on housing units what are the people in all of these housing units going to need and those are services and we don't have many services in ammer we used to have a grocery store in the center of town and that was moved to um New Market Plaza and it's not there anymore so what we have is precious and I I really would hope you would find a way to protect it okay thank you very much Alysa are there any other members of the public that would like to say something uh Pam let's bring over Louise C hello Louise hi uh Louise C uh 14 green leaves Drive uh I prepared one of the statements uh for the last meeting uh because Jesse and I happened to have the same errands that day uh Big Y isn't just a supermarket it's a hub of services that I had no idea that the medical center was in play as well so that when we go to Big Y or we go to the medical center or we go to CVS we are patronizing various hubs I've now prepared another comment which I'll submit uh to the planning board maybe for before the next hearing but I'm going to say it now uh I want to talk about two ammer centers one that grew commercially around the Big Y in the 9s and a much more attractive and well plann mixed use Center in North amers the mill District recently I happen to visit both of them on the same day I live near Big Y where I do half a dozen errands a week but that day I stopped in the mill District on route from Kohl's Lumber the mill district is a mixed use development of mainly student departments and stores built adjacent to the Red Barn the Atkins Farm Market vacated due to lack of business after two years the residential buildings are arranged in a pleasing way around a small green with small shops at ground level after several years some of the commercial space is starting to fill up Harold's ice cream The Cupcakery Provisions a gift shop a couple clothing shops so why doesn't the mill District work in North ammer as a town center everyone hoped it would become it's because all the useful services like the north ammer library and post office a convenience store launder mat liquor store aren't meaningfully linked to the mill District the mill district is not a hub it's a place to get an ice cream cone a cup cake or a bottle of wine drive down University Drive and within minutes you can do laundry mail UPS or post office package get a blood test and x-ray get your teeth clean your eyes examine pick up a prescription at CVS get a hug a used sandwich maker at Goodwill and do a week's worth of grocery shopping and park the car just once um if you live nearby you can do that on foot many of my neighbors do the Big Y Plaza is a bustling Hub of services that serve a large population of students residents from the center of town from North amers and from all the condos Senior Living family living private houses and student Apartments lining Route 9 Big Y itself employs many UMass students it's not attractive the parking lot is a nightmare yet it's packed day and night many of students who live around big white Plaza at Aspen Heights at the corner of Snell and the other student apartment building in the middle of University Drive can buy a toaster oven a Goodwill for their Apartments pick up shampoo at CVS get a cut stitched across the way at CO's Urgent Care see a physical therapist without ever getting into a car the same is true of the hundreds of 55 and up seniors who live nearby green leaves andesta many of them make it to Big Y uh I urge the counselors to move the boundary amen all right thank you very much maybe we should look at the Mill District next okay I don't see any more hands from the public for for tonight uh I also see that Johanna has joined us just a moment ago so the time now is 802 I think she arrived at 801 801 I'm sorry to see that she's masked so maybe she's not feeling well uh that's unfortunate um Jesse sorry just to point out there's one more hand up yeah oh thank you thank you that just appeared uh great so let's move over bring over Jonathan Slater hello Jonathan when when you've unmuted please give us your name and street address and you have three minutes Jonathan Slater represented 170 University Drive um uh for the uh KY Dickinson uh Medical Group so just for the for the listeners from the community uh our intent is to to not be impacted by this our our only intent on participating here is to ensure that one uh we can deal with the wetlands and the storm water runoffs and our goal is to event occupy that entire Corner that we currently have and build a more robust uh facility for the community uh so our hope is to have new business in the future um and thank you Jonathan that's that's great to hear I'd love to come to your facility rather than where I go now and and then another another piece to that is that in the beginning I I I I heard it was like speculation if it could impact the the the plaza and here ing for the first time that they're not the owner of it and it could be the the owner of the building that impacts that that um that move was certainly an eye opener for for myself too but uh um interesting conversations and I appreciate all the efforts going into this so thank you okay thank you all right um I don't see any other hands other than Jonathan's at this point so um do folks want to talk about this more after the break or should we just go ahead and continue right now uh I saw a couple of pit heads nod in response I think to to just continuing now so Bruce what do you want to say uh it's the mo motion to continue okay and Nate we were going to continue to December 4th was that correct or was it December 5th fifth uh the fourth there's two uh hearings already scheduled for that evening um uh and so I was I would probably ask Pam to what time we think this should be you know continue to we can start earlier we can always start later and so um we 715 or something Pam it's going to say 7 o'clock but uh whatever we have a hearing that's scheduled to start at 6:55 and then we have one I believe scheduled to start at 710 is that correct Nate I believe that's what it is so I would say you you could say 7:15 with the idea that we can start later but not earlier okay so 7:15 on December 4th that's the motion all right I will Florence why don't you well I was just going to say second but I'm a little disappointed Bruce because I thought this this could be my first motion that's why I brought it up earlier but it's okay second Lawrence you'll get you'll get another chance I'll yield if that's I'm happy happy to yield okay so we have a motion to continue to the December 4th at 7:15 and a second uh anybody want to comment uh Johanna I saw your hand for a moment anything you want to say about this before we disappear I'll just say I'm looking forward to hearing viewing the recording and hearing all the comments and I'm not sick I'm just in a meeting where everyone has agreed to mask to avoid being a super spreader before the holidays okay all right um before we leave this topic uh the two hearings that we have December fourth are they likely to be long conversations well I think that um one is the high school track so they're um you know it's a you know they you know the if you followed the if you've read any articles and um you know they're proposing to reorient the track north south and then you know put a new field inside and then a field next to it with lighting uh Insight improvements uh I don't you know I don't think it will take too long and then the other one is the plr subdivision for 4.2 Amity street so again this is a you an effort to freeze the zoning there and so the planning board recently reviewed one for sh spray Road solar and so uh there's not you know much to discuss there you know I would say that if any of those are going longer I think it would be okay to continue either one of those you know so for instance if the if the high school track ends up being a big discussion we could always say well we'll only talk about it for an hour and then continue it if we're not you know at a concluding point that way we could get to every topic on the agenda yeah I mean I'm I'm kind of feeling like we probably we ideally we would finish this this conversation on the fourth um I'm not sure how much more we need to talk about it uh we haven't actually zeroed in on what we're what we want to recommend um tonight it sounded like there might be a majority who well I I could I could name either either of the two options cutting cutting off the uh the boundary or leaving it and and requiring 100% of of retail or uh commercial personally I would be more broad about those restrictions rather than requiring Supermarket or food uh but um we can talk about that later but I I'd like to have the option of having a reasonably extensive conversation on the fourth that where we actually finish the conversation if we can do that I think we could and I knowing that if the planing board likes you know would agrees to that I think like I said we could limit how long the other hearings go if we wanted to continue them I mean that preliminary subdivision you know that could it could be as short as you know 10 minutes right I mean there's not a lot to it it's a um but well you know how we always find a lot to talk about regardless so all right okay so um if nobody has any other uh comments to prolong this I will say let's go ahead and vote to continue [Music] um so we'll start uh with you Bruce uh I support thank you and Fred I Lawrence I hi Jesse hi Ken hi and Johanna I'm an I I'm an i as well at seven in favor no absences no abstentions thank you all so the time now is 8:10 we'll take a five minute break please come back at 8:15 and turn on your video to let me know you're back e e e e for e e e e okay all right my my clock is showing 8:15 I see a three other board members back e e well Jesse I'm glad to see you're getting some dinner dinner sounds great what's that Johanna I said dinner sounds great later aren't you on the West Coast I'm in Denver okay so dinner it's about dinner time for you it's about dinner time starting to Grumble all right I have a vat of lettuce here but all right might go off screen well let's see if Fred can show up and then we can get going again uh lawence will you be able to stay with this all evening I'm hoping so yeah unless uh a small person starts screaming in the other room yes I will do my best all right great okay Johanna I like your background it's a really cool old building yeah you should take a picture of it before you leave and then use it as your background oh that's a good idea I'm gonna do that right now while we wait for Fred well let's give him a couple more minutes and then here we go all right time is 8:19 and we're all back we can resume our meeting uh next item on the agenda is item five the accessory dwelling units and I know Nate included in our packet a draft Adu bylaw with a let's see a couple of pages here yeah three pages and a fair amount of editing Nate you want to give us the overview of what we what you've done yeah um you know I worked with the Building Commissioner and staff uh to you know keep working on the Adu bylaw and so you know some communities are bringing them to fall town meeting to try to get them ready for the February 2nd time when you know uh the state legislation will take effect um and you know what we had discussed last time there was a you know uh or the PL board said let's just keep it relatively simple you know with one Adu per property with standards and conditions and so you know the draft byi presented previously had a number of uh different um um uses you know use perming processes and different things and so you know kind of based on the conversation and then working with staff you know I I'll share my screen in a minute I'll walk through it uh but the hope I mean my idea would be if the planning board is ready to you know try to recommend this to council um even if we you know if the planning board acts soon you know just like the university overlay University Drive overlay you know Council would would take it up refer it back to the planning board and CRC as a zoning Amendment and then it would go through the process and so you I think like I mentioned last meeting I'm not sure we'd have this bylaw in place for February 2nd but it would be in the works our current zoning has standards and conditions that the Building Commissioner in the town can apply to permits we can't apply you know regulations that are inconsistent with the state uh you know law so right now we require owner occupancy which couldn't be um allowed and then we have some Provisions for um some other um types of adus and how they're permitted and so some of that would have to change a little bit but we do have a bylaw in place so you know some communities don't have any thing and so they they you know they were working really quickly to try to get something in terms of some you know say um design guidelines or some permitting so I'll just share my screen um and you know really I I don't I will say that nothing's really been added uh necessarily in terms of allowing more adus it was uh kind of taking the comments and incorporating them in and so one would be as Fred mentioned and then uh discussed adding the um accessory drawing unit as a definition in in section 12 so it wouldn't be within you know section five of the accessory uses it would be a new definition uh and it's pretty much the same definition um that we had I think what we are being clearer about here is it's 900 square feet of habitable space which is a defined term uh before we had had some other sentences after this and so really um uh you know we have we Define habitable space in our zoning bylaw and it mirrors what the building code um has and so I think just have actually saying this is not larger than half the floor area of the principal single family dwelling or 900 squ ft of habitable space is much clearer than what we had had and habitable space is a defined term in the zoning bylaw as it is now and so it's something that inspectors use when they are reviewing projects and something that we you know we can use U Nate yeah do you want to go through the whole thing and then take questions or do you w to do them as you go uh we can do them as we go all right then I'm going to ask you about that provision does the state law say an Adu can be as large as 900 square feet anytime yeah 900 is the is what they have well then if it that wouldn't it be whichever is larger I mean I guess if if if if I have a a thous a 12200 square foot house principal dwelling you're going to be limiting me to 600 square feet because that's the small of either half or 900 and then is that in conflict with the state law because that would the state would allow me to have an Adu of 900 no this this phrasing is right from except for the habitable space they would uh this is straight from the legislation okay so they include the one half the floor area yeah okay thank you and I will say later you know when we get to it we do allow larger than 900 through something else so you know or or larger than half or 900 so that's allowed okay um you know the purpose uh was um maybe updated a little bit is to expand and diversify housing Supply by making efficient use of resources without requiring the creation of New Lots accessory dwelling units are intended to meet the changing housing needs of the community by providing smaller units in existing single family neighborhoods and so the purpose before may have said something similar uh this you know was um you know like I said kind of summarizes the conversation we had and then it's also looking at what some other towns are kind of language they're using the applicability these these statements uh were in the previous version they may have been you know reorganized or but um you know really it um ding you know adus shall be located on the same lot as the principal single family dwelling in zoning districts that allow single family dwellings and so that's uh kind of a summary of what the state law says uh they shall be accessory in use to the single family use of the property um the lot shall have an existing single family dwelling in order to allow the creation of an accessory dwelling unit and an accessory dwelling unit may be completely contained within an existing single family dwelling attached detached as a separate building or within a detached structure an accessory dwelling unit may be within an existing building or new construction and you know the staff had commented and this my it's from me but you know do we need to have say this last statement or any of this last statement here um you know right now in our bylaw we the way we permit things we call it contained attached or detached and you know to me it's it doesn't necessarily hurt you know I don't you know I think it can help explain what it is um but you know there's a question of do we need to get into this kind of explanation we are saying we will only allow one accessory dwelling unit by right which is what the state law um is requiring on a single family property that meets the definition of the accessory dwelling unit and the general requirements of this bylaw and so we had removed some of these other conditions we had um just because of the way we defined it and you know I think it was somewhat redundant uh we're allowing accessory dwelling units by site plan review uh you know through the with the planning board and so uh if we had a if we said by special permit then uh some of these would become non-conforming because we've already allowed some adus to be a thousand square feet and so by keeping it site planner view it you know they're not um they'll remain conforming and then um it it has some implications for what could happen on the property if it becomes non-conforming so this is probably a cleaner way so an accessory dwelling unit greater than half the floor area or greater than 900 square feet but no more than a th000 square feet so if someone would like to do a larger Adu dog as you mentioned they would have to do it through site plan review uh an accessory dwelling unit located in a new detached structure proposed between the front yard setback line and the front facade of the principal single family dwelling and so this is a new a new condition right so if someone wants to put an Adu in their front yard as a detach as a new detach structure it would be by site planner riew um all right uh let's Jesse's got his hand up let's thanks um question about the uh the this idea to allow up to 1,000 square feet by site plan review how many if we kept it a 900 how many would be non-conforming do you know roughly like are we're talking dozens or just 10 or any yeah I don't think I think it it' probably be under I think it'd be single digits and the re the reason I'm asking is to me if it's written this way every single new one is gonna go for a thousand square feet would be my guess because why if you are building we have a we have a hard time rejecting any site plan review so I'm inclined to maybe keep it at 900 because it doesn't sound like that honorous there wouldn't be that many who are non-conforming or we could say by special permit but well you know Nate I mean at least my understanding is we really can't reject something through site plan review right we can sort of nibble at it but not right cut it off I mean we do allow a th000 square feet now and so some of it would be we you know we allow it now and so we could allow it through site plan r view I mean I I recognize that but but I think we're gonna have a lot more adus given the way the log just change right don't we now require owner occupancy we do that's the change and that's going to open the floodgates correct right so again I would be inclined to try and limit size if we can br Nate I want to uh I I've been thinking a lot about this um because the I think you know my major concern with the legislation is the complete removal of owner occupancy and I get it that in a lot of areas in the state that's not that that is probably intended but in Amis that emasculates the best way to uh regulate antisocial Behavior shall we say uh in these applications and uh now uh owner occupancy is gone and uh over the last couple of days I've come up with a a possible approach that uh is a bit outside the box but I wanted to run it by you and that is uh one of the things that the housing subcommittee is looking at looking at this we're also looking at uh um student housing and defining it uh so let's suppose that we came up with a definition of student housing and that's where the owner occupancy thing really hits the fan in the town of so if we successfully came up with a definition of student housing then I'm thinking um we could uh come up with uh language that said that in the event that either the principal housing or the accessory housing uh uh met the terms of student housing as defined in chapter 12 which is where it would end up uh in that event then uh basically uh we can't say owner occupancy but we could say then an adult has to be present and uh the way we can uh we we've actually already uh come up with language uh that that kind of does this because we came up with it for um 4555 uh uh South Pleasant Street uh for the the property that's now going to be run by Amis College uh there's language in there about 247 supervision and I think we could adopt that language and put it in here and in that way we are not we are not requiring owner occupancy but we are requiring adult supervision and I think that that might sneak through the literal text of state law because it would not disallow uh owner occupancy uh or would not mandate owner occupancy so that this has just been percolating in my brain over the last few days and I'm wondering if this is an approach that uh that we could maybe take here that would go a long way towards addressing the negatives that are uh huge in the tot of amest all right Nate it could I I do think that um you know it's later on in the agenda actually the definition of a student home I think the difficulty would be actually identifying it and confirming it on properties to then enforce it with a you know 247 you know management plan or or something and so you know I think when Jesse met with staff some of the discussion was you know we're not staff won't you know go out and inspect every property to see that they're a student home and uh so I you know we could so I do think if that were possible and and it was in place then I would say Fred it sounds like what you're suggesting could work um it could be that the state deems that to be unreasonable regulation and so kind of the test of all this is um you know what's reasonable or unreasonable and so we you know that's what hasn't been determined yet and uh you know some of it would be if we you know move this along we're hoping that um by the end of the year the state will have gu out uh and you know town meeting um votes are now heading to the state for review and approval by the AG's office and so at some point there will be some hopefully some guidance on something like that so some communities are trying to limit the number of bedrooms in an Adu limit the size in terms of stories um uh I think some are trying to limit occupancy and Lease terms and so it could be that some of those are deemed unreasonable and then what you proposed you know may or may not be but I I I think that what you said would could be a way to do it I'm just not sure that it would work if we can't really you know confirm if a student home is or isn't you know on a property Nate is the owner occupancy entirely struck for any Adu or only for those under 900 square feet so according to state law and way the way our bylaw you know is written we are only allowing one Adu on our property and then we have this site planer view which is still only one but that you know may be bigger or located in the front yard essentially um and so it can't there can be no on no owner occupancy requirement if for instance the state law says you can allow more than one and it shall be by special permit and then you know if we wanted to have like two adus on a property it could be by special permit with an owner occupancy requirement but you know from our previous discussion you know it sounds like we don't want to even have two adus on a property so really all we are allowing in this bylaw is one Adu and one is by right which is basically just you know uh follows the state and we could you know strike this and then have these General requirements and then you know essentially any property that has a single family home could buy a building permit as long as they meet these General requirements build an Adu and that's what the state's intending that's what they want um and you can then require owner occupancy depending on where you are in relationship to like public transportation or you know Transit line what there's a few phrases there you have to you know you have some restrictions on how you regulate parking and then you can't have unreasonable regulations and so I think the like I said the big question is what does unreasonable mean and so you know in our general requirements here you know I don't think that anything's unreasonable um right but you know maybe the state says wow you're I don't know you know you're saying the lot can't be condo wise like that's unreasonable I I mean I couldn't imagine I don't know right what what will come out of all this but um okay all right all right we got a couple more hands Karen yeah so in ammer it's going to incentivize uh investors build uh buying single family homes because now they can then rent those to students and put in a they're just going to make more profit uh because they can sell they can rent to so many more people I don't know how we're going I I like Fred's idea I think maybe we can't it'll be hard to um to prove that it's a student house we're working on the different definition but it at least gives us one one tool that I mean I can tell you which ones are student houses in the neighborhood um and at least you know there would be something that that's in place even if it doesn't work it's better than nothing um I guess in the in the long run we're going to have to think of something if we want any kind of uh owner occupied families to be able to compete heat in the market here we're going to have to do something like have completely different property taxes for houses that are owned by owners give them a real break on property taxes so in that way they can perhaps compete when we're goingon to have to think of something all right thanks Karen Bruce interesting idea um it's lot of this hinges on a successful and enforcable uh practically enforceable definition of a student home Fred you were talking about the definition of student housing and I think you are me meaning a definition of a student home but uh maybe not anyway my question is to you Nate uh this section accessory dwelling units uh by special permit uh there can be no more than a th000 square fet do I correctly understand that this has been put in simply to uh uh be be a mechanism for formally rendering um a handful of uh existing uh units that would be non-conforming under the uh the 900 ft byw and if that's the case how important uh can why can't we tolerate changing a byw in such a way that renders some uh nonconformity we seem to have put the whole bylaw in place UH 60 or 70 years ago creating massive areas of non-conformity and we have a mechanism for dealing with it so why do we have to put this this thing in here at all why can't we just get rid of us accessory drillings by special permit or site plan review uh we could um you know we do allow a th000 square feet now at first we allowed it if they were accessible Adu we found that you know you needed that much square square feet uh to have you know maneuverability and visitability in a unit but uh Bruce to your point we could just uh like I said remove this Al together um and then we just allow one by right with General requirements and you know some properties may become non-conforming uh because of that and what's the what's the danger or you know a downside yeah um the the Building Commissioner thinks that maybe a thousand square feet so you know what's interesting about the state law is it's not very clear so you know do you have to limit it to 900 or could it be a thousand now and still meet state law you know sometimes you know regulations will state a minimum but not a maximum and so you know or however it's worded kind of your point Doug I think the downside would be um if a ad if a property has an Adu that's a th000 square feet you know what kind of the guidance has been at the workshops as well it's not an Adu that meets state law so then they could put an Adu that meets state law on it so it would be a property that could get a second Adu um but I'm not sure how many of those there are and then you know we talked the 900 or to a th000 there's also this you know front yard you know we have allowed one or two adus in the front yard setback um you know and it worked out fine you know uh you know is that a concern you know is it you know some staff think it is and some staff doesn't you know yeah I think it's it's fine myself but yes to allow them I like having that flexibility yes can I continue Doug yes go ahead so um if if it weren't to be eliminated alog together I I I guess I I thought maybe the idea of the 900 ft is knocking 100 square ft off the maximum area was because suddenly it we have we we lose the control of owner occupancy and so there was a a kind of a small knee-jerk reaction to say well let's make the building smaller I don't know that that's going to make a big difference uh it does I do understand that that square ft could make a lot of difference for an accessibility unit so I rather like the possibility therefore of having a th000 square ft so I you you've moved me in that so I'm thinking now that I would say uh why not in the uh in in with the 900 just simply add the possibility that it could be increased to 1,000 sare ft uh at the discretion of the permitting Authority and then you you've you've you if we if it's important to keep it at 900 um we have the discretionary power to increase it uh to a th000 s that the decretion of the permitting Authority for compelling reasons of you know um facilit facilitating accessibility I think that would probably be the the wording something like that what what how what mechanism of discretion or consideration would you suggest site plan or special permit um I don't know that I thought enough about that but I think I rather think that the planning board is a is a is a is a is a is a better deliberately body for that sort of thing uh the zoning board is my limited experiences is more of a quazi Judicial operation and this seems to be more to do with function and and uh and so forth so um well it just seems like you know with the 900 sqare foot Adu Allowed by right those aren't even going to come to us no right so we need a mechanism by which people are required to come to us if we're going to have to render a judgment okay so if so that then yep understood my thought would be if if it's really for accessibility purposes is we would try to manage that administratively with approval from the building commissioner or staff because I mean to be honest what a waste of time um for the planning board to have a public hearing um for that so if it's really for an accessible Adu could be a th square feet I think we could write it in that it could be you know I mean it again you know it will be designed to be an accessible unit doesn't mean it has a you know an occupant that needs it I don't know but they will have to then you know have the turning radius and um you know hallway widths and other things door widths you know all the clearances to meet to be an accessible unit which you know is slightly different than what it may be otherwise and so I feel like we could probably write that in uh and have the Building Commissioner and staff confirm that through plans and other things and not have to have a public hearing on that I mean honestly if it's for that I I actually think that it wouldn't be um kind of the right use of the planning board's time or the zoning board's time I agree all right well that's something to consider I guess Nate Jesse thanks um I mean I agree Bruce with what you said it's the reaction from me on there's going to be lots of them we should keep them smaller uh you're saying that 10% difference doesn't is not concerning to you I I agree if it were truly to be accessible that would make sense and should be allowed um I guess I don't know enough to know if 900 versus a th000 square feet that is accessible is a difference in a number of occupants potentially because if we allow that let's say you can build 900 and three people comfortably live there but then you can build a th and you could get a fourth person in there even if it's accessible I still think they're all going to go that way so it's not really getting at the purpose you're describing which is I mean yeah they'll be accessible but I think they'll still be designed to just maximize tenants with that extra space so I'm still inclined to lean the other way and say no we should limit the size all right Karen so I was actually uh when my daughter was moving here we were thinking of turning our garage into an accessible unit and they could live there um I think the and the architect John cun was very limited by the by I think it was 800 and he said but if you make it accessible then you can make it a little bit bigger but so you know I don't think we're going to I think we should allow it under certain circumstances we're not going to stop the degradation of the neighborhood with having many many more um people trying to cram in students by limiting this size I think we should stay flexible in in this it would be nice if we thought that we were doing something positive by limiting the size and and having less students and less parking but I don't think that's really realistic I think we should be a little bit flexible okay Nate uh why we why don't we go on all right what do what do uh folks think about having one located I I mentioned it but in the front yards um is do we need to have that by be by cycle interview or do we just remove this I mean it was an addition um we had kind of had it in a general requirement below before and it was moved up here to be under site plan review um you know some bylaws have it we we have it currently we say to the extent feasible try to you know move it back behind the front facade of a building um but you know you know that's that's a determination made by staff in terms of how feasible that is so Ken forgot to put my hand down sorry okay Bruce um Nate I think if there is a precedent in other words examples of uh adus in front setbacks in front yards then we don't need it in the bylaw to indicate that it's possible um typically I don't think people are looking to BU laws for um inspiration about things to do so I don't think it's going needs to be there for that purpose um so it doesn't seem to me to be necessary uh piece I don't think it's doing any harm really except adding uh column inches but in the interest of reducing column inches I don't think it's really helping very much if we already have the precedent established all right yeah I mean you know after this discussion I would almost I talked to the Building Commissioner but I would probably just delete this this whole section and see if we could have you know maybe a requirement for accessible units um you know unless we really think a th square feet is something we want to keep in through site plan review like I said it seems like uh it's a lot of effort for the planning board and an applicant and I'm not sure it's the best use of a permitting board's time um 00 is allowed by right so um so for General requirements you know this was one was already um within the general requirements previously it was it was now made the first one and it kind of rewarded so it says any new construction for an accessory dwelling unit shall conform to the dimensional standards of the zoning bylaw however as an accessory use uh they don't um they don't trigger the additional lot area for from table three so we we already have this in the byout an accessory dwelling unit doesn't um trigger an additional lot area and so because it's an accessory use it's not you know a principal unit uh the accessory dilling unit shall be located on a lot with only one other dwelling unit and so that this would have been stated in the general requirements we just kind of restated it so everything in Black has been there um the accessory dwelling unit shall be used exclusively as a residence with no use of the residence for business purposes and so you know I think Doug had said well so what does that mean if someone wants to do a homebased business or something um you know is that you know do we want to regulate the the Adu that way that it really is only as residential you know there can be no other accessory accessory use in the an Adu um yeah I mean say I you know I build an Adu and I'm I'm a landlord for five years and then I realize that my little hobby business is taking off and I want to just kick out my tenant and uh you know run my little business out of the Adu what is that a problem well it does Adu is it no longer a dwelling unit or is it now an office I mean really we'd only allow it as like a homebased business yeah well it wouldn't be I mean does an Adu stop being an Adu when there aren't any tenants there or I don't know well I would say yes if you're no longer using it as a residential as a residence right if there's no tenants or occupants okay well I I mean to me this is I don't know that this is necessary I mean is it a problem I mean I I don't know you know the Building Commissioner kind of asked is this necessary as well I don't know that it's a problem um it was just you know it's a you know I guess you know if the more of these will be um you know permitted and constructed do we want to have some requirements on it you know like I said I'm not sure it's you know become a problem okay well we got some other hands maybe they have other opinions about this Fred uh I take it uh Nate that if we pursue my suggestion that uh that this is where that language would show up right I will uh at the next I think at the next uh housing subcommittee meeting I'm going to uh try and uh get something together that we could bring to the full board okay Bruce um I don't think it's necessary or a good idea even to have this additional prescription over uses of business purposes um what we're finding that uh these days particularly with the ability as after covid for people to have homebased uh businesses and so forth um I know for example I have both daughters families here um both the husband and wife of each of the families works from home um a lot of what I've been doing uh for my kids houses in The Last 5 Years is uh finding ways to make um basically home offices in and around their houses uh and and there are any number of folks of that Generation Um who are moving back to town and um and bringing their their work with them and need small spaces uh basically bedroom spaces of sorts uh in order to do this so I think it would be um a retrograde step to do this I think what uh we need here and one of the important uses for adus is probably going to be from time to time to support embryonic businesses Doug just the way you were saying um it's important for the growth of the town it's important for the establishment of the maintenance of the town as a vital place um it's not going to hollow out uh if we allow uh opportunities to support um people moving back uh uh because they like the school system because they like the space and and and godamn it nowadays they can bring their work with them because that used to be the problem uh there wasn't enough work for people to come and and live in Amis even though lots of people would have liked to now uh days that's changing um people are bringing work their their jobs with them and they need spaces like this to do that and I think it's a um almost a terrible idea to prescript uh to prct to restrict or eliminate the possibility of using adus for this purpose I would absolutely get rid of that PHA okay that was clear Ken yeah I was actually going to say the same thing so if you're living in the house and all of a sudden you decide you want to have um make that your artist studio out there I think that would be great you could have students come and or you want to have it be a daycare center not just working in a bedroom remotely as many people do I I agree totally I think we should strike this all right uh Fred well we're yeah I would agree we're talking about home occupations and uh uh my three family house here uh for a long time uh the uh uh uh Barn uh Barn Loft was my wife's Psychology office that was true for I think almost 20 years uh and done so completely in accordance with the bylaw was a it's a home occupation the bylaws always recognized that so uh I don't think that's a problem at all all right all right we're heading toward a majority on that Nate oh yeah that's fine all right you know these are just like you know like this was you know this has been just you know ideas for the board to consider and so I'm not you know I'm not really GNA hold fast to that one um we removed a you know something here about what design review principles um because we're not really allowing you know the permit gring Authority at this point hopefully we're it's just going to be a by um we did remove this in the next one accessory dwelling units we say shall be designed so the appearance is compatible with the existing single family dwelling and with the character of the neighborhood we removed shall be smaller in scale such as height and massing um you know I think that you know speaking with the staff I mean the height thing is interesting because you could have it be just a foot taller and all of a sudden you're saying well that's not allowed and in some instances you actually would want it maybe to be taller to for you know architectural purposes and the massing too is something that I think uh you know it still captures it design of the appearances compatible and so I think trying to say smaller and scale and massing is just not necessary uh but you know again that's for the board to discuss we did remove this one to the extent feasible an accessory dwelling unit shall not be located between the right of way and the front facade um that that's what's in the byla now did say unless by special permit which we've removed from the bylaw so if we you know if we delete this section we could still have this condition that says to the extent feasible try not to place it in the front yard which is what we have in the bylaw now um but you know there's precedent and is it I'm not sure it's actually that big of a concern Nate U the the one about the character of the neighborhood right um since these are I right this is putting the building inspector in the position of judging that right is he comfortable with that sure I'll say yeah no yeah yeah I think yeah it's a good question so the current Building Commissioner and staff you know I think uh do this you know one when Co started we had article 14 uh which allowed number certain uses in the um we can put conditions in place administratively with approval by The Building Commissioner and they follow through with it um you know uh some in some communities The Building Commissioner and staff may not like having this uh review but in Amorous we found that it actually works really well so uh you know if we had stricter requirements in certain sections of the bylaw the planning the the planning board you know would review it by site plan review right but then it becomes it's it's allowed by right and you almost like you said it's hard to say no but if we have strict requirements in the bylaw uh say for the issuance of a building permit The Building Commissioner can work with an applicant to get to you know so it's approved and just say no to that to issue the issuance of a building permit so you know um in so in article 14 we had a number of conditions that the building commission was really comfortable implementing and so I I'm you know I feel like what was here uh would be could be used and you know the and it also relies on other staff I mean we could we're not you know it's not like it's you know only on the Building Commissioner it would be likely that they would look to other staff to help with that review okay well that that's good I just wanted to be sure he was prepared to judge the character of the neighborhood yeah I mean one those yeah it's it's okay Fred uh yeah one thing to keep in mind there is that uh uh as a I think as a matter of law uh the uh zoning board of appeals uh can always be requested to review this kind of a decision made by The Building Commissioner because he's the zoning enforcement officer so there is a mechanism for a uh a public discussion of uh something like like this in the event that uh there's a real uh butting of heads between the Building Commissioner and the and an owner that may be something to keep in mind here okay that's nice that's good to hear right um and I don't know if you feel like putting this back you know to the extent feasible and you know we wouldn't have the by special permit but um we removed this one any new exterior entrance shall be clearly secondary to the entrance of the principal dwelling um we do have this condition is still there to the extent feasible any new entrances including exterior stair shall be located on the side or rear of the building um and then you know the rest of this had already been in place um we included uh design in landscape standards in terms of parking we say there shall be no additional or separate driveway curve C cuts to serve the accessory dwelling units unless Allowed by the Department of Public Works and you know I after our discussion about how do we limit you know parking uh on a property I had put this in there and some staff wasn't sure this was the right way a maximum lot increase uh for driveways or parking area she'll be no more than 400 square feet for a dwelling unit but you know there could be some general requirement here here that says that you know no more than you know three additional parking spaces which is exclusive of driveway AIS or driveways um you know per Adu or something we do have the lot area and dimensional standards in the bylaw um but you know they can be kind of generous and so you know some of the some residents commented at the last uh meeting that you know the concern would be with an Adu all of a sudden you get you know a 10ar parking lot um and so you know I I think you know the like I said the local historic district commission had kind of discussed how they could regulate parking which is tricky with a local historic district but you know with more residents could be more parking um so yeah I you know there isn't we haven't really said much there um but you know there is some maybe something for consideration and it looks like you know you know the rest of the yeah I was the rest of the conditions haven't changed so it's really just what has been discussed all right we've got three hands up uh Jesse thanks on the parking Point um the best I could do searching around came up empty with ways to regulate maximum parking as far as I can tell but uh question about this Adu so when someone comes in to they want to build one do they have to submit a parking plan the way you do during the rental registration or is that totally separate I think we say here that um I thought I had it um uh we hear um we say adequate off street parking shall be provided uh as provided on a parking plan submitted to an approved by the Building Commissioner and approvement you know in accordance with the design standard so you know any improved parking area has to meet some uh you know standards in the bylaw so we do have that there well will that sorry will that include the original lot or driveway so so will this plan have to show both dwellings with all the cars all the spots plan there not just the new one right right right okay yeah I mean and and then what what Authority if any does the Building Commissioner have to look at it and say oh wait there's eight spaces here that's too many or is there nothing do other than oh they made a plan so we're going with it yeah I mean you know unless we it seems like you know really egregious there's not you know for instance you know my driveway right now is a double you know it's double wide and 80 feet long right or whatever so I could park or I think it's even longer right so I could park 10 cars in my or um right eight cars in my driveway whatever it is and so you know is that adequate to serve the Adu but you know some people don't want to Stack car and then back in and out right or whatever it is and so they might want to have some a separate parking area um you know I think it's you know that comes into what are the dimensional standards on the property and how close are you and then you know this isn't saying necessarily you know you know we we limit how many are in the front setback um we're not saying it has to be behind the building or anything so you know would the Building Commissioner say oh well you want to pave and have three other parking you know four parking spaces off the driveway is that too much I'm not you know I'm not sure it might be you know a lot by lot or Case by case okay yeah no it's it's a good question you know we require a parking plan for rental permitting in in part because we want to make sure that all the you know what the landlord says in terms of bedrooms or occupants can be you know they can provide the parking on site because we're not you know we don't want them to then be putting them in the front set back or along the road and so it's a similar thing here but you know it doesn't necessarily get into how nicely designed is it okay thanks Jesse Fred uh don't I remember that the state law has uh very specific rules about what you can and can't do regard regarding parking that are conditioned in part on whether you're uh within a half mile of walking distance to a uh a major Transit facility uh which I remember we had a discussion about does that does a bus stop count as that and your feeling Nate was no it doesn't uh and so I I I I I think this the state law is uh in terms of what's available in the town of Amis the state law is I think uh very clear that uh the uh that parking uh can be addressed uh through the uh the permitting process on the Adu am I missing something here no you're right you're right so you know I don't think that the the way that language is written applies in Amorous because we don't have a a ter you know a public transit terminal you know we had said that maybe that's you know Peter Pan or or some other not it's not a bus stop it's not like the bus stop on Route you know some bus route um so we could we could and I I the question would be you know so we have a few of these um requirements for parking here you know the applicant provide a minimum of one off street parking space it shall not be allowed in the front setback except as provided in the bylaw now there shall be adequate off street parking based on a plan that's approved by the Building Commissioner and no additional driveway curb Cuts unless approved by Public Works uh you know but what we're not saying is you we're not limiting that number and I think that was the concern of the residents that spoke last time like could you just say you know like no to so you know so many parking spaces or whatever that is we have you know it hasn't really been determined and so this this condition that was added and then taken out said there you know a maximum lot increase or maximum increase in lot coverage of 400 square feet per dwelling unit which isn't a lot and then you know you know it's maybe complicated to calculate and so you know would you have something that says right you can add no more than three parking spaces per Adu but a parking space to me isn't a driveway or a drive aisle it's actually you know a you know a formal parking space and so I mean I don't I don't know if that's the board feels you know one way or the other like I'm saying most places have a driveway and the ability to park cars it's just you know will the owner developer occupants want to you know have cars parked on the existing driveway or the surfaces or do they want a separate parking lot really all right um Fred are you set uh yeah well just in I was going to drop it but on that uh the zoning bylaw is very clear on what constitutes a parking space you know it's 9 feet wide and it's 18 feet long basically uh and uh you know I I don't think we'd want anything less than that okay Fred your hand went up again oops sorry okay all right uh Karen so I see this as a possibility of limiting uh the amount of people that live in the uh Adu I don't think I think three is almost too many it's just a little Adu and you if you have one or two people in it you you should have one or two parking place you don't th this might be are are we allowed to do that are we allowed I mean I don't I don't think we should um approve a maximum of three I think that's too many well you could probably do a four bedroom house in 900 feet well you don't have to put four people in it well right now we don't limit anything our owning we limit we don't liation is the limitation is the lock coverage and building coverage in our dimensional standards and so you know if for instance on my single family property and I have this big driveway and I'm like well oh I have four kids and I want to have more parking space I'm just going to now make it you know my 80 foot long driveway double wide drive but I'm going to put you know four pulloff parking spaces off my driveway because I hate having to back out my car every time my kid leaves I could do that and anyone could do that we don't really limit that it's the dimensional standards in you know in the bylaw and you know depending on if you're in the front setback and so you know I so really what the neighbors were saying is can we limit the parking can we say you know either limit the cars or limit the parking space you know the impervious surface and so right now we don't really do that um in the b in the proposal and and in our current BW other than through other mechanisms can we can we is the question that's just as they asked can we limit oh yeah I mean to me I don't see it as limiting the number of occupants you're just limiting the number of vehicles um that's important well the other thing is um Okay so say you tell me I can only have two cars associ that I'm building parking for as part of my Adu right well but my principal house needs 10 spaces right so okay I'll build two for the Adu but my principal house needs another four since since I you know I have I bought more cars for my classic car collection um so I don't know that time in you know tying parking spaces just to the Adu is going to really work okay um Jesse thanks yeah this what I was trying to get out before that we basically have no mechanism to limit parking spaces I was just trying to make that clear and I did hunt around other towns and locations and didn't find any examples of that either because probably it's a really hard thing to do because I'm sure we all do have neighbors who have classic old old cars in their driveways you know we can't stop that all right Fred uh yeah but the where you get to that is uh like in the RG District which is near and dear to my heart uh you have a a lot coverage limitation of 40% and uh I can tell you uh as the person who drew the parking plan for my uh property uh between the uh the coverage of structures and the coverage of the driveway and the required parking of two spaces for each of the three occupany that six spaces uh I can tell you that uh my property is on the hairy edge of 40% it complies but I would be hard pressed to add I think even one more parking space uh at 18 ft by 9 ft that's that's a lot of square feet uh so and that's where you are going to uh have some limitation here and and Nate those those uh lot coverage requirements still apply right right right yeah yeah and I I mean I think we might be saying the same thing different ways but right I I think you know what Doug said you know you were right I mean if you know now I've been giving my hyp hypothetical example but um you know you have to comply with the dimensional standards so the lock coverage and building coverage but a lot of homes may have a pretty big driveway that served a single family home that can accommodate a lot of cars and so that's what I was saying that you know it's hard to say well then you can what's the kind of limit you put on the Adu because you can manipulate you know what's serves what um and but I you know I guess you know the reason why we're discussing it is because I think it is a concern right that a number of people brought up and I think people are aware of if you have eight people living on a property and all eight people have cars how are those cars accommodated um well and then all eight you know eight people have boyfriends and girlfriends and now you've got 16 cars um many of which park in the frontage within the setback on the grass yeah I mean I think I mean the cars are almost as objectionable as the people right so I think that's why we have that condition you know based on a parking plan reviewed and approved by the Building Commissioner it does become an Enforcement issue if you know cars are commonly parked all over the grass then we can take the town can take enforcement action because there's a parking plan that needs to be followed and so so I mean that's I don't want to say it's the best we can do but it's one thing we can do um okay Lawrence yeah I'll just be really quick I I was goingon to ask the enforcement question that that Nate just addressed um you know what's keeping people from just barking everywhere as they do anyway um uh but I do want to say I mean I think if if the intention behind this is to um uh address parking that's one thing but if the intention behind this is to use parking as a way to to limit the number of residents in an Adu then we should be having a different conversation about the number of residents that are allowed in the adus um and I I don't know what that looks like I don't know how that unfolds but um I just want to say I think um you know if that's where the concern lies then I think that's what the discussion should be yeah well I mean to get to step back even further on the intent you know the new state law the intent is to have more housing in in the state so a you know our effort to limit the number of residents in the Adu is counterproductive and may be considered unreasonable yeah and and I I will just say I mean I I I think uh the point that was that was raised earlier by Fred you know the discussion of a definition of student housing could be really valuable here I think um uh if if that's the concern that that um we're trying to get at and and address um I just want to name that you know I I think the parking issue is a real thing and nobody wants to have a neighbor who's got a million cars parked everywhere um but I also think um the the issue that a lot of us are getting out in this conversation um uh is is distinct from from the parking question yeah I mean I will say the student home definition was discussed when the new rental registration and some you know property bylaw was um moving forward last year and you know the council and some subcommittees really decided not to pursue it because it is really difficult to enforce and so I'm not sure that I would try to put it into this bylaw and then insert it as a definition to somehow try to get 247 Management on a property with an Adu that to me that would just really slow down this process in in in a way that's not necessary and you know what I'd rather do is you know work work through the Adu bylaw and then if we think we can do something with a student home definition incorporate it after but not try to bring it in and you know uh make it um integrated into this bylaw um one other thing I was going to mention is that the State Fire Marshall uh um there's been some discussion about what are the requirements for new uh for fire access and other things with new units on a property and uh I don't know there're you know there's distances from where the firet truck can park and you know if you have to have a big enough driveway if not then there's you know you have to you know anyways I don't know how it's going to play out but um for instance uh if you if you're not within so many feet of where the firet truck can get onto a property you have to have um the Adu needs to have a sprinkler system and maybe the single family home does two and given a number of properties in ammer in the distance from the road or from where fire truck could actually get onto the property it would mean that the adus would need to have a sprinkler system um you know it's not going to be in our bylaw we say it has to follow all all other codes and regulations and so you know I think we're going to go through our process and have an Adu bylaw and we might find that you know there's fire requirements that you know H have to be met uh you know it doesn't change what we do but you know like I said there are other codes in play you know there's always SE and other health requirements if there's something you know if it's in an outlying area uh we're not addressing that right so um but just for the board to know that you know this you know a lot of people are looking at it now because with this legislation right the right I mean I think the hope is that there's more housing units across the state the concern is there's more housing units across the state and what does that mean for all the other codes um so they're looking into it as well and so it could be that it's not as easy to build an Adu as you might think if you need to you know upgrade Water Service to have some fire suppression but yeah that'll that'll uh really restrain what's done if that's the case oh okay all right so Nate uh I'm not seeing any hands the time is 924 um we've been at this for almost three hours um do you need something else from us tonight or can we let you think about what you heard and come back to us another time no yeah I think you know um I'll come back to you another time okay Bren yeah I uh um Nate I I I hear what you're saying about the looming February 2nd effective date and so forth but I don't want to lose track of uh this approach that I think a lot of people were intrigued by in this discussion and uh so I I anticipate a very busy uh housing subcommittee uh because I want these I want this going forward uh and and quickly uh because in in the town of amorist uh without some kind of uh a addressing what is going to be the outcome of adus uh with unprincipled ownership uh that is a a a massive and serious and very present problem and uh we need to be uh really working that all right thank you Fred Jesse related question um several points the idea of talking to our state reps and trying to discuss a exception to that requirement came up is that still a conversation worth having do we think that's dead in the water has no possibility who knows more than me who can comment on that not me yeah I mean the Housing Trust I think talked about it I think you know some of it is that you know as a kind of a key piece of legislation for adus and then you know for emmer to come and say Well we'd want to have a home rulle petition to an exception for this I'm not sure it would be it would go over that well however Amis is a unique Market but I'm sure every Community would say they have a unique Market um and so you know yeah I I don't I don't know I mean I I understand the concern right there's been a few applicants who have been denied uh you know a non-owner occupied duplex because it requires a special permit and it's like well are we gonna see them on February 3r to have an Adu and so um yeah I mean I think it's something yeah I'm not I think it is something to consider I but I you know I don't know if anyone's talked to the our you know the you know the town's you know the representatives or anyone at at the state level but um I I think to try to go in with a home rule petition as an exception to this doesn't seem like the best approach right now but um you know maybe someone already has or they've considered how to do that I didy Mindy Dome about this uh I'm sorry I did talk to Mindy Dome about this early on and she mentioned that there might be exceptions for certain places she saw that this was going to be a problem so um yeah I think it's not off the table totally we did discuss this specifically and she did mention that there might be exceptions for certain places that would be impacted okay uh Karen did you have anything else okay Fred yeah uh I'm well I'm all in favor of pursuing that but uh I I kind of think that's I mean if if you're a State Rep uh and you're talking to a constituent you usually say something other than no uh whether or not you have any realistic hope of accomplishing it you don't tell the constituent no right and uh so yeah I'm I'm all for pursuing uh that kind of action uh lightning might strike but I think what we can do is you know we've got uh if we can define a student resident residence and I think we can this is an approach that uh I think is going to survive a court Challenge and uh it I think it's plausible so anyway all right Johanna thanks I mean I guess I want to just maybe this is obvious but the reason why the state passed this is because they feel like there's a need for housing and there's been too much local opposition for more housing and so now they've kind of Taken action into their own hands and circumvented local boards like ours um the thought that we would somehow like I don't know say oh we're a unique and special snowflake we need different consideration I think would be like yes and that's exactly why we preempted you at the state level um on these kinds of actions so I don't know I think like we should do what we can to make this work as well as possible for ammer but not put ourselves in the crosshairs of a potential lawsuit or a big political battle in my opinion uh Nate yeah I mean I think you know what we were talking about earlier with University Drive is something that we need to talk more about right so if we're concerned that any development in town becomes student housing then we need to say well where what do we do with students and where would we want to house students and so maybe that you know we you know we have the general housing topic on the agenda and we've been discussing it at the last few meetings and I think we can continue to discuss it and maybe it becomes you know we talk to our neighbors or you know you know we can broaden it to maybe have the housing trust but you know I think it's you know the other side of the coin is if we're really concerned about an Adu having students well you know what where where do we want to have students and how do we kind of start changing some of those you know those discussions um because I do think it's really hard to regulate it and I do think it is a concern though but um yep we need to give them somewhere else to live yeah I think the conversation with Mindy or about trying to get an exemption really needs to come out of town Council um and it's really not our battle to fight so you know talk talk to your counselor and write an email to them and say you know I'm worried about this let's why don't you guys write get get active with the legisl okay um I I think that's enough for tonight on that topic um I could be wrong but I don't see any more hands and I are there any members of the public who are still with us who want to say anything on this topic before we move on we are down to four members of the public yes uh Pam can you bring over Jonathan Slater hi jonath Jonathan hi Jonathan still here there's one observation when you're talking about the adus that I picked up on was that it was taken into consideration that some may be able to turn into a home business and I think that might impact parking and it might also influence advertisement and signage on the properties as well aside from that um thank you okay thank you just another thought all right uh was there anybody else in the public that wanted to say anything okay all right so time is 9:33 and we will move on let's see General housing [Music] discussion um Lawrence I See Your Hand yeah I was just I'm just going to throw this out there I I don't know uh if folks would be open maybe to to postponing the general housing discussion to to another meeting um just given uh FR consideration of the of the um student housing definition okay well we we did put this in here in hopes that we could take some of the load off this the housing subcommittee so I don't know whether anybody from the housing subcommittee would want to talk about that definition anymore tonight uh or whether you really need to have another meeting on your own Jesse you you nodded your head at that so maybe can I can I comment quickly so so correct we haven't met we have some qu Quorum issues with only four members we are meeting next week um so hopefully we'll move that along there's not much more to say about it uh you all saw the text I think you're all welcome to join us next week uh same time same place more or less um I did want to make two comments related just quickly just about the language we all use and I think Bruce brought this up initially when we were talking about the definition that we really want to refer to it as student home which is distinct from larger student housing projects and when we're talking about these rentals adus whatever they are we really like this term student home rather than other descriptors and related to that uh in my mind and this sneaks into our conversations often and Fred I'm going to pick on you a little bit because I know you won't mind um I completely understand your intention but I think we want to be really careful not to speak negatively about the population in general right I'm not opposed to students I have lots of student neighbors that's not the issue the issue I'm really focused on I think the whole housing subcommittee is as well is retaining Our Town Vitality with permanent residents which is separate from having students here and so when we speak about these issues I think it would be in all of our interest just to be cautious with the words we use um yeah that's all I want to say thanks okay um the second item we had on here uh discussion of potential overlay for existing apartment complexes Nate I assume you put this on here this is for those uh complexes that are north of UMass and potentially up zoning that area yeah so you know when we had our housing production plan in 2013 and then we had a comprehensive housing market study and that was completed in 2015 during that time the consultant said you know if you really up Zone those areas it doesn't have to be just north of UMass it could be like Rolling Green Colonial Village a bunch of places and some of it was um one that they're non-conforming now uh so there there is a special permit process to possibly allow density but then if you you know if you actually you know regulated it and maybe allowed it by site plan or view with a little bit more intention it would actually incentivize it um and so so the planning staff talked about it at that time with the zoning subcommittee you know came up with some language I think that was sent around it never actually became a zoning Amendment it was just kind of a discussion and then it didn't go anywhere but you know I we staff had mentioned it to the housing subcommittee uh and they were they were interested in it seeing it and I so you know it's just on this agenda as well just for the planning board uh and part because you know every once in a while I guess a property owner or two will say oh remember you know there's a few that remember back you know 10 years ago and they'll say oh I I'm still kind of interested in maybe doing something could the zoning ever change on an apartment complex um you know I don't know how many would actually take advantage of it but it's just you know for something you know for consideration you know I did talk to one property owner and they thought the expense of doing it and tearing down existing buildings to lose a few years worth of rent to do a phase development is complicated and so this one owner wasn't necessarily interested even if it was you know triple or quadruple the density U but you know there might be a few who would take advantage of it I don't you know but you know so the town out apartment complexes right and then they were built and then we re changed the zoning afterwards so now they're all non-conforming and actually couldn't be built today um but so the idea was could we do something with those especially some of them have pretty I'd say like inefficient site plans in terms of layouts and parking and other things but yeah I mean that area was always one of the areas that I thought we could Rel with relatively uh little uh opposition up up Zone yeah but the but the the area that came up uh this evening kind of the in uh North ammer say between the the the the library there and the mill District you know we could think about a sort of moderate height up zoning in that area too which is kind of kind of quazi industrial now and uh you know I'm sure there'll be people who say hey I like being able to walk to my auto body shop um and uh you know I wouldn't want that to leave town but um maybe maybe that would be another area we could consider right yeah me the areas of North amorist I've always thought like you could do a grid network of streets and do townhouse style and triple the density really easily and still have it look really nice and have open space but you know it does take buying on the part of you know could be more than one owner but so that's what the point of that you know that's what that topic was and there was some information included on the packet from a number of years ago yeah okay all right anybody object to moving on from from that topic uh time is 9:40 okay so we we talked about I think we talked about new business this earlier um and we talked about the anr subdivisions earlier I believe we did we did not talk about zba applications anything we should hear about no I'm not going to report anything tonight okay uh anything on SP Su applications I think you're really familiar with those let's see the new ones coming on December 4th are the high school track project and then the preliminary subdivision for uh 422 Amity Street okay all right uh committee and liaison reports Bruce what's going on with pvpc I know you kept up with that while you were gone I did I couldn't wait um but there is a meeting tomorrow uh there are quarterly meetings um I think I reported on the uh face to face at the uh maybe I didn't I said I was going to it it was a big disappointment they had their I thought this is the first meeting that we've had that we're actually face to face I'm going to meet some people and so forth and they had this damn thing at the some Marina bar down on the river in South Hadley and they had it in a functioning bar and they had a presentation and most of it was somebody talking and you couldn't hear it was in Long almost everything you can imagine was wrong with the way they conceived this and it was a complete goddamn failure and I left um about a third of the way in because it was just pointless so that was a huge disappointment I thought I was going to actually connect with this organization after two years and I didn't so we're back to zoom and I'll tell you tomorrow uh what happens which probably won't be much because I just understand this bloody organization I can't get into it it's too fragmented um it's I mean I I hope there doesn't seem to be a role for the Commissioners uh I I tried to find out what the organization does I kind of know what the organization does what is my role in that what is amus role in that it's hard to rise above midle schol um anyway that's my optimistic report for this evening all right I I would suggest maybe you talk to Jack JC because he had he always seemed really high on that group and wanted after he left the board I know I have talked to Jack and he's on the executive committee and uh so that's part of the reason why I'm not super concerned about Amber's interests as far as this organization is concerned I it Marvels me how he managed to connect with it all right okay so the next item is the CPAC committee and um unfortunately Lawrence has notified us that he cannot serve because his home life and work life are too demanding so would anybody like to be our representative to the CC committee this year uh they are kind of in the midst of reviewing proposals and making putting together recommendations Lawrence yeah I just I just I want to apologize to the committee I I know I I raised some of these these concerns when I when I put myself or apologize to the board I should say I've already apologized to the committee um and I I really thought that I could make it work with a lot that I've got going on right now and and it became clear very quickly that I just wasn't going to be able to be a good participant on the committee so um uh before this comes back up I just wanted to apologize to all of you all because I I thought I could make it work and I couldn't so I'm I'm sorry for that okay thank you uh Bruce if you don't like CPAC what about or what if if you're not into pvpc what about CPAC well Doug you know I know a fair bit about CPAC because I've made applications on four or five occasions in the past five years and successfully uh so I had to understand how they work in order to be but the trouble is um let me the um the fact of my life right now is when I got back from Australia I I found out that uh the nacf uh the the the the lease transition process with simple gifts and so forth they the the final uh Prospect with 80 acres crashed and burned and so they're uh done they're probably going to um uh well the point is there is you got other fish to fry it's it's a a huge load we we're going to have to find the farmer we're going to have to decide how we deal with the potential bankruptcy we're going to have to figure out how we can buy these assets we're going to have to figure out how we deal with our local community who've been wondering for two years so there's a there's a there's a there's a colossal slab of work that's suddenly fallen on me as chairman of that board and uh unfortunately even though I'd probably be pretty good at uh picking up quickly uh I just can't do it this year that okay all right is there anybody else I so Bruce I'm sorry to put you on the spot I was no sort ofest but Doug hope I appreciate the skill and and and the Finesse with which you function as a chair and I therefore appreciate you uh coming head at me like that I think that's what a good shair does I do it and sometimes I successful and sometimes like this evening it's just doesn't work out they just can't I'm s okay is there anyone else prepared to step up no not at all okay all right um I think I will have to notify the the um Town manager that we're not going to have a representative this year um Karen um maybe I can do that and not do the design review um the design review doesn't take very long it's kind of fun and they're very capable they don't really how often do they meet um not that often um maybe once a month okay well I mean CPAC will be done in January I don't think I can do both right now uh all right yeah I was trying to find the C committee schedule but they they've been typically meeting every Thursday and so last year they met and they made their recommendations to Town Council you know by the end of December actually I think even so you know they they um they've had presentations the last two weeks on proposals and then they'll have um maybe one more and then a public hearing and then they'll meet a few times to finalize recommendations for the Town Council so I agree that they'll they'll be done with their work by mid Jan by January at the latest you know by the end of January if not by the I wonder whether it's almost too late for somebody to come in you'd have to get up to speed really you'd have to read all the proposals you know review the hearing you know the recordings um you know you've missed your chance to ask questions so it it is a little late um yeah yeah you forget it okay Bruce um I I agree I think that that's what you should do as asn't as though we haven't tried and uh I think I like your idea of switching me from uh the committee that I'm so enchanted with uh to CPAC uh because I I have had experience on that committee and and I the workload on the elementary school building committee is tailing off and if it hadn't been for the uh the this colossal thing that's just happened like probably would have been able to say yes but next year I probably can and someone else can take over the pvbc which would be delightful and uh I think we can promise the uh that you can promise you can represent to the town manager that there are very good prospects for a a solid participation from this this board next year but um circumstances are such that perhaps not this year and I think I agree with with you Nate from what I know of that committee I can't imagine uh coming in usefully uh at this stage it's really we the ball has been the what do you the water is under a bridge here right okay uh and then um drb anything from you Karen um well we approved there's going to be that Bakery henion is going to be now Buttercup um and it's supposed to open on Friday Friday it'll be really interesting because seems to be Chinese people baking Buttercup so we wish them luck and that was approved um then we approved some uh an out building of a window uh on a Jones building in prey Street um [Music] and I think the ums store is going to open also pretty soon um we send them back to kind of reconsider their signage to just make the lettering a little bit smaller but that's exciting that's going to be opening too so that's what we did and we're basically working at Reviving our standards uh and seeing how difficult it really is to uh verbally Express what it means that you have to be in kind of compati with the neighborhood these things are actually pretty subjective and then to try to make that into a concrete standard the more you think about it the more incapable you are of really being able to Define some things so we're wrestling with that all right all right thank you uh I am not going to offer any report of chair tonight I other than to have a have a great great Thanksgiving everyone uh Nate anything on report of staff I know you've been trying to hire people um sure no I was gonna say two things quickly the um I think I emailed the housing needs assessment to the planning board and so we're you know we're going through the process of updating the housing production plan which the board will need to um approve before we submit it to the state which the plan won't be done until the spring but I think um you know in the next month uh if not in December then early January we can have the you know we can you know you can we can have a a discussion of the needs assessment if you have any comments send them to me and I can forward them on to the consultant um and then in terms of the design review uh downtown design standards you know kind of to what Karin was saying um Dodson is holding a public meeting uh big public meeting in um gosh I'm bling on the date like uh December 9th I think or so um so you know your members can be encouraged to attend that there will be another online survey for Street Scapes uh they had done buildings but now it'll be streetcape and you know dodson's working through you know with a working group and they've come up with kind of a vision statement and a number of um descriptors of downtown and they're and it's really nice right like you want to be um you know vibrant and uh you know community and you know and so they have you know they they're really trying to start and have a nice vision and and all these things and I agree with Karen that so within that they have say like nicely designed right say for instance but then what does that mean and it means different things to different people so they're really trying to kind of come up with some consensus around key key ideas and then move toward you know how how does that then get translated into these design standards and so they're working through that um so you know you can always check the town calendar there's going to be a few things happening in December for that uh and then lastly probably in the next two months too the town staff is working on the open space and recck plan and we had discussed it months ago but the planning board also has to uh vote to adopt that before we or um maybe I don't know accept it or approve it something along those lines before we send it to the state and so that'll come probably in January to the board again to look at all right thank you Jesse Nate what's the timeline for the housing needs uh terms of getting comments I I have a few questions but I want to read it more thoroughly so how soon do you need those feedback oh yeah I mean you have a you can you know if you have the next two or three weeks so I don't the Consultants won't um really be finalizing that until probably early January they're having a public meeting on it uh in December but they're they'll be willing to accept comments all the way into you know through December all right anything else all right thank you all for staying with us time is 9:54 and we are adjourned our next meeting is December 4th and I guess Nate will we should can we start at 6:30 or should it be 6:45 uh no 6:30 I think the first hearing is scheduled for 6:55 then 7:05 live so you know we could take care of other business before the hearings whether that's minutes or you know the other topics and that way when the hearing start we can be um you know we can go through those um yeah okay December 4th 6:30 Happy Thanksgiving everyone thanks everyone bye good night Pam good giving