Urban Renewal

North end of town center looking towards ever present UMass.  Kendrick Place back right

The long neglected north end of Amherst town center is making up for lost time. 

 Governor Patrick, Kendrick Park 10/21/14 (Kendrick Place developers behind him)

Back on October 21st new Senate President Stan Rosenberg and the outgoing Governor Patrick came calling to announce a $1.5 million MassWorks grant to bury unsightly utilities lines along East Pleasant/Triangle Street corridor.  Now town officials are requesting Town Meeting approve $100,000 for additional "streetscape improvements."

Jonathan Tucker bottom right presents to the JCPC

Planning Director Jonathan Tucker told the Joint Capital Planning Committee this morning the MassWorks grant did nothing for street level improvements, so this $100K request would add  lighting, trash receptacles, benches, bike racks, trees, etc.

The impacted area includes Kendrick Park which has been awaiting a multi-million dollar renovation for a few years now. 

This request is sure to fire up NIMBYs who are still peeved about the Kendrick Place development (rear of top photo slightly to right) and the recently approved One East Pleasant Street mixed use project, both of which will bring significant numbers of residents to live in the downtown. 

Hence the need for basic window dressing. 

Troll Food

Although I'm sure my Cowardly Anon Nitwit does not wear a suit and tie

As of this moment I have published 44,842 comments spread out over 3,417 published posts over the past (almost) eight years.  I'm guessing that represents about a 99% publish rate even though I would also guess I disagreed with over 50% of those published.

The 1% I did not publish were beyond nasty, potentially libelous, or threatening to my family.

The first three years of operation I did not "moderate" comments so anyone could publish anything at anytime.  I could of course delete them if needed and can only remember maybe one or two times doing that.

But I can tell you I would lose sleep worrying someone would publish something wildly inappropriate moments after I went to bed, so the comment would stay up until the next morning. 

When someone hits the publish button on a comment I instantly get an email at my main AOL account showing the comment, and from within that email I can either publish, delete, or mark it as spam (which sends it to a folder for posterity sake).

So it takes only seconds per comment.  Yes I do (sort of) try to read comments -- unless I'm driving -- to make sure they are not libelous or threatening, but do so v-e-r-y quickly. 

I would like to think my readers come here for the main articles but I will also admit the ones that attract the highest page views are also the ones that generate the most comments.  So I'm sure people do come back just to read or make follow up comments, thus increasing overall page views.

Trolls are the bane of any Internet community.  The best way to deal with them is to simply ignore them and hope they go away.

Like this guy:

   Hot Dog Troll

Now I will go back to ignoring him.  Well, after the 2 or 3 seconds it takes to dispose of each comment

Hold Your Horses

First laid out in 1912, Shumway Street is going to have to wait another year for a total renovation -- including water/sewer, sidewalk and of course the main road itself.

The entire street is only 940 feet long, connecting Main Street to College Street/Rt 9 with a neighborhood consisting of eight single family homes and one two-family home.

Like many streets in Amherst that 50 years ago would have been exclusively "owner occupied" Shumway Street has changed by the presence of UMass/Amherst.  Now 4 of the 9 dwellings are rentals.

Perhaps one reason why Shumway Street is eligible for Community Development Block Grant funding which has income eligibility (middle-to-lower income) restrictions.  

The town is going to receive $825,000 in CDBG funds this year and 65% of it must be spent on "non social service" items.

The DPW put in for $727,000 to cover the entire cost of renovating Shumway street but the committee who oversees the distribution of the funds is only recommending $233,742 be allocated.

And since the federal money does not become available until this coming October, the neighborhood improvement project will probably have to wait until next year. 

The town will likely dip into Ch. 90 road funds to cover the other two-thirds funding.

Fortunately our new Republican Governor released an extra $100 million in "roads and bridges repair" funds (Ch. 90), which will result in a $400,000 bonus for Amherst.  

No Guests, No Riot?

UMass Southwest Towers house 5,500 students

Red Sox World Series win "celebration" 10/30//13

Apparently UMass is heeding advice from the $160,000 Davis Report, a postmortem of the Blarney Blowout, by trying to limit the number of guests UMass students can have on campus for Superbowl Sunday.

On the eve of Blarney Blowout the visitors reached 7,000, which should have been a clue that the stage was set for an epic event.  Kind of like radar picking up a sky full of planes closing in your sleeping fleet moored in paradise.

Will it work?  Probably not.  Even without "guests" UMass Southwest area has a h-u-g-e population density with 5,500 college aged youth packed into a quarter mile square area.

And come this Sunday, all too many of them will be under the duel influence of alcohol combined with all those endorphins released by watching large men thump each other on a field of battle. 

Damn Developers!

Kendrick Place, north town center (before the snowstorm)

The backlash over Planning Board approval of Kendrick Place, a 5-story "mixed use" commercial building with 36 units of rental apartments, and the much l-a-r-g-e-r One East Pleasant Street (80 rental units), which is already delayed by a nuisance lawsuit filed by a disgruntled competitor, has now taken a more ominous form:

Two poison pill zoning articles filed yesterday by Mary Wentworth designed to prevent any such projects from being approved in the future.

 Proposed One East Pleasant Street (also north town center)

Since both projects are located in the downtown "Municipal Parking District" they are not required to provide any parking, although the proposed One East Pleasant will have 36 onsite spaces available.

 Article #1 strike "residential" from parking exemptions in downtown

Under Ms. Wentworth's zoning article #1 developers would be required to provide parking for every single resident, and zoning article #2 gives a higher threshold of commercial space required (thus dramatically reducing rental housing units) for a "mixed use" designation and would require a harder to get "Special Permit".

 Article #2: increase % of commercial, require Special Permit from ZBA

Since these two Archipelago Investments, LLC projects are already approved, they would of course be grandfathered. 

A zoning article requires a two-thirds vote of Town Meeting, so the chances of these articles passing this coming spring are not all that good.

Most of the rational pro-development zoning measures that have come before Town Meeting have failed because of the high hurdle of a two-thirds super majority, but they almost always attracted a majority vote.

Now at least, the shoe is on the other foot. 

Party Place of the Weekend

Salem Place apartment complex Main Street, Amherst

Griffin Veldran, Jesse Korzen stand before Judge Payne Monday morning

In Eastern Hampshire District Court on Monday in Courtroom #1 two college aged youth took the plea deal offered by the Commonwealth to dispose of their "noise" arrest by Amherst police late Friday into early Saturday morning.

Click to enlarge/read

Pay the $300 Amherst Town Bylaw fine and stay out of trouble for the next four months. 

Meanwhile over in Courtroom #2, three other "college aged youth" (Zachary Calderwood, Jonathan Spencer, Joshua Young) who had appealed their Noise TBL violation last November almost went to a jury trial, but copped a plea at the last minute ... as folks so often do.  

One of them (Jonathan Spenser) did not actually live in the apartment, therefor should not have been issued a ticket, so the Commonwealth dropped the charges against him.  And the other two pled guilty to a civil infraction and had their case put "on file" for the next 60 days.

So yes, by burdening the system via an appeal they avoided the $300 fine, but taxpayers still won by avoiding a jury trial.  And if they get into any trouble over the next two months, the original charges come back into play.

Therefore they better behave themselves on Superbowl Sunday.

Blizzard of 2015: Another Bust?

Town Hall 7:45 AM

Thus far the storm of the century has not lived up to the hype, which is of course a good thing. The scanner was so quiet last night I had to double check to make sure it was on. Which is of course a good thing.

Carry on.

Amherst makes The Onion (We're somebody now!)

Update from Governor Baker

 Miss Emily to Mr. Frost: "Don't believe the hype."

But the wind is still whipping