Letter: An Exchange Between Steve Bloom and Town Councilor Andy Steinberg On The Garage And Downtown Development

The following email exchange between Amherst resident Steve Bloom and Town Councilor Andy Steinberg happened on December 3. The letters are reproduced with permission of the authors.

Steve Bloom is former Chair of the Lincoln-Sunset Local Historical District Study Committee and a former member of Amherst Town Meeting and the Local Historic District Commission.

Andy Steinberg is an at-large town councilor and Chair of the Amherst Finance Committee

Dear Councilman Steinberg,

Steve Kurtz forwarded me your email to him.  I hope you don’t mind my direct response back to you. (note: Kurtz had originally asked Steinberg to comment on a letter published in the Indy by Rani Parker concerning the proposed garage on North Prospect Street).

First off, having served on a number of committees during the past decade, I appreciate how much time and effort you’ve given in the service of the Town.  And I agree with you about the North Commons.  

That said, I strongly disagree with much of what you have written about the proposed garage.

I am all for the new performance space, The Drake.  In fact, I am involved in helping to raise money for it.  But the Drake will be a small space, comparable to the Iron Horse in Northampton, not a large venue like the Academy of Music or the Calvin.  Its patrons won’t begin to fill a fraction of the proposed garage.

You write that people don’t want to walk far from their cars and cite the Amherst Cinema.  I bet that almost none of the patrons of the Cinema presently use the public parking lot behind CVS so why would they walk from a massive garage at the same location?  

My guess is that the parking garage would mostly be used to satisfy the long-term parking needs of all the student dorms that have been allowed to be constructed downtown without providing adequate tenant parking. On the one hand, the Council and Planning Board contend that parking isn’t needed for those buildings because “students don’t drive,” which we all know is patently untrue.  On the other hand, the Council and the Planning Board want to clear the way to construct a massive garage for student vehicles, thereby assuaging a parking problem which the Council itself is creating.  

By the way, repaving the existing lot, which all agree is decrepit, and putting up signs might help get people to use it.

Doubling down on large student housing complexes is not the answer to our property tax woes. The way the Town Council and Planning Board acquiesce to developers’ demands in what I like to call “the unconditional surrender” school of development, is the path of least resistance and short-sighted.  The way the Town Council issues waivers for setbacks, commercial space and parking, not to mention uncritically accepting drab, functional design, you’d think that there are no buildings currently being constructed, when, in fact, they are sprouting like mushrooms.  There are new student housing complexes in North Amherst, University Drive, Route 9 and Spring Street, not to mention Olympia Place, Kendrick Place, One East Pleasant Street and now Spring Street and 11 East Pleasant.  Imposing minimal conditions is not going to halt construction here. 

What’s more, the Town Council’s strategy isn’t working.  As you well know, as chair of Finance Committee, together the five new student housing complexes – 70 University Place, North Square, Olympia Place, Kendrick Place, One East Pleasant – produce about $1.2 million in property tax revenue.  Admittedly, not an inconsiderable sum, but less than 2 per cent of our roughly $90 million annual budget.  Five more student dorms could go up and five more after that and it still wouldn’t be a game changer, but it would irrevocably ruin downtown so year-round residents won’t want to live in Amherst.  

Not only that but it’s increasingly questionable whether the demand for student housing will even exist in the not too distant future.  I don’t know if you saw the article in the Gazette this week about UMass hiking tuition.  It mentions that are 500 fewer incoming freshmen at UMass this year due to a drastically reduced applicant pool because of decreases in the college age population.  The “Demographic Cliff” is starting to kick in with a vengeance and, with the Pandemic, will only accelerate. 

The Town Council keeps trumpeting that Amherst has a population of 40,000, but at least 25,000 of them are students who don’t pay taxes or have a long-term interest in the town’s welfare.  

Our neighbor, Northampton has a population of around 28,000, about a third less than Amherst, but its operating budget is around $130 million, almost FORTY percent more than ours.  

What does this tell us?  It tells me that the answer to Amherst’s financial woes is not more student housing, but attracting more year round residents.  Presently, our population of year-round residents is declining, threatening the long-term health and very viability of the town.

To attract year-round residents, Amherst has to provide something which is worth our inflated taxes that, because of our large student population and three universities, will always remain high compared to those of neighboring towns.  Our downtown needs to offer charm and character.  We need to actively target local businesses with strong followings.  I’ve personally reached out to places like Jake’s (which did open a branch in Amherst and was doing well before the Pandemic), Holyoke Humus and Mt. Tom’s Ice Cream, whose owners are all are very receptive, but had never before been contacted by anyone from Amherst.  We need incentives to get them here so that other desirable businesses will follow them so Amherst will indeed become a regional destination.  

To raise revenue, we should consider raising the permitting fees for student rentals from the current $100 per entity to $50-100 per unit, as many other college towns do.  Part of that money could go to hiring additional inspectors.  A point system, like they have in Newark, Delaware and State College, Pennsylvania, could be instituted to insure the proper upkeep and adherence to Town bylaws by absentee landlords.  

Seems to me we should also get UMass and Amherst College to chip in, at very least, to help build a new fire station.  Presently, if, God forbid, there was a fire in a high-rise at UMass, the Town of Amherst has no way of dealing with it.  I don’t think prospective students and their parents would like that.  They should be made aware of it.  If UMass can pay a football coach close to $1 million a year, which is what I’m guessing what they are going to pay Don Brown, they can surely make a meaningful contribution to the safety of its students and faculty.  

Finally, Rani Parker may have only just moved to Town, but she has the right to expect zoning in her neighborhood will not be unilaterally changed across the narrow street from her home in what is essentially spot zoning.  A garage would impact her directly.  Her voice and those of other abutters should be the ones most listened to, not the ones most dismissed and, frankly, scorned.

Respectfully,

Steve Bloom

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Hi Steve and other neighbors,

I have received Rani Parker’s letter many times.  She describes herself as a relatively new resident. I will offer the perspective of a resident of 41 years who had been active in Amherst Government for 25 years.   Amherst has some amazing qualities and some big challenges.  The basic fact that 50% of the land that is Amherst is tax exempt because it is either town-owned conservation land, including Puffer’s Pond and the surrounding trails, or campuses of the University of Massachusetts or one of the colleges fits on both sides – quality that makes this town special and a curse.  The downtown and village center business districts comprise less than 4% of the area.  The rest is residential.  That leads to three realities:

1.       The tax burden falls on residential property owners. 

2.       Because of state law limitations, the largest revenue source for the town is property taxes. 

3.       Growth that will relieve the burden on residential property has to be in commercial areas and principally in downtown.

In an era of shopping malls and Amazon, retail is not going to spur the property values.  Our best bet is arts and entertainment.  Amherst Cinema, new music venues such as the Drake, the Jones Library, events on the Common, combined with a good restaurant selection is our best opportunity.  It can draw people from Amherst neighborhoods, surrounding towns and beyond, sometimes way beyond Amherst.  They want to park near their destination and not have to spend time searching for parking.

See the attached letter from Amherst Cinema and the request to preserve parking and develop a plan for much more parking.  A map showing where its patrons are from is attached to the letter.

Then consider the following:

1. There are few places for a parking structure near Amherst Cinema, the Drake and the Jones Library.  They are either smaller or not owned by the town which requires an expensive land purchase. 
2. The zoning proposal before the Council is a first step, not a decision to build anything.  If anything is built, it will be after extensive studies and require action by future Councils.  If a garage is not built there, nothing changes including the zoning. 
3. Access would need to be from North Prospect, not Pleasant Street.  We will have time to study traffic alternatives.  If none work, we aren’t committed to build anything. 
4. Requiring patrons to search for parking is not a good idea.  It creates frustration and discourages repeat visitors.  It causes traffic and adds to car exhaust pollution. 
5. During the Library’s strategic planning process, a community survey was conducted receiving 910 responses.  64% of the responses to the question regarding the need for better parking stated it was very or most important.

Steve, we have discussed this before.  I admire your willingness to park where you can and walk the extra distance to your location.  That is not an attitude shared by many people who live or visit Amherst.  I spoke with a person much younger than us yesterday.  She said that particularly in winter, she will not engage in a long walk at night from parking to her destination.  For all of these reasons, we need to explore the feasibility of a garage on North Prospect.  That is the issue before the Council, not a decision to build.

Andy

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Hi Andy, 

Appreciate you getting back to me.  

I just wish your answers were more convincing.  Amherst isn’t Manhattan or Boston or even West Springfield.  It doesn’t take an hour circling blocks to find a spot.  If the food and entertainment are any good, I think first time visitors will return to Amherst, even if they have to walk an extra half a block.  And how many visitors are you thinking will come here that will make a difference to our bottom line?  My main hope is that residents of Amherst frequent downtown again. That’s what will sustain a vibrant town core.  

And wouldn’t it be great if people were having so much fun in Amherst that they forget to feed the meter.  And isn’t public parking here free after eight?  In Northampton, it’s free after six.  Besides, if they do end up getting a ticket, it’s all of like $10, less than parking costs in most other places.  

Are these really the best reasons for the construction of a multi-million dollar garage and disruption of dozens of town residents’ quality of life?

There is absolutely no urgency to vote on an overlay district before the end of the year, except for the fact that the present Council evidently has so little faith in its own cause that they doubt it will pass future muster.  

I do hope you will be ruled by reason, not doctrine.  

Best,

Steve