Town Hall Showdown

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign ...

On Wednesday night the Amherst Planning Board will be the first official town body to weigh in on the possible acquisition of 154 acres of sub prime woodland in northeast Amherst currently owned by W.D. Cowls, Inc, the largest private landowner in the state.

The property is enrolled in the state's Chapter 61A conservation program so it pays very little to the town in property taxes, but Amherst gets a "Right Of First Refusal" should the property come out of CH61A due to a sale.  In this case to a developer.  A b-i-g one, Landmark Properties.
 
By now any of you living within the Happy Valley nuclear fallout zone have noticed the ubiquitous red stop signs sprinkled on lawns everywhere.  The Retreat is what they wish to stop, a 190 unit student cottage style housing development proposed for the 154 acre parcel.

Although ideally, with a zoning change allowing denser development, only 30% of the property will be used; but as it now stands twice that percentage would be required ... and is allowed by right.

If built, the town assessor has guestimated The Retreat will pay the town $395,182 per year in annual property taxes with a guaranteed increase every year of 2.5%.

NIMBYs were already unceremoniously torpedoed at Amherst Town Meeting when they tried to have the town take the property by eminent domain, a drastic measure requiring a two-thirds super majority.  The "Motion to Dismiss" the article passed easily. 

Both the Planning Board and Conservation Commission are required to make a "recommendation" to the five-member Amherst Select Board, the final authority on deciding the Right Of First Refusal.

Late this afternoon the Town Attorney confirmed to the Select Board that the $6.5 million purchase and sale agreement for the property was legitimate.

Thus the ROFR will be a costly one, as the $6.5 million required to match Landmark Properties offer is more than the combined reserves the town has saved in Free Cash and Stabilization funds.

The Select Board vote (July 29th meeting) only requires a simple majority, but Town Meeting would also have to support funding the move with a two-thirds majority vote. 

Wednesday night's meeting sets the stage for a (remotely) possible epic failure.  Any member of the Planning Board who recommends this taking should be forced to write on a chalkboard 6.5 million times:  "America was founded on Free Enterprise."

Water, Water Everywhere

 

The town has issued a breaking news alert, unusual in that it really is breaking news, warning of bad things found in Amherst water.  No they have not issued a "boil water" alert, and the problem seems to be isolated to a small section of the system in the southern end of town.

DPW Chief Guilford Mooring confirms, "The heat (weather) is a factor and we will probably have to chlorinate the south side of Town for a while."  But he also pointed out reassuringly, "We had very low counts of total coliform colonies in the failed samples."

Back in late October, 2010 the public water tested worse than this time around and the town came within a drop of declaring a "boil water" alert.  At the time UMass was hosting a pair of sold out Phish concerts at the Mullins Center.

The town fired up its Emergency Operations Command to deal with the potential crisis, but follow up tests showed the problem went away.

DUI Dishonor Roll

 South Pleasant Street, Amherst

I sense a pattern with a lot of the DUI arrests made by Amherst Police:  the perp usually draws attention by failing to perform routine driving tasks in a routine manner:  forgetting to signal a turn or turn on headlights, driving too fast or too slow or, of course, crashing into another vehicle.

The latter is the one I'm most concerned with.  Especially in this case, as April Lachapelle was bagged a few hundred yards from my house on one of the most well-traveled roads in Amherst.

7/13 Saturday morning (1:17 AM) 365 South Pleasant Street near golf course (also known as Rt 116)

Final Curtain

 316 College Street, Amherst

After 28 years serving families of Amherst and surrounding towns, the New England Dance Quarters on College Street is no more.

Summers are always tough in Amherst, a "college town" where almost half the population abandons ship by June 1st.

And this time of year is especial tough on high-energy fitness related businesses as most folks do not want to be indoors dancing up a storm on a gorgeous summer day.

I also have to wonder if the declining target demographic -- young families with children -- isn't also a major factor:

According to the Amherst Housing Production Plan, "Young families are rapidly declining as adults age 25 to 44 decreased from 7,323 in 1990 to 4,009 in 2010 a drop of 45.3%. The widening affordability gap will continue to present a substantial obstacle to young families being able to live in Amherst."

Meanwhile, two doors down:

Come A Little Bit Closer

 Lavina and Emily Dickinson:  still together

Fans of our most famous town resident -- "The Belle Of Amherst" -- can now get even closer to the rock star of a poetess.  The ornate black iron fence that enclosed the Dickinson family burial plot for 155 years has disappeared.

 Miss Emily receiving visitors early this evening

No, not stolen.  Amherst Town Meeting appropriated $62,000 in Community Preservation funds to have the fence refurbished, so it had to be carefully dismantled and taken off site.

And when it returns it will be good for another 155 years -- as will Miss Emily's poetry. 

Only the footings remain

Crime Analyst Renewed

 Amherst Police Department, 111 Main Street

The U.S. military relies on "smart bombs" to effectively fulfill their number one role of keeping Americans safe.

While not as dramatic as a computer/laser guided Tomahawk missile taking out an enemy bunker,  the nondescript office adjacent to Amherst police Chief Scott Livingstone will continue to host key civilian employee Amber Sullivan, thanks to another grant provided the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety & Security.

Last year after an extensive search Sullivan was hired to make sense out of a mountain of data concerning criminal activity in our little town, which has its share of big city problems.

The more you understand the who, what, when, where, and why of crime the more effectively you can marshal scarce resources to better deal with it.

The Amherst Police Department is nothing if not skilled at acquiring state and federal grants:  In FY 2013 (ended June 30) the department bolstered their a $4.3 million operation budget with an additional $362,250 in grants.

$41,250 by Executive Office of Public Safety & Security for Crime Analyst

$5,000 by EOPSS for Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety
$10,000 by EOPSS for Alcohol Enforcement initiatives
$6,000 by EOPSS for Highway Safety Initiatives

$300,000 by Department Of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women, for funding civilian advocate and an domestic violence/sexual assault investigator (expires 09/13/15)

Housing Study Preliminarliy Panned

 

Amherst Housing & Sheltering Committee this morning

The Amherst Housing & Sheltering Committee voted unanimously this morning to send a borderline inflammatory dispatch to RKG Associates, consultants working on a "Market Study Report."

The lead author of the remarks, John Hornik, even went so far as to raise the nuclear option of not accepting the final report if problems are not adequately addressed.

The $30,000 housing market study was approved by Amherst Town Meeting, but not without a fair amount of criticism along the lines of Amherst does too many studies and never seems to follow up on their recommendations.

The initial draft report was presented last month at a public meeting and as part of the contract  the consultants are required to appear at one more public hearing, probably late next month, before issuing the final report. 

Housing and Sheltering Committee members pointed out the consultants used the term "Pioneer Counties" as opposed to "Pioneer Valley," making it seem like they are unfamiliar with Amherst; and they use industry jargon like "Main Street USA", "exurbanites" or "laptops and lattes" which will turn off local readers unfamiliar with the trendy terms.

Committee Co-Chair Greg Stutsman thought the consultants were confusing "demand with desirability."  Obviously in a "college town" high demand for student housing is a given.  What the committee would like to see is a plan for attracting a more "desirable" demographic (in addition to students) with recommendations as to how to make that happen.

Town planner and liaison to the sheltering committee Nate Malloy agreed they "Can drive the report by asking the consultants to give recommendations for particular demographics." 

Ideally the consultants would come up with both a zoning and physical design blueprint that allows for a high-density development accommodating students, families, low-and-moderate income levels, as well as town employees.

Of course even if the consultants conjure up this Utopian design, it would require the exceedingly hard to acquire two-thirds majority vote of Amherst Town Meeting.

Maybe they can also recommend a good Voodoo priest.