 who is our featured discussant. And it sounds like his mother is experiencing some medical problems. And as a consequence, he's not able to join us. And since that was a main part of our agenda, I'm not sure, well, there is probably no substitute. We can still have a bit of a discussion, but that is an issue for us. Okay, so let me start off with some additional announcements. Will Van Wavelen has resigned from the housing trust. He no longer feels like he has the time to put in what's necessary to be a member of the housing trust. There are a number of factors, one of which is good news. Actually, he and his wife are expecting a second child in the near future. And so, if anybody wants to send a note of congratulations to Will, that would be fine. I'm sure his email address hasn't changed, although he has formally resigned. I talked to the town manager and Angela Mills, who was part of his staff is arranging interviews to replace both Will and Francis Goye's floor who resigned probably about six months ago now. So with any luck, we may have two new members by our March meeting. So that's kind of as much as I have in the way of announcements. Does anybody else have any announcements they wanna make? I think, John, you're maybe optimistic in terms of the appointments, but I'll, sure. Okay, well, if you haven't been told, Nate, since you're usually part of participating in these interviews, the angel is scheduled, I think it's Friday, February 18th from 10.30 to noon for the candidates who are available to be interviewed. Yeah, and we put it out there. And Amherst, Indy and a few other places, advertise that the town's looking for, I mean, it's not just the trust, there's like a dozen boards and committees that could use it. Right. And I've been making some efforts to recruit, although at this point, we really don't have a large number of candidates. Hopefully the quantity doesn't represent the quality of people who'll be available to us, but we'll find out when Nate and Paul and I, and probably one other person that Paul will appoint will do interviews for the two vacant positions. Any other announcements? Okay, as I told Carol a few minutes ago, we do not have minutes from our January meeting. Hopefully we'll have those in a week or so, and we'll should also have February minutes fairly soon so we can review those at our March meeting. Let's see. So the main event for tonight was discussion of ARPA funding with Dave Zomek, the assistant town manager. As I just mentioned, Dave is unfortunately not available to join us. And that said, I really don't have much in the way of news about what is the processes in town hall for making decisions about ARPA funding. I know there's been some discussion about finding a location for a year round shelter for persons who are unhoused. But again, I'm not quite sure where that is. I had a discussion with Dave myself and a few other people have had similar discussions about the hot pot, which was a place that Craig's doors was interested in and a few other people have had conversations and expressed interest in that, including the committee that was appointed maybe a year ago to look for a permanent shelter. Anyway, for whatever reason, town hall does not appear to be enthusiastic about the hot pot. And so they may be reluctant to spend money on a location they're not happy with. I did hear informally that there was another bidder for the hot pot, but that bidder has dropped out possibly because the price was too high. Let's see. I do know that Dave was going to ask us to authorize the expenditure of up to $10,000 to do due diligence on properties that he and others in town hall are investigating. But in his absence, I'm reluctant to proceed with that because- I could speak to that, John. Yeah, I think the town staff has been looking at, a number of properties, whether they're on the market or not, just in terms of location and what could be feasible. And so what we realized is there had been some due diligence in old CPA money. It was very old, it was like 10 years old and the town closed out that account as we'd expect recently. And so there really is no due diligence money to do appraisals or surveys of properties. And so really it's the housing trust has the funding. So the town would request $10,000. It's really for appraisals and surveys. That's probably it to look at properties. Maybe just some quick assessment of there's any like title issues or ownership issues, but really it's just basic first steps. And so there's a number of properties where it would be great to have someone in there to look at it and just give it, give an appraisal on a property. So we know what could be the cost of it. And so staff can hesitate to guess, but it's really better to have someone go in there. And that's what the 10,000 is for. It's not, I mean, it may be for three properties, right? It may be three or four properties, if it's two to 3,000, 4,000, depending on what we're doing, what a consultant will ask. I don't know what prices are like these days. You know what the properties are, Nate? I have some ideas, but right now it's not public just because if there's negotiations with them then it's something that could be discussed in executive session, but I actually don't know specifically what property, you know, there'd been appraisal sought for, but I know that there's a handful that people have been talking about in town hall. Carol? Are we talking about properties for a permanent shelter? Is that the purpose of buying the properties? That's what this conversation about is just that, it's not properties for some other thing? It's for, you know, ideally a permanent shelter and possibly transitional housing. So it could be, you know, a model that has, you know, both, you know, a shelter, resources and housing. And so, you know, that hasn't really been determined. You know, some of it is like, if it's a certain property that, you know, a bigger property, for instance, right? It might lend itself to all of those. A smaller property may just be a shelter. And then it's also looking at if there is a site, you know, what is the structure of management ownership and all of that? So, you know, can you bundle all those services together? You know, who's the provider of that? So, I mean, I think, you know, I haven't been a part of those conversations in terms of, you know, those details. I think, you know, the town's considering any or all of those really, you know, but focus on shelter. But, you know, if you could have some other bonuses there, it'd be great. Sure. Have you been part of a, oh, sorry, Carol, go ahead. I just, I also wondered if, is the expectation, at least, that if all the appraisals go well for some property that is found, that ARPA money will be then available to be used to actually buy the property? Yeah, so, you know, Sean Angano, the finance director came previously to the trust a few months ago and said, you know, here's the outline of, you know, there's like a dozen categories or more of what ARPA money would be for. And there was, you know, in the plan and it was retained and voted on a million dollars or so for, I don't know if it's like Helsinki and sheltering or sheltering, but there is a million dollars for that purpose. You know, I think, you know, I don't know the details of ARPA, how rigorous they are. So, you know, there has to be some impact from COVID. You know, is it, you know, just acquisition? Is it also renovation costs? You know, but ideally the ARPA money would go toward, you know, the purchase of that and anything else that's eligible for costs. Okay. The appraisal sets the value. So, you know, the town can't pay more than the appraised value. That's really what, that's the importance of it. So, the difficulty is that if some of these properties are on the market and someone can pay more than what's, you know, if they're asking more than what the appraised value is, we, you know, the town doesn't have any leverage except the fact that we don't go anywhere. And, you know, we can try to make nice neighbors, but, you know, so I know some of the properties that we're looking at are on the market or have been or, you know, and some aren't. And so, you know, some of it's how quickly can we get getting the appraiser in there and as a property owner willing to then negotiate with the town. And so, you know, sometimes it's more, you know, the property owner is willing, you know, that's the first step. And so I haven't been a part of any of those conversations that property owners are, you know, how interested property owners are willing. It looks like Jay has a hand raised, John. And then he typed in the, in the chat. Oh, he said he could provide an update. Yeah, that's on a related, somewhat related project, the Safe Haven project. Well, this is part of a relevant part of the discussion. So why don't we interrupt and ask Jay to give us an update on Safe Havens and then we'll come back and go back to discussion of other things. Welcome back, Jay. Hey folks, been a long time. I was hoping to see Dave because that actually would have really given me an update on what's been going on. So the committee that was looking for shelter, I was involved in that committee and I've met several times with Dave's IMAC and others prior. And the reality is we haven't met in at least four, five weeks since our last meeting and the update that John gave was very accurate in terms of the interest in the hot pot, the recommendation of the committee. We look at the whole issue as sort of the three-legged stool idea where one leg is having a year-round shelter that's well-supported and located and we can depend on that every year it's gonna open up. It's a lot to go through every year to try to figure out the sheltering situation. We feel like we're starting from scratch every year and it's very stressful. The second leg is the transitional housing that Nate talked about and it would be great if those two things were connected and through the same provider perhaps. So you could have a nice transition from the shelter over to the transitional housing piece. And then the third is of course what you guys are all about developing the affordable permanent housing that can be available in the community that people can access and move on from transitional or from shelter even directly from the streets access or the unsheltered folks. So where we sat was we're not really getting much positive feedback from the town regarding the recommendation of the hot pot. And it's a little strange because we're not really getting any specifics as to why they don't like the site. John, you sort of alluded to that but there's no specifics. It seems like a very well-placed site if you look at it in terms of the size of it, that it's on a main road, that there's bus stops nearby, that it's not, there's no real neighborhood right around it per se except for the apartments next door which actually could be also a nice relationship that perhaps could be made in terms of moving people to housing. So I think we're curious to know what they're thinking of and there's been a little bit of a veil of secrecy it feels like, I'm not saying that's what it is but we're really not getting a clear sense of what the town is thinking in this regard. So I was hoping the trust could be somewhat involved in it to help just sort of figure out a little more clearly what might be happening and what the plan is and open up communications. So there's that. The safe haven is very excited something I've been very involved in advocating for for three years now and it actually opened up or will open next week, I should say the funding is there. CSO is running it. It's located in the Greenfield area but they're gonna take people from Hampshire County including folks could be lined up from Amherst or some folks even right now that Craig's door is connected with that's being considered for placement in the safe haven. So that's a really great thing. That's primarily for the unsheltered population or people that we know even though they access shelter and have major mental illness and have a hard time sustaining themselves in shelter environments easily triggered lots of trauma. People that go into flight or fight kinds of responses and really need a safe, quiet place with staff support without a lot of demands on them in terms of being welcomed and entering a suitable environment where people can work with them and then work on next steps toward getting housed. So that's the idea of the safe haven program. It's kind of like a mini shelter but it's a home environment and it's, I think seven people are gonna be served through that program out in Greenfield. So it's very small. The third thing is, John, you've heard me talk forever about CSPEC and we've indeed gotten that off the ground and currently I have 1.5 FTEs of staff. That's dedicated to it and we have 18 slots that we can fill to do housing stabilization work with people who were chronically homeless and now placed in apartments. And we're expanding that hopefully in the near future to 24 slots and two full FTEs. So that's been moving forward for us at Elliott. That's a new add on to our already homeless outreach programming that we do. And then the last thing I just wanted to make quick mention of is we've got a homeless count happening on February 23rd. It's the HUD point in time count and path is very involved. That's my outreach teams and organizing some of that count. We literally go out to the streets and the parks and the woods and find people and do surveys, offering need items first and offering resources and help, but then asking people if they'd like to participate in the count and how it can help to bring resources into a given area once we have an idea of what the need is. So we're all involved with that and all of the people that are interfacing with people who are homeless such as Hammers, you know, ACC or Craig's Doors and other places, the veterans. So that's my outreach on Mr. Connors and others. So anyways, that's what's on the table. So I just wanted to fill you all in on that. I don't know if anyone had questions or thoughts to share. Thanks, Jay. That's all very good news. How many of your C-spec slots are in Hampshire County? Currently we got, let's see, one, two, we have five right now that are in Hampshire County that are active, but with two FTEs, roughly half of them can be in, well, half of them can be in three County or really two County, Franklin County and Hampshire. So it just really depends where we get the business from. So I'd say we'd have about 12. We will have soon in the next six months, we will have 12 slots available serving Hampshire and Franklin. That's great. And another 12 that's out in Hampton. Getting a safe haven open is also really important. Congratulations to you. I know you've put in a lot of hard work along with people at DMH and elsewhere. So I think that's great for this area and for people who are unhoused as an opportunity. Yeah, it's a lot of work in committees and the legislative folks, Joe Comerford and others really came through big time in terms of helping with the funding and advocating to make it happen. Yeah, it's been a few years, Cynra Akin. Yeah, Mike, you remember us, C-spec too. So we're glad to see both off the ground. If people don't know it's a Medicaid program that as Jay mentioned early is focused on housing stabilization. So case managers can work with individuals who have been homeless as they move into housing to help them stabilize and succeed in new housing. And it's long-term work that we can do with them as well. It's not just short-term, you know, like you're funded for three months and that's it. It's really an ongoing benefit that the person is given as being a member of the health insurance that they have. And so it's a great member benefit. And, you know, we're able to see people through because it's folks who are qualifying are chronically homeless, which also means they have major disability in terms of some behavioral health issues that need to be addressed. And it's often people who are not in any kind of recovery or treatment. So, you know, it's real long-term work. Right. Great. Excellent, Jay. And good luck with the homeless count. Yes, thanks. Towards the end of this month. I know it's something that you've got a lot of experience with. And I'm sure you all will do a good job with it. Thank you. And the data is definitely helpful to everybody. Okay, let's see. Let me go on for a minute. So, Nate, do you have anything to say about what the reluctance of Town Hall is to look more closely at the hot pot? Yeah, I think, you know, I'm not, I don't think there's any reluctance. I think, you know, it has to be really careful and sensitive when it's dealing with, you know, private property. So whenever there's negotiations with property owners, it's really private, that it's not public information that can be disclosed, you know, to a working group or to even the trust unless it's an executive session. So, you know, I think it's just that, you know, you know, Dave's worked with property owners both for conservation land for many years and for other purposes. And really it's about protecting their privacy and, you know, and what they may ask. So I don't think there's any reluctance to look at properties. It's just being really careful about how you go about it. And so, you know, if in the future, you know, properties seem to be, you know, there's more discussions and, you know, maybe there's say like three major properties and property owners are in discussions with the town, you know, we can bring that to the trust and executive session, but it's not something we could discuss outside of that. And so I don't want to say there's reluctance. I think there's just, you know, being careful. You know, like I said, the town can't, you know, we don't act. The town doesn't act as fast as a private market and we're also limited to a purchase price that is the appraised value or lower. And so, you know, those are considerations we have when, you know, discussing things publicly because if someone knows a property owner may be interested, they could approach them and offer something more than the town. And so we, you know, we just have to be careful on how that happens. So I'm not aware of any reluctance at all. Okay. And yeah, so that's what I'm gonna say, even with the 10,000 that, you know, the town is requesting it's something that, you know, we may, the town may spend it and then can provide the trust and update, but it would need to be an executive session, you know? So if there's an appraisal done on a property and the trust would like to know that's something that would be an executive session agenda item. And then, you know, it could be made public after the fact, you know, if negotiations stop or the property is no longer under consideration, but, you know, once that, once that, you know, we have a contract for something on a property and it really can only be discussed in executive session. Okay. I see that Wei-Ling has her hand up and wants to talk. I assume on this issue. So why don't we allow her? Sure. I can do that. Hi, Wei-Ling. You can unmute yourself. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Jia, for having me speak. I wanna thank Jerry for the update for all the housing might be available. And I do like to provide an update about the additional housing slots that Emerson Community Connections has received from the Department of Public Health. So this year we received a five-year contract from DPH and we are allotted 10 apartment units with strong support service for each of the residents and the criteria for this low threshold housing program is threefold. One, they have to be chronically homeless. Two, that they have to have substance use disorder. Three, they could be at risk of HIV positive. And there are 12 agencies in the state running this program and all together the state has put together about 500 apartment units. Among these 12 agencies. And right now we are looking for housing fervently and because of the housing market is very tight here. So as you know, it's not easy to do that. So when I heard the town is looking at upper money potentially have transitional housing potentiality. So it just dawn on me if we can have collaboration the state will pay the rent for any housing that we secure. So if the transitional housing is available the state could be paying rent toward whether it is a town owned property or however the arrangement is and that will make this housing available for this particular pool of residents. And they are pretty much from our area Amherst, Northampton, Halley or some from Springfield or Holyoke area but from Western Mass. So I like to share this news with you as well. Thank you. Thanks, Wei Ling, that's great. If you could send us a description of that so that I could put that in our formal minutes. Okay, I'm happy to do that. So if you could give me another one minute of time if I could share this project with you as well. Sure. It's about affordable housing building. In 2008 that the Habitat for Humanity got a four acre donation of land for Amherst College. So four units are built and four families are living there on Stanley Street. So recently a group of Amherst College students they would like to approach Amherst College to ask them to consider donating another parcel of land for affordable housing building. So the students are doing research to come up with reasons to convince the college that the impact of student presence whether Amherst College or UMass has a lot of good impact but also comes with that negative impact on housing prices in particular rental prices for the low income renters. So the research is being done and the students and I and other interested citizens meeting weekly they have a seminar capstone seminar on Friday afternoon from four to 6 p.m. And there are seven topics that we are working on. So if anyone is interested like to participate I'll be happy to provide the link and the goal is to create perhaps 20 units that they are discussing of affordable housing primarily for individuals. Thank you. Thanks, Wei Ling. I'd like to see Amherst College do more than 20 units. Honestly, I think that's a pretty small ask given the resources that Amherst College has. How many units do you think will be fair to ask them versus UMass if we could have a goal here? I'd go for at least a hundred. For Amherst College, how about UMass? UMass is a different cattle of fish. I think what we need from UMass is to substantially increase the number of student residences on campus. That would do a tremendous amount toward managing if not, I wouldn't say solving, but reducing the extent of problems that Amherst has and probably make more units available in town to both families and individuals. Okay, I'll pass this information on 100 units from Amherst College. And the parcel of land that they are thinking about is the DPW. I don't know whether that land has been dedicated to DPW. If we could hide that, but if not, we will go elsewhere. Do you have any update? There was property that the college offered DPW for various reasons in the town rejected it. I'm pretty sure it's in that right, Nate. I'm not sure that's the reason, but there was a few different properties that was being looked at. And I think the public works needs eight to 12 acres without disturbing neighbors and wetlands. And so it's really difficult to find a property that meets those parameters. So something that isn't going to annoy neighbors and also won't impact wetlands. So I think some of the properties that Amherst College did own, there was some of those issues. And then if it's, I don't know if some of them too, there's also some problems depending on location with the bridge on Southeast Street. So there's a low overpass. So yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, I think there's still negotiations to see if there's any property that could be essentially located in available, but. So you will not be a competition then if we go negotiate with Amherst College for that potential land with a housing purpose. I'm not aware of any, but. Well, unless you all have some other suggestions for Amherst College land that you think that the students should ask, right now they are going through the town, GIS map to identify available pieces of land. And they are new like me. So I appreciate some guidance. Thanks, thanks. Wayling, just a quick question. I mean, is this a, with the capstone project, is there an Amherst College professor or two that is involved in this work? Or is it just a student run led project? Well, it's a group of our students led, but the Massachusetts Housing and Sheltering Alliance, Joe Finn, Mahasa, his group is also involved providing support, staffing support and guidance on this project. And we are reaching out to locals to get their guidance as well. Like an architect, an entire architect in town. We approached him today. So he knows quite a bit about affordable housing building and he himself is involved with Habitat for Humanity. Okay, thank you. Wayling. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, moving along in the chat, JLF, if the VFW is a possible property for purchase. I don't know, can you answer that, Nate? Or is that something that we're keeping under wraps? Yeah, I don't know. I see that, Ray. I know Craig's Doors is using it, but other than that, I don't know what it's being looked at for. So I know they were just walking up to secure it as a temporary use for this season. Yeah, I wasn't aware that the VFW was being used by Craig's Doors. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's what, I think I just found out this week or last week that they are using it right for, during the day, and that's it. Okay, thanks. Okay, so coming back to the question, I assume in Dave's absence, Nate, you would like us to agree to set aside $10,000 or up to $10,000 to allow the town to assess, to at least a preliminary assessment of properties it has been looking at. Right. Okay, is there a discussion of that? Erica, you're muted. Thank you. I just wonder what is the budget that we actually have? The trust probably has at least somewhere, at least $250,000 to $300,000 in reserves. Does that sound right to you, Nate? You know better than I. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, it's so funny. I still, yeah, I think that's right. We have, we allocated a certain amount for the rental program and for other programs but we never spent that. And some of it we paid for with ARPA money and some of it we're still, I think seeking ARPA reimbursement, which we would, I think by March 1st, if we, all of that will be finalized. So then we'll know exactly what's left or COVID, and there's some COVID money that we're gonna seek reimbursement. So, but yeah, I think 250 to 300,000 is about right. Close enough for government work. I mean, it's a moving target, but I think that's about right. Okay, I understand. Thank you. Other questions on this issue? Well, I'm in favor of giving the town the money to do this, but with the caveat that I would like to see the hot pot added to the list of properties to be investigated. I don't think we should just jump ahead with it. On the other hand, the fact that Craig's Doors is interested in the hot pot is not a secret. There's been a lot of discussion of it inside town hall and outside. So I don't think I'm giving away anything when I suggest that we would like to see the hot pot included in those expenditures. Yeah, I mean, I know, John, the one issue with that property is it's kind of minimized. So there's more than one owner. So, whether or not Craig's Doors has been talking to one owner, the other owners and the Board of Trustees has to agree to things. So it's not as simple as a single owner property. I'm sure that's the case, Nate. I'm sure it's the case for other properties that the town is looking into. I guess that's part of what any assessment of the potential purchase of the property would include. Right, some of that legal research to determine what that means. Yeah, but I personally would like to see that included. So I'm gonna suggest or propose that we approve the expenditure of the $10,000 with the caveat that evaluation of the hot pot be included along with other properties. Can I question slash perhaps add my own caveat? Absolutely, Allegra. Would it be an automatic, like once the properties are identified, then we can go into an executive session or is that something that we would have to ask for as a trust to be made aware of what has been evaluated or assessed or appraised or whatever? Cause that would be, I guess my caveat would, I would want to know what the money did look at once. I will definitely communicate that today. Me too. I agree. I did say to him about a week ago that if he felt it was necessary to go into executive session in order to discuss any of the work that the town is doing, that we would probably read that. So you're just saying, I think the same thing that I already said to him and I will repeat it again. And I see Carol's also wants to see that. Yeah, I think the town would provide the trust and update, but I don't think we would wait to have a trust meeting to then ask that the certain properties be investigated. So we're asking for $10,000 so the town could move forward and then report back to the trust. So I don't think that's what you're asking about there, but so if there's one or two properties that the town would want to investigate, we could do that and then report back to the trust as opposed to waiting for the trust to authorize the town to look at those. Yeah, that's fine. Well, I'm not sure. I mean, are you objecting to the idea that we're allocating the $10,000 with the caveat that the hot pot should be included on the list? Yeah, I mean, I think I would leave it to staff. I don't think staff would spend the money wisely. I think so, if you want to, sure, but it may not be that, I mean, what if there's other properties that the town thinks are more appropriate? I'm not sure how much money does it take to investigate one property, but at first when Allegra was speaking, I thought you meant we would come back to the trust and request every time we wanted to spend money to investigate a property, but that's not what she's asking. So I'm fine with the request to come back and present to the trust in an executive session. Okay, any other comments or suggestions about this? Rob? I didn't hear all of what Nate was saying. It was like internet or somebody's internet was messed up, but I'm not sure that I like the insistence that we only give the money if they look at the hot pot. If they have other ones at date that are preferable, we would be prioritizing hot pot over properties that we don't even know about. So I would say take the 10,000 and if they need more money to do the hot pot as well as the other ones that they wanna look at and ask for that then, but I wouldn't wanna limit it. I wouldn't wanna require the hot pot if that meant that something else had to drop off. Okay, other discussion? I had kind of a similar idea. I'd like to have them have the hot pot on their general list whether they end up deciding it's not worth spending money on assessing it for some reason or whatever it is going on, that's okay. I don't need part of the $10,000 to be spent on it just that somehow that they do what they think makes sense but include that in some way in their list of what they're making sense about. Okay, so when we do come back and go into an executive session, we'd like to know what properties were considered and why were some eliminated and others retained? Yeah, that's good. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, right, we're gonna, you know, staff will try to do as much work as we can, so we don't have to spend the money, right? So the money would really be spent on a surveyor or appraiser or someone that has expertise that we can't offer and so, or don't have the time. So it's not, you know, we don't, we can't appraise a property as town staff and then have the town use that value. So we have to have a third party appraiser. So that's what the money would be used for. If we need to investigate, you know, the building for code compliance, we have inspectors. If we need to look at zoning or land use, we can do that. It's really for, you know, technical expertise. After the town's already done some research on a property. Okay, are we ready to come to a vote? Any other further comments? Okay, well, then I move that we vote to allocate $10,000 in trust money to assist the town in evaluating properties to both serve the needs of people who are homeless either in a new seasonal shelter that would become permanent and so-called transitional housing. Is there a second? I second it. Okay, so we do a quick vote to see who's in favor. Erica. I'm in favor. I'm in favor. Carol. In favor. Allegra. Yes. And Rob. Yes. Okay, so we have voted to allocate those funds by a five to zero majority. Okay, any further comments on this either from people who are on the panel or people who are attending? Okay, now we move along to other issues that are on our agenda. The next issue I have is an update on Strong Street. So Nate, that's in your ballpark, I think. Sure, is this visible of the plan? A little bit. It is to me, yeah. Great, yeah, so we met staff now with Levec associates, they donated the wetland, so I don't know if it was visible about the blue line as wetland on the property and then the green lines are buffer. And then this dotted line right here, so this whole kind of south or west southwest facing slope is all priority habitat that's been mapped and identified by the state which may limit development. So it is a quite a steep property. After last meeting, staff's been talking about what could be possible. So here's the original subdivision layout. This lot right here is privately owned as is this lot. So the town owns some smaller lots up front and then this bigger piece here. And so Levec's gonna look at it, there's some challenges here with this, the topography, drainage and wetlands and the natural heritage. They also think that it could be worthwhile to approach the two owners because they own lots that are kind of in the middle that could make development easier. So we told them 20 to 25 units, they're not sure that's possible. When this was developed as a subdivision plan, there was a 15 foot grade change between the road here and this property just to level out the road. And there was 12 feet to level out the road that they're pushing downhill just to make the road level. So from the bottom of the road grading to the top of the road is 30 feet of grade change. And so the site, these are two foot contours. So the site is very steep. So they think, Levec thinks it could be developed, they think there could be some challenges. So anyways, they're gonna come up with a concept plan next week and have also just write down what they see as site attributes. There could be some legal issues with the road access. I'm not sure there is, but anyways, they've investigated, they're gonna come up with a list of things for the town to consider. And so I'm following up with natural heritage in the town's wetland administrator about these environment, this dotted line right here. So this whole area is considered prompt, habitat for rare and endangered species. And they might require mitigation. They may require no disturbance at all, there may be limited disturbance. And so really, we're trying to figure out what that means. And they mean that we have to have someone go out on site and do a little survey, depending on what natural heritage says in terms of what's out here, in terms of plants or animals. There is water and sewer and drainage on Strong Street. So depending on where the homes are, you can have gravity, feed to sewer and to drainage, which is good. So I think from what we're looking at, I think there's still a few options for the trust. Do we try to maximize units at a high cost, if there's 20 or 25 units, or is a 10 or 12 unit home ownership development? If that's possible, is that something the trust would want to pursue in the town and subsidize it? Because I know that below a certain number, there's not really a lot of financing available. And so although land is hard to come by in town, it's expensive, this does have some unique challenges. At the same time, there could be some development, maybe just not as many units as hoped. So I think, I'd like to know if for the trust, is this something that if there was duplexes on every property and you could get 12 units, is that something that's worthwhile to pursue? If you could do a few duplexes and triplexes, the zoning right now doesn't allow a lot on this property. And so if, so we're talking about, do we change the zoning or would it be a comprehensive permit, a 40B? And so, if you need to do anything other than duplexes or single family homes, it really is almost a comprehensive permit because in the zoning district, townhouses and apartments aren't allowed. Okay, it sounds like the property would not be amenable really to townhouses or apartments from what you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I was pushing on Olympia Oaks which is a hilly site. They did three and four unit buildings. Say they're 20, 30 feet deep, 20 feet deep by like 60 feet long or something. And I was seeing like, okay, well, couldn't they go along the slope here or something? And they could, it would just require a lot of earthwork and grading. And so the consultant was really saying smaller units are better. They really liked this Eastern part of the road just because it's less steep and you could actually build foundation. So it's almost like your garage is underneath or you have a unit right on grade and then it goes up and the foundation acts as the retaining wall. And so the units might seem high from the road but at least you can access them at least one on grade. And it's easier to go up that way here on this side. The difficulty is you pull off the road, you get a car's length off the road and you're already 10 feet below the road unless you flatten it all out. So then you're pushing the earth, you're grading down, it's really steep. So if you were to say, you know where my mouse is with this cursor is if you're like, okay, let's make this area level, that's 30 feet, that's 20 feet of elevation change that you have to then level out. And so they think it's harder to go here, easier to go here. But two of these properties are not town-owned. One other issue Nate that would be helpful if somebody could tell us for sure about is that at one point, this property was in a position where it was located. I can't remember what the technical term is, but in a district where it was eligible for some kind of deeper subsidy from mass housing finance. My understanding is that they've made changes and this property is no longer in a district like that. Right. So that's pretty certain. Yeah, so it's a qualified census tract. And so- Right, thank you. Yeah, based on American community survey estimates. So, you know, this is strong street. So the North arrow is wrong, North is going this way to the left over here. So now just right across strong street is still a qualified census tract and just across the street is this area and it's not. And so I saw the Valley CDC and looked at it and they said that, you know, depending on what happens, we could always ask the program or ask if they would, if this still could be eligible for that type of funding because it's just across the street. So, you know, could there be an exception or could we somehow enlarge, somehow get the qualified census tract to cover this area? So, you know, if something were to move forward here, we could also pursue that. You know, could we somehow make this eligible for that type of funding? Well, I understand that this land is less than ideal for development. On the other hand, I don't think anybody's identified necessarily a better property this time anyway for development and in some ways a smaller development as long as it reaches a threshold where it can be subsidized would be helpful if we're gonna find units that allow home ownership. I don't see this becoming a large rental property but if we could do something that would allow low income families to have a path to home ownership here, I think that's something that we should continue to pursue. Other people? I agree with that idea. I just am kind of daunted by how many things are in the way of it. But I don't feel quite ready to give up but it also seems everything that I hear about it ends up to seem like yet another difficulty. So, but yes, I think we should try to follow it until it really is impossible to follow it anymore, I guess if that's what happens. Well, I think we should certainly encourage Nate to continue to have the conversation see what's describing with Levec and associates to try to get the, put the best possible face on what could be done with this property. And if it comes back and they say there's not much they can do particularly without this area that's just above the circle that's in the development, then I guess I'm not at all optimistic. The only thing I could see as a potential carve out is a couple of the lots that are closer to strong street that are smaller lots. Maybe we can still do something with those to allow habitat for humanity to develop maybe two family houses or two small houses on each of those properties. Again, to support home ownership. I guess in order for that to happen though there still would be have to be a water and sewer connection that comes up from strong street to reach those properties. Right, yeah, in Whitman Hill, you know this road is really just like a one lane driveway. So it was never actually made into a road. It was, you know, it's a paper street as I call it because it was part of the subdivision but it's really never really been improved. If you drive by you might even miss it because it really does look like just a private driveway. Right, it's just a dirt road because I've been by it. So which properties are actually available that are off strong street or put closer to strong street? So yeah, this plan, Erica, you've had your hand raised. So, you know, this one right here map this one right behind these properties is the town as is this one right across the Whitman Hill and the next two are privately owned and then this larger property anyone that's labeled like map 12A like this bigger one with the dotted line and the wetlands is all town owned. So I can annotate this. So see what does this look like? So this one is privately owned. This one is privately owned and this one is privately owned but this one, check mark, check mark and all of this is town owned. The ones closest to the strong street that don't have any marks, they are all, are they town owned or what? I mean these right here? Yeah. No, these are all private too. These are houses on them. These are, you know, those are privately owned yet. So John's saying is, and I, you know, that's what I've been saying. I think these two, you know, check mark, check mark, right? You know, those could be, you know, are all right to me and already a great position for affordable home ownership, whether it's habitat or you know, single family duplex or something. The question is what happens up here? You know, how much money does it cost and what's the, what are the challenges or opportunities for the rest of the site? And yeah, you know, and there's a few legal questions. So this lot right here, which is privately owned was sold because, you know, when this was a subdivision and this was planned, you know, this was the road, right? Coming up here with a cul-de-sac. And so there may actually be some legal issues with not actually building this road and making this property no longer have, you know, cutting the access off. So what if the town were like, oh, we're gonna stop a road here and then put some homes here and this becomes a landlocked property, we may not be able to do that easily. And so there's a few legal things where we're outlining, they're gonna, may have to ask an attorney to look at. There's no road there now. No, but there is because, you know, if I scroll down, you know, there's that white, you know, the plan, that subdivision plan, you know, they bought it basically with, you know, thinking that this road was gonna be built and that they could, you know, develop a lot. Even, yeah. Yeah, I've been pessimistic about this, but Rob Moore, the building commissioner, I'll go in and Chris, I'll go bounce ideas off them and then we'll have a new idea and we'll keep going. So I think, you know, the back's like, sure, let's put some, let's, let's look at a little bit, a little more detail. So, you know, I'm curious to see what they come up with. They're gonna try to at least get 12 to 15 units is what they were gonna try to say is feasible and we'll see what they can come up with. And Erica, do you have a question or? Yeah, so this may be a little naive, but I do agree, you know, the parcels that you've checked seem to be really a viable and I think it's a good idea for us to pursue them. I think, you know, the question is, you know, does it increase costs when you have a smaller number? But here's my naive question. The area that you show that may be protected are there any organizations such as Kestrel who's willing to buy it so we can then use that money to subsidize these other properties or other properties? Yeah, I think the difficulty is that, you know, right next, you know, right adjacent to this that are railroad tracks and then it's surrounded by, you know, residential property. So it's an isolated, in terms of being connected to other conservation areas, it's isolated. So, you know, I think the town would be willing to say it's conservation land, but I think in terms of its value, you know, with connections to others is limited. You know, so I don't, you know, I don't think that like a Kestrel land trust or organization would purchase this necessarily. You know, it is too bad. Some people might say it's fine, but you know, I know that Eversource when they came in here to do, they are doing work on the utility line. There's a right-of-way just south of this property or west of this property, I keep saying south is at the bottom, but they, you know, they had to go through extensive mitigation with natural heritage because they, you know, they were in this habitat and natural heritage was pretty concerned about it. And so, you know, if we're doing earth work and stuff in here, they may, you know, it may be sometimes they call it a taking and so they sometimes they stop projects. So, you know, that's why I'm trying to pursue that a little bit. Okay. The town also owns that property that was between the two circles that you drew before. Property. So the town owns this, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my. Come down. And how it owns this one and this one. And then, you know, this is all one property, right? So all of this is town owned, right? Put the yellow on it. Is there another property, John, you're saying? No, no, it's the piece of the total thing that the town owns that's sort of between two properties that are owned by others. Yeah, exactly. What's that like? So, you know, that, so, you know, the, let's go back to the screw line. So Levec, this property is privately owned, but Levec liked it because it's not as steep. So there are things that they actually said, this one, this property over here is at the top of the hill and it ends up getting steeper. They're saying, actually, if the town, they like this one in terms of having then, you know, this whole area, well, maybe not to hear, but you know, this area to develop, right? So they kind of like the idea of having this larger area where you can have, you know, town homes or, you know, duplexes in a line, it's just easier to develop that. And it wasn't as steep and as closer to utilities. But, you know, so anyways, they're gonna come up with something, I think, you know, the private ownership is something that we'd have to, you know, consider what, you know, what are, yeah, so right here is the railroad. Sorry, my screen keeps jumping. See, so here's, you know, this strip of land right here is owned by the power company. And then these are railroad tracks. Right, so. So we'd be further away from both of those. Right. If we just develop the property, that's, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, there is development is possible here. It's just kind of, you know, if we determine number of units, then what is the cost, right? So I'm told it's about $400 a linear foot to build a road. So if we have to go a thousand feet, that's pretty expensive and then run utilities. So. Yeah, again, but the town could use conceivably community development, block grant dollars, build that road and utilities up Whitman Hill, far enough so that it would be usable. If 51% of the units were gonna be lower moderate income. So the difficulty there is block grant requires 51%. So CPA has a different, you know, it's a higher income. So, you know, sometimes developers don't like using block grant money because of that 51%. So, you know, Olympia, Oaks we used it because all the units are affordable. But if this were kind of a mixed income development, it may or may not work. But, you know, it could theoretically it could. Okay. Any other questions or comments about this? Okay. Well, women will look forward to an update in a month when we convene again. Yeah, we're moving forward. I'm hoping we can have some more answers by then. And Eric, I did see in your chat, you mentioned Hickory Ridge. So, you know, I had mentioned at one point that I thought the town would purchase it at some point. I'm still hopeful that that'll happen. I know it's getting close. Some of it really is the state has been really slow where the program in terms of the solar credits is not for a reason. I don't know if it's because it's a commercial solar or what happened. I don't know why, but it's been really slow to finalize that numbers for the owner. But the town's been, you know, looking at it, you know, if there'll be some, you know, a lot of conservation land and then there still will be a process to determine what could happen on all of it. And then, you know, whatever there is buildable, you know, if there's five to 10 acres. Okay, thanks, Nate. Okay, moving along, I have a brief update or report on the age and dementia friendly survey. We all agreed to help fund that and it was supposed to get underway, I guess, last week. However, as happens with government, there was a last-minute problem that had to do with the issue of availability of surveys and languages other than English. The town manager was concerned about that and at the end of the day, Marine Pollock managed to figure out how to translate the survey into Spanish, which is good at a relatively or maybe at no additional cost, I'm not quite sure, it may be zero additional costs using an online automated translating tool and then asking Angela Mills, who's bilingual, to review it. So we now have a Spanish language version of the survey and we will be sending that out next week with the English language version. That is when people receive one, they'll actually receive both. So both versions will be in the envelopes that we stuff that go out next week. As you might imagine, that increases the cost because there's double the amount of paper that goes in the envelope. So as a consequence, we are estimating that I need for funding will go beyond $2,000 and I'm asking you all to approve an additional $400. I'm expecting that that will cover what we need to do in order to get the survey out in both English and Spanish. If people fill out the survey online, there'll be both an English and a Spanish version available online. In the cover letter, a few other languages will be mentioned and people will be asked to request help through the Senior Center, I believe, for assistance in interpreting the survey in those other languages, but there will not be formal surveys in languages other than English and Spanish. So the mailing should go out next week and I'm assuming shortly thereafter, we will also do the other survey work through community programs, like the Meals on Wheels program at the Senior Center, possibly other programs at the Senior Center, the Jones Library and so forth, as well as getting the survey distributed online through various organizations that I will request, which I routinely ask for assistance when we're doing our various educational forums. So comments or questions? Okay, so I move that we allocate an additional $400 to cover the costs of the survey as best we can. Is there a second to the motion? Sure, second. Again, any discussion of the motion? Any questions? Okay, then I'll go to a vote. Erica? Yes. I'm a yes. Carol? Yes. Allegra? Yes. And Rob? Yes. Okay, then we are unanimous and we'll proceed on that basis and our plan now is to mail out the survey on Tuesday afternoon. We'll be stuffing envelopes in Town Hall from 10 to one and then the envelopes will be delivered to the post office and go out on Tuesday. And they're not little envelopes. They're like eight and a half by 11 envelopes because the survey is a number of pages. I still think it's a long survey, but with a cover letter, return envelope and then two surveys, I think there's probably like 12 or more pages. She's the paper, maybe like 14 and then an envelope. So it's pretty heavy. We're trying to reduce it. That's double-sided as well. Yeah, I'll give Maureen a lot of credit. We often, the health department and others will send out forms and say, if you need help in translating this, we have in like the six or seven languages, but we actually don't have translators. We have different staff who can help with that, but we don't necessarily have the translators like on-call at the ready. And so I think it's been a learning experience for her and I'm hoping that in the future, if we need to do this, we have a good process to say, okay, if we do have a survey, how can we make it multi-lingual? How can we do it in a way that can help people? Survey monkey, I think will translate. I don't know how accurately, but I think there's a way to have it so that if it's an online survey, at least, you can change the language or you can have it in multiple languages. So for users, they can do that. But in terms of a paper survey, it's something that just takes more paper. I just noticed that another trust member, Paul, Lachlman, is in the attendees list. Oh, they just joined. Okay. Basically, I came over using it. He's been in a meeting. He's been in another meeting, yeah. Yeah. He's been in a meeting to wrestle with the issues of the educational, financial commitments of the four towns. So did you solve all those problems, Paul? I don't know, maybe you didn't hear me. Oh, my videos, it was a Google meeting last night, so it always holds onto my videos. So I'm here and we solved all the problems, John. Thank you. I just... I'll check with Rita and see if she agrees. Okay, thanks, Paul. Thanks for joining us. Okay, the next thing I have as a report, I expressed and other people joined me in this about what was happening with Raft and the ERAP rental and homeowner assistance programs. And this is now about two weeks ago or maybe three. I received a message from someone, I think from Mass Housing Finance saying that the home ownership program was being reorganized. And that seemed to mean that a new provider would be taking over the processing of applications for home ownership support. And it would be being removed from wayfinders. And what she said to me in an email was that people would go ahead and apply for the home ownership program through Mass Housing Finance. And then it would be referred to the appropriate provider. So I figured, well, I should ask Keith Ferry of Wayfinders who's been actually doing the home ownership program in Western Massachusetts. And he said to me in an email that after a bit of wrangling, the job of doing the home ownership program in Western Massachusetts was turned back over to Wayfinders. So I think that's a good thing because they obviously have all the people who have applied and haven't been accepted into the program yet and they're not turning those people over to somebody else and anybody new is gonna be going to Wayfinders. So after a lot of, I don't know what to describe it, I don't know what to describe it, mushling around Wayfinders back in position of being responsible for the program in Western Massachusetts and possibly also expanding into central Massachusetts. So Keith and his staff are gonna have a lot on their plate. But I think for the moment at least, it's a good thing that they're back in control of that program. Although as I said, there was some uncertainty. The next thing I'll mention is we were also concerned about the rental subsidy program. And I think I sent people a note, but I'll just repeat briefly. I asked Laura Reichman and Francine Rodriguez what their experience is and also Lev Ben Ezra at the Amherst Survival Center. Francine wrote back saying basically, they are seeing fewer problems with people needing rental assistance. She attributes to the fact that they've been doing a good job of reaching out and trying to find families that are having problems and probably at this point in time or for the last six months, certainly, been referring them to Wayfinders for the States Rental Assistance Program. So Francine was optimistic, fewer problems with the program and fewer people coming to them at least in need. And they are the primary point of contact for Amherst families that are in need. They've been in the community doing a wide range of things where I don't know at least 15 or 20 years, maybe longer. I also had a note from Lev Ben Ezra. Lev didn't report any changes in experience, but she did have one important concern, which certainly means we should continue to do, I guess for lack of a better term, I would call watchful waiting. Lev's concern, and people may be aware of this, that there was a child tax credit that was in existence for a year or two years, I'm not quite sure, and that ended at the end of the calendar year of 2001. It happened something that the Biden administration wanted extended, but that hasn't happened. And Lev's concern is that once families discover they're no longer getting that check and the consequence of it may be that they start to get in trouble with being able to pay their rent. And that means we'll be looking again at potential problems with rent and a need for rental assistance. So that made sense to me, but at the moment we're still not hearing that there are problems that we should be thinking about addressing. So that's what I know. I don't know if anybody else has questions. I just say that I heard, I wish I was better at the details, but at the Northampton Housing Forum thing yesterday, they were saying that a lot of the, I think like the RAF program, various anyway assistance programs are gonna run out of money before the time ends. And they didn't seem to wonder about that, they seemed to know that that was the case. So that's gonna put some pressure on everything too, I'm sure. Yeah, I agree, Carol, a good point. What I understood was people think that the programs will run out of money in April, which is two years, two months before the end of the state fiscal year. So again, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I attended the COSIN monthly meeting in the Council of Social Service Agencies of Hampshire County and Wayfinders and Junie Legal Aid and the Network Town Homelessness gave a presentation. And so, yeah, I mean, it has changed a little bit. So you can only get e-RAP funding now, RAF, you can't double dip as you did before and they're really pushing people to do the emergency rehousing, a rental assistance. You have to be in arrears now. So before it was just a COVID impact. A few things have changed and the amount of money's been reduced. So Wayfinders have said that they're seeing still a lot of applications, but they're also seeing landlords now are starting to issue more notices to quit. And so it's nothing's materialized yet, but they're thinking that in the next six months there may be more tenants who are facing eviction or landlords who are no longer being patient. So, yeah, I think John Washwell waiting is will be important because if the programs end, maybe that more people are facing pressure from their landlords, so. Okay, any other comments or questions? So stay tuned. None of the news is good. On the other hand, we haven't dropped off a cliff yet either, which I guess is a good thing. One other thing to report on, the review of proposals for the East street, Delta Town Road properties hasn't completed. It's close to completion, although I will admit that I said that last month. Yes. And I thought by now it would have been completed. The main thing that's held it up is that there was a decision to check or have a review of the financial part of the proposals and Paul arranged for someone from the mass housing partnership to do that. They have people who have expertise on staff because the major part of their program actually is the lending program. So, hopefully we hear from them pretty soon and we can wrap things up. Paul, did you wanna add something to that? Yeah, just to confirm what you said, I felt it was important for us to look at finance as someone who knew what they're looking at who could read a pro forma of look at finances. MHP does that by happenstance the head of MHP is a Hampshire College graduate, Clark Ziegler. So we always like to pull him in when we can. So, I think it should only be a couple more days before we get that. I think we have a recommendation and then I think we'll be able to make a decision very soon, certainly before the next meeting. Thanks. Okay. I'm just saying, you know, exciting proposals. I mean, just really amazing stuff. Yeah, we had very good proposals. There were two proposals and I can't say more at this point but maybe I'll be able to after we make a decision but I absolutely agree with what Paul just said. We were all impressed that it's the review committee by the proposals that we received. I had promised to send the town council comment or on priorities for the town comprehensive housing policies. I kind of came close to finishing it but didn't quite finish it. So hopefully that gets done in the next few days but it will be consistent with the conversation that we had at our last meeting. Yeah, John, I think, yeah, if you can do it in the next few days, that's great. So I know the CRCs meeting, say in the next month they're gonna try to lay out maybe some of their priorities as it relates to housing and zoning and different measures too for the next year. You know, planning departments have been looking at priorities. So, you know, the recommendations of the trust were really like yes for everything but I think it'd be good just to have that in their hands so they can see it. Okay, thanks. I'll take that as an additional impetus to get this thing done. And I'm sorry that actually it hasn't been concluded. I don't have much of a report on legislative advocacy because that was an area that Will was looking at for us. I do know that there are some reasons to be optimistic about legislation revolving around transfer fees for luxury homes that turn over or that are purchased. There were three or four requests from towns to get essentially a special exception that would allow them to implement the transfer fee. And those look like they're moving through the legislature positively. And so maybe the overall transfer fee legislation will do the same. I know it's still part of the housing committee's consideration. So Nate put up a list. I assume this was you, Nate. Yeah, yeah, sorry. I don't want to, yeah. The network to homelessness had a blog post. So the committee had to take action to move them forward. So reported out favorably, you know, there's a number that moves forward so that they can, they're still actively under consideration. So the eviction record ceiling is a big one. You know, there's a number here extended. So, you know, there's a few that were extended. One was the local option for housing and for rent control. And then sent to study is, you know, basically it's kind of now not really under consideration during this session. But a number of them are moving forward and the others have, you know, a few weeks to try to get the vote to keep them moving. So. Yeah, Mindy had actually talked to me about having a meeting out here or maybe out here via Zoom with the chair. I think it was of the house housing committee or really it's, I think it's a joint committee between the house and the Senate. And that was supposed to be tomorrow but I haven't heard from Mindy. So maybe that's not happening. It was with James, I think it's R0 who is one of the two heads of the joint legislative housing committee. But anyway, things are moving along reasonably favorably and a wide variety of issues that certainly would be helpful with respect to affordable housing. I'll also mention locally that Pam Rooney had sent me a note indicating that she wanted to set up a committee that was gonna look into what happens to the neighborhoods that are immediately around UMass or what's been happening with respect to the impact of students on housing there. I know from my own experience, it's not just the area immediately around UMass but my street, which has about 25 homes, roughly a third of them are student rentals. So it's not just the area around the university but around all of Amherst. Anyway, Pam said that things have not gone expeditiously so far with respect to setting up that committee on the other hand, it's just February. So town council's only been in, the new town council's only been in place a little over a month. So hopefully that will move along. I don't have any other issues at this point. Is there anything anybody else wants to raise? Okay, I have our next meeting as Thursday, March 10th. As always, both Nate and I will be sending out notes in advance to remind people of those meetings. But if you could put them in your schedule, that would be great. And as I said, Angela Mills has set up meetings for Paul and I and Nate and one other person I assume to meet with candidates for the housing trust a week from Friday. And so with any luck, we might have some new appointments in a month for our next meeting, which would help because with Sid being absent, he got some last-minute requests related to the university for his job so he couldn't make it. We could have a quorum problem. So I urge everybody to make sure that that March 10th date is in your calendar. Thank you. Again, one last minute for comments. Yeah, there's still three members of the public if they have any comments too. Alyssa, George and Mora, I guess not. Okay, well, thank you for attending. At least one of the, I think one of the candidates for the housing trust actually was sitting in on this meeting. I'm not absolutely sure who the candidates are but I recognized one of the names and I had sent her a note earlier today informing her and the other candidates about this meeting. Okay, thanks again, everybody. I think it's been a productive meeting and I will see you all in a month. It's not sooner. Yeah, thanks everyone. Good night. Good night.