Perpetual motions

Every now and then a meeting is so grueling that I curse this whole blog thing. This was one of those meetings.

Things started well enough – the quorum was announced at 7:40 and the meeting began about a minute later. The Moderator said that he would be recusing himself for Article 15 – Spring Street – (because much of the land in question is owned by his employer, Amherst College) and that Jim Pistrang is willing to serve, should we elect him. As if we would get to Article 15 last night.

The Moderator and Eva Schiffer offered high praise of outgoing Senior Planner for the Town, Niels la Cour, who has taken a planning position at UMass. Eva talked about his decade-long work on the Comprehensive Plan process and his creation of the Town’s tremendous Geographic Information System (GIS,) as well as his overall enthusiasm, patience and expertise. Town Meeting applauded.

Larry Shaffer also congratulated Niels and wished him well. Then he spoke about the zoning articles, and the on-going discussions about Special Permit versus Site Plan Review. He then asked the Moderator and Town Meeting to let Allan Blair, head of the Western Mass Economic Development Council, speak about how those two options are viewed by the outside world.

Because Mr. Blair is not a member of Town Meeting or a registered voter in Amherst, he can only speak with majority consent of the body. In my experience, the vote to approve such a speaker is a mere formality. Not so this time – there were more than a few loud Nos. I was ashamed of us.

Mr. Blair said that he has been working on economic development issues for 25 years in Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin counties, and has observed that communities that have been successful in diversifying their tax base are those which have expedited their permitting to provide developers and interested businesses with “certainty” about the process. He said that uncertainty of time and effort required to go through the process, and the uncertainty of the final outcome – whether meeting all the criteria will actually lead to an approved permit – causes companies to avoid such communities if they can. He said that certainty of process and timeline is an encouragement and uncertainty is a discouragement, and that Site Plan Review represents certainty because it means the use is by right after all conditions are met.

Mr. Blair spoke only briefly, but it was not brief enough for some. One member interrupted with a point of order to ask if he was being timed. When Mr. Blair was done, another member called it “outrageous” that he had been allowed to speak and that an opposing view was not being presented.

Town Meeting keeps finding new ways to discourage and depress me.

So I can’t take full credit (blame?) for this, because it may have been in the works anyway, but I had suggested to Mr. Shaffer that he get Mr. Blair or someone with such expertise to address Town Meeting to provide an external professional perspective. Why? Because many have noticed that various e-mails, discussions and TM objections have questioned what evidence there is that Special Permit is considered a deterrent and that businesses are really not settling in Amherst because of it. So who might credibly provide that kind of evidence? The Planning Department, which is inexplicably seen as an enemy saboteur by some? Individual TM members offering anecdotal examples? The Planning Board? Oh wait, it’s their recommendation that is being doubted anyway.

If you really want information and perspective, then why would you not welcome the input of an expert external third-party? Why would you regard with disdain professional expertise intended to inform your understanding of the situation? Do you prefer to get your medical advice from random strangers because it is more “democratic” than the “propaganda” offered by a doctor?

And most of all, why would you ask the question “where’s the evidence?” if you didn’t want to know the answer? Here’s a guy who is providing just such an answer, and some in Town Meeting are engaging in the equivalent of putting their hands over their ears and bleating “la la la la la la la – can’t hear you!”

I am constantly baffled by the minutiae which some in TM feel the need to “understand” while being content to not understand – willfully misunderstand? – the larger concepts.

Which is the perfect segue back to the warrant.

Article 11 was about clarifying and regulating the uses that would be allowed in the Research and Development overlay district we created last week with Article 10. It was divided into three motions. (Read the Planning Board Report here.) Motion A was to establish that those R&D uses allowed in the Limited Business district by Special Permit be allowed in the R&D overlay district by Site Plan Review. Planning Board Chair Aaron Hayden prefaced his explanation of this by saying that good rules that are easy to follow protect the town better than vague rules. He also emphasized the Site Plan Review is a rigorous process that doesn’t “give away the shop,” saying that there are 34 rules governing the Planning Board’s approval of a Site Plan Review, and that their vote requires a supermajority with a minimum of 5. He said that the ZBA has 18 rules governing approval of a Special Permit, and that their vote must be unanimous among all three members.

The Select Board and Finance Committee both had unanimous support for the motion. Someone asked about the Board of Health’s involvement in creating the article and their willingness to be involved in its regulation, and Mr. Shaffer provided assurance of both. The ZBA supported the motion. One person spoke against it. Gerry Weiss gave it strong support, saying that Special Permit sends the message that we don’t want that use in our town but we’re willing to consider it; and said banks are reluctant to finance projects requiring Special Permit approval, contributing to Amherst’s reputation for being unfriendly to business.

The question was called; it passed, and the vote on Motion A passed with a declared 2/3 voice vote.

Motion B was to make more intense manufacturing require a Special Permit instead of a Site Plan Review in the only two districts where it is allowed - Professional Research Park and Light Industrial. The motion was changed from the original permit provision in the warrant, which called for one of the rare Planning Board SPs, to instead call for a ZBA SP. That change was due to a compromise reached at a meeting the night before between those two boards. The Select Board and Finance Committee had both supported the original SP designation and assumed that their members would support this change also, though no formal votes had been taken on it. ZBA supported it. There was a question or two, the fixing of a typo, and a small process objection, and then the vote to approve Motion B was overwhelmingly in support, with a few scattered Nos.

Motion C was to add language to the Zoning Bylaw aligning the Town definitions of toxic and hazardous substance with those of the State. With little discussion, it passed unanimously.

Yes – unanimously. Even the usual token Nos acceded to clarifying the definitions of toxic substances. How about that.

Article 12. Ugh. This is where the wheels fell off.

This article (PB report here) was about regulating uses that are secondary to a primary R&D use. It is in three sections: the first proposes changes to the current regulation, and the second two propose new language to be more specific about what is and isn’t allowed and where. In a nutshell, the article sought to allow approval of secondary uses to occur under the same process and permitting authority by which the primary use was permitted. If your use and location required a ZBA Special Permit for the primary use, then that is to whom you would go to seek a permit for a secondary use, and likewise, if Site Plan Review was the primary use authorization, so too it would be for the accessory use. Doesn’t sound too complicated, and the Select Board and Finance Committee both supported it unanimously.

But the ZBA sought to amend it to make all accessory uses require Special Permits, which as I understood it, essentially guts the Planning Board’s proposed change to that section, but accepts the proposed new sections.

Then a ZBA member sought to divide the article, separating out the second of three sections of proposed new language – the long, detailed part – so that sections one and three would be voted on separately from section 2. For those following along at home with your warrant – how sad! – the section of concern was 5.071.

This led to nearly two hours of questions from people who didn’t understand, restatements by people who did, and attempted clarifications by those who sometimes did and sometimes didn’t.

There were legal questions, procedural questions, regulatory questions, and plentiful questions on the differences between principal and accessory uses. Most perplexing of all, there were two separate motions to refer this back to the Planning Board. Why would this be referred back? Because not all the Town Meeting members could wrap their minds around the intricacies of the article.

Could that be because they aren’t on the Planning Board? Because they aren’t fluent in the complex details and confusing language of the zoning bylaw? Because they have no idea how different uses are currently governed and what the proposed changes mean?

Referring the article back to the Planning Board wasn’t going to solve any of those issues. They already understand it – that’s what they’re for. We have a Planning Board and a Planning Department so that we don’t all have to be individual experts on the Zoning Bylaw. It saves a lot of hassle. Or at least, it should.

There is an unfortunate arrogance to the notion that “If I as an ordinary citizen can’t understand this, it must be bad, or must need to be fixed.” There are roughly 250 Town Meeting members. We are variously abled and variously interested. We need to understand the concept of what we are being asked to vote on, and to exercise our individual wisdom accordingly. But we need to recognize that we might not understand every minute detail, and that every one of those details does not need to suit our personal fancy. And we have to have some trust in the process that brought the articles to us.

If we don’t trust the process or we don’t like the outcome it produced, there is no need to pick the article apart or stall it in procedural gridlock. Just vote against it.

Simple. Straightforward. And democratic.

Eventually, there was a tally vote on the motion to refer Article 12 back to the Planning Board. It failed with 56 Yes votes and 107 No votes. I voted No.

After more noodling around, we eventually voted on the ZBA’s amendment. It was defeated in a voice vote. I voted No.

After still more noodling around, we voted on parts one and three of the main article. That required 2/3 majority and passed on a standing vote of 121 to 33. I voted Yes.

Then more noodling on the second section, which had been divided out. That too was sought to be referred back to the Planning Board. That failed in a voice vote. I voted No.

We quickly voted on the original motion for that second section, and that passed in a declared 2/3 majority voice vote. I voted Yes.

In the frenzy of trying to finally get out of there – was it 10:20? I forgot to write it down – the body was offered the opportunity to adjourn until November 28^th, but I’m not sure people understood that’s what was happening, and that in order to do so we would have to first reject the motion to adjourn to Monday the 19^th. We approved that first motion so now we meet again Monday. It doesn’t make much difference to me. I would like to get this over with sooner rather than later, but I also think a lot of people will probably already be away for Thanksgiving on Monday, so I was leaning toward the 28^th.

So the bad news is that it took us an entire evening to parse out two articles. The good news is they both passed. Beats the heck out getting through them quickly but having them fail.