##VIDEO ID:u-lSjGGNSjc## e e e and [Music] [Laughter] [Music] there e e hi everybody we are just sorting out some technical stuff and we're going to get started in just a minute you'll probably want to view yourself e can you all hear us okay no you're coming through one here those of you those of you who are line can you hear us are you m okay is it says it's Susan Miller yes okay join you you're listed as Maryanne would you put your video on I can't really hear theman is noted I'm not host I couldn't make you co-host but it's I'm Not Susan can you say something you want to make can't hear you how about somebody else somebody else okay let me try again did you know that this meeting is when you link click on it it says it's the boting and safety meeting on 9:25 thank you this is not the voting safety meeting this is CPC yeah I realized that but it's rather unclear thank you okay it is 7:05 so I'm going to call this meeting of the CPC to order welcome everybody to um a hybrid meeting of the shutesbury community preservation committee uh all members who are present are participating in person the only absent member I think is Henry uh welcome everybody oh andry get has joined us remotely so he's participating remotely first item of uh on the agenda is review and vote on the minutes of the August 22nd meeting is there a motion I move that we approve minutes of August 22nd second any discussion on the minutes they great thank you l seeing no discussion we'll proceed to a vote sorry Miss Hansen i barl i andallo i Wilson obain Reed IO yetis sorry Henry muted I all right we'll proceed to the second item on the agenda which is reviewing and voting on the um off cycle Grant applications that we allowed to be submitted at our previous meeting um we have one of those that we received which is the application from the ammer Regional School District for the high school track renovation project um at our previous meeting Doug Slaughter gave us uh some background information about this project I just wanted before we proceed to discuss it and and vote on it I wanted to give the applicant an opportunity to add anything if there's any new information they want to share um otherwise we'll proceed to any questions from the committee David anything you would like to add sure good evening everybody can you hear me yes yes um I'm joined here tonight uh by Bob parent who is the project manager uh working for the town on this project um um Mr Slaughter is out um uh of the office for a little while so was not able to join us tonight so we thought the two of us would come and uh hopefully be able to answer any questions that the committee might have um I think um I joined the meeting a few minutes late on August 22nd but I believe Doug gave a nice overview of the project where we are um some of the funding uh gaps that we're trying to fill uh by approaching Leverett pelum and of course shutesbury um uh to to make those gaps go away before we hopefully bid the project late this year um we've never been never been closer on this project than we are today we've been talking about it for I think I've been working on it for probably six and a half years and we feel like we've got a very solid project with a great designer a lot of Community Support uh Bob and I just met with the athletic director and some of the coaches and um uh from the high school and got a very warm and uh positive review of the project we did that earlier today um our goal right now is to move the project toward permiting uh Bob will be shepher in the project with our consultant uh to the Conservation Commission here in ammer the planning board in ammer and the design review board and the disability access advisory committee uh and all of those uh committees and and Boards will review the project this fall and again our goal is to get it out to bid later this year um we've we've uh had positive conversations with pelum and they uh recently the CPA committee there recently uh supported the project or voted to recommend a town meeting uh I believe $999,000 toward the project and we're um we're we're talking with representatives and Leverett from the CPA committee and um the select board so that's where we are I don't know if Bob had anything uh he wanted to add before you discuss or ask us questions I think you're covered pretty well Dave one addition is we didn't meet with the disability access Committee in ammer and we did get a letter of support uh with with no comments other than they're very supportive of the project so we're we're moving it forward from a pering standpoint thank you yeah I I had forgotten about that um um but um I did just want to reemphasize the goals of the project we all know that the regional track has been basically out of service almost condemned by the MIAA for the last three to four years so our our athletes have not been able to train or compete on that surface we as Doug mentioned a month ago we have um many months ago transitioned from um an artificial surface to a grass surface an eight Lane track and then we'll also achieve another field to the west of that as the plans indicated that were presented to you last month so we feel very good about the project a big component of the project is also accessibility excuse me making all of the sidewalks all of the walkways accessible to athletes with disabilities as well as anyone who wants to view the uh the the um athletic events games and track meets uh to be able to get there um appropriately and uh through walkways and seating um that meets their needs so that's a huge component of the project so why don't I stop there and if there are any questions from the committee we're happy to answer them if we can if not we will email you with the answers uh later thank you are there any questions or comments from members of the committee I just I had one question um Dave can you remind us how the um the costs are apportioned to the individual communities so that you know um shb is at $136,000 Leever at 176 and F at 99 is that based on our sh the regional school budget Rita I was afraid you might ask a question that was more appropriate for Doug I'm not sure if Bob knows the answer to that but yes my understanding is that it was based it was a portioned um based on kind of the the capital formula essentially amers pays about 80% of of all capital uh ammer contribution to the capital at the region is about 80% and I think this was a portion that way Bob I don't know if uh when all is said and done ammer portion may be slightly higher than that depending on what the Town Council votes to um later in the in the year I I I believe you recall that uh Doug said we have an $800,000 ask into the ammer CPA um we're not sure whether the council will vote at that level to support that large an Ask given that we've already G uh contributed to the project significantly in other ways but Bob do you have any more specifics on that apportionment or not I believe you're correct in the manner that it was developed I didn't develop it myself but I did see Doug's original spreadsheet and I believe that's what he U he used I one one point on the town of amherst's piece the CPA piece I believe what we ultimately put in front of the CPA was a higher number than the apportionment calculation would suggest and so if you add up the total requested funds in the the spreadsheet that Doug put together you actually come up with a number that's a bit higher than what our latest estimate is uh our strategy there was to shoot high with the mher CPA and see if they were willing to support it they have been so far but as as Dave indicated we then have to go to Town Council uh to get their support uh later this fall and I will just end by saying I think speaking with the president of the Town Council and Bob and I have been to most of those meetings all of those meetings with the council and our CPA committee as Bob indicated uh our CPAC recommended 800,000 I will say that I believe the council I can't speak for them but what we the feedback we've gotten is that they would honestly like to see contributions from the three other towns and that additional $800,000 ask reduced later this fall so that is how I you know partly how Doug arrived at the 999,000 for Bellum 176 for Leverett and 136 for shutesbury thank you you repeat those numbers just a little bit slower for me please sure it's um pelum CPA has already recommended to town meeting 999,000 uh Leverett is going to be asked for 176,000 and the Askin to shoot Sperry according to Doug's um spreadsheet which was part of his application was 136,000 I should also I should also note that um Helm already gave I believe $111,000 so their total uh contribution if town meeting votes for that would be 110,000 and this is all in Doug's spreadsheet that was submitted prior to the uh August 22nd meeting are there any other comments or questions from members of the committee oh yes Henry yeah uh last last go round there were questions about the surface material for the track is it any different this time or I don't remember those specific questions but Bob has to do with synthetic track I guess yeah so as I mentioned earlier you know we early on we did pivot hearing from certainly residents of amrest as well as some um members of our regional communities we did hear some significant concerns about artificial surface for the field so we pivoted to grass field accepting the fact that playability number of hours of play will be significantly reduced on this field compared to an artificial uh turf field but in terms of the track surface itself Bob can speak more to the product but what we have learned working with our um with our designers and also talking to other communities throughout western Mass and throughout the Commonwealth is that um there are there are very few choices for the the the the product that is used for uh these synthetic tracks um and in order to compete at the level that our athletes want to compete and need to compete within the MIAA um there are very few choices other than the ones that we've selected I do know that when we met with um members of the CPA committee there were questions as to whether we could go to a a um help me out Bob it was a um a non-synthetic track basically a stone dust track and I think the response that we provided was that our athletes wouldn't be able to practice nor would we be able to host meets if it were a um a a crush stone or a hard pack uh track we're not aware of any High School in the Commonwealth that still has such a track and they certainly wouldn't be able to hold Meats there or hold competitions any longer but Bob can speak to this specific uh product yeah the product is a synthetic product it's a urethane based product there are no good alternatives to that synthetic product um to provide the level of of track and usefulness that uh most athletes desire and need the this day these days you know the days of the center tracks that we probably saw When We Were Young you know have long since passed at this point um so going back to something like that wouldn't achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve here which is to bring the usability and the quality and the usefulness of this track up to a point that it is not a competitive track um that can be used by athletes um you know throughout throughout the region and and within the towns there any other questions or comments from okay well then I will entertain a motion to vote on this and before we get to the motion though I will say um this so this is an off cycle application it would need to go before a special town meeting which um is hopefully coming in the fall at some point um I'm going to suggest that we just follow the normal procedure we do with regular cycle grants which is vote to approve or not approve and then that's separate from voting on the actual language of the warrant article where we just sort of break out where which funds the um any funding that's being recommended would come from sense Yes sounds good all right we can do that at a closer to the um probably the town meeting yeah we just need to decide what's coming out of the open space and Recreation versus out of the kind of General you've done that right yeah and we're still looking at third week in November uh the 19th the 19th y special okay I'll make the motion to approve um the Amis P Regional School District application for $136,000 in CPA funding for the uh Regional High School track field project I'll second any discussion seeing none we'll proceed to a vote Hansen hi Carol hi pangallo I Wilson hi Reed hi Leo i g thank you very very much thank you Bob and David thank you thank you thank you so much for your support and we will try to keep you and and of course other folks in shutesbury you know apprised of our progress um and again we're happy to support um the presentation of this at at your special town meeting uh in any way we can so perhaps I'll I'll stay in touch with the chair and if there's anything we can do uh obviously when that gets closer we're happy to uh come to town meeting explain the project answer questions Etc so thank you thank you all for your support it's a great project we appreciate it all right moving on now to item three on the agenda which is our public hearing so brace with me S tr get technical you see that my on your screen yes Andy all right all right good evening and welcome to everyone whether you're here to share your thoughts about Community preservation priorities in shutesbury or learn more about the CPC and shutesbury preservation goals thank you for participating in this important part of the CPA process Section 5 B1 of the CPA requires that each year the CPC hold one or more public informational hearings on the needs possibilities and resources of the city or town regarding Community preservation possibilities and resources so our hearing today is to provide the people of shutesbury the opportunity to reflect together about our preservation objectives the committee will draw on what we hear as well as comments from town boards and our own deliberations for our annual update of shutesbury community preservation plan a document the CPC uses to guide its deliberations on Grant applications the plan has been available on the CPC website for many years and I hope that everyone who has an interest in community preservation in shutesbury has had an opportunity to review it it's a thrilling reading so today we're seeking comments relevant to updating this plan such as whether it contains any goals or criteria you think should be removed whether there are goals or criteria missing that should be added or whether there's any part that should be revised or clarified the committee is not deliberating on specific potential projects or past projects or applications that we can attempt to answer general questions about the application process if you have an idea for a project I encourage you to visit the CPC website familiarize yourself with the plan and our process and contact us with any questions but the committee today cannot speculate about or share views on possible future projects that might or might not be submitted to it again the purpose of the hearing is stipulated by law is to gather public comments will help us in our annual update of the preservation plan just as a quick overview uh for those who are unfamiliar that bar yeah if you are unfamiliar with the cpc's process we have a three-step system for applications uh this is to help applicants develop their proposals and save them the labor of preparing an application for a project that would not technically qualify for funding under the law so first in December potential applicants sub a determination of Eligibility on this two-page form they briefly describe the project and its costs and indicate under which CPA categories it would fall historic preservation community housing or open space and Recreation the committee reviews this form alongside the statute and case law to decide whether the potential project would objectively qualify for CPA funding at this point in the process the committee is only deciding about what is allowed not what is advisable next in February potential projects submit a full application this five-page form asks for more detail including a budget a description of matching funding a timeline an explanation of community benefit a list of goals and criteria from the preservation plan met by the project and other required information this helps the committee decide whether a project should be recommended to receive funding simply because a project is eligible does not mean that it will also be found by the committee to be advisable whether a project is advisable depends upon factors such as if it seems financially and practically feasible as described whether it leverages appropriate matching funding whether it has support from relevant Town boards or other authorities organizations or groups and whether it aligns with the goals and criteria in the community preservation plan with all that in mind the committee reviews the application interviews the applicants and any Witnesses whom it invites for comment and votes on whether to recommended to town meeting at town meeting the voters of shutesbury decide whether to award the requested funding so that is our CPA process in a nutshell the committee is considering holding a workshop in October to help potential applicants prepare their determination of Eligibility and application forms uh we would only hold this Workshop though of course if there were sufficient interest so if you would be interested in participating please let us know in an email to CPC shutesbury dog all right today's hearing will be conducted under the following rules members of the public who would like to speak will have three minutes to share their comments um out of respect for others who would like to speak I'll indicate when a speaker's time is up but I do reserve the right to Grant a speaker additional time if no other person is waiting to speak after them to Aid the committee I encourage members of the public to indicate as specifically as possible the part of the plan on which they are commenting details such as chapter and section titles or page or paragraph numbers are particularly helpful because they will help ensure that we're all quite literally on the same page we also welcome the submission of written comments which can be sent to CPC shutesbury dorg before our next meeting which is on October 17th um I reserve the right to answer questions offer points of clarification after a comment ask follow-up questions or recognize members of the committee who would like to offer a response have additional information or ask a follow-up question tonight's hearing is not a debate but it is important that the committee obtains all the information it feels it needs and similarly the committee has an obligation to ensure that the public is fully and accurately informed about the CPA the application process and the community preservation plan members of the public should indicate they would like to speak by raising their hand uh for those of you on Zoom that would be using the raised hand response and I'll do my best to ensure we proceed in the order in which people raise their hands um until the speaker is recognized by the chair I ask you to remain silent so that the preceding speaker can be heard in full please before you speak identify Yourself by name and state whether you are a resident of shutesbury or not and when no further members of the public wish to speak or when a total of 45 minutes is elapsed whichever is first I will entertain a motion from a member of the committee to close the hearing um are there any questions about these rules or the purpose of this hearing yes than so if a written comment comes in after tonight it can still be considered for your deliberation yes so the committee is is gathering input for its update of the community preservation plan which we'll be voting on those updates at the October 17th meeting so anything before then that would be useful thank you see no other questions I'll entertain a motion to enter the public hearing I move to enter the public hearing it's there second second any discussion all right seeing no discussion we'll vote Yes Ango I Wilson re hi Leo yetis hi all right and we would like to speak you may indicate by raising your hand let us know if you have thoughts about the community preservation plan or questions about the application process yes Steve Rice yes I have a question in terms of uh submitting a uh what is it determination of eligibility is it better to include like if you if your project would potentially need a feasibility study and then and then follow up following up with some construction costs would it be best to submit that all in one request or would it be best to separate that out into H just a determin of a feasibility study and then follow up later with a construction request so um I had seen Steve your um you know your your question that you had submitted to the committee and I think one of the things we need to um check on is whether or not a feasibility study um is an El eligible cost within the open space and Recreation section so my past life when when I was dealing with um CPA funding for housing um there was a particular category of called support um under which you were one was able to do feasibility analysis and get consultants and so forth it's a little bit um fuzzier with some of the other categories so I would think that would be a question we should probably address the community preservation Coalition which is the kind of trade Association Municipal trade Association for um cpc's um is just a really good resource I I looked on their website today and couldn't find anything that um that addressed this question but I think it's something I know that Mato in the past has used them as a resource they're really they provide technical assistance free to CPA community so um I think that's something that we would need to verify and and maybe if you could um before before Matteo contacts the Coalition is describe what you mean when you say feasibility study so is that is that something that you would Envision Contracting um with somebody to do and is it site identification is it putting together a budget all those sorts of things like what your what Your anticipating would be included in a feasibility study yeah that that's exactly what I think what we would be looking for is a because we don't have um we don't have a lot of that stuff nailed down so it' be good to do a study to figure out what um what how much you know location and construction cost and things like that so it'd be difficult to put together a detailed in determination of Eligibility at this point if if you know if we find out that those kinds of costs for that kind of study would be eligible then I would suggest that if a project is sufficiently complex that it would require a feasibility study before actually beginning work on it not in your email you would asked about combining those into one application feasibility and if the feasibility said were be something that's eligible I would suggest doing them separately because you wouldn't want to make a very large uh ask to have the feasibility study come back and say this isn't feasible all right thank you very much are there any other comments or questions from members of the public see none have we made comments now or do you want to so um just in the course of doing some research um this afternoon um I I was reminded that um the Commonwealth has something called um sustainable development principles which um have there there are 10 10 principles that have been used um when the state is reviewing applications all different applications and they range from um concentrate development and mixed uses and Advance Equity promote clean energy plan regionally um and I thought it might be good to incorporate that into our general criteria it might replace them with our general criteria but what I'll do is before we meet again is just send everybody um this to see if um you all think it would be good to have as part of our general criteria that Mak sense yeah I have I have another question yes uh what What's the total amount of money that's available for the CPA this year uh this coming year it is so it's it these are approximate figures um but the funding is divided up into different buckets so in open space there is 14,45 fre in historic resources there's 11,700 in community housing there is 55,56 the budgeted Reserve has 32,000 the undesignated funds are $441,000 so a total of 55469 gr but obviously if funds or in one of those buckets we can't just move move it into another buet except for the undesignated funds which is the one that would fall under the uh category of recreation open space open space and are those numbers available on the website or some other places I could um I don't believe they're up on the website right now these are from the from the town account so they were in budget somewhere okay thank you I know I mean she she she usually gives you a set of numbers at town meeting and I'm sure she will for town meeting but it it's helpful after you exce the anual amount put [Music] so we see receiv this is the annual amount that we have this is what yeah these are the figures from the as of annual as of annual town meeting plus the money that was um appropriating to different funds at that town meeting because I we put 6,000 in each buckets um yeah so that would last [Music] time they didn't change last year have projects well they increased because of what we put into it right but that includes the 6 yeah TR but then we get the state match I don't know when the state match comes in and that varies every year you know used to be 100% way back when and now it's I don't know it it depends upon what the legislature does and what the the fees are that are coming into the registry of DS so but we've never gotten 100% no we didn't get didn't get 100% we only did we did one and a half% sear charge right right but I can ask yeah I mean we're going to need to know that in order to the article for the field project um my only comment on the preservation plan I have some revisions that I'll incorporate and then I'll send it out to the to the committee to review for at our October meeting um the most substantial of which is going to be in addition of some specifics about off cycle applications which the community preservation Coalition suggests we have it off off applic just so that we have something in writing so that if they come in we have a system in place does that play at all with sort of the budget we start allowing off cycle ones does it affect how our budget is recorded and the way the money comes in I no it's not a problem good because we would still have to go to the town meeting to get them to to authorize it obviously we can't we can't approve a project to ask for more money than we have but that's the only limitation but we can draw down in the the buckets of money that we have and then go to the unrestricted funds so say I think you said like we have $11,000 in open space uh 14,000 14,000 in open space Recreation so we can draw that down and then you can take um uh the money out of the the sort of G the general fund UND designated right and you can also borrow and you can borrow that's correct you can borrow you can borrow yeah so so if you borrow um you can the The Debt Service on the borrowing just reduce your you know you take it out of that category so a lot of borrowing was done you know for large land Acquisitions so that you borrow over a 10 or 20 year period and then your annual payments might be $50,000 instead of you know a million let's say simply a million up front you borrow over um over 20 years $50,000 a year that's not accounting for any interest but it is a way of funding um very expensive CPA projects the na L shury has ever done we've never done it it's been done by lots of communities think housing project housing but I think open space um acquisition there's a land acquisition that's expensive and you don't have enough CPA money you can um if members of the committee have other specific thoughts about revisions or updates to the plan that they would like to email me individually that I can fold into a single document to distribute to the committee for us to go through and vote on at our next meeting that would be great so things like sustainable development anything else that you think should be in there so one one question with the application that that uh we consider tonight for the um Amish Regional High School um that is an out of time it's not in shutesbury but it is part of our region School District I know there was discussion for housing and the possibility of collaborating with Leverett on that um should there there be something in here in terms of Eligibility and and just spelling that out um to clarify that that a project not need that physically be in sh yeah I mean the the track thing is a little complicated because the town does technically is part owner right of that parcel um but that's that kind of content is thing that we wanting to plan and that is is something that we actually could do like we could we could use our money with L or with pums and byy community housing projects in their town and would [Laughter] yeah then then basically what you do like it's been done um I think an example again from back a number of years ago um on the vineyard uh so there was a development that was going to happen in Vineyard Haven and because it was a place where there was infrastructure they had a site and the other communities said well will contribute a portion and I believe um it might have been negotiated then that there was um some local preference given so that let's just you know let's say um o Oak lops gave money to Vineyard Haven then they can say we want at least um whatever the percentag is of their contribution you know we want there to be local preference so all those affordable housing developments have to have lotteries and they have this complicated system so they can do a local preference and they can make sure that um like if shry was giving money to hammers because they were doing an affordable housing development that um shsb residents um would have some some preference for some of the units so is there any is there that sounds complicated to me because then for in if it wasn't pelum or Leverett then we wouldn't we would not get any credit that's right in any way for having affordable housing in our community that's correct so it really discourages us from doing it it doesn't in the sense that we'll never we'll never achieve 10% which is the right stated State goal of 10% affordable units we'll never get that here just I anyway you know it's it's it's unrealistic to think that we would ever have what how many housing units do we have about 800 800 that we would have 80 income restricted um housing units here we have what three yes okay yeah so it's just the economics don't make any sense when you don't have um possib you have water water and large scale development here so so the counting but you know what what the state because a lot of people asked that there were a lot of very wealthy communities that wanted to like give all their money to another Community to say we don't want any housing in our community here we'll give it over to you um and we get credit and give us credit and the state was like no that's not how it works so it was very intentional to say you you couldn't do that because there were communities that didn't want any low-income people they you know subsidized housing and they were more than happy to give their money to to some other community start it okay good question it's been tried I mean not that we would not want it to get some credit for doing it are there any other comments to the committee again we'll be talking about the plan on 17th no other comments from the public entertain a motion to adjourn the hearing close the hearing excuse me I make a motion let we close the hearing a second thank you all right Hanson hi barl I and Gallow I Wilson hi Reed I Leo hi gy hi all right final item on the agenda is there any other business unanticipated business for the committee seeing none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second hi hi yellow hi Le meeting is a Jour all thanks everybody for did it before