Verbatim: Doug Marshall On The Vacuum Between UMass Planning And Amherst Residents

An Excerpt From The Planning Board Meeting, February 21, 2023 

This week we introduce a new occasional feature from Kitty Axelson-Berry.   Verbatim will offer extended excerpts from transcripts from public meetings, quoting key people speaking about important issues facing the town.

The Indy is curious about ways that the town could reasonably approach the frustrating lack of workforce and family housing here, which contrasts with the abundance of market rate units for undergraduate students and is up against and absence of a commitment from UMass to provide residences for its students. Also, there is a long-running question of how competing interests cannot help but come into play for current Planning Board Chairperson Doug Marshall, whose paid work is listed on LinkedIn as “Capital Project Manager and Planner at UMass–Amherst” and formerly “Interim Director of Campus Planning” (see https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-marshall-ba35b419/).

Marshall graciously forwarded the Amherst Media video of the Planning Board’s February 21 meeting, at which he gave an explanation of the relationship between UMass and the town Planning Board, and his roles in both. He doesn’t see much hope for direct town-gown communications related to planning and housing, except if it is through appointed UMass representatives, and the Town Manager and Town Council. And he doesn’t see any conflict of interest in his paid and unpaid work. Here is the transcript of the relevant segment from that meeting. Planning Board member Janet McGowan and Planning Department Director Christine Brestrup are also quoted in this segment.

“It’s my experience — Chris [Brestrup, Planning Director for the town], correct every anything I’m about to say — that the Planning Board doesn’t communicate really with anyone other than the town staff and CRC and Town Council. So we could [brainstorm with UMass about housing] through the town authorities, but I think it would be unlikely that [we] would ever have a conversation with the chancellor unless the chancellor showed up at a meeting and wanted to make a public comment, which is not impossible, but [another Planning Board member] would have to moderate the meeting that night. But I’m going to take a digression.

“Today, I received from Chris another email from someone who was claiming that I have a conflict of interest because I work for the university but I’m on this planning board. And I’ve had two previous instances where someone made a complaint, and I’ve talked to the state ethics board both times and explained that first of all, the university is not subject to any of our local zoning, so on state land they can do what they want and they never have to come to the Planning Board, so in that sense, I don’t have a conflict participating in these [Planning Board] conversations because [we are] never going to affect state lands. So conversely, in my job, I’m working on state land, and I’m planning state land, which is never going to directly impact town land. 

“Now, are there indirect relationships between them? Yes, but I’m not prohibited as a person to wear both of those hats since there wasn’t any direct response.

“To come back to your question. Anything we propose really should be about town land that we can do zoning on, somebody might actually have to pay attention to. We could do a zoning proposal for UMass-owned land and they won’t bother to even read it, so I think we’re better off dealing with the things we can control, and …letting UMass, deal with the things they can control. The conversation is really between the Town Council and the town. The Town Manager and the university leadership, whoever the university wants to have talking for them… The university chooses who they want to have conversations and what conversations they want. If the Planning Board had something you wanted to say, I think we could communicate to the Town Council and if they endorsed it, they might say to the Town Manager, ‘Hey, would you go talk to the Chancellor or whoever it is in university relations that has those types of conversations?’ So we [the Planning Board] originate sort of ideas and then people hopefully support them, and they can carry them wherever they need to go. […]”

Janet McGowan asked, “But we’re an independent board and don’t have an overseer. We’re created by state law and have all these different things we can do —and I think it’d be great to talk about what we’re talking about — how do we elevate this conversation? Maybe we could meet with UMass planners saying, ‘What’s your housing plan for the next five or ten years?'”

Marshall responded, “I will say that my experience as an employee is that the university is very deliberate about who they have speak for them with the town. So you could make that request and I’m not sure that the planners would be the ones that would show up at the conversation.”

“I just wanted to say,” added Christine Brestrup, “in response to what [board member Karin Winter] was asking before, that [planning department staff] don’t communicate directly with the university. The town manager does that. The town manager learns a lot from … our conversations and from talking to us planners, and watching the Planning Board meetings once in a while, and then he reads the papers and sees what’s being talked about in the Gazette and the Amherst Indy, and that’s also read by people at the university. So there’s kind of a groundswell of ideas that comes forward. About 15 or 20 years ago, people started talking about, ‘Well, why can’t UMass build more housing on their campus?’ ‘Well, they don’t have enough money to do that.’ ‘Well then, what about private public private partnerships?’ And then people were talking about that. I remember the kind-of growing conversation, and eventually UMass went to the state, I guess, to have a determination [about] whether they could do public private partnerships, and it was announced that they could. So even though it took a really long time to get to that point, I think it kind of grew out of conversations that the Planning Board was having and conversations that the Select Board was having back then. It’s kind of a collective effort, even though this group is not going and talking to the chancellor, it all filters into the university mindset and affects decisions they make. That’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.”