Jones Library Trustees Vote To Support Rezoning The “CVS Lot” For A Parking Garage
Photo: flckr.com. Creative Commons
Report On The Monthly Meeting Of The Jones Library Trustees, September 20, 2021
Present
Trustees: Austin Sarat (president), Lee Edwards, Chris Hoffman, Tamson Ely, Alex Lefevbre, Bob Pam
Staff: Sharon Sharry (director)
Guests: Town Councilors George Ryan (District 3) and Evan Ross (District 4), and Gabrielle Gould, executive director of the Business Improvement District (BID). The meeting was not recorded. The meeting packet is here (pages 3-7)
Highlights
1) The Trustees voted 5 to 1 to support the rezoning of the “CVS lot” for a parking garage.
2) The Trustees approved materials for a “Yes”-vote campaign for the November 2 referendum regarding town borrowing for the Jones Library $36.3 million expansion and renovation project.
A “Destination” Parking Garage
Trustee Alex Lefevbre asked Councilors Ross and Ryan as well as BID Executive Director Gould to present information about rezoning the area known as the “CVS lot” (a town-owned lot behind CVS) for a future parking garage.
Lefevbre emphasized that there are currently nine parking spots that are used for staff and two handicapped spaces at the library, but If the Jones’ referendum passes and the expansion is built, there will be only seven handicapped spaces.
The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) has a formula for required parking spaces for a library. The future Jones is supposed to have 163 free spaces. The grant was approved even though the Jones would have insufficient parking.
Ryan asked for a motion from the trustees to support the rezoning amendment and claimed that the Planning Board hears oppositional statements “from the same three to five people who live near the proposed future garage” and that more advocacy for the amendment change would be helpful.
Ross and Ryan discussed their efforts to change the zoning of the lot to General Business (BG). They said that the area would be best served for a future garage by a “one-parcel overlay” zoning amendment that would effectively make the lot its own zone. This proposal will be discussed further by the Planning Board at their September 29 meeting (For previous Planning Board discussions, see here and here).
Ryan asked for a motion from the trustees to support the rezoning amendment and claimed that the Planning Board hears oppositional statements “from the same three to five people who live near the proposed future garage” and that more advocacy for the amendment change would be helpful.
Gould shared that designs for a three-story garage are “quietly being drawn up” by Kuhn-Riddle Architects and Barry Roberts, a local developer.
Gould presented her case that Amherst needs to be a “destination” for people from other towns in the area, such as Northampton, as well as an attraction for visitors from Boston and New York City. She asserted that the Amherst Cinema, the proposed South Commons performance shell, the downtown music venue (to be named the Drake) that is planned, and the Jones Library would be a lure to bring tourists here.
Gould shared that designs for a three-story garage are “quietly being drawn up” by Kuhn-Riddle Architects and Barry Roberts, a local developer. Traffic flow studies are needed, she indicated, and there will be no further design plans until the zoning there is changed to allow it.
She also said that the project will cost from $5 to $7 million with a 30-year payoff and will be built as a public/private partnership.
Gould added that CVS has given the BID “airway rights” so that if a garage is built, there could be a skywalk from the garage, over CVS parking lot, to the library.
The motion to support rezoning passed 5 to 1 with Trustee Bob Pam voting no. He felt that the motion was too narrow in mentioning the CVS lot as the only viable location for a downtown garage.
Materials to Promote a Yes Vote on the Townwide Referendum
The trustees approved two sets of documents to support a Yes vote on the November 2 referendum, which will be held concurrently with elections for town officials.
The first document was a one-page sheet with a list of seven reasons to vote yes. Ely wanted to make sure that mention was made of the two branch libraries and said she’s heard concerns from neighbors “that if the expansion passes, the branches will close.”
The document was unanimously approved and sent out as a press release. Other possible uses for this document were not discussed.
The trustees then provided feedback on four pages of materials developed by Alex Lefevbre as “informational sheets with facts” and not as “advocacy.”
The trustees wanted to make sure that the financial information was consistent with other town documents. Edwards was concerned that the amount listed for money spent so far on the project was problematic without explanation. “Others will say that we gave Matt [Blumenfeld] that $206,680,” she said. Blumenfeld of the Financial Development Agency has had contracts off and on with the library for development and marketing the project since 2014.
Several trustees provided anecdotes about their perceptions of public sentiment concerning the referendum.
Edwards stated, “There are vicious myths that the library project will undermine the schools.”
Pam was concerned that there was no place on the information pages to explain the library’s “catchment area,” which is related to the issue of 51,000 projected library users versus the current 19,000 cardholders.
Lefevbre added that those figures “were just one line in a 500-page application. It’s a red herring.”
There are many more than 3 to 5 people who are concerned about your strategy to build a garage behind CVS. Aside from the lack of study, consideration of other options, and damage to abutting neighbors, there is the trickery in jamming through a zoning change, labeling opposition as creating “vicious myths,” the admission that plans are “quietly being drawn up,” and general void of curiosity and “open to the max” idea.
The Town Council was promised to be the opposite of what it is, and the current lack of transparency, fair process, curiosity, et al, will be your legacy, on top of how you’re ruining the central business district and the town where, “only the ‘h’ is silent.”
In the end, your greatest “achievement” might be that only 3-5 people have complained about your deviousness, even though you also ignored the 1000 people who demanded that you take a pause to plan.
I have several friends and family who are looking to move to Western Mass, and I am pointing them away from Amherst, because the town of “open to the max” has become the town of “ready, fire, aim.”
Last parking garage was $85,000 per additional spot, after the Lovies got done we got a dark hole that is mostly unused. It should’ve gone up a few stories, in daylight, to be of any any real use.
Abutters complaints in downtown Amherst? Can’t keep all the people happy all the time.
Free good land for Public Works and a few didn’t like the extra traffic. Are they going to find and pay for anther dry location and can I stop them from using our roads?
Apartment complexes in the swamps and “screw” the neighbors (traffic, noise, property value and lost privacy and wetlands well beyond the borders of the projects) is OK all over town. Our schools are 30% Too 40% low income; thanks in great part to low income “Affordable Housing” projects. Growth well beyond what we cannot afford; playing a great part in Amherst tax rate; highest in western Mass. Our schools despite double the cost per student vs Hadley are no longer excellent.
I agree with Ira Bryck that this is a nonsensical boondoggle. Who in our highly educated community thinks that thousands of people will travel to Amherst from Boston and NYC to visit a library or an outdoor band shell? Will these structures overshadow those in the large cities? What a joke.
I’m all for expanding the library as that is primarily for the residents of Amherst. If and when the Drake music venue is built, events will mainly be in the evening when shopping traffic is reduced and parking lots are less in demand. The CVS garage project is a shoehorned sardine can that, if completed, will likely result in traffic jams and an angry response from town tax payers.
Steven Kurtz
I was interested to read in this piece that ‘designs for a three-story garage are “quietly being drawn up” by Kuhn-Riddle Architects’. Really? That is news to me and our firm. The writer may have gotten the parking garage mixed up with The Drake, which we are working on. Certainly putting “quietly drawn up” in quotes makes it sound nefarious and underhanded…another “deal being done behind closed doors”. You also chose to put that line in a purple billboard in the middle of the article to call attention to same.
For the record, I am very much in favor of both the Jones project and a parking garage – something that we should have done over 20 years ago when we had the chance. Northampton managed to build a successful garage at that very same time – Amherst failed miserably.
But also – for the record – Kuhn Riddle Architects is NOT drawing up plans for a garage – quietly or otherwise. I hope this reply clarifies that reporting error.
At the planning board meeting going on right now (9/29) Gabrielle Gould acknowledged that she had mistakenly reported at the Library Trustees meeting that Kuhn Riddle was quietly drawing up plans for the garage. We reported her remarks as she made them.
Yes what is Amherst known for, why do people come to visit, why is the a disconnect between the college students and the actual Town residents? How can a library take away from schools that are already having difficulty serving the needs of all it’s students? The parking lot behind CVS never seems to be full now? Can we focus on services and programs and not additional building projects for cars.
Lauren Mills
If the CVS parking lot is not full now, I’d say this is due to the pandemic a careful local populace. But when things are norm, it is extremely difficult to get a spot in that lot.
I don’t know about the numbers of card holders to projected usage, but I am one who has mostly used the Jones, live in Hadley, but my card says Forbes. I am betting there are others like me.