PETITION TO THE TOWN COUNCIL AND PLANNING BOARD

The undersigned residents request that you, as an elected member of the Town Council or an appointed member of the Planning Board, reject the current slate of zoning bylaw revisions that seek to relax/weaken permitting processes, and eliminate abutter notifications, for duplexes, triplexes, town houses, and converted dwellings.

We believe that Amherst residents want the town to be vibrant, welcoming, and diverse, that housing for residents of diverse ages, incomes, lifestyles, and educational levels is critical, and that zoning revisions need to be sensitive, logical, and fully understood in order to minimize negative unintended consequences.

Hundreds of staff and volunteer hours have already been consumed trying to decipher, analyze, and repair, piecemeal, this package of proposed revisions. However it is riddled with problems, and members of the Council and Board, as well as members of the Planning Department and Zoning Board of Appeals have repeatedly cautioned that it is unlikely to accomplish its stated goals of affordable housing for diverse residents and that unintended consequences must be studied in depth and considered seriously.

Additional time should not be spent trying to decipher, analyze, and fix this proposal. Please reject it in its entirety now.