AMHERST — A package of design standards for downtown Amherst and zoning changes for East Amherst, both of which could encourage new residential and commercial development, are main initiatives for the Planning Department.
“Those are two primary things, right now, that we see the need for everybody to be involved with and paying attention to,” Planning & Economic Development Director Jeff Bagg told the Planning Board Wednesday.
Bagg said the design standards and East Amherst rise to the top of a list of 17 items on the staff priority list and could yield possibly transformational development opportunities, both to enhance Amherst’s tax base and increase the supply of housing.
On downtown design standards, consultant Dodson & Flinker of Northampton is well over a year into the project that will provide an overall vision for downtown, information about what the public streetscape should look like and how private properties fit into the vision, from identifying heights and sizes of buildings and who might live there, as well as the growth potential on these parcels.
Bagg said tentatively March 4 is being set aside for an introductory presentation to the Planning Board that will take the design standards beyond a core group that has been providing feedback to the consultant.
“We see that as an important effort we’re all going to need to pay attention to,” Bagg said.
Another six to eight months of process will then bring the downtown design standards to the Community Resources Committee and then the Town Council.
The East Amherst study would be for properties along Main Street, College Street, South East Street and Belchertown Road. Bagg said property owners there are asking for some paths forward to create new buildings.
“We know that we have property owners who are interested in considering options in East Amherst,” Bagg said.
The third priority is adjusting the planned research park zoning that has seen only limited development. With property owners saying there are too many constraints, one idea would be to allow housing of some sort in those areas.
“We think that has opportunity,” Bagg said.
The work being done conforms with the goal set for Town Manager Paul Bockelman by the Town Council on housing and economic vitality, which states the need “to ensure the present and future economic well-being of the town and ensure access to safe, affordable and attainable housing for low- and moderate-income residents, as set forth in the
Town Council’s Comprehensive Housing Policy.”
In outlining the priorities, Bagg noted that North Amherst doesn’t seem a viable overlay district, where the Planning Board had considered allowing owners of complexes like Puffton Village to make their developments more intense.
The idea of an overlay would allow developers to at least double or triple the number of the 650 existing apartments, permitted at a time when the town zoning allowed such developments. But property owners indicated they would be unwilling to lose income for a year or two just to put up more developments.
The Planning Board did an outreach meeting in the fall, at the North Amherst Library’s community room, with many residents also concerned about more intense development.
Bagg did acknowledge that none of this work will address the ongoing impact of student rentals.
“It’s not to say student housing isn’t an issue, but we’re going to need to focus on those two,” Bagg said.
Student housing is not easy to tackle. “There’s no simple way to do it,” Bagg said.
Planning Board member Bruce Coldham said he worries that there hasn’t been a strong enough push to get the University of Massachusetts to do more, and wondered if the town should “up its game” to compel UMass to take on some of this load.
There needs to be more than just development levers that increase the housing supply to address, said board member Jesse Mager.
Bagg said because his job is also on economic development, those action items would include completing an actual economic development plan that would be a year to 18 months in the making, possibly with assistance from a consultant. This would mean talking to businesses and holding forums and looking at what could be done to broaden the scope of commercial activity in the village centers and downtown.