 Okay, so you made me a co host. I did just in case I have the other the zba meeting on Another computer just kind of hanging out here in case I need to go over there Okay, before you sign off. Do you have a minute to? They're not there yet, so they have a little bit of time Hey everybody, let me just Attendees by oh, yeah, okay. We're here All right. Oh, Sid just joined us. Can everyone see the agenda on the screen? Yes, I can I can't my screens too cluttered. I Should Everybody Readings hi Erica. Good to see everybody. Thanks everyone. All right, I'm gonna give an update John Yeah, I think you could give an update on aspen heights sure the You know aspen heights. It's the new development where Amherst Motel is located on route nine behind dominoes if you go by there you'll see a new building three-story building and The town's inclusionary zoning by a lot triggered 11 affordable units So a mix of one two and three bedroom units on this development and they We just have the application signed by John and Paul to submit those to the state. So we're having You know the developers been they've already started working on their marketing plan and everything So I think they're trying to lease those up along with the you know the market rate together So they're actually going ahead pretty well with that. So we'll have 11 new units affordable units theaters for the units in town How many is the total units? The 11 units is 12% so Okay, the total was I think I'd be like 88 total I Could probably do the map in reverse, but that's just Close that's okay So how how close is that to the completion? Do you have any idea Nate? I Don't they um, I think originally they were hoping to be done or you know, usually The cycle is you want to be leasing in the fall and Amherst, but I think with co I don't know if they put their if they ever intended to be leased up this fall, but you know, definitely by the spring I think they really want to be going on that. So Okay You know, they're still moving forward with that I mean, I I always wonder with COVID and with the university plans because most of the other units I think will be student rentals. I just you know That's the market, but it seems like they're still moving forward and other projects are too. So they obviously think they can fill the units Yeah, if not this fall then in the spring or whenever And then for the other announcement the John I've been sitting on interviews there isn't you know one opening for the trust there may be more, you know as other members Terms expire, but that's not you know right now. So there's one opening and we've Gosh, there's by like seven seven citizens have completed Forms to be interviewed. So we've been doing that today and we'll do that the next few days So there is interest in and trust membership, which is great Yeah, I wish I could tell you more but I'll say it's a group of seven very interesting looking people What? You know, it is great. It is great. And so if people aren't appointed this round then Assuming there are going to be vacancies in a year, which I think is pretty likely Then hopefully there'll be a couple of back group that hang around and sustain their interest But yeah, it seemed like a pretty good group of people With sincere interests and affordable housing and with a wide variety of backgrounds So I thought it was great. Any other announcements anybody has No, but I actually have a question about Aspen Heights and these types of projects When these apartment complexes are stay empty Stay empty. Are these businesses allowed to take sort of a business Shortfall in terms of taxes or other Expenses that they don't fill the apartments. I mean, is there is there no penalty for filling apartments There's probably a penalty to their revenues that is they They're getting fewer rents and I don't think they get a reduction in town taxes, do they Nate They you know, maybe if it's a sustained vacancy they could maybe apply for an abatement and then they would have to You know justify it, but I don't I don't think that it's just a you know, the town wouldn't just Adjust their taxes because of vacancy. So, you know, unless the landlord or property owner Ask for it and have reasons why But you know, the way a property is assessed. There's you know, there's there's a few different ways. So You know, it could be an income approach and then a value approach. So it depends on how this what what method the assessor uses so Yeah, I couldn't say for sure actually Yes, my point is much more of I know that certainly they will take a shortfall if they don't fill the apartments according to how much they're expecting When you have people who need apartments and their empty apartments. Is there any way we could pressure people to fill them with people who need them. But, you know, I understand that they may not be able to pay the amount. It just seems that there's so much building that's happening here in Amherst. There seems to be so many apartments being built and it's predominantly being built for students who can afford The prices while people who can't are just being shut out. So I'm just that was just my thought. So thank you for, you know, let listening to that. Yeah, no, it's a good thought. I yeah, I'd like to think that if the vacancies persist that they would reduce prices. I'm not, you know, we can't the town. We really can't control the market in that way, unless somehow we subsidize units, you know, with that with funding or or we, you know, we could talk to landlords and ask them You know, kind of like with a rental program. We're asking landlords to voluntarily reduce rent if they join the program. So I've heard from some that said they might consider it and others that are in no way. Yeah, I mean The part of the one thing that would trouble me, Erica, is if they said, okay, we'll give people rents for one year. Out of reduced rate and then a year from now they can get the market rate from students coming in because we're no longer facing the pandemic threat. Then what do you kick people out. That would be a concern to me. I don't know if anybody else would consider think of that as a problem. Okay. The next order of business is to review the minimum wage. And that's from August 13 John submitted them. I made some minor edits. Sorry. I can pull up. Sorry, I was just saying I can switch my screen to make the minutes available if that's helpful. Yeah, I think they're too long to review. Yeah, it's like such pages or something. Yeah. It's nice that we get a very complete set of minutes. I really like it to go over when I'm planning the next meeting. To go back and think about what if anything we need to be sure to come back to So I find it helpful. I don't know if other folks find it too. Very helpful. And especially when you volunteer for something and you didn't remember. So I contacted Rita and Rita and I are going to get together native. You can send me the updated strategic plan. Rita and I have scheduling meetings. So thank you for the wonderful minutes. Yeah, it's always disappointing when you realize that you said you would do something. You forgot. It's disappointing is when you read them so soon to a meeting and say, oops, I can't get it done before the meeting. But we'll have something for the next meeting. Rita and I Yeah. The minutes are nice to have that. Any comments on the On the minutes. Anybody see a need to make a change. Okay, then I will assume the minutes are accepted as submitted and we can now move on to the next issue. For which I believe Jenna Tetra will be joining us. She's in the audience all promoter to panelists. I think she's here now. Hi, Jenna. Welcome. I'm here. Okay, so we talked a bit about the emergency rental assistance program and potential changes last time. At this point I think Jenna either has a final report on phase one or close to final report and also a number of ideas about phase two that Nate Rita and I talked with Jenna about which she now has kind of a coaching presentation for. So let me turn the floor over to you. Okay. Thanks. Hi everybody. So I can't remember exactly where we were last time we met, but I'll just give you a quick wrap up of phase one. We had 104 applications. We had 14 applications. 44, 43, 44 of them were incomplete. And so we ended up with 18 approved applicants. 20 were denied for being either over income or having a sufficient income or assets to pay their rent. 20 of them were initially ineligible because they didn't live in Amherst or lived in subsidized housing. There was a few threshold criteria. So of the 18 approved, we have been working with their landlords to get pledge letters out to the landlords so that landlords know how much the town is going to pay per month and been gathering the documentation. In retrospect, this is a terrible time to be contacting landlords to try to get information from them because September 1st is so busy. And so it's taken us a little longer than I had expected to get the documentation back. So tomorrow I am sending to Nate what we have because some of the landlords have just had a, they're just taking too long and I don't want to hold up the ones that have submitted their stuff back. So they sent back landlord agreements, which was the document that basically says they agree to accept this money from the Community Preservation Act for the tenants. We have W-9s and then we have this sort of invoice type document that says what the tenant owes, which was a little bit, some landlords had trouble with that, but I will have a package for Nate tomorrow. We have three applicants that live at UMass and so those are taking a little longer to sort through who signs the document. They are UMass students that lived at North Village and have been relocated somewhere else because North Village is under construction. And then South Point has had a turnover in their leasing office and so those are taking a little longer to get back. So we're still, we're getting a bunch of that stuff to Nate tomorrow and then the rent, the rent reduction request letter is going to go out on Monday to the landlords for those 18 applicants. Sid probably signed for UMass, right Sid? Wish I could, but no. I need to don Thompson. If you, Jen, if you need a name, I can give you a name. I have someone in the Bursar's office that we, I did send the stuff to last week. Bursar would be great too. Yeah, I will follow up. It's just, it's, you know, it's busy in Amherst in September, so I think. But let me know if I need to contact housing and try to push it. Okay. And I'll gladly do that. Yep. No problem. Thank you. So that's kind of the wrap up of round one. Does anyone have questions about round one before I talk about round two? Yeah, one question, Jenna, you said you're having difficulty with landlords with, I heard has been reported elsewhere in the state. Is it just because they're busy? Or are they kind of not on board with the program? No, I think it's they're busy. I don't, we haven't had any landlords that have said, Oh, I don't want your money. And, you know, of the, I mean, most of the tenants live in complexes that, I mean, I think we only have one private landlord, most of them live in places that, you know, I think, you know, either have section eight tenants, you know, they're familiar with the idea that another agency might be paying part of the rent. So nobody is seemed concerned or, you know, uninterested. I think it's just we're asking them to fill out some documents and they have, you know, a self point in particular, we have six applicants there, and they had a turnover in their leasing office. And so I think it's just taking longer. But I'm not concerned. I think we will get all 18 processed. Okay, great. Thanks. There's a question, a hand raised in the audience. Great. Why don't you check with whoever it is? Sure. Yeah. Hey, Chad, I think it's you, if you unmute yourself, you can. Yes, I can. Thank you very much. This is just a remarkable time in terms of history. It's a hundred year event. I'm wondering if without any extra work, you know, this is the age of electronics, whether we can get that information 114 people or households have applied 18 have made it. I wonder if we can get that information to the trust. You know, push a button on the left on the desktop. Send it so that the trust has that information to look at over the next six months to a year. I know it's not going to last forever, but it's some important information might use. Well, definitely be in the minutes and Jenna is committed to providing updated reports as we go along as information is available. Well, I'm talking about things like what's their employment. What part of town they live in which buildings that any kind of information, the more data we have the better. Okay, we'll talk about that. It's probably until all of the leases are settled. We may be a couple of weeks off from being able to do that for the first round. Would there would there be any privacy issues or anything about that? As long as people aren't identifiable, you know, it's aggregate information. It shouldn't be an issue. I mean, you know, it makes sense. You have to be cautious about that. I used to deal with Department of Health data in New York State. And if you had a cell in a matrix that had six or fewer observations, they viewed it as a potential privacy issue with concern that the people involved could be identifiable. So we do have to think about whether if we report it in one way or another, you have cell sizes that are quite small and therefore might create some risk of identification. Yeah, I mean, I think some, you know, there, we are asking for some demographic information and maybe that would be on staff to run some summary statistics. I'm not sure we've asked community action to do that type of reporting. But, you know, I think it could be useful to have some information. But I agree, you know, I, I'm almost thinking that if we were to have it, I mean, whether or not, you know, where they live may not be as important as, is it in, you know, we have to be aware of that. I agree that, you know, I, I'm almost thinking that if we were to have it, I mean, whether or not, you know, where they live may not be as important as is it in, you know, we could say like, you know, a multifamily development of eight or more units or less than eight and, you know, that we could do it in a few different ways where we're not identifying exactly where people live. If, in case, in the case that they could then be identified. So it's probably ways to have the data so the households remain pretty anonymous and we can get some information out of it. If, you know, if we find that's useful. Okay, I think we should move to phase two or round two. And we need to talk about a number of substantive changes to the way we would run the program. Janet, can you report on what we seem to have settled on and everybody's on board with that. Sure. Most of these changes were in an attempt to have the next phase results in more complete applications. And so what we're looking at for round two is instead of having the entire application be online. Which I think for some applicants was confusing. They thought that once they filled that out that maybe they were done and they didn't need to continue submitting documentation, or some people I think may have screened themselves out, you know, and then didn't move on to complete their application. So what we've moved the proposal is to move to like a pre application online so asking some very basic information about the person, you know, kind of actually sort of tying it more to our criteria our threshold criteria you know do you live in Amherst. Do you have a covert related income loss or decrease in income. Do I added a question, a more sort of general question about, you know, how many people live in your household and how many people are students to try to get people to sort of do that in accordance with the criteria for eligibility. And then after they fill that out, then they would be contacted by one of our resource advocate staff to basically do an appointment to complete the application. So we normally do financial assistance appointments for other funding sources. And we think that having a little bit more of a contact with the applicants will help answer questions, help people understand what they're applying for help the staff have a better idea of what the person's situation is so they can sort of troubleshoot if questions come up about eligibility. And then they would, we've been using this, you know, we use multiple methods to gather documentation but we use sort of an electronic method system. And some people found that challenging so having a little bit more hand holding to make sure that the person understands the system or having an alternative and making it clear that they could mail the things or drop them off in a specific office. Most of our offices are not open to clients but we do have people that drop things off. And so, in addition to that part the other proposal is to move away from the lottery to a first come first serve. Doing the longer appointments is a little bit more challenging for in a lottery because the usually a lottery timeframe is more condensed so this would give us more you know give the staff more time to have those appointments. We did discuss revisiting the first come first serve on a, you know, maybe after a month just to make sure that we're not, you know, if it the money seems to be going too quickly or we feel like it's, you know, perhaps becoming not equitable we could, you know, make a change at that time. So the other change the propose is to have subsidized tenants be eligible for rent arrears only. And so right now, folks can get up to three months of assistance but also that could include arrears if someone owes arrears. So we could, the proposal is to allow subsidized tenants to apply for rent arrears only you can't pay ongoing rent for subsidized tenants but if they did have arrears we could do that. We talked about some new marketing strategies particularly reaching out sort of more personally to some of our larger landlords. We talked about some of the tax credit properties that we, I thought personally we would get a lot of tenants from the tax credit properties and we really didn't so trying to reach out to wayfinders and palm oil and co-operative to make sure that they know about the program. And we are going to do a special sort of reach out to the incomplete applicants to sort of accelerate them if they don't have to reapply they could sort of go right to an appointment and try to get their applications completed if they wanted to do that. Did I miss anything. But I think one important thing about the change to first come first serve, rather than having the lottery is that people can be processed as soon as they get through the application and they have all the documentation. So we don't have to wait to the end of the round. If we are able to do that, we can move people along one by one, so that we're doing the most efficient job in getting money out there. Do we have any idea of the 18 people that already qualified, like how much of the money is gone or show any estimate how many possible people might be able to be helped in the second round. Okay, last time I looked at it, I think it's about $37,000 spent spent that we originally estimated Carol that we could serve 60 to 80 households. If we've only got 18 served so far. That means we'll be able to take 40 to 60 more households, depending on what the cost for each of those individual households are likely to be. So we have a lot of room and as we discussed, we have two other somewhat similar sources of revenue available to us if we want to continue or expand the program at a future date. The town is supposed to receive reimbursement for the money that we're spending in this stage, and then the Community Preservation Act Committee has given us an additional $200,000. Out of the current year's budget for CPAC that we could apply as well. So depending on how things are going. There's even more money potentially available, but that's a decision down the road. Yeah, I was just wondering how likely it was that first come first serve would leave us with a lot of people who just couldn't be served. Originally have a lottery both to satisfy fair housing requirements. And, you know, in anticipation of having, you know, actually maybe more applicants and could be funded but that not being the case, you know, typically after you have a first lottery it's unusual that you have a second lottery. There's usually, you know, we're thinking the first come first serve there's still, you know, enough funding to accommodate many applicants so you know, I think that is a big change. And the other one is, you know, having the appointment so it's not when someone first applies is when they submit a completed application and so, you know, speaking with Jana and her team we felt that doing these appointments would help someone you say I think before it was an online platform and so someone, you know, you may not attach documents you may not complete the form very well but then the follow up becomes difficult you know there's a lot of back and forth where the hope is if it's you're speaking with someone it can be whether or not they have it all at that one time. It's clear what they need to submit or to finish to complete an application so that's another big change we're hoping will help with the, you know, the percentage of completed applications because I was surprised at how many were incomplete, whether that was just a lack of understanding of the program or they, you know, didn't follow back and forth but, you know, to me it's like if I would think that people would want to be in a program so it's interesting that some I think self selected out they thought they were over income or they didn't qualify that they may may have but they didn't know it, but then they just didn't follow back up with community action so think over the phone is more staff time for them but may result in you know getting more people into the program. I guess, um, Janet you probably have lots of experience because you said you usually do this first come first serve, but it would seem like there need to be a really clear way to establish what the order of coming is. So that the, because I would like just not like to see there be some clash of some argument about I was here before you were know you were here some mess that became kind of a mess and so do people get a get a number when they first start get a number when they're complete or whatever it just should be clear how it works and be really clear where in the where in the list or whatever it is that you do if you've done it before you probably know how to do this and I'm telling talking about something you're very good at but it just seems like an important thing to keep straightened out to me. I agree that it's important that people understand upfront that it's first come first serve. As Nate mentioned it is based on their completed application so. Okay. I spent a lot of time today re re working the our online application to add a lot more for instructions in the actual application because I think a lot of people went straight to the link and and didn't really read what was on the website. So usually people you know the way that I'm envisioning it working and and Dana who's the manager of the program is on vacation so when she comes back on Monday we will hash this all out but I think when we were doing the lottery system every day I went into the online application platform and downloaded whoever had filled out an application and then disperse that to the staff to contact them so I think the same thing would happen is that if someone fills out an online pre application that you know either daily or every other day I would go in pull them off. Give them to the staff the staff would call them and that's sort of when the clock when they when they start working on it. You know, I think there is a question of how much we chase the person down and so usually we try to call them we try to email them. We might send them a letter and says your application is incomplete you need to call us and finish it. And so that would be something that we would do also but I think it's hard to tell what the what the real volume is and that's sort of why I think you know we're all a little surprised that we only ended up with 18 approved applications. I think there's still not a huge sense of urgency out there and I think that that's going to start changing as we get into the winter months and you know maybe some moratorium start ending. But so yeah I think it's something to be that we will definitely keep an eye on and I do think it's important that we are very clear with people that it is first come first serve and you know it's this is how it works and I added a bunch of language to that in the online application today. He said you had a question or comment. Yeah, I think you kind of answered it a little bit, you know, just to be cautious that first come first serve English as a second language folks sometimes have to get people to help them with that so that may take a little while to get that that person to help them do that so you know to be as accurate as possible to keep that in mind that some folks may take, you know, a little while to get that. Thanks. And to piggyback on what Sid said, your pre application what information is in there that you have assistance for people who may not speak English as their first language but they may not also be people who speak that type of language available to them. So the way that the other the previous application it did have something in Spanish that said if you needed help to call the office because we do have Spanish speaking at staff. And actually the benefit of having a much shorter pre application is that we could have the whole thing translated into Spanish and potentially something else the other one was so long that it was, it wasn't possible for us to really efficiently translate it but we definitely could translate it into Spanish. If the if the trust thinks that there's other languages that we should look into to have it translated into we could certainly look into that. We have staff that speak a lot of other languages so we would have to use either the language line, or, you know, have another community organization help us if it was Cambodian, for example, because we don't have a staff person that speaks that. Nepali we have a lot of Nepalese who work at UMass and who live in Amherst. So, of course, Vietnamese Cambodian, you know kverden slash Portuguese, you know some Brazilians also in town. So, there's a lay oceans. There's other communities that I know. Yeah, I mean, yeah, even Russian I mean it's amazing how many different languages and dialects are at the schools but when I spoke with our people in it they thought the way the form was written. It could be put into Google and have it you know you could have Google translate at least help with the form. It doesn't help necessarily if it's an in person interview now but the form was able to be, you know, at least online could be translated. I'm not sure how accurately but yeah that's a good point. The Jones library has some staff to where it has resources if we need to, you know, I haven't, I didn't know that we I don't know that we encountered a problem but we would have, you know, we find a way to accommodate anyone who's applying. We didn't, I didn't encounter any problems in round one though I am would be really interested if any trust members or community members heard that that was a barrier to applying so if someone didn't apply because it wasn't either in their language and I didn't feel like we'd be able to accommodate them. I don't have any requests, but you know if I would be interested to know if anyone just sort of screened themselves out because they felt like it was not accessible to them. I think what you mentioned before which is more dire straights where people are being laid off for load and the amount of support that's coming from the federal government has been reduced that there's going to be more need. Yeah. I heard from a few different town staff and other people saying that there's been a few families. I just just a few and like two families that are immigrant families last two weeks that are facing unemployment now and we really need assistance as of October so I think, I think it's starting to be felt more so, you know, I was, you know, I was surprised they were looking I told them round two would be coming and so they're anxious, you know, so I know there's two new applicants that are waiting. Okay, I'm going to try and quickly summarize the significant changes. The Jenna mentioned and you can correct me if I've got it wrong, and then ask everybody to vote whether they are or are not comfortable with making those changes. So, trying to decipher my notes. Here's what I have the in the large or complete online application will end and instead will have a much more streamlined simpler pre app pre application that people need to fill out, which will focus primarily on the eligibility requirements. And staff will obviously make their best efforts to follow up with people to talk to them and to really do their hand holding in the process of completing all of the requirements for the application and all of the documentation requirements that are part of what needs to be submitted. So basically a much more streamlined front end and much more emphasis on giving people assistance at the back end. Let's see. Another significant thing is we're moving away from a first come first serve. Sorry, we're moving to a first come first served approach rather than the lottery approach, so that applications can be processed one by one as quickly as we're able to move forward with each individual applicant, rather than waiting to do the entire pool at the end of the round. So hopefully that helps to get money out to folks quicker and gives us a better idea sooner about how many people we are actually approving and how much money we're spending, and also give us an idea about what we may need to do to expand the program in another round. Janet didn't talk about this in detail, but we will try to improve our marketing efforts. That's critical. And we're also expanding the eligible pool to people who do have subsidized rents, but only for the purpose of helping them to make up arrears, not current rent requirements. I think those are the major changes. Did I skip over anything, Janet? I don't think so. Okay, great. So let's see, going around. I'll say I'm in favor of all of those. Carol. Yeah, you're in favor, you raise your hand. You're muted, Carol, if you're speaking. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Erica. Yes. Rob. Yes. Sid. Yes. Tom. Yes. And Will. Will. Give me a thumbs up. Oh, okay. Good. I think we're watching. It's a test to know if we're paying attention. Yeah, I don't have everybody's portrait on my screen. I only hear it when you say it out. Okay, so then we've passed, we'll make those changes. You said Donna comes back on Monday. So when will we be making the announcement about availability of applications in the next round? I think by the end of next week, I think we'll be ready to get going with that. So I'll have a new flyer for you. And we'll have a backup on our website, a new link for the survey, the, you know, unlike the pre application. And yeah, so I think I will let you know, but I'm thinking by the end of next week, we'll be ready. Okay, that's great. Any other questions or advice for Jenna? Okay, thanks everybody. All right. I just, I didn't give any, is there anybody among the non-panelists, the attendees who had a question or a comment about this? I don't, oh yes, there's one hand up. Yeah. Chad. Yeah, I just didn't know what it meant by errors. I guess this is all about the costs, rental costs during COVID-19. So that would mean any costs from March. March of this year forward. Yeah, so people missed rent because of economic distress costs by COVID-19. And so they are in the position where they have a rears. We're saying we would want to help them. Right now, going back further. Right. Right. Okay, so moving on to our next topic. Right. Thanks everybody. Thank you, Jenna. I appreciate your work and. We'll look forward to the next round. We will be enrolling people at a quicker rate than we were able to in the first one. Yes. Good night. Right. Okay. The next major item on our agenda is setting goals for the coming year. And I. Actually haven't decided exactly what the best way is. To process this. Except. Let's see. I'm sharing a document. Right now. I said, John, that you sent around. No, this isn't the one that I meant something else. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually, it was on screen. That you had just on a minute ago. Yeah. Yeah. If you just go down below item three to item four. That. Okay. Yeah. That's the list of things that I sent around. I'm going to go back to the last meeting. I'm going to go back to the last meeting. I went on to consider. At first I was thinking people would rank priorities. Tell us what your best five was, but I wasn't sure that was right. Another thing I was thinking as well should we vote on each. As it turns out. Either during or. Shortly after the last meeting. A couple of people came forward specifically. They were two areas that they were interested in working on. Erica. Reviewing and potentially proposing changes to. Our strategic plan, which is now. Three or four years old, maybe. And. Well, wanting to help us get more active with legislative advocacy. So my inclinations to say. Unless somebody says, well, those are stupid ideas. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with this. And nobody else wants to do it. We should have. People go forward with that. So I don't know. If. I need a vote on any, or we need to vote on. On those items specifically. So I think what we should do is take the items one by one. Talk a little bit about them. If we do want to go forward and who, if anybody else, anybody wants to participate in that. I will say the first item, which I do want to talk about evaluating additional town property for affordable housing. Primarily falls on staff. Because. The evaluations require. Not necessarily that Nate or somebody else go out to the property, but I think that's what we need to do. You know, I think that a lot of times we go out to the property, although it may include that, but more specifically that we have. Experts consultants. Review the property for wetlands issues for. The ease with which we can use the property. That is be able to move forward with construction. really barriers to creating affordable housing on those sites. Yeah, I was gonna say that, yeah, I do think that Habitat for Humanity is looking to do a project in Amherst. So every few years when they wrap up projects, they go through a cycle and so they contact with the town and we worked with them, looked at a few properties last year or the year before. Nothing was fruitful for them, but that's always a possibility. There's the Amherst Community Land Trust. So there are a few entities, whether it's town owned property, the town necessarily doesn't own a lot of property, but there could be other properties that could be made available for other entities. So, I think whether or not there's a subcommittee on it, although staff tries to coordinate it, if any trust member has ideas, feel free to either bring it up at a meeting or send me an email. So, whether it's a private property that may come on the market or there's an owner or some property that you think looks good, Strong Street and Hickory Ridge are some that are half-potentials and there could be more at the town owns, but I just wanna put it out there that there could be private property too or others that we could help kind of facilitate things if there's between different developers or nonprofits. So you're also talking about available lots. Yeah, so for instance, like on Pomeroy Lane a few years ago, there was a vacant lot and we reached out to the owner, we talked to Habitat. The town moves pretty slowly as a potential buyer, but at least we, when we reached out to the owner, we'd have to do wetlands and a few things, but we asked Habitat, if the town for instance purchased the property or entered into person sale agreement, would Habitat be interested in putting a unit there or two units or something just so, not that we flip it, but we could own it or do something. So even something like that, for instance, there's another one of Pomeroy that had a lot of wetlands and we'd be willing to take the wetlands as conservation land and then deed over buildable area. I mean, there's ways to do it. It doesn't, Hickory Ridge is kind of like that. A lot of the property can't be developed, but there may be four or five, I don't know, so many, a few acres, right? Four to seven acres, four to eight acres. I'm not sure that could be buildable. Right. Well, the reason why I ask is on Route 67, there's a corner lot that's been open for a while. I mean, it's Jones as they're signed up, but it's a pretty big lot. Is that on Pulpahill, the corner of Pulpahill? I think so. Yes, where the co-housing goes to? Yeah. Yep. That's a pretty big piece of land. It is. Yeah, there's been some discussions around that. I don't know about the neighborhood, but I live in the neighborhood. I'd be for it. Habitat, absolutely. Okay, thanks, thanks. I'll be looking out for more property. Yeah, I used to drive around a lot more and just look at properties and then, oh, this is fun. Well, I was under the misperception that we could only use Ambrose town properties. So now I'll start looking for property. I mean, if the town already owns it, the idea is that's one less barrier, right? But if there's something out there that may seem like something that town could work with. Okay, any comments or further thoughts on item A? Yeah, I think we all need to put pressure on town staff. To do those contracts, whether it's for the E street site, which isn't mentioned here, but is already underway or strong street. And when there is a process developed for Hickory Ridge, we want to move forward for these things, get stuff into the pipeline as quickly as we possibly can. I mean, it's great that 132 North Hampton Road or the Ambrose studio apartments are moving forward. Not exactly speedily, but at least they're progressing. But we need to get more into the pipeline. Yeah, I will say, yeah, you know, there's number five below, but E street school, we are having the well and consultant come out next week. And then I've asked for quotes for the hazmat of the building. But when I was gonna say with it, fair to town on property, there is a surplus property process now. So my thought would be, the trust has talked about strong street in Hickory Ridge, but if the trust wants to move it forward, there could be a memo to the town manager, town manager's office asking that, these sites be looked at for affordable housing as a little bit of a nudge, because there is this committee that would meet and then help evaluate it. So that is a process now that's been formally that the town has for surplus for property to determine if it's surplus. So I think, you know, if there's other town on property and we've got more, this could be a separate agenda I've done in the future, but I think the trust could write a letter to that group or to the town manager and ask that these properties be evaluated for affordable housing as a priority and just try to see if that gets traction. Yeah, I had at least a verbal agreement with Dave Somek to do that a year ago. I guess things have moved away from that agreement. I'm not sure it has, it's just because it's been so long, John. And, you know, for instance, Hickory Ridge, I'm not sure the town owns it yet. We thought that was gonna happen, I guess, months ago too. So it's just, you know. No, I understand the delay on Hickory Ridge until the town takes possession of it, we really can't move forward. And I know also Dave plans a public process to talk about what should be done with that property. There's two hand raised, John, in the audience. Oh, okay. A lot more, you can unmute yourself. Yeah. I thought that the habitat rejected Strong Street a long time ago. I think they, yeah. There was, you know, we looked at Strong Street and a few other properties and for them it was the additional cost of bringing utilities or infrastructure to the site. And so they didn't say no outright, but you know, if the other costs could be shared or spread out then they would probably be interested in the site. So it's just something that, you know, would be part of the assessment of those properties. You know, what are those costs? You know, how much is it to bring water, sewer, paving, you know, it's a, I don't know if it's a private road or a common driveway at this point, but you know, what are all those costs to make the site developable for someone? So. Yeah, it's also probably too large a site for a habitat project. If we're gonna do something with the site, maybe they can carve out a particular plot or two for a habitat project. But that wouldn't fill the site. Yeah, and we talked about this a while ago and Rob had a good idea too. He even could the trust sell some of the lots at market and have a mixed income development there. So you know, there's ways to recoup costs if a lot of what's born by the town. I think Strong Street has some potential to, because it was a subdivision originally and we're gonna help, you know, a number of lots. I'm not sure how many are buildable, but yeah, I think, you know, if the trust wants that, I think we could, you know, we had done a little research. I talked to DPW and Reed and I looked at utilities. I mean, I think we have to just dig it all up again and try to, you know, get it presented to the trust and see if we want to move forward on that. Okay, well, I will draft a note to send to the town manager with a copy to Dave Zomek. I, is everybody, well, we should vote on this. Is everybody comfortable or everybody in favor of our doing that with respect to Strong Street? Okay, we can just quickly run by. Those people are present. I'm in favor. Carol. In favor. Erica. Yes. Dave. Yes. Rob. Yes. Tom Wave said yes. Oh, okay. Yes. Thanks, Will. We'll give a thumbs up. He's good. Okay, good. Thank you. And then look at Chad at his hand raised. Chad, I think you can just unmute yourself too. All right, yeah, three things. One for Erica, that property across from Piney Valley co-housing is owned by some of the people in the co-housing. They would like to develop aged co-housing. I think they're tired of the pitter-patter of little feet across the street and wanna move over there for a 55 and older community. Doesn't mean they won't sell it. I'm wondering if Strong Street, we right now have duplexes by right. I don't know if two duplexes could fit in there. And the third point was, I don't know if this fits under A or C. New go housing goals. But for the past 20 or 30 years, national affordable housing has moved away from things like what we have on Kellogg Street, the monolithic and Amherst is now at the point of what builders call infill. I think one of these A through I could fit into affordable housing one by one, the way Amherst Community Land Trust does it, the way Habitat for Humanity does it, in single houses and duplexes and those kinds of things. I'd love to see like what's happening at Aspen, 12% goes into affordable housing, but there's other ways to do affordable housing as well. Okay, thanks Chad. I think we'll go on to item B now. I don't have a lot to say about that. It's something that we started before we moved to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. And that kind of took all our energy. And my feeling is that we still have things to learn through that program. But I, and we did have a subcommittee established to look at creating a local housing voucher program. So I think we would reconvene that group maybe in three months or something like that after we've gone through the next round of Emergency Rental Assistance, unless people feel that we should move, try to move on that more quickly. Are clarifying question, a plan for an ongoing rental assistance program, local housing vouchers, is different right than a subcommittee improving access to rental housing. Don't seem like two different things to me or at least when I thought I was on that subcommittee, I didn't know we were trying to create that a program like that. So I'm a little bit. The subcommittees genius, Carol, that they were going to come up with a whole program that you didn't know you were doing. I'm on that subcommittee, so this is news to me too. Actually, Carol, I will say you're right. But actually, the reason you're right is that improving access to rental housing is in fact a broader topic than creating an ongoing rental assistance program because among the things we talked about was assuming it's going to be available sometime in the near future using the housing navigator program that's being developed, which would be a way of improving access. Another way of improving access would be to create an ongoing rental assistance program or local housing voucher. So yeah, all of those things would be up for discussion. I think a local voucher program, we had Tom have reached out to Wayfinder as a name. I think this was it. And they were agreed that they could possibly administer it. We said it would be nice to have a regional town. I mean, that was a waiting list, but in any event, I think it is different than access. And I think it would take a little bit of work. So whether or not the subcommittee improving access focuses on this as a project, it would become a project. And I will say that the town through block grant a few years ago and then more recently through general funds offered emergency funds to residents, whether it's for rental assistance or sometimes utilities, I think that's ending. So it was 20,000 a year, 25,000 a year. And I think that's taking a different form next year. So I've had a few people ask, well, what kind of assistance would there be for, if it's not a formal program like we're doing right now, is there gonna be some type of program available if someone has rental arrears or utility arrears? And so I don't know if this local housing bracket program would do that, but I think there is, in recent years, all those types of programs have disappeared. So funding has disappeared. So it used to be that maybe family outreach had some funding or community action had some programs. And there are still our some, but it's less and less each year. So we have thought this local housing voucher might be 300 a month for up to two years, right, John? I think there's some discussion we had in that it was really meant to be a bridge for households. And so money is fungible. So if you're short on utilities, maybe, if you can pay more of your rent than you have money for utilities, but I think there might be a need for this beyond the formal emergency program we have. We've had requests, I'm not saying it, I don't know who someone wants to take it on, but I think we'd have done a little research on this. Yeah, and there is at least one or two programs on the Cape that do this. And so I consider that to be part of the agenda potentially for improving access to rental housing. Anyway, I guess the question really is, I see us doing this. As I said, I just sort of see it happening maybe three months down the road rather than right away. Are there concerns about that? I guess I just would say that a local housing voucher program seems way different than what I thought we were trying to do before. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just think it's different than what at least I thought we were trying to do, which was to just look at what's out there and how might it work better for people and what, because if you can't do a local housing voucher program without money and whatever we were doing didn't seem to me like we were trying to figure out a money source to do it with. So it's just different, that's all. It's something for the subcommittee to take up then try to reconvene. Okay, everybody, there were several of us that are involved in that subcommittee. Is there anybody who doesn't want us to go forward with that? John, I'm not gonna say don't do it, but I just think it might be worth an analysis to say, okay, if you've got a couple of hundred thousand dollars and you used it to leverage an affordable housing project that then saved renters $50,000 a year in rent for the next 30 years, or you use that to support tenants for a year on their rental subsidy, which gets you the better bang for your buck? I think that's a good thing I would see this, to look at it and see which is the best use of your money. Okay, any other comments on B? Okay, then we'll move on to C, which Erica has already said she's willing to work on, probably with Rita. Any other questions or comments about that? Erica, do you wanna say anything more about it? No, I assume that Rita has the most updated strategic plan. I think I had asked for that just to make sure we're working with the most updated document, but I just assumed she has it. So we connected after reading the minutes, I contacted her and sort of both fell off our radar. So she's very excited and so we're making plans to schedule time and have something ready for our next meeting. Okay, great, thank you very much. Will and I talked about more active legislative advocacy since he expressed interest in that. That was only about a week ago, so I don't expect to have a report today, but Will, do you wanna say something about that? Will? Well, I'm not sure we can hear you. You're unmuted, you're muted now, but you're unmuted, but maybe your microphone's not catching. Yes, I did, I'm gonna mute myself. I can't hear you. His microphone's not working. Yeah, okay. He's saying okay. Well, I could just say I've given Will my contacts, people I rely on for information about what's going on with the legislator, including Joe Comerford and Mindy Dom, but others as well. And so he'll be following up and at our next meeting, he may have some suggestions for what we might wanna do to become more active as advocates for legislation. Okay, then we come to E. We developed a draft affordable housing town policy. We presented it to town council. Town council essentially has tabled it saying that it really needs to be not a standalone document, but something that would be incorporated into a more general town housing policy. That all happened maybe eight months ago. And town council, particularly specifically, I should say the community resource committee has now taken up the question of what should be in a general town housing policy, but they've got a ways to go. Let me put it that way. So one thought I had is there were a lot of comments about the affordable housing policy. I've also gotten some from an outside consultant through CHAPA. And I was wondering if anybody had any interest in taking some time to redraft the original draft. And if town council hasn't moved on a general town housing policy, say two or three, four months from now, we bring it back to them and said we've made some revisions and we think you should reconsider adopting this now. So there's really two questions. One is, does anybody think that's a good idea? And the other question is, does anybody think it's a good enough idea that they'd like to participate in a process to do that? I think I'll just jump in quickly. John, would that go a little hand in hand with the update on the strategic plan? I'd like to think that they're both synchronized. And the context also I'd say is that the plan department is looking at updating zoning and then updating the master plan in the next year, year and a half, not a rewrite of the master plan but an update. And so I know the community resource committee has looked at that a little bit. So I think whether or not that a town policy on housing gets, affordable housing gets adopted, but I think having it be part of the conversation now could at least help inform all these other processes. So even if it's just a simple goal they set or they have some measures, I just, I think the town's done a few things but there's more that could happen. So I think just if someone's willing to take it and like John said, it may need to be that you work to get on an agenda here and there and just to keep it as part of the conversation. So it doesn't sit for another eight months or a year, but... Yeah, I was under the impression that town council within the last couple of weeks, Nate, voted against having the CRC do any further work on the master plan. I thought that was also tabled. What? I'm not sure. I thought we, I thought in, I don't go to the meetings, but I thought we were planning staff just went just the other week to talk about a few topics, both master plan related and capital projects, but it looks like Mora raised her hand. She may actually have been at the meeting. Okay. I'm not aware of that. Mora, you can, I think if you unmute yourself. Yeah, they decided to concentrate on zoning and just accept the master plan as it is for now. And the planning board also voted that way unanimously. So the zoning is the next big thing up for the CRC. Okay. Thanks. That's interesting. At one point there had been a discussion about what leads what? Do you change, update your master plan or your result? What follows? Doesn't need to follow in any order. So it sounds like they like to focus on zoning. Well, that makes me think that some combination of E and F would be good for us to be looking at cause one would hope that, I mean, I would hope all these things, the strategic plan, the master plan, the affordable housing plan and the zoning bylaws all work together into going in the same direction and for the same purposes. And I guess I don't know exactly where the process should start, but if the town council is going to be looking at zoning reviews, then I think we should put together E and F and if we put them together in some kind of way, I'll try to help. I personally keep going back and forth about whether that's a good idea or not. Honestly, Carol, and whenever I raise it with our zoning expert, who's Rob, he basically says, that's not really something that we as a group, that is the housing trust should get deeply involved in. It's really the business of the zoning board. And it's not that we can't comment or offer ideas, but Rob has, I think, sensibly discouraged me from going in that direction. Rob, do you want to say anything about that? Yeah, I guess I agree with what you said. I think that creating an overall housing policy, which I think really means an affordable housing policy, but if they want to call it a town housing policy, that's fine, is what will eventually lead to or justify zoning reforms. But to start with zoning reforms, that's an ongoing process that's been going on forever. And you really need a consensus or agreement about where more housing can go and what format should take before you start proposing bylaw changes. And there really is not any consensus about that, about where housing should go and what it should look like. So, I mean... I would just know, would you see those two things? What housing should look like? And where it should go as something that should be addressed as part of an affordable housing policy? Who would address that part? I think in the past, it would have been the planning board and it's zoning subcommittee and then town meeting, proposing something that would change how housing is made possible. For instance, the zoning changes that were proposed over the last 10 years that led to the buildings downtown, which now people don't like. And so, if you don't like that, can you imagine trying to propose expanded housing anywhere else? It's hard to imagine that. So, I think now the ball is in the town council's court, appears that they have grabbed zoning away from planning board and are going to do it themselves. So, they have to come up with, and presumably they, as elected body, they will voice their constituents' desires. They will have to come up with a, consensus of plan of vision that says, this is where housing should be. This is how it should look like. This is how we're going to accomplish it through zoning, through subsidies or whatever. I don't think that anyone has any objection or doubt about the need for affordable housing. So, our, our suggestions about affordable housing, you know, I don't think people disagree with them. It's just not helpful to the conversation overall because, because it just says something that we already know. Yes, we need affordable housing. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, I was going to jump in. I think the, you know, Carol, I think the policy, we had a few metrics to try to have some, some measurable, you know, goals or, you know, parts, but usually a policy is a little more general to me than having such specifics as where and what it'll look like. But I thought the policy was pretty good. I don't know what revisions it will go through. In terms of zoning, Rob's right, except that, you know, Chad mentioned, you know, infill development and, you know, for instance, I think right now, you know, it's, you know, the town zoning doesn't really allow multifamily in a lot of places or doesn't allow different types of multifamily. So it's pretty restrictive in terms of townhouses or different types of housing. It has a really old definition for apartments. So, you know, you can't have more than 20 units in apartments. And, you know, so. I mean, we could have a, this could be a future agenda item, but my thought would be whether or not the trust, right, tries to write zoning, but I think it's a good idea to have a, I think it's a good idea to go to the planning board or community resource committee and just highlight a few things that, you know, we think having, you know, affordable housing and mixed income housing integrated in the community is important. Not just in isolated developments, for instance, or we think that all new development could have some mixed income. We would like to have multifamily or different types of units throughout town. And just, and I think there could be general points that could be then made. I mean, it would take a little long time to say, okay, what do we want the building to like downtown? You know, we just went through this 40 hour process and now people are saying they don't want it when, you know, it could provide some design guidelines and a lot of tools that people had said they wanted originally. So I, I don't want to get caught up in that as a trust, but maybe having just a few general points to be made just for consideration. I, you know, I'm sure they're aware of it, but I just, you know, it's always nice to have. Yeah, I agree with that. I would be interested in working on that. Yeah, I would too. Just to have, you know, maybe a summary document that would just. We go around. Yeah. If I could be any help, I would be interested in being helpful in working on that. Yeah. I do agree. Carol. Zoning is enormously important. But I think there are a lot of barriers to our getting too deeply involved in that. But if people, comfortable with following through on the idea that Nate suggested and that Rob seconded, I'm fine with that as well. Okay. So we can do some work potentially on. Looking at. Key ideas that would affect changes in the zoning bylaws without trying to propose specific bylaw changes. Yeah. Okay. So it looks like we have. At least a couple of people. Carol and Rob who are interested in F. And so I think we'll move forward with that. Then I have G. Reconvening the homelessness committee. That committee existed pre COVID. And it consisted mainly of. Jay Levy, Nancy Schroeder and Aaron Cassidy, who people may or may not know. She's in charge of the housing, mobile voucher program for the Amherst housing authority. And then also myself. We stopped meeting. Really when everything was interrupted and haven't reconvened. Since then. Jay and Nancy have both left the housing trust. So I need to see where they are. But I also want to know if anybody else is interested. In. Getting involved. With the issues of homelessness. Basically what we were talking about. In that group, among other things was. Trying to find some. Financing to support. Care coordinators for people who are homeless in Amherst. And Jay's been working on a source of funding. That his organization has adopted. So that he's thinks he's going to be able to expand. The number of coordinators. Not just in Amherst, but in Hampshire County. Through Elliott homeless services. And there may be other things we could do to try to support Craig's doors or Craig's place. And. To promote better access to. Existing housing in Amherst for people who are homeless. So that's my brief pitch regarding G. Any comments. Questions. Okay. Well. If I, if, if I can find people who are interested in that. Even outside the housing trust membership per se, then we may move forward on it. It is one of the things that is. Part of our so-called charter responsibility under the housing trust bylaw. Okay. Let's move on to item H, which is a new item. I think I. Sent people some information I got from more keen. About that issue. Do you want an opportunity to talk about that? Yeah, I just had been. I, somebody had drawn attention to me that a number of houses in Orchard Valley were bought by. A couple of people who then rented them out to students. And I had just started looking into it. John said the same thing happened in his neighborhood. I'm not sure if they were interested in that. I know it's a little bit of a shame up at rolling rich. Almost every house there was a student rental. So. I was wondering, these are the homes that. Families, young families can afford to buy it there. Modest homes, but in nice neighborhoods. Family neighborhoods. I don't know if it's a good idea to talk about that. But I've just started to look into it. And apparently talking to page wilder who wrote that. Those points that John's. Circulated. She had a lot of advocacy with the neighbors going to a lot of meetings and bringing things up to get her local neighborhood made into a local historic district, I believe. So I don't know. I'm very interested in keeping these neighborhoods affordable. And for families. But I haven't. I'm just started to look into it. And would be happy to keep working on it. I will mention that CPA funds. At this point, two small. Home ownership programs. As part of their affordable housing initiative. One for the Amherst community land trust, which I think has funding to create. Two homeowner units. And then valley community development, which has funding. To create three or four homeowner units. Can't remember. I think it's four. You think it's four. Yeah. That's what I think too. I just wasn't sure. So there, there are initiatives that fit with this. But honestly, they are expensive to do. And it's hard to find. Qualified applicants too, I guess, or to match them up. Either you get someone who's qualified and they can't find a house in the right price range or. They have houses that are for sale, but they don't, they're no applicants at that time. That meet the guidelines. The person who was most familiar. With all of this is Donna Kibana. Who works for a valley community development. Donna ran the first program that Valley had with CPA funding. Which did successfully. Place for households or families in homes in Amherst, which they were able to purchase. With support from CPA funds. And they now have a second program. Which Donna's working on. And she's also collaborating with ACLT. Providing some consultation to them. And she's also collaborating with. Donna's working on. And she's also collaborating with ACLT. Providing some consultation to them. In trying to get their program working. So the person to talk to is Donna Kibana. I work with Donna. We also did a block grant money, but CDBG has. Straight to regulations on assets. So it was actually hard to qualify. Households. You know, the, um, 2015 housing market study, it wasn't the, it wasn't the housing production plan. We'll get a comprehensive housing market study. The consultants there, RKG associates, you know, thought that there were some, some zoning and regulatory measures that other states had used to try to. You know, strengthen some areas for student housing and then make it more difficult in other neighborhoods to, you know, deter student rentals and. Whether or not we can have that in Massachusetts. You know, whether it would violate any state regulations or fair housing issues. You know, it is in the housing market study. I do think that's a. You know, it would always be great to have neighborhoods remain, you know, a mix of different tenants and. Homeowners and occupants. It's really hard. The, um, you know, the local historic district by itself doesn't prevent conversions. What it does is it prevents changes from the exterior without going through a review by the. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the historic district commission that looks at architecture. So maybe landlords are less apt, you know, or property managers don't want to buy in those areas because they don't want to go through that review if they make changes, but it doesn't prevent the chain. You know, it doesn't prevent someone. I mean, it is hard with valley. We found that. In a certain price range where income eligible households can afford people will, you know, something outright. No banks necessary, it's just a quicker process and the homeowner is really you know there has to whether you know whether they're willing to work with Valley because they want to have an affordable house or have a family live there you know it's almost like you have to have outreach and education beforehand and have advocacy around that. So you know it's hard to say no to someone who's going to give you $50,000 more in cash then okay well let's work with someone and it might take three months and you know less money. So you know I think what Paige and some you know some of the neighborhoods did they they did they really work with property owners to make them aware that there is opportunity to have families live in your house but you know you may be willing you have to be willing to do that and yeah I don't I don't know I'm not sure like what it'd be interesting to know what other tools are there you know incentives regulations you know education I'm sure there's a bunch of them that would work together but you know even the Valley with CPA allows a higher income range but you know there's been you know it's been difficult to find homes because the ones that are desirable more than one party wants so we even had some some of the last home buyer program we have we had two first time home buyers going after the same home you know they didn't know that but you know at the time they both like the same property and so you know we're like wow okay it's a nice property but how how you know if one gets it and the other one doesn't how do you help out the other one but yeah I think to me it's more about like right how do we maintain the first housing in our neighborhoods and we you know broaden beyond just not students John I just had one comment which is that you've got this huge elephant in UMass generating an enormous demand for this housing off campus as the rates for the rentals of the dormitories goes up and the associated fees the students find it more advantageous to find off-campus housing they there have fewer restrictions and they can live in a manner that has more comfortable for them and in these group settings within these these single-family homes and the landlords are happy to accommodate and you know it works it works for them and this is it's a it's an incredibly powerful engine driving those students into these neighborhoods and I'm not sure that any you know neighborhood preservation program that tries to you know convince people to when we are next to our neighbor you know she tried tried and tried and ended up selling to an investor and you know they got five unrelated kids in there and they're good kids and they keep quiet and I really think that what was done around the I forget the name of the the the regulatory change that registered the rental property owners and provides for a certain amount of regulation I think you know anecdotally I think it's done a lot I I see a lot less trash on the yards I see a lot less problems and you know as one of our members used to say it's not the students it's the what did what did he call what a great column inexperienced renters and we need to be able to make sure that the managers the property managers the landlords enforce the leases and make sure the kids obey the rules and and that'll go a long way to to fixing what many of the neighbors complain about you know kids piss it in their road bushes driving on the lawns leaving trash out there it's hard and and it's going to require a lot of work and and I don't know if there's a way to bolster the town's enforcement arm maybe getting more money out there to have people driving around and checking on these properties but it's I don't think you're gonna change that you know tsunami of conversions with any kind of in a reform like you're talking about yeah I noticed Janet Janet McGowan has her hand up and is I know is interested in this issue so Janet can you unmute yourself and join us please well it's actually me again no no if there's also Janet I I finally I found the mute button thank you um I do think that the UMass is the elephant in the room in that they've added about 4,000 students in the last 10 years but they haven't added housing for the 4,000 students or beds for them and so when the housing plans came out the market study they were saying in that study you can't say you know the student you know they were sort of saying the realtors were saying it goes back and forth sometimes it's first time home buyers buying the lower cheaper houses sometimes it's investor properties but I think in the last 10 years and the expectation in those studies was that Amherst's population would be flat and so we have 4,000 more students living in or attending UMass and that's a huge amount of pressure on the rental market and so I know that part of the housing policy that you were proposing was that UMass filled more dorms for its housing or it could be married student housing or it could be townhouses that are more attractive to to student renters the other thing is is that if you're going to talk about having more multi-family houses throughout the entire town I think very few people it's not going to help stabilizing neighborhoods and keeping families in neighborhoods if you have a three family house and there's 12 students in it and 10 cars parked you know in the driveway and so I think that you know it's like all these things are related to each other and so I think that you know I wouldn't you know I'm I'm not against multi-family houses I don't want to live next to be surrounded by you know three family units with filled with students and cars and I think most people would share that view it is legal to say that I will not rent to students and so I wonder if we did go to multi-family houses if the requirement is either you own or occupy it at least one of those units or that you're not renting to students and that would open up more space for not just families but you know people who work in couples and things like that and so I think a lot of these issues are very interrelated but without UMass sitting at the table or some pressure on them to build dorms for their students or you know townhouses I think we're just going to mean this like kind of you know race of just constantly building houses seeing pressure you know enforces sort of beyond our control I think they're very related thank you thanks Janet yeah it's kind of discouraging having made a number of attempts to talk to people at UMass I haven't figured out a strategy not for getting them to be able to listen but getting them to be able to change their own policies it's not clear how you do that at least to me I also live in a neighborhood where about a quarter maybe a third of the houses are student rentals and as Tom was saying they're not actually bad neighbors I really can't object to what they do with their houses my principal concern is that we are driving out young families from the community because housing that historically would have been occupied by younger families is no longer available to them at a reasonable price and as a consequence we have many fewer kids in our schools and many fewer families in Amherst I did a project with Valley planning folks a few years ago and we estimated there were 800 fewer families living in Amherst since the year 2000 based on census data so that's that's a huge change and I do feel a little discouraged even as a kind of wonder why I'm talking about it I think I've raised this before and it's probably I don't know if it's ever feasible but it's almost like you need an excise tax for every student that they enroll that's not living in a dorm and that you know the town needs to be able to collect that I mean I know they're a nonprofit I know they get you know tax exemption I know they they give you Amherst money as well but they're you know you've got to figure out some solution and I'm thinking you know they're my understanding is is that you know there there's a tax on your car insurance to pay for police training so there there are formulas of doing these types of things that seem sort of outrageous but somebody's got to start well I know more is interested in working on this the people who work on this don't have to be housing trust members or it can be a mix of housing trust members and people outside the trust so if anybody is interested we can form a subcommittee formally or informally that wants to kind of come up with ways to new ways to manage this problem I think Nate you had talked about in Philadelphia that there was some sort of movement to try to keep neighborhoods intact especially you know lower-income neighborhoods in terms of students moving in so there might be some models out there or you know places that have sort of pushed back around gentrification maybe there's some models out there that we can look at yeah I feel is right that yeah 90 you said that or it did remind me I think yeah I mean it's difficult because typically local regulations don't you know don't prescribe who lives there you know we don't get into tenants collection so you know my thought would be that for instance inclusionary zoning like at Aspen Heights I mentioned earlier you know the 11 units will be affordable units and maybe there's 88 units in that development so maybe that 11 units are going to be rented by non-students the affordable units and every other unit is going to be students and so I'm just I don't know if that's the case but you know depending on price points then you know it's difficult to have other families or you know households live in the market rate units if they're if they're pretty expensive so you know whether that means you have to have a higher percentage of inclusionaries inclusionary zoning you know affordable units or you know I yeah I'm not sure you know I think there's probably needs to be a combination of approaches but you know we don't you know when someone comes in and says they're going to build 100 units of the mixed-use building you know we can't really say well you can't rent it's really difficult to say you can't rent those to students you know none of those can be for students or you need to have a mix of some students and non-students and so you know but maybe there are some some other ways to approach it maybe there are some regulations that we could test out you know that other states allow that we haven't tried I yeah I haven't I haven't done enough research no for sure but yeah a temple around temple they I guess they did a few things that seem pretty effective yeah the city of Philadelphia had some regulations that were supposed to protect against gentrification of neighborhoods around temple University exactly I don't think this is a gentrification issue though right this is almost the opposite it's people are afraid that it's de gentrifying their neighborhoods you know it's right but we could learn from some of those models yeah I mean I agree Tom it's interesting you know if they're nice if they behave you know it doesn't make a difference who lives there but it is interesting that you know less families it seems like are living in Amherst as possibly a result of more students occupying homes and it's hard to say that definitively there are other reasons whether it's a you know the economy or jobs and you know there's more more factors but you know if the university does grow or more students live off campus it does diminish the supply of houses for non-students and so you know I feel like home ownership opportunities are very expensive to subsidize and we're not you know we're not building neighborhoods the way we used to so it is I think it's a I do think it's a really interesting topic I think it's really complex and challenging to resolve but well it's just like the homeless issue you need a full court press systemic wide approach you need the you know city ordinances that temp that Philly use for temple you know this is one reason the trust was formed it's almost the total reason that Amherst community land trust was formed it needs a full court press just this like you know substance abuse you can't tweak it in one little area and not to be beside the point but students need affordable housing as well okay well I think we've done as much as we can in discussion of future work housing trust priorities so unless anybody has another comment I want to move on to the other agenda items before we get too close to 9 o'clock okay thank you all so now we're up to item 5 which we've really pretty much done Nate gave us a report on the fact that there is or will be a consultant going out looking at wetlands issues East Street and he's expecting us to be able to do that with respect to hazardous materials also and the goal of that assuming that the site is buildable after we get the results of those reports would be to revise and publish a new RFP for that site hopefully within a month or two I guess a month would be too quick but maybe a couple of months yeah John you wanted this to be done by the end of the year and it may or may not be possible but I think you know the when at the last go around with an RFP you know the wetlands were an issue the building you know materials but it's also you know the question of does the town want to keep the building so you know it's historic you know there were some questions about you know how much of a barrier is it to use the building or to demolish it and I think the you know Valley when they submitted their proposal they said there were a lot of unanswered questions about the property and not that we would have those answers but you know for instance the trust could submit a demolition application perhaps and try to get the town to make a decision on that building before the RFP so that we have more things you know answered when we put it out there not that it's solved you know for instance if if we apply for a demolition permit and it gets a year delay at least you know there's a year delay on it you know that's already been answered as opposed to when a developer takes control a year later then they apply and then it's your delay and all of a sudden instead of being a year it's really like a two and a half year delay so you know I think the East Street School site does have a few a few things that need to be determined before we put out an RFP again like how much flexibility do we have there do we have we had a minimum number of units and a target number you know are we do each those change does that change you know who would build there we say we'd like 15 affordable but we don't want any more than 30 then we've kind of already handed in the project would we say we want a minimum of 15 affordable and we don't care how many there are you know does that would that it would that it you know you lead up to the developer to say what's compatible with the neighborhood I mean I'm just you know there's all these little pieces that we had in the RFP that may have made it you know less desirable for a developer to respond to because we have it was pretty prescriptive I actually said it would be nice to be prescriptive maybe we were too prescriptive with not enough information about the site in terms of the building the wetlands the priority for what we want to see so I just I would hate John to do a lot of the work and then go back out and not have you know have maybe one response again I mean maybe that's all we get is one response but well Nate certainly make sure that we do a really good job of getting the proposal out there and and I would strongly recommend going out and polling developers to make sure you're getting out a proposal that is it's gonna be attractive to them right and and making sure you got a good good list of people to send it to it's this is not a paving project you know this is not something you just put out on the state website and expect people to respond you know this there's there's a very select group of people who are gonna do a project like this right and then one you know there was a number of people asked you know how do the neighbors feel you know kind of asking about potential opposition and did we engage the direct neighbors and we have we the town hadn't you know we had held meetings but we hadn't say directly contacted neighbors so you know you know perhaps all these steps could be done in advance of the RFP just so you know those things can be addressed when there are questions or you know yeah we could do a request for information prior to an RFP basically I think that would satisfy what Tom was suggesting that if we have what is essentially addressed draft RFP and we asked developers to respond to it with questions and concerns through an RFI or request for information process that might put us in a better position to do the final RFP and it wouldn't even have to be a formal process like that John you could just identify the you know three or four or five possibly I mean I think this is probably not that many likely bidders and you know talk to them and say what would you like to see what how would this work for you you know just to get a little bit of feedback so so you're not surprised when nobody responds right yeah yeah I just wrote down about six points that we could clear try to address before we put out the RFP yeah okay the second bullet under five we've already addressed I will send a memo to the town manager regarding the strong Street Park property and he asked me to move ahead with an evaluation related to either affordable housing alone or affordable housing as part of a mixed development okay I had a couple of updates the ZBA is reviewing Amherst studio apartments tonight the one focus was on a local preference there were a variety of other things that the Valley people were asked to address by the chair by one of the members of the ZBA basically the one thing I wanted to say is that the last meeting and you can listen to this because all the meetings have been recorded and they're now available online I thought was really highlighted by some great testimony there were 15 or 16 people who testified in favor of the project I think only one or two who testified negatively that included Carol and Tom from this group I can't remember I'm leaving somebody else out in any event the testimony was terrific it was really very strongly focused on what the need is and the importance of this project to Amherst and to the people it would serve and you can hear that if you go to the link it happens I can't remember but it's well somewhere deep into the meeting but it was great and I think there maybe partly as a consequence of that I sense fewer and fewer questions from either the chair who's may had most of the questions or from any of the members the chair personally pronounced himself as satisfied with the social support plan for the project said he learned enough and didn't think that there was need for more attention to that so overall I think the process has gone really well and although they're obviously not here to listen I think Laura Baker and the other people at Valley have done a terrific job in presenting this and I can't see how they don't approve it although I suppose I could say famous last words knock on wood or whatever having said that but I think the process is going well as Nate said there probably be two or three more meetings before they reach a final conclusion about what they recommend and particularly not only do they recommend approval but what caveats or what conditions do they place on it but I think things are going well and I didn't necessarily think that two months ago so this is good anybody else with comments on the ZBA review I said that I think it will be continued until September 24th so two weeks from today and then and then October 8th is what they had outlined as two dates so I was at the meeting earlier tonight it did seem like it was going pretty well I had it on the whole time here not not really listening but seem like Valley was able to get through quite a bit they did their pro forma which there's some questions they did tenant selection a number of things so I think you know I think they are moving along the next meeting on the 24th I think is going to talk about architecture and density and and that type of aspect of the project but you know the staff and the ZBA chair you know outlined a process and they would like to finish it next month so I felt I yeah I thought I thank everyone for their comments at the last meeting I think they were really positive and made really good point so it was nice to it was nice to hear that I think they're really eloquent and well spoken so it was points that you know the ZBA just I think it was good to hear again so I thanks everyone for speaking I thought it was really helpful do you think the chair will be inviting public comments at any either of the next two meetings the 24th or October 8th yeah I think Steve usually likes to the chair likes to have public comment and they were doing it when I signed off and I don't think it was going to but they had some time so he always likes to have public comment at every meeting it may not come until 845 to 9 o'clock but he usually tries to have the public comment so I think he I think he you know he does every meeting well should we consider rescheduling our meeting for October 8th to a week later well they're also going to continue it to October 15 so they have the 24 I was looking out I just pull up an email is the 24th the 8th and the 15 so I think they're hoping they would be done on the 15 so I don't see any dates after that okay so I know Erica didn't have an opportunity earlier to comment and she wanted an opportunity I didn't think it would come tonight right based on what the chair had said earlier right now yeah I didn't think it was going to be there but okay so I guess we'll keep our next meeting for the 8th and hope for the best and there probably will be an opportunity for public comment then on Thursday night September 24th yeah I guess maybe if the 24th doesn't have public comment maybe we switched from the 8th to the 15th because the 8th I think they'll definitely have public comment because that's when they would be discussing maybe possible conditions or other things so it may be good to have voices heard then I don't I don't really know but we could say I mean I kind of want to say let's just do when would you normally meet John the second Tuesday a second Thursday of the month which ends up being the 8th I believe yeah could we just do the 15th though just to be safe just so the 8th is available for our trust members to attend the hearing I mean I guess it's up to the trust members what you think right yeah I like to do this in advance so people are aware of any change does anybody have a preference for sticking with the 8th versus going to the 15th okay so should we switch to the 15th looks like it I don't think we need to take a formal vote yeah okay so it'll be the 15th then and I were made or both of us will send out announcements to that effect there are a couple of other things I just wanted to update you on there are two groups that I'm attending or have been attending the community resource committee and the energy and climate action building committee the first one I am obviously not a member of and I thought I had an agreement where if I submitted goals for a comprehensive town housing policy as a set of ideas that might receive some discussion basically I found I was ignored and felt actually disinvited not only at that meeting but any future meeting so I'm not sure I'll be attending the community resource committee until they are open to outside input essentially the message I was getting was well the committee has to work within its own membership before they really want to receive any public input so if anybody else wants to take a shot at that that's fine the other group by participating in I mentioned they've had a couple of meetings I had a couple of notes basically it that's also going to be a long process they're asking questions about on the one hand how do we enhance the quality of life in part through the building process but also how do we reduce carbon admissions and there was a general recognition I think by the people who set this up that they were proposing a daunting task but hopefully there will be a value in taking it on to combat climate change so that's moving along you know there was an open discussion at one of the meetings about what it takes to make a better building there was some discussion of what's meant by affordability people were concerned that it mean not just rent but other costs that get in as well and there was also a lot of discussion about the problems faced by individual renters and Amherst I don't know if this is the place where those problems can be addressed but the committee particularly is open to hearing from people who are renters and Amherst and I think that's a good thing but it will take time to move along so that's a kind of a quick report on sorry if it's a little vague honestly the process is a little vague but I think it's a good group of people and they also have outside consultants who are working with everything so the last thing I had was the listing of upcoming events I did mention the community resource committee will on October 6th at the afternoon be taking their next stab at discussion of what goals should be for town general housing policy the next ZBA hearing we now know is on the 24th with meetings hearings to follow on the 8th of October in the 15th the housing coalition which has been dormant to some extent although a number of people from the housing coalition did testify before the ZBA which was great will be meeting again via zoom on September 22nd you all receive those notices and finally the next meeting of the housing trust will now be on October 15th not the 8th okay any additional questions or comments well thank you all for participating this was a good meeting if a little difficult at times struggling with what our priority should be and what we should try to move forward with any I guess I just asked if there any more comments they don't appear to be so are we ready to adjourn okay most everybody's muted so I will see the head nods and figure everybody's ready we are two minutes past nine not too bad again I appreciate everybody's participation thanks very much and I look forward to seeing you in October if not before thank you John