Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Pam, I'm getting a little bit of an echo. Is everybody getting that?

Yep. At least I did. I guess I am not now.

I was. Just from you, Doug. Loading in and coming in and out of the meeting, maybe. Hi, Walker.

All right, why don't I try it again? No echo now. No, that sounded much better. Okay, good. So we've got everybody but Angus, and he had told me earlier today that he would be showing up at 7 or 7.30. So I think we're good to go, Pam.

Okay, I just want to know, I don't see Jarrah. Do you see him? Oh, I'm here.

Jarrah is here. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Alright, so you could just give me a moment.

Recording in progress.

Okay, Mr. Marshall. Let's see. There's a quorum of the board here. There's also a quorum of the CRC joining us tonight. Amherst Media is with us. We have attendees loading in over in the attendee group. I do believe we are good to go.

Okay. Thank you, Pam.

You're welcome.

Welcome to the Amherst Planning Board meeting of July 15th, 2026. My name is Doug Marshall and as chair of the Amherst Planning Board, I'm calling this meeting to order at 6.33 p.m. This meeting is being recorded and is available live stream via Amherst Media. Minutes are being taken. During the Planning Board's public hearing for zoning bylaw Article 18, Clean Energy Infrastructure, the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council will be available to join the discussion. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, and further extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this 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 webpage, 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 we will post an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the town's website Board members, I will take a roll call. When I call your name, unmute yourself, answer affirmatively, and return to mute. Bruce Colesum.

I am here.

Fred?

I am here.

Thank you. Roy Johnson. Present. Jesse Major. Present. Hi, Doug Marshall. I'm present. Angus McLeod is not with us yet. And Jarrah Smith is our last member. Thank you, Jarrah. So we do have a quorum. During the meeting, 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 re-mute yourself.

to the general public.

When solicited, please indicate you wish to make a public comment by clicking the raise hand button. If you have joined the Zoom meeting using a telephone, please indicate you wish to make a comment by pressing star nine 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.

Doug, we lost you. There you are.

For public comment. We This public comment invitation is for members of the public to discuss subjects that are not later on tonight's agenda. I see that we have six members of the public and I will read their names as I usually do. While I'm doing that, if anyone wants to make a public comment at this time, please raise your hand and we will bring you in to speak. We have Felicity Hardy, Linda Slakey, Maura Keane, Renata Shepherd, Richard Grose, and Stephanie Ciccarello from the town. All right. One last call for public comments. I don't see any. Okay, we'll go right into the second item in our agenda. The time now is 638. This was advertised for 635, so we can proceed. This is a resumption of a Planning Board public hearing on a proposed zoning amendment, Article 18, clean energy. Board hearing is continued from May 20th, June 3rd, June 17th, and July 1st of this year. To consider amending the zoning bylaw by adopting Article 18, Clean Energy Infrastructure and Associated Amendments to Zoning Table 3, Dimensional Regulations, 5.11, Renewable Energy Accessories, Solar Photovoltaic Installations slash Battery Energy Storage Systems Uses, 6.2, Fences, and Article 12 Definitions. All right. So we do not have what we have the members of CRC with us tonight for this conversation. However, it's my understanding that this was not advertised as a hearing for CRC. So we, Pam, is it Pam Rooney? Is it correct that we are not? You are not convening your meeting?

I'd like to convene it since we're here and we're attending. We are participating in this public, in this joint meeting. Okay. I don't know if it's absolutely required or not, but let's do it anyway. Mandy Johanicki.

I'm present. I would say it's required if any CRC member wants to talk substantively about this because we're a quorum. But I'm present.

Andy Churchill.

Here.

And Pam Rooney is here. We do make a quorum. I don't see Jennifer Taub was not able to be here tonight. And I do not see our fifth member, Alicia Walker, who may may come in later. Thank you.

All right. In that case, Pam, would you like to start us off?

I would be delighted. I first want to recognize Attorney Murray, who Represents KP law and who supplied us with some really good information. Regarding the structure and content of Article 18 which we have in some shape or form and working on for five years. This is, and thank you. And we probably should have contacted you back on version eight or nine, but we really wanted to get it in good shape before it went to you for consideration. That said, I would like to open the floor for Attorney Murray to basically walk us through her general comments I will ask if there were any questions that were generated by planning board members that were submitted to KP law. There were two sets of questions from the CRC members. I just want to make sure that we cover everyone's points.

So I don't believe there were any questions submitted planning board. And it just just for your information we didn't see the questions that you posed to you didn't attorney Murphy or Murray.

I had. But maybe they might be shared and I apologize Andy Churchill also sent in questions. Thank you. So attorney Murray. Would you like to walk us through your considerations. And and I don't know and I don't know if it's Okay, now I'm getting getting reverb.

Yeah, the echo is back.

If attorney Murray. wants to address questions that were raised in the process of her explanation, she may want to incorporate it in that manner. But that's up to you. And then I'm going to go on mute so I don't reverb anymore.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, as you said, Carolyn Murray from KP Law, and we serve as your town council. And I very much appreciate that this is a bylaw that has been in the works for several years, because I know certainly with some of my other colleagues at the firm, I know you've been discussing some of these issues. And I am happy to go through the comments as well as some of the questions. I know just before the start of the hour, I was saying informally before the meeting was convened I didn't receive the questions until very late this afternoon and was skimming through them just prior to the meeting to gather some thoughts. So my apologies if I haven't got a complete answer for every single one of them. But I want to just start with, I think this is a very good beginning of a bylaw. And I get the sense based on some questions that perhaps maybe I struck a nerve or maybe missed a few too many questions that maybe put you back on your heels feeling like, oh no, we have an awful lot more work to do than is necessary. As I was looking at this, you have to remember, I haven't been in part of your conversations for the past eight years, so I don't know what the intent was or whether the words on the page capture your full intent. But I think the best way I could perhaps summarize this is, I now seem to understand that the intent here, it was twofold. One, to establish submittal application requirements for i'm just going to refer to the solar and the ss applications should they come in under what i'm going to call conventional zoning meaning your local zoning and to also address the provisions from the 2024 climate act which allows for this consolidated local permitting process at times the And I also recognize that I think your bylaw was very much modeled after the state's model bylaw. And again, I recognize that a lot of work goes into that model bylaw. But it doesn't always clearly delineate when are we talking about what's required if an applicant chooses to pursue just the local permitting process versus if an applicant chooses this consolidated local permitting process. And this has been something that is still kind of evolving at the state level. But I think To sum it up, I think the bylaw would work. And the way I'm sort of envisioning this is certainly we have the applicability and we have the definition section. Then I think we need to take all of the submittal requirements that you would require for solar, all of the submittal requirements that you would have for battery energy storage systems. Maybe we also have to address When those particular uses might only be subject to special permit site plan review versus the administrative approval process. And then I think separately, perhaps it would be easier to have a separate section called the consolidated local permit process. And I'm going to take a step back for a moment and forgive me if this is ground you've already covered with each other previously, but with the 2024 Climate Act, an applicant for certain small clean energy infrastructure facilities, and you've got them defined consistent with your proposed amendments to the use table. that below a certain threshold for solar, wind, battery energy storage, even anaerobic digestion facilities, if you ever chose to include those, they have the option of applying directly to the town as they would as if this consolidated local permitting process had never been adopted by the state. So if it required a special permit from the planning board, if it required variants from the zoning board they could still go ahead and pursue those separate procedures at the local level the 2024 climate act then adds this option and it is at the applicant's option not our option that they could instead submit what's called a consolidated local permit And the consolidated local permit requires that an applicant submit everything that they would otherwise be required to submit under your local bylaw. Plus, so there are some things. So, for example, one of the things that jumps out at me in this draft is, um, At times we make references to 225 CMR, the regulations for consolidated local permitting. But those are only going to apply to those who seek a consolidated local permit. We have references to the minimization and mitigation guidelines or site suitability scores. Again, those things only pertain to a consolidated local permit. So I think we just want to reorganize this a bit to make it clear that we have one permitting process. If an applicant still chooses to come before the local boards under our standard conventional process, then the consolidated local permitting section can basically say you have to submit everything that's otherwise required as if you were going through the independent local boards for your various approvals plus you shall also comply with 225 cmr 29. we don't have to repeat all of the provisions of that regulation here but i think we do want to make it clear that we're delineating between the two The other thought that came to mind was these uses are going to be allowed either by special permit or site plan review. And you do have very extensive special permit and site plan review provisions of your bylaw now. The only question I would ask is sometimes solar and battery energy storage systems, sometimes they have some unique characteristics. that maybe not everything that is otherwise laid out in your existing special permit or site plan review provisions would address, say, some special concerns that you might have. So those are kind of what I'd say are the big threshold questions or thoughts in the back of your minds. And I don't know, Madam Chair, I know you've got other things that are on the agenda this evening. I don't know if it's helpful to go through sort of section by section or to go through the questions. I certainly don't want to monopolize your entire meeting this evening. So what would you prefer in terms of addressing answer sections or the questions?

I'm looking at Doug since this was a planning board meeting, at least the planning board meeting timeframe. Doug, do you have comments?

Well, my comment is that I was expecting this to be a fairly in-depth discussion of this topic. And when we've met with CRC in previous meetings this year, we've devoted a substantial portion of the evening to this discussion. If we don't need to do that, I have no desire to extend the discussion unnecessarily. From my perspective, CRC has been taking the lead on this initiative, at least since the solar bylaw work years ago that was. So CRC, if you need us in the room to continue, we're here to meet with you this evening.

I would certainly appreciate making our way through as much as we possibly can while we have Attorney Murray with us. I see Bruce and then Stephanie have hands up.

Am I recognized?

Yes.

Yep. I don't know whether I was the only one among you who was kind of perplexed when I read this, because this is not at all what I was expecting to receive. Carolyn, I'm an architect, or at least I used to be before I retired. And this has all of the hallmarks of changing the brief after the building has been designed. And so it certainly seems like it's reconstructing or reconsidering the basis of this Bible and And so my question, I guess, is I'm trying to think of which of the many possible questions, but I think the one that is most close to the top of my pile is you said this was a good beginning and you indicated that, let me preface this also by saying we've recently, we being the planning board, has recently spent a lot of time dealing with the ADU bylaw in town, which was another adjustment to our bylaw or addition to our bylaw based on the state act. And it was clear as we were beginning this, it would have been better if we had waited because while we were deliberating, the state was changing the goalposts, moving things around, becoming clearer and all of this sort of thing. The other intention that we have, maybe the primary intention for most of us on this, was to encourage clean energy, particularly solar, because I don't think, you know, not being a farming community, I don't think there's much call for digesters in town maybe there's one farm that could possibly even be thought of as being interested and and of course because of where we are we're not a wind site either there's no there's no real wind sites in town so i don't think wind and anaerobic digestion are here but um uh it it it seems to me that therefore that And if we were to start trying to chase the way that what you're suggesting, a reconstruction of all of this, while the understanding of this bylaw is emerging, that we'll be in the same boat again with shifting sands while we're trying to basically turn the good into the perfect. So essentially the question at the top of my pile is, are we here about to spend a lot of time trying to make the good perfect in a way that the enemy of good is the perfect? Or could we constantly proceed with this Bible knowing that if we can spend this time, because we don't even know whether we've got anybody who's interested in applying this. Let's find out whether we've got interest here yet. So long as this bylaw that we've got the bird in our hand at the moment is not discouraging clean energy development, number one, and not fundamentally flawed from a legal or a procedural prospect, My question is, why wouldn't we continue with what we've got and make the improvements once we find out more about what's happening on the ground?

Thank you. Stephanie had her hand up for a moment.

Do you want to speak, Stephanie? I can wait, actually. I saw that Councillor Haddock, he has her hand up.

Thank you.

So I guess it's part question and part observation. The observation is, well, I guess the question is to Carolyn is, If you looked at this and ignored the 229 CMR or 239 or whichever CMR it is for the solid permit and if you ignored those references and our attempt to sort of address that change in the law that we attempted to do while the regulations were out after they've been finalized and all of that and looked at this as sort of just a solar siting and best siting bylaw, ignoring those sections that we brought in for consolidated permitting. What are your thoughts on that? And then you addressed this earlier. It sounds like if that seems good and doable and workable, what we need to be doing here from my understanding of what you started with is adding or moving some things that talked about 225 CMR and all of that to HAB-Juliette Boone, it's a sort of standalone section within this by law or a completely different section within the zoning by law and pulling it out of say a solar siding by law and. then maybe adding some stuff to that um and so i guess that's that's that sort of is is that doable and workable if if we say is the solar siting part of this bylaw pretty good and any comments on the solar siting part of the bylaw and then if we look at the medway you provided and what we've gotten in here for some of the consolidated permitting the local representative the site suitability comments um Move that into a different section is that a workable bylaw and does the rest of the solar siding can it all apply to either permit pathway.

Tony Murray.

So. Maybe I'll start with the last question first, because I think this does go a little bit to Bruce's comments. When I suggested this was a good beginning, I didn't mean to say we've got a long road ahead of us. I actually do think your solar provisions and your battery energy storage system provisions are good as is. I think what is confusing is where we start to conflate when we're talking about the consolidated local permitting. And then we go back to provisions where it could apply to any solar or BESS application. So I think answering the question, could we take out all of the provisions or all of the references to the consolidated local permit and have a good workable BESS and solar bylaw? Yes, I think you absolutely could. Absolutely. And circling back a little bit to Bruce's comment about, you know, analogizing this to the ADU experience that, you know, Amherst was not alone. A lot of communities, if you were ahead of the regulations, then you adopted bylaws and then you had to go back and backtrack when the final regulations came out. And it very much feels like we are in that exact same system once again, with the state saying, as of october 1st of this year we must start accepting consolidated local permits but it's without regard whatsoever for our own schedules of town meetings um and the folks at doer they're very much aware of this um and they have taken the position that Susan M Collins, Towns do not need to amend their bylaws or their ordinances in order to accept the consolidated the local permitting and I do have to say I agree with that in so far as The way they have rolled out the guidelines, the regulations, my God, they have more guidelines for every different category. The application is 20 pages long and then there's a two page checklist. When I step back from this and I think if I could use another analogy, There's an entirely separate statutory scheme governing affordable housing projects under chapter 40B. Yet cities and towns did not rush to adopt 40B bylaws. We just simply recognize that when a 40B application would come in, our traditional rules and procedures and timelines would set aside and we'd all operate under the state statute and the state regulations. You could do the exact same thing here by culling this down to a solar and a best bylaw, take out all the references to consolidated local permitting or site suitability and minimization and mitigation, take all of that out. And if an applicant comes along and says, I want to file for a solar project that is going to be subject and I want to invoke the consolidated local permitting process, they can just go ahead and do it. Now, The flip side of that is that that often It often is difficult for folks at the local level who you find out perhaps maybe they're not really aware of what the consolidated local permit process is. Maybe they're not aware of the different timeframes that are associated with it. So is there some advantage to having some provision or a subsection in your bylaws that at least makes people aware of the consolidated local permit? Sure. And I know I shared the Medway sample with you. And I did that for two reasons. One was to my knowledge at this point, Medway is the only community that rushed to adopt a consolidated local permitting bylaw. I had a lot of conversations in February, March and April with a lot of communities who were thinking about adopting a bylaw. And most of them to Bruce's point said, we're going to take a step back and we're going to see how this really rolls out at the state level and see if we really need to do this because we don't want to rush to adopt a bylaw only to then come back six months later and amend that bylaw to be consistent with whatever it was the state ultimately came up with. So I think I've answered your questions there. So I will pause there or hands up.

I put my own hand up. Thank you very much. I put my own hand up because I actually went through Our bylaw section by section titles and I compared it with the material in medways actual solar and best citing bylaws. And then I can, and then I looked at also what they what they covered in their consolidated. Karen Hollweg, Example that that was sent to us, and that was 3.6 and of all the items in our in our bylaw. Karen Hollweg, Each of our headings each of our sections is the same as that medways basic by law or. their consolidated permit information. The only categories that I couldn't find in their documents were a couple of hours. One was hazardous materials and herbicides and pesticides, building permit and building inspection category. and waivers. And so that's three out of 22 of our sections that didn't seem to have a correlation with Medway. So I'm feeling a lot better thinking that we actually have the material we need if we wanted to pursue reorganization of it rather than a reworking or a complete

separation of the two items it to me it just makes more sense to reorganize but i'll let other people speak andy yeah i was just going to say that i think that in some of our previous editing sessions we had talked about the possibility of reorganizing reorganizing the material in there so that There's one section that's the basic requirements, no matter what you are. And then there's a section that's, if you want to do the consolidated process, here's what you want to do or something to that effect. So I guess I'm just sort of reiterating what, what I think I was hearing, um, from both, uh, attorney Murray and from you and I believe Andy Joe.

So thank you. Yeah. Mandy.

Thank you. Um, two questions that came out of that. Um, one, I had this question last week and I didn't add it to my questions for you, for the attorney, but CRC is not in its hearing right now. Our hearing was continued until next week, but both bodies are in their hearings for this particular bylaw proposal. And would we need to restart the hearing process if we decided to separate out this proposed Article 18 into, say, a proposed Article 18 and a proposed Article 19, one that is solar siting and best siting and one that is consolidated local permit process. Would we need to redo the hearing process or is the current hearing process sufficient for that? Because that may make a difference on whether we try to keep them in the same article or not. And and then if if we were looking at, you know, I think one of our priorities as least CRC we initially started this with a solar siting and best siting bylaw, not anything with consolidated. And then they passed the law and then the regs came out and all of that. And we were like, we should deal with that. We're in the middle of this. But if we were just go back in some sense, go back to, let's just make it solar siting and all, what would be the absolute minimum of consolidated permitting bylaws? references or stuff or sections somewhere in our zoning bylaw you would say we need to add is it is is the absolute you know and i'm just going to give you example um at least when i last read the regs which were not finalized i have not read the hundreds of pages since they finalized them they were defaulting to i think the town clerk is the local government representative if the towns did not define their own um It's not necessarily who we want to be our local government representative. Is that something you would say while you're in this hearing process, while you're here, absolutely take the chance to define local government representatives somewhere in your bylaw, wherever it is. And if that's the case, what other things would you say, do it now, while you're here, while you've got this process going versus, eh, wait and see.

So to your first question of, do we have to restart the process? No, you do not. If you told me tonight that, oh, we want to do a standalone solar and BESS and a standalone Consolidated local permitting, or maybe it's an article 18A and 18B, whatever. No, you have already put everyone on notice that this is exactly what you're talking about. How to regulate solar, how to regulate battery energy storage systems. and also how to address the consolidated local permitting process under the state's new requirements. So all of that is here. And if you suddenly break that into two articles or an A and a B, I don't think that makes any difference because anyone who had any concerns has been put on notice by virtue of your public hearing notice. If you were to tell me, however, You know, I hear that, you know, Amherst isn't really a town that feels the need to add wind anaerobic digestion facilities to the bylaw. But if you were to end tonight and say, you know, just in case, you never know. You know, we get a lot of wind in the Pioneer Valley and off the Berks.

1810 design requirements, 1811 additional design requirements for specific types of installations.

Andy Miller- stormwater Miller developers who could take a look at you know what our bylaws ends up looking like because to their point like we'd like to encourage good projects and Yeah, thank you.

Janet Callahan- I'll second it. Let's take a vote, Andy.

Andy Miller- Andy

PB Harmon Zuckerman, I was just gonna make a quick comment before I voted, but PB Sarah Silver, I had PB Harmon Zuckerman, I just wanted to say that I think it's a really good thing that CRC and the planning board are doing these things together in this way, rather than PB Harmon Zuckerman, Making staff and everybody else and and citizens run through it separately. So I appreciate the collaboration and I vote yes to remove ourselves from this collaboration right now.

I'm Mandy.

I'm an aye to adjourn.

And Pam is an aye to adjourn. Thank you, Planning Board, for letting us join you and staff for supporting us both. And Attorney Murray, thank you very much.

And CRC, thank you for accommodating our schedule. We're going to leave.

We're going to leave. Bye. Bye.

Okay, time is eight o'clock. We often take a break at this time. Why don't we take a five minute break and come back at five after eight. Please turn on your cameras when you return so we know you're back.

Thank you.

Hey, Pam, I wondered if you could bring back, take off the break slide and just let us see everyone again. Thank you. You are muted. I know what you said. Angus, can I assume from your presence that you do not yet have a new child?

Correct. And still we wait.

Okay. Well, I'm glad you could join us. Well, we'll see in the second half of this meeting whether we have any reverb or not. I know. I'm not sure who it was, but that was my best guess.

I think you were right.

I mean, it was either, well, anyway, I don't know. I wasn't sure, but I had a pretty strong suspicion.

It was great that you could see a pattern because I couldn't see a pattern.

Well, I'm not 100% sure about it, but she was the only one who wasn't in our previous meetings when we didn't have reverb.

Well, I wondered if it had anything to do with the air, the energy in the air, and internet.

We had a Comcast truck out front of the house, working on internet this afternoon. And I've had intermittent messages on my screen that my connection is unstable. I don't know, maybe it was me. I don't know. We'll see whether there's more reverb in the rest of this meeting. Dave Kuntz, But we're all back. Dave Kuntz, Time now is 809 we can proceed with our. Dave Kuntz, With our agenda so.

Karen Hollweg, bringing people in.

Dave Kuntz, yeah why don't you start bringing people over. All right. So this third item on the agenda is a public hearing. It's continued from July 1st of this year. SPR 2026 dash 04. Amherst Community Land Trust project is at 174 Amity Street. Request site plan review approval under Sections 3.3212 and 3.01 of the Zoning By-law to construct an affordable duplex complementary to a three-unit townhouse on the same lot with parking and associated site improvements. Located in the RG, General Residence Zoning District on Map 14A, Parcel 332. Brett KenCairn, So we are this hearing is now underway and i'd like to welcome felicity hardy and Linda slakey again representing the applicant. Brett KenCairn, Bruce called him I assume you are going to recuse yourself again from the board for this discussion.

Yes, I was just about to propose that. I will, insofar as I'm the technical design documentary and so forth person for this project, I will do the same as I did last time. I will assert for the record that I have no financial interest in the project, and I'll ask if the board is prepared to with my screen off, allow me to remain in the room to answer specific questions of matters of fact and that alone.

Dave Kuntz, All right, that's acceptable to me any other board members object to that okay we'll proceed on that basis. Dave Kuntz, So felicity and Linda welcome and I believe we have some updated drawings if. Dave Kuntz, One of you are actually Linda i'll start with you, you get well Linda and felicity both have their hands up so you guys can decide how to introduce the project.

It's Felicity that will make the presentation. I just wanted to let you know that in line with the other communication problems you've had tonight, my camera is for some reason unstable. Every time I attempt to turn it on, it turns itself off. So that's why you're seeing my library footage picture there. But I'm very much paying attention.

Thank you very much. All right, Felicity.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again for this opportunity to present this project to the planning board. My recollection from our meeting on July 1 was that there were a couple of open issues. The board asked us to return with an updated site plan to address those issues. And that was filed with Ms. Powell, I think a day or two before. My copy of that plan is, it has a revision date of 2026-07-13. So July 13th, 2026 revised. If it's possible to bring that up, I'll just walk the board through the changes that have been made.

Felicity, do you have those drawings yourself?

I have a PDF of the drawing that I downloaded.

Would it be easier for me to share? It would be easier for you to share rather than Pam. I just noticed last time that, you know, Pam was taking notes about our discussion and then we had to interrupt her now and then to get her to change a slide or move her cursor. So I think if you, Felicity, shared that it might be easier for Pam, and that way you could highlight anything you wanted to highlight with your cursor. Sure, I'd be happy to.

OK, I'm going to stop mine. Did you see mine?

We do.

Yes. OK, so I'm going to stop mine.

And you should be able to share your screen, Felicity.

Okay, can you see that?

Yes.

Okay. So the principal concern of the planning board last time was the location of the electrical transformer. You'll remember that this came up as kind of a last minute issue. That's why it wasn't on the plan that we had submitted previously because In the course of organizing ourselves for getting a construction contract, we learned that Eversource requires the electrical conduit to be coming in underground, which requires a transformer pad. I'm going to try to manipulate this. I'm not that great with this kind of stuff, but you'll see. at least on my plan, that we are showing the transformer pad midway between the two structures screened with evergreens. This location is really dictated by the requirements for Eversource about where the transformer must be located. So Bruce took those requirements and kind of sussed them out and Bucky Sparkle has put them on the plan in this location. That was the first set of concerns. Second set of concerns had to do with the accessibility of the accessible duplex to the trash enclosure. And you will see on this plan, we've made some changes so as to make the pathways more accessible to somebody who is mobility impaired. When we were in front of the board on the first, we talked about the fact that there was going to be a single trash enclosure here, which I'm circling with my cursor. Um, and the board suggested that it would be appropriate to, um, to install instead of a, like a stepping stone walk away or something like that to have a, have something that would be easier for somebody who was, uh, in a wheelchair to, um, or otherwise mobility impaired to access the trash enclosure. So you will see on this plan that we have, uh, converted some of the walkways. to a bituminous walkway, and that walkway goes right up to the ramp on NuPlex. One thing that our group also discussed in connection with the trash and the making it easy for somebody who had a disability to kind of get rid of their trash seemed to us that maybe having them come all the way over to here to access the trash enclosure was somewhat onerous. We've also added a new smaller trash enclosure up here at the edge of the parking for the duplex for additional trash. That's just an additional feature that we've put on the plan To make it maybe a little bit easier for the people in the duplex to dispose of their trash. We've added screening along the in the corners of the parking for the duplex. So I'm kind of showing that here and for in both the parking area for the duplex. And the parking area for the townhouses we we've added bollards for possible future electric vehicle charges. So you can see that identified here. And also down here. Um, OSBT-Karen Hollweg- There was a comment from Miss Rooney at the end of the hearing last on the first which, frankly, I have to confess went over my head a little bit, and I think it had to do with the. OSBT-Karen Hollweg- The development of swales she said something about scouring and honestly I didn't understand the comment but. I believe whatever that comment was, it's been addressed in this plan. And I'm going to leave it to Bruce to answer those questions if they arise.

Felicity, I see that Bruce raised his hand. He may want to elaborate.

It's lawn there and it'll stay grass, we think. And the extra trash enclosure is really an option. The habitat fraction of the clientele would prefer to have a separate trash enclosure. The question is, what is the economics of having the trash haulers make two stops instead of one? and what's the financial difference. The other has to do with how frequently the pickups are. We don't yet know whether it's weekly or biweekly. I mean, every two weeks. So however the trash contracts materialize or sugar out in terms of economics and the available frequency, We have in the arrangement that we show now, we can accommodate any contingency. And the note about the screening enclosure is really, the screening was already shown there, the question last time was are these existing trees or is it new planting and we've just clarified that it's always been intended to be new planting. And we show that the existing pathway, that's the pathway that runs around the eastern side of the existing townhouse, that was originally shown to be just to maintain the existing, but as with these trenching and so forth, it became apparent that we were, and the water and so forth, and that is the other, it became apparent that we're going to be digging up a lot so it was decided that it would be prudent to redo that pathway at least up to the porch of the of the first portion of the townhouse if not for the last leg but again we've we'd like to give ourselves the option depending on how excavation and disruption happens to be able to renew all of the existing pathways there as well as build the proposed new ones. And that's what is currently shown. And then we have shown the water line, which we pretty fully described last time, but now it's on the drawing.

All right. Let's see. I guess, Felicity, I assume that's the extent of your narrative?

Yes, unless you have any specific questions for me.

All right. So I guess I have a question that just popped up into my mind. The question of having the trash trucks up last time and at the time you were preferring a single location. I guess I'll start by asking, could you remind me, are the primary entrances to the three duplexes on the east side toward the new duplex or, I'm sorry, to the triplex units, is that on the east side or is it on the west side?

So it depends on what you mean by the primary entrance. So for the townhouses, we're assuming that the homeowners are going to access the units mostly from the west side because that's where they're going to be parking their cars and taking their groceries in or having the kids get out of the car, whatever. It seems a little unlikely that they would park and then walk all the way around to the east side. On the other hand, the east side of the building does have existing entrances, which are nice and I think lend a sense of community to the entire project. And in addition, if you didn't have a car and some of our our homeowners might not have a car. It might be more natural to access the property on the west side.

Okay. All right. To access the property on the west side, you said?

Yes, because you've got the porches right there. If you're coming from the center of town, let's say you're coming from Amherst Coffee, it seems to me you'd you that it would be more likely if you were, or if you were at the Jones. Okay, you're at the Jones Library.

You mean the east side?

I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. My mistake.

Sorry.

Right.

All right. All right. Well, I guess where I was headed was, you know, if basically the west side where the parking lot is, is basically going to be used virtually all the time um could you could you essentially have one trash enclosure over where you're showing the new one that's close to where the accessible unit is and just reduce some of the paving that's running around the North end of the triplex. But that sounds like you want to have this extent of paving and you don't mind having two trash enclosures. So I guess I will not pursue that. Board members, any questions from you all? Or have we, has the applicant taken care of our previous comments adequately and we're prepared to go ahead with this? Anybody have any comments about that? Okay, not seeing any hands raised. You're going to make me keep talking. Okay. All right. So I'm not seeing any comments. We still have a few attendees from the public. So I will ask members of the public, do you have any comments on this project before we vote on approval of their site plan review? And no one has raised their hands from there. In that case, Walker, you have prepared some draft findings and conditions for us for this project. I have. I wondered if you want to lead us through them, or do you want one of the others of us to do that reading of them?

Yeah, I can go through them.

Okay. Do you have them, Walker? Pam Field Sadler, do you think you can put them on? Or maybe, I don't care whether it's Walker or Pam.

I, yeah, I've got them.

Okay. Okay. That way you can scroll them while you're reading. Yeah. And keep them coordinated.

All right. Everybody see that? Yes. Yes. Okay. so um do you want me to go through the findings and the conditions well yes eventually let's start with the findings okay um i don't have the actual site plan review bylaw in front of me but um

I guess finding so typically we have. You know that our our our planning staff have read these or other members have read it if if there were extensive and we just went through each one and if there was any wordsmithing or comment conversation about them, we had a chance to do that.

Okay, so do you want me just read them then. Yeah, I think so. All right. I'm 11.24. Oh, the project is in conformance with all appropriate provisions of the zoning bylaw as long as the construction of a second principal use on this lot is found to be complimentary to the townhouse conversion approved for the existing two family home.

Looks good.

11.2401, town amenities and abutting properties will be protected because of the conditions of the site plan review approval.

I guess it wouldn't. Do we not think they are protected? or that there are impacts on town amenities and abutting product properties because of the of the design

There could potentially be stormwater impacts if there wasn't. Stormwater thing, that's a little bit more on the Conservation Commission side, but I guess I was thinking that this was more of a catch-all just in case there could have been impacts.

It just feels a little funny for us to have a finding Dave Kuntz, That depends on a condition that we haven't. Dave Kuntz, yet gotten to.

Karen Hollweg, I okay I did yeah I haven't done findings before I did get this from a previous one that I found from a previous project. Karen Hollweg, This wording was in there. Karen Hollweg, But it may have been changed in the meeting at that time I don't know. Dave Kuntz, We do not anticipate any negative impacts on town amenities and abutting properties.

Yeah, I think it's something, you know, like the design. Actually, I assume this is not a Word document.

No, it's a PDF. Okay.

All right. Well, just a note for in the future, we've always found it helpful to do this as a Word document.

Yeah, I'm realizing that now.

So that we can edit as we go. Yeah. So why don't you just make a note that this, this one I think is more would be better worded as something to the effect that the existing design will not impose, you know, adverse impacts on town amenities and abutting properties.

Okay.

All right. Next. Doug, can I ask a question? Yep. I'm so I can meet I guess I'm trying to understand how we how would we guarantee that.

Well. We're depending on the applicant. Building this as as. In conformance with the design that we've approved.

Yeah, I mean, the phrasing he used before was like, do not anticipate, as opposed to will be protected. So to me, I would take a softer phrasing. Walker, it's really helpful to hear that this has been used in other findings. I haven't seen this wording before in my year on the board, but I would prefer something a little softer. But I might be splitting hairs.

No negative impacts are anticipated could be a better way to phrase it. I mean, it's not meant to be a guarantee that there aren't going to be. It's just meant to be you reviewed the plans and you didn't see anything that would cause an impact reasonably.

That makes sense.

Okay, so the next one is a little bit similar abutting properties will be protected from detrimental site characteristics resulting from the proposed use because of the conditions of the site plan review approval, so it might be that we want to reward that one kind of in the same way. yeah. All right. For 11.2403, I had not applicable. 11.2410, unique or important natural historic or scenic features will be protected. And that's only relevant in this case, I think, for the historic house. 11.2411 methods of refuse disposal will be adequate. The management plan explains the use of private contractors to service the dumpsters located in front of the townhouse. And maybe we can, with the new plan, say, located near each of the buildings or the dumpsters located on the property if we don't want to specify.

Right. Well, you could just end with dumpsters.

Yeah.

Mr. Chairman.

Yes.

Yeah, I have a similar issue with 11.2400. It says the project is in conformance as long as the construction of a second principal use is found to be complementary. It's our job to determine if it's complementary. Something like that that the the board agrees that the uses complimentary or something like that we are the finders in this case, not someone else yet to be determined.

That's a good point. And that should be one of our findings.

Yeah, okay, I had conditions conditions but we can move it up there.

Yeah. Thank you Fred.

So all right moving on 11.2412 the ability of the proposed sewage disposal and water supply systems within an adjacent to the site to serve the proposed use are adequate again, I guess, the one that I was looking at for reference used this phrase a lot. But we might just say that they are adequate.

mm hmm. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I guess. Hamfield Sadler. Do these strike you as different than some of the ones we've used in the last couple of years?

They do strike me just a little bit different. I looked at the zoning bylaw and what it says is What you're ensuring is that when you evaluated the site plan, that you used this criteria. So the planning board is finding, I think Walker, that we don't have to reference the conditions, like those will also you know, they will be present as part of this. And back to Fred's question about 11.2400, we also will need to vote to make that determination about the complimentary use. That has been part of the application. And the noticing for this project is that the applicant is asking us to make that determination.

So I think. And so, Pam, you're going to want a separate vote for that as opposed to approving the findings and conditions.

I think that it can be all part of the same vote. I think that we just want to make sure that we remember that it's said and included. What, Walker, do you agree?

Yeah, I think that's correct. It's a different portion of the zoning bylaw, but it's still part of your findings and conditions.

Yes. Fred?

Yeah, I hate to do this, but this approach seems to constantly come through this. And I'm wondering if it makes sense to... postpone an action on this to our next meeting. I think it will take all of about five minutes to accept this if it is simply recast by staff in the ways that we've discussed so that there are actual findings here.

All right. Thanks, Fred. Angus.

well i i guess i i have a question and then a comment the question is for the applicant um because i know that they were kind of um pressed for time um and uh the comment is i was looking back at one of our earlier Um findings and conditions and the findings for an earlier project simply said the board finds that the project complies with the relevant criteria of section 11.24 of the zoning bylaw. There are a couple of things here that I that might be worth spelling out, but most of this is just kind of pro forma. saying basically that that the project complies with the 11.24. And I'm wondering if we could just say that once and not and not repeat all of this. So that that's, I guess, a comment. It's a question and a comment.

Okay. Well, it does look like all of the findings that have been drafted are from that section. So um, So Walker would you be OK with we if if the way we voted the findings was was simply that that brief that we simply said we find that the project is in compliance with this with the requirements of section 11.24.

As long as you're sure that they fully are in that none of these extra comments are that you don't need to reference the conservation Commission order for instance. I think that's fine.

Okay. Well, I don't want to dismiss your work without I mean, again, my first time doing it.

I looked at one previous reference from your I think the most recent site plan review. But if that's not the way that you want to do it, that's fine.

Okay. Further comment.

Well, I was just going to add, I mean, the only thing that I saw that might be worth spelling out is a mention of the additional curb cut. But that's to me the only thing that isn't basically just saying everything conforms with 11.24. Okay. Fred?

Yeah, I'm just wondering if we can... kind of change the verb in some of these so that it's we find. But I can be persuaded either way.

Yeah. Well, OK. So Felicity.

how impactful would it be if we delayed our approval to august 5th um close by the end of this month i thought the closing is scheduled for july 31st um i do think that uh the board you know should have the decision in the sort of manner that it thinks it is most appropriate. I had heard that, maybe I'm mistaken, that because there are like three Wednesdays in July, that it would be, is it possible to just have one, like, are you meeting on July 29?

Well, that's a good question, and that had been in the back of my mind. When there are five Wednesdays in a month, we keep the fifth Wednesday available as a possible meeting. To date, we haven't discussed meeting on that date. But I guess I can ask at this point, board members, are you available, and would you be willing to meet on the 29th for the one this one topic as a relatively brief meeting i'm seeing a nod from jera jesse's not sure he really wants to oh thumbs up okay i would yes fred would i don't think i'll be able to you you probably do okay Dave Kuntz, But we're likely to have a quorum let's see between. Dave Kuntz, See between. Dave Kuntz, Bread was a yes, what about Roy. Dave Kuntz, Roy, are you available on the 29th.

Yes, okay.

So four of us, Fred, Roy, Jesse, Doug, and Jarrah, are you available?

Yeah, I'm available.

All right, great. So that would be five of us. So that'd be a quorum. We could do that. All right, so in that case, Why don't we continue? So why don't we plan to meet on the 29th? Felicity, we'll hope we can finalize our approval on the 29th. And Walker, why don't you lead us through the rest of these so that we can talk about you know, if there's things in here that we really want to make sure we talk mention specifically or whether they can just be part of the catch all phrase that was talked about that the projects in conformance with 11.24. Are there other things that you feel like maybe we may want to mention specifically?

um we've got the stormwater water management systems are um appropriate because they were approved by the conservation commission yeah landscaping is adequate as shown on the plan adequate soil erosion controls no nuisances are anticipated um the lighting will be this one's also referenced as a condition but the lightning won't lighting won't be an issue yeah Project has been reviewed by the Conservation Commission and the wetland will be adequately protected because of the order of conditions. Meets the setbacks, parking, location, etc. Okay. Avoids impacts to wetlands, relates to the existing building, adequate screening is provided for dumpsters, means the safety of vehicular and pedestrian movement is been provided. We did have this one additional curb that has been determined to be necessary to the function of the site. And so maybe it doesn't totally meet the requirements of the location design, minimize turning movements and hazardous exits and entrances, except that because it's necessary, I would say that that probably is the minimal required. The parking spaces, drive-outs and sidewalks are appropriately located. We're waiving the requirement for traffic impact statements.

Yeah, again, Mr. Chairman, could you go back to that one?

The traffic impact?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's got to have an affirmative. The board waives the requirement for a traffic impacts study because it is unnecessary or something like that. Again, it has to be an affirmative statement.

Right. More a definite rather than it will be waived in some ambiguous way. Thank you, Fred.

You might just try is waived. Just a suggestion.

All right. So that's no other comments on the findings. I think you're correct that probably a statement that the project meets the requirements of section 11.24 would be sufficient in this case. And then a statement that the traffic impact statement that the board has waived the requirement for traffic impact statement because it is not necessary.

All right. Why didn't we go to the conditions?

Um, so again, I mostly took these from previous projects. Um, it seemed like there were a lot of conditions that have been used frequently. Um, so this, uh, site plan, the site plan prepared by Bucky Sparkle, um, dated these dates, um,

I think I thought we had drawings that were dated the 13th.

Yes, I have not updated this since we got the new. Okay, so I'll add those. And that represents the new site plan for the property. I'm going to run away for just one second. My dog needs to go out. I'll be right back.

Okay.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Project shall be built substantially in accordance with plans submitted to the planning board and approved on. HAB-Masyn Moyer- tentatively up July 15 but will presumably have like 29th. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And again, I will add the additional updated plans we received management plan has not been updated and the duplex plans and elevations have not been changed. So those are still accurate. um substantial changes to the project and or substantial changes to any approved site plans shall be submitted to the planning board for its review and approval for the work taking place i think um yeah the purpose of the submittal shall be for the planning board to approve the change or determine if the changes are de minimis or significant enough to require modification of the site plan review approval That's pretty standard. The approval shall expire within two years of the date that it is filed with the town clerk, unless it has been recorded with the register of deeds and substantial construction or uses commenced within that period. And all work associated with projects shall be completed within 24 months from the date of issuance of the building permit or they can request an extension. Those are the standard ones. The affordable housing conditions are a little more specific. And a lot of these are the same or similar wording to the special conditions in the conditions in the special permit from the ZBA. And I was trying to be consistent between the two.

Okay.

The proposed second principal use of an affordable owner-occupied duplex shall be considered complementary to the existing residential principal use. So either we leave that here or we make that a finding. I'm not sure. The duplex shall include two dwelling units. The unit sizes shall be one ADA-accessible two-bedroom, one-bath, and one three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath. The duplex units shall be permanently affordable in compliance with the definition of affordable in Article 12, Section 12.24 of the Amherst Zoning By-law, which is then given. This is just the definition. A certificate of occupancy shall be granted upon approval of the following documents. EOA shall see approval of the local initiative program, local action unit application, and affirmative fair housing marketing and resident selection plan by the appropriate state agencies. The affordable units shall be available and the homeowner selection process shall be complete at the time of any full or partial certificate of occupancy for finished units. However, at the discretion of the building commissioner, a certificate of occupancy may be issued and exclude the affordable units until the owner selection process has been completed and inspection service has been provided documentation of the completed selection process. The affordable units shall be owned at all times only by qualifying homeowners in accordance with the regulatory agreement. When the units are sold, they will be eligible for inclusion on state subsidized housing inventory or SHI. The SHI application, it should say, will be submitted by town staff. A violation of the affordability requirements for any units shall require modification of this special permit, the site plan review permit, I guess, and be accompanied by a written recommendation on any changes from the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust or its successor. The affordable units are to remain affordable in perpetuity, term of 99 years, subject to UHLC approval. This requirement shall be included in the permanent regulatory agreement. Affordable units shall be marketed and sold income-eligible households in accordance with UHLC regulations and guidelines for the local initiative program, which require the approval by UHLC of an affirmative fair housing marketing plan. The costs associated with the development and implementation of the marketing plan, including advertising and processing for the affordable units, shall be borne by Amherst Community Land Trust. And subject to the approval of a CLT and you'll see a qualified agent should be engaged by the applicant to administer the initial marketing and lottery for the affordable units in compliance with the income eligibility requirements for the homeowner of the affordable units should say that right quick that these if I missed you again, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's well on item 12. It says this special permit, is this not a site plan review?

Yes. Yes.

That is not a special permit.

Correct. Okay. I'm sorry. I had my... my view of people's hands obscured, so.

And I just wanted to add that these particular conditions were provided to the applicant ahead of time and were reviewed by Felicity and Linda and that they provided comments and approved them, the wording that we have here.

All right, so I see and Angus and maybe Fred or maybe that's a legacy hand from Fred. So Felicity, go ahead.

So I got a couple of things. I got these actually from Bruce right before, this afternoon. So I haven't, I haven't really done a deep dive on them.

Sorry. These are the same ones that the ZBA proposed. Like we went through them when you were doing the ZBA. Oh, okay.

I misunderstood. Okay. The other thing I was going to mention is does the site plan review decision, is that recorded? Because I thought that was not recorded, but if I'm happy to do it, I just, I didn't, Karen Hollweg, That I thought that I recorded the special permit, but not the site plan review.

Karen Hollweg, I believe you're correct. Does it mentioned recording in here. So, yeah.

Yes, it did.

PB John Gerstle, condition number. Yeah. Oh, above. Oh, yeah. Okay. So we can take out the unless it has been recorded at the registry of deeds and just say, unless substantial construction or use has commenced.

All right. Angus, I'm going to call on Linda next and then you. Sure. Linda? Linda, I see your hand up. You are muted at the moment. There you go.

Thank you. The conditions that were written for the special permit were explicitly for the townhouse conversion. It also added the complementarity of the two buildings, but they did not review the intended timeline to mean that the whole project, including the habitat duplex, would be finished. um plan is that we will begin construction this summer and we hope to have families in place in the fall of 2027 in time to start the school year habitat will be just starting their construction and although they the timeline calls for that to be complete within a year this is to actually say the whole thing when you're looking now at the site plan then you're basically acting on the whole project, including two separate constructions. Two years is doable, but it's tight if they can't begin promptly, which sometimes happens because they have multiple projects going and have to do things when it's possible in various cases. I'm a little concerned that we're setting ourselves up to need to ask for more time before than two years.

Would you be comfortable with three?

I would think so. Bruce can comment on that. He's very experienced in working with Habitat.

All right, Bruce.

Yes, I think three, because three also is the amount of time that we have to complete the work in the order of conditions from the Conservation Commission. So it would put those two together. And if we have to apply for more, if it does take longer, then it's not just the planning board that would be come back to, it would be the CONCOM. So I think three is a good number. a good number. And it's true that Habitat has had some delays on projects and we've got 10 projects in the offing because two of about six or eight of these houses have been waiting for legal resolutions on complex site issues for the past two years. So it's created a log jam for Habitat. So three years is a very good thing to do. I would hope that you would agree to do that.

Um, Angus, I'm going to call on you. And then we'll come back. And I'll just ask for a consensus about whether three years is acceptable to the board. Go ahead, Angus.

Sure. Three years sounds great to me. My question is about condition number six. And that's just asking Linda and Felicity if that if that phrasing shall be considered complimentary is fine for what what they need from us.

I think so, but I'll defer to Felicity what the legal custom is in the use of that verb.

I would suggest, first of all, is this the finding about complementarity? Because if this is the finding about complementarity, then we should not use the phrase, she'll be considered. We should say, the planning board finds that the second principal use of an affordable owner-occupied duplex is complimentary to the proposed, I would say to the, well, to the existing residential principal use as modified by, you know, this special permit, the approved special permit.

As approved by the special permit. Yes. Yeah. And I think it actually belongs under findings.

All right. I'll move it to findings and reword it.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Um, Let's see. I don't see any hands, but board members, is there any objection to us for, I think it was conditions four and five, using a time, or just number four? Well, it probably is both four and five. Because we're to use the three year period, so it's be two years, three years under condition four and 36 months under condition five. Bruce.

Not to shoot myself in the foot because I'll probably be the construction manager for this, but the 24-month period in number five starts with the issue of the building permit, which is unlikely to happen before two years from now. So I think 24 months there is fine and certainly appropriate.

So I would only suggest you... Well, Bruce, aren't there going to be two building permits?

Yes, there will be.

And the way that, so this site won't be completed until the second building permit project is finished?

That's correct. And that's why the conversation that was had with Rob Mara that allows the certificate of occupancy to be issued on the townhouse can be issued prior to the completion of the full project. But basically in the case of the townhouse, it was the site work. So we've established that we can get a CEO for the townhouse prior to the completion of the entire site work and this duplex. So the duplex is fine, but we're good for the townhouse because that's been separately dealt with.

OK. So in that case, I'm going to suggest that for condition four, we use three-year time period. And that condition five, we leave the 24 months, but we add after the words building permit on the second line. The building permit for the duplex, something that Dave Kuntz, describes that we're talking about the duplex building permit rather than the townhouses. Dave Kuntz, All right. Dave Kuntz, And I guess i'll just ask again if anybody has any objection to that. I'm not seeing any hands. So I hope that'll get incorporated into the next round. Okay. So Walker, let's go back to where you were.

Were there any other comments on the affordability conditions?

Yeah. I think the main one was to change the word special permit in number 12.

Mm-hmm. Okay, so building exterior and site improvements. We don't need this one because that was going to be a condition if you didn't get the updated plan. Right. So we can skip that one. Landscaping shall be installed in accordance with the site plan and once installed shall be continually maintained. And all disturbed areas shall be loaned and ceded unless otherwise specified. There should be no more than 10 cars parked on the property as shown on the 2026 site plan. I think that should have the 7-13 date on it. All parking spaces shall be delineated. New excessive parking space. Could I interrupt? Yes.

That was the only thing I wanted to ask whether you might consider deleting the section about all parking spaces shall be delineated. That sentence, the last sentence, all parking spaces, this is a stone permeable sentence. paving and it really can't be delineated. That's why we're actually using, you may not have noticed it, but we're actually using the bollards with the charging conduits and charging heads on them as essentially the delineation if you like. But I would prefer if possible for that sentence to be eliminated because it might be construed that it should be striped. And that would be basically impossible on a gravel driveway.

So it's a gravel surface?

Yes, it's a permeable surface. It's a very specific driveway treatment that satisfies the Conservation Commission.

Because I'm familiar with a permeable sort of asphalt. And that's, I guess, what I thought it was.

No.

Okay.

No, it's pretty clearly shown on the drawings that the revised version of which was submitted yesterday, I guess.

Yeah. Obviously, I missed that.

I mean, they're delineated by implication because, as I said, by the location of the bollards. That will kind of regulate the way in which the parking is done.

Yeah. Okay.

Angus? Yeah, I think it should be eliminated.

Okay. All right. Unless anybody objects, we'll take that out.

All right, the new accessible parking space of the duplex shall meet ADA standards and shall be provided, shall we just say signage here rather than or striping?

Yeah, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do any striping.

Yeah. All exterior mechanical equipment associated with the duplex shall be screened. All exterior lighting shall be downcast and shielded in order to be dark sky compliant. And the new parking lot shall be screened from view from Amity Street and the adjacent property with evergreen plantings that are a minimum of three feet at time of planting in accordance to section 7.112 of the zoning bylaw.

All right.

Any other exterior, building exterior comments?

And I most of the rest of this is probably sort of standard.

Yeah, the work in the right away will be approved by the DPW Any town amenities or town crosswalk sidewalks, etc, shall be reconstructed to match rematch reconstructed to match existing They will, the project shall comply with and be managed in accordance with all terms of the management plan. Trash and recycling shall be kept in containers. I said in the enclosure by the stepping stone path as indicated in the management plan. I will take that specific phrase out. And containers shall be returned to the storage area by the waste hauler immediately after collection. As indicated in the management plan, the two surface stormwater detention basins will be cleaned out to remove any accumulated sediment or debris. I don't know if that needs to be a separate condition since we already say that they're managed in accordance with the management plan.

I do have some question about some of these about whether they really need to be repeated again. yeah you know some of the ones just above it's like you know i mean like the dark sky compliance i mean we've we've approved the plans and the lighting and you know it ought to be dark sky compliant that we in the plans and then we've said we it has to be built the way the plans are so do we need to say that again that's but i don't remember what we usually do Okay. All right. And then the construction ones are all standard.

All standard. Yeah. I don't think I put anything different or new in any of those.

Okay. All right.

And there's completion of work is also all standard.

Right. Yep. That's it. All right. Thank you. Okay. So I guess I'm going to move that we continue this hearing to July 29th. Pam, is there any reason not to do 635?

Not that I am aware of.

Should I do 632 because we're not going to do anything else?

Would you like to say 630?

Yeah, let's say 630.

We can say 630.

All right. So I make a motion that we continue this hearing to July 29th at 630 p.m. Second. Thank you, Angus. All right. Anything else, Felicity, from your team before we continue?

Not at all. Just our hearty thanks for all the time you've put into this. We really appreciate it.

OK. Thank you. Are there any public comments on this project? I think I asked that earlier. So don't see really anyone raising their hand. Okay, we'll go ahead and vote to continue. Starting in the reverse order, Jarrah. Aye. And Jesse. Aye. Angus. Aye. Roy.

Aye.

Fred.

Aye.

And Bruce, not Bruce. Bruce is not part of this vote. All right. So six in favor, one member recused. The motion carries. This hearing is continued. Thanks very much. Okay. Thank you, Felicity and Linda. We'll see you in another two weeks.

Thank you.

okay the time is 9 11. uh fourth item on our agenda is bruce back in the room yes okay fourth item on our agenda is planning board elections and reorganization we started talking about that last meeting um we we have the three officers and then we have the three uh boards that are We have liaison representation on. I guess I want to just start by saying, Bruce, you asked me last time if I was willing or interested to be chair again. I think I wasn't really as positive as I've ended up feeling like I should have been. I'd be happy to be chair again if that's what the board would like. I'll just stop there. With that, I guess we ought to go through each office one by one. Does anybody want to make any nominations or volunteer for positions? Jesse?

I would nominate Doug Marshall to be chair.

All right. Are there any other members who want to make a nomination or volunteer to be chair? Bruce, your hand is the second one up.

Yes, I was seconding the nomination. I wasn't sure whether that was the process. I assumed it was, but maybe that happens later.

So I'll just do what I go through them one by one and start with the chair so that we know who's left to do other things.

Since I've got my hand up, I'll do what you did and say that I will happily continue in the role of clerk, but I will also accept any other role that the board is interested in assigning.

All right. Let's see. Would anybody like to volunteer to be vice chair? As I said last time, there are basically no responsibilities unless the chair does not show up or is unable to preside at a meeting.

I have interest. Oh, Jesse, sorry.

Who said that? Oh, Jarrah.

I did, yeah, but also Jesse.

Well, I was going to nominate someone else. So I nominated Jeff for the vice chair.

Well, never mind.

I'm sorry, Jesse, who did you nominate?

Jeff.

Oh, OK. All right. Well, I think we are going to probably need to vote on these one by one. Yes. Although I'd be perfectly happy to do it as a full slate all at once. Pam, do you agree we need to do them individually?

I mean, I think that the preference is to do them individually because if you do it all together, then there's no opportunity for somebody to refrain from voting.

To one or the other.

Right. Yep.

All right. All right. Well, it's only 9.15, so.

Only.

All right. So let's go ahead and do the three votes for the for the three officers. Chair, vice chair and clerk. Was there anybody else that wanted to be clerk? I mean, should we have any can do we do we are we going to have any contested votes? OK. All right, so I'll go through. We'll start with the chair. So members, let's, I will ask you to vote in the affirmative for or in the negative for Doug Marshall for chair for the next year. We'll start with you, Bruce.

Doug, before we do that, I need, because these are motions and individual motions, we need a one and a two. All right.

So Bruce made a motion to nominate Doug Marshall as chair.

Actually, Jesse did.

And I seconded the motion. Or at least I was ready to.

Okay.

You can tell I have we have the chair. We have the 2 names associated with the chair, yes, okay so let's go ahead and vote on the chair. Red. All right. Angus I'm just saying I Dave Kuntz, And jera hi. Dave Kuntz, All right, and and i'm going to abstain just because I don't feel like voting for myself tonight. Dave Kuntz, So that's six in favor one abstention that passes tugs the Chair for the next term. Dave Kuntz, Vice chair, we had a motion for jera. Dave Kuntz, Both from jera and from. Jesse.

I'll second that. Take it easy.

Okay.