Planning Board Declines to Reopen Hearing on Downtown Amherst College Dorm
South elevation of proposed Amherst College student dorm at 55 South Pleasant Street. Photo: Kuhn Riddle Architects / amherstma/gov
Report on the Meeting of the Planning Board, October 30, 2024, Part 1
This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.
Present
Doug.Marshall (Chair), Fred Hartwell, Jesse Mager, Johanna Neumann, and Karin Winter. Absent: Bruce Coldham and Lawrence Kluttz.
Staff: Nate Malloy (Senior Planner), Pam Field-Sadler (Assistant)
There were nine in the Zoom audience.
Karin Winter suggested that the board ought to reopen the discussion regarding Barry Roberts’ proposal to turn his mixed-use building behind the former Hastings store at 45-55 South Pleasant Street into an Amherst College dorm. Doug Marshall offered a motion to reopen the discussion. That motion was defeated 2-3 with Winter and Jesse Mager voting in favor. Winter maintained that the Planning Board did not have time to fully evaluate the changes presented at the October meeting that approved all 22 residential units in the building to be leased to Amherst College as a residence for students. She has since realized that the Zoning Bylaw (Section 3.326) does not allow dormitories outside of the R-F (fraternity and sorority) district.
Chair Doug Marshall said that he brought Winter’s concern to Senior Planner Nate Malloy, who looked into the matter and concluded that, because there was commercial use in the building, it was a mixed-use building and not a dormitory and “we don’t allow commercial in dormitories anywhere, so that category doesn’t really apply.” Malloy noted that the final decision on the modification of the Special Permit has not been finalized with the Town Clerk, so the Planning Board could reopen the public hearing.
Fred Hartwell said he felt comfortable with the board’s decision because it did not exempt Amherst College from the requirements of the new Rental Registration Bylaw, which requires annual approval and inspections every five years. The board left the decision about compliance with the bylaw up to the building commissioner, Rob Morra.
Winter and Jesse Mager questioned Marshall and Malloy’s contention that a dormitory cannot contain commercial space, as the term is not defined in the Zoning Bylaw. Winter noted that Amherst College is advertising the building as a dorm. The vote was 2-3 against the motion to reopen the hearing, with only Mager and Winter voting in favor.
Read more: College to Open Dorm Above College Store (Amherst Student)
A special Thanks to Amherst Indy for your coverage on this . Without the coverage, most of us in Town would not of known about this ,and it would have been business as usual . Great to have a check and balance .
Don’t legislatures make, amend, and rescind laws, in a manner consistent with the federal and Commonwealth constitutions, as interpreted by the courts?
How can 3 people on the Planning Board (upon the advice of a staff member) re-write Amherst’s Zoning Bylaw?
Oh… they just did!
Welcome to our brave new world where “up” is “down” and “yes” is “no”… with plenty more examples to come….
Kind of hard to follow Senior Planning staff reasoning . Without the commercial space , it would be a dormitory, and not allowed . With the commercial space , it is allowed and NOT a dormitory ?
If it is not a dormitory upstairs , then what is it ?
A commercial space with a dormitory , therefore allowed … splitting hairs here .
Every building in Amherst can now have dormitories upstairs …
This article has an error. The motion to reopen the hearing was not made by Karin winter, but Doug Marshall. Please fact check your reporting and correct as needed.
Amherst College is driving a nail into the coffin of Downtown Amherst. With news that the College will be leasing new construction in the town center for a dormitory, along with the University, the College is complicit in converting the town center into a student ghetto. Surely Amherst, with a multi-billion dollar endowment and substantial land holdings, could find a place to house sixty-three students elsewhere, leaving the twenty-two apartments available for year round residents.
As an Amherst College alumnus, I’m sorry to say that for someone seeking a top school in a quintessential New England college town, I’d have to recommend Williams.
Just more evidence that Amherst College has also become a “…hedge fund with a school attached”?
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/universities-are-becoming-billion-dollar-hedge-funds-with-schools-attached/
I fault the planning Board and staff for looking the other way on the dormitory in town . The Developer clearly gamed everyone .
Represented one use , and then switched to another in short order to the planning board , who didn’t have enough time to process all that this entailed . Surprise …