Town Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. Okay, we are recording.

Excellent. Under the 630. Good evening. Seeing the presence of a quorum, I am calling the August 31st, 2026 special meeting work session of the town council to order at 630 PM. Please be advised that this meeting is being held in person and that the remote access option for members of the public is provided as a courtesy only. In the event of technology issues with the remote connection, the meeting will continue in person as scheduled as long as there is a quorum of the council present in the town room or through technological means. Chapter two of the acts of 2025 extended through June 30, 2027. The ability of public bodies to meet without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location, although a quorum is present in the town room. This meeting is being recorded and is accessible in real time via zoom by phone and is a live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel nine and at Amherst Media dot org. At this time, I will call upon each counselor by the name they have indicated that they would like to be addressed. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us. Counselor Breivik. Yes. Counselor Ken O'Martin. Present. Andy Churchill.

Yes.

Ana Devongafia. Lynn Griesemer.

Present.

Mandy Johanneke is present. Counselor Lord. Present. Sam McLeod.

Present.

Pam Rooney. Here. Counselor Ryan.

I'm here.

Kathy Shane.

I'm here.

Jennifer Tubb? Here. And Councillor Walker? Is not here yet. If councillors have technical issues, please let the council clerk know or call a point of personal privilege. There will be one public comment period during this work session. If you are in the town room, please sign up with the council clerk to make public comment. If you are attending remotely, I will ask for you to raise your hand in the Zoom application when we reach the time for public comment. Public comment is at the end of this work session tonight, which is a slight change from our typical meetings. Tonight, the council meets in a work session to continue the town's work to review the current zoning on the Hampshire College campus. Following Hampshire College's announcement that it will cease academic operations as a college after December 2026, the town of Amherst initiated a study to develop zoning options for future use of the Hampshire campus property. With the support of our state legislators, Senator Comerford and Representative Dahm, and especially the guidance of Governor Healey's team, and especially Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, Mass Development, offered substantial technical assistance in the form of professional consultants to help the town through this process. Mass Development is a state agency that partners with businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and develop housing. The purpose and goal of this council work session is for counselors to expand upon the vote we took on our priorities for the campus, by brainstorming ideas for the Hampshire Campus Zoning Project and identifying goals, concerns, and questions in order to assist the consultants in their work. This is a time for counselors to air their ideas, priorities, and concerns, not to debate or deliberate on other counselors' comments. This is a brainstorming session, not a deliberation on a specific proposal. It is important to note that we do not speak for Hampshire College, nor for its president or board of trustees. The college is the owner of the land and has the final say in its disposition. We are focused on zoning options. The consultants will be jointly facilitating the meeting with me. They will start with a short presentation, then move to a series of prompting questions for us to respond to, and may use additional time to gain further information on counselor responses. Work sessions permit informal polls, but no formal votes. The consultants may choose to conduct informal polls to gauge the sense of the council on certain items, or they may not. The sense of the council polls, if they're done, are simply to help the consultants conduct their work. I have a few requests for counselors so that all counselors have an opportunity to equally contribute. After each prompt, there will be a quick round robin style of responses from counselors. Please present your top three items for each prompt quickly and concisely in this first round. It should take you no more than a minute to do so. I will recognize counselors during this time in a random order so that all 13 counselors have a chance to respond without having to raise their hands. And I have already set that random order for each of the prompts. And it is random. Please do not enter prolonged debate or deliberation. Our purpose at the work session is to get information out there for the consultants. And do your best to not repeat something that's already been said, although in the first round robin, I get that that will happen. But if we go on to further discussion, please try to limit your comments so that we can get as many ideas and brainstorms out there as possible. The structure of the meeting has assumed that all counselors have watched the July 21st public meeting with the consultants and read all of the materials provided in the packet. The goal is to address all three prompting questions within a two hour meeting. Therefore, we may wrap up discussion on one question while there are still counselors who wish to add information so that we are able to get through all of the questions. Public comment will be taken at the end of the meeting, with each commenter having two minutes to make their comment. We also have our new website at HampshireCampusZoningStudy.com. The website is the repository for all information about the work on Hampshire campus zoning, presentations, past studies, and provides the opportunity to pose questions and sign up to receive notices and updates. I thank everyone, especially counselors in advance for your cooperation and help in ensuring that we are able to make the work most of this work session. With that, I'm going to- A quick point of order.

Sure. Counselor Walker has joined us. Excellent. And also, if you would, please speak a little bit closer to your microphone.

Thank you.

I don't have the high one, so I will get closer to it. Thank you. Counselor Walker, can you hear us?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. With that, we will move into the work session, Hampshire Campus Zoning Study, and move to Jeff Bag, our planning director.

Great, thank you. I am Jeff Bag. I'm the town's director of planning and economic development. I wanted to thank you very much for creating this opportunity to update the council and to hear from you at this stage of the zoning study. We are really thankful to Mass Development for providing the town with the technical assistance. They have created an initiative called the Communities Affected by College Closures. And we've been working with them for a period of time now, and we're entering a phase two. And so pending final approval, we're going to be hosting the next in-person sessions. And I wanted to just make a quick announcement on those. They're going to be Tuesday, September 22nd, and Thursday, September 24th at the Eric Carle Museum. So we'll have some outreach that's gonna happen this week. I just figured I would say that and have people mark their calendars. Those are gonna be in the evenings. And we'll talk about them a little bit in the presentation. And I the other two things the Council President mentioned a few things that were on my list so i'll jump around, but the team here presented to the planning board on August 19. And they as a board were supportive of the proactive approach and identified the importance of creating a mixed use village Center advocated for higher density housing, including workforce and starter housing and encourage outside of the box thinking, given the unique opportunity. It's important to reiterate that our project involves zoning options for the property that could support future uses in line with the goals and the vision of the town. The town is not acquiring the land. It's not choosing what happens or ultimately who acquires the land. Those decisions will be made by the trustees. Um, for interested people, the website again is Hampshire campus zoning study.com. And I think with that, I'm going to hand it over to our team from Horsley Witten and Dodson and Blinker for the presentation followed by the facilitated discussion.

Thank you Jeff and thank you all counselors for having us here this evening. You go to the next slide please so tonight we'll go through a brief presentation, as was already mentioned, where we'll talk about our process. Are how it aligns with town plans and policies and then some different zoning considerations were really at the sort of the beginning of starting to think about how we want to crack the code on like opening the the sort of once in a lifetime opportunity. that you have here and we've done a little research as well and bringing some of our own experience to the table where we've seen other communities grapple with similar situations, singular large site redevelopment opportunities, whether it was an industrial complex or a hospital or whatever it may have been. This does happen quite frequently and so other communities have done this and we're trying to learn from that as we go along and then we'll have our discussion as we mentioned. Next slide, please. So our team is, as Jeff said, obviously the town of Amherst is at the core of this. This is a project, technical assistance for the town with mass development support. Horsley Witten Group is a planning engineer design firm I'm the lead planner, principal planner at the firm, and we do a lot of zoning work, a lot of technical work around planning for zoning and site development. So we bring that development perspective and natural resource protection perspective to the process when we do this. U3 Advisors is not here tonight, but they're along with us. on the real estate side so u3 will help us test different scenarios particularly in terms of fiscal impacts so as we go through this process and we start to think about the scale and the mix of uses we'll have u3 with us to sort of reality check that and talk about How productive that would be, how attractive that would be from a financial real estate market perspective. And then to my left, Peter Flinker of Dotson and Flinker. Peter and I have worked together for quite a while now doing this type of work and where Horsley Witten sort of brings that technical science development background together. Peter's group is just fantastic designers. And so they help us think about how sites will be laid out, how the community neighborhood design aspect might occur, what works best for a site. They site design in a very context-sensitive manner. So very sensitive, again, to the landscape, the natural resources, all of those things. So we really have worked well together over a couple of decades and this type of thing, helping communities visualize development and eventually take that to zoning. Next slide, please. So our process, which Peter will go through in a little bit more depth, as I mentioned, or as Jeff mentioned, we will have opportunities for engagement. We are just getting started, and Peter will talk about a more robust opportunity with the later September meetings. I mentioned the fiscal analyses that are gonna occur. Orsley-Witton's looking at the infrastructure piece as well, because we have the engineers on staff. We'll be thinking about water, wastewater, roadway capacity as we go through this. And then we'll get to the recommendations process. Our goal is to have this zoning fully drafted, a full package by January. Next slide, please.

Good evening, everyone. Nice to be here. So we've laid out a process that will go over the next four months, basically 18 to 20 weeks. And there's sort of a parallel tracks of this sort of a public engagement and planning process. And then there is going to be the fiscal analysis process, which you see down toward the bottom of the slide. And then throughout this, we'll be testing various approaches to zoning. to try to find the best fit between the zoning strategies and the sort of planning and design strategies for the site. So it'll start with two public meetings, September 22nd and 24th. The first of those we like to use as kind of a listening session. sort of before you start putting pictures on the wall and having people react, to just let people sort of talk about what they care about, what they're concerned about, what their hopes are for the future. We'll also be sharing everything that we know about the site and trying to start shaping the different scenarios that we want to test. And that process of looking at the scenarios will start on the Thursday workshop. So you don't have to come to both workshops that week, but it would be great if people can commit to both of them. Then we'll be going back and trying to shape the first of a number of different scenarios, bringing those around to various focus groups. We're hoping to meet separately with neighborhood residents early in October, and then that'll lead to another public meeting, third public meeting of this process early in November. And then we'll go back and iteratively be working on the plans and hopefully coming up with the final strategy for the zoning later in December. And then at several points, you can see in October and November, there will be a fiscal analysis to look at the key scenarios and think about which one is the most beneficial to the town, which one of those most likely to succeed in the marketplace. And then throughout, as I said, looking at what's the best fit for zoning, because there's lots of different strategies. You've tried lots of different things in Amherst before to promote the kind of development you want. So we'll be looking at what's worked in Amherst and what's looked at other places. and trying to find the best fit. Next slide.

And so this, of course, is no news to this group. We have great context in terms of how we proceed. So with the town council vote in June 1st, clearly stating priorities associated with this site, with the balance of housing, small business development and tax revenue generating uses alongside the acknowledgment of the sensitive habitat conditions that you have in many places, lots of streams, lots of wetlands, high groundwater table. And when you're looking at housing development, really recognize that this is one of the things that's so amazing about this opportunity with a large site is the variety that you have the opportunity to provide in a single setting. It's really that just doesn't happen very often anymore in New England. with how much constrained land that we have. And of course, as we are thinking this through, we are also thinking about services and facilities. What are the recreation opportunities? How is the infrastructure going to be able to cope with different development scenarios over time as build-out occurs? Next slide, please. The current zoning is, you know, one of the reasons why this proactive approach is so important is that the current zoning, particularly on the core, is really just tailored towards one thing. It's really tailored towards the functioning of that campus as an educational institution. And so trying to do anything else at this point really isn't going to work. So the do nothing scenario really isn't very practical for the community. So in that core area with that ED, that educational district, that's something that is really going to be important for us to look at, where we'll focus a lot of energy in this process. But of course, to the north, you have some active agricultural land, which is currently zoned for low-density housing with the farmland control. conservation district that promotes farming uses so important different environments, the north and we'll be thinking about those as we as we go through next slide please.

So as you know, over the course of this summer, we've been pulling together all the available existing mapping to try to understand what's possible on the site in terms of future growth and development, what's important to protect in terms of conservation. And we're hoping that this will create a useful basis of information again for our public workshops and for people to react to. On this particular map, which is kind of a summary of different factors affecting development, The blue corridors are existing streams of various varieties, some of them perennial, some of them intermittent, along with their protected buffers. There are wetlands as mapped by the state and their protected buffers. There's also soils, hydrological or hydric soils, rather, which are the ones which have been mapped in the past with high water table. None of this has been verified on the ground. So as you know, any development process can't really move forward until you do the wetland surveys and so on. And we don't have the time or the budget to do detailed surveys, but we're going to be using the best information we can. and trying to generally get a framework of how much of this land is possibly developable, what is most important to protect, and so on. The next slide shows key areas that have the fewest constraints. And this, again, is a continuum. Some constraints are absolute. You can't develop a wetland. Some constraints are a matter of cost, where it costs more to develop footings and poor soils and so on. But there appear to be about 200 acres or more that are relatively few of constraints, and this includes the existing core campus. So just by itself, 200 acres is a really large piece of land with lots of possibilities. So we're going to be starting with this understanding and moving forward with hopefully a lot of eyes, including yours, looking at these different maps and trying to figure out the best way to move forward.

And so as you all received a memorandum from us as sort of prepping for this meeting, we talked about the other areas, you know, beyond the vote that you took in June, that set context, the policy context for this with your 2010 master plan that was readopted in 2020. The 2021 comprehensive housing policy, which talks very concretely about some of the goals you have relative to housing and housing diversity attainability. And then, most recently, very helpful document for us hot off the presses is the 2025 housing production plan, which not only gives us the policy and strategic framework. but the data that were used to develop that are the most recent data that we have access to. So it's really fresh, really helpful for us going forward. Next slide, please. As Peter mentioned, some of the local challenges that we face from a developability perspective are those natural constraints, the wetland streams, the high groundwater, and then also balancing the need for farmland that I discussed earlier and other conservation land limits that are going to potentially remove developable area from the equation. Infrastructure is gonna be important. We've had preliminary discussions with folks at town staff. There are no major red flags, but that doesn't mean the infrastructure is ready for brand new mass scale development tomorrow. It's not. Like anything else, it will need to be improved over time. But again, no major red flags in terms of looking down the 5, 10, 20 year horizon. Those are just improvements that get made along the way. These all provide an opportunity to take creative approaches to rezoning. We really do have to think about where we can get creative. It was nice to be with the planning board and hear them encourage us to think in that way. And so there are a lot of examples. We researched approximately a dozen examples. I'll go through a few of them right now just to give you a flavor for it. So next slide, please. So one that's very familiar to everybody, the Village Hill, North Hampton, about 126 acres. So in the ballpark, you know, we're in the triple digits here with a combination of commercial R&D, light industrial residential uses. So an example of a master planned community that's really meant to function as a cohesive unit in terms of its circulation, in terms of the experience on the ground for the people who visit there. And this was done through a combination of 40R and local development controls. One of the big differences here is that mass development is really a big player here in managing this. And so this is not something that you're gonna have when you're looking at the Hampshire campus. You're not gonna have a state level entity in that management position. It'll be the town working with a private entity to achieve the vision. Next slide, please. In Plymouth, Plymouth has a couple of interesting zoning tools on the books and two really notable communities. They have the Pine Hills, which is about 3,000 acres. I believe, I'm not 100% sure on this, but Plymouth may be the largest town east of the Mississippi. So they've got a town the size of Belmont is one development with Plymouth. Anyway, another one is this Redbrook. So this is a bit smaller, but it is another example of an area that was developed in close proximity to a lot of natural resources. So that context sensitive approach was really important. They use some different tools here that are more complicated. They, in terms of transfer of development rights, So they're actually moving development from one area of the community to another to achieve a higher density. That is a complex tool that doesn't have a lot of case study success, but they're making it work here in Plymouth. And they did start out with a special permit as their master plan approval, but they develop smaller areas through an expedited site plan review after that. So the master plan, is sort of a bigger permit, higher scrutiny process. But then once you start developing underneath that, it moves very quickly. Next slide, please. Rentham Village Zoning District. So this is, I'm always quick to say, this is not the outlet malls. This is down by their historic village center. But what was interesting is they had this sort of 50 acre vacant industrial site just off the back of their historic main street. And so they decided to look at this as a cohesive unit divided up again into some sub districts. One of the interesting pieces here is that they put a lot of emphasis on a pre-application process. So they want the applicant, the developer to come in early with some conceptual plans, sort of get the discussion going and maybe provide some predictability. Next slide, please. Great Barrington. So here's a campus overlay district, Bard College. And this is a bit of a smaller area than what we're looking at here. But I guess what I'll say here, the interesting thing here or one of the unique features is that they sort of have a two-tiered. One of the questions we'll keep asking is, Where do we have by right site plan review special permit out of those different permitting mechanisms work and what they did here. Was they set a modest level of density as the by right avenue, and if you wanted to do higher it would go to a higher permitting process, a higher scrutiny process with the special permit next slide please. And so for us, you know, these kinds of the questions that we're thinking about, are we going to use an overlay or are we going to have a new base district? We really want to create predictability. This is a big multi-year, multimillion dollar investment. and the town has its own aspirations that it's very clearly laid out in all of these policy documents that we've discussed. So predictability on both ends of that is gonna be really important. A master plan approval is probably gonna be something that we have to look at. If somebody buys this wholesale and wants to think about that type of village style, mixed use, cohesive, working neighborhood, multiple neighborhoods, that's something that should be master planned in the beginning you have to have some really good thought process going into that so how does that fit into the permitting process this will happen in phases there this this we could be looking at 5 10 15 20 year build out for this site right that's how this works over time so how does the permit process account for that changing conditions changing plans changing new tenants new owners that has to be baked into this PB, Harmon Zuckerman, As Peter said you've have some of your own tools in your toolbox so your plan unit residential development, some of your other village style developments will be looking at those pieces to see. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You know how that's met your priorities in the past building reuse is something that we had to think as well, there are some buildings on site that somebody may want to reuse. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And the most important thing for our zoning is not to get in the way right we don't want. If that's a viable option, if one of these buildings can be reused for something that's a community asset or a residential asset, we don't want to get in the way of that. The housing diversity question, right? The types of housing, making sure that we have enough definitions enough range enough flexibility with design standards to go with that to make sure you're getting a high quality product and that there gets back to that predictability thing and as I mentioned ownership can change a master developer will bring in other developers to develop small pockets and so we just don't want zoning to get in the way we want it to be able to account for For that type of flexibility as you move along all of these questions get informed by some of the work that peter's going to be doing with the public process so maybe Peter could talk a little bit about the visualization.

yeah, so I think the big message I want to leave you with, as I said earlier, is this is about testing different scenarios lots of them and not. trying to rule out anything too early we are going to be constrained by time because we have to finish by the end of the year but within that time we want to be able to have an open and objective look at all the different ideas and to see how that might benefit the town in different ways and benefit you know the remaining needs of hampshire college Um, the unusual thing about this is it is, it does remain under control of the Hampshire college trustees. And like a lot of these projects that all of us have worked on, you might have a master developer who knows what they want here. know there's the the college is going to be acting as kind of an agent to distribute the to land to potential developers or potential conservation agents over time and we don't know what that's going to be in terms of decisions so we really need to come up with lots of different ideas both for the town to review and for the college to review And then to look at each of those in terms of the fiscal dynamics and hopefully come to the again the best fit with the zoning finding the end of the day right next slide please.

And so for tonight, so we've got through, that's a lot of information, I know, but important to reiterate as we go through these meetings to sort of keep everybody firing on those synapses as we go through this complicated discussion. Tonight, we had sent some framing questions along. I'll just read these and then pass it back. We wanted to hear from all of you. What are your top three goals or priorities for the future of the Hampshire College campus? What are your greatest concerns or questions about the campus's future? Looking ahead 20 years, what outcomes would lead you to consider the reuse of this area as a success? You have to look back and say, yeah, we did it. And what outcomes would you regard as signs that the town made the wrong decisions? What would it look like? 20 years from now if we didn't quite get it right or if there were some instances of where some of the right decisions weren't made. So I'll pass it back to you and start our round robin.

Okay. So the way this is going to work is we're going to deal with each question separately. We're going to take the first one and then we're going to finish with that one and any further discussion before we move on to the next one so that we're not jumping around. The consultants aren't trying to keep everything on track and deal with all of the jumping around. And so my thoughts are about 45 minutes for the first one, about 45 minutes for the second one. And since the third one's a little bit less meaty, a little bit less time for that. But we'll see how it goes. We'll see if there's dead time or anything, we're naturally wrapping up time. So we're starting with the first one. And after we do the round robin, I'm going to pass it off to the consultants to do any follow-up questions they want with the first prompt. And then we'll come back. And when we finish that, we'll move to the second prompt. So the first prompt is top three goals or priorities for the future of Hampshire College campus. Again, this is round robin. Please name your top three. hopefully in under a minute um and we'll have time to then expound on that later um we are starting with oh and for ease of consultant calling when they start facilitating themselves we're going to refer to everyone as counselor with last name even though that is not what some people have asked for but it's for the ease of the consultants tonight so counselor Devlin Gauthier

all right um is this thing is mine mike working can people hear it maybe it is okay usually i can hear myself louder so i'm not sure yeah all right yell at me if you can't hear uh top three goals workforce and family housing i know you can't control this but i personally would love to see home ownership opportunities not just not just rentals, business and agricultural opportunities, and conservation and recreation. Those are my three kind of things I'd like to see. I'm going to cheat the question, sorry. How I would like to see that done, I would love creative reuse and creating parcels instead of one sole thing.

Thank you, Councilor Rooney.

There we go. What are my goals? Thank you. This is a good start. One of my goals is that we utilize the existing facilities as best possible. Can you see me?

We cannot. Your video is not on. We're not showing.

It keeps going off. There you go. There we go. There we go. To utilize existing buildings as best possible to just, you know, just from an energy conservation standpoint and all of that, but also so that we don't have to spend a lot of time or nobody has to spend a lot of time building new structures necessarily. A second goal would be to look for zoning that allows sort of rings of density. And I'm thinking of places like Almera, Holland, or even some of the Newtown development in Virginia, where you have denser cores and then subsequent layers and and levels of density farther from the core um and that would include uses of things like the purds or the open space community development and cluster development so all of those all of those tools and then i'll just throw in we definitely want a higher tax base that's not that goes without saying so my third actual goal then is um a master plan that organizes the parcels with open space connections rather than utilizing roadways as the organizing feature. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Churchill.

Thank you. I would like to see a range of housing types with significant density to really help with our housing deficit. I'd like to see taxable tax revenue for the town. And I've come to be curious about the multi sports center and whether there are recreational opportunities that could be taken advantage of by either the town or the the neighboring retirement community or whatever there may be opportunities there thank you counselor kennel martin

Um, yeah, my definitely my top priority would be housing and the creation of housing, different kinds of housing, different levels of density and different price points. So affordable housing and some market rate housing and agree that there should be some home ownership opportunities as well. I think another priority would be, as others have mentioned to reuse the existing buildings and make sure that we're taking advantage of what's already there instead of just knocking it down and building new. Um, and then finally, um, I, the conservation aspect, I think that, um, I think already in what I've been seeing in the materials so far, it's clear that, um, we're going to be maintaining, you know, the wetlands and in, you know, some of the existing conservation areas, but I, I certainly wouldn't want to see any, you know, farmland, for example, you know, or, or things that are being used for, um, you know, conservation purposes be turned into housing. So I think it's just creating that balance. Right.

Thank you, Councillor Ryan.

So I will take the prompt earlier, 20 years from now, on the very optimistic assumption that I'll be here and wonder what would this look like. And I would feel like somehow we hadn't achieved what we'd hoped to achieve. And some of what I'm going to say is going to echo some of the things I'm hearing from my colleagues. But 20 years from now, if I were looking at Hampshire College and I didn't see a substantial number of starter homes, places that give people a chance to live in Amherst that right now simply is not possible. That would be one thing that would be disappointing to me. A second would be perhaps similar, but the kind of housing that would allow people who work here who can't afford to live here. That would also be something that I would like to see, that there would be what I call workforce housing, starter homes. And finally, I think addressing the town's facility needs. There are many and complicated, but certainly in the area of recreation, given the ideas of reuse, I would be ashamed if 20 years from now, nothing of the existing facilities were able to be reused. And it would be a shame if there wasn't something related perhaps to the needs of seniors, the needs of youth, the recreation needs of the town, and also the facility needs of our departments if something on that campus was not, and hopefully more than one something, was not addressing those needs.

Thank you. Councillor Lord.

Thank you, can you hear me all right? Yes. Awesome. Number one would be housing justice use Amherst, I mean Hampshire. to create a mixed income, multi-generational community where working people and families can afford to live and build community in Amherst. Two is community wealth and wellness. So part of the campus could be used to create jobs, locally owned businesses, cultural space, our BIPOC, our youth center, education, mental health, wellness, yay, everything, let's go. And then a third goal would be the land steward for SHIP, to preserve the habitat, the forest, the farmlands, the protected space for future generations. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Griesemer.

Thank you. I agree with the multiple kinds of housing, but I would like to see a specific focus on homes that seniors could move into to get out of their existing homes. And I would also like to see an addition that would complement the Applewood community with other multiple levels of care so that people could retire to that part of town and stay there until they passed. I'd like to see the preservation of the open space and conservation, the others taxes.

Thank you. Councillor Walker.

Thank you. My first priority is housing, like many other counselors have said, specifically family housing and affordable housing. I think a mixture of rental and home ownership opportunities and starter homes. I'm also interested, my second priority would be the retention of the recreational spaces or facilities, the courts, the pools, the daycare center, multicultural center, youth empowerment center. And my third priority is the maintaining of the conservation and farmland and hoping and wondering if whatever development does end up happening at Hampshire can sort of incorporate those spaces in some kind of educational way or a different way that can be accessible to the public. Thank you. Councillor Brevick.

yeah I just wanted to say quickly, I appreciate the Community outreach proud process that is underway and and. I think that it will be important for all of us to hear what comes out of that too so just to note that I think that aside we all sound very aligned in and going toward the end here in our priorities that we laid out. in the statement we voted on in June. So I will just add into the mix to emphasize the importance of diverse housing. In one of the earlier presentations, our consultants here referenced that students, seniors, and working class families are all shown to be driving demand in our area. housing that meets the demand from all of those groups, a balance of much needed density with starter homes, as others have said. I would also love to see opportunities for partnerships with nonprofits or programs that lift families up economically, too. We saw that with Amherst Community Homes, and I know there are other great examples in the area where there can be services and programs layered onto housing development. I'll add also, so I would also like to see economic and small business development. We lost a big draw to the area and I think replacing that is important and having businesses or arts and culture, other things that are bringing people into the area. and then absolutely don't want to lose sight of the preservation of ecosystems and the open space as this is critical for all of us to remain healthy and thriving in this area. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Taub.

Thank you. Of course, I agree with everything that's been said. I could literally just say, especially ditto with what Councilor Walker said. So my first priority would be housing to serve all the constituents in our community that need housing, especially workforce and family housing, both starter homes, homeownership opportunities, rental opportunities. opportunities at a level that families and members of our workforce and seniors can afford, multi-generational housing. I would love to see a community integrate, a multifamily community so that it's all integrated together, but that as Councilor Greismer said, you know, serve seniors, because that would also, if seniors could move to, you know, a kind of village that might be built at Hampshire, that would also free up housing for seniors. younger, the next generation. Recreation and conservation would be the second. Hampshire's recreational facilities really what provided a hub for residents all over Amherst, went there for swimming, for pickleball, for tennis. And people came from outside the community. And I would love to see it continue to be a center for recreation and conservation and small businesses. So as much as it could, if it would take, it would happen over time, but if it could be have a village feel with housing, recreation, small businesses, so that residents who live there didn't have to travel far for those amenities. And it would also bring residents from surrounding towns and other neighborhoods of Amherst. Thanks.

Thank you. I'm next on the list. It'll sound very familiar, but housing of all types, but at attainable prices. But I would like a focus particularly on townhomes and twins or duplexes, if you call them that. I grew up in a twin that can be owned without needing condos. So I think that requires zero lot line developments and stuff like that to be able to do that way so that you can create that attainable workforce housing that could be more than just rental. Village center amenities within the area but also walkable to the area so i don't want a housing silo like suburbs tend to be create a density to support that too and then revenue generation counselor mcleod uh thank you mandy thank you to the presenters uh

saw your presentation the previous month. It was very informative. The charts that you've generated are extremely useful for I'm sure everyone who's looking at this now and in the future. My comments in terms of goals really need to be taken under the understanding that we don't completely control the fate of what's going to happen. So I would say zoning to increase tax revenue and influence positively the financial situation of the town, meaning tax revenue from varying options that are there, but also to recognize infrastructure expenses, whether the town has them or they may go to the developers. I'd like to minimize it on the town and also recognizing the value of the existing buildings if they financially would benefit the town, meaning build versus have something that already exists. So I wrap that all together with the underlying on tax revenue. I would say mixed housing for a variety of uses, including senior housing and workforce housing and affordable housing. preservation of sensitive areas. Three is too few, and I'd say we need to listen to the community members as well, because we're 13. This is new to a lot of folks, and I'm sure there's more than three goals that we all agree with. But thank you for what you're doing, and thank you, Mandy, for holding this session.

Thank you, Councillor Shane.

a little unfair to come last because people have covered almost everything. So I'll try to group them similarly but a little bit differently on the mix of housing. Lynn mentioned that we have an Applewood. People have to move out of Applewood. at any time they can't independently take care of themselves. They have to leave Amherst. And I've watched people in tears where one half of the couple was fine and the other wasn't. So trying to think of, and I'm not sure you do this with zoning, but life care communities which allow you to move up And it's an ideal setting because it's so flat and you've already got things like a pool and other kinds of refrigeration. So we could be a mecca for healthy seniors who also can be aging. So trying to think of when you do the mix, that there's a larger piece of land, because you need a bigger group to be able to have that. We've got one down in Loomis, if you go down to South Adelaide. Secondly, and everyone has mentioned this, but we have a unique set of community resources that are used by the community that can be used by the next community. The pool, the main campus center, the indoor tennis courts, the outdoor tennis courts. This is so important. unique for already there. If you think of clusters of housing and what Pam originally said of housing clusters, so they have some green space, you're walking across green space. The roadways already connect you everywhere you want to go. So trying to take advantage of what is there to think through it. And then last, you already had it in the top piece, but flexible ownership, that some of this could be rent, A lot of it could be rent, but condos, townhouses, per where the little plots of land are co-owned and maintained. So how you it's not clear to me how you do that when you're doing the 40 or the others, you know, make sure it's a lab, but also think of it. And then the last point I want to make is we the preservation of scarce resources are There's a huge amount of acreage that we're not talking about, and that's all around it. I wouldn't try to take this 200 and do more with that, but really think of we're all surrounding with all the rivers you talked about, their trail systems. You could walk endlessly to behind and out of Hampshire. where your feet get really wet but there are trails and you know it's all walkable and trying to say that is there so we don't have to recreate that so let's take the developable parts and make the best use of them.

Thank you. I'm going to pass it off to the consultants now. We have finished all 13 counselors on the round robin so open mic to you to ask any follow-up questions and we'll From now on for this question, we'll deal with hands raised for any follow-up questions unless they have specific questions for specific counselors.

I didn't have any follow-up questions. I did just want to comment on one thing that I heard multiple times is this idea of flexibility and also of ownership. And some of the best housing work that's being done in the community, being done in the country right now, is really kind of throwing the book out on a lot of the requirements related to lot frontage, lot position, lot dimension, and recognizing that one of the fastest ways to finance housing is small housing on small lots some of these can be landlocked so they're just and and they're smaller than you ever thought they would be and it's counterintuitive for us who have just you know we've spent all of our years all of our lives seeing people with a yard and a driveway and the frontage And it'll be important for us to think outside the box on some of those things where we're talking about really small lots, really small, sometimes non-existent frontage for the purposes of creating a path to quick financing and home ownership and stuff that's financially viable.

Thank you any counselors want to add any other thoughts on anything that's been said, or any other brainstorming ideas on priorities or goals we'll start with counselor shane.

I don't quite fit the category you did, but I don't completely understand. So maybe in the comments you make later, I know what a 40R overlay is or can be, and then a village creating a village. And trying to think of, does that, it's a question, do you rezone the entire area? Do you rezone parcels of it? Do you say there's contiguous in this area, in that area, or is it a giant overlap? literally envisioning little houses here, tall buildings there, senior. So I don't quite understand what the zoning lever is that allows that diversity without saying we're in charge of selling the lots, which we're not.

Right. And so we haven't chosen our zoning lever and we'll probably have multiple levers because, again, we have to have that flexibility. And, you know, I think where we are now is where you've seen in terms of our case study research. And, you know, I've written a lot of zoning. And so I can get into the weeds really quickly on this stuff and won't put you all to sleep right now. But it's. You know, this idea of a master plan is definitely a tool that has to be on the table. If somebody is going to come forward and purchase a very large piece of land, and you have aspirations and the developer has aspirations about creating something that is an experience, a destination, a neighborhood, a cohesive working functioning community, then a master plan is an example of something that has to happen. So that sort of sets the stage for how a site will be conceptually laid out over time. And then once the engineers and the designers really get into it, that's when you sort of go to that second level. So that's why you've seen a lot of communities sort of use the, you know, at a 10,000 foot level, they master plan out, they permit that by special permit. And then when somebody wants to come in and develop that neighborhood in this particular area, then the engineers and the designers really come in and get it done. The stormwater, the wastewater, all of those things. And that goes through a site plan review process. That's not necessarily the track we'll take, but that's what we've seen in other communities where you've got that 10,000 foot look, This is the kind of community that we want. This looks like a really great concept. This will be beautiful in 15 years, but we are going to build it three, four, five, seven years at a time and permit this along the way with a different process.

Jeff.

I'm not sure that I Definitely not trying to belabor the point, but I think the question is a really good one that the councilor asked. I think we're not there yet. I think we wanted to touch base with the council and then we go through the public process, but I think that's one of the key questions that we have. And I think that was some of the sentiment that we heard with the planning board was, if our zoning that we have worked with doesn't work we should try something new and i think we might have such a unique opportunity where we will probably need to try something new or at least continue to explore how best we could get the results that it sounds like people are pretty pretty consistently kind of wanting the results we have to make sure that we have the zoning tools that's what this boils down to is our control is going to be through zoning so that's going to be the task over the next several months is to figure that part out and then the other thing i just wanted to say because it relates to understanding what we do have control over. And so with regard to reusing existing buildings, I think it's a fantastic concept. Our ability through zoning will be primarily to make it as easy as possible to reuse buildings for whatever the best use is for. And I think we can encourage that. That's how you do it is you encourage it by making it super easy. But there are going to be some financial implications of that. and it's not the town's buildings. So there's this evaluation that we understand that the college is likely to try to pursue some level of assessment of the buildings to understand their current condition and the potential reusability. But it's not something that we have the control over. So if you think Wildwood, for example, that's the town's building, and we're going to investigate that, and we're going to determine its reusability. But here, our tool is going to be through zoning. So the idea of making it flexible, possibly without requiring it to be its own parcel, minimizing parking requirements, we're going to have to really think creatively to incentivize the reuse and allow it to happen through zoning. So there's something there that we're going to continue to flesh out as we move forward. But I just wanted to kind of make that point because it was a good one.

Thank you. My hand's up next. So I like the idea of that master plan development and then sort of things underneath. And, and I love the idea of creative use of zoning, whether that be look, it looks completely different from what our, our current zoning bylaw looks like or anything, because I think we need creativity there. And the other thing I would add to my, my three goals there was, was don't be afraid of high density is, is one of my goals. So council Rooney.

Thank you. One of the items that was also on my list is protection and encouragement of the arts and culture of the area. And I'm not sure that that's handled through zoning, but that would involve protection of access for the existing cultural entities there. And perhaps taking advantage of, again, talking about facilities, taking advantage advantage of some of the main facilities on the campus for something like conference center. UMass has not developed community.

Thank you. Could you say that again? You broke up while you were saying your last bit about conference centers.

utilization of some of the existing buildings for conference center. UMass has not yet developed one, and it's maybe on the books, but here's a really imminent opportunity for perhaps conference center. Not necessarily controlled by zoning, but perhaps it can be.

Thank you. Councilor McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy. I watched part of the presentation from the other week again today, and I put an asterisk as I heard you reference sewage usage and getting close to limits as a town, and that overall the infrastructure is good. It's an ideal situation for the most part, but when I heard you referencing getting close to the limits of the town infrastructure it prompted me to say what types of expenses might be incurred by the town that might not be anticipated and specifically how close are we to our sewage limited building lots goes in here is it on the town or you know do we just I would assume it's a development expense

Yes, those usually are development expense, especially with the large site type of investment that you see. Can't guarantee that. The most important thing is to work out an arrangement that is beneficial to the town, right? You don't want it to be financially detrimental to the town. And any good developer is going to understand that coming to the table. I think in terms of the current infrastructure, there's two limitations that you often talk about with a sewage system. One is the physical limits of the system, which is not something that is an issue at this point. There's also the permit limitations where you're actually permitted to discharge. And so that's an administrative permit thing. Both of those will have to be looked at over time, but there's nothing right now that would I mean, the college is using sewer capacity, right? So you think about the amount of flow that they're generating now. So there is an allocation that's already there that can accommodate redevelopment going forward. So it's just a question of incrementally managing that over time.

Thank you. But you were talking about town-wide usage limits, not college-specific use, area-specific usage limits, correct?

Yeah, they all go to this. Yeah, it's that one spot.

And that question and that is going to be something that will be investigated later on during this process as we collect questions from the public and the counselors.

I did have a follow-up question, if that's okay. I looked at the zoning maps that you generated and quite helpful. I saw some zoning that was RLD along with FC. And could someone explain to me how that works in terms of overlay? Because there's two different zones there. I assume they both apply, but is one predominant and the second was added later?

Jeff?

Yeah, I think it's an evolved closer than Mike, please. We want to be we wanted to be sensitive to not to try to answer every question that we get right now tonight, because there there's some that are going to be difficult to explain. The residential low density was one of the original zoning districts that the town has its creates lot sizes of a certain type, it's low density. And then the farmland conservation was overlaid over that at some period. And we don't I don't know the date of that. So it is part of the discussion that we will have moving forward based on your input, based on the community input. We need to decide whether we're talking about changing that or not and what it does and what it doesn't do. So that's a future consideration. And the other thing I just wanted to say about infrastructure, and I know maybe we're drifting into the next set of questions, which are probably concerns. It should not be lost on this group that If this were to be developed over a period of time, there are new rate payers, and that is going to be helpful to the town. So while there might be some additional usage, there will also be new rate payers, much more than what is being paid now by the college. So those are going to be helpful for future wastewater improvement. That might be necessary. So just be mindful that there will be additional rate payers contributing to improvements, which is a benefit in addition to potential tax revenue. So we have that fully developed scope with the youth re-advisors, and they will be talking about tax revenue generation and impacts, school enrollment, and more clarity on the actual infrastructure costs. So that's coming up before we get to January. They haven't started that evaluation yet.

Thank you. We're going to move on to Councillor Taub.

Thank you. Yeah, this, I guess, is a question. I agree with Councillor Haneke in terms of having a master plan, you know, and so a vision that, you know, we would like to see whoever is developing or purchases that land to work towards. And I guess when you said, you know, this may happen, you know, in five-year increments, it may be 20 years till if there is a master plan, it's fully built out. But is there anything we can... I mean, or is there a concern that, you know, a few houses will get built and then nothing else will happen for a long time? Or is there, you know, any way, I don't know if it's the zoning provides an incentive or it's just a matter of all the stars line up that, you know, if a master plan is developed, that it is achievable and we can have some sort of timeline to help make sure we get there.

Excellent. That's more of prompt two, but if you want to provide a response to that. I'm just reminding people we're on the...

The 30-second answer is that's not really the purview of zoning. Developers are under tremendous pressure to develop. So the idea that they would purchase an enormous swath of land and then build 40 homes and kind of sit on it for...

many many years it's not a good business model um so you rely on that and you can rely on that thank you counselor churchill yeah i mean we're talking about rezoning and having zoning in place by january and at the same time hampshire's gotten a loan that's taken some of the pressure off their them to sell but they're looking at they're still shopping the the land around i'm just wondering How are those two things related? Are we looking to rezone to help shape what happens when they sell it? Or if we rezone after they sell it, that will shape what? I mean, I guess if I'm a developer, I'd like to know what the zoning is going to be. But we don't have control over what Hampshire College does with the land, but we're trying to put zoning in place. And those things are sort of happening in parallel. So how does that work?

we're getting a little more into the questions but if there's a quick answer go for it jeff it's a great question we think that we're being proactive and looking at the zoning that we know doesn't accommodate very many uses So we're actively engaged in this and I think that's our process and that's our intent is to do this as quickly as is reasonable. The only thing I did actually wanna mention is that we're not seeking to have zoning in place by January. We're having the proposed zoning ready to submit to town council, which then starts the process. So being realistic, we're still expecting several months after January for zoning to potentially be adopted, but that's our target is to have the proposal ready for January. we're doing this quickly to be efficient and to be ready. We'd rather be doing this before we know what's happening because if we didn't do anything and we waited, we're not sure that that's the best outcome for the town. And so that's why we're being active right now.

Thank you. I see no other hands. Nate or Peter, are there any clarification questions you'd like to ask? And then I'll give the counselors one more quick shot if they have anything to say on goals or priorities. No counselors any last quick goals or priorities that haven't been mentioned or that you feel you need to expand on quickly or expand on quickly Andy your hand is still up now okay. We will move on then. The next one is, the next prompt is, what are your greatest concerns or questions about the campus's future? As you saw, it's hard to hear about and state goals and priorities without also having questions and concerns. So we moved a little bit into that towards the end. Again, a random order, and it is a different random order, so not everyone is always at the end or the beginning. I thought of that, so... Again, quick round robin on this one. We start with Councillor Brevik.

Point of clarification. Are they answering each question? Should we ask a question, wait for an answer?

No. We are collecting. After all 13, I will go back to the consultants to see if there's any they would like to address. Sorry if you said that. No, I didn't. So thank you for asking that clarification. Councillor Brevik.

OK, so my main question was answered in that little last round that we just had, but is really that question about revenue generation is obviously that is such a primary goal for us on the council. how it what it will look like to estimate revenue generation as part of this process i'm just curious since it obviously depends so much on the specific development and the developer and the market and so many different factors so i'm just curious curious about the process for estimating revenue generation as part as part of the master plan And then I had another question on the focus groups and the community engagement process and just thinking about equity and diversity and how you plan to ensure that you are getting diverse perspectives and hearing from lots of different types of stakeholders in that process. Thank you.

Councilor Griesemer.

My concerns are the following. There's some trends that are happening that I think even our existing plans don't quite take into consideration. And some of these, unfortunately, have been brought on by the present administration in Washington. For example, UMass Amherst has accepted 200 less graduate students because their research dollars are down by 10%. And recovering from that isn't going to happen overnight, and it won't happen with the midterm elections. So there's things happening in town that are affecting the population that, in fact, comes to this town. Another one is, in general, Western Mass is not growing. In fact, it's losing population. The state of Massachusetts will probably lose a congressional seat in the next round. And, you know, Amherst is attractive, but can we really buck the trend of what's going on with our region in general? And when you drive up and down our streets, you see a lot of rentals still available right now. And they're the older homes, frankly, that aren't as attractive to live in. So besides that, absolutely no data centers. Councillor Taub.

Yeah, well, my concern is also with our declining population. I know, I think it was in the presentation that may have been given to the planning board by the consultants last week. I listened to that and there was discussion of doing a study to really see what the need for housing is here. I mean, we know that there are people that want to live in Amherst that aren't able to. But so my question would be, what kind of investigation is being done to really get a handle on what the demand for different kinds of housing is? Because I would think that even potential developers that would be purchasing the land are probably doing that investigation as well. And then my question again about which is why I think senior housing is something that there is a demand for because our population in Amherst is aging and a lot of us would like to stay here as we may downsize from our homes. That's my question.

Thank you. Councillor Walker.

Thank you. And this is to share some of the concerns we have, correct?

Yes. Concerns and questions.

I think, I mean, overall, my concern is the general ownership and who will come forward to purchase the land and facilities and whether or not there will be multiple buyers and if that will make this process more challenging for us. um and whether or not our zoning practices will actually be able to guide this process or if we'll end up having to be reactive with our zoning that's a concern for me i'm also just concerned about the benefit to the overall town and and local use and how our residents will be able to use utilize this space but also hoping that current residents who are either cost burdened or just looking for other housing opportunities will have priority access to whatever development if there is housing development here and then also just looking at measuring and predicting revenue generation thank you counselor devlin gothier

This round robin thing is exciting, never know. Is your mic on? It is, I know. If you can't hear me, tell me. So I have concerns about single ownership, and when we think about zoning, and I know, again, that this is a concern that is likely to be realized, but I have concerns about one developer, one organization purchasing the entire property, which is why when I'm thinking about the zoning, I like the idea of zoning pieces of it, agricultural pieces of it, you know, residential, things like that versus the entire thing in one area or yeah. However, we can encourage multiple folks coming in, I think supports that vision of more of a community and different types of entities entering that space. I am, and with that, I am concerned with the general exploitation of broad brush them. So if we think about making it too vague, we know that people are going to find loopholes. We know that people are going to, I mean, capitalism exists, right? So how do we make sure that we're not, that we're encouraging the use of this property in a way that supports our tax base without making it so broad that we're gonna end up with something we really are afraid of selling it. That's not necessarily the most helpful framing for you all, but that is my concern. And then I know in the prior conversation, Jeff, you said this wasn't a concern to you when asked about data centers. And I know that this is kind of the hot topic generally, but data centers are one example of this kind of large scale development coming in. And so when I think about large scale anything, I keep pushing the idea of multiple different entities because the idea of one thing taking over a huge part of that land concerns.

Thank you. Councilor Kennel-Martin.

Yeah, I mean, I think my biggest concern, and I think I might have I did bring this up at a previous meeting was just how can you have a process that's really inclusive and participatory when we're on such a tight timeline? And I think that, you know, you can, you know, you can certainly have a virtual session and, you know, people who come to it are going to be people who tend to come to things because they're in the know and they're in the loop and they get the emails. And there's so many parts of our community where that just doesn't cut it. And we want to make sure that we're getting input on how to use this property from people really across section of the community, you know, including different races, different ages, different income levels, you know, different, you uh just you know fully representing the diversity of amherst and so um i'm concerned if we don't have that level of participation that whatever we do come up with won't be something that the community can support and that can get us in trouble down the line so um i am really concerned um about the process piece and you know i think that's really my my main concern thank you counselor shane

I'll start with where Andy Churchill ended on goals. Hampshire has to move on this, and we haven't rezoned, or we haven't come up with what we want to rezone, and will we be... too late to influence what evolves, if they start selling off pieces, for example. And I realize that they've got the challenge of it's only zoned for some kind of thing, so that they're coming for an application. So where the tennis courts, indoor tennis courts, are on dry land, it's right on Bay Road, great piece of land, will that just disappear while we're thinking of what else could happen? So it's sort of a timing issue. And the concern about, is it one large developer? So if someone came in and they One large non-taxable entity came in with a lot of money. Can we zone in a way that it can't be rezoned to be all non-taxable? And just so everyone knows, Applewood pays taxes, so not all nonprofits are not taxable. So I am concerned that... one developer eats up all of it and we don't have this opportunity to think of cluster development. So Ana's question of, should we do it in some pieces? So some of this is a PIRD, these are cluster housing, this is senior, but senior continuous living. So I'll leave it with how do we drive the mix that we might want that I don't feel like Zoni is is when we don't have ownership, is this enough of a level? And then I just want to do, when you do the revenue estimates, try to do net. So if you bring in a huge number of families with children, what's the school capacity that we have? Do we need to build a school? Seniors, active seniors, 50 plus, it's not just to move people out of their houses. Amherst is an amazing place to retire to. And we could be a mecca for active seniors because we've got the other colleges and universities here. My mother was advertising in New Jersey. She moved up and she was telling all her friends, you need to move up here. And they were active, what I'm saying, 15 plus. So just trying to think of a vibrant community as well. But the big concern I have is that we don't quite have the levers to get us what we want. And we'll get to the last, your worst worries, the 20 years from now, we'll look at what our vision was and what did we get, but trying to think of what is the best way. So is it pieces? If we think of zoning, that's more likely to encourage what we want rather than just a master plan, but very specific pieces.

Thank you. Councilor Ryan.

So three things. One, I worry about the market. I think there's a general consensus when I'm hearing from my colleagues of workforce housing, starter homes, affordable housing. Does anyone out there want to build what we want? I wonder if there's a market. And that's nothing. I think that's just a fear I have with it. That there's no market. Is this financially viable is one thing I'm concerned about. Second has to do with the scenario that what if this simply remains largely non-taxable, if it remains essentially still pretty much Hampshire College 2.0. What's our plan B? Is there a plan B? Is that like game over? That's what I worry about, concerns. And finally, I think what we're doing makes a lot of sense. I appreciate very much the work that our planning department and our consultants are doing. But my other concern is the impact of this on all the other things that Chapman's department are being asked to do. It towns other more pressing immediate concerns with planning and development. I think it was mentioned earlier, we have an aging housing stock. A lot of those starter homes that were built in the 70s are now aging out. And what can we as a town do to assist their owners? What can we do to address that? There are a number of issues. So what's the impact of focusing on this over the next four, five, six months on the very important work that our planning department is also doing in other areas?

Thank you. Councilor McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy. uh concerns uh who buys it that's if it gets sold who's who buys it and all the implications there associated with it um if if it get gets bought by developer uh or whoever what are the financial impacts to the town not just tax revenue, but other expenses. This kind of aligns with what Kathy was referencing in terms of net. What expenses might the town have affiliated with any form of development or otherwise? It's not relevant to our conversation, but I do have concerns for the existing Hampshire community. I can't help but think about the people who have lost their jobs, the students who have lost their college. I mean, it's awful. And we have to consider what we're considering. And I don't know what we can do in that regard because the clock is ticking and Hampshire has made its determinations. But yeah, I have great concerns for the existing folks. It's a terrible shame. Other than that, Probably nothing new than we've already discussed. I may come up with something down the road. getting opinions from all the different members of the community that both Councillor Breivik and Councillor Kahnemeyer referenced. I think it's very important in a quote unquote brainstorming process, which is what we're doing right now, that we seek to receive as many different thoughts and ideas as we can, because you never know if there's somebody in the room, metaphorically, City Council Chambers, who stays silent, but that person could be. City Council Chambers, You know just a brilliant or a great idea, and we wouldn't know it if we didn't hear about it, so I would say reaching our net wide to collect ideas to filter through because we're only 13 or you know 20 folks here, thank you.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, Council Rooney.

So I think my concern is that in this timeframe we have enough of a enough of a general layout a general master plan that somehow gives a sense of logical zones of development as you're analyzing the property see if logical zones of development that in fact if Hampshire trustees were to subdivide the property there would be some again some logical subdivision of that piece so it might not go necessarily to one huge operator but it may be able to be parceled out part of that subdivision is separating out the roads so that those become essentially public roads and not private ways that exclude access to some of the facilities that are there like Eric Carl and and Yiddish book center thank you thank you counselor Churchill

I guess one of my concerns is that nothing happens, either that we can't coalesce around a vision or we get tripped up because we're like, oh, we can't spend the money for infrastructure, so we let that be a barrier for us doing what would really be a benefit if we could get past the inevitable barriers that we'll have to hop over. another concern would be that it would be sold to a non-taxable educational or religious organization. And so we wouldn't get any benefit out of it. And we might not be as happy with our new neighbors as we were with our old ones. Um, and I guess, um, the other is that, I mean, we've talked about whether, you know, the decision is going to be made for us and, and whether, you know, how, how much control we have. So I, I guess, but I guess the other one would be that, um, you know, I wouldn't want it just to be a sterile subdivision. I'd like it to be, you know, I would worry that, that somebody comes in and does, are we at risk of losing that?

We can't get back.

And then of course the financial impact and I'm not repeating about the market. If whatever our master plan is or whatever we're doing, we'll ensure that what our vision is happens. Um, my concern is we have the vision and nothing happens with it. Um, I have a concern that we will, I'm going to get hit for this, conserve too much land. We have a lot of conserved land in town. As we've seen on these maps, there is a lot of buffer. There is a lot of wetland. There is a lot of stuff that already cannot be built on. I have a concern that more will be added to that to the detriment of housing. um and that we will end up with housing at higher costs and less density because we've added more land to the buildable land that is not going to get built on um and then we've heard a lot about um who is being listened to in these public sessions. So I have a concern that we're not going to seek input, or we can't get input, or we're not going to hear from the people who want to live here but aren't already here. What do they need? It's not just about what our own residents want. If we're looking to build 2,000 units, that's not going to be occupied by who's currently here solely. That's going to be occupied by people who haven't been able to live here for whatever reason. And how do we ensure that we know what they want and what would help them move to Amherst and what type of housing there. So that's my concerns. That ends the 13 counselor round robin. I'm going to send it back to the consultants, but ask if there's a way to answer or address particularly two of the concerns that I heard pop up. Um, a couple of times, which is the focus group, the public process here, um, and the concerns that we have about that, since that's one of the more immediate ones that, that doesn't necessarily relate to zoning. And then the concern about sort of all encompassing the declining population, the making sure it gets built, have things like that. Um, if that could be addressed before we move on to any other counselor concerns or questions from the consultants.

Yeah, so the good news is assuming the project budget is proved, which is still pending with the state, but we're confident, hopeful. But we have a lot of hours to put into public participation. So we'll be having The two public workshops at the Eric Carle Museum later in September. We'll be having another big public workshop beginning of November, which are traditional opportunities, but for people who have the means to get to the a room at 6.30 on an evening and have the wherewithal to participate. So we are looking at other ways to reach out to people and particularly to go to groups where they are. I think probably the main part that's built into the budget now are these focus groups that we have budgeted for in October, which will allow us to meet with whoever wants to meet with us wherever they can meet with us. And We don't have the budget to meet with people individually, but to the extent that you could, for instance, help us identify who we should be meeting with and help us connect with people who might organize those meetings and help to run them, we have the time to do that. We'll also be working with existing town resources, the DEI office, and getting their help and ideas for how to reach out to underserved populations. But it's a hard one. As you say, the people who this is going to serve, some of them aren't even born yet, and they're not in Amherst. So part of that is using existing reports and studies, like Nate said, you're very good brand new practically housing production plan, which does go into great deal of detail in terms of demographic changes, demographic challenges, who is served by housing and who is not and what's needed. So we'll be building on that to try to get a sense by proxy of, you know, who's going to live here 20 years from now and what are they going to need? I wanted to ask if any of you have, can point to A project, an effort in Amherst or elsewhere that has done a really good job at involving people who aren't usually involved in planning projects. If you don't have to answer that right now, but keep it in mind because we're always looking for what's worked rather than just try something and hope it does work.

Anything else before I go to the counselors? We're going to go to Counselor Ken O'Martin. Raise your hand.

Yeah, I mean, I would, I would suggest a couple of things in terms of like, where to get feedback. I definitely think the schools are a great place to go just because so many people are there anyway for their children. And 1 of the things that I know that the public schools do that's really helpful is when they have an event, they provide busing from the apartment complexes, which is like another population of folks that we want to talk to, especially if we're talking housing. So, I think that. You know, the schools and the apartment complexes, like, I think we all have in our districts, we all have some apartment complexes and we can definitely, like, help spread the word to them about, you know, some kind of listening session or focus group. And I'm certainly happy to help with that in district 2. and then the other thing just wanted to lift up as well is the language access piece. And so I think that if you're not already at least advertising. in English and Spanish and you know potentially looking at other languages would be really important and then and making it clear that there will be interpretation at the session so that people know that ahead of time so it's not a question of like do I come and then I won't be able to understand anything it's more like that resource is already there so I just wanted to lift those things up.

Thank you. Councilor Griesemer.

On that topic, there are several nonprofits that serve various groups within Amherst, and I think connecting with them for focus groups would be an excellent way to go. Separate from that, I want to just go back on this issue of workforce housing. Amherst College is also focused on this right now. They've actually identified a piece of property. They're in the process of studying. But do we really know if they wanna move here? Or is it just easy to say, I can't afford it. But actually they're very invested in the community they live, two communities over. They're on councils and committees there, their spouse works there, their kids love the school. Are we really expecting those people to move to Amherst? Because one of them has a job at one of the colleges. And so I really think workforce housing is a wonderful statement, but I would like to make sure that you investigate to the extent possible whether or not those people would really move to Amherst. It's a technical issue.

Thank you. Councillor Shane.

I'm just reading to your question of, have there been any successful involvement? And one in North Amherst is Valley CDC is about to open a bunch of duplexes. It's pretty dense development with some shared green space. Early on, they involved the whole North. Amherst group invited people in and they had little boxes. You could move around the land to see how this might work. And they changed the design. They ended up not having, whether it's a good outcome or not, but not having any one bedroom. So it's two and three bedroom. and they originally had some market rate, but it's all affordable because they realized they couldn't support the market rates. I mean, the market rates would be too high. So it was very welcome would be the other thing because of that. And then way back when, and I'm not, I wasn't around when it was developed, Pufton Village is a place that was developed. There was a lot of community input way back when, and it's a beautiful layout on quite dense or low, you know, not tall buildings, but there's a lot of shared outdoor space. And whoever came up with those concepts did a good job of blending it in in a different way than some of the other big buildings that have come in. So looking into the puffed in history and how much community involvement and how much that was just the developers already knew that's where they wanted to go.

Thank you. Councilor McLeod.

Thank you. Regarding outreach, do we have an online questionnaire that could be forwarded to constituents or others about here are questions we might have regarding what you think about Hampshire? It's another avenue. I think schools is probably the best location. We used to use them with our soccer league and other sports leagues and it was always extremely effective of course it was youth sports but um you know the schools are great but online forms of information requests not just for the counselors but that could be sent out in general for the purpose of brainstorming uh could be effective thank you counselor brevik

Yeah, I just wanted to add, as counselors, we're all required to hold two district meetings per year, and that could be a good setting. They're sort of focus groups in themselves. You know, people handle them different ways, but I think that could be a good opportunity if we all wanted to think about how we could use our district meetings to get feedback or partner with you guys to, you know, have a presentation or something like that. Thank you. Counselor Churchill.

Councillor Brevik beat me to it. I think that you have 10 district reps who all are going to have district meetings and they have their lists of constituents and the at-large folks can come to those too. So use us to generate, put the burden on us to generate the audience in part.

Councillor Devlin got there.

Thank you. I wanted to touch back on the concept of workforce housing and just comment that workforce housing isn't just about existing workers. It's not like a mass migration would happen, right? This is, we know that the institutions in the area are struggling with their staff and faculty, like filling positions because there isn't a place for folks to move to. So I just, and we hear it from our own employees, right? And that they'd love to live in amherst and we're not i don't think that it's realistic to suggest that anyone would up and leave their current home um especially if they are have a home ownership opportunity currently but our community is constantly shifting because of the industries in our town so we see new people coming in and it would be interesting if you had uh conversations with folks at the college and the university about what they're seeing for the from a hiring perspective in terms of folks coming in needing housing because I think that that is a challenge. I anticipate that will be a challenge you hear about. And then I just wanted to, Kathy was talking about different models. I also think the housing co-ops have been really interesting to see how those have functioned in our town and elsewhere. And then just both star on the point about district meetings and utilizing us as communication .

Thank you, Councilor Taub.

Yes, again, picking up on district mailing lists. If I think it was Andy who suggested, no, Sam of having, if there was a questionnaire that could be distributed directly to residents, because if there is, that's also something we can send out to our district mailing lists. And I think when you put all of us together, it gets to be in the thousands of recipients on those lists. And I just, this is kind of a question. When you do, when you, try and determine what the demand is for housing in amherst does that also get to you know um workers in amherst currently and in the future that would want to live live here i guess i'm kind of wondering how you do that kind of research to get a handle on that you don't have to answer it now but um you know because that that is a question we all want housing um and what really is the demand for different kinds of housing in amherst thank you um nate peter any thoughts questions clarifying questions you'd like to ask before we move on

I think maybe one piece to hone in on here, and this has been said a number of times, is this the natural like totally understandable trepidation about who buys this this land right so um that is something the town nor the zoning neither the town nor the zoning um you know ultimately decides um and so that is sort of like the the bottom line of that um but the zoning can will send a signal You know if there is if the land is not yet purchased once the zoning gets adopted the zoning sends a signal and those are important to future developers so. You know I don't want to be sort of pie in the sky but it's, but I will speak directly from my professional experience, there are a lot of developers out there who are really passionate about their work. who really have amazing portfolios and love to build these communities. This is their product. They, of course, find it profitable, but it's not easy, right? This is somebody talked about sort of like token subdivisions. That's easy. That's an easy way to build housing, and that's an easy way to make a buck is to just do sort of standard subdivisions. So these developers are... driven by profit, but they're also driven by their own sort of personal vision of what they want to create and so you can you see that in their portfolio, so that is something that you know. can and hopefully will like drive this when there's a when there's a purchaser when they're when there's somebody going forward. We cannot, even if you wanted to, you could not zone out the possibility of a nonprofit educational institution purchasing. And you know this, right? I see a lot of nodding heads. So yes, a religious institution, an educational institution, no matter what we zone this property for that is still on the table right those are part of uh sort of statutory protections that those those uses have and so that is that is part of this process that is that's part of the the consideration that you need to think about But again, the zoning sends the signal for something different. Right now, the zoning just says nonprofit educational institution. But new zoning, part of the reason why this is, we're trying to do this as efficiently as we can, while at the same time being comprehensive and thoughtful about this is that you want to send that signal and you want to get that out expeditiously.

I mean, for my part, I think we have the same concerns as you do about the marketability of this. And if you build it, if you zone it, well, they come. I think that the good news, my observation is this is a really unusual site, as you know. Not just is it a credible spot in the planet to live and work if you can, but also it's already got roads, parking lots, water and sewer. and lots of vacant space. You don't have to tear anything down to start building a lot of stuff if that's what you want to do. I mean, there's that 200 acres does include the existing campus, but there's also acres and acres of just empty land. And a lot of it's just lawn, right? And it's not being farmed right now. So there is huge opportunities there right now with water and sewer and space and the location. So I think like Nate, I've been spending some decades looking at how development happens and seeing what happens and how it shapes our towns. And this really seems like an unusual, really unique opportunity. And I'm hoping that it could be something really great but it's great to hear these concerns or then we're gonna take them back and talk to you three and figure out how do we really get a handle on this? How do we know and when will we know it? And is it possible to know it? And then we'll come back to you and give you the answers, hopefully.

Thank you. Nate?

Yeah, I think another thing that I wanted to speak to, it came up, I think, with three different members here, had to do with the financial modeling, I think, You know, I think you, you made the comments about the net revenue and constantly thought that this is, this has been a recurring, you know, theme from you concern. And I guess, you know, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, So at the risk of punting, this is one of the reasons why I have an expert on our team who has not been. So we have you three advisors, and we did bring someone in who is very adept at financial real estate modeling. So this will be a modeled exercise. There will be assumptions baked into this because we're not dealing with actual development proposals. We're dealing with different development scenarios. But we will, you know, we will do ballpark estimates of square footage. We will do ballpark estimates of generated students. We will do ballpark estimates. We'll be looking at sort of like fees versus flows, you know, in terms of infrastructure and those things. So, yeah, that is all baked into this. My colleague, John Tremendozzi, would be able to answer this much better than I, but you'll see those and we'll be very transparent about it once we start testing those scenarios as they come through.

Excellent. Jeff?

So again, I really want to thank everyone for this opportunity. I think it's been very informative. I heard so much, and I think we heard a lot on the public process, so that's being heard and listened to. I do want to say a couple words that haven't been said yet. There's going to need to be trade-offs, and there's going to need to be balancing. as we move forward. Because we can get a lot of public input and super valuable. But when it comes down to zoning, there are going to be a limited number of tools at the end of the day, it's going to be limited what we can do through zoning. So I do want to just make the statement to the council that when the time comes, to go through the zoning and talk about adoption. Just do not lose the forest for the trees. The opportunity that the town has will be to create zoning that allows these opportunities to happen. But if we don't get through that process, we will not have the opportunity. So when the time comes, January, February, March, just keep that in mind that this is the opportunity and this is the time that we need to do something. what i heard and i don't want to anchor it too hard on the master plan concept but there's a part of the public process that would happen now to frame the zoning if we do this correctly there might be an opportunity when there's an actual master plan being developed or proposed there could be additional public input because that's when they're actually going to have realistic tangible things that would be proposed versus the conceptual zoning effort so at a certain point we might need to balance the the need for public input with passing zoning understanding that there would be a full process that would follow from that so we're not there yet i'm just trying to speak professionally that at a certain point you know we will need to talk about adopting something that allows the opportunities to move forward and happen um so um that was what i wanted to say okay

That raised a couple of extra hands on the Council. We are approaching our 45-minute goal on this topic or this prompt, but there are four hands raised. I encourage each of the four that I'm going to recognize to be quick in your comments and concise in your comments because we're going to then move on after those four to the third prompt. We start with Councillor Rooney.

Thank you. considering a lot of it is residential outlying, residential low density. And I just wanted to confirm for us and for the public that right now, if I understand it correctly, all of it is currently not taxable. So ORLD and not taxable. would applying just about any zoning type. With that, I'm trying to frame this. We should probably, if we don't want a large scale, we probably want to lift and remove the ED zoning, is that correct?

Thank you for that question. We're gonna move on to Councilor McLeod.

Thank you, Mandy. Following up on a comment or question that Andy had previously, Hampshire owns the property now. They're in control of what happens to it. They've set their own expected timeframe of closing come December. Our planning department has set a timeframe, which I agree with, for proactively engaging and trying to be ready when the time comes. But I didn't hear an answer to Andy's question previously, which is currently it's Hampshire College owned. It's mostly educational in the primary area. At what point could the town make changes to zoning proactively if they wished? Must that wait until Hampshire officially closes? Doesn't change our process, but I'm just curious. Jeff.

If I understood the question correctly, we do not need to wait for anything to change the zoning.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Griesemer.

The only thing I want you to be clear about, Sam, is that even if we zone at something else, education can still come in. I understand. They have a right. And so that's not my point. I want to just ask Jeff, when are we going to start the master plan process in relationship to this? Because it seems like it's almost...

City Council Chambers, A possible you're asking the amorous the amorous master plan process yeah 20 years out soon right Jeff. City Council Chambers, i'm not really prepared to answer, I think it was 2030 was the timeline 2030 is when we have to adopt something new that's in three and a half years. City Council Chambers, Council brevik.

Really quick comment that I I love it there'll be another opportunity for people to give input once the master plan is. taken more shape, but I think that is even more of a reason to focus on getting early input I know just from experience that I think if we come to people with a plan that's already formulated they don't. It doesn't usually go over that well. I think we can set expectations successfully and make sure that people understand that the early preliminary input is what it is. It's preliminary input taken in with a lot of different factors. But I do think that that first step is hugely important in people feeling like we don't just come to them after something is 99% done.

Thank you. We are going to move on to the third prompt. The third prompt is, and again, it will be a quick round robin again, and there won't be much conversation after the round robin. Looking ahead 20 years, what outcomes would lead you to consider the reuse of Hampshire College a success? And what outcomes would you regard as signs that the town made the wrong decisions? We start with Councilor Ryan.

I've already spoken to this, I think, in a way, and I'm going to pick up on something that Andy said earlier in terms of what would be my nightmare vision would be a sterile subdivision. That would be a disaster, in my view. I think also anything that would fail, so you could flip this the other way, I guess, in 20 years, something that somehow captured or preserved something that was unique or special to Hampshire, which was its vision, its educational goal. If it could come up with something that would both combine the vision of lifelong learning with some of our housing and economic goals, that would be, to me, a success that It's something of what Hampshire set out to do is still preserve, and yet at the same time is providing the kinds of economic and housing goals that we are eager to realize. That, I guess, would be my 20-year vision of success. And you've already heard my 20-year vision of failure, which I stole from Councillor Churchill.

Thank you. Councillor Lord.

Thank you. I believe we will have made, we will have made the wrong decision if the Hampshire property becomes economically successful, not saying I don't want it to be, but economically successful while Amherst becomes less affordable, less diverse, less connected, and loses natural resources that can never be recovered. 20 years from now, I would consider the reuse of Hampshire College a success if it has created a genuinely mixed income and multi-generational community, expanded housing and economic opportunity, preserved significant farmland, forest, open space, provided places for wellness, culture, recreation, education, and community life, and strengthened Amherst racial and economic diversity. I'd want residents to feel that this land became more, not less connected to the broader Amherst community. And most importantly, I would want us to be able to say that we did not simply develop land, but we created community that would give. to the public good for generations to come. I'm not asking too much now. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Lord, Councillor Shane.

success would be we have a vibrant community with what we've all talked about, a mix, which has succeeded in preserving a lot of community space. And I totally agree with what Councillor Haneke said earlier. We don't need to preserve more wetlands and things. This is at least using that 200 acres well, and it's paying taxes. A failure would be we have a lot of dense housing with no sense of community. We've lost community spaces, and we underestimated the cost to our infrastructure. The sewer system doesn't work very well. The waterways don't work very well. We lost, we have an overdeveloped 200 acre lot because we didn't think of what could happen if you just opened up that space. Thank you. Councillor McLeod.

Thank you. I kind of like what counselor Lord's head, but she might have had more than three in there, I would say. How would I view it as success down the road without getting the details i'd say happy residents and amorous regarding the outcome, whatever that might be. uh for me i would indicate mixed housing availability that uh works well for those who are living there uh and an improved financial contributing to improvements in the town financial situation thank you counselor taub

I'm feeling repetitious, but I would say I would consider it a success to fit what was a mixed income and multi-generational community that provided a variety of housing opportunities, both home ownership and rental. And that had educational offerings, many of which have been part of the Hampshire College community, as well as small businesses that serve the diverse residents who would live in the new community, as well as others in Amherst and surrounding towns. And yeah, I would consider it not a success if I would, you know, restate the sterile subdivision or if it didn't really get developed at all.

Thank you. Councillor Walker.

Thank you. I think a lot of folks have said what I would say and I think Councillor Lortz was wonderful. I think overall it would be community satisfaction. So like this idea of continuing to get input from the community. I would like it to be a place where the folks who live there feel like the community is thriving. They're utilizing the land and the facility. Folks feel happy. They have access to basic needs, food, recreation. Hopefully the PVTA system will have more bus takers and bikers and just a place where we can foster diversity and more community connection. Increased housing opportunities, increased revenue for the town. I think some failures, some things that would make me think it was a failure would be if the apartments or housing opportunities drive up other rental costs in town and then all rental housing is just really high. Loss of natural resources. And then if it were bought by a religious or educational institution and we lost access for local residents or the residents owners don't maintain the space. Thank you. Councilor Brevik.

Yeah, I think to the second part of this is, you know, how would we know we made the wrong decision? I think I'll just echo what everybody quickly echo what everybody else has said. I really don't want to see it become a dead space, a vacant space. You know, don't want some kind of cult walking around. Like, I think a data center, all those things. But I think really I just I want it to not be something that people drive through to get to the next place, but that it's something that draws people into town. Um, and I think that's how well knows that people are coming here for whatever is there. And and then frequenting our other businesses in town and other parts of town and kind of that it's something that is driving that economic prosperity throughout Amherst. And then, you know, how will we know it's a success? I think we'll have fully funded schools and our roads will all be paved and we'll have a youth empowerment center and we'll have all of these things that we know the majority of our residents want and we are struggling tremendously to get to achieve those things. I think But really, you know, at the same time that it leads to Amherst being a more diverse population and a place that is known as affordable, beautiful and supportive and just a good place to live and work. And that becomes our legacy. Thank you. Councillor Churchill.

I was really happy to see Village Hill listed as one of the examples because I think that's actually an example nearby that has actually been able to create a variety of housing types, a variety of housing levels. It seems to be thriving. And so that was, I guess that's kind of an example I had in my mind of what success would look like. I think basically what people have said, I'd want it to be a vibrant space. I'd want it to serve a variety of residents. I'd like it to generate a fair amount of tax revenue. And just that we take advantage of this unique opportunity to have actual developable space and that we do it well. Yeah. I think pretty much we've heard, I would sign on to Councilor Lord's comments as well. I think she summed up the sort of vibrancy and the diversity and the sense of community, both within it and connected to the broader community.

Thank you. Councilor Taub, did you have an issue with something?

No, that's a mistake.

Okay, I just wanted to check in terms of if you were having a problem hearing or anything. Okay, Councilor Rooney.

Success in my mind would be a very strong, vibrant neighborhood or neighborhoods, depending how it's laid out, with organized around shared outdoor spaces and corridors with cultural and workspaces provided that really knit the community together. Failure is... a place with dilapidated buildings and an unutilized and untaxable land. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm next on the list about basically what everyone else has said about success, a vibrant village center supporting all ages and incomes of residents. I want to see walkable business and commercial needs and amenities in that area. And public recreational opportunities. If it's got all of that, I'll see it as a success. A failure, if you want to call it that, or the wrong decision, undeveloped at all. We went through the process, we had a vision and nothing happened. for whatever reason, nothing happened. Or sort of what other people have said, the sterile non-community, sort of non-vibrant community, lots of housing, but nothing else and not walkable and not responding to the environment and things like that. Councilor Griesemer.

I'm not going to repeat any of them. What I'm hoping is 20 years from now, some consultant is sitting somewhere and using us as the best example

Councilor Kano-Martin.

Yeah, I mean, I think some of the, you know, more quantitative indicators of success would be, you know, we would actually see that we're not struggling as much as a town in terms of our tax revenue and that we're able to provide, you know, the services that we want to provide to our community and the infrastructure that we want to provide. And then, of course, we would see in these housing studies, we wouldn't see so much discrepancy of people who are cost burdened or extremely cost burdened in their housing costs. And we would also see maybe we buck the trend and our community's population is increasing while others are maybe going down because it's a very livable town and people want to come here. Um, and then some of the things that I think are more quantitative or qualitative, I would say, you know, is definitely some of the things that counselor Lord was raising up, right? Like, it's the diversity. It's the vibrant community. It's, you know, increasing, you know, that that sort of. presence in our town and that sort of vibrancy. And also one thing that I think is really important, and I would love to see us get this right, is that we have new development, but it's also environmentally friendly development. We're not destroying buildings that could still be used to make something new. And we're not taking over land that's farmland or conservation land to create what we want to create. We're not destroying those things in order to create And I think that, you know, and that we're building things that are up to the absolute best standards of like green energy and, you know, being net zero or as close to net zero as possible. Because I think Amherst as a town, like we have that ability in us, like we have, we value those things, we've shown that we value those things. And this is our chance to put that into practice and put it in action. Can we do it with this big piece of land given the opportunity and balance all of those things? So, yeah, I mean, I think that would be a success. And I think that not success would either be the property is vacant and nothing is done with it. And another to me, not success would be we get a lot of really expensive housing and the community becomes even less affordable. And that's really scary to me. And I think it's always a risk.

Thank you. Councillor Devlin Gauthier.

All right. I'm going to start with the scary situation first. Echoing a lot of what folks said, large huge boxy buildings that only hold one thing or the other, right? So they're only apartments and that's all that's on the space or only some big box situation and that's all that's there. Kind of that cookie cutter idea. I the loss of natural space and pushing or constant pushing on our bylaws that exist to protect natural space is a concern to me. I think that it's important to me that you all understand we are not all aligned fully. on how much natural space should stay or go. I think you've heard some folks speaking strongly in support of get rid of whatever you need to get rid, maybe I'm being hyperbolic, but don't concern yourself with that preservation so much as concern yourself with housing. And I hope that you are also hearing some of us saying, we would like you to continue to concern yourself with the preservation of that natural space. So my ideal situation, because that's more fun to think about, is essentially a micro village center on an environment which recognizes the value of that natural space to the success of the community that's on it. I want to see a, this is a huge test of our relatively still new opt-in stretch energy code, right? This is the potential for a lot of new buildings that would be more sustainable than construction we've seen in the past, which is really exciting to me. Um, and on that note, you know, I want to see school buses going down into that area every day. I want to see PVTA needing to expand their routes into there, not just not just keep up the existing one. Um, I'd love to see the red barn still hosting some sort of event or being utilized. Same with the current center. Um, those are buildings that are incredible and I'd love to see become something that fosters that that community in some way. Same with the farm. The weird niche thing that I would really love to see is I want to see CPA applications coming from this area of town. I want to see people applying for funding to build this playground and to upkeep that natural space. I think for me, that'll be a mark of success is when they need to, when they're at a place where they're like, you know what, this is great. Let's continue it with that continued funding through CPA. That was just a random example I could find, but it's true for me.

Thank you, that was our 13th counselor on that prompt i'm going to pass this on to the nate and Peter and Jeff for anything you'd like to say now or conclude before we move on to public comment.

I have nothing to add at this point. No, it's a lot.

I mean, I just really appreciate some of the, like, some of the language you use was very precise and very thoughtful, like the connection between the health of the land and the village that exists within it, the legacy of culture and learning combined with the issues around the need for housing, the want for housing. So it's great stuff. Thank you for that.

Good with that we're going to thank you for showing up tonight we're going to have a public comment period, and then I will. finish with concluding marks after the public comment period, so the the the in person ones will come up here, so if you guys could move back to the seats just behind us behind you that would be great because anyone that's here will comment from there. Okay, we are moving on to public comment. Anyone wishing to make public comment who is attending remotely, please raise your hand in the Zoom application. If you are present in the town room and have not signed up with the clerk, please do so now. Comments and questions on this particular topic can also be submitted at HampshireCampusZoningStudy.com. Residents are welcome to make public comments on matters within our jurisdiction. The council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment. Public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the council. The First Amendment broadly protects individuals' rights to address the government, to speak, and to express themselves, including their right to say hateful and offensive things. I am generally unable to shut those commenters down under the First Amendment to the US Constitution unless their level of speech falls within an exception articulated by the courts, such as fighting words, true threats to a particular individual, harassment of a particular individual, or incitement of imminent lawless activity. If a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging in unprotected speech, I must defer to the principle of freedom of speech. There are no hands raised on Zoom. And how many people in the town room? Just one. Just one. So everyone, I will give you three minutes since we expected a little more public comment, and that's why I had announced two, but I will move it up to three. Athena? Then so Connor Vince please come on up state your name and where you live and make your comment. Okay, there goes I got this one now it's gone.

yeah.

So thank you for the treatment.

Vince, you just need to hold that button down so that microphone stays on.

Yeah, okay. I attended both open houses evenings for the Amethyst Brook school openings and providing transportation for two separate families, one on each night. On local radio, I heard only one person speak about the school, the person who had led the opposition to the Fort Rivers site. Today, for the fourth day of school, public school in Amherst, I drove an elementary school student to another public school and was confronted by the possibility that what is apparently happening in Stanford, Connecticut, where parents drop their children off and then they are being seized by ICE and Border Patrol operatives, that those of us who do drop children off will be confronted with the possibility that we will be witnessing these individuals perhaps sees not only parents but children. And I do happen to know blended families who attend that school. And I know that there are children who are U.S. citizens who could be grabbed. And my concern about all of these guidelines for schools from the state and from the town manager ignore the fact that, and in fact state nothing about what the police authorities are going to do because the kidnapping laws of Massachusetts say the first four words are whosoever without lawful authority. And neither Border Patrol nor ICE have any authority over US citizens. And what we cannot seem to get out of the manager or the state authorities is what they're going to do on the spot. to intercede on behalf of children or parents who can prove their citizenship and are being taken away. I mean, yeah, maybe in two months they can get out, they can spend their entire savings, the money they'd saved up to put a down payment on a house. They can pay to a lawyer who can fly to Texas to some godforsaken place in a federal district that has one judge Please wrap up. And so we have no guidance. We have no assurance from the manager to guidance. And the board has sat here and done nothing about it. And you cannot do that. What happened in Stanford Kinetics could happen here. And we need... the citizens of this town to feel that they are going to be protected by the people whose salaries they pay in the police department.

Thank you so much for your comments. We have one raised hand now on Zoom. Bruce Steadman, please unmute yourself, state your name and where you live and make your comment.

This is Castle O'Neill and Bruce and Bruce Steadman's wife. I live at 20 Mount Holyoke Drive in Amherst. When you were talking about reaching out to the workforce to find out what kind of housing they might be looking for, I'd suggest talking to the staffs of the public schools, because I hear that one of the concerns about having so many snow days is it's not that the kids can't get to school, it's the teachers who can't afford to live in Amherst and have to drive in from the hill towns can't get to the school. So my sense is there's a lot of admin, teachers, other school staff who would love to live in Amherst and can't afford to live here and could probably have a lot to say about what kind of housing they'd want.

Thank you for your comment. We have no other hands raised, so we are going to close public comment. There are not topics anticipated, unanticipated topics. I want to thank all of our consultants. We've had one on Zoom all evening. We have three here, particularly though Nate and Peter who sat up here the whole time and answered some questions and presented them and made the presentation and all. This is a huge amount of work for not just you all, but for Jeff too and the town as well. organizing this and all and in a short timeline. We look forward to the continued public process and seeing the results of that public process as we move forward to seeing your goal of zoning in January. That is quite ambitious. So thank you all for that tonight. I will make the motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Change seconds. thank you um we will move on to voting counselor brevik yes counselor ken o'martin yes andy churchill yes anna devon guffier hi lynn griesemer hi mandy joe haneke as an eye counselor lord hi sam mcleod hi pam rooney yes counselor ryan hi kathy shane yes