2nd Time's The Charm?

 
 Former location 25 South Pleasant Street town center

Scandihoovians, a Northampton men's and woman's jewelry store, will make another attempt at carving out a successful niche in the vibrant -- but some would argue expensive -- downtown Amherst commercial district.

This time they are going to occupy the only commercial space in the sparkling new Boltwood Place five-story mixed use building with a great view, sandwiched between the Boldwood Parking Garage and Judie's Restaurant. The dozen luxury apartments are already fully occupied.

Scandihoovians briefly occupied the space next to Bank of America owned by artist and author Rich Michelson, who consolidated his Amherst gallery into the Northampton location five years ago.  

Last summer Silverscape Designs, an iconic Amherst jewelry store also consolidated by closing its longtime Amherst operation and merging with their downtown Northampton location.



New location coming soon to Amherst's coolest new downtown building

Render Unto Ceasar

Echo Village:  Under New Management (and ownership)

So I guess it should come as no surprise that the first thing Eagle Crest Management does with their recently acquired $3 million property is to raise the rents, thus forcing out most of the clientele in the 24 unit apartment complex, many of them low income, Section 8 tenants.

Quite the ecosystem at work:  Jamie Cherewatti buys the property, valued at $2.1 million, from Jerry Gates who is on the Board of Directors for Craig's Doors Homeless Shelter.  Good thing the Amherst Select Board recently ignored Town Manager John Musante's less than enthusiastic support and allowed the shelter to expand from 16 to 22 beds.

When he appeared before the Zoning Board of Appeals last April to testify in behalf of his successful request to double occupancy at 156 Sunset Avenue, Jamie Cherewatti said plaintively, "I don't want to be known as the slumlord of Amherst."

So maybe he plans to invest millions in the Echo Hill apartment units and rent to upscale blue bloods.  Or maybe not.  Perhaps he will just replace the current, sometime problematic clients, with his usual Modus Operandi, students.  

These days Cherewatti seems to be diversifying his property holdings using a variety of legal entities:  He moved Eagle Crest, his real estate management company, to above one of the more rowdy bars in downtown Amherst -- Stacker's -- after buying the building.   Plus ownership of a slew of expanded rentals all over town, as well as managing a number of units that have earned my prestigious,  'Party House of the Weekend' award

No matter what his final plans are for Echo Village Apartments it's clear the 24 units will no longer be considered "affordable" by state definition.  And when Amherst is already less than 1% above the threshold for the ultimate bogeyman, a Chapter 40B development coming to town, every single affordable unit matters.

This will be used by some landlords as ammunition to try to shoot down rental registration/permit system bylaw coming to Town Meeting this spring.  The argument will be that Amherst strangles developers in red tape so no one will want to build housing in town -- affordable or market rate -- thus increasing the likely hood of falling below the 10% threshold.

Of course after the Gateway Project was scuttled by NIMBYs, perhaps a 40-B development is the only way to make serious gains on our chronic rental housing shortage.

Election Snoozer

Stephanie O'Keeffe Select Board Chair (center), John Coull,her dad, Amherst Redevelopment Authority Chair (ducking), Jada Kelley (cute kid).  Back when elections were (sort of) exciting

With contests in only half the ten town meeting precincts and only one contest for town wide positions, no pocket book Override (fortunately) or Charter change of government (unfortunately) on the ballot, the April 9 annual spring town election promises to be about as exciting as watching snow melt.

When asked what she thought the voter turnout would be, Town Clerk Sandra Burgess responded succinctly: "low."

For the second election in a row, Select Board -- the highest political position in town -- incumbents Alisa Brewer and Jim Wald have no opposition, so their three year term renewal is guaranteed.  (A write in candidate has never beaten a candidate who appears on the ballot in the modern age.)

Moderator Harrison Gregg has retired his gavel after almost 20 years of service and his occasional pinch hitter over the years, Jim Pistrang, will have no opposition for the important position.

Amherst School Committee has two seats up for grabs and three candidates:  Richard Hood (incumbent), Kathleen Traphagen and Amherst College Professor Barry O'Connell.  None of them appear to be even remotely as forthright or controversial as former School Committee member Catherine Sanderson, so the campaign will be a genteel affair.

Some might even argue, boring. 

Although a dozen UMass students in the mix, including SGA President Akshay Kapoor,  could spice things up.  Or not.

 8 candidates for 8 seats (3 of them students)

Rental registration, with a concurrent permit system, will be the most contentious issue on the Town Meeting warrant.  For over a generation Amherst has struggled with too little housing and too many students resulting in high rents, substandard, dangerous slum houses, and distressed neighbors.

The Safe & Health Neighborhood working group will make a recommendation to the Town Manager on rental registration and permits.

Since it will be a General By Law change the measure will only require a majority vote at Town Meeting rather than the super-majority that is required for Zoning articles.

Town Meeting starts May 6.

Most competitive Precinct with 15 candidates for 8 three-year seats

Least competitive precinct (mine)

Always Competitive Precinct 7

 Competitive Precinct 9

 
Precinct 10

DUI Dishonor Roll

If texting while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving then what the Hell is Driving Under the Influence while texting? Staggering across a freshly laid mine field in military terms, except you are piloting a deadly weapon, so the probability of collateral damage is exponentially increased.

Yes it may have been very early in the AM when most responsible adults are home in bed, but do we really want to surrender the safe use of our streets after midnight?

After her car "crashed in a snowbank" around 3:00 AM early Friday morning on lower Main Street, and then failing a Field Sobriety Test, Amherst Police arrested Alexandra N. Jacobs, age 20, (a UMass student) for DUI, marked lanes violation and texting while driving.

Stuck!

Southwest Towers 2 of 5

With UMass Southwest high rise Towers now fifty years old, I guess it's not surprising they are having maintenance issues. And with the new Amherst Fire Department policy to respond to a stuck elevator whenever campus technicians are not on duty the runs to UMass are starting to add up.

Previously AFD would only respond if their were medical issues associated with folks trapped inside the elevator.

This past weekend over half the AFD Fire runs to UMass were for "stuck elevators" (4 out of 7 calls).  And half our ambulance EMS runs (7 of 14) were for ETOH cases (alcohol overdose).

But I'm more than certain that is better than a real fire w-a-y up there on the 22nd floor.

   AFD Weekend Runs mid Feb 2013 by   Larry Kelley

Click top line title  for a better view

Party Permit?

Meadow Street Mayhem last Spring

The Safe & Healthy Neighborhood working group is furiously formulating a rental registration and permitting system bylaw for approval at the Annual Spring Town Meeting, to deal with that age old blight on Amherst residential neighborhoods -- the Party House. 

One of the other ideas being worked on (hopefully not too hard)  is a joint effort of the town and UMass to have students pre-register off campus parties.  Presumably if a party gets out of hand, the police will be a tad more accommodating because at least the party hosts had registered the event.

But if police are called to the atypical rowdy party going full blast and the hosts have not registered the event, then police will be a little harder on the perpetrators, and have one more charge to add to the roster. 

The latter will of course be the norm.
 
Some states have tried to "tax" illegal marijuana over the years by requiring dealers to pre purchase "tax stamps" for their contraband.  If cops bust a dealer without the stamps then officials can seize their personal property, or something like that.

It doesn't work very well.  Amazingly.

Kind of like trying to keep guns out of the hands of pernicious perps. Whatever rules you impose on the vast majority of law abiding citizens will be ignored by the wackos or hard core criminals.

And it only takes one of them to do astounding damage.

With "party registrations" Chief Livingstone recently told the Amherst Zoning Board, "I'm guessing we're heading in that direction".  But he was quick to add it should be overseen by the Dean of Students office because he didn't think the students would voluntarily come to the Amherst Police Department to register their event.

Safe bet.

 Sober Shuttle for one 2/17 1:22 AM

Perhaps a reason why the 'Sober Shuttle' in downtown Amherst seems to be having a hard time attracting a whole lot of student ridership:  the presence of a uniformed UMPD officer.

Early Sunday morning the 1:20 AM shuttle had only one rider and the 2:00 AM shuttle, if it did show up, would have had zero. 

Party House Primer

Chief Livingstone

 
Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone paid a visit to the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals on Tuesday to educate them about "Nuisance House" enforcement -- an important component of Town Manager John Musante's Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods initiative.

First off the Chief dispelled the myth that police officers drive around in their patrol cars looking for parties.  "We need to have to have a complainant, a valid complainant to dispatch an officer to a disturbance".

Usually easy to find in the form of a neighbor losing the peaceful enjoyment of their home.

The Chief reports that APD responds to between 900 and 1,200 quality of life (noise/nuisance) complaints annually, with only a minority resulting in action by the responding officers, i.e. a $300 ticket or arrest for TBL violation (Town By Law).

But that percentage is going up:  In the most recent year about 20% of the overall responses resulted in tickets or arrests, whereas the previous year it was only 14%. 

A lot depends on "cooperation at the door".  Meaning when officers first arrive do the responsible tenants comply with requests to tone down the rowdy behavior.  If not, and other infractions besides noise -- underage drinking, large crowds, haphazard parking of cars, littering -- are disrupting the neighborhood, then "Nuisance House" tickets are issued,  or arrests made. 

The Zoning Board of Appeals is considering tying a Special Permit (to expand the rental capacity of a house, almost always made by an absentee landlord) to "conditions" that must be met in an ongoing way.

And becoming a "nuisance house" would violate a condition, and bring with it the loss of that Special Permit.

The house would then revert back to the original capacity of only 4 unrelated tenants, a major loss of rental revenue.

Amherst building commissioner Rob Morra recently won a major victory defending the town's no more than  4 unrelated tenants in a one family dwelling bylaw.  Prominent landlord Grandonico Properties, LLC packed students into rental property on Hobart Lane, including illegally converting substandard basements into bedrooms and then tried to blame it on the student occupants.

Simply fining the noisy party house participants has not solved the problem.  Chief Livingstone stated no landlord has been fined yet since it takes a third nuisance house ticket to trip that regulation, but he declared confidently "It's going to happen this Spring."

Currently two locations on Phillips Street have two nuisance house tickets each.

Phillips Street

A dozen years ago when Amherst led the charge on banning smoking in the workplace, including bars, fines alone (issued to the bar, not the patron) had minimal impact.  Only when faced with loss of their liquor license did barowners learn the value of compliance.

Revoke a Special Permit from a slumlord for too many noise violations, thereby instantly cutting their revenues in half, and that party house will quickly go quiet.  One way or the other ...