 Okay. Great. Thanks, Nate. We have a packed agenda tonight. So I want to move along as quickly as I can, or as we can. The first item was announcements. And I have only one announcement, which also kind of belongs further down on the agenda, but I'll announce it now anyway. And that is that we have received a promise and maybe a check is in the mail, I don't know, from the interfaith housing corporation. They are going to give us $10,000 specifically to be spent on the Belcher Town Road East Street development, which is particularly helpful since we're going to have some expenses that cannot be covered by sending preservation act funds, particularly related to maintaining the property before developer takes it over. So that's good for us. And actually, I was going to move that we send a letter of thanks on behalf of the entire trust to Rob Ryan, who's the chair and actually to the entire interfaith housing corporation board. So, I can say I so move. And is there a second. I second it. So is there discussion that people want to know more than I've said here. Like what is the Interfaith Housing Corporation. Yeah, John, the check was actually received today so it's a. Okay. Yeah. So it's a done deal. Yes, it requires you to deposit it and then ice cream all around. For people who don't know the Interfaith Housing Corporation was established. I think probably around 30 years ago I can't give it an exact date maybe Nate will know. We had invested in affordable housing in Amherst that became a specific development. And was it Village Park. It was Village Park, Village Park, right. Anyway, the Village Park had a 30 year life. And at the end of it, I believe it was sold. And so all the groups that have invested in it received money. And the Interfaith Group decided to hold on to their money and look for opportunities to invest in new affordable housing. A significant amount of the money actually was invested in Craig's doors. But it went to establish and maintain the shelter for a number of years and then they pulled out of that because that was not what they wanted to do. I know they've given some money to Valley Community Development, and now they're giving some money to us, which is very timely. Okay, so we'll vote. Since I see Carol already has her thumbs up. And we need to have a voice vote or not a voice vote, but an individual vote. So I'll begin with Carol. Yes. Okay. Erica. Yes. Rob. Yes. Is Will on yet? He's not. Okay. Yeah. He will be on Francis. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay. You said. Yes. Allegra Allegra. She's muted. Actually, you can stay on muted as long as there's not a dog or a baby in the background. I think Paul hasn't joined us. And so the only other person is me and I vote yes. So that's seven yeses with two people not available. Okay. Okay. I'm going to move on. Laura Baker as a Henry's and Nina does too. Oh. To talk about this. I'm not sure about. Okay, Laura. Hey, Laura, you can unmute yourself. Hey, John, you had asked me to join tonight to make an announcement. So I figured this is the announcements time and I should raise my hand. And then go ahead and follow me through this. Thanks, Amy. And through this week we have two north Hampton Road the Amherst supported studio apartments. Project was given its first bit of state funding in the form of 10. Recipes subsidies that will be targeted to tents who are homeless out that property. So it's a good sign. We await the balance of the requested state funds, which are all the capital dollars. posted but there was a press release and then people thought it was it was good news and some people thought it was better news than it was I thought it was all the money so I just said I would come and clarify that it is good news but it's not the final piece of funding that we need and since you're talking about it I will echo what John said which is the Interfaith Housing Corporation also gave a grant to the 132 Northampton Road project as well so they're doing good works all around great thanks Laura and Nina I just had a question that I'd like oh sorry oops she just went away somehow and you know you can you start over again what can you start all over again we missed okay I just had I just was had a question about the project that the $10,000 is going to the Belcher Town Road project okay well we're going to talk about that as the I think the third agenda item okay why don't you hold off until we get to that point thank you okay okay so before that we wanted to talk about the emergency rental assistance program and Janet Tetroth has nicely agreed to join us this evening to talk about where we are and we were headed everybody hello and I'm sharing uh the screen hey people can that's visible can you make it any bigger thank you well that's you can see my giant typo where I spelled April wrong I'm sorry I was in a hurry obviously so this is an update as of today it not much has changed since my last update on March 10th so at this point we've had 109 applications since for the since the beginning of round two that includes a couple from about six from round one and then we've actually had a few phone applications recently so folks who are just calling community action for assistance and the staff are identifying that they live in Amherst and they might be eligible for this program so they're sort of bypassing the online pre-application which is totally fine a lot of ways a little bit easier we did I did there was one included last time that I actually ended up removing because I realized that it was a landlord that was applying on behalf of her tenant and her tenant had also applied so I took her out very confused because I couldn't find her application anywhere and I was like what happened to this person and then it turns out it was landlord so we went from basically we had added three new applications since my last update okay and I noticed the couple of contrasts between round one and round two which I think are well interesting at this point you have no backlog to speak of the number complete and a waiting review is zero which has not been the case typically in the past there's nothing pending waiting for an appointment so basically you're all caught up yeah we're in process right never that means that we thought they're in process meaning that a decision hasn't been made either because the application's not complete or and the applicant is still actively working with the applicant so there are still eight that are somewhere in the process but that's a pretty small number it's a pretty small number um it's been you know I said to John and Nate it's been pretty quiet um that's not typically terribly unusual for this time of the year uh because people get their tax refunds back um also this year people got lots of people got the third round of the stimulus checks which was $1,400 a person so depending on your household side this could have been you know a decent amount of funds so we tend to be a little bit quieter during this time because some people who are getting their tax refunds are able to resolve their issue or catch up on bills a lot of people use their tax return for that um but you know I think part of what we wanted John wanted to talk about tonight is just you know whether or not to extend the contract past June 30th given the sort of landscape of where we are with the program do you have numbers for the last three months month by month for the number of applications I do so in January we had four applications in February we had four and in March we had five okay so the numbers are really down from what they had been correct look at the contrast between round one uh well if you look at the round two the total applications is 109 so most of those occurred in 2020 yes most of them occurred in September October November December December yeah yeah so yeah those numbers sorry those four four and five whatever it was with those those are those applications received not that they were approved right correct that the applications received yeah the the reason why this is important is because as Janice said uh the contract between the town and community action ends on June 30th and the question is should we let it run out with no action or should we be thinking about extending it beyond uh June 30th and that would require writing a new contract into the next town fiscal year and uh I have to say honestly looking at the numbers that Janice just recorded for applications in January February and March I'm thinking that um we've done very well with this program but we've done what we can do and people should be relying on uh Raft which is a much more generous program and uh in this area it's managed by wayfinders they have ramped up so they are presumably processing applications much more efficiently and I know that community action as well as others have been referring to wayfinders so that's where we are discussion um this is Carol I'm it seems it makes sense uh if right now there aren't a lot more applications to not try to like string it out right now I guess we know how to do this and it feels to me like I still am waiting for the other shoe to drop I am still waiting for people to stop being able to use the stuff that they've got for things to run out and for and for kind of all hell to break loose but it seems to me that we could let this stop in June. Janna you can tell me this is crazy and if things got horrible in September what wouldn't be that hard to start it again because we it's in place we kind of know how to do it maybe community action wouldn't have the staff to do it anymore I don't know but it seems like stopping in June is fine but I'm not sure that the need isn't going to suddenly come back when something that we don't quite know what it is yet happens and and what people have been able to rely on isn't there anymore. Yeah I mean I think community actions you know exhausted their contract and you know to continue it to me seems beyond the scope of what it was originally for you know this was emergency rental assistance and you know I think we've served that purpose if there's remaining funds I feel like I agree Carol we could we could make tweaks to a program and then try it again I mean the trust have been talking about doing a local voucher or subsidy program so I think we have you know we have the the start of something if we needed to continue it later we could you know we have a foundation now so I feel like you know just to be fair to community action I don't want to extend it without offering I mean at some point we you know I'd have to see how long and how much we've extended the contract because at some point it's just you know we can't extend it indefinitely John we can't just say okay we yeah we're you know we're doing this for six months and all of a sudden it's a two-year contract and so I feel like it's run its course and if we want to if even if we want to start it again early you know in July or whatever September we could you know I feel like we'd have to come up with a new scope of services and right exactly well again we it's fine to take no action this month we can revisit it next month and see if there's been a jump up in applications during the month of April you know that just means that Janet would have to send a note to Nate and I telling us whether that's happened or not and we'd report it back to everybody my guess is that won't happen but as I said if it does we can revisit this issue in May so we don't need to take a vote if we're not gonna if if we're basically the fact of choosing not to take action right now and I'll just I mean we've spent you've spent $83,000 which is a lot of money I mean I think that the town should be really proud of itself you know that's not nothing that's a lot of money that went out to households in need so even though it wasn't the $300,000 that you thought we were going to spend you know $83,000 is still a significant resource that absolutely and we've helped 43 households there'll be a few more between now and the end of June I've noticed that the largest number of households have four individuals or more so we're clearly serving the people we hope to serve so I think all that's really good yeah if you see of the approved applications there are 17 or 40 percent are for households with a size of four or more so I agree I think I think we should declare victory as Janna said I think we've done what we intended to do maybe it's not quite as large as we expected or we hoped but it's still very good okay well we will keep working until June 30th if I can just chime in I think I was gonna say I think it's I think you're freezing Erica we can't hear you sorry it's probably my internet okay we can hear you now I was just gonna say I think the issue is more I think what Carol was saying which is the fear that we have not reached people who really needed this but I think you know we've tried everything and I'm just wondering if other towns around us have you know found the same thing which is that we've really wanted to reach as many people as we can and we're sort of I think anxious that we might not have but I think we've tried everything yeah I think we've done a very good job of outreach I can certainly ask mhp whether or what they know about the experience because there were literally something like 80 other local programs that were started in the state uh the other programs that are really local like East Hampton or Hadley were much slower to get off the ground but nonetheless we can find the answer to your question Erica I can do that query it's not that hard that'd be cool I think community action also administered other communities right and so I've spoken with a few communities and they had a similar outcome as Amherst where you know they didn't have as many applicants as they thought so you know it's also true of business grants and loans so you know the town we're doing a micro enterprise program for you know businesses with five or fewer employees and you know other communities are having trouble getting the number of businesses they thought that would be applying for support and so I'm just not you know it's interesting I think the words getting out there may just be especially with some of these programs it is a lot of paperwork and a lot of information is required and it's just not something you know people are used to I mean I mean I feel like this you know just that could just be a barrier it's a perception okay well we'll check back in May I think I'm gonna say we're done with this agenda item and as I've said earlier we got others to move on to and I want to move on to right now unless someone has a last comment to the discussion of the draft RFP then I'm gonna say good night thank you thank you all you've done Jana have a great night okay so we're on to the draft RFP uh it's pretty lengthy I don't know if we want to put it on on the board uh I have it up I guess it's um I can do that I can I can share it okay try to navigate it okay and we can try to march through it page by page and see if people have particular concerns we can note those um but at the end of the day my hope is that we would vote to recommend this uh or to say this is indeed the RFP that we want to see with the exception that there are a few things missing that should be filled in by Nate or other people at Town Hall yeah I think the um you know staff needs to look at it just so you know the trust knows that the trust would recommend this document to the town and then the town staff would advise the town manager um you know and that would uh it would it would go out through you know through the town manager and um I feel like we still you know the things I'd like to do after this document's done is we have a we have a website for the E Street School we can update it with Belcher Town Road and I'd like to just put as many documents as we have and just consolidate what we have um online which hasn't happened yet just make sure we have everything you know taken care of and anticipate any questions that would be asked uh during the process just so we have a smooth as smooth a process as we can hope and Nate there were a couple of sections that um we had noted for you to complete those are all noted out in the margins yeah so you and or Rob or John Page where they're highlighted in yellow so it'll be obvious as we go through right anything on the first couple of pages that anybody had I guess one question is you know we had um I just want to make sure you know what's the we got what the timeframe is like how long are we offering for responses or is that not decided uh we didn't make that decision right um since it's a somewhat complicated procurement I would think um we would allow maybe 45 days or 60 days 60 days that's what I was thinking yeah I will take Rita's advice on that as I often do I just think it gives time both um you know for bidders to put information together but also if there are questions that come up that we have you know adequate time to respond for people to then process that response no I agree yeah the worst would be that well even at 60 we may have to extend it but I would hate to cut it short no one would have to just amend the right helping anyways even longer yeah I mean I think in honor we just want to update this web page and right so um what we want to do is put again as much information kind of all the updated wetlands information the hazardous materials evaluation for east street wetlands uh information for belcher town road and then there were plans you know in east street you know we had we put up a bunch of stuff when the building was going to be used for lsse there was a bunch of you know uh some preliminary architectural stuff just useful things about building measurements and so forth yeah so that would all be put on a separate yeah was that going to be now the the whatever we're calling this the belcher town east street road projects will all be in one place for both yeah yeah yeah yeah I should say that uh read has done most of the drafting starting with the base of what had been the rfp for east street uh basically 18 months ago but when she drafted it it really was with the advice and I think consent of our rfp committee that included Carol Erica and Francis all have put in quite a bit of time I think we met uh on four evenings over the last four months the group also included myself and john page as well as Rita so there's been a lot of thinking that's gone into this and a lot of debate about what to include well and and also just clarification um that will show up here so really good questions from the um you know from the subcommittee members and then just looking at natural gas where we know what it and then you say developers responsible for all your connections so I think you know though we do say Berkshire gas I'm not sure that they would allow a new connection yeah so that is just again information that we need you to update I don't I don't know anything about it yeah yeah we have a developer who has a connection on a property and they're trying to get them to allow it's equivalent usage probably but a different use and they're talking with Berkshire gas to see if they would allow it I'm not sure they will so it's kind of interesting you know even use less gas than the previous use um because it's a new whole new you know building and they're not sure they would even let the meter connection stay yes we had a footnote the last time again that should just be updated from an environmental point of view we may want these buildings to be all electric in any case yeah I mean what I found out with like some of the newer ones they at least have they'll have gas sometimes for hot water so they'll the heat and everything will be all electric um but then they might have some another fuel for hot water just to accommodate that demand and I think all this is um good I can look back to the east street school one but I think the footnote went to nowhere I think it was a reference but it there was never an explanation so we might need to take a look at that no to nowhere yeah and you know we know I was just looking at that town's right to recreation land I guess that's one thing too I just was noting the yeah what are we going to say about that yeah that's all been noted for you to I'm not sure if we have a good answer you know us uh you know and I we have ideas but I don't so something needs to be decided before we do the RFP that the trust is not going to decide yep yep um yeah buildings on the site too let me just need I think anybody on the cross does any questions please jump in yeah you don't need to raise your hand if there's anybody among the observers if you have a question please raise your hand so we can recognize you okay so I mean here's where it gets into the more the more prescriptive elements you know the number of units and the affordability and we think that's all workable and the 40 units that's between both sites right yeah yeah what we didn't do anywhere was um prescribe uh a range a unit range on one of the sites and I and I think we should leave that to the developers right right the breakdown per units per site right it didn't occur to me until you just said that but do we wouldn't want one site to have all of the anything right I mean both sites should contain some kind of mixture of whatever there is we do we would want that would we not yes we do do we have to say that somehow so that you don't have all of the I don't know what afford the like all three like all three bad yeah so you have all the big ones some place and all the little ones or all the all the 30 percent ones together and none of them somewhere else and I didn't even think of this until what Rita just said but there might want to be something in here like we said that um each size of housing should have some mix of affordability and maybe also each site should have some reasonable mix of something or other maybe where we have F we could add a G immediately below it saying essentially that both sites should contain a mix of the various types of housing yeah that's a good idea hi this is Francis just to quickly look at the other side of that I don't know just thinking about like the Easter the school for example it might be difficult to put in like three bedrooms or plus bedroom units schools usually go to smaller size departments I mean I think since we're not designing it I think it's hard to say I mean maybe you can say we would uh like to have diversity of obviously incomes and a unit mix in both but I don't I don't think we should risk like tell them oblige them to do it because it just might be difficult from a design perspective good point we're trying to give the developers as much flexibility as we can and we do have the the issue with belcher town roadside that it's um maxed out at 100 percent area median income because of the acquisition with CPA funds so yeah I I think I agree with Francis I think we leave it vague um did we say I missed it did we say that the belcher town roadside is capped at 100 am I it's it's in there somewhere yeah a number of times yeah it's in there a few times yeah it's in there so did that mean we are gonna add a g but leave it kind of we would prefer blah blah or something but not that it's required okay so you want to have something okay so d is another um the public access here that's for you Nate yeah and then um it made me think that um if they had mentioned that you know the belcher town roadside is adjacent to the four river farm conservation area but I don't know you know how much how much discussion has been about having a direct connection from that property to the conservation area but I know it's been mentioned um that would be nice well the question is does Dave's omic feel that he wants to promise that if not then we really can't put it in this document yeah I mean you know there could be some wetland crossing issues and it may be more complicated so oh okay got it is it a requirement or you know it's just I just want to make a note of it because it could just be something for staff to talk about and see what you know does it become a town um you know something the town investigates more so I know G is is um new and I believe that's new to the we didn't have this when we previously reviewed this but at the last subcommittee working group um this was added tenant storage space yeah we're going to put our electric vehicle charging stations too I know I mean I'm serious I was just talking to someone I put that in that recent uh yeah uh development except I'm not sure how many of our tenants are going to have electric cars but yeah I mean it's it's in the code for single family houses now for garages cool to be wired for it yep yeah be ready yeah to be ready yep I just had a clarifying question about f would there be offices at both east street and belter town road or would it be one office that would ideally address both I think we say one office probably I mean it would be up to the developer but it would be hard I think for them to staff two offices and since the two sites are within a block of each other or maybe two blocks it's not that big a deal I think maybe three blocks but it's clearly walkable it's not that far to get from one to the other I think the way f reads right now like you know it could be confusing is that well but the development is both sites sites okay oh we defined that somewhere right somewhere there is some famous yeah and that's only 36 pages right now I mean that's you know we need some more pages right we can say at least one do you want me to note that no I you know if we yeah we can't an on-site management office yeah I that's fine enough and in the east street school building we talked about yeah I mean I think the on-site management office a we don't want to over burn the developer with costs I'd rather have one on-site management office and one extra unit and that was I was I was not advocating for two men I was just making sure that I was understanding that the development management was for both site yeah it's interesting I mean some of the potential developers have other properties in Amherst so it's like you know do they need an additional office here but I think it's enough units to warrant an office so I was just looking the bedroom we say 10 percent here but up above did we say 13 percent oh okay all the affordable units sorry where do we have um I thought we had another percentage for bedroom it's three bedroom units yeah that's affordability and the other one is bedrooms yeah for some reason I thought I saw another three bedroom calculation somewhere else but okay yeah so a 10 percent yeah I just don't want to be inconsistent but now you guys right and so this these bedroom counts are include including any market rate units so the 10 percent isn't necessarily just affordable units it's not affordable that's correct yeah but we did know indeed mix of bedroom sizes so they included four affordable units yeah they'll yeah you know what I said so just you know one other thing I'd point out for I know there are some in our audience tonight some developer developers potential developers what we did on the management plan is just say submit a managed submit a management plan that you currently currently use for affordable rental and just make a note as to you know how it might be adapted for this development so there's no requirement to do a management plan obviously for this development specifically but we want to see a an example of one and how it might be adapted for belter town road east street school then for the lda it looks like you know you didn't have a time frame right I won't point out whatever I thought there was you know more time frame in terms of securing permits yeah yeah so we kind of you know I think there were some good comments at the last time we sort of made we didn't have the kind of strict timelines we tried to take out as much reference to you know to within 60 days or 90 days or whatever to allow for the fact that particularly around permitting that you just there's so many unknowns that it's hard to to hold but the lda is done within you know the selection within 45 days of the designation of the developer that has nothing to do with the permitting no but you know so I won't point it seemed like within the lda there's gonna be you know the lda what the lda does is it should incorporate all the provisions that are in the rfp so it should reflect what was um what was in the rfp and those deadlines so if we haven't I think we edited everything to make it conform to um uh to what we have in the in the narrative but you know another read through nate by you will not hurt if there's I mean the hub committee's been through it I've been through it johnson you know we've all read this and you know have worked on making sure that there's consistency throughout but but we've all read it enough times that having somebody read it who hasn't read it so many times that's a really great idea exactly and then and then then a town attorney will read it and they'll have a lot of comments right that's right although again a lot of this um language was already in the east street school which was edited by the town attorney so it's interesting when we did the east street school um read I think because it was on a um you know in a current format we asked them to kind of do like a light read of it because you know some of these decisions are a local decision we're making here in this so they don't have to you know we don't want them to question the number like for instance like the percent of affordable units or something right that's not there that's not there uh I mean they can ask but really they don't want to make sure that no so those those those dates you should be looking at I thought you'd read the six times already Nate well you know the playing department's also been doing a lot of zoning yeah just kidding so I think the lda stuff is um is pretty dense here that yeah I mean you know the subordination piece sometimes that becomes a negotiation but I think we can leave it and yeah so on the additional funds you know we need some read from the town about whether or not um how everybody's feeling about additional cpa funds and or um the towns tiff yeah I mean we say it we say they're available I think you know saying that they may be available we're not making any promises you know that's kind of what we used before okay I will say that after the last planning board meeting um when we were talking about zoning an attorney was watching the meeting after and he emailed me and said oh my client they're interested in using the tax incentive and it's a private developer who wouldn't necessarily do affordable units you know and said oh could we be eligible and I said yeah this is the language if you if you meet it's really not a huge threshold you can it's not guaranteed you have to you know then provide information to the town manager um but you know yeah you're essentially you could anyone can be eligible for use of the tax incentive um I don't know where it's going but it surprised me that you know that they're asking on behalf of their client even if it's not have anything to do with affordability they might get a tax incentive no no they have to meet the they have to have you know at least 10 units and 10 percent of the needs have to be affordable so you know if you if any development is trick triggers the town's inclusionary zoning by a law they meet the tax incentive threshold so um they could essentially you know request that of the town so I think it's fair to say I think it's fine to say something like what's in the last sentence there so what we're going to do is um insert the comparative criteria charts right into the RFP narrative so that's noted in red and that's a document that we've gone through yeah multiple times now this was more substantive right the development team that was new yeah all of this is substantive yeah it runs to the content of what they conclude in their proposal yeah I mean we I think even for East Street we talked about how do we you know we'd like to have more description of that just say you know who's in the firm you actually want to know who's on the development team you know more specifically the role in other things so that's all good there's a lot here um it's how we want you know I think electronic copy you said you know on usb what is one paper copy and one electronic copy is that you know I think the biggest thing for the trust is making sure that when the proposals come in that they get copies of it right away well I guess we have to talk about that who's how is it being reviewed I mean typically we wouldn't have an entire trust review no I right but I think people will want to see it it's already in here and it's really up to the town manager to decide who the review committee is so we put something in here and um I know the last time that was that was changed so to what we the trust originally anticipated yeah so the rest of this is pretty much boilerplate except for the comparative criteria yeah so that's where the proposal process is right yeah yeah so yeah so does that mean we don't have to go through all the rest of the however many pages of this a lot of it the appendices coming up which are all standard forms yeah design standards was a big discussion but I I kind of lost word that wasn't our narrative here maybe we skipped over John what did you say the we design standards we had only some vague language regarding design standards is probably the comparative criteria but the town really doesn't have any active design standards if they did then we would have referred to them but we definitely made a decision not to create those within this rfb so there really isn't much said about design the town does have design review principles in the zoning bylaw uh you know they regulate you know things like massing scale they're not that prescriptive or detailed but we shut a little bit about that right yeah and also dhcd has its own design standards so and those are are pretty specific and we reference those in the rfb yeah this is all just kind of boilerplate boilerplate uh yeah and just the development green all right yeah I mean do you want to keep going through it or this is it I would you feel good that those are the appendices now yeah I don't think we need to review these do we have the um comparative criteria here I thought I had them up but I don't see them um I downloaded them let me let me I'll just stop sharing out let me have to just go I'm somewhere on my computer so does anyone have any questions about what we've reviewed so far questions comments really you sent those comparative criteria right and yep I thought I downloaded everything was in the same uh yeah it's in the same email I don't see yeah on page do you have them I'm not um I don't have it down I don't have it on my laptop I'm out of town so yeah I have them I you can share it I I don't know why I can find them Rita you didn't make many changes after I sent them to you okay right I hear they are I'll download them I don't know why all right so yeah I can share the screen now looks like there's a few uh so in terms of um there is you know one oh yeah John you so there was a question from uh Tom is in the audience and he asked the Belcher Town Road say it must have 100 affordable and uh John you said that's right is that it's 100 percent at 100 percent AMI yeah because of the CPA right that's the top and where did where did the criteria go oh yeah there's a lot of documents for this meeting mm-hmm yeah I mean I think I mean to me this is the is this uh visible yes nice yeah I think integrating would be good I mean I think it's a nice um nice layout now I mean basically if you look at the first row what we've done here is under advantageous to say essentially 40 units that are affordable is kind of the minimum and then highly advantageous would be doing better than that more than 40 units and so basically we're leaving it up to the developer to see if they can propose something better in that row and the same is true for a number of the other rows as well yeah like the bedroom count over track right here okay if anybody has any questions or comments please stop Nate and say I want to say something about bedroom counts yeah I agree I agreed on it's just like you know more of the merrier so we have our minimum what's advantageous and what would be hopefully that works for the bidders as as well as for us yeah to have the breakdown yeah I thought this was good the track record here I think there's clearly a progression of you know like we're saying from unacceptable to highly advantageous so I think that it's nice to to see it all right I'll just keep off you know keep on moving it that's funny the financial feasibility would we here have here you know we see a minimum of two letters of of interest or our financial commitment would we ever have though have you know more letters be part of the highly advantageous or anything is it kind of is that maybe implicit in some of this or in financial feasibility yeah the the letters of interest are generally pretty useless but nice to have but they don't mean anything they're they're always qualified right no one's committing at this stage of the game right right important thing to me about this one was that highly advantageous is that the rents are more competitive than the ones in the just advantageous Michael where you guys where are you going okay let's move on to the next category we say competitive with market rents I mean would we be off in 15 minutes would we say I mean we I know the word competitive but would we say reduced I mean do you like to work competitive there the market rate rents are competitive very competitive with Amherst Rita you're still you you're unmuted you hit yourself but you're gonna go get ice cream and 15 minutes with my grandson you know in Minneapolis here it's precious time so oh yeah really I'm trying to join them yeah I was just asking you know and the highly advantageous for financial feasibility we say um you know market rents are very competitive with Amherst market rents and I mean I was just saying do we want to is competitive the word we want to use or would we also want to say reduced or you know I know you know I just let's leave it a competitive I will say with some of the new developments the rents are very high all right in the schedule any questions or comments no yeah so here's the section where we say what there is to be said about psych design so does that do it for everybody yeah I think it says enough okay I don't know what other people feel I feel like you know I think as you know you know voice monolithic building massing includes mid and low rise building elements um you know then if for highly advantageous a plan for reusing the school so this is a new we broke this out as a separate section right it used to be included in development or something or other and we decided it should have its own section yeah but highlights it and basically it's like other rows what you have under advantageous is that uh you know it does certain things that are consistent with what DHCD expects under its qap and then in the next highly advantageous is can you do better which I think is a good strategy management maintenance again the thing that's new here that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find is the concern about minimizing the number of people who were evicted and we just we need to change that first sentence um john page if you would just make a note there because it said includes a a detailed management and maintenance plan but that's not what we that's not consistent with it's like a sample it's an example it's an example in the word sample I think the other thing we added here was something about not knowing how someone could demonstrate it exactly but something about good relationship with tenants for the management proposal yeah we talked about that but it's really hard to measure that we know it's hard to measure but we wanted to say it anyway I think it's out came down so yeah under advantageous and highly advantageous and highly advantageous so it's there Carol no I'm saying it was a new it was something that didn't used to be there that was yes just pointing out that that was in there that's all handlet and redders with little smiley faces no I think it's nice to have in there that's interesting because um you know during some of the recent 40 b projects you know it it is asked you know it's kind of like that that kind of qualitative you know how is it managed how's what's the relationship and all right on to the next section so that's community support and we're moving one more I think highly advantageous is a high bar there well yeah I mean advantageous is can you do what's really required to meet the minimum right the law regulation and highly advantageous is again are there ways that you think you can do better that's it yep Rita can go get ice cream okay I don't know if it was ice cream or not I this is great I yeah I agree with John thanks for you know the review the RFP team and everyone doing this and Rita I mean this is really now it was a great as I've said at at prior meetings it was a great great team of people to work with so it's a really thorough document so I thank you Erica Francis and Carol did great work yeah so thank you Rita I am gonna I'm gonna sign off so okay so our next step is to consider whether to vote to recommend this subject to the few changes we already discussed this evening and the other missing elements that need to be added uh to the town manager for inclusion in the final RFP but I will make that motion is there a second to the motion second uh any discussion or questions okay well then I will call the roll uh me I'm in favor Allegra yes Sid yes Francis yes uh I guess we'll still hasn't joined us sir has he uh yeah I haven't seen him as an attendee okay Rob yes Erica Erica that's a yes okay and Carol is a yes okay so earlier uh we are in favor of this seven to zero with two people not available okay so then we can go on to the next agenda item and we're running a little bit behind which has to do with looking at inclusionary zoning there are a number of zoning proposals that are before the planning board and the community resources committee and in consultation with Nate we chose one to talk about tonight because I think it has the best chance of adoption in the near future and that's the bylaw on inclusionary zoning so at this point I turn it over to Nate uh uh talk about this it's a really colorful document here on your screen the um yeah so the uh let me just make it a little bigger the town has inclusionary zoning and you know if there's a few different zoning changes that are being proposed in terms of you know allowing more or different types of new development or you know there's accessory dwelling uh unit changes and one is this inclusionary zoning and I think the the two I think the there's probably three big changes to the bylaw and one is um right now the bylaw only applies if you have a special permit for use so you know if it's a buy right use or site plan or view by the planning board it doesn't um the the products aren't required to provide affordable units and then if you have certain dimensional you weigh certain dimensional standards then you have to provide affordable units but the changes here in green say that now any residential development including but not limited to townhouses, apartments, mixed-use buildings, purds or open space developments that provide new units are required to you know trigger this bylaw so basically it's almost any type of development now would be required to provide affordable units you know there are some exceptions here so like a you know a company is a permit project a conventional subdivision or a cluster subdivision fraternities or sororities and institutional uses so you know really it's trying to capture almost any type of development method in town would be required to provide affordable units and I will say the things offered in or highlighted in green uh this is being presented to the community resource committee next week it was presented to them two or three weeks ago in the planning board a week or so ago and they had some questions so um you know we're trying to make this bylaw I had said something about you know something about the bylaw being misinterpreted and I think we're really trying to make this language be very clear in terms of what you know what what it means and so we're defining new dwelling units as any combination of units that have received a certificate of occupancy and are located in new buildings or addition to buildings and you know we've had different people look at this to try to figure out you know is there a way that someone could is there a loophole in this and so we're trying to you know make it it just you know you're kind of really clear um you know the percent of units doesn't change so you know if it's under 10 units you're not required if it's 10 to 14 units you have to have one affordable unit you're 15 to 20 uh new units you have two affordable units and if it's over 21 new units you have 12 percent of the units are affordable and so you know we're not we're not proposing to change that one one new change is actually with the affordable units you know we have it at 80 percent area median income so if if a developer keeps the units at 80 percent area median income it's too expensive for voucher holders so we've put this we're proposing this new provision that when six or more affordable units are acquired 20 of them have to be reserved for 60 percent AMI or less so that's the new provision so it's you know requiring a lower a lower percentage of um you know income sorry if I missed this do we have a payment in lieu of units for that's at the end okay but yeah so I think this 60 percent you know this was discussed I think you know I think some people will like this and some people may push back against this as that you know requiring too low of a of an income but uh you know the thought right the staff's thought right now is you know the standard definition of affordable doesn't you know excludes a lot of different households and amores from getting into units so um and then here we're defining residential development as a new one means you know new dwelling units on one or more properties developed at the same time or within five years and the share aspects you know like shared utilities or common driveway or lot or building coverage and um you know the the purpose for this is there's a few developers who own properties adjacent to each other and someone asked at the planning board meeting could they essentially phase a development and only do nine units at a time and then be exempt from this bylaw as strange as that sounds um much strange at all we had someone ask that seriously um a developer asked that if they could get around the bylaw by but kind of doing this phasing and so Northampton and other communities do have this kind this you know this qualification of having you know a product that if it's phased it's still captured as one development uh so that's good yeah that's that's more recent change and then Francis your question um the bylaw at the end of the the bylaw had originally if you had four more units and half the units were on site you had the provision of providing offsite units or a payment in lieu of and this this vacancy right here this empty spot one seven zero we're proposing to delete the provision of offsite units it just seemed somewhat inconsistent with the message of the inclusionary zoning bylaw um but we are keeping this payment in lieu of oh man that's the one I hate well it's I don't like it can I give here here it is if you have six or more affordable units so that's a 46 unit development so it has to be at least 46 new units it would be required to have six affordable and then if half of those are provided on site the developer may request through a special permit that they make a payment in lieu of for those three units and at four times the current median family income that's um over 300 that's about 300 thousand dollars three hundred ten thousand dollars per unit so that means a developer would be making almost a million dollar contribution to the trust that's really cool but if they just used up the place that it's possible to build houses in what are you going to do with the money you just got well so yeah I just think I mean that's I'm just saying I don't you don't need to argue about it but that's my my concern is that what happens is you get a bunch of money and you've got no place to use it it was so hard to find the places that we already have found anyway that's my complaint that's a really good point though uh yeah no I think that um I'm curious if you thought you know if there's less than six units or if it's less than 10 units there's an option for payment in lieu but then like after a certain number it's required units because like Carol said even if you get a lot of money it's so hard to and it just takes longer right it's just like another day another year without right I think you know this isn't this is by a special permit so I think the developer would have to make the case why they couldn't provide those units on site and so you know it's a discretionary piece it's a you know essentially it's going to be you know if the project was a buy right project the developer would then actually have to then apply for a special permit through the planning board to try to get this provision in place so I think it's a pretty rigorous process I agree I think you know it's better to get the units built with a project you know when the town hired a consultant a few years ago and a number of bylaws you know Cambridge, Brookline they have at least one kind of relief for the developer whether it's you know offsite units or a payment in lieu of or sometimes they might have you know a pretty significant density bonus but you know we the town already through its zoning allows pretty generous buildout of properties so you know we're not providing a density bonus here I think it's already kind of built into the bylaw but so you know Carol I know what you're saying I think the thought too would be if six or more affordable units are acquired and they are it's four times immediate income hopefully it's enough money that the trust to leverage it to get more you know at least the same number or more units of affordable units developed and I know that's not the same as having it in a development but I'd rather I personally would rather get rid of buying your way out of it and let you put the unit somewhere else then you still have the housing but you know I don't know people came up with this and I'm just gotta say what I think so we can go on so do you want it would you like the provision of offsite units then better than the payment in lieu of absolutely you still get the units they're somewhere they're not they're in amperage but I mean we just bought a property for a billion dollars on the down road so not a million dollars we there are ways we can use it yeah okay just thinking if there's a there's an echo is that sorry I think that's me I just wanted to say quickly if there is a offsite provision then there should be criteria of where that is so that it's not in like the worst place possible so you know in an area that is commiserate with the characteristics of where the other units are going the offsite provision was within the same zoning district or within 500 feet of the property and I mean I guess the difficulty there that we ran into is um well what we discussed with staff is essentially the developer if they were proposing that they would have to then go through a whole nother permitting process to guarantee those units possibly or buy a property and so they're permitting for the current development that's would be you know part of this inclusion zoning we would not approve it until they could come back with proof that they have the ability to do those other offsite units which that could be like a year to do that because you know we wouldn't the building commission was like I wouldn't want to grant this land use permit to this type of development because what if a developer has to then go buy another property and to renovate three units or whatever it's it's really I mean it's really um you know it gets more complicated than just allowing it so but I did make them no care of the provision of offsite units could be better than a payment in lieu of um I think it's like you know discussion to be had with the planning board and CRC also the offsite units thank you um at least one one you know when I wrote this it was intended for potentially providing ownership opportunities on the edges of downtown if there were if there was a rental development made in downtown if you could buy a house that's right off right outside of downtown and you're going to make it an affordable ownership opportunity that that would be a good trade-off huh that's not the way it was written though Rob so it wasn't the way it was written but it was that was the intent that's interesting I like that intent I like that too yeah I mean I'd hope would be that um you know this as a special permit essentially that you know there'd be a hard a high enough bar that it's actually not a sought after alternative you know you want to make it a little bit challenging for a developer because otherwise you won't get the units right into development um it's interesting Rob you're saying the buy even with buying the property whether or not that was happening you know I think the town would really hesitate to provide a permit for this for the original project if a developer had an own that didn't have site control on the property where the units would be built so I mean I almost feel like the offsite units is really tricky and there's been a few cases where right they were permitted and never actually you know they never actually were finished and so it's almost like you want to have you'd almost want to say before you get a sea of a constitutive occupancy for this first project the other offsite units have to be ready to be occupied too and so I mean there's probably way I you know so if we like that provision we can probably have some better language about how to make it work I think the way it was written before is just um it didn't have some of those conditions so essentially you know it's it would be come up to the permit granting authority like oh what's the what's the rationale but if the if the viola actually said provision of offsite units you know within the same zoning district or 500 feet and they must have a certificate of occupancy at the same time as whatever project or something created some some condition there um all right so I do think that you know the planning board was you know they had questions about this offsite provision and this kind of last section about some of the income limits or set asides um and the community resource committee of the town council like said is reviewing it and they had a few questions but for the most part I think they really want to support these changes you know I think they're looking forward to trying to get this um you know recommended to town council to be an official zoning amendment that would go through the hearing and adoption process so you know if the if the housing trust if you have more questions you can in the next week you can send you know comments individually to me but I think you know probably the next month or so this will probably you know be in a form where town council would would see it right I think that both the planning board and the community resources committee intend to discuss this uh in the next so one to three weeks I'm not quite sure exactly the schedule right so um uh one of the things I thought we should have is a as something to say that says we approve of this bylaw I mean the only issue that's been raised and it's a good one raised by caron supported by others that uh there's some question about whether the payment in lieu should be the only option but whether there should be even a preferred option about providing units in either rental units that are nearby or even affordable home ownership units as rob has suggested now I actually did speak to the planning board a week or so ago and I did send you a copy of my comments they have less to do with the detail like what we've just been discussing but more to the fact that we needed a blanket inclusionary zoning bylaw because just to go back to what I said then what we have now is essentially an exclusionary bylaw and so the change that uh made in the planning department have made are really important and I don't think we should kind of stand mute for another month until we meet again uh I think it's important for us to weigh in so I can take what I drafted and I did send it out I don't know if anybody has any comments on it and say that we're in favor of the bylaw except that we would prefer that developers try to use all of the required units either on site or nearby or potentially at another location in town where they would allow for home ownership and obviously Nate can craft that language better than I have because he's been involved in crafting all of this but that would be my suggestion for what we should do because as I said I'm not comfortable just leaving it for another month I guess I'd also want to know you know what the trust thinks about the kind of the set aside you know 20 percent of the units at 60 percent area median income if that's and my personal preference would be to push that up to 50 percent at least at 60 percent area median income any other thoughts about that issue I think it's a good it's a good to have it there whether it's 20 percent or 50 percent some something in there um seems good to me yeah I I agree was there any like study done prior to look at what the you know like the development cost would be to add a higher affordability level higher affordability lower or whatever sorry like uh increasing the affordability and the number of units uh no not I mean we had we had a consultant a few years ago you know did some some computations but for this change these changes we haven't you know done I think that's where that's where the tax incentive financing opportunity comes in if developers offering deeper affordability then they can apply to the town manager for that kind of subsidy right yes no that works well well John is a strategy to put in 50 and when it gets reviewed by the planning board and the CRC then there's an opportunity to negotiate if you already start low you may want it lower right they'll take it from 20 to zero I think they'll keep at least 20 I think I think 50 is high um essentially then we're changing our definition of what an affordable unit is um which is you know we're saying is an 80 percent AMI that's actually a thing I couldn't find I want I I looked at this thing at the beginning it says ensuring that new residential development generates affordable housing is defined in article 12 I tried to find article 12 I did but I never found the definition of affordable housing I think if the definition section I think if you went to housing it's I think it's housing common affordable all right section so it's 80 percent is that what it says me it is yeah up to 80 okay yeah yeah I'm gonna just read quickly what I've said to the planning board it's probably about two minutes yes please so we can see if anybody has a concern about this uh why do we need to change this bylaw right now we have a de facto exclusionary zoning bylaw new developments in Amherst typically come at a rental price of $1900 a month for a one bedroom and $3,000 a month for a two bedroom we should hang a sign across Pleasant Street downtown saying quote no low income persons allowed here unquote as most everyone knows we have become a town where if you are not well compensated or wealthy you cannot afford to move here many people will tell you that they could not afford to buy the home they now own leaving the student population aside we have become a community of older white persons the numbers of families with children have been dropping very significantly since the year 2000 the revised bylaw will not change this overnight but it will provide it a much needed nudge in a different direction with a more inclusive inclusionary zoning bylaw lower income households will have at least a 10 chance of being able to rent in downtown Amherst uh last night we sponsored a forum on creating a path to home ownership the highlight of the evening was a presentation by three homeowners who live in affordable homes for those of well i'd skip over that um if if you listen to what they had to say it's very moving let's take down the sign which stretches across Pleasant Street announcing no low income persons allowed here it's a blot on our community we need affordable housing and passing this revised bylaw will contribute significantly toward that goal Amherst is a town that values equity fairness and diversity let's live up to these values thank you for your attention that's a fantastic letter okay i could add to that the fact that we would like to see um in instead of the emphasis on payment and lieu uh a provision that would allow or or that would uh require units as many units as possible on site and if off site uh nearby or if a little further away than uh units that could be for affordable home ownership yeah i i would like to add that and maybe it since it's a thing that they have asked about it would be useful to say that we do support including a percentage that is at 60 percent and for our from our point of view it could be higher than 20 but not lower okay okay so uh i'll put forward a motion to amend the note that i've already sent send the new note uh to both the crc and the planning board with those changes that we've just discussed is there a second sorry second so this is what the provision had site i said off-site affordable units may be allowed for projects in the bg bbc bn or bl districts so those are like the downtown districts um or village center districts and i said off-site units shall be located within the same zoning district or within 500 feet and i think you know with some of those other the language we had tonight we can change we could you know modify that provision okay so we'll do a roll call vote then unless there's further discussion uh just a quick question would would the trust not recommend the payment in lieu of or would you want to keep that in there i'd like it if it was gone but i don't think that i speak for everyone i see that chopping i see your chopping the chopping motion take take care right off i would i would recommend it for those that are probably under six units you know like if you're building more than i don't know it's like i don't i don't know where the cutoff would be but if you're building five units you could still put a little something in the jar for affordable housing you know um and then i see sometimes there's like if it's less than you know eight units or something then it's an option to do either either but if it's greater than that then like it must be um you have to build the units like you can't just pay your way out of it well again we can say we have a preference for people building the units rather than pay their way out of it as you just expressed francis a strong preference thanks to carol for starting yeah it's interesting though i've seen i have seen other bylaws write that cap it and so there's a window at which these um these are allowed you know these other options so you're not you know you're not you know essentially if a developer for instance aspen heights had 11 affordable units so you know they could have then said oh well you know we have we're providing more units we want you know we want half our we're not five or six units to not be provided in the project and we want to do something else with those we could pay them or you know have them off site so um it's actually interesting the bigger developer you have the bigger development it's actually easier to get units in there it's almost the smaller ones that might have a harder time yeah so yeah no i think i mean i made a note of that too let me just i can look at the wording well that's probably the reason for having uh or to me that's the reason for having some kind of out is that if it's so hard to create affordable units if you're building something that only has 10 units from everything that i've heard about getting financing you can't get financing for something that small to make it affordable so what are you going to do so if there's some way i don't know how putting it somewhere else gives you any more hope but i guess that that's the reason why it's it's helpful to have some kind of way out it won't want to be become impossible to build a 10 10 units because there's no way to make one of them affordable so i i kind of get that so the thing that the thing that francis is saying about some if it gets big enough it gets big enough to be financeable then you have to put your units in there i think and i i don't know anyway i like what john in in order to not keep talking about this forever right now maybe it's good to just say what john said our preference is that you don't get to buy your way out of it and then whoever is redrafting it which is probably Nate gets to try to figure out how to make all this make sense again okay i think we're ready for a vote and again i'll uh ask everybody all those in favor carol yes uh erica yes strong preference right um rob yes francis yes sid yes allegra yes and i'm in favor so again that gets us seven votes i believe okay so we're ready to move on to the next agenda item and now we're running really late so i can decide what to do uh the next item that i had on the agenda had to do with a review of the most recent draft of the comprehensive planning policy or housing policy that's been drafted by the community resources committee and again i wrote a set of comments that were mostly not favorable to the draft carol had written a set of comments earlier and both of those have been shared um i tried to incorporate carol's comments into what i wrote which i think i did successfully um but the question is as a housing trust uh are we ready to go forward with this or should we delay it till the next month oh so i think the crc they haven't you know they had uh discussed it a month ago and then they were going to pick it up but with all the zoning changes i think they've prioritized looking at the zoning amendments and not the policy so there's probably time for the trust to delay a discussion um but i do think the crc had wanted community or committee comments in the month of april i think on the on the housing policy so i don't you know we aren't necessarily meeting again in april but well i can submit this is draft front comments that haven't been reviewed so at least it gets their attention yeah i was gonna pull them up john i had i had them they aren't too lengthy it's only a couple of pages only a couple of pages i believe so yes and no i don't it's not opening for me do you have it john you could read it if it's just a couple pages well it's a little bit let me see i think it's harder to read than the thing that i just read okay so i could uh uh i could send it to you quickly nature should show up right away no i have it it's just um oh for some reason it's not um it's not opening on my screen i don't know it's not uh don't see it anywhere i would try to share it i've never successfully shared a document i'm not quite sure yeah i don't know why it's not okay what do i do to share a screen i hit share screen hit share screen and then if you have the document has to be open but yes it is open yeah uh well it's open but it's not sitting in the maybe i can move it into that space nope yeah i don't jeez i don't know why mine is in opening it's my computer doesn't like your comments john not i have your inclusionary zoning ones but not housing policy well it was sent to everybody with uh my original list of things that would be included i was able to open it so um i do think the um the document is really thorough from we see that the uh either john's comments i believe yeah i can try to paraphrase them quickly um basically there are 51 strategies organized under five rubrics first of all i don't say this but it's ridiculous that they have 51 strategies that have been scooped out of a bunch of other documents and don't really indicate what's a priority and what's not a priority to the extent that they do that almost all of them are listed as high priority there are few that are medium priority and it's about the same small number that are low priority uh not surprisingly all the ones that relate to affordable housing are low priority or pretty much all of those so everything else is more important to the CIC than that they also talk loosely about affordable housing but what is affordable housing is never properly defined there's one brief place where they allude to uh less than 100 of area median income but there's no discussion of 80 percent 60 percent 30 percent or other the thing the kinds of things that we try to use when we're thinking about affordable housing uh let's see i think let's see um what else do i want to add whoops hit the wrong thing sorry yeah i've hit the real highlights frankly the fact that they treat uh the low priority the low priority areas are identifying and creating additional funding for the housing trust affordable home units and affordable rentals those are three out of their four low priority items uh another issue which carol pointed out is that uh there's discussion of increasing housing density downtown and then village centers but there's no real discussion about linking increased density to greater affordability uh they also talk about improving access to home ownership to persons who are black indigenous and persons of color but there's no discussion about how this is going to be achieved or frankly virtually anything else uh they quote the master plan and say the presence of higher education institutions in amherst has a significant impact on the character of the town's population as well as its housing needs and then absolutely nothing more is said about the rule of view mass and as we know the university is home to about 28 000 students with only 13 500 uh residential beds on campus they just ignore it uh nothing more is said there's a little bit of a section on measurables and deliverables but it's frankly quite incomplete and it's an area where they could use existing data to say okay if we want to make changes here's where we are today they don't do that they really make no reference whatever to existing data whereas that's important you got to define what the problem is to be able to talk about where you want to go so I think that's a quick summary of what I said in the draft uh and I'll leave it at that John could you remind me or I guess I don't really know about what what the impact of this that they're this plan will be on normal things housing it's unclear Francis to be honest it'll probably sit on a shelf and no one will pay attention to it because he has strategies that have come from prior plans that nobody has dealt with on the other hand what I really don't like about it is the fact that it defines affordable housing at least as we consider it to be such a low priority and I feel like we just can't let that go even if I know the end report it's just going to sit on a shelf somewhere so yeah can I just insert one thing is I've been confused by this all along and I think we just need to ask the chair I think the priorities were placeholders and I found that incredibly confusing they have not assigned priority to any objective is what I heard in the last meeting so I think we need to ask whether those are placeholders and if they are so that's very confusing and they need to be removed I don't think they've assigned priority to any yet but maybe I'm completely wrong in that well they have as I've said high priority assigned to probably two thirds or more of the 51 strategies how would they send out a draft that has all these things about priorities and not at least write something at the top that says these are just place it's very weird and maybe it's completely can you might I don't know it's crazy then they'd ask for feedback on something that they haven't even made sense out of I'll say Francis to your question you know John in the trust had talked about I mean this is a I mean a year and a half or so ago having a document that defined affordability defined priorities for the town whether it's the number of units generated types of units mix of units and then that document would be shared by the planning board you know zoning board CPA committee so that when the project comes funding or is getting permitted the ZBA could say okay you know if someone needs inclusionary zoning or is required to provide affordable units what you know what are the conditions we place on those units like is there an AMI that we would target or unit sizes and because you know what we're seeing is that it was there were so many different ideas of what was needed for affordable units so to kind of just have a unifying statement and then the CRC took it on as a housing policy and I I mean to me as a policy it's very long you know has right all these strategies it's 15 pages to me a policy is a page right it's a policy statement or something it could be a few paragraphs but not I mean I think they did a really good job of synthesizing all the reports and studies we have and actually outlining the strategies that we could be using but I mean that's really detailed for a policy so I think to me that was the thought of what the policy would do it just help everyone understand what is you know one of the priorities so even if the town's asking for money to you know for capital planning for housing okay what is what you know what is what do we mean by affordable housing or maybe it's not coming through in this document then it's not yeah another thing I'll say is to the extent there's any discussion of implementation of these strategies something like 80 to 90 percent of the time it says the planning department will figure it out would it be would it be possible to have somebody from that committee come and speak to us and you know we can tell them like they can tell us what the what it is and we can give them our feedback that way too yeah I mean staff we we began to discuss this with the CRC like I said a month ago and we didn't get very far and then there's you know we haven't revisited it with them so I think that they're I think that they're still working on it themselves before they might go out you know to present it to other committees I think you know because the public document we can look at it I mean John I think maybe we would continue this to next month and then we could just encourage the CRC not to you know take any any positions on it until the trust has reviewed it again well I I could send them the draft that I have and say that the trust will be considering it again next month and if anybody from the CRC wants to come and discuss it with us they're specifically invited we'll give them at least three minutes I need more with so many priorities 50 priority I would really like I don't know if I can move but I would like John's letter to go to them because there are so many things that are I'd like it to go now not so why wait for them to get further into their process when there's so many things that it seems like and so if what they say back is oh those are only placeholder priorities we didn't really mean it that way we meant this yours are tops that's cool that's great but what I can't see any reason not to let them know how unsatisfactory what they have done so far as to what we think it's important well as I said Carol I can if people agree we don't even if I have to formally agree as long as there appears to be a consensus I can send the draft to them and say they're invited to come to the next meeting when it will be discussed again and to better represent perhaps than I have what the thinking is I like that idea okay it looked like people are generally okay with that does anybody have a problem with that okay I hate to ask you all to get further into the guts of this because it's not fun but again you're all invited to do that okay let's try to move on to another item as we're getting we're starting to close in on nine o'clock and I thank you for your indulgence let's see okay I've got a couple items well I just briefly mentioned we talked about financing of the trust I think as I said last time we did not get a support for a technical assistance grant from mass housing partnership so we've got to go it alone we can talk next time about forming a subcommittee so people can think about whether they're interested in being part of a subcommittee that looks at future financing and that'll be on the agenda next time I'm going to skip over state legislation we can come back to that next time because there's not going to be a vote between now and our main meeting I don't think most of that are non-budget item or they're all non-budget items the home ownership forum I just wanted to briefly mention that first of all I want to say Francis did an excellent job of moderating that meeting from which you're here yes uh John you did an amazing job putting it all together and Carol did incredible too just yeah and jump page was keeping track of uh when people wanted to make comments although that was partly use handicap let's put it that way without saying any further um we hope that all that goes better for our next forum which will be on racial equity and housing it's scheduled for Tuesday April 20th so it's about 10 days away uh I believe I have a moderator for that meeting uh Esoldo Ortega Bustamante earlier today agreed to be the moderator I probably still need a timekeeper and someone to keep track of what's going on in the chat where people are raising their hands so that we can allow some audience participation you have the chat function now yes Nate's right thank you Nate okay so does anyone who want to volunteer to be timekeeper I have something else at that time so I can't do it this time sorry well I can try and find somebody else um who's and that's when it's my second vaccine that on that time okay John are you expecting to attend I should be there I can I can do it I don't like to interrupt people but I can I can well you can at least keep track of the chat and I'll see if I can find somebody who's willing to interrupt me I can I'm happy to interrupt John you can just write you have two minutes left you can just do it through the chat function you don't have to uh well people may not see if that's a chat yeah I guess I could also try to recruit Meg Gage she did a terrific job when the league has held there for him uh Meg's a friend if she's available she'd probably do it um Francis said she'd do it Francis said she'd do it yeah okay fine great I'm sure you'll do an excellent job uh okay I can do May 25th okay I'll be done with my vaccine yeah we'll see if May 25th's gonna actually come off but thanks Erika so far that's been a difficult group to get together theoretically I have my first meeting with two people on Friday we'll see how that goes um the one other thing I wanted to mention and uh actually actually briefly talk about uh although I don't know the details of this but the town manager is planning on appointing a committee of persons to look into finding a permanent home for the seasonal homeless shelter um I believe the person on town staff will be heading or staffing the committee is Mary Beth uh Uglitz who is the uh manager of the senior center uh Mary Beth's a great person to do this I think she's very well organized and knowledgeable um I don't know exactly who's he's gonna appoint but I did have a a note from him asking who the trust would want to have appointed as a member and I have a specific person in mind as Allegra knows uh so I'm not absolutely sure that she's going to volunteer and I also wanted to ask if anybody else would be interested in participating in that committee so can you say who your person is yeah I I sort of said okay and I certainly would be interested okay that's great I think Allegra's probably the person who's most knowledgeable about issues related to the population of homeless persons among us so I'm really pleased that she's willing to do that and I will report to the town manager and hopefully he will get back to us at the point which he's ready to uh actually appoint this committee uh I think George Ryan is going to be on it based on a conversation I had with him a couple of weeks ago but I'm not absolutely sure so at least he'd be on there representing town council and I'm guessing that Kevin Noonan would be on it and maybe Jerry Weiss uh we'll see what falls out okay so we're just about at nine o'clock uh are there any public comments from the two remaining attendees either Mora or Pat I see are still on the list I thank you both for attending and the other folks who have uh attending before any other last comments from any of the housing trust members okay I think we've had a really good discussion tonight of a number of important issues and we'll move ahead and look forward to our May meeting again thank you all for your participation thank you for organizing us all I do my best oh I forgot I skipped over minutes because we don't have uh March minutes yet and it turns out uh John Page assured me that we actually had uh already reviewed and approved all other outstanding minutes at our last meeting so we're in pretty good shape we'll catch up with March when we meet in May okay okay thanks again