AMHERST — Concerns over preventing future development and keeping blighted properties from being improved is prompting the Planning Board to advise the Town Council to reject adoption of a new local historic district in East Amherst village center.
In a 5-1 vote on April 22, planners are recommending against enacting the general bylaw, which would impose regulations on what is visible from the street at homes. businesses and other buildings within the district’s 55 properties, mostly located along lower Main Street.
“That area, I think, is in need of change, not in need of keeping as is,” said Planning Board member Angus McLeod.
While McLeod said he understands advocates for the district see it as shaping development to conform to a certain look, what could end up happening is the freezing out of any future development.
“At the same time, what these historic districts tend to do is create more hurdles for development,” McLeod said. “By their very definition, that is what they’re doing.”
For the past year, the Local Historic District Commission has been working on adding a third district to the others, one centered on the Emily Dickinson Museum on Main Street, established in 2012, and the other encompassing the North Prospect-Lincoln-Sunset neighborhoods, established in 2017.
But McLeod said with the board examining potential zoning changes that could bring new development, with the new Amethyst Brook Elementary School on South East Street set to open this fall, there are worries about compromising that potential.
Planning Board member Jerah Smith said the district would be a blunt tool to limit, slow down or disincentive development on properties, even when many aren’t worthy of that level of protection.
“We’re effectively turning off any opportunity for any kind of affordable housing for any of the teachers who might be working at the school right next door,” Smith said.
One question is whether less development has occrred in the existing districts.
Nate Malloy, assistant director of planning and economic development, said there were a couple of projects that didn’t advance, with property owners never filing applications. Otherwise, though, he said there is little evidence of dampening development.
The board praised the work done by Chris Skelly of Skelly Preservation Services, who documented the historical properties. But McLeod said that he is skeptical of the coherence of this historical area, even if two prominent properties are the Clapp Tavern at 6 South East St., a circa 1737 building converted into law offices, where some of the planning for Daniel Shay’s Rebellion took place, and the former Second Congregational Church at 742 Main St., where the Jewish Community of Amherst is located.
Planning Board Chairman Doug Marshall said he questions the need for the district and current zoning is already an impediment to dramatic change. “I have concerns about dampening development,” Marshall said.
Planning Board member Johanna Neumann said she feels many of the properties are dilapidated, haphazard and “kind of junky,” with many student rentals. She also said she feels it would be strange to lock in the neighborhood’s look when a modern school is being built.
Student rentals will continue to look dilapidated, said member Jesse Mager, and improvements won’t be seen if the new district is created.
The only public comment came from District 4 Town Councilor Jennifer Taub, who contends that more accessory dwelling unit development is happening in the North Prospect-Lincoln-Sunset.
“It hasn’t deterred development in any way in this local historic district,” Taub said. “There are developers wanting to build here all the time.”
The only member to support the proposal was Fred Hartwell, based on the experience that it won’t be an impediment for developers, and will benefit the town.
“We will end up preserving some buildings that might not otherwise be preserved,” Hartwell said. “Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
Smith suggested recommending instead site specific opportunities for preservation. Those could include a preservation easement program that property owners could voluntarily participate, saving the burden of all properties being in a district. He suggested extending the demolition delay bylaw to 18 or 24 months.
Smith added that imposing the district would be like using a machete when a scalpel is more appropriate.
