 I used to live in North Village and it was zero one zero zero three. Yeah, that's part of the UMass zip code. I'm recording this just so everyone knows that's here in attendance and there's a few in the few members of the public. And then. Yeah. Okay, Nate, I just sent out. See you and a few others. The file that Rita prepared for discussion of the draft RFP. I sent out the wrong thing a little earlier. So it's my last email. So if you could put that on screen when we get to it. I think that would help facilitate the discussion. Yeah, so you sent three items in one email. Oh no, it's like I see a second. Yeah, it's just a single item. This has not been my best week apparently. We'll forgive you John. Absolutely. I'm not sure I forgive myself. That's usually the hardest person to me. Okay, so. I already told Nate that sit and pull are not going to join us. So. I lost the. Let's see. So are we close to getting a quorum? Yeah, we have. Six. Six members here. Okay. Okay, so I guess we can get started. Who are we missing? Francis. Okay. She'll probably be on. She just, she just joined. Okay, great. Okay, so we'll get started. Okay. So I just, my first order of business is to apologize. Cause I thought I had sent everybody a note. Two or three days ago. And I don't have the note in my file. So chances are you don't have it either. And it had a. Group of attachments that you should have had two days ago, which you don't have. So we'll have to manage without that somehow. Anyway, my apologies. I'll try to do better next month. Let's see the first announcement. The first announcement I wanted to. Welcome our new member. Allegra Clark. And she's on screen waving. Allegra. She's not a, an immigrant as far as I know, unless you count coming from Boston. As being an immigrant. Actually, she does continue a trend of adding younger members to the affordable housing trust. In on. I also account will and Francis to that. So I think in the last year or two. We've managed to get a little younger, maybe a little faster. I don't know. As far as the board as a whole. So I'm glad we have that. Change in age diversity. The other thing I wanted to mention about Allegra, and then I'll let her introduce herself. Is that she brings experience working with people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. And also with people who are in need of behavioral health services. And since Jay Levy. And Nancy Schroeder moved off the board. We haven't had somebody with that kind of experience and expertise. So I'm glad that Allegra has joined us. And I'll give you a chance to say a bit more about who you are. Hi, I'm Allegra Clark. Let's see. I'm excited to be back in the Amherst area. I graduated from the high school in the early 2000s. And lived in Boston for a while. And while I was there, I did work for about four years at housing and homelessness services agency. And I was mainly focused on homeless prevention. And services. And I also completed my master's in social work. So I'm a licensed social worker. I currently work primarily with justice, involved populations and people seeking civil commitments for mental health and substance use. And right now that's remote work. It's kind of all over Western mass. So. I'm just excited to be getting more involved in my local community and getting back into my interest in affordable housing. Yeah, actually Allegra, it reminds me of something Rita told me earlier this week that another former graduate of Amherst regional high school has gone on to bigger and better things. I don't know if anybody knew Arthur Jemison. I knew Arthur because he was in my son's graduating class. And Jeremy and Arthur were friends. Arthur is now like an assistant deputy secretary. He's been working in the department of housing and urban development. He's been involved in housing and other urban planning issues in the city of Detroit for, I don't know, the last 20 years or something like that. He's been in Detroit for seven years before that. He was at DHCD. Okay. It's only seven years. I thought it was only seven years. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Erica. So anyway, that's pretty nice. Amherst boy makes good. Yeah. Maybe we can hit him up for some HUD funds. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. And I think I told, told you, John, I, I believe in an Arthur, when Olympia Oaks was. Dedicated Arthur. Spoke on behalf of DHCD. And I believe at the time he said he grew up in subsidized housing and he said, you know, I think it's kind of a powerful. Yeah. Story. You know, It's a really interesting story. Well, maybe we can invite him back when we open up. Belcher town road, East street school, affordable housing development. Absolutely. Yeah, that would be neat. A leg or just one quick thing, the, if you haven't received it yet, the town should be mailing out information for you as a new member. If you don't, if you don't, if you're open meeting law and ethics and then get sworn in. The town clerk, which I think they are still doing in person. Outside town hall, but in the mailing. You should receive, you know, steps on how to do all this. But if you don't buy. Like Wednesday or Thursday next week, email me. And we can, you know, figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Just to clarify. So Allegra is not an officially on the trust. So she's not a voting member. I mean, she's been appointed, but I'm not sworn in yet. So. That's a nice city we can overlook. Yeah. And the mail is slow. I will say we, the town, sometimes it's taking, it'll take a week sometimes for local mail to be delivered. So sometimes we mail things on Friday and people don't get it in the mail. So it's, it's really slow, but that's just the way it's been. I had. Had one other thing I wanted to mention. I think everybody may know that the governor's housing choice bill. Past as part of the economic development bill. And that's generally good news. I want to, I looked through. Actually a chapter presentation. But it included. A number of things, a few of which I wanted to highlight because. I do think that they may affect Amherst. First of all, most zoning changes. Now only require a 50% majority. Of the. Planning board and the town council. It used to be two thirds, which meant that it was much more difficult. To make those changes. Also. I think as the law was originally drafted, there was an opt in or opt out provision for local government. That no longer exists. Everybody's automatically opted in. So nobody has to actually act. To make sure that we're in the pool. Another thing that's important, I believe, is that. You know, the county family, which means three or more units. And mixed use in quote unquote eligible locations. Are now by right. According to the change in state statute. So that gives developers in the town more flexibility. There still are. Other things like mixed uses that likely. Provide a special permit. If it's outside the quote unquote eligible location, which is probably determined by the town. The other thing is the 50% rule extends to a number of things. In particular. It includes a review of a special permit to enable a project. To reduce parking spaces to allow for the creation of additional units. So we've already been talking about having. One parking space per unit. At East street and Belcher town road, which is inconsistent with the existing zoning bylaws. Now it looks to me if I understand it properly. There's a special permit before the ZBA only 50% of the ZBA. Would have to vote to approve that. And. The last thing is there are more restrictive rules around who and under what circumstances. People can protest a decision to grant a special permit. By the zoning board of appeals. So I think that's also all good for the future of affordable housing. In Amherst. So those are my announcements. Does anybody have anything else? They want to add at this point. Well, John, I think in the bill too was that. Maybe the trust is aware, but there's $250,000 coming to the housing trust. It's not, you know, it's not, it still has to be released and everything, but. You know, it's not, it still has to be released. You know, potential 250,000 to the trust. For just general development. And then another 250,000 to Amherst, the town of Amherst. For affordable units that meet a lead certification, which may or may not be. A challenge, but at least, you know, there is some money there for. Affordable housing. Yep. And those were put in the bill by Mindy Dom. With support from Joe Comerford. And then the other thing that we're looking at is, you know, the town's attorney, we're looking at the town's attorney and other requirements. We are. The town's attorney, KB law, you know, represents a number of communities and they're looking into it. They've had one brief on it. On the bill. It is interesting in the town. Probably meets a lot of the requirements of the bill already. And so some of its interpretation or. You know, one of their opinions, I'm surprised to see how narrow. The legal review is of the bill. So. You know, for instance, they have a size for supplemental dwelling units or accessory dwelling unit saying that they can be half the size of the floor area of a unit or like 900 square feet. And then the town has that as it allows accessory dwelling units, but we have different square foot requirements. And one of the attorneys when from KB law, I was just, I think in something they sent out to a few towns said that if you have different size units, then it's different than what the bill has. So you don't have to follow the majority vote. So it's really interesting. It's really interesting. I just saw this afternoon. And so when you brought this up, John, I made a note. I want to just circle back with. The planning director and then the building commissioner and maybe follow up with. An attorney about some of those because I thought. The town would have to. Might need to comply. So I think it's a good idea. And change our zoning, but maybe not. So it's just, you know, it's interesting. Some of the language in the bill is a little vague. And so it might take a year. Or I don't know someone pushing to determine. How it applies. So I agree. Like eligible area. So the bill that says, um, Ineligible areas. These things need to be by right. And they define an eligible area as a village center, and it's like, well, it doesn't define that area. So is it a quarter mile? Is it a half mile? Is it a whole neighborhood? And so. You know, it's interesting that, um, You know, so some of those things are just. You know, someone's going to have to write it, write it down what they think it means. Yeah. I think that's. Um, Janet McGowan, who's on the planning board has been. Pushing or trying to push the development of accessory dwelling units. Uh, for at least a couple of years, maybe longer. And, uh, it's something that simply hasn't happened to any great extent in Amherst as far as I know. So even though the bylaw has been there for a few years. People have not been taking advantage of it. Yeah. And no, I think that's because they're, um, kind of small. The town restricts the size and then they're by special permit. So staff is looking at changing that. Or, you know. Okay. And then one of the announcement, it's coming up a little bit later, but just so the trust knows, you know, the town and the trust are working together. And it looks like the, um, purchase of the Belcher town road property will happen. Um, next week, Tuesday, next week or so. So it's, um, Yeah. I think the step, you know, town, the town signed off on everything. And I think it's really just. A matter of process now. So I think we're, I think that's really in motion. Yeah. Recall the documents for being worked on. I've just sort of assumed it's a fate of compliance. Stop thinking about it. Oh no, you know, yeah. No, I think today, though, I think the final, all the things were signed and ready. So I think, I think we're good. But until that happened, you know, until those things are finally signed, we can't say it's good. Okay. So, um, I think we should welcome Jana. Uh, Jana tetra to. The meeting. And, uh, we can spend a little bit of time. Updating what's happening with the rental emergency rental assistance program. There you are. Hi, Jenna. Thanks for joining us. Hi everyone. Uh, do you want me to give my brief update? Yes. We want to talk about the other thing that you want me to talk about. We should talk about both, I think. Okay. Hi everyone. I don't have a very long update for you. This evening. Um, I will say that we've since my last update last month. Um, we've gotten, we've received nine more applications. Um, and so it's slowed down a little bit. I mean, we've had some, you know, ups and downs over the course of the application period. Um, we've also had. I would say at least four, maybe five, um, applicants who received money already in round two. Who are asking for an additional three months. So, um, we are, we're not making those folks fill out. Another online application, but we are, you know, working, getting updated documentation, having discussions with them. Um, so they're not included in that nine. Um, so we have, I would say about four of those folks who still need some help and are looking for additional assistance. So we're working through those. Just quickly. So those are people who are, who are helped in round two, not round one, but they still need help. So they're from round two. They're from round two. And they got three months of assistance and they are still, they were testing it another three months. Um, and we've also had, um, some of those folks and then other folks too, who are also in the process of applying for raft. And are mostly still waiting to hear the status of their raft application. So we have been, uh, sometimes we have been, uh, some of the folks that have applied for it on their own. Um, we've been successful in a couple of cases and getting some updates from way finders staff. Um, applicants do get emails from way finders, like as their application progresses through the process, but it takes about six to eight weeks. And so, um, that's a long time. So, you know, it's just helping people, you know, wait and see what's going on. I think we can do in the meantime. Um, and then, uh, the issue that I, John and Nate, and I have talked about that I was, wanted to bring forward tonight, um, is a request to change one of the eligibility or alter one of the eligibility guidelines. So currently we have a, one of the guidelines. I'm going to read it to you. So I don't mess it up. Um, says households must demonstrate a need for assistance. Households with sufficient income and or savings to pay their monthly rent will not be eligible. Some savings is allowable. And, um, so as you may recall, we have this sort of complicated formula that we use to figure out if they have sufficient income to pay their rent. And we've had a few cases where the person owes arrears. So they are, they're already behind. And they don't really have any savings. Maybe they have a couple of hundred dollars in their savings account, but their income is sufficient to pay their rent going forward. But it doesn't mean that it's not going to be sufficient. But it doesn't mean that it's not going to be sufficient. To pay their rent going forward. But it doesn't mean that it's sufficient enough to cure their arrears on their own. And so I had brought this issue up to Nate and John, because we had a woman who was denied and appealed it. And the appeals. The community action policy is there's a different, there's another supervisor who manages the program and then they appeal. If someone appeals, they appeal directly to me. And I really wanted to approve this person because it made sense, but we had already denied about four other people for this same problem where they really didn't have a lot of savings, but the, and they were in arrears, but they, the math made it seem like they could have afforded their rent. So what I talked to John and Nate about is to sort of making an exception for people who are already in arrears. So if you are applying for monthly rent going forward, we would use the same formula to determine if you have sufficient income or assets to pay your rent going forward. But if you are applying for help with your arrears, that in and of itself has demonstrated a need. Because you likely did could not pay your arrears because you don't have any other resources. So that's what I wanted to bring to you all tonight. And I'm happy to answer questions, but we had, we've had, there were four or five people in this category that we've sort of gone back to in some cases. They still were very complicated and probably just should apply to raft because they would love money. But we, you know, we want to be able to go back and help some of those folks that we denied previously for this reason. Does anyone have questions? Nate and I both thought this was a good idea. I think what it means is, and maybe I'll make a motion to this effect that we would be changing our guidance so that we read applicants must have insufficient income and or assets to pay their rent for three months. Or arrears while applying for monthly rental assistance. Would, would that do it, Jenna? I would say something like. Applicants must. Applicants with sufficient income or assets. So I would separate it so that it's clear that if you're applying for monthly rent. You must demonstrate a need. And you can't have sufficient income or assets. You can't have sufficient income and or assets to pay their rent for three months. And we take out that not mention arrears in the same sentence because I think that what you read back to me sort of indicates that those people would still not be eligible. No, that's okay. I had. Where's the email that I sent that had some suggested language. Oh, here it is. Applicants must have insufficient income and or assets to pay their rent for three months. That's, that's a description of the current eligibility requirements. Well, I want to make it, that is, but I, the other one doesn't, the current one doesn't say when applying for monthly rent assistance. So. We could add something. Yeah. Carols, you have a suggestion. Well, applying for monthly rent assistance still doesn't specify what you said talking to us, which is going forward. Apply for monthly rental assistance going forward. And then that kind of doesn't say anything about arrears. And maybe you want to say nothing about it. And maybe you want to submit. So that seems clear. The question to me is whether should there also be something said about arrears. I don't know. But anyway, I'd add going forward because it seems to me to make it clear. We could say future rent when applying for future rent. That's less words. Okay. Well, maybe we just kind of start over. And use similar language. When looking at it to say. Applicants who have insufficient income and or assets. To pay. Their rent. That is in arrears. Are also eligible. For an award or whatever their right. Language would be. So it's a separate sentence. And it establishes a second category of eligibility. I think we can say something like. Assistance doesn't, you know, what is it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Households. Maybe eligible for. Assistance with renter rears or future rent. Or monthly rent. And then say applicants. Must have insufficient income and or assets. To pay. Insufficient income and or assets when applying for monthly rent. I don't think that quite frankly, applicants are not diving deep into these eligibility guidelines before they apply. No, I'm not concerned about applicants. I'm concerned about somebody else looking over the town shoulder and saying. Why did you allow this? Would we say that, you know, for. For applicants in arrears, the income asset. Test is waived. I mean, it could be as simple as that. Or does not apply. Right. Okay. Okay. And, you know, I feel like if we clarify the other statement, you know, we could just have something as simple as like, whether we have it as another step, you know, statement or like a footnote or something, but. Yeah, I think it would be good to record this. And it is a little bit of a moving target. It's not as bad as the micro enterprise program that the HDS. Offering. Which I will say. They just changed their guidelines today. They update FAQs and they don't tell you. I just. They threw a curve ball to people today. With some other updates. So I'm, I'm fine if we say something like that, like it's way for people in arrears. And, you know, they still have to. I mean, at that point you're still doing, you know, verifying that they owe a fair amount. Right. I mean, we're, it's not. They still have to show that they, they need the. The funding. So. Right. So every, all the other guidelines would be the same. They still have to be income eligible. They write, we, we always verify what the arrears are anyway. But we wouldn't have to do. This math equation that then is knocking people at, you know, like this one person that appealed, she had, you know, $100 in her savings account. And owed three months of rent. And we denied her because. Her income was sufficient. You know, it didn't really. She couldn't still couldn't pay the background. So. I just want, yeah. So we could say something like, you know, households in arrears. You know, this, this requirement does not apply for households in arrears or something. Yeah. Rob, is there something you wanted to add? No. Okay. Okay. I'll move that we adopt that language. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Great. So we should have a roll call vote. I'm a yes go to Carol. Yes. Allegra. Yes. Erica. Yes. Will. Will. Can't hear you. Yes. Okay. I think you're muted. Will Francis. Yes. And Rob. Yes. Okay. That's great. Okay. So. Janet, is there any explanation that you have for why applications have slowed down? As I've said before, I'm wrong every time I make a prediction. You know, it's a, it's a funny time. It's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. It's a funny thing. The raft providers and a whole bunch of other folks and. You know, raft is still like, there's still a lot of raft applications, but it's stabilizing a little bit more than it was before. But Jen Derringer from community legal aid was on the call. And while they are very, very busy with people who have notices to quit. So people who are calling legal aid. The court process is taking a really long time. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. Even if the landlord has filed. With the court, it takes several weeks for the court to even schedule the hearing. And then the hearings are six to eight weeks out. And so part of me wonders if it's still, you know, people don't, there's not a lot happening. Maybe they're not tenants aren't getting a ton of notices. They're not getting badgered by their landlords. They're not getting a lot of notices. They're not getting a ton of notices. And so it's a lot more activity than we are in Hampshire and Franklin County in terms of landlord. You know, the eviction cases. But. I don't know. I mean, I, you know, I don't know. If you, I mean, I think I've heard of the tail end of the conversation at the beginning about notifying landlords of the program. Like I don't, we don't hear from a lot of landlords. There's not a lot of landlords. Landlords can apply to raft on behalf of their tenants. So I don't know. I just, it's a weird time. Are you okay keeping the program running? You know, we had voted last time to extend it and. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, I mean, you know, I think it's still meeting a need. You know, we are East Hampton just launched their program. You know, I think it's, they just, I think are a little smaller than we all anticipated, but. Yeah, I don't know. Well, nine new applications plus four requests for additional. Three months is not nothing. So I'm comfortable with leaving the program continuing. At this point. Yeah. And I will say for the people that, that, you know, you all are helping with these funds there. I mean, it makes a huge difference. So even though the numbers aren't what we thought they would be. You know, we are, you are saving folks from, you know, becoming homeless and just also the stress of not knowing. If they're going to get an eviction notice. So it is, it does make a huge difference. Okay. Any additional questions or comments for Jenna? Okay. Thanks very much for joining us again this evening. Thank you. We'll be in touch. Okay. Good night. Thanks. Okay. I believe our next agenda item. Is the request for proposals that we're working on. And Rita had prepared some talking points or discussion points really. That reflect where the draft RFP working group is. And I intended to send those out and I kind of did five minutes before the meeting started. I'm going to pull those up, John. Nate's going to show them to you on the screen. And my apologies and. I'll ask. Rita to leave the discussion of these points once they're available to everybody. Okay. So first off, just because I know this is new too. Okay. Okay. I know this is new too. Allegra. The trust is working on a request for proposals. For. Parcells. Belcher town road and then the East street school to do a request for proposal. For affordable housing. And I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about that. There is a working group of trust members, which includes Carol, Francis, Erica, John and I have now had. I think two meetings. Two meetings. Two meetings. To talk about the RFP. There was an RFP that was done for East street school back. A couple of years ago. It was kind of a template. And making some. Obviously some, some changes to now reflect it being. Belcher town road sites. As well as East street school. In a new RFP, which we expect to. Issue. This brings at some point. So. What John had recommend. That we do. And I think made a lot of sense was actually to kind of work. A little bit. Backwards. And that is to start with the criteria. That the things that we think are really important in these different categories. And then use those. Once we've established what those are and what the priorities are. And then, And then, And then, The RFP narrative and incorporate these. These criteria. Into there. So it's been a great working group so far. Just a lot of really good ideas and a lot of good. Good questions and back and forth. About. Some of the, the key categories. So what I've done here is, I've done a total of maybe seven. Of the. Nine to six of the nine to 10 categories overall. The ones where I think, you know, perhaps the, there's the most discussion should be the most discussion. There has been certainly amongst the, the working group members. And to kind of go through those. This evening. And I would ask. Francis Erica and Carol to, to jump in here. And I'll just step through. Each of these, each of these categories and what I've highlighted here. And then, you know, we can open up the discussion. So one of the first things that we've talked about is whether or not the working group members. And I think the consensus so far of the working group is. Yes. And what the nature of those. Not affordable units is. You know, is, is, is up for discussion. So anything. We've considered anything over. 80%. Area median income. Would be. Market rate. Unit. Do you want me to step through these? One by. Why don't you do A, B, C, D, E for affordability? And then we'll go back. Okay. Okay. So that, that really covers A and B. To have some units that are actually at 100% of the area and median income. And for purposes of some state funding, particularly mass housing funding, workforce housing unit. Are go up to 120% of area median income, I believe. Just FYI. The units on Belcher town road. Anything that's built there. The maximum household income can only be at 100% of the area median income because Belcher town road is being acquired. With CPA funds. For community housing. And the CPA income limit is 100% of AMI. What I think we, we do need to do in the, in the RFP is set some minimum. Number of affordable units. And then give kind of a range to what we think the maximum number of units. Would be for those two sites. And that we would have affordable units. Some affordable units at 30% of area, me up maximum of 30%. Am I. And then. The balance up to 60%. Of the area median income. And those requirements come directly out of the, something called the qualified act. Which is a document that's prepared by the department of housing community development and is really the guidance for both. Not, not only low income housing tax credit, but also other DHCD resources. And the assumption is that any developer. Responding to this RFP. We'll have to. We'll be using DHCD resources and though, so as we kind of went through a number of the criteria, we were aware of the, the QAP. Requirements. And so have incorporated. A number of those things. Into. These guidelines. So stop there. And. I don't know. I first Francis, Carol, Erica. If there's anything you want to add to this or there are questions from other. Trust members. Yeah, just very quickly. I think what we said was. Definitely have a minimum number of units based on just how much. Just the economy. So scale for developers. I don't know if we. I think, yeah, I think there's still some discussion on how many, if we should say the number of maximum units total or minimum unit total. And as well as the affordability limits. Can you remind me why we're not going up to 80% AMI? No, I'm just saying that it's not 80. It would be 60 and then from 60. Anything above. 60. Yeah. Yeah. I just said the 80 because that is the typically is the affordable. Right. I think one of the things that certainly. Both Erica and Carol emphasized. Is that. They did not want. A. Property that was segregated by input. That they wanted some diversity of income. And so if we can have a mix of 30% AMI, 60%. And 200%. 100%. Sorry. That gives us a significant diversity of income. Obviously the preponderance of. Units would still be for low income. Folks, but it does give us the opportunity to have some diversity. Of income. And it would probably be more or less equally spread across the two properties. Because we can't have. The two properties be terribly different with respect to the income distribution. Apparently that would make DHCD unhappy from what Rita has said in the past. Well, actually, you know, I, I think. That's a, we've heard that from some developers. It doesn't mean absolutely that we couldn't do some above 100% AMI, but. You know, for, for financing reasons that, that might be where. It lands. But do you think, John, when you're speaking, I think. What do you want to have a point that says. To have the units, you know, roughly proportional. Between the sites because. A developer could have a mix of income levels, but, you know, but then. Between the two properties, but then keep, you know, segregate income levels. So one of the things that I think is, you know, If we're not saying it, then. You know, Whether or not the state likes it, a developer might not. So if we want to say to have. You know, A mix of incomes on both sites, I think we should say that. Just. Yeah, I agree. And I think that was the sense of our working group. I think with the acknowledgement that you can't go over a hundred percent AMI on Belcher town road. Are we, do we, do we. Did staff agree with that Rita? Was that still up in the air? Or did Dave say he was okay with that? I believe. I believe that was the agreement. Yes. John. Do you agree with that? I agree. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. That was the agreement. Yes. John, do you concur? I do agree. I mean, there was some ambiguity for a while, but I think. Once they realize that we may have difficulty getting financing. If we didn't. Abide by that rule. Right. And he said, yeah, that's what we should. That it could be looked at by the lenders. Right. I mean, do you think it's, I mean, it could be looked at by the lenders? I mean, it could be looked at by the lenders. I mean, it could be looked at by a minimum number of units and having the affordability range and saying it's. Portion of between sites. I mean. Do we then just leave the rest of the units up to the developer? I mean, do we, do we want to prescribe. Up to a hundred and up to 120 or is it. Will we make those. As part of the comparative criteria. So maybe it's, you know, someone's more. You know, highly advantageous if they can work in. You know, 120% AMI or something. You know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I think the, I think the best way to word it is that we have a minimum number of units at 60% AMI and below. And then we leave the balance up to the developers and understanding that. But. That it belts your town road, we have a maximum 100% AMI and then let, let them make the numbers work. And I think giving a developer that flexibility is going to. Result in better. Proposals for us. Should we say 30% too, like. 60 to 30 to 60. I mean, if we just said six year less. Would they include 30 or. You know, I've had mixed. So basically that you get 30 to 60, nobody wants to do that many different unit, unit amounts or rent rent limits and makes the renting up like a huge management headache. So, you know, in the past we did ask for some units at 50% am I and we got some really negative feedback about that. And why then that unit is always set at 50%. And then if you can't find somebody, you know, you could sit with the vacant unit so I think this. This makes more sense. So we'll have essentially three, three levels, maybe four. But as long as we get our affordable units, I think over and above that it's sort of, you know, a good thing we're going to have some mixed income. It won't all be affordable. And, and that we leave it up to the developers to figure out because the financing is going to drive this I mean I've looked at a couple of other very recently approved. Affordable housing developments and some of them have used mass housing financing because there's workforce money there. Some of them have used, you know, other permanent financing. So it really the each one is specific to sort of the market area and I think we'll find that that developers might use different sources, but we can still achieve the same, the same goal of getting some mixed income. If we said 45, a minimum, it seems like a minimum of 45 units is kind of a lot. Affordable units. Well, I mean, what, what did we say that someone could do 15 on East Street and then 30 on Belcher Town Road is that I mean we're not prescribing even that breakdown but you know, that's a decision to me is 45 too much is 40 a better number. I mean, is it, you know what I mean we're saying the minimum number so someone can always propose more. That's correct. And I wrote 40 to 45. Because, you know, because I think, yeah, you know, we've heard that 45 is the max on tax credit deals now just, you know, and people trying to structure them in Western Mass. That that's, you know, given the levels of subsidy that that they need that that's kind of the, that's the place. So I think you know we could go with 40 and somebody might come in with 45. Yeah, I mean that's not. But that's likely the range 40 to 45 and the next time we meet we'll try to make a decision about what to make the minimum. Yeah. Sorry if I missed this but are we giving them, is it an option for them to develop both sides or are they required to take on both sides. Can you say that again Francis I just missed. This is for both sides. I think this is for both sides. Yeah. They will have it will be an option to take the post they'd have to do both. Yes, I mean we have not talked about them picking one or the other. I think the thinking was that this came as a as a package. All right, what if someone right what if someone came in and said I'll just do 50 affordable units or 45 on Beltertown Road, and I don't need to do the East Street school site. My concern would be, and I've said this before, the East Street school site because it's a smaller site in terms of developer land area would become orphaned. Because it would be too small to be attractive by itself to a developer and ultimately to DHCD. So, as of now my personal preference is to keep the package. Yeah. I mean we're proposing it this way I mean we can see what responses, you know what what they look like. Everybody says I don't want to do them both. Nobody says that they'll do them both and I guess we have to think of something different but right. Erica did you think did we capture everything in the affordability. Do you think isn't it isn't there some like if you do workforce housing subsidy does it sometimes doesn't it computer with like the long housing tax credit program like is there. It can complement it. It does or doesn't. It can. It can be combined. I thought. I thought when fallacy was going through North Hampton Road they made some statement about how it has to be. You know something about like the way the 40 be permit works it doesn't. Sometimes it some, you know sometimes they can't use certain funding. I don't. Yeah, I just, I just know, you know, I've got some numbers, you know, some development stuff from from MHP and then from way finders about a deal that they're doing in Aguam with credits and with workforce housing. Yeah, was it a 40 B project, you know, yes. That's interesting. I'm really pretty sure Valley said that which seems strange that you couldn't. There's some DCD had some problem with the restriction or something. Yeah, I don't know. We don't have to figure that out. We have examples of existing projects. Yeah, yeah, seems like it could happen. Yeah. I'll ask if there's some conflict, but I don't believe so. I think having the minimum number in the affordability range and leaving the rest up to a developer to propose. Right, I mean we're not. Do we make it like for instance in the comparative criteria would we say it's more advantageous if you can include market rate units I mean do we start structuring the comparative criteria that way. Yes. I think so because we don't want to, we don't want to under develop we don't want to over develop we don't want to under develop. I think that Carol particularly was concerned about to putting too many units on either side. So that everything would be kind of crammed together. Right. So I do think we need a minimum but I think we may also want to do a maximum. That leads us to the next. Right. Yeah. Okay, so. The answer was yes Rita. You covered everything. Yes. Okay, good. Okay, so unit and bedroom configuration. I think the expectation is we're going to do one, two and three bedroom units. One has started and I'm attempting to do some market research about what the demand is in Amherst and we got some initial feedback from the Amherst housing authority. About their vouchers, not, not public housing because this really isn't comparable to public housing but the demand for vouchers and surprisingly, their biggest the greatest demand that they have in one bedroom. And, but I think we know we have wanted to focus on family housing because that's the, you know, the toughest to develop and to find. So that's more two and three bedroom units. So we still have some more research to do looking at some of the existing demand for other affordable housing developments in the town, other subsidized housing. So that's that remains to be seen. And we said there's been no decision made no recommendation made by the, by the committee. We would require a minimum of 10% of the units is three bedroom simply because that's a DHCD requirement in the qualified action plan. Again, I just wrote total development here. Do we put an upper number on there let's say we say a minimum of 40 affordable units do we put that cap on of no more than 65 units on the two sites. You know, when, when we did the initial, when we did the East Street RFP the first time around we had some some works done by Q and riddle. And I think the maximum number of units that they were looking at were 32 36 range there. But that was going up. I think for stories. Yeah, and I mean would we. What I thought is if we didn't, you know, for the trust if we didn't have the total number units here, some of the criteria is reviewing the concept design and seeing how compatible they are with the neighborhood so yeah, leaving it up to the developer to come up with the design that works, not necessarily by limiting it to a bedroom size. I guess one question I had is, do you think that was if developers are proposing 30% am I they would rather do like a studio than a one bedroom or would we consider a studio or one bedroom. Are we going to differentiate between that. So say someone came in and said you know I'm going to I'll do 40 affordable units and seven of them are going to be for 30% am I and they're going to be studios. Are we going to reject or do we want them to be like, you know, are we going to, you know, are we going to make a difference between a one bedroom and a studio. And I personally think so. We're getting 28 studio apartments at 132 North Hampton Road. So I think that as this is kind of the next project in line. I would rather not see studio apartments is on either of these sites. We're not, we're not going to have a million units here. Yes, I think that maybe we can say something about a diverse mix of you of unit types per income range. So that you know regardless of whether they're 3060 or 100, you still hopefully can have some one to one threes. But it sounds like we're going to say, I mean, essentially if we say one twos and threes we're excluding studios which I mean if that's I just want to, you know, point that out so that's you know that if we're okay with that and you know I sometimes I feel like the developer may want to do studios for the 30% am I I think that's fine. I would agree with john I think we. Yep. Yep, because we, I mean we've spent a lot of time and support for the North Hampton Road, and so I, I would agree that we start with two and three bedroom units one two and three. So we need to say more than just an emphasis on two bedrooms like are we actually trying to have a proportional formula or you know or is it just okay to say a mix of one to three with an emphasis on two bedroom are we actually trying to say, what do we say like, you know 10% three bedroom and a percent for two bedrooms are we just going to kind of. Yeah, I wrote that but that has not a decision hasn't been made. So, yeah, I think. Last time we had a strong emphasis on two bedroom. And I think depending on the results that we get back from way finders and beacon to compliment what I've already learned from the Amherst housing authority. Then we can decide how much emphasis to try to put on each of these. Okay, I think a formula but with some flexibility. My understanding was we were waiting on the on getting the results and the goal was to ask for the units that are most in demand to ask for the sizes that are the most in people's waiting lists or however in the world you look at it that it. We'd say a minimum 50% of the units be to bedroom. And then if we have 10% then someone can figure out, you know, the rest of it. I mean, but we're also we're getting pretty prescriptive in the unit configuration. Well you don't want anybody to come in with all one bedrooms either. Right. And is that in this bedroom count. The total units not just affordable right. Totally yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think you know we haven't agreed on the different criteria but you know we have the unacceptable advantages and highly advantageous and that's where you'd have the percentage. 60% of units are two plus and at least 10% of three bedrooms that would be advantageous and it goes up, but we just haven't agreed yet. Okay, yeah, yeah. No, I know that like that sounds good. Yeah. Okay, so moving along. There are some things as I noted kind of in the, in the title here that john and I had a meeting with with town staff after the with with Nate and Dave Zomek and Rob Mara who's the building. Commissioner. Commissioner, I was going to say that I know he's not just a building inspector he's a building commissioner around some design stuff and there's clearly seems to be a an interest in retaining the East street school on the part of the town and town officials so when when we met with the understanding that that that makes it more complex for developers some developers would just assume not deal with the building like that some obviously really like it, but that if the developer was willing to incorporate the East street school building into the development proposal that the town would be willing to entertain historic preservation money, possibly, you know support a request for historic preservation money through CPA. They might also be able to access historic credits. So it's a little bit different and this, this is a case again where we would in the, I think in the criteria. It would be highly advantageous if the if the school building was retained, but the working group did not talk about this so I just wanted to make sure everybody is clear on that and it's open for discussion. It really, you know, it is up to the trust but I wanted to put the town staffs preference out there comments. Do we know for sure that if a developer decided to demolish it, they would be allowed to. There's a Nate correct me there's a historic mission can put a one year moratorium on demolition and I'm sure that they can absolutely prohibited. It's just a moratorium is that correct. Yeah, they would just, I mean I think the commission, you know they've looked at this, you know they've been previewed this project and they said they would probably, you know they would probably issue a delay so they would put a 12 month delay on the product on the demolition of the building so, you know, but at the end of the 12 months. Right then it can come down but it could come down earlier if, if, if a developer makes a compelling reason that they've exhausted all the alternatives to demolition but you know a lot of times someone will just wait for 12 months and then take it down. I think when we did this earlier, the RFP earlier for East Street, you know that we didn't, we didn't have a stance about the building and I think that, you know, if, you know, whether or not the town preferences included that you know I think it should be something that's part of a comparative criteria just so it gives direction to a, you know, an applicant. You know, should I try to keep this thing or not and then you know it can be part of the ranking because, you know, it, I think it has challenges for both, you know, for the site for keeping it or demolishing it but I think, you know, it really does impact the site plan for this property so. Allegra you didn't have to go to the late school did you. I think Sid, did Sid say he attended he went to East Street? He might have. No, I don't think he's been an hours that long. Yeah, or maybe he said he just likes the, he said he likes the building but I'm always surprised who, who, who went to school there but Erica did you have I was going to say with that delay, you know, the process and the progress, if there's going to be a one year moratorium that they can't move on the site if they decide that they actually absolutely can't utilize the site need to rebuild. Not necessarily. I mean, they could apply for a demolition. I think prior to go in for a comprehensive permit. And before they apply to DHCD for funding. So if they do that, then those processes will take them more than a year. So the demolition delay wouldn't necessarily hurt the project very much. Yeah, if you if you didn't know whether or not you were demolishing the building and had to wait, you really can't submit your permit until you have gone through that process. So, yeah, I think it adds a little bit of risk. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, for Valley for 132 or Hampton Road, you can you can roll the demolition request into the comprehensive permit you may want to do it ahead of time if you think it'll start the top the clock ticking But you know it is there is a risk there that you know I don't you know but for instance, if we said we you have to keep the school. You know, does that is that also become something that developers may not want to write so it's just. Yeah, I agree I mean it could put developers off pity on the project entirely. So I don't think I would want that to be an absolute restriction myself. I think one of the things that maybe school. Go ahead Erica. I was gonna say, when you say school, do you mean the whole building because I know that when the casino was built there were fronts that were used but not necessarily the whole buildings. I think the whole building. Reusing the building for apartments. So not, you know, keeping. Really. And what about see we did how much site and buildings I work is going to be required right this is to submit a proposal. Well you had raised that Nate in our, in our discussion I only put it in there because I think it's not something we're going to resolve tonight, but it's just something for that the, that the working group will be talking about looking at what we asked for previously from the developers and was that too much was that too little. Right, you know my, my caution, as we're doing the RFP is this is the trust one shot at saying what it wants, because once the developer is selected. The, the trust and the town, with the exception of the boards that are reviewing applications. Can't negotiate anything you can issue an RFP get a proposal back and then rework whatever the developer came in with that is a violation of and and the whole thing could be thrown out. And you just you can't do that you could have other developers come in and challenge and say wait a minute if I had known you were going to negotiate that. Then I would have, you know I would have put something different in my proposal. So, so this is the time and that's why you want to have a really clear and well thought out RFP, because you don't get to revisit it again. Of course, I mean we do it last time we asked for scale drawings though we asked for you know essentially like a scaled site plan and elevations. And you know would we not I mean sounds like we do you're saying that we should still have that requirement for a scale drawn you know for something that's a little bit more more than say just like a concept plan you know we may we may have called it a concept plan but in the RFP we actually said we want to you know scaled and had a number of kind of parameters for those drawings, and it also helps I know review the proposal and everything but you know it said well that is a lot up front like for instance what if they said oh what if we realize we could keep the school but we didn't have enough time. The RFP and the program does change. You know what does that look like so I guess I was thinking if we keep a pretty rigorous. You know, some of this stuff is we expect a lot maybe we just have to have a longer timeframe for people to submit responses, you know I think last time we tried to have a pretty quick turnaround which you know we ended up extending but it was just kind of messy the way we had to you know issue an addendum to extend it and then. I mean we can do that and if it's just a matter of of time, we can give people a longer period of time to to respond to get this done, I mean putting a response to an RFP. Together is an expense for a developer and they have to spend money, and they have to get drawings done and they have to, you know, put a lot of thought into it. And that's just a risk that they take that's that's part of being a developer you take those risks from the town's perspective and from the trust perspective, you know the developer is getting approximately a million dollars worth of property. And so for us to say, you know, go out and spend $20,000 to put your RFP together and put this is is nothing in terms of what we're giving them. So I don't think it's unreasonable to. Ask developers and I think it's also a reflection back on the developer if they can, if they can't come up with the money to put together a good RFP how are we expecting them to do a $15 million development. Right. We have to have the wherewithal so you know that's the this is this is not, you know, building 10 units somewhere this is like 50 to 60 multifamily units that you know on on land that's being essentially given to them through a long term lease that's not going to cost them anything. Yeah, you're talking weird it made me think if we were asking for that do you think the developers want would want like a CAD file, maybe France I know what you think so we. We can get one for the East Street School we finally you know we have a survey and we have the well and surveyed and it's on one plan so I'm trying to get the CAD file now, but the belt. I don't think we have a CAD file so you know again it would just be like the town's yeah the GIS any survey work that's been done. And of course for the East Street School the evaluation of hazardous materials because that'll be really important to assess how much it'll cost to remediate versus the paredown. But yes, basically anything we have that would be useful to them in order to both design the site plan as well as the cost associated with any mitigation is helpful. And we gave them all of that stuff on the East Street School all of the. All of the building research that we had, we give the access to that in the last RFP. Yeah, we didn't it was supposed to be there. Yeah, no we have links I don't know if they worked but we also have our GIS layers which can be downloaded but. We don't know if it worked this time. Yeah. A lot of times they do like to have the CAD file. Yeah, yes. Yeah. All right. It was supposed to be there. So just so everybody knows when when we when the trust drafts the RFP it then goes to staff at Town Hall and so I think this time we just want to make sure that it comes full circle back to the trust because we didn't see the final document that went out because it goes out through the procurement office at Town Hall. And that won't happen again. No more comments. Other questions on the development design. So we broke out the the again the working group had some really great suggestions. We had incorporated originally into development design areas which really fell more into sustainability that we want to highlight and so we broke this out as an as a new section and you know the the first thing I included this in sustainability it's not I'm not sure where maybe it doesn't belong here but with the East Street school there there are essentially kind of two two parcels there's the front pop parcel, which has the school building and runs along the East Street there and then in the back of that there's a parcel that has been a playing field in the past that's very wet is not buildable and has a culvert that crosses under a little paved area. So we're, we haven't resolved with with the town, yet. When I say with the town with Dave's Domek and Nate and Rob and john and I have been talking about what happens with that, that back parcel does a developer one access to that it's open space it can never be developed but you could have. A little play structure back there you could have some you know walking path it connects it could connect to Watson farms which is a family public housing development I think this, they do use that field now. At some point that field was used for you know more formal recreation Oh thank you for. This is the property. We're right here in the yellow. So you can see that that that back piece is a good sized piece of land and Watson farms kind of surrounds part of it and then you know the houses on on southeast street there back up onto it and that's the school and then here's the other development area. So, you know we could separate this off, or we could just leave it all as one parcel. And, you know, I think depending upon what developer you talk to some would say I don't really want to take care of that I'd rather just let the town take care of it because it just means extra work and you know mowing and so forth. But some developers might say yeah that's that's a feature that's really nice to have as part of the as part of the rental development and because there's such a narrow neck there. It. It's hard to to provide access, like an easement from southeast street there to the back parcel. You know if it was going to be used if the town was going to control it. Actually, last time we did have a provision that the town would maintain that back lot and be responsible for it. And the developer needed to provide an easement across from the front lot. That would allow people to access the back lot. Yeah, I think yeah so what we're saying is you know there'd be a 10 or 12 foot wide easement to get you know more down here but the difficult thing is depending on how you develop the site plan you know you're not saying has to be a straight easement all of a sudden it might go through parking lots and it goes around a building and then comes in so. Yeah, you know, I know Tom was not enthusiastic about if you were developing this to keep you know that the liability and the access all that complicates the site design here because you know if you want to have an easy access you basically have a 12 foot wide strip is right right down the side here which maybe isn't a big deal but you know it has to be a almost a paved access drive to get back here. If you're requiring or that you're you really want the school retained. It just becomes that much more onerous to have that easement. Right. Yeah, an easement on the other side of the school then you're telling people, you have access, you know, through this through this housing development to that back parcel where you can go and have pick up soccer games or whatever and it, you know, I think it's, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, I mean you have. Yeah I think for the working group and then the trust I think that is a big consideration you know what what we want to have happen with this field at one point we're saying you know the town would maintain it and it'd be open to the public but then right we're saying that the public would, you know, could park on southeast street but then they would have you know there'd be an easement through someone through another project to get to this, this back field and you know I think there are some questions about how does that work with, you know, depending on how this is developed and so yeah I don't you know the towns you know we also mentioned could we get access through Watson farms but yeah I mean I think maybe the working group right if what if there's a preference that you know it maybe it's only open to the development or to the neighborhood or you know I don't know it's not, you know, all to the public. It's not going to be open to the public anyway, I mean what's going to stop anybody from walking through there and going back in there and playing. Why make it a problem just let it be open. It's going to be anyway so. You can make it open through having a you know having a public easement or you can just assume people are going to go back there that the people from Watson farms for example those those kids could use that as a, you know, to play soccer or whatever back back back there, but that you're not opening it up in a stated way like bring your teams here, walk through this property and go back and have have games back there. Right, I think so it is the liability you know if we'd have to then very clearly articulate an easement or something so that the developer and owner of the housing on East Street is not responsible for anything that happens here along with the easement because you know I think that's the issue so you know, right if we're, if we're, you know, they, if this is just, you know, casually open to people. Someone could put a sign up and say, you know, basically use that your own risk and it could waive them of liability but if essentially the town's going to promote this as oh here's a neighborhood park. You know, literally you can softball teams can come back here and use it. That's a whole different story than, you know, it's just an open area so yeah I think it is interesting to consider. So I think that's something that working group members will be talking about. Anybody else on the trust has some thoughts we'd love to hear it about how to to retain it not have the easement assume that it's part of the development. We may ultimately need legal advice related to what we can or should do with respect to that. It's part of the, it's part of the East Street School site so I think we have to. The only legal advice would be is if we wanted to provide public access to it, or allow public access because otherwise it's, it's, it's part of the development and just like anybody else's property. You know your ability to go on to it is really at the will of the, of the owner. Okay, so let's go on to the next. So the one thing I'll say though you know at. They've mentioned it a little bit when we were on the call that you know this here's the route nine properties of Belcher Town Road properties made this this area back here is concert town conservation land now and so there. You know there is there is a mode trail here but there's you know the town is actually going to develop this with, you know walking trail and maybe community gardens and in some leasable space or license space for, you know, bigger farming but you know there was a thought about having a pedestrian connection from, you know, maybe for just the residents of this of this development to this property again I don't think the idea was to have a public access point through this property I didn't understand it that way but you know my thought is if there's a connection here maybe as a highly advantageous site design. You know, makes an effort to show, you know, connection between these two sites, I don't know if that's worthwhile to pursue or, you know, just because otherwise they have to you know there's, you know, it has to go on the sidewalk and walk, you know walk back and get to it, you know, it'd be so much quicker to have a path through here but I don't you know I don't know if that's worth. Dave talked about having a path and also including in the path a little footbridge over a stream that would allow access to the playing fields behind Fort River School. That's something that town's doing though. Yes, that's what I meant, I don't think it's something we would expect the developer to do. Because the access for this would be the town has an easement over how about easements down through here, and then the access to this property is here so you know someone lived here it's not that far walk but you know you do have to go on the street and then walk through here. I get all the way back here. Yeah, I think we should talk about what those plans are, and what we might ask a developer to do but to do some home network of walking paths back there, I think is probably. Yeah, I mean, it is a little wet right here, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's considered wetland, though, I don't know the extent of the wetland on this but yeah, well let's move on to the next set of issues. So just, I just want to highlight that, you know, within the development design that hazardous materials evaluation has been completed for the the East Street school so we know that there's asbestos in there and there's lead and some other stuff. And there's a cost estimate that's being put together. So I forgot to mention that. So also with sustainability. Having language around green sustainable climate resilient design and again the degree of detail that will require has to be discussed with the, with the, the working group but this language is taken directly from the qualified action plan of DHCD. So that's what they're looking for. And I think that's what we're looking for too. And then just in terms of wetlands there are wetlands of both sites and town staff are preparing the, it's called the RDAs for the wetlands of both both sites so we're doing, you know, more due diligence. More research to make it easier for developers to know exactly what can and can't be done. So when someone turns in their RFP they will have access to the, the determinations of what ones will be, they will have those in their hands right. Yeah, cool. Yeah. And as well as, you know, all this other material that we know about the Eastry School and the surveys and all the rest of that. Okay, so the other couple of things that we've talked about are the management and maintenance plan and, and I think you know we have to refine that but those are definitely things that we're interested in, in hearing about and again when we had this discussion with with town staff I think there was some concern about again not requiring like a whole management and maintenance plan. You know that takes many hours and costs thousands of dollars to put together so we just have to make sure that we have language we want to know kind of what the basic parameters are without having a management and maintenance plan for development that hasn't even hasn't been done, but I think using previous examples as a way examples of what the developers have done in the past and then getting them to agree to elements that we want included things that that we think are priorities for such as eviction procedures, things that we want to see in management plan. And, and then fair housing and equal opportunity. Again with the marketing plan. They don't have to do a marketing plan specific because we don't know exactly what the development is yet but we're just marketing plans and making sure that that every effort is being made to ensure that underserved populations are encouraged to apply for the housing, and a couple of things just to add that I didn't put in here but that you had sent along a couple of suggestions and and one was making sure that we include a value statement in the narrative, which I think is really important and just be just later today I know Erica you had sent along some really material like I don't know who developed at somebody at the state around affirmative fair housing, not affirmative marketing and serving, making sure we're serving underserved populations, can you just, I don't have it right in front of me so I thought I had taken notes for, I think those were the principles, yes, and guidance on how to use the principles so at, yeah, at DPH we actually have a racial equity procurement group that's looking at our procurement process. And so one of the things that we decided was is that we would put these principles attached them to the RFRs so people understood exactly what our expectations were. And sometimes some of the concepts and principles can be a little bit general and not very specific, but it was an opportunity to provide the values that we're expecting the applicants to have and to then demonstrate. So it's a set of principles, and it's pretty extensive. We do use them for our RFR. And probably more extensive, extensive them we just from a, from a cursory review of the more extensive than what we want to include but I think that there are certainly parts of them and maybe we can share them with the rest of the trust members because I think they were really good. And would they become part of the comparative criteria. You know I was thinking, again, for the fair housing one. So how do you look at that or how do we know that they're addressing are making a good effort at marketing I mean, you know what in some of the comparative criteria would we say like a highly advantageous would be engaging like a community liaison or holding meetings and so you know are we, you know, except this is a category right I mean, this is actually a review criteria so we have to come up with, you know what we think is the most advantageous so we can say you know here did. You know it is the marketing plan that was submitted or their efforts does it document that they have you know held community meetings or had a community relations person or you know, and then advantageous is different right so we're assuming we're gonna have, you know, we could build on this a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I've been doing some research on that and I'll have some ideas to share with the draft RFP committee or working group. Just quickly. Sorry, just quickly. What's required for the city for any day city related money they do require the affirmative housing for marketing plan. All the management and maintenance plans before they get any sort of financing from them and the banks require them to. So you know this would be thinking about if we want to do anything in addition to what is required there and again if they apply for like tech. Everything is also reviewed by HUD. So it's multiple layers that already are doing this too so it's thinking about what if any added value we can bring to it. Maybe under the management plan, you know, maybe not requiring a separate service plan but saying you know how are they going to do referrals or, you know, I think, you know something like that is nice because oftentimes I haven't you know we haven't seen that in the management plan. Yeah, I think the principles that that Erica sent out are really good and I'd like to look through that and see. I didn't see that email so it'd be great. Erica read up someone if you send them to the whole trust I'm going to be really helpful. Okay, I feel like I'd send it to. I wasn't certain if I could send it to everybody. I'll forward you it to you need and then maybe you can send it out. Okay. Erica and everybody else. If you just want to ascend information out to the entire housing trust you can do that. You just, it just has to be clear to everybody that it's not for a online conversation, the only conversation we can have about it is during an active meeting. You can send information out for people's and curiosity or review whatever. Without violating the open meeting law. Just can't talk about it. Yeah. Great, so that's, that's the summary with the working group meets again on February. 25, 25, 25 weeks and two weeks. And what we're hoping to do is to make some more progress on these criteria and also on the, the categories. So I'm going to take a little bit of an attempt at, at writing up some of the categories based on the outline criteria we have now, but stay tuned. Great job summarizing it. Thanks. And I'm actually going to sign off. So, thanks everybody. Thank you. I feel like we're in good shape. I feel like we have a really good process and format. So, you know, there's probably those few questions we have to really answer, like the school building or. But we're moving along quite well. We are. Yeah. Good night everyone. Good night. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say in terms of a schedule. My hope is that we have something forging on a fairly complete draft of the main parts of the RFP for discussion at our March housing trust meeting. And if that's the case, then we can move to getting a full draft to the RFP, maybe by the end of March or early April. And that gets turned over to Anthony Delaney, who's the town procurement officer to put the finishing touches on it. I'm also downplaying a little bit Nate's role, Nate still has significant role in getting together the information about hazardous materials about the delineation of wetlands and other things. He also still has a significant role to play before we have a full draft. I was saying a backseat John I kind of like that. There are two other things that I had actually the other thing that I put down is Nate is working on getting our ducks in a row so to speak. Rita already mentioned the work on hazardous materials, which is work that he initiated we have he has a contractor and the contractor is going to give us estimates of the costs of removing those which will go into the request for proposals. And we also hope that before the RFP goes out, we'll have wetlands delineation, blessed by the conservation commission. So again, there's no uncertainty for the point of view of the developer about where she or he can or cannot build. So that kind of pretty much completes discussion. I think of the RFP unless somebody has a question. Okay, the next item I had is report on state legislation and it's still pretty early in the session. On the other hand, I just wondered will if you had anything you wanted to let people know about. This should be pretty quick but so basically, I only run this on Tuesday when the Western Massachusetts network and homelessness posted about it but the governor just released their draft budget for this year 2022. I guess you did at the end of January, and it entails a whole number of cuts to different, you know, eviction prevention and rental assistance programs and other things that you know the trust will be interested in doing or advocating for. And I haven't gone through the bill itself or the choppa summary in specifics to really summarize it for you all in depth right now. But this isn't a process that I mean we do have time to sort of figure out how we want to advocate for, you know, or discuss exactly what is we want to advocate for and plot out a strategy together so my hope is just to have for our next meeting just a sort of little write out what this budget, how it differs from 2021 and, you know, some suggestions for where to or how to address, like what exactly the trust wants to advocate for. And yeah so so I think for our next meeting can have a discussion about what this proposal looks like and what we want to do about it. I'll mention one other thing. It's not usual but the legislature is giving senators and representatives until I believe it's February 19 to submit new legislation. So if anybody has any ideas for new legislation. I would recommend that you get some idea about that to either Joe Comerford or Mindy Dom in the next few days. I think that wraps up our legislative report. Then I had a few things, brief brief updates when I still don't have anything on but let's see. Town housing policy, I sent out the most recent draft of the town housing policy to everybody. I hope to carve out some time to talk about that, and it will probably change again between now and the next time we meet, because the Community Resource Committee continues to meet that's not their only focus but it is one of their main agenda items. Now and I think they're trying to wrap up a draft to the policy and hold some public meetings by the end of March or early April. So if we're going to have some input to that, we really need to give it to them in the near future if anybody has had a chance to look at it. And you have comments, you can submit them to me or Nate and then we can pass them along to Mandy Joe Hanneke, who was the chair of the Community Resources Committee. Yeah, so John, I just, yeah he sent an email out at quarter to seven and there was, you know, I think right is the most up to date policy it's as a draft. Yeah, so. My apologies it's one of those things that I thought I sent out two or three days ago but it just disappeared. Is that in the form. Is that in the form of a letter from Mandy Joe. It's a mix with that is there is a, a memo from her, and then pass the memorandum. There's a draft of the town housing policy. So that's all in the same PDF file. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's only a short 20 page policy. Whatever it is it's like a 15, maybe 13 pages but I, yeah they are looking for comments and you know they did you know john presented a few times to the CRC in the last year and a half. So some of the language is familiar and then there's, you know, a fair amount of new, new changes so I think you know yeah I do think a fresh look at it john by the trust would be good. I was going to say it also asks a question, you know it's like you know, gold number one high priority 40 are asking us, what is the current position of the Amherst affordable trust. I mean the am HT, in terms of our position so there's there's specific things that it's asking for how to find affordable slots. I wanted to add this to say I know what you had to know what they're asking but all right. Yeah I've skimmed it but again I also haven't studied in detail, prepared any responses myself. The page for want to hear from the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust. So yeah, I think there's a lot where they're asking us our opinion. So we can yeah so john sent that out and if you have questions, you know you can email john or myself and we can always try to get answers to so if you had questions on some of this we could always work through. And I can work through staff to ask Mandy Joe or what you know, someone on the CRC if that you know if there were some big questions, the trust had or members had. This is just a question of what's what one is supposed to do. I mean, we're supposed to send comments to you, we are not supposed to respond, for instance to Mandy Joe who sent the letter that correct. Correct. Yeah, I think ideally Mandy Joe would like a consolidated response from the housing trust. Okay, as opposed to every one of us and sending in our own comments. Yeah, I think you know before next meeting if members read the policy send me comments I'll send them as I get them and then before next meeting I'll just consolidate all the comments into one document. Again and send that out and then if there are questions. So if a trust member has questions about what the document means include those in your comments and then I'll ask that of, you know I can communicate through the town manager's office to see if they can, you know have the CRC answer those. So, thank you. Yeah. Look at my notes. Yeah, the next item was there was supposed to be a new regional report on housing and the absence of housing, generally an affordable housing in particular. That was is under, I guess, development by the Donahue Institute and I thought it would be out around now. But as of the end of the day today I hadn't seen anything. It should be out, hopefully within a week or less. I heard about it from Keith fairy who's the executive director of wayfinders, and he was part of a committee that was working with the Donahue Institute on the design of this report. So, interested to see it when it comes out and I will share it with everyone when it becomes available. The last thing I wanted to mention is a future agenda item. I had at least promised Erica that we would talk about the housing trust strategic plan, and I hope to do that. Get that some squeezed into our next meeting. I think there are two things specifically that I would hope to review and again I'll send this out as part of our agenda. And it should be to look at the things that were already existing in the strategic plan and kind of say, okay, how are we doing on all of these things and are we happy with our progress or is there some areas in which we think we need to have more and then there are now two or three significant areas of new work that are now goals in our strategic plan. So the second part of the discussion would be, okay, how are we going to organize ourselves in order to try to meet these goals as well and the goal that sticks with me is to be a finding additional sources of funding beyond what we now have. And again, I'll provide a summary of what sources we do have the main source right now is still Community Preservation Act funding, but there are a few other smaller sources for funding of affordable housing in town. There are several resources that I will mention, but the bigger question is, okay, how do we do better in the future. So that's the biggest one that I recall Erica. And so everybody who knows how to raise money should be considering how we go after that in the future. Okay, I think that's pretty much the things that I had on the agenda for tonight. Next month we'll review the minutes for both this meeting and the January meeting. And send them out, but obviously not in enough time to get people a chance to review them. So my apologies again for that. And we'll do both sets of minutes in advance or when we meet in March. Other questions or comments. There's still a few members of the public John I don't know if you want to ask for public comment. Okay, yeah. Any more keen and Jim one field to either of you have any comments or questions. Okay, then I think we're probably ready to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn is there a second. Okay, I don't think I don't think I'll do a roll call is all those in favor raise your hand. Oops, or your thumb or something. And it looks like that's your now.