 I think it will automatically report it. OK, so here we are, the three of us waiting for more people to show up. Paul's not coming, right? He said, it's just this seems to be like always, almost. There's that town, something or other committee. Yeah, at the same time, right? So I think I know, I think what we have been another week in it conflicted with like finance committee. So then I think it's just really hard to have an even. At some point we talked to him about maybe we should change the time if it's always a conflict and he said, oh, I got that sorted out. But right, I don't know, whatever. And no one's here yet. That's interesting. Yeah, that's odd. You'll be here. Yeah, I was popping up the last minute. Yeah, I mean, there's really no, you know, you can be early, but it's not that hard just to show up a minute before and then be ready. There's a couple of people. Hi, George. George doesn't want to come in anyway, but. Oh, an Allegra on Allegra's there. So here's Allegra. Hello. Hi there. I have to change my screen so I see people. There we go. Someday I'll get the hang of them. Probably about the time we have to stop using it. That's how things usually work for me. Exactly. Well, the only person we know won't be here of our members is Paul. So we have our note taker. Thank you, George. Ashley is here. Yeah, Ashley. Welcome. So, let's say one, two, four. Hello. Howdy. Hello. We need one more to make a quorum. So am I correct in thinking that if the legislature does not. Extend the. What is the exception to open meeting law that as of August? No. No, April. We will have to meet in person. Yeah, correct. Correct. So that's our next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I thought there was actually something that the Senate was voting on today. There was an extension tacked on to the budget. And I think the house voted for it last week and it went to the Senate. I thought they were supposed to vote on it today. Okay. But I haven't seen any updates. I don't know if it was it proposing to extend it or proposing to get rid of it? So yeah, so what I was doing, it was a. It was proposing to extend it for a year or two years. I forget. So I guess for some boards, certain boards, it was going to be two and for others, it was going to be one. I think the hope was that. About the time it came around next time for expiration, there'd be proposals to actually change the state law. So right now this is just another governor's. You know, or we saw an extension of whatever is in place. And then there has to be some formal. Formal action taken to change mass general law. Rob is in the other room now. Great. We have five people. I mean, five members. And welcome to everyone else who was here. We absolutely appreciate you attending. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Risha is here. Hi, Rob. Hi, Risha. Should we give it a minute and then start? Yeah. It's only seven or two in my pocket. Sit is missing, right? Yes. Maybe we should just go ahead and start and he'll show up. When he shows up. Okay. Well, thank everybody for joining us. March 9th. Welcome to our affordable trust meeting. And so I welcome all of you, especially the attendees and all of our trust members for joining us tonight. We're going to start with the review of the minutes and any discussion of corrections or emissions. And again, I want to just thank George Ryan for taking the minutes and also taking the minutes this evening. Any emissions, any corrections? Any additions? Not hearing any. And not seeing any hands up. I, we have accepted the minutes from our prior meetings. So we're all set with that. Thank you very much, everybody. All right. And just so everyone knows we are being recorded. So it helps for George to be able to then be accurate in transcribing the minutes. So, so the next one, the next item on the agenda is the listening session. So we sent out the draft proposal. And then we had a meeting together and we then shared it with our other, let me just, sorry, I have to switch over with the other group members who are interested in participating. So Allegra is wearing two hats from the community safety and social justice committee. And we have Philip Ovelia and Liz Heywood from the human rights commission. Nancy Gilbert from the health department. Philip heard from her that she was very interested and encouraged out and she agreed. And then from the Amherst municipal affordable trust, Allegra and myself, we are actually going to have a meeting on Wednesday, March 22nd from 930 to 1030 to literally plan out what we're proposing are two events. The first event being the listening session to really provide an opportunity to hear from Amherst residents what it is that they're, what their concerns are, what their feedback is, where they think we all should be heading. It's a real opportunity just to be available to them and hear from them. And then the second event, we really want to try to address some where we can in trying to connect people with resources that do exist. I think there was a proposal in terms of the listening session as well as to have a couple of organizations maybe speak about some resources, but I think the first part of it really should be an opportunity for residents to speak their mind and to really feel that all of our entity, all of the group members that are there are hearing what their needs are. And then working and planning towards at least finding the resources or some resources, but really connecting to them, to the resources that are available. So what we're thinking about is evenings from 630 to 830 p.m. We're not yet clear virtual versus in person, but in terms of the resources, it might be best to be in person. And there's a suggestion that possibly both should be in person, but our experience has been that if you have at least the virtual listening session, you might have more people feeling that this is accessible to them. So we're thinking April and then having three weeks in between so we can then gather who could speak to the different resources that might come up as needs from the listening session. We want to be cognizant that we don't do it when there is a school vacation or any other event that's happening. So we'll check to make sure that there are no other major events we don't want to compete with anybody else. We're going to look at a central location in town, around town that's accessible. If we do it in person, that also has parking because we know that's also a challenge. And we're looking at other organizations that we want to invite. So we have a whole list, but we'll absolutely take feedback. We're looking at marketing because we really want to make sure that this information gets distributed far and wide. I think one question is, I'm sure there's going to be costs related to doing this. Translators, interpreters, flyers, possibly space. And so that is a question that the script is going to have to make a decision about. Meaning the group that's planning this, but I might bring back to the trust if we need to contribute to the event. So I want to open it up to see if there is anything else. First I'll open up to Allegra, who's my co-conspirator in working on this event. And then open up to the rest of the trust members to see if you have any feedback or any suggestions. I think you did a really good job covering all the points and doing it concisely. The trust members. Comments, feedback, suggestions. Yes. Ashley has an actual hand. I couldn't find the thing. But for one thing, I wonder if we could do it at the Amherst survival center. That has, of course we'd have to ask them, but I don't think they're open at night, except for sometimes on like a third, well, sometimes on a Thursday. So I guess it depends when, but then also it's a big meeting hall and they, you know, they're very friendly and they tend to do things for free, but we can see. And also they have a kitchen. But then also I was just, just in general, I mean, you said residents, but I mean, what I've been doing is talking to people that work in Amherst, but they can't live in Amherst because they can't afford it. So let's, I mean, residents might cover it just as the word, but let's say people that live here, people that want to live here, people that work here, stakeholders in some way, like it's a little bigger than residents because there's a lot of people priced out of Amherst. And I, I do want to invite them. Thank you. That that's excellent. Yes. So in our, in our distributing information, people who live here, people who want to live here and people who work here and maybe go to school here as well. So one thing would be it, I guess the expectation of if this is going to be like a live event so someone could watch through Amherst media or online, then it has to be in a location or somewhere where we have cameras and that gets a little tricky. There's not too many spaces that have that or, you know, because it would have to be a hybrid meeting or something. And then the other one is, I think there's still the COVID capacities and meeting rooms. So, you know, they, those, the overall capacity of rooms that was reduced. And I think those are still in effect. So the town room, maybe it's just for town government buildings, but I know we still have reduced capacity in certain rooms. So I'm not sure. You know, if that apply, where, how, how that applies, but I just, you know, I'd want to look into that if it was going to be in person, just so that we're not having a meeting room where, you know, we can only have 50 people and a hundred show up and then they have to go somewhere else. And just to say that I'm also on the board of the survival center. I think the, I would guess that that space is too small. But it would really depend on what, you know, it would be, you know, you know, please feel free to come back to me if that, if you want me to explore that. Thank you. And my only other comment is I'm really excited to do this. And I really hope we can find a time that all of us. Or at least me can actually go. So what is too small? Just how many are we expecting? What is. What's ideal? Even if the three boards and committees are there, you know, what's the standard number of people and then if we get 30 people in the audience, I mean, that's just, that's 50. So I mean, I'm guessing we'd have. You can close it to 70 people depending on how well it's advertised. So I mean, I think that this is an important topic and people are interested in it. So that's, it's always hard to say, right? But when we've done previous forums and we have a lot of broadcasting of it, you know, I'd say it's probably like 40 people. Is a pretty standard amount. There is. Yeah. Go ahead, Carol. I just want to say I, I will totally go with what the group of you comes up with. But for some of the reasons that Nate's just said, and for some of the reasons of people's access, I would kind of like it to be virtual. It makes much less, it's much less difficult than if there's really a lot of people. It gives more, give people a real chance to more people can be, have a chance to be there. That's just my, that's just my, that's just my, that's just my intention. Like I said, I'm totally happy to go with whatever you guys come up with. Okay. There is a hand up in terms of our attendees. Nate. Can we allow them to speak? Go ahead. Lisa. Hi. Officially, I'm observing for the League of Women voters. I don't know if it's possible for the League to either publicize or participate. But I can say that the monthly e-newsletter that goes out from the League, the deadline is this coming Monday. So that's not going to work. But it would probably be possible to have. An email sent out to members about this. If you decide and you don't have. I don't know how they can decide now, but if you decide you want the League involved, it needs some lead up time. And I'm happy to pass the information along. But as most of you know, I can't actually usually attend meetings tonight's an exception. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested. So anyway, that's my comment. Thank you very much. Our group is going to meet on Wednesday, the 22nd. And I think, you know, I'll put up to the group. Actually, I can send them an email and put it up to the group. We certainly would love to have any. Collaboration and making sure that the information goes out to as many people as possible, who live work here or go to school here or recreate here. And I'm happy to be able to send them an email. And who really are interested in wanting to create a community here. Okay. There's another hand if you want to take it. Yep. Yeah. John, go ahead. Okay. I just a note about what I've done in the past. One is if you're looking for a venue. Certainly. Probably be probably be remote or. I should say mix. We had success using. The Crocker farm elementary school once. So that would be something to think about. It's also. Barely convenient to get there. Whereas the. The survival center is not as easy for people to get to, particularly in the evening. So that's one thought. The other thing having to do with publicizing is in the past, we have asked the league of women voters. As well as other organizations to be co-sponsors. And to send it out to their members. So if you look at the. Programs for past forums. I think that's a good point. I think that there generally been 20 plus sponsors that have been included. And that's a way of broadening the audience base. So I would definitely recommend doing that as well. Thank you, John. So we're already at March 9th in our first meetings, the 22nd. So the question to the group once we, because we went from a proposal to a planning group. I think it would be enough lead time to make sure this is. A success and it's accessible to people. And, you know, April is just around the corner. So that's also a consideration for the group. If may might be a better time. I already think so. Yeah. Because we want as many people to have access to this as possible. I think, you know, listening sessions are so important. And to provide an opportunity. And if people already have things that they can't move it around, they're not going to feel like they're valued or heard. So all right. Any other wonderful, these have been wonderful comments, great feedback. Want to make sure we get everybody's input. Yeah. I mean, the first or the, like the week of May, 7th or May 14th might be good. Just, you know, later in the month, it's Memorial Day. And then. You know, the group will review it and it will give us an opportunity to reach out to possible co-sponsors. I would agree with John, the more co-sponsors we have, I think the more of their membership would probably be interested in participating and feel that, you know, this is an avenue and something important for them to be included in. All right. Well, I think, I think I'm not seeing any other hands. So I'm going to pass it on to Carol. Thank you. Who is probably going to pass it on to Nate really, who has given us. I'm going to just quick question about the listening sessions. You know, I guess if it's not being a hybrid, it's not a hybrid to record it. I guess the question would be, how are we recording people's comments? Because. You know, trying to transcribe as they're speaking is a lot. That's why, you know, zoom is nice because we do get a recording. Video and audio. You know, if it's at the schools or somewhere, you know, you know, you know, it's been a great place too. They've been really, you know, gracious in the past and use their room there. But, you know, we'd have to, you know, we have a voice recorder, but I would just want to make sure we're figuring out how we're capturing what people are saying. It is. You know, that can be, that's a big part of it, right? I don't want to try to, you know, to try to figure out how we're going to do that. So, you know, we're trying to figure out how we're going to do that. We're trying to figure out how we're going to do that. We're trying to figure out how we're going to do that. And I just have a quick question, Nate. So if anybody else from the trust would want to participate in the planning group that would, you know, make it three or more right now, it's just Allegra myself. Will we then have to post the meeting? I say no. I say it's an ad hoc, you know, group that's really trying to work on scheduling, administrative, not. Other things. Thank you. I don't know. Whatever, but I'm surprised. That's all I'm surprised. Yeah, that's not asked too much. No, I think the, um, no, to me, this is really an administrative task, right? We're scheduling and other things. It's not, we're not discussing trust business. We're not, you know, discussing a project or, you know, anything like say was on the agenda tonight. It's really about setting up an event. Okay. I'm definitely interested in helping plan it. And I do think it's really important that we meet in person. Eventually, like, even if we had to have two meetings, something was in person someday because we've, so far I've only been on zoom. And that means we, we, we don't meet each other. I mean, I don't know everybody and it's really hard to even just get to know people if you're just always on zoom. Yeah. The listening session. I think we'll probably, you know, if we don't do two in person, then, you know, I think one would be the listening session would be in person. I mean, listening session would be virtual and then their resource. Uh, forum would probably be in person. But again, the planning group is going to make the decision. And we have somebody from the board of health. So I'm sure there's going to be an opinion regarding what's probably the best for everyone. In this point of time. But Ashley, I'll include you in the emails. Okay. Uh, so then are we, does anybody have any other things about the listening session? Or sessions. Maybe it should be plural. Um, then we'll try again to see if Nate maybe can put up on the screened. Finance report that he provided us and. Talk us through it a little bit and tell us what we've got. What's going on. Sure. How visible is that for people? Should I zoom in or is that. You know. For me, you could zoom in. Some. If you can, I've got it in front of me too. So it's okay. Yeah. I mean, it's an odd. You know, it's just a. That's zoomed in a little bit more. I don't know how legible that is. There's a little bit more. The, um, Yeah. So I mean, I guess that the, the. The upshot is the trust has a balance of about 700,000. Um, so it's a fair amount of funding. Well, it sounds like it, right? But, you know, I know Valley CDC would like to request some funding for their ball lane project. Wayfinders may also for their two sites. And so the. The balance doesn't last very long. You know, I've broken it down. There's a number of different account lines. We have unrestricted funding that's non CPA funding. So CPA. Community preservation act funding comes with. Requirements in terms of income limits that need to apply and the purpose of it non CPA. As it, as it is called, you know, there's no, it's, you know, say gifts donations or other things. So there's no. Limitations on how those funds can be used. And. There's a balance of 33,000, 600. 16. The trust did allocate funding for. A while ago for Belcher town road. And so we, there's some slight maintenance fees that we pay out of that account. Otherwise it just, there's really not, you know, we, that's an account that we don't draw on very much. You know, in part because it's nice to. Have it when we need it. Like I said, it's because non CPA. There's the. Can I. Can I ask why that? Which is being maintenance for the Belcher town road properties, which are part of a project. Why that can't come out of CPA funds. Yeah. CPA for housing is really to. Well, it can't support housing. And it can create preserve housing. And there's some nuance there, but. The town's accounting department feels that. Supporting the property or, you know, carrying the property with certain maintenance or other costs. Before the project is really not. Does not meet the CPA. Requirements. And so, okay. You know, I, I, you know. What other communities use CPA funding for this? Absolutely. Right. I think that you could roll this into say just general project soft costs. But I think, you know, sometimes our, we're playing it a little conservative here just to be sure we're, you know, we're not, no one can really question it. You know, okay. Yeah. It's just one of those things. How people, how we, how different communities interpret CPA. Yeah, it's just that we have so much more money that's all CPA restricted that it would be nice to not have to use that if we didn't have to, but I'm not a town accountant. Yeah. So for us as well, we'll jump down when you get down there, we'll talk about it, but the CPA, there's interest. You know, we, these are invested in funds. And so they're interest bearing accounts. And so there's a balance there. My understanding is that it could be drawn on. But it usually isn't, it's a, it's a, the balance fluctuates based on the investment earnings. And so, you know, at this point it's, it's doing all right. Technical services. So the trust has over the few years asked for both funding for technical services, say for engineers, surveyors, well and assessments. And that's, we try to use money, you know, from this account for that, those purposes. The trust had voted money to look at if we could move one of the homes from Belcher town road to old farm road. And so, you know, the, what is encumbered there are contracts for some of those assessments. And those, those assessments are done. So you can probably liquidate those, that encumbrance, but you know, essentially what was spent out of that was just payments for, for a wetland assessment and old farm road. Although it's a negative change from September to now the 30,000 dollars. And so, you know, we're going to have to switch between technical services to consulting services because that's really where it should have been. And so the, the difference really is about $2,300. Consulting services again is for contracts. We have been using that to pay the trust consultant. So Rita. So it was, it could be used for architects, engineers or others. Or we can keep it so that it's for direct services to the trust. And so, you know, we've been trying to, we've been trying to, we've been trying to, we've been trying to, we've been trying to, I think the consulting service would be, for instance, the funding that could be used to pay for the part-time housing coordinator or the housing coordinator position with the town. And then development funds, you know, we've been trying to try to capitalize the trust with just general request to CPA. So a housing trust is one of a few places that can bank role CPA funding. We don't have to have it for a specific project. We don't have to have it for a specific project. We don't have to have it for a specific project. We have to have it for a specific project based, but the trust can just make general, you know, just a request of funding. And so that's what we've done over the years and have been successful. Getting, you know, 250,000 a year. So we put in a request for 400, 500,000 and we, you know, we get anywhere from 150 to 250,000, you know, whatever it may be. And the balance has gone up. So that's what we've done over the last year. Last year CPA vote of 200 or 250,000 was moved over from the town account accounts of the trust accounts. You know, in the last few months. The 77,000 difference is we had been. There was an encumbrance last time of that amount because we had been carrying the contracts for. The rental emergency and a few other programs that were old, and we just hadn't liquidated those contracts yet. So that's what we've done over the last few months. So that's what we've done over the last few months. That funding, you know, is now available. And then valley had requested funding for North Hampton road. So that payment was made in the last few, you know, two months. So then it seems. Then I don't know, it seems like it'd be more than 77,000 dollars more if we got 250 and spent a hundred. What happened to the other. So I had already included that in the balance of 466 as of 930, because I look, I, when I included. In September, I included all the money that was available, whether or not it was in a trust account. So I also included the CPA funding that hadn't yet been allocated into the trust funds. So realistically. If we had said, what's only in trust funds as of 930. We should, you know, we would have removed not 250,000 from the 466. Right. So it was, it was voted. So what happens is voted at town by council. They sit in CPA accounts. And then the town has to manually move them into the trust fund account. And so when the funding was voted for whatever fiscal year, say it's 23 or 22, the money didn't get moved right away. It was moved, you know, instead of getting moved in July, August, September, it was moved, say in October. Right. So we close our books usually in September. And so then that's when the money was moved. And so that, you know, I had already created it. I guess that's still, I still don't get it, but we don't have to spend time on it here. But if the 250 is already in the, in the 466, then I don't see how we got up to 544 by spending $100,000. I just doesn't add up to me and it, not maybe a big deal, but at some point I want to understand this. I'm sorry if I'm the only one who does, but I don't, I don't get it. It just, I also, since I'm on, I'm going to ask one other question, which is how, how we can have an encumbrance of $9,000 if we only have a balance of five on technical services. So the encumbrance is not included in the balance. The balance is what's available. So in the account, there's actually the five plus the nine, but nine of it can't be used for anything else. Right. It's in contracts. So the balance is okay. So this balance that $701,000 is really $710,000. If you include the encumbrances, right, right. Okay. Okay. That's good. Yeah, but that's not available balance. Right. So I know I got it. That okay. It's not available, but it, but it does exist. And it is for something that we're presumably going to use it for. Okay. So I have a question because I mean now let, let's say we have $700,000 give or take. Is it possible that now we can start buying some land? I have found some land that's like 160,000 or so. And so I don't know what a good price for land is, but it seems like if we have all that money, maybe it would be a good time to get some. So I don't know if we can, if we can get some land that we can use it for some of the other things that we can do. And it would be a good time for the makers to just have that we would eventually figure out what we want to do with it. I think that the trust can the trust, you know, has the, has the ability to. Purchase or lease property and a number of other things. You know, I, knowing that value would like to make a request of the trust. And maybe another one. We just have to be aware of that. And I think, you know, the trust can't just buy land. As a pride, like a private citizen. It's a little more involved. And so. Not that the trust can't, but I think if there's properties or there's some interest, you know, we can work with staff. And then those are things that would have to be held, say an executive session with the trust. And then we'd have to work. You know, we'd want to assess the property, right? So although there might be some acres for sale, if it's all wetland and it's not buildable, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. And so some of it would be before a property is purchased. You know, we. Would want to get out there and do some due diligence. We have to negotiate a person's sale and a number of things. I mean, I. You know, we can also, the trust can also borrow. You know, we could go to a bank and borrow and take out. Alone. But I think we. You know, it's not a bad idea. I just want to make sure we're not, you know, we are very, very concerned about the property. Yeah. I guess, I guess I would add that we would want to. I would be more inclined to go say to one of the developers that were friendly with. Hey, look at this piece of land. Do you think you can do something with it? We would like to help you do it. And then we would have some amount of expertise. Going into figuring out whether it's a kind of a piece of land that we might be able to do anything with. Cause I don't, I don't have that. If I'm dissing somebody here, I apologize, but I'm not aware of us having that kind of. Of expertise here. Well, so. I mean, isn't that the due diligence, but then also. I mean, part of it is that we need to, I, I want to look at new developers because. I don't want to rely on the older developers all the time that have their, I mean, for one thing, they're doing a lot of things. They have a lot of. Developments. I think we need to get new developers, but then also I think that just assessing what land is. Isn't that something that. Amherst can kind of do in-house. Not. I mean, yes and no, but not to the extent of. Before you buy a property. So you might, you need to do an environmental assessment and actually hire. You know, different types of. Engineers or scientists. So it's not something that. Staff would have the time and some, even if we have, we may have the expertise, but may not have the time. And so. You know, Carol's approach is nice because a private developer can interact more quickly with a private buyer than. The town or the housing trusts. And so. You know, they can keep things private. They could enter into remits with a buyer or a seller. And the trust could always support that through funding. Whether it's after the fact or at some point. And so the trust. You know, for, for instance, when the town acquired. The Belcher town road properties. It's something that. You know, error the VFW has to happen. If it's through the trust always at, you know, at public meetings, so that's the executive session. And then we have to be very careful about. Keeping it private, you know, not say known to the public, because. Typically the town, including the trust, can't buy a property at more than the appraised value. And so most of the time in Amherst property is sold at higher than the appraised value, right? I mean. People will bid and bid out on a property if they think it's valuable. And so where the town doesn't have that ability to. You know, bid higher than what. The value is. Then what, you know, someone an appraiser will, will say it is. And so. You know, it's different than we can't get into a bidding war with people. So, you know, five flat acres come up for sale. And people think they can get a lot of units on that. So, you know, once it's already on the market, most of the time, the town is not in a good position because. You know, people can just keep. Yeah. So let's, we have a hand, a hand. So I'd like to see what John wants to say. John, you can unmute yourself. I just had a general question about the presentation. Nate's given us. And that is. You know, I think it would be in danger of CPA withdrawing them. If we don't come up with a plan for spending. So I would argue, you know, because the trust is named in statue as one of two. Two organizations that can actually, like I said, sit on CPA funding without having specific projects. So. You know, I think the CPA committee asked annually for an update about, you know, the funding. And I think we could justify why we still need those funds every year. Right. So I, I think they can ask, but there's really not a mechanism for them to. Pull them back where, say, for instance, you know, another entity applies for CPA funding, say to fix. A house or do, you know, do something. And then they sit on it for five years. The CPA committee could say. You know, that really wasn't a product that was ready for CPA funding, but the trust isn't really, you know. Is it native that equally true of consulting money from CPA and tech services money from CPA as it is for the development funds? Yeah. I mean, I think that they could say, well, geez, you know, how long do you need technical services out there? And. And I'll give you an example of why it's nice to have that money. We used to carry that. We used to try to carry some funding for historic preservation projects and we was just returned last year. And an owner just went through the demolition process on a house in North Amherst to demolish, you know, a 200 year old house. That's a very nice, you know, property. And the commission issued a delay on it. And so now. We're saying, you know, how do we hire an architect to help assess the, you know, to help assess the property for the owner, because there's absolutely no funding available for technical services. And so for me, you know, that money, you know, $10,000 could be spent on one, you know, one project, you know, a big property needs some wetlands or environmental. So I would say having those, you know, Dave and I like to say that that $10,000 or that consulting money is helps, you know, with a project exponentially. So those $10,000, the impact is something that it could result in, you know, a lot of the, you know, the, the, the net revenue is going to be, you know, less than $10,000. And you know, the debt is going to be a little bit more than $10,000. And so I think that the CBA committee could ask like, oh, I thought, you know, but I think so the way the trust has done it, right this year, we didn't ask for additional consulting money because we had a balance. And so I think as long as we're, you know, we're aware of that, you know, we can't just every year keep saying, Oh, we need more consulting money more consulting money and yet our balance is growing and we're not spending it. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, John. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, they could ask, I'm, I'd like to say that we can reason with them. Okay, thanks. Um, aside from at some point, me understanding why this bottom line, because I still don't, and maybe other people want to too. So, do you have anything else to say about it Nate how we, if the 250 was in the 466 then I, you know, I'd have to, um, I think it would probably has to do with what the encumbrances were as of 930 and then see where some money may have been liquidated, you know, there could have been some contracts that were then cleaned up, like I said, and then I can I can get a detail expense and see exactly how it works, but that would be great. I'd love to see that. Thank you. I mean, there's no tricker. There's no trickery there, you know, it's not like we're, no, I don't, I don't think there's trickery I just like to like, I feel like I really want to understand it that's all when I see Erica has a hand up. I have a quick question. I think way back when when we talked about the emergency rental program, there was conversation about FEMA possibly reimbursing some funds for that. Is that sort of over and done with and we didn't get any or what's the status with that. Yeah, I know so the trust you know I voted 250,000 for the rental assistance program I think in the end in the end the trust maybe spent 150,000 so you know we FEMA did what COVID money did pay for that and so what we did the trust originally we're paying out of the trust funds, and then we started getting reimbursed and then we just started paying directly with the COVID funding so you know if for instance, the you know if we needed to the trust funding at some point would have been spent again but we didn't you know we didn't have there wasn't a need to do that. Okay. And just so that I'm understanding if say the listening session or sessions were to involve some requests for funds say for translation services would that come out from like unrestricted account if the trust so desires to vote that way. Right. Yeah, that'd be the easiest, you know, to use it with that account from that account. I mean we could say technical services I just would, you know be difficult for someone to say well how is that creating preserving or supporting affordable housing and you know just be easier to say take it out of the unrestricted account. Yeah, even you know I emailed the trust members. You know the housing Institute right is in June, put on by mass mass housing partnership and so if trust members go to a training, you know we have the unrestricted account or, you know, we can we can support that you know registration fees or even travel as long as there's receipts and everything so that that account views for that. I'm sorry that comes out of the unrestricted account or that can be technical services. I would still try to use the unrestricted account just so that we're not, you know, having people raise eyebrows at what, what it is. I don't care if they raise eyebrows if we can spend it out of somewhere else, but I think it's fine though I mean the you know that's an interest bearing as well. So the technical services really would be right where, like Ashley was saying like oh there's a problem. Can we confirm the survey or something and we hire someone to, you know, perform some type of outside service. Directly related to the creation of the affordable housing. That's the difference between those things and the kinds of things we're talking about. Erica. Yeah, so in terms of the CPA restricted words interest earnings, because it's interest earnings on CPA funds that are restricted we can't move the interest earnings into the unrestricted. Yeah, I. I've been told no, but then, you know, when, when I looked into it I wasn't sure so it's a good question. I thought you could I thought we could move it into unrestricted but I'm not, I'm not totally clear on that. Can you trial some more to find out the answer. I mean if we can, that would be good to know. I mean so sometimes it's helpful with with that is you know researching to other trust to just so then we can make a presentation to our, you know, our, our accounting department. Yeah, you know, I don't. You know, like I said there's, you know, standard accounting practices but I just want to want to make see what other communities do. I mean because the CPA is the major funder of housing trusts in Massachusetts. Okay, maybe we're ready to move on because anyone as an attendee or trust member or anybody have anything that they else that they would like to say about this finance report. In that case, I will turn it back to Erica who will turn it back to take our next stab at whatever we're doing. It's the position about that. The position. Yeah, the town trust position. Exactly. Before I before Nate before you talk about this. Let me just say some of the questions we raised prior if we had a staff position to do some of the work. Nate you'd probably have the answer so much quicker because we know you're overwhelmed. So, I think this position is really important that could really help us as well as the town really bring together some of the goals we have and make them happen so go ahead. Yeah, I know Dave's here as well if he may raise his hand at some point so we did meet. We share that you know the job description that we had last month and so I didn't receive any additional comments. You know I think there was a broad, you know, list of, you know, tasks and it covered quite a bit it was really, I don't think it excluded anything but I think, you know, covered any, any tasks we may want the position to undertake the, you know, the question really then comes down to, you know, was it a full time and is it benefited and so there is our apartment that anything over 20 hours a week is benefited and it will be. It can be prorated, you know, certain things can be prorated if it's not completely full time. You know that's one consideration. A full time employee, there is a fringe rate. So, you know the rate for benefits and everything it's about, we'll say 40%. So, you know, if someone's making $50,000 a year, 40% of that, an additional funding you know you don't see is supporting the resources, retirement and everything else and so it does add to the cost of, of the position right so if we say the trust has 20,000 in the town is has 30,000 through CPA and we have $50,000 a year, we can, if it is benefited, then we just have to figure out, what the benefit costs and just back into that number right what what the benefit costs will be and so I think you know that's just, I mean that's the discussion right so if it's we think if we think we need more than 20 hours a week or say it's 25 hours a week and it's a part-time benefited position and you know and then that's that's that and then we just you know we have to figure out, I guess the pay range and so you know it goes into we have a whole chart for non-union positions I'm assuming it's a non-union position and then it you know we work with HR we work with HR to figure out how it how it you know factors in into that scale so I don't know if there's any you know I know at one point the trust has said well let's try to make it full-time I think that would require maybe some additional funding because of the benefits so at one point we thought you know we could have a full-time position that wasn't benefited if it was grant funded as say this could be kind of considered but that's not the case any position over 20 hours has to be benefited. That's what I thought would happen. Yeah I wasn't sure but I was that was clarified. So there is a hand up from one of. Can't move over there somebody has a hand up. Yeah that's John. John. Okay. Maybe I missed this but I would like to know how much money the town is prepared to put into this but we're not talking about the town doing anything beyond the CPA contribution that we have pending. Right so the town the CPA has already been voted the 30,000 a year for three years or you know a little bit more than 30,000 so that's what the town has there's no other funding in the operating budget or personnel budget for this position. Okay so if we start with that that would be a substantial part-time position that would be less than half time I assume or it could be essentially a contracted position. No it has to be it's considered an employee so it can't be a contract. Okay, but that yeah. So at $30,000 you're already have a, at least an employee if not a full-time employee. Yeah. Okay. So, then the question is, are there additional trust funds that could come out of our consulting line that would be applied so that we would make this $40,000 a year position. That would be probably about what 60% time or a little hard to say. Especially if benefits are 40% you're taking all I mean that's like, however much you've got you've got a lot less than that. $150,000 if it's 40% you've got about 107 of it for salary. I could say it's a big chunk. What? Yeah I mean if we said $40,000 a year and it was benefited and I'm doing 30% for benefits. 30%? Yeah 30% just say because it's maybe not full-time it's not 100% full-time so it's prorated a bit. Then your actual salary is about $31,000 you know the $9000 is going to all the benefits and everything. And now who directs this person's work? So they would work under in the planning department. I would be a supervisor and then you know in it we say that they also will get direction from the co-chairs or the chairs of the trust. But they're directly supervised by me. Okay I mean historically in the past when we had a consultant, mostly I decided their tasks as the chair of the trust. So what we're saying is that in fact Erica and Carol or Carol and Erica wouldn't directly determine what they're doing or what their priorities are. I think they would, I think the reporting and kind of the workflow of it is a little different. In the past also we would have them as contracts with the trust and not an employee. So, you know using the town funding the CPA funding that it needs to be a town employee. It can't be a contract. So, you know the way we've hired Rita cannot cannot happen anymore, but actually you'd actually have to be a town employee. But you know with a job description, and you know fit into our job, you know our non union employee chart so you know it's just, there was a change you know I think right Erica mentioned it last time right that took effect a year or two years ago but what's happening now is it's being implemented by the municipality so the way we hired, even John Page was questionable now in terms of the new ruling so it makes it a little more difficult because you know right we could have done this and said oh let's have a contract for someone for so many hours a week for two years but that's just not possible anymore. Okay thanks for clarifying that. So, I guess that my question is where are you. Are you actually working on coming up with something that does go through all those steps that you said go to HR and figure out what it's going to cost and come and ask. I expected that at some point we would be asked, here's what we want to do and here's what we're here's the money we're going to put into it. Here's what we need from you housing trust. We want to do this. Yeah, I think that's where we are so last time the discussion was, you know, what's the say the wage of this position, how many hours a week and what really, you know is it full time. And so I think that's really the decision process is you know the town has 30,000. If it's over 20 hours a week and needs to be benefited at a prorated amount, you know what is the trust willing to, to provide or support and you know for this position and so once that's made I think we can figure out what say the hourly wages or what the salary is, and then, and then we can advertise it so the job description that I had last month I could pull it up I mean that hasn't changed right so that's a you know if we think that looks good that's the job description. If we're working with HR, we have an idea of where it could fit into this, you know the employee chart, and then it's now figuring out kind of what what we assume what we think is the right amount of time, or funding to apply to this position. So, I at least would want to see the job. I thought we had made some suggestions last time that didn't seem to be in the job description we look like, like the proactiveness we wanted to see on trying to find things so I don't want to say anything without seeing the job description again, not right now on the screen but at a time when we can actually think about it. And I don't know, I guess if we could have a proposal that says here's how much of our money we're willing to spend on this and let you go from there. I don't know if exactly we're ready to do that either, I guess my off the top of my head idea is, I would be willing to spend a bunch of what's in the consulting services line, maybe if I like the job description enough and if I like the way that it seems like it's going to be between the town and the trust. But that's a lot of ifs. And that's just me that's not everyone else in the trust so I'm interested to hear what other people are thinking. I think they were spending a lot of time on the particulars of this job when we should, you know, fund them well, and most importantly, hire them quickly, and then also have some provisions that they meet with the chairs weekly, or that they are reporting to somehow us well monthly, but that this gets going soon, so that I mean I'm for all the money. Money doesn't mean that much to me we have a lot of money so like let's just put a lot of money into it and hire this person, like, tomorrow. Somebody else Erica. Yeah, I was just curious because Carol you mentioned the consulting line. Is that the line that we have to use in order to fund this position. It's not necessarily but you know there's a balance there so you know the trust said 15,000 a year for three years that's covered already in the balance in that line so, you know, it's going to be from other, other accounts, other lines. Yeah. So the struggle that I'm having is the amount versus how much time do we actually think we need this person for. You know, if, if we were to have this individual do all the things that we've already been talking about. I mean there's the inventory there's the being proactive there's possibly you know, I mean with developers to see what they're doing. There's, you know, making sure that the, the projects that we have we're on top of that. There's just so much that this individual can do. So the question, like we're working backwards we're saying well how much money do we have and then we know that we're going to have this person 25, you know, hours or whatever. I'm wondering if it seems to me we have enough for a full time individual which then means, okay we have to come up with more money, and are we willing to come up with more money. Are we willing to come up with enough money if we have it to get somebody who can actually help us move on a lot of these items that we that we've raised. I second that. Let's give her like or him 50 or $60,000 a year full time plus benefits. Bench have we benchmark this position against other positions that could be that we, we talked about this and I just can recall and see what other trusts, you know around the country are doing and see how much they pay in them in a town similar to Amherst that has the standard of living, and then once we benchmark it and we can figure out what which way to go, how much to pay my mom of course we want to pay somebody a very good wage but I think benchmarking would be the best way to go because there's got to be other positions out there around the country or even in Massachusetts that are similar to what we're trying to do here. Yeah, that's a good point I think at one point we had it but not recently so I think that's something we could look into. I mean so HR was going to, they can help facilitate that a little bit, but I think that's something staff can also look into. When you do look into that now the information could you send it to all of us. I think it'd be important because we're going to end up waiting till April to make a decision. And it seems like, you know, you, and we could really use a person. Yeah, I was going to say I do have a few communities in the last, you know, say six months have advertised for a housing planner in Massachusetts so I have that saved, you know, just to see you know it's say similar. Just to see what that is so I have, I have that, and then we can also look at what some communities have this as a CPA housing administrator or some other things so we can do that kind of comparison and benchmarking said. And I will say that, you know, a full time position if you're saying 50,000 a year and we're at our, you know, percentage for for benefits and everything really that's $70,000 we need a year so that's 40,000 a year from the trust and so that is a significant amount of funding. You know, I don't want to say that the position isn't worth it but that's, you know, that's a, that's a, you know, the trust would have to say where we can allocate 40,000 a year for three years for that and so that's where you know I do think it's important to say if it's 30 hours a week and it's prorated benefits and the trust gives 15,000 then we're at, you know, this is kind of where the rate is and so I mean Eric I agree maybe there's enough for full time, some of it is. And maybe, you know, maybe we like to figure out how we advertise it, you know, could be that the first year is not as many hours right depending on how they're getting up to speed and what the tasks are and then you know actually they once they get more familiar there's definitely a lot that can happen I just don't want to. You know, unlike a contract worker say gets paid for the hours they work we have to make sure we really have a clear, a clear job description and a clear set of hours that they work, and that they are, you know, it's a good use of time. And unfortunately, it has to be a position that we're saying we are all we've confirmed this for X number of years and after that, who knows what happens next and then the town doesn't have money anymore after that. Maybe the trust doesn't have money after that either. So, that might make it a hard sell I don't know how to get this to be more concrete which is what I would. I think the three year position those you know, that's a pretty good I mean I think the town's ideas that if this is something that is fruitful and works well that we would try to see how it can be funded right but you know there's always CPA funding, although we said we would try to figure out other funding mechanisms but I mean to me a three year. Three years is a pretty good job security knowing that if you're there you have three years of funding. I don't. And who knows maybe the legislation around the transfer fees will come, and that could be a possibility as well. Maybe what we need is, do you think maybe a subgroup to work with you on this. I do think having some level of funding the trust to be comfortable with on an annual basis is important because then that we can kind of figure out okay if it's 45,000 total. You know, what does that look like at, you know, say, you know I can back that out so you know 45,000 a year is about 45,000 a year total is about 35,000 in salary, because you know we're backing out up 30% for fringe and so I mean I think that's kind of where we can start and then figure out what you know how that fits into the pay scale, the employee pay scale with HR. Okay, so I think we're here. Let's go ahead Carol. I'd like to see if I could be clear about what I'm looking back at your finance report, and we use money in any of these lines that we feel like for this purpose, or are there only some lines that could be used for this. And if so, which are they. I mean I think. I think any of the lines really, but you know consulting services is probably the most relevant. This position right could be actually working on getting projects developed so then the development funds could, could, could be used and so I don't you know, I think really any, any line can be used. It's just I think the most appropriate to be the consulting services. Yeah, okay. But there's not some restriction that makes it so we can't use other one. Okay, thank you. So I don't see any other hands up. Wait a minute up there is a hand up. John. John you can unmute yourself. It's not of us we're talking about town funds and trust funds. The truck the town funds are actually funds that come from CPA that were allocated to both the trust and the town jointly. The whole idea that was pitched to the housing trust was that these are funds that the town and the trust would figure out how to spend for an employee or consultant jointly. So that it's not as if that piece of the funding doesn't belong to the trust as well. So Johnny you're saying that the amount that was given to the town is also up for grabs in terms of this position supporting this position. Yes, it was given jointly to the town and the trust to support a position. The part time position that the town had proposed. The idea was that this was a joint project between the town and the trust, not simply a town position. And this was about a year ago, correct. Yeah, maybe even a little bit more. The other thing I should say that I'm concerned about and Nate you may have some comment about this. As I look at your involvement in other planning department activities it seems like that keeps expanding that you're doing a lot more on zoning than you were doing a year or two years ago. And so that's a significant increased demand on your time. So the question I have in my mind is to what extent is this person going to kind of backfill for tasks that you no longer have the time to do because of the increasing demand for your participation and planning for zoning. Yeah, that could be some of it some of it also is for instance, with the new inclusionary zoning bylaw we're getting, you know, almost every larger project is required to have affordable units. We're taking more time to coordinate and so, you know, even just trying to develop more projects so the strong street prod, you know, for instance the strong street site so I don't think I don't see as much as backfilling as kind of augmenting the services we're providing and the our level of ability to expand and preserve housing so you know it's things that I would want to work on, but this position can really further it so even if you know there's ongoing uses they can really spend time researching that and looking at it, they could find properties that are appropriate for habitat and really spend time digging into it and say okay here's, you know, five sites that can work, you know, and really you know coordinate with habitat so you know I have done that on a say a cursory level a while ago and said here's you know four sites what do you think, and, and, you know, maybe this position could do a little bit more research in terms of certain areas, you know, even looking at, you know, doing some due diligence on the properties or coordinating that due diligence so I see it as really augmenting expanding ability to the town to, and the trust to increase affordable housing. Any other comments or feedback. I think what I heard you say, Nate is one that you are going to look to see what other towns comparable towns have in terms of this type of position, take a look at in terms of salary and hours, and then come back to us in terms of what you think would be a reasonable contribution from us to make sure that we can get that quality of person to be working for us. I mean I just heard you say a lot of different responsibilities that are going to take a lot of time. And I love the fact that you talk about augmenting, because I think it is really important to think about every avenue to create affordable housing and I know the zoning bylaws is also a huge area to have impact on that. So, you want to come back to us. Can you tell us how soon. I mean, I think next month we can, you know, I was just trying to run some numbers where you're talking, you know, saying like oh if the trust put in, you know, if we had 45,000 a year, and they were 30 hours a week. You know what, what's a good hourly, you know, what is that break down per hour and I was coming up with, you know, you know, I was trying to figure that out anyway so yeah I think that's something we could, we could maybe have like a, you know, a few things like that so if, you know, 15,000 a year of 20,000 a year if so many hours a week and just kind of provide a table to show what that looks like in terms of, you know, a wage and benefits and yeah and I think that's that could be helpful. And then at the same time we could have a comparison of what other how other communities fund this. Okay. All right. Carol. Sorry, I just thought I remembered back from some point earlier on in this conversation that somebody said it, there are some threshold of hours that we need to meet reach in order for the position to be attractive enough. Maybe it was something you so. Yeah, so I kind of sounds like we could find things for somebody to do full time the question is. What can we kind of both afford and where's the line between being able to afford it and making it attractive enough so somebody's going to want to do it. So that's just another thing to think about. Yeah, I think we did have this conversation and I think I remember Risa saying that there might be people who are already doing some hours and be interested in possibly part time work. And I think what we had said is possibly thinking about preferable this number of hours but you know, we would consider in terms of the applicants because we make it lots of applicants we may not get lots of applicants. So that's the other piece. I think there's a, you know, there's a way if we can be flexible enough to say that we would prefer applicants who can work X number of hours but we would consider other applicants as well. I mean I don't know if that's a possibility with the town in HR. Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean I think those are all good questions so we're you know we can have another meeting with HR I agree I. I feel like there needs to be some flexibility and the description and I just I'm not sure right what how. Yeah, so I think that's a good question. Okay so you're going to come back with us with a table that's going to show us sort of wage benefits hours and comparison to other comparable towns that have positions like this. Okay, and if you can get them you know if you have that before our next meeting that would really great because I think we all agree that we really need a person like this. And you know, we're also, we're also anxious I know the CPA committees will ask soon as well so it's something we'd love to get going to carry your next. Um, yeah I don't know how long this is going to take someone what we were asked by probably Ashley to have a chance to talk again about the duplex triplex bylaw proposal. And I know from having gone to one of the planning meetings at which they were considered that it is very much a work in progress, the stuff that I sent to you I don't think is anywhere near whatever the final proposal is going to be I don't know what that's going to be I think that the two Mandy and Pat I think are meeting with the planning department tomorrow to try to iron out some of whatever in the world is going to go next. So what I thought I would like to give us the chance to do is just kind of almost from scratch in a way. Think about some of this, are there things that we saw in this proposal it sent all the bunch of stuff out again but there's nobody here at the moment to present it. There are things that we saw in here that seemed like they would be important to have included in whatever goes forward and are there things in here that we think would be really bad. So it's just kind of a general chance to say this part of what's going on here it seems like really the right direction, or something or other seems like it's rather the wrong direction. And if that's so vague that no one has anything to say that's possible to but anyway I wanted to provide the opportunity, and I have a few things I will say but I'll let somebody else have a chance first. Ashley, you have a hand. Well, basically, I don't remember them actually kind of telling us what it has to do with affordable housing so they want to create more units. This is just housing. If we're not getting any affordable units out of this. Then, what does it really have to do with us. What are they asking from us where are the affordable housing trust fund board. What are they, what are they giving affordable housing wise. Well, I think that the thought was that there needs to be more possible kinds of housing available that will impact affordability. Kind of indirectly but in the way that zoning can so that there are maybe fewer neighborhoods that feel somehow exclusive or something. But they can't they came to us because actually I think I said I thought that the housing trust for those kinds of reasons might be a good ally and perhaps I was wrong. Although I still have a lot of some things about it that I like but they're not really asking anything from us they're asking if we are in support of what they're doing or not. And I see two more hands so Allegra. I certainly echo what Ashley said I think I would support a bylaw that allowed for either owner occupied or affordable units to be built but I think that when you get into the territory of non owner occupied. And I guess by exclusion of the word affordable in that. I just worry that we're just going to be building more $4,000 a month to bedroom units on top of each other that will just continue to price people who can't afford that out. So I think in terms of looking at it as the affordable housing trust. Provisions need to be favoring development of affordable units of housing. So that's those are my two cents. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I suspect like a lot of you the conversation and the proposal from last month has been sitting with me for a while now and I'm interested. I think one of the things that was sitting with me and made I don't remember if you said this in this meeting or if you were quoted in one of the newspaper articles but something around like, we would need. There was a number on it like 7,000 new units before we'd start to really feel right like that was still most likely all go to students that the gap between what we need. And where we are is so big that there's just an enormous need and I guess I am a supportive of reducing single family home zoning in the town I think that that is a positive towards more affordable housing. The indirectness of build more it becomes affordable as a long time coming if I've understood our economics properly. There can be a lot of very high end units before we start to shift that supply and demand curve. And I thought I read in the latest. I admit I didn't dig into it as detailed as I did the earlier one but I thought I saw that it's looking like they are now looking at the owner occupied zoning as a preference. And that was good. I guess my lingering question is, what are the zoning possibilities for more larger apartment complexes if I've understood correctly that was sort of taken away 2030 years ago and are they now. Is there a way to use this moment to actually start trying to build lots and lots and lots of more from a zoning standpoint, not just an affordability standpoint. Yeah, if I may quickly, yeah, I think that's the last point I'll speak to the planning board met a week or two ago and kind of had that conversation you know where could we allow much more dense housing in town whether that's in the village centers or could we actually come up with a student housing overlay I'll just call it that right let's where can we put student housing because the market and Amherst is really off balance with the demand for student housing. And, you know, when I say that I'm not saying that, you know, there's positives and positives and negatives from the university when I'm talking about housing I'm just saying it's the student pressure on the housing market is really, you know, insurmountable almost and it's not, you know, it's not saying anything against the university or students right but it's just that there's so many students that need housing that they drive the price up and so when I say like gosh it's bad for housing it's just because of that right so students can pay per bedroom more than anyone else can typically pay and so that's that's that is really hurting Amherst more than other communities because of the proximity maps and so the housing production plan and the housing market study said right that there's this imbalance and whether that was caused because those things that changed 40 or 50 years ago and the lack of supply and, you know, that all that may be true but it's hard to say let's just make some changes and it's going to automatically change. Right and so I think the planning department and what was voiced at the planning board when they discussed this was concerned and I think was said here as well. Rob, you mentioned it was that, like we just said that these units, if there aren't provisions for owner occupancy or for affordability it's just going to become student housing, just because the opportunity choices students would prefer to live closer to UMass so you know, the impact might be that Belcher town or, you know, Dearfield or Greenfield might see fewer students right we're living 20 to 30 minutes away but they're still really high demand and Amherst for housing. You know, so I think that part of this proposal generated some great discussion that the planning board I wanted to have, and they're having now and so they're meeting again at the end of the month to talk more about where can we allow for say student housing, where could we allow for, you know, different densities of housing. And, and then there's this piece, which is you know the zoning proposal is looking at duplexes triplexes so they simply said three units in a building. Right now we call in our zoning triplexes three units or more as an apartment building. And so the they're saying well let's have duplexes, triplexes, and their apartments is for more, and then townhouses, and then you know those owner occupied or affordable and so, you know, we're meeting right we're meeting with staff me with Mandy and Pat tomorrow. And I think there are pieces right that could be researched, and might be good to implement it's just, I'm not sure. I think sometimes there needs to be a corollary to it, which is also allowing student housing or some other pieces or maybe there's some other regulations that might be non zoning that maybe limits the density of student rentals right is there a distance requirement between student rentals and so I think it's hard to say no all the time and say because we need more housing but then when someone proposes it and we're like oh no but we can't because of this and that it seems like we're, we're stalling something that we know should happen but I think the worry is that there's going to be unintended consequences of it, and then it's hard to reverse it quickly and so you know I, for me it's like wow I think we're having these conversations and so let's have more of them with different groups and maybe we can come up with a bunch of solutions that can happen at once so they all can work and so, you know, I would hate to move forward and have allowed non or occupied triplexes everywhere in town and then after a year. We have, you know, 15 triplexes going up along Bay Road and they're just all student rentals, and you know each triplex has, you know, 12 bedrooms and 12 students and we have just, you know we're pushing we're getting students in places where we didn't expect them and maybe it's better to look at it, you know, with all these different tools and techniques at once. So yeah, you know I don't know I don't you know I think in general. It's like wow this looks this makes sense right I think you'd say wow this is great we want to have different types of housing in Amherst and then maybe it's the details that start getting, you know you have to consider and so I think generally. You know, someone had said a year ago and said yeah I would say yeah this sounds like a great idea let's have more duplexes and if we have design guidelines so they look like single family homes and they're not. You know say attract duplexes like these are really attractive and it's great and then someone could say well what about the students and then you know all these little variables start creeping in and. And so I, you know I, so I think the ideas are good and it's just all this, you know the mechanical pieces that really need to be refined and. The affordability piece is interesting, how do we require it on a duplex, you know to be quote capital affordable means it's deed restricted it's going through the state is affirmably marketed you have to hire a third party to do that and it becomes really cumbersome on a duplex. You know essentially it's a context then you know you're kind of minimizing it if it's home ownership. And so I, I do think we'd have to have some provisions for affordability but could we have a higher income limit so it's not on the subsidized housing inventory you know it's not capital affordable it's lowercase a affordable and could we manage that because I think there is housing we need for different income levels. Okay I got two people, two people attendees you want to say something and then I want to say something but go ahead and do john and Grover. Okay thank you. I've been thinking about this a bit, and I want to reinforce what everybody else has said, but then take another step. Listening to Allegra before talking about well. How is this going to impact positively on affordable housing and occurred to me to say, or to think, wait a second. It's not only not going to impact positively but it's going to impact negatively, and not only on big a affordable housing, but the kind of more modest income housing that I know that Mandy and Pat are both interested in. We understand right now there's tremendous competition for housing research resources in the state and the nation, and also in Amherst. There's tremendous competition for land, and for building materials and for labor, and for all of those things. And as a consequence, to the extent that we open things up to allow for the development of more housing. What we're going to do is play into that existing market economy, and make it harder to do affordable housing, because affordable housing and modest income housing will lose out in the competition for those resources that are devoted. As we kind of expand the opportunities for any housing in Amherst. So, I really think this is going to do the opposite of what the proposers want, and that what any of us would want for housing. I ask a question. Is there, is there any limit on how many houses, a person can own that is full of students like. Can you keep buying house after house after house, you only live in one, and the next 10 are full of students. Is that legal. There's no limit, there's no like legal or anything limit. So we got two more hands, however, Rob. It's just that if we make that person buys more houses and fills them with students like it does. Right, it just opens up like, well that's what John that's what John was just saying I think so. Yeah, I mean so yeah I think it's interesting staff have said that the people who would have the equity or the means to buy land or build houses are the ones who already own, own a few houses because they can quickly, you know they have the collateral and so there isn't a limit I think that if you are building, say a duplex and it's non owner occupied there's a special permit requirement so the ZBA asked for a management plan, and asked for a number of things that make it so that you know say me, you know me and my wife can't run 20 properties because we really can't manage them so we'd have to hire a management company and so the ZBA through the permitting process can have some conditions that would say that even if it's owned by a single family, you know say a private individual family. There is management and there is other resources that are going to the management maintenance of those properties beyond what that family can do right because it's just they own too many and so I think the permitting process tries to safeguard that a little bit but in terms of how many someone can own, there's no limit. So, we got a couple more people to hear from and some other things on our agenda so Rob. Oh, yeah, what. You said Grover, right. Rob is. Did you take your hand down, I guess, or he had said that the other hand was up first the public so. Oh, well I was calling on the trust member first, but. Okay, Grover. Okay, I'm happy to wait till Rob's done, but he wants to wait till you're done so go for it. Okay, great. So, hi everyone my name is Grover. I moved here a year ago from back here from the Oakland, California area and I worked for an affordable housing advocacy organization there and spent most of my two and a half years there as part of these kinds of debates and research and advocacy about whether or not adding more housing and more density that's market rate how it affects affordable housing. And I have a lot of thoughts and experience and articles that I can share at some other time, but I wanted to say that. Um, you know, a city council member came and talked to me about this topic already, and I just wanted to put forth that experience that we gained when I was working at East Bay housing organizations is that the data shows that building housing without just like letting developers build whatever housing they want at whatever density they want doesn't actually bring down the cost of housing so there was massive apartment buildings of like 8090 100 units where half of them were empty and the developer had no incentive to rent it out for a lower cost even though nobody would pay to live in those $5,000 apartments and they just stood empty and that's to the highway making everyone mad while more and more people came became unhoused. And so, we certainly don't want that to happen. And at the same time, I see around me and firmly believe that more and more people are moving here and people will be moving here, and people will move into the more and more housing that's affordable, quote unquote, affordable to them, and outside of the range that a person with that income would normally live in, thereby making it more affordable on the, you know, market rate housing for people with lower incomes. So I personally do believe that we need to have options to build more housing and build them more densely. So there's not lots all around us filled with, you know, 5000 square foot single family homes instead you can put three apartments there and and that's great I would love to own a home like that here. And that can happen through. I think us. How do I say, I think you have an opportunity right now to advocate for a suite of housing bills that actually combines tenant rent caps the number of units that an LLC sort of can own like can you own 100 units and Amherst can you own 1000 can you own 4000 right like the city has a capacity to decide and also what Nate was saying like the space between student housing or the responsibility of a landlord who has housing. So that trash is in everywhere so that, you know, there's, there's some kinds of extra requirements for upkeep. I would encourage using the leverage that you have in this moment of opening because I think it, it does need to happen. I think we might have a job for you to like we need to hire someone that knows this stuff, because apparently we're not experts, we need someone like that did it. I do have a full full time job. But more on that later I think I'm having a conversation with some of these people in a couple weeks. I like it already because it basically that makes sense, just in a basic like intuition thing. We need more housing, but if we're not getting affordable housing out of it. It's not helping. Like, we got to like make people have affordable housing in their plans. Rob. So, one of the things that I think might be being overlooked by the proponents is, is that this scale. Upstodding or down zoning revenues. Upstodding is potentially doing the end around the 40 our process. In other words, it's, it's reducing the possibility that we could find a 40 our project working in a first, because 40 our requires that you that you that you do it up so if you've already up some it's harder to do a further up so so if there is a place in town where it's appropriate for, you know, a bunch of for identity housing, if we've already allowed townhouses to be built there then the 40 our opportunity is lost before you are, you know, has a required affordable component, and it also comes with incentives from the state so so that that that element shouldn't be gotten. We cannot make it. Yeah, so we don't want to not have the 40 hours happen. They get affordable they get as affordable unit so Rob was saying right we just we we just showed them our hand right so it's like right we, you know, the other year the trust worked and we had Karen and a consultant look at 40 are in downtown but in most most of those zones we already allow almost like full build out of a property to five floors and there's actually, there's no way to increase the density unless you go to seven floors right and we're just. And so there was no incentive to increase density which also then we get affordable units but if we had a 40 our right and other places in town where, you know, you are limited to building single family homes or duplexes but now all of a sudden we're saying if you could get affordable development you could get, you know, eight units an acre 12 units an acre 20 units an acre much more density than is allowed. The developer would say great. The caveat is you have to you know provide 20% affordable units but they're getting the dense so much more density than they would typically be allowed that there's an incentive there and so it's interesting Rob I hadn't thought of it that you know right we're, we're actually, you know if we don't have affordable provisions were actually kind of disincentivizing something like that. You know when we were looking at 40 are I was actually right some I think Rob you had said it was let's actually reduce the height in the BG and then put that height in the 40 are because that's the incentive and you know I think 40 are still is a really interesting idea and you know whether or not we call it 40 are I think having some, some mechanisms like that as part of right right some zoning changes would be really important to consider. Yeah, George Ryan wants to say something. Hey George you can unmute yourself. Can you hear me. Sorry, I just need a grover's last name. Oh. Well men brown w e a w e h man dash brown. Thank you. Oh right you can't see that as an attendee. Sorry. Yes, and it's hard to write. No, I have a question. Okay. Do we have like a basic meeting where like once a year or maybe I missed it, like, when it happened, but that is, you know, like, what are our goals. I mean we're hiring a person. Like, is there like a basic overall, what are we doing here. What do we think affordable housing even is that kind of meeting that is like kind of goal setting for like a whole year. Do we do that. We have had a strategic plan it's kind of outdated but where our goal of late has been X number of more affordable units in town. Our goals are pretty much have been pretty much focused on getting more affordable units. And of course, and we've, we certainly haven't gotten in as many as we ever wanted to get in previous time so we're still kind of working on those and there's a. We have a mission statement that's associated with it's on the website I think with where it talks about the trust, and we could we, I don't know we could at some point and have another renewed strategic planning process. I mean mostly it's kind of we know we need more affordable housing. Let's get it is a short version of it so. Yeah, I think the, like some of the issue is that we're not really dealing with the impediments to affordable housing like just building new housing is kind of. That's going to happen anyway, and we it's not even happening in an affordable way, but the impediments to just. Maybe we need to not just build, but to create find ways that are a little more creative that are different like, I think we need some strategic planning and just building is not getting us very much like it's getting what 4050 units a year, what do we, I mean. There's definitely something that we could think about trying to find some other alternative ways, probably not right this minute, but it's not a bad idea. Erica. Just to answer the question, usually at the beginning of the year, usually starting sort of at the end of the summer. I remember we went through the strategic plan in terms of the goals. And I think part of what we had asked for us to see if anybody wanted to help develop the next iteration iteration of the strategic plan. I know, as Carol said, maybe not here, but to maybe in our next meeting or meeting afterwards think about possible retreat where we can just go over the plan that we had and what is that we want to do for the future but I think would be helpful. And I think Carol's going to mention this is that they're going to be a couple of sessions I'm going to go to one in March on the affordable housing one on one. I think it's going to be a housing Institute. I think it would probably prove us before we come together and rethink what the next sort of five years looks like for us short term medium term and long term that you know that some of us, not all of us some people are very clear about all the different mechanisms and leverages that we can use to really think through that and then come together, maybe at maybe at the end of June to plan the coming year. Okay, um, it looks like we are kind of past whatever time we wanted to do I think that we can one of these things we can probably table I guess the only thing I wanted to say about the proposals that we have in front of us or the zoning stuff is, I would really like to see it be not more difficult if I buy a house lot to build a duplex on it than to build a single family home. I don't think that should be harder. I don't think if I live in a house that I bought a while ago, and all my kids are gone and I decided I need some extra income and I want to change it into my place in someplace else and make a rental in it I don't think that should be harder either. There's some just little things like that that feel to me like inroads into into diversifying the housing that's in different communities that I would like to see not get lost in the shuffle of all of the things that are so difficult about about the things that are being proposed here so that's what I wanted to say, if we can I'd like I'd like to move on. And turn it back over to Erica, which maybe is something this is a thing I think maybe we don't even need to do but Erica you it's yours go for it. Sure. Thank you Ashley for organizing. I think it's Jennifer Randolph was going to come in April. Margaret Randolph. Thank you. Maggie Randolph. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Miss Randolph. Yeah, she identifies. He's going to come in April to talk about tiny houses, but we thought we would open up to see if any particular questions that maybe Ashley you could bring to Miss Randolph. So, the person can be prepared to answer some of the questions that we may have. So, it'll be a very interesting conversation. Ashley shared documents about the tiny house tiny houses and how it's being developed in New Hampshire. So it might be helpful to have some questions or if there are any particular areas that you want this individual to cover with us. It might help to prep for that. I mean a few things is that like per unit, how much is it costing and then also, can it be a hybrid of rentals and to buy. So, you know, tiny houses, you could buy them outright, but then some could be rented and potentially, and then also, could we own the land? I mean, we as in, can the, can the, can the town of Amherst own the land and just kind of lease it to someone or just plain own it. Because then someone, except for when someone's buying their house, they're buying kind of like the land it's on, but then the person that's renting is the land still is Amherst. Maybe the house, maybe the Amherst community land trust could take it. Yeah, I think, you know, the plans were sent around for the tiny homes. Yeah, I mean, I think, Ashley, the question about the per unit cost and some of it would be just, you know, I guess if you did communicate with the rentals, I don't know if her husband would be here. I think he was the builder and she helped. She was part of it as well, but I think just letting them know that we'd be interested in, you know, some of those. You know, I don't want to say it's like sensitive, but you know, the economics of it, you know, kind of their, kind of their motivation, you know, if they are, I think now I think they're, I think they're all rentals now I thought at one point they're going to be ownership but I think a recent article I saw said their rentals so the question would be, you know, like, you know, are they long term leases, you know, what's, would they be willing to share what their monthly rates are or any of them like short term rentals like Airbnb because of where their market is and so I guess if we, I mean if you reached out to her just to, you know, say that we may be asking those questions if hopefully they're comfortable answering them that's all because you know I don't, if she's here and she doesn't really want to share some of those pieces it's like okay well we want to get kind of that some of that more detailed information and what we, you know, and what we can glean from reading the articles online it'd be great to know right what is the per unit would they do it again I mean those are the things right it's really interesting I mean I'm assuming every one of those units has their own utilities run to it so essentially it's like a mini subdivision I mean they're running water sewer or whatever and those are the things I'd like to know and right what is their per unit cost or square foot cost and how did that compare to say you know if their husband's a builder was that compared to say building single family homes in that area yeah yeah I mean it's interesting I it's in Dover, New Hampshire for people listening and I yeah it's not shown on aerial images as far as I can tell there's that they don't have updated aerials in that area but I was hoping to see something I'll keep looking to see if I can find anything it'd be great to get you know real life pictures yeah I mean I guess I mean it may be one thing is that I'm hoping it's as flexible as possible because it would I think it would really help us to own the land and then we would be able to build more on it it's not like I mean who you know everything's flexible but if we have several acres like 4.5 that I just saw online. It doesn't the tiny home village doesn't necessarily take up all those acres we can use some of it and then we can use put other things on it I mean if if the town owns the land true. Yeah I mean it's typically the town will enter into a long term ground lease with the developer because if it's town owned land it gets a little tricky with some of that so but yeah there's there's ways to make have a development have you know housing and other open space or you know I think we've often talked about having a combination of you know conservation area and housing they can be really great together not that you know it can be a win-win or recreation and housing. Tim had his hand up but it looks like Tim you put your hand down I just want to make sure we didn't skip you if you wanted to speak. Okay it looks like Tim does not want to speak. Okay, I think just in terms of time we're at 845 and we have a few more things to cover. So thank you Ashley so much for making that connection and we really look forward to talking to the Randolphs. And I think actually actually Ashley you wanted to talk about the draft recommendations from Governor Healy on the housing working group. I don't know if you still want to do that or what you want to do with it like there's not very much time at the moment so maybe you want to just tell us to all go and look at it I don't know. I mean I was just very impressed with the basic concepts one was a real urgency that she put in she used the word urgency, and that's like he there's a housing crisis. It's urgent, we need to hire people we need to build and then also like I just read an article just right after that her, you know framework. Like, it specifically said, there's a lot of old mills in this area and buying an old mill is probably cheaper. The article didn't say this but I'm just saying, I wonder if buying old mills and buying old buildings is cheaper than building from scratch. So, that's what I'm saying is that we need to hire this person, but they need to take a deep dive on like, what is the affordable housing crisis in Western mass look like, and then report to us, the like, deep details of like, not just what people are doing by to build new housing, but what are people doing to solve the affordable housing crisis in their, you know, towns and cities, because it's not, it's clearly not just building. There's lots of ways to like create housing, move people around without just building new buildings. Yeah. Thanks. So, I'm Nate sent the link so we've all got a chance to look at that and we can look at it further. And I will pass it to Erica. Very quickly. So I think last time we had a meeting. It looked like both Carol and myself actually in wrong, we're up for reappointment. Sid's term was going is going to be over in June and said I believe that you've expressed that you probably are not. Well, but you're that you're not going to continue with the trust to provide an opportunity for others to possibly be on the trust. We're going to start interviews. We have one they can see right now that we need to fill. And Carol myself and a couple of others will be interviewing three candidates. All three candidates are excellent candidates, lots of different experience around affordable housing, housing. So pretty excited. I think whoever we get in terms of two positions, maybe we can push for one more but I know that's that's set by by law. If we can definitely get at least two more vacancies filled that would be excellent. So just wanted to give you a progress report that we're actually moving on it that we have the interviews set up Angela Mills has set those schedule those and hopefully by our next meeting we may have some good news. Thanks. So, we come to the part of our meeting I believe and let somebody have something important to say else where we have some announcements I have some other people may have some what I can tell you is there is the first thing coming up I think it's March 21 maybe the thing Erica referred to before it's Chapa's kind of affordable housing 101. It's a zoom meeting 630 to eight. I believe it's free if it's not free I think the town will reimburse you but Erica is shaking her head that it's free so. Yeah, that's a great possible thing to do. There is also Chapa's fair housing symposium which is on April 27 from one to four and that's also a zoom thing. Additionally, MHP the mass housing partnership has a housing Institute that has a zoom day and a live day that's in June 14 is virtual and the 15th is in person in the Devons Common Center. Anyway, it's possible to go to those it's possible for if you go for the town to help pay. All of those things seem like they would be great opportunities for us. And there is our own next meeting on April 13 here in our same zoomie little place, unless we are meeting in person because, as we were talking about maybe before the meeting. There's nothing before the legislature right now about whether or not the coven protocols for meetings will or will not be extended they go through I think Mark so if they are not extended we may be meeting in person next time. We'll see what happens with that. I know that there are items not anticipated. There are things that we will have next time, hopefully on our agenda, we will have Margaret Randolph about tiny homes, we will at some point maybe do our own affordable housing development one on one thing. So perhaps here I'm wondering maybe either Nate or George can tell us if there is progress on our affordable housing inventory which we'd love to hear from you about next time another time. What do you think. Yeah, I haven't talked to George much we shared the document I will say that chair the planning board undertook something really similar and listed on a lot of developments in the last five years and then did better accounts and other things and someone else on staff have been doing it and so I'm just trying to pull the resources because I think I'd like to come up with. A unified document but something where you know we're not doing redundancies right so I didn't realize that the chair the planning board was me doing this and he did on his own. George is something and staff had started something and so I'd like to look at those and then see who can like to coordinate the effort so it might just be that. Because I think some of the information that we wanted is all it's there we just have to synthesize the documents and so I'm trying to collect all that. And that's what George started was great and I think I'd like to make some additions like I said, you know, more granular detail, and then that becomes, you know, a charter table that can be shared and we can use so. Anyways, it's, it's, there's a bunch of pieces that was already that's already been done or is underway and I just need to coordinate it. I would just like to request that I'd like to have it be there, even if all of the spaces are filled in. If we even know where are the, where they, where the buildings are, how many units are in them and how many are affordable. That's a good start, I'd like to have that and then if we fill in all the other things bedrooms and prices and as we go, but I would like to have at least that much as soon as we can. Well, I mean, I know you've got a lot of things to do and I, and yes, making it so that it's a coordinated effort and not each per not a hundred different departments trying to do their own thing is a really great idea I agree but if there's a way to get it. You know, get even that much of it solidified that I that would be great. Yeah, I'll talk about I thought what George had done. There's a few missing things but it was mostly there. So I think, yeah, is just the rest of the detail. Um, so hold on. I'm, I actually would like to because Tim has his hand up again and since he's been there the whole time and now wants to say something. I'd like to hear what you have to say. All right, Tim, you can unmute yourself. Yeah, sorry, I was muted the first time as well. And I was trying to talk at a very inattentive laps up for a moment. I just wanted to be here. I just wanted to share a couple of things really quickly. So we are a couple of yes so first and foremost we hired our housing navigator, which is an exciting addition to the Craig stores team. We've also been running data that reflects within the first nine months of the new administration and our restructuring. We've doubled our housing placements for our guest it looks like it's a product of deeper in broader engagement. We have also launched our fair access program so all low actually really anyone in the community can gain access to free PBTA rides day passes are being distributed at the survival center and we are distributing them to all of our guests on a daily basis and that's actually the data. And that's kind of shown us that we don't necessarily have to stick to shelter and that there's there's capacity beyond so we're really looking at potentially expanding our role in the housing space. We're looking at permanent housing, permanent supportive housing models and opportunities within town to do that. I just kind of just wanted to share with the group here in case anybody were, we have a lot to learn, and we're learning rapidly but any sort of guidance support participation on our board. Anything that, you know, folks would be looking to contribute we're looking to turn all of our operations into green operations to sort of improve that carbon footprint which is something that we haven't looked at. And yeah, I guess I just kind of wanted to throw that out into the ether anyways that we can be collaborating with the trust on a deeper level is really meaningful to us as we kind of expand and diversify. Thank you. Thanks Tim. And then Ashley, you had something I wanted to say. I was wondering, we don't have usually someone from town council. Attending and I wonder if we could kind of encourage a town council person to attend every time because this basic broker said it, and I think we should go over what she said, maybe another time like I'll watch it. We need a suite of housing. New bylaws. And we need to like, I think we need to deal with the town council, quite a bit more with lots more engagement because part of it is that building is is one thing, but changing the bylaws to get more affordable housing is like a bigger part, I think. I do have two liaisons between the town council and us. I can't remember. I believe that Pat is one of them, and maybe Patricia Romney is another one. She has a conflict with the time. She has a conflict with the time. Paul Backelman practically always has a conflict with the time so at some point maybe we should think about changing our time, although then we'll all have conflicts with the other time so I'm not sure how to make it work. We do have liaisons and so we can ask them, we can I mean if we have a question we want to ask them, we can certainly I can or we can and when we're the other convey to them. Hey, liaison, we have this thing we would like to either know from you or have you know from us or we can communicate with them, even though there would be, it would be great. I will at least communicate to them that we would like to have somebody at our meeting. That's a good idea. Could we have a, could we propose a shared meeting. I don't know. I'm not sure. I think we'd want to figure out what in the world the focus of it was and what they have like a pizillion meetings already so I'm not sure I think that we would want to have a very clear understanding of what and what why we were doing it and what we were asking of them because they're already doing more than they can do so. It doesn't it just doesn't sound like they know what we're doing and I don't know what they're doing. So it's like, we're all such siloed people and so it would be good if like we had communications like. Do they know what affordable housing, our goals are or I mean, it's not clear. We can go we can their meetings are always open any of us can attend them, any time that we want. So, but yes, we should communicate with them. Probably more than we do we can at least, I will make sure to let them know that we would like their one of the liaisons to be with us. Anything else anybody wants to say before we close. Then I would move or just that just. Are we ready to adjourn is there any. Can we adjourn. Do we agree that we should adjourn. I don't know how this comes across because you're not in record. Well, the picture gets recorded right to all all saying yes. All thumbs up. All right. Thank you everyone. It's great to be with you all again and we'll see you next week either live or like this. Have a good rest of your night. You mean next month. Next month. Yes. Thank you. I'm ending it.