Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 6/14/2022
AMHERST – Amherst Town Council heard the first reading of a proposal to rescind and update the Demolition Delay section of the town’s Zoning Bylaw, voted on recommending parking updates to Lincoln Avenue and debated the creation of a housing task force focused on retaining housing in Amherst for the workforce and families amid growing numbers of students searching for off-campus living arrangements.
Planning Director Christine Brestrup said the Planning Board voted unanimously to rescind Article 13 of the Zoning Bylaw, named Demolition Delay for Structures of Historical or Architectural Significance, on May 18. The new Preservation of Historically Significant Buildings Bylaw was drafted over a period of years by the Planning Department in close coordination with the Historical Commission, which also requested a repeal of Article 13 and to create a new general bylaw instead.
“It’s really about recognizing demolition of historically significant buildings as a permanent loss to the community and finding ways and alternatives to preserve those buildings before they are lost forever,” said Town Planner Ben Breger. “The bylaw gives the Historical Commission the authority to essentially put a pause on an imminent demolition project, and during that period, usually a 12-month window, to work with the applicant to find an alternative to demolition. If an alternative can’t reasonably be found, then a demolition delay can be lifted.”
Article 13 was originally adopted in 1999 and was amended from a six- to a 12-month delay in 2005. The Community Resources Committee (CRC) and Planning Board both voted to rescind Article 13 between April and May 2022 and passed legal review by KP Law before going in front of the Town Council for readings at the June 6 meeting and an updated reading and vote on June 13.
Breger said moving the Demolition Delay Bylaw from a zoning to general bylaw brings the town to a more uniform standard, explaining this where the bylaw is situated in most cities and towns throughout Massachusetts and is recommended by the Massachusetts Historic Commission.
“I think one important point too for how it actually plays out, it’s important to note that when it’s in the Zoning Bylaw, appeals are made to the Zoning Board of Appeals,” Breger said. “For a general bylaw, appeals to this bylaw would be made to the court and we think the court is better situated to make these determinations in the case of an appeal.”
The procedure for applicants seeking demolition will now start with a two-step review process. First, a designee from the Planning Department and/or Historical Commission will determine whether a building is significant. The original threshold of a building requiring review was 50 years which will be updated to 75 years if the new bylaw passes at its final reading.
Should the building be deemed significant, the commission will hold a public hearing to consider whether the building should be preferably preserved which will lead to the issuance of either a Demolition Authorization or Preservation Order.
The updated bylaw also clarified the definition of demolition to “Initiating the work of total destruction of an entire building with the intent of completing the same, or; any act of pulling down, destroying, removing or razing 25 percent or more of the front, back or side elevations of a building with the gross square footage of each elevation including wall area, roof area and exposed foundation area calculated separately.”
Concerns from councilors centered around the general absence of regulations or clear explanations of the process in the bylaw. Council Vice President Ana Devlin Gauthier and District 3 Councilor Jennifer Taub cited the vague term of “designee,” saying that meant even just one person between both the Planning Board and Historical Commission could be determining whether or not a building is significant.
District 3 Councilor Dorothy Pam said she feared that with the court making decisions, lawyers would get involved and money will be spent. “I don’t see how that’s an advantage. I guess I had more faith in the Historical Commission or the town Planning Department or even the Planning Board or the ZBA. Once you say it’s going to be settled in court then I can just see whoever has the most money having a better chance of winning.”
Brestrup replied, “I wanted to remind everybody of a case that happened a number of years ago. The Historical Commission decided a building wasn’t significant and the Building Commissioner issued a demolition permit and the building was taken down, and then a group of people in the neighborhood decided that they didn’t like the decision. Their only recourse was to appeal the decision of the Building Commissioner to take the building down, but it had already been demolished. The court is really the arena in which the Historical Commission can be argued and that’s why we felt this is better sent to the court.”
Council President Lynn Griesemer said that they really have three separate items at hand. The removal of the Demolition Delay Bylaws from the Zoning Bylaw, the enactment of a new general bylaw and the development of regulations for said bylaw which is how they explain to the public how things will work.
“My only question is ending one bylaw and passing another but not having regulations in place, what are we using until those regulations are in place as our guidance?” Griesemer asked.
“Because the bylaw is so flexible – if we adopt – the Historical Commission gets to decide when they designate and they could wait to make that designation to an individual for that until regulations are adopted,” answered Councilor At-Large and CRC Chair Mandi Jo Hanneke. “In the meantime, every application would then come to the whole Historical Commission In terms of our votes, since the bylaw is flexible, we don’t have to wait for regulations to be ready to go in order to do these votes.”
The topic shifted to Taub’s request of recommending parking restrictions on the east side of Lincoln Avenue during the academic year. Taub has received emails dating back to 2015 trying to get parking regulations on the street due to its heavy usage during the school year as a street connected to the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, a campus many students have complained about its lack of parking.
Lincoln Avenue is a two-way street that cars will park essentially bumper to bumper on all day long, and even overnight or for days at a time, according to Taub. Residents have said it causes traffic flow issues as there isn’t enough room on the street for cars going opposite ways to pass while cars are parked on the side. Taub said she has seen cars go past the curb line and block parts of driveways, blocking sightlines for residents backing out in the morning and making them go on their lawn to get out.
“That is why I’m requesting on behalf of I’d say everyone who lives on the street,” Taub said. “I get more emails about this than many other issues in town because it really is affecting people’s lives on a day-to-day basis as they can’t get in and out of their driveways.”
Hanneke said she didn’t support referral because the road is less-traveled now – this request first came before the council nine months ago – than it was in a prior study from the early 2000s. She added that the street is no longer a through street because it has been closed off at Massachusetts Avenue due to construction and may never re-open.
“They are constructing two new dorms on the 300 block of Lincoln that will bring 800 additional residents to the street,” Taub replied. “Yes, they have blocked it off to cars, but the issue in terms of the parking on the street, that has been closed for the last six months, it hasn’t changed one bit the volume of cars that park on the street because it’s open to pedestrian traffic. It was always the case of parking your car further south on Lincoln and walking down to campus, you can still do that. It hasn’t impeded pedestrian traffic at all.”
Fellow District 3 Councilor Dorothy Pam spoke in support of the referral, saying that the parking proposal was from the Department of Public Works.
“This is what they wanted,” Pam said. “We proposed many of the suggestions that are being brought forth today, such as the line painting and we were told they do not do that, lines wear out and they don’t do it. We brought up enforcement, I agree Mandi Jo, I think that would be very good but there was a statement that there wasn’t really the manpower to do that enforcement and it wasn’t likely. So, in terms of the workers who do the work of the town, their preference was to change the parking regulations.”
The referral passed with 10 in favor, Hanneke and District 2 Councilor Pat DeAngelis opposed, and an abstention from District 4 Councilor Anika Lopes.
The council later had a divided debate about District 4 Councilor Pam Rooney’s memo to create a Retention of Work Force and Family Housing Task Force. Rooney introduced the memo by saying a growing number of locals have expressed concern with the number of homes in the town being converted into student dwellings.
“I want to be very clear that this is not against the students, it is for the retention of housing that could in fact put a roof over a family or workforce folks that we say we really want in town,” Rooney said. “I am proposing a seven-member task force that I’m hoping will be referred to the CRC, the purpose of which is to implement several of the goals of the comprehensive housing policy and primarily to increase the supply and variety of affordable and market-rate rental housing and housing ownership by simply holding on to the existing stock of housing. Oftentimes when housing is built, it is either very high-end, built new by developers or subsidized housing that is available for affordable rates. There is very little in-between, and we have great pressure on our housing stock.”
Once again, Hanneke opposed the creation of the task force, saying it is “basically proposing to duplicate something that has already been referred to CRC.” She said the council has already sent the Comprehensive Housing Policy to the CRC and town manager for implementation.
“Then there’s the issue of finding candidates,” Hanneke said. “We as a council have done a horrible job of finding candidates to apply to the committees that we have to appoint. The Planning Board members, the ZBA members, the Finance Committee members. Of those three committees that we have appointment authority for per the charter, only one of them has received enough applications to be double the number of openings and that’s Finance Committee. If there’s a goal to remove student residents from those units and housing now in order to try and find a way to place families and other working members and residents in this community into those housing units, we have to find places to house those student residents or else we’re being irresponsible.”
Hanneke concluded by saying in order to solve the housing issue in Amherst, the town and council must be willing to change the town’s zoning to build more dense housing and residents to not oppose new housing construction.
“The University has grown by 10,000 students since the year 2000,” Rooney replied. “They can only house 13,000 of them on campus, I think UMass is at around 32,500 graduate and undergraduate students. I personally do not think that it is the responsibility of the Town of Amherst to house the 19,000 students that can’t be accommodated on campus. I feel really badly because it is the students who are suffering, they’re the ones who are forced to go further and further afield because this is a small town.”
Griesemer concluded the debate by saying her issue with the memo is how they would add this task force within the framework of the existing staff and its extensive demands already and how it would fit in with the fact that CRC already has the “referred, very thoughtful, very comprehensive Housing Policy that it is charged with looking at.” She said the council would seek additional feedback from councilors and the public at its next meeting on June 13.