okay Mr marshall let's see it is 6:34 ammeris Media is with us here you are a co-host of this meeting uh and I am seeing attendees come on over into the attendees so I think we're good to go all right thank you Pam you're welcome
welcome to the Ammerst Planning Board meeting of April 2 2025 my name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the Amoris Planning Board I'm calling this meeting to order at 6:34 p.m this meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Ammerst Media minutes are
being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 and further extended by bill H.62 as amended by Senate Bill 256 this
planning board meeting 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 an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after
the meeting on the town's website board members I will take a roll call when I call your name unmute yourself answer affirmatively and return to mute bruce I am here
um Johanna Newman here karen Winter here i Doug Marshall am present we are told that Fred Hartwell will not be joining us this evening uh and Lawrence Klutz is
unlikely to attend this evening and Jesse Major is expected later in the meeting so we will try to pay attention to when he arrives board members if technical issues arise we may pause to address the problem and
then continue the meeting if the discussion needs to pause it will be noted in the minutes please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment 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 appearing later on tonight's agenda please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period public comment may also be heard at other times during the
meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited if you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone please indicate you wish to make a comment by
pressing 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 speaking residents can express their views typically for up to three minutes or at the discretion of the planning
board chair if a speaker does not comply with these guidelines or exceeds their allotted time their participation may be disconnected from the meeting okay so time now is 6:37
and uh first item on the agenda is minutes does every did everybody get a chance to look at the minutes from February 5th uh did anyone have any comments on those minutes johanna no comments but I move to approve the minutes from
February 5th okay thank you yanna Bruce I will second the motion okay we have a motion and a second anybody want to make any comments before we go into our
vote all right uh starting with you Bruce hi thank you Johanna [Music] i as well motion passes the minutes from
February 5th are approved doug if I may uh yes Bruce uh I just thought I would actually like to register a comment in regard to aminets the fact that we so often do what we
just did which is to apparently peruncterally approve the minutes i want the record to show that these are not peruncter approvals these minutes are elaborate thorough and complete and we read them and because they are that we
mostly not always but mostly don't need to say anything so Pam and particularly I just want to credit uh the fact that you do such a good job and that's why it looks like we're not doing anything you all work so hard
thank you nicely said Bruce okay now we'll go to our second item which is public comment and I typically read the names of the public that I can see at this time so they all
know each other is present at this point there are three members of the public they are James Paleo Lagopalis Mara Keen and Megan [Music]
Rhodess so just three members of the public uh members of the public do any of you want to speak about it about items that are not on our agenda later [Music] okay I guess I will I still don't see
any hands raised so I will assume that that there are no members of the public who want to make a comment at this [Music] time okay moving to the third item on the agenda uh advertised for 6:35 and
the time now is 6:40 so we're in compliance with the advertisement uh this is a public hearing uh for a site plan review in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law Chapter 4A 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 be heard regarding SPR 2025-09 [Music]
ammerst Youth Soccer and the the the application is for something at Potwine Lane so this is requesting a site plan review approval to install a pre-fabricated 10x6 storage shed on a
gravel pad and accessed by a gravel walkway to the Plum Brook Recreation Area near the western corner of the parking lot this is the recreation center or area is parcel 23A-9 in the RO and
RLD-FC zoning districts so are there any board member disclosures all right I'm not seeing any hands raised and I saw several heads shake now um all right so Pam it looks like you've brought over Megan Rhodess welcome Megan
uh for joining us from your car apparently yes um and squeezing us into your busy schedule um so you are here to make a presentation on your application yes yeah thank you everyone for having me um I'm I'm a planner actually in
Franklin County so I'm in between planning board meetings myself so um thank you for having me um I am also the president of the Ammercy Soccer Association and we're looking to put a shed on Plumbbrook uh where we provide soccer to our local resident local youth
uh to the towns of Amoris Lever Pelum Shootsberry and Leverett we serve soccer uh provide soccer services for over 430 kids in our area um and it's gotten to be kind of a big operation and so to streamline services um and because we're
also volunteerrun we um are looking to make our volunteers job as easy as possible so by having supplies on the field such as the field liners the spray paint to line the fields to the nets to help line the nets to put the nets up on the goals to put the corner flags out
every game um we're we're hoping to to really centralize our operations and make things a lot easier by having that shed on site um so we are looking to put a a 10 by6 prefab shed on the field um
it is uh 160 ft we went to the design review committee last week they approved a design that will be um all Peter gray in color with a gray metal roof um we're hoping to make it as non-escript as possible kind of tucked away in the
corner of the field closest to the parking lot we have support from the uh Ammeris Department of Recreation and the Department of Public Works on this site we've worked and coordinated with them making sure we're on all on the same page with this um and so that's an
overview i'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have about this uh shed all right um let's see two of us uh came went to a site visit uh we met
with uh Karen and I met with Nate last what was it Monday or Tuesday um Karen you have your hand raised you want to do the site report um okay i think it was really important to go to this site i'm also on the
design review uh board so I you know I wanted to mention that we had we certainly wouldn't interfere with um a project that's going to make it easier for volunteers to um to do the job which
we're grateful that you're doing but none of us on the design board were particularly thrilled with this the appearance of this shed and remember we asked if there was any way that you could look into finding something that was a little bit less well that would
blend in and then on the site review uh it was important because those fields are really so wide open that I like the idea of tucking it into the right hand corner but we all standing in front of it realize that it's going to be a big
presence uh there in this wide open thing and so we were hoping that one could maybe consider I realize that on the side there which seems unnatural because it would be you know it would be sort of tuck really tucked away that's
wetlands and but is there a way that one could get a waiver because it just would seem to us to be so much more uh functional you would have it right there it would be easy to access and
that beautiful broad view i know that from the house across the street but also from the people that are are coming there would not be obstructed by a very utilitarian looking shed no matter how unobtrusive it is because it is right
there in front so you really have to stand on this site to see that and I'm sure you agree i'm sure that you're trying everything to to to to uh fulfill the purpose which and we would never stop you from doing that but
is there a way that we could still move it over and I think Nate would be the one to talk about what what steps one could take to do that so yeah I was surprised uh you know there's no way that you can really get a reaction to
this unless you're standing on the site to see that and and I hadn't done that of course at the design review meeting all right so I would amend uh that report of our site visit um you know we got there
uh just the three of us were there we stood on the uh sort of uh the northwest corner of the parking lot real pretty near where the shed was uh proposed to go um I think the thing that struck
uh me was that it seemed like it was proposed to go right in front of the guard rail that's at the back of the parking lot parking areas so that was that was I think why uh we all were kind of thinking it would be a sort of
obtrusive presence and maybe maybe we were inaccurate and where you're thinking of it going um while we were there Nate sort of described that along the western border it's actually not wetlands uh but it it's wet it's in the
wetland buffer so um it it's not um it isn't necessarily prohibited to put the shed within the wetland buffer but it would need to have some conservation commission approval um
so that's uh that's that's my take on the on the site plan review for the for the moment before we get into the design discussion sure would you like me to answer now respond um well let's see
[Music] um yeah I think we we could go right into that if you have any comments about what Tarin and I have said and then I know I see Bruce has his hand up too i would just like to see the plan that's all oh okay so Pam do you think you
could bring up the I think it's uh figure four of the of the application yeah I was going to ask that as well nate are you sharing is that what happened yeah Nate has brought this up
thank you Nate okay so yep so I see it's not up against the the guard rail in this diagram and it is off a little bit to the to the west i Yeah I was going to just scroll down i think the difference
being some of the site plans are a little different so this one you know looks like it is actually you know pretty close to the guard rail and it's slightly different than than you know the previous yeah the one that I had looked at figure
four had it right pretty pretty tight so I guess the question might be for you Megan what where do you have a specific location where you really want to put it i do yeah i I So I was going back and forth i
wish I know you guys were going out to the site i would have joined you um if I had enough warning but I've been going back and forth with Amy Rosseski at the DPW about this um so it's definitely not in front of the guardrail there is a figure that's a kind of a street view image um that looks from the street uh
the perspective of the street i don't know if that's if if you could scroll to that image um but it it's um it's not in the site it is so if the if you're looking from the street perspective you should not be able to see it from the
entrance um it is if you're looking at it from the street it is to the right kind of behind where the sheet screen by the bushes um so yeah it it's yeah in that back corner there um it is so if you go through the
guardrail it's going to be to the right as much as we can to the area that the concom has delineated for us where we thought we could do it without having to get a waiver um so it should not be visible from the street entrance it should be screened to the side my only
hesitation with going too far closer to that area the um the the buffer area is it does get wet while it's not a wetland it is a very wet soggy space and so I would be concerned about the the
long-term structure of this having it be too close because it is a fairly damp site almost all year long so I'd rather have it not quite pushed over so much so is this
u is the floor of the shed going to be need to be at grade or will things roll in and out that need to be you know a continuous surface so we're going to put it on a gravel pad it is going to be raised a few inches off the ground to make sure that it doesn't get wet um but
we will make it accessible and so the entrance itself will be uh grade so things can roll in and out okay and the uh the yellow walkways we can see in these diagrams that would be some sort of crushed stone or something that's
that is considered an accessible path yes that's exactly right yeah okay uh Bruce uh while we have this image the central image there's a a lawn drain there or maybe it's not a lawn drain it's just a
regular drain um where related to that is the building going yeah great question so it's actually So it's um behind the storm drain just to the right of that so kind of in that bunker that's there
there's a there's a bunker like here uh yeah around there a little maybe a little further in i I don't want it to be parallel with that so it's going to be a little bit um tucked further into the field away from the parking lot
so the um in this image I I I took these today if I um let me just go on so this fence post and maybe this is a better image there's a few of these fence posts along
the boundary those are the end of the mitigation area so this this area is left to be part of a mitigation from when they built this the the recreation area for impacts to wetlands and so I spoke with Aaron Jacqu the wetland administrator so you know anything that's within this moan area wouldn't
need to go back to the conservation commission uh you know it is riverfront but given the size uh and where it is it it doesn't need any permitting so it is it is wet there now granted a lot of the site is actually kind of wet today i'm surprised um so you know here's the
corner of the parking lot so in the you know in the plans I guess sometimes it looked at looked at one point it would be like right here you know right off the corner but you're saying maybe it's going to be back over here yes that's what I was intending right there sorry I I didn't have AutoCAD to be able to draw
exact plants that seems good yeah that's much better than we were envisioning when we were out there yeah much better yes Doug perhaps I should say that whereas I didn't attend the site visit
uh I do have a grandson that plays soccer so I'm down there uh quite a lot i don't think that represents a necessary declaration of interest uh but uh but I am I am familiar with the site and this does seem particularly as you've spoken to Erin Jac about it and
so in a sense you the not the commission but the agency has uh has has has um weighed in on this so we have a some confidence that uh the location is not going to be a problem from a wetland
jurisdictional point of view yes um as I understand it the uh the gable end is facing the street uh which presents the diminished aspect uh to the uh to the street which I think
is kind of a nice thing to do I guess um uh so um I I'm I I think I understand where it's going it's going to go on a gravel um mound the gravel will be extended by way of a pathway it sounds so that
access will be uh um won't be churned up and so forth um I guess I could ask a couple of questions about the building um uh I think I understand that it's proposed to be a a prefabbed shed is that right you you buy
it um you're not going to construct it on site no we're purchasing it's a prefab shed we're proposing to purchase it from Palmer Sheds um it's engineer certified um it will be delivered to the site but do you have to buy a horrible
one like that uh no that I was I was asked to provide pictures of of real world pictures of what it may look like the horrible picture shows the gray that I was intending um but I couldn't I couldn't find one that looked exactly like that's a schematic it's these silly
roofs that uh I don't like so the design review committee um we did discuss that and I'm going to first the paint is all going to be the same color to blend in more so there'll be no white trim um and we're going to try to alter the roof
line uh so it's not that type um it'll be more of a um I forget the term that was shed of the I mean literally a shed roof would be two planes with a you know with one peak running or along the link well
that would be a gable uh uh I mean a shed roof would be fine i was going to suggest that you had you considered making the roof uh translucent i know metal sounds like a good choice from an aesthetic point of view um but uh depending on how it's used and when it's
used um I was I use the uh the land the dump a lot where they have books and the great thing about the dump uh the am transfer station book repository let's call it that is that it's got a transparent roof and the and it's the
light quality in that building is brilliant you can read every title on every book on a gray day or anywhere so if you were using this primarily in daylight hours which I imagine it's it's it's it's copathetic with with being
able to play the game so most it'll be daylight um you could have a good light quality in there and you'll be able to see everything you've got if you had a um a transparent or a translucent roof um and that was seemed to be a a a good
way of of solving the lighting problem has that been discussed by anybody it has not been brought up the design review committee did not ask for that um they what they did ask was for a single pitch roof line which I'm going to see
if we can do um instead um the lighting I will say is not necessarily an issue we we don't we only need to get into it a couple times a week so it's and it's not for extended periods of time we just need to kind of grab bags and go so it's not like we have to read things in it
well we build sheds exactly this size uh for habitat houses every Habitat house we built has a a shed this size and I have to say that even with a window and a glass door uh it gets pretty dark in corners of that and uh I often think
that if we could do a better job of being able to see what's in there it would be helpful so I mean if if I were building the shed I would make it a transparent roof just so you would be able to see everything all the time um but I'm not I'm not prepared to
condition that for approval that just seems to be the the logical thing to do um the only other thing I guess is the height of it I suppose um if the gloves shed roof you could make one wall 6 ft
and the other wall could be 8 or 9 ft and that would be another way to diminish the scale of the building by having the the lowest wall 6 ft you still get plenty of storage in there on the high side but on the low side you would have a a diminished scale which uh
if that was the side presented to the street um it might diminish the it might help the it would help the building from a um a presence point of view well Bruce all the diagrams we saw I think had the
long had the sort of short end toward the parking lot yes so the shed I assume would go east so the shed Yeah so the high point of the shed would to diminish the impact would be on the west side and the low
point would be on the east side the shed would show uh Yeah except I would think you know if it goes from 8 feet down to six feet you'd want to do that on the you want you want the high side to be on the east side from a user point of view because that's where people are coming
to the thing from the field uh that's true unless they were coming from the south side which is where the arrow is there but I guess the uh the then the pathway would have to go all the way around the building yeah and I mean what I saw was an entry the idea to
have an entry here and then an entry here right on the two sides okay but you could you could you could do an end for end uh entries I suppose anyway um I I guess I don't want to get into designing the building too much i'm
just suggesting that uh to address the the concern of scale that's a a design technique that I've often used because people generally assume that a wall has to be 8 ft high but that's not true a wall can be very satisfactory 6 ft high
u so I I we I am going to look into the single pitch roof line per the design review committee's request um my only issue is we're not building this ourselves and so we're looking for prefab sheds so I have to see what's available by the manufacturers um
because we are within a we're a volunteer organization nonprofit and so I have to see what's within our budget that's already is available by manufacturers well I would think that the shed roof was a cheaper thing to construct yes yes
doesn't have nearly as much intricacy as the gamrell roof you showed um so um I see that Jesse's arrived so we can Hello Jesse we can record him as
arriving sometime before 7:02 [Music] um well I mean we do have the comments from the uh the DRB and I think I I agree with you with you Bruce that the that that a simpler roof line would
be better um would do you have any Megan if you have any objection to us conditioning our approval on the shed roof profile and then if you find that it's a problem that you can come back to us that's fine yeah as long as I have some flexibility in case I can't I can look
around at different manufacturers but um if if I run into some trouble it'd be great if I could come back okay all right um let's see the DRB also mentioned the accessibility and lighting um Bruce
we've talked about the interior of the of of the structure but uh Megan are there any plans to install any exterior lighting and is there any reason to do that we were not planning to there is no lighting at the field at all and we don't play in the dark so I was not um
anticipating any lighting okay um and then you will be providing the accessible path from the parking over to the shed will it go will it originate at a an existing break in the guardrail or will there be a new break in the
guardrail so this is what I've been going back and forth with Amy about and we the Department of Public Works has asked that we um don't cross that swale that they don't want uh any gravel near that
messing up the drainage they would prefer the DPW has asked that it the path would go from the shed to that swale and end there um and then for accessibility to the parking lot they'll provide us a key to the gate which is
right there um nearest that uh nearest the shed all right Nate do you think you could bring up your photos again i'm not quite sure where this swale is sure i was going to just um I was going to share one thing here so here's a
picture of a shed you know with a shed roof and sell story windows that could provide lighting from Lowe's but just an idea and then the um so in terms
of the uh let me just scroll down here sorry so for it's not on these images it was recently installed called the drainage so the catch basin we saw you know is is here
and then there's this gravel swale that runs along here and so you know the there's a three or four foot strip right here where it would be grass the gates right here so Megan was saying there'd be you know a path to the
shed you know something like that you know probably not 90 degrees but um so if we scroll down the uh here's a detailed one
so you know it doesn't show the swale but it's right here behind the trees so that swale is a gravel filled trench at the moment right and is it is it sloped to collect water
along that length it's level with the ground yeah i hadn't remembered when we stood there Nate that there was actually a sort of valley running along the edge of the Yeah so I can share this again if that's visible here i mean here's the swale
um it's right here it's just right here to the left of the Oh okay so it is level with the ground it's like they had dug a trench drain and then filled it level with gravel to you know to drain into here and then it's piped out to the street so Oh okay so you know if we're
looking back at the site in this image you know you can't discern it it's you know it's right with level with the ground that's a side entry drain head is it here
yeah it looks like a manhole cupboard but I guess I think it's more like an overflow structure i think this is actually you know a um acts as like a catch basin to redirect pipes it's not actually I don't
think it's working as a as a yard drain oh so that maybe there's a pipe in the swale is that the way it works yeah oh I see and it goes in below grade into that uh into that centrally that manhole sort of like a French drain okay
okay so the So to clarify Ammeris Soccer would have keys to this gate and the shed would be located over here and then from this from this gravel path or the swale there'd be a gravel path to the entry of the shed okay
so Megan why did Amy not want to have a little bit of gravel or a path from the parking area to that swale i think she's concerned about the sensitivity having too much gravel close
to the to the building the French drain the pipes i'm not entirely sure um we we I'm fine if we're going to be building this long of a path we can extend it to the to the gate i don't mind um
yeah I'm just curious i'm I'm I'm not going to press the issue whatever if Amy's okay with that then that's I'll defer to her all right um let's see board members any more questions at the
moment i guess I will make a call for public comments if there's any public members who want to make a comment on this at this point I'm thinking we're headed toward a motion to approve as proposed with the one exception that we
want to see a shed roof um and um that the applicant can return if if we don't if if that's a problem um so I see Johanna and then Bruce go ahead Johanna thanks Doug and thanks for
the presentation Megan um and for your service to the youth in our town who play soccer it's awesome um I know that a couple of years ago Ammerst baseball built a shed at the middle school baseball field and I think
there are also structures up at the Mill River baseball field and I'm just trying to figure out my guess is we as a town don't have any kind of design guidelines for structures at our recreational areas but I You know part of me just like wonders
whether what are the what do the different structures look like at our different recreational areas that have been built over time and is there some way to as we're adding new structures bring them into some
conformity um and yeah that might be more than we can you know handle tonight i think the Ammerst baseball shed at the high school is also kind of gray and nondescript or at the middle school but wanted to just put that out there nate do you have any uh do you know
enough about those sheds to answer that yeah there wasn't um no design standards it's just you know it is gray instead of having a gamrell roof it's just a you know like a a center line a ridge line maybe it's like you know I don't know
like a 812 pitch or something and it was just a you know to be a standard shed it wasn't It may have been that they were put at the high school as well and then then the middle school and then Mil River they just may have been similar just because
of you know they're you know they're a basic shed model and maybe they wanted to look like what was there it's not a requirement at all uh Bruce um and I just note that we have uh draft conditions and so forth do you want to look at those now or or after
public comment um well we're I think we're pretty close to looking at them but I and I haven't seen any hands from the public okay come up yet um the offer stands uh to all five of you who are in members of the public listening to this
uh meeting so uh let's see pam maybe you could bring up those uh draft findings and conditions [Music]
all right did you just take it i think he did he did i'm seeing I I'm seeing Nathaniel Malloyy's screen not yours Pam but you know what that's good because mine is a PDF so he um And Nate
can edit as we go that's correct that's correct i just I clicked at the same time and I was like "What is this?" Thank you Nate sure so the finding is pretty simple the board finds that the project complies
with the relevant criteria of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw any objections to that finding all right uh the waiverss Nate do you have any concerns about this list of waivers
no no okay um and scrolling up to the conditions um project shall be built substantially in accordance with plans submitted to the planning board with a date of March
5th 2025 and approved on April 2 2025 nate do you think we have enough detail in the plans that we've gotten to you know do we really know where it's going to end up
so yeah I I you know in the uh these are somewhat generic conditions one of the this one um you said the shed should be no larger than six 10 x 16 and shall be located on a gravel pad approximately 10 feet south from the corner of the parking lot and
accessed by a gravel path i mean we could move that up front or specify some some dimensions or area where we think the shed would go yeah i mean it it seemed like it ended up farther away from the parking lot than that
i just don't I mean without a without an actual plan how do we you know we want it the shed will not be visible from the from the roadway entrance it'll be west of that viewshed i have a I have a solution potentially
all right um can we say that the the the location of the shed shall be marked on site and approved by the uh the planner nate knows what we intend i think it would be if we want to say
that the storage shed I mean we can um I think we would want to say something after this um you know we can say west of the emergency Let's see edge of them of the Yeah the line
okay yeah i mean I' I'd like to you know no more than 10 feet from the edge of the moan lawn i mean you know put it up close to the edge of the lawn and and
Right and could I suggest something else as well in that sense oh wait so for now I'm just going to do that let me just Okay i want to suggest that we say uh
that it shall be a shed roof structure with um a 6' high lower wall well I don't I mean can we really be that prescriptive why not we don't have plans we're designing
it here i mean if we had drawings then we would we would be in a safer place well I mean I don't You're right we can be that prescriptive i I shouldn't have said that i guess I'm I'm trying not to put Megan into a bind where you know the
only pre-fabricated shed roof structures she can find have 7 foot high low walls rather than six i mean we'll say seven then i'm just thinking of of the concern that everybody's expressed for the bulk of this building and I would think that
these people will make them make what you want i mean they've got all their stuff that they stick out there to make you come and buy us but they'll make you anything um less expensive if it's prefab and not a special order though i'm not sure if that's true
if it is then we can give grace well that's my suggestion uh we don't if if if it won't be supported then we shouldn't put it in well I do think we should be saying somewhere Nate that that we want a shed roof profile
i mean do we say something which is a weak way of saying you know no I I don't think we should say that i think we should say you know we want a shed roof with
with the low wall well I'd put it to the west myself but I think Bruce would put it on the east side no I agree no to the west i mean so you where the doors are you want it to be facing east to access it okay
wow i don't agree with that this now we now we've got the the bulkiest aspect if we if we relieve that then no let people walk out if it's up against the edge of the lawn though you
know it's a part of the edge i think it's I don't I don't have a problem with that i don't think it's a problem to walk around it i think you should try to make it aesthetically as uh nice as possible and if you have to
walk three feet around to the other side that's that's not a problem i think I agree it should look as good as possible in my opinion so yeah so I'm just gonna go back here i think if the sh I think the shed I think
it'd be um really silly to have the shed be here and have the shed roof like this and this is wetter over here have someone walk around into the wetter area to access the shed as opposed to just off the parking lot
that's they do they do that what you've just done uh or for the second door and the first door doesn't work all the way around they walk into the north gable in well I'm I'm with Nate i I think it's going to look like we like somebody
installed it backwards and you know having it up against the edge of the lawn I think is going to be just fine [Music] um so I guess
uh since we have a bit of an impass in the conversation and we don't have any specific design from the applicant um board members uh I guess I'll take a little vote are do you are you o let's see
[Music] um uh tell me whether whether you prefer to have the double doors on the long side the facing east or w the high side facing east or west um and so you if the
if the high side is facing east the walkway would go right up to that that that side and if it faces west the walkway would go around to the other side um Doug I will relent you will you will
relent yes you mentioned double doors and again because we didn't have a plan I didn't know that but my sense is that that means that we really want to have the doors in the long side and not the short side so that that that deep six is
my uh my end entry well Bruce I think yeah the this uh you know this gam this these images of the Gamble shed have have double doors on the long side the building I just think I just think
from a functional point of view that if you can go in on the long side with double doors in the middle then you've got access if you go in at the end you're going to have just a whole lot of junk that you have to get through in order to get to the far end of the shed so clearly the place to put double doors
here is in the middle of the long side and so that uh greatly weakens my argument only from the point of view of that you'll get dripped on so you could put a gutter up there and it wouldn't be a problem but uh but I think if there's going to be double doors in that now the
the image of that is going to be a big plane with a big door in it and that makes it feel better than a small plane with a big door in it so because of the double doors and thinking through what I just said I'm now persuaded to your line of thinking
okay thank you Bruce does anybody else feel strongly otherwise at this point all right uh so Nate the shed will have a shed roof with the
slope how would we say it with the slope living to the west to the west yeah um and then I think Megan you'd agreed that it would be uniformly painted uh painted uniformly gray
with both uh say walls and trim and doors correct okay so all right with a gray roof gray metal roof okay megan is it a gray metal roof that
is what I propose yes okay so the group is it standing seam you know uh it's a metal roof i I It'll be an agricultural metal panel that's what that's the material that's going okay all
right all right everybody okay with that yes okay thank you Bruce that was not directly so solely directed at you no no no i'm I'm I am being emphatic okay i think we did well
um you completely convinced me all right uh moving on uh Nate let's see let's scroll up here um project shall be managed substantially in accordance with the site management plan submitted to the planning board by Ammerst Youth
Soccer dated March 5th and approved on April 2nd substantial changes come back site plan review shall expire within two years these are all pretty standard
all work associated with the project shall be completed within 24 months no exterior lighting maintenance and upkeep shall be the responsibility of Amoris youth soccer ched shall be
locked public works shall have a spare key for emergency access um Nate do we need to say anything about the accessible path i assume Megan your organization is constructing that that's right um yeah
the inspection services would verify that i mean I we Okay all right you do say up here that it the shed will be accessed by a gravel path i don't we wanted to Oh okay all right fine um yeah I had forgotten that okay so we
now have findings we have waiverss and we have conditions um I'm going to make one more uh offer for public comment if any of the public wants
to speak to this before we vote all right still no hands raised so Bruce you want to cobble out the motion or do you want me to do it i can do it i think uh move uh acceptance or approval of the SPR 202509 Plumbook
recreation area storage shed with the findings waiverss and conditions as drafted and amended during the meeting and uh that we close the hearing oh yes and that we close the public we don't
always remember to do that almost never do yes all right uh anybody want to second that i'll second it how about that all right thanks Karen
um okay then uh still no comments no hands raised from the public so we will go ahead and vote um start with you Bruce i'm an I all right uh Jesse i'll abstain since I missed no
discussion okay um and then Johanna I k I I'm an I as well that's four in favor one abstension and two
[Music] absence all right Megan uh thank you for coming and good luck with your next planning board meeting or whatever you're headed to thank you appreciate it so uh we'll look forward to seeing the
shed out there and continuing your operations thank you for supporting the soccer appreciate it all right time is 7:27 and um Bruce how are you feeling you're you're
muted you're losing your voice i'm okay thank you Doug okay all right [Music] um let's see all right next item on our agenda is
the general housing discussion uh first item listed is status update regarding the accessory dwelling unit bylaw nate yeah thanks Doug the uh there's a um a document in the packet we could
review i sent the the draft information to both attorneys at our KP Law who represent the town as well as the attorney general's office and you I don't know how long the attorney general's office will take to review it you know I sent that along with supporting
documentation provided by the housing subcommittee uh and so you know we can go over that you know do we want to you know I guess the question is you know do we want to move something forward or start to agree on some points uh you know I I think Well yeah i
mean it seemed I guess last time we were saying it's worth submitting this to the attorney general to find out what they thought and so you've done that yes and so you're saying there's really no
way to know how long they will take to respond to us no that was sent to them you know I think it was by the Friday after our last meeting so it's you know it'll be two weeks this Friday uhhuh well in your experience do these things
take a few weeks or do they take months so I would say normally a few weeks but you know I'm not sure the workload given all the uh other towns that may be submitting um you know draft bylaws for review or if the the person doing the review of
the drafts are is also reviewing you know the town meeting votes and other things that have been voted so you know I did they did ask for it in word documents so they're they will provide comments with track changes or you know make edits and so um we could wait a bit
to the next meeting you know I you know I think that to me even what with with a KP law attorney there's some you know interpretation that's happening with what you know certain things you know how how things could be um allowed or
not allowed in the bylaw so you know I think that's a decision that the board or the town will ultimately have to make say for instance the rules and regulations say a property or lot has to have at least one dwelling or one principal dwelling it doesn't necessarily mean you have to
allow ADUs if there's multiple dwellings and so a lot of communities are saying well you know single family home is at least one dwelling so they only allow ADUs on loss with single family homes i don't think that's a misinterpretation of the regulations i think that's how it
could that's how some people are you know interpreting it others will say well you kind of like what the KP law attorney said well in some places they say dwellings plural but where they say you know and so if you kind of read through the logic of the regulations
then you can allow ADUs or you're required to allow ADUs on any property with at least one dwell you know with dwellings plural but if I read it it's really just at least one dwelling and so it doesn't mean you have to require or allow it for you know properties with an
apartment house or apartment building or town houses so you know I think those are the the nuances of how the regulations will be interpreted and I think there'll be some inconsistency across the communities you know other things like we have a condition are few
about design standards you know the house needs to be compatible with the say single family home or principal dwelling and that's unreasonable you know the you know in in the guide book and all the examples that's not objective enough in terms of what does
compatibility mean and so you know I think they they're looking for specific discrete language you know same architectural style or same pitch to roof or you know something and I'm not sure we don't regulate accessories structures like that at all
now and I don't I don't know if we necessarily want to do that for ADUs i mean I don't know if we really want to you know if you have a a ranch home do you really want a ranch ADU you know if you have a Cape Cod style home do you want a Cape Cod style ADU i don't to me
that seems you know um odd actually and so um you know well I mean it seemed like much of our conversation had to do with the student home definition and the you know
the the prop the proposition that you one or the other could be a student home but not both and that was what I thought was the going to be the most interesting to hear from the attorney general on right so I assume that provision was in
the drafts that you sent to the attorney general it was yeah okay all right and well I guess you know I mean I I I mean I see Jesse you've got your hand up you may disagree or have a different comment
but uh I I would be fine with waiting another at least one more meeting before we you know spend time trying to finish it up and send it to council um you know not to mention voting on
whether we support it so um Jesse what do you think thanks Doug um yeah I I largely agree i think we should wait hopefully get some response i guess I I did have a question for those of you who've been on planning
board for a while and for staff about KP law and how council may or may not view their response so when I look at what they responded with it's basically taking away everything we added to go back to no we're not going
to change what the state put out at all like to me it's the most possible conservative interpretation and so this came up once before and I think Nate you offered that yeah they're looking at it to protect the town from any possible litigation which I get but my real question is how
will so let's say we did move this forward and I don't not saying we do that tonight if we did is council going to look at KP Law's recommendation and say oh well we can't do this KP Law said no or is that not how that interaction usually plays out do we have examples like that over the past several years of
how these things are get interped Yeah it's a good question i think um you know this would go back to KP law as the zoning amendment and so they would look at it again it may be the same attorney or a different attorney and then it does become a you know decision of staff or
town council or the board and it could be you know a a discussion about what we think is is reasonable to move forward that is not you know aligned with the attorney recommendations and so you know for instance I think that you know they
said to drop the student home definition they think that there's a few instances and you know in the regulations that would say why that's not a reasonable regulation and you know I you know I'm I'm tending to agree whereas for instance the idea of saying you can't
you know ADUs you know have to be on any property with at least one you know dwelling unit to me doesn't mean that you allow them with apartments or town houses or a mixture of units you could say just you know just a single family home to me that's an interpretation that isn't inconsistent with the state rules
and regulations you know I think they provided examples why the student home definition doesn't work and they were able to site specific parts of the um of the regulation uh yeah and so I think but you know we it you know in the past
it's become this kind of discussion about okay well what how do we how does a town or council depending feel about it so there isn't it's not necessarily we have to follow everything that the attorney would say so so let me ask a question slightly different way has council ever moved forward with something KP Law said we don't think
this will fly i'd have to look um back at that usually we want KP Law to say that something's clear you know concise and actionable or you know something to that effect and so um typically we try to get to the point where KP law says
it's you know um say clear and actionable there may be some disagreement about whether or not it's say unreasonable so at some point it's a local decision to follow through with it so sounds like not for zoning purposes say but for other like a request for
proposal or and some zoning amendments say like huge dry for instance we don't ask the attorney to say do you like our standards and conditions they just you know we ask them to look at it in terms of is there anything that's like inconsistent with mass general law you know is there something that just reads
wrong you know from their experience and then you know is it can you know does it make sense and so you know for instance if they said oh well you know your setbacks don't seem to work uh for some reason we would take that under advisement or if they said you know you really can't allow this type of mixed
use here then we we'd ask why but typically it's you know it's our kind of local decision to move forward with that um you know thanks that that's helpful thank you all right um does anybody else
uh disagree let's say to waiting another you know meeting or to you know to uh wait and see if the attorney general can get back to us in a relatively timely manner all
right let's I guess I'll consider that consensus um all right so the time now is 7:38 and we'll go to continuing discussions regarding potential overlay
for existing apartment complexes um Nate you sent us a bunch of material that was Pam actually okay well Pam should you want me to bring those up Nate or are you gonna bring them up i I I have my screen ready
i'm not sure where we'd want to start or Yeah there's a bunch of different documents here okay um you know I think Yeah I was going to just get a few of them pulled up myself you know I think one you know I
I'll share my screen um you know the the board had discussed and agreed that this was a good boundary to start with so you know Meadow Street coming across here you know including the backs of uh a few
properties on North Pleasant down to presidential and over to 116 you know I think Bruce had provided a document about you know what kind of what's the right density here and I think it's a really good you know good discussion good
topic you know if we think that this is you know to make this an overlay with infill development viable to have you know quite a bit of increased density you know is this you know is that something we think is appropriate here
uh and what does that mean um I think the discussion of affordable units is really interesting about having almost a designated area within the overlay where affordable units could be built and some of that would be so that you know a developer would still be required to
either provide funding or work with a nonprofit developer to do the affordable units but you know they could be built in a way that they have a nice neighborhood and they're not dispersed throughout like we require now and actually it could diminish you know some of the kind of impact or the livability
of those units given that the scale we're talking here right so we're saying if if there were 3,000 units here and we wanted 15% to be affordable there's a lot of affordable units here mhm so you drafted
uh is this is this a Oh this is from 2013 yeah that's from 2013 that was which what's what's the name of that document or there's um I think it's Well I don't know it says 927 2020 2013
Ammeris planning board article blank zoning multifamily yeah so this is something that was done 12 years ago um and so it might be a place that you started right
so you know this one looked at you know basically multi-unit properties across town and you know thought oh well could this be an overlay that you know applied everywhere and it didn't get much more beyond a conversation with the zoning subcommittee at the time and so you know
there's some documents prepared uh places looked at and so you know with the planning board we had said well let's look at North Amoris as a starting point and do we do we stay there and I think you know we've had a few discussions I think it's a a good place we could talk about are there other
places to me I don't think we'd have an overlay that would cover all different areas in town and be able to do it with a very similar kind of standards of you know dimensional standards or other things and so I you know this is an it's a useful
document i think it has you know um you know information densities units i just I think it's good to look at but for a frame of reference you know do we think we can take some of this and apply it to North Amoris or do we want to start looking other places i will say we um have mentioned East Ammerst as a
potential area and I think that's still something that you know could be looked at maybe not you know we we kind of determined North Amoris but I think East Amoris is another logical place to Yeah out Belchuretown Road
all right so Bruce and or sorry Jesse and then Bruce jesse you just muted yourself thanks uh over the past few weeks since we talked this last I've driven by quite a few times uh I still think this is a
great way for us to start the next overlay location and I think it it's relatively simpler than some of the others depending what we want to try and accomplish but if the goal is really just increasing density I really think there's a way we can use this outline
and not really change the North Pleasant Street experience very much and push most of the density toward the west from these big lots uh so yeah I would I'd really encourage us to focus on this and and try and get some parameters on what we're thinking
so Br uh Jesse does that mean you would have a pretty large setback from North Street or I think this came up last time i could easily imagine stay um not a large setback but keeping the height or relative scale of
what's there right now for some amount of setback and then beyond that distance from North Pleasant you could potentially get taller more massing whatever however we're going to describe it was my was my what I was thinking about
okay um Bruce I agree with everything that you said Jesse I was going to say exactly the same thing um on all I think four of those points uh a good place to start uh it solves the problem we're trying to solve at the moment primarily
which is primarily student housing uh it's a good location for that um I think uh this does give us an opportunity to in make considerable density if we choose because the land
falls to the the west i did get out the USGS maps Nate i wasn't able to access the topographical data on the on the town's website i I might have to get you to help me that they just wouldn't let me get in so I went back to the old tried and true and pulled out my USGS
maps it was a 20ft drop uh from North Pleasant Street down to the the the lower side of where the end those houses are this is basically three stories of residential construction maybe two and a half so I think we could it it it just
it it just says what we already kind of think we know which is that you could build um two or three stories higher down in the western end uh for the same uh effect as if we were
building an equivalent story height three stories less than the uh equivalent story height um further up or in that location if it was a level horizontal site so the the topography is working very well for us here um I think
that the setback uh thoughts that we might have along uh North Pleasant Street I think you said this as well Jesse that uh we could have set back lines that limited story heights and so that basically as you looked out from um
uh North Pleasant Street you you you you tend to see something similar although I have to say in the greater scheme of things it might be nice to have a few things that stick up a little bit it might give some uh massing interest than having a uniformly uh even horizontal um
roof line so we could give some thought to that as well but by and large I think this is a this really uh has this is one of those seemingly rare situations where it seems to me that the dominoes so far anyway as far as we can tell they're all falling in the right direction and it's
a um rather a um something of a gift potentially if that's true so I'm I'm very much persuaded that we should concentrate on this site as our next effort for uh an overlay uh application
uh do it as as well as we can get it finalized and and hopefully uh complete as we've done with you drive and university drive and uh and then and then use this uh as a template or at least as a basis for thinking about
other equivalent sites in town that are like this but obviously will be different in certain respects but I think it's a good idea to concentrate and develop our template on this ite because I think this one looks like it's going to um uh be able to grow the best
crop for us in terms of a solution concept to our our immediate housing problems all right um Karen or Johanna any any other thoughts from you all
yeah go ahead i agree i'm excited about putting density in here i like the idea of varying it um this is really a good location to be walking and
be without cars uh it's very desirable i don't think we would have too much resistance if we plan it if we do if we open it up and I think we should explore larger buildings as well so I I agree with Bruce
[Music] okay um All right so you know can I chime in really quickly oh yeah i don't see your hand okay um in general I agree i you know I think
I've been pretty supportive of the idea of adding density to this i will say I like Jesse you know have done a couple of drivebys of this area and the one thing that gives me a little bit of pause that I wanted to just talk about
as a board is um is I feel like we are if we move forward here and if it manifests itself we end up like leapfrogging density instead of concentrating ating density so let me
explain what I mean by that um like when you're at the Rotary on the north end of the UMass Ammerst campus you know there are buildings there that are four to five stories tall and then on the other on the north side of that
rotary you know it's a you end up with very small single family homes on little on you know basically you know individual lots and if we move forward with this
basically what we end up with is like density on the college campus then a mile to a mile and a half of relatively low density then a bunch more density then again you know kind of more low slung and then you get to north uh
village and once again you have more density and maybe we're fine with that and maybe that's the best we can do and you know this is kind of like the path of least resistance but if I were you know like starting
from scratch I would be more inclined to concentrate the density so that right like right now this is too far away for these students to conceivably walk to campus they could bike and they can take the bus but it's
a little far to walk um so that's that's you know that's like my my one kind of like moment of pause well would you uh not extend this as far north or would
you extend it south to include all the way to to campus you know I mean we all know there's a residential neighborhood between this area and campus and there definitely is right and I don't I don't know what the distribution of students
versus long-term owner occupied houses is in that neighborhood but I'm pretty sure there's a a number of owner occupied houses my sense from driving around it is that a lot of it is owner occupied and that it seems to be a pretty
I don't know like wellestablish you know like Yeah it's like it's a nice little neighborhood right um so so I think it's you know it's like do we want to advocate to council
to to uh allow some pretty disruptive development to happen in that area i think probably a path of least resistance is going to be easier but yeah I mean that's what that's where we're headed but uh I mean I get what
you're talking about i mean for the greatest good for the greatest number it's probably not quite this but uh okay Bruce on that point perhaps we should bear in
mind that uh um 2 miles or three miles north in Sunderland there is a huge aggregation of student housing um and the bus transportation seems to work fine so I I think uh compared to an
already solved problem in Sunderland this is a an improvement u so I wouldn't be so troubled as uh as Johanna on this matter um I also but I raised my hand to say that uh during the donor which is the uh district 1 neighborhood
association meeting a couple of Sundays ago it's the six monthly meeting that that district that districts have with their two counselors and at the end of the meeting uh during the question and commentary time I just stood and told
everybody everybody was I suppose it was about 20 or 30 people in the room and I said that the uh planning board was beginning discussions u uh not entirely un dissimilar to what we've already been conducting on
university drive so far as a district defined overlay is concerned in this area in North Ammerst and the conversations were beginning about this I said what the purpose and objectives were and I said that these are public meetings and I invited people in the
room to be to be interested and to join those conversations certainly if they felt they had time so I thought it was appropriate uh given the fact that we've begun public discussion of this topic to tell people in the neighborhood that and
uh um at the end of the meeting Barbara Puffer who who's owns the Puffton Village which is right in the middle of this um came up to me and expressed her generally positive attitude to what I to what we are what we are considering
here but she did say and this is something we've already borne in mind I think she said "You really should talk to Steve um her her her um her um manager of the Puffton
Village because she says he has concerns about increasing densities and so forth and so forth there um and my sense is that that uh it would take a different management structure with what we're talking about but nonetheless here's a
fellow who's been running this Puffton Village for a long time who's got a lot of experience and I'm sure we can learn or whoever decides to do whatever they want to do in this area after we complete whatever we are trying to complete here i think having a
conversation with Steve and and others in that uh who can who who are responsible for these various um apartment complexes would be uh would be helpful but particularly the fellow in Puffton Village which is the biggest uh
uh aggregate of housing and I think who's been there the longest uh Nate is that something that you guys ever do is to reach out to the managers of these complexes i think the rental um permit program
does more but you know after the last meeting when we talked about this you know it sounds like we are you know serious about North Ammer so I think I can work with Rob Mora and reach out to a few of these property owners and managers and meet with them to talk about this is there any reason why
someone like me can should not do that uh should I refrain from trying to talk or is it quite the opposite no I think it's fine um you know I think sometimes we as staff we would say you know we wouldn't want a property manager to then field you know questions from
different planning board members you know so Bruce if you want to do that you know you know I wouldn't want to say then Jesse too and then someone else and there's a concern that then there could be a serial conversation that could violate open meeting law so that's one reason and also just for the fact of
burdening a you know an individual but if you want to Bruce that's fine i think staff would still reach out to you know um well I I I should say that I've had repeated conversations with this fellow maybe five times in seven years raising
money for the North Amos community farm of which I'm president and Steve has always valued the work that we do across the road and has always contributed i so to that extent we have a good relationship i don't think it's one that represents a conflict but I certainly
would uh declare declare it as I've just done okay i think that's fine well I mean I suppose Bruce I I'm I'm fine with deferring to you if you want to contact them and talk to them um well
Barbara suggested uh quite uh clearly that uh I don't know whether she meant me personally but she kind of did because I was the person in the room at the time right
all right uh Jesse thanks Doug um two points uh that were raised just now one I think the neighborhood we should not try an overlay between here and campus i know several owners who
live there and I think it is a pretty well established neighborhood i think that would get a lot of pretty problematic um and to your point Johanna about sort of what did you call it leaprogging what um I I agree and that's kind of what I like about this idea of
of having it graded or the height graded or appreciating the slope as Bruce pointed out because I don't think the again the experience of going along North Pleasant I think we can accomplish this without changing that very much yes there'd be a lot more people there potentially but in terms of just the
architectural or or massing experience of go going around North Pleasant and Meadow Street might not be very different okay so when Jesse when you talk about uh stepping stepping up to the west um
you know I'm I'm I'm interested in having an opening uh offer you know are we talking about you know say three three stories along North Pleasant Street for the first you know 150 feet or 300 feet or whatever it is
yeah so it goes to six stories or what what kind of numbers did you have in mind um I didn't quite appreciate the amount of slope that Bruce pointed out uh and I was thinking moving from three two or three at the front i I wasn't sure what it is right now i don't know
if it that seem to be mostly twotory right now yeah i think um and so maybe moving from two to five or six at the back and so essentially it would be a horizontal flat almost adding in what Bruce was
saying um and I I didn't do the math i mean Nate you can help us with that but and maybe the boundary you know there's almost a natural boundary already with Brandy Wine Drive looking at the map here I don't know what the right distance is of feet from North Pleasant
to to not feel a big presence of a suddenly going from twotory to fourtory for example should that be 150 feet should it be 300 feet i I I'm not I don't have a good sense of that
and um you know I think the uh the lot coverage and building coverage is something we're going to want to talk about and even and including the parking uh requirements um yeah i mean if what was the number Nate
about what we thought it would be worth for investors or developers was three times density or was it two times i can't remember three times the density yeah so so maybe again I think you're probably the best qualified to sort of piece that
together for us to say here's the type of elevation or stories needed to get there with with this kind of scheme oh and the lot coverage is also part of that if you can you know have a lot more
footprint um yeah looking at like say Puffton it's if you know if you went up to four floors and allowed density I feel like you could um double you know you triple the density without necessarily having
um you know you could double it pretty easily just by increasing the floors and then if you had a different site layout and flexible parking and dimensional standards you triple it without necessarily having you know really tall buildings it's not true for every
property but you know it makes it easier if you can have some some variation in height i don't Yeah I mean I think a starting point of three floors or you know or two floors and a third floor under the roof or you know something um some kind of
standard like that along the street and having some stepping you know having some height increases as you go back you know one other group that we might want to talk about or touch base with would be the Ammerst Police Department
since I assume they are the primary responders uh during the Barney blowout and other sort of events where students congregate in this area and you know we have problems with behavior
um you know do they you do they think we're nuts to to propose to double or triple the number of people in this area you know from a public safety point of view all right well
[Music] um I don't see any hands um Nate do you do you think you could draft something for us to react to in this in the next couple of meetings or uh or is Yeah I've been focused on
the ADUs and University Drive and a few things i think I can turn my attention to this now and I think some of the comments about contacting APD and pro possibly even UMass uh you know and a few others and looking at some of the doing some you know cross-sections and
just some ideas i I we can get that moving okay i see that Janet Keller has her hand up so why don't we bring her over Pam and Janet you know the drill give us your name and your street address in
case we've forgotten hello Janet can you unmute yourself no now that I see the unmute there you are you're unmuted okay thanks um so
uh as may be no surprise um I look at a little bit differently uh than you all um and uh I have spoken to some people but an
unusually large number of people have other meetings so aren't here tonight um who share my concerns um for the potential impact on a few things traffic
impacts um it that con that uh fiveway intersection is already incredibly congested for the seven months a year that the students are here
um and it's already very congested at peak times um uh but it's also uh takes a long time for traffic to get through even at non-
peak times um the uh I hope the so I like Belchure Tunnel a lot better than I like um uh North Pleasant Street and
uh uh Metal Street for this kind of uh increase in density i think some of the ideas that you uh spoke of tonight that I haven't heard before are
interesting but the uh 3,000 more units I think that's way too many um I also think the impact on the function and look of the uh adjacent
buildings um in particular the the Fiser home and the National Register Historic District um worries me a lot um and um as to being primarily student housing
we are already in these neighborhoods we're just trying to live like normal human beings here and um we have to accept that on weekends the police and
the fire um and the emergency people are going to be concerned with the students and woe to us if um we have a need for their services um so we were already dealing with a lot of negative impacts
and um uh so yeah thank you for the chance to uh tell you what's on my mind and of the minds of others here thanks
thank you Janet all right so there's some food for thought um you know one of the things uh I guess I'll just sort of mention um after Karen and I had
uh had our site visit at the at the soccer field we went down to Ammerst at to Atkins Corner and you know we're looking at the site for the hearing that we're going to continue next time so I'm not going to get into that discussion but there you know there
was a lot of traffic running on Bay Road across east to west on in that area um and and I know from my travels around town I have seen that several of the intersections do back up around the
university toward five o'clock when everybody's kind of leaving town and one thing that occurred to me while Janet was talking was you know a a certain probably a pretty high proportion of the traffic
around that time is students going to their distant lodgings so if the students were closer to campus and didn't have to drive or had a pretty short drive to get home it might
actually alleviate some of the traffic issues that we have throughout camp throughout town now I'm sure there's other ways to look at that so uh you know but that just is a thought that goes through my head while we're having
this conversation jesse yeah I was going to comment similarly um I feel fairly confident students who might live in this new area we're discussing are not going to drive to campus so it eliminates that number of cars on the road potentially
basically what you're saying I do think the emergency services is a significant concern um as that Janet brought up and obviously that would have to be part of whatever planning happens okay Karen yeah and if there's any way
that we can somehow incorporate a big dedicated bicycle path I keep thinking maybe there should be a little electric vehicle thing back and forth we have to somehow really think about moving away from all this
cars uh traffic and this is a a good opportunity but that somehow has to be sort of thought out how can we have this campus turned into much more of a bicycle walking kind of a campus
yeah certainly this area is a prime candidate for a good bicycle lane uh Bruce there was discussion about uh I think Nate you may have brought this up about uh um a a bicycle way or a a
throughway a pedestrian bicycle way on on the western side of that property that could have gone uh all the way to campus and I think there were you mentioned or someone mentioned that there were uh resistance my owners and
so forth of the site but my guess is my guess my thought is that we should resurrect that conversation because it might uh track differently um under the in the context of what we're discussing
but it certainly would be the logical it seems to me solution concept to what Karen is suggesting which is also the logical solution concept or one of them to Janet's concerns which are real i know that'll be a concern in the neighborhood i know that the
intersection at North Amist and uh the issues uh the neighborhood will be concerned that this will be excused for Gilbert to Guilford to put in a roundabout which nobody in North Ammeris wants um and can't understand why anybody could think it was a good idea
but nonetheless it seems to be the gift that keeps on giving so uh that will be something uh that we will probably find will get folded into public concern on what we're talking about and to the extent that we can thoughtfully deal
with that concern by the comments that Jesse and Karen and Janet have made I think it'll strengthen the viability of what we're trying to generate here all right thanks Bruce
um Pam I'm still seeing Janet's hand up is do you think she wants to speak again or is she finished that was a new hand sorry that is a new hand well I guess why don't we bring her back
over it's not a big crowd hi Janet can you unmute sure that was an unintentional new hand sorry okay thank you thank you but you welcome you've got two minutes and 58
seconds no thank you okay all right well the time is 8:12 um Nate we've I think we've charged you with drafting something for us to take shots at
um and uh maybe we should take our five minute break and then come back for a short or should we just plow through the rest of the I'm seeing I'm seeing heads shaking or nodding yes for that i might uh I might take my five minute break and
I might run it out i think we're not going to take a a break but Bruce thank you very much for sticking with us okay byebye bye Bruce bruce please okay time is 8:13 we'll move on old business
anything not reasonably anticipated none from me Nate not from Nate I guess okay okay and anything for new business none from me but maybe Nate no I think you know just so every members uh hear
it you know Lawrence has uh decided to step down from the board and so there'll be a vacancy there so that's something that was you know just you know announced earlier this this evening he sent an email so right it was about
quarter six so um so I see Pam Rooney is in our audience and so she's getting a advanced notice that we're going to have three vacancies that probably need to be filled
um for this upcoming interview season uh Pam I see your hand hi Pam hi Pam this is Pam Rooney 42 Cottage Street thanks Doug for uh noticing me um yes the community
resources committee is in the process of just updating uh guidelines for selection and interview questions and so forth we'll be talking about that in fact on the 10th and um I'll just say I'm very
disappointed that that Mr klutz stepped down because in fact we the council selected him over another candidate who seemed very interested and willing so that's too bad um but yes I and and for
the two um existing board members whose terms finish it is not that someone does not want to see them renew or be reappointed it is that by
charter and by the council charter we are required to view an ending of terms as um essentially as a vacancy and and you get to go through the uh you get to go through the interview process again so
Jennifer Ta and myself will be reaching out to current members whose terms end this coming June and we will ask if there is interest in returning and we will put together a um an interview
selection pool and we'll talk to folks and make recommendations to the council so that's the process and thanks Doug for letting me address that all right you're welcome Pam all right we'll move on um form ANR
subdivision applications anything none tonight all right how about ZBA applications uh I don't have any to report either [Music] okay
um upcoming SP SPR SUB applications um I'm not aware of new ones nate are you so we will have the um G Lannon project come back on the 16th is that it and there's a preliminary
subdivision was filed again for road so um it was over seven months ago about eight months ago there was a subdivision plan filed for Shoes Spray Road where the where there's the proposed solar development that's going through the zoning board and they resubmitted the
same plan so they didn't you know they're basically they're they're seven months expired to submit a definitive plan so they resubmitted the same preliminary plan so that'll also be reviewed on the 16th okay um Okay board and committee and
liaison reports bruce uh has departed he uh I think said he didn't have any report for PVPC jesse anything you want to say about the housing subcommittee we haven't Matt we're working on it okay and Karen uh yeah we anything else other
than the shed yeah mostly we were concerned about the shed which uh I'm reported on there's one other uh signage that we asked to come back and approve a little bit just so nothing major
okay all right i don't I don't think I have any report of chair um Nate and Pam anything from staff i do not have anything I'm going to say but Nate uh I think that uh just a few
things the housing production plan there's draft goals and objectives that are uh being um updated by the consultant so staff looked at them and I think probably at the end of April or early May the board will have a chance to look at that um for the housing
production plan and then you know provide comments to the consultants and then you know probably by in June they'll we'll have the full plan back or draft plan in front of the board and so the planning board needs to you know vote to send that off to the state for final review it will also go to town
council so you know in the next month or so I think we'd have a discussion about the goals of the of the housing production plan and so yeah I think you know it'll when once that gets available we'll send it out to everyone and we can have a conversation i'll just say that the plan doesn't obligate the town to do
anything so it has you know big themes a lot of goals a lot of strategies you know some we may not you know people may not like or disagree with but I think it's you know the consultants putting out there what they think are some ideas to address the housing in Ammerst and yeah so we've asked them to you know be
creative and come up with some ideas we think can work for the town great all right time is 8:19 and if anybody does do we have anything else to talk about this evening
all right uh I guess I will declare us adjourned see you all on the 16th thank you very much bye bye bye there's the recording
good night Pam