 I'm ready when you are. Go ahead. Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Community Preservation Act committee on November 9th, 2023. I'm calling the meeting to order at 6.05 p.m. We're meeting remotely via Zoom as authorized per decision of the town of Amherst and permitted by the state. This meeting is being recorded and will appear on the town of Amherst CPA website page at a later date for those who wish to view it. I'm going to call on the members now to make sure that we can hear you and that you can be heard. We do have a new member, Doug Marshall from the planning board. Welcome, Doug. I guess I'll call on you first to see if you can hear us and we can hear you. Hi, everyone. Okay. David Williams. Oh, to everyone. Tim Neil. Greetings. Bob Saul. Hello. Yep. Michelle Laby. Matt Kane. Hi, president. Robin Fordham. Hello. And I believe that's all the members. So I think we're good to go. As I said earlier, we're hoping to accomplish. I'm going to pick to a schedule because some of the presenters have other meetings that are coming up around seven. So the first item on our agenda is to elect a chair and vice chair. We delayed doing this at our last meeting in September, pending the arrival of a full committee which we have now. I would like to open the floor for. Elect a chair nominations. I see a hand up from David Williams. Yes, I would like to nominate Sam McLeod as chair of the CPA committee. And as a second from Michelle. Are there any other nominations for chair? I don't see any. I will accept the nomination. Thank you, David and Michelle. Is there any discussion? I don't see any hands raised or indication. So I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote. Voice vote is required on any votes that we have. I'll go one at a time. David Williams. Yes. Tim Neil. Bob song. Hi. Robin Fordham. Hi. Matt Cain. Yes. Michelle Laby. Hi. Doug. Hi. And again, Holly. Excuse me, Katie is not able to attend today. I will say I as well. So the vote is eight to zero one absent. I realized that I didn't indicate this earlier. We need to have a minute taker. For the meeting. I volunteered last meeting, even though I haven't presented the minutes here. Is there someone willing to volunteer? I see Robin's hand up. They're going to get it out of the way. Thank you, Robin. The thought process. So. Nomination for a vice chair. I'll open it up to the committee. I'm not seeing any hands raised. I'll make a nomination. I'd like to nominate Tim Neil as vice chair. Second. Second. We have a nomination and a second. I'd like to proceed with a vote. And we'll go sequentially. David Williams. Yes. Tim Neil. Yes. Bob Saul. Yes. Robin. Hi. Matt. Yeah. So we have a nomination and a second. I'd like to proceed with a vote. And we'll go sequentially. David Williams. Yes. Tim Neil. Yes. Bob Saul. Yes. Robin. Hi. Yes. Michelle. Hi. Doug. Yes. And I will vote. I as well. So the vote is. Eight to zero with one. Absent. So. The next item on our agenda. Is public comment. We have a public comment session on every meeting that we have. We also will be having a public comment and a public hearing for all the proposals in December. So the public comment here is just a standard one for every meeting that we have. I'd like to invite any attendees. Or members who might be community members who might be listening to. Speak or add a comment if they wish. Or those who are attendees. If you'd like to make a comment, could you please. Raise your hand so that we can see you. Or if that's not functioning, you can also seek to utilize the chat feature. I'm going to wait a minute. I'm not seeing any hands raised. I'll wait one more minute in case there's someone seeking to access. I'm not sure if that would be a different avenue. Okay. So no public comment. So I think we're okay to commence with our presentations. And I see. Carol Lewis is in the audience. As an attendee. And. If you're ready, Carol, we'd like to, I don't know if you have any questions or comments. I know that the designated time is six 15. But I know you have a lot going on. So. I can see you. In the meeting. Although. Right now you're. There you go. You've. I think I'm now all the way here. Wonderful. So thank you. Good to see you, Carol. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Erica is in the, in the attendance. Would you mind? She's, we are co-chairs and I'm going to do the presentation, but if you wouldn't mind having her in here. So she has a comment. She could make it. That would be great. Certainly. Okay. I'm taking care of that. She should be in a second. Here we go. So let's see if the microphone is working. Erica, if you're able to unmute. As needed. Thank you for having me here. Hi, Erica. Nice to see you. Thank you for joining us to both of you. So I'm just wondering if for the public, we should just sort of announce the, but this is for the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust with a CPA proposal. I ask of $500,000 under the community housing category for development funds. Thank you for that. I probably would have forgotten that important part of what we're supposed to say. Thank you, Holly. So Carol and Erica, the. Okay. So I, um, well, thank you for giving us this opportunity to present. And I, I don't think it's a question for any of us that Amherst, like so many other places needs more affordable housing. So the first thing I want to urge you to do is to support community housing. Um, to the fullest extent that you can, among all the proposals that you get, the Donahue institutes 2022 housing study shows Hampshire County currently needing 1500 rental units below $1,000 a month to meet this housing need available. 2020 census data indicates 62% of current renters in Amherst spend more than 30% of their income on housing and 42% spend more than half. Both percentages are higher than those shown in 2010 census data. Looking at this another way. There were 501 applications for 28 studio units in the recently opened East Gables. 20 of those incoming residents had no stable home prior to coming. In spite of at least one of them having a full-time job. In Massachusetts, the home ownership rate for people of color, 35% is about half of the rate for white people, 68%. This is a statewide disparity that is currently the sixth greatest in the nation. The housing trust is one of a few entities that can hold CPA funds without identifying a specific project. The trust does is in a unique position in addressing this housing situation. You do your funding work annually for which we are most grateful. We meet monthly and can meet needs that cannot be anticipated a year in advance, providing funding that can leverage other funding and demonstration of town commitment. When a project already is in progress and comes up short, given something like unexpected price increases, we can help fill the gap as we did with East Gables. When a pandemic hits, we can set up a program of emergency rental assistance. When property of town owns has potential as a housing site that needs pre-development work to determine feasibility, we can fund some of that work as we've done with East Street, Strong Street, and currently beginning to do with the FW project. Because there are fewer sources that can be used to fund home ownership projects, we can also significantly contribute to the funding of such projects. Projects essential to Amherst's efforts to reduce the wealth gap between our white and BIPOC populations. Currently, Valley CDC's Amherst Community Homes, to which we have made our most recent allocation, that project is currently going through the ZBA approval process. When a promising property comes up for sale and must be acquired promptly to retain the possibility of affordable housing development as Belcher Town Road, we can help in that acquisition. And an important at least sidebar to me here is that Amherst's a lot of things. One of the ones that we don't talk about very often is it's a fixed and finite land mass. Much of the land can't be used for housing at all because it is protected farmland or open space because it is wetland or protected habitat. So missing an opportunity to acquire any of the land that could be affordable housing potentially isn't easily remedied. The trust can do all the kinds of things that I have just described as well as various other things like a lot of public education and outreach. We can only do these things however if we have money in our accounts. The funds we have at present, 447,000 approximately after incoherences may be very quickly exhausted by projects already in the pipeline. We already anticipate somewhere near $200,000 in requests by the end of 2023. This would render us unable to step in early to add to that pipeline by doing something that needed to be done on a short timeline. Something unanticipated in the CPA proposal cycle. Something we may not even have thought of yet that has the potential for more affordable housing in Amherst is the need for which has only grown. The $500,000 we are requesting from CPA will help us be the resilient partner Amherst needs us to be. Thank you and questions. So I'd like to does Erica have anything she wanted to add to your presentation at the moment or questions is fine as well. Okay. I'd like to open up to the committee. For any questions or comments that you might have for Carol. And thank you Carol for providing this information for us. You're most welcome. I'm not. I see a hand from Bob. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm a brand new member. So I'm just going to ask sort of a point of information. How long is the trust been an existing and was it specifically put in place for this purpose that the town needed more flexibility responsiveness to opportunities that came up. I should remember maybe Erica does or Dave does the date 2017. I believe it's 2017. By law that at that in that point the town adopted adopted a bylaw that created the trust as the state has the possibility for towns to do that. That was the point at which the town did it. And the mission. Yes. Was of kind of affordable housing and all its all its realms like create housing. That is for home home ownership all the way from home ownership opportunity to closing the homelessness gap. And I believe the idea part of I don't know the thinking of the people who put it in place, but I know that one of the things that is critical about it and important about it is that we can hold money that isn't for a particular project. We have a couple of other very minor funding sources, but this is the main one at the moment at least the CPA. And so it is the hope is that there's been a group of people dedicated working with the town working with nonprofit developers and anyone else we can find to do some kind of housing development that we can be paying attention to this one thing kind of while the town is needing to pay attention to so many things. We could I think an early on a decision was made because housing trusts are allowed by statute to hold property to be landlords kind of affordable housing projects. But our trust being smaller the town being smaller we decided our job is pushing places funding the gaps finding the possibilities collaborating where collaboration works, which is we don't have enough money to do anything by ourselves. So we are kind of sometimes the thorn in somebody's side maybe in order to try to make something happen. Hopefully we don't need thorns in the side we just get to be cooperative co-creators of affordable housing. And that might have been a lot of work that didn't even answer your question, but I hope that helped Bob. No, it did completely answer my question. Thank you. That was perfect. Thank you. If I can add if I can just add I was just going to add that part of our mission is also to ensure affordable housing to the most vulnerable. So as Carol said is that we are sort of a catalyst as well as an advocate for ensuring that there are pipeline initiatives. We work very closely with the town as well as with town council because we're sort of really all working together and for the way Carol mentioned is that we're looking for the niche where we can have the most impact that town council the town cannot have. So we're really part of what we do is we keep affordable housing at the table and a focus on that in the town constantly. Thank you, Erica. Tim, I see that your hand. Yes, just a quick question. Your application states that the CPA has been one of your primary funding sources. Do you happen to know off the top of your head? I'm a submit. I didn't go back and do the research to see how many funds the CPA has distributed to you folks since. No, it's a short answer. I could find that out and get you the answer, but I don't know it. Would you like me to email it to the committee or something? Yeah, that would be great. I would just curious to see what the universe is because I've been on the committee and I what this is my third year in my recollection is you're asking for large amounts every year and that's great, but it's been since the inception. I don't have that number, but I will get it for you. And you're correct. We asked pretty much every year. Partly because we don't we don't have really at the moment any other sources of funding sometimes actually have an arrangement with their CPA group where there's an automatic transfer to the to the housing trust so that we don't we don't do this every year because in many ways what we're asking for this year is the same thing we asked for last year. Different examples, different things were in the middle of now, but still the thing is, build us a pot of money so when something comes along that we need to respond to we can. But I will it will email you that answer. Erica, you had your hand up earlier. Do you have something like that? Yes, I just wanted to emphasize what Carol just said that there are CPAs where the affordable housing trust automatically gets a percentage where they don't have to go in front of the CPA because just in some municipalities that the affordable municipal housing trust is seen as an extension of the CPA to actually further affordable housing. So we right now we don't as Carol said we don't have any other revenue coming in. We're hoping that the real estate transfer fee will be an opportunity for that. But that's in the future. That's not now. We don't know if that's going to go through or not. But the CPA is really our only revenue that comes in. I should add one thing. There is the possibility only because it's happened yet. But the inclusionary zoning bylaw has a provision that says if it's conceivable that a developer could get out of putting the required affordable housing units in the development by paying money and that money would go to the trust. That doesn't never happen. But and I don't know if it would be how much I don't know that it would be a significant source of money. And it would certainly not be a reliable regular source of money. But I don't want to overstate the case of how much money we don't have. We don't have it, but it is a possible source of money in the future sometime. Thank you, Carol. Doug. Yeah, I wondered what your relationship is to the housing authority in town that operates some of the affordable housing and public assistance housing. Thank you. We are totally different and actually have just recently been trying to figure out how we might connect and help each other. We had the head of the housing or of Amherst housing authority at our last meeting in order to try and understand some of the things that some of their needs and some of their difficulties in it. So there isn't really much overlap because they deal with subsidized stuff that has a particular source of funding and they run the buildings that are owned for the purpose of affordable housing. And I'm probably someone could give you a more technical answers in what I'm giving you, but we've been trying to develop a more cooperative relationship or at least understanding what each other does better. Is that any help, Doug? Yeah, I guess part of my question is about whether you could help them do more than they are doing. And I don't know very much about them, but I don't hear about a lot of initiatives from them to do more or to, you know, replace some of their relatively old housing or anything like that. That's a good idea. And also I would say that the housing bond bill that the governor has just put forward has various things in it that will directly support housing authorities to do some of the things. They have a lot of deferred maintenance. They only get a certain amount of money. Sometimes they can't do the maintenance they would prefer to do. And my understanding is that this bond bill is going is one of its goals is to correct some of that so that so that the turnover can be quicker. And the housing authorities in the state. I'm going to call on David because the question related to housing I see in Michelle David Williams. Yes. The comments that you made are your own target. We basically have not been working outside of the room of the properties that the city town on. However, I will be sure in our next board meeting which is on the 7th. That we make a reach out. And make arrangements for us to get together to discuss. Housing and embers one to be sure that you understand what the housing authorities about. And also that we I think we understand. All of what you all are doing but we definitely need to be working together. I agree. I'm sure Erica does too. Yeah, if I can like comment. If I can just comment on that. That's one of the reasons why we had Pamela Rogers come and present to the embers municipal housing trust authority. Just to make sure that we did understand what, you know, the housing authority did and what their mission is and how we can support each other. And one of the ways we're supporting each other is we're definitely advocating with our representative Dom and who actually has visited recently there as well as with our Senator com referred about the support that the housing authority needs in terms of funding for rehabilitation as well as maintenance staff. And so, yes, we're trying to figure out what are all the challenges in order to get the vacancy rate down and quicker turnover to get the 14% vacancy rate really eliminated. Thank you. Michelle. You're on mute. Yeah, thanks. I'm also fairly new members. I'm just curious, does the, does the trust generally spend down all the funds on an annual basis or is there ever like enough capital gains on what you have to sort of support the smaller programs that you mentioned you're involved with. We haven't gotten down to zero. But so it's a, it's a, it's a floating amount of money. We actually came into this CPA proposal with less money than we had when we came in last time, because of the needs that have happened, the things that we've been able to fund in the interim. And so the goal is to kind of keep enough money there so that when something does come up, we can do it. And we, I don't know, I guess if we had a year in which we didn't use anything, maybe the next year, we wouldn't ask for as much, but so far, there have, we didn't get as much last year. I think it was two, we asked for 500 and I think you gave us 225. There were several other community housing proposals right there with ours. But so that's part of the reason that we come to you this year with a, with a lower balance than we had when we came last time. Thank you, Holly. We're getting close to the next presentation. I just wanted to make a comment about the municipal housing trust funds are not actually turned over to them. They are a trust fund on the town's books. So the money is in our accounts, not in their accounts. And then it's spent directly from a trust fund on the town's books. Thank you, Holly. I have a question, Carol, in your proposal application reference that you had received a request for additional funding from the ball lane CDC project and extra 125,000 from 250 to 375. I'm curious, given the costs for all construction rising and all the demands, what would occur if the housing trust did not have the funds for ball lane? Has anything like that ever occurred in the past when they seek additional funding from their initial proposal? It's difficult to not be in a position and you do have funding currently, but I'm curious what have there been instances in the past where requests have not been fulfilled and what implications might there be? That's a very good question. I don't really know the answer to. I would gratefully, in my time on the trust, which is four or five years, I think, have been able to fill the request that came to us. I think that what would happen is that whoever the developer was would be pulling their hair out, scrambling, trying to figure out what to do to fill the gap. But I don't know the answer. Maybe Dave knows more. He's been around longer at all of this. I'll call on you in one moment, Dave. And I have one follow-up question. You mentioned the Healy Driscoll $4 billion housing initiative, which is huge. And I understand that it has implications for the. Housing authority. I'm wondering if it has implications or opportunities directly for the housing trust. That is to say, is there any overlap? I'm seeing a head shake. No, from your colleague. But I thought I'd ask, perhaps, Erica, would you like to respond? So my understanding of the Affordable Homes Act, there are a lot of. Proposed initiatives that would help developers. It would help with the rising costs that are unpredictable. So in an indirect way, it helps the housing trust to ensure that the funding that we provide to these projects can be maximized. But I don't see any direct funding to municipal affordable housing trusts, except they support the transparency of the housing trust. They support the transfer, the real estate transfer fee. So that would then come depending if it ever went through. I think that would be a pretty major source of revenue. And then that would impact our ability to ask for possibly less or not have to come to the CPA. But otherwise I don't see anything directly to the housing trusts. Thank you, Erica. We're running short here. We have other presentations. Nate, I see us in the audience. He also has a tight schedule as Carol and Erica know. So I'd like to just ask one more question. Dave has had his hand up patiently for some time. So Dave, is there something you'd like to add related to the housing trust? Yeah, I can be very quick, Sam, just an answer to your question about funding shortfalls. You know, in my tenure with the town, working with Nate Malloy, the trust, various staff, I mean, by and large, you know, Amherst is an extremely supportive town for affordable housing. We've worked extensively with alley CDC wayfinders and other groups. We all need to keep in mind the kind of scope and scale of some of these projects. These projects are millions and millions of dollars. So what we can offer is we can't close those large gaps. We can close the smaller gaps. We can show the state and federal government that we are a town that says, yes, that we want these projects to happen. So by and large, we try very hard. We have devoted some Paul Bachman has devoted some ARPA funding and we've helped close some of those gaps for Valley CDC and and way finders. So in short, you know, we do the very best we can keep in mind, these projects have multiple, multiple funders. So if there's a hundred thousand dollar gap and we can only give 50 or whatever the number is. That that Valley or way finders, they, they will need to go to their other, their other funders and say, Hey, Amherst stepped up to the plate, but couldn't close the whole gap. Could you. So the other thing is, you know, again, just Holly commented a little bit on the structure of the trust, the trust, keep in mind the trust for those new members here. The trust is really part of the town. We are, we are one. We are working together very closely planning department staff provide the day to day week to week month to month of staffing and support for the trust. We just we're using some CPA money and other funds. We just hired a part-time planner to assist the, the trust. And as Holly said, the finances are really all overseen by her department. So it's a, it is a much different thing than the housing authority, which is really quite separate from the town, very important in town and provides wonderful service. But the trust and the town are really very much aligned and, and part of one another. So just wanted to add that. Thank you, Dave. So I guess we're, we're done here for the moment. Carol and Erica, thank you both for sharing your thoughts, knowledge and discussing your proposal with us. If we have additional questions, we might email you. And there was one item that you indicated you would provide. Feedback, I believe to Tim's questions. So please email that to Holly and or myself. I see your hand is up Carol. I just, I just wanted to know if that, so you are there. Is there any reason why we should stay here longer in the meeting? Is there something that's going to happen up at a later date? Or is it okay if we go now and. It's fine for you to go. We're hearing from presenters. Four different presenters. The next one happens to be. Somewhat associated with your activities. You're quite welcome to stay in the audience and listen, if it's beneficial, I do know you have a meeting to chair. It's at your discretion, whatever works, but if we have further questions, which may come up. We'll communicate and the process for the committee on the whole is after we hear all presentations, we'll have a public hearing in December after which the committee will deliberate similar to last year's. So both again. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I see that is in the audience, Holly. And the next. Presentation is the town of Amherst reporting housing development funds. So without further ado, thank you for waiting patiently, Nate. The floor is yours. Sure. Thanks. Yeah. I'm Nate Malloy. I'm a planner with the town. And so, you know, the town has put in a request for affordable housing, pre-development funds, 275,000. And, you know, Dave mentioned that the, the trust is, you know, part of the town, but there's a few key differences. One is the trust is statutorily enabled to bank CPA funds without a specific project. So it's one of two entities in the CPA legislation that they can acquire funds to capitalize themselves. Typically an entity like the town even has to request CPA funds for a project that's more defined or specific. So in our proposal, we mentioned municipally owned properties. We mentioned strong street, the former VFW site, the South Amherst campus. And there's a few other municipal properties. And so really what the town is doing is requesting funds to provide affordable housing on municipally owned property. So it is slightly different than how the trust can operate with CPA funds. And Dave mentioned that, you know, there are gaps. And so typically affordable housing projects don't, they can apply for pre-development funds from their, their, the bigger subsidy agents, subsidizing agents. And so there's a few that will provide it. Usually they will seek local funds to get pre-development funds and then they leverage that with a match. And so oftentimes it's at their expense or, you know, valley CDC or wayfinders, for instance, will apply to the town for CPA funds or trust funds to work on pre-development funding. We're taking that initiative and doing that this year because, you know, wayfinders is working on their East street, Belcher town, road property, valley is moving through permitting on Ball Lane. But after that, there aren't any projects that really are concrete right now. There are some municipal properties, you know, the VFW needs to get moved along, but we often say that from concept design to someone moving in, can be five years. And so it takes a while to get a project through, you know, funding, through permitting, through everything. And so really we're trying to have projects moving along at different points in the process. So there's always a project coming and, you know, not having a three year gap. And that's really important. I think there's a number of priorities in town. There's senior affordable housing. There's homelessness. There's transitional housing. There's housing for families for individuals. And so there's a bunch of different housing types that are needed at different income levels. And really we're hoping the pre-development funds will be able to jumpstart projects and then leverage other funds. And so often, so for instance, with Valley at North Hampton road, we were able to put in some CPA money and block grant money for pre-development funds. And then they were able to also get CP, some, some pre-development funds from other quasi public state level organizations. But if our local funds weren't there, they probably wouldn't have secured those other pre-development funds. And so really it is about matching funds and leveraging funds. And that local piece is really important. So local funds indicate a support for the project, even if it's just pre-development funds, then permitting can be another level of support. But to have some financial skin in the game, as you'd say, is really important for a developer. They know that the town is serious. And so we can actually move a project along the point where maybe the property has already been assessed. There's been a survey. There's wetlands. You know, there could be concept plans. And so they can come in and maybe we've already established a program for the site like we did at Belcher town road. You know, the housing trust in the town worked together to determine kind of the number of units, the amenities. We developed a request for proposals. And then there was a public procurement process that chose wayfinders. And so really we were able to, you know, get that product to a point where, you know, there'd been public meetings, public forums. There were concept designs developed. And all of that was to get the housing going. And so what we've requested is funding to really do that on a number, you know, three to five properties at our town on right now. Thank you, Nate. Sure. I'd like to open. Open it up for the committee or any questions or comments. For Nate or for the committee. I see a hand. Doug, thank you. Donate. Why 275, why not 375? Why not a million? Sure. Yeah. It's that it feel, that number makes it feel like. You actually have some specific. They mind and you've kind of worked out some. You know, a ballpark budget for some things. Yeah, I think in the proposal was mentioned that, you know, we're envisioning that even at the VFW, it could be a hundred thousand dollars for architectural and engineering plans and strong street. It's a 13 acre property off of strong street that the town acquired through tax title a number of years ago. Maybe it can yield six, maybe 10, maybe 12 units. It's something that's been slowly assessed. But, you know, to really examine that, we would need to do some more engineering studies. We would need to look at utilities. You know, what could happen there. And so we have some ideas of, you know, how much money those contracts would cost. I mean, I think. Sure, half a million, but I think just realistically 275 is a number that, you know, like I said, it could, it can move with three projects ahead. And then, you know, if in two years the town says, wow, this was successful, maybe we'd come back again. We're not trying to capitalize a bank account like the housing trust. So we're not just asking for a large amount. I would, you know, remain to be allocated. We're saying, okay, we have 275. We're really going to target it to, you know, a few projects or a few studies or needs. And so, you know, could it be different? Sure. But I think, you know, 275 seems reasonable. Bob. Yeah. Again, sort of a beginner question here, but so these, this number is actually targeted towards specific projects. It's different than the trust where the trust is sort of, there's uncertainty and they're attempting to be prepared for uncertainty to become concrete. You've got concrete projects identified. And so they go into your bailiwick instead of the trust. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, the trust may end up being a partner or provide funding if necessary. But like I mentioned, the CPA legislation allows the trust to receive CPA funding for community housing without a specific project. And so it's just to capitalize the housing trust. They still have to follow CPA guidelines when the funds are, are expended. But for instance, the trust could, you know, have, you know, $800,000 from CPA in their account over a number of years of making requests and then they could field proposals, you know, to provide rental subsidy to support the development of senior housing, affordable housing, to develop rental units. And so it's really, they have that flexibility, whereas we're looking at, you know, like I mentioned, a few municipally owned properties, we'd like to assess and really determine how to move those forward for affordable housing. Thanks. Matt? Yeah. I guess the distinction is, is what you said. Basically it, we could just give the money to the affordable housing trust and delegate to them how it gets distributed. Or we can make the choice here in this committee. Right. Well, I think the, you know, one thing about the housing trust is, you know, they don't need to go through an annual cycle to, to take a vote of funding, right? So even tonight at the meeting doors is putting her, is putting her a proposal in for transitional housing subsidy. And the trust could vote on it tonight or next meeting. And then the funding becomes available pretty quickly. Otherwise you'd have to follow the annual CPA cycle. And the difficulty there is, you know, proposals are due in the fall and funding isn't available to the following July. And so oftentimes a project can't wait a year to receive funding. And so for the town, that's not necessarily a problem, right? The funding can become available in July and we'll start working on contracts, you know, over the next six, eight months. And so the difference being the housing trust, if they have money available, they can spend it on a project, you know, through a vote of their board. Bob, do you have another question? I see your hand is up. No, okay. Nate, I have a question for you. I see that in the proposal that references funding 10 to 15 professional contracts in varying ranges. And there's also a number of different projects, but there's also potential projects referenced where the funds might apply. In terms of prioritization, what kind of timeframe would you anticipate a need for the various professional contracts? Is it perhaps a two year cycle? Where maybe in the first year there would be, you know, six different ones. In terms of how that might roll out, I recognize the flexibility that it can provide, but I'm curious what's imminent versus near term versus soon. Yeah, you know, we, Dave mentioned, I think, I thought someone mentioned that we know the town hired with, you know, CPA funding and trust funding, a part time housing coordinator, associate planner position. They just started this week. And so the hope is that, you know, adding capacity to staff that next year, you know, the CPA funding I mentioned, it could be over a two year period. So, right, the idea would be to get a few contracts going in the first year and a few in the second. So there's some remaining ARPA funds for the, for 457 Main Street, the former VFW site. Although that may not be enough to really, you know, get more than concept design, demolition and concept design. And so the CPA funding would really be, you know, hopefully we could direct it there, whatever is needed, you know, whether that's more site preparation, getting it ready for a developer to hire someone to do concept studies in terms of how it would be programmed. You know, what's, what is the model there in terms of shelter, transitional housing services. And so some of that might be, you know, hiring a firm or a team that really looks at sites like that and, you know, knows the model and provides services to develop that. Strong Street, as I mentioned is something where we've had wetlands delineated, natural heritage, where species assessed, but there's still some utility and engineering work that needs to be done to determine really what happens on that site. And so to me, that's another one to look at. The South Amherst campus is just something that's, you know, really in the early phases, but again, that could be, you know, an appraisal, a survey, assessments of the building. Are they feasible to be reused? And so, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, four to five contracts in the first year and four to five in the second year, some might be small contracts. So, you know, if we're doing an appraisal or a building assessment, that might be shorter in duration where if we're doing, you know, there might be overlapping contracts. And so at the same time, we could be doing something else on that site where, you know, doing, say, for instance, wetlands or, or another type of, you know, reporter study. Thank you. I'd have a follow up question as well. I'm sure you're, you and the planning stuff are extremely busy with everything that's going on in the town through the last X number of years. I'm curious though. I saw the reference to the South Amherst school location that's near and dear to me, of course, to a number of folks in South Amherst. I'm wondering how. Or what process to town might have gone through to select the varying locations for potential housing develop and have they also has the town also considered other types of developments for these locations, such as a community center at a place such as a school in South Amherst, I realize it's housing we're discussing, but I'm wondering about the general process of identifying options and. Yeah, yeah. So the town has a disposition policy, you know, a surplus property policy. And so although we'd be looking at housing, it hasn't been, it doesn't preclude any other assessments. And so it could be that, you know, the town would have to spend some money to assess the building and do, you know, kind of just a basic level assessment that would inform whether it could be reused for housing or another purpose. The, and, you know, there is a process by which it would be chosen for housing. And so it could be that other uses are also looked at. And it doesn't. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't assess it though, you know, for housing at the time. The other ones, you know, 457 Main Street and Strong Street are really for those purposes. And that's what it's been outlined for. You know, the South Amherst campus agreed. It really hasn't been, you know, selected as a housing site. It's just something that given its location, its size and that it's not being used for what, you know, it's not really being used right now. That was just, you know, something that's been looked at. Is there potential overlap that a study could be viable for alternative uses at a site such as that? Yeah. So for instance, if we're looking at a site and we're doing, you know, a wetlands determination, any hazardous materials or environmental assessments, that could aid in housing or can aid in other uses. You know, it's something that has to be done. Affordable housing, typically when they get state or federal subsidies, they have to do a really thorough property assessment, both everything from, you know, noise, pollution, soils, water, air. And so typically we can start that with pre-development funds. A developer then has to almost do, I wouldn't say do it all over again, but they have to do a really thorough job. And so typically CPA funds can, like I said, they can start the process and then they can be leveraged to seek other funds. So, you know, the CPA funds that could be used here, you know, there, it's a, you know, it'd be a public report that others could use too. Thank you, Nate. We're getting close to timeframe. I appreciate the presenters waiting in the audience. We'll get to you shortly. Doug, I saw your hand up for a little bit here. Yeah. Just a quick question. I realized I don't know exactly what property on strong street you're referring to. Sure. So if you're heading east on strong street, you go over the railroad tracks and you're going up the hill and on your right, it looks like there's a private drive. There's four homes off of it. And in the back there, it's 13 acres. It abuts the railroad tracks west and on the east. It's on the top of the Noel and, you know, it's bounded by other property. So. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. It's wooded right now. You know, if you, you wouldn't know what it was, if you drove by it, it looks like it's a private drive, but it. Dave. Yeah, just a quick follow up Sam to your question to Nate about properties like the South Amherst campus or a strong street. Part of what we do in planning and working under Paul Bachman's guidance and direction is. Yeah. He would like us to look at a number of different alternative uses. So. Two examples when we look at the South Amher, the former school on the South Amherst campus or, or even Hickory Ridge property, we'll be looking at multiple options there. As Nate said, staff will not determine those options. We may make recommendations to the town manager. He will then in the coming months or next few years, make recommendations to the town council as to how we proceed. Because housing is a stated. High priority for the town. I will say that in most of my discussions and meetings. When we look at those sites, we, we lead with housing. You mentioned a community center. I will say that the direction we've gotten from the town manager is, and we know from the town council and votes of our residents that it is very clear that, you know, we're building a new school. So, I think it's likely to move forward on a library and the next two projects in line or a DPW and a fire station, maybe not in that order, maybe in the reverse order. So we, we look at all of these properties and have looked at all of them with those, with those facility needs in mind. Hickory Ridge certainly could support a, a fire station. It is not the available frontage and buildable land could not support a fire station. So we're looking at that. But so definitely because of the high priority for housing, as Nate mentioned, even senior affordable housing, we often lead with that. But again, it doesn't preclude us looking at a property for multiple uses. I will just say realistically, I certainly can't see us adding to that capital list of large projects in the next five to 10 years. But I'm just one voice and one staff member. Thank you, Nate, for taking the time and waiting. I know there's another session coming up and you're pulled in many directions in the evening, in addition to the day. Before you depart, is there anything else you'd like to say? No, with the next presentation, you know, for the East Amherst study, I can, if Nancy's here to present on behalf of Steve Blum and the committee, I could also help. So I'll just remain available. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Nate. And I'd like to go ahead and invite the next presenter. Into the audience, Nancy Retner. And this is for the East Amherst local historic district study committee. Nancy, I can see you and hopefully you can hear us. Thank you for waiting patiently and thank you for your thorough application. I'd like to open up the floor to you. We will not curtail your presentation based on our delayed starting time. Okay. Thank you for having us. Nate is here as well. He can add, I think, to what I have to say. Mostly, I think you've already seen the application that Steve put in, but what we're talking about is the center of East Amherst, which was, which is probably historically the most important part of town. It is the original part of Amherst. It was called East Hadley originally. The houses that we're talking about are nearly all pre-Civil War. It's historically of enormous importance. And so we would like to turn this into a local historic district just to protect that area and keep it maintained the character that it has now. I think Steve has probably answered most of your questions, but I'd be happy to respond to any questions you have about it. And Nate may want to supplement what I've said. I'll just jump in quickly to say that, you know, the state, the Massachusetts Historical Commission outlines a pretty rigorous process to designate an area as a local historic district. And so it involves inventorying and researching every property and properties that are outside the boundary. So they really want to know how did you determine the boundary? What's the significance of the properties? And then as the district as a whole, and then, you know, you have to do a survey to residents. You need to, we already have a bylaw in place. That makes it a little easier, but you have to submit a preliminary study report, refine it, do some more outreach and work in the community, and then submit a final report to the Massachusetts Historical Commission. So, you know, they often say it takes a year to do this, and maybe that it takes, you know, six to eight months if you, you know, more members of the commission volunteer, but it is a process. It's not as if it's something that could happen in a week or two. It really does involve research and outreach and, you know, the property owners within the potential district. I can just add that when we did the Lincoln Sunset Historic District, we had three trained historians to help us. And unfortunately, we're not in that position anymore. So the process of having to go into Northampton to the city hall and research a lot of these properties, it's going to be a fairly time consuming process, we imagine. We just to give you some sense of what we're talking about though, we're talking about the original post office for Amherst, which was in part of the building in this area. A tavern where important historical decisions were made. With regard to the Shays Rebellion. It's just historically a really interesting area. Okay. I guess I'll open it up for questions and comments. From committee members, I see two hands up at present three now. I don't, I didn't see who raised their hand first. So I'll go left to right, Tim. Yes, I apologize if this was in the application, I frankly don't remember. For the other historic districts in town, did they ever receive CPA funding to help study the viability and the necessary needs for their districts? Yeah, so the Sunset Lincoln group received a grant of $5,000, but as I said, we had three trained historians who were working for free on that project. So we didn't need the same amount of help. Bob. Yeah, this might be outside the boundaries of the meeting, but for the property owners who are, I can't remember the term. Is it incursion? They're, they're non significant buildings. What are the implications if the historical district is put in place? Are there anything that they're overly concerned about since they're not historical buildings? So anyone who wants to make changes to the exterior part of the building would need to come before the local historic district to do so. It's only what you can see from the street and we've already made decisions that to keep some things out of that so that you can change the roof without having to come to the local historic district. You can put in, I think you can put in a mini split as long as you do things in a particular way. Nick can add something about that. So we've made a few changes that make it easier for homeowners and I think we're a pretty reasonable committee, but we try to keep the changes that are made be in the same basic style as they were before they, they come to us. So, so if you're a vinyl sided raised ranch. To a unit building, you can still be a vinyl sided raised ranch to a unit building. Absolutely. There's nothing going to happen to that, that building. Yeah, I was going to say that the local historic district, you document every property, you know, with photographs and an architectural description and it doesn't mean that we're trying to return buildings to a period of significance. So it's not like, oh, well, these are all 1820 buildings. We want them to look like they're 1820 buildings, although they could. So write a mid century building, although non contributing to the district, you know, could, you know, still maintain its, you know, mid mid mid century look. The importance though of having it in the district is that mass historic likes a, you know, a congruous district without taking out these properties because it could impact the rest of the district, for instance. So if say they want to demolish the house and build something else, then the district is in place to say, okay, what is the massing scale or architectural style? And so, you know, you wouldn't exclude any of those, even though they might not be, you know, they're more contemporary than the rest of the district. And so, but we're not asking homeowners or requiring them to make them look historic. They can be maintained as they are at the adoption of the district. Thanks. Robin. Hold on a second. I just wanted to say that first of all that as the chair of the historical commission, I wanted to underscore the importance of research like this fulfilling one of the main charges of local historical commissions, which is to continue to build and update the historic inventory through the inventory forms, form beads that go into the macro system. So an added advantage of creating the local historic district is that part of the community's historic inventory will be updated and or increased. I had a question. I think there was a proposal from a consultant in there. Is that the consultant that you've chosen? Or is there an RFP process? We have had discussions with that person and we would like to work with him. He seems to be very knowledgeable and reasonably priced. Quickly though, given the estimate, we'd have to seek three, three quotes. But, you know, we have to solicit something and then it may be that, you know, only one, one consultant or one, there's one response. But, you know, we use that, that individual to get an estimate for what the work would cost. So, you know, we would like to, you know, get an estimate for what the work would cost. And then we would like to, you know, get an estimate for what the work would cost. Okay. Okay. Okay. Michelle. Yeah, thanks. I just want to. Confirm this is, is this only in regards to the buildings. Present within the historical district. And I guess specifically I'm asking about the common. In the center of it and what protections or restrictions are there. And I forget the name of the committee, but there is interested in making that intersection and pathways and bikeways more safe for the new school and trying to encourage, you know, non vehicular transportation through that intersection. So buses, scooting, biking, walking. And I'm just wondering if at all of this would have any impact on that. And, you know, I understand probably not the facades of buildings, but I'm just wondering if, you know, if there's any impact on that. And if anybody needed to add a bike lane, so kids could go safely to the new school. Does this have any implications for that? I don't believe so. We really are only concerned with buildings. And. Personally, I would welcome. Exactly what you've described. So yeah, I don't see, you know, if you wanted to put a building on the common, we would have a concern about that. But not. Yeah. The town common is protected by state law. And so, you know, I don't know what buildings can be, you know, constructed on it anyways. There's two, two legal provisions there, but a local historic district is really. Structures are the built environment on private property. And so the common as part of the right of way, you know, typically isn't under jurisdiction of the local historic district. So, and, and anything on the ground plane is usually exempt from review. So, you know, it's not under review by the commission. So bike lanes or, you know, You know, any kind of pedestrian or circulatory network is not. Usually under review by the commission. Yeah, I, I, I realize this is not really a hearing on creating a local historic district. I am in support of the documentation and the research on these, on these buildings. But I guess I did want to ask. Some at some point, and this is might as well be now. Our local historic districts once established. Perpetual. Or does the town leadership have the option to. You know, De-certify or whatever the word would be. To alter their boundaries at some point in the future. If it does. Decided that something needed to change. Thank you. I'll defer to Nate on that one. Yes. So it is a local. You know, a local decision. You know, it would have to be. You know, you'd have to work with the Massachusetts historical commission, but there are ways to amend boundaries to shrink them, to move them to a large district. So there is a process by which. Districts can change. I think Doug, you're asking if it could be removed altogether. And. I think that could be possible. I think there might be some. You know, some discussion with the Massachusetts historical commission and local boards and committees. And residents, why that would, you know, why someone would want that, but I think it is a local decision to, you know, to change those boundaries. I have a question for Nancy or Nate. Thank you for the application with all the thorough documentation. If I understand it correctly, you're doing research on properties to prepare for applications. And I understand that there's a local historic district. There's also. There are local districts. There are local districts. And I understand that there's a local historic district. There's also, there are, there also are national. Historic districts. As well as inventories in the state. I didn't read the entire application. This afternoon. But could you. Is the intent to commence with a local historic district to then be in a position. To present it further beyond that. Or is this really to gather, do the research. To have the resources available to the town, historic commission and elsewhere. And stop with a local have, have you thought beyond. The immediate volume of work in front of you. Well, to the best of my knowledge, our local historic district has not thought about this in terms of anything beyond just being a local historic district. The idea of this district did come to us from the town manager. Who pointed us to this particularly interesting district. And whether he has other plans for it, I couldn't say, but, you know, I'm not aware of any plans to do anything other than making this into a local historic district, which is a fairly big undertaking in itself. Yeah, I was going to say that it's already a national historic register district. And so the properties were inventory. In a, you know, district form was submitted and it's, you know, approved by, by the Massachusetts historical commission. It's now at the, at the federal level. But that's, that's an honorary designation. And so, you know, local historic district is more regulatory in its review. I think as Robin mentioned, it's really important to actually have the research and the documentation on these structures. So what was done previously sometimes was, you know, a long line description of the architecture or it was a very, a very simple description of the, you know, the social or cultural significance of the property in Massachusetts. The historical commission now really requires a much more thorough dive into the deed research and to, you know, the properties in the area. And they want, you know, a more extensive bibliography. And so, well, the process will have, you know, 40, 30, 50, whatever inventory forms that are really well done with research with documentation of the property. You know, once it's, once those inventory forms are sent to mass historic, it's uploaded on the publicly available macros. It's a database. It's, they'll be approved and they'll be on there. And then, you know, I'm not really sure that it would be used for anything else right now, but, you know, just having that information is really important and can lead to the creation of the district. And it's, if I heard you correctly, it's the identical boundaries of the district that is currently the honorary designated ones from the national. Yeah, that's the starting point. And so the Massachusetts historical commission, you know, last will, why that? And we can say there's already been a justifiable boundary, but ideally you'd look at properties along the periphery and decide, you know, what, you know, does it move a property or two here or there? And so that's, that's part of the process is really defining those boundaries. But we're starting with the, the national register district. Thank you. Are there questions from other questions from or comments from committee members? Or staff? Nancy, is there anything or Nate, you'd like to add to No, just to thank you for considering this application and thinking about just how beneficial it would be to be able to get all of this research done. Thank you, Nancy. I know you were filling in for Steve, who is probably at the moment, across continent or actually across the Atlantic. Thank you so much for taking the time and for presenting and submitting a thorough application and for your help. And we may or may not have further questions that we would email to you. And I guess we're good to go to the next presentation. Thank you again, Nancy. And Nate, I believe you're the applicant. Designated contact on the next presentation. I guess you're the, the person. Sure. Many, many months this evening. Yeah. So for everyone again, let me just communicate to those who are listening. The next application. Is for. Amherst. And it is the. Restoration of the North and South cemeteries. Thank you, Nate. Oh, sure. Yeah, I was going to say that. So yeah, the town we've. The town through in gosh, I think it's been about 10 years has really focused on West cemetery in downtown. We've had a number of headstone projects. The town tomb has been restored. But the North and South cemeteries have not had that same kind of treatment. And so a few years ago, we did have the Pioneer Valley planning commission. Assess those cemeteries document the stones and photographs. And in determining that there is a lot of need there. They're, you know, they are both historic cemeteries. You know, 200 years old. And that, you know, the stones are really, you know, there's a number of stones, at least 100 stones in each cemetery that need restoration repair. And so this proposal seeks to, to restore and preserve 125 stones in each cemetery. So 125 in North cemetery 125 and South cemetery. There's also monuments and other larger. Structures that could be repaired that they cost more. So we've had work in West cemetery recently where the average cost per stone is, we could say it's $400. It does, you know, that's an average. So if a stone is intact and it just needs to be reset, it can be reset manually. If it's broken, it will need to be fixed. Sometimes they need to have new footings and then larger monuments may need equipment and other things to restore them and stand them upright. And so that to fix a larger monument can be a few thousand dollars that actually becomes a much, you know, a much higher price tag. And it's also involves cleaning and, you know, taking off any growth. And so often not only does, you know, physical damage to the stone occur if they're broken or they fall, but also, you know, different growths and things on the stones will deteriorate the stones and actually cause them, you know, the lettering to become illegible. And so part of the work is actually cleaning the stones. It's a series of treatments using special solutions. And so it's applied over a number of times and that will clean and whiten stones, you know, what typically the stones are made out of soft material, softer material. And so they do a road over time. Additionally, we're looking at removing the fencing. And so as was noted in the application, South cemetery used to just be delineated by hitching posts, granite hitching posts. I'm pretty sure North cemetery had something similar. It wasn't documented in some of the research. There was some reference to they started off at the same time and they had some of the same treatments in terms of landscaping. And so really from the town's perspective, it would be beneficial to not have a chain link fence around North cemetery or there's remnants of a barbed wire fence around South cemetery and go back to what was, you know, historically there, granite markers. And it would reflect the aesthetic of the, of the cemeteries. And honestly, it's easier in the long run in terms of maintenance and costs. And so, you know, the proposals for headstone restoration and for fence removal. And then marker installation. Thank you, Nate. I'd like to. Assuming you're. Okay. With it, like to open it up to questions or comments from committee members. I see a hand up, Robin. Um, Nate. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I don't know if these cemeteries have been documented in Mac graphs. Yeah, they are, they're older. So the, you know, similar to like East Amherst, they were documented years ago. The forms are somewhat incomplete. The Pioneer Valley Planning Commission looked at them in the early 2000s with photographic documentation, but there's no, you know, historical research. There's some historical research done just on the cemetery in general. Okay. They look like those older forms that are like a few lines and type written lines and not much else. They added to it. They've actually added to it. Bonnie Parsons had worked at PVPC as their preservation planner did do a little more research. So there is a bit more narrative that was added. Yeah. Michelle. I think I was last with a hand up, but I'm afraid I didn't see them. Okay. I'm, um, since I'm already unmuted, I guess I'm just curious about, um, I mean, four to $500 a stone with public money that just for me seems like a strange use of funds. Like I, you know, I'm not a single family person and I understand their aesthetic and I understand the history, but, um, do you have, can you give like a, a two second on like pitch on why that is good use of public funding to fix a gravestone and secondary to that? Like I did ask about the, the trust or the, it's a non-wasting endowment that goes into, into buying that grave site. And there is funding available for that, but it hasn't been used. So I'm curious about the use of those funds and what the plan is going forward. If there's no more space and is this going to be sort of a perpetual CPA ask if there's no more, um, endowment money for maintaining the grave stones. Sure. I think the, the, you know, the headstones, like I said, are the, you know, some of them are 200 over 200 years old. And so it's really, it's beyond, you know, maintenance, what town staff would do. So really you hire a qualified contractor to restore the stones. And I think, I think it is really important. So cemeteries, you know, played a role in terms of open space, in terms of, um, you know, recognizing the community. And so in the inventory forms, they noted that, you know, both were pastors. So, you know, traditionally they were raising grounds, even when they were cemeteries and they served, you know, communal aspects. And so understanding that part of the history where they're located in the village centers, all that makes, you know, cemeteries as integral to, you know, community as a town common. And so, you know, in other instances, if it's a private cemetery, it may not. But, you know, in Amherst, we have Wildwood Cemetery, which is actually an Olmstead design. And it's very park-like. And so that is a unique cemetery. If it was something that was different, it was a private cemetery. And it was more modern. It may not have the same kind of, you know, historical significance as these cemeteries in Amherst. And so I think there is value to keeping the cemetery available for public education, for learning. And so it's, you know, the stones themselves are, you know, have to be taken with care. And so it's not as if you could just go in there and get some epoxy from Home Depot, fill the crack, you know, put it together and stand it up. You have to use, like I said, special materials designed for those types of stones. And it takes a qualified consultant to, you know, someone to do that. You know, I will say when we did the recent work at West Cemetery, there are fewer and fewer people who are qualified to do this work. And so the people we are using at a low-level memorial, they're bidding on projects in, you know, in Nantucket and Vermont and New Hampshire. There used to be a firm out of the Berkshires. And one of their kind of principles has retired. And so it's actually harder to find someone who is qualified and has the skills to work on, you know, different stones that are, you know, 200 years old. And so, but I do think it is worthwhile. And so the, to me, the price actually is not, not that bad considering it's all manual and it's, you know, all skill-based. There is a second part of the question, which is the funding that's available that hasn't been... Sure, the funding, yeah. So the cemeteries are maintained by the Division of Trees and Grounds through Public Works. And so the funding there, I think is really to be used for what wouldn't be considered, you know, the historic preservation work. And so I'm actually not... I can't speak to it that well in terms of your question, you know, what could that be funding to be used for? You know, why hasn't it? Or what could they do in the future with it? And so I think, you know, it is something to ask, you know, how do we, how do they manage that? Because you don't want to deplete the funding there. It needs to be a perpetual fund for the maintenance and, you know, routine maintenance and everything with the cemeteries. And so, you know, they've been trying to maintain that balance. So they are using that $113 balance in some way, but just not for gravestone restoration? That would be my understanding. And I, you know, I can't say for sure I'd have to ask Alan, Snow or Amy how they've been using that. But it wouldn't be for restoration. Thanks. Bob? Yeah, I'm not really up to speed on cemetery law, I guess, but I'm just curious when, when the town either, does the town accept payment for these cemetery plots? Yes. So you have to purchase a private plot. Okay. And, and so do they then assume an obligation to maintain it within a certain, you know, I guess criteria for the, for the gravestones as well as the actual piece of land? Is there an obligation that goes along with that? Sure. Yeah. So, you know, in West cemetery, there's a newer section with headstones that are, you know, you know, from the 20th century and more recent. And so those families, if those are active plots, you know, the families are really, you know, the town would ask, would reach out to those, those plot owners first. Some of these plots are so old, they, they're considered abandoned. And so, you know, trying to locate the next of kin from someone from, you know, 18, 1850s, you know, that's, it's long been abandoned and it's assumed by the town to be maintained. So it's not, you know, I, there is, you know, there is a, I don't know, there's a, you know, some statute of limitations, right? I don't know if it's 20 years or 10 or 40, but at some point, the town would go through a process of trying to notify the owners and, you know, through that process, it then becomes abandoned and it becomes the responsibility of the town. But there is a, a legal process for that. Tim. Yes. If we have limited funds, do you have a priority, whether you'd spend which money to be spent on the headstones or the fencing? Oh, I would say the headstones. You know, like I mentioned, that, that's a, you know, more of a skilled craft. And it's something that, you know, you don't really want volunteers doing. And so it actually, as I remember years ago, we actually had volunteers from UMass who said they would come in and clean stones in West Cemetery. I think this was like 10 or 12 years ago. And fortunately, there was a conservator there the day they were trying to do it. And he said, absolutely not. They, the way they were going to go about it, say with wire brushes, trying to scrub off lichen on marble would just ruin the stone. And so it's really not something you would have volunteers do. So even a few years ago, I had offered to try to, you know, leverage the services of the consultant asking, could you train like me, you know, or a volunteer or two? They said it's really not something you can do in an hour or two and train someone. And so, you know, really we're, you know, the funding is used to hire the expertise of someone who knows how to restore and preserve the stones. Robin. So I just wanted to comment on the concept of the graves themselves and particularly their inscriptions being worthy of preservation. And they did a good job of talking about the land itself. And I was trying to think of an analogy that the words that we use in preservation are significance and integrity. And so the cemeteries have already been deemed significant, historically significant, but integrity relates to how much of the loss of the historical, historical fabric you have. So if you have a house that doesn't really read as, as the kind of structure that it was built before it's lost its integrity. And so I was trying to, I was trying to, I was trying to, I was trying to lose, um, blue to lose the gravestones over time in that way, diminishes the integrity of, of the graveyard as a whole. So I was trying to think like if you had a Victorian house with a porch, then you'll have the porch to deteriorate to the point that it had to be removed. That building would lose a lot of its historical integrity because those items are related to each other. And the材j is related to settlement patterns. And so it all kind of comes together. Um, when, when gravestones pass into a point where they become historically significant and are not just something that belongs to a family. Thank you, Robin. Michelle. Yeah, I just want to follow up. Um, I think that the sort of the public commons aspect of the graveyard, you know, resonates a lot. And same with the ones in town, which, you know, I grew up in Amherst and it was places that I, you know, found refuge and I think a lot of people enjoy birding in the Wildwood Cemetery and that's all great. So having the fence removed seems like a good way to sort of open it up back to that Olmstead sort of public good public common way, but I understand that might not be a great priority and just what is sort of the public access and involvement to the cemetery right now? Or does anybody go to it? Is it, you know, is there any PR to say, hey, we have this historical resource? And then lastly, just that there are new plots being sold in the West Cemetery that could potentially in 20 or 50 years go into just abandonment and, you know, the towns need to maintain them. That seems, you know, kind of like a red flag. Like this is a known cost that's going to be the burden to the town. Is there any, you know, conversation about, you know, changing the way that that's funded in the long term so that CPA and like, you know, 50 years isn't having this same conversation. And that's probably a bigger question, but it's hard for me not to ask it because it's on the table with these 100 year old ones. Yeah, I mean, I would say that, you know, at least stones being installed today should be able to last for 100 years without a lot of maintenance. And so, you know, what we're looking at are stones that were hand card, you know, they might not have been very deep etchings, you know, the actual marble or slate or different stones were softer. And so the stones that are being installed today, you know, they're putting on, they're put on bases. So they're elevated above the ground, you know, they're not directly buried. And so often, you know, older stones would be direct buried, they would just take the slab and put it in the ground. And then the frost will break it out the ground. The lettering, you know, is not very deep. And so then it arose with weather. The stones today are put on a base and then the actual monument itself is raised above the ground, and it's protected from all that freezing and thawing. And so, you know, I think the, I don't want to call it technology, but the knowledge of how to have a stone stay, you know, be maintained or last longer is being employed now. But I, you know, I do think that, you know, your point about what kind of the future maintenance program is important. I think that, you know, these older stones just, you know, they, you know, that wasn't a consideration, right? And when they were installed. And so, you know, I think in those cemeteries, there's a lot of granite in West Cemetery. I think there was like five types of stones, but they're all the type of stone that, you know, is susceptible to weather, to freezing and thawing, to other things in West Cemetery or in North and South Cemetery. The, you know, I think it's two or three materials for the stones, but the same thing they're, you know, they do, they do kind of erode over time, right? They, you know, they don't maintain their lettering and legibility as well as stones being used today. Nate, I have a question regarding the fencing removal in the North Cemetery. Your comment regarding the UMass volunteers and the potential for destruction of the West Cemetery makes sense having walked through it. Although I wonder if that potential for destruction could be deployed effectively in the demolition of a cemetery of the fence in the North. And I guess the question is, do you know how those types of fences are removed? That is to say, does someone come in with a backhoe and lift them up or are they dug by hand both? And or is that something that might be able to be accomplished via alternate means from external external contracting? Sure. Yeah. I think the, I wasn't saying that, you know, it wasn't any fault of the volunteers previously. It was just, you know, and, you know, I've seen them. They're fragile, some of those. Yeah. They are. Yeah. No, the fence, the fence work really, it's going to be done by machine. And so most of those, the posts are probably put in concrete footings that are just too heavy to do, you know, manually. So you would have a machine go in there. You could manually clear around the fence and maybe take out the chain link itself. But the removal of the posts and the structure of it would be done using equipment. And so it's not something that, you know, most, you know, most individuals couldn't do that. You need like a licensed operator to do that. And does the town have such equipment and such operators? It does. I think that, you know, it's beyond what would be, I think we mentioned in the application, typical maintenance. So this would become a project to, you know, deploy, you know, staff and equipment to do that. Yeah. Along with all the other myriad of things that are going on. Thank you. Other questions from members? I thought I saw a hand up from Doug. I'm not seeing you on my screen, Doug, if you're there with a question, please. Yeah. Well, you did for a brief moment. Michelle had brought up the fee structure that's used for new plots at West Cemetery. And I don't think we really heard an answer about that and whether there was any reconsideration of the fees so that they actually last in perpetuity rather than, you know, needing other sources of funding. Yeah, I can answer that. I know, you know, from personal experience, when you buy in a private cemetery, there is, it's a pretty, you know, can be sometimes a significant fee, depending on the number of plots. And then there's an annual fee. I don't know how the town structures that. And so, again, that's something Amy and Alan could speak to. You know, you don't want to have it become a, you know, financial obstacle or barrier for families. So I think, you know, the town probably considers it if it's, you know, a municipal cemetery, you know, what's kind of the reasonable pricing as opposed to a private cemetery. But I think that's something to ask. Are there any additional questions or comments from committee members? Is there anything else you'd like to share with the committee at this time, Nate? No, no, thanks for, you know, we went a little bit over time. So thanks for hearing the presentations and the questions. Thank you for presenting and answering the questions and for sticking around and juggling all the varying projects you have in front of us and elsewhere. I guess we're good for now. There's a chance that we may have additional questions, in which case we would reach out via email. So thank you, Nate. Thanks. Yep. So the next item, would everyone like to take a couple of minute break now or shall we continue? I'm seeing head shaking, no, folks are fatigued. I'm content if no one needs a break now to continue. Holly, the next item on the agenda, I believe, is financial update. I know that you had provided a spreadsheet or a document. Are you there? We can't hear you if you are there. Hang on, everyone. Why don't we take a two minute break? Let's take a two minute break and I'll see if I can get ahold of Holly. We'll start at 7.39. I'm here. Can folks hear me? I can hear you. Oh, everybody's gone. Everybody took a break. I could not unmute for some reason. We had a two minute break. So, Holly, can you hear us for me? Yes, I confirmed that she can hear us and that she could be heard, but then everybody went on a break. Thank you for coming. I stayed here, holding it all together. Thank you. We'll await Holly's return. Sorry. So, I will try to pull it up. Unfortunately, it's... I saw it earlier. Yeah, I have to log into my computer at work so it comes out very tiny on the laptop, so I'm not sure if people are going to be able to see that. There's a chance that I could download it online or I'm not sure. Yeah, if you have the... If you could queue it up and just see, but I don't know. I can see what you have on the screen. I don't know about other members. So, right, but it might be able to be enlarged. This is the same as it was at the last meeting. We still have not received our FY23 state match that we receive in FY24. So again, these are estimated balances at this point with our beginning balance at July 1st of this year, estimated local money that we will take in through the CPA charge on the real estate tax bills, the estimated state match, which would be our FY23 match that we would receive in FY24, adding another $275,000 to that. And then we have to take out the proposals that we've already voted in FY24 or for FY24. And we do currently also have some money that is set aside in a budgeted reserve. So that would be our estimated ending balance of the $686,165. I can't even read it myself. Are you going to place your cursor or your mouse on the section that you're referring to? Oh, that's good. Can I get this to go? So that's the, this is our would be our estimated year end balance for FY24. And since these are FY25 proposals that we're speaking of now, we take that beginning balance and we add in our estimated local tax for FY25, our estimated state match for FY25. And it gives us our available appropriation. We do have debt service on several projects from years past that we are obligated to pay. That's estimated right now at $520,000. So we'll need to take that out. So that would give us a balance of one, about $1.5 million, again, estimated for new projects that can be approved for FY25. Just bearing in mind over here, the state requires a 10% minimum to each of the three categories based on what your estimated revenues are. So 10% we need to make sure that we allocate at least $137,000 to each of the categories. And then below there is what the estimated debt payments are for the projects that are already committed to just so that folks have that. And so right now we have available, or we're estimating, we'll have available approximately $1.5 million. We can decide to use the budgeted reserve we have. That would give us $1.7,000. If we don't use that budgeted reserve and keep that as a reserve for any other projects that come through the pipeline that has to be used by June 30th, 2024, it cannot roll over into FY25 unless we decide to not use it. We'd have the 1, if that makes sense. We have the $1.5 million. So the projects that are proposed right now as they stand are about $2.4 million. So we have a shortfall of $900,000 approximately. These numbers will hopefully soon we will receive our state match. And that number will likely change. Historically it has been higher than that, but we usually are pretty conservative in what our estimate is going to be. So there will likely be a little bit more money available. We also can look at some of the old projects and we'll be looking to get some updates on those. And if there's anything that is not going to be moving forward that can be rescinded and could go back into the available budgets as well. But as of right now, we're estimating a $1.5 million availability for new projects. Thank you, Holly. And in addition, there's the $164,000 that you referenced earlier that is currently budgeted reserve for fiscal year 24. And if we chose to place that into fiscal year 25 by vote, that would become available. That's great. So I have a question for you. I see the state match in 23 and the state match in 24 are both 275. They both say estimate. You are indicating that both of them are going to be somewhat different than what we're assuming there, right? It's not just 241 that's an estimate. It's both years. Well, both years are estimates, but the 241 we'll know about very soon. We can't really estimate out another year from now on what we will get as more and more communities have joined. The CPA, some of that state match has been reduced. We use 25% as a fairly conservative number. This one will be known for FY 24. This one will be known very soon. This one won't be known for an entire year, so we wouldn't change that estimate. But this will become, should be soon coming to the town, and then we'll know exactly what that number is, and we will adjust this. Okay. Thank you. Does do any committee members have questions regarding what Holly has displayed or discussing? I'm not seeing any. I see a hand from Robin. Yeah. I guess maybe we don't usually, I was just curious about the bonding budget. I guess that's something that we can discuss later. We don't need to discuss it now. That's sort of like what the projects we're paying for in debt service to get a sense of what might be comfortable doing a bond, as opposed to a straightforward grant. So I mean, I guess I'm not sure what that question is. The bonding is... It's basically like, I mean, it's this spreadsheet for another meeting. It's just the one where it's like, oh, these, so that you kind of see what peters out over time, like how many payments were left in which projects. So that's summarized right here at the bottom. So these are the projects. And again, these are the projects that are currently funded. The Fort River School Fields has not started yet, so that will be added. So this here is year three of 10, year 10 of 10. These floods will be going away in FY 25. Okay. Robin, are you referring to the implications in future fiscal year? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is FY 25. I can share that one that goes out beyond and into the other years when we get to our decision making. Yeah. But thank you for pointing that out. I'm sorry. I wouldn't have seen the one in 10, three in 10, but I missed that part. Michelle? I was just curious if you had a sense of if there are and how many projects that would be going forward that would reallocate funds into this year's budget, or the FY 25. Yeah. I don't know right off the top of my head. I know we had done a lot of cleanup on there were some old projects that had not moved forward. We've done a lot of cleanup of those. So there's not really a lot out there. I can prepare what the available balances are in other projects at this time, and we can review and see if we want to look to ask folks what their status is and will they be using or are they ready to release? I don't think that there's much out there right now. Dave? I was just going to say that I can work with Holly on that to look at available balance, but I kind of agree with her. I don't think there's a lot out there that's not going to move forward, but we can certainly take a look at that. There are some projects that may have stalled a little bit and see if we can jump start those as well. Yeah. Yes. So in summary for me, walking away, assuming all these numbers, the requests for this year, fiscal 25, exceed the available funds by about 900,000. So we have a challenge. That's correct. Okay. Unless we take one of the sort of back to Holly's question, that Holly potentially one of the larger projects we might elect to bond it, which then lowers the capital price tag, but increases the bonding. So we have to think about that. But for our thinking, we have a challenge of about $900,000 over at the moment. Okay. Thanks. I have a question which Holly, you may or may not be able to respond to at this point in time, but following up on Tim's bonding comment, are there certain projects that were funding requests that would not be eligible for bonding based upon the nature of the project request? I'm thinking, for example, funding for a trust or something along those lines? That is a good question. I don't necessarily think, I just think that the... We don't need that answer now. It's just something that popped into my head, triggered by Tim's inquiry. Yeah. So that is a great question because if it's not... I'm trying to think of how to how to word this. It has to have a useful life that is at least as long as the bonding period. So you can't, same thing with your own finances, you can't buy a vehicle that's expected to last you for five years and bond it or pay for it over 20 years. So it would have to have a useful life that's at least as long as the, you know, a five to 10-year bonding period. So development funds, something like that. I'm not so sure if we would be able to borrow for those because they don't have a necessarily useful life, but I will look into that. Although revitalization of a war memorial area would that more likely be one that would be similar to what occurred with Proctor Farm fields last year, if it was something the committee had an interest in. Are there questions from other questions from committee members or anyone? We seem to have accomplished everything on our agenda and ran a little bit over with projects, but Holly, I want to thank you for putting together the financial proposal on top of all the other things you have going on. I think it's quite helpful, certainly to me, to just get the general indication and I assume to other committee members. We are meeting again next Thursday and then the 30th, the following two weeks thereafter, we're not meeting the week of Thanksgiving. So there'll be an email to members with the agenda and details. Are there any final comments that anyone would like to make before we adjourn? Well, thank you all for being here this evening and I'll see everyone next Thursday. I will adjourn the meeting at 7.55 p.m. Thank you all. Thank you, Sam. Thank you.