 And we do try to report to the cloud and then post it or, you know, I T post it. I guess I'll start my, my video as well. All right. And we have five attendees right now. I think, oh, Sid, let's see. Oh, Sid said he's getting an error message on the zoom link. Maybe there were two links. Ew. Yeah, I got a message saying I needed to put in the meeting ID. Oh, interesting. So let me, let me just try to send this. So why is that? Let me go to my zoom account and see. Yeah. Everyone else was able to join though, right? But was it a problem? Was there a problem joining? Mine was easy. I had to put in the meeting ID, which I wasn't expecting, but I went back and grabbed it and put it in. So it wasn't that big a deal. Yeah, it said no password. So maybe it's just, let me send Sid the webinar. Oh, you know what? That is interesting. It does look like, like he's in the attendees room. Oh, as you know, I was going to say, I'm just looking at my webinar link online. It looks different than what was in the, what was on the agenda. I hear Sid, I hear Sid. I said, we're making you a panelist. I think, I think I hit Sid. All right. We have Sid. You said it. I don't get it. All right. So we have everyone. Sorry, Sid. I saw your email. I just was just about to send you something. Yeah, I was able to get in. I think there's like two links. One on the top of, I use the one that you're sending email, but then I use the one on the, what's the name of it on the agenda. I couldn't get the one on the email. The agenda one worked. Yeah. It's, I think as a panelist, sometimes one works. The other one, you might have to go through the whole, enter the webinar ID, but it should bring you to the same place. So I can, I was going to, we have a quorum. We have, I'm going to turn that off. Minutes. Here's the agenda. If everyone can see that. Make it a little bigger. I got it on my computer. I think we're good with the, hi, John. I think if we, I think we're all set to start. Okay, great. I see Erica. I didn't see her before. So that's good. Can I just ask a question of process? If there are other people participating, you know, viewing this, you know who they are, right, Nate? Is that true? I do. So right now there's, there's 10 attendees. Oops. 10 attendees in addition to the members of the trust. Okay. And is there any way to find out who they are? Just in case it makes a difference. Sure. It looks like, you know, there's Laura Baker, members from Valley CDC are here to present. It's like, if you go on the participants list, you should be able to see him because I can see him on the participants list. I can look at the participants list. Yeah, that one has a bottom. Yeah, it has a panel and then it could, right. He says attendees. Got it. The attendees. Yep. Yeah, so there's members, there's neighbors from 132 Hampton Road. There's some members of the planning board and just members of the public. Got it. Thank you. All right. And then for everyone listening, we just let everyone in the public know we schedule these as webinars. So the housing trust and myself are panelists and then everyone else is an attendee. And so we'd ask that you, if you hover over your name, I think you can right click or click on the drop down arrow and you can raise your hand if you'd like to speak. And then John, John or I can recognize you. So you should be able to see everything and hear everything, even if you can't see, see, you know, see each other. And John, I'll make you a co-host. And if somebody, if one of the, you're saying if one of the attendees wants to make a statement or raise a hand, they can do that too, right, Nate? Right, they would hover over like over their name and then you can hit, I think it's more or something they can, they can raise their hand as it'll raise the hand button. Okay. And that's how they would signify that. Okay. Thanks, sorry. And that's fine. Okay. So we're ready to get started. I don't have any announcements. Does anybody else have an announcement? No. No. Okay. Most of the things that would be announcements are already part of the agenda. Right. It's a pretty detailed agenda. So we need to do our best to get through it. The first thing are minutes from May 21st. I think I sent those out a couple of times. And I'll just point them up too if people want to see them. It's more than you can read at this time, but here are some minutes. There's proof that we actually do have minutes. So if there aren't any comments, then I'm going to rule that the minutes are accepted as they were distributed. And the link just to let people know that, you know, sorry, John. Once we record it, the town's IT department puts it on the town's YouTube channel. So sometimes it takes a week to 10 days and then I don't get notified when that happens. So I can, I just have to look online and try to find it. We can get that link there. I'll double check if it's up yet. It just hadn't been up yet when I made the notes. Yeah, no, I looked the other day too, and I didn't see it. And then, but I know they've been doing stuff to get notices in my Zoom account saying things are being pinkered with. So I know someone's going in there and moving stuff around. I just don't know when it gets posted. I don't know if anyone had any comments on the minutes or. Yeah, I did make a few minor changes, but basically it seemed to me that they were in good order. Okay, so we'll move on to our first agenda item, which is probably the longest agenda item discussion of 132 North Hampton Road. This is an opportunity for Laura Baker and possibly others from Valley Community Development to do a presentation on the permit that they requested from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Following their presentation, I'll give people an opportunity to comment. But also following that I want to talk about our sending a letter of support. From the Housing Trust to the Zoning Board of Appeals, but so that's that's really what's involved in item number three so it's a lengthy item. I think we may as well just move on to Laura's presentation. Laura, you have two, I promoted both, you know, you were on twice in Zoom, I don't know if one's audio and one's video or not, but. I don't know either. All right, and then do you know, it's like someone else has raised their hand. Do you know, is anyone else joining you, Laura? It may be that there's another staff member from Valley, one or two others who are joining. Jane Wethler and Joanne Campbell. Okay, so I'm providing Jane to a panelist now. So some folks may know Joanne Campbell has been with Valley for almost 20 years is retiring at the end of this month. And we've hired a new executive director, Jane Lechler, and she began on June 1. So she's kind of double teaming with Joanne for this month and then we'll do a transition. And she's got a strong affordable housing background, so we're happy to have her. And I think, Jane, you can unmute yourself and start your video if you'd like. You should be a panelist. Okay, there I am. Yeah, this is Jane. And I was trying to figure out how I could chat or say something there. So yeah, this is Jane Lechler and I'm glad to be here tonight to meet you all and we'll be getting up to speed on the Emperors project. So just wanted to come along. Great. And Laura, do you have, do you see a new share on the top of your Zoom screen? Do you have something that says a share, a new share? I have a green share screen button arrow. Sure. You click on that. And then if you have a, if you already have the document open, you can share yours first, I think, Nate. Yeah, she can, she should be able to share right over me. I'll stop sharing. Okay. I was unsuccessful trying to do that on my meetings. You have to learn from you, Nate. All right. So do you folks see like a opening page here? No. Some do and some don't. You should. I still see the minutes. Really? First studio apartment. Maybe. Do you have the minutes open on your desktop independently of the Zoom meeting? That might be. Erica, Will, can you see? I can see it. Yeah, I see it now. I got it. Cool. So basically there are three sections to this and I'll try to go through it pretty quickly because you guys are pretty familiar with the project already. The first is kind of the, the program that we're presenting in our comprehensive permit. The second is a comparable that John thought might be interesting for the group because we have a similar project that's just wrapping construction in North Hampton. And then the third is I brought a select excerpt of plans for the proposed building at 132 North Hampton Road. Hopefully folks know that the full zoning application is available on the town's website through the planning and zoning department. So you can see everything, all the text, all the sections, all the attachments and all the plans. So it's pretty voluminous. So I tried to just shrink it down for the purposes of this evening. The site location most folks are familiar with is highlighted here in light green. It's about halfway up North Hampton Road. It is directly adjacent to the field house and the athletic field. It's four tenths of a mile from the town center in the nearest bus stop. It's six tenths of a mile downhill to the shopping center. It's on a major road. It's a 0.88 acre lot. And there's a mixed use set of a butters, including single and multifamily residential and institutional uses. The proposed development is as we have talked about it prior 28 small studio apartments designed for single adults. Each apartment has a bathroom and a kitchenette. There are common areas incorporated into the building and two offices, one for property management and one for an onsite resident services coordinator. This table is just a little snapshot of the building. It's two and a half stories, 28 units, two handicapped accessible units. The average unit size is 235 gross square feet and the accessible ones are almost 400 gross square feet. And the total building square footage is coming in just under 12,000 square feet. I can share this, this slideshow after because it's a little bit dense some of these pages. Again, this is kind of reviewing things that you probably heard before. We're proposing 10 units that would have a homeless preference and serve people who at 30% AMI or less with a project based subsidy. Another two that would serve clients of the Department of Mental Health again with a project based subsidy. Eight that would serve low income folks earning below 50% of the area median income and that would be a self pay unit proposed rent and this may shift a little bit is $740 including all utilities. Eight studio units at 80% AMI for moderate income individuals, a proposed rent of 795 no subsidy. I updated the income limits they just changed recently in April. So you'll see here a single person household for 30% AMI 50% and 80%. If that person paid 32% of their gross income for their rent and utilities. This is how much they could afford to pay. And so we kind of look at what's the range of affordability with these different tiers of units. The development can house but it's not excluded to chronically homeless persons. And this just an illustration of kind of the breadth of the definition of homelessness. It's people who don't have fixed residents, people who are at threat of losing their housing, people who have are experiencing domestic violence, people who are paying more than 30% of their median income for rent. So there's a whole bunch of categories and types of people that fall into this that may be a broader range of folks than we normally think of when we think of people who are homeless. We have a draft supportive services plan that was submitted with the project eligibility letter. The full plan it's kind of lengthy is also available through the town's website. So I'm just going to hit the high points. We increased the number of onsite resident service coordinator hours. Originally we had proposed, I think 20 hours somewhere in that range. And so we bumped it up to 27 half to 30 hours per week. We have a property management presence onsite. We think about 20 hours a week. We have MOUs with various other community agencies who would deliver services to individuals. Department of Mental Health would provide kind of wraparound services for its clientele. And then homeless tenants would enter the property with a service provider sponsor who would support them for their initial period of occupancy. And then if they were going to phase back, step away from that tenant, they would link that tenant with community based services. The ZBA hearings, just so that you folks know when they're coming up, the opening hearing date is Thursday, June 25th at six o'clock. It will also be in the Zoom format. And then there's a second hearing date that's been scheduled for July 2nd, which is only one week later. So there's an assumption that we won't get it all done in one night. And then it would be continued at least to a second night. And my guess is beyond that as well. I wanted to share with you information about a project in Northampton at 82 Bridge Road called Sergeant House. It's also located on Hurt 9, walking distance to downtown. It's on a parcel that's significantly smaller. It's less than half an acre. It's a historic house built in 1820 that has been renovated and restored and a large new addition has been added. It's a conversion from 15 bedroom lodging house to a 31 unit studio of studio apartments. It has less onsite parking than we're proposing for the site in Amherst. It has 14 parking spaces. The apartments are similar in size and scale to the Amherst studio apartments development. It will also house homeless, some homeless persons, some referrals from DMH and low income individuals. It has significantly less onsite staffing, two days a week of property management and about 15 hours a week of resident services coordinator. We held a lottery for tenants who were interested in moving to this property in January of 2020. We had 250 qualified applicants who went into the lottery pool of whom 152 reported that they were homeless. So I just throw out those numbers to emphasize that there's a considerable backlog of demand for this type of housing. So we're due to complete construction this month and begin leasing up to tenants at the end of this month and probably through August. The tenant profile at that property, it's more slanted toward the very low income tenants. So more units are at this 30% AMI level, more units with 18 units that have project-based vouchers. And we don't have any 80% AMI units. The highest income tier at this property is 60% AMI. So it's less of a mixed income property than the one that's being proposed in Amherst. I brought some photos. If you've driven Route 9, you might have noticed the property. It is an old building. And when it works started, it kind of went down to the studs. It looked like this shell of a building. And now it's kind of being rebuilt and recreated. A lot of really nice restoration work is happening there. So this is the street-facing side. This is the driveway. And you'll see that the historic facade and front part of the house is very traditional. And then it kind of transitions to a more modern look in the back. So if you're standing in the backyard, this is what the property looks like. And the interior of these units, and again, these are of a comparable size to the ones that are being proposed in Amherst. Just to give you kind of a little bit of a feel, it's hard to tell scale from photos, but especially I wanted to show a typical kitchenette because people aren't sure what that is and what that might include. So this is pretty standard. It's a 24-inch oven in range. It's a built-in microwave with a vent hood. It's a sink, and it's a full-size refrigerator, you know, a little bit of counter space and some cabinets. So it's basic. It's small, but it's also, we think, it's pretty functional. And then each of these rooms also has its own bathroom. So moving now, I might try to minimize these a little bit. Too small. To the Amherst studio apartment's development. These are renderings that our architect put together, kind of showing more of a 3D image of what this property might look like. This is the facade that would be facing Northampton Road. This is the facade that would be facing the Conway Fieldhouse. This is the rear of the property that would be facing the athletic track. And this is the side that would be facing the driveway. We have advanced the site plan. So there are some changes here. People may recall originally we were trying to reuse the existing house. And so we were kind of way back right at the rear lot line. This proposal that we're presenting now is includes demolition of the existing house and then creating a larger buffer between the building and Pratt Field. That's about 30 to 35 feet of area here. It allows for some additional screening and vegetation in here. The parking lot has been relocated slightly. So right now it comes right at the property line, which is about here. So it's pulled back about 14 feet from this abutting property. It's a two-way driveway. We've increased the number of parking spaces. We started out at 14. And now we have 16 spaces. Includes a turnaround for a dumpster truck or emergency vehicles. An enclosure here. With dumpsters and a shed here for, you know, gardening or other kinds of supplies. We have a covered bike rack that's here. And put you up a little more. Outdoor patio here. Some mechanical systems are shown on pads outside the building. Some potential gardening areas are shown. And a designated smoking area is identified here, which would have a bench and a kind of covered pavilion over it. Small one. The only place that smoking would be allowed on the property. Certainly no smoking would be allowed in the building. So essentially we have walkways that meet accessibility code. That connect. The main entry to the parking area. They connect the main entry out to the sidewalk here on North Hampton road. And then some smaller, again, fully accessible pathways that travel around the building. Some of these faint lines you're seeing here have to do with the stormwater management system. We're retaining all of the runoff and storm waters being filtered and retained on the site. This is the elevation of the building that is facing the driveway. So it's a split level, which means you come in on grade into a lobby area. And I'll show you the floor plans. And then you're either going to head downstairs or down the elevator to the ground floor, which is partially below grade. On this side, it's more below grade. On the side that faces the floor. It's mostly pretty fully exposed. Or you head upstairs or up the elevator to the first floor or to the second floor of the building. Again, this is the front elevation that would be kind of facing toward North Hampton road. This is that more fully exposed elevation that would be facing toward the Conway field house. We're proposing kind of a stone clad. Finish for this ground floor level. And then we're going to head to the ground floor. And then this would be the side that's facing the track. So overall in its appearance, we're trying to have something that's pretty traditional. But it looks very residential. We looked a lot at the residence halls that are on the Smith campus and the Amherst campus for kind of some inspiration for this design. And then this would be the facade that's facing the track. So overall in its appearance, it would be the side that's facing the track. And then we're going to head to the ground floor. Again, this is for kind of some inspiration for this design. This is the ground floor plan. So again, you're entering here. Into a lobby area. It's connected to the property management office with the, they'll be a viewing window here. Again, you can go up or downstairs or you can hop on the ground floor in the section of the building that tends to be the most below grade. We have things like a mechanical room, a laundry room, stairwell egress. And then you're seeing units. All these ones labeled with a number are individual units. There's stair towers on either end for egress as well as in the middle of the building. And then most of the common areas are here. The common room is a good size space. It's shown with some furnishings, but it's pretty open to what, what could be there. It could have some dining areas, lounging areas. It opens out directly onto the patio. Right next door to that is the resident services coordinator's office. And we have a public restroom or a restroom for guests. That's fully handicapped accessible as well. The first floor has an office for the property management team. And the rest of the first floor are all residential units. This on the corner is the handicapped accessible unit. You'll see it's quite a bit larger to accommodate a wheelchair. It stacks on top of that common room that we saw below. And then you see units and if it's a little faint, but you can see beds and furnishings in these units, just so you can kind of get a sense of how a person might live in a space that's this small. And then the second floor is pretty much a duplication of the first floor without the office. We have another accessible unit here. And again, more residential units. And then this is kind of a close up of a couple of samples of the residential units, one accessible unit and two different kind of configurations of more typical non accessible units. And that is the end. Great. Thanks, Laura. You're welcome. Let's open it up for questions first. Questions from members of the trust. I was going to say just quickly, this is Nate. As a staff member, the. As I said, you know, the valley CDC. You know, they own the property and they've submitted a comprehensive permit. So it's a 40 B. 40 B. So there's a comprehensive permit application, which means that all the local permitting is done under this comprehensive permit. So, you know, if they need permits from the historical commission to demolish the building, if they need permits from public works or other things, it's all under this one permit. So. That's, you know, that's the idea of a comprehensive permit. It also allows an applicant to wave different zoning requirements. So. You know, I'm not sure if you can see there's a number of waiver requests, none are too substantial. But, you know, so what they're, you know, what 40 B allows an applicant to do is if they need a little bit taller building or closer to the side step back or something, they can wave certain zoning requirements. And that's part of the ZBA review. So the ZBA. Is reviewing this as they would a normal project, but then there's every waivers from review from other boards and committees all packaged into this one application. So it's really meant to be. It's really meant to be a one stop application process. So, you know, this is, this is the trust chance to review it. It's been formally submitted. And then like, Laura said, the hearing starts at the end of the month. And so, you know, sometimes other projects may come to the trust or other boards and committees for comments at different parts in the process, but this was transmitted to all boards and committees now. So this is really the chance for all boards and committees in town to provide comment. So, you know, I went to the disability access advisory committee, the planning board will look at it. Town council may look at it. Historical commission. Design review board. Who, you know, there's a number that may be interested. And so it's all happening together. For this one application process. Just so that's just kind of a quick snap out of how that works. I'll just start off by saying it is a beautiful project. Laura. Thank you. Hard to find any fault in it at all. I might be a little worried about the rents for the 50% group. Seems like you've got a pretty tight. Range there. Are you expecting a lot of mobile vouchers in for that group? You know, honestly, we're not sure. We're not sure. We're not sure. We're not sure. We're not sure. But we learned that if those rents were. Low. We would not get the kind of mixed income profile that we really want in the property. And so that's part of why those rents were tweaked upward. To try to attract, you know, just a range of people. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, I think you can quite get the full occupancy that you need. Yeah. I mean, as you know, the, the, the caps, the AMI caps are ceilings. But this was one way we thought we could encourage. Again, to just have a greater economic diversity in the property. I was just comparing the rents for the 50% group in North Ampton with the rents for the 50% group and Amherst and theirs. So I think that's a good point. And I think that's a good point. I think that comments about, you know, If the rents are all very low and people can use mobile vouchers, do you end up with. All their income folks when you hadn't really had that as your vision. Well, I won't share my personal feelings about that. I know. Well, there's, you know, every, there's, there's gray everywhere, so. Beautiful project. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. The more the merrier. Believe me, they'll be long, long waiting lists. So plenty of tenants for everybody. Other comments or questions from. I agree. It looks like a really nice project. I'm excited about it. Thank you. You may have covered this. Just, just for clarification. These are all single person occupancy. Yeah. I mean, what happens if someone becomes a couple? Right. Do they have to move out or something? Yeah. I mean, we have talked a lot with the community about overnight guest policies and we have, we've actually changed our overnight guest policy and response to community comments, but yeah, they're not intended for two people to be living in together. So we have seen situations where people become a couple within a building and kept to different rooms. Certainly we've seen situations where people have moved out into different housing if they partner up. We've had situations where someone is pregnant or reunifying with children. And we work with them to find a larger place. That's better for family, maybe. So yeah, there's, there's different scenarios that take place. There are state sanitary code regulations about how much square footage you need per person. And most of these units, not all of them fall into that one person category. The accessible units are larger. So there is a potential that we could have two people who moved into one of the accessible units if they chose. I haven't seen that happen. I mean, we've owned this type of housing for one time. And it, it works really well for one person. And there are a lot of one person households out there who don't want to share, you know, the way that students share a bedroom and, you know, share kitchens and bathrooms. So they kind of seem to naturally gravitate to this, this type of housing. I have one more question. Yeah. Is this, is this house going to have a name like the sergeant house is going to have a name at some point? I sure hope so. I have a list. You want to help me? It's funny. It's one of the hardest. Things to get a good name. So we will, um, welcome input from the trust on having a name because it's nicer to have a name. Um, and so we'll, we'll be searching for that. That name for it instead of calling it Amherst studio apartments, but that's our placeholder for now. Oh, I like that name. Amherst studio apartments. I think we really love it. Carol, can you speak, can you speak into the mic? Okay. If I knew where it was, I would, um, is any better? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, if. I mean, you showed how there's some little amount of coverage for the kitchen. I just don't see any kind of like storage closety sorts of space. Is that. What about that? Yeah. So the floor plans will, um, have closets. So this is a closet here as an example in this particular one. Um, but that's, and here's a closet over here. So it's, we usually try to get like a double wide closet, but there's no question that storage is limited. Um, you have to be very selective about what you bring. Um, it's, it's small. You know, you really have to be thoughtful about it. So. Um, where does furniture come from, Laura? For the individual apartments. Yeah. So we don't, we don't typically furnish apartments. People bring their own furniture, which most people have. Um, for folks who don't have furniture, there's a number of organizations, social service providers at work to help people who are transitioning from homelessness into. Permanent housing to get the basics, you know, a bed, a table, a table. Um, you know, you can accommodate a lot of furniture. So people really just need the basics. We don't find that getting furniture is an obstacle for, for people. It's really getting the unit. That's the big challenge. Can I ask, um, you said that there are so many people who need this type of housing. How do you determine who's going to actually get it? Sure. So some of it is eligibility. Um, I think we saw the different income limits, eligibility criteria. We have 10 units with a homeless preference. And so we'd be looking at those different characteristics. Um, we have two units that would be referrals of clients from DMH and who then we would screen once they were referred. And then there's a lottery. So there's a marketing period that's usually several months. Um, and there's a deadline and then there's a public lottery. Um, and they're not going to be referred to as, oh, Uh, cash roll, bingo ball thing, and get pulled out. And that becomes the weight, the, the order in which people are offered units. It also becomes the initial wait list for the property. Thank you. Sure. have a basement. So it's people are limited to what is in their their own unit. The only real outdoor storage space is there is a bike a place for people to store bicycles outside that's covered. And people manage with that in your Northampton properties? Yep, I mean if the price is right it people work pretty nicely within these spaces and even much smaller spaces. So we have properties I mean the Sergeant House had rooms that were you know 100 square feet that people lived in and then they shared 15 people shared four bathrooms in one kitchen and we've owned that building it's been fully occupied for 30 years. So for someone who's coming from that situation this is a big this is a big upgrade because at least you're not forced to share facilities with other people and for some folks that's you know they may have social challenges already so putting them in a forced shared situation just isn't isn't great. How green will the building be? Super green. We can paint it green now. So we are looking we are hoping it would be our first to have this building the Passive House certified. So Passive House is one of those kind of categories on the leading edge of energy efficiency. It's a pretty rigorous standard. So they really look at how much energy use you have per person and you have to kind of get it whittle it down to a certain point. What that will mean in practical building terms is probably double thick walls probably triple glazed windows high efficiency heating an air exchange system and we're also going to incorporate hopefully great budget for it PV panels on the roofs that will accept those. You know honestly the design doesn't lend itself super well to PV panels there's a little bit of attention between maximizing solar for the roof and having this nice kind of you know traditional slash Victorian style roof line but it will be very very energetic and we also think we'll be able to use all electric utilities. So we've been trying to get away from fossil fuels and we think this will again be our first property that doesn't use any fossil fuels. So that means electric heat hot water set air conditioning. So Laura would the windows be operational or are they all are they fixed windows or do some open. Yeah in the units the windows would be operable often in the like the lobby or the common area they might be fixed. Typically they have restrictions so you can only open them so far because it's a fall hazard but yeah you can open them. Each unit will have its own thermostat so that you should be able to control you know there'll be a ceiling and a floor but you can control the heat and air conditioning in your own unit which again is not true for all lodging house style buildings or places that people live and it's a big benefit to be able to set your own temperature. Laura this is the congratulations let me add on to that beautiful beautiful project. Thank you. Is there a space for anything that deals with fitness and healthy living inside or outside? Yeah that's a great question. I think you know we'll have to really look at how we set up that common room because that it's a good size room it certainly could accommodate some kind of fitness activity and you know we could do some modular furnishings and things that we could if it's going to have to be a highly adaptive space and then you know this is a pretty walkable location so we assume a lot of people won't have cars they'll be walking it's very close to the bike trail it's close to some of the electric bike rental stands so we hope that people will get some activity just in their daily life as well. Have you had any contact with the college about use of their facilities? I have not but that's a great idea you mean do you mean the field or you mean their gyms like indoor stuff? I guess you could take it as far as you want but I was assuming that you know the community already has access to the field. Yeah so yeah oh yeah well they've they understand that we understand that the general public is able to use the track which is directly behind this property for walking or running and that any individual who created a nuisance on that site would be trespassed so we've kind of covered that quite a bit with them uh we haven't asked about use of indoor gym facilities but it would be an interesting conversation to have with them they've been very supportive so they might be open to that. With the Y in Springfield we subsidized some of our residents to use it so yeah yeah it's great. Okay any other trust members? Will has his hand up he's giving me a high five high five will okay. Laura do you um do you anticipate parking being an issue I'm just thinking 16 spaces for 28 units like is there any nearby offsite parking? Right so parking is always a hot topic in affordable housing in general so we our goal when we started planning this was to have between 0.25 and 0.5 parking spaces which is between 7 and 14 parking spaces and that's based on our experience at other properties with low income tenants and how many actually have cars so we stretched a little bit we're up to 16 parking spaces which we think will accommodate all of the tenants who live here and then some so and it's based on you know it's based on direct experience with similar populations I know we we queried one building that Tom owns I think it was 101 units of housing this kind of housing and 34 tenants had cars so it was well less than as a third of the people who had cars and that's pretty consistent with our experience as well um it's partly why we pushed hard to find a centralized location where it's walking and bike friendly because we know that a lot of these folks cannot afford cars so I don't know if that answers your question um you know we also need parking first for staff that are coming um but they'll primarily be daytime users and so there will be a natural ebb and flow between tenants who are going out with cars to work during the day and staff that might be coming on site during the day um we did provide a parking study in the zoning application that gives it digs a little bit deeper into the question of how what's the right amount of parking and we actually think this parking is probably more it's going to be sitting some empty spaces so it's why some of its grass creed instead of pavement because it's still permanent parking but it minimizes the amount of black top that you have on the site uh and if half the spaces are empty it's just no one wants to look at a huge empty parking lot so thank you and and also I just want to echo the praise that has been heaped on this project it just looks awesome I'm super excited for it to progress and reach the next phase and so thank you for all the work you've done great thank you Nate do we have any visitors who wanted to yeah looks like make every comment um galaxy a10 I will um you can unmute yourself and you're audible and identify yourself please you have to unmute um yeah I thought I had clicked the unmute button but it didn't follow through Kathleen Anderson calling and I my question is about students and is this property intending to include students right so um no this is intended for uh adults not undergraduate age students so um and with the funding source that one of the funding sources we're using we're not allowed to accept full-time undergraduate students um there are some exceptions for people who are older who might be taking a course or someone who might be going back to school um but the the idea is to not use public subsidy to support people who are low income because their students and their parents are already supporting them so in the project eligibility letter I believe we we put in more a longer definition of what it means to be a student who would be screened out versus a student who could live in a place like this and who are the students who could live in a place like that so examples are someone who is working and taking a vocational class at night for example uh huh okay and then um so I'm looking at the rents projected rents yeah and I'm wondering who are the people you imagine will be able to afford those rents right so in the 30 tier uh people most people will have a subsidy that comes with the unit so whatever their income is they'll pay approximately 30 percent of it toward rent so they could have a wide range of incomes but we'd need to stay below that whatever 17,000 somewhat not dollars so those folks may be working um they may be working part-time or full-time they may be disabled they may be retired we see a pretty wide range um also at the 50 percent level we see people who are working minimum wage jobs um we see people who are working at the kind of lower end of the professional scale we see people who are retired um and we see people who are disabled so it's a pretty broad spectrum of folks that tend to fit into those income categories um because it's so close to Amherst college we're hoping it can serve as workforce housing for the college so that you know adjunct faculty or someone working in dining services or land you know grounds crew might find it really desirable to be so close you know quick walking distance to their employer uh and that's Amherst colleges and that was just so this is not Amherst college property although it's adjacent to Amherst college yep and i'm not sure that uh community that community members from the town of Amherst can use Amherst college facilities i mean like the gym for instance i heard that in part of the conversation tonight no not without permission from the college they couldn't yeah but the field itself which is directly adjacent to this building has been discussed a lot because there seems to be a long-standing policy by the college of allowing public access to the field okay thanks kath um we'll take a couple of other brief comments i see that we have Kate Trost and Janet Keller waiting so i'll allow comments or questions from them and then we're going to move on all right kate um you can unmute yourself and you'll be all set to speak hi hi kate and kathleen do you remember me kathleen anderson is she gone oh well no i'm still here i just in the minute to get the mute button push i'll be in touch with you separately i helped you one time through the sales um yeah i know who you are hey so one question i have is what percentage of people will come from the Amherst population that's and first that but then secondary our small our our smaller region of Hadley, Leverett, Pelham and Shootsbury so the town it's up to the town if it wants to take affirmative steps to have a local preference that would happen at the point of our conversations with the zba they could make it a condition of the permit but then the town would have to seek approval from the state to have a local preference towns can have local preference for up to 70 of the units local preference is very strictly defined and we don't get to define it it's people who live in town work in town work for town government or have kids in the school system so it doesn't really it's pretty much Amherst um and that local preference would apply to the lottery so it's the folks who would have the leg up to get in would have would have an advantage basically in getting into the initial occupancy of the property and being higher up on that initial wait list thank you for that I'm a neighbor and so you all might must understand that that matters I would love to see people from our community that need this kind of housing have a first choice for that and or people from Hadley that are nearby Leverett that are nearby etc the other question I have is could you please in your next presentation provide a three-dimensional of the smoking bench because as a neighbor I am a bit concerned about having to see people hanging around smoking and I think if you do the design properly it doesn't have to be visible to the neighborhood but I want to do that okay okay I mean oh just before you stop and to all of you all other folks I mean we're used to in most of the town center having prohibitions on smoking and would be preferable to have some at this prop on this property in the outside areas but at minimum screen it from the neighborhood if you can please thank you sure so just for your information Kate in the on the online plan set there is a an image of the kind of pavilion that we would propose and then if you look at the site plan you'll see that all around that is vegetation and it really it faces the parking lot that abuts the Conway Field House so I just want you to know I'm a landscape architect the vegetation if you show it from a plan view you see a canopy of a tree that's much different than what you would see ground level so you know you'll need some kind of architectural element like a fence or a wall to really screen it or actually like a arbor bitey hedge something like that that's kind of thing if you really don't want to be able to have people see it okay let's okay thanks we're getting in the weeds a little bit uh Janet let's see you know Kate I'm going to um disable your talking and lower your hand hold it does take a minute um Janet let's see Janet you can unmute yourself you should be all set and I I just wanted to say thank you for the terrific explanation and what appears to be a very well thought out project and we all know how much it's needed and I just wanted to say thanks thank you I appreciate it okay and the last comment we'll take from uh Barbara Graven Wilbur yeah sorry um Barbara I'm gonna allow you to speak I maybe you lowered your hand are you you can unmute yourself if you want to just let us know if you want to speak or not hey Barbara if you unmute yourself can I do that hi yes thank you Barbara Graven Wilbur and I am a butter um the question about local preference was asked and answered um I have a question about diversity and the importance of the diversity of the clientele not only economically but also diversity um and then the other thing is given our current COVID-19 environment what plans do you have should this thing continue or blow up right so hi Barbara um we we can't um screen or discriminate obviously on applicants based on race however we do find that the demographic in our properties is more diverse than the surrounding community um so it it seems to work out that way um and we are required to do affirmative marketing when we first do that lottery and so it's trying to reach communities who might not otherwise know about a project so we're doing a lot about reach in different local newspapers and spanish-speaking newspapers and just trying to reach reach everybody so everybody has the same opportunity to apply um it's interesting the COVID-19 uh we are starting to move people into the other project that I showed the sergeant house and so we've made adjustments it's a more incremental move in there's a lot of disinfecting going on I mean one thing that's become really obvious to us during this crisis is the people who are most vulnerable in a shelter in place order are those who don't have any shelter so we just feel feel like there's just greater and greater urgency for people to have a place even if it's a small place a place that is their home that they can stay in the event that there's a virus or something um what property managers have been doing generally is sometimes the common areas become off limits um during the case of something like this that's so contagious um and the disinfecting gets just ramped up you know a lot of these common areas touch surfaces um there's just a lot more disinfecting that takes place in the property thanks and um while I have another question I'm right on my head there'll be other opportunities I'm sure okay let me move on to the last part of this piece and that is discussion of uh sending a letter from the housing trust uh to the zoning board of appeals in support of this project um I actually started to draft a letter um but it wasn't ready for prime time so what I'm gonna do is just tell you what the process is that I would like to see and also briefly summarize the areas that I think the letter should cover um what I will do is I'll finish up my draft and distribute it to everybody we cannot talk about it among ourselves and you cannot give me direct feedback but uh you can give feedback to Nate and he'll be putting together the final version of the letter so uh let him know what your comments are or what additions you have and the goal will be to get the letter ready early next week so comments would be due by the end of the day next Tuesday so here are the things that I think should be covered and again I receive comments on that definitely right now one is discussion of the need actually the discussion of the need is pretty well uh described in the application which goes back to the housing production plan and then presents some more recent data about the need um but nonetheless I think it's essential that we also assert that there is a need and uh then going beyond that I thought I would at least mention the fact that 20 years ago the development of affordable single family homes was held up for the butternut farm project people may be familiar with and was held up for a long time until the obstacles were cleared out by the uh state supreme judicial court and so we that's kind of part of the amorous history on affordable housing and a comment that I have is I don't think we want to repeat it the second area has to do with the appropriateness of the project and again we've seen a lot of the features of it as Laura has described it this evening um I think that Valley has done really everything it could possibly do to create a plan that improves both the existing site and presents an pleasing structure and interesting rooms another area to cover is the quality developer Valley has an extraordinarily good reputation in this area they have their Northampton project the most recent of which Laura mentioned they've also had at least one and maybe more projects in Amherst that have existed for a long time and been affordable assets for our community uh the next thing that I wanted to mention was the management plan uh Laura has mentioned that they will have a 70 to 75 percent uh services coordinator who will be on site um I think she's really bent over backwards to provide opportunities for people to get access to the services they need on the other hand um it's also respectful of individuals these are people's homes and neither Valley community development or the town of Amherst or any other government has the right to tell people in their own homes what kind of services they need to accept in order to live there and so again I think Valley's done a good job of saying okay we're going to do everything we can to make sure that people have access to services they need but we're not going to impose those services on them we're going to be respectful and then the last issue I think we want to mention is financing uh financing can be difficult especially in the not-for-profit world well I've never developed a property I know from reading and so forth that it's a lot different than if you're a for-profit developer you go into this and there aren't really a lot of margins it's not like you have a lot to give you know and if the zoning board of appeals decides they want to take a unit or two away or add some parking or make other changes you can really get to the point where pretty quickly the project becomes financially untenable and I think we don't want to see that happen I mean people put enough work into this and trying to find public funding sources so that people with low incomes are going to be able to live there so those are the areas that I thought the letter should cover if there are other suggestions this would be a good time to raise them and I'll try my best to include them Carol just like maybe to mention the fact that they're making it they're working making it a passive building that that so it's not just high-end Amherst people who should have access to the best and latest uh you know sort of environmental stuff and this building does that to me that's definitely a plus okay anything else John um when you mentioned management I heard Laura very specifically state that she made changes or they made changes in response to the community concerns and I think that's really critical the fact that you know they're listening to the community and they've made some changes to make sure this works best for both who the individuals who live there as well as the community okay thanks Erica other thoughts I just just reinforced John your statement about um not imposing upon these people any more restrictions than one would normally have uh for anyone else who's a resident that we should respect these people as independent citizens of the of the town and just because we're trying to create some set asides for people who might be more vulnerable doesn't mean that we need to dictate how they should live their lives so I really want to support you in making that statement okay thanks anybody else okay then I'll just close this part of uh the meeting out saying again I hope to have a draft completed tomorrow I'll send it around to everybody and you will have the weekend or up until close the business on Tuesday to let Nate know what comments you have so that he can make put the final draft together to go to the zoning board of appeals I'll also say or encourage you that if anybody individually wants to send a note to the zoning board of appeal on the issues we've just outlined or anything else I think that will definitely strengthen Valley's position before them just like we had an outpouring of support before town council for the community preservation act funding I think it's important for the town to show its support before the zoning board of appeals as well so I think that's the end for this conversation and we'll move on to the next piece sure thanks Laura and um and everyone for your questions and comments yet to John's point when uh trust members get his letter you can only respond to me with comments so don't you know don't respond all and send them to trust members that becomes a conversation outside of an open meeting so just send your comments to me I'll put them all together Tuesday night that'll be my relaxation on Tuesday evening and then I'll get them to John on Wednesday so well thank you so much thank you Lauren good luck with this thank you Jane thanks nice meeting you yeah sorry I was a little bumpy on zoom there at the beginning that's all right so I had I had an upgrade I had an upgrade last week before a meeting and it threw it all off and there was about 40 people waiting to get on oh wow that was a really popular guy that evening well um I look forward to um meeting with you all again soon thanks for your time thanks I've lost track of time what what time is it it's eight oh eight eight oh eight okay not too bad I wanted to be done with this by eight o'clock and so we've come pretty close to that that's great okay the next piece of business has to do oh I'm sorry I did want to take a vote on this everybody in favor of our state ascending a letter of support for this project to the zoning board of appeals do a roll call please say yes I mean I sense is everyone's going to say yes but we need to check that uh will yes Tom yes Carol yes Erica yes uh Sid yes uh Rob yes and and I'm a yes and I'm assuming Paul is not joined us yet no he hasn't texted me yet either so I think he's still in the other meeting okay so now we'll look move on to the emergency rental assistance program um I have good news there um it looks like we're actually going to have a program uh we uh uh Nate with Anthony Delaney put the project out to bid to three organizations now I guess about two weeks ago and uh well actually there were four but three of them bid um the bids were pretty close to each other they're only a few thousand dollars apart the lowest bid actually came from wayfinders but uh their proposal made clear that they did not want to run the proposal run the project the way that we expected them their plan was to run it the same way they run the state raft program in the region which meant that they would be taking people first come first serve rather than giving preference to families and there were a couple other differences but that's the one that really stood out to me so uh there was some conversation with them in which they agreed yeah they didn't want to do it our way they wanted to do it their way and so as a consequence um their bid was put aside the second lowest proposal came from community action of pioneer valley they're based in north hampton and greenfield um they're headed by the former uh north hampton mayor claire higgins but it's the organization that i've had a little bit of contact with and I think other people have as well um they're really a very strong anti-poverty agency and they did agree to run the program the way that we asked I think their bid was for 38 500 for administration so out of the 250 000 that leaves a very substantial part then to actually provide rental assistance so we are waiting for them to sign the contract that anthony blaney sent into them and then we can begin to uh have a hopefully a brief conversation about how to kick the program off make sure that within a week or two people are notified application materials are available both online and physically and uh we can start receiving applications and get a sense of just how vast the need is out there so I think where as I said a week or two away from being able to publicly announce the program but we definitely have an administrator we should have a contract in place within a day or so and then we can move ahead is there anything you want to add to that Nate no I think that's uh it's a good summary the um yeah I'll say it is you know as unfortunate wayfinders was the lowest bidder but then they they didn't want to quite run it the way it was designed so they actually let the town know today they weren't um they kind of withdrew their their proposal um you know we're excited to work with community action I John's right I think they're pretty well equipped to do this quickly you know I think the you know the will be a little bit of um time needed just to get marketing and program design you know finalized if there's any changes to that but then it's really just a matter of getting an advertise and then accepting applications so yeah I mean I my only thought is we might have a huge response of people interested and then that you know it's a good and a bad thing then it's a matter of you know we won't be able to fund everyone but at least um we have some money out there um and I will say the CPA committee is starting to meet their meeting tonight uh and the you know as John has mentioned in the past and maybe that come the fall there may be more CPA money that could be put into another second round of housing support so it's something you know we can use this first round as a as a model before there's more funding available I want to skip down for a minute and mention one other thing again Nate we might have amplified on this um and this is the item 6c cdbg cares act funding recommendations as you may recall the money that we're using comes from the community preservation act which does not allow for funds to be used to provide support services to households that would be receiving the rental assistance uh ordinarily you think that would be something you'd really want to be able to do but we'd be prevented by state statute or regulation from doing that the good news is that the town received money under the federal cares program that went to the community development block grant committee to determine how to allocate and if you remember from our last meeting we knew that there would be proposals for household support for this program from both family outreach of Amherst and Amherst community quest Amherst community connections I did send them a note pursuant to our conversation saying we would like to see both funded but I did also say that if only one could be funded then if they only had enough money to fund one project it shouldn't be divided up you wanted a program to be strong enough to have the resources that it need to be able to follow through the community development block grant committee met and as I understand that they will be making the recommendation to the town manager that Amherst family outreach be funded at the level of $50,000 to provide this household support program so I think it's great that we're going to see that happen hopefully just from the same time that the rental assistance program gets on its feet Amherst family outreach is already serving some of the clients who are likely to be eligible and so they don't necessarily have to wait for a new funding to move ahead so I think those are two very positive things that have happened as a consequence of our work as the housing trust and I'm very pleased with it I don't know are there other comments or questions that people have I think Carol has her hand raised Hey Carol Don't question but as a new person on a housing trust now that this has happened and there is a contractor to do it what is our remaining responsibility as a trust if any to the program that we have just launched it's a little vague I will say this formally the relationship between the town and the administrator is contractual so we don't formally have a role but informally at least I and probably Rita and as well as obviously Nate will be talking to Community Action Pirate Valley about how to implement the program they will also be following through sending the letter to landlords who are receiving funds asking them to match them at football possible with contributions of their own to their individual tenants I think also I will be expecting to get data back from Community Action Pioneer Valley about how many act applications were received how many were funded so that you know if we want to work with the Community Preservation Act Committee to expand the program we'll have some information available that provides a basis for doing it so I think we'll be following up I think also Carol once we make an announcement any of us can serve as a conduit if we hear about people who are looking for this kind of assistance and funnel them into Community Action so we don't have a lot of formal responsibility but informally I see us trying to do some follow-up and certainly a responsibility on my part to get back to you all with whatever we're learning as they implement the program I think Carol the other one is you know through the good worker Rita and John the program design was pretty well polished and the trust you look at it over two meetings so you know less Community Action has a you know some questions that really you know have to do with how the program is set up there really isn't much role for the trust that you know if we for instance if the trust just said let's do a rental program and then it was up to staff and the contractor to come up with you know how to actually implement it then maybe we'd be going back and forth more but the trust has already done that so I mean during the procurement there was a few questions about things that we answered and so I don't anticipate many questions from Community Action I think it's maybe just a matter of small little contractual details and then just moving forward with marketing and things but not any big questions about how the program should be operated or designed and I mean that's a testament to the work of the trust to get it ready yeah I'll just say I think our job is virtually done we can breathe a sigh of relief and think about the other projects that we want to get moving that's the way I look at it personally yeah well thank you I just thank you very much for the clarity okay last time I had noted that there were two things pending before the legislature one was a rent-freeze proposal that has been offered by Lindsay Sabadosa of Northampton and I think it's Paul Mark and I can't tell you what community he represents there were also a lot of co-sponsors and we agreed that I would uh ask uh our state representative Mindy Dom and our state senator Joe Comfort where they stand on those and also on the expansion of the raft program raft is rental assistance for families in transition um it's similar to what we're trying to do um and the state has had a traditional raft program they're expanding it now so that it has a COVID-19 focus um so that it's a little bit broader um it would have people up to 80 percent AMI as opposed to 50 percent and below um in any event uh chapa is asking the legislature to add I believe it's 60 million dollars to the program either through the supplemental budget um or next year's budget or both so I talked to Mindy about it and I also emailed her and emailed Joe um yeah I don't have a note back from Mindy but in some she's in support of both of these things um even if she didn't show up initially as a co-sponsor um I did want to read the note that I got from Joe's Chief of Staff Jared Friedman it's not a very long note but I think it's worth you all hearing um first he says great news about the local emergency rental assistance program congratulations on getting that launched and agreed that the state must help towns meet this need we have certainly heard uh about the 50 million dollar ask for raft from chapa and other advocates Joe has been leading the senate's COVID-19 working group and the working group conveyed the 50 million dollar raft asked to the senate budget committee which is currently working on a one billion dollar supplemental budget whether the entire raft allocation goes into the supplement or whether it is funded next year um is something we just need to find out Joe will stay on it and keep pushing for this funding Joe also completely supports a rent increase freeze for the duration of the state emergency specifically the bill we mentioned before it could be accomplished that way or through economic recovery packages that the legislature may also take up we will also look for any further housing legislation that may be taken up soon but if an economic development bill moves first that could also be a vehicle worth using to pursue the issue so basically I won't read the rest of the note but it's clearly very supportive of what we've done and in the case that as I said Mindy does Joe also supports both the rent freeze and the raft program um and I actually got a brief note after Jared sent me his note from Joe basically thanking Jared for representing her position and getting back to me first so I think that's all good news uh beyond that I don't think I have anything else to add about legislative updates I don't know are there any questions or further comments okay then we're moving through the the rest of our agenda pretty quickly which is good because I can see a few people yawning let's see updates Nate do you want to tell us about where you think we'll be with respect for consultants for wetlands at east street and strong street and other similar kind of property analysis contracts I think I'm just going to delete this from the next agenda so that way maybe members can forget no the um well there's a new planner Ben Bregger he he actually helped the trust um but I mean he was over a year ago now and um he's helping me we have we're getting us we have a pretty much a scope of work together for some wetlands so we're trying to um work with Anthony Delaney to get that procured and um John and I spoke today the town buildings will um maybe be opening up in late July so then um you know I've been talking to the the asbestos um contractor for east street school but we you know we we'd have to get someone in there the town wanted to have a few buildings looked at so at one point we thought bundling um hazardous material assessments together to get a better kind of economies of scale there but the wetlands piece is something that we've worked on so we're getting a draft scope and so we know we'd have to uh depending on the amount have to seek three quotes or we're trying to keep it under one under 10 000 and then we can just go with one consultant so um pre-covid I'd ask for some quotes from a few people and I need to follow back up I had reached out to a few consultants to get an estimate and um but I that's something we're working on okay that's great um hopefully by our next meeting maybe we'll have something more that we can talk about um in both of those areas uh because they are critical to bar are be able to move along to um other projects right um another very brief update uh 40 r consultant work the 40 r is a proposal to create an overlay district in downtown amherst um we've had the town had consultants that were actually hired as a concept sense of a grant that Nate Rita and I wrote um that came to the town to do some development work around this and they actually produced a draft 40 r bylaw and have made a number of presentations some all-town presentations and most recently a presentation to the planning board all that's kind of up in the air um the planning board and the planning department are both receiving uh comments on their latest work and uh we're supposed to meet with consultants next week to talk about what the next steps are uh not surprisingly what they propose is controversial there are people who think it's a good idea and people are very other people who are very concerned about um increasing density downtown Nate do you have anything do you want to add to that or does anybody have any questions no I think you know um we'll share it with the trust you know the goal of the um the grant was um you know technical assistance for a consultant to develop what would be a district boundary and a bylaw and design guidelines that are complete enough that they could be adopted by a town so you know essentially it's more than just a study they were actually the consultants will will provide the town with you know zoning language and boundary um you know some justification for boundaries and so that can be shared with the trust I think you know once the consultants finish their work it's something that the trust and the planning board can meet uh together with to discuss uh you know 40R um you know it has a requirement of affordable housing it has design guidelines and there's probably a few ways to achieve it um if if um you know if the planning board if people are hesitant for 40R there's different zoning mechanisms but I think it's something that um you know I think I think it would be important for the trust to keep discussing it because you know without changing the zoning um in town you know we still can have development that won't provide any affordable units and may not have the design or architecture that uh people like and you know 40R may I agree that I think there's concerns and there's rightly so it is one tool that could be used but I think it's something that the trust could look at and consider you know if the trust wants to support it um in what shape or form and then I maybe having a joint meeting with the planning board in the future just to discuss to discuss it a little bit um I mean that's it you know I you know once we send everything out it is complicated the consultants are going to make one more presentation um I think to the planning board and you know we can invite the trust to that and you can listen yeah that's it okay um I was being able to care about it together so I let please let us know when it's going to the planning board other questions or comments okay upcoming events it was only one listed on the agenda but actually I have five so I'll just briefly go over those uh sorry for not getting on there earlier next Tuesday evening at 6 30 that's June 16th there will be a meeting of the Amherst Housing Coalition which would have a somewhat similar agenda to the one that we had this evening then the following week on Tuesday there will be a regional meeting of CHAPA the Citizens Housing and Planning Association this is basically for people in western mass it'll be on Tuesday June 23rd at 2 p.m. and I will send a registration link out to people like everything else it will be a zoom meeting I was talking to Dana LaWinter earlier today and there are something like 90 people who have already registered for it so it promises to be a a pretty lively meeting some of it will be presentation and discussion but Dana also plans to have people break out into groups of six or seven to discuss what's going on locally and what the implications are for affordable housing and also for racial justice so that's the number two on my list the ZBA hearing is there it will be on June 25th in the evening and again we'll be able to link to it and listen in on the hearing um it would be great if not only we have the housing trust letter but lots of other individual letters to the zoning board of appeals in support of the project at 132 North Hampton Road so again I urge you to do that hopefully when you see my letter you'll get inspired or you'll so be discussed that you think a better letter is needed and do one yourself uh the next housing trust meeting will be on Thursday July 9th so that's just about a month away so put that into your calendars uh and while we're talking about a July meeting I was recalling that last year our August meeting was pretty poorly attended I can't remember what the numbers were but it would we definitely didn't have a quorum and so uh unless there's some really pressing business I was thinking about are not having an August meeting this year but I do think we want to have the July meeting so are there any comments or questions about an August meeting well I'm wondering if it was because everyone's on vacation no one's really going anywhere you could be right Erica or if you're on vacation you can just zoom on in that's true you can zoom in from vacation fantastic you don't need to be home well um again I I'm willing to do an August meeting I'm certainly not going on vacation or at least I have no plan to do that right now uh any other thoughts about that except unless in July it turns out that it seems like we should do something in August right so we can wait a month to make a decision Carol that's true okay um any other comments or thoughts that people want to share before we close out the meeting I just had a question about the letter to the zoning board um some of us actually submitted letters to DHCD uh I believe uh is that a similar letter or you want it to be something different um I um I don't know the answer to that Erica um really it should it probably does but it should address issues that are related to the application for a comprehensive okay so specific to the application yeah um I mean you can say you support the project in general but I don't know and they can tell us whether the uh file of letters that went to DHCD or the earlier ones for a to-town council will all be available to the zoning board um but they may import pay more attention anyway to letters that are written specifically to them I think the um Erica everything that was sent previously was for the project eligibility phase right that's online and it's been um sent to the zba but if you wanted to write something again it could be similar I you know I can't say what exactly your letter said um and that that could work I think just you know this time it's for the application phase you know I'm hoping the zba members read everything that was submitted previously just so they have a understanding of it you know there was a lot of letters but I you know it wouldn't it would it would help to have another letter perhaps I'm not you know well I think you know I think you answered my question um certainly tweaking it in terms of some of the comments tonight in terms of how they have actually responded to concerns in the community and some of the you know the additional information that they provided to this evening so right and I'm looking at the chapeau website just so you know the June 23rd meeting it's you know chapeau does the regional meetings um and this one's for Franklin Hampshire and Hamden counties and um yeah John I can send a link or you can it was hard to find interestingly enough it's not on their calendar of events it's somehow it's buried in there maybe like their workshop series or something but not on their calendar I got an email from Dana so I can send that out okay that yeah all right um anything else people looking for would like to know okay well I thank you all for participating I won't take a roll call vote on adjournment just ask if everybody's in favor we're adjourning our meeting John there's still some members of the public I don't know if we just want to ask if they want to raise their hands or not okay yeah was there yeah I looked for a minute ago and there wasn't anybody here to raise their hands but yeah if they're anybody interested in making a public comment at this point the floor is open thank you Nate yep if anyone's interested just raise your hand if not we'll just guess the meeting can end in a minute all right I'm not seeing any hands John okay again thanks everybody thank you have a good evening and we'll be in touch about our next meeting and they've done what happened with the emergency rental assistance program thanks thank you thank you everyone thank you thank you