Downtown Deja Vu

Winter, 2011

Boltwood Place, a mixed use $4 million showcase, immediately behind Judie's restaurant and just in front of the Boltwood Walk Parking Garage is a downtown dream project about to come true for co-developer David Williams (who is also co-owner of that iconic restaurant.)

A dream that started over twenty five years ago with Amity Place, an ambitious $3.5 million dollar development only a stone's throw away, that failed in 1983 to garner the required two-thirds vote of Town Meeting necessary for a zoning change.

Williams, an architect, had assurances of a $1.4 million federal Urban Development Action Grant for a multi-level parking garage that would be blocked from view on Amity Street by upscale retail/office space and screened along the side by the Amherst Cinema and on South Prospect Street by eight plush condominiums--thus a forerunner of "mixed use," the current hot template for Amherst development.

So when Mr. Williams, a long-time Amherst resident, is quoted in the Springfield Republican saying, "We got so much good cooperation. This town has really changed," he is the quintessential voice of experience.

Gateway Project supporters hope these positive winds of change continue to blow...

Amity Place would have occupied the town owned metered parking lot and what is now Peoples Bank flush with the Amherst Cinema

Sign of confidence?

Landlord Barry Roberts must be fairly sure the Amherst Brewing Company will get Zoning Board of Appeals approval at next week's hearing (even with Hilda Greenbaum Chairing) for a move into the former Leading Edge Gym location on University Drive a mile down the road; or--like the smart businessman he is--just hedging his bet.

Tighten the noose on rowdy student behavior

The Municipal Strategies Subcommittee of the Campus and Community Coalition has come up with a commons sense recommendation, first floated by Amherst authorities years ago, to continue putting pressure on off-campus student misbehavior.

Yes, the same folks who brought us the fine increase to $300 for alcohol violations and nuisance house bylaws to hurt party hardy types where it hurts the most--their bank account--now contemplates asking the University to extend the "Code of Student Conduct" to apply equally to off-campus shenanigans.

As they rightfully point out, "It is the behavior, rather than the location, that is rightfully the University's concern, and that should be reflected in its disciplinary system."

A few years back UMass banned an admitted rapist--a violation of the Code of Student Conduct-- from living on campus thus sending him off to the town of Amherst, kind of like the Catholic church's long ago habit of relocating pedophile priests to some other unsuspecting congregation.

Let's hope the University also treats the fines accumulated by students for the off-campus parties and alcohol violations in the town the same way they do parking tickets on campus: In order to receive a diploma at graduation outstanding balances must be paid in full.

Free speech for all--even wackos

The Supreme Court, not surprisingly, ruled 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church to spread vile, hateful, exceedingly painful messages by capitalizing on the tragic deaths of our military personnel, using solemn funerals to promote their obnoxious agenda in the same way perverts post disgusting graffiti on public bathroom stalls.

But the true measure of a great country is not by speech we cheerfully allow, it is by that infinitesimally tiny minority--where we need to hold our nose and then later take a shower for having heard or seen it.

ARA hires ACP for Gateway Corridor visioning

The Amherst Redevelopment Authority, lead agency in the ambitious Gateway reconstruction project connecting downtown Amherst to UMass, unanimously (5-0) choose ACP associates to lead the charge and orchestrate the "public visioning process"--a massive outreach to everyone concerned about the future of Amherst and our flagship institution of higher education.

ACP has extensive experience with the unique process of acquiring and curating public input to bring about consensus, especially difficult in Amherst ("where only the H is silent"); they have also successfully consulted on the arduous multi-year process for adoption of a new Amherst "Master Plan," the first major planning revision in 40 years.

They emphasized to the ARA how a major project like Gateway needs to be visionary, grounded in reality, supported by the community and--perhaps most important--implementable.

Select Board Supports Gateway

Last night the venerable Amherst Select Board unanimously passed (with one abstention) an advisory resolution supporting the "public process" about to commence with the Gateway Corridor Project, a unique coalition of three significant public entities: UMass, the town and the Amherst Redevelopment Authority.

(Aaron Hayden abstained on the supportive vote as he is also a member of the ARA.)

While this may appear at first glance a common sense, non-controversial edict, the subtle purpose was to offset a petition delivered to the Select Board last December decrying the broad nature of the public input process and demanding a series of public meetings focusing on the misperception that Gateway is simply a means to "adding a substantial number of undergraduates to old Frat Row."

The ARA meets this evening to choose a consultant (estimated cost $30,000 in state money) to lead the "visioning process" over the next four months. Let the wider public input begin.

Party house of the weekend: Girls gone wild

19 Farview Way

After Amherst Police broke up a large party at 902 East Pleasant Street by clearing the house of loud partygoers and issuing one $300 ticket about twenty of the revelers decided to pile into 2 or 3 taxi cabs and descend on another party house, this one a at 19 Farview Way, where a neighbor had already lodged a noise complaint.

At this point the neighbor plaintively reports: "The music is getting so loud that two of her children got out of their beds and crawled into hers." Police issued $300 ticket's to all five young ladies ($1,500 total) who rent the "single-family" abode.