Planning Board - Regular Meeting

just it's not usually late. No. Well, it might just be ush. At least until Angus makes it, right? Is this our first since daylight saving was Yeah. [laughter] So maybe can't imagine anybody still an hour behind. Well, not an hour behind, but you know, just getting used to the fact that it's light outside. There's a little I' I get a little discombobulated occasionally and I come in I think it's earlier than it is. Mhm.

It's interesting that you mentioned that, Bruce, because I feel well adjusted to it, too. But all of a sudden, I looked at my clock and it was six o'clock and I was like, "Holy cow, I haven't done this or this or this yet before the meeting." And what went through my mind was, "Oh, I wonder if it's because my biological clock thing sits five o'clock and I have a whole a whole another hour ahead." Okay, Pam, why don't we go ahead? I'll, you know, and and we'll once I read the uh let's see, we're going to read I'm we're going to do the minutes and then we'll do public comment and then we'll bring over Dodson and Flanker. Right.

Okay. Hopefully people Okay. And you know what, Doug? I'm sitting here chatting and I forgot to make you the co-host. So, I'm going to do that. Um, make you the co-host. Confirm. Okay. So, I'm going to go ahead and get us going.

Start webinar. Record. Recording in progress. Okay, Mr. Marshall, let's see. We have a quorum of the board with us tonight. Ammeris Media is with us in the house. Um, Nate Mallaloy is with us in the house. The attendees are coming on in. I think we are good to go.

All right. Thank you, Pam.

You're welcome. Welcome [clears throat] to the Ammerst Planning Board meeting of March 18, 2026. My name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the Ammeris Planning Board, I am calling this meeting to order at 6:36 p.m. 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, 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 in-person attendance of the public is permitted. However, every effort will be made to ensure the public can access the meeting in real time via technological means. In the event public access is disrupted for reasons of economic hardship or despite our best efforts, we will post an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town's website. Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Uh, Bruce

I am here. Thank you, Bruce. Red Hartwell, I am here. Uh, Jess, uh, Jesse Major. Is Jesse here yet? No, he is not. All right. I, Doug Marshall, I'm present. Uh, Angus Mlo Mloud has told us he will be a few minutes late. Johanna Newman has told us she will not attend at all due to illness. And Jara Smith present. Thank you for interrupting child care for a moment.

Thanks for listening. All right. Thank you board members. If technical issues arise and the discussion needs to pause, it will be noted in the minutes. Please use the raise hand function to ask a question or make a comment and I will call on you to speak. After speaking, remember to remmute yourself. To the general public, the general public comment agenda item is reserved for public comment regarding items not appearing later on tonight's agenda. Please be aware the board will not respond to general public comments. Public comment may also be heard at other times during the meeting when deemed appropriate by the planning board chair. Please indicate you wish to make a comment by clicking the raise hand button when public comment is solicited. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star9 on your phone. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name and address and put yourself back into mute when finished speaking. Residents can express their views 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, they may be disconnected from the meeting. All right, that's the preamble. Uh the time is 6:40 and we will go into our first agenda item. Um and that is a review or discussion on minutes from our meeting of October 8th, 2026. Did anyone have any comments on minutes?

Uh, Bruce and Fred, I'm seeing you nod your head no or shake your head no. Um, Bruce, I see your hand. Go ahead. Move [snorts] that we adopt the minutes for the June meeting as presented.

All right. All right. Um, I guess uh Thank you. I guess I'll go ahead and second that motion that we adopt the minutes. All right. Um, is there any further discussion? All right. Before we vote, I'm going to ask Jara, would you can you come in uh back and vote with us? Uh, assuming you've been listening. Thank you. Yes. All right. We have a motion to adopt the minutes from October 8th. Uh I'll start with you, Jara. I thank you. And Bruce, I and Fred

I.

And I'm an I as well. That's four in favor, three members absent. And the motion carries. All right. Uh we'll go on to the next item in the agenda. Uh this is the general public comment item. So let's see. Let me look for the participants. All right. It looks like we have five members of the public here to who might want to make a general public comment. So members of the public, this is the time to raise your hand if you want to make a comment during this public comment period. [clears throat] Okay, I am not seeing any hands raised from the com from the public. I usually read the names of the attendees I can see at this point. So, I will read those. Um, I'm going to exclude or I guess I see Dodson and Flinker and Peter Flinker. I know they will be moved in as uh presenters at the next in the next agenda item. So, the three other members who are not presenting as far as I know are Jennifer Ta, Mora Keane, and Pamela Rooney. All right. Uh so that is the end of the general public comment period.

Time is 6:43. We'll go to item three which is the downtown design standards. Um Pam, can we bring over Peter and the so far anonymous person that's listed as Dodge and Flinker? I think it'll be a gentleman named Dylan. All right. I'm working on it right now. Right.

Okay. They should be joining us here momentarily. It is Dylan and Peter. Good evening. Hello Peter and hello Dylan. Welcome to the meeting tonight. Thanks for having us. Um, let's see. Nate, I know that you may still be grabbing a bite to eat. Uh, but, uh, do you want to make some introductory comments or shall we go ahead on into Peter and Dylan's presentation?

Sure. Thanks, Doug. Yeah, that's that's okay. Um I can just give a quick intro and say that you know Datson uh they've been the town's consultant for a while. They've developed these draft downtown design standards. They presented them last I guess it was just last week uh for for the first time for public comment and review and you know they're going to different boards and committees and so they're at the planning board now. Uh the idea would be that you know the board can then discuss these comments at subsequent meetings without dots in here. Um and through staff we can provide comments back to back to them.

Okay. All right. I'll also mention we have Walker Powell another planner from the town planning staff who's here on the panel with us. Welcome Walker. Okay Peter and Dylan uh take it away. Thanks. Um, I'm Peter Flinker. I'm president of Dodson and Flinker. We're in Florence, Massachusetts. Um, as you heard, we've been working on this project for a couple of years now, and we're winding up with final presentations of what's become a three volume document, uh, including standards for downtown design. So I'm going to start with a presentation which u somewhat shortened version of the one we gave to the public meeting last week. Um but it still is pretty complete. Some of you for good or bad have heard this before. Uh so we'll try to be efficient and then have time for your feedback. Um so I will share my screen. We can see it

and hopefully you're seeing the presentation to the planning board March 18th, 2026.

Yes. Um so as some of you know uh the study area is defined by the existing jurisdiction of the design review board and has been modified somewhat uh sort of as shown by the orange dashed line to incorporate some of the blocks and parcels adjacent to the downtown that um were felt to be important and part of this discussion. Um I'm going to briefly sort of go over the the process that we went through. sort of combined a lot of public engagement with analysis of things like zoning as demonstrated by this slide which is a sort of analysis of what's possible in the BL residential district and we went through each of the downtown zoning districts try to get a sense of what the result is if you take the zoning standards and the the design guidelines into account and created some simple models like this to show what the result would be. Uh partly to understand that zoning has a lot of design content in it. Um including the sort of size and shape of buildings, setbacks and location and orientation on the lot. And I don't know what percentage of the final product is governed by zoning as opposed to design standards, but it's a lot. And uh one of the messages for tonight is that what we discovered going through this process is that there are a number of changes to the zoning that are really necessary in order to achieve the vision uh that we're going to present to you. A vision of what the town really hopes to see in the downtown over coming years.

Uh we did a lot of work on trying to understand the existing streetscape uh including sections like this one which is based on measured uh documentation and photographs of what's going on up and down downtown streets. And this is really trying to understand you know how how do you get around obviously where do you sit where are the trees planted? How is the streetscape organized? uh because one of our charges was to look at updating the streetscape design standards. Uh which for the purpose of this process was really defined as from the curb to the front of the buildings. Uh whether or not that's all part of the public right ofway, it's really part of what we would call the public realm. We'll tell you more about that later. Uh we did outreach to um people on the street, the public uh farmers market, asked people what their vision for the downtown might be. Uh and we did probably the major event was a two-day uh series of workshops beginning with a a sitewalk where we met with quite a few people, broke up into groups, walked up and down downtown streets basically asking what needs to be fixed, what needs to be protected and celebrated um and then how could the downtown be improved. That was a nice kickoff to uh several follow-up workshops. One was a what we call a listening workshop was basically asking people with maps and photographs, you know, what's working, what's not working, um what do you care about and so on. We got a lot of input that way. And then on the following day, we had what we call a visioning workshop. um asking people basically to drill down into design ideas, including

uh this tabletop model, which allowed participants to manipulate little model buildings and think about things like what would happen if we replaced existing buildings or parking lots with new buildings, how could, you know, where should parking be placed, how to pedestrian connections best be made, and so on. We learned a lot by doing that. We also did several um online surveys uh one focused on buildings and one on streetscapes and then compiled results and not surprisingly most people's favorite kind of in this case materials and windows were the sort of typical of historic buildings in the town center. Um, there were some contemporary buildings as shown in the middle there that people felt fairly positive about and probably the least the least positive are some of the ones that are more contemporary design perhaps um and ones that you know don't reflect necessarily the historical traditions in downtown Ammerst. We also asked people about what they liked in the streetscape. And not surprisingly, people like a place that looks like a nice place to hang out. So, mature trees, a lot of outdoor dining, comfortable roomy sidewalk that looks like you could get up and down without any problems. Um, minimal sort of distance between building fronts, and a real feeling of being in a downtown center with a lot of activity. Um, as you know, we we worked over the course of eight meetings over a year and a half with a ad hoc working group which was designed to represent diverse perspectives including um some of you from the planning board. Um other staff and adjacent groups in the town. We had

developers, we had residents, um we had the historical commission, others represented. And as I've told people last week, we didn't achieve a universal consensus where everybody agreed on everything. U but we found this was very helpful in understanding, you know, what are the key issues that people are concerned about. um what's the sort of range of acceptable approaches to everybody and where do we where do we have disagreement and u the what you'll see in terms of the vision and our recommendations for zoning and design standards are really based on trying to find a balance between the needs of all the different groups that use the downtown live and work in the downtown and are affected by the downtown Um we compiled a lot of the results and some simple maps and u reports. This one talking about strengths of the downtown. Um and a lot of it is about the public space. You know the wonderful town common historic buildings that surround it. um the wonderful sort of streetscape along North Pleasant Street, Sweetzer Park and Kendrick Park and the sense of diversity uh both of use and of architecture which really makes the place very interesting to to be in and attracts a lot of different people that give it a sense of activity. Uh some of the weaknesses most people talked about, you know, the parking lots filled with cars, which don't really add too much to the downtown environment, inconsistent and poorly maintained sidewalks, sort of awkward treatments of terraces, other things along the streetscape, some areas being too dark, and adjacent neighborhoods not being well connected.

opportunities which were identified mostly revolved around the sort of more automobile dominated spaces to the north end of the district. Um, and then there's been a lot of discussion about the what's primarily residential and also mixed uses on the west side of North Pleasant Street across from from Kendrick Park. Um, when we started it sort of was a fairly simple question of how do we design how do we create design guidelines that help protect the existing character of downtown Ammerst. What we discovered and what we've talked about with a lot of groups is that there is no single character of Ammerst and um it sort of depends on where you are from the historic core around the common to the north end which even before the construction of the the newer apartment buildings was very different much more automobile dominated and other areas that have long been a combination of sort of residentially scaled buildings larger one and twostory buildings buildings, residential buildings that have been expanded and turned into mixed use homes that have been divided into apartments, separate apartment buildings and so on. So, a lot of lot of diversity and it hard to say um you know what what should you em emulate. So, as you'll see, this sort of was a foundation of a proposal that's based on recognizing the different types of context areas uh within downtown Ammerst and really enhancing and building on those instead of trying to create everything to be one style or representative of one error or one use. So this was one of the earlier analysis maps which really talked about the what

we call the solid area the sort of historic core around the common. Um as you move north there was kind of this funky college town vibe with a mix of different uses and different building types. little funky alleys going back to Baltwood Walk and other uses that um you know you can't really characterize as one thing or another. And then something called the hinge which is sort of the area of the post office and the the two churches which is really the it was called the hinge because it's literally a hinge between the experience of what was the historic core of the downtown and then the neighborhoods to the north. And then one of those we are calling sort of the modern context area. And this includes the sort of more automobile oriented post-war development that has been evolving into more of a a residential district over time. And then something which we term the cozy area, which is that area west of Kendrick Park, which is primarily residential uses um sort of tucked up against uh either the open space along the brook or residential neighborhoods further to the west. This was um over course of discussion with a working group and our own analysis sort of led to this um basic organization of what we call character zones defining each part of the downtown. And these really continue the the three zones that are found here under the current zoning but provide a little bit more nuance. So there's something called the downtown traditional main street area which again is that historic core on the south end shown here in orange the plan. There's

um the modern main which is the sort of northern end of what's now the general business district which incorporates those newer apartments and some of the other um uh retail and residential and commercial uses there. And then something we call the downtown village which is that area where we have um sort of a mix of one, two, threetory buildings, a lot of older his historic uh residential structures that have been converted to mixed use and the area north of Triangle Street which has a combination of different uses. And then the last thing is the sort of the downtown neighborhood area in the light green which is kind of that area which has transitioned from a traditional residential neighborhood to mixed use and sort of larger multif family use. Um so for um so we went through this we really realized it it's it's more than a single u design standards document that's really needed. And so it became three different volumes. The first one sort of focuses on the the planning context and presents a vision for the downtown. The second one is design standards for private development. And the third are design standards for the public realm. And I'm going to go over volume one and then Dylan's going to present volume two and three. Um terms of the the content and the proposed uses and adoption of these three volumes. Uh the first one as I said is really to describe existing conditions and the vision for these different sub areas. It's meant to be used particularly by applicants before they come to the town. hopefully they can try to understand where their property in their proposal fits in the vision for the the future of the town and then to be used uh by boards during

the discretionary review process especially for the design review board um whose current standards are largely about fitting into the context of a particular project. This could be adopted as rules and regulations of the planning board, the ZBA and the design review board. The second volume is uh includes uh more dimensional standards under zoning uses use standards building design site design and so on. It's meant to be used to guide again to guide applicants during the design process to be used by the planning board of the ZBA during site plan and special permit review and could also be used by the design review board. Some parts of this could be and really need to be adopted into zoning. Others could be adopted into zoning andor the rules and regulations of the planning board in ZBA and could be adopted by the design review board. The third volume again is applies to the design of the space between the front of the buildings and the curbs including the streetscape elements of sidewalks and street trees and so on. uh its major use is to guide the DPW when making improvements downtown and then also to any development projects under review by the planning board and the ZPA when that project is going to disturb the public streetscape. Um and then it would be adopted by the DPW andor the town council. So the first volume, the vision starts with sort of discussion of the history of the downtown, the sort of 18th and 19th century structure, especially the the historic buildings that still surround the town common. Um, a lot of that what we see in the town is very diverse, but the consistent part of it really represents the older part as

shown in the dark purple and and pink here. um which sort of was consolidated around the south end of the district. And then as you go north, there's more historic residential um buildings to the west and then that newer sort of postwar uh automobile oriented development on the the east side of Kendrick Park. We did a lot of studies of what makes existing buildings work in terms of the way building facades were organized, the way the massing works and also looking at some of the newer structures to see how they do or do not reflect that historic pattern. Uh we did measured drawings of the layout of the the main street, how the buildings relate to the street and to the sidewalk. Um, and then we incorporate a lot of that into this statement of the vision, which is a written statement. I won't read it all. Uh, but it basically talks about uh the town's values as they are expressed and as they could be expressed in the continued evolution of the downtown. So something that is community oriented, welcoming, that is accessible to all people, that's comfortable for all people, that's livable, and I would say workable for people to live and work in the downtown. It's just, you know, you don't feel like you have to leave to have a full life. Um, and all those things hopefully contribute to being a prosperous place that supports business and also something that is resilient in the face of social and economic change. but obviously also things like climate change. Uh so this is the existing zoning map which has the the general business district uh and the other the other districts. This is the modification

um which basically again from the general business district is divided the south part into the proposed traditional main street subd district the north part into the modern main district. The the current BL district which is the pink here would be incorporated into something we're called the downtown village and then the downtown neighborhood really comprises the sort of the older uh RG district and some parts of the other districts. But basically the idea is to continue the the way the current zoning works, which is a transition from the dense core of the downtown to the surrounding neighborhoods, but to add a little bit more nuance. Uh so there's a better fit between the needs of the businesses and the again the prosperity of the of the downtown, the need for housing and the continued need to sort of transition carefully to the surrounding neighborhoods. So the the document has um sort of a vision statement and examples and plans showing how that vision plays out on the ground for each of these subd districts. So the traditional main street is basically to promote more of what people like about the core of the downtown which is walk you know buildings close to the street but with a walkable attractive tree-shaded streetscape transparent ground floors that you can see into the buildings and create a lively atmosphere and then you know office and and residential uses above them. Um this is an example of u sort of one of the imag again again an imaginary design proposal for what could happen

under the new guidelines but something which is not required necessarily but this is to help people sort of make the transition between the written and illustrated design standards and what could happen on the ground. But again, we want to emphasize that this is not required um for any particular land owner. For example, Bank of America is to our knowledge has not expressed a desire to redevelop their building. But if they did, uh, the design standards would say, "Let's take that, um, quarter lot and really fill it with a building that wraps around the street the way that traditional buildings did that have a continuous sort of transparent ground floor with active uses that are visible from the street. And then to have upper story uses that complement the uses on the ground floor, so residential and office uses. And then also thinking about where right now you can build a five-story building right on the sidewalk under the current um the current zoning. What we're proposing is a modest setback requirement and then what's called a step back requirement on the top story, which as you see here would require that the top story sets back a little bit from the front facade to try to mitigate that sense of a building that's a little bit taller than some of the other buildings in the downtown. Uh to try to keep it from looming over the sidewalk. So again, it's trying to set a balance of, you know, this major downtown corridor corner which should have a wonderful landmark building, but we also don't want it to overwhelm the rest of the downtown. So each of the parts of the the vision has precedents like the Ammerst House which was similar, you know, four and a half story building on that corner. uh

also have examples from other places that talk about things like, you know, you don't necessarily have to recreate a historic building to incorporate a lot of the same ideas that make historic buildings contribute to the downtown like transparent ground floor facades, lots of glass even on the upper stories, structural elements that make sense in terms of columns being carried to the ground. and a sense of um like so many of the buildings in the historic downtown having a sense of a a base, a middle and a top that really roots this building in that place. And then obviously on the streetscape um examples of you know wonderful walkable streets where the buildings are right on the street but have that richness on the ground floor have a sort of interaction of the building with the vegetation and other uses on the public part of the street that really makes this a wonderful place to to live and work. Um, same idea with a modern main street, though less of an emphasis on sort of historic patterns and more on um creating a similar kind of richness and visual interest uh with perhaps modern materials and contemporary approaches to design. So these examples again are not required in terms of architecture, but they demonstrate the kind of things which u are part of the the town's vision, you know. A lot of transparency again on the ground floor, wonderful outdoor spaces, a clear place to walk, places to sit. Um, in the case of Prey Street, maybe making it ready for a street that could be closed off at certain times of the year without curbs, so this can become a totally pedestrian space. So, it's

really trying to, you know, prepare the downtown for uh new uses and um the kind of activity that's naturally going to grow when you have more people living and working in the place. Um some of the transitional areas again that sort of the core between the historic main street, the traditional main street and the modern main street. There's something we're calling the downtown village where um buildings are kind of a [clears throat] transition between the sort of traditional uh residential neighborhoods and the rest of the downtown. So the idea here is to adopt more of residential scale. Can still be quite a large building, but something which is broken up in ways that reflect the traditional proportions and design elements of a traditional building. And some examples of that from from other places which um you know again create the kind of visual richness that people like in the downtown but also incorporate a lot of vegetation, small um yard spaces, places for people to gather and a sense of that interest and funkiness which people love about downtown Ammersttown. And some examples, uh, this is the, for example, the block between Kohl's Lane and Hock Street, which currently has a mix of sort of new newer buildings like Buger's Bagels. Um, some older residential structures that have been transitioning, some older apartment buildings and so on. And these are just two two ways that could be developed. one with uh new town houses along Hack Street, mixeduse buildings along Pleasant Street, maybe a larger structure that could incorporate a garage. But the important thing is the idea of those being set into a walkable context with a wonderful streetscape along North Pleasant Street and interior

spaces as illustrated here that are full of places for people to gather to sit under trees. Uh places that can be used for outdoor cafes or if you live along one of these alleys, just a wonderful place to live. Uh and then finally the downtown neighborhood which again represents some of these transitional zones west of Kendrick Park and some of the outlying edges of of the the downtown. The idea is to continue the sort of again the residential scale um but to allow continued conversions into mixed use some um increase in residential uses but do it in a way that feels like it belongs in that in that area. So as shown in this this image showing sort of an overlay of new development and old old development along a North Pleasant Street. This has sort of a row of of new, you know, three three and a half story walk up apartment buildings in the back and we have a plan here for that. Um, so the idea is you remove uh curb cuts from North Pleasant Street by sharing driveways and, you know, exploring the opportunities to have rear alleys connecting some of these parking areas. And that allows you to clean up and rellandscape the edges to sort of continue and expand the nice yard spaces that are there. But then also to in have infill development between the existing buildings which are shown in gray. You could have new buildings and extensions and um connections between the existing buildings in brown. And then in the back to have a row of these could be small apartment buildings, they could be town houses and so on. And we have some examples here of how that's been done successfully elsewhere. Again, something which if you squint sort of feels like a

traditional neighborhood, but a little bit little bit more um units per acre perhaps than what you could find there now. But again, trying to find the balance between building the housing that we need and maintaining um the sort of residential scale uh that people say they like in that area. So, that was the uh the vision. I'm going to let Dylan take over and talk about the volumes two and three. All right. Yeah. Before I do that, I want to check in with with Doug on timing.

Yeah. I I think you're you're doing fine. Uh I think we expected to get to the next agenda item probably around 8 o'clock. So, you've got 45 minutes if you need it. Uh, I will also mention that I saw that Jesse showed up around a few minutes after 7 and Angus appears to have logged in shortly before 7, although I haven't have yet to see his face on the screen. So, uh, oh, you are there, Angus. Great. So, we have a a fuller board representation as you continue. Go ahead and tell them.

All right. Great. Yeah. So, I'm going to um Peter gave sort of the overview of how we got here and the first volume of the proposed design standards and I'm going to talk about the second two volumes. Um so, the second volume is is the the design standards for private properties and then the third volume is the design standards for the public realm. As Peter has said, that's the area between the curb and the fronts of buildings. Um so looking at the second volume structure is divided up into four parts. Um the first part designates the kind of downtown design zones with zoning map changes um that are proposed and then the second part goes through what we're calling highest priority zoning revisions. So that focuses on the things that we heard were most um problematic with with new development in downtown Amoris, which is that there's some large buildings built right on the sidewalk without enough basically sidewalk space and that they loom a bit over the street being five stories um straight to the top. So, the second part of this recommends changes to front setbacks and um building heights and upper story step backs. Basically pulling the the back the top story up back a little bit from the sidewalk. Um the third part of this part C is other what we're calling other necessary zoning revisions. Um, somebody at the public meeting last week said they thought they weren't sure that these were necessary and maybe they should be called like strongly recommended or recommended zoning revisions. Um, so I, you know, I think from our perspective at Dodson and Flinker, they're necessary zoning revisions. Um, but I could see that for other people in the town, they might be called recommended or even, you know,

undesirable. Um these zoning changes are dimensional and use standard changes um to allow development that's in line with the vision especially in the current BL and RG zones. Um so they're intended to allow additional development particularly housing to meet the housing needs that the town has. um and to enable change so that the kind of design vision and the the intent of the design standards can actually be implemented. Um so our from our analysis without these changes those areas are relatively frozen in place by the existing zoning. Um which for some people is great. They want it to stay exactly as it is. Um but if your vision is in if your vision you know is in line with what we're proposing which allows a little bit of change in order to have some improvement um then these standards in part C kind of unlock that developmental potential so that change can happen. And then the third part is new design standards covering topics that are not currently covered um to the same level of detail in the zoning. Um, so these are building design standards, site design standards, and then some guidance guidelines related to lighting and signage, which there are standards in your zoning currently, and we're trying to add a little bit for more subjective matters. So, the intent of this last part is to give tools to the boards to regulate design objectively so that everybody knows what's expected. um applicants, boards, abutters um and that when projects come forward uh boards have, you know, clear tools to use to say whether something complies with these building design standards or site design standards or whether it doesn't. Um, so the intent here is

predictability for everybody involved. Um, to to save time and money, to save volunteer time, and to um limit conflict in the future as well as just getting better design outcomes. Um, so Peter's gone over the the zoning map a little bit. He talked about the different parts, the traditional main, the modern main, the downtown village, and the downtown neighborhood. So, I just wanted to point out a couple things that this proposed map does that are a little beyond what's in uh what you might think of as a normal zoning map. So, it designates areas where ground floor commercial would be required facing a street that's in that heavier dashed line along streets and then it has some areas where um parcels where basically ground floor should be designed to be ready for commercial use but the commercial occupancy would not be required. So, one of the things we heard in our working group is that uh what we heard from people who have built buildings recently in downtown um is that the market for commercial space is not as strong as um I guess as some people would hope and so there's less need for commercial space and um so this pulls back a little bit in some of the areas where there's uh sort of less foot traffic or where there isn't commercial space currently. So, for example, Prey Street, it's a real street, lots front on it. Um, but currently it's a path through a parking lot, right? So, we're saying in that area, commercial development on the first floor is not going to be required, but the first floor should be ready for that. Um, and then the last thing the zoning proposed map does that is a little different is it establishes what we're calling a district transitional buffer. Um and that runs along the edges of these areas that abut existing

residential districts. And um there are some standards proposed that basically limit the height of buildings um adjacent to those existing residential areas. So it gives a little bit of of more transition between um between the downtown and the abuing residential areas. Next slide, Peter. Um, you'll see this in the uh this is in volume three as well. So, um, but it makes sense to incorporate into the zoning because we want to establish standards for public realm that are that are binding on applicants um who are disturbing the public realm. So, this map establishes what we're calling a sidewalk with classes. So, as Peter said, we me we measured the sidewalks in the downtown. Um, and they vary pretty widely in their in the width of the rightway. And so, we broke those up into basically three different width classes. And then their standards in the public realm section um about how to design sidewalks in those different contexts of wide sidewalks, medium sidewalks, and narrow sidewalks. Next slide. Um, so the highest priority zoning changes, I already talked about this a little bit. Um, it covers front setbacks, um, basically pretty narrow front setbacks in the traditional main area that enable those consistent street walls that exist there to continue. So, buildings that are lined up pretty close to the edge of the sidewalk. Um, slightly bigger front setbacks in the modern Main Street area and the downtown village area. Um, and then larger front setbacks in the downtown neighborhood area. Next slide.

Um, [clears throat] as I mentioned before, there's some standards for building height and stories. Um, we're proposing that the building height increase be increased a little bit in the traditional main and the modern main street areas. Um, one thing we've heard is that projects that have come in recently have asked for their special permits or waiverss. I don't remember which was specifically to increase height. Um, and the sort of the heights that we're proposing are consistent with what we're seeing in contemporary buildings. Um, so I think it makes sense if if if that's what's required to build a contemporary building to allow it um and not require an applicant to go through an extra process um to do that. Uh in the downtown village area, we're proposing to increase the height um to to 35 feet, but keep it at four stories maximum. So increasing from three stories to four stories. Um and then there are additional requirements as I said before about that district transitional buffer on the back of the lot. Um and then special permits for cases where it might make sense to go up to five stories. um basically in the middle of lots behind streetfront buildings um which would only apply in a limited number of lots where you could fit that in. Um or along the streets if there are substantial public benefits basically primarily looking here at historic preservation and adaptive reuse andor publicly accessible parking. Um so we heard a lot in our working group about the importance of historic preservation and um the idea here is to encourage historic preservation by allowing a little bit more height so that more can be built elsewhere in a

lot if you preserve significant historic structures. Um, next slide. And then, as I've mentioned before, the other necessary zoning changes are mostly about um changes to the dimensional table for residential uses in downtown village and downtown neighborhood um to make it easier to build more housing to meet the town's housing needs. Um, of course, paired with design standards to make sure that that housing fits in with its context. Um, next slide. And um, dimensional changes as well. So changes to the mixed use requirement. The way that's functioning um, now is basically a percentage of the ground floor. So if you have a very deep ground floor, um, you can end up with a lot of required space. Um and the proposed changes here are similar to what was adopted for um University Drive. So focusing on just the the front of the ground floor and um and not the full depth of of the ground floor. Um, as well as proposed changes to lot area, additional lot area for family, which seems to be one of the main constraints to development particularly in the downtown village and neighborhood areas. Changes to frontage and lot coverage. Um, changes to front to frontage to basically um bring the frontage requirements more in line with what's actually on the ground now. So there's a a pretty high degree of nonconformance in some of these zones currently. Uh in other words, the the zoning is asking for more frontage than than really exists on the lots. Um

changes to lot coverage which are based on the vision drawings that we showed. All these dimensions are basically based on the vision drawings we developed. So our method was draw plans and make renderings and see if they seem like what people would want for Ammerst and then base the zoning standards on those drawings. Right? So if you the basic approach is if if you like the vision um you can have a certain degree of certainty that the zoning standards are are will implement that vision, right? Um, so a lot of times the dimensional standards in zoning are are sort of debated in the abstract. Oh, should it be 10? Should it be 15? Should it be 20? But people don't really have a sense of what that means. Um, in this case, those dimensions are based on on looking at specific properties and creating specific plans for them and specific visualization for them. Um, so that everybody can know what it is that these are aiming towards. Next slide. Okay. So, getting into new design standards. There are a lot of design standards for buildings because we heard that people had a lot of uh feelings about the appropriateness of of recent developments. So, the standards are almost all numerical. Um they're dimensionally based and again the intent of that is so that they're can be objective um and to minimize conflict and increase predictability. Um the basic idea of these standards is is to have buildings that are um not we're not trying to dictate the the style of buildings, but we are trying to sort of ensure that they are broken up into component parts um in the way that the buildings that people say they like in downtown Ammerst as well as the

buildings they said they liked in the surveys we did. Um, so breaking buildings up into smaller parts and kind of aligning elements are the are the main things that these standards are doing. Next slide, please. Um, so examples of that, basically there's a standard that limits the length of any side of any building. Um, so buildings aren't just so large that they're difficult to get around and overwhelmingly long. Um and then their standards basically saying that the fatad if it's longer than a certain length which in traditional main for example is 100 feet which is the longest building that's there currently. Um that the facade has to be has to have some modulation. It has to have some projection or recession. Um and then within that there are standards to sort of say that the facade should be broken up into recognizable bays composed of materials, windows, um surface relief, etc. Next slide.

Um and then another example, there are standards for storefronts. Next slide. Um there also standards for site design mostly dealing with uh the the front of lots and grade changes. There are a lot of grade changes in downtown Ammeris between the the sidewalk and or the street level and the lot front. Um so these standards deal with that as well as things like rash and loading and um landscaping plant types and qualities and functions. Next slide. And as I mentioned before, we added some guidelines for lighting and signs. We looked at what was in the zoning and um didn't see a need to produce new standards for these topics. Um but as I mentioned before, thought a little bit more guidance would be useful. Um and in particular might be useful for the design review board. Next slide. All right. All right, the public realm standards is the last volume. Next slide. Um, so some of the challenges we saw in the public realm, basically there's a a lot of different sort of designs that have been put in place over time to um in terms of the materials and the uh the layout of pavement materials. of concrete and unit pavers and uh the scoring in the concrete. So the the public realm in downtown Ammerst has this sort of shows the history of experimentation. Um and it seems like at this point the DPW has a sense of what things are working and they've hit on some things that they think work well in terms of pavement, in terms of crosswalks,

um etc. maybe um bike bike bike racks and ballards. Um and so the public realm standards basically document that um and try to with the intent that um as incremental change happens over time um there would be more consistency that would put into be put into place by having a clear idea of of um what's desired so that um when changes are made by private developers, they're consistent with what the town is doing And when the town does new things, they're consistent with um each project is consistent with the last. Um as I mentioned before, there also elevation changes. So the pub ground standards make recommendations for how to do that, how to balance competing uses um and how to sort of allow some aesthetic variation um and some accommodate different functions but maintain consistency through incremental change. Next slide. Um, next slide, Peter. That's that's table of contents. You can see it online. As I mentioned before, there are these sort of sidewalk widths called out, which is a key fundamental organizing principle for the sidewalk part of this. Next slide. Um so for each of those sidewalk widths in the public realm standard there are a set of recommended widths for the component parts that make up what we call the sidewalk. So um the area between the curb and um an area that might have planting or furnishing which we call the street enhancement zone. It's sometimes called the stepoff zone. um the furnishing utility zone which is area where you might have street trees and um and furniture or or

bike bike bike racks. Um the throughway zone which is area people walk and then the lot transition zone which would be any leftover space within the public right of way outside of the minimum needed for that walkway. And then finally the private private frontage zone which is the area between the edge of the right ofway and the the front of the building. Um so for each of these width classes we set out minimum dimensions for that and then they're also recommended um materials um and and details associated with that. Next slide. So these are for the 10 and 15 foot range and the less than 10 foot range. Um and you can see what's what's recommended is basically for the part that people walk on the throughway um concrete sidewalks with um sort of horizontal scoring. Um and then for the furnishing utility zone, basically recommending um concrete unit pavers could be similar to what the town currently is using or could slightly change the color if that's desirable. Um with sort of a soldier course between the concrete throughway and the furnishing utility zone um with with benches and healthy trees and so forth. Next slide. Um as I mentioned there are details for the specifics of this. Next slide. Um and then there are also standards for things like how to um basically encouraging that whenever possible the any elevation change between the sidewalk and the the floor level of a building be accommodated through um sloped paths instead of um technical handicap accessible ramps. basically trying to minimize grade changes as I said before

so that everything is as accessible as possible. Um and then standards for things like parklets and lots of other topics. Next slide. Um there's a lot of attention paid to street trees uh with a goal of trying to make sure that street trees can live to maturity. Um so specifying minimum soil volumes and making recommendations for how to connect um tree pits together or extend structural soil beneath sidewalks. Um so that any investment that's made in street trees is a long-term investment. And it's an investment designed to really have a successful canopy that shades your streets and makes it a wonderful place to hang out and walk around. Next slide. That's it. All right. Um so that was a lot of presentation. I apologize to those of you who for whom this is the second time through um but we thought it was important to give you an overview um because I think the expectation is that you will go and look at these documents um and provide us with feedback on you know what's what's working, what's not working and um and really dig into the the nuts and bolts of this. And um we're kind of doing doing the road show with a lot of boards and committee. So, we went to the design review board earlier this week. Um, we're going to visit the historical commission. We're going to visit the um commission for people with disabilities is I believe what it's currently called. I apologize if I got that wrong. Um, and we're going to visit the um the subset of the town council that's responsible for

what's that? The community. Yeah. committee that's responsible for land use um recommendations basically zoning recommendations. So in the little bit of time we have uh left we're hoping to just get some quick feedback from you guys about um if I guess first if you have any questions I see some hands up so let's let's do that. Okay thank you Dylan. Um Nate you had your hand up. Do you want to amend that presentation at all or why why don't you just lay out briefly how you see the process going for the consideration of these this work?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's what I was going to do. I don't have comments necessarily on the on what they presented. Um, thanks Dylan and and Peter. You know, for the planning board, you know, there was a lot of information there. So, like I said, I think for the you know, next few meetings we can actually spend more time looking at volumes. you know, you know, I'll be here and, you know, I can be a conduit to Dodson. I think, you know, in terms of the adoption process, let's not, you know, focus on that right away. Let's just look at kind of what they're presenting and then, you know, as we move forward, you know, look at, okay, what is necessary for zoning or not? And so, I think to me, it's also seeing what the public comments are and kind of what the reaction is and then kind of go with what needs to be adopted. So I mean I agree with the what they were saying is that you know to get to the vision you need a lot of pieces of what they're proposing to be in place. So you know if you make one change you might not actually get there but let's not focus on that right now. Let's kind of, you know, if we can look at like, okay, what do we think about say their setbacks and their material choices and, you know, the right-of-way material and kind of their their program for sidewalk widths and things and, you know, we can get into the rest of it later, but you know, we're having um public comments for, you know, number of months and then this is going to move forward over the course of this calendar year. And so, you know, the idea would be if the planning board wants to look at say right ofway and we think it looks really good, you know, maybe that moves forward faster and we can recommend it to council because there's projects kind of in the works happening in terms of the public way and maybe that's a little easier um to discuss and then maybe the other private realm and other things that discussion continues to happen. So I think for now let's just kind of if we can keep our comments to kind of the content and then kind of the policy and other decisions can happen at later meetings um or later time this year.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We have three member hands up. So we'll start with you Fred.

Uh yeah I um [clears throat] I think that uh the work that you've done is uh is [clears throat] exceptionally good. Excuse me. Um, I had to I had to laugh a little bit with the uh the photo of the Bank of America back in the day. It was the Ammer Savings Bank about uh let's see 40 years ago. And uh the reason that we have a design review board uh is that building that singlehandedly uh when it went to a town meeting, all they had to do was to put a photo of that building up on the screen. It was case closed. We're going to have a design review board. that building put the design review board over the finish line all by itself immediately. So, um, and, uh, I I've been in this process long enough to remember that.

All right. Thank you, Fred. Jesse, [laughter]

hi. Thank you both. Uh, sorry for being a little late. Um, lots to like there. I really, really enjoyed your presentation. Um, I did have a question. Uh, I guess wondering a little bit more about your statement that recent developers want less commercial or finding hard to fill commercial space and something we've talked about a lot in different groupings and and I'm wondering if that's because the commercial spaces recently are pretty large. So, I'm wondering if there are ways like like we've lost a lot of small businesses in place of these bigger buildings that have maybe two commercial spaces. So, I'm curious who you know was this many people you talked to was it just a few or if there ways to build into this the idea of pushing the commercial space to be more smaller scale.

Yeah. So one of the things that's in the design standards is basically a minimum diff distance between pedestrian entrances. And so that the intent of that is in part to encourage smaller commercial spaces, right? Um I think that interestingly one thing we heard from um somebody who built a recent building um is that there actually there's actually a the where the market is is actually for larger spaces um that particularly with restaurants in Ammerst which seems to be one of the main things that downtown Ammerst is providing um that there are larger parties on average in Ammeris than there are in many other places. And so that sort of pushes towards bigger bigger restaurant spaces.

Um and so yeah. Um and then and then if I could

I don't know, you know, I can't tell you for sure like would smaller spaces be more or less successful? I think in general when you build new space it's going to have a higher cost because it's it's new construction and it's higher quality space. Um and you know we see across the state that there's a slightly decreased there's decreased demand for ground floor commercial space um because retail has shifted online. Um it doesn't mean there's no demand for retail but I think it's less than it used to be. Um, and in general, I think the sort of planning practice is shifting away from ground floor commercial requirements, um, or at least reducing them.

Great. Okay. Thank you. All right, Jerry, you're next. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much for speaking with us tonight. Um, this looks beautiful. Uh, I really appreciate how clearly you guys paid attention to the variety of architectural characters that um downtown Ammerst exhibits. Um, so uh I have a couple a couple questions. Um, so one I noted you that mentioned that there are multiple characters in within downtown, right? That there wasn't one uniform character. Is that right?

Yep. So then would you say that perhaps Ammerst has changed over time? Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Yeah, I think that the the the diversity of character reflects change over time. Yeah. Okay, great. Um, thank you. Are you are you leading the witness? He's definitely leading the witness. [laughter]

That That's my only That's my only leading the witness question. Um although I do Well, yeah. No, that's my only lead with this question. Uh, I am though curious, you know, based on the um your recommendations for changes to setbacks and lot coverage and height, has there been any modeling to determine roughly how many more housing units that could produce if it were maximized?

Um, we have done some of that and I don't have the numbers available at the moment. Um, it's more a question of I think what we could say more is like how many square feet there is, but how many units that translates into depends on the size of the units. Yeah. Right. Of course. But would you be able to get us like a rough estimate of residential space versus commercial space or office space? Um, again, we can't say what the uses of the buildings will be because that's up to the proponent of the project. We could tell you how much square footage how many square how much square footage there could be and you could I think draw your own conclusions about how that square footage would be used.

Okay. So I that I mean that that makes perfect sense. The reason I ask is because you know um for us to see the incremental change that you mentioned earlier there needs to be an incentive for the developer to expand the footprint to build it higher or whatever the case may be. And I noticed that like without any height increases for example that reduces the ability to increase the density of that particular lot. So therefore it reduces the incentive to redevelop that property. At least that would be my understanding. And so I'm wondering what what mechanisms do you feel like in the design standards help enable increasing density to a point that it can actually help to meet the housing needs that our community is facing?

Yeah. Um, so in the in the in the BG, which is the bulk of your downtown, um, currently applicants can build to the lot lines and they can build five stories to the top, right? Um so there is a slight reduction in potential square footage of buildings due to the small increase in front setbacks and [clears throat] this the small upper story setback. Um so that's that's the that's the limit of the reduction in density. um that I think is is reasonable and um

reasonable to align with what we're hearing from the public in the other in the BL. I wasn't saying that you were reducing density anywhere. That sorry I I must have I'm my my point was that typically if you want to see redevelopment of a property in my experience you need to meaningfully increase the density that a property can absorb at any given time without increasing the height for any of our particular areas. I'm curious has the lot coverage changed? Has the setbacks changed a lot? what what is the mechanism that is going to increase density that will inspire that reinvestment and redevelopment that we're looking for in our vision,

right? Does that make more sense?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, um, what I was going to say is there's, so I I talked about the BG and then in the areas that were that are currently BL, your business limited, and residential general in the downtown, um, there are changes to, uh, lot area, frontage, lot area per family, which is a big one. Um, lot coverage, building coverage, etc., as well as height um in the BL. So those changes are all um intended to allow a little bit more development so that it's viable to to build something um while balancing that with, you know, designs that seem like they would be acceptable to enough residents at Ammerst to um to make it possible. Great. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Tara. Angus,

thank you and thank you for this presentation. I was I was able to go to about the first 45 minutes of the open house. Um so, uh I've gotten to hear some some portions twice. Um [laughter] and um I think it's really thorough. Um I appreciate all the work you're doing to present to all these different committees, to present to the public, to get feedback. Um, it's great. Um, I'm really impressed with the design standards. Um, and really inspired by them. Um, and and I think there's a real uh coherence there. Um, a real beauty. So, I just want to want to say that I'm I'm really impressed with that. Um, I'm also impressed with the thoroughess in in presenting all of these potential zoning changes in one go, which I think is really um would be really helpful for driving a clear change. I'm trying to imagine the us on the planning board trying to execute this strategy and it's uh anyway y'all are y'all have done amazing work. Um so that's all the praise and and so now for some uh uh points of of constructive feedback maybe. Um uh one I I guess I'd like to um uh these aren't so much going to be questions. They're going to be a couple of comments and maybe one or two questions mixed in. Um, one is, uh, the four I'm wondering part of what Jerro was asking to me about the, um, changing downtown over time, is that, um, obviously this plan is proposing changes to the downtown, lots of changes. Um, at the same time, as you all noted both in the open house and tonight, it's also working to preserve a lot. Um, and I think what I would encourage is maybe some slightly more robust um, vision of change and faster change than what's envisioned here. And um, in addition to to potentially looking at a sixth floor option, especially for the proposed traditional main street here, um, I would also encourage you to think of just doing three zones. Um, because four

zones for such a small area seems gratuitous to me. Um, and if I had my brothers, those three zones would would um include everything but the green one. So, not the proposed downtown neighborhood. Um, and so I just want to make a quick plug for for why that would be and how how the map might change. Um you have a um the blue that you have next to the modern main is currently a bunch of parking lots and a few pretty worthless um buildings that I think could all be torn down and have the mo more modern main buildings put in in a way that would be cohesive, tight. Um it wouldn't provide as much transition to the neighborhoods and I know that's a priority. Um but it would allow for much greater density. It would all and would also allow for more continuity. Um, additionally, the down south, the proposed downtown village you have on the southern end of the map, um, I would just make traditional Main Street, the main property there is owned by Emmeris College. And so, it's not actually, it shouldn't be part of any of these zones at all. It's it should be part of ED. It's not currently, but there's a bunch of properties that are mislabeled. And then I'd encourage all the green areas to be made into downtown village. Um, which already would be some sort of a transition into neighborhoods, but all those properties along um that the triangle area um that are currently small houses, those are ripe for denser development and and I think significantly denser than what's what would be allowed under the proposed downtown neighborhood. So, on the one hand, I appreciate that y'all are balancing the um calls from the community to preserve what's currently there and take baby steps towards a different vision. I'd also like to encourage um as you think about what to propose to think about ways to make the entire downtown area more cohesive, which you've done. So, check to that.

and then also make it feel like a more continuous downtown area as opposed to suddenly like we've got a potential five-story building. I think we currently have fivetory buildings across from one-story single family houses um across a green area. That that seems odd to me. Um, and I think there's a way here, a potential way to propose a uh an entire downtown that's not just transitioning well, but also more cohesive. So, I'll I'll leave it there because I know we're we're running out of time, but I'll have more thoughts in the future. Thank you.

Thanks. Okay, Bruce, why don't you go and we'll maybe, you know, we could talk up for hours tonight, but we do have uh Stephanie Cigarella waiting to talk to us about the uh clean energy bylaw, and I know we're going to have a lot of hours of discussion of this topic in our future meetings. So, Bruce, why don't you go ahead? Maybe I'll say couple of sentences and then we can take a break and come back to Stephanie. Okay. Well, we got six minutes to 8:00, so I'll take less than half of that and give you the rest. Um, Angus certainly will have more to say. I'm very much looking forward to it. Um, uh,

as will you, Bruce.

Well, uh, like you, Doug, I've been a part of the working group. So, I've seen this coming for the past evolving and developing and maturing for the last two almost two years, I suppose. Um I echo everybody's uh praise for the diligence, the thoroughess, the clarity of the presentation, the expansiveness of the vision um and uh and and so forth. Um, I think that Angus's uh last comments has really uh identified what I think we should spend almost most of our time or let's put it another way, it's kind of the entry portal to uh the the deliberate consideration of this whole uh proposal. I think uh I um applaud the the way in which this uh study and and Dodson and Flinker have taken uh the challenge of looking at our downtown and come to us with a a pretty new somewhat radical proposition that we should think in terms of the modern Maine and the traditional uh historic Maine. And I I I I can buy and support the that that there is a a hinge of public buildings between the two. So it feels intelligent. It feels uh a good way to pro proceed. I like the idea. Um and and have uh gradually been persuaded to it. Uh whether we would uh take the same attitude with the neighborhood divisions or not, that's Angus' point. and and I don't know how I feel about that yet, but I'm uh interested to have the discussion with you all about why we could, should might

do that. But it's a it's a wonderful piece of work. I'm hoping that in the course of the coming year that this will withstand the rigor of all of the the analysis and and critique of the town and will emerge as a uh largely intact constructive proposition that we can adopt either through the zoning bylaw or through the rule rules and regulations. I'm applaud the the town for selecting this firm and and the firm for producing what they've done so far and I look forward to continued engagement. That's it for me.

Okay. Thank you, Bruce Jara.

Thank you. Um, Peter and Dylan, I just want to say, you know, to your comment earlier, Dylan, about, you know, you were doing your best job to negotiate that challenge that every planner has to between preservation and and growth, you know, and you were trying to put forth what you felt would be an acceptable version um for Ammerst, you know, I do want to encourage you to think about the the members of that committee. How many of them were renters? How many of them were downtown residents? How many of them were young parents? How many of them were people of color? So, I just I'm not certain that I understand that that this might have been acceptable to that group of folks who put a tremendous amount of work into this. And like I said, and like Angus said, it is a beautiful product. But I do want to encourage you to be open-minded to a lot of other perspectives as you hear them over the course of this year because I'm not sure that the entire viewpoints of Amoris were represented in that group which is not a fault of yours or the towns or anyone else's um a lot of things but I just want to make that point clear.

Yeah. So, I just um I'm sure that not every viewpoint in Ammerst was represented on that group. Um I will say that there were a wide variety of viewpoints represented on the group. Um from downtown Amoris should have should allow much taller buildings and it should be significantly significantly larger than it currently is um to much stronger viewpoints about preservation and um less less change than than is currently allowed by the ZUG. Um, so you know, Doug and Bruce were involved in all those conversations, so I'm sure they can can bring that perspective to your conversations going forward. And um, I guess I just I just want to say that the perspective you're you're bringing to the discussion is not one that's new to us. Um, it's not that we haven't heard it before. um and that they, as you said, they're real policy decisions to be made there by the town. You're talking about balancing different priorities that are important to different members of the community. Um whether that's historic preservation, which is a lovely thing and does have real value, um or it's um economic development and increasing your tax base, which is also really important. Or it's providing housing for um for different people and for more people, which is also really really important. or it's um you know not um degrading existing neighborhoods um and you know not sort of like making it unpleasant for people to live in in

neighborhoods next downtown um and feeling like they have to move to be able to have a a quiet life that reflects their what they hoped for, you know. So they're they're all really real perspectives. Um, and they're important decisions for the town to make. And what I think that, you know, I think the the the best way I can propose you guys look at this is like start with a vision and see if you agree with the vision and then work from there to the design standards and say, well, just okay, if we agree with the vision, do these design standards align with that vision from what we can tell or do they not? Um, and then tweak from there. So, what I'm hearing from you is from you and also from from Angus, I guess, um is that you don't agree with the vision for the downtown neighborhood. Um and to some degree, you don't agree with the vision for the downtown village. Like, you want those areas to both be taller and more dense. Um so, if if the board comes to that conclusion, better to start with that than to go in and try and tweak all the standards, right? like let's let's get the vision right before we start tweaking the standards.

Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jara. I mean, I guess I'll I'll get I'll make my short statement. Um, you know, I will echo everybody who's complimented you on the product and the process that you use to get there. Um, you know, it's a really wonderfully detailed and and broad uh vision for for our future. Um, I I'm I'm I've been reminded that I've always heard that a successful compromise is is when no one's happy. Um, and so um you know, I'm not perfectly happy with what's there. I know the people at the other end of the spectrum of views that were in the working group. I know already that they're not happy with it. So maybe this is the best we can do. And um you know I but obviously this board and some of the other boards and the council will all get to weigh in on it as we go forward. Um like Angus, uh my biggest complaint is with the vision for the west side of Kendrick Park. Um you know, I I think the town uh since we did the last master plan, I think, uh the Kendrick Parks really come into existence really. Um you know, it wasn't even a park when I think I first moved here. there may have been a few houses left on it. Um the playground happened and now it's a park. And uh to sort of ignore that transformation and uh suppress the now uh high desiraability for that for that side of

the park to be really wonderful housing. um for a lot more people seems uh a real a real miss to me. And since we're essentially the the developers for Ammerst, um you know, we're setting the frameworks for for the actual developers like Baron Hman or somebody in Paris. Um you know, for us to really artificially restrict that seems unfortunate to me. Uh, I will say from a preservation point of view, very few of the houses along that stretch strike me as significant architecturally. So that uh, you know, there are other parts of town that have historic districts or should have historic districts and that stretch is not one of them in my opinion. So that's that's kind of where I am. Uh, I know Dylan and Peter and even Bruce, you've heard me say that on probably in the working group. Um, but I'm saying that for the rest of the of our board and uh, whatever members of the public that want to listen to this later. So, I'll stop there. It is a little after 5. Nate, why don't you go ahead and comment and then we'll take a break.

Sure. Thanks. Yeah. Um, I I was say I really like Dylan's framework for comment. So, you know, kind of starting with the vision and then, you know, working working from there. And so, you know, I think over this over the next few months, you know, we'll staff will be working with with, you know, Dawson and Flinker to determine what, you know, what are the changes being made. And so if the board really likes the idea of eliminating one zone and moving the others to the you know to you know cover it um then maybe think about okay well what then you know if it's a whatever it's called is moving west of Kendrick Park do we like the way the standards are presented now or are there additional changes you'd want to see if that were to happen you know whether it's a fifth floor under a roof or different setbacks or whatever. I think it's a lot of work to tell Dodson just to forget it and then redesign the whole area west of Kendrick Park. So, you know, I'm saying we probably wouldn't have them do that. I think the planning board could recommend that you take whatever you want to take that zone and then tweak it and then put it in place. And so, the discussion to me would be, okay, what does it work the way it's designed now and can it be adapted to that new area? And that's a, you know, that could be a really strong recommendation from the planning board. And then it's really the town's decision how we would adopt this. Um, right. And so, uh, like all those pieces, there's a there's a lot there, um, in terms of zoning and design standards, and we still haven't figured out exactly how they would be adopted, you know. So, to me, what's really I I really like the design standards, you know, the question is, is it in the rules and rags? Is it a part of zoning? I think those are discussions we have to have. Um, you know, and how much so how much teeth do they have? And so how much, you know, can the pling board or design review board use them or is it something that a developer would say, "Well, that we like it, but we're not going to do it because we don't like, you know, it's going to cost too much or something." So I really want to, you know, again, get to that point where we we think we have a a product and then we can figure out how

to make it a policy. Um, and so what I'm hearing is there's some recommendations for something and that could be the planning board's recommendations, but I just want to, you know, tell people like if I wouldn't expect Dawson to come back and be like, "Oh, we've redesigned um, you know, half of downtown." I think maybe we could say we like some of the things they've done in this one district and we can apply it and adapt it to another. And that's our recommendation. And maybe if we hear that a lot, maybe that's moves forward and we really then try to tweak it. But, you know, let's just see how every other, you know, board and committee and public kind of comments on this and then it's a kind of an internal discussion about what's best. So,

Nate, um, Dylan talked about maybe talking about it peace meal, you know, talking about all the setbacks or talking about the number of stories. Um, I almost I I think it's worth at least thinking about whether we should talk about it by zone. um you know, talking about the the historic downtown district and everything that's talked about being changed in that district and then so that we can think of it as a complete physical reality rather than just setbacks in a particular part of downtown.

Yeah. No, agreed. And so, um and I like that approach too, Doug. So that yeah I think some of it is you know a lot of it's numbers and metrics but then what does it really look like and so for planning board if you know want to see more modeling you know let us know that you I can't guarantee it but staff could try to do some things you know basic blocks or whatever but I think that's really important so to me it's like well if you have your curb to building distance and we all like say a certain distance maybe that's really important so we we want that kind of sidewalk width and then because the street is so wide it's okay to have taller buildings things because you know we have that width now and we like what's happening on the ground floor of the buildings. We like what's happening in terms of furnishings and amenities. It's okay that maybe the upper floor is not set back because there's so much space between buildings. I mean that's the kind of thing right in that district we can start talking about you know in each of those districts and so does it all make sense together um right as opposed to just saying do we like the two feet or the five feet here but does it really all work?

Yep. Okay. Uh Bruce, I see your hand again. Yes. I was just uh well, I I was interested in stopping um because it is after 8, but I was noticing that there are two people in the audience who might want to have public comment. And if they did, I was thinking, would we ask it happen before we break and then wrap everything up or um have public comment on this item later? Your decision. But I thinking that maybe we would ask them to comment. All right. Thank you, Angus.

Yeah, I just have an actual question. Uh, which is uh it it seems like some of this is um a bit of an approach to zoning that's a little bit more formbased. Is that um an accurate way to be thinking about this? say yeah it's adding for it's adding form standards to your current zoning. It's it's not like truly form it's not a true form based code because you still have everything else that's in your current zoning. So it's adding on top of it. Oh, so this this is all overlay.

Uh it's not overlay zoning. We're proposing changes to your base zones. Um but I'm saying it's in addition to everything you have.

Yes. So So yeah. Sorry if I jumped in. To me, if I jump in, I'd say it's like a hybrid approach. So, we have kind of traditional zoning with formbased elements. And, you know, if this were adopted, it'd be kind of, you know, kind of heavy on the formbbased element, but we're not, you know, eliminating the use classifications or other pieces of zoning. And so, it's not tradition. It's not what would be kind of a a pure formbbased code. It's kind of this hybrid approach um to you know uh and again I think that's how we would and I think that discussion is then what how what do we do with these standards and some of these metrics do they all get it adopted into zoning or are they some standards that are referenced in zoning and so I think that's you know can be part of the discussion you know in the next few months so for instance all that private realm development you know is that actually zoning or is it just a reference that gets used by the permitting boards and designers for you board and others or is it actually zoning? And so we, you know, I think Don Flinker asked this early on kind of what what's kind of the approach here and we didn't have a clear answer. Um, we didn't really want to go let's just do all form-based code. So it's now this kind of hybrid approach possibly.

Yeah. Thank you.

I'll just say one more thing on that. So we've done a lot of form-based codes. Um so basically what we what we're doing here particularly in volume volume two the private realm standards is basically taking the things that we think are most effective from forbase codes um and the most essential things and and giving them to you as as design standards. Um and the most most essential thing about a formbbased code is that you have a vision for what you want, right? So like that's the big difference between uklitian zoning and formbbased codes is that in formbbased codes you know what the you have a clear idea of what the built outcomes you want are. Um and so that's why there's a focus on the vision in volume one because we've done a lot of work to try to come up with a clear vision for the built outcomes and then the standards are based on that.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

All right. Um, as Bruce mentioned, we'll give the members of the public uh one chance to make some comments on this topic. Uh, are are there any members of the public that would like to make a comment at this time? Um, I know we have a couple of we don't have very many public members at the moment. Um, I think the ones who are most likely to want to comment are likely to hear this again. and um we'll have plenty of chance to talk about it. Uh so um it's not necessary that you comment tonight. This board will be talking about it a number of times in the future and the town will be talking in other venues. So I haven't seen any hands go up from the members of the public. Um so maybe we will take our five minute break now and let uh Peter and Dylan get on with their evening. Um, thank you both again. Uh, we very much appreciate the work you've been doing and I guess will still be doing with us in the months to come.

Thanks so much for continuing to work with you guys. Thank you. Time is 8:14. Please take five minutes and try to be back by 8:20.

All right, time is 8:21. Please turn on your camera as you return to the meeting. And Pam, maybe you can bring over Stephanie. You are muted. I thank you. And I said I sure can. Hold on.

She's coming on over. There she is. Hi Stephanie. Hey Pam. Hi everyone. Welcome Stephanie. Thank you. Looks like everyone's back from our break. Uh so welcome to the meeting. I saw you come in around seven I think. Thank you for your patience while we work through our first major agenda item.

Sure, no problem. Um, so I was asked to give kind of an overview of the process for what started as the solar bylaw that then became a clean energy bylaw. So kind of put together just a couple of slides to go over that process. And then I also was going to just sort of very quickly go through the actual current draft of the bylaw and just talk a little bit about certain aspects of it, but not to dwell too much. Um, I know it's late, so I'll try to get through this fairly quickly. Um, and I figured if you had any questions tonight or this could just be sort of an understanding of where we are and perhaps you want to discuss it more at another meeting. But in any case, I wanted to give you tonight's overview,

right? So, um, Pam, do I have the ability to share? Yes, I do. Okay, just give me one moment and I will share my screen. Okay. Can you see that? Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Just making sure my slide advances. Okay. So, um, just starting with the actual bylaw, this all started back in 2021. And it was kind of tangentially, I wouldn't say directly, a result of a large-scale solar project that was being proposed um that um many people had very strong feelings about and there was a concern that there was no real um regulation to address that large scale of a solar project. this project um had proposed I believe it's roughly 50 acres of uh forest clearing um for development. I don't remember exactly the capacity of the of the project itself but um so there was a at one point a moratorum proposed by some of the town council members um to have a mortorium on solar development that actually did not pass and so I think instead there then became this rush to develop a solar bylaw and there were I think at least three different groups of people putting drafts together of a solar bylaw. So, it got a little bit unwieldy. So, in consulting with the town manager, um there was an effort to then put together a solar bylaw working group who would then develop a draft um bylaw for the town. So, that happened in March of 2022. And the working group consisted of a member from the planning board, a member from the energy um climate action committee, um conservation commission member, someone from the water supply

protection committee, and then three residents who had um somewhat uh relevant experience and expertise. one was a forester, one was a scientist. Um, and I'm I apologize, forget what the third's um, background was. I think it was also maybe in uh, forest ecology. So, originally the deadline for getting the draft back to the town manager and to the council was May 31st of 2023. And that also included um creating a site suitability map for the development of solar. Um what that ended up becoming was an interactive map which um does exist. I believe you can access it through the town's sustainability dashboard. Um but that became an interactive map where um folks could go on and sort of look at a parcel, look at their own property and sort of see if there was some feasibility for the development of solar. And this was based on several criteria, some of which were also proximity to accessing utility lines um for connectivity. So there were many criteria also whether it was estimated habitat for endangered species. So they looked at all kinds of different layers and criteria and put together this interactive map. So that um also was something that what the committee was charged with um developing. So the group met from June of 2022 through till November of 2023. So we didn't really meet our May deadline of getting the bylaw drafted, but we did um have bi-weekly meetings. The biluy meetings also included um sometimes expertise from various uh sectors. We had um we had farmers who discussed agribaics. We had foresters. Um we had

lots of people with different experience. We had um legal counsel come and talk to us about very as uh various aspects of putting together the bylaw. So, um, it was a very involved process and there are lots and lots of documentation which do still exist on the town's website. If anyone is curious and wants to tap back into that documentation, there is still a solar bylaw working group page and I believe all the documentation is there. So by November of 2023, the working group finished the draft and proposed um that the uh town manager then forwarded to the town council for further development by the um community resources committee. So that was done in November of 2023. um by December of 2023, the council received the draft and then referred it to the CRC um for further development. It wasn't anticipated that it was a complete draft at that time. And I will say that there had been um I believe the planning board had been kept a breast of this process. Chris Brestrip uh was working with me at the time um in developing this and Chris really did the lion share of the initial draft. Chris was really phenomenal in meeting with the group and sort of preparing the document as we went along for that whole first phase. Um so then in March of 2024, the CRC began their review of the document and um when they looked at it and looked at what had been prepared by the solar bylaw working group, there were um a few counselors, one in particular with expertise and understanding of law and regulatory structure um who really felt like the document was just too much um of a

mishmash between a some bylaw language but also some regulatory language and in addition there were even some conditions that were part of that process. Chris and I at that time didn't feel it was necessarily our place to direct the committee in terms of the structure of the document. we just felt like they needed to sort of have their process and put as much of the bylaw together as they um saw fit and and to address specific concerns. And so we just basically took what they put together and then worked with the CRC into how to then try to retain what the committee had done but get it into a format that was more consistent with the town's other bylaws and regulations. So staff uh basically Chris Breastup and I sat with the document and sort of pulled apart what we saw as the actual bylaw and framework of the bylaw, some that were uh regulatory language or regulations. And then there were even some conditions that we had a third document that sort of pulled that aside. Um and so the committee then began their work by taking those three documents and sort of looking at what they felt like should go back into the bylaw. Some of the regulatory language should go back into the bylaw. So, um, at that point, by September of 2024, the, um, CRC felt that they wanted some staff input. And so, um, staff had reviewed the document with other staff and also had some comments of our own and brought those back to the CRC. Um then by July of 2025 um Chris Brestrip was retiring and at

that point we had a discussion on sort of how we should look at the next steps for the process in developing this bylaw and those were presented to the CRC. And so between August 25 to current day, um the CRC continued to review the document and edit it and um incorporated some of the new state sorry I don't know that got cut off uh new state regulations um that have been recently developed which I will get to in a moment. Um so I will say that during this process there was uh additional staff review. Um I believe um even the energy and climate action committee took a look at it as well and the planning board may have even had a one or two uh looks at the document at some point during this process. What I wanted to note is that Chris brushstrip did develop a draft bylaw as well at some point but be uh sighting and permitting and that process then had to get worked into what we were doing with the bylaw. So, I'm going to quickly go over what some of the state um changes were. And I will say that this was the um the mass clean energy laws typic is really what was guiding this change in the permitting structure. I will say that these changes to the state permitting uh structure, regulatory structure had to do with the fact that in some solar projects, projects were getting held up several years. And so because the state does have a very ambitious climate goal to reduce carbon emissions by 2050, um there was a real push by the state to try to expedite the permitting process for solar development

so that it could facilitate the state being able to more readily meet its goals, its targets and goals. So, in July of 2025, uh, DOER staff had reached out to municipalities, um, Amorest, I know Nate and myself and Erin Jacques convened a meeting with, um, Allison Gage from DOER to sort of talk about what was happening and how there was this new um, division that was being created to specifically look at permitting solar projects and larger solar projects. So between September and October of 2025, the state held, I think, five public hearings to sort of talk about this this new solar per permitting process. Um the final regulations were actually promulgated just this March, March 1st. So these new um regulations are in effect um now. So they're effect effective now. So what it does it establishes the state review and permitting jurisdiction for projects that are over 25 megawws for the state to review and uh battery energy storage products projects that are over 100 megawatt hours are also now under the jurisdiction of the state. So they don't have those really really large projects wouldn't come through specifically just the community. They go through the state and the state takes over the permitting. What that means though is that projects below that threshold are now the responsibility of the municipalities and they had a very specific structure of how this would work. So

the the the goal the primary goal is to ensure that projects are permitted within a 12-month period. From the sessions that I have gone to with the state, they really stress that even though we say we want the permit issued within 12 months, you really want to sort of have time to wrap things up in 11 months because you need time to ensure that the decision is filed with the clerk's office and that has to happen within that 12-month period. So there's really a, you know, a much tighter time frame for um cities and towns to review these these projects of the this particular scale. And 25 megawws is very large. Um just for reference, the um town's solar landfill project um is roughly four megawatts and that was on 15 acres. So the scale of a 25 megawatt project is pretty large and I don't think we haven't seen one in town and I don't think we will. Um I I just don't think we have the available land mass to actually support that kind of a project but we certainly do have other um largecale projects could potentially be built. Not many but some certainly. So part of this um part of this new regulatory framework is that towns have an appointed person to coordinate um a single permit. So what I failed to mention till this point is that in expediting this permitting process the idea is that one single permit is issued and so it's not from The planning board still goes through its process. The conservation commission

still goes through its process. The ZBA still goes through its process. Everybody still has meetings and holds their process the way that they normally do. But those decisions then get funneled to one person and that person takes all of those decisions and issues a singular permit. And I did ask what the structure of that would look like and I was told I asked and I was told I was correct. and that those decisions from each board and committee would be attached to the comprehensive permit. So, it would be are the consolidated permit. So, it would be one permit that has all of the other permits attached to it. Um, but there is a 60-day time period, a pre-filing period, which gives boards and committees and gives the town an opportunity to get information that it needs prior to the application being submitted. And this is an official 60-day time period where the applicant has to notify stakeholders of their intent to construct a project. And this is the time where the person who is the coordinator would work very closely with each of the boards and committees to ensure that the applicant is providing the information that is needed in order for the committees and boards and commissions to sort of make their decision within that expedited time frame. So, um, so that I think that was kind of like the relief valve, if you will, for, you know, this 60 this 12-month period. The 60-day pre-filing period is, you know, time for all of the questions and things that folks might have ahead of time. I think of it very similar to how we've done things informally. I used to be the wetlands administrator. So I know that especially when larger project projects would come

into town, staff would sit down and meet with the applicant and we would spend time talking and I know that the planning staff does that regularly. So it's kind of making that process more of an official process um with a very dedicated time frame. Um, so another uh document that the state provided was a draft bylaw for communities to adopt or to reference in the development of their own bylaws if they chose to develop their own bylaw to um to sort of lay out how the community would um meet this process or the requirements that they would require um from the applicant to meet this timeline process. So the I will say before I go on to this next point that um members of the CRC actually took that draft bylaw and then the one that the town had already been working on that the CE CRC had as a working draft and they literally melded those two documents together to see where there was um overlap or information that needed to be added from the date and the um the encouraging thing was there was actually not a lot that needed to be changed in the draft that we had put together and there was not a lot that needed to be added. So there was a lot of relief in that respect. Um a point that should be made is if the town fails to meet the 12 month deadline then the state would issue constructive approval and approve the project. So the approval would come from the state and the town would no longer have the jurisdiction um over the over the project. Um I did read a comment and I don't know if this is still true because this presentation

was from a while ago. Um it probably is true that if one board or committee denies the project then the permit fails and there's no permit issue. So if if the ZBA is okay with a project but the conservation commission has reason to deny the project then the project fails. It it gets denied. So the regulations take effect, so they're they're they were promulgated now, but they take effect July 1st where municipalities may choose to um utilize this consolidated permit option should an applicant choose to want to submit a project with this consolidated permit pathway. Um but by October 1st, the town absolutely and other municipalities have to allow for the consolidated pathway. So it's a fairly tight time frame. And I will say that there are many smaller communities that are I think struggling with this a lot more than the town of Ammerst is. And of course, the state has said, "We will be happy to take over the permitting process for smaller communities if they decide they don't have the capacity um to review projects even that are less than 25 megawatts. Then the state will take those on. So next steps, and I really just summarized, I didn't put together a timeline, but these are just the next steps, some of which you know, some of which you may not, but I thought it would be helpful just to sort of see where we are. Um the CRC will be taking any comments um from from the planning

board at some point um to incorporate into a final draft. Um it will have to go before legal counsel. So KP Law does have to review the document. um the CRC would submit this to the town council and it's likely that it gets referred to legal council after it's been referred to the town council. So legal council and town council will sort of get it roughly at around the same time. Uh then the town council would vote to refer the the document to the planning board and to the CRC to hold public hearings. And um I know there's been some discussion about potentially maybe even combining at least one of those hearings um as it's anticipated it may be more than one for each board. Um the CRC then holds their hearings and then at the end of the process um the the document would get referred by the CRC to the government governance organization and legislation committee for review also known as the go and then the town council would receive it from the go. It would uh undergo two readings. um at the second reading would be when the town council would have a vote and then the clean energy bylaw would be in effect. So, I'm going to stop sharing and um ask if anyone has any questions about that process.

Uh well, um Jara has his hand up and I I have a couple questions too. So, Jared, go ahead. Thank you, Stephanie. Um, my question is, considering how tight the timeline is, how much of that time is based on like coordinating ZBA meetings with Comcon with planning board meetings versus like conducting studies. Um, and I asked because like some communities have like task force or like joint meetings between a variety of different related boards on a single um like pipeline or development or project uh to help expedite review. And so I wonder if that's something that we could implement or if that would not really save us much time. Um I think you know maybe for certain projects it might make sense. I don't think it would be a hard and fast every single time there'd be a joint meeting of but I think for some projects you know like any other you know particularly complicated project or project where it makes sense for committees to work together and hear uh and have questions at the same time. I would think you'd still be able to do that. But again just every everything sort of has to keep in mind this time frame and the the clock for the 12 months starts upon submission of the application and the application has to be complete absolutely has to be complete at the time of submission because that starts the clock and that's the individual who is kind of coordinating this process has to ensure that everything is submitted that the application is complete and committees may have studies or things that they want submitted. That time period, the

pre-filing period would be the time to start asking for those things or identifying those things. Um, there's more to this. It's really there's a lot. It's complicated. I know that the state's desire was to make this process go faster, but it just seems more complicated and maybe it's just going to be a matter of getting used to a new process. Um and maybe in time it will move things faster but I I don't right now it feels very um arduous for communities to be doing all this and there is a com a set of guidelines that go with it. So, not only do we have the the bylaw language itself, but then there's at least four guidance documents and I think there's going to be another guidance document that's under development right now on the consolidated permit itself to sort of help communities. So, there's a lot of material to read through.

Thank you.

All right, Br. Um, Bruce, I'm gonna let Nate go next. He may want to chime in something sooner than later. Yeah, thanks Doug and thanks Bruce for your patience. Uh, thanks Stephanie. Yeah, I just want to say that, you [clears throat] know, kind of like the ADU provision, you know, for accessory dwelling, the state's really trying to promote clean energy and so we have this bylaw. It's it is long. Um, I just want to just reiterate a few points that this local permit, it's not just land use permits, it's also building permit, electrical permit, all local permits. And so it's really important that the pre-filing is complete. And when you're looking at the bylaw for you know planning board members that everything that would be submitt requirements is everything we'd want and so that you know when an applicant proposes this process it is what we need to get right into permitting and so typically we try to coordinate a project anyways right if it's going through planning board it needs conservation commission the hearings will happen concurrently the planning board may wait for the concom to know that you know the site plan is not going to change because of impacts to wetland resource areas and so we kind of do that anyways But this consolidated permit is really you know a permit at the end that also includes any other permits like you know fire department approval, electrical building everything. So it is a a quick turnaround. Um the other thing I was going to say is that in the proposed bylaw we try to structure the permitting um having a a new use uh a new use in our in our table. So some is allowed by right some site plan review and some is special permit. And so what staff has proposed in working with the CRC is this tiered approach given the different uh kind of classifications based on possible impacts in size. And so the idea would be that something that is in certain zones and maybe a certain size is permitted in a way that can move faster than say always being a special permit. So pay attention to that. You know there is you know if there's peer review necessary that's going to have

have to happen really quickly. Uh and the idea would be that maybe you'd identify it at time of submission so that in the first hearing the planning board or whatever board could could go right into it. And so you know kind of be thinking along those lines as you look at that. Um and to what Stephanie said the state is you know really saying that you know really big projects so you know 25 megawatts is 100 or 125 acres depending on you know land and everything. And then we try to go break it down in tiers by possible size. And so you know how big is like a 100 kilowatt hour system solar or battery? And so you know based on that that's where we kind of came up with the permitting. But it is really important that once an application is deemed complete it, you know, there's a pretty quick you know we say 12 months but to get all the permits necessary all the way to building permit is a quick time frame. So um you know as you're looking at it just you think about that and see you know you know if you have any questions let me know. I'll just say quickly I told dog and I think I don't know if I said to the whole board I think the easiest way is we can consolidate all planning board comments in a separate word document not like track change in the document um but you know send them all to me I'll I'll consolidate and coordinate all the comments from board members and then I can work with Stephanie or whomever and figure out how to incorporate it into a bylaw. But I think the easiest thing would be if you have a question on section like 18.10 10, write me the comment section, whatever. And then I I'll, you know, I'll aggregate all those and really coordinate that with Stephanie so we're not, you know, all trying to track change a document and there's seven different documents. Just send me all the comments. I I'll, you know, I'll take care of all the rest. Thanks.

All right, Nate. Uh, so hands are hands are jumping up here.

Bruce, go ahead. Um, I read this I wasn't sure whether this was a hearing or or whether and I now know that it's was a template that was generated. I looked at it as something that the town had generated and I was kind of amazed and frankly a little bit horrified. Um, uh, it looked like someone had gone into the regulatory supermarket and just loaded up the cup. um including way down there in what you have to submit um a document by an registered acoustic engineer to something about the noise from PVs. Uh maybe battery storage hums a little louder, but uh there were some things there that just seemed to be uh kind of amazing. Uh and I'll get I'll go into those separately as Nate you've suggested. Um, so I'm not I'm just amazed and I I I know that over the years the Germans have not uh because they haven't had this level of uh [sighs] trle in their regulatory system. Uh their PV deployment has been far less expensive per kilowatt uh than ours. And if you look at the pie chart, you see how much less expense there is in regulatory uh overview than there is in this country. This was true of 15 or 20 years ago. It may have they may have caught up with us, so to speak. But the question that I have is um Stephanie, you said um that the person who's uh um on showing this through the process, I don't remember the phrase, but that's what you may more or less said. And I was wondering is it intended that this person is part of the developer um contract manager for the developer or is this somebody in the

town who's bundling and managing? Is this is is this adding staff uh uh coordination load? Uh um that's a question. Um are we are we looking at additional staff people to manage and consolidate this or is that going to be done by the by the by the applicant?

So it's not so um the applicant basically does their own process in terms of ensuring they believe they have everything together. Um but it's a staff person who um has yet to be identified um who will coordinate this. But it's not bringing in additional staff. that's likely it will be existing staff. Um, you know, I don't I think one of the questions we had is how many of these larger scale projects will we actually get? Yeah. You know, we may not have many. Yeah. So, it may not be something that someone is going to have to do on a regular basis.

Yeah. That's that's a good answer. And the second question has to do with the pre-filing period. uh 12 months seems perfectly satisfactory uh to me and then you add 60 days in front of that. So that's that's 14 months. Um but for that reg for that pre-filing period to be useful the applicant would have to have a fair amount of detail maybe although so the second question and last question is um what kind of information is it anticipated that comes to the town at the beginning of the 60-day pre-filing period and and and is that half or less or more than what would actually end up being uh provided at the beginning of the 12 month period. I'm just getting interested. I'm interested in determining how valuable and h how this pre-filing period would sugar out. I think the pre-filing period is going to be very key and very important because it's going to again because sometimes what happens is when the applications come before the boards and committees there may be information missing that you know then the applicant provides during the actual process. The idea is that all of that has to be provided right when the application is complete. Like so there won't be there shouldn't be additional um major pieces of the application sort of coming that just weren't ready at the time. It has to be deemed complete. And I think that as far as far as the information like so for instance

the applicant may have most of the details but they might not have engineered plans but they might have most of the details ready during that pre-application phase and then the engineered plan would be provided during you know for submission at the beginning of the 12-month period. At the beginning of the 12-month period. Thank you. Correct. Good. You're welcome. All right, Brad.

Uh, yeah, this is kind of a minor point, but um I happen to be the secretary of the committee on the state level that is responsible for uh the Massachusetts electrical code. And uh one of the things uh is I I recall boilerplate in this uh couple years ago that mentioned uh compliance with the national and uh electrical code which in Massachusetts the the state electrical code that incorporates the the NEC expressly uh uh throws out the article would apply to largecale solar and there are some very important technical reasons why we do that. It's a different code. It's the National Electrical Safety Code is the one that should be mentioned. I imagine I'll see this when you circulate the draft copy of this, but I just wanted to mention that uh because it's a it's something that you would if unless you're involved in in what I am involved with constantly, you would not be aware of this.

Yep. Yeah. I think that's a great opportunity to make comment when it comes before the planning board. Um, and I'm and I'm surprised sort of because I think that language probably came from the state. I don't think that was something we provided. It was probably in the draft from the state. Nate, we already have the draft. Do we not? Uh, Fred, you should have it in your inbox.

Yeah, I think the Yeah, you know, the version will has changed a little bit. Um, and we'll try to keep the board up to date, but there's not there hasn't been substantial changes. So, I I had sent a a document out there that you can look at. Um, and you know, uh, feel free to start commenting. I you know I will say I just want to say quickly that you know we're coming to the board before it's an official zoning amendment so that you know the planning board has time to look at it possibly coordinate comments with the CRC and then when it comes back to a hearing you know we can move it forward because we are under this provision to have something ready later this year and so it's this is a different approach than we've taken with other zoning amendments. um we think it can work and so you know you know even if the board wants to spend the next few meetings talking about it looking at it at least you'll be prepared when it comes back as after it's referred by council so you're not looking at it the first time you'll have already seen it you know two times and if you want to talk about it more you you will you will have and so you know the idea would be that once it gets to a hearing we can kind of get right into those specific comments if we're not already getting into them um you know at the next meeting so

you you first sent us version seven, which was dated the 5th of March. And are we are we now up to version eight or are we on version 9? I I I received version eight. I think it was today in my inbox and so it's version eight. Yeah. Okay. So, we should comment on version eight. Yeah. Uh I think I there's there's you know I think what staff had outlined a number of comments and the CRC addressed them. You know, there was like a dozen for a specific section. So, you know, I would say that like 90 whatever 7% of the bylaw remains the same. It's just those specific sections have changed and I'll send that to you uh you know this evening. Okay. But

All right. Okay, Angus, you go and then I'm going to go.

Yeah, I was just thank you Stephanie for this presentation. Um I'm I'm with Bruce. It seems in insanely detailed um and a lot longer than the states model zoning bylaw. Um but yeah, so I I I I wish it could be shorter both for our sake and for anyone's sake who's wanting to build a solar project. Um I um I don't think this is some this is a question that maybe needs clarifying now, but I found it a little bit I found the use table confusing. um the the tier I when I looked at the um state draft bylaw, the table is arranged more clearly and so I'm I'm having trouble understanding what the tiers mean and if they're counting for building mounted or canopy or ground mounted. So I don't know if that's a question that's worth answering here or Nate can answer this in another meeting that we have. It seems like a future meeting uh conversation, Nate. Um would you agree that that's more of a conversation to have when you start collecting comments?

Yeah, it's a good question. And so, you know, for instance, like right now under this bylaw, someone wants to put solar on their roof and all of a sudden you say, "Oh my gosh, they have to do all these submitt requirements." So, in earlier in the bylaw, we say certain tiers are have to meet some parts of this bylaw, but not all of them. And then that's trying to follow through with the use chart. And so staff's try to organize it so that a typical building mount, you know, a smaller ground mount or canopy doesn't need to go through so much of the submitt requirements. And so I I think we can get into that kind of detail, but that's the way we try to structure it. So you know, we took the, you know, the size, the tiers to be appropriate based on say like fire code and other things, building code to make it work locally for permitting. So, we're not, you know, someone who wants to put solar on their building doesn't have to go through site plan review or a special permit. But I think we can we can discuss that and see if there's ways to make it clearer.

Okay. All right. So, um I guess I have a couple questions now. I mean, I spent a lot of time with this and had a lot of various levels of questions. Um, first of all, this is presented as it's as though it's going to be a planning board bylaw. And all of the rest of the planning board bylaws are either exclusively planning board or zoning board. But there's a whole bunch of stuff in here that looks like it belongs to Concom or the electrical inspector because there's reference to the electric code or um you know the water protection committee who want to make sure we're not polluting our water sources. So, one of the things that I was trying to understand is are we responsible for everything finally happening in this bylaw and we just get input from these other committees or how why is this ours all of it or and would it be better if we separated it into the stuff that the planning board needs to think about and the stuff that other people need to think about? So I think because it's a consolidated permit um and again this was as I said language that came from the state template a lot of it

the idea was that it should all be in one document so that everyone was basically the because it's really for the benefit of the applicant right the applicant has one bylaw that they refer to for this process and it references the boards and committees they all have to comply with. Um, so it is and and I hear you Doug because I I think it is confusing but I think the reason why it's coming to you all for review is in part because of the process that we normally have because that's the town's normal process. So I don't think it sits just with you. So for instance, we had fire officials as part of the staff review of the document as well and we had there was lots of language that referred to things for fire safety and they said, "Well, we've got a whole separate permitting process as well. You should be referencing that process, not including it in this draft." So I think it was just trying to it's unwieldy and I think it was trying to sort of make all of this as consolidated in one place to make it for the ease of the applicant. So I think separating it out then becomes a bit more complicated.

Okay. Well, I mean certainly one of the comments I had was early on in this thing, you have a general paragraph that says, you know, the project needs to meet all applicable codes, whether it's the fire code or the building code or whatever. And then later you talk, you know, sort of again you say, "Oh, it needs to meet this particular part of the of the electrical code and it needs to meet this particular part of the fire code." I just I was puzzled why we needed to repeat that. Um I was sort of channeling Angus who's always trying to make our bylaws as clean and efficient as possible. Um so okay so that was one question and then I guess one other question that I'll ask now is um the model bylaw has a has a paragraph that says uh applicants don't have to do the consolidated permit. They could do the regular process that the town has. I didn't see that in here and I didn't really understand whether every single project has to do a consolidated permit or not. And maybe it's that I don't understand what an administr whe if there's an administrative uh what's the phrase um admin shall be permitted administratively does that in does that involve a consolidated permit or or not? Um you know I'm I'm I can't tell what the lower threshold is for when a consolidated permit is required.

Okay. So, I'm gonna punt this to Nate. Nate, do you have a an idea of that because it's all been really confusing. So, um I don't know, maybe you had some clarity.

Yeah, I'll make something up in a second, Doug, but I just want to get to your first question. I think the the Jesse kind of asked this last time about how much is that right falling on the pling board's plate to be technical experts in, you know, batteries and all this stuff. And so I think that's where we're going to rely on this local coordinator who is a staff person. You know, when we have a a site plan review, we do transmittals to all different departments, public works and, you know, conservation. I think we're, you know, the idea would be in the um to make sure an application's complete. The local coordinator is going to then talk to the departments to make sure that information is there. Not that it's actually correct, but that they've actually say submitted their storm water and their safety data sheets for whatever. And then when it moves to the process, we're going to then rely on fire or public works and others to say yes, this is okay. And so I think we're going to have to be more um kind of diligent about trying to get those that feedback from the various departments because otherwise you write you planning board is going to be like we're going to need a peer review because we have no idea if this battery containment is actually what is supposed to be happening. And so I agree there's kind of those aspects we have to we want to coordinate and make efficient in terms of the local process. Like right now we don't really have a local process in our bylaw for for solar, right? It's either kind of an accessory use or it's a special permit use. We we loosely have something. And so really what this bylaw does, it actually with that use chart that Angus finds confusing. It actually creates in this bylaw section 18, it actually creates a process. So, if say you're a um you know, you have you want to do a 20acre solar project, you go in that use chart and you say, "I'm okay, I'm a groundmounted solar project. Okay, I'm this tier. I'm in this zone. I'm a special permit." And you could say, "I'm just going to go and do my special permit application, go through my concomment."

And so what this bylaw is doing is actually setting up a framework within our zoning to actually permit solar in a way that it h it isn't permitted now. And so because we're defining now canopy and ground mount and battery, the bot is kind of doing two things. It's creating this consolidated permit filing requirements and permit review. And then built into it is also this independent review. So if you look at that use chart or accessory use chart, that's how it would be permitted moving forward. So if you know, if I'm a, you know, a farm and I'm going to put, you know, some solar behind my meter and that is now an accessory use, we could say, well, that's just going to be administratively approved. And so we're actually creating that kind of local pathway that's not even there now. Um, so it's kind of doing two things at once. So, Nate, are you saying administrative approval does not require a consolidated permit?

The way it works in this bylaw, um, it's exempt from pieces of it. So, you'd still have some of some of the submitt requirements, but you wouldn't have to comply with everything. And so, okay. So, that's in that early paragraph on the first. Yeah, I think it's I think it's something that staff can look into and discuss and say, can it be clearer? So, what we were hoping is for applicants, they know kind of what the pathways are and also for staff. So like someone's like, "Okay, I don't want to do a consolidated permit. What do I actually have to submit?" Um, so all right. So, so I do my consolidated permit and so we on the planning board, we will do a normal site plan review or special permit hearing depending on the size of the project and other characteristics.

So the planning board would be just the site plan review. I think the ZBA is going to be the special permit granting authority in this case. So, planning board, you get all the SPRs, zoning board gets the special permits, and but but our special permit review process won't be any different, right? Except they're going to show up with a bunch of visuals of the I mean, you know, it's like there were there was the section on the visuals, uh, which we often don't get. we may not even want, but we're the ones that are supposed to look at them. Right. Right. That's what I mean by it'd be nice to know which parts of this are apply to which boards.

Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we'll go back to Angus. Yeah. Sorry. So, one one more clarifying question and then one uh maybe question for the for the whole board to consider. Um it's back to the use table. Sorry, Nate. Um so that the three tiers um my understanding is that that's about the ground mounted those apply to the ground mounted solar installations right sorry that that row is cleared but I think that's just because it's it's delineating that the groundmounted solar row applies to those three tiers depending on the installation.

Yeah. I'm sharing my screen right now. Yeah. And so what this use chart is showing is you this were adopted. So um right here building mounted canopy or canopy under 25,000 is just a yes. Yeah. So yep. And then if you're doing a ground mount which you know so you know out out in the field with or without a a battery under your storage system it'd be permanent this way. So under 20 250 kilowatts that is a yes. Got it.

If it's tier two and so this would go to so this is also um um so so sometimes solar doesn't have a battery system. Sometimes it does and so in this instance there could be a battery component associated with this that's not referenced here. So, it's the right size battery system to fit a thousand kilowatt solar installation, which may be however many kilowatt hours, but it doesn't matter. We're saying that's going to be site plan review through the planning board in these districts, not allowed in others. Um, say it's a standalone best, so it's less than a thousand kilowatt hours. What we're proposing is that site plan review in these districts. And so a a thousand kilowatt hour battery storage containment could be the size of like a 20 yard dumpster. It could be like two um two um like you know those pods, those like old pods, you know, and usually over a thousand kilowatt could be the size of a dumpster or two depending on how efficient the battery system is. But it's a it's actually a pretty big structure. It could be like 20 by 10 by whatever. So that's why we're saying it's special permit. Um, so right, so any building mounted ones on your residential house, on CVS, on whatever, we're proposing it's a yes.

And a yes means no consolidated permit. Uh, excuse me. A yes means no consolidated permit.

Um, so it's a yes for the land use permit. they still could go through a consolidated permit because they want to ensure that they're then what if they're to get there on the roof they might need to do some battery on the ground that could impact wetlands they need electrical and all these other things they still could try to go through a consolidated permit process for a yes because they want it within a year they don't want us or the town because this is pretty big right this building mount could be big this could be like um you say big Y right it's halfly half. Let's just say all the big wise is in Amoris and they want to do 4 acres of solar on their roof. Staff is proposing well it's already a roof. Who cares? Let's have it be a yes. But they could be worried that if they do that people could say, well, what about this and that and you know all these other things and all of a sudden it gets dragged out to be a 15-month process because of you know other delays or appeals. Someone can appeal a building permit, someone could appeal electrical permit, right? And so, um, they might still go into the consolidated permit even though it's a yes.

That's clarifying, Nate. Thanks. The the only other thing I was going to say for the for the board to consider, it's it seems like some some of what Doug and Bruce are pointing out about that's packed into this bylaw is stuff that's helpful for other boards and for the and for town staff to have in one place. And Nate, you you've suggested maybe doing making some of these changes to the bylaw in the future with in other areas to help staff administratively. Um, and so I guess I'm I'm wondering maybe part of our discussion can be on packing in this much regulatory information into the zoning bylaw versus keeping it in other places. But that's for a later conversation.

Yeah, sure. So this is version eight, you know, an email. I mean it is a 17page you know, whatever bylaw. So, if this were adopted, you know, it's a new section. It's many pages. This goes into section three, the use table. We're proposing a new section five uh here. Uh and then a cross reference to section fences as well. Um so, there is a bunch of pieces that this all trickles down. I guess when I said future comments, I meant um use this version, but get all your comments to me and then we can figure out how we address them in the future. like is it, you know, now, is it at some point, you know, a few months from now or, you know, or however we want to do it. The idea would be that we want to have a bylaw ready for October one, um, of this year.

All right, Bruce. Oh. Um, maybe Jar's next. you.

Um Stephanie, [clears throat] I was just, you know, uh reflecting on your comment that like this application or this is this bylaw is developed comprehensively to help the applicant, which makes perfect sense and I can see why trying to pull this apart would be complicated. Though Doug, I also totally appreciate your concerns about it as well. But my question is, have we run this bylaw language by any applicant, past, present, or future to see if it is legible and makes sense to them because it's great that it makes sense to the staff, but great, you know, it's great that it makes sense in theory, but I'd be curious to know if we run this by the the applicants who actually will be using it and and if they're able to interpret what's required of them and what the timeline looks like and and all of that.

Um, I think it's a great suggestion. I I know that um it's sort of closely mimics the state regulatory process as well. So the language and the state requirements, it's very similar,

right? And I know that certainly there have been plenty of um you know solar developers who have been attending the meetings and commenting on the whole process. So um you know I I maybe it would be helpful at some point in this process to get those folks to attend some of the hearings so that they can comment. You know that would be a really good time I think to get that input. Great. Thank you, Bruce.

Um, reflecting on your concerns, Doug, I was thinking as you were talking and then as other other comments, it it actually just so we a sense of perspective. The the the the new school building, the new elementary school building would be a yes. Um, so as Stephanie said to my first earlier question, this is [snorts] not we're not going to see a lot of these. So my sense Nate and Doug is that um because uh the staff give us development uh application reports that probably uh Nate the staff or whoever's guiding this process uh in in town hall would use the development application report to help us as the planning board know which portions of this uh bylaw our our SP PR uh responsibilities uh lay and so forth. So I think that Doug, I can see some of that concern being handled there. But if it did turn out to be uh rather complicated uh and such, my sense is that um I've seen this with other um technology related uh code regulatory um transitions and so forth. It creates the opportunity for a new type of consultant, I suppose. And I could see that rather than having somebody in town hall who was brought up to speed once every 10 years or once every 20 years uh that that there would be people there wouldn't be many of them but who would be available to support municipalities who were dealing with this and and I can see that if it became a little too

elaborate well of course could back off on the bylaw but I think I rather prefer the consolidation I think having it work for the applicant is a good idea and I think that that the marketplace in some respects respond to solving the problem that Doug identifies because I think that's what would ultimately happen if it was um if it became uh more of more of a challenge than the a municipality could periodically manage. It could be another quiver in the owner's project manager profession. Sorry, exactly what I was thinking. Yes.

Yeah. Um, not seeing any more hands at the moment. Um, uh, I guess I we only have two members of the public remaining. Uh, members of that those two members, if either of you want to make a comment, this would be a good time to put your hand up. Um, Jara, I saw your hand briefly. Do you want to go ahead? I don't see any. Well, you can talk while we see if anybody from the public wants to comment. No, I just accidentally clicked the button. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Um well, then I will look uh forward to writing up my comments for Nate in the near future. Um Nate, do you want them on like a a text document or do you want them in a spreadsheet? a text document actually would be better. Okay. And I just want to reiterate too that ensure that you're looking at version 8. Um, consular Rooney just reached out to me and wanted to make sure that that's the one you're commenting on. Okay. Well, it sounded like Nate's going to distribute that to us this evening.

All right. Well, thanks for coming, Stephanie. And you're welcome. Sorry to take your evening. No, no, it's a fine. Thank you all so much for your time and all that you do. All right, time is 9:23. Next item on the agenda was the general housing discussion. Uh, first talking about the mixeduse building uh amendments that Nate distributed. Nate, um, you want to introduce that or I know Pam Rooney had her hand raised for a bit. I don't know if we just wanna Who who did?

Pam Rooney had her hand raised a minute ago. Okay. Well, then why don't we bring her over? I missed that. Sorry. Yeah. No, I think it was while we were transitioning between topics. Yes, Nate. Yes. Uh, Pam, welcome. Thank you. Pam Rooney, 42 Cottage Street. Um, I I Are you speaking as a counselor or as a resident? As a counselor. Okay.

And I just want to say I really appreciate the conversation tonight. Uh, these are very good questions. One thing that I want to give you a heads up on is that there is going to be a bit more discussion about um the use the collocation of solar and agriculture. It was a topic not uh heavily touched by the state model and it felt in our last meeting on March five that there needs to be a bit more uh robust discussion about how we might offer essentially incentive for small solar with agriculture. So that material will be coming to you all. you can read it um in conjunction with version 8 and uh would would greatly appreciate feedback. Uh I know Doug, you sat on the on the farm committee for a while. Um is there some perspective that uh we should take into consideration. So that's all all I really wanted to add is is that's coming down the pike to you soon. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Pam. I guess I'll just as a side comment say that I still have my mother's farm, so I still have a farm perspective. Okay. Um, no other comments. Maybe we can go on, Nate. Um, general housing discussion. Uh, we're we're getting a little bit late. I don't know if you want to have a long discussion tonight or postpone. Oh, this could be really short. So, you know, at the last meeting, we discussed mixeduse building standards and we proposed changing the use chart and then removing the additional lot area per unit in the dimensional table. And so, um, you know, it seemed like there was agreement on that. And I'm just sharing my screen right now to confirm that you know what what we'd be doing is you know in um in the youth chart adding what's in bold here and not removing anything at all but then just clarifying in these outlying village centers uh here these new standards apply for the non-residential space and it's the standards from the University Drive overlay. Um and then uh what we're saying is then um the use table looks like this. Right now there's these additional lot area requirements in these zones. We would remove those and then it would you know the chart would look like this. Uh we have this mixeduse building narrative from the um housing and zoning subcommittee. um this might not be it but anyways the idea would be if the plan board it seemed like there was consensus on it and so tonight I was going to say if we like this you can vote to refer to town council as a zoning amendment and so you

know if we're comfortable with you know removing the the dimensions here and we like what's happening here then you know this is kind of in the zoning amendment form we have kind of a a narrative that can be turned into a memo and so if the board likes it we can move it tonight Um, if not, we can continue to talk about it. Maybe not tonight, but at another meeting. But that's all, that's kind of where I was going with it. It seemed like the board was pretty comfortable with these changes. They had reasonings why both these things worked. And so, I just want to show you what it would look like as a zoning amendment. Um, so then, you know, when you present it to council, it would actually be in the amendment form. So, it actually is, you know, in the table and chart.

All right. We have Bruce and then Angus. Oh, yeah. Uh um I I I think in order to elevate this to perhaps a discussion on a motion, I'll move that uh we um send this to town council for consideration. Um that's the motion and my only comment on the motion is uh we it'll come back to us uh and to others. So it's not as though we are losing control completely and forever. But I think we deliberated on this enough to uh to to think that it's worthwhile going forward. Um so I would move that we do so.

All right. Thank you, Bruce. Angus. Second. Okay. Um any discussion by the board? I'm seeing a lot of heads say no discussion. Uh we have two members of the public remaining. Does either member of the public want to comment on this? All right. All right. Um, guess we'll go ahead and go into a vote. Um, all right. Uh, starting with you, Bruce.

I, Fred. Hi Angus. I Jesse I Jara I and I'm an I as well. That's unanimous. Six in favor, one member absent. Motion carries.

Nate, I guess you can draft a memo. Congratulations. [laughter] All right. Uh, report of the housing and zoning subcommittee was the second item on the general housing discussion. Jesse, is there anything you guys want to report? So, I actually missed the last meeting. Bruce, do you want to add anything?

Yes, I I came prepared. Um, I thought I was prepared. I thought I was going to have a little more time to bone up, but that went pretty fast. Um, basically, there was discussion at the committee. uh subcommittee on uh that was led by Angus really on the considered consolidation of the PRP and the uh and the OP the office park. Um Angus had been uh consider we discussing this previously uh with consideration to combining the three of the zones. So those two plus commercial um for various reasons uh we've come back around and uh we were discussing just the consolidation of those two and uh Angus has agreed to uh um dig in on this uh as a consequence of the discussion and and it will come back to either the subcommittee or eventually it'll come back to this to the board uh uh in some consideration of as to whether we could uh um well it won't come back to you if there's no consideration but if but it it looks like you'll hear from us on that. Um and also there was a a consensus um I think I've written here to pursue or explore um a small lot size traditional neighborhood subdivision development method. Um in other words it's an additional development method uh in parallel or maybe instead of uh 40y type approach. So the the the the committee is deliberating on whether we should embrace the [snorts] 40y approach or whether we we've we've pushed off the the previous notion that I proposed uh the cottage style uh whatever I called it that I had thought we could regulate the size that the town could regulate

for various reasons in various ways the size of a uh to maximum to put a limit on the maximum size of a dwelling unit as as the 40y process that the state has created uh does allow. But it's become apparent that we couldn't do that. So we've thrown that. But the the next level of consideration is perhaps by smallerizing lot sizes sufficiently we can um actually uh achieve the goal of lowering the cost of entry. Basically, it's a workforce housing uh strategy and and do we think that this will work? Uh we recognize that it hasn't really worked on Owen Drive where cluster lot clusterized lots were established. So, we'd have to do better. We should say smaller than that. But we're hinting into a conversation about whether and to what degree we could um satisfy all or most of the 40y objectives more readily, easier and with less ownerous blah blah than uh going through the 40. Although the 40y given that Mansfield uh has uh has has landed that uh fish, we might be able to get a bit of their fish that's already landed. So maybe 40 Y isn't as difficult as we imagined. So that's where we are. That's the report. Anything that uh Angus, uh Fred, uh want to add to that? Angus, you done? You're the you're the main man.

Head now. Okay, we're good. All right, Jared. Um I had offered to help Angus with some of the like consolidation language. Um, do we need to worry about violating any, you know, public meeting? Two people can work together. Two people can work together without Okay. violation. Great. Just wanted to make sure. Just don't shop it around to the rest of us. Got it. That's what I thought. I think the three people can, can't they? I mean, I have in the past worked with three of us and it seemed to be with the approval of Yeah. We just don't want a quorum. Nope. involved. Okay.

But if two people work on it and bring it to the subcommittee, then that's a advertised meeting. That's fine. Great. You agree, Nate?

Yeah. I was actually going to comment that part of the restructuring of the zones is to also allow housing in in the PRP in the office park. So some of it would be looking at you know what kinds of multi-unit housing or different type of housing use would be allowed. So um you know that's one component I think in terms of the a quorum Jerry. Yeah. So this is like an ad hoc subquorum getting together. It's not an appointed or voted subcommittee. So you know the town is usually cautious about don't have you know not having multiple members. I agree that if it's a sub quorum and you you work on something that's not a violation of open meeting as long as it comes back for the full board to discussion but we try to discourage more than you know no more than two just because it could lead to something but I think way you and Angus are doing it is fine.

Just don't meet in public places. [laughter] All right. Uh Nate, you fine with moving on in our agenda? Okay. Time is 9:36. Any old business not reasonably anticipated? Nate or Pam? No. On neither case. Okay. Same for new business. Anything? All right. For a an subdivision applications. No. Angus, I see your hand. Yeah. It's not about that, but it's about either old business or new business because are we allowed to to say something in old or new business?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think tonight is the night because Nate Nate had said in the subcommittee meeting that tonight was going to be a full schedule and it has been, but at some point maybe possibly in the next meeting, I'd like to carve out some time to talk a little bit more about the his the East Ammerst Historic District. um which I have some thoughts on and I would like to talk about it a little bit more with the planning board. Um I have some concerns about what the implementation of a historic district of that size and in that area um how that could impact both our goals in achieving the master plan and also the housing production plan um and how it could kind of freeze that area of town um and limit potential for development. but but most importantly for housing increased housing in that area. So I just wanted to propose that we talk about that in a future meeting or put that on the agenda when we have a less packed meeting.

Okay, Bruce. Um I'm going to be uh away for probably three board meetings uh through uh April. Uh I think we have the we have a meeting on the uh the first Wednesday in April. Is that correct? So I'll be for that. It's on the 8th. That's the first meeting. Huh? Right. And so that is also the next meeting I guess. Yes.

Okay. Well, I was going to they So I won't be uh I probably won't be uh present at the next three uh board meetings. I'll be in Europe. But not only will I be in Europe, I'll be on a plane on the first night, I'll be on an overnight train through Germany on the second night. And so the So I can't even kind of do what Karen used to do and stay up until 2:00 a.m. and and uh try not to go to sleep. I won't be here. Um I was going to say I would like to be part of that when we deliberate because I'm on the historic district commission, have been for seven or eight years, but that may not happen. Well, Nate, what's the timing of the consideration of that historic district?

Well, sorry, Angus. Council voted already. No, I'm kidding. I think the um so the the local historic district commission has um approved the final report. So, you know, there was a plenary report. The planning board looked at it, provided some comments. So, the Massachusetts Historical Commission um has looked at it. Uh the commission's finalized the report. is kind of really kind of like in the queue waiting to get in front of council. And so, you know, we've always said that it would nice to get it would be nice to get referred in April or brought to council. We're kind of expecting that they might refer to the CRC or go and then, you know, be voted on my my in my timeline it would be voted on by July 1. And so, council would vote it, you know, this fiscal year. And so, you know, Angus wants to have the planning board, you know, discuss it before then. I think, you know, I, you know, I think I told Angus, I think like our April meetings would be a time to have that as an agenda item and it would still work within the time frame. And and Bruce, if you're going to be away, feel free to send, you know, me any comments beforehand if you if you want to, you know, and Doug.

Okay. Yeah, it turns out I'll be away the May 6th meeting and it sound Bruce like you'll still be away at that point. All right. All right. So, yeah, we are approaching the summer vacation season. All right. So, that was old business, new business form a ANR subdivision. Was there anything Pam Nate? No, I don't have anything to report. All right. Anything we should hear about on ZBA applications?

No, there's a uh there's been uh 43 South Prospect. I think the South Prospect and another one uh you know, properties are asking that they remove the owner occupancy requirement on South Prospect. They would replace it with a resident live-in manager. So, the owner wouldn't live there, but there would be a live-in manager. Uh, so that's going to the ZBA. Uh, and the other one was to just remove it in entire its entirety. Um, but then turn it back, you know, I think it was a two family to a single family home. So it wasn't, you know, they're not, you know, I didn't I don't, you know, I'll let you know. I don't I don't, you know, unless you really want to hear them. To me, they're not, you know, big cases or anything, but

Okay. How about SP, SPR, SUB applications? Anything on the horizon? Nope. I'm hoping not because we have these two big things to think about, right? All right. Um, time is 9:41. Planning board committee and liaison reports. Bruce PVPC, you are muted. Nothing to report.

All right. Angus CPAC. Yes, we have a preliminary report that um or a draft report um that's been shared with us and I wasn't sure if that should be sent to the planning board yet because it's still in draft form, but I think they're hoping to finalize it in the next few weeks and and once there's a final report that's going to be sent to town council, I'll make sure to forward that to you all as well or or I'll send it to Nate to send to all of you. Okay. And then uh I can report for design review board that I am still not on the design review board. [laughter]

Doug, I have followed up with that and it's I'll do it one I'll do it again. Okay. Well, you know, like me trying to get onto the Yeah. PPC

took me four months, five, something like Well, that seems to what it be what it takes. Um, report a chair. I really don't have anything to report. Uh, let's go on to you, Nate and Pam. Report a staff. No, I I don't have anything, you know, to report. I I will say that, you know, I'll thank you for working, you know, through a long evening tonight and we have, you know, a lot of ideas in terms of our zoning priorities. You know, staff is looking at other things. So it may be that you know in the next month or two new things are presented um you know and you know so we're you know we'd hope that you'd be flexible and you know the list was to help guide us and I think there could be some things that come up or don't and so you know we'll keep the planning board you know up to date as best we can and so I still think the as Bruce mentioned what the subcommittee is working on is still priorities and there just may be one or two other things that come forward that we want to move this year as well. So, you know, just trying to keep things, you know, get different ideas coming forward. That's all. I know it's it's I know it's a more work, but it's, you know, I think it's kind of exciting to have that planning happening.

All right. Well, if nobody has anything else, time is 9:44. Uh, Angus, sorry, I just want to say one other thing, which is just thanking Nate and Pam and the the whole town staff for everything that they're doing. I know this is there's a lot going on and this these bylaws are complicated and I'm just really appreciative of all the work you all do. Thank you. Yeah, I have a colleague in Hadley and they have basically no staff so they do everything themselves and I am so glad I I'm not part of it. [laughter] The poor people.

Okay, so time's 9:44. I think we are adjourned. We're meeting again on April 8th, I believe. Is that right? That is correct. Next meeting is on April 8th. Okay. Good night, everyone. Bye, everybody. All right. Stop record. Stop recording.