AMHERST — Town planners are backing an effort to rezone several downtown properties to give more flexibility in how sites are developed, including the possibility of projects featuring a mix of housing and commercial uses.
The Planning Board recently voted to support changing zoning on properties on the east side of South Prospect Street near the Amherst Cinema and on North Pleasant Street between Hallock Street and Cowles Lane from limited business to general business.
But planners are not recommending changing the same limited business zoning on the north side of Triangle Street or along North Pleasant Street north of Hallock Street.
The three zoning articles will be on the warrant of Town Meeting that begins Nov. 14.
Town Meeting member Jerry Guidera, of Precinct 9, who submitted the petitions, said they would create enhanced property values and an improved tax base for town, if passed. Developers have been stifled by restrictions of limited business zoning, which include not allowing mixed-use projects and limiting density, he said.
This means that developers cannot pursue projects like Kendrick Place and Boltwood Place and the proposed One East Pleasant, all of which Guidera said help to bring a “live, work and play” atmosphere to downtown.
Guidera said he appreciates that planners are supporting about half of his proposal.
“It’s great to me that there is general consensus that BL zoning is broken, and needs fixing,” Guidera said.
But at the board’s meeting Oct. 19, John Fox, a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member, said such rezoning would be taking a sledgehammer to the residential neighborhoods, which would be impacted by commercial development.
“I’m for developing the downtown, but in a nuanced way,” Fox said.
Fellow Precinct 10 Town Meeting member Maurianne Adams said transition areas are needed and there should be ongoing discussions between neighbors and business interests about how to protect homes from this encroachment.
The rezoning, Adams said, would be an “overly fast approach of changing one zoning district to another, with impacts that will be irreversible once done.”
Guidera said that a buffer to the general business zone is already being created organically, with the edges now lined by former owner-occupied homes that have become student rentals.
Guidera said he anticipates revising the warrant article focused on the Hallock and North Pleasant streets properties from the Town Meeting floor, while he will ask to withdraw the article for Triangle.
But he said he may work with the Planning Board to develop a zoning change that would be acceptable to residents who live near Triangle Street, including using form-based code that would guide projects and give neighbors more say in making sure projects are appropriate.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
