Wednesday, July 17, 2013

The Retreat Charges Forward



The influential Planning Board voted 8-1 to advise the Amherst Select Board NOT to invoke a Right Of First Refusal on the 154 acres of woodland in northeast Amherst currently under a $6.5 million contract to become a gated student community known as "The Retreat."

Planning Board Chair David Webber summed it up succinctly:  "The price ($6.5 million) is too high."

About two dozen neighbors impacted by the development turned out to voice their displeasure with the project, including the usual worries over noise, traffic and vandalism.  But it's not like a casino is on the drawing board.

The Retreat will house 700 students on 154 acres, generating about 1,000 car trips per day vs Mohegan Sun's proposed casino in Palmer on 150 acres, generating 20,000 visitors and 10,000 cars per day.

Most of the 1.5 hours of testimony was wasted with long winded complaints about procedure.



 Jack Hirsch wants a "cost benefit analysis"

Under Ch61 the town has 120 days to decide to invoke its Right Of First Refusal, but the clock only starts ticking when a "bona fied" offer has been made.

 Assistant Town Manager Dave Ziomek:  "Property is not a high priority for the town."

Landmark Properties contract with W.D. Cowls, Inc was first submitted in March but the town rejected it as not bona fide, due to an easy escape clause.

The second contract was tendered on April 23 and was also initially rejected but after months of haggling the Town Attorney agreed on Monday that it was legitimate.  Therefor the 120 days is retroactive to April 23, or a drop dead deadline of August 21.

 Vince O'Connor:  Town Attorney should be "terminated" for taking too long reviewing contract

Either way the Select Board set their July 29 meeting as the day of reckoning and asked for the advice of the Planning Board and the Conservation Commission, who will take up the discussion next week.

 W.D. Cowls President Cinda Jones:  Gets paid $6.5 million one way or the other

Planning Board member Connie Kruger pointed out the town has a "significant need for student housing" and that the number one cost to the town for servicing new housing is children in the public schools -- which for this project will be zero.
Amherst Planning Board:  David Webber Chair (center) voted yes, Sandra Anderson (far right) only dissenting vote

The Retreat is a double win for the town: providing badly needed housing for a never ending supply of students coming to UMass/Amherst, while generating hundreds of thousands in annual property tax revenues.

Hiding In Plain Sight


Amherst Town Meeting Bus Tour under fire 

A "whistleblower" Amherst resident has filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the Attorney General over the Town Meeting Bus Tour, where members go on site visits to places around town impacted by articles on the upcoming Town Meeting warrant.

Fair enough.  A good reporter should wear out a lot of shoes canvasing the scene of a story.  But in this case the complaint is not that a secret meeting took place -- after all the bus tour is widely promoted -- but that documents distributed on the tour were not placed into the public record.

And by the sounds of it, the documents in question were a tad fudged.  Maybe that's why they suddenly disappeared. 

The Town Meeting Coordinating Committee is taking up discussion of this later this afternoon as the Open Meeting Law requires the offending committee must be allowed to respond first.  If the complainant doesn't like their response he can then retake it up with the Attorney General.

Interestingly Town Meeting is exempt from many Open Meeting Law regulations -- conflict of interest being a major one.  The town meeting discussion list serve, privately owned by member Mary Streeter (who is also vice chair of the Town Meeting Coordinating Committee), is another good example.

It would be a gross violation of the OML if a majority of the Amherst Select Board engaged in discussions via email about any issue coming before them.

Yet the Amherst Town Meeting list serve was specifically created to do exactly that, and as of today has 208 members, W-A-Y beyond a quorum (128).

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Weeds Grow In South Amherst


The two roundabouts at Atkins Corner are already going to seed.  Hey, what do you expect for a lousy $6 million.


The property is still in that netherworld where the contractor -- Baltazar Contractors Inc -- is finishing up a "punch list" of final details before the state Department Of Transportation accepts the work and then turns over responsibility of the turf to the town.

I'm told town officials are hoping Atkins Country Market and Hampshire College "adopt" the islands of green space.  After all, it is their front yard.


Monday, July 15, 2013

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: