 Be here at some point, but meeting is being recorded. We'll let people in and see if. If things are going on in there before we start, we always are busy. So I hate waiting too long. Can I just interrupt to say thank you to Kelly for her great minutes. I'm just really thankful that you're doing. Wow, thank you. That actually that means a lot to me because I'm trying really hard and I never know if I'm capturing too much detail. So if they're ever too long, please let me know. They're great. Yeah, well thank you so much that that is awesome to hear. Let's see. Well, we've let in our audience. So we are recording so I'm going to get started. Yeah, second here. We go. I'm seeing a presence of a quorum I am calling this March 16 2023 regular meeting of the community resources committee to order at 432pm. We are pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapters 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022. This meeting is going to be conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so on zoom or telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. This meeting is also being recorded. And so at this point I'm going to take attendance which will also confirm that we can hear each other and everyone can hear them. Every, you know, we can hear and be heard. I think I'm first in alphabetical so I am present of Pam ready. Jennifer Tom. Present. Pat DeAngelis will not be here today and I have not heard from Shalini so we'll keep eye on when she arrives and if so we'll check to make sure that she can hear everything. So with that, we're going to go on to our agenda. We have no public hearings today are action items we're going to start with the planning board and ZBA impending vacancies. The first thing we need to do is bulletin board notices. And so the procedure requires the committee to approve them before they're posted essentially or at least view them and suggest any changes before they get posted. And then we will post them and we cannot essentially close the application period until at a minimum 14 days after they are posted. So that is if people are wondering why we're starting so early. It is because there's minimum time periods and sometimes it takes a while. I just recognize that Shalini has joined us at 434 so Shalini can you hear us. Yes, I can. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'm Pam did a wonderful job at drafting these thank you Pam for taking on the role of drafting both of these impending vacancy notices. With that there's also in the packet and updated ZBA handout I believe is what it is because the contact at the planning staff has changed so that is I think the only change on that handout. I think it shows that the bulletin board notice we need to get that handout uploaded and then the correct link into the bulletin board notice before we publish the notice, which is why there's a couple of things there with those two notices are there any requested changes or before I do that Pam would you like to talk anything more about them or summarize them beyond. And because that there are X number of vacancies open. I chose to incorporate both the associate members and full member openings for ZBA rather than having two separate notices. If someone is at all interested, going to one spot and seeing both opportunities made more sense to me then this around through, you know, who knows how many notices for the same information. And then, as you suggested double checking to make sure the links worked. I did get to the handout, and I didn't realize that the handout was actually something that the CRC had created as a little blurb about ZBA. And so that needed to get updated. Chris pointed out that they didn't actually have control over that's what I realized it was a CRC document. So anyway, it's with it's with Athena to be uploaded again in our in our documents and the link reestablished. So when someone goes to this posting, they can click on it and they can actually read the handout. So that's the gist of it. They're actually so, so interestingly, there are three impending vacancies on the planning board. I can't believe that it's been three years that. So Hannah Newman, Andrew McDougal and Tom Long were just it feels like yesterday that they were appointed. So those three are there and then there are two full members of the ZBA who could stand for appointment or but it's impending vacancy and then of course the annual update of the of the associate members, most of whom we just filled about three months ago. Any questions, comments or requests for changes to the proposed bulletin board notices other than the update where we'll fix the link that we need to fix. I move we accept the boosting notices and allow Athena to do the posting. Is there a second to that motion second. Did you also want to say something Jennifer. No, I'm just seconding. Okay. Any other comment. Really quickly, could you repeat that motion once more please. It was a little glib, but it was actually that that we approve the notices as written and turned over to you to be posted on the Amherst town bulletin board. Excellent, I've got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Seeing no other comments, we will take a vote. I'm going to start with Shalini. Yes. Shalini is an I Pam. And Jennifer. Yes. That is a four to zero with one absent vote unanimously. Pam and I will work on coordinating to make sure those get posted and that the correct link goes in the notice for for the ZVA note to myself. We are going to move on to residential rental bylaw and the regulations. We have Dave Zomek here and Rob Mora. I'm going to make sure I have been hosted. So just bear with me as I manage the host stuff to just to make sure stuff. So we discussed the bylaw. The newest draft of the bylaw is in there with all the discussions we've made it through but we've never gone through the regulations. Once we go through the regulations, if we have more time, if it takes us less than 45 minutes, we may go back to the bylaw to make sure the two conform. Because there were some questions about do they conform or not. And then at least get through the regulations and then potentially send these or talk about whether to send them off to the attorney or what our next steps are on these. We're getting I think close to being able to do send them report back to the council with them and we need to decide what that report's going to look like in terms of what the motion is going to look like and how close we are to that. So with that, I'm going to pull up the regulations. It had gotten. I'm going to pull up the regulations that were in the packet but with revisions requested by Rob he was kind enough to send them I know it is probably they were sent so late that not everyone has been able to read them myself included, but I tried to get them out when I got them I didn't have a job for sending them. But I'll put that one on the screen, since it may not be in the packet right now either, although I have requested that it make it into the packet. So we will do our best and then everyone will be able to see but but the goal of this is to go through and see what we want. Are there any changes people want to the regulations as we start to finalize these so we're looking specifically at the drafts. And we're going to start with application requirements and we're going to start with section a one. Let's start through h because I is its own thing I think so are there any it's anyone have any requested changes to a one a through h. And we can also talk about whether we can look at Rob's changes to which Rob's changes on this draft are everything in blue. I believe each each person's draft may show a different color but in this one it's blue. Pam. Somewhere in here it's in section h to response to a voicemail left in the summer by the town to be returned to respond to within one hour. That's always been a question for me I think Mandy Joe also had a question mark on that. A response to a message I would like to say a response to a message left on this number by a tenant shall be returned to responded so I don't know if voicemail is the thing it could be a text. It doesn't have to be voicemail per se I would guess if we could change a response to a message. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no I was tracking changes sorry you want it to read. Yeah, and actually there are two accounts for that the next sentence also is a response to a message. So I wanted to talk about this one to one hour. I guess my question would be to Rob. What does a what counts as a response. You know and what happens if, if there isn't a response within an hour you know, I'm actually thinking about like small landlords here that might own one property or something. They might have three hours if they take a vacation, they might not have cell service at some point or you know they if they do they might be on a plane, right, and you can't respond like, like what what's the, I understand what the goal of this is but what is the response for this and is there better wording is it is shall the right wording or should be it is should the actual word we should be thinking about here should be returned in and also I'd like Rob's thoughts on this. Yeah, I mean the goal here is to make the point that, you know, a response, an immediate response is necessary and of course this is for situations when you know we really need to talk to somebody. So the expectation is higher at that point so you know I think it's fine, you know, I'm also I think I'd also be fine with it saying, you know, should. So what we want to be able to do is, if ever needed, have the conversation with a property owner or a manager to say their response wasn't adequate. You need to make things make, you know, make changes, you need to talk to your property manager and make sure that their, you know, scope of services includes this type of response or maybe you need to get somebody to fill in for you when you're traveling. Because they own a property that, you know, has has issues so. Yeah, I think I think it's okay. It's basically what we expect now I think it's, it's pretty reasonable to think that you'll get a call back a text message and mail back in response within an hour. It's usually unlikely for it to go on for a longer period of time than that. Thank you. I have two other questions one is E. And one is G. And, you know, in some sense I like Rob's changes I think it originally read the total number of occupants in each dwelling unit, which is hard and so the changes of some of this, the maximum total number of unrelated occupants as indicated on the lease and the cost by the owner makes a little more sense. The question I have with this one and with G is, if under federal law, which I think is the case for the Fair Housing Act, a landlord cannot ask about marital status. How do you know whether the occupants are unrelated, especially, you know, even with G not related by marriage civil union blood adoption guardianship of that if you can't actually ask about marital status and relationship status. How do you answer E and G legally. Presumably you might be able to ask about educational attendance right but but the familial relationships that go into being able to answer E and G I'm not sure legally landlords can actually ask so how do we get the, how do we include this in the law without requiring landlords to either just make up a number or break the law. And I don't know whether anyone has an answer to that but Jennifer and Robin then Jennifer. I was just going to say that they're not necessarily asking the question what they're doing is telling us through their application requirements that their lease has a provision that no more than so many unrelated individuals and I would hope they're referencing our bylaw requirement for occupancy limits. And that's really what the goal of this is to have the landlord tell us what they establish as the appropriate number, it might be connected to a land use permit and might be something else, and that they're actually going to be the ones to to manage that and respond to it if there are any issues related to occupancy. Okay, so that's that's E you don't think it actually E in your mind doesn't ask about actual occupancy. It doesn't have to they don't have to ask that question of their tenant. That's more about a lease thing, but Jennifer and then Pam. Yeah, so I realize this may not be the case in every situation, you know where properties are rented to students, but I know that when both my daughters were in college living off campus. They fill out the lease application one of the first questions would be, you know, occupation they put student and then immediately. So, there, if there were four of them which they're usually were living in an apartment, each person had their own lease because you were only responsible for one quarter of the rent. And then, because you were a student without an income, you had to have a guarantor for the rent who was usually a parent. So the landlords were very clear that these were for unrelated students because each basically have their own lease with their own guarantor. And if you like I know this junior year my daughter wasn't there second semester. So we were responsible for her portion of the lease until she found a replacement that was acceptable to the landlord and the other roommates. So I guess there was no ambiguity from the landlord's perspective position as to who was renting the unit. So I don't know if that answers the question but I think it's not usually very ambiguous. And I don't know if that can all play into it. But let me respond before I go to Pam. So with my own experience before my husband and I were married he was a student, his occupation was student I was attorney we had different last names we weren't married but they couldn't ask us. And then at one point we were married, right. But they, if I hadn't changed my name there would have been no and I'm not sure the lease ever did change my name. But there was no indication whether we were married or not to be able to answer G. So how would the landlord have answered G with G requiring not related by marriage civil union without actually asking my husband and I, whether we were married. Yeah, so I've been in that situation too but I don't know what that. I'm really trying to. I mean the elephant, you know we're trying to find out whether they're students because that's really what the four tenant limit is about. And I'm saying that it's not. Can't we just, can you ask that somehow I mean it's not ambiguous to the landlord because they they know because the lease looks different than anybody else for that reason they're really very separate agreements like if there's four persons and one leaves the other three aren't responsible for that person. That's actually not how I signed the lease with a roommate when I was a student either I had one lease with two names on it and I was responsible even if the other person didn't pay their part. Right, but I'm saying in college towns they usually make an, you know, in, I guess, you're assuming that's how all leases are and I'm saying it might not be the case and how do you do that but Pam. I think we should actually keep this it again it is really striving to identify if someone is at an institution, an educational institution. I don't want to tinker with this. The other point though from from good authority. I understand that there are leases and then there are leases one lease is what the town can look at, or is given to the town and the other lease is amongst the tenants and the numbers of occupants may actually be different. I was astounded when I heard this, but that's a huge issue. I don't think any of these definitions apply to that or, or somehow affect that issue, but I want to come back to it. So I just want to keep G in place. I'm not comfortable keeping it in place as worded. And it sounds like from Jennifer's comments that she only wants undergrads. But how I mean I guess you could ask undergrad or grad but does it really matter whether they're an undergrad or grad like, like, and I'm not comfortable about this one or more persons not related by marriage civil union because that requires asking something the landlords aren't allowed to ask. And my husband and I we were the only ones on the lease, we weren't married at the time we had different last names. But we were engaged. We signed the lease about a month before we were married. They couldn't ask us whether we were married or not. So it is. And so how, how would they have answered G for us. And so our laws are bar our bylaws have this in it. And that's, you know, we're not going to go back and change other bylaws. No, the bylaws don't have anything about students they just have unrelated individuals in it. So are you arguing the student aspect of this description or this definition or the whole thing. I just don't know how you answer the question of not related versus e which Rob respond responded with doesn't relate to tenants in places it relates to lease requirements how how they put it in the lease right which is different than G. I also worry about will attend an educational institution what what does that mean within a lease period not within what if someone does it mid year. Do they have to update the application I see a lot of problems with G. Even though I understand. At least I think I understand what Pam you and Jennifer are trying to gather information wise which I think, correct me if I'm wrong is number of units who have undergraduate students in them at any one time. Is that is that what you're trying to gather or are you trying to gather information about graduate students to. Only units that have only students in it or I guess that's the other thing I need is more clarity as to what information you're trying to get out of this. Students are students. Whether undergrad or grad, and whether then married or not to a professional. I see Pam nodding her head. Yeah. Okay, so to you know, Pat's Pat's famous line is that's what my son did my son wanted his girlfriend to live with them. Well, they can. Then they have two other roommates and they're in fine shape. There's no issue. There's no reason to be worried. And you, and you still maintain a cap of four persons. Jennifer. Yeah, I mean it's different towns to it differently. You know, sometimes like state college, you have to register as a student house. I mean we haven't done that. You know, the two houses behind me are always rented each house. They're on a flag lot to four students. I mean I don't. That's just two of them, maybe a couple. But they're still only, you know, they do seem to follow the bylaw and only have four in each house, but it's always students. It's not like sometimes it's in it to engage. And I feel like we don't, you know, that there's the goal of what we're trying to do is ensure that there are. I mean, I don't know if this is what it's getting to but I mean our bylaw says for students per house per unit, not per house because the house could be divided into two units. In my neighborhood there's triplexes of 12 students because there's four per unit, which is one reason why the four is so essential because if you raise it to six, then you have 12 instead of. No, you have, you would have 18 instead of 12 per structure. But that's what we're trying to get to and it's there. I mean other towns have a way of dealing with this so we should be able to get there too. Um, can we look at what I mean I'm sure someone has in this group looked at what other towns have because sounds like there's a way to do this that we can deal with these issues, but I did also want to respond to what we just said earlier giving pads example and just any other example for that matter where there's a couple with other non couple students staying and to say that you could still be the boyfriend and girlfriend and two other people. And that's a solution because I don't think that is because it is kind when two are living as a couple they are hoping to divide the rent. And so it allows for other people other three rooms to be rented out and this one room so they're, you know, so it can be divided that couple can divide that. So it does offset some of the cost for that couple's icon. I don't think it's, it's solving that problem but I understand the problem that we have with if there are three units and then there are four or five and there more it just gets very crowded so I get that. But I don't think it's an either or kind of situation. And I guess it's back to Rob like how do you foresee enforcing because we can have all these rules we've had these rules for a long time. But it sounds like they're not being enforced and is there a way to enforce it in a reasonable way that if and this is what I've been saying all along that if there's a property like in my neighborhood. There's so much space around homes and if a house can allow and I believe in Southeast or some other places where they can allow for five students to be there. So if you're crowding the streets or anything. Why should we just limit it to four in that situation whereas if it's really a crowded neighborhood, why are we even allowing for in that place or 12, you know, their three units. So, is there a way to enforce this that it is based on safety traffic, and all those consideration that we list out that we don't want garbage we don't want noise we don't want cars parked on the street. But is there a way to enforce that. Yeah, so that's my question to Rob. I'll let Rob answer that but I want to make sure we stay on track with the regulations which are not trying to change the four and the one I've been questioning is G about just identifying number of dwelling units where students live but I will let I just trying to keep us on track. Rob. Many I just want to mention john's in the audience he didn't have the link to get in here he might be helpful too as we go along with some of this conversation but to respond to that question. I want to first say that the by lies and force. So I think that's really not accurate to say that it's not being enforced we respond to complaints. The unrelated occupants all year, and every, you know, issue every situation that we get into does end with some sort of compliance. It takes time. That's, you know, that's definitely something that everyone needs to understand when we're dealing with the, you know, occupants beyond the number four in a house that is otherwise safe to be living in. We're not doing any proactive enforcement, you know, we never were designed we have john Thompson's our only code enforcement officer so there's there's no effort by the our department to go out there and find these problems, but in response to complaints and inspections where they are found the bylaw is enforced and successfully. And it's in it's always resolved a little bit differently so there isn't really a, you know, a typical way that it's handled. I think we can enforce it. I think it's a big decision to make that, you know, when we decide to go out there more aggressively inspecting properties and finding these situations, how they're going to be handled and, you know, make sure the expectations are clear that in most cases it's not resolved immediately and it takes time to bring a property into compliance. Thanks, Rob. I have, I believe brought john in so I can't see everyone on this list with the way I share but yeah john is there okay. Jennifer then Pam, and welcome john. No, the only thing I was gonna say is I did bring up the state college. I don't want to take time up by reading it now but it's similar to what that wording was in state college Pennsylvania you have to, you, they have a registry of student houses. So if you're renting to students. They have a definition of what a student is, and you have to register your house that way that they have a use category similar to non owner occupied duplex it's called student house use category. Which is slightly different. So, Pam, yeah. Yeah, so the question is, without the wording that we just that somebody just deleted or put a strike through. Without that, how would, how would an inspector have any basis for identifying the four unrelated if we don't leave in the words, not related by marriage etc etc. So what's our alternative to that language. I'm looking at Robert john. Well, I guess I'm trying to understand what we're trying to get out of this and maybe we just ask the question if if we're trying to understand if students are going to live in this unit then we were asking the applicant to tell us that their property is intended to be least occupants. You know their occupants are intended to be individuals that are, you know, enrolled in the educational institution I think we're just asking that question. And, you know, it's a it's a property owner that's going to be willing to tell us that that's the business student rentals. We'll probably get a mix of answers to that but I think we will no matter what. You know anyone can answer this question any way they want until we're, you know, out there looking for something but at this point it looks like it's just trying to gather information so we should just ask the question we want the answer to. Okay, so, so in this case the number of units that are occupied one or more persons where during the least period at least one will attend an institution. That's, that's okay. That's okay. I'm, I was concerned about this being able to uphold our otherwise definition of unrelated occupants. So for if, if there's. Is there any place else in here that we that we remind others or managers that the occupants can't exceed for unrelated. I think the maximum total number of unrelated occupants in each dwelling unit as indicated on the lease and or enforced by the owner. Okay. Okay, so we do cover it. Is that okay with the changes I proposed to G. I was speaking for myself I guess with the addition of the words unrelated in E, which is a new change. I guess I could accept that we take out that definition and G, because we really are trying to find out the occupations of the people in the, in the, in the apartment and if they're students they're students. And that's what we want to know. Shalini. Wait, can we just ask I don't someone just said, ask that but I don't know what the answer was can we just ask whether they're going to be undergrads grads or. I don't know. I mean you probably could. Right, you'd have to word this one differently and then the, the applications for all of the rentals would have to be even more specific. And then what if you've got one grad student and one undergrad, right, you know, I think I would start this way see what kind of if we're going for information. See what we get. It might, you know, even just this information may help Rob and his staff figure out what buildings and dwelling units to start with on occupant on inspections right if that's our goal. So. Okay, and then did we put that on a side note to be decided later what Jennifer just said about registering houses and creating that category of student housing. So that would be a bylaw zoning bylaw proposal and change, if it can be done, but that that we're going to have a couple of conversations both later today and then I think next week is a planned thing about housing conversations and see. Right, right. Yeah, okay, great. So that's where that will go. Okay, and then I had another sort of unrelated sort of related question, which is in the last public hearing we heard from landlords about some of the things that was said was not making this process and to cumbersome and I was just wondering how much how many of these questions are how much is this changing from what it is already in terms of the requirements. Rob. More john. I mean, I think. E and G, at a minimum are new, but Rob. Yeah, I mean, we are asking the question. We are asking number of maximum number of occupants in a dwelling unit now. So we're, you know, not exactly asking these questions this way. Those two look like the only ones that might be different from what's on our standard application process now. Pam. Oh, sorry, my hand is still up. Okay. I'm seeing no other hands for this section we're going to move on. I is the energy efficiency information. It's the only thing left and this is again for what application questions application requirements information on the applicant application. Rob recommends deleting I. I know we as a committee had said we need to talk about I so thoughts on I whether to include it whether to include a subset whether to take Rob's recommendation and delete Rob. So just to explain, you know, I am starting to look at this, the bylaw and the regulations, comparing to what we have now and just trying to summarize the changes that are being proposed and as important as this is, I think it needs to be at standalone effort, you know, that we can certainly assist with we will have contact list to owners and we can, you know, send surveys and try to gather information over time but as I look at the bylaw even with my adjustments. It's, it's going to be a big deal for staff it's going to be a big deal for property owner managers, arranging inspections. I just don't think we need to go this far with it right now I think it's probably, you know, gets to a point where it's not manageable for everybody involved anyway, and try to look for ways to to support our sustainability director and these efforts outside of the bylaw as a requirement of the bylaw. Thank you for that explanation Pam. I have been, I have been thinking that the, that the items underneath, I were pretty heavy, I'm pretty heavy handed. I'm, but I'm trying to understand or get my head around the fact that maybe there is some certain baseline information that we might want to know, especially as it applies to perhaps aggregating purchase of other, you know, solar panels or something like that. One of our landowners landlords mentioned that either there are lots of incentives for for homeowners to get rebates for certain, you know, upgrades and efficiencies but there really is nothing for landlords or for property owners. And so there were a couple of things that felt like they qualified to be just to give the town a sense of what's out there, like, are there any vehicle charging stations on your property. Yes, no, you know, or how many, you know, zero to five, whatever, so that we have a sense across town. Maybe, maybe we can get some good deals on charging stations for rental properties. The, the existing kilowatt hour composition of any solar panels or something like that is also not a bad baseline I mean if somebody doesn't have solar panels, they can put a fat little zero in that box and it's not much work, but I think it would give the town actually climate action group might give them a starting point for encouragement and or, you know, none of this is being mandated. So those are the kinds of things that I thought might be helpful in the long run to give us a sense of across the board capacity in town. Shawnee, you're muted Shawnee. Alright, I was going to say something similar along the lines of what Pam just said that is there a core set of like not all of them but not getting rid of all of them but could we or maybe send it back to ECSE like what is a core set or maybe two questions that are absolutely fundamental that every landlord should know about and maybe there's a way that benefits them. And I was just thinking maybe this is not related but I think it is. Well, so something like mass save. So, when we are electricity includes, we are paying for it where our electric companies are supposed to be able to provide a free assessment into energy audits for free for residents and do some of the, you know, basic retrofitting in terms of that at a very discounted price and I should know that but I didn't. And I kept postponing it till they came and said no you're paying for this actually and, and that was like what I didn't realize that. So I just mean like is there something like that that could be even offered as do you know about the free mass savings or are you taking you know taking advantage of that or something like that which we could get from ECSE who are informed about this, that this could be a venue not cut to be cut with the idea of being cumbersome for the landlords but just using this as a way to inform landlords that there are these resources that you could be utilizing and are you utilizing them. Yeah, I'm looking at some of these some of the questions are something that's on a property card and seems duplicative to require landlords to look up just to get a rental permit. Whereas as Pam was saying something like E here might be worth asking a question for just to get an idea, which is the electric charging stations. They may or may not end up on a building or electrical permit request it depends on who does it I think although I guess in rental properties they probably do need an electrical permit, but you know the type of insulation and in exterior walls and ceilings I wouldn't even know how to answer that if I was renting a property right like how would I even answer that so, so you know, I think, maybe Pam solution, some of these that are quick yes no answers that don't take research and aren't on a credit card that could help us. You know, even PV should have a permit, but they should also know right. But the the one that I think would be useful on a rental application is who pays for the energy bills. Not the annual costs, but who pays for them. It might be worth asking but not the annual costs because if the tenants paying the annual cost might be very hard to come up with, but, but something like, let me put some of these in if I reject that one. And these two, you know those might be those would probably be the three that I would keep I don't know if there's others others would keep. If I could. Yeah. The, if I think about, again, townwide, how many of our rental units are on fuel oil for heating now fuel oil electricity, propane or natural gas. That's again kind of a baseline. And we sort of have a sense of how far we have to go to overcome some of that. And we would even that one that was another one that shouldn't need research and should just be an easy checkbox or something. Right. You know, so Rob, what are your thoughts of those four keeping those four maybe you're muted Rob. I haven't heard anything that I think we either don't have or, you know, we need to have. Some of this information is on the property cards. No one's ever asked us to report on the size of the solar installations and we have that information. You know we can go five years of rooftop solar permits and report on that and never been asked that. So I think if if there is a question for a purpose. We can help find that answer we can help gather that information we can send the message to the landlords in an efficient way that's not part of the application process, hopefully in a time they might be interested in it because they're not going to be interested in it. When they're just trying to get their rental permit. So I'm looking for ways to make this quicker, easier for the applicant and less involved for us to build out for information that we might be nice to have but probably not going to do anything with. So that's, you know, I guess my response to that. So. Did we want the mass savings question. Rob. No. So, so that one is different for commercial properties than home on property. That may not. That's true. Rob is personally convincing me that we should just eliminate the questions completely. Yes, that's true. I mean, especially we're hearing there's so much of concern about how involved this process is so I'm just thinking if I was thinking of adding the massive only because that's a benefit that many landlords may not know but I yeah I don't know if it's available I know it's available for up to four units but not I don't know if it's free audits and all available for apartment buildings and so I don't know. Pam and then Rob. Sure. So just to confirm Rob's office through inspections or or building permits knows if there are electrical charging stations they know if there are any PV panels being installed. And they have some sense of of fuel at the property. I can't remember. You know, if mine is listed on my property card. And if yes, I would agree to taking them out of this. Yeah, I just wanted to say that you know we really like the NASA program and encourage users, you know, people owners to take advantage of that. And I'm, I'm much more in favor of, you know, efforts on our part to educate when there's programs available rebates available. And I know Stephanie can help us with that. If it's if it's organized and prepared, we can very easily distribute that information and I think that would be much more valuable to work on doing that throughout the course of the year. Thank you. We've got a couple more minutes before we're going to move on we'll move on to the inspection requirements the frequency schedule. Goes over two pages Rob has basically do you want to talk with us it looks like from my brief reading that you're moving to a five year without sort of a three year five year tiered everything is five years unless you want it shorter. Is that sort of the goal of these potential changes. That's right so I'm you know looking at this. It was kind of makes it really hard to follow some things are three years five years four years and like why are we doing this there really doesn't it doesn't need to be this complicated. And thinking back what are the goals of this effort what are we trying to get out of this, you know we want to get inspections of properties we want to ensure safe conditions but we also want to be much more aggressive in the enforcement and we have been in up until this point. So I think you know looking trying to focus on the things that are important coming out of this program, we need to simplify it. Make it easier to understand and easier to manage and build a program that we actually can can manage effectively and efficiently so. Keep it all. Everything five years I mean there really wasn't, there's not a whole lot of advantage of being called a compliant home. So let's not make it out to be something more than it is but you know I think put it on a five year schedule. Identify the areas where shorter inspection requirements are necessary and let's focus on those those are the problems. So let's let's make sure the bylaw gives us the authority to do that when we need to. Pam. And again in reading this new information. It looks like D, which is the frequency schedule one D is the annual or other periodic inspection so if there is a violation of any state or local reg. Not a notice of violation is issued or failing an inspection, maybe subject to inspections on on another frequency. I just want to make sure that that that also comport with what the new final is trying to say, which is, you know, X number of complaints in a year triggers this triggers that will that translate into. violation of any state or local regulation. So D to deals with the nuisance property one which we might have to modify based on what we do with nuisance. But residential rental property designated a problem property or nuisance property under general bylaw 3.26 maybe subject to inspections on a frequency deemed necessary, but not less than annually. We do cover it. Yeah. So I think, you know, I support these changes, we just have to do some rewording because we've now got two titles of five year inspection requirements so I'll play with the fixing of the making it work. I still have my hand up. Pam. So, I'm not uncomfortable with most of these changes but but I'm but I need to be reassured that initial inspections as a property comes in to the system that there is in fact, I just don't feel like we can wait five years to get everybody inspected initially. Even if we even if we have to go hire some inspectors to, you know, or contract some inspection services or something. I don't want to give them a five year window because they could just really run rampant, especially if they know they're only going to get really inspected once every five years. That worries me. And I'm not seeing coverage for that. Robin and Shalini. So this doesn't say that we have to wait five years. That's going to be up to us and how we staff the program. It's, it's saying that the initial inspection will occur within five years. And any new property into the program would be inspected within six months. So if the if the program is staffed properly, maybe we can do it in two or three years would be glad to do that but if not the bylaw does say that it has to be done within five years no later than five years. With the goal of being a lot quicker than that. Absolutely. I mean that that can be a goal that is established but you know the, the, the staffing that we're suggesting. I'm hopeful is going to have a strong enough emphasis on enforcement and not just all inspection so we've got to balance that with the time that we're going to have staff available. So, you know, the department gets the staff gets pretty large to do everything. Shalini. Yeah, and I think the staff knows which are the problematic houses already so in terms of inspection, is it possible that this start off with those homes and I mean we don't know what that order is going to be of inspections in the first round right but the staff can just start with those homes so we don't have to wait longer. Rob. So we don't know the problematic homes. We haven't done inspections of the majority of the properties that we're talking about in this program. We, from year to year have somewhere around two dozen properties that I would say are properties that are important for us, and really what started the conversation for me to have the ability to have follow up inspections and require things of those properties but those are, those are 20 plus properties that are found in response to the three to 400 complaints that we respond to every year. So this when we start going into properties and seeing the conditions of them and understanding them better, then we'll have a true sense of the problem properties are the ones that need improvements. We don't have that now. So, the other thing I noticed is once we go to a standard five year without instead of three year, I think we can delete see one and see three because they don't really do anything. There's already five, but I will, I will as I create the new version, I'll, I'll make sure that we're not losing anything by those deletions I would move section C to actually down to the annual or other periodic inspections because it seems like that's more of belongs more in that one of things that change the five year and so change of ownership would change from five to something else. So that's just the comment I wanted to make there. If there's no other comments. Numbers two and three number of units inspected up Pam. Yeah, actually, I'm looking at number two I understand where Rob is going with that change of ownership. I, I would like to actually keep that requirement with change of ownership rather than might be able to continue under the under the prior ownership and the reason I say that is it's going to be non owner occupied it's going to be a rental we're talking about rentals here. I want every new property owner to be totally aware of what Amherst requires, even if it was just to expected the prior year. I want them to understand that Amherst means business. And I would, I would actually change consideration of, of, of just making it mandatory. Even though it means more work for the staff. We can't hear you despite the unmute, make sure it's the right mic. Can you hear me now. Yes. I agree with what Pam was saying Rob and I had a conversation about this today and there's a couple properties before us now that have just changed hands and they would benefit from, you know, an inspection right off the bat. There's no reason to, it's what was said, you know, they just had an inspection a year ago so we're going to hold off for four years they ought to, we ought to have a presence there so that the new landlord understands that this is real. I will make that change in the next draft. We are about out of time. So I will mark since we didn't really get to this one I will mark that we start our review here next time. So we don't lose the place Pam. I don't know your hand up. Pam you may go and then. Okay, sorry. I thought John had. I just want to note for subsequent conversations that having a more consistent five year inspection program means we really do need to think about the permit fees differently. I'm really, really pretty sure without doing a whole lot more thinking than right now that we need to decouple inspection service fees from normal annual renewals. There's just, you know, how do you bury five years worth of inspection cost into a permit that's not fair. Noted. Okay, we are at this point going to. Save this move on on our agenda. We will come back to this. I will put it on next week. Two weeks from now as agenda. And I do want to say thank you very, very much. Rob in and John if you were involved in, in actually putting your thoughts down on this because we sort of floated around these issues and it's really nice to start pinning it down. Yep. Okay. I think I managed too many screens here. Next up on the agenda is the engagement report. So, okay. The engagement report is next, Shalini. Let me see if I can pull this up. Unless you want to pull it up. Shalini, maybe you should pull it up. You're muted. Since since you in the master document any changes we ask would be probably better on your computer than mine. I was just going to pull up what's on the packet. Yeah. Okay, hold on. She's green. None of these hold on. So as I'm pulling it up just the back and stuff that we had agreed on I made those changes and now we're going to start from the beginning moving down. So, Is this the executive summary. Yeah, we're going to start with that. Yes, fun part. But again, I just invite everyone to keep a land like now we're more steep into and we've heard from different people and so I think the invitation is really that what we heard from different people how can we pull out what's important in that. So that goes into the executive summary that can help us as we're wrapping down our bylaw what what can we add and look at just to make sure that as we're making these changes to the bylaw we are incorporating, maybe not everything what everyone said but just the sentiment of what is being said, have we looked at it have and are we reflecting that in the changes. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, as we've been doing we're going to work our way through this I know Pam sent me some question, some potential changes but that's in a that's farther down in the document right Pam I think that's in some parts we talked about last time so we will get there. What, you know, beforehand but Pam, I thought we'd start through this first but Pam. First and foremost, I think it would be very, very important to change the date on this, so that it be March 2023, or April when we get finished whatever, because I think having had the, the unreviewed draft non noted as draft document out that that call that was called March 2022. I think it's really important to make sure that this is clearly a final document rather than a viewed one. And then do we want to change anything in the title like is that okay that it's prepared by us for the community resource committee. I think we would if one when we finally vote we can just add adopted by CRC. Yeah, and you can remember this. Okay. And manager, are you making a note of that. No, you should make the notes on this changes if you can. Oh, wow. Yes. Oh, interesting. Never done that before that's kind of cool. I feel so, so powerful. Right, right. Okay. I don't change to, but it's going to be so slow if I do it because I'm doing it for the first time so change to as adopted by CRC. Okay. And then the date and then Jennifer. So I wanted to maybe not the time to ask it but since we're since it came up about the date that we're adopting it. Can we say somewhere in the executive summary that because there are two versions out there. It'll be this one in the October one and neither a marked draft so I keep thinking at some point in the future when none of us are around to kind of explain what happened. That it be clear that this is the version that was adopted by the CRC and not and that the October 2022 was a draft. Because people can just pull up that October 2022 and start quoting from it and unless we formally note somewhere two or three or four years from now, you know, there'll be. That's a good point. The title will have the adopted date on it but I'm looking at this very first paragraph of executive summary the second sentence that says this report is a summary you could put this report adopted by CRC on ex date is a summary of that, which would add a little bit of language and clarity into. So that again this report is report comma adopted by CRC on and then we'd have a date whenever we vote. And then also in the October one if it's wherever it is can we put like a big cross or something that says that this has been replaced by or something is people that already have it. We can't. The title of that on the in the packet at least. Okay, that was the October third meeting. Okay. And these are all good things to note for when we do community engagement in the future too. So it wasn't a perfect process by any but it was a first time process. And Shalini so on that same note that's a really good suggestion to sort of show that this report adopted and then you could just say any any versions with earlier dates are not valid. Uh huh. Should I add that here. Yeah just you can fix the language for our next meeting because we've only got 12 minutes left we're not. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, okay. No, we're, we're not going to get to a vote today. Okay. Slowly taking things to try and get through as many things and move things along as we go. So, right. So the purpose was like what was stated and agreed so I don't think there's anything there. Well let's stay with purpose and what we did are there any requested changes. Okay. In those two sections. I don't want to do much of the climate action calls, but it was it was a primary purpose. Initially. Yeah, but I knew we did have questions about it in the quantitative the reading that we had people do the tenants and only the tenants because it's relevant to them. And that was one of the interesting findings that in the quantitative data where they were asked specifically how important are these or where you have the most. And the utility bill but also energy efficiency was one of the top things for tenants. Like as you see on page 10. However, in the qualitative data when they were just asked open ended questions like what do you love what do you want to change what are your challenges that did not come up as much. So that's why you be used to different methodologies is because when you prompt people like how important is solar energy everyone like oh yeah it's very important. But when you actually get people to talk about what are your actual challenges in your day to day life. They're not really bringing that up. So, to me that points out we still need to do a lot of job and educating people and getting people's awareness about climate change. So what are the changes to the who responded section. Looks like there was some deletions there in this draft. Now it's pulled in I think the addition was also pulling in the graphs earlier. So, people can see them. Saves the words because you can see them. Right. The graph. Yeah. Okay, I think you can go down. The graph. Yeah, so here you have the raise and then this was, this was, I think Jennifer had a question earlier how come no one responded in that age category but so this makes it more clear that we did get responses in the different age categories. Yeah, that's helpful. So should I move now and then I know this is okay so this is where we really get started. We have some active seniors. We do have a two humped town basically. Oh, are we looking at that still. No, you can say okay. Okay, so with the first paragraph and the first key issues related to the licensing fee and clear licensing program. Some of the headings were readjusted because as people pointed out that it was not very clearly. So now the main category the first main category is the licensing fee and a clear licensing program. So all the issues that came up over here. Any requested changes. I'm having trouble just sort of reading and suggesting changes here I have, I have not prepared text. And I did incorporate what Pam you had sent earlier and Jennifer so and one of the counselor would send comments I incorporated I think all of them, other than where I may have said the reason why so. Okay, why don't we go down page down a little bit farther. Wait, it was. I mean some of the things with the licensing we're hearing we heard from landlords, even when they came last time that you know there's a need for simplifying and clarifying the process and I heard Rob acknowledging that and talking about that. So I think we're aware of that issue. Can we go to the second one that issues concerning complaints the complaint process and fines. And I think this is an interesting thing maybe for the staff also that 88% of the tenants knew who to contact in case of maintenance safety issues but only 45% of neighbors knew who who to call if they perceived a building or safety code violation in a neighboring rental property. So I think this is interesting. I think we can page down situations and questions would have fair ways to define accountability so this is something we're going to be looking at more I think in the nuisance by law to who's accountable for the by when the rental noise littering parking. So these are just questions that when we are discussing the relevant either regulations or the nuisance by a law we can make sure that we address these can move on to the third one. So I'm going to say, um, the last one, 11 because Rob did say today that they do enforce. Oh right. Good catch a perception of enforcement. Right. Okay. So, I'll just write that rephrase as perception or something. Yeah. And I think I think what I like what you just wrote so you know to. Oh, that's true. Thank you. Where do I highlight that track changes. No, I just go to like home. Yeah, right if you go back to home. Oh, okay. Yeah, there you go. Also, can I just say that Rob said that when people complain very good with reinforcing and that's been the problem is that it was only complain German. And so if people don't know, or if they're afraid to complain or whatever, then that's why we so we are hearing this discrepancy on the one hand staff isn't really is enforcing it based on complaints but we also know from neighbors that they're not having an encountering these issues. So there's definitely a gap there and hopefully between the nuisance by law and this by law, that's going to be resolved. Okay, then the key issues concerning inspections and inspection standards. The top five areas of dissatisfaction for tenants and residents, they included management of the building interior exterior and tenants also mentioned energy efficiency, and residents mentioned trash disposal and parking as top concerns. So I think with energy efficiency was that meaning like, because there were some tenants who said that they have windows that don't close and, you know, don't fully close that just, there were those properties suffering from deferred maintenance. You know, are not energy efficient, and they're right healthy either because of we're safe safe right they're just. So that's why it's the result of all this yeah. Yeah, and pan. Actually that doesn't have anything to do with inspections or inspection standards but the concerns that the residents meeting I guess the non town trash disposal parking and I know there were a number of noise complaints as well but again that's not inspection related. It's important of inspection. Right. And that's why that's not here but I don't know and Rob it might be interesting for you all to see the tenants and me I don't know how many of these items are there already being inspected like fire exits and mold and rodent infestation. I don't know how many of these items are checked for but I thought that was interesting to get the whole list of things that tenants are concerned about. And then from residents point of view, I think we have other things. And then there was this, should there be another permit category for owner occupied and long term rentals. Number four. Yeah, yeah. That's an example of it never was stated outright in the, in the text or in. They, they, um, I don't know, I'm going to inference, or it's okay so these are recommendations so these are considerations. This is not so that. The second part of the report is the actual reporting of the data. And this part is, it gives us as a committee, a little more leeway to say okay this is what we heard. And these are the questions that are coming up for us so this is I just push, I just started out but these are by no ways. If we don't agree as a group that that's a relevant question. We need it and if you have other questions we can add them but these questions don't have to be coming from the reported data rather this is an inference, or what we are doing. Yeah. Right. And I think that's where I've had trouble is, there's a lot of separating. Yeah. Yeah. We need to move on. Yeah. Okay. I don't know whether number four is that the last one in the executive summary. No, no, I don't think so. No. So, I think we will put this on another end. Sounds good. But up to four, it might be helpful to accept the changes so that we can see a clean draft since we've briefly reviewed them all as we sort of try to clean this up with all the changes. We'll put a new draft into the packet that will start at number four the next time. This is on the agenda. I'm working with very full agendas. You can tell, we're moving on. We're trying to talk a lot of different things. The next item on the agenda is. The next item on the agenda is the prior carry over items prior council carry over items. So this one is on the agenda. It's kind of related to something I'm probably going to put on the agenda next time, but we are next. I'm going to show some status of a lot of this. And I thought we'd have a discussion before I could give that status to her on this particular one. You know, and, and see what, what the committee thinks so I am going to put one. Let's see if I can get that part on my screen. This is the carry over items. This is the text of almost the motion that was made it was not a motion to refer to CRC. It was a motion to direct the town manager to essentially have the planning staff report back to the council or CRC by these dates, a whole lot of stuff. The planning staff then reorganized it all and did their own sort of phase one, two and three I don't have that here, because I'm not sure it necessarily matters for this conversation how their review was that motion has never been withdrawn or removed I'm not sure how you want to call it that direction to the town manager still exists is what I would say. And so I think what the conversation for today I'd like to hear from the committee members is do we have a recommendation on, given that the motion was not for us to work on this it was for the manager to direct the manager to have his staff work on it do we have a recommendation regarding to the council regarding these items as to whether we or the council should still be asking the managers to have staff work on these particular things or, given the conversation I hope to have next week relates to the housing thing that we discussed briefly. During the hearing two weeks of two weeks ago was the hearing regarding potential things to deal with housing I don't know how I've worded it in a draft agenda but but issues surrounding housing and how to address housing. And so, do we still want the direction from the council to the manager to be working on these items, or do we potentially want to be discussing other items that we might be asking the manager, asking the council to direct the manager to work on or taking on on our own that's a very long winded and confusing thing. I hope it kind of makes some sense. But let's focus on these particular ones that were part of that direction. First, and whether they still remain priorities versus potential other priorities, we might want to recommend to the council, I guess is is the way to say it. First of all, I don't have I don't have a new list that I would like to recommend to the town council at hand at the moment so I don't really want to go there. The, the number of zoning suggestions that were put to the town planning department in the previous council or were numerous. And they worked their tails off trying to deal with the, the weight of, of all the suggestions to be dealt with. So, in the conversations footnote M was a complete disaster. We saw changing footnote B in the BL and footnote a to maximize lock coverage also came up with some very, very strong opposition to, to that. I think that is sort of this general work with the council to begin a conversation housing types expansion, I believe you were trying to do with your duplex bylaw. But from my perspective, the town staff has, you know, like one of these items that actually went into, I'm trying to remember exactly what went into the 10 managers goals. The whole first category of by March 15, that didn't really make it into the town managers goals, nor did the second group, which is by September 1 2021 make it really into the town managers goals, maybe with a couple of exceptions if I read them really, really carefully right now. The only one that I think made it through was form based zoning design guidelines. And that was more because staff said they were already working on it. But I, I don't have a good reason to pursue most of these topics. Other thoughts. Jennifer. Yeah, I would agree because I remember like Christine breast drop. I'm not sure if it was last year. Maybe it was the beginning of last year going through, you know, the first, the zoning priorities directed to work on by March 15 and I think she said, you know that the previous council, excuse me, continue to you know adopt zoning changes, really I think through December of 2021, but that she had said, you know, adding footnote a, and removing footnote M and I think the one about adding the BL to footnote be those are one she definitely said they were, I thought she said they weren't going to be pursuing them. So I don't, I would support. Removing those felony. Do you have any thoughts. Before I give mine. I'm sorry, I've been the car so I'm not going to. Okay. But I, I mean, I think to me the most important thing is that a conference of housing plan and, and that's something we've all agreed on. And so everything that contributes to words. words, operationalizing or putting that into action, I think it still should be on the table till we've discarded the items, but also I want to point out that Chris had presented to us I think there were five items that she had said, when we were going to have a conversation with Chris in the beginning of our time together CRC, and she had these items for for acting on the comprehensive housing plan and I'm not sure if that's here in this list. So it's not on this list because this is specifically this conversation is specifically in response to I think Pam you asked for it but also to point out that request, get me all the referrals plus all the carry over items and what you're doing with them and I didn't feel like I could answer a lot of them for the referrals. I haven't actually given her dates on the referrals or anything I just sent her a list of referrals. There's one referral that relates to this that that I wouldn't be able to supply an answer to right now, but I had no information really on how to answer that question with relation to this particular thing which is, in some sense a carry over item. So that's why it's on here, it's so it doesn't necessarily relate to those prior presentations although everything kind of interconnects when you're talking zoning and housing. Jennifer and then I'm going to take an opportunity to do my thoughts. So I guess to zone it to hone in on one of them, like removing footnote and that's crazy. Footnote and I think should be read could be revisited, you know, because it already allows for too much density. You can have nine structures per acre and removing footnote and would increase it to 12 or more. So it came up at the last planning board meeting although it was veering off topic because but some of the public comment was about a property at 98 Fearing Street which had been a single family house and then the single family house was divided into a complex and then the property changed hands in 2021 and the property owner actually came to the local historic district commission with a request to add three more structures and it's not really it's not a large property with three units in each structure with four bedrooms in each one literally when you add the main house and he was very clear it was for students it wasn't to provide attainable housing for anybody that there would be 36 bedrooms on this lot and a 21 space parking lot and that in no world does that make sense so I think if we are going to revisit footnote and it's to it allows for too much density as it is to remove it is kind of a non starter so I'd like to see that so that's my footnote removing footnote and is in no way something we should be recommending that that's my opinion and I think footnote damage it is allows for too much density. So, I would actually disagree with Jennifer on whether that conversation was valuable or not and what the density in the RG our densest district should be and should allow but in this list. Here's my thoughts some of it talks about the business districts. A lot of it kind of talks about the residential districts right. But it's all very prescriptive. It's, you know, add this to this remove this from this that, you know, at least the March 15 ones were very prescriptive basically. Number one ones dimensional regulations in the RG RBC let's talk about that or lower barriers to development of duplexes and triplexes frontage regulations that's actually part of dimensional regulations right. The frontage regulations are in the dimensional regulations a little less prescriptive. I think what I would like to see is that maybe we recommend that the Council. I wouldn't call it rescind the direction but change the direction to the town manager maybe another vote or maybe do we even need to do that versus just have the conversations I'm not sure what it would be but I would remove these specific ones from that vote I'm not sure what that would look like. And I'd rather see a less prescriptive direction if we are going to go the direction of directing the town manager to do something right. I would rather see a direction of let's talk about, and I don't know what the wording would be or anything right now but let's talk about are we concentrating on housing and if so, what type of housing or you know is it similar to this lowering barriers for development of duplexes and triplexes very non prescriptive other than let's focus on duplexes and triplexes is that one right. Not necessarily in a particular region or maybe talk about what can we do in the RG and the RBC, but not necessarily. It has to be dimensional regulations or it has to be front end regulations or it has to be this talk about, you know, I think similar to what the planning board has recently talked about which is where do we want to focus our efforts. We want those efforts focused on and so I think what I would like to see is maybe recommend that we remove this direction completely and come up with another sort of direction and focus that is not as prescriptive as this was back in March. To be able to give a lot more flexibility to whoever is working on this to think sort of outside the box or outside one specific thing. So that that's where I stand. Pam. I second that because again, most of these things did not did not make it into the town manager's goals. Again, so it's almost like it. They're there. They don't exist except on paper which keeps showing up on a agenda. So I would like very much to rescind these and come up with some, some broader objectives of what we're trying to achieve and and efforts that we think are valid to pursue. Connie. First of all, I like what you proposed boundary through, and kind of what you were saying, Pam, but I also just want to say that, you know, when, and this is more of a process thing and even for future councils like when existing council does a lot of thinking or not, but there are discussions and there are reasons why certain things are carried forward. So I wonder if there needs to be me be, I don't know, like a summary of what was the intention behind these and so, so even if you don't agree with a particular direction I think we're kind of naturally doing that right now with what you said was Monday Joe that we're taking into account the intention for what was proposed, and then as a new council, how do we want to move forward, but I was just thinking like as a process. It's two years is not enough to do anything and in every council new council comes it starts all over again it's, and I don't know what the solution is really but other than the remaining counselors or maybe the earlier council knows that to give a little summary of what the intentions were what. Okay, we lost a little bit of that Shalini and I know she just muted herself she might be going through something, but thank you. I think. Okay, did you get the gist of it though. I think we did. Okay. Okay. Okay. Your hand is back up. No. Okay. So, I'm, I'm hearing a basic consensus I don't know what this motion would look like it might be a motion to recommend. And it doesn't seem, I don't think we want to rescind the whole thing. Because the form based guidelines we definitely don't want to rescind I think we continue to want to move forward on those it's more of the other ones. It might be a motion to recommend the council rescind the zoning priorities that the council directed the manager to work on by March 15 2021 and September 1 2021. That might just be the motion. At this point. And leaves, and it leaves the consultant. I think we can get the consultant money in there and then this committee can work on another recommendation. That starts sort of without, you know, with our own conversation maybe, instead of having the timing out. I could second that. Kelly, were you able to get that motion. If you could do that or tell me the motion one more time that would be fantastic. I don't know myself as I make it because you know, I just made that up. So it was be a motion to recommend the council rescind the zoning priorities, it directed the town manager to work on by March 15 2021 and the other day, September 1. 2021. I think that's it. That's what I said. I'm going to read it back to make sure I got it correct. Okay. So you're moving to recommend the council rescind the zoning priorities it directed the town manager to work on by March 15 2021 and September 1 2021. Correct. Excellent. Thank you very much. Okay. Any discussion. Shalini. So I agree with rescinding the March 15 one, but tempo one is their way to, I just feel like if earlier council members there could be any issue and any set of counselors, if they worked hard on something for so long and agreed with it, but can we at least continue the like at least have a full fledged conversation before we rescind something so I agree that the March 15 was too prescriptive and whatever but the September 1 can we like write it in a way that we rescind that but and the committee agrees to have a conversation about the September 1. So at least it's respectful to when we leave and the next council comes and they completely like just totally disregard anything we done and all like the rental registration we spend a year and let's say we don't get it done. And the next council comes and they totally rescinded is it's not a good comparison. I apologize, but you know what I mean. I think the idea of having a conversation about about what we as the current council have for priorities moving forward, I think is really valid. But I think that there are, you know, there are a couple of counselors that are no longer on the council, because there were differences of opinion. I don't support some of these, some of these items that is why I ran for office to be very blunt. And I'm, and I'm delighted to be reconsidering this list of priorities. So I'm very pleased to take them off the table. Have a great conversation about what our priorities are now. I know there was a lot of work that went into them. And some of the, some of the, some of the efforts were, were partly opposed by many people, which is, which is why they stopped at this point and these, these particular items did not continue. That's all, that's all I really need to say. Thank you Jennifer. I guess I was going to say kind of the same thing. I don't, I think because of former elected body. These were their priorities. I mean that is why you have elections. So, I think this council can articulate their priorities. So I would support Mandy's Joe's motion as presented. And the only thing I'll say is when I write a report on this, I will indicate that this is a precursor to potentially CRC coming back with new recommendations for zoning priorities. And that, you know, from someone who was on both, I think the committee is learning, I think the council is learning, you know, how we go about all of this. And also how prescriptive or not we should be when talking about zoning priorities. You know, and, and I think we learned a lot with this motion that we can take to the conversation that will come up for continuing a zoning priority discussion and potentially recommending other zoning priorities which may be very similar to these just might be worded differently. I will include the fact that CRC and tends to continue a discussion about where zoning priorities, the council might want to put it zoning priorities, and potentially bring that to it within the report with this recommendation. Pam. I think the fact that that at least four for counselors in this in the second council came forward to with with an interest in improving our rental bylaws is a pretty good indication that that is a priority for us. And it was also trying to address a lot of the issues that that some of these very prescriptive things would have would have exacerbated. So, I think, I think we have spoken in that in that sense we we have said rental rental bylaw and nuisance bylaw improvement is is a priority. Any discussion. See none we're going to move to a vote. Where's my list. I'm Pam. Hi, Jennifer. Yes, honey. Yes. Could you say that again. Yes. Okay. It just didn't come out clear so I didn't want to assume what it was and Mandy is an eye so that is a 40 vote. With one absent. With that, we are moving on to public comment. General public comment will be accepted on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at this time. If you would like to make a general public comment, please use the raise hand button and I will recognize you in turn and bear with me as I modify my screens again. So, we're not a shepherd please unmute yourself and state your name and where you live and make your public comment. Hi, this is not a shepherd. I'm an Amherst and regarding that one hour response to talking about a response to message. When I travel for instance, I write to my tenants with information like for emergencies that can way, cannot wait until I come back, please call. at X number versus like non-emergency when they can text my WhatsApp or text an hour Google voice or whatever if they might not get a one hour, maybe a one day response back. If it is not an emergency, there's no need to respond within an hour. If a tenant keeps calling or texting late at night with questions that can wait a day or two, what do you do? The language that you seem to be using will get landlords in trouble for many reasons. You know, they could complain that we're not responding. But again, was it a house on fire, we should call 911 about this also this incessant need to control every detail of how many people per unit, et cetera. Why not just set the rules in a way that it won't cause the very problem you want to squash. For example, garbage noise, safety and so on. So no one gets in trouble with the law for discrimination or there's no waste of time and paper creating 30 pages of questionable rules. Students or not, be them owners or renters, the fire codes, state statutory code, et cetera, already do that. And Robin Johnson asked for that and know what to look for when needed. When there is a need to actually look for that. And again, with over 5,000 rental units, I think that can sound how many actually do cause problems. Just have to respond to that. Those that every time that you guys talk about the rental regulations, it's either to resolve a problem that can be solved. If there is a quick response from police, from the town, from the board of health. Or it's something that you want to find out about a property, which brings me to the energy efficiency questions that are just, you know, just seem to be an annoyance. You know, you're asking for each homeowner, all those questions as well, or just the landlord. And what difference does it make in the end to just know about just the rentals? It'll just include increase managers work and raise the price of rent for everyone. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. And please excuse my frustration. And thank you very much. Thank you for your comments, Renata. Ashley Jensen, you had your hand up at one point, but you have lowered your hand. OK, I just wanted to make sure you should be able to answer now. OK, you know, if you don't mind, you'll go louder and louder. Sure. Can you hear me now? We can hear you now, Ashley. OK. My name is Ashley Jensen, and I live in Amherst, and I was it might come up in the subsequent meaning when you're also deciding on the zoning priorities. But I mean, I certainly would like to see affordable housing somewhere in the priorities, like as its own kind of subset, like housing in general and the rentals are a big deal. But is I didn't see the word affordable, I guess. And that would be nice to see in the priorities. Or, you know, maybe there's other sections that I'm just not aware of. This was a very, very informative meeting, by the way. I'm just really impressed. And I just I'm glad that I just saw this side because I usually don't. But yeah, I just I want to put just the word affordable housing really at a more front burner and see it in the priorities, maybe even in several places. That's all. Thank you for your comment, Ashley. And you did write the Town Council recently. So thank you for writing about that. I think we're going to hear about that in just about a minute. We have no other hands up. So we are moving on. Minutes are not in the packet. So we will postpone as far as I know, minutes are not in the packet. Did I? Yeah. Minutes are not in the packet. We will postpone that till the next meeting. And I'll put them on the next agenda. We're going to go to next agenda preview. So, oh, Pam, you're muted, Pam. You're still muted. There, there, the the draft minutes from three to twenty three are in the packet. Oh, I totally missed them then. So if they are, then I'm blind. With that, then are there any changes to that request and changes to the draft minutes? Thank you for noticing that, Pam. There were a couple. And I've got to find my version of it so that I can find. There are just a couple things. So this is on page three where it says, this is Frederick Hartwell speaking. The last sentence is breaststroke stated that professional management does not apply only to management companies. Instead, refers to anyone within a 20 a 20 mile radius. And it would just left off the end of the sentence was gone. So I added capable of managing a property. So professional management refers to anyone within a 20 mile radius capable of managing a property. And that was it. Any other requested changes? See none. I'll move to adopt the March 2nd, twenty, twenty three meeting minutes as amended. Second. Thank you, Jennifer. We will vote. We'll start with Jennifer. Yes. Melanie. Yes. We did not hear that. There we go. And I am. Yes. That is adopted for zero with one absent. We are moving on. I don't have announcements. So we're going to move on to the next agenda preview. I believe Jennifer wanted to mention something. Yes. And actually it was I believe you all recall that Ashley sent Ashley Jensen, who just spoke as a member of the Amherst affordable housing trust. And she wrote to the council and asked, you know, if we could have a conversation about affordable housing in Amherst. And as the liaison to the housing trust, who unfortunately seems to always have other meeting conflicts on Thursday evenings, the housing trust meets one Thursday a month. I responded to Ashley and copied the co-chairs of the housing trust and Lynn about, you know, having the conversation. And Lynn Grismur suggested that the appropriate, you know, place to start would be CRC. So I wanted to it wasn't on the agenda. So I guess I wanted to just ask if it could be on our next agenda for the for the members of the CRC, we could discuss, you know, having a meeting with the housing trust members and Ashley had referred to the co-chairs of the trust. And they'll probably put it on their next agenda if they would like to meet with us. But so I just wanted, I think the appropriate way to do this is to ask that it be on our next CRC agenda so we can have a conversation about that. Since it wasn't on the publicly posted agenda, we probably shouldn't discuss the substance of such a meeting today. But I thought it was a terrific idea and I appreciate that Ashley, you know, initiated the conversation. Yeah, I can put it on the agenda. I think what I'm hearing from you is you want an agenda item to discuss a potential meeting with the trust. Yes, if that's the way we could do it, I'd like to suggest it today. But since it wasn't on the agenda, I don't think I can do that. OK, so I can put that on the agenda. Yes, I can put that on the agenda. I just want to make sure I put it correctly on the agenda and I will reach out to or actually, Jennifer, you're the trust liaison, right? Yes, with with Pat D'Angeles. So yeah, so why don't you reach out to the trust to to see if any of the chairs would like to come to the meeting? This will not be a meeting talking about affordable housing. They would like to have, I mean, I think if, again, the trust has to discuss it amongst themselves, because Ashley could correct me, but, you know, she recommended it. And I think the proper channels is we discuss it. The trust discusses it. I can't imagine we wouldn't want to have it come together and have a conversation. Yeah, and the trust meets on the 23rd. Next. No, I have to check. They only meet one Thursday a month. Oh, OK, so I will put it on the agenda to have a conversation. Why don't you contact the trust chairs to see if either of them would like to be present for the conversation about not about affordable housing, per se, but about a meeting between us. And things that, you know, even if they haven't discussed it themselves, I think having a chance here might be helpful so that they can, you know, yeah, so so discuss and see. And if they can't make the 30th, let me know. Since you are the liaison, let's let's go through you. But for now, I'll put it on the 30th. And one thing that might be helpful is if they have a particular time between the 430 and 630 timeframe, we normally meet that they could. OK, that's great. Be easier for them to come and join us if they would like to join us for our portion of this, figuring out how that might work is sort of what it would be. But yeah, I will put that on the other things I have on the agenda is finishing the regulations up, finishing our work through the regulations on rental bylaw, potentially talking about a fee structure and schedule. I don't know whether I'll move to the engagement report or not. I had a lot on. We'll be deleting some of it. I had the nuisance house bylaw potentially on there, too. And then I guess the way I had put it on the agenda for now was a missing middle housing discussion, sort of how it was. I might rephrase that. But the goal was sort of what came up at the public hearing and a little bit after the public hearing about housing related to the proposal that we're currently dealing with on the zoning proposal. But people had indicated they wanted a wider discussion and and it would relate to the zoning priority. So I'll probably rename it so it's not as specific but trying to get that discussion started. The meeting after the 30th, one week after that is our continued public hearing. I need to talk to Pam about that, about what we'll do with that meeting. I have been notified that the Planning Board's public hearing the day before will be postponed by two weeks because of the start of Passover that evening. And they don't like to have meetings on the start of major religious holidays. And so they will, as far as I know, be opening their meeting and then immediately postponing the hearing for two weeks later. So I'll talk to Pam about how she wants to sort of deal with that as the hearing, since Pam's running that hearing, which may allow us, depending on what Pam's thoughts are on that, to add a little bit more beyond the duplex conversation to the April 6th agenda two. The duplexes will have to be on it because that's what we've done. But once Pam decides what she wants to do, we might be able to split a lot of what I just said between the 30th and the 6th and talk. But that's sort of the plan for the next two meetings as we get through this, trying to get some of those discussions going, but also moving along regulations, moving along bylaw, moving along rental permitting. I would love to see rental permitting out of our hands by the end of April. So we at some point, we're going to have to discuss what we're doing with it. What our report back to the council is, how far we go before we report back. It's too much for next week, so we'll figure out what we're doing, what we're cutting. Shalini, then Dave and then Pam. So could I again get the question, maybe the changes and edits from the committee for the community report and that might expedite it? And because my hope is to get that done, before we pass the or make a recommendation, that would be the natural order of things in my mind. Yeah. Thanks. Which is why I'm trying to keep it on the agendas with that, too. So. OK. Dave. Yeah, thanks, Mandy. I know you don't want to go into detail right now, but it would be helpful for Jennifer going back to the housing trust and Ashley on the housing trust. Just I could see that conversation when we get to it being very important for staff to know what the CRC is looking for, what what will be the conversation because affordable housing, there's a lot there. There's a lot to unpack. So when you discuss it, it would be really helpful to know what you and the housing trust are looking for. Because I think, you know, it's going to involve it would involve me, it would involve Nate Malloy and and likely Rob. So the more the more we can learn it in advance of when the meeting happens, the better we better prepared we can be. So thanks. Thank you, Pam. I don't have my hand up. You had sort of raced it and waved, so I didn't know whether that was a hand raised or not. It was not, I guess. It's not, I think. OK, I'm just trying to make sure I'm not missing anyone. No other hands. That was the next agenda item. Um, I don't have any items not anticipated 48 hours in advance. Does anyone else see none? We're adjourned at six thirty two p.m. Thank you all. Bye bye. Thank you, Dave. Thanks.