Ah yes, that brief period when Amherst town center is transformed back to a simpler time, before the University became a bustling big city -- bringing our small town with it.
When you could leave your doors unlocked at night, buy a hammer in the downtown, or when most families in town had milk delivered to their front porch.
So while the addition to the overgrown front yard is kind of cute -- after all, who does not like bear statues? -- I would guess it's the Bad Boys of BabeTown symbolically extending the middle finger to the town after recent repeated $100 citations for parking on the lawn.
In 2010, 211 children were killed in drunk driving crashes
How can you tell UMass is no longer in session? Zero party house arrests or citations over the weekend.
How can you tell drunk driving is not predominantly a student issue? Four-out-of-five of this weekend's Dishonor Roll winners (and yes I still consider "thirsty Thursday" start of the weekend) are NOT students ... although two are UMass staff, not setting a very good example for students.
Although the one student among them, Chiara Rose Raponi, did distinguish and draw attention to herself by crashing her car with two occupants on board.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
"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!
