 You're muted, Jennifer. I'm sorry. Now we can hear you. I'm sorry. Okay. You're all set, Mandy, please. Thank you. Okay. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I am calling this December 14, 2023 regular meeting of the community resources committee of the town council to order at 431 PM. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022 and extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via 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. The meeting is being audio and video recorded. And at this time I'm going to call the roll to make sure that everyone can hear and be heard. We're going to start with Pat. Present. I am present Pam. Here. Jennifer. Here. And Shalini. Present. That is all five of us. So I'm going to talk. We're going to move right into the meeting. We have no public hearings. I'm waiting for someone else to show up who was, I think maybe not yet. To be here because Kathy Shane is supposed to be here as part of public comment, but we don't have public hearings. I was going to move nuisance house to the end of the agenda and do that only if we get through everything else. And so I was planning on starting with the residential rental bylaw, the regulations, the fee schedule, then the transition memo, although depending on when we would finish fee schedule, going back to nuisance house and then transition memo, I was going to start a little bit with public comment. And then I was going to plan on taking public comment, additional public comment, potentially between each of the items too. Before we potentially vote on any recommendations. That was the plan. It looks like Pam's got a question about that. Pam, I do. Given that people have not sent in comments pertaining to the nuisance bylaw and because the nuisance bylaw has some reference to effect on potential effect on a permit. It seemed to me that it would be great to do exactly the order that you talked about in our agenda, which is to just talk about it first, wrap up any loose ends or conversation about the nuisance bylaw, and perhaps even have a chance to take a vote on whether we would recommend it to town council tonight. And given that if somebody was going to be speaking in for or against or some comments, sounds like Kathy Shaden was going to weigh in, gives her a couple more minutes to get in. And I think her comments probably don't reflect on the nuisance bylaw. We can do that. I don't want to spend, I want to spend the bulk of our time on rental registration today, but we can talk a little bit about the plan for nuisance. And if a recommendation, at least on the bylaw part wants to be made, we can talk about whether to do that today. I'm okay with doing that maybe for the first 10 minutes or so. And if we're not done in 10 minutes, we'll push it off to the end of the meeting if there's time. Does that sound like a plan? Shalini, you had a comment. Yeah, I was just going to say that I don't feel ready that to vote on the nuisance because we have not invited people who are going to be impacted by it, whether it's tenants, residents, or, I mean, we do know residents what they are year-round residents, but we haven't had an opportunity to get real. Tenants or residents too? Yeah, I corrected myself. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry. I corrected myself. I said year-round residents and then, okay, you know what I mean. I do not mean it in that way at all, Pat. And my point is that the people who are really affected, tenants that are low income, they do not have an opportunity to speak up about these issues. So I think we should be hearing from them before we vote on these things. So let's start the conversation with a conversation as to the nuisance bylaw as drafted is in the packet right now. Does this committee on the bylaw, I'm not talking about its relationship to rental registration right now, but on the bylaw at this point, have any requests for changes at this time? And then after we go through that, we will talk about whether it is appropriate to make a recommendation at this time, but let's see if we've got any requests for changes first, Pam. Actually just an affirmation of the notes that were made in the document, especially E4, which is enforcement and number four loss of rental permit that we need to cross-reference references in the registration bylaw to this item. And I'm very comfortable with that. The only other miscellaneous comment in all of this is the one feedback I actually got on nuisance was that someone was feeling that indoor furniture on the front lawn was, including that as an activity that might not violate a specific law, but that disturbs the enjoyment of property, maybe was a little heavy-handed. And I thought if we had a two-minute conversation about the presence or absence of indoor furniture scattered across the front lawn, typically if it remains there for most of the warm weather, if that is worth including in section C, something or other, that would be C2C. And that was my only comment. I was comfortable leaving indoor furniture on the front lawn as an item in there. That was the only point of contention. And then otherwise I was going to strongly support that we go to approve it and send it to council in the new session. Any comments on Pam's thoughts on indoor furniture first? Pat. Yeah, I would like to remove it. It bothered me when it went in. And it just feels uncomfortable. I feel like if there's a couch or a chair that's been put out and it has a sign on free and stays there. No, no, no. Hang on. Letter finish. And it gets wet and, you know, that can be really gross. And if furniture is, you know, if there's a chair on the lawn that's a stuffed living room chair and the people want it there, it's why not? Is this only applying to renters or is this for own? Yeah, it's everybody. So I, but it's an issue of taste and I don't think it's appropriate. I'd like to remove it. Jennifer. So this isn't something we added. That's always been. No, it was nuisance, but it's always been in the bylaw. You're not supposed. Not in nuisance. Nuisance was only gatherings and underage drinking. Everything else has been added. But somewhere it does say, is it the that. I remember Rob saying you're not. It is part of our bylaw that you can't have indoor furniture outside. Rob. I mean, I don't think that's something we added. It's, it's a. Health department requirement. I'm not sure if it's a specific regulation or more of a guidance document that they put out. Interpreting part of the state sanitary code, but it has to do with upholstered furniture specifically, not so much whether it's designed for interior or exterior. We often see, you know, dining, wood dining room chairs out in the yard. And that's not really the issue. It's the upholstered furniture. Thank you. So that would stay. I mean, we're not changing what's. We're just not elevating it to a nuisance. Is that the question? Cause it's already not allowed. If we removed it here, it would not be. I mean, it could potentially still do it because the way this bylaws worded is may include, but is not limited to, right? And so we're, we're listing some certain things as, as sort of, here's what we think could constitute public nuisances, but it's not limited to that. And so if we removed it, the health, you know, the building commissioner or the police could deem it. Still a public nuisance, but it wouldn't be listed here. Right. But it would still be not allowed. Under health regulations. If it was upholstered, correct. Okay. Pat. No, I was just going to say what, you know, what Rob said was about upholstered furniture. If I want to put my dining room table out there, I don't know why I would. I can. And I can take wooden chairs and things like that and put them anywhere I want on my property. So if it, what I was going to say is if it's going to stay in, it needs to clarify that we're talking about upholstered furniture. And I'd rather have it removed. Okay. So Pat wants it removed, but at a minimum changed to upholstered. Other committee members. Thoughts. I'm just going to go survey so we can do this one quickly. Remove, keep or change to upholstered. Pat is remove and then change if necessary. Pam. I would say change it to upholstered. That's fine. Change to upholster. Yeah, change to upholstered. And I can accept that change too. Pat, is that okay for now? We change it to upholstered. Pat shrugs at this point. So I will change it to. Upholstered. Any other specifically requested changes to this document at this time. So we've got about three minutes till I said we'd move on. I'd like to hear about thoughts on whether we should make a vote. Or take a vote on a recommendation today. Pam, I think has already indicated she would like to. Shalini has concerns about doing so. I can speak if Pat or Jennifer are not quite ready to about my thoughts personally, Shalini. Kathy Sheen is in and she's got a handout. We will get to public comment next on nuisance. We're going to finish off with nuisance first, and then we will do general public comment. Well, we'll get this Jennifer. I would feel comfortable taking a vote today. I assume that we were going to. You know, take a vote. Before the end of this council session and then for CRC adjourned. Pat thoughts. I don't care. So, so my thoughts are I would rather hold off on voting on this. GOL will not take it up even if we do vote a recommendation until January. I think that's just the nature of where we are in the system. And given the. Emails we received from landlords. Concerned about in particular being. Sighted or. I don't know what word they were using, but, but regulated for behavior of the tenants and that the nuisance is a public nuisance. I don't think it would be good for us to do a little bit more outreach to both tenants and landlords and have more discussion about. How. This. Relates to the rental registration portion. The part we haven't come up with how to put it. Into rental registration. Personally, I think this part is fine. Except for my concerns about. I now have new concerns about potentially. Suspending permits for a second or third, a third violation of the nuisance property bylaw because of what we've heard since. Many of these are tenant behaviors. Versus what's in here about requiring designating something, a nuisance property and requiring that correction process. I think that is appropriate. The, the third infractions and second infractions with whose responsible is in our current nuisance house bylaw. So we're not changing much there. We're adding a correction process, but the responsible parties are not changing. But the potential loss of a rental permit. I'd like more conversation on and more outreach on personally before we vote on whether to include that in this. After further consideration and hearing from others. So I am. And given that. GOL can't take it up at least for a month anyway. It seems logical to me to keep this within this committee. And have this committee do some of that work early on in the next term before voting a recommendation. So that's where I stand. Jennifer and then shall any. Well, part of the concern is if we have a whole new CRC. Membership, but that's another. That will really. Delay the process of people have to come up to speed after we've been working on this for two years. If it, if we are going to continue and we're going to bring stakeholders in, you know, certainly residents who are not. The tenants. Or the landlords should be part of the conversation. I mean, the kind of backdrop is. Residents who were there year after year. If every year they have to wait till there's. You know, three nuisance calls. And the same owner owns the property year after year. I have seen houses where the owners or the managers are. Have really taken control of the situation so that a house that was a nuisance stops being a nuisance. So I think, and I don't, it wasn't burdensome for either the management company or the property owner. So I think. That that's would be my concern and that we. You know, it starts a fresh each year and for the residents that would air year after year. It's very problematic. And again, I think it's not burdensome for the landlords. To just kind of, you know, set some parameters when they. Least to new tenants in the following year. I just. Having gone through the rental registration process and then. Look, you know, I, I didn't, you know, you know, I had a report that I sent to you all, which was the guide to proactive rental inspections. What I realized for myself, and I think it's true for many others is that. Without listening to different stakeholders. I don't even know what questions to ask. But when I read that guide, and this is what this town is doing. And here are the. Unintended consequences of. Doing this thing. I have like 10 or 20 different questions now about the rental. And my feeling is that in terms of, I understand the frustration of neighbors. And. And which is why this is a very good. Good bylaw to be thinking, but. And I understand the neighbors having or. Resident. What. People are frustrated with. People who are living downtown are frustrated with what's going on. For many years, but the CRC has only been looking at it for what? A year or so. And we do need a good process. In place where we do invite. And. Try to get different feedback. And I think we need to hear more from staff because. Staff is regularly meeting, which I think staff has been here, but. Even more so, we need to. Find a way to really listen to the people who are going to be impacted. And without doing that. I do not feel comfortable that we are creating a policy that's going to protect. Especially the people who are most vulnerable in a town who don't have a voice. Thank you. Pam. And then I'd like to move on to public comment and then rental registration. And we'll come back to this. Okay. I appreciate that. And I really, I really enjoyed. I started to delve into the document that shell on the sentence, which is really great. I think what. The nuisance by-law speaks to me in a way that. You know, it started with the. We had different tiers and then finally the realization that we had. Much of what we wanted in the existing by-law. What we've actually clarified is. Is. Nothing really that changed it. It is that we clarified. What other items. Might be considered. Nuisance is. That again. Already exist in our. By-laws. So it was actually more of a clarification of. The parameters. It was a clarification of. Sort of the enforcement process and then notification and notification was. Is sorely lacking. In the current violence. So. And I felt like those, those elements of it. Which are clarifications rather than changing the existing by-law is. Is what I'm supporting. And it. It seemed. An appropriate first step. In terms of the larger rental registration process. And I felt like. In terms of the larger rental registration process. And. That reason I thought it appropriate to. Put a stamp of. In my, in my case only, but put a stamp of approval on it. And say. APD inspection services. You have your. You have your green light. To operate as you have. Forever. But with some additional clarification. And I would, I would love to see it. Wrapped up in a little bow and put back on the lap of the next council. For that action. And I think it kind of does. We have to kind of agree on the nuisance by-law. If we're going to reference it at all. In the registration rental registration by-law. Thank you. At this time, we're going to move to general public comment. We're going to make public comment. We're going to make public comment. And this is likely not to be the only general public comment period today. We will probably do a couple between. Each of the different sections of residential rental property stuff. But a public comment at this time on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC will be taken. If you would like to make public comment, please raise your hand right now. So that I can get an idea of how many people would like to make public comment. So I'm going to allow an extended public comment of approximately five minutes per person. For this period only. I reserve the right at the next ones to. Go back to a little bit to two or three. But at this time I'm going to allow a little. Extended as I. Do my timing. So I'm going to recognize Renata Shepard at this time. And make your comment. Hi, Renata Shepard justice driving Amherst. So a couple of things. Listening to the furniture in front of the house. When you say a poster, I understand if it's a health. Issue because it could get moldy or rats or whatever it is. There are outdoor furniture that have a poster. But it is. Treated to be outdoors. So just be careful with the wording. If you say a poster, I mean, they could mean anything. Maybe. If it's something outrageous. That will make people sick, but just be careful with the wording. So. You know, somebody's not going to be fined for. Leaving and perfectly good outdoor upholstered furniture. That's supposed to be outdoor. But it's not going to be outdoor. It's not going to be outdoor. It's not going to be outdoor. The other thing is again. When you're talking nuisance, linking that. To. A landlord losing their permit because of. Tenant behavior. And every time you talk about behavior. Unless the landlord is partying with the tenant. The one that. The one that has to be punished for it. If it's a student's related to UMass, then UMass has to deal with disciplinary areas. Or a dean of students. If it is a tenant was not linked with any university, then police. Crest. Somebody. Actually. If it's crass, probably crossed with police because you never know what happens in parties. Well. So please try not to link behavior with loss of revenue for. The people who are trying to make a little bit of a living. Thank you, Renata. Next up is Kathy Shane. Kathy. Please unmute yourself and state your name. And make your comment. It's a new way to be here. I'm willing to show my picture. How do I do that? I'm sure you can the way we do it. Okay. So you get me in front of the waterfall by puffers. Yes. You look very comfortable. Yeah, I know. And it's not this weather right now. So I'm going to make a quick comment on the nooses, which, which I hadn't expected to even. Be thinking about, um, I think it's a mistake to put anything about furniture in. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. For the reasons we're not, it just said, I think anything that's a discretionary. Could get you into a debate on this looks up poster, but it's really not. And if it's already covered, because I think the way the Gestalt of what you're reading. Is there's going to be more going on in a house before there's somebody triggering nuisance. So there's going to be trash. There's going to be. There's going to be a lot of people to corroded cars rotten. And if the health inspector can go and worry about it. Then there's no need to put it in here. So that was just a thought listening to this. My, my mother has some of the upholstered outdoor or my, my mother had, she's not around anymore. So it's just a suggestion and I will say that the council, the other thing is rather than linking it to loss of permit. If there are enough signs that something's going on with the house over all, you might want it to trigger an inspection. It doesn't cross reference. So just thinking about the list of things that you've got that could do. So it's just a suggestion and I will say that the council, the other thing is rather than linking it to loss of permit. You've got that could be a nuisance house, trash, stuff outside, not the noise part. But it's something to think about. So. Talking about now what I did come to talk about. Mandy did a good job of embedding my comments without attribution into your, what you had to read for today. And I'm one. I'm a counselor and a person one. So one of my concerns about the bylaw from the beginning has been that I think there are more tools in the existing inspection box than we're using. And I'd rather push hard on them before going to this type of structure. So I've said that before. So I'm not going to belabor it. I think we could. Given what we know about the outside of the house, a number of nuisance complaints, noise, parting, the number of cars on the lawn that there's going on that warrants an inspection. So it's, it's complaint driven, but it can be the inspector can use it. And I'd rather start that way with a stronger nuisance. This, this bylaw is quite strong. And I think it's a good bylaw to be thinking about. If we go forward with the one you've worked on so hard all year long, or two years as Jennifer just said. What I've been looking for is how can we lower. The time and cost burden on the places that are not, are not a problem, particularly landlords that have a few properties. As far as we know, they're not generating a lot of complaints. They're well managed. So I looked at we've given dispensation for the owner occupied my, and I did it in an Excel spreadsheet to make it work. And Mandy kindly corrected a couple of things in my spreadsheet to try to calculate it. So I'll just describe quickly the change in the fee structure and the inspection fee structure. And then changes in the bylaw. Two changes in the registration fee. One would be for the non-owner occupied properties. Drop the registration fee to 150 and go up to, up to 19 units or 20 units, but the first one is already paying it. You get, you're recouping from the very big places. It means that you'd get $1,100 for the places with multiple units, but you'd lower the cost of rental registration for the people that are just have a few properties. And, and I realize that's lower than the current fee. But I think when I look at what's going to interact with the inspection fee, I'm trying to lower the time and costs. So that's on that fee side. Then on the inspection fee, looking at the way it's set up right now, there's the regular inspection. If you're going back to a place because there's a problem, I think we should charge more for going back. So the places that could put on the one year plan rather than the five year plan, it's likely a more involved inspection, particularly if they're critical health and safety. So it's more time consuming. And it provides an incentive to, to correct the problem that's been identified to stop having to pay the higher fee. So what I looked at is going up to 250 on the more frequent than every five years. So what I call the every five year plan versus the one year or potentially more than once in a year plan. And then to lower the time. On the inspection fee side on the inspectors in the bylaw, or it's the regs, which wherever Mandy will correct me, you have a threshold of starting at 25 is when you start sampling. I see no reason not to start at 10. We're defining 10 or more. You start to sample and it's a 10% sample. So it would be a minimum of 10. I understand this minimum. But the number of inspections you're doing in any cycle. And over the five year period by a pretty dramatic number. It's cutting by two or 300. Inspections because you're not inspecting as many places. So looking at that interaction, I was trying to calculate the total revenue. But if you reduce the number of inspections, you also reduce the inspector cost. And the last point is what I can't do. And then there's some other things that are more language is if we cut the number of inspections dramatically, could we go down to two and a half inspectors? So that's a question to Rob, you know, how much inspector time. Do we save where I'm trying to focus the inspections on the problem places would be the concept. Thank you. Thank you. There are no more hands raised. So at this time, we're going to move to the general by law. Three point five, oh, residential rental property. On the screen. Is the revisions requests. As I best could do it received from counselors. And we're going to work our way through them. And see and discuss them and see. See what. What we're going to do with them. So the first one. Hold on. Yes, Pam. Can we just talk for a second? So we've received. Over the course of the two years, we have received lots of comments. They have generally as best possible than incorporated into this text. We had quite a discussion at town council that. The landlord association would really like to weigh back in. On the conversation. And I think it's, I think it's good if you want to go. You know, line by line here, but it. But it also feels like. It's just, just the beginning again. It's like we are, we, we could easily say these are great comments. We'll put them in. Recognizing that in two or three months, whoever's on the CRC is going to have this conversation again with additional information added. So I don't want to get too locked into. You know, sort of. Weeding, weeding through this and such detail. Recognizing that it could also change in a couple of months. So we're going to go through it. And at the end of going through it, we're going to make a decision today as to whether we're going to make a recommendation to the council to be heard on the 18th or not. This coming Monday. I will point out that we had. Three public forums. We had three public forums. I believe we had one specifically where we invited all of the landlords. We have some landlords, including some officers of the landlords association in the audience today. They have chosen not to make public comment or weigh in during public comment. That is their choice. We can't force them to. But they're making choices to come to meetings and not use the public comment time period to weigh in. And so we will have to, as a committee decide as we go through this with the requests that we received from the councillors, whether we're willing to make a recommendation back to the council to adopt this or not. And to vote on it on the 18th or to hold it at another time. But I would like us to go through the comments we received to respond to the referral that was made to us from the council on the 4th. Shalini. This is just in response to your comment about people not making comment to in the public comment period. That firstly, we don't even have. Anyone representing tenants and especially low income tenants. And so. And I'll come to that. I'm happy to go through this, but I have compiled based on the guide that I sent, which is best for you. And looking at that, there was a big section on the equitable. Execution and implementation of this. So I can talk more about it when we come, but I'm happy to go through these comments. And as in when other comments come up, would you like me to talk about them now related to the rental? Because I know I didn't send it ahead of time because I just read the guide. So yeah, if you have other requests, I would like you to comment on that. So I'm happy to go through those comments. So I'm happy to go through those comments. I just read the guide. So yeah, if you have other requested changes to this as we go through beyond what is listed here from what I received from other counselors, we should be dealing with them now. So. But unless I hear otherwise, we're going to start here with. The first one that a counselor requested, which is in. F. Because the first change in this document is F. I do have something to say about the purpose. And again, this was. Um, Um, the. I was wondering if we can include a statement. Something like, um, one second, hold on, I have it written down. And the purpose of including this statement is that. We want to, we're making this big change. We're doing it with very good intentions of improving the quality of life of all residents, all residents in our town. And, um, and. It has to be for it to be effective. It has to be for all residents, including landlords. And so one of the things that I read from the guide was that we want to work in cooperation with tenants and landlords and town officials, everyone, right? So one of the purpose statements could include something like, um, One of the goal, the purposes would be work with the landlords to help bring properties into compliance and prevent properties from deteriorating or something like that. So it would be work with landlords to help bring properties into so rather than just penalizing and fines and all of that, this sets a tone that even the staff is going to work with, which I know they already do. At least some stuff, although we did hear about other, but in our, at least in building commissioner's office, the staff is working in that way, but putting it down here would send a message even to landlords that we're here to work with you. And not to just find you. Something like that. Where to work with to help bring rental properties into compliance. Yeah, sure. Any committee members object to the addition of that as a purpose? Seeing none, we're going to go back down to F. The first one is F one C, um, with one counselor, um, counselor Shane thinking that five days might be a bit quick. Um, given if you're changing, um, and all that, um, maybe two weeks would be more reasonable to offer. Um, instead of five days or something. So I'd like the committee's thoughts on the five day. Uh, notice or change requirement for when a person in charge is changed. Um, and whether we could modify that Pam. Um, I, I guess I could agree with a longer period. If somebody is taking over a new property, there is, I'm sure, some transition. And by the time they get around to remembering to contact the town. I would say two weeks of the change would be certainly appropriate. Would everyone not talking within the semester we're talking within a couple of weeks. Is a change to 14 days. Okay. I saw a thumbs up from Jennifer. Okay. Okay. We will move on. Um, the next one. Oh, Shalini. Yeah, I think this is within the notice. Is that within here? The notice to the tenant. No, that's farther down. Oh, that's in another F. Okay. It's in another section. Okay. Thank you. So FD there was a request, um, by counselor Shane to basically add the property owner to the property owner. Um, to the property owner. And that's a great. Everything I just highlighted the stuff in pink. And then the requisite stuff above it. Um, the, the reasoning or thinking from. Kathy was that. It would add worked to the property owner to come up with that information. Um, and if it's just going to sit in a drawer and not be used, um, it would add to the property owner's information. Um, and if that we really wanted it, if they are. If they are. Um, identify themselves as short-term rentals are. Our. Inspections services department could specifically at least for D1, the subject, uh, registered with the Commonwealth could check. And if they aren't registered, could go back. Um, if they're registered with the Commonwealth. Um, if they're registered with the Commonwealth. Um, they're not registered with the permit because we require registration to issue the permit if you're a short-term rental. And so the permit could just be denied after checking with the state if it's not there or ask for proof and all of that. Um, so that, that was some of the reasoning behind a request to delete that Pam. So in this case as written. D1 says that the, that the property manager owner needs to provide that proof and that puts the burden on the, the property owner manager to provide that proof. And I don't, I'd rather have the proof be on the, the person making the change and buying the property than. The staff having to go, Oh gosh, is this property. Already being rented out in some shape or form. Let's, let's. I mean, this is just a really simple check off. It's. Are you already in Airbnb? I just heard for Airbnb and if you haven't, you need to. To me, it's that number one seemed fine. Any thoughts on number two. That's more part of if you're, if you're already an Airbnb. I guess you have to provide proof that you only rented for, I don't know, whatever the period of time is that's allowed. Thanks. I agree with. Pam on keeping number one. I think it could be combined in the first sentence, but I'm not uncomfortable with removing two. Thank you. I personally think I agree with Pat. I would like to keep number one, but I can see how number two could be difficult to. Collect, not impossible, but. Difficult and. Well, I can imagine some uses of the information. But I'm not sure at this point we would be using the information. And so. Jennifer. I want to be labor this, but I'm wondering, does Airbnb, do they have to report that to Airbnb? Do they somehow keep track of this? So I mean, it depends on whether you're doing it through Airbnb or VRBO. And I don't know whether they do or not. Or whether the state does. We asked Rob. Rob may know Rob. I'm not certain about how they. Maintain the number of calendar days that, that a place is rented, you know, more about the, the, the tax sex collected. And I guess that kind of relates to. A number of rentals, you know. Each time a rental transaction is made, the taxes collected. So I assume it could be figured out that way. And that, that kind of reporting is given to the town. On some regular basis. I don't see it though. So the town, the town doesn't actually collect. The number two information. No, they don't. Okay. Sounds like there's consensus that item number two could come out. And if item number two is out. That item number one stays item number one. It becomes D. I think it will now read whether the property will be rented for short-term rentals and if so proof that the subject residential rental property has been properly registered with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for short-term rentals. And payment of applicable taxes. Is how it would read now. That means we move on to the next requested change. Which is down here. In IB one. This is properties that would be exempt from inspection. There are requests for two changes here. The first one is in number one, which would exempt all subsidized housing dwelling units from inspection. Versus. The right now it's written as a potential waiver of the inspection for those dwelling units that are. In fact, that's the one that's been inspected by the Commonwealth. And the request is to go from a waiver to exempting those dwelling dwelling units from inspection. Let's talk about that one before we talk about the second suggested change or requested change. Pam. I think we heard from Rob and I would love to hear that, you know, confirm that. That. Just because it is a subsidized housing. That gets sometimes. That. And I'm thinking of Amherst housing authority, for instance, where there are screens that are, that are ripped. And aren't getting fixed in timely manner or doors that are not able to be secured properly. I mean, these are things that. Should be addressed immediately in an ongoing basis, but may not be. And so your, your periodic inspection. I think that's a good point. Hopefully would catch that. It does. It doesn't feel like we want to eliminate. I'm fine with waving rather than exempting completely. And I would like to actually hear from Rob. If that makes sense. Rob. Well, that was part of my, you know, reason for suggesting that it. That it stay as a, you know, may be exempt rather than shall be exempted. And so. We often do those inspections, you know, some in Amherst housing authority has their own inspectors. There are other housing authorities that administer vouchers in the area that do inspections. There's other agencies or nonprofits. You know, like way finders or valley CDC that sometimes they actually call us, you know, we just did 12 inspections for. For pre occupancy for valley CDC. So, you know, that's what we do. So sometimes we're doing them anyway. And then, you know, then there's all the things that those inspectors are not inspecting for that we are. And, you know, the zoning in general by-laws would be included in that. That's not part of the checklist for those types of inspections. And although, you know, it is a. It is a very, in most cases, a very good inspection. And, you know, it's done annually for voucher holders, which is more than we're asking for. We would likely accept it. And not choose to do an inspection of that. And I think when we look at the regulations, I just wanted to, you know, make sure that we're clear that. You know, the intent here is to exempt the dwelling unit, not the whole property. And, you know, that's worth kind of just taking a minute to think about because. You know, a property with 20 buildings. The, the, the how the units that would fall into this category under subsidized housing exemption, you know, may only be, you know, incorporated in two or three of those buildings and all the other buildings never get inspected. So the inspector for those programs goes to the unit that where the tenant that holds the voucher resides. And maybe some of the common areas on the way there, but you know, certainly not other buildings on the property. So I think for all those reasons, it seemed like for the, you know, for the benefit of the tenant to be available for those inspections would be a good thing. Of course they may elect if we were asking to, to inspect a particular unit, they could elect to not have us through and, and stating that they just had and just completed their inspection through whatever agency was involved. And I think that would be perfectly fine. Thank you. Committee thoughts. I should, I think we should keep it the way it was. Honor Rob's. Input. Rob. And just to add another component, and you know, this is part of what. You know, some of the landlord association is talking about is. That what we're, you know, labeling here as subsidized housing exemptions for those properties that are inspected. There's another type of. Property inspection that occurs out there. And those are properties that are either mortgaged or insured by the federal government. And subject to a routine inspection. And just so you, you know, you might be hearing that out there. That there are, there are cases and properties that would not necessarily fall into this category. That undergo a. A pretty rigorous inspection. You know, I mean, it's looking at the, the condition of the units, but it's also looking at the condition of the property. You know, as far as. How close tree limbs are to the building or parking areas. So there, there are property managers that. Have to coordinate and conduct those inspections. I don't know. A lot about how often they're done or. The number of units that they, they choose to get a sampling of, of a larger property. But there are two types of inspections or two types of properties. With units that could have. Inspections that occur that are not town inspections. So not Pam. So that, so that confirms that we should leave it as may wave rather than. Shall exempt from. Because it just gives that flexibility. Hi. Shalini thoughts. Yeah, I think leaving it flexible is just a question of letting those. Property owners know that that's an option. And that can sometimes happen that people don't know. And then they feel like they have to follow through. I mean, a similar situation arose with the health inspection of businesses where they were optional, but the small businesses thought they were mandatory inspections and it put a lot of burden on them. And so just if you're going to make it may, then we just need to be very clear that people know that that's. Yeah, so I think with this annual certification as well as the inspections provided. When seeking a waiver of so you'll, it should be part of the application that says, are you seeking a waiver of the inspection requirement? For what reasons submit your documentation. I agree that I would like to keep it as is. So I will reject these changes. Rob. One other thing that I've heard. So this, we have similar language in the current bylaw. And we've never really used the, you know, used it with the requirement to provide documentation. And the property managers have elected to self-certify to satisfy the requirement anyway. But what I've heard is that. You know, we might find property managers that. Due to privacy issues, we just don't want to disclose the unit. By number or any way of identifying the unit that might be part of. A voucher program, Graham or fall into this category. So just, you know, it's just something that. Else we have to think about is that the documentation piece of it. Might not be. It might not be easy to get or, you know, some property measures might not be comfortable with providing that if we're requiring it. Would. Would you then rewrite this? You know, this says annual certification by the owner that the dwelling unit has been inspected in accordance with the law, as well as copies of any inspection would, would. Would you change that language? And if requested copies of any inspection documents, something like that. Yeah. Or even, you know, maybe even. I can think about exactly how it could be worded, but. You know, I guess the point here is that, you know, we're dealing with professional property managers in these cases. And if they told us that they had 30 units that were. Subject to this inspection. That's probably good enough. You know, for us to. You know, pick from the other buildings that might not have these units within them and have them help us. You know, we're going to be talking about where would it, would the right place be to do this sampling of units. So I, I don't think the hard requirement for providing the documentation. Given what I've heard. About the privacy issue is really necessary. So is everyone okay if we change it to and if requested copies of any inspection documents. That's what we're going to be talking about. That's what we're going to be talking about. That's what we're going to be talking about. Created by the inspection. That gives you the option to request the documents and work with the property owners on that request. And it's the property owners would just certify that the dwelling unit has been inspected. So that, that gets rid of the. That goes to when you're discussing which property, which dwelling units to go. You could get that certification that X dwelling units have been inspected. So what do we have to do now? Because if it, if it's subsidized housing. Does subsidized housing get an annual. Certification. Do they have an, did they have an annual inspection? Do they have to do an annual certification? If that's the case. We're selling the rest of town. Only needs to do this once every five years. Are we being overly. Restrictive on subsized. So. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just occurred. No, within the past five years is in here. Certification that the dwelling unit has been inspected within the past five years. So we kept it the same length. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we're going to move on to item four. Counselor Shane requested that all owner occupied properties being exempt from inspection, not just the owner occupied dwelling unit. Rob. I just wanted to go back to that last one for a second. And I just wanted to ask. So I can make sure I. Addressed it. Did you want to consider. The potential exemption of the. Inspection for. Properties for properties that are. Subject to a routine inspection, like the one that I described there, that's, you know, backed or mortgaged or insured by the, by the federal government, like a HUD. Or MHFA program. You know, do we want to. Doesn't this language. Cover that despite the title of subsidized housing that maybe. I think it's that I think it's a title that creates the problem. Right here. It's regularly inspected under the requirements of the Commonwealth or federal government, which I think. Includes the HUD housing, but it's not subsidized housing. Those, you know, those could be entirely market rate. Developments. That. For whatever reason, their mortgaging program requires these. These certain types of inspections. Yeah, I was going to say subsidized or. Or. Or government supported or government. Going. But I think maybe government inspected. Does that. Cover it. I just wonder if maybe it's, you know, housing subject, you know, to other inspections or something, you know, just some other way of kind of putting it. And then you, then you. In the next sentence capture the federal government. Connection. Okay. The change in title. I'll spell inspections correctly. Moving on. Number four, we had the current draft that we've recommended includes exemption of the owner occupied dwelling unit only from inspection. There's a request from counselor Shane to exempt the entire property from inspection, not just the owner occupied unit thoughts. I've actually been thinking about this as well. I was thinking in my mind that we had exempted. All owner occupied properties. And then I realized that we had just been talking about. The units that the, that the owner didn't dwell. It didn't dwell in themselves. So it would be like the half of the duplex that was rented. Part of me's part of me says that there may be some. Unsavory dwellings in town that are that happened to be. You know, have the owner living next door. It makes sense in some cases to have an occasional look at them. But I'm. I know we're trying to differentiate between out of town landlords. Who, you know, rarely. Make a visit and keep up their properties properly. And owner occupied. Part of me says I, I, I could live with this maybe. I'm a bit more hesitant to change it because I feel like. Most likely. An owner occupied. Rental thing is going to be okay, but I also feel like we have very little protection for tenants. In this community. And I do know of many instances where tenants have basically been told they will be retaliated against if. They complain and things like that. So this at least. I don't know. I just. I guess I feel like if. We should keep it. That's the simplest. Rob, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. If you have thoughts. Yep. So aside from, you know, the, the very few. Owner occupied properties that we have that are, you know. Fall into our problem category. You know, because that'll always be the case in any property, you know, potentially could happen, but. What I liked about having it in the program is that. You know, we often are working with property owners. That don't have a lot of properties that are not professional property managers that have no reason to really understand sanitary codes and get into that. Because they have another career and busy lives. And, you know. We're able to, you know, look at a property and give them guidance and advice on things that they didn't know about. And, you know, I think it. When we think about this for the value of the occupant. There will be things that will, you know, be found through these inspections and make that unit better. For the, for the tenant. And that's, you know, that was the reason why I thought it's worth keeping it in there. Clearly the properties, you know, I think like everybody sees, you know, they're very, you know, they're well kept that they've got owners on site and things are under control. You know what, you know, screens might be missing or, you know, controls for heating systems might not be exactly the way they could be for the better, for the comfort of the tenant. Thank you, Rob. I think that was such a good explanation or. And I almost feel like that needs to go also in a purpose along with that idea because many people don't, from the landlord perspective, I don't think they understand the value of this. Like why are you just imposing more inspection and fees and all of that, but there is this value that's being offered that many people, like you said, Rob, that many people don't know what it entails, especially if it's not your full-time job. And so part of this new program is to work with smaller landlords and educate them, guide them and be a resource for them. So I would love to have that as, because many landlords would not see this as a guide or support, but putting it, we can just make a note and I can write it down and we can put it later. I didn't mean to say we should do it now. So I am hearing and I will, since I don't speak much on these, I concur with Pat that, you know, I'm more hesitant to pull this one out, especially with Rob's explanation and all. And so I think that was where the four of us basically stood. So we're going to hit reject on this one. I'm keeping the residential in there because that's how we refer to it. So there was a counselor comment on C that there should be clarity that the property means the building, not the dwelling unit. That is clarified up in the definitions, but because I was including everything here. I put it in, that was counselor Shane and I've talked to her and she agrees that the clarity is there so that we don't have to do anything with that. The next one is, oh, there was one here. K6, this is actually my request. This is, well, K1, B6. B is what goes on the rental permit that then gets posted in the dwelling unit. And number six says that the name, telephone number, postal address and email address of the owner and person in charge get posted in the dwelling unit. And it seems to me if an owner is, if the person in charge is different from the owner and the person in charge is the one that's doing all of the maintenance, they're the ones that should be on the permit, not necessarily the owner. And so I'm proposing removing the owner from the listing on the permit. Because it seems more logical to me to list the person in charge and not confuse anyone as to who should be contacted if you've got a problem. You should be contacting the person that's supposed to be doing the maintenance and doing the fixing, which is the person in charge. So my request is to remove the owner and the, and just have an email address of the person in charge on the permit. But I'd love to hear thoughts. Yes, I think that makes sense. I see nodding from Rob and Shalini and Pam and Pat. So we'll move on. Shalini, this area consent here is the notification section that you were asking, where is that? There is a new three. This was made at the request of Councillor to and everything, which is Andy Steinberg. He provided me with section I of Boston's rental registration, permitting and licensing by law, which they're by law requires independent inspections, either by the city or the city has a program where some they certify outside inspectors that can be used instead of city inspectors, but they have this tenant authorization, a form of this set section. It is not exactly like this. I modified it to match our bylaw and all instead of taking it word for word, but is basically this. And so, and I wanted to make a note for people L one, the owner inspection, no L two notice to tenants is in our current rental registration bylaw word for word. And so that L two is not a change from what is required now. So, but I'm curious about L three thoughts on this one Shalini. Hold on, maybe you could just quickly read it so people in the audience can actually read it. So if long tenant authorization before conducting an inspection of an occupied dwelling unit pursuant to this bylaw reasonable advanced notice shall be provided to the occupant in writing town is denied. See a town is done. If town is denied access by the occupant for the purposes of conducting the inspection required by section I one above denial shall be noted on a sworn dated statement filed by the code enforcement officer or designee. If the town is denied access to a dwelling unit by the occupant for the purposes of conducting such an inspected statement shall exempt the owner from the inspection requirement of section I one above for the period of one year denial of access by the occupant shall neither deem the dwelling unit to be in compliance with the state sanitary code nor bar the occupant from exercising legal rights. The principal code official may cause the dwelling unit to be inspected pursuant to the terms herein in the manner provided for in the state sanitary. In plain English it basically says that. If the town. If the code enforcement officer. If the occupant denies access the code enforcement officer or their designee shall get a sworn statement. Denying that access and that sworn statement will exempt that unit. And depending on that that part of the you know that part of the inspection requirement for the court of a year. So it's it's a way to. I think what in my brief conversations with Andy Steinberg it was. He saw it as a way to alleviate concerns that of the privacy of tenants the tenants have explicitly stating even though they already do under state law but explicitly stating in this case that if the tenants deny access the permit will still be granted. It won't be a conditional I've gone back and forth with Andy a conditional permit could have been issued but this would be a permit but it's it's it's preserving that privacy right and being clear that if the reason for the inspection not taking place is a tenant denial. A permit to rent can still be issued. Why would it not be a conditional permit. It would not be a conditional permit. It would not be adding of this. That one if I can finish my sentence there. So, so we're saying in the course of five years over the course of five years we're going to try to get. Most every. Unit inspected in town. It would be a really good thing to get a baseline. But if, if. We don't get to those all those inspections. That would be a good thing to get a baseline. That would be better of course. So in this case. Why would it not just be a conditional. Permit. If the, if the tenant says, sorry, you're not going to inspect while I live here. So a conditional permit gets issued if the inspection was failed. So if you did an inspection and it failed and you're in the process of remedying the failure. Or if the inspection is scheduled, you're not going to be able to do that. So that would be a good thing to get a baseline. So that would be a good thing to get a baseline. If the inspection was scheduled sometime in the future, but on the books. And this is saying it basically if the tenant. Denies access in that sworn. A sworn dated statement filed by the code enforcement officer. Then I had told Andy that that would then also count if a denial. If a tenant done under the bylaw without this paragraph, if a tenant denied. And that's what the code enforcement officer then. That, that inspection requirement is essentially deemed fulfilled. For one year. And that requirement. To issue a permit, not a conditional permit has been met. Is what this section is saying. Rob, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. Because it's a new section. Yeah, it's a new section, but I think that's probably how things would occur. And it's one of those things, you know, and that. It falls into the category of we can't write everything into the bylaw and capture every situation we're going to deal with. And I think this, I have no problem with it. I think what it does specify is the one year. You know, I think if it didn't say anything in the bylaw, I would be asking that landlord, you know, we'll check in next year, but we'll also, you know. If for some reason the tenant left, you know, and the unit was vacant, that would be an opportunity to do the inspection if it was different than the one year cycle. But I think it just puts in the words what the practice would actually be. Many thoughts. Pam. Yeah, I think we actually then need to go back to the conditional permit because I was thinking I did not. Remember that it was only if. Somebody was busy trying to schedule the inspection and it hadn't occurred yet. It was just a recognition that. We are going to get to all of them right away. And so therefore you have to, you have to get conditional permits until such time as your. Actual factual inspection is, is happening. So the conditional permit is a rental property that does not pass the initial renewal inspection or has been scheduled for an initial or renewal inspection that has not yet occurred. Yeah. I don't believe it, but I'm going to support the landlords. I think that it should be a regular permit. And as Rob said that when that tenant leaves where there's an opening, because it's not the landlord's fault. If a tenant denies access. Now if we find tenants are being manipulated by landlords around this issue, that would be something that could be addressed if it happened. So this would allow it to be a non conditional permit, just a residential rental permit. That's fine. I had a different recollection of conditional. No, that's okay. And I think that is the last requested change in the bylaws. I just had a question about the 24 hours notice. What does that mean? That. The, the owner has 24 hours to make the request or. Or the inspection within 24 hours. What is. So, so this means, and this is this, this language is in our current bylaws. So there's no change to the current one. It means that once the known owner is notified of. An inspection, they should within 24 hours of receiving that notice. Talk to the tenant. About that inspection. At least that's how I read it, Rob. Is that how you read it? Making the tenant aware that there's a request to, or a need to conduct an inspection. And then the next section, the new section would say that there's a reasonable timeframe to. To schedule that note that. That date. Pam. I would, I would love to hear from some of our listeners. In the public comment section that to ask. What kind of timeframe they typically deal with when they need to schedule. Replacement of an air conditioning unit. Or other repair work on plumbing. You know, what kind of timeframe are they typically talking about for giving notice. To the public comment section. So that's how we're getting in and doing work. That is a great segue since we had gotten through this. It was the next time I was going to open up public comment. Right before we move to the regulation revisions. And so I will open up general public comment. Well, specific public comment. I will say at this time on. I would like to make public comment on all regulations and fees. If there is someone who would like to make public comment on either. Those of those three items at this time. Please raise your hand. And residents will be welcome to express their views for up to three minutes if their hands are raised and would like to make comments on anything we've been discussing anything we're about ready to discuss in the regulations and fee schedules. We're going to move to regulations. We do have one hand raised Tom Crossman. Please unmute yourself. State your name where you live. Or who you're representing. And make your comment. I was just. Raising my hand because you granted us the opportunity to speak. And I appreciate you doing so. The one concern that. I mean, I, I. I represent Amherst landlords. And one concern that I don't think is. I don't think there's enough gravity behind it, but. I. Don't hear enough about the dialogue. Regarding mental health issues. And the. Sensitivity around handling inspections with people who have mental health issues. And I don't think that topic has to do with mental health issues. And I don't think that topic has been covered well enough. And that's. For some of us that are in the industry and navigate that on a day to day basis. It's a, it's a very sensitive subject. And I don't think that this rental permit. Necessarily completely encapsulates the sensitivity of those, those people who are in that type of housing. But there's many other things that I would say, but I just haven't heard. So. Anyone in these meetings discuss mental health issues and navigating tenants who. May have mental health issues. That's all. Thank you for your comment. Seeing no other hands. We will move on to the regulations. Let me find. That one. Sorry, it's at the bottom. So. Regulations. A one G was a requested deletion. We've talked about this section a lot. This is the one about identifying the number of units. That are occupied by one or more persons. Where at least one occupant will attend an educational. Institution. So, including those where the owner or owner's family members are occupants of the dwelling unit. So for occupy. And all. So. There was a correct request to delete this as potentially very burdensome on. The property owners to determine. How many units are there that it can change throughout a year. As to how many, which would then require updating various things. And that the town may be able to come by this information in other manners. Without burdening the property owners to. Keep that information accurate. Thoughts. Shalini. So. One of the recommendations in that guide was to create a gold standard landlord or gold. What is it called in Tulsa? They have that. And the idea is to incentivize and that is one of our purposes is to recognize property owners who are really maintaining the properties, taking care of the tenants. So we don't currently have any system that's. Acknowledging and incentivizing landlords. So if he did create like a gold. Gold star landlords. Program. Then it could be an incentive that if you attend these educational. Programs and if you. Do you know, do certain things like. They're not. Like you're maintaining your properties and you're doing all of those things and they would be incentives. And one of the incentives that I read in the guide, I don't know if it applies here. Would be that they can apply to CDBJ funds for lead treatment. Treatment of lead paint and stuff like that. So I mean, I'm just saying that that. Part would be great to kind of while we're also putting in inspections and fines and all of that. We also bolster the part around. Rewarding and incentivizing. Landlords to take care of their homes and their tenants. Through that. Thank you. Pam. Can I just follow up? I'm not sure I understand that connection between. Offering incentives and and tracking occupants. Is that just a different topic? Wait, I thought I was reading this as that if they're attending the programs. For education. No, this is occupants who are registered. Oh, it's for the occupants and landlords here. Not, not for the. Yeah, sorry. My bad. But it could be for what I was saying was more for landlords to attend, not occupants. Yeah. So all of us, all of us receive a card in the mail from the town. I don't know in the winter or something. And it says, you know, who lives here. Because I think it has to do with. And the letter to confirm address or confirm address. And occupation. And I think what. So much of so much of the conversation that was driving. Neuissance and driving an improvement of the rental registration was for health and safety for quiet enjoyment. By the neighbors of their properties. In my perspective, to understand in part the relationship between the University of Massachusetts primarily and the community and in its population, we use this data for getting money for schools. We use this data for all kinds of grant getting and subsidized lunches and I mean just a whole array of stuff and to understand how many units in town actually help house the University of Massachusetts students, I think is a really important tool for us as a community going forward. So in the application, you know, we've got E, which is, you know, how many unrelated occupants are in dwelling 14A, how many are in 14B and we are counting on the property managers to provide that information accurately, both for a population count and for occupancy. Number G is, letter G is how many of our units in town support students and that's what we're asking for. I don't think it should be deleted. It's just like, you know, it's part of the data collection across the board. So I'm going to push back on who should be collecting that data and how. E that you referenced, Pam, is easily found by the property owner because it says indicated on the lease or enforced by the owner, so they should know. But G, they have to ask personal information of the lessees that normally would not be asked in some sense. When I rented, no one asked me whether I was registered in an educational institution. No one cared. Did I need to disclose that to the property owner? No. There was no law that required me to do that. I was on the lease though. They knew I was there. They knew we had kids. But Pam, you referenced the annual census that the town has access to and can look at if we really want to know how many units or get an idea of how many units might be occupied by students, we can look at the census data that the town already collects, that the landlord that's in our municipal possession, whereas it's not in the landlord's possession. And so I see G as potentially asking for a lot of extra work that may not be discoverable by the landlord, but is already proxy discoverable by the town because of the census the town must do. And so I guess I'm struggling with what benefit the town and the landlord, the property owners, the applicants have from G and I just don't see it. Pam. Yeah, I hear you. In filling out the lease, I'm guessing that one would say, you know, what's your occupation and that that's just a little piece of data that goes along with that person in terms of a lease. If it's informal and it's a person to person lease arrangement like a property owner managing one property, that's obviously a different thing and they probably wouldn't even have a complicated form. But because we have a standard form for leasing for renting a property, it feels like it would be something not any more difficult than asking for name and address or co-signers name and address. Thanks. My wife and I rented an apartment with our son who was an infant to three years old, was an eight-unit building in Florence. She worked full-time as a carpenter and I was a full-time student at 45, 46 and 47. She asked me beyond the census whether I was a student and I don't understand why that information is important. It seems to me to be prejudicial again. I was 45, but that doesn't necessarily mean I would have behaved myself. I could be 22 and be very responsible and maintain good behavior. I think this should be removed. I was going to say something similar to Pat. For example, I always put my occupation down as mother. I have for 16 years and I would continue to do that even if I went back to school to further my education. Yet I would fall under student and no one would know if I was a renter because my occupation on any lease application would be mother. I feel like a lot of people would do that. Or they're full-time workers and going part-time to school, their occupation is whatever their job is, not student. So a lease application wouldn't necessarily get it. I think if the town really wants the information, there are other avenues to do it in a neutral manner that does not need to burden the property owners to get it. So I would support taking it out. Pam supports keeping it in. Shalini, do you have a thought? I agree, taking it out. That is a majority in an informal survey, not a vote, so at this point we're going to leave it like that. The next change is just a catch of property is exempt for the inspections there that fit. And then B-1B, this is part of Kathy Shane, she spoke to this. This is B-1B, 3 and B, I'm not sure why this has been deleted. I'll fix that thing going on there. But they all go together, which is Councillor Shane has requested that we reduce the minimum number of units inspected in larger properties to 10 or 10% from 25 or 20%. So thoughts on that request. Pam? I think I could live with a lower number and a lower percentage. I am still grappling with the two-year-long discussion about trying to at least get through the 2,000 properties that have units on them to some degree, which brings up another subject and that is that I would really, really like a more accurate count of rental parcels and rental properties. So if we reduce the amount, we reduce the percentage each year that gets tackled. I don't know, that's kind of a rob question that, you know. Well, I haven't looked into what this would mean for a reduction in number of units. So that, you know, I'm not sure, and this is, you know, I guess this is done to try to reduce the number of staff that would be needed to implement the program. And although I don't have a problem, you know, where the threshold is 10 or 25, I'm not sure it's a significant enough change to alter the staffing that's needed to implement this program. So give me half the number. No, I can potentially answer that in the chart of fees, the 3D packet item chart of fee schedule revenue that has been modified as of today. I tried to calculate those numbers more accurately and found errors. And so under the 25, 20 percent, there would be approximately 628 estimated permit issuance inspections a year, potentially. And with this change to 10 units, 10 percent, it would go down to approximately 496. So it would save approximately 120, 130-ish inspections a year to answer that. So Rob can mull that. I want to push back, Pam, on your continuing to say we don't have an accurate count of rental units in town or rental permits in town. Rob has repeatedly provided us with the number of rental permits in town and has repeatedly had his department look at GIS data and all to determine if they believe we are missing rental units. And so I just want to push back and say, I think Rob has done the best they can do. And the information we have received is as accurate as it can be right now. And that is where it is. And we should trust the department to have done the requests that you've asked for about the GIS data checking of owners and where tax records are going to see whether there are rentals. And he's reported to this committee that the department believes that it has lowered that number of non-permitted rentals to near zero at this point. So other, I think, is that the last change in this one? Any other thoughts at this time on this change before I move back to public comment? Pam? I think I appreciate very much the added input and I think I'm looking at these numbers of the distribution, the timing, the frequency, et cetera. And I would personally love to actually spend some time, take the time to kind of work through that in my own head and my own piece of paper. I don't know that I could just say, yeah, I support this across the board right now because I don't feel like I have given the new numbers and the thought. Thank you for that. I'm going to go to public comment one more time to see if there's any additional public comment and then we're going to come back with a time check to see what we want to do. We have to do the transition memo today and a couple of other votes. So one last public comment and then where is the committee going to decide what we want to do with this and our timing, okay? And so again, I'm opening up specific public comment to rental registration bylaw. If you'd like to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time and I will recognize you in turn. Kathy, Shane, please unmute yourself and make your comment. Thank you, Mandy. You heard me at the beginning when I raced through this. So I'll just focus a little bit on going down to the 10 threshold and 10% and while listening to you, I had a chance to read the document that Shalini has referred to and this would not be precedent setting because Sacramento does a 10% threshold as well. So my thinking is that as this program gets up and running, knowing that Rob is super smart, he'll try to go after the areas where he thinks there might be a concern. In the larger buildings, the initial inspection is going to focus on systems and doing a smaller percent in terms of inspector time on how many units will give you a pretty good sense of whether there's a problem in the units, not just, you know, does the air conditioning use. The way the bylaw is written, if there is an indication there's a problem, they can always do more. So the idea was in the first, as this rolls out, don't take a lot of inspection time in the really big buildings doing a larger sample, doing a minimum of 25, lower that threshold. So as Rob said, I think Mandy's done an estimate and Mandy, actually the chart you put in the packet had under originally proposed was 800, but I think you said you revised that there was an error and it's 628. So it was trying to get a lower number of just regular inspections to allow more inspector time for we've got a problem property. We need to put them on notice, we're coming back there, particularly if it's health and safety concerns, and they may be starting to be annual inspections because of the degree, but it may be a more time time consuming inspection. So by lowering the threshold, it lowers the number of inspector hours in big buildings, unless there's a reason for concern. So as Rob said, I'm looking for does this reduce inspector time, or does it make it possible to do inspections where we need to focus on them? So that that was why I thought reducing the threshold, there's no reason 25 was a number and 10 is a number, but you would still, when you look at the cutoffs in the distribution, we don't have a lot of really big buildings and a good sample will give you a sense of what's going on. And if it's clean, and they're in the five year thing, you can do another 10% five years from now and do other units. If it's a concern, you're going to do more. So I'm looking for lowering the expense of operating the program and taking more inspector time focused on what I would call problem houses or problem rentals. And I'll just speak to that one thing, Mandy, I don't need you, you all did a nice job covering my other comments. Thank you. Thank you for your comment, Kathy. I see no other hand. So we're going to close public comment at this time. Time check at 611, our meeting generally ends at 630. We have two things we must do today, which is vote the transition memo and vote authorization for someone to approve the outstanding minutes. And so I would like to check in. It sounds like unless we want to go extremely late past 630, we are not going to finish rental registration and it sounds like we're not sure we have enough information to determine at least get to the fee schedule and, and figure out fees if we make a change to 10, 10 units, 10% to make a good recommendation on the fee amounts. And so I would recommend at this time, no matter how much it pains me because of all the hard work this committee did over two years, that we move on to the transition memo and minutes and continue both nuisance and residential rental registration in the transition memo into the next council for further discussion in the next CRC. Thoughts on that, Shalini? I totally support that. And I think that's the hard part with a form of government, we just have two years and then, you know, and sometimes it takes that much time to do a really good job. So I support that. And I'll send my additional comments, Mandi Jo, I don't, I don't know, we are finishing the carryover today, so I don't know when and how, but I just feel like this report or the guide that I sent it, and especially even Rob for the staff to I really recommend reading that because there was a lot of parts about the equitable implementation of this. So the burden of this additional inspection does not fall on people with lower income and and also, like in terms of translations, like providing translated documents, like when tenants are coming in, we've asked the landlords to provide all this rent, their rights, the rights of the tenants, but making sure that they are translated. And and and I would again, also a big focus of that guide is that to make this successful, we need the buy-in of everyone. We won't always have the buy-in. I understand that, but I think we as a council have to do a better job of bringing in people, not just in public comment, because it's awkward sometimes to say everything you want to say in three minutes. And so creating an opportunity in the future where, like we did last time, we had listening sessions and I would actually suggest even having tenants and landlords and neighbors in of rental properties, like bringing everyone to the same table. And then the and the committee provides the larger perspective, which I do want to say one last thing is that why this regis rental registration by law is so important, because in Boston, a student died in a fire because the house did not have the right safety standards. And there are many such cases like that. In fact, you know, like the guide says that 40 percent of the homes in in America are not safe and healthy. So there is a good reason why this committee is spending so much time doing it. And at the same time, we want to do it in a way that it really helps the smaller landlords and the bigger landlords to continue to thrive with the business they're doing and to make it a good process for everyone. So I would recommend and I put all these things in writing, but to have some listening sessions where we utilize a lot, the channels we used earlier through UMass to invite the tenants and to invite landlords and neighbors of rental properties and to come and sit at the same table and talk about these things. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not seeing any other hands opposing my recommendation. And so we're going to move on to, yeah, we're going to move on to the transition memo. It was in the packet as we go through this, we're going to delete the stuff. So what is in yellow was new? Yellow and green were new. Yellow was the option because I didn't know what it would be. So nuisance is not done. And so nuisance would be recommended to be. What is in yellow? Nandy, can you just back up again for everybody's benefit? So right now, this is document saying what what this first section is. What are we proposing to refer? Well, what has a what has been referred to the CRC for consideration? And so we've got the housing policy that's been here on the list since September 21. The next one is the reference of the by the nuisance by a lot to CRC. Do you do you want to do your yellow? And update yellow under. You know, what's been referred to us. So so, yes. So this document is will become the transition memo and it outlines everything that is automatically carried over, not automatically carried over or recommended to be sort of discussed and all. And so the first section here is items that have been referred to us that get automatically carried over, comprehensive housing policy. The language in that has not changed since you last saw it. Yeah. Next is the nuisance house bylaw. I had two options because I did not know where this committee was. So I prewrote two options. Yellow is where we are now. And so this is the sort of status of this is where we are. And any requests for changing of the nuisance house summary status item and then we'll move on to the next parts. Seeing no requests for change there. I will unhighlight it just so we know we've been through it. The next one is the solar bylaw was completely new from the last draft because it came in after the last draft was seen at this committee. And so this is my solar bylaw has been removed. And we'll bold this so that we know what it is where it was referred and the status is we have not discussed it. And I've included what the council requested us include as to who we need to speak with during further development of it. And then I pre did this, but I don't think battery energy storage system is on the next council agenda. Athena can probably confirm that and which means we may be able to delete this last sentence, last two sentences or sentence, whatever it is. I mean, just just because the council has not received an actual proposal with with a battery storage bylaw, I don't feel any reason to to leave it out of this and just say it's expected that we're going to see this coming down the road and at least put it in front of people, even though it hasn't officially been referred to us. So I would argue it doesn't belong in this section as automatically carried over. We can put it down below in items CRC believe should be carried over or those discussion topics, discussion topics then. Yeah. Athena, can you confirm whether battery energy storage system is on Monday's agenda? Is Athena still here? I'm here. But it's not on the agenda for Monday. We will delete it here and we will put it down. Thank you, Athena. We will put it down into the next section. So the other one that got added to this one was the rental registration bylaw. I didn't know what would happen with it. So I didn't even attempt to draft a status. We can try that now or as part of the motion today, we could authorize me to draft that status before submitting it to the council. Pam. I'm a little confused because I thought it clearly was referred back to CRC for further discussion rather than than holding a vote in the in the council. Yeah, that's why it's here. Refer the rental. Yeah, yeah. So it's automatically carried over, but we I don't have a status section yet because I didn't know what to put as status. Status, the CRC is nearly complete in its review of the rental registration bylaw. When it began its review, we could almost copy verbatim your what about the nuisance. Is that what I said for nuisance? Close. Close. Does that work for everyone? Or would people want more information as to what we discussed today? Moving on. What is new in we don't have any items not automatically carried over? And so the next ones are what we believe should be carried over. I've added a description for the ZBA vacancies. Any requested changes to that one? Shalini. No, not to this. Can we just go back? Sorry, did we talk about the community outreach in this one? I know you had it in the nuisance. So it is. So I had it in solar and I had something in nuisance about outreach to. Outreach and tenants, especially also. So this outreach to landlords was specific to the portion of residential rental be consistent with the nuisance property. Yeah, OK, so otherwise it's outreach to residents because nuisance property applies to everyone in town, not just landlords and tenants. Right, right. But in this one, could we add something to speak to an outreach to tenants and landlords? It's a little passive aggressive, but that's fine. I'll take it. Not only have we had several, we've had many multiple. Thoughts on that language. By me, this will be on the. Sure, as long as you do it. We're going to get an email from Shalini. Have you done that yet? I'll be there in the resident holding it, holding it yet. Any requested changes to ZBA? Shalini, your hand is still raised. Fine, looks fine to me anyway. I added the university drive zoning that is going on. The discussion that is happening at the planning board thinking that it might be wise for us to recommend the next council, at least, invite the planning director to learn about and offer input, as I think is how I worded it, but obviously, this is something we haven't talked about. So. Pam, it actually is has not been referred to us, so it's not really a carryover. It really feels again, like a discussion topic. No topic. Under discussion topics. Just like the other one that we. We're going to add here. I'm working on formatting, formatting it appropriately. And then we were going to add, where would you want batteries, energy storage systems? We have ongoing updates, conversation topics. Zoning priorities directed. And then we could say, we could say potential zoning, we could put both battery, energy storage systems and the university drive zoning under some other topic that says ongoing planning department zoning work or something like that. Would that work as. Yeah, do that first and then I've got a comment. So under zoning priorities, the town council, but I don't believe the town council voted to direct the town manager to work on form based zoning. Yes, it did. So it we had it to the design guidelines is what it was. This is how it was worded. Form based zoning slash design guidelines. And it was in the prior council, not this one. I'm not even do we want to describe what this one is? The solar bylaw or related to zoning bylaw conversation, it's integral to zoning bylaw, solar bylaw discussion. Does that work? OK. That is the extent of the changes I added. I could type that fast. So the attachments are everything that's been referred to us. And so this document right now is 36 pages. It will be over 50 by the time I add those other three things in. I also added a draft agenda. The question is, do we want to attach the current draft nuisance and all of that to these? I think it's wise to do so. Then everyone has it all in one spot, the current copies and all. It just makes this document about 80 pages long. I'm trying to think of there's some way to sort of reduce the bulk and referring to all of the SharePoint folders. So the other thing I am doing. I can just maybe just so you know, the other thing I'm doing, the reason I added a draft agenda in here is because I've already created a SharePoint folder for first January meeting of CRC that I will put all of these Word documents in separately so that they are there for the committee, whoever is in that committee, and it's already drafted. And so why do you have to have them attached to this then? Because it's all in one place for the council then, just like GOL is attaching everything. I can create the document with and I can obviously remove the attachments and create it both ways so it doesn't show up in the transition memo in the new packet that way. But for the council packet on Monday, I think one document is best so that there's not seven attachments to that document, but they will be separate documents in the share in the next council, the next committee packet. So I wanted to go about this agenda. This is more. I put it all in as you can see, although I would add by law, regulations and fee schedule to this. Obviously, it's too much for the first meeting. But but it's more of a here's everything that has been referred to us sort of thing. Although I think, yeah, solar by law there and the next person can figure out what to include or not include, but nothing will be lost in terms of the referrals, if it's all on this agenda was my thinking. But thoughts on that or do we want to do a a different do we want to make a different recommendation on the agenda at all? Or do people? Go ahead, Pat. Sorry. I was going to say, do people think it wise to just include everything? These first two are the two that have to be on there. And then everything else can be determined what takes the first two hours of a meeting beyond the first two, right? And we could order them in whatever order we believe appropriate. We could remove some. We could remove everything but the first two. But I think it would be helpful to the next committee to see what we think is most important for them to start with. Thoughts, you know, throw it all in and and it can be winnowed out. Later, if you're going to do that, then you might as well throw in solar since that was also referred. It's here under discussion items, because there's no way it's coming up to a vote at any time soon. So I did throw it in. It's not under action items because it's not close to any action. I'm not going to page through the rest of the attachments. They will get added before we finalize this. Pam, question on the meeting minutes. We obviously didn't have any in our packet this time. And that is the vote after this one. OK, but there weren't any in our there are not the vote is going when we finish this, there will be a vote to designate someone to approve those minutes, which is why I pulled them off this agenda. That's too bad. I was really hoping to get that cleaned up. Yeah. Are we ready to vote? This document. Let me ask Athena, Athena. Is there anything given that CRC did not finish rental registration? Is there anything on Monday's agenda since that will be pulled that might come to CRC to need included in this transition memo? I'm sorry. I'm in the car. Can you hear me OK? Yes, we can. Yeah. Yeah, nothing else is expected on the council agenda for Monday that we're expecting we'll go to CRC. OK, thank you. Are we ready to vote this transition memo? OK, I'm going to make the motion. I need to add the attachments in. But the motion is to adopt the transition. Oh, actually, this is if we adopted it, it's from the whole committee. Adopt the transit, the report of CRC to the town council transition as amended on December 14th, 2023 and with authority of the chair to add the attachments. Is there a second? Second, Shalini. Any further discussion? No, thank you for getting us through that. Seeing none, we're going to vote. We'll start with Shalini. Yes. Pat. Aye. Pam. Yes. And Mandy is an eye that is unanimous with one absent. With that, we have one more item before we go to announcements. Thank you for bearing with me as we run a slightly over. We need a motion to authorize someone to approve the minutes of November 2nd, 1630 and December 14th. So my question is, who would like to be the approver? Are you willing to do it? You've been doing it the last year, two years now for the committee. At least for posting. So if you're willing to do it, I would really appreciate that. And the dates again were 11, 16 and 12 foot. I'm going to actually repeat it again with a motion. So I move to authorize Pam Rooney to approve the minutes of November 2nd, 2023, November 16, 2023, November 30, 2023 and December 14, 2023. Is there a second second? Angeles, any discussion on that? Just to confirm, so I will do the normal approved on this date. And even though they weren't in our packet, we'll have proper and good order happen is when Athena finishes them, she will forward them to you and you will review them. And when when you add the approved, you're adding approved by you, actually, not the committee, right? Under authority granted on December 14th. And then you'll ship them back to Athena. And that means if you see any changes that need made, you will make those changes before approving them. OK. And then you'll do the normal thing you do after approval, which is send them back to Athena for posting. OK. Can do. Thank you for I. I, Bandy, if I may, I just want to apologize for being so behind on the minutes. I have some help from a part-time staffer in another department to help me catch up and spend difficult to say the least without minute takers. And I'm hoping to have new ones hired in the next year after committees get their schedules squared away so I know what availability they'll need. And it's it's really helpful to have a member who's authorized to do this for outstanding minutes, because it's awkward for members who weren't on the committee in the past year to be approving minutes. So they're allowed to vote on them, but people just always feel awkward voting on minutes when when they weren't at the meeting. So I appreciate you doing this this way. It makes it a little bit easier for me and incoming committee members. We appreciate all you've done, Athena. So with that, are we ready to vote that motion? I'll start. I'm an eye. Pam. Hi. Melanie. Yes. And Pat. Hi. That is approved for zero or a motion passes for zero with Jennifer Taub absent. Announcements, I'm going to take a little bit of time now. I know we're running late and we've lost all of our staff, but it will be on video for posterity. I want to thank the staff, Dave Zomek and Rob Moore in particular, as well as John Thompson, who spent the last two years so much time with us. And Chris Brestrup did, too, as we did some zoning stuff without their guidance, we couldn't do what we're doing. But I also want to thank you all for being such a good committee. We have a lot of hard discussions here with a lot of different views, yet we get through them and we almost got done all of our work, but we get through them. And what we propose to the council, I think, is a really solid view of the residents in this town and the council's positions and all. It's hard to have those discussions, especially when we have such varying opinions on them, but I think overall we've done a very good job at doing that and of moving stuff forward and we couldn't. I couldn't get this far without all of you all's cooperation in doing that. So I want to thank everyone and I want to thank Pam for being a great vice chair. She's taken on all of the stuff with the minutes, but she also did all of the zoning board of appeals, communications and stuff, which is any at all. Almost all except this last one when when it came in and we thought of trying to get it done before the end of this term, which just didn't happen. But I know I knew you were traveling at that time, Pam. But yeah, that's been a huge help to me. And it's it's also a big relief to know that other counselors have done that procedure and have been through managing that procedure. When the council switched over last term, I was the only counselor that had managed that procedure that was remaining on the council. And now we've got Pat managing it and Pam for GOL and Pam having managed it and myself, and I think that's a huge improvement of just continuity. So I thank Pam for for taking the ZBA part on as I did the planning board. So that's what I wanted to say and always a thank you to Athena. She's not our liaison, but she's here all the time and does our minutes. And also thank you to Athena, too. Any other announcements by anyone, Pam? Well, I want to say I want to say thanks to Shalini just because it's been really fun working in the committee. And it is you offer you offer a wonderful perspective that is helpful for people like me that want to just chug through and get things done. And it sometimes is hard for me to pause and listen to something that may take a little more time and consideration, but it ends up being a better product. So I want to say thank you for that. It's a really valuable perspective that, you know, me with my little regimented New England brain just like, let's just get the work done. And you're saying, let's stop and talk about it. Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other announcements, comments? I'm skipping next agenda preview because you already saw it, but we don't even know who's going to be on the committee. So we don't really preview it ourselves. And I don't have anything unanticipated and I'm hoping no one else does. Since no, thank you for not. I would have been really upset if someone was like, oh, yeah, let's do this one other thing. With that, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 6.42 p.m. Thank you all. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Good night, everybody.