Letter: 40R Overlay District Would Sacrifice Control Over Historic Properties and Undermine Our Master Plan

Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to Town Planner Christine Brestrup on 11/9/20.

I was sorry that there was not time to address the topic of 40R at the Planning Board meeting on November 4. I am putting some of my concerns on paper in advance of the next Planning Board meeting on November 18, and would be grateful if you would convey them to the members of the Planning Board and, if it is still appropriate, to the consultants as they finish their report.

I have many, many concerns about the proposal to create a 40R overlay district in downtown Amherst. I would endorse the well articulated public comments from residents of Cottage Street and the late Maurianne Adams that are posted on the town website, many of which pertain equally to my street, North Prospect. I want to speak particularly, however, to the issue of historic preservation.

The Master Plan promises to “preserve the Town’s historic fabric,” “promote the preservation, appreciation, and sustained use of our historical and cultural resources,” “increase historic preservation protections in Amherst’s zoning regulations in order to encourage preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of historic…resources,” and “preserve historic properties through direct acquisition and use of historic preservation restrictions.”

Although the consultants’ PowerPoint presentation is accurate in stating that the proposed 40R district does not overlap any Local Historic District, that only reflects the fact that no one has yet undertaken the work involved in creating such a district along the section of North Pleasant Street being considered for 40R.

There are, in fact, eleven or twelve buildings along that stretch that are listed in the state’s Cultural Resources Index, a database of historic properties in Massachusetts (the twelfth is a recent recreation of a historic building that burned down, so arguably not a historic structure in its own right). 

Seven or eight of them are in the area between Cowles Lane and the north end of the proposed district, mostly in what is now a Limited Business zone. These are 19th-century— mostly 2-story— houses, many adapted to commercial use, that currently are home to a coffee bar, a hair salon, jewelry store, social service agency, skin care place, the Kestrel Trust (moving out), and professional offices. Some have an apartment or two above. Most sit far enough back from the street to enable a few tables or some plantings in front, and many include a front porch. They have the modest domestic scale that gives our downtown its “small town” feel and its “historic” character, which the Master Plan also enjoins us to preserve. Most have parking behind. 

Two of the others are emblems of downtown: St. Brigid’s Church and its rectory. Both sit well back from N. Pleasant Street, surrounded by lawns and plantings that give the eye a break from the commercial buildings. The rectory, unfortunately now covered with modern siding (which could be removed), is a major work by Amherst’s leading architect of the 1880s and 1890s, Roswell Field Putnam. It’s included in Amherst: A Guide to Its Architecture by architectural historian Paul Norton (1975), and now it is included on a Wikipedia page about Putnam. When it was built in 1887, the Springfield Republican, surveying all the new buildings in the Western part of the state that year, gushed, “The design of this house is the most unique of any erected this season.” A lot of its interior detail is preserved. It would be a real loss to the town’s historic fabric. We’d also miss the “Italianate Romanesque” of St. Brigid’s, the work of architect John William Donohue, who designed other Catholic churches in the Diocese of Springfield. Even our downtown Post Office is now nearly a century old, appreciated as an example of Georgian Revival architecture. 

What concerns me most about 40R is how much control it gives up over the fate of these buildings and the composition and appearance of our downtown for the foreseeable future. If I understand the meaning of section 4.1, the town gives up the right to control the rate or phasing of development in the zone, or to issue a temporary moratorium on building permits for residential uses. Why would we want to do this, and is it in the best interests of our town to do so? 

Section 9.2 severely limits the possible reasons for not approving a plan to certain narrow technical grounds. As I read it, this basically does away with review by the Historical Commission or the Design Review Board and eliminates any possibility of citizen or abutter input in the process. Why would the town give up the right to consider saving the historic buildings that might otherwise be torn down and to review a design proposed to replace or modify them? Do we want this for Amherst? 

We are lucky that so much of Amherst’s architectural heritage has survived this long. Once it’s torn down, it’s gone forever, lost to all future generations that might have cherished it. It’s what gives our downtown its distinction. Do we want to replace it with homogeneous over-scaled buildings that march uninterrupted down the main commercial strip, towering over the sidewalk and leaving us in shade? Close your eyes and imagine the Archipelago-ization (West Hartfordization?) of our town, stuck with the Form-Based Design Standard of 2020 in, let’s say, the year 2035. Do we have the hubris to make that irrevocable choice now for those who follow us in the future?

I recognize the Master Plan’s ambition to make downtown Amherst a magnet for visitors, tourists, and locals alike. The arts, culture, restaurants, and retail shops all contribute to this goal, and the Master Plan speaks to them all. What makes Northampton, Newburyport or Cambridge, or to a lesser extent Brattleboro, Great Barrington, or Shelburne Falls successful retail destinations? Can Amherst, which is smaller than these towns, identify the secret of their success and adapt that to its particular situation? 

I suggest that it’s having a lot of small, idiosyncratic, one-of-a-kind shops that one can’t find on Route 9 or at the mall. Amherst used to have quite a number of these. I remember a lingerie shop; a knitting and sewing shop; the Button Box, which sold nothing but accordions and concertinas and had a nationwide following; a dancewear store; some gift shops featuring local crafts; several small antique shops; a bookstore that specialized in poetry and small literary journals you wouldn’t find on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble; a penny candy store; a housewares shop; a dry cleaner. 

These are gone, but a few still linger: Laughing Dog bicycles, a stamp and coin shop, a barber or two, a shoe repair shop, a record store, a jeweler who makes her own inventory. A couple of new small shops are part of the Amherst Cinema complex: a frozen yogurt joint, a co-operative art gallery. Thank God for A. J. Hastings! 

Northampton is full of shops of this sort. Part of the fun is discovering these hole-in-the-wall places down alleyways and in unlikely back yards. You become an insider, knowing the places to find the “secret” treasures. They’re small; their rents are manageable for individual entrepreneurs. 

As the Town has approved the new mega-buildings in Amherst, though, many of these small venues no longer exist. Mini-retailers can’t afford the rents of shiny new spaces with picture windows and 10-foot ceilings. Our ethnic, affordable mini-restaurants will be the next to go if big buildings gobble up downtown North and East Pleasant Streets.

Retail trends change, and for all we know the malls may close and we’ll all be buying everything on Amazon in the future. The Master Plan talks, however, about determining the mix of stores that we’d like to have downtown, and then providing incentives to bring them in. Can we figure out what will be successful, given the mix of folks in our town and wider retail trends? What would you be unlikely to buy from Amazon or Wal-Mart? I personally would vote for a specialty cheese shop and a choice small greengrocer featuring local produce, to supplement our excellent bakery and downtown wine/liquor shop. There should be shops and services to meet residents’ daily needs—the ones you wouldn’t by preference take your car to fill. What would college kids patronize that we don’t have? (How can there be a college town without an ice-cream parlor?) Beauty products, a vintage clothing shop, a do-it-yourself frame-building workshop?. What about families and grandparents? A children’s clothing shop featuring local artisans’ creations, baby boutique or kids’ shoe store? A shared ceramics maker-space like Mudflat Studios in Cambridge? It’s an exciting topic for a town-wide conversation.

I believe that downtown Amherst should embrace its funkiness, small-scale buildings, and one-of-a-kind shops, some of which should be encouraged to inhabit repurposed historic buildings. The Amherst Cinema complex is an excellent model for rehabilitating an older building to current needs, and is arguably now the single largest magnet attracting out-of-towners to spend an evening in Amherst. Perhaps a larger lot on the east side of East Pleasant or along Triangle Street, an area admittedly without much redeeming architecture at present, could be used to create our own version of Thorne’s Marketplace or Chelsea Market, with multiple small stores and, on another level, our own version of Northampton’s Iron Horse or the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport MA (a handsome new building that has single handedly turned that town into a year-around arts destination). Add in some public art. It’s our best shot at becoming a distinctive, appealing downtown that will draw people in during the day and encourage them to stay through the evening. 

Here’s the problem: We basically have a proposed downtown 40R overlay district that’s a couple of blocks long by a couple of blocks wide, measuring generously. It’s sadly not possible to fit all the Master Plan’s worthwhile objectives into the limited space of Amherst Center. Which are most important to us, and what can only happen in downtown Amherst? What praiseworthy objectives could be pursued instead in one of the ancillary village centers that does not have a legacy of historical architecture to protect?

The trade-off in my scenario would be abandoning the idea of 40R downtown and locating the additional housing that is also a highly desirable objective of the Master Plan in a 40R district at one of the other village centers, where a comprehensive scheme could provide a mix of housing types with green space, adequate parking and the sorts of services and modest shops for everyday needs that will serve the new residents, and where precious historical buildings would not need to be destroyed to do so. I hope the Planning Board will seriously investigate the possibility of such an alternative approach to the use of 40R. 

Suzannah Fabing Muspratt

Suzannah Fabing Muspratt is a resident of Amherst