Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, Mr. Marshall. Um, I have 633 on my phone. You are the co-host of this meeting. We have my colleagues Nate Mallaloy and Jeff Bag with us in the house. Amoris Media is here. The attendees are joining us. You are the co-host of this meeting. I think we're all set to go. All right. Thank you, Pam. You're welcome.

Welcome to the Ammeris Planning Board meeting of January 21st, 2026. My name is Doug Marshall, and as chair of the Ammerst Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 6:33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Ammerst Media. Minutes are being taken pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 as extended by chapter two 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 inperson 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 for reasons of economic hardship or despite best efforts. We will post an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town's website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself and answer affirmatively and return to mute. Bruce

I am here. Fred Hartwell, I am here. Jesse Major, present. I Doug Marshall, I'm present. Angus Mloud present. Johanna Newman present.

And Jar Smith has told us he will be arriving a little bit late. All right. Thank you board members. If technical issues arise and 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 remmute yourself. To the general public. The general public comment item is reserved for public comment regarding items not appearing elsewhere on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to comments during general public comment period. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star9 on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can generally 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. All right. Um time is 6:36. We'll go right into the uh first agenda item, which is approval of minutes. Uh we have two sets of minutes to review. Uh they were both in our packet. The first is from December November 19th of last year. Fred, I see your hand.

Yes, you do. Uh, I have a very significant problem with these minutes. Um specifically on the last page, uh the just before the [clears throat] action that resulted in the change of the zoning map on a vote of 5 to one to one, I was the one and I spoke against it and there is no presentation of the argument that I made and I think that uh that argument should be in the minutes and then the vote stands for itself. It will go forward but um and I have written and I can forward to you uh Pam uh the uh statement that I suggest should go in here.

That would be really helpful. Fred, so you're talking about the December 3rd minutes, the September Okay. Yeah. No. Uh I'm sorry. I thought we were on the November 19th minutes, right? That's where I think we are. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. This the November the November minutes. Yep. Gotcha. Okay. So, in that case, why don't we just postpone this till the next meeting?

Okay. Um, did anybody else have comments on the November 19th minutes that could get incorporated by the next time? Okay. All right. So, uh, I'll I'll send that to Fred and Pam. Why don't you coordinate on that and then we can redistribute them. All right. Um, let's go on to the December 3rd minutes. Um, any comments about those? No comments. Those were fine. Johanna,

I move to approve the minutes from December 3rd. All right. Thank you. Anybody want a second or shall I go ahead and second? Oh, I think I don't know, Jesse or Angus, one of you. Sure, I'll second it. All right. All right, we'll go through a vote. Um, starting with you, Bruce. I, and Fred, I, Angus, I, Jesse, I, uh, Johanna, I,

and I'm an I as well. Six in favor, one member absent. That motion passes. The December 3rd minutes are approved. All right. So, at this point, we have the public comment period. And so, I see seven attendees from the public. Uh, this is the time, members of the public, to raise your hand uh to let us know if you would like to speak at uh at this time and make a public comment about something that does not appear later on the agenda. So, while that While we're waiting for people to raise their hands, I will, as I usually do, read the names of the people who are showing up as attendees. We have a Churchill, Elizabeth Verling, George Ryan, Hilda Greenbomb, Mora Keane, Ham Rooney, and Sarah Bar. All right, I still don't see any hands raised. from the public. So I guess I will conclude that there are none at this for tonight. So the time is 6:41. We'll go on to the next item on the agenda. All right. So the third item on the agenda is planning and economic development director Jeff Bag. Welcome Jeff. discussion with new planning and economic development director regarding zoning priorities and the goals of the town manager. Take it away, Jeff.

Great. Yep. Good evening, everyone. Um, thanks for having me. Uh, I will be, you know, I think doing this section in coordination with with Nate. Um, and really just acknowledging a lot of the hard work that you guys have already done. Just I guess a quick background. Um for those of you who don't know me um I did work in Amoris for about eight years from 2008 to 2016 where I was a senior planner and I worked um primarily with the zoning zoning board of appeals at that time and as that you know time went on I was able to participate in other projects. Um and then I left Amoris um just for some new opportunities and new challenges. And so I I spent two years working for the Central Mass Regional Planning Commission. So they had an office out in Worcester and really got exposed to a lot of the activities in C Central Mass in particular. Um and during that time I think I was thinking of a couple things that were highlights is I actually served as a shared town planner for two small towns out there. So I got to really experience very small town planning boards. Uh the town of Rutland and the town of Barry in central Mass. And so that was really good exposure just to see how, you know, towns without planning staff function. And that was one of the primary goals. And ultimately a couple years later, the town of Rutland hired their first town planner. Um, and I worked on and kind of led a team to create a master plan for the town of West Brookfield. Um, so then after that I that was when this opportunity in the city of East Hampton came up. Um, that's my hometown. Um, that's where I live. I kind of lived there the whole the whole time. we we've lived here since 2010. Um so that opportunity as a city planner was was available and I got um offered that position and really embarked on several different efforts there, but one was to expand that department. So I was able to

make a part-time conservation agent full-time. Um I was able to make a part-time arts coordinator full-time. So this this was a period of over six years. Um and managed a staff a you know, several staff people doing very important different projects. And then finally, sort of as a result of that, I was able to make the position change from city planner to planning director. And you know, I did that, you know, with coordination and relationships with city council and the mayor and it had to go through process and create the necessary funding for all those. And then just a mirror a myriad of projects, one of which would be like a 40R district was one of the projects that I led. an expansion of an existing 40R on Northampton Street in East Hampton and just shephered quite a few projects through. Um and then more recently I I um had an opportunity to work for a consulting firm also out of Worcester. So it's a company called the BSC Group and so they're multi-disciplinary but 100% of the clients were municipalities and so that's what I've been doing for the past about year and a half. Um, and one of the I guess a couple of the big projects were uh out in Cape Cod, the town of Yarmouth went through a local comprehensive plan process. So, it's a basically their master plan on Cape and led that and then a couple smaller master plan projects and a couple site planning efforts. Um, and so then this opportunity came up and through a whirlwind of activities, here I am. Happy to be here.

You're welcome. Um, but I'm pretty sure that you you must know that as part of this this um change in the planning department, so Nate's position was um advanced to assistant um planning and economic development director and there there is like some really high importance to that in terms of the structure. So Nate has a really good handle on the day-to-day and working with the the staff who manage sort of you know your board the zoning board of appeals the historical commission and all those other you know important functions. So Nate's really in charge of overseeing that and that's important to allow this position to be higher level and kind of overarching between planning and economic development. And so I started on December 1st and really just been uh meeting with a lot of people um you know one or two meetings per day for the past you know 30 days um to just reorient myself and you know of the work that Nate's doing and the other staff just trying to be really clear that although I worked here in the past it doesn't mean that I uh know everything and so it's going to really getting reacquainted to everything that's been going on. Um, so I think with that, um, Nate, I'll shift to you in a second, but I think, you know, the town manager and town council have established goals. I think they've done this for a couple years, but there seems to be this renewed emphasis on really trying hard to have the various groups in town work to actually help accomplish those goals kind of together as a big team. Um, so I don't know, I'm assuming they've been transmitted out to you. There's there's six primary goals and then there's action items under each of them. And I know as as as the planning department what we're trying to do and it's early is is look at the projects that we have either underway or or are thinking about and hoping and making sure that they

align somehow to at least one of those goals. And there will always be a few that don't. Um but more and more you know housing and economic development it's actually housing and economic vitality is sort of this overarching bucket and really to ensure the health and safety of the residents of Ammeris and continue making advances in racial equity and social justice. Sorry I was reading the wrong one. Um to ensure the present and future economic well-being of the town and ensure to ensure access to safe affordable attainable housing for low and moderate income residents as set forth in the town council's comprehensive housing policy. So that's really this overarching charge for us and alongside all the great work that this group did to get the housing production plan adopted. So, you know, I think with that as an overview, you know, Nate has really been working with with you all on the priority list and so I don't know how best to initiate this discussion, but the list has um you know quite a few items and there are a few that the planning department and other staff really hope to advance over the next year and then a lot that the the committees, the subcommittee and the planning board have talked about. So, Nate, maybe you can give a little guidance as to how you want or or Doug, how you want to have this discussion. I'm here to be part of that.

Uh, why don't you go ahead? Um, you know, I think it has been a little while since we've looked at the list, I think, but you had it in the packet, I believe.

Yeah. No, thanks, Jeeoff. Yeah, I think some of it was, you know, you know, in the past staff would work and try to help guide the planning board say in terms of maybe these um priorities from the town council or town manager, but I think being more transparent about it and also kind of the economic development piece. So, you know, planning is economic development in a sense and so I think sometimes we've we haven't, you know, clearly expressed that, right? So, some zoning is providing for opportunity for growth and, you know, I think it's just a renewed interest in that and how do we do that? I mean, we've talked about build centers, we talked about more housing, what we what can we do, you know, downtown. And so, I think it's to me it's, you know, having Jeff here and then this conversation today is saying, okay, well, what are the priorities for the next six months, 10 months, a year with the planning board and the planning department and so we have the zoning priorities list, which really has just become, you know, something we hadn't done in a few years and with the subcommittee and with staff just kind of compiling that all over again. And you know after tonight my idea would be to say okay what are you know four to six five to seven whatever it is but some number that we set you know maybe a timeline to you know really work on and bring to council or try to get you know to a point where they're in a format that could be moved forward and then maybe what's what are the you know what are some others that are you know phase two and so not to forget about what we've been working on and so you know zoning takes a long time from you know concept to becoming you know, an amendment and then back through the hearing process and to approval. And so just trying to make sure we have, you know, a good timeline on that and kind of what are priorities for the town and for the board and staff. And so, you know, we focus a lot on housing. You know, there could be some things about right village center zoning. We have funding for East Ammerst. And so, you know, I think a lot of things tie together. I just wanted to I think it's good to have that kind of bigger picture of what the town will be working on and what we think we could, you know, pursue in the next year. And I know we'll have our regulatory reviews of projects and

we have other things we'll the board will have to do, but you know, with the subcommittee or if we have time at meetings, you know, let's try to, you know, keep things moving forward. And so, uh, you know, we had a few zoning amendments passed a few years ago, but then there wasn't much last year and we worked on a few things, but, you know, I it would be great to consistently have, you know, a few every year, right? Or we have, you know, something that we think we could be working on. I don't want to diminish like technical fixes to the bylaw, right? I mean, some of the things in the list are like, oh, let's change permit granting authority in sections of the bylaw and that's a defined term and then there's, you know, per planning board, zoning board, and there's permit granting board or something. And there's all these terms, but for staff, there's meaning there in terms of administrative approval, but then it's also clarity because, you know, it's inconsistent terms. And you know, it seems like an easy fix, but you know, it'll affect every section of the bylaw and then, you know, might take a little bit of time to explain why we want to do that, for instance. And so, yeah, I don't I didn't necessarily have a structure. I think, you know, I was hoping this could be a time for the board to have questions or comments. Um, you know, and then just having a conversation about what we do think are priorities and how we could, you know, structure different, you know, projects or initiatives. And so, you know, for instance, the downtown design standards hopefully get made public soon. We have the seammer study happening. Those are going to be really big projects for the town and and hopefully the planning board. We have, you know, some other zoning initiatives the subcommittee has been working on. So, how do we pull those in? We have ideas from staff. We might get more ideas in the next few months. And so, just, you know, kind of having an overall picture of that, you know, as we as we move through the months.

All right. Um, so Nate, are you thinking we will you will show these the list on the screen and we're going to have a conversation about which ones seem to us to be priorities? I mean, I know you guys um you know, you have the design st the downtown design standards that the town has invested a lot of money in and some of some community members, including Bruce and me, have spent a fair amount of time looking at, but the rest of the board doesn't know. So, that's a probably a pretty major initiative for this year. And then you mentioned the grant for East Ammerst, which probably has a time limit on it. um you spend it or you lose it. So that might be another major thing or or you know and then you probably have certain technical things that you'd like to do that are staff sponsored and then there's all the other ideas and is that kind of all that is that what you want to talk about all the other ideas? Yeah, and I think like Jeff mentioned kind of the goal of housing and economic vitality, you know, kind of the umbrella of what is that? And there's a few others that the council, you know, other categories they have for the town manager and, you know, just saying like, okay, well, you know, we've been focusing on housing. Is there any part that we could focus in on economic development specifically? Say, you know, that's still related to zoning or other regulations. And then even infrastructure, you know, are there things right like through the design standards where if we like the right ofway standards that you know has implications for, you know, public infrastructure and amenities. And so just kind of understanding all that. And so we are kind of working towards some some common goals. And even though, you know, it may not seem like it, you know, I think we it'd be great to have Jeff come back periodically and, you know, kind of like, right, recenter the board or talk about what maybe shifting priorities have been in the last six months or or quarter of a year just so

we kind of understand that. And so, you know, um, you know, like the list is big. I agree. Right. And that could this could be a few years, but maybe things have to shift and move around and it's really kind of keeping that list relevant for what we think is important. And so, um, you know, right? So, you know, and I so, you know, right there I my idea would be we keep adding to this list. So, if there's ideas tonight, you know, it always goes on this list and I don't want to lose it. It's something that I'd like staff to maintain and then, you know, come up with say a different kind of way to prioritize items on that. And so, you know, like a few years ago, we had this kind of list and then literally it just stopped. You know, no one was really keeping track of it. It might be in planning board minutes or ZBA minutes, but to me it's nice to have something where you it becomes a repository of ideas and it'd be nice then to refer back to it and say, "Yeah, look what we talked about here as opposed to, you know, looking back through minutes just kind of having a central document." And so that's to me what this has started as. And you know, from that we I feel like we, you know, have another document that really then kind of summarizes some of these and really, you know, maybe puts a timeline to them and what action steps are and how to move them forward. All right, I see three hands from board members. Um, before I call on them, Jeff, I saw your hand for a minute and then it dropped. Um, I'll give you one last chance to say something else before I go to the board members.

Thanks. I think I'll wait. I'd like to hear, you know, what the three board members say, but I do there are some more. So there's some discussion to have, but I think I I would defer to the three members to see what your initial reaction is first. Okay, Jesse.

Thanks. Um I guess this is a question for you, Jeff, since you're here and I'm hoping you can share different perspective, different insight. I can like like all of us, I'm sure completely agree with this fourth point, right? To ensure economic well-being and attainable housing in Ammerst. Um, from my perspective and the whole reason I got involved with planning board in the first place is you cannot address this without addressing student housing in some way in our town. And that that conversation doesn't show up here in the goals, which maybe is okay. That conversation I feel like does not happen a lot in other circles that I've seen other than planning board and subcommittee. And so I'm wondering if you have a if you could share with us your perspective on the town manager and the council and your own perspective on how do we address this because in order to do again in my view in order to achieve that housing for year-round residents we have to also figure out how to address the student housing ratio issues that we have in our town. So I'm hoping you can share with us what kind of appetite you have, what kind of appetite you think the council has. the manager has for some of the things we've been talking about, which are all basically ways to uh either restrict or limit or just organize student housing to allow for this other type of housing so it doesn't just get gobbled up by student rentals.

Yeah, obviously that's one of the biggest issues. And you're right, it's not really in the this is these are labeled as the town manager goals, but I think that they are sort of confirmed and ratified by the town council. So, we're assuming they're kind of one and the same. um not a straight path to student housing in those goals. So, I can totally see that. Um I guess it's a little bit of a windup and I don't want to cut off the other members, but I think there are at least three known sort of initiatives that are going to need to be dealt with sort of now. Um, and I think what we have to try to do is keep a conversation about student housing going, but there is no one solution. There's no there's no simple way to do it. So that I don't have the solution to that yet. I think you guys have had a long list of ideas and there's different ways to do it and I think that's totally relevant. But I think what what Nate and I have been discussing, what's on the what's on the document, which someone should share the screen potentially if possible, but they're listed as staff items, but what they really are are ongoing initiatives. Um it it reads as the the downtown design standards that and Doug kind of mentioned this East Ammerst study. um you know those are the two primary things right now that we see the need for everybody to be involved with and paying attention to. So um this I don't know if this is Pam, but there's a the actual priority list the zoning priority list was what I was hoping you could share the list of potential zoning amendments.

Not this one. No, this is the town manager goals. Okay. Hope um there. So the downtown design standards is is a process that's going to become front and center for for a lot of people. So it's it's all focused on the downtown and we see that as a important effort that we're all going to need to pay attention to.

And then as Doug mentioned the East Ammer set that's been on. So if you can scroll down just a little bit to the staff items. It's really that I'm talking about the first two right now. You know those are timesensitive. They're also very important to a lot of people and the downtown design standards is going to deal with to some extent who you know the type of building and the size of buildings and obviously who might be residing there will will be part of that discussion. But we see those two as being critical right now. And we see kind of this windup over the next several months of having the planning board play a key role in discussing these and holding community meetings and discussions. And so we see those as top priorities. And it's not to say that student housing is not an issue, but we're going to need to focus on those two um from there. And I'm not trying to dodge your question. I think I'll stop there, Jesse, for now because I think there'll be other, you know, discussion pieces. Things can run in parallel, but what Nate and I are looking at is just that these two are going to be significant uh a significant amount of interests and process and time. Um so that we want to make sure that we have enough bandwidth to focus on those and they they are truly going to be, you know, transformational. that downtown design study. It's going to be set up in a way that um it talks about the streetscape, but then also um the peripheries and the the private property and what you know there's a vision and then what do you need to do to for zoning to to implement a vision and so that unto itself you know is an estimated six to eight months of process um and then bringing it to to the CRC and then town council. So, I'll stop there because I think there will be more, but um Pam, you can probably stop sharing it for now till it comes back

up. All right. Uh Bruce, um Jeff, I've got uh I've actually got three questions for you, but I'm going to take them one at a time. Uh and the first question really is exactly uh initially the same as Jesse's because I too uh thought that uh exact well he said it for me but I would um uh proceed to a question related to that.

Mhm. Um, and you said that there were three known initiatives uh for addressing student uh housing u provisions, needs and so forth. Um, and I wonder whether they're the same three that I've been uh articulating for two or three years, which is to say the institution provides on-ampus housing in some kind of PPP or whatever basis, but it's onampus housing uh in association with the uh the the uh the university. The second being some kind of minimum distribution uh arrangement where you accept the fact that student housing is going to be satisfied by um independent uh landlords buying up houses and converting them but you try and control that. And thirdly by uh taking some initiative to get a higher density housing a significantly higher density housing primarily dedicated to student housing and in the immediate vicinity of campus. Those would be the three that that I'm imagining. Um and uh as we've been uh ruminating on this for the past two or three years, um I had uh kind of discounted the minimum distribution for various reasons which I won't get into. uh had um somewhat discounted the the the first which was to expect the university to provide the housing because a we have uh no little on we have no power there and also because the university had professed that it's um a good guy in this because it's providing more student housing on campus than most uh uh institutions around the country and so um for the past couple of years I've imagined that the the sort of initiative that we've been discussing where we dedicate uh opportunities for highdensity student housing and think

about how we can achieve that or incentivize that as being the primary. But I have to say, and this is the question, um, in the in the last couple of months, I've come uh f further back towards um putting more effort or seeing whether or not the town should not put more effort into persuading the university to join in this uh effort to to provide more housing and rather than uh say that they have earned a pass by the amount of housing that they've already provided. The argument seems to me that Amist is unique in the country and this is the point. We haven't been able to find and as we recently dug back into this another another uh town in the country that has a higher impact ratio uh than Amis. None at all. Not one. We are unique. Uh now we could try and disprove that and I think that would be a good exercise because if we can't disprove it, it strengthens the case. But the question Jeff is um the town manager does not uh include any uh statement of objective to um work harder to persuade the university to uh to to do what they could do with the some of the land that they've got and to engage in some kind of PPP uh development initiative to uh take some of the load off of housing. And I know there's issues associated with well you know we don't get tax revenues from this and we doesn't generate affordable housing so it's not as it's not obvious but the question is um how do you feel about that? Uh do you think that uh that the town is just never going to change its attitude and it will basically give the university a pass from here on into the indefinite future or do you think that the town really should um up its game a little and try harder? uh uh to be compelling in its argument to persuade the

university to take some of this load on uh in the way in which uh I've just mentioned. How do you where do you come on that personally and where do you think the town should come on that if you were persuasively successful?

Yep. So, I'm not going to be able to answer that, Bruce. I think it's it's a obviously a critical question. Um, and I I mean this sincerely that I mean if you guys have been talking about it for 2 years, it's been going on for said for 20 years at least and I've been here for two months. So I just want to put some of this in perspective. I appreciate being here and I appreciate hearing the question. I I did listen to probably six or seven of the meetings that you guys have had in the leadup to like me choosing to to come back. Um it's it's a it's whatever the right way to it's the it's the $60,000 question. Um not equipped to answer that today, but I think um you know I am I've had meetings with the community relations folks at UMass, many of the people that you probably know, but that's an office that at least you know at at my level I'll be engaged with talking to them and then they have you know what's called the Ammerst Campus Council which is the regional focus. uh on you know how UMass can support economic development throughout the region. So I will be appointed to that group. Um and they you know they've met supposedly three or four times but there's a meeting coming up in February in which I'll be at that meeting. So folks from chambers of commerce in the region you know the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission people from UMass and some other folks. So you know Ammeris will have a seat at that table. Um Bruce would you know I hopefully you understand that I am not equipped to answer that just yet but I think you know the student housing um issue is prominent and I don't think that there's one way to deal with it. I think it's probably you know protecting some neighborhoods. It's probably looking for a PPP and it's probably finding some area that's close to the campus that's suitable. But

yeah, I'm not I'm not prepared to kind of give like the guidance that you might want right now. But, you know, Nate's been at all these meetings and we're having those discussions. I think we have to intertwine it with other things. I think it doesn't it doesn't appear to me to be a single standalone solution. So, it's going to be intertwined with some other stuff. So, Bruce, I'm I'm respectfully dodging the the actual answer to that, but I think it's a known it's a known issue and the plan board has taken it really seriously and I think figuring out how to um work towards some some potential solutions and talk to town council as to how how to make it one of their goals and priorities.

Okay. Well, my commitment at the moment anyway is to uh spend a little bit of time uh giving building the best argument that I think can be made and giving it to you. Uh then you can use it how you feel fit and uh and we can badger you and uh and so forth as well. But um you heard the question and that was the point. I I understand that answers don't always come immediately. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bruce. Jara, you're next. Great. Um, by the way, Jara arrived what, maybe about 10 minutes ago. 7:49.

649. 649 is what I wrote down. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, yes. I So, I had 647, but whatever. Um, Jeff, nice to meet you. My name is Jara. Sorry late. Uh, I have two young children and 6:30 is a hard time for me to start these planning board meetings. But um I want to say I uh

I I appreciate what Bruce just said and I do want to emphasize I think what people are looking for in Ammerst is just more visible leadership on what the town and what the university are thinking about related to housing because a lot of people really everybody is feeling the housing crisis and the crud and they just want to know what's what's the plan. Um, so I would encourage, you know, more visible leadership on that topic in the future. Uh, that said, I don't think you uh dodged Bruce's question. I think you offered a completely reasonable and and good solutions to the to the challenge. So, uh, give yourself some credit. I also want to say I appreciate uh I noticed earlier that you talked about how you don't want to take on too many initiatives at once. Um, in my line of business, I see way too often, uh, town staff are just stretched way too thin and more and more projects are just piled on top of them and then, um, things fall through the cracks and so I appreciate your, um, steadfastness and commitment to to that. Um, I, uh, want to share that I think three things that I really, uh, am concerned about. The things that I think about the most are the access to starter homes, um, golden handcuffs and just a lack of senior home opportunities or downsizing. Uh, a lack of just diversity and rental choices. Um, those are really the three the three like big ones that I think the most about. Um, and the relationship with with UMass. Uh, so that's enough about me, but I'm I have a couple questions for you. I'm curious, you know, and I'm sorry if you like got into this while I was um

putting my son down, but I'm curious how you think about addressing how you how you think about economic development and planning. Like is it a is it a comprehensive approach or more of a peace meal approach? I know that at some point in the future we'll be having a master plan update. Um, you know, right now we're focusing on just East Ammerst. Is is is your approach thinking more geographically incremental or is there a time for a more comprehensive reform? I'm just I'm kind of curious where do you see the town going um in the next couple of years to the degree that you can can reasonably answer that.

No, I appreciate that. It's a little bit it's a little bit more packaged. So, I think I'll I'll explain to you like my thoughts on this. I mean, um, in terms of economic development, it really is, um, something that means something different to everybody. So, pretty cognizant that it's not just one term with one thing attached to it. Um, and so kind of the approach that I'm already starting to take is just just it it's a little unfortunate because it's almost like starting over, but there was a economic development director for a couple years um and the person started and didn't finish. And so even in my, you know, I I have this great opportunity where I know just enough about Ammerst so that I I know something. But in coming back, I was really trying to find information and and look at the website and look for look for where information exists. And the economic development component was left undone. Um there was an effort in 2018 and a little bit of data in 2020. Um but you know that is pretty outdated. uh you know as a result of the pandemic and all all the the the wildness that's been happening that information that we have from 2020 and 2018 is is not useful. So my first order of business is with some available funds that have been accured in capital planning and bringing in a consultant to just update the economic development metrics just get us up to date with data. So what's the economic market? Where are people spending their money? Where where are people leaving Ammeris to spend their money?

There's a whole slew of things that is just base baseline information that we can't really do much without knowing the the new data. Um and part so this is kind of like a small quick project and with the experts who know what they're looking at I've asked we've asked them to identify a few action items things that are critical to do and it's not figuring it all out it's just identifying the action items and then it comes to this bigger project where you again submitting through capital planning requesting some additional funds to do an actual economic development plan for the town and that's a longer process us a year, a year and a half where we're going to be actually out in the community talking to businesses, holding forums, finding out people's preferences, looking at the village centers, looking at the downtown, and really just doing a really comprehensive economic development plan, which doesn't exist there. There's quite a bit in the master plan, but if we're, you know, not really able to use 2018 data, some of that stuff from 2010 just doesn't it's not updated enough. So within the first year and a half, that's my plan is to give the town an actual plan for economic development and it'll be a big umbrella with a lot of activities and a lot of different things that would um need to happen to kind of bolster the great things that are happening. So that's that's the way that I'm approaching economic development in terms of a plan. Um, but I've also been talking to the chamber, the bid, um, business owners, property owners, and just get a sense of how they've encountered things like the permitting process. Um, there's a lot of perception about that, but town hall has done a lot with the permit administrator role and the planning department's role to support new business coming in, but we don't really know what new businesses we can support.

We don't know what the market is. We don't know what they're looking for. Um, so things like that. And then just the last thing is just you know looking at Ammeris College, Hampshire College and and UMass obviously as really impactful to economic development and what what is you know Amoris trajectory over the next 10 years. Um so Jerry I hope that starts to answer that's the data collection is is almost underway. Okay, we're almost like with a consultant to start that and then it'll be capital planning hopefully gets approved those funding that funding gets approved after the budget as part of the budget. So by June or July we should be talking about that broader actual creating the whole plan and that would take about a year from there. So that's kind of the first two months kind of look at one that approach for that.

And one of and I and I think it's really obvious hopefully to this group but to anyone who's listening is housing is intertwined with that. So housing is economic development for the town, but it's also necessary for businesses to bring in employees and things like that. So so we're we're in a really good spot because the housing production plan has all that new data and information and so the consultants have access to that. Um, so I just wanted to actually just say that out loud that that's that's a part of that's a part of this. Great. Thank you. All right. Uh, moving along to Angus.

Thanks, uh, Doug and thanks, Jeff, for for this helpful introduction and and orientation to what the planning department is thinking of doing. Um, my question is pretty simple. Um, and it's just asking for a little bit more information about the expected timeline for the downtown review standards and whether they're going to have to go before town council, but I just want to get a sense where it seems like a lot of our thinking about the downtown areas just sort of on hold until those review standards are done. So, I'm wondering if you have a sense of what the timeline is for actually getting those across the finish line and in place.

Finish line is tough. I don't know about the finish line, but Nate, you'll back me up here, but there's been an ongoing process with the stakeholder groups and it's been a back and forth, you know, to come up with an actual document, a compromise. And so, where we are now is that document um it's a it's a draft will be given to to the town very soon. We're we're expecting it soon. And what that will start is um sort of a much more public and outward discussion of what those findings are and what it what it looks like. Um generally speaking, it's set up in like three volumes. So this is going to be tremendous. This is a big undertaking, but it's three volumes. One is a vision that covers like a a a proposed vision for the downtown. Um the second is streetscape improvements and streetscape design standards. So that's like the public the public owned roadway, you know, in that area. And then the third is all the private properties within the downtown and um identifying, you know, height like proposed heights of buildings and growth potential. And so taking this three volume approach, what we think is going to happen is starting to bring this out to some boards and committees forformational purposes. And to be really honest, you know, what we're trying to do is get the consultant to ride along with us and be part of this conversation with all these boards and committees, starting with the planning board. I think what we're trying to do is come on March 4th for the consultant to give this introductory overview presentation to the planning board of the three volumes, the structure, some of the goals and objectives that are in it. And this will include the design review board, the historical commission, then disability access advisory commission. Um, and then, you know, we want to get a

presentation to the to the CRC so that everybody gets presented with the volumes of information and how they're set up. And so that would be March and April probably what we're thinking. And then a community meeting, you know, I don't want to be held to this, but like a community meeting thinking around like May to get the community to to be aware of what this is. And from there, we would embark on figuring out, okay, so does the planning board adopt the vision? Can we get town council to approve the public realm, the the streetscape plan and design guidelines? Because that's essential. Um, you know, we have a DPW who is saying that North Pleasant Street needs needs consideration soon. So, we need those design standards in order for for the process to to come up with a design and secure funding to actually redo sidewalks and crosswalks and things like that. And then there's the the other part which is the p private property and the things that would result in potential zoning changes. And so that is still a little bit fuzzy for us, but we think that to fulfill the vision, it will be need to be there'll need to be a series of zoning changes that will need to take place in order for the vision to happen over time. And so that's where um we don't quite have clarity what that will look like, but it would be after presumably after you know maybe this this summer, this spring and summer, it would be talking about those three elements and how to get approval for for any or all of them. Um and so Nate, do you think that that's an accurate kind of description of where we where we feel like we're at?

Yeah, you know, so the consultant Dawson Flinker has been working with this working group for It's about a 40 member group for a long time and you know it's a a bit you know behind schedule and so I think the idea really is it h the standards haven't been made public and so you know give boards and committees and the public you know a number of months to look at them and review them and provide comments and so this working group has done that but no one else has you know staff is senior intermittently but kind of by design we weren't part of this working group we wanted to be you know we didn't want to have some kind of influence whether or not we were in the room right so it was private you know property owners developers ers, you know, you know, just, you know, residents of Ammeris. And so that's kind of the structure of this working group. Um, yeah, and I think it's a, you know, I think kind of some of it would be like what is how does the planning board look at these standards? How does the other boards and the CRC and what do the public think? And and that might, you know, inform kind of the strategy moving forward. You know, maybe there's maybe it's, you know, what if it's everyone really likes it and we can try to do it wholesale. Maybe it's, you know, there's a phased approach like Jeff mentioned. You know, it could be that the planning board likes some of the design standards and we could adopt them without them being a zoning change, right? Maybe they can help the board review projects in downtown and village centers and so they could, you know, be incorporated into the rules and rags. I think there's probably a lot of, you know, a few different ways it could move forward. I think the first part will be really kind of understanding, you know, as Jeff mentioned, you know, does the planning board and others, do they like the vision that Dawson and Thinker came up with? And if so, then how do we get to that? um vision through, you know, regulatory changes or zoning changes. And so, you know, it might seem as simple as like, oh, we want a 15 foot wide sidewalk in our downtown, but the property lines and the setbacks aren't, you know, so consistent that we get that. And so, it might be that we need kind of a variable setback front setback in the BG and in the downtown. So, we get this nice generous sidewalk. And so, you know, that might be easy to understand, but then it's like, okay,

how does that actually work in terms of zoning? And how do we that mechanics of that setback and maybe building height or you know different things in terms of say roof design and yeah I think it's I think it'll be a lot I mean it's you know three volumes it's there's a lot to each so it's not like a 20page document it's it's it's there's a lot to look at and we can maybe distill it down in some ways or the consultant can through this public process and so you know yeah I mean I think what we had envisioned was you know six months of just kind of more public process to actually understand and comment on the design guidelines and then figuring out what's the next, you know, how do we then move them forward after that kind of public engagement process. And so we're hoping to start that next month.

All right. Thank you, Angus. Fred, you are next.

Thank you. [clears throat] Uh this is not as major a point but uh it is I think somewhat unique to Amoris and it is crit critical and that is um the nature of land ownership uh particularly with reference to uh uh corporate ownership. of uh rather than you know owner occupancy. uh the uh this is having a major change major influence on the uh what populates that housing and um I think it is probably a greater issue in Amoris than perhaps in terms of percentage of uh property almost anywhere else in the state. Uh, so I I don't want to lose track of that.

All right. Uh, thank you, Fred. You know, I I mean, kind of in followup to that, uh, Jeff and and Nate, you've heard a lot of this conversation. We've talked about we talked a lot about uh occupancy of of houses and whether there was a way to restrict the types of people that could occupy a house. Um, and we've talked, you know, Fred's brought up ownership. Neither of those facts, let's say, are usually subject to zoning, you know, and so I've felt like we needed to stay in our lane and focus on the zoning and leave the restrictions on occupants or the restrictions on ownership to, you know, some other entity that that has that as their charge. Um I don't know who that is. Um but it does keep coming up and so um you know Nate, you've you've witnessed it. Uh Jeff, welcome to town. And um if you have any ideas for how to get a handle on that and have some some regulations that influence that, there's clearly an appetite for it. Um there's a lot of different opinions about what should be done in on in those areas, but um that is something that we've we've had trouble with.

Yeah, I don't have too much to add. I mean, I I understand it's it's a critical issue. I don't I don't think it's a new issue. I I think enforcement of controlling who is occupying and owning property is is always been a challenge. Um, maybe there's glimpses of potential coming out of the the rental inspection and rental registration program. I mean, I think everything has to probably be found in stride. Uh, but the fact that Ammerst has gone from a rental registration program to an actual rental inspection program, it's taken 10 years, but you know, that is a step in the right direction. it it doesn't cure the issue that you mentioned, Doug, but it is something and I think we have to keep poking poking at the edges, but you know,

the the mantra is that zoning is potentially not the right tool to to regulate occupancy and who occupies a building. Um so

if I could say one other thing um you know those two those two uh facts that are difficult to to regulate the reason people fix on those is because there's physical manifestations that come out of students in houses and absentee landlords. And you know, the the town through its bylaws, not necessarily zoning bylaws, but sort of general bylaws, can regulate the physical behavior that is visible on properties. So, you know, if there are five cars parked on the on the lawn across the street from me, that could be prohibited regardless of whose cars they are. um or who owns the house um or if there's you know loud noise coming at late at night that can be that already is prohibited or regulated. So there are ways to do it but not directly through the facts that people fixate on.

Yeah, I'm by no mean minimizing the importance of that whole discussion. Um, it's a known issue for sure. Okay. Um, Fred, did you have anything else? No, I I'm I'm good with that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks, Fred. Uh, Bruce, back to you and then Jesse.

Okay. Uh, Jeff, this is the second question, I guess. Um, uh, it was formed before you said what you said about, um, uh, an answer I think to Jer about um uh as you move forward with the capital economic development plan you would include uh you would among other things be talking with um property owners and people in town and so forth. Um, as I've in the last week or so particularly spoken to some property owners, developers, Cinder Jones among them because she lives up this end of town and I know her, but I've also spoken with Barry Roberts and I think Angus has spoken to uh Ron Leveria and uh and I've I know Kyle Wilson is part of as a developer as part of the uh downtown standards um kind of um review committee or what have you. So um when I was uh involved in the comprehensive plan uh initiative 30 years ago at the beginning of I think it was we we just John Kun and I were co-chairs and it was just really difficult it seemed I can recall at the time seemingly impossible to get the property owners in downtown to participate in in the in the comprehensive plan and uh I thought that that was but that seems to have changed in recent years. So the question would be um uh is there is there not some would it not be wise would it not be prudent or useful uh for the town to institute some kind of regular uh meeting with between planning staff and and perhaps board members but but basically a regular maybe quarterly maybe annually um where the people who

are actually owning and developing properties in town um we get a chance to engage with them because we're the playing board and the subcommittee uh uh we spend a lot of time discussing things without really knowing whether um what we're thinking we're incentivizing is actually going to be appealing to the people who actually have uh um you know do the work do this stuff who own the buildings who own the land who have professionally engaged in this kind of work in town. Now, I'm not supposed to be thinking that we would invite organizations like Beacon and others who do work in town but are not exclusively, you know, resident in town. U but it seems to me that there's a coder of folks who are routinely involved in development in town. Uh and it seems that it would be a to me a good idea to have a a more structured regular engagement rather than wait for this particular sub sub this particular study or this particular plan where you initiate an effort to go out and talk to people. um why don't we um have a let's just say a quarterly or a sixth monthly regular meeting between 20 people of which let's say 15 might show up at any given time but just have that as a routine thing where the you you you wouldn't have to create a special effort to get it together and so forth. Does that does that seem like a good idea to you? Um, some some elements of it are super critical and are a great idea, but I think trying to get a consistent type meeting of those folks, it just I think it will be a challenge. Everyone's really busy. What I So, I don't know. I

don't know if that's viable. It can be certainly something that we talk about um with a lot of those folks and find out. But I think something else that's embedded I think Bruce and what you're saying is really understanding what a developer does and and how they approach um assessing a project and determining if a project's financially feasible. um if if zoning is a barrier to a project and just you know really having honest discussions about what they do and understanding that they're not bad people. Um you know it's just it's not just in Ammeris but in a lot of places you know sometimes developers are cast in a negative light. Um but

the reality is that if you look at projects and property nine out of 10 things are going to be done by by a developer and a team who takes risks and spend years kind of investing and trying to get a project done that they leave that you know would would benefit the town. So I think at some level Bruce I think un making sure people across boards and committees understand what's involved I think is key. I think more so than just a regular meeting because I'm not sure that there would be a regular agenda item something to advance. But I do think that really being educated, you know, and and understanding how zoning can be a barrier and removing certain things like you said, incentivizing, you know, I think understanding those levers um as early as possible is really important and that was something that we worked really hard in East Hampton to understand and work closely with developers to understand what is a constraint, what is a solution, and how do we get there? And I think the the problem is that every situation can be different. So it's not universally just one thing. But um I don't want to frontload it too much because I think I think it'll come up. But you know, one of the things that I wanted to mention related to this is the rest of our priority list. So I know that the group has really looked at this North Ammerst overlay and I think it's an example where in concept um and really like in principle it's a great idea to take that existing you know area of dense housing and incentivize more but what what what I see and from my 60 days and hundreds of like not hundreds probably 50 meetings with people is that we're I'm not sure I'm not hearing anything about

a project being there. Um there's really no zoning that's going to be put in place that will incentivize some of those larger apartment complexes to to engage in something significant right now. So, I think it's a good discussion piece that has happened and I think it's been elevated to a point that then we look at the downtown design standards and understand what is involved in that and find out if that would be helpful to to protect the town, protect the downtown, but also spur some development. And then the East Amoris Village is an area that, you know, we have people who own property. we have people who are asking for some ways, some paths forward to potentially create some new buildings that don't exist today. And so those, you know, that kind of discussion pieces those rise up for us because there's people asking about them. And then the last thing because it was on the list is um the PRP. So the planned research park, you know, is probably 30 or 40 years old in terms of a zoning district. there has not been a lot of uh development as a result of that district, but we have property owners who own property and they they can't do certain things that they want to do and so they are coming to us and speaking with us about those constraints and so you know we we need to take more time to understand what those constraints are and understand what what types of projects could could be out there for the PRP. But that's why that was item number three on the list that was up is that you know we think that that has opportunity. It has less of the issues that you know those existing apartment complexes have so much revenue coming in and there's so much investment that has happened in those properties that it just seems unlikely right now that they're going to demolish buildings, you know, relocate people, build something new, and come back. It just doesn't seem super viable. You're so I I

Yeah, I I'll finish I'll finish and I'll let you chime in. I just think that that's where the interaction with the developers, you know, it it shouldn't be ne it shouldn't be seen as such a negative thing to understand what what they need as property owners, what they're looking at and what could actually support them to to fulfill some of the some of the you know things that Ammer has said they want, which is, you know, in some some level housing, some economic development and other projects. So, I'll stop with that, Bruce, because I think you were gonna say something. Well, I agree that this is absolutely not imagining developers as black hats. It's imagining them as serious players in the community and very serious players. Um, but uh I did have a long conversation with Cinder Jones a couple of days ago and and your observation that the North Ammerist uh overlay may not have legs uh is uh certainly uh her conclusion because uh she owns not the Puffton place but she owns a place exactly like that which has been there for a long time which is debtree which is generating a a handsome uh annual revenue flow. and she can't understand. She as a property developer can't understand and of course it's Barbara Puffer and her partners that are owning the uh uh puffer but she thinks that they would feel the [snorts] same way that that that it would be that our um allowed increased density and so forth wouldn't be enough to persuade uh them to think that why would they abandon what they've got. So, it does seem that was what part of what caused me to think we should be talking uh to these folks because, you know, we spent a year thinking about this and and uh I tried to get to them, but not very hard, not hard enough. And and I I think that we need to if we're going to be trying to imagine ways that

will cause people who own current properties to redevelop them because that's where we are now. There's not a lot of green space left. is redevelopment and so then you're talking to you've got to understand I think how these folks think otherwise we're not going to be spending our time effectively and it seems that that that perhaps we are guilty of not really getting enough uh wisdom or information let's say from the folks whose properties we've been trying to uh um insert our uh ourself into.

Yeah. And I think the silver lining right now is that the downtown design process has has had those people embedded in it in terms of the discussion. It's had residents and property owners to have these robust discussions already. And then there's this compromise. You know, the both neither side's happy, but it's a compromise. So the good the good news is that the downtown process has had them engaged from the beginning. And then with the opportunity with East Ammeris, with the with the support, you know, with the grant funding and things like that, I think we can take the lessons learned and we can embed more of those discussions in the East Amoris approach right from the start. And and we know that we have property owners who are interested in considering options in East Ammerst. So, it's a good opportunity to do that along with the the residents and people who pass through there and things like that. But I think having them at the table, those two and even the PRP for that matter, I mean, they're all good examples of where we think um, you know, moderate with with moderate moderating it somehow um, but understanding who the property owners are and what they're what they're interested in doing. I think we have three really good opportunities to kind of explore that route.

Okay. Thanks, Jeff. Jeff, do you envision you or Nate u you know based on what you're hearing in the conversations that you do have with developers at certain points coming to the board and saying hey we've heard about this kind of thing this is the kind of thing that the developers are saying would be helpful and using the board to basically get a broader perspective on whether that's a good thing to do in terms of the town's general development or and and and in a s in a sense we respond to what we're hearing from you and maybe focus our efforts in the direction that you're hearing about as having some potential because you know we we already get accused of h of being in the pockets of developers. So, um, you know, if we're publicly, you know, responding to requests from developers, you know, it's a good thing, I guess, if the town is supportive of that or, you know, we become the bad guys and we should just be uh not being receptive to that.

Yeah, I appreciate that. It's somewhere in the middle. Like, obviously, no one wants to be in the pocket of a developer. not what we're talking about either. But we also don't want to be doing something blind of a property owner or a developer who can put numbers together and tell you like does a project work or not. So we want to be in the middle to to have information flowing. Um Nate, I want to have you chime in, but one thing that so the East Ammerst process will have some kind of public, you know, have public discussions and a public meeting embedded in it. And so Nate, correct me if I'm wrong, but we talked about um one of the one of the really successful things about the North Ammeris overlay was how you hosted uh a forum for people to come and talk and I think that would be something that we maybe would want to replicate with the PRP broad areas and and that might be like a process that we can replicate for the for even just discuss starting to discuss the plan research park areas because that seemed really successful and then having that be the basis to move forward on on other ideas. But Nate, you you raised your hand. I don't know if you want to chime in.

Yeah, thanks. I see Jesse, your hands raised. Yeah, I was going to just say um I stop way for a second. You know, I like Bruce's idea in that, you know, I think staff, you know, we say we will meet with property owners and developers and sometimes it's in response to a single issue. Uh I think more recently, you know, I think all parties have been, you know, kind of um more willing to communicate and have meetings just to talk generally about, you know, what they might want to see in town. And so I think there has been the shift in the last few years and I think that's really important and a good thing. I think we can continue to build on that. And so, you know, just kind of like a little example is, you know, we changed the mixeduse building standards a few years ago just at 30% of the gross floor area. And you know it's everywhere where mixed buildings are allowed but mostly it's in the downtown and at the time staff had kind of said well would we ever want to do a tiered approach in the village centers and we didn't but you know what we've been hearing more recently especially since the pandemic is that 30% is often you know too much in terms of getting um say financing for a project or even too much space to fill. And we could say, well, the idea is that we want to plan long term. So, you know, well, that's okay if it stays vacant for a while because once that village center gets built up, it can be full. That's one approach. Or we could, you know, listen to the developers and say, okay, well, is there a sliding scale approach or is there some other way to do this? And, you know, some people might say, well, geez, why are we catering to a developer just so they can get financing? But to me, that's not the case. It would be okay. Well, you know, especially what Jeff is mentioning, if we have this new economic development data, really, what is the market for, you know, this these non-residential spaces and our mixeduse buildings? And so, maybe we keep the percentage, but what we allow in that mixeduse space has to change. Right now, we're really saying it's kind of the traditional retail space, but maybe it could be more, you know, clean manufacturing like, you know, you know, fabrication labs, you know, or or whatever. some

kind of you know something that right now isn't allowed in zoning because traditionally it was considered you know an industrial manufacturing use and so you know I think for instance having those conversations is really helpful when Tom Reedi came to the planning board uh at the last meeting to you know for a conditions of university drive we kind of asked him some questions you know that were somewhat related but kind of tangential to that to that meeting and it was great to just have that conversation he was willing to answer questions about okay how was how was this project permitted, you know, 10 year almost 10 years ago and what were kind of the barriers and what would be different now given that there was the overlay and you know what was his perspective on kind of the permitting then and what could happen now and just you know even that 10-minute conversation was really to me like it it you know it clarified a number of things and it I think it to me would raise more questions and help clarify things and say okay well uh you know do we then look at other parts of town you know is it the parking is it you know a special permit is at how we define certain things that if if not barriers our you know developers might have questions and so I think those are really helpful conversations and we've never really had it publicly before and so it is kind of an interesting idea of how do we how do we engage that periodically to know that our efforts are going to be fruitful you know so you know sometimes we talk about changing inclusionary zoning you know I you know I think that's a great idea but what if it deters development right and a consultant has always said that like what's the what's the nexus between you know what you want and what you can get and does it is it reasonable and so we might think it's reasonable but we might need to hear from all different perspectives to know that it is reasonable so um you know and the developer world is is part of that so yeah I I know I'm sure we can keep talking about it but you know I just want to say I think you know I think the board has been doing that we've had different kinds of meetings in the last few years and I feel like it's it's been

really helpful to you going to try to move different zoning amendments or different ideas forward. So,

um let me I'll just make one comment on that before I go to Jesse. Um you know, I could imagine re or maybe I I will just recommend to you Nate or Jeff, you know, that you just sort of have a list of who are the players in development in town and make a point of having a conversation with them. It can be a private kind of one-on-one conversation with them at least once a year. You know, just what's working, what's not, what are obstacles, what would you like, so that you can then pass along to us your impression and your sort of synthesis of what you're hearing. And it doesn't have to be a public meeting, you know, with an agenda or something like that. I mean, it's a variant on what Bruce was suggesting, but I think that would be a more natural way to, you know, not take their time with, you know, an agenda that doesn't work for them or a time, but just to keep informed. Okay, Jesse,

thanks. Um, I won't rehash lots of what's been said. Mostly, Jeff, I want to say thank you for coming and listening to our impossible questions with no answer. In my regular life, I'm in that situation a lot. So, thank you. I really appreciate it. Um, I did want to make I guess one comment which is a couple months ago I spent far too long looking in past minutes of planning board and town meeting and so on. And this hearkens back to something you said initially Jeeoff is that this problem around student housing and housing and our ratio here is not new. Yes, it's been known for 20 years. Yes, it's been discussed for 20 years various formats in various boards. literally verbatim conversations from years ago we can find in the minutes and the more I look at it the more I see this pattern which is there's a lot of fervor around the problem and then someone usually part of the town says well we're waiting on this study result we're waiting on this next grant we're waiting on this next thing that will give us information to inform us about what to do next and it's this continual waiting and honestly I've been pretty frustrated the last couple years I've been involved with planning board that there's been no appetite right for anything other than development and development is only one lever right we're the planning board we're not the development board so I I think we need to appreciate that and I hope you Jeff and you know the town staff already knows I feel this way will help us work in parallel on these things I really feel like some kind of regulation some kind of permitting some kind of enforcement all these things are levers we have to use we're not going to develop our way out of the current housing crisis alone. So, I'll just stop there. Thanks,

Johanna.

Thank you. And you'll have to forgive me. I've had a cold that's gotten worse over the course of today. Um, first of all, Jeff, I just wanted to thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you coming and being part of the conversation. Um, I appreciate that from your perspective the focusing on the downtown design standards and the East Ammerst study warrant being priorities. And I also really appreciated hearing your thoughts about the North Ammerst overlay um, and hearing you put it so clearly. I'm wondering if there are other items that are on like the subcommittee items list of the um kind of potential zoning amendments that you would also have some concerns about or caution against or if there are some you're where it's like oh yeah you guys should totally like from my perspective those are si you know these ideas are synergistic with what the town is looking to do.

Thanks. That's great. And I appreciate your kindness. Appreciate that a lot. I mean, I think the two things that I think I want to try to mention um there's there's technical fixes. There's a series of things that have been on the list that more like honestly are kind of like quick fixes, but when we we would want to bundle them together and kind of bring them through the process together for efficiency. So there's probably like four or five of those. The way that Nate and I have kind kind of started to to talk about this is if you look at that long list and put a year 2026, you know, as a header, those bigger projects are going to be kind of timeconuming but also fun and involving and and and and going to take effort. And then there's things that continue to be studied, but then we also want to bring some zoning amendments into the process for for this year and then things that arrive for 2027. And so technical fixes are something that's on the list that while we're going through those more fun and robust processes, we could probably handle bringing some technical fixes in. And then there's things on the list that continue that should be continued uh study. And so those should be pursued and kind of edged along to to see where they go. But the two that I want the one that I wanted to mention is that there have been inquiries from from both Ammeris College um and some Hampshire College related things that we think would would surface this year as well. Um you know Ammeris College in particular has asked for time and effort um to be given to them to to look at what they have for requests and amendments in terms of zoning. So, even in addition to the list, there's always there's always these things that rise up, but the rest of the subcommittee

items, um, you know, I don't I don't know enough about all of them to know whether or not there's caution. It was just really, you know, that one that we mentioned already, the North Ammeris overlay. But a lot of these are worth pursuing and just putting them on a on a timeline kind of scale or schedule so that we can make it manageable um to investigate and also um pursue and move forward and then kind of have these kind of public processes that that we see are are necessary over the next year or two. And so that was something that Nate and I were talking about this list and I think we wanted to talk to the planning board before we reorganize it again. Um, and then Nate, I guess I would defer to you um because I'm recalling kind of some discussions about the subcommittees too and and how we want to shape the the rest of the priority list. So Johanna, I hope that answers your question. I mean, I think that there are still some stuff that we're we're kind of looking at to figure out is it going to pop up this year or is it going to be next year? And then we really want to build this timeline as Nate described like this pipeline of projects at different at different levels. There's like the studies, then there's there's projects that can actually get ready and go to the town council process. And then there's there's always the ones that we're not really aware of and that that pop up because there's some potential urgency or something like that. Nate, I don't know if you want to talk about the list in any more detail. But I I I wanted to touch on the technical fixes because that's something that we've been talking about pretty extensively.

Yeah. I mean, I think the next agenda items for the planning board, you know, are looking at the housing production plan uh implementation matrix and then hearing from the housing and zoning subcommittee. And so, like I said, I was thinking that after this after this meeting, we could kind of restructure that list. And so, you know, maybe there's two items that the subcommittee really focuses on and maybe there's a few that staff does. And we put a timeline, right? like, you know, by May 1st, we'd like to have, you know, draft zoning language that the planning board is reviewing to then be able to bring to council as zoning amendments or, you know, maybe it comes from the town manager, but to kind of set a timeline for, you know, some of these as as the priorities this year, you know, knowing that, for instance, if if something is brought forward as a zoning amendment and say it gets get goes to council in May, it gets, you know, referred back to the planning board in CRC and then that could be another few months before it actually and you know gets back to a hearing and gets adopted. So, um, yeah, I mean, you know, for instance, the traditional I forget how we how we label it on the list, but the, um, under the subcommittee, we've really talked about this traditional neighborhood subdivision kind of update to cluster development. And it's kind of a riff on 40y and I think it's a really interesting idea. And so I think you know I say if we talk about that tonight and we say yeah this is you know the great for the this is a priority for the subcommittee then you know the subcommittee can work on it in the next few months and really try to generate you know an idea that becomes a zoning amendment that the planning board understands and supports and could then you know propose it to to town council and maybe there's something else that the subcommittee could work on. So I never meant that that list would become something that we jump in all at once. Like I said, it's just become something to build off of because we hadn't really been doing that in the last few years. You know, we've been talking about things, but we never really had kind of a just a list of anything that we mentioned. And so, I think, you know, like I said, I'd rather I'd like to keep this going and then, you know, create something else that is more manageable,

whether it's by, you know, calendar year or what, however we want to frame it, but that can help us manage it because I think if we look at it, it's overwhelming and we get lost. And you know, some things are redundant, some are, you know, so overly simplistic right now. And so, you know, they have to be kind of discussed and really determined what what does that mean? What does it mean to look at rowouses or density along major roads? And so, you know, those are just ideas and they're not even I'm not even sure that where they go from there in terms of, you know, is it we have a there plenty more to talk about this, right? So, is it a zoning wide change that affects all areas in town? Is it an overlay? So I think you know some of it would be if it's not at this meeting but over the next few meetings kind of helping the subcommittee focus on a few things and then you know staff can present what we we're looking at. Um you know legally there's a few bodies that can bring zoning amendments forward. And so the planning board is one and the town manager is one. And so the idea would be you know does the planning board support like Jeff said this bundle of technical fixes or does it come from the town manager? you know, can the planning board give direction to the subcommittee and say, "Yeah, report back to us every meeting on these two zoning amendments you're really going to be working on over the next three months." And so, the planning board would set aside time at their meetings or one meeting a month to say, "Okay, we're really going to look at this new development method. Um, you know, we're going to look at this, you know, we're going to look at this other change, maybe it's the PRP zoning." And so, those are the two elements that the subcommittee is really going to then focus on. So yeah, I you know I don't necessarily have um you know I don't think we have to look at the whole list but I think some of it would be you know over the next you know two items how how do we talk about it in terms of the housing production plan you know was recently adopted. who was sent to the state for approval and we'd always said that we'd like to meet with the housing trust and maybe the CRC and kind of talk about well how do we work together to

implement some of those you know some of those strategies and objectives and so it was on the agenda tonight just to have the planning board kind of refresh ourselves and not necessarily make decisions tonight knowing that you know probably in the next month or two we'd meet with the housing trust and say okay well how who's working on what and so you know does the planning board stick within the lane of trying to do land use regulations and does the trust work on other implementation strategies that might have to do more with financing or outreach, but you know or do you know or do we kind of share some responsibilities and um you know the trust for instance could look at a zoning you know amendment right they might say they really are interested in changing inclusionary zoning or something and so just kind of having that conversation the next you know one to two months and so you know I think housing is a big deal we talk about it a lot. And so really, you know, this with this plan kind of what how do we really implement some of those those strategies in the plan because they're broad, right? So they talk about infill development, but they don't talk about what that what is the actual regulation that changes to do that. You know, what's the missing middle housing? Is it 8 to 12 units? Is it 12 to 20 units? Is it just putting apartments everywhere in town? Or is it more nuanced? And so the plan doesn't, you know, it gives us the direction, but it doesn't really tell us how the the mechanics of getting it done. And that's kind of where I, you know, the conversation could go. And maybe we we we find one amendment we want the, you know, the planning board or staff to work on, you know, in the next six months from that. Okay. I see no hands. It is now 8:01 on my clock. We usually take a break around now. Um Jeff, have have you heard what you were hoping to hear tonight? Should we end

your agenda item and and move on after our break?

I think that would be great. I appreciate that. And I appreciate kind of just to reiterate, I did watch a lot of meetings, you know, since my process started in May. Um, I have some familiarity, but hearing directly from you guys is great. And I think Nate and I should be getting back together. And I would like to look at the list and if I heard it correctly, um, some some items to address student housing are are missing. Um, but then maybe maybe we look at this list and help prioritize it and put them together so that there's like a flow as to how some of these things could get accomplished over a period of one or one to two or three years. And then I think really looking at what the housing production plan adds in and aligning that. And then finally kind of that how the the town manager goals fit into this. So, um, you maybe that's something that Nate and I can work on and provide an updated document for your next meeting just for you guys to keep considering this. Um, but I do really appreciate all the like the tremendous amount of time that you guys have all invested in this. And um, I'm here I probably won't attend every meeting, but I do want you to know that collectively we we all want to start swimming in the same direction. So that's a sort of a primary goal here is to is to have that happen.

All right. Thank you. Great. Thanks everybody. Thanks Nate. All right. Time is 8:03. Why don't we take a five minute break? Try to come back at 8:08 or right around that time.

All right. Please turn on your camera as you return so that we know you are back. Fred, I do see your hand. [clears throat]

I just have something for Pam. It's not really part of the meeting. Well, you you want to do it with all of us present or No, it doesn't. It's It's Pam. It's regarding that uh text for the November minutes. I during the break I attach it to a reply to one of your emails. So, uh you should have have the text. Thank you so much, Fred. That's so helpful. Sure. Appreciate it.

All right. So, then now Bruce and Johanna are back, so we're all together. All right, time on my clock is 8:12. We'll go ahead with the next item on the agenda number four, which was discussion of the housing production plan. It sounds like specifically the implementation matrix. Nate, did you want to introduce that?

Sure. I'll share my screen in a minute. I mean I kind of summarized it before the break but I think you know there's a lot to the plan and you know the planning board we had been involved at various stages uh with the consultants and reviewed this and I thought it would be good just to look at it again knowing that in the next few months maybe we could you know develop another priority from this list and so you know what you know maybe there's already something on our zoning priority list but maybe there's something else that jumps out from this implementation matrix in discussions with the housing trust or and the CRC. So, you know, um yeah, I think that's it. And, you know, maybe it's things that aren't zoning related, right? It could be other things that the planning board is interested in, whether it's, you know, financing option or some other piece of that, whether it's, you know, public outreach or certain kinds of engagement with stakeholders. And so, I just think it was good to include this in the packet. and you know we could walk through it a little bit but you know if there's any questions or comments now you know we could have a conversation I don't you know I don't really have any any goals out of it I don't you know I'm not you know to me everything there is a kind of a priority it's really then deciding how do we you know which ones are the one we we start with first and so

you want did you want to bring it up and put it on the screen or

oh sorry this is um just it was I think this was under the conversation with Jeff. This is, you know, every year the town, you know, with the budget, it summarizes departments. And so we had something with the planning department. And I just wanted to highlight that, you know, we typically have objectives every year and then upcoming things to work on. And so it kind of strengthens what Jeff was saying. You know, there's East Ammerst, there's downtown, possibly North Ammerst ADUs, um, and downtown design standards. And so there's, you know, there's every year as part of the budget process, departments review this list and add things to it. And so, you know, gets folded into um, you know, it we can use this to help, you know, guide the planning staff and the planning board.

Jesse, I see your hand. Yep. Jesse, and then Bruce,

thanks. Um, I don't want to be a broken record, but since you're bringing up these sort of larger goals again, I have to ask you, Nate, does the word student ever come up in staff conversations or in town manager conversations? Like it it again it's this it really frustrates me that this is a constant theme where we see like the housing production plan, we see these goals, we see summary of objectives and it's never part of the conversation at least written. So I don't need to go into in detail but you say yes or no. Yes, that's something staff talked about, the account manager talked about, the counselors talked about. I'm really curious and uh it feels a little defeating if it's not.

The answer is yes. At the staff level and I'm assuming with the town manager and even conversations with you, Mass. I think as Jeff mentioned, there's, you know, it's a there's so many facets to that piece, right? And it's hard through through zoning typically to address that. And so the town has been doing other things, right? like the rental registration and now rental enforcement. We've talked about parking standards. we've so yeah it is and I I I feel like um especially with the housing production plan it's kind of emphasized the need to look at it some more and so you know kind of you know Bruce said he's kind of had this shift this idea about what you know what what are the expectations from the university and maybe the colleges but I think you know also with the research that was done in the other you know u university uh communities across the country it is difficult because legislation in Massachusetts might regulate things differently. So, we can't say have a student home as easily as other states, but um you know, I think we've had more recent conversations with with state folks and others. And so, um yeah, I I think there's, you know, more to come in the next few months. I think there's ideas that staff have talked about and they may not go anywhere, right? But, um yeah, so I think I think there there is. It's a really hard thing to address through zoning. And so, you know, at some point it's like, well, do we just try it?

I years ago, you know, so anyways, it is part of the conversation, but but typically we don't, you know, in any of these goals, we don't we don't we don't mention other demographics, right? It's just we mentioned housing supply. So, sorry, I have to push back a little. There there is there's talk about missing middle, there's talk about affordable, there's talk about starter homes. Those are speaking about specific demographics, not not a specific socioeconomic class or whatever, but they are in the same way we could be talking about student living situations, which we're all I think we're all pro- student. That's part of our town. And it just need to me it has to be part of the conversation always. And I know it's difficult, but I feel like we're ignoring it in so many ways. Okay. Sorry, I'll shut up.

No, no, no. That's great to hear because like implicitly is not is, you know, may not cut it anymore, right? We have to be a little more transparent about about mentioning student housing. I see two other hands. I was going to try to actually get I just want to make sure you guys were done. Yeah. All right, Bruce.

I'm just going to keep right on going. Um because I feel the same thing. We've got this now. You you you put these list up. So that's why you're getting hammered by me and by from from Jesse. It's up there and there's no goddamn mention of it. And uh and if we've got a town where we've got 13,000 residents and we've got an additional 9,000 who are students looking for housing in town, how can it not be an overwhelming problem? It should be almost the only damn thing on the list. um because it's such an intractable problem and to to wallow around and say whatever was said uh about how maybe it's not our business and all this kind of stuff. It can't not be our business. You've got to figure out a way and it's got to be there. It's got to be there otherwise hell I'm not why why am I bothering you know why am I bothering? That's it for me. Bruce Angus,

I I'll maybe take a softer stance uh um and just say um I I I agree that I think it would be helpful for the um in the budget planning document that we're looking at here to explicitly mention student housing. That being said, I don't know. It seems like we need to be driving more of that conversation um as well. And we are working on on different things, but I don't I'm not sure um what specifically Nate should put on that list that would deal with student housing. Um he could put a general objective just continue to work on student housing, right? Conversations with UMass. The housing production plan I will point out on D1 does um explicitly mention student housing. so that the housing production plan is aware of of this concern and is and is noted. Um I'll express maybe um a a bit of disagreement with Jesse's idea though. I I'm not sure that having either the planning department or us as a board pursue trying to limit student rentals in neighborhoods is a is a a great use of our time. Nor do I think it'll solve the underlying problem, which is just that UMass has a bunch of students that need housing. Um, and so I would I would not want to support trying to get the planning department to to put a whole a whole lot of energy into that particular solution, which I I just don't see as dealing with the root problem, which is the students need houses.

All right, Cara. Um, uh, I had my thoughts together and then Bruce spoke and then Angus spoke. Um, [clears throat] I think Nate that this is just like a reflection of what I was talking about earlier. There's no visible plan or leadership in terms of addressing the housing crisis that people are facing in Ammerst and student housing competition is inherently a part of that. I don't know if there needs to be something in this document under key challenges and long range objectives that does that specifically says students though I to I totally hear you Jesse that you're like banging your head against the wall right now. Um but the point is I know I'm feeling frustrated. I know clearly other members on the board are feeling frustrated that it feels like there isn't um some clear leadership on this on and a clear plan. It's great that Jeff is on board now and now I I feel more confidence that we are going in that direction. Um and of course this was put together before Jeff. Uh so um I guess that was that's really my only comment. I guess I I think that this is this is just a reflection of people's frustration that it feels like nobody's actually paying enough attention and picking up the ball and taking a leadership role on this and and somebody needs to.

Sure. Thanks. just to say that, you know, this is a budget that was developed last year and so this process is starting again. So, you know, thanks for this because I can go back to Jeff and say he's here tonight. I don't know if he's listening, but you know, right, there has to be some, you know, we can, you know, this is happening right now for the next year's budget. So, it's good to have this feedback. Um, and shame on me for having the wrong tab open when uh when I share my screen. [laughter] the uh No, and I I hear you because you know you can you know we have a catalog of previous reports and you know when there was the one from 1991 where you know like Governor Dakau or whatever has funded something about you know student housing in in college communities across Massachusetts and it's like it says the same thing that we've been talking about and it's you know been going on almost 40 years. It's like, well, something has to change because, you know, they knew it was a a problem or, you know, something to address, you know, decades ago and so it's, you know, great.

Okay. So, you know, as long as we're all going to pile on here, um, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it in a slightly different direction. You know, um, we can wait for Nate or Jeff to take leadership. on this or we can, you know, each of us show up with here's what we think we should do. you know, I mean, we we could try to develop a consensus on the board and then lead the lead the conversation, you know, with CRC or or council, you know, if if we think that we should allow, you know, a 10-story tower in the neighborhood somewhat some neighborhood adjacent to UMass that would house 2,000 students and and take have have a noticeable effect on the market. We could do that. We could put that in into writing and recommend it to council. Um, you know, I mean, there's lots of different physical uh solutions we could all talk about. So, I'm, you know, I I just feel like we're being a little unfair to Nate and Jeff to look to them and and not consider what we could do. And that that prompted at least three of us to put our hands up. So, so, okay, let's keep going. I I thought we had a light agenda tonight, but I can see it's going to be a long night. Jesse, you're next.

Thanks. I I completely agree, Doug. Um, but the few times we've done that, it's gotten nowhere at council level. And I don't know if that's because we were off the mark. I don't know if that's because Jeff was not supporting it. And like like we just heard tonight, we've been working a long time as North overlay idea. We haven't heard once from anyone in town that we don't think that's viable. It's also strange to me because we're not making it happen. We're allowing it to happen. If it doesn't happen, so what, right?

Why would we kill it now? Maybe three years from now someone will take the opportunity. But but my point is really what I was trying to ask Jeff the very first time maybe he's not the right person to ask is is there appetite for this in his mind in town manager's mind like for any of this for any of this student heling discussion because that's what I don't see and again maybe and I agree with you Angus maybe planning board is not the right place for this to happen in these other ways. Uh maybe it's not in our purview to think about regulating, limiting, all this other kind of stuff. I don't know. Um but someone someone needs to do it. And if I should get off of here and go to a different committee or just be public commenting everywhere,

you shouldn't get off the board. No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean I mean I'm personally in kind of the same position that that Angus is that I don't think it's worth you know I don't think it's but I would like to know that if that's what the board thinks because that's what I spend most of my time in this that I have for this thinking about. So if we collectively think this is not these are not the right things for planning board. I really want to know that. I won't be mad about it but I do want to know that because I will stop trying to make it happen here. Yeah. Okay. I think that's an important discussion that we need to have actually. Okay, Angus.

Uh, yeah, I I think that's um I don't know if that would be a good thing uh possibly for a future meeting because that that I think we'd probably all need to do some more thinking about that. I think it could be a worthwhile thing for us as a board uh to discuss um whether pursuing some kind of uh I guess a limitation strategy or a spacing strategy, right? um in residential neighborhoods to try and um get better distance and reduce the number of student rentals. Um I think that's that's something that we should probably talk about as a board because I think Jesse's right. We we if we agree with that strategy as a group then that's something that we need to pursue and if it's not then it's something we probably shouldn't pursue. Um, I was going to suggest actually maybe us moving to the next agenda item, which is general housing discussion, because it feels like the the HPP itself is more of a background thing that'll help us inform our discussion of general housing and the actual and the zoning priorities list that we started looking at earlier. But I don't want to tread on your on your toes, Doug. Oh, they're they're barely they're not my toes, but uh um let's go to Jara and and Nate, then we'll get to you and you can you can comment on whether you're okay with us jumping around like Angus is suggesting.

Tara.

Yeah. Um I uh well Doug, I appreciate um uh your point about you know us taking some initiative on that leadership and giving some direction. I I I genuinely love that idea. I feel like we're hopefully representatives of this community and can, you know, serve as one point of view from that perspective. Um, but when I was talking about leadership, I mean like the town and the schools because ultimately, you know, we don't have the land, the resources or the authority to do anything. Um, well, not anything. So I in my job um it's I often go to different communities and I try to figure out all the different assets and all the different major players that are in the housing development ecosystem. Um and I try to figure out what assets those particular communities have and how they might be able to better utilized to meet the housing needs of that community. I see tremendous assets here in the schools and in the town. And I mean I I'll try not to go down a soap box here. Um but what frustrates me is that um [clears throat] if we're serious about addressing the economic and housing challenges that kids and young adults are facing right now, then we need to all work together and we need to do things differently. We can't keep playing in our own little sandbox or accepting that, oh, this would never happen or that would never happen. That's just going to be status quo solutions for status quo results.

And the places where I have seen the most progress in my work supporting affordable housing is the places where the organizations get together in a room and have conversations, figure out their shared goals and come up with a plan to use their shared resources in order to achieve those shared goals. And I don't see any of that here. And it's driving me nuts. And that's totally common that uh absence is um very common in most of the communities that I work in. But Ammerst is so well resourced. It's foolish to me that we are not seeing more open discussion and leadership from the powers that determine our lives on a regular basis. They're just ignoring the housing crisis that we're all experiencing. They're ignoring the economic challenges that kids are trying to get hired today. Okay, I said I wasn't going to go on a soap box. I won't anymore. Um, I'll get off. My point is, I guess I just uh I'm calling for leadership. I would really love for the people who have the authority to make some meaningful impact on the housing and economic development of this town to get together in a room and to really have a conversation and come up with a plan about how they can work together to make effective change. Um, I'll stop there.

Okay. All right. Uh, in that case, Nate, finally around to you.

Oh, sure. That's fine. Yeah. I no this is good. I'll tell Jeff to watch the rest of the meeting um on his own time. The uh yeah I mean so we can move on. I don't you know like I said I didn't have like a a strict you know agenda to for the housing production plan. It was really just you know I'd encourage the board members to look at it. There's you know 50 odd implementation strategies you know under a few big themes. I you know I I hear what you're saying about students because they really impact the housing market. And I guess you know what my I agree because I think what what becomes a a hindrance is you know we could say like yeah we want to do you know smallcale development on residential properties and then the concern is like oh well that's just going to become student rentals and out of that fear we don't make a zoning change or we don't make any changes and so and then if we try to do something big like another overlay that doesn't move forward either and so then you know, there isn't a lot of, you know, right, as Jerry you just said, it's kind of the stasis. And so, you know, we're looking at East Ammerst and when the planning board talked about East Ammerst a few years ago, we said, well, let's look at look at University Drive because, you know, its proximity to UMass and it's kind of general character made it a priority. And you know, people had said, well, the problem with East Ammeris, if we densify it, do we really want that to become where there's a lot of students and then they're commuting across town, does that make the most sense? And so, you know, I remember in some CRC meetings, everyone said, "This is great. Let's let's let's redevelop East Ammeris and we'll have families and young professionals living there." And it's like, well, we will get some, but it may not be what people envision if we're not addressing other parts of the housing equation. And so, you know, going back to the housing production plan implementation matrix, you know, just let's keep it in mind for the next meeting. Okay, what what are some strategies the board would want to

undertake? And maybe um Doug and Jarrett, right? Maybe it's a memo to the town manager and town council with some of the things that were said tonight. I mean, maybe that's, you know, and it fits into one of those implementation strategies of how do we kind of change that? You know, there's one about changing the conversation and so is that, you know, is that is that maybe a priority for the planning board? It's not zoning related necessarily yet, but it's something that, you know, we can say, look here, it's kind of couched in some of these ideas and in this plan and the comprehensive housing policy of the council. And so we want to actually, you know, we'll we'll talk about it a few times and we'll try to generate something and maybe we have ideas within the memo, right? A few different things. What does that mean? like you said, your type of meetings or some transparency or something. And so I, you know, I to me that's maybe that's a priority that comes out of this, right? We we've talked about it a lot. We talked about it tonight. And so I'm thinking that that's something we say is a, you know, a priority out of this evening. What form it takes, I'm not sure yet, but um yeah, so we can move on. Um, yeah, and I I'd still like to uh revisit the the HPP matrix in the next part of the discussion or knowing that maybe in March or sometime we'll meet with the housing trust and we can really kind of jump into some details there. So that's it.

All right, Angus.

Yeah, I'll just keep it brief. I think you know most of what we're talking about here especially around students and getting our academic partners more engaged is in part D of the housing and production plan and um D1 is encourage the development of more student and workforce housing and we're listed along with the planning department as the taking the lead responsibility but the next four points um continue to strengthen town relationships and update strategic agreements with academic partners to invest in community services. Identify discrete housing strategies with academic partners. Revamp the dialogue and perception around student housing and presence. Help senior residents and residents. Thanks, uh, Nate. But D1 through five are all things that the planning department is should be taking a key role in. Um, and I think what you're hearing from us, Nate, is that when you all do sit around to get around to doing key challenges, long-range objectives for this coming year, we would encourage you all to really put those five things up up in there. And I think the planning board, a lot of that those D2, three, four, and well, D1 and four we can also be involved in and we are trying to be involved in. Um and so I think we we can work cooperatively with y'all. Uh but I just wanted to bring our attention to that because as we shift to actual housing strategies, this stuff is not apart from D1 is not going to be as strong a part of our discussion. All right, Jesse,

just quickly to point out, I appreciate that, Angus, but also A1 through nine and half of B and C1 through seven are all planning board taking the lead. So, it's a [laughter] lot. So like yeah it's there but again to in my mind the weight of the the priority well a there's not real a real priority listed here but the way these all get discussed for the most part the priorities are are out of whack to me to make any meaningful impact in any short time frame and Jara I completely agree with your sentiments as well. Okay.

All right. Uh Nate or did you want to go through this?

No, not necessarily. Um you know what was in the packet? I think um you know I I I agree. So part of the plan is uh we kind of have to have this this matrix and identify responsibil you know responsible entities and and a timeline. And so, you know, I I I I agree that some of them it says planning board maybe is, you know, town staff or could be the planning department or town manager. And I think that can all be I think that could be communicated. Um, no, I mean, I think like, you know, right? So, there's there's just a lot here. And so, you know, I'd ask the board for next time just to, you know, maybe pick out three that you think are worthwhile to pursue and we can have the conversation and see where is there there's overlap between you know, maybe the goals of the town manager and the housing and zoning subcommittee and, you know, is there something that we we pull out of this that isn't on the list? That's all. I don't we don't have to. I mean, I I was going to suggest the same thing that we each pick some small number of of these points and and communicate them as our our thoughts that of of priority and then we can see where there's shared interest and let that develop the priority for the board.

Sure. Yep. Do you want us to just send send you our top three? Yeah. I mean, it could be between now and you know five days before the next meeting so you can put it all in a matrix and tell us who vote, you know, where the votes were. Sure. I mean, it could be like three to five, but yeah, I mean, try to narrow it down and, you know, otherwise like we're not, you know, we don't make any headway if we're Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this would be anything on the list category A, B, C, or D or E. Right. Okay. So, that's a bit of homework for everybody. Johanna,

and then just to be clear, the thing that you are asking is what do you think the planning board and the planning department should be prioritizing in the immediate term or like in 2026 in addition to the downtown like in addition [clears throat] to the things that have already been identified,

right? Yeah. So maybe maybe it's the same and maybe there is one other strategy or zoning change that we think could be you know worked on this year while we're doing these other things. Uh so yeah, I mean really come up with out of this matrix, you know, two or three priorities and maybe one gets worked on this year and the other two are next year. But at least to start figuring out how we implement it, right? How we actually take that strategy and bring it forward because like I said, some of them are kind of generic. And so, you know, is it a specific zoning amendment? Is it this memo encouraging things and maybe follow-up memos? is it you know what whatever it may be and so yeah so it's really um you know because that that zoning list didn't just you know didn't generate from this housing production plan this was things that the board had mentioned over a number of meetings that staff had mentioned and like I said it's just a compilation of things that it really hasn't been given a strong priority or you know hasn't been vetted very well it's just so you know right come up with your three to five email me there's two or three we we say we'll move forward on and we put a timeline on them and maybe one is this year.

So we should be drawing not just from this h housing production plan matrix. You can also draw from your zoning ideas. Let's just stick with the housing production plan matrix for the homework. Okay. And maybe after the next discussion then there's a second homework assignment. Your top two from the zoning priority list. Okay. I don't want to confuse them just because it'd be nice to

Yeah. And I don't want to get it too confused either. Okay. All right. Um All right. I'm going to consider that uh kind of the end of the item number four. Um and and then we'll go to the general housing discussion if there's anything left to say. Um, but I do want to offer our public attendees a chance to comment on what we've talked about so far. I'm wondering, uh, we have still seven attendees. Uh, do any of you want to make a comment about this general topic, whether it's the zoning priorities, whether it's the housing production plan, um, or housing in general. I'm not seeing any hands. Maybe everybody just wants to listen tonight. All right. Well, we'll keep going and maybe ask again later. Um, general housing discussion. So, the time now is 8:42 if it matters that we're transitioning to that topic. Um, do we have anything left to say tonight? Uh, I I'm I'm not asking because I don't want to hear anymore. Bruce. Well, um I took the trouble to uh put together a um a reaction to the discussion we had and I thought it was on the planning board, but it might have been in the subcommittee um about uh the 40y uh starter housing idea. And uh the conversation that that I participated in

had to started with uh I think uh Alex and Nate and certainly I as well looked at um uh it's it's probably not there. It's the I'm now switching to support Pam. I think it was the document that you sent around subsequently today. Right. that I'm that I'm speaking to. Um Yep, there it is. That's it. Yes, it's in the packet as well.

Oh, it is as well. So, um where was I? Um so the conversation began with the 40 Y uh continued with a notion that the 40 Y is actually a fairly heavy-handed uh piece of uh state legislation and you know and like uh other such 40 things like 40B and so forth there's a fairly uh laborious process in uh in engaging it and the thought was um could we do something just with our own bylaw that affected the uh broad intent of of of 40 Y and if we could how might we go about it? And the first thought that I had anyway was uh [snorts] well we could um uh basically uh move in the direction that the farmland protection overlay dealt in where you basically take a um uh you could create a a subdivision. You you could basically amend the subdivision regulations in some way and then uh use uh overlays as we have done by identifying certain parcels and this is the way the farmland protection uh of conservation farmland protection worked. It identified seven or eight farms about 30 years ago, put overlays on each of them and and then designated that they had to be developed in a certain way uh using cluster. And so the thought was maybe we could do something similar to create 40 essentially for 40 40 wide type zones or or geographic areas. Discussion then continued to suggest well maybe we shouldn't approach this as an overlay approach. Maybe we should simply modify the the the bylaw in some way. And uh and then it occurred to me I think that or others that the section 4.3 of the

bylaw which is the cluster um zoning uh uh cluster subdivision uh approach could work. The the way it works in our bylaw at the moment is that you take a large parcel and you enable through this uh portion of the bylaw contracted standards. a few amount of roads, smaller lots and so forth. So you can concentrate development in a portion of a larger parcel. And the thought that I had was well maybe we could u uh adopt something similar but instead of collapsing the uh the the develop entitled development into a smaller portion, you could allow a three-fold u bonus for the whole parcel. Um but if you uh uh in return for that uh would uh uh require the the the the limit the construction of the houses on these smaller lots to a uh a smaller size. And the idea being that if you were producing a a lot of smaller lots with a lot of smaller houses that uh that that that would just result in less expensive housing. So this is not affordable so much that it's got capital A and quotation marks and so forth. Although we could have a folder an inclusionary requirement into this sort of thing. But I should have actually prefaced this thing by saying that the the the the interest in in this approach was supposed to be kind of complimentary with the uh North Ammeris overlay approach or or or some some initiative that we were taking that would um be would be purely focused on greatly increasing the capacity to develop and

provide student housing. And this was seen as a complimentary uh initiative that would be very differently focused on um starter housing, affordable housing, workforce housing and so forth. So that we would somehow um uh and endure or inoculate ourselves against the the uh heavy-handed criticism from folks would say you're only interested in students housing and blah blah blah. we can say, "No, well, we're interested in all of this, and this would be their evidence of of an initiative that was completely not student housing." And the question, of course, is whether you could put a as well as a house size limitation, you could put an ownership limitation and so forth. And um so I wrote it all out and uh and um and put it out there as an idea that um I thought we could um consider. And I think that's enough uh as I mean I think I've basically summarized what's there but I did look through the whole of section 4.3 and figure out to some degree how it could be. You'd have to keep 4.3. You would have to keep we'd have to keep this cluster uh provision as it is because it's an important complement to the farmland protection uh section of our bylaw. It it it basically describes how the farmland has to be is supposed to be developed. So this is important. It's not something that we should just change. We would have to add, but it could be the model for adding. And the question essentially to me it seems is uh could we uh successfully limit house size? Um and uh my thought was that notionally we should be able to because if we're if we're making a a giving so to speak by adding twice three times or whatever as many lots that we could have some complimentary uh limitation uh that uh reduced house size and it

seemed to be a fair and reasonable thing but of course the uh the the the the proof would be in uh um an opinion I guess from the AG's office. I should stop there. I just this is I just wanted to say yeah I mean Bruce this is this this is interesting I guess um

given you know one another way to to control house size would be to to use the kind of thing we've already got which is the p you know the proportion of lot coverage and if we're allowing smaller lots that would give that would generate the range of house size that's allowable on those smaller lots.

Doug, I don't think so. Uh the evidence of that is the uh uh the Bcowski Meadow subdivision and the con and the subsequent Koh's Lane where much smaller lots were created but equivalently huge houses were built on those small lots. Uh, so just up the road in my backyard is uh the evidence that that doesn't necessarily follow.

Okay. All right. Well, that's I'm not as familiar with that. And is it possible that the percentages uh and the and the the factors that were in play at the time were just more generous than you might want to do now?

That's possible. Uh it's true that I haven't really done the math on this. I I've worked on just my instincts based on years of experience but but uh but probably the next step particularly once you found out that it's worth doing the math which is to say that this general concept this general proposition has legs in that you you can uh limit house size. And if if we find out that that that's a defensible proposition, then we could sit down and do the math on this. And I I the reason I went to Cind and talked to Cinder Jones because she does a lot of subdivisional work, or at least her family did, Paul particularly. I thought I could get a reading from her on that, but unfortunately I couldn't. the the conversation just with Cinder just went exploded into all sorts of uh possible things about around the town and so forth. So I wasn't able to focus the conversation enough

but in principle she seemed to think this was a good idea. Uh she was she questioned whether uh this would uh whether you should have a permanent limit on house size or whether you would uh um say after a certain period of time you you would allow an a homeowner to biggerize their house. I said well you know the first step in biggerization here is the state um law related to ADUs. Every one of these small houses can build an ADU. There's nothing we can do about that. So that's the first step and and her concern was well do you want to stop people from you know from from growing their wealth so to speak generationally and and she was concerned that we shouldn't do anything that would too unreasonably limit that. Uh and I think that's an interesting point. Uh, but I did think that the ADU uh um um protected uh the ADU uh would probably be a line that would safeguard that uh concern.

All right, math needs to be done. Um Bruce, I just want to say this is such a creative idea. I love the idea of trying to replicate this tool within our existing bylaw because you're worried that the new tool might be too complicated for people to take advantage of. Yes. Um that was Angus' and and uh and Nate's concern. I think

Yeah, that's a really I I love this idea. Um my I guess two questions that I have is uh aren't there some other like incentives related to 40y? Like I'm curious what what are the tradeoffs of of doing a local version versus um a 40y overlay? And I'm also curious and Nick is maybe more of a question for you. Uh you know what you think. Yeah. And then uh what a how you how you feel like that article that you shared with us earlier this week plays into this discussion of of starter homes.

Nate, this is for you. Yeah, I think you know just to say that this is the number number two on the on the subcommittee list and so I think some of this is coming to the planning board you know for the board to say yes subcommittee and staff work on this and you know give ourselves a timeline and say okay we want to actually move this forward as a zoning amendment right so whether it's a you know a new development method in the bylaw you know section 4 whatever seven six call it traditional neighborhood subdivision we come up with a you We could model it after the cluster, but you know, it has its own, you know, it it it's applied that way. So, it's different than an overlay, right? We'd say, you know, on lots, we could have criteria on lots greater than five acres in these zoning districts. This is allowed by site plan review. And it's a subdivision method with some permitting to get there. I think Jared what 40 Y does there's a a financial incentive in terms of how many units more you know the net increase between the 40 Y and the underlying zoning it's not a big payment some communities might see that as something I think what what 40y does it you know it does place a size limit on the house it requires at least 50% to be three bedrooms and it has a few other um kind of conditions or require requirements that typically aren't found in zoning. And so to me, I'm not sure that we could regulate size by simply saying you can't have more than 1500 square feet. Typically, we do that through right, you know, dimensional standards, whether it's the setbacks or as Doug mentioned, lot coverage and building coverage. And so what 40y is doing is it's blending a number of things. And so to do a 40y essentially, it's a subdivision, right? So the subdivision is the creation of a road and lots. And you know, Bruce and I talked today about this. It's ironic because typically the person who does that may not be developing every lot,

right? They might sell the lots and so then a different contractor is building a number of homes and then you know they get sold and then the homeowner might not even realize that there's a size restriction and then they put an addition on. And so what 40y is the state is saying is we really want to try to create they call it starter home, small home. Mansfield is calling it a multigenerational overlay, but they're basically coming up with a kind of tweaks to subdivision method, site plan review, and then design standards and housing standards all in one kind of overlay. And they're trying to get it all done at once. And so, you know, it's great. I think um you know, towns are starting to realize it's been on the books for a bit, but they're now trying to figure out how to actually write the zoning to make it work. Um, like Bruce said, we found it to be kind of heavy-handed and maybe not necessary. And so, I don't know if there's actually a detriment if we don't use a 40y. I think we could try to take from it what we like and from other parts of our bylaw or other ideas and create this new development method. I think what we may not be able to do, what Bruce was saying, is actually have an explicit limit on housing size. Um, I think that's yet to be tested. Typically zoning doesn't get to that kind of that level. So um but you know for instance like to the 5,000 square foot lot thing to me you know in our outlying residential areas right you might have a 10acre property and right now you get you know eight house lots and given the cost of infrastructure of of everything and then you know is that really the best use of it or could we say with if this were you know if this method were in place could they get maybe 20 house lots and you know because of that the homes are smaller. or is it just that they're, you know, more affordable? They're not capitalally affordable. They could be, but the idea is just to generate kind of different housing types, different opportunities. And so, you know, for me, it's like I think if, you know, planning board, if we think this is a good idea, then sure, the

let's have the subcommittee really work on this and say, okay, let's, you know, come up with a timeline to try to like actually get language down as a zoning amendment and, you know, talk about this, you know, every other meeting or something to move it along. So, I do think it has legs. I think it's a really great idea. Um, I think there's a lot of details to be worked out. So, all right, Angus,

as someone on the housing and zoning subcommittee, I think it's a great idea for us to look into this. Um, I also think that uh to Doug's point, so that the 40y places an upper limit of 1,850 square feet for a house. So start to be a starter home and qualify for the 40 wy that's the maximum square footage. Um it's in heated space. Um so I I think to Doug's point there might be a way to give the option of small enough lot sizes with but set a uh maximum building coverage that would still get us somewhere around there. Um but the lots would have to be could potentially be pretty small if that's the case. Um which could be fine. I mean, I was just in Texas over uh the December break and we drove by so many subdivisions that had almost no yards and it was almost entirely house. Um, and the houses were not huge. Some of them some of the subdivisions were, but some of the houses were quite small actually, two, threebedroom houses. Um, so anyway, I I think there might be ways for us to do it, but I think that's something for the housing and subcommittee to work on.

Jesse,

thanks. Just to add one more [clears throat] point that came up in our subcommittee discussion for those who weren't there and anyone correct me if I'm wrong. The 40y was designed and made makes a lot more sense if you have a big lot that you're going to split up in this way. And so we had a hard time imagining more than one or two locations in our town that that would work. That might work. But then I think part of what drove Bruce in this direction was thinking how can we make something that could be one single big lot and someone wants to make five houses on it that you know it doesn't have to be one spot in the town. These could pop up here and there wherever a builder and owner felt like it was appropriate as a way to infill with smaller starter homes. And if I could just add to that, um, if you if you just Google Mansfield MA 40Y, you can see their work to create this 40y district. And it is an incredibly heavy administrative lift and um, lift for their planning board to undertake. Um, it's really incredible the resources they have they have there. They've done a good job. Um, but they're identifying a pretty large tract of land to try and and do it on. We we as Jesse said, we ran into walls and imagining doing that kind of 40 Y five times across town would be pretty unmanageable.

Well, so one question I have is whether whether you really need to limit it to these larger parcels like this 5 acre parcel. Um, you know, if I have 2 acres, which is 80,000 square feet, you know, or even even my half acre, which is 20,000 square feet. Well, you know, I theoretically I could get four little houses on that with just a long driveway to get, you know, subdivision road uh to to give access to each one. Um, you know, I guess I guess that would be one question I would have is is would we be would we be willing to let this apply to smaller parcels so that we don't automatically we're not automatically limiting this to undeveloped land. Um, because I' I'd rather see us retain some I mean I'd rather see us redevelop some of the land that's already built on and and make it denser if there's a way to do that. All right, my my two cents, Nate and then Bruce.

Jar, I was going to say I'll I will send the Mansfield 40Y zoning. So, you after they did all this work, the actual zoning language is pretty straightforward. You know, some of it is that they're backed by state regulation, right? So, they can make some references, but the actual zoning amendment is three pages and it's not, you know, I feel like our cluster development method and dialogue is a few pages and it's kind of cumbersome and wordy. You know, Mansfield's taking the approach of just writing kind of straightforward simple zoning language and I'll send it around. Um, so I think it is achievable to, you know, have kind of this, you know, this change in our bylaw. Doug, to your point, I think the idea is that this become these are fe simple lots and it's part of a subdivision. Not that we can't do it on a smaller lot, but say we call this traditional neighborhood subdivision. In the housing production plan, they talk about cottage style development, which to me is it may not be fee simple. It could be, you know, a condominiumized property that allows multiple units on a smaller property. And so, you know, your approach could work. You know, would someone really go through the effort of creating a a small sub a subdivision road to create to service four lots? And do they really then are they fe simple? like do they could they actually meet the the requirements we might have? And so maybe I just you know I think it's a good question.

You know I think that's I think that's worth thinking about at least for a few minutes you know I mean and I'm coming from where I stand I have a halfacre lot I already could put an ADU on it. Um, you know, I mean, if if you told and and I'm within walking distance of town, so and and riding bike riding distance of the university, so you know, I mean, isn't that is that something people we would like to see? I mean, it would mean tearing down the house I'm in now, but I I'm not particularly attached to it. Do the numbers work? I don't know, but you know. Okay, Bruce.

Um, just to say that I think we should uh um look into that the reason that 5 acre uh parcel or larger is in there is simply taken from the existing 4.30 cluster bylaw. So, it's not really uh something that's been thought about. It's simply appropriated without thought. So I think uh it would be a good exercise for us and maybe a really key and interesting question for us to look at um the the two takeaways that I've gotten for this. There's probably more because I've written a lot, but the ones that spring to mind right now are to see how we can uh limit how size as you suggested Doug and as and Nate by um limiting by by by by being aggressive with the uh dimensional standard for building or or lot building coverage. And then secondly to look about how this thing could be applied to parcels of um one acre or less. And would they be subdivisions or would they be um some kind of version of the uh um OSCD or some other thing that we would basically enable um a very small parcel to be redeveloped in a kind of a cottage style or a whatever style housing where would we imagine that we would refine part of the subdivision bylaw to allow these to be very small few simple lots uh frontage generated on a driveway way that went up the middle of a let's say an acre lot. Um I mean I don't know but I think those two are very interesting questions and see whether we uh might not be able to uh figure out how to do

this with uh modifying the bylaw rather than perhaps necessarily looking at the engaging the state 40. But at some point we might find out that trying to wrestle this pig uh to the ground, it keeps slipping out and it ends up that the 40 Y actually is better than the pig that we couldn't wrestle to the ground. But let's try let's see if we can get this pig pinned down because it might be fun to do. That might be my favorite Bruce metaphor [laughter] so far. Jesse,

thanks. Yeah, I totally support pursuing this idea. Uh I was thinking not exactly the same but already on Mullen that I go by daily there's a stretch of houses which feel that way already. I think they have got there that way somehow by uh building up a garage or a second unit or whatever. But but the point is they're pretty small lots with multiple small structures on them. And so that kind of density I think is great for our town. So I would very much like to pursue this.

All right, Angus. Um, I maybe Jarro should go next. I was gonna um this is this is Bruce's kind of uh hobby horse that he's pursuing in the subcommittee and I was going to talk about my hobby horse, but I can go after Jarro. I think it's a greased pig. So, yeah, Jared.

Uh, thank you. Um, yeah, I I just want to echo that I think this is a great idea. Um, I would like hearkening back to the very beginning of our conversation with Jeff today. I would recommend that the subcommittee members who are investigating this talk to subdivision developers, talk to Valley CDC, talk to Habitat, talk to whoever is building single family homes and see if this is something that would be appealing to them. Would they actually pursue properties, subdivide them, and would this allow them to build homes in a way that would allow them to sell them lowercase a affordably? Um, because we I I love this idea. I don't want us to invest a bunch of time in a tool that's not, you know, actually appealing to anybody who would who would do this.

All right, Jira, back to you, Angus. Yeah, that that actually prompts one quick question about this, which is I I know that um Sarah Bar came and spoke to our subcommittee meeting I think last last week um or no, I'm sorry, maybe a month ago. But anyway, um to to say that Amoris College is trying to think about workforce housing um for staff um a little bit for faculty as well, but especially for staff. So I guess my question just prompted by Jar's thought um do these with a cluster development do the lots then have to be sold to someone

or could could ownership be retained by whoever developed the site. Um Nate, do you know the answer to that? Yeah, so it could be retained. And so the really the idea is it's a it's a subdivision method to create a roadway and then frontage lots. And so you know it the ownership of the lots is really not um um you know part of the part of the you know the permitting like we don't specify that and so uh 40y does get a little bit into the ownership. So, right,

typically we wouldn't. And so, um, yeah. No, I think it's a good question. Um, along those lines, I was going to say I think what, uh, we might need to change the subdivision regulations because, you know, the idea is that we'd also then want maybe narrower roads and, you know, not a 50 foot diameter, 100 foot diameter paved circle at the end of a culde-sac for a turnaround. So, right, some of this would also maybe involve changing the subdivision rags.

And so, yeah, I think there's I yeah let's you know we can pursue this um we can come up with different ideas of how this could work and I think what I'd like to do is right try to work on this a little bit more and I think to your point Jara right then asked you know shop this around a little bit and say okay we kind of have our standards lot sizes whatever you know staff or the subcommittee could take a few properties kind of do a concept and then approach developers or organizations and say you know does this make sense you know is this a you know because it is expensive to put a roadway in and there's a process to that you know to that but is it a a new way to get these simple lots because some of the other strategies I feel like that we've been pursuing and often what the zoning has is like it's either a single family home or it's an 80unit mixed building you know and there's really not there hasn't been a lot of strategies that address kind of a different type of housing and I feel like this might actually might be one that we could try to work on so

all Okay. Um, Jesse,

thanks. Just quickly to play developer devil's advocate. Um, I think ownership is a really important part of this question because that's my job to talk about student housing. Uh, because this potentially lets me on my property build three small three or four small houses and house 16 to 20 students instead of just eight with an ADU. And so I think that's a critical piece of us figuring out can we regulate or can we requ have ownership requirements to in my mind for this to be effective towards the starter home and not towards more infill for student rentals.

All right, Fred.

Uh I want to be very careful about uh the the ownership uh potential limitations here. Um one of the goals that I would have is to promote, you know, middle class expansion and uh the availability to accumulate equity. And that was one of the things that I particularly liked about the development that's now taking shape uh on Monagu Road in North Ammerst uh because that will allow the uh people coming into it to acquire equity and uh thereby upward mobility which I think is a a longterm public policy gain. So I just I don't want to lose track of that. All right. I guess uh you know to rebut or to respond to to Jesse, I guess if we are not able to control or predict the ownership, would that be enough reason to not do this?

I'm I'm not sure. I just think it would be it's a great goal to include. All right, Angus. Uh I wanted to talk about my other hobby horse. Is that okay? Fine with me.

Okay. So um there are uh two question I'll try to keep it brief. Um I'm I've been working on um subcommittee item number eight and staff item number three which is about uh PRP related stuff. Um this is on the um list of potential zoning amendments. Um, I had a grand plan that I sent over to Nate that I think was too ambitious and maybe a little bit crazy of just combining um different zones um and trying to relax uh uses in them and dimensional regulations. I think that's probably ambitious. So, um there are two proposals that I'd like to get the planning board's feedback on. Um uh one is the one that's basically stated here which is to uh my goal would be to combine the PRP professional research park and the OP office park zones and then uh which are almost identical in their uses and in their uh dimensional regulations and to open both of those to housing um of different kinds. which are currently not allowed in either. There are basically three PRP zones. One is near the North Square Apartments on the way towards Sunderland. One is off of Old Belture Town Road in Route 9 um in South Ammerst and the other is along Route 9 as you come into town from Hadley. Uh there is a single office park zone as far as I can tell and it is across from the University Drive overlay um where the hos the hospital is and I think one office building. Um so that's one proposal. Um, it would be still allowing everything that's still

possible in PRP and in OP to be possible in both types of zones and to increase housing and to allow housing in both of those zones. Um, that's one proposal I have and that's a simple pretty easy one. I can share the other proposal or if anyone has any thoughts, but I just want to gauge whether the planning board supports that idea. Uh Jar, I support that idea or at least I support adding housing to these zones at the very least. All right.

At at a minimum, I mean, that's a very that's a very light lift. It's just changing the use um and maybe some of the dimensional regulations. To me, it seems silly that we have a separate office park zone with two properties in it, right? across from a PR the PRP zone. Um so okay Bruce

um actually I think that uh what Angus is suggesting would be required for the parcel in North Ammerst that um looks like it's uh [snorts] we're going to see a proposal for housing uh on the Mitchell parcel. That was the parcel that I think was uh um some years ago proposed by the uh for the erupter. sort of make a a manufacturing uh a high-end interesting uh uh um boutique manufacturing uh building enterprise that was up there that wasn't able to proceed through its inhibitions and so forth through the uh the conservation commission. So uh if there is housing there be allowed which is what I think we is being is is making its way through to us then this uh provision would need to be allowed at least on that site. So it's uh this is this is this is anticipating interests that already apparently exist.

All right. Um, Angus, I guess I can say I'm, you know, my initial reaction is positive to what you're suggesting. Johanna,

yeah, I was going to say I remember doing a site visit to one of the PRP sites in East Ammerst and hearing the owner of that just talk about how he felt like his hands were tied to provide the thing that there's demand for and the thing that he can offer there's not a lot of demand for. So um uh and then I'm curious, you had mentioned PRP and OP, but in these notes it actually includes COOM as well. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, my initial crazy idea was to combine PRP, OP, and COOM all together into one large one one essentially COM district that and allow housing in it. Um, and I looked at the dimensional regulations and the uses and other parts of the bylaw. I don't actually think it would be that hard. The main issue is that there's a bunch of uses allowed in COOM uh towards the end of the bylaw that that uses um section for things like um autoshops that I'm not sure we would actually want to allow in the PRP and OP districts based on where they currently are. They're all on major thoroughares. So it it could make sense. There's a ton of water related issues that would limit things. Um but uh but the idea that I had instead so I will share with you my other crazy idea which is um if you uh looking at this document that uh Nate has pulled up if you see that number four um and number 11 um are main corridors and RVC BBC zoning. Um uh I initially had thought of trying to combine RVC and BBC into one village center zone um and allow for housing. Um as I looked at things RVC and BBC are actually uh pretty different and I think it's a larger conversation that we would need to have about opening up uses in either one or the other. Um, so I had a a counter proposal that I'd like to gauge the planning board's interest. And this is these are just essentially I'm I'm gauging interest for me to look into it more and talk about it more in the housing and zoning subcommittee. Um, so the other proposal is to actually combine BVC and COM. Um, and if you look at the zoning map,

they're almost always touching each other. um the BBC um and they're also very very similar. Neither allow housing. Um some parts of the BBC I think do allow housing actually. Uh but the change would be to uh combine them into one COOM. Um all the COM zones are already along village centers um and major thoroughares um and to allow housing in them. it wouldn't require that many changes to the dimensional standards or the uh uses uh except for allowing allowing housing. But at a minimum once again um you know I could just focus on allowing housing in BBC and COM and opening up more housing options. Like at a minimum that's that's my goal with all four of these zones. Um, but if the zoning could be simplified to achieve, I think, uh, goals more clearly, that would be helpful because there's a lot of zones for what is not a very large town. That's all.

Okay. Uh, Bruce,

um, it occurs to me, um, uh, Doug that the the question of combining RVC and BVC was is raised or is being raised or might be being raised in conjunction with the design st the downtown design standards. I know that was certainly a a topic uh at the last meeting uh that we all had together with the consultants, but that was some time ago. So, um Nate, is that still the case? And I'm thinking that uh um maybe Angus should be privy to that. uh what whatever the uh however that's sugaring out because it sounds like it seems to me as though there's a fair amount of consideration by Dodson and Plinker at least and if not with you all on the planning staff that is that is focused on uh combining uh RVC and BBC in one particular part of town anyway that might inform Angus' deliberations. Just a thought. Yeah, Bruce, I don't remember any conversations about that specifically. I mean, and and they were limited in their geographic area.

They were, but remember they had uh their vision and their they had they had the four zones, you know, and and and depending on the you know, option one, two or three or four. One of those options involved I thought combining. I may be wrong. So unless I'm wrong then I don't know. I mean yeah I mean I'm not I'm not objecting to the idea of of No, all I'm saying is that that I'm saying is work might Angus is thinking about this and so is somebody else thinking about it and they probably don't know each other are thinking about it and I'm just saying maybe they should be introduced to one another. That's all.

Right. Okay, Jara, I will mention it's 24 minutes after 9ine and I'm gonna run out of steam here. Perfect. I'll just get on one of my soapbox speeches again for 10 minutes.

Um, uh, Angus, I think this is a really interesting idea. Um, I think what might be helpful is like a table that shows like what the changes might be dimensionally or just some kind of um understanding of We obviously know the great benefit of adding housing to these zones potentially, but like what are some of the other trade-offs that might be less obvious if we were to merge um any of these districts into into one? Does that make sense? Yep. Yep. Cool. All right. Uh Nate and then Jesse.

Yeah. I was I just have a few things. One, there's two ANR uh plans and applications we'd want to get to tonight. So, just to make sure we save a little energy for that. Yeah.

And in terms of um Angus, what you said, I think, you know, staff is also looking at housing in the PRP. So, I'd like to say that we can work together on that. So again, I think that's another one that let's just put it on, you know, the 2026 time frame, right? I think this kind of revising the cluster development or traditional neighborhood subdivision number two up top and this PRP, let's say those are two things that the subcommittee, you know, can work on. And then there's a few things that staff would work on. Uh just quickly, the office park is covered by the University Drive overlay. So, agreed. There's it does look like there's only two properties in town that are zoned office park right now and the you drive overlay covers them. Um, I don't know if we need, you know, to change it, but I think Angus' approach is a good one. I think the Eastammer study might have a conclusion that down there, you know, we have five different zones. Maybe it's just one zone, you know, maybe it's BVC with changes to the dimensional standards because why do we have comm RBC BVC RN blah blah blah in an area that we say is really part of a development center. I think the there is nuances there J to your point. So like comm has you know additional lot area per units because the the fear was that if you allow housing that that's such a a prominent um you know development right now that we would get apartments and then we would forgo forego any opportunity to have commercial space because we just have apartments everywhere. And so, you know, that's where then we came up with mixeduse building standards because before we didn't and so we get these mixeduse buildings that have, you know, a mop closet as their retail space. And so, you know, there's these little pieces that need to be worked on. I think the idea though is um is sound. And so, some of it might be, you know, through the East study

there's this. I think when we look at the master plan, I know this is kind of long range planning, you know, is there a way to then simplify the zoning to make things, you know, a little more coherent. Um, so you don't look at, you know, like if you look at the zoning map right now, there's there's, you know, a lot of overlays and it's really hard to say what, you know, in some areas what really is happening. Um, I think the zoning was trying to respond to what's on the ground, but maybe we want to say we want to actually inform more of what happens um and still be respectful of what's there. So, you know, I guess my long-winded thing is let's do PRP, housing and PRP and this traditional neighborhood subdivision method, uh, and say, let's try to get this done in the next three months or four months and come up with, you know, zoning language that we bring back to the planning board that maybe can move forward as a zoning amendment to council. Like, I'm just throwing it out there like, let's try to, you know, keep it moving. We can keep keep talking about these other ideas, but like let's try to come up with what are those two or three priorities for the subcommittee. Staff has a few and we can, you know, move them together.

All right, Jesse.

Thanks. Um, switching gears slightly, but still on the theme of what should planning, what's the subcommittee work on, with your permission, Doug, I'd like to take two minutes and try and gauge the planning board members on something that came up earlier, which is if we think it's our purview to think about strategies around student rental density, distancing, regulation, numbers of occupants, all these things that keep coming up that we've tried to get votes on at least in the full board the council have just failed and and I'm no judgment but if the majority of the board is thinks this is not our job I don't want to think about it in this context I don't want to talk about it in this group because I don't want to waste our collective effort despite the huge amount of work that that Bruce has done in this direction right I think it's worthwhile for us to just take a straw poll right now I I would I would love to do that if you're okay with that again the point is should subcommittee work on these things?

One piece I think is the student home definition which I is to me a cornerstone in order to get anything else in place along these lines. And the other things are the minimum distancing idea, the m the just percent in an area percent in the town allowable student rentals any kind of regulation on that. I'm trying to read the room and my sense from before was there might not be interest collectively from the group to work on these things in this body. So I guess maybe just do a thumbs up thumbs down. Yeah. I mean let's what I mean you had a couple of ideas there and but they're all they're all to me they're all the same thing. Okay.

They're all trying to regulate in some way for the benefit of our town student rentals. And if we collectively board members are not interested in that in this format, I don't think we should waste our time on it anymore because it keeps coming up, right? And maybe we're better served to look at other things in this format. All right. So the question is how would you be in favor or opposed to uh the board pursuing can I call it limitations or controls? on

any word is gonna have a negative con connotation to someone so it almost doesn't matter. I think we all understand what I'm talking about. All right. All right. Um shall I just go from one to the next? Do a sort of roll call on this. We can do it that way. We can do a thumbs up, thumbs down. Okay. You want to do So if you're in favor of it, please raise your raise some part of your body that I can see on the screen. Pretty clear. Okay. So, there's two. Well, I'm I think it's important that we Sorry. Go ahead, Bruce.

I was going to say I'm in favor of discussing it. For example, I I've got I think now an opinion about minimum distancing, uh, which is not favorable, but I think I should make sure that I understand it and I'm not thinking I'm not missing something. Um, so I'm in favor of discussing it, but I don't know that I'm committing to how So, so could we as a board ever imagine we would vote collectively yes on something to along these lines to move it toward council for their vote or do we think that's not the job of planning board to think about regulating housing in this way? Oh, it is the job.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Is it our job? I think you're asking would we support it to do would we would we recommend it? Can you imagine any version of one of these things that you think is the planning board's purview to try and put in our bylaws somehow? Yeah. I mean the because that's been debated, right? I guess I'm having trouble with the wording you're using because I the purview question. Yes, it's our purview. Is it something I would vote for? Probably not. Okay. So, I'm a yes and a no. So,

understood. So, so maybe I need to ask the question differently really just about is it our purview to think about ways we could regulate student housing. Sure. I mean, we've had some legal questions that have been raised. That's fine. I'm not saying we pass it all. I'm saying should we spend our time thinking about these different mechanisms? Yeah. in this group. Maybe it's a more complicated question. I think it is. Uh do do the the three other hands that I see are you guys responding to Jesse? Okay. Then Fred and then Angus and then Jara.

Yeah. Um I'm a yes and a no also because um uh I've got a big problem with identifying something as a student house. So in that sense that that leads me in one direction. On the other hand, um I have a a similar problem in term or I'm very interested in looking at the overall economic uh impact of zoning. And one of the things that I'm looking at in thinking about that is how that will impact the likely population of student lies, student occupants. And both of those uh things can happen at the same time. And that's why I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to uh respond to the query that you post.

Okay, let me let me phrase it a different way because I think this captures the whole thing. Should we as a planning board be trying to regulate occupancy? So that's really what it boils down to. Okay. So it's not the purview question. It's right it's should we try to regulate occupy? Not the job of planning board to regulate occupancy. If you believe that, I'd like to know yes. If you don't believe that, I'd like to know no. Okay. All right. Um, Angus,

um, I think maybe I think I I have two thoughts. Uh, one is I I wonder if we should make this an agenda item for the next planning board meeting to discuss a little bit more fully. Um, because I I think Jesse, you're right to ask this question. I think we we maybe need more time on it. Um, my personal view is I don't know uh so much about whether I think it's the purview or or whatever. I don't think that focusing on student housing through these kinds of regulations is a good use of our time. And so I would oppose having the zoning housing and zoning subcommittee pursue it. I would oppose having the planning board pursue it. The underlying problem is we have students who need housing. And so I would rather focus on things like the North Amoris overlay that's actually getting at the root problem and not trying to paper over the problem and divert students to some other community that we we need to find housing for them. So that's what I would recommend.

Okay, Jara.

Um I think that uh well I Jesse I just kept going back and forth every time you reframe the question. Um, but I um I think it'd be malpractice of us to not recognize the student population as a extremely influential part of the housing market. I don't know if the rules and regulations that have been proposed so far are ones that I would support, but I do support us making concerted efforts to think about ways to support students who are in who are seeking housing and I think Angus is exactly right in that we can in in in a lot of ways. But so like I'm thinking like why what can we do as a planning board for instance to get the student building that was burnt down a month ago rebuilt as quickly as possible so those kids can get back into those units. Like that's something that I would like to support um on this board. I don't know how we can uh I'll stop because it's late but yeah we need to talk about students. I think it's silly not to. Yeah,

have this conversation in a different way. I just also need to say I say this all the time. I am not in no way anti- studentent. I completely agree with everything you both said. I just see this as a vital part of the planning conversation in order to have economic vitality in our town, which is where tonight started. I think we can't achieve that without solving this problem, both more housing and conserving some neighborhood vitality. Okay. put on the agenda for later. I'll try and rephrase the simpler question.

All right. Thank you, Jesse. All right. Uh time is 9:38. Why don't we move on? Anybody opposed to that? Okay. All right. We'll go on to the old business topics not reasonably anticipated. Pam or Nate, I'm seeing you shake your heads. So, no. New business not anticipated. Nothing. All right. Uh, now we're up to the form A ANR subdivision applications. And you said there were two. We do have two. Nate, I can bring it up if you want to um share details.

Sure. The um, you know, for both of these, the fire department and town engineer didn't have any uh, issues with them, so they were able to look at them. Um the first one is up on U Market Hill Road and it's a you know there's a combining it's a you know one owner owns what is a flag lot and they're buying the frontage lot adjacent to it and so it's you know just creating a bigger a bigger [clears throat] lot there. So Pam brings that up.

It's coming. Do you know what the motivation is to combine the lots rather than just to own two lots? Yeah, I think there's um uh well, for assessment and tax purposes, it's much um you know, it's cheaper as a homeowner to not have a separate building lot. So, to have the one big lot. Okay. I also think uh there's a you know, development happening on the what is lot 34, the the flag lot. And so I think just to get some setbacks in space uh it would work it would work better as two lots. So the owner I think it just you know would feel like a better site in order you mean as you mean as one lot.

Sorry. Yeah. As one lot. Yeah. To go from two lots to one lot. Okay. Yeah. So you know the zigzag lines in the middle here is what will be removed and you know existing lot four becomes you know combined with lot three becomes lot 34. So it becomes this you know 2.27 two seven acre lot and they both have frontage and um there's plenty of room for the housing circle. Right. So, you know, right now there's this flag lot that has this 40 foot frontage and then there's this frontage lot. Yep. Which will become part of the this much bigger lot. Right. That's okay.

All right. Does anybody object to me signing as on behalf of the board that uh subdivision approval is not required for this property combination? I'm not seeing anybody uh indicating no. All right. Um what's the second one?

The second one is down um in South Ammeris on Southeast Street. So, it's a it's a pretty large parcel, and the idea is to create a separate lot on the back of the property that would be sold. So, it's not a building lot. Um, it doesn't have frontage, but it's creating a separate lot that would um be combined with a neighboring uh property at some point in the future. And u when Pam brings it up, the the lot to the north, which isn't shown, it had the same Oh, it is actually um right here.

This big lot right here, not lot one. The the big lot above it with all these little roads on it, the dot lines that has actually been anardred to create a you know, it's not one, it's a two or three lots now. And so lot one in parcel A down below. The focus of the ANR is is this property, this part right here.

And it's all one big property. And what they're going to do is they're going to create a parcel A in the back, a 4 acre property. And so um what I was saying is this property up above has done the same thing. So right now like you know this property this big one is really properties one two three and the planning board approved that a few a few years ago in terms of an&rringing that so it's a similar process on these big larger lots um you know it says not a buildable lot uh so that's it says to be combined with other land of Jason Edwards so you know because of that on the plan we the building commissioner uh requires that it doesn't have frontage and there's no access to it. So, you know, we don't have an issue uh with having this plan show this as a you know, a separate parcel that's not a building block. So, for a for a subdivision, you need frontage. And so, this is creating a parcel without frontage. and um is the is the Jason Edwards. So that's the that's the owner of the lot one and parcel A.

Correct. And oh, Jason Edwards owns to the east, which is not on this parcel on this map. Right. Right here. So that's probably what's going to be combined. I'm not clear that that's how it would will be combined, but um you know, I think the idea is just to create this separate 4acre parcel. Uh all right. Well, I don't feel like we see very many of of this type of thing. Angus and then Johanna.

Yeah. I mean, I guess could I just ask um is the goal to create and maybe Johanna, you might be speaking to this as well. It seems like in the one above there's some kind of uh farmland conservation trust. Um it's also this parcel a seems to be in a flood plane maybe. Um, I I guess I'm just trying to understand what why uh

why this is necessary or and why it's being is this the only way that they can hive off a part of their land into a separate property? Is there any other mechanism that they can do that or they have to go through subdivision? Well, this is sub we're we're agreeing that subdivision review is not required. Oh, okay. Okay. So, we're not we're not operating under the subdivision bylaw. Okay. But we we're agreeing that we don't have that the subdivision bylaw doesn't apply to this subdivision of land. Thanks. Sorry. That that clarifies things.

Yeah. I mean, so I think you know the reality is the owner, you know, wants to create this for property that will I think then be sold and so they need to create a fee simple way to do that. you I don't know, you know, there's wetlands right where this line is, you know, and I, you know, I don't really think it's going to become a building lot. It may just be that one of the adjacent properties, you know, or an owner wants it for some reason. I don't really know the impetus necessarily. Um, but they need a fee simple way to do that. So, this is that mechanism. All right, that's my question.

Thank you. So, I guess I'm I'm just still trying to understand the intent here. And maybe we don't know the answer to this, but it seems to me like at least based on the notes on parcel A, it says not a buildable lot to be combined with other land of Jason Edwards. And then Jason Edwards owns adjacent land that is both lot one and on the back side. And then we don't really know what's happening. I guess this would be north of north of this lot. Maybe Jason Edward owns land there, too. Or he's going to sell it to Robert Gray.

Or he might sell it to Robert Gray on the other side. Um, so I don't know. like my my I think what I would expect is if we approve this then a little bit down the road we would then get another request to combine parcel A with some other plot of land. Is that an accurate way of assessing what I think is going on here?

You you might you might not right. I mean the other as not a buildable lot. It doesn't have that premium in terms of assessment. And so it could be that a property owner, you know, uh someone buys it and they just maintain it as a landlock property that they, you know, maybe Jason Edwards access it because, you know, I think, you know, whatever there's a field on it or there's some tree wood, whatever reason. I don't know, you know, right? But it could be that if they sell it here that then, right, there's another ANR in six months where they want to, you know, combine it with the property to the north. I don't know if that would happen, but it could be likely. Do we need to know this? Do we care?

It's not. No. No. I mean, I think it's just a line of inquiry because as Doug mentioned, we don't really see this very often. And so, um, but you know, it's not, you know, as long as we feel like that, you know, we're still we still have a a a you know, a compliant zoning lot with lot one with frontage and size or, you know, that that's not changing and that lot, you know, parcel A is also okay. That's kind of all we need um, you know, provide Doug.

Yeah, we don't need to know it, but we're naturally curious people. Okay. So, uh, any objections to my signing this one, too? All right. Great. Pam, I'll make an appointment with you at some point. You bet. All right. Upcoming ZBA applications. Anything we should know about? I know you've mentioned some that are in the works, but they're not here yet. See? No, I don't have anything to bring forward. Do you, Nate? I don't. Okay. SP, SPR, SUB applications.

Yeah, we're the planning department. We're in receipt of a mixeduse project down on Southeast Street. Um you know, Amir Mitchi developed a property behind Florence Savings Bank a few years ago and he owns a few properties across the street. So, it's kind of it's behind the Cumberland Farms on the east side of Southeast Street. So,

that's something we're uh it's going through the conservation commission right now. And you know, we I would put it out there that we're going to try to open the hearing on February 25th for that. So, it's a 80 unit mixeduse building um with, you know, 5,000 square feet of non-residential space on the first floor. And yeah, I mean, I think there may be some changes just because of the conservation commission review, but they submitted they submitted a full application, so we're going to, you know, get that going and get that review happening with the planning board. Okay. All right. Um, planning board committee and liaison reports. Bruce, anything for PBPC? Nope.

All right. How about CPAC? Angus?

Yeah, we are in the midst of all of our meetings. It's a lot. Um, we are meeting tomorrow, then we meet again in two weeks. Um, we are currently voting. Um, I'm putting um the uh community housing and affordable housing um uh applications pretty highly. Um, and I'm I'll be pushing for those. Um, and then uh but we just have a ton of funds that have been requested and we're not going to be able to get them all. So, um, happy to take questions if anyone has them or you can come to our meeting tomorrow night. All right. Thank you for Thank you for doing that, Angus. Hope you're enjoying it. Good. All right. Um, report of chair, I really don't have anything to report tonight. Uh, Nate and Pam, anything from staff?

No, no. Thanks. you know, thanks for meeting with, you know, Jeff, uh, you know, myself. I don't really have anything. Um, we did mention I've always mentioned the design, the downtown design standards, but we are hoping that in February they'll be, you know, made public and then they will get to the planning board and other boards in March. And so, you know, stay tuned for that. Um, I will give just a brief update on the design review board. There's just been some sign applications for downtown. So, you know, restaurants proposing new signs. Um, you know, that's what they've been looking at. Nothing, you know, not any big projects. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Fred, I see your hand.

Yeah. Nate, did you make any progress uh getting the uh engineering on the uh North Ammeris intersection from DPW? No, I asked and then someone said, "I'm sure it's here." And then uh and then that was it. But I never followed up. So thanks for the reminder. Great. All right. If no one has anything else, uh the time is 9:52 and we are adjourned. Thank you all for hanging in there. I guess our next meeting is February February 3rd or 4th maybe. Fourth maybe.

Okay. All right, have a good evening. What's left of it. Bye everybody. Good night, Pam. Good night, Doug. We'll talk soon about ANRS. Yeah. Thank you. You bet. Bye. Bye. Recording stopped recording and I want to end the meeting.