A Safer Healthier Amherst

Stephanie O'Keeffe, Select Board Chair and strong proponent  of Rental Permit Bylaw

While it was unseasonably hot outside the Amherst Regional Middle School, the auditorium where Amherst Town Meeting convenes was even hotter as the issue of the decade, perhaps a generation, Rental Registration Property Bylaw (permit system) came to a final head.

The vote was overwhelmingly in favor, sounding like a clear two thirds majority. So decisive in fact that no one thought to call for a Tally Vote, since the measure only required a simply majority. 

With unanimous support of the Planning Board, Finance Committee, Select Board and Town Manager and more than a majority of speakers who addressed the issue from the floor, the discussion carried on for just over two hours.  A motion to refer back to the Select Board made by Town Meeting member and landlord Richard Gold failed miserably.

Landlord, lawyer and town officials wait in front row for possible call to speak

Another motion offered by Coalition of Amherst Neighborhoods to exempt owner occupied units from the new regulation also failed by a tally vote of 116-74.

Speakers against the ordinance cited costs ($100/year), constitutional issues (unreasonable search by town inspectors), and suggested Amherst is already known state wide for being over regulated.

But common sense won the day, by a very wide margin.  Not something you see all that often on the floor of Amherst Town Meeting. 

Now of course, the lawsuits begin.

Neighborhood Nuisance?

621 East Pleasant Street, aka "Babetown"

 Can you imagine living next door to a professional Party House, err ... I mean "Art House," that lives to play live music and occasionally skateboard on their half pipe in the back yard? 

"Hot Messy Sex".  Sorry I missed that one

These Bad Boys don't seem to get it.  A residential neighborhood is not zoned for an underground music venue.  Take a bow and get the Hell off the stage.  Or ... fade to black, dude.

Good question!

   Babetown Citations.  Nuisance House

May have to increase cover charge to cover all the tickets

Truth In Advertising

 Atkins Water Treatment Plant, Market Hill Road, Historic Cushman neighborhood

The YouTube video NIMBYs published trying to rally the masses against a private land deal in northeast Amherst is loaded with misinformation.



If they were a business and Amherst Town Meeting does follow their suggestion to steal property development rights via heavy handed eminent domain taking, they would be easy pickings for a lawsuit under Mass General Law 93A (Consumer Protection) for false advertising,  which allows for triple damages.

That of course would be on top of the $6.5 million total Amherst would eventually have to come up with to fulfill the "highest and best use" reimbursement provision for a hostile land taking.

Amherst, the #4 property owner in town,  already owns or permanently protects 27% of its land mass.  And when you factor in the other BIG THREE tax exempt landowners -- Amherst College, UMass and Hampshire College respectively -- a little over 50% of all land in town is tax exempt.

Cowls 154 acre tree farm off Henry Street is hardly "North Amherst's last remaining contiguous woodland."    In fact, Cowls owns 600 acres of forest in North Amherst and this particular tract has the least desirable ranking on the town's master list for land to be conserved.

Click to enlarge

 Salamander Tunnels only "priority area" in the entire parcel

Yes the Salamander Crossing is a beloved icon, a symbol of the town's respect for conservation and saving critters both great and small.  Which is exactly why Landmark Properties has promised to protect the crossing and move the main entry way for the development away from Henry Street over to Market Hill Road, where the non-historic Water Treatment Plant sits on the side a a rocky outcropping.

 Click to enlarge/read

Landmark Properties handout for Town Meeting

Cowls sold that land to the town for the treatment plant and as part of the deal the town installed infrastructure for a future development exactly like "The Retreat."

Perhaps the biggest mistruth is the absurd assertion that the development "Will threaten the Atkins Reservoir."  The land has town water/sewer!   Unlike a lot of the houses on Flat Hills Road and Shutesbury Road that have sprouted "Stop The Retreat" red signs like worms on a lawn after a summer drizzle.

Chairman Mao, err, I mean the narrator asks, "Shouldn’t all in Amherst be involved in deciding how to use this land?"  Well, no.  It's private land and this is not the People's Republic of China.

So no, No, NO!  You do not have a right to be "involved," if that involvement means stealing the property by eminent domain. 

Those Who Fail To Learn ...

 Ghosts of Christmas yet to come?

"Whereas:  There currently is a severe shortage of rental housing in the Town of Amherst, which shortage has been caused in part by the rapid increase in the population of the Town since 1970 resulting from its desirability as a place to live ...

Where have you heard that preamble before?  The controversial Town Meeting warrant article continues:

"This severe shortage of rental housing has led to a serious public emergency with respect to the rental housing available to a substantial number of citizens of the Town, which emergency is causing a serious threat to the public health, safety and general welfare of the citizens of the Town."

Selected excerpts from Article #29, Rental Registration Bylaw coning up Monday night?  No.  Article #64, Rent Control Act.  Narrowly defeated by only five votes, 116 to 111.  Monday, May 16, 1983.

Yes, THIRTY YEARS AGO.

Today's landlords should consider themselves lucky that Article #29 is so light on the touch, simply ensuring that minimum common sense health and safety codes are routinely enforced for the good of tenants and the neighborhood.

The only landlords being "punished" are the ones who deserve it!

Of course should Article #29 fail tomorrow night -- and I'm confident it will not -- a fallback article comes up on Wednesday (Article #38), a similar version of Rental Registration Permit system with the main difference being owner occupied units -- whether the rental aspect is an "accessory use" or primary use --  will be exempt from the regulations.

Architects of that less restrictive article also plan to amend #29 with that wording.  

Because  most of the problems of rowdy student behavior emanate from (absentee) non owner occupied rentals, it is tempting to support #38 over the more restrictive #29.

Although the Safe & Health Working Group intended for the General Bylaw to cover all rentals, a serendipitous mistake between revisions does exclude room rentals for up to 6 tenants in owner occupied units. 

And those mom-and-pop landlords who are also town meeting members are now far more likely to support Article #29, the original bylaw created by the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Working Group, already approved by the Town Manager, and unanimously supported by the Select Board, Planning Board and Finance Committee.

Tune in Monday night as Amherst Town Meeting takes another bite at the 30-year-old apple.  This time the majority will get it right!

Back story told in emails

This One's For You

Edith Wilkinson 1927-2013

Thirty years ago my maiden speech to illustrious Amherst Town Meeting almost didn't happen.  I had taken the easy route to petition my government for grievances by collecting the ten signatures required to file a warrant article for the Annual Spring Town Meeting held in what was then called the "Junior High School."

My article requested town meeting "advise" the recreation department to stop unfairly competing against my karate school, Hampshire Gymnastics and the Amherst Ballet Center, the latter two businesses owned individuals who were also homeowners:  Thus their property tax payments (a burden even back then) were being used against them by competition on an unlevel playing field.

But when I checked in with moderator Bill Field he asked if I was a town meeting member, as only a town meeting member could move a motion.  Uh-oh.

A long-time, well-know Town Meeting member was standing directly behind me waiting to talk to the Moderator so I turned to him and asked if he would simply move my motion.  He shook his head side to side. Vigorously.

I retreated to the front row of the auditorium and asked another Town Meeting member that I recognized and she responded, "Absolutely not."  By now the august body was getting very close to reaching a quorum and opening for business -- err, I mean discussion -- so I started to panic.

Edith Wilkinson was Chair of the Select Board at the time and from her position at the head table had witnessed my two exchanges and the now panicked look on my face.    She came over and said, "What's wrong Mr. Kelley?"   After I briefly explained she said, "I will not support it, but I will move your motion."

Then she smiled and said "That's exactly what Town Meeting is all about."  Or as we say in journo school, "give voice to the voiceless."

I still remember the blank stare from the masses when I used the term "tax exempt entities" for government programs that consume tax money while for-profit business (a dirty word in Amherst 30 years ago) generate tax revenues.  Naturally my article was defeated overwhelmingly. 

Still ... if all Amherst Town Meeting members were as gracious and fair minded as Edie Wilkinson, maybe I would have been a lot less strident in my criticisms of the ancient institution over the past thirty years.  Maybe. 

Getting A Jump On Crime

APD bike patrol practicing stair climbing Friday morning

Formation ride near Amherst Regional High School Thursday night (photo by Tom Porter)

Got Him!

According to now confirmed scanner reports Amherst police bagged a perp, local resident Peter Jeffs, age 51, red handed around 2:30 p.m. on West Bay Road near the Eric Carle Museum driving a van loaded with stolen goods from a series of break-ins over the past week, some of them daring daylight deeds.

The suspect was arrested by Amherst police but turned over to Southwick PD based on probable cause in their jurisdiction.  APD will issue a statement early next week.  Stay tuned.

As many as a half dozen break ins, some where locked doors were kicked in, recently occurred all over Amherst as well as nearby Hadley, and not so nearby Southwick.

WGGB Ch TV reports (with great photos)

 Peter Jeffs, alleged scumbag

There is still much work to do building the case, but still good to know a brash thief has been taken off our streets.