continue. Okay. Okay. Mr. Marshall, you are the co-host of this meeting. I have 6:33 on my clock. You have a quorum of the board here. You actually have the full,
not quite the full board, but you have a quorum. Um, Ammeris Media is with us in the house. I do think you're good to go. All right. Thank you, Pam. You're welcome. Welcome to the Amoris Planning Board meeting of September 17, 2025. My name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the
Amoris Planning Board. I am calling this meeting to order at 6:34 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live streamed via Ammeris Media. Minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021,
extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 and further extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2025. This planning board meeting will be conducted via remote means using the Zoom platform. The Zoom meeting link is available 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 access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event public access is disrupted or re or 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 on the 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
Yeah. Uh, Fred Hartwell, present. Uh, Jesse Major, present. I, Doug Marshall, I'm am present. Angus Mloud, present. Johanna Newman,
present. And Jar Smith is not present at this point. He has indicated he will join us at a later time in the meeting. Board members, if technical issues arise and 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 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 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 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, that's the preamble. Uh time is 6:37. Uh, first item on the agenda is minutes. However, I did not see any minutes in the packet. Pam, is that correct? That is correct.
Okay. Um, at some point, probably soon, it would be helpful to me if you would let it let let me know how many minutes behind are we? Um, may maybe you could email me sometime in the next week or so. Um, if we need to
pause in terms of cancelling a meeting or something to uh allow you to catch up, uh, we certainly could consider that. Okay, next item on the agenda. Um, it's 6:38 and
we have public comment period. I am seeing two uh, attendees in the from the public. This is the point in the meeting where I usually uh read the names of the public attendees that I can see so they
all know who else is in the room. Um so u the two members of the public do if either of you want to make a comment at this time about something that doesn't appear later on the agenda now is the time to do that. So raise your
hand u please. So, I see Aiden Sabina or maybe Sabina Aiden and Maria. There's no last name. All right. So, thus far, neither of them have raised their hand to make a
comment. I'll give them a couple more seconds and then we'll move on. We actually our next item is advertised for n for 640, I believe. So, we will wait at least a minute here until it
turns into 640 to get to that item. I'm just looking at the clock, waiting for my clock to turn to 640. I do not see any hands raised from our two public attendees. [Music] All right, my clock just changed. I
don't know about yours. So, at this point, I'm going to conclude there are is no public comment uh offered this evening and we'll move on. Next item is a public hearing uh site plan review and a special permit request
advertised for 6:40 p.m. SPR 2025-08 and SP2025-01. [Music] The applicant is Archipelago Investments LLC. Project name is Gway and Lannon Lane. This hearing is continued from uh
five previous meetings, May 7th, June 4th, June 18th, July 16th, and August 20th. Request site plan review approval under section 3.325 of the zoning bylaw to construct a new mixeduse development
with three buildings including 140 residential units, approximately 12,000 square ft of commercial space, 180 parking spaces and associated site improvements, and request a special permit under footnote A of table 3,
article six of the zoning bylaw to modify the front set back beyond the m maximum required building height to exceed the maximum allowed and the number of floors to exceed the maximum allowed. This is located in the BVC village center
business zoning district. Uh the parcels uh on map 25B it's uh two parcels 52 and 58. All right. Um I believe uh from a email that was in
the packet the applicant has requested to continue to October 22nd. And uh Nate would it be correct that uh as in our past continuations we don't
want to take any testimony or have any discussion. We simply want to go to a motion to continue and and leave it at that. Correct. Yep. I I Yeah, I'll say that, you know, on the 22nd we could have
maybe a more discussion. Uh the applicant is still meeting with the conservation commission, so there really are no updates. I'm hoping by that date there'll be something. Okay. Um Okay. Jesse, I was going to move to continue to
October 22nd. All right. 6:40 6:40 p.m. Should we Nate or Pam? What do we have on the agenda? Would 6:40 work again? Um, actually 6:35 is what we we should
do. Yeah. Okay. Okay. 6:35. All right. Thank you. And Bruce, did I see you raise your finger to second it? Uh he has nodded yes for those who are just listening.
Okay. So we have a motion to continue to 6:35 at uh I'm sorry to October 22nd at 6:35 p.m. Uh so we'll go right into our vote for that.
Uh Bruce, why don't we start with you? I approve. All right. Uh, Fred, hi. Angus, yes. Jesse, I uh Johanna
I and I'm an I as well. That's six in favor, one absent. The motion carries. Okay. So, Bruce, I see your hand. Yes, Doug,
if I may just comment uh on on the uh on the archipelago application simply to say that um if anybody is curious here, um it might be uh worth looking at the uh October 27th Conservation Commission
hearing about 45 minutes in. Um and did you mean to say October 27th? Yeah. Uh I probably meant to say August 27th. August. Okay. Yeah. Uh uh I found that uh quite interesting and certainly
helped me manage my expectations around um this project. All right. August 27th. Yeah. Okay. Great.
Okay. Okay, the next item on the agenda is planning board reorganization and authorization. We still need to appoint a board liaison to the to the design review board.
So Nate, um I think at our last meeting you were going to talk to Karen on Yeah, excuse me. I didn't reach out to Karen. I I reached out to the town manager's office as they work with board and committee members. Um she's still on
the design review board and so it was a discussion um that was uh I think the town manager was out of the office a bit and kind of deciding you know how to proceed. So my understanding is that she, you know, Karen was voted the
planning board representative and uh the term expires next June. So they can, you know, Karen can continue sitting on the designu board. The planning board chooses another representative then we can you know move that forward. But you know at the last meeting it seemed like
everyone was you know had their had opportunities and no one volunteered. Okay. Uh board members, is there anyone since the last meeting that you suddenly have a burning desire to be on the DRB
starting now as opposed to maybe next next summer? All right. I am not seeing any hands raised or facial expressions indicating great excitement and urgency. All right, so we will leave it at that.
Nate, I guess if you can let the town manager know that we will not appoint a new member at this point. Uh the second item under that general category was related to authorization to sign
approval not required and subdivision plans. You want to kind of give an overview of that, Nate? Yeah. Uh typically every year along with the voting of officers, there's a a document a letter uh that's provided
that names the signatory authority for the planning board that gets filed with the town clerk and it might actually go to the registry too. Um but it it you know it it's a becomes a legal document to say here's who can sign on behalf of the board for these two two types of plans.
It does go to the registry name and the um the land records office. All right. And so generally it's the officers. You make a motion to approve the officers to
sign those ANRs or subdivision plans. All right. So it's just um me as chair. Uh, I'm forgetting who my vice chair is. It still is it still
and then secretary is who? Bruce. Bruce. All right. And we don't have a treasurer, do we? Um, so thank you for laughing, Bruce. Um, so the the the motion would be that the
board endorses having the chair, the vice chair, and the secretary authorized to sign the ANRS and the subdivision plans on behalf of the board. Is that accurate?
Okay. Uh, Bruce, so moved. All right, Jesse. I second that. All right. Thank you both. Uh any discussion among the board?
Not seeing any hands raised. Go ahead and go to a vote. We'll start at the end of the alphabet of your last names. That means I'm going to start with Johanna. I. Thank you.
And Jesse. I. and Angus. I and Fred I and Bruce I. And I am an I as well. That motion
carries. Six in favor, one absence. Thank you all. All right. So that's it for number four of our agenda. We can now move on to the meatiest probably part of the con of the
meeting which is the general housing discussion. Yes. Before we do, uh I thought also that there was a um a move to allow you alone to sign decisions. Is that something that also
needs a vote or is that just a a declaration? Uh Nate, we voted something like that last time, didn't we? Did we? Oh, I maybe I was Yeah, that was Yeah, thanks. That was voted. It's a You know, currently it's an internal document. I think that in the future if
we wanted to, we could change the rules and regulations or the public hearing. I think there is probably other things to update in the rules and rags, but for now, that's sufficient. My apologies. That's all right. Never hurts to check.
All right. Um, so next is general housing discussion. Um, continuing the discussion about potential changes in zoning for housing around town. Clearly, the last thing we've
talked about was an overlay for the apartment area in North Ammerst. Uh, who would who would want to open this? Nate, I think you sent around a a new document for us.
you are muted. Yeah, I was trying to get my screen set up. Yeah, thanks uh everyone. So, I think some of this also um you know there's a few reasons why I think it's nice to step back at the um previous housing subcommittee, housing and zoning subcommittee. There was some discussion
about, you know, why focus on North Ammerst and kind of what's the context and the idea of that? And I think, you know, Jesse and others said, well, you know, there's other parts of town. It's just it's easier to focus on one rather than a few out at the same time.
I also think it's kind of apppropo of the housing production plan being finished. Uh, and you know, I think um I think in well, it's not, you know, it's we've the planning board has recommended it. Uh the town council's referred it to CRC, the housing production plan. Uh but staff are still thinking about having the planning board and trust maybe meet
next month or early November to talk about housing strategies. And this would also then apply townwide. Um you know, it goes to the idea of having a zoning subcommittee as part of, you know, part of the housing committee too to look at zoning. And so kind of, you know, we have a zoning priorities list and how
does that work townwide? And so, you know, I think tonight could just be like, well, what are some other areas of interest? And it could be that it's what where would it meet the same kind of purpose and intent as the North Amoris overlay? And then also, what are other areas in town to explore for, you know,
new development or changes to zoning? And so, there was a few maps in the packet. One was kind of just a base map showing streets and properties. One was a figure ground and one was a um I'll call it a simplified zoning map. They try to symbolize, you know, commercial
and business zones and then residential zones and we can look at that as well. You know, there's also some other zoning districts. So, yeah, I think, you know, we the planning board, I guess, was gosh, it was two years ago already. We had extra meetings to talk about, you know, what
are some ideas around town? What are some areas to look at? And, you know, this to me, this is also a, you know, it's picking up on that conversation. I think the university drive overlay was you know some fruition of that discussion. We had talked about east Ammerst. We're looking at North Ammerst.
You know in the past there had been discussions about Gateway I'll just you know we can call that from you know downtown to university along North Pleasant. There's Olympia Drive uh where there's a few developments happening. Um you know and there's other parts of town. I mean there's other
village centers. There's other areas. And so I mean I can share my screen. We could just talk about it generally. I think you know the North Amoris overlay is interesting. It's an idea where it's probably predominantly students. You know I don't think we're necessarily going to zone for that. We could um but
you know if you look at the townwide map that area is proximal to the university and there's the ability to probably have multimmodal transportation to the campus and other places. And although there may be cars parked in this in that area, hopefully they're not driving, you know,
individually every day. Uh, you know, then maybe there's other parts of town that we could explore for other kinds of of zoning. We do have three institutions in town, you know, Hampshire College, Ammerst, and UMass. There's a lot of land there. Uh, I recently gave a presentation to council this week on the
master plan. You know, one of the questions that was asked, it was asked a few times, was what how much land in Ammeris is developable and what, you know, can we map it? And uh the housing production plan did that a little bit. I mean, generically speaking, we'd say that half of Amoris isn't developable.
And that's true to an extent. I think that, you know, there's conservation land, there's agricultural preservation land, there's um some institutional land, there's wetlands and riverfront, but you know, some institutional land could be developed. So, Ammeris College could develop some of its properties.
Hampshire and UMass could, you know, zoning could change. I think that but there is a fair amount of town that, you know, whether or not we zone it, you know, it has probably limited development potential uh just because of certain constraints. And so it's really
about okay what can we do in the other 50% of Ammerst that may have the infrastructure you know there isn't water and sewer everywhere water in most places there's you know a few places without um sewer that have septic so those are in the outlying areas south Ammerst and kind of
northeast Ammerst um so yeah I mean I think you know I think it's just good to kind of have the conversation you know and maybe you know and from that there can be other explorations So, you know, I just, you know, the housing production plan has a number of strategies. You
know, I'll mention cottage style development, right? So, multiple principal dwellings on a property or how, you know, I think we have to work on that. But, you know, it could be that we like this idea of having six to 10 units uh on a property or at some some area
and maybe that's appropriate in some zoning districts and maybe then we're also looking at, you know, some other strategy for somewhere else in town. So I, you know, from this conversation and with the zoning list, we could come up with a few ideas and we could continue to talk about over the next month or two. Um, you know, I think the overlay
in North Ammerst, I think it's at a point where we probably should have a public meeting about it. Uh, we can discuss it more tonight, but, you know, I think there's a lot of questions and concerns by residents in that area. I'm not sure, you know, how much support there is. Uh, generally speaking, I
think some of this conversation tonight is to kind of frame that as well to say, well, you know, we spent a long time talking about ADUs and the concern is that, oh my goodness, they're all going to be student rentals. It's like, well, let's could we talk about maybe where we could house students? It's really hard to zone for the end user. So, I was just
in a meeting today and someone said, well, is there a way we can change some of the development methods to prevent students? And I'm like, not really. Um, you know, you can do age restricted housing is allowed. Uh, and that's about it. affordable housing typically doesn't include students. It it does and there's
some variables there, but most often undergraduate students don't um qualify for affordable housing. So there's very few um legal mechanisms to you know zone or have development that's not for students. And so uh you know the reality
is our housing market has that. And there's other pieces to the development too. Is it mixed use? Is it economic development? Is it general growth? So, so Nate, um, you know, I think one way to zone for students is to z to do it geographically
because we know where their desire line is. So, if we, you know, upzone for students in the vicinity of the university, it's pretty likely students will end up in those
buildings if anything new is built. And um I mean that is a probably a a rational way to zone for students. Um but in terms of sort of the typology of the buildings, yeah, I agree that's
not very it's not practical to try to do that. Um I mean unless I suppose you could limit the number of kitchens or something to sort of turn them into quai dormitories that you know I mean I
suppose there's something you could do with that but I haven't thought about it much right yeah so we have the definition a residential use classification social dormatory which is different than an apartment right so the idea is a social dormatory is for metriculated students and it can include like sweet style living whereas an apartment is each unit
is a you know an individual dwelling unit, right? I guess the other thing I'll say is, you know, there are there's I don't know if it's a majority, but certainly there's a lot of people in town who don't want to see Ammerst change its character.
And so by doing by expanding the potential of the area right around the university, we hopeful I mean I guess we could in fact limit the amount of the rest of the town that changes
at least in terms of the built environment whether you know who lives in those old houses could change. Um, so that's one approach is to try to expand the housing right around the university
and leave everything else alone. And the other approach would be to take a more distributed I mean to to do it in a more distributed way so that we increase the massing of whether it's the village centers or it's
just along the major roadways or some other criteria or or or or everywhere. You know, we could just say we're going to eliminate single family, single house zoning throughout Ammerst and now you can have up to four units or six to 10
units or whatever we want to say and just see how that shakes out. Of course, that probably wouldn't get through council. Um, but you know, I I think we could talk about the different approaches before we get too far into the areas, but that's my
thoughts. Jesse, you've been patient. You're next. Thanks. Thanks, Doug. I just wanted to and thanks for the segue, too. I just wanted to reiterate this something Nate said when he started introducing the topic, but in a slightly different way,
which is just to say for the record that after University Drive, the increasing density at already apartmentzone properties was the next sort of biggest impact at least the subcommittee imagined we could make.
given the proximity to the university and that it's already somewhat dense and the physical topography of the north emmerce that we're talking about really lends itself to density that exactly what you said Doug would not change the
physical look of the majority of well certainly that neighborhood and even to the eyes of people driving by and so that's at least why the in large part why the subcommittee focused on North Ammerst first and that was sort of the order. If my memor is correct, you're
right. Two years ago when I first joined the board, we had those meetings. We looked at the different areas and we all agreed that University Drive seemed like the sort of simplest way to start and that North Ammerst was an attractive second. If I recall, I think we had talked about East Ammerst. We debated
what would be next, East Ammerst or North Ammerst. And again, the point really I'm trying to make is North Ammeris is by no way the only place we're looking at to decrease pressure on the neighborhoods
in all of Amoris with student rentals. That's it for now. Thanks. Yeah, I think the um Yeah, I was just going to jump in, Doug. I think geographically is a great approach for students. I think you know there's the existing village centers and then there's major roadways. Um, you know,
for instance, East Ammeris, what we had talked about at one point was, you know, say from railro the rail from Hamshaw Lumber, you know, down to however far you want to go on College Street and beyond. Could it go to the Fort River and, you know, Gate House Road area? Does it stop at the intersection by Florence Savings Bank and Cumberland
Farms? In any event, you know, there could be increased density there. Uh, and then the discussion was, well, right, depending on how it's designed, is it mostly students? Is that where we want to have people then commuting through town? At the same time, you know, I feel like there is some ability
to say, well, we do a few things at the same time. You know, maybe East Ammeris is um, you know, you can have a density bonus or increase floor if you have, say, more affordability or I think, you know, a 40R district is the town has applied for a technical assistance grant to look at a 40R district, which is a,
you know, smart growth zoning overlay with some percentage of affordable housing, 20 or 25% and some minimum densities and design standards. uh you know and we you know I think East Ammeris is one area we mentioned and there's a few others in town and so you know there could be some other creative
ideas to say well maybe we you know we do a few things we we look at a few overlays or a few areas around campus then we also look at this smart growth zoning for East Ammerst to achieve some other density with some affordability component um you know and I you know and
I I think they all could happen it's it's a matter of kind of I guess capacity and time and what we think is reasonable You know, I you know, I'm I'm I get it. North Ammeris, right? So, to Jesse's point, North Ammeris residents will say it's already the densest part of town
given the amount of um multi-unit developments there. And so, the concern is well, how how does all that play out in terms of emergency response and traffic impacts and visual impacts? And so, I think, you know, what the overlay what we've done so far to me is I think
that there's a really nice framework there. And some of it is, you know, I think having some public meetings about it, making some tweaks, but I think there's there's always going to be that concern, right? So, if we said, you know, the area of north of Fearing, let's densify it in on Olympia Drive, you know, some areas might be a little
bit more isolated from existing neighborhoods. But I think geographically uh in 2000 the early 2010s you know the university town gown relation UTAC steering committee they also identified a few areas proximal to the university and said these make a lot of sense and
one was actually redeveloping the university apartments with more density and one of their concepts was essentially putting in a second street and having a grid network and looked like basically townhouse developments and they said without much density or without much height you could you know double density just having a different
site layout. wasn't nearly as open as it is now. Um, you know, Massav is an area where, you know, it's still university land, but is there public private partnerships possibilities? And so, you know, even if there's to me it's like if we say Massav is a great location, whether or not I think to me it would be
nice to have a map that said here are some areas identified whether or not we work on them or if it's an imminent possibility, it's nice to say for the conversation with North Amoris, here are all these other areas that are possibilities that will be examined and assessed at some point in more depth. All right, Bruce.
Um, the the the most consequential uh objection that I've heard so far, so far as the North Amist proposition is concerned, uh, the proposition to an overlay that would increase
potentially three-fold, probably three-fold, that seems to be our so-called magic number. um the most consequential objection, you know, we've heard the traffic objection, we've heard the party noise objection and and it there are ways in which we've
responded to that by saying we could do this, we could do that, management plans, reduced or eliminate parking. Um al there are workarounds, potentially workarounds. Uh but um Kathy Shane uh
when she was on she said um you know the existing housing at uh say Puffton Village uh there's a lot of it there and we would be talking about substituting um three times as many new units for the
the units that are currently there. She said those units that are currently there are rather affordably rented. Um, and the new units, she asserted, would likely be far more expensive to rent,
all of them, except of course the affordable uh housing fraction, which is 12%. And I I can't think of a work I I think she's I think she's right. And I can't think of a workaround for that. But it
seems to be um something that we have to respond to, think about or accept. Um we we should at least I think quantify it by understanding what the current rents are and we can reasonably reasonably project what the new rents are. So at
least we could bracket that concern by putting numbers on it or data around it. But um whereas I we've come up with um I'll use the term workarounds just because it's easier for the purposes of
conversation for other um large concerns that uh we and the population you know we have um but is there a way is there a workaround for this concern and I mean I don't think we
can obligate we might not even be able to incentivize uh new developers to uh uh redevelopers to provide uh a greater fraction uh or have put some kind of
rent cap or on it. Um but it's uh so I don't know what that I don't know what I don't know what a workaround for this concern is and I think it's uh it's a real one. So I guess I would ask who among us shares this concern? uh have I
characterized it accurately or in in in insufficiently or misccharacterized it in some way that would help may wrestle this one along? Um do we agree that this is perhaps the most consequential objection we're
likely to encounter? Uh Jesse, thanks. Um yes, I I assume you're responding to Bruce. Let's let's do that before you do your next comment. No, that's why I raised my hand. Um, this came up at our meeting last week at
the subcommittee as well. Uh, I totally agree. That's a important concern. I'm not sure I agree with the statement though. anecdotal evidence from my own family and their friends who live in
Puffton Village, for example, tell tell me it's not at all cheaper than other places around town. So, I don't have a good amount of data, but that's what I think we do need. Um, I'm not sure how easy that will be to gather. I'm not sure if the actual data what's happening
is on the leases in a couple examples I do know of where people are not on leases and living in a shared bedroom and paying pretty high amounts of money. So I don't know how we're going to gather the accurate information but I totally agree we should try not just for this area but around town
and I was also just trying to find a while ago someone I think maybe it was Janet had compiled a list of rents and local places that was circulated I think among planning board. I'll dig that up also to see what it is. All right. I assume uh Nate as part of
the rental registration program are the do the landlords indicate the rent that's charged or not? Not necessarily. I mean, I was uh after the housing subcommittee meeting, I was looking at um um like the off-campus housing office at UMass and other, you
know, like apartment rentals.com or whatever. And, you know, looking at the rates and it's it's it's hard because there's sometimes there's a range and so, you know, in some places it looked like maybe the units were cheaper, in others it it didn't. You know, they say the per bedroom cost if you wanted to
break it down that way. Um, but yeah, I think we could we could source some data and, you know, present it. Um, do they do the landlords have websites that say here's here's the rooms I have and
Yeah, the property managers. Yeah. Yeah. I would think that that that information would be somewhat advertised. I feel like it's a prisoner's dilemma though, right? that kind of game, the economic game where it's like, you know, you don't know what the other one's charging, so everyone keeps charging
more and it's a, you know, so if we think that someone can get so much and we know that it's, you know, whether or not they're new apartments, but, you know, between Fieldstone and 11 to 13 East Pleasant and however else, whatever else is in the area, you know, that becomes the benchmark. And so, yeah,
agree that if, you know, these were new units and they're, you know, they will be nicer maybe or bigger, whatever, they will be more expensive. I think it's a really difficult thing to um to manage that. I would say the idea would be that let's get enough housing supply where maybe there's vac a vacancy
rate that the the prices stabilize. Um it's hard to manage through zoning. You know there probably some a few mechanisms we can incentivize more affordability or more units or deeper affordability but it wouldn't cover all of the units, right? It would just be a
focused amount. All right, Angus and then Johanna. Yeah, I just have a quick comment which was um in the planning subcommittee we we I looked up what um Puffton was charging. It was about $1,000 per bedroom. So um they have different sized units and so
that that there's some flexibility there, but that's not a particularly cheap unit um to start with. And I guess I would just, you know, um, echo what what Nate is asserting that I tripling the supply of available apartments in that area would, yes, if they're newer,
there there could be some upward price pressure on rents, but if we if we continue to try to push greater supply, it's going to alleviate the housing issues with students and drive down rents across town entirely. I mean, that's just basic supply and demand.
All right, Johanna, that's what I was going to say. Supply and demand curves. So, I'd be happy to see data, but I have enough information tonight, and I don't think it's worth spending staff time like looking up rents throughout town. Um, and I So,
Bruce, I guess in your question, I don't know that this would satisfy counselor Shane, but I would just go back to basic market principles of supply and demand and that when we increase supply, costs go down. I'll make it my business to find the
answers to rental in Huffton Village and so I can I'll make a little two paragraph report on that. But uh it sounds like uh what the three things that have been said that maybe my concern is not as uh uh doesn't rise to
the height that level that I may have believed it would. Thank you for that. Um, I I I was going to comment, Bruce, that uh I think any any new construction is going to re is going to set the
benchmark for the town because if some if there's plenty of demand and somebody has to pay that amount, the other landlords are going to adjust their rent to however competitive in comparison to that new construction they have to be in
order to attract the ten tenants that they want. Um, so if if somebody's charging a low amount now, it's mean meaning that they don't want to compete with the high-end quality market or something, they can still do that, but
they would be able to raise their rent just because um the prevalence of higher rent in town would be greater because there'd be new construction. Um, all right. So Nate, I I'm going to let
you jump ahead of Jesse just because you may have something about this topic before we leave it. Yeah, I was imagine Bruce, I can help uh with those rent um pieces and also the housing production plan. So the 2013 plan and then the recent plan might also have I know the 13 one did. I think this
one may have had a chart with a um you know with properties and their rent. So I you know I can I can look for that and provide it to you. I you know I don't you know I don't think we have to dig too hard. Um but I think there's already some information already available and we could you know if it's the same
apartments or the same properties from 13 to recently we could just you know have you know some comparisons over the last 10 15 years and provide that information. All right. Uh, Bruce, I'd also say I'd rather see more capacity in town, even
if that means the average rent goes up a little bit for student housing at least. Um, okay. Uh, Jesse, you had your hand up. Is there do you want did you have a new topic or anything? Just maybe a last comment on this topic which was just I
don't think I think the goal of gathering data is to be prepared for that that um objection raised that we're taking away the lower income housing not so much to convince us. So I think we need to have data from these
places but also from other places around town. Um the newest places are very transparent. And I think that all the websites advertise the amounts, but I do think all of these that we're talking about are probably more than a lot of the single family housing that's available. Probably because there's more
than four renters in most houses, but I don't know how to tackle that one in terms of presenting data. Yeah, my only data is that the house across the street from me only has four cars in front of it this year as opposed to five. So maybe maybe we're hitting
capacity here. Uh all right. Um Nate, did we get enough out of this conversation this evening? Should we move on or do we want to talk some more? I'll share my screen just quickly. Um if
this is visible for folks let me uh it is unless you want us to look at parcels. No I mean I think just generally this is a figure ground. Uh this is north amoris for now. So here's where my cursor is is
the overlay area we're talking about. Kushman's over here and so you know there is um you know there's always been ideas like can you connect this neighborhood through or you know do certain things um you know it's we haven't added many new roads right so
it's what kind of infrastructure do we have I think if I go over here to the zoning map here's the same area and so you know the dark purple and purple is what are say our business zones and the the the I guess this is like yellow and browns are residential zones So, you
know, in North Amoris, here's the overlay in this area. There is a village center nearby. There's not a lot of area zoned in Ammeris for, you know, what would be we consider like a business area. Um, this is a um, you know, so I think it's
just it's it's just worth noting. So, you know, if we increase density here, to me, there's a a benefit to the village center here. As we're moving further down to the town center, you know, here's here's the downtown. So, you know, our BG and BL district isn't that, you know, it's it's almost like
one property wide off North Pleasant Street and Triangle Streets. Here's the railroad tracks. And here's East Ammerst. Uh here's, you know, commercial district along Route 9. So, most of downtown is surrounded by residential zoning.
You know, if we're keeping moving south, here's Pomeroy Village intersection. So, village center residence uh zoning, some commercial zoning. You know, South Ammerst is mostly residential, the South Ammerst area, and then Atkins has, you
know, the few areas zoned for um you business village center. And so, you know, if we're talking about density and what's allowed now, there's few areas in town that could accommodate say what we provided um you know, what can
be done in in these areas that are darker purple, right? So, if we want to have four-story buildings uh in multi-unit development, you know, if you're looking at the zoning map, most of the areas in town wouldn't support it right now. And so, that's to say, you know, if we talk about this, we say,
"Oh, we like East Ammerst. We like, you know, this area north of um, you know, we'll call it, we'll say the old gateway, we like some areas up in North Ammerst or East Ammerst." You know, I think that's great to have. And then some of it would be okay well what's what does the zoning allow now and how
do we move about changing that and so you know the reason why we do overlays is if we said well let's just change the area here in North Ammeris to allow so many units per acre and it's this zoning district you can see that this zoning district covers a lot of areas of town
and so we've just made that change zoning you know for the whole district and so usually that's why we'd approach it from the overlay perspective I think uh you know It may be that some of these other zones could be changed. So, you know, if we think RVC is in the right
location, but it doesn't allow the right density, do we tweak just the RVC zones, you know, as we get down closer into kind of the the details of how this, you know, the mechanics of how this would work? So, I think that's, you know, I think for now I think we have some a good start. I, you know, I wouldn't mind
hearing a few areas that we would want to consider and staff could, you know, refine that with another map. So, um, you know, if we had different, we've mentioned a few tonight and if we have a few more, I think that's a good start. Well, well, Nate, um, because most of
these business areas that are allowed where density is allowed are surrounded by residential, you know, we get a lot of push back on any any contemplation of expanding those areas into the residential neighborhood.
But I think there are probably a number of places where from a sort of urban urban structure point of view, you could expand those areas slightly and and get,
you know, incre incremental expansion. Um, and whether that would be an overlay or whether it would just be a change of zoning of a few parcels from one from a bit from a residential use to a business use. I mean, I guess we could get your
advice on how to do that. Um, one other thing I'll say, um, we've mostly talked when we've talked about density about allowing higher and larger buildings. Um, another way to do it would be to
um to basically reduce the minimum lot size and allow say row houses. You know, uh the minimum lot size could be 16 feet wide and 100 ft deep. And um you
know, my halfacre could be split into four or five rowouses if if you did something like that. and and that kind of uh zoning could be more supportive of individual family ownership.
Uh whereas the large buildings, they're going to be rental units pretty much forever. Um, so you know, I think we do have some influence on the ownership structure and possibly the
occupancy depending on how we geographically configured it. All right. Now, Jesse and then Angus. Great. Thanks, Doug. I completely agree with everything you just said. Um, and that leads
Where would you do that? Well, that leads nicely into what I was going to say. So, so with full transparency that it literally is my backyard, um I think I'd love to have a deeper look at not just what was previously called Gateway, but basically
north of Fearing, so the the area immediately abuing the campus. And the reason I, you know, to me that's another prime location just like the university, the North Amoris area we're looking at because we can increase density and
limit the number of cars because students can easily walk and bike to campus in town. And I think that to me is a pretty high priority when we're thinking about areas. Um, that's a constant conversation with all of our development proposals that we talk about
in planning board is what's the right number of cars? How do we reduce more traffic? All this over and over and over again. And so I think that's perfect. And I think that little strip between campus and fairing is basically perfect for what you just said, Doug. This idea of townhouse building or some other
style of allowable building that increases density without massively increasing height or uh footprint. Okay, Angus. Yeah, I I I would ag that that I think
that makes a lot of sense, Jesse. Um I think that that's a a wise idea. Um and I guess I also wonder um I don't want to derail our conversation. Are we are we thinking of talking about zoning priorities in this discussion as well or is that a separate
thing for later in the meeting? I I don't want to preempt things. That's going to come later under the housing subcommittee report, but I guess you could pull a few things if Well, I I I'm just thinking, you know, several of the things that we're thinking about here are also zoning
related. Um, and so I like one of the things that I was just looking at is, you know, would it be possible, you know, rather than thinking about if if overlays seem like they're going to be kind of difficult, I think there's other ways that might be um worth considering.
I mean, for instance, that commercial strip over on College Street, um, we we don't currently allow town houses or apartments in the commercial zone. There's only a few commercial zones in town. And so, that's one thing that we could consider um
short of of an actual overlay to try and drive some some changes um in some of these pockets where where it might be appropriate. Um, that was just one of the things that I was thinking about in addition to thinking about um redefining
apartments to be slightly larger or or creating a kind of tiered classification of apartments so that in some specific areas we could possibly consider larger apartment buildings without doing going through the whole process of an overlay.
That's all. All right, great Bruce. Um, I I like uh the the suggestion that Jesse made coupled with your suggestion, Doug. Um, when you made your suggestion,
which was row houses, I thought, yes, that's that's a that's a very um that's a great way of making uh good cubrious uh dense uh housing that can be purchased, owned, and and uh and people
can identify with. I know because a greater part of Melbourne where I was born and grew up and and and lived uh ultimately uh in the center is is rowouses exactly that 16 18 20 ft wide
and um and 120 plus or minus feet deep and uh however it's a very different streetscape uh um as image from the street. And I think it would be jarring to do it uh um
unless it was done more uniformly in a district. And it would seem that the uh district that you're suggesting, Jesse, would be a very good place to encourage exactly that. either that or maybe encourage the kind of um cottage style
cluster um things that um I'm blanking on the guy Ross Chapens famously uh did some very nice work an architect in the on in in in Washington state Seattle area but uh if
we were to take that area that you're suggesting Jesse and and and treat it as an overlay a but not the way we're thinking about um North Amist or even University Drive but but with a different style of housing that would uh
fit would change the neighborhood but it would change it agreeably I think and very interestingly and effectively from our in terms of our broad goals. So I like that idea. I like the I like the I like the coupling of what you said Doug and what you said Jesse. I think that's
a a a good idea and it's also something that Jesse I know you've been uh proposing or suggesting that when we go and talk to uh this with other parts with with North Ammeris with people around town that
it's nice to have a say well this is what we're thinking of for North Ammeris this is what we're thinking of for fearing and and I will finish with a an even more shall we say far more outrageous proposition uh because you've got the map up in front of us here and
and it was uh because I drive up and down East Pleasant Street all the time and you can see uh just keep it there. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't move it. Um, right opposite the uh
I think the uh well the the on the on the north on the east side of East Pleasant Street right down the bottom of that little leg of conservation uh whether it's watershed protection or whatever the it's the
diagonally hatched uh land on the east side of East Pleasant Street. Um the point is that on that side the land slopes fairly steeply down to that blue uh lagoon that's there. I guess it's the
flood protection FP zone. Um but the the top part of it is is uh is thoroughly buildable upland and my sense was well this has been blanketly uh put into conservation but
the the top sliver of that conservation along East Pleasant Street opposite the university would be a very good place to put student housing because it would be exactly where we want it and it would be uh away from almost all housing. Um, uh,
parking of course would have to be taken, but that that somehow wrestling some of that land out of conservation from a logical point of land use point of view, at least my logical land use point of view, would be another very good place. I just don't know whether you could achieve it.
Hey Nate, could you bring up the figure ground again so Bruce can describe this location again? Um, well, is it north of north of Eastman Lane, north of the fire station? No, it's south of that. Well, south of
that. Um, uh, it's those parcels there, which are all owned by uh by the Kestrel Trust. Um, Oh, I see. Yeah. So, it's this it's it's
Okay. Yeah. But but not that big circle. Just a sliver um 100 or 200 feet in from East Pleasant Street. You could do a very nice um Steven Hull type I don't know
Steven Hull Alva Alto type uh MIT building along Memorial Drive just you know just like that along that it would be a wall on that street. It would be a beautiful um opportunity. It would look wonderful. It would serve the purpose. It's a it's a it's in terms of what
we're trying to achieve. It's a it's a perfect opportunity. It's just that it happens to be in a place which we probably can't touch. What a shame. Well, okay. So, you're talking about right across from the water tower.
Yes. Right across and a little bit up. Little bit north. Yes. Okay. Well, I will say I have kind of coveted that row of houses there along there, too, because, you know, it's sort of a single set of frontage.
I'm I'm I'm sure whoever lives there would hate me for saying it, but, you know, if we It would be a relatively low impact reszoning that could allow a fairly large amount of housing. that did did a was
attractive and could house a lot of students right along that frontage. Yes. Those houses are kind of a single single depth because the next houses to the
east are accessed off of Chestnut Street or rather off of Strong Street and they're their own culde-sac. Yeah. Well, uh I mean one one one way of thinking about that with if if the zoning was to increase the value of
those houses enough that would perhaps be welcomed or at least not objected to. We wouldn't force them to to move. We'd just have an incentive to be bought out and and so that would uh that's I think a little north of uh well maybe you
should have do have Nate point out your houses. Um, is it the houses south of the those ones there? Yeah, that's the section from Strong Street up to the last house that I was thinking about. Oh, okay. And then north of that is the land
that's not developed. Yeah. And then after that there, that one next house north is a fairly historic uh I don't remember whose house it is, but it's like from 1720 or something.
Well, that could be moved. Well, maybe, you know, so from there all the way up to what is it? Olympia Drive or what's the next road? Yeah. I'm just saying that's really a really attractive location for what we're trying to achieve.
And maybe we maybe we list it as a place of interest. Really, really piss off about 10 people, 10 10 households. Well, we might not really really piss them off. We might we might just wait for them to die and their heirs are
happy as Larry. Okay. All right. Yeah. I I was going to uh just jump in quickly. The idea, Doug, of smaller lots is something in the zoning priorities. There's a 40 Y which is a a starter home
overlay and it's something staff talked about and has talked about but you know in the housing production plan and a number of documents we said the the zoning north um um of Triangle Street you know here's Kendrick Park. here and then even on the
west side of Kendrick Park has always said well especially in the housing production plan it shows I think both plans and other documents show this as like townhouse style development and right now it's really just one or two big lots and so you know to me it's like well if not an overlay right is there
some way to say you know you could have really small lots here to encourage um you know essentially it can be multi-unit development but everything's on its own parcel so it can be a fee simple arrangement uh even here as well. And so um 40 Y
allows much smaller lots. The idea is to have starter homes. And so Mansfield is trying to do it. Mansfield, Mass. And they're essentially creating what is a cluster subdivision with really small lots. Some are a single family home, some are duplexes with a party wall, but you know, they're trying to encourage,
you know, much smaller lots and have a fee simple ownership. I agree it's, you know, there's a way to try to incentivize it. Um, we could try to have some zoning in place in certain areas to allow this. You know, my thought is if we what Jesse was saying north of Fearing in this area would be,
you know, we could do an overlay or have something that says, well, you know, you have to have a townhouse style development, you know, and have some design guideline. So, it isn't just a massive five-story building. It could be, you know, you know, for instance, if um yeah, so there's probably a different
a few different ways to do it, whether it's, you know, one property or or smaller properties, but I like the idea of smaller properties. And so that also speaks to cottage style development. you know, if you know, if we like having a few single, you know, principal
dwellings on a property, you know, could it be designed so that each one is on its own piece of land or, you know, otherwise it becomes like a condoized development, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but it could be interesting to allow, you know, four homes on a lot and each have them be on their own lot.
It's it's just a different development approach. Yeah. I mean, you you kind of know from earlier conversations with me, but the the first the two properties you highlighted kind of near Kendrick,
you know, I I think that whole area could be larger scale than starter homes. That to me is a waste of high premium real estate. Um, you know, it's right downtown. Um, but that's a conversation perhaps
for another day. Yeah. And I Yeah, I didn't mean, you know, starter homes per se. I just like the idea is that the the state is having this 40y allowing much smaller lots for starter homes. But I think you take that idea what what's the advantage of using the 40y as opposed to just zoning for
smaller lots. Why why do you need the 40 thing? Yeah, I think you know there's a there's a small financial incentive and some of it would be well you could say you're using the state tool so the town can get some you know points on a grant application. I agree there's not you
know I I actually think that um it's probably easier to do it locally without going through the 40y process in some instances. And so, you know, for the west side of Kendrick Park and Triangle Street, to me, we would say, well, I like the idea of, you know, townhouse or row style, three stories, maybe four
under a roof, and that's not starter home, but I like the idea of having smaller lots, uh, you know, to encourage a different kind of development approach than say just a big apartment building. So well and that that kind of development often has an alley at the back that prov
was where you put the trash and you park. Um and you know we have a really lousy street grid. In other words, we don't really have a grid at all. Um,
so have have you guys ever thought about, you know, where would you create new public roads if you had had your brothers uh more frontage? Yeah. I don't know if it's been done um not as a a plan, you know, say a a more
multi-ep department approach, you know. Um Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I mean at one point if we're uh scrolling down the map, you know, it was contemplated that there'd be another street here, right? Um between North Prospect and Lincoln. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. No, I think originally that was the idea when this was laid out. Um, I've always thought prospects if it would be pretty easy to blow through to the next road north and pick up that that street right ac o opposite that
you know could could prospect continue all the way up to fearing right yeah I mean I think what you said Doug about alleys it's why the triangle street properties here um are you know why consultants look at it because they're big enough that you
still can have frontage develop and you still then can have parking or another access around it just the way it is now. And so it um you know and it's a nice area for a transition. I think if we were talking about the commercial area down in College Street, there are some wetland constraints, but same thing there's the
ability in some areas to have if not uh roads but alleys behind buildings so that you know you can put buildings up front and have parking and other things behind. Yeah. I mean, I I think when you described the C College Street zone, you
started at Hamshaw and right talked about going all the way down to Southeast Street. I thought we actually talked about going all the way out to Rolling Ridge or Yeah, I think we talked about going to about here. Yeah.
Yep. So, but but that whole area, you know, seems like it's more because of its it's because it's not proximate to the university. You know, if we put 10,000 students over there,
we'd have huge traffic jams getting going through town to get to the university. So that kind of the the uh development along College Street and Belchuretown Road seemed like they you know those
might be more geared towards families or you know small individual owners and you know that kind of thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I know just looking at the figure ground it's like okay well if you did allow smaller lots here and some some design it's like
could you have you know much more density without having you know you could just even allow twotory buildings but it would just you know you could have much more density along the stretch of road. How many stories is that new new building just
south of the Florence Bank on Yeah, that's right here. That's um I think it's only three stories with a roof. Is that right? Three with a roof. Okay. That's my recollection. Yeah. All right. So, it's So, it seems to me you could do three stories through a lot
of that area without any without too much resistance. Yeah. I think, you know, so if we toggle back and forth, I think what they what they benefited from was um this little piece of zoning that they
were that allowed three stories. You know, across the street does as well, but then everywhere else in East Ammerst, right? You're limited to, you know, commercial doesn't really allow much development at all because of the additional lot area per unit. Uh and then the the rest of the zoning in East Ammerst doesn't allow any really
multi-unit development. So, you're right. There's a really limited ability right now in that area. Yeah. Wasn't it um Kyle Wilson who said only 2% of Ammeris could be developed for multifamily housing or something?
Yeah, it's Yeah, it's actually a little less than 2%. So if 50% is not developable at all, that would mean 4% of the developable land or a little less is actually available
for multif family, right? Yeah. I you know you know I think the housing production plan is a nice jumping off point too where you know I think the town you know we allowed all these multi-unit developments in the 60s and 70s and then changed our zoning and so for the last so many years we haven't
allowed in all this area that's residentially zoned we have town houses and apartments by special permit and other you know lot area or other requirements that really limits their their development and some of it is because you know these zones are so big and so you know right for instance if
we're thinking about East Ammerst you know, that's where to me, uh, you know, an overlay or some other approach here. You know, like I said, if you change the zoning for this, you know, this zone is, you know, all over town. Um, but right, maybe these areas really do need some other some other uh whether
it's a zoning approach or some other idea. Yeah. Because I think I mean, there certainly are places like like Cambridge, Mass, which have a lot of great many zoning districts, right? um they have some overlays too, but but
we could split some of these larger areas into many small areas and treat them on a more case byase basis, right? or you know like so we have resident village center and business village center and it's like well do we make a tweak to resident village center
and then reszone because there's not much res zone for resident village center and do we just then extend the RVC in certain areas and say well now we can allow town houses and smaller apartment buildings as opposed to just opening up to you know five stories we allow threetory
development in the RVC and we just you know we can move those zone lines right I think there's probably a few I think that's a an interesting approach. All right. Um, any more? Johanna,
this has been a really interesting discussion and I'm trying to figure out a little bit of like what's the form we give it to go from here. And then I went into this and have been listening, but I keep coming back to the idea that we should be guided by our town's master
plan. like that was and yes it's a little bit dated but I think by and large it is still like what should be guiding our development and that leads me to really uh focus on the downtown and the village centers
and as somebody who works has spent the past two years working in a building on the north end of town the whole um shape of it feels incomplete. It's like uh and so I don't I don't quite know what's
going on there, but like we have this beautiful park and then we have this like weird incomplete disjointed streetscape that where like a pedestrian often is walking in the middle of roads and it just like it just doesn't hang together conceptually. Um so I I'm
interested in that. Uh, and then the north of fearing idea I think sounds great. Um, and I like, you know, I like the idea of um, I guess
first and foremost being guided by the master plan. Okay. And that north pleasant area like that seems that seems like a great spot to add student density. Okay, that's what I got. Okay. Yeah. Tijana. Were you talking
about the mill district? The north Amoris center. No, the north end of downtown. Oh, the north end of downtown. Okay. Where the like around that Rotary. Okay. And you know, right now there's just a ton of like surface street parking in
what is like prime. Like who wouldn't want to live there? It's amaz. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The land use policy map. We can I can send that around from the master plan. So yeah, but Johanna is saying too, right? So on the corner of
um so here's the here's the Kendrick Park, but you know there's Triangle Street and then even up along this area, you know, there's a few properties owned by the housing authority, but you know, I think the redevelopment potential is could be pretty high here and then even along
North Pleasant. So here's beginning, you know, East Pleasant and North Pleasant and just in this area, the master plan, you know, here's the land use policy. Sorry to correct you, but even a little bit farther south, like all the way up to where
I would loop in that bank parcel. Yeah. Yeah. So, starting here at Triangle Street or starting at Prey Street and going Prey Street. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Praise. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you know uh I was going to give an update later but you know the Dodson on Flinker downtown design
standards they've they have some draft standards they're trying to get a working group meeting going in the next two weeks and then it'll become public at some point they'd like to come to the planning board in October and start shopping around to boards and so they have some ideas for some of these areas and then maybe you know they don't go as
far north or some of these but we could take what they're doing and say well can we apply it elsewhere I think they have some nice ideas the land use policy map from the master plan. I'll send that around. Yeah. So, you know, really in 1973, the town had a
a a plan that said identified these village centers, open space around, and then having some density. the zoning kind of responded, but there was never really there hasn't been a big zoning change in an effort to say here's where we like commercial development and
retail or active streets or here's kind of how we want to tier, you know, have some hierarchy moving outward from the village center. Uh, and so the master plan is still in in effect. The charter asked that it be updated every 20 years. So around 2030 is when we need a new
master plan. So the idea would be probably in a few years we'd start to work on updating the master plan. You know, I agree. I think most I just looked at it for the council. Most of it is still really good. A lot of the things they say are good. I think some of their overall goals are I think need
to be re reconsidered. So like preserving community character, you know, at some point it's like well what does that really mean as a goal? Um and you know then and then the next goal is you know have economic vitality and grow and change and it's like okay well you know how do you balance those and what
what do those mean together? Um but you know right if we look at the master plan map it's like where do we have infrastructure where where do we already have development and you know there's a few village centers in downtown that really make sense. I think even Pomeoy has some potential. Maybe even around
Atkins with Hampshire College land, but you know, the South Amoris area, uh, it's very rural. There's not public transportation and infrastructure. You know, the town's been looking at the South Amoris school and, you know, some of the ideas are, do we have a smaller devel affordable housing development
there of maybe 10 or 12 units? You know, we're not going to propose a five-story building, but right, I think some of those areas we've identified tonight are worth looking at. Lastly, I'll say these purple areas are professional research park or industrial
or commercial zones. Uh there's some in North Amoris and you know they've been there for a long time and they haven't realized anything yet. And so one of the ideas is does our professional research park or certain zones, you know, could they be reszoned to also allow for
housing? Um you know, are they in the right locations? But, you know, we wouldn't I wouldn't take away the zone that they're there now and what they allow, but would we add to it uh given that, you know, in 40 years they haven't been uh used. Maybe they'll maybe
that'll change, maybe not, but I think that's another consideration. Okay. Um Angus and then Jara. Jar's here. Uh I I I actually noticed that Jara arrived just before 7:30. I'm
saying this for the record, so Oh, okay. Pam can record that. I'm at 7:34, so I'll change that to 7:30. Yeah, I thought I My clock said 7:28 when I first noticed. Jared, 7:28. Okay. Yeah.
All right. We want to give you credit for every minute you're here, Jared. Okay, Angus, go ahead. Yeah, I'm just finding this conversation really exciting. um and and thinking about some of these different options. And I just want to um I think second
what Johanna is saying um that that using the master plan to guide this um infill work that we're trying to think about doing and developing areas that are already dense. I think there's there's different ways to think about that. We're we're exploring this North
Ammerst overlay, which I think is a great option. Um, and I think one of the things that that I'm also hearing is um thinking about the BBC and RVC zones um and how to possibly think about
increasing density in them and then extending them farther into different um to include different parcels along major frontage roads um is maybe another strategy to think about. um that would be maybe a little bit easier, more
systemic than doing individual overlays. Um and we could do a couple of them all at the same time, which would also make it maybe easier for the town council to debate and think about it. Um, you know, again, without without going crazy, but
just trying to think about some of these like along Belchuretown Road, along College Street, um, you know, the the portions we've talked about on East Pleasant, all of these, I think, you know, could could stand to be portions of them could stand to be reszoned and
we could think about densifying some of those RVC, BBC zones. Thanks. All right, Cara. Um, hi everyone. I I totally agree with Angus. This is a really exciting and
interesting conversation and uh I apologize for my tardiness. Um, but so I I have two questions. um as part of the housing production plan
like community engagement process were there any geographically based exercises like for instance um you know I've uh put together events where we
have you know red dots represent multif family blue dots represent single family green is you know preserving open space or something like that and having people look at an actual map of the town or the county or whatever and using that like
density analysis to see where people feel like different housing types might be appropriate. Was there ever I guess my question is was there anything like that as as a part of the housing production plan process? And um if not, like what other geographically specific
advice did the production plan give us in terms of where to look for additional opportunities for housing, right? Yeah. I think the um there was a community survey. There was a few hundred responses and there was a few questions that actually asked, you know,
I I forget now when we when we um was eventually, you know, finalized in its form, but it did ask some questions to try to get people to say, "Where do you want density?" And we had maybe a drop down menu of specific areas as opposed to just generically we're trying to I
don't want to say force a response, but actually have people say where they do or don't want it as opposed to more um broadly. I think in one of the forums they also did do kind of the dots or uh some some stickers. Uh so there is some of that. I I'd have to you know research
it a little bit. I know we did. I just I'm not sure what the responses were. In terms of the sites, you know, part of the housing production plan is identifying areas where they you you know where some of the strategies could be implemented. And so in this housing production plan, there was a few sites
that uh the property owner said they would be willing to put in there and could be open to the possibility of something happening. So you know uh previously in the old previous housing production plan, we just took, you know, East Ammerst and uh the uh Bank of
America parking lot off South Prospect and there's a a vacant property down in Pomeroy and just said, could you develop those using different housing typologies? So each, you know, this is like corridor development. This was kind of cottage style. This was, you know, more dense infill. And this current
housing production plan, there's like, I don't know, three to five sites. And same thing, but the idea was maybe these are actually sites that could then be followed up with and have real development happen as opposed to being just kind of a more hypothetical. Uh, but I think we haven't, you know, we
haven't identified yet kind of that parcel specific approach. Um I I you know from this conversation I think I have like a dozen areas. Some of it would be if we you know if we start honing in on something you know then it is uh probably time to talk to some
property owners or neighbors and say you know what is the appetite for some of this and you know what's you know what what could happen. I I think um you know the idea of like East Ammerst there's a lot of opportunity there given that the zoning doesn't limit much. I know a few
property owners are a little anxious. I mean they're actually eager. they'd like a zoning change so they could redevelop along, you know, in East Ammerst. And so, you know, someone would be, well, what does that mean? And would they be willing to have conversations with staff or board members to try to, you know,
further that? So, Nate, um, isn't that an area where there you said there was a potential historic district being proposed? Yeah, I'll, um, here this is, you know, generally East Ammerst. Uh here's the
Fort River Elementary School. Here's um the common. Uh and so the let me I'll annotate the uh this is actually the oldest section of town and there is a local historic district being proposed and the area for it is really
um here and the area I would consider reszoning would be you know south of it here. So, you know, there might be a little overlap, but I think the there is a different um you know, the Yeah. So, to me, the local district
didn't come down to College Street. I think there's a different character there in terms of the age of homes and what they look like. All right. I always forget to move the phone out of this room. Um, all right. Does anybody have any
comments at the moment on I guess having having sort of triggered my me about the historic districts? Um, you know, we have the the I guess we have two downtown
and I've always felt like those uh regulatory bodies are resist change. And and if we were say to
greatly relax the zoning in one of those, we'd sort of be running counter against how those folks view their their purpose, I guess. You know, um Bruce, I know you're on one of
you're on the historic commission. What do you think about historic districts and and if we were to relax zoning in areas that are overlap with historic districts? Um
it's I'm on the historic district commission. Actually, I'm not. I suddenly discovered the day before yesterday. Um Oh, yeah. Um uh but
I haven't thought about the the two together. There hasn't seem to be much um I don't Doug I have to have to dig into that a little bit. I I can simply say straight off that I haven't uh thought
of any um conflicts or opportunities that would anything pro or con for the for that. I uh but but you might be able to um No, I the the historic district uh
commission has has you know and it's it's trying to preserve and and maintain a a look and a feel. So it's not really trying to um um inflate or deflate what's there. It's
trying to essentially manage. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. you know, if if we were to relax zoning, say along both sides of Fairing Street. I mean, I know we just talked about the north side of Fairing Street, which is not in the historic district.
Hypothetically, you know, the south side is in the historic district. So, um, you know, and and if so, I mean, it's just, you know, I think there's generally I I feel like the historic district is trying to freeze what's
there. And so that is running counter to redevelopment that would allow greater density or occupancy. Uh it may be uh I I I I don't entirely agree. I I think that that in so far as
we are thinking perhaps about the north side of Peering Street, I think we could structure our um much as you were suggesting. Um, and I I I guess I'm looking at the person I'm talking to and the screen moves around and I get discombobulated.
But, uh, we could structure the overlay, the design guidelines or or or more around creating stimulating or even disallowing uh buildings that would be out of scale or inappropriate. Um, which
is probably why I think that what we might seek to encourage in the fairing street would be quite different from what we are seeking to encourage in North Ammeris. Mhm. So I think yes the historic district uh uh commissions
goals reg and and guidelines we've just actually we're working on on uh producing a set of guidelines and that would be helpful for this uh for this board to indicate you know what the commission what what the commission values but I think that would probably
be we would take those guidelines and and the experience of the commission to guide the uh way in which the uh the the overlay um design design restrictions or objectives were framed.
Okay. All right. Well, we've now got a lot of hands starting with you, Nate, and then three more. Sure. I was going to say the local historic district, I think the, you know, there's 180 Fing. If you look it up, it's on the corner of Sunset and Fearing. It's a multi-unit development.
uh through the local historic district. Some of the units were redesigned and the site plan was changed. You know, to me that was probably the you know, given where the local historic districts are, there hasn't been a lot of um projects say for bigger development, you know,
say bigger in terms of units or size of building. So, I think that one was a nice process. You know, some people might say it's anti-development. It doesn't necessarily have to be. I think it's really trying to shape the the the appearance and the massing and so agreed if we relax say the zoning in the sunset
fearing neighborhood and we said we allow cottage style development and there's some bigger lots there that would have to go through the local historic district to me that would just mean that the the style and massing and the location of the of the structures would have to be compatible with the you know the the other the neighboring
properties and and uh buildings. So I don't think it's an impossibility. they might add another layer of review. Uh the only other one I was thinking is Ammeris Media was you know proposed a new building on the corner of um on the Main Street and Grey Street and that was approved through a lengthy process but
you know eventually it you know there was a building that I think everyone thought was much much improved compared to what was originally um proposed. So you know I don't think they're incompatible. I think it is it is I agree it's it is it's another permit. It's another review. I think, you know,
to me, I would then be aware of if we do change zoning, you know, how do we how do those interact? And so, right, if we're saying, well, now we allow fivetory buildings in some of these areas and the local historic district would say, well, that's not really compatible, then maybe that that approach to density or size isn't
doesn't work, right? So, there's I think in the local historic district areas, you still could allow doubling of density, tripling of density perhaps even, and still get approved through the local historic district. it it's the approach that an applicant or developer would use. So, you know, uh you know, are they going to do
well? I mean, wasn't there that I mean, I I don't remember how really nice or or the architectural character of that property on Fairing Street that was shot down by the historic district and then did
uh increase the density on that lot. Um, and I thought I I I mean I didn't follow it closely, but it felt like the primary reason for shooting it down was not about the architectural character. It was about
the the addition of parking and units that students might live in. Yeah. So, there was a a proposal for a property on Fearing. The applicant withdrew. This was gosh, I guess it was probably a year and a half ago. And there's an existing three-story
building, a three-unit building. It's two and a half stories and there they were going to it's a pretty big lot. They could have added five or six units or something. Um I you know the local historic district commission looked at I I do think that they changed the plans but the the buildings themselves were really big. So at one point they were
going to put in an apartment building and then they decided they're going to put in three duplexes and each duplex I think was like 40 by 40 and two and a half stories. And so the buildings themselves were actually pretty massive footprints. And so, you know, to me,
it's like if they had done, you know, like an addition to the house, right? They could have done it so maybe it looked like a barn or maybe it was an addition to the house and they could have added three units that worked, but instead the idea was to have kind of big footprints, big square hip roof
buildings that to me weren't really to me architecturally didn't work with the surroundings. So, it never actually I don't know if it actually became a full application of the local historic district. I think it was actually just a preview of what they were doing and then the applicant withdrew getting a sense that that what they were proposing probably wouldn't be approved but it
actually never move forward as a formal application. I think that could have happened actually. Uh they just never proposed it. Okay. Uh Jesse just really just a quick information question. Uh so is that true about then
the ADU by right as well would go to the historic district for review? just hadn't come up in any of our conversations. Just wondering, right? Yeah. So, yeah, any any project in a local historic district, so even the new ADUs uh that you know are
allowed from the state, uh they still have to be reviewed by the local historic district commission. So, the one at the corner of Lincoln and Fearing when that came forward, the applicant had done a fair amount of research. The local historic district commission made a few changes that to me improved the
building. So, a steeper pitched roof, um, porticos on the entries, and I think some variation in siding material. And so, maybe even windows, but you know, so the the footprint necessarily didn't change and what the layout of the interior was, but you know, those few
changes to me to the exterior were an improvement. So now you have instead of a kind of an odd slow low pitch roof I think it was like an eight or 10 um pitch and you had you know some nice entries and so you know as opposed to like the pre-cast concrete stairs you
had you know say some wider entries and so to me those were the applicant seemed pretty willing and to me those are changes that make will make the structure look nicer. Uh, so quick quick side note. If anybody wants to see what an ADU looks like, drive by
that corner cuz the foot the the foundation's down on the first floor and it looks very big just for the record. Okay, Brad. Uh yeah, I just wanted to comment that
uh the north side of Fairing Street I think is a uh definitely a legitimate uh area to look at. Uh it has uh
really uh been through the ringer uh for decades now and that's probably the most constructive thing that's now available for it. So u
so I don't know I that's it's too bad but I I you can't go backwards. I don't think so. Okay, Angus. Yeah, I was just going to add that, you know, I'm a historian by training and so
I I I like historic districts in a lot of ways, but I'll I'll just add that I mean, at least um most studies that look at things um different kinds of overlays that that we can place for zoning find that that historic designations like
this do tend to decrease density and tend to put up roadblocks for um for developers. So that doesn't necessarily mean that it would happen here, but at least across the country, that's that tends to be what happens when you create um a historical designation like this.
All right. Okay. The time is 8:09. I don't see any hands at the moment. We have no public attendees. Um we usually take a break around now. Do people feel like it's time to do that or do they want to plow through and just
try to get through everything else if we're done with this? I saw several nods when I said let's take a break. Um, so why don't we take a five minute break, come back at 8:15. Uh, Johanna, were you going to suggest we keep going?
Well, I was going to ask how long we thought the rest of the content might be projected to take because if we take a five minute break and then we have five more minutes of content, that seems silly. Well, we have the usual sort of uh
this the the the regular items with the old and new business, the the form, the applications, which ones are coming, and then we have the committee and liaison reports. And from my perspective, it doesn't have to take long. Uh Nate, what
do you think? Is that a substantive I was going to preview the zoning priorities list and a few things. Um it might take, you know, more than 10 minutes, 15 minutes to get through it, right? Then I propose we take a break.
Okay. All right. So, come back at 8:15. Thank you. All right, my clock is showing 8:16. I don't know if anybody's hiding behind their cameras that are off,
but if you are around, please turn your camera back on. [Music] All [Music] right, we got everybody back but Johan I
know. Here she is. Yes. Okay. Time is 8:18 and we'll go ahead. Um, we had gotten to a point in the conversation about housing where I
didn't see any hands from anyone. Um, Nate, uh, were there was did you want to probe any more on that topic tonight or do you want to did you get kind of what you were hoping for? Yeah. No, I think that was a good start
to a conversation. So, I don't think we need to belabor it tonight. Um, yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. We'll move on to next topic, which is old business. Uh, anything not reasonably anticipated
in advance, Pam or Nate? Nothing. Okay. How about for new business? Anything? No. Nate. Nate. No. Nothing. No. No. I was just thinking we have a, you know, I think with the next one with
the site plan reviews, you have a few upcoming, but that's okay. All right. So for uh form A subdivision ANR subdivision applications, anything? Nothing. No, not at this point. Okay. ZBA. Um and I'm not aware of anything Nate to
bring forward. Are you? I'm not either actually. Okay. Okay. And SP, SPR, and SUV applications. Yeah. So 363 Main Street, we I think I mentioned this, Bruno's Pizza. They're
uh reducing the size of the their restaurant space and putting an extra residential unit. And it's a mixeduse building that at the time was permitted through a special permit with the zoning board. It'll come to the planning board at the next October meeting, October 8th. So, it'll be a site plan review and
a special permit. Um and we'll we can have a site visit. There's not really many exterior changes at all actually. It's it's really a change in um you know so amending the previous special permit and then it's also um allowing some conditions in
terms of a mixeduse building. So you know we you can see that um we mentioned the new building down on in East Ammerst that Amir Mitchi had developed behind the Florence Savings Bank. Uh he's currently going through the conservation commission or starting to to put a similar building across the street. And
so uh that it hasn't been officially filed with the planning board yet, but that'll be a site plan review application and possibly a special permit application for additional height. Uh and that'll be um if not October 22nd, then probably in early
November. Okay. All right. Uh moving on to committee and liaison reports. Bruce, anything for PVPC? No. Uh there's an October 9th face to face, so
maybe one day. Okay, Jesse, anything on housing sub and zoning subcommittee? Uh you've heard a lot of it. I think uh we started some new conversations about zoning with Angus' leadership on that front. I think Nate, you were going to
talk about this a bit. Yeah, I'll share my screen. You know, we staff had a a few years ago had a zoning priority list. the community resources committee of the town council had one and you know we've achieved a fair amount. Uh there's been a few zoning changes and so we've developed a new
list. I think it's something for the board to look at and if you want to email me before the next meeting, I think the idea would be to identify, you know, zoning strategies that staff could work on and then that the housing and zoning subcommittee could work on and then like we said, maybe it's some that
then um we could have a joint meeting with housing trust or we could talk to the CRC or housing trust and see if they'd want to pick them up. And so, you know, the zoning can be anything from like technical fixes to, you know, rewriting a whole, you know, the sign bylaw. So, I'll share the screen now. I
think I have that available. Maybe I hold on a sec. Um, and I think the uh yeah, and I think it's, you know, we sometimes what happens is we develop these lists and then they we kind of lose focus. So, I'd like to
kind of keep this going, right? So, for instance, the the multi-use apartment overlay that was developed in 2013, it never went anywhere. We're not seeing your screen. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just mentioning. So, just wanted to Yeah. So, for instance, like the
multi-unit apartment overlay in 2013, it didn't make it to a zoning amendment. It seemed it was like too fraught. It was townwide. But no one then said, "Well, what if we just look at one section, but instead we just moved on or the department at the time and zoning committee just moved on to a whole another, you know, zoning idea and maybe
that one would have should have been, you know, thought about a little bit more at the time." And so I'd like to have a nice list, keep it uh going and um you know, refer back to it every now and then. So, you know, the current
list is, you know, there's a dozen or so things. you know, identify areas for new development. We've kind of talked about that. Looking at the BL area around downtown in anticipation of the design review standards being complete. Uh the sign bylaw. So, right now we have a section
of our bylaw that, you know, deals with signs and that is really out of date and needs to be uh updated. South Hadley is just doing that right now. So, there is a local community, you know, a lot of these are kind of housing related. So allowing multiple
principal dwellings on a property. I think that's a really important one. Um cautile development. Uh you know one right here limited site plan review or administrative approval for protected uses. And you know in the last two years a lot of the planning
board hearings have been for what are considered protected uses by mass general law. So, you know, a group home uh down in South Ammeris, the conversion of the motel in East Ammeris to residential use, the Dickinson Museum carriage house, and other communities approach that with
limited site plan review or administrative approval. And if it's maybe a big enough um project, it gets full sight plan review. I think that there's probably, you know, we could maybe look at whatever what conditions we impose on some of these projects and come up with a way to categorize them
and maybe limit what gets, you know, to a full site plan review, right? It gives the planning board more time to do other things and helps the applicant. Um, you know, 40y overlay, that's a starter home overlay, a senior housing, uh, fix the definition of owner
occupied. Um and then you know there was a kind of a question asked at the housing and zoning subcommittee you know what how much uh you know in a site plan review um hearing you know sometimes we can spend the planning
board and staff you we can all spend a lot of time talking about certain things that are say details and is there ways to build in some more pre- requirements um for a cycle interview application so that you know if utilities need to be screened and an applicant comes in and just you know they're not screening the
utilities you Can we say that's an incomplete application and get to a point where we have certain standardized conditions? We kind of do now, but make those part of an application process so what the board is discussing isn't, you know, it can be other parts of the project.
Um, change the PRP zoning. I mentioned that as our part of our discussion. Modify mixeduse building standards and outlying village centers or even in downtown. So, we have a 30% in the overlay. we had a depth uh you know to
24 feet 75 along 75% of the facade length. So it was a different um definition or standard for the non-residential piece. Maybe that needs to be explored. And then in the zoning bylaw we we used to refer to the permit granting board,
the zoning board, the planning board, and the permit granting authority. And then a few years ago, we tried to standardize that and say the permit granting authority. And there's a definition, but we never actually went back and changed it within the zoning bylaw. So, you know, again, I think in
article 7, for instance, about parking and landscape standards, I think most of the references to permit board should just be permit granting authority. The difference being that in the permit granting authority, it names the building commissioner or staff. uh if this if the the application
or change could be administratively approved and you know we can discuss it more but it's you know to me that says that if someone's coming in they're having a minor change to a site plan say it's to the some parking issues if we say the permit granting authority related to parking the building
commissioner could look at it and say oh you just want to like move your islands around a little bit that's fine the way it's worded now that kind of change would actually come back to the planning board as a full site plan review application because there's no way to handle that kind of change administratively. Um, so you know, there
could be others. Some of these are really big. You know, like cottage style development could be, you know, something the planning board directs the housing and zoning subcommittee to really look into or maybe that's something we want the housing trust to do. But that could be, you know, looking at uh case studies, looking at
different, you know, actually zoning bylaws and proposing what works in town, where, what zoning districts. um the signed bylaw could be it could be really technical but something that the building commissioner inspectors and staff use a lot. So um you know this
isn't prioritized. It's enumerated but it's not prioritized. So you know we this has been shared out. If you have other ideas you can add them to the list and then talk about it then you know subsequent meetings. All right.
So, you're inviting us to add to this list? Yep. Or add comments or Yep. Okay. Johanna, if it truly is what you're describing, Nate, I would just move that we do 14
right now so that we can cut like unnecessary silly red tape. All right. Uh, Bruce, um, I just wanted to ask a question about the open space and community
development bylaw. Um, uh, I have a special interest in that, of course, because it was, uh, it kind of grew out of the, uh, co-housing initiatives in town. Um, is that being used, Nate? Is there any reason to after
um 15 20 25 20 years 25 years uh to modify it, tweak it, refine it in any way to make it more useful? because it was intended to be um a kind of a middle ground between um uh special permits and
so forth and then uh the or or subdivisionals and all the way the um PUD plan the PUD or PURD
uh requires or required an approval by town meeting which was basically made it an unworkable uh arrangement. So the OCD was put in to basically allow uh PUD type development
on a smaller scale. I thought it was a rather significant uh uh improvement or addition because it was a whole new development uh mechanism or approach and I' I'd like to I'd like to know how it's
going and is it being used enough but or is there are there any obvious um uh rough edges that would make it more useful? Yeah, the um so you know in our bylaw in the zoning bylaw there's a few different development methods right there's you
know like a traditional subdivision cluster this open space conservation development a planned urban residential development I I just put this as 15 and so to me like cottage style development would be perhaps another development method I think Bruce to your point I
think is something to look at sometimes they they have some of these development methods haven't been used very much um it could be complicated. It could be that they uh you know if they need a special permit for whatever reason uh there's they haven't been used a lot. And so Doug, going back to what you're
saying about allowing smaller lots or trying to encourage certain kind of style development in terms of housing type, we could tweak or have a new, you know, development method, right, that applies in certain zoning districts. Uh that gets to some
of what you were saying. And so I think it's worth looking at those development methods. So some of them haven't been used really at all, right? I mean, uh, for years. And so, you know, what for instance, will a cluster subdivision, you know, there's been a few, but, you
know, could we modify it to do something else? Or could we even make in a cluster, could we actually allow even smaller lots to get to what, you know, what we're saying in terms of density or different kinds of housing. So I you know the open space conservation
development I I'm trying to think community development yeah they haven't community development it's been used I don't know Vista Terrace down in South Ammeris by Atkins may have been that but it may have just been a traditional cluster and so the last one that may
have been used was um gosh uh has been a number of years there's the one off State Street and then there's is another one. So, not not a lot. Yeah, I know. It's got a 150 foot setback, I think, from farmland, which
uh that seems to me to be a a bit of a stretch. I mean, an unnecessarily conservative uh setback. Yeah, I think that's a something to examine.
I don't know whether that's made any difference to anybody. It would to us. I mean we are we had considered at one point uh changing our five uh um co-mingled uh lots each of which is developed with a separate special
permit. So we have a co-ousing community but it's it's a it's land use permitting basis is five separate uh um special permits. I mean, it's a it's a crazy mess. And it made uh Bob Mitchell in
1990s more or less weep into his hands as I was explaining it to him. And so this was supposed to make uh that kind of nonsense go away. So when it came out, I thought, well, maybe we'll just see if we can convert ourselves to an OCD and
and and we ran right up against 150 foot setback from the farmland that you couldn't do it. So it it basically eliminated any possibility that we could be uh use that we could use this uh this uh development method. Yeah. So, you know, the development
method can be applied in different zoning districts and you can have different standards. And so, yeah, I think I think we can add to the list. The uh for instance, the community homes um that's being that's under construction uh at the corner of Montigue Road and Pulpit Hill could almost have been one of these
development methods, but it was just too complicated to draw all these individual lot lines and with the utilities and parking. And so, they needed a little bit more flexibility. So, we said, "Let's make it a comprehensive permit." But if if some of these development methods were a little bit more flexible, we could have those kinds of
developments elsewhere in town without having to go through, you know, some really complicated permitting. And so is it I think it's worth looking at. Is it, you know, like a few standards or requirements within the development method that if modified would allow, you know, clustering of homes uh without a
traditional subdivision other places and that's if we want to encourage that then, you know, we can look at right those kinds of changes. Okay, that's enough. All right. Um Nate, I'm not seeing any other hands right now,
but I'm Oh, there's Angus. Go ahead. Sorry. Um yeah, I was just gonna gonna ask or maybe or maybe make a suggestion which is um kind of about the maybe next steps and I I'm wondering if this is something it feels like the next steps
are we need to kind of prioritize which things the planning board would be interested in kind of pushing forward ourselves which things we'd like the staff to focus on. And so I guess I'm wondering is this does it make sense for us in this meeting to talk through what
our prior to to kind of rank some of these or does it make sense for the housing and zoning subcommittee in our next meeting to spend some time trying to think and rank and then bring it back to the planning board for kind of everyone's input. What what are we thinking in terms of like the next steps
for the process? Nate, do you have any initial reaction to that? you know, I think we could, uh, wait to hear back from other board members uh, and then at the, you know, housing and zoning subcommittee, we could then talk about it and bring it back to the board. So, you know, my thought would be, you
know, in the next one or two planning board meetings, this would be its own agenda topic and we could, you know, put some time into it. Uh, and then, you know, work work at that level. Um, I think the housing zoning subcommittee could also discuss it at the next meeting, too, add to it, maybe come up with a, you know, kind of a rough
prioritization. All right. I saw another hand and then it went away. Okay. Bruce is waving me off. All right. All right, then we'll move
on, I guess. Um, we were up. That was the housing and subcommittee conversation. Angus, uh, have you have you entered into CPAC world yet? No, I don't think I've been voted on yet.
Okay. Are we waiting, Nate, for the town manager to appoint him or something? Oh, maybe. I um Yeah, make I'll make a note of that. I think they were waiting to have another representative from another committee and then there I think the idea was to try to bring the CPA
committee appointments at one meeting. Uh, at this point I think I already voted on on one person at the last meeting or like two meetings ago. Um, but it wasn't me. Yeah, let me I'll look into that. I thought Yeah, I know. I communicated it
with the town manager's office that you were the planning board representative. So, it took Rob a long time uh, sorry, Paul, a long time to uh, get me onto the planning commission. So lighting a fire
under him is probably a good idea. And and Nate, would it be okay for Angus to attend their meetings in the interim? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, or you know, you can watch the videos propo I will say proposals are due September 30th and
then the committee really starts their work. Oh, you know, so he hasn't missed much yet. Yeah. In mid mid-occtober. So Okay. All right. Um, and then we haven't
Nate, did you talk to Karen at all about the DRB and is she going to report or should we take this off the agenda until next June? No, you know, I um I haven't talked to her. I was going to wait to hear back from the town manager's office, but I think I I could just ask staff and then
I can come back to the board with a report. Okay. Okay. Um I don't really have any report of chair. I was going to mention uh I think I think Nate may have mentioned we in October our our schedule
is not the usual first and third uh because the 1st of October is Yam Kapor. So we're not meeting on the 1st. We'll we meet on the 8th and then what is it the 22nd I guess. Um so just to let you
all know that Bruce on the meeting of the 8th I'll probably ask uh what uh we'll maybe agenda a brief moment about the uh uh the planning board picnic or whatever we want to call it at my place which is on
the following uh weekend. So who brings what and I want to manage expectations generally downward but we'll see. Uh so that well we should know the weather by then too. Yes. Yes. So uh remind me to do that.
Thank you. Okay. All right. That's all I had. Um Nate and Pam, any report from staff? I say that you know there's the amorous block party tomorrow evening. Uh it's happening downtown. The downtown design
standards as I mentioned. Hopefully there will be a presentation to the board in October to look at draft standards. There is the East Amoris local historic district. Uh the commission just voted this week to approve the study report, preliminary study report. It'll be sent to
Massachusetts Historical Commission and then uh within that so there's 90 days to provide comment. During that comment period, the planning board also needs to hold a a public meeting. I think it's just a public meeting to review the report. So in October or early November,
the planning board will need to review uh the preliminary study report for East Ammerst. I'm not, you know, I'll have to not sure if it's it is a the board is named in the process. I think it was just an idea to provide comments and um ideas and suggestions for the study
committee. Um I I think that's it. All right. Anyone have anything else? The time is 8:41. All right, we will see you October 8th.
Yay. Enjoy the rest of the month and see you later. Good night. Good night. Bye everyone. Night everyone. Thanks. Stop recording. in.