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Date: 10/5/2021
AMHERST – The Amherst Town Council met on Sept. 27 to host a primer and public forum to discuss and review the town’s new Master Plan.
The Master Plan, which was originally adopted by the Planning Board in 2010 and later adopted through a November 2020 vote by the Town Council, is the community’s general “blueprint” for its future. The plan serves as a guide in regulatory changes, land use policies, budget decisions, and other community decisions for about the next decade. In addition to public input, the new town plan was also based on research on the community’s existing conditions and anticipated trends for the future.
According to the town of Amherst website, “This plan – the first in Amherst in nearly 40 years – was based on extensive public input in the form of community forums, working groups, targeted outreach, and a number of community surveys … The Master Plan represents Amherst’s best effort to balance competing interests of a truly diverse population and address the complex and intertwined issues that will be facing the community over the next decade and beyond.”
Planning Director Christine Brestrup began the Sept. 27 meeting with a short presentation of the Amherst Master Plan and stressed the differences in the town’s plan and zoning laws.
“The Master Plan is not the same as zoning, although it often is confused with zoning. A Master Plan doesn’t tell us how wide the sidewalks should be, or how high the buildings should be in the downtown, and it doesn’t tell us what style of architecture should prevail or what the streetscape should look like,” Brestrup said.
With more general rules to follow throughout the plan, there are still concrete objectives in place for various parts of the plan. For land use, focus is on preserving key underdeveloped lands and key farmlands in Amherst, while also guiding new housing growth in a way that minimizes impact on open space and the small-town rural character of the area.
For demographics and housing, the plan hopes to encourage a greater mix of housing types, sizes, and prices serving a wider range of income levels, while also preserving and expanding the number of affordable rental units and housing stock. Being able to continue developing housing for the growing middle class seems to be a key part of the housing side of the plan.
“Land is very expensive in Amherst and sometimes it’s hard to provide that middle range of housing. We’ve been pretty successful at providing upper ranges of housing, and some housing that’s available to people of lower income, but the middle range is not easily as developed,” Brestrup said.
This part of the plan should continue work the town of Amherst has already been doing, such as the new affordable housing on Olympia Oaks housing development, and Main Street housing. Both locations provide affordable living from the town and are examples of the type of living arrangements wanted while the town grows over the multi-year plan.
When the floor was opened to the public for comment, a few residents posed questions about the Master Plan. With so much detailed in the plan, making sure everything is organized and managed was important to one woman who raised the issue of knowing how different zoning amendments will impact others.
“I get concerned that these are being sort of dealt with one at a time, and they have ramifications for each other,” said local resident Suzannah Muspratt in the forum. “We can’t always see how they’re going to affect one another because we don’t know what’s coming up.”
Another resident asked for more information about the Master Plan’s details on how to better merge areas of Amherst with locals and University of Massachusetts (UMass) student housing.
“Does the Master Plan say anything about housing of UMass students off campus, and how the town should envision handling the growth, the need for more and more housing for UMass students?” asked Kitty Axelson-Berry.
“The Master Plan talks about the need for dialogue between the town and UMass and that’s certainly one of the topics that would be brought up in a dialogue,” Brestrup responded. “It doesn’t specifically talk to the need for UMass to house more of their students on their campus. The Master Plan is really an outline of what the town is going to do, or what the town can do. So, the town can talk to UMass but the town doesn’t have control over UMass. All we have is the charm of persuasion I guess, but it does talk about that dialogue.”
Overall, the Town Council expressed how the current adaptation of the town’s plan aims to improve the overall quality of life for residents. Soon enough it will be time to start working toward another plan, as the Amherst Home Rule Charter requires the adoption of a new Master Plan by Town Council every 20 years, and 2030 is the current target date for the next Master Plan. For now, focus remains on working through the current plan and making it come to life for the town of Amherst.