 Okay to drive Athena. I'm not driving anywhere today. Thank goodness. Oh, you're home. Good. Okay. So we're just like town hall. It does. The beauty of zone. Yeah, we're open to attendees. We're recording. We're recording and Mandy I'm going to make you host before I jump out. Excellent. Thank you for opening this Athena. Please take care. Yeah, feel better. Okay. Thanks everybody. Yeah, thank you. Okay. There we go. We have a whopping large number of people here today. I know if something's wrong. Whoa, I don't think I've held a CRC meeting with no one in attendance in H is bad. I can't remember one. The OOL is typical like this but not CRC. So, um, here we go, we'll, we'll get started seeing the presence of a quorum. I am calling this April 20 2023 special meeting of the community resources committee of the town council to order at 432pm, I'm making my own notes here. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by chapters 22 and 107 of the Acts of 2022 and extended by chapter two of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by a technological means. I'm also gonna note that this meeting is being recorded. So with that, we're going to take attendance and do a roll call just to make sure that members can be heard and we can hear every member. With that, Shalini. I'm present. And Mandy is present, Pat. Present. Jennifer. Present. Oh, I had no idea Shalini was here. She came in late. I was hearing a speech. Hi. Disembodied voice. Okay. And Pam Rooney will be absent today, although we will check and if she does happen to show up, we'll make note of that, but I do not expect her today. With that, we are going to move on on our agenda. There are no public hearings today. I'll make the announcement. We were supposed to have a public hearing on April 13th on a zoning proposal. That meeting was not posted properly by accident. And so that public hearing was continued due to the lack of being able to hold a meeting to the next regular council meeting, which will regular CRC meeting, which will be next week, the 27th of April and the hearing will begin at 435 PM. But today there are no public hearings. We have a number of action items on our agenda and we're going to try and take them in order. And the order that I've put them in is, we're going to do a lot of residential rental bylaw. And if there's time after we get through all of that, we'll talk about the nuisance house bylaw. But we're going to start with the engagement report under the residential rental bylaw, then move to the bylaw, then to the fee structure and schedule and then the regulations. And if we have time after that, we'll move to the nuisance house bylaw, although I'm not sure we will, but I put it on there in case we're very efficient. And after the action items, we have no discussion items, we'll move to public comment and then the minutes and then any announcements. So with that, unless there are questions, we'll dive right into the engagement report. We are, give me a second. So we are, and I apologize. You've seen this before. I put the wrong, well, I did not put this full report in today's packet. It has been, it's the same thing that has been in the packet for a couple of weeks. So it is not new. I will make sure it gets into this packet. I just, for some reason, I put the wrong document in, although the document that is in is some comments Pam Rooney had. And since she's not here, it's actually good that it's in the packet because everyone can see what she wanted to do with it. And so this is it. I think we were, there should be a note as to where we were as we paged down. I think we have, we're working our way through, Shalini, if I'm right, we were working our way through and we're sort of in the quantitative analysis way down. No, I think we had finished all the analysis and we were starting with the executive summary. So that was under key issues and considerations. The key factors. Yeah. Okay, was there a note? Jennifer has a handout though. Jennifer. Yeah, so I just, I did have a comment on page 33. Should we just save that till after we finish the executive summary? Oh, no, let's go down to that one. So it's just, there are two questions. I think it's the page above it. Oh, there. Yeah, so at the top it says, there's a question one and a question two. And question two, actually written it down. Yeah, that one. And I just wanted to ask if that could be taken out because again, it wasn't really, it's a little, it's extraneous to the responses. And I think it's just covered in zoning. Does anyone have a problem with removing it? No. So I think with this one, without a two, just for formatting purposes, we'll get rid of the number one. It'll look. So just to fill it. It was, it was, well, it'll look. It just looked like another sentence. Yeah. Yeah. It's what it'll look like. Okay, that was it. Okay. So let's page back up to the executive summary and I think we had started, as Shalini said, with the key issues and considerations and we had made it through one, two, three. Wait, did we make it through all of that? Yeah, I think we did. We made it at least through three. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think we were on either four or five. No, I think we definitely didn't do four. I don't remember. Yeah. So are there any professors? I'm sorry. Jennifer. You know, as I said, I guess Pam's, what's in the packet, what I think is that where we left off? That's number, yeah, we haven't come to the occupancy. Oh, okay. I'm totally okay, by the way, with those changes. So we'll get to that. That's I think number, that's under number five. Yeah. That's I think under occupancy. I think it has a number one in her document, but I think it's, yeah, it's the next one, number five. So we hadn't gotten there yet. Is there any way to make that bigger? Better? Let me see if I can do it on my screen. You're talking about my share? Yeah. So I've shared the whole screen. Right. And now it's taking up most of the screen too. I've made it bigger on my- I know, I get, that's probably okay. Okay. So any requested changes on number four, the strong neighborhoods and recommendations. Recommendations be considerations. Yeah, it's considerations and considerations. Yeah, it's just to be consistent everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Can you move down a little? I was just gonna say that I thought it was interesting that on the graphs on page 15, that residents and tenants like expressed a desire to get to know each other. So that was like, you know, that was a quantitative question asked, like how important is that? And both tenants and residents around year, full year residents kind of rated that as an important aspect. I don't know how that can happen where, you know, some people talked about the brownie week and neighbors welcoming new tenants or, but it seemed like, you know, the neighborhoods would really benefit from more opportunities for connection between the neighbors and also tenants feeling like they don't feel like a sense of belonging or they feel they're less than if they don't own a house in Amherst. So just those kinds of things, I think it's just nice for everyone, important for everyone to hear that how can we make it more inclusive, inclusive environment for everyone. And I think for tenants, it's important to hear about residents and their children and their schedules and just that culture of empathy where we're, you know, building strong communities together. You know, in the neighborhood I live in, they've been having, it's really the whole precinct they have a first Sunday of every month brunch. It's been for more than 25 years. And the students do come who live in the neighborhood, not all, but I mean, some, and I don't, I mean, it's been really great. I would recommend that. Is this a droot date around or is it in one? Yes, it goes, there's even dishes, so we don't use paper dishes. There's a basket. I mean, it was going on long before we moved here. It's been going on for almost three decades. And yes, there's somebody that maintains a whole year long list of who's hosting it. And we even did it through most of the pandemic outside. Wow, thanks for sharing that. And we do a very similar thing with students who move into the houses on either end where we go over and welcome them just like we've welcomed the family that moved in two years ago and by bringing some food and just checking in, asking what they need. And I've established some really long-term relationships with students who no longer live in Amherst, but we still communicate simply because of the neighborhood things we did together. And John Thompson actually started a tradition which we've done, you know, even anyway, we do what some, most of the time John comes, but even when he doesn't, and I really have to thank you for this, the Cosby Avenue and it's made a huge difference. I mean, we meet with the students in, you know, like outside, you know, just like on the sidewalk every year. Wow, wonderful. So it sounds like we don't have changes to this section. Yeah, that's not waste time with our stories, I guess. Yes, let's move on to the occupancy. And what's the meaning of it? Pam's changes. Yeah, let me, I can pull hers up. I just, I think she copied the whole set of this section into her document. The survey didn't ask for it. And I did change, I think, some things, but yeah, I'm okay with removing. I think the main point over here is still intact. So. So she removed the negative consequences for tenants, the negative consequences for neighbors of rental properties and then would have it read after the first paragraph looks like she didn't change. The foreign related occupant limit appears to be poorly enforced and can be used to suppress tenants from reporting health or safety concerns. Its lack of enforcement is impacting neighbors. Apparently some landlords get around it by showing only four people on the lease and some landlords are exploring the vulnerabilities of tenants to avoid their responsibilities providing safe and healthy housing. And I think that's all she would leave. Right, really? Let's see, even though the survey, cause all of this is crossed out. Yeah, so we can remove all of that. I don't know if I want to remove all that. I think there are real negative consequences for tenants and neighbors that, and I'm still questioning if a house has, I'd go back to something Rob said that there's a house where it can hold up to six people. And why can't there be six people there? Or if they're, my son and his wife before they were married and they would rent a three bedroom with their two roommates and they shared one bedroom. What if two couples were there or something? I don't know, I just have two couples. Yeah, see I couldn't, so I couldn't vote for something that said we wanted to do away with the four unrelated. I'm not saying do away with it, but I think that I still want to think about is there some way to adjust or to say if a house has five bedrooms, you can have five students. If it, you know, I don't know. But I don't think that came out of this report. I mean, I think that's another conversation. Yep. So that's my concern. In the report, at least from the people that, you know, again, disclaimer, this is not systematic sampling or any of that, but in terms of qualitative data, we cannot ignore what we did here from tenants, from neighbors, definitely we've heard about the, they feel it's not being enforced. And that's causing all of those issues. But then also from the tenant side, they were concerned that I did not know about that came through in terms of how they feel. And again, listening to people doesn't mean we have to agree and do everything they're saying, but we do need to hear that reflected in the report and then decide, and I think that's a conversation. At least that was my key takeaway is that we do need to have a conversation about that issue, but not here in the report. The negative consequence for tenants. I'm sorry, go ahead, Jennifer. No, I still think it was, yeah, there were a few tenants. I mean, if I was a student, I'd say, why can't I live with 10 of my friends? I mean, of course, but I think- No, that's not necessarily true. Not every student- I read very few where the tenants said that the major issue, I mean, very few where they said they wanted to be able to live with more people. And if they did, and the few times when they said it, it was always couched in terms of lowering the rent, which doesn't happen. And there were many more that said, I mean, I think there were maybe more that a few said they want to lower it to three, but we're not putting that in. I think just to say that there's an issue with the occupancy not being enforced, that seemed to be, but I would not say a major takeaway from this is that people wanted to be able to have more than four students living together. There were maybe five that said it, five students, I think I counted, five. Yeah, give them more than that. But- Andy's here at the point. No, Jennifer can finish, but then I'd like to- You know, I can't see anybody's hand. I don't know. People will have to raise, I'm the host, so I'm not sure I can't. Kevin, and I have to raise your hand. I don't know who else's hand is up, but I thought I would not feel, frankly, that this was an accurate portray. I think it's getting to what some of us would like to see raised, but I don't think it was a major takeaway in any way. And I think you spoke to Kathy, Shalini, you know, that- I've included all her points though, and she was, this is a lot of the changes in this are based on her. So she is, her main thing was only calling it something else, it was an occupancy, but she was okay with these changes. Again, I think the important thing is, because this is not systematic sampling, we're not comparing, okay, 70% of the residents at this versus 30, because it's not, but it is qualitative data that if there are people, and it's not just about lowering the rent, it seemed like they were not able to complain. There were a lot of suppression, and those kind of abuses that are happening. So that's being left in in that second to last paragraph. Right, so, but we have to acknowledge that even the more number of rooms there are, I know Jennifer, you are saying that it will not bring it down, but that's the demand and supply. If you have more supply of rooms, it is going to, over time, not like tomorrow if I increase it, but over time, as we open up more housing, more rooms, it is going to bring down the cost eventually. Yeah, you eventually won't have people, I mean, think about it. If you could put, you could, even next door to any, no matter where you live, if you could put two students in a bedroom, two in a den, a few in a finished basement, that makes every house really appealing to an investor. I mean, it has to be safe, and there have to be. Well, you would be safe. You could have two students in a four bedroom house. Yeah, I mean, anyway, I just don't think we're going to get into this turn. We're not going to get into, the purpose of this is not to discuss whether we want to keep it or not, or the pros and cons. We're trying to summarize what was said by the people who responded this. And I think we need to keep that in mind as we look at this. And so I'm looking at it, and I think the last paragraph that Pam proposes to eliminating is fine to eliminate. I don't have a problem with that. Cause that's sort of, you know, that's, if we're looking at this executive summary and we've talked about factors and then considerations, that last paragraph kind of gets beyond that. And so I think eliminating that one is fine. And most of the, I would be fine with all of Pam's changes actually, although I questioned the need to eliminate the two paragraphs, these two paragraphs, because most of the other factors, most of the other sections that summarize stuff actually do pull from the surveys. And so eliminating those two paragraphs seems like we're not pulling from the surveys for this one. But I don't have a problem with eliminating those paragraphs to make it as short as it would become if we go with what Pam has suggested. Pat. I would like to keep negative consequences for tenants and negative consequences for neighbors of rental properties in. I have a problem with the beginning of the next paragraph, the four unrelated, well, nevermind. That's fine. Yeah. I think it's trying to tone the report in a specific way. And I would like both those paragraphs to be there. They were comments that were made, they were made through the survey. They've been made by students I've had conversations with. And... So I have a question for Shalini since she spent a lot more time reading everything as it is this paragraph here, this sentence. Was anything about showing only four people on the lease mentioned anywhere in the comments? Do you know, or was that sort of a conclusion, or was that part brought up by either neighbors or tenants? Let me just read apparently someone did around by showing only four people. And how many brought it up? Yeah, no, this was definitely brought up. I didn't make this up because I didn't even know about this. So this is not a conclusion I drew, but this was one of the concerns that came through which were not related to just the rent. But it was definitely brought up by several people. And I think if the problem exists, if it exists in four people's homes and we didn't get a full sample, the fact is that it exists. We can't say, oh, it's just you four dealing with it. So we're not gonna talk about it or I think it needs to be acknowledged. And I've heard about this outside of the survey as well after the fact. Because I went around asking like, is that something that happens? And I did hear that that does happen. So Shalini is okay with the changes. Would you like to keep the two negative consequence paragraphs or eliminate them? Which is your preference, Shalini? I mean, I think it does pull out the pros and cons. And we, again, that's what we're supposed to do is listen to all. And then it's up to us what we wanna do with it. I agree that the last statement is overboard and we should, that is the recommendation or whatever, that should definitely be removed. But I think leaving the negative consequences to me obviously makes sense to have it there. Jennifer, what are your thoughts on these? I'm just gonna pull up this one so I can start making some changes. Yeah, and I'm actually, oh, I'm looking at what was in the packet. So if we keep the two paragraphs, negative consequences for both tenants and the one I, maybe we can rephrase it. It says some of the described tenants, oh, I'm sorry, it's the second paragraph in negative consequences for tenants. Some of the tenants described as being discriminatory against students who wanna live with their friends and partners. I mean, they can live with their friends and partners. I mean, no matter what the limit is, they won't be able to live with all of them. So is there a way to phrase it? Because it's not discriminating against. It's just, the word discriminating is what. But I think what Shalini is summarizing is the tenants felt they were being discriminated against. So rephrasing it would be rephrasing what they wrote. Whether they actually write that? I mean, so that's what I wanna say. Is that a quote from a survey? Yeah, I can pull that up. I know, I actually remember reading that where someone said I can't live with my friends, but they can live with their friends. In this sense, like if you own a house, you can have as many people, but if they're partners, then like you want to bring down the cost by, like let's say a partner is staying, but that one partner will count towards the four limit. And so it's not really bringing down the cost. Like the- So can you take out friends and put partners? Because maybe that's a different. So it can't be their friends, but they're saying that their partner, I don't know. I mean- Right, partner would make more sense. Like, yeah, that's true. Partner would make more sense in that way. Because I guess what I'm saying, no matter what limit we put, if it's six, if it's eight, they still can't live with, they still may have friends they can't live with. Right. So I think if the surveys used friends and partners, or some said friends, some said partners, it would be wrong to remove one of them, whether or not we agree with the sentiment in the survey. We have to remember this is summarizing what was said by people who submitted the survey, whether we agree with what was submitted or not. Yes, although there were people that said, we should limit, they'd like to see three. So I mean, we can't, I guess what I'm saying was we're not putting everything that was in all the surveys. Obviously we couldn't do that. So I think I've made all the changes except for the possibility of eliminating these two paragraphs. Pam, once them eliminated, Jennifer. I mean, I'd prefer they're eliminated, but I'm trying to, you know. Yeah, no, I get it. I'm trying to, I still think that one sentence because I don't describe it as being discriminatory. I still think by writing it, it's the implication that they were agreeing that they can't live with their friends and partners. And that, I know it's, that's just not accurate. It's not, they're saying they're discriminated against. That's their- Because they want to live with their friends and partners. Right. So, but they're saying that's what they feel and why isn't that okay to list whether you agree with it or not? I'm not, I am honestly not trying to expand the four person limit. Right, I know. But I am trying to say there are situations where that would be acceptable and we should be able to make some of those discriminations. But that's not, that's my opinion and I don't need to put it in this. Right, and I'm just making the point that there were plenty of other kinds of statements made. Well, so we didn't, you know, we didn't put in because we can't put everything in. I mean, we do make the point that we do, I mean, we do make the point from the resident side that they want to limit it because it's crowding up. So I think there's a lot of information saying that, yeah, there's traffic on the roads, or, you know, parking, there's nuisance, there's noise. I think there's, we're not walking away from the report thinking that like, oh, this is all good, let's change it. I think it's saying that we have a problem here on both sides, all sides. I'm thinking if there's another term instead of just... Well, I was wondering if there's a possibility to add, live with like something like more of their friends and partners than allowed under the limit or, you know... Yeah, that would even be... Or something like that, that might satisfy Jennifer's concerns. It would. The word discriminatory seems inflammatory, and that's not the intent. We discriminate against students all the time in this town. Doesn't mean... We discriminate against an awful lot of people at different types in this town. And to try to soften that word because you don't like it, doesn't seem... I don't think, no, I don't think we're discriminating against them by saying there's a for a limit. I don't. I mean, what, you know. Your opinion, I think discriminatory is an opinionated word. I will agree it is, but that's their opinion and they have a right to their opinion. I will also say that in this committee and in other committees, it has flat out been stated that we can discriminate against students by some members and some people in town have said they're not a protected class, so they can be discriminated against. Well, for more than just that issue. Yeah, for many issues. And so, well, then could we put it in that for neighbors that, was it stated? Because there were several neighbors that said they thought three should be the limit. I was trying to figure out where that could go in this paragraph. And diminishing because of the change. It could be part of this list, neighborhood. Yeah, there, you know, and mentioned, yeah. I'm setting the limit, yeah. Sure, neighbors. So if we said there could only be six students in the house, would that be discriminatory or eight? Oh, Jennifer. Nobody's saying that. We're not getting into the substance of it. We're trying to get through this engagement report. Yes. Trust me. We're still having to go out together and have coffee sometime. I don't think it's discriminatory. So when we get through the rental by law, the nuisance by law, one of the things I will be putting on our agenda is further discussion of that rule because it has for the last year come up many times. And I think we need to have a concentrated and publicist discussion on it. But it will be, it is something on my list of things for us to discuss. We have to get through our referrals first, though. I think so. I think there's definitely different points of view and within residents and within tenants. But I think at least we try to get the report in a place where it's trying to show these and create a community of empathy where we can really listen and then try to come up with a solution that works. I know this one is hard to read because there's been a lot of changes, but is this? Can I ask if, I feel like I don't know if John and Rob need to be right here for the editing piece? I'm hoping we're done soon. Okay, that just feels awful. We're just trying to get through the rest of this and then we're gonna be done. So I think we've reached a compromise here. Is that correct? Is there anything on the screen? Yeah. I'm not seeing anything. Oh my goodness, really? Yeah, I'm not seeing, my screen is black. I mean, I see. Okay, now, do you see us? No, I see the outlines. I see your names, but I'm not seeing you. Should I try and get back on? I would. Yeah. I wouldn't, well, both while you're gone. No. Yeah. Yeah. You have a quorum, you could. But we wouldn't do that. We would not do that to you Jennifer. Okay, so are you gonna try and log off and log back on or did the screen just, she is going to? Okay. We're gonna figure this out. I think these last three, when Jennifer gets back. I think we're showing that. You guys were totally, the screen has been blank for the last 10 minutes for me. Oh, we're, are we back? Yes. Excellent. And Jennifer is back. So we're moving on to seven. Factors concerning social and racial equity, are there any requested changes? Yeah, we just didn't get enough number of, which is just to say that we need to do a better job next time to keep trying harder. It was a survey design. Yeah. Okay. Was the survey put out in other languages? I forget. He, I didn't remember, it's so long ago. He didn't draft it in other languages, but what I don't know is whether Engage Amherst has the ability to translate it. Yeah, that's what I thought. I think we have a lot of information then that we really don't have. Yeah. Yeah. That was, it was totally on us. That part was totally on us. And I didn't, yeah. Other key findings, any requested changes? Who added that one? Oh, reworded several. Can you, yeah. Yeah. Something has to be here because it's a weird sentence that R is hanging. Residents, maybe? Residential. Both the Balmille thing, because it's stopping me from reading the thing. There was a, your name and a comment. Maybe that was there. Oh, okay. Sorry. Okay. I think maybe they mean in a neighborhood or in neighborhoods. I was wondering if it was supposed to be in neighborhoods. Yeah. In neighborhoods, yeah. Okay. Any other changes? I think we need to go before it. Yeah. I did delete that. It's just hard to say. We can go here, but on it and one, two, three, four. The Shawnee? Yeah. But were you gonna say something? No. I thought that was it, but maybe there is this one, not true. And then there's the nutshell, but I think we did the nutshell. Yeah. Because it's fairly clean. Right. I accepted the changes. True, true. Anything that's clean means we, I had, we've been through it. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Because these are the things that cleaned up. Yeah. Okay. So we've been through. We go back to two because I didn't, wasn't able to see that. No, not two. The one that we've been talking about so much. Was it four? Five. The occupancy limits. It's hard to read here. No, I can read it. So many changes. Yeah. My screen, so it now says. So here. Oh, there you go. That's what it looks like now. It's interesting. Cause here's a discriminatory thing. I think. Let me see. Let me see. The issue came up in both tenant and neighbor written comments while tenants indicated their reasons for changing the rule. Neighbors spoke of overcrowding and lack of enforcement. So the neighbor, why don't we have a, some issues, issues that the students mentioned. That's okay. So you're saying you want it. You know, whether it's high costs, lack of housing, those were things that I think all of us could agree with with students, whatever we think about other aspects. And I think that if you're going to have something there for neighbors, you want to have something for tenants as well. Right. I mean, we take out both and we leave both. And I think we've worked to leave both with the changes that we've gotten to, right? Yeah. It does explain it. No, it's fine. It's fine. I'm sorry. I'm being a little too picky. Because it explains it below. Yes, it does. I think the only thing I would have said is like in the last line at the end, because we removed that paragraph is like, this issue needs further discussion or something. Like, we removed that one. Okay. Fine. That's fine. Yeah, I'm just good. Okay. I think that takes us to everything. Yeah. Oh, I feel bad. Pam's not here, but. So, so here's the question. I think it takes us to everything. We're missing one committee member. It is right now I'm showing it in simple markup, but it's not clean. It still says all the drafts. And so do we want to vote today or do we want to push it off to next week with a clean version to put a very clean version that accepts all the changes in, which I can do tonight or tomorrow and get it back in the thing with new dates. Cause I think it still says October. Nope. 2022. Do that. And then plan on a vote for next week. That makes me want to vote today. Spot. We'll be there too. No, I agree. I think next week's good. I just wanted to, we had talked about it in the minutes it said a suggestion, but I thought we had voted on it that it would say somewhere that this is the final draft. Yeah, we're going to change all of it. Yes. It would add an adopted date below this adopted by CRC X date. So I will put a clean draft in next week's packet a change the agenda because I have to modify the agenda for it. So let me make notes. So I will put it in the packet. I will make sure I modify and adjust the agenda to put it in. And hopefully then we can get through it next week with a vote, but have the clean version in front of us. Thank you. Thank you. Good. Okay. Thank you all. I want to thank Stalini specifically. Yes. For this. I'm just making my note. Okay. For doing all of this work. Elena also did a lot of the work. Elena is not here right now, but Elena did a lot of work too. So we thank both of you for that. I will make sure the agenda is modified for next week so that we can get it off our plates and then get it in a potential once, hopefully we're going to vote to adopt it. Hopefully we've worked through it so that it passes. But if it does, I'll make sure it makes it to the whole council too. And I'll probably end up putting it on our webpage, asking Athena to put the adopted report on the webpage and all so that it can be found and everything. So with that, we're moving on. Thank you. One last thing, like, because I want to send and create this community engagement process. And we're going to talk about it in TSO. So there was a lot of learning in this process, like, you know, in terms of who should do the coding because now I realize that at least two counselors should do the coding for inter-reliability and inter-rater reliability and things like that. So there was a lot of learning, but if you think, you know, moving forward, but I think this, for me personally, this was really powerful to hear from all sides so systematically. And so, but moving forward, if you all think that the process needs to change in terms of how we collected, like having it in different languages, you know, things like that. So I already made a note of that one, but if there are other suggestions how to improve this process as a counselor, as a committees, how we can engage more people, then please send me or email me your ideas. Okay. Can I just say one more in terms of not everybody who I know who's involved, say in the mobile market, who are tenants in some of the large complexes on East Hadley Road, et cetera, they don't go on the town website. So even though we would have it in other languages, it would be, I think, valuable if we had somebody go out and say, hey, this is happening and here's how you access it, things like that. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Rob and John, for your patience as we work through that. We are moving on to the bylaw. Let me share that. Okay. I'll make it bigger. This is the bylaw as it stands right now. Yellow gets filled in once we aren't changing it anymore because it's the section references, so we'll fill that in when we're, it's easier to do it after it's all done instead of constantly changing the sections. So yellow is just that. We still have an issue with student home and then I think this one is a clean, but this is almost a clean version. The changes showing here in this version are to match the regulation changes that we made last time we were looking at the regulations. So a lot of these are that five year, three year to five year things like that. So, and I kept those tracks so people could see what changed in here because of the changes over there. So that's the energy efficiency removal, the three to five. And I think those are the only prior additional changes. Oh, we have one thing that we still haven't filled out a number with. The number of days for something. For something, yeah. So we'll go back there and then I'd like anyone who wants additional changes to bring them up. So this is the outstanding violation. So this is under suspension. And one thing that could be suspended is where the principal code official when the order to remedy has not been complied with repeatedly or when certain numbers of either notices of violation or orders to remedies have been issued within three years. And so we need to know how many that number should be. And I think John or Rob probably have a better idea than we do as to what might the appropriate number be, which might be why it hasn't been filled in yet. John or Rob, do you guys have any thoughts on over a three-year period at what point would suspension or revocation be logical to be considering? I don't, John, help me here. It's hard because, you know, we're not establishing the type of violation that it could be. So, you know, three situations of, you know, cars parked on the grass or one trash and one car on the grass versus two really serious life safety matters are very different. That's why I think we've had trouble putting a number in here and, you know, tried to be less prescriptive. And so, you know, when multiple notices of violations occur, you know, we have that discretion that may result in a suspension that, of course, is appealable. John, if you have a suggestion, go for it. I was, I don't have a number, but if the thing that you said about serious violations or when violations are serious, you know, it's maybe that might help us come up with a number because if there are fire code violations or something, how many would you want any, I don't know. John, do you have any thoughts? You're muted. Now he's... John's gonna try and figure this out. Yes, now we can. Sorry about that. I'm thinking of a property that we're working on on East Pleasant Street right now where the occupants are continually parking on the lawn and the neighbor across the street complains about it, almost on a daily basis. And we've written a bunch of tickets. It hasn't seemed to change the behavior. If anything, the kids have gotten sneakier about it. They park out in the backyard now where you can't see it from the road. But, you know, so maybe that's a candidate for removing the rental permit, but it's, these kids aren't gonna be affected by that rental permit suspension because it's not gonna take effect until they're gone. We're not gonna evict them. It would certainly get the landlord's attention. I think Rob's right. If it's life safety stuff, I mean, that's pretty serious, but I'm trying to think of a property, Rob, where we've had life safety issues multiple times. The response is fairly intense on time number one. I don't know what that number should be. We'll look up what our current bylaw says. Maybe it could just say, may revoker suspend the residential rental permit when an auditory has repeatedly not been complied with and not have a number. So the current bylaw says, in instances of egregious violations and when all reasonable and practical efforts have been made by the code official to gain compliance out of property without result, the code official may suspend a rental permit based on the specific criteria provided in section 13 of the bylaw. The permit holder shall have an opportunity to appeal. So section 13 talks about suspension. There's an immediate suspension and then the specific criteria are owner knowingly allowing or assisting in allowing violations of the bylaw. Owner or agent repeatedly refusing or neglecting to comply with an order of the code official. The code official must find that the owner or agent have not taken action to achieve compliance and that at least 90 days have expired without compliance since the date of receipt of the enforcement order. So some of the language is egregious violations. So it could be when more than X notice of violation or orders to remedy for egregious, it could be something like that. Can I just ask? Sure, Shalini. I thought that language seemed fine to me unless John and Rob feel that that's broken. There's something broken about it, that it's not clear enough or it doesn't give you enough guidance what to do. Is there something we need to improve upon? You know, is it confusing for you all when to do what or like what are we trying to fix here? Because that language seemed fine to me. So the suspension in the current bylaw has to, the principal code official has to collect compelling documentation through investigation to substantiate the violations and support the recommendations to suspend a permit. Yeah, that's not a problem. We do that now. Yeah. What I like about the current language is that it's still at our discretion. You know, it's hard to make a black and white rule about when you're gonna do this to someone. So our current language doesn't allow for action to be taken when there's repeat offenses. And that's something we specifically had asked for in this new version. And this does that, you know, the failure to act within 90 days is different than having repeat offenses. So I think again, if we have, I mean, I prefer not to have a number, but if it has to have a number, I'd keep it low like one a year or so, three. And then that gives us, you know, it's a may revoke. And that would leave it up to the discretion of the code official, depending on the severity of the violations to take that action. I guess the next question is, do you want repeated over three years or do you want it over one or two? Like, is this too long of a time? I think it works because, so John, you mentioned a little while ago that you were having trouble thinking of cases where there's repeat code violations, serious code violations. But, you know, I know the first several years of the program, that's what we dealt with on Phillips Street in the same properties. And it's year to year. And the frustration that we had back then was that, you know, we were just in the, you know, it's a different set of tenants. But in these were landlord issues, not necessarily tenant issues. And we wanted to be able to do something in those situations where we came into the same property from the same problems, a year, six months, nine months, whatever it is later, new group of tenants in there. So I think that three years is okay. Okay, so that one is fixed. We now don't have an empty line there. Any other requests for changes from people? I know I have a couple that I read. I think most of mine are kind of scrivenery. D1 and F1. So F1 is just a, we were missing the word permit. Section F1, second pair. There is no second paragraph here. Issue answered in second sentence probably. May issue a separate permit for each dwelling unit. We were just missing the word. And in D1, this one is down here, when I was reading this over, we originally had permits had, before an owner could offer to rent, rent or operate a rental unit, they needed a permit. And we got rid of the offer to rent. Yet it, I think we never fixed this one because here it says the property owner shall submit evidence to the appropriate exemption. So this is exempting when you don't need to get a permit prior to operating, renting or offering to rent. So I think we just need to do operating or renting to just clean up the fact that we've removed the requirement to get the permit before offering to rent because that was kind of unworkable. Is that okay with everyone? Those were my two by-law changes. Does anyone else have any questions on or anything they would like to review in the by-law? There was a question of student home. Pam wanted a definition of student home added into the by-law, but we don't use that word at all in the by-law. And I don't know whether she intended to ask for something added to the by-law related to it. And so I would delete it at this point. Pat, you're muted. I was just saying Jennifer has her hand up. How do I not see Jennifer's hand? Oh, Jennifer. I just got to answer my own question. I thought that was coming under short-term but I see that's just another number short-term. So I don't have any questions. So for now, is everyone okay to remove it? Or can we leave it till Pam gets back? We can. I don't expect us to vote today on anything. We're going to decide what our next steps are today, hopefully, but I'm not sure we're going to get to votes. So we could leave it and ask or we could remove it. Thoughts, Jennifer says, leave it until we ask. Yeah, that would be mine. Any other, let's see where the other comments are. The three to five, I made all the threes five in this section and that was exempt. We've removed the energy efficiency. So we're not referencing it in the by-law because we removed it all from the regulations. We had a question about this written notice we're requiring on transfers of property but that's not really related to the by-laws more of when it's in the by-law, what's going to be done? Okay, here's one. This paragraph here, we weren't sure whether it should be here or in the regulations. This is the information sheet. So I think the question was, do we just say that owner shall distribute to each tenant an information sheet provided by the town, that includes whatever as defined by regulations or an information sheet as defined by regulations and then move the paragraph to regulations or do we keep the definitely essentially the description of the information sheet in the by-law? I think it can be moved to regulations and just note it in the way that you stated. Give me a second. Manny, do you have a question about that? Are we consistently doing that? We have tried to put as much of the sort of descriptive stuff of like what goes into the application into the regulations, you know, what is included in the inspection, what questions are asked for the application. We have tried to put as much of that into the regulations as possible. And so I think that was the question here. Do we sort of mirror that with this one? Yeah, I think as long as people know what to expect, I mean, I personally would prefer not looking at multiple documents, but if the regulation, I would have to look at regulations. It makes sense then to streamline this and put everything in one document, I suppose, and be consistent about it. So distribute an information sheet the signed copy, I think we want to keep in the bylaw. I think that's, yeah, that should be in there. And then for the short term rentals, we're just describing where it needs to be. So I think that fixes that one. Legality goes to KP law. And that's these three. What's this one? Rob or John? Do we know what language we could use to somehow list the notices of violations that were issued to properties on the website somehow? Right here. It says open Gov placement. Yeah. So these used to go. Into the records that we maintained in the. GIS system, but. I mean, there's stored in open Gov now. And if you, I'm not sure about the public side, if you pull up a property, if you could see those. I can see them and, you know, everyone in the office can see them. I'm not sure what you can see on the public side. Question from Mike Warner, maybe Rob. Yeah, we haven't built that system out entirely, but I think the intent is to have it. Be publicly displayed similar to how it was with GIS, but we haven't, we haven't done that yet. But it certainly isn't something that would, you know, that language has to change what you have highlighted now. Yeah. Is there a way we can make it general something like publicly available. I mean, it's certainly available for public access and viewing and not be specific where, I mean, it certainly is. They certainly is in our office as one option, but we're, you know, our intent is to get it into the. The public side of the. Permitting program and licensing program. And available for public. Do once compliance is made or should it just be. Public access and viewing for five years or something. I would just end it there because yeah, we don't. It never goes away. Oh, okay. So that everyone good with that. So this one, we need to know what we're doing with nuisance bylaw. So I think we're not changing it now, unless I guess the question is. What is this committees and Robin Johns thoughts on tying. Violations of the nuisance house bylaw, or frankly, a noise bylaw or other types of bylaws to. The. Ability to get a residential rental permit on the property. Cause that's sort of what this one is doing. Is it something we want to tie. Or not. So Mandy, do you mean. A renewal of a permit because. A renewal of. Noise violations. Is that, is that what you're getting out here? Cause. How would you, how would you keep somebody from getting a rental permit? They'd already have one, wouldn't they? So this one would allow this language would allow if. The way the draft of the nuisance property bylaw redraft of the rewrite of it is drafted right now. If you get a new property, if you get a new property, essentially upon the third violation of the bylaw, you get designated a nuisance property. There's a first one, then there's a second one. That's a problem property. And then there's a third one that's a nuisance property. So upon that sort of third violation within a certain amount of time. To get you designated a nuisance property. And it's mirrored in that draft too. So it's, it's fully noticed in that one too. It doesn't just pop up here. It says it in that one. That says that the, you guys could revoke or suspend the permit. I'd have to go back to the issuance. I think it might be up there too. A permit will be denied. Yeah. So, so both you could upon it becoming a nuisance property, if it has one, you could suspend or revoke it. And if it is a nuisance property, you would be able to deny the issuance of a permit. Come permit renewal or application time. So, so those two. So that's how it's, this bylaw is currently written and it only, it's written for that only for this nuisance bylaw draft that. We've just started working on. So part of the question is. We've just started working on it. Do we keep it in here? If these are not going to go parallel, but you know, the bigger question is. Is that something we want tied? Do we want other bylaw violations, general bylaw violations to affect whether the property can obtain or keep a rental permit? And I don't think we've totally discussed that. So thoughts. Yeah. To me, it makes sense to tie it given that. You know, we heard from so many residents. The issue they have. And I think we're addressing the cause. It's not the students, but it's when it is happening. It could be a student. It could be a non student. But when there is nuisance and it's not being dealt with, that's what's creating this perception or whatever. So I think tying it to this gives, gives us more control or some, something that can be done to control that. I don't know. I'm just rambling, but I feel, yes, it should be. Jennifer. I don't want to get us off track, but I just, just had a question. I think John will understand where I'm coming from. You know, some of the houses that seem to be the greatest nuisance. It doesn't have anything to do with the occupants, but it's the way the landlords may keep the house. So if there's a house. And that maybe it's just a different part of the body that is, you know, constantly. Not in good repair. That's, I guess, not a nuisance, but. If it's, I guess, is it ever not a code violation? Like I'm thinking of 20 Allen street again has new owners. It still looks terrible. There's always garbage. It's not in good shape, but it may be up to code. Can that still in some way be a problem property or a nuisance property? John. Yeah. Well, I, I understand where you're coming from. I looked at those pictures that you took and. Yeah, it looks like the porch could use a coat of paint. I don't have code about that though, that I can enforce. It's not a code violation. Right. Okay. Yeah. And so that's the question. You know, I don't know whether we'd have to go back to the nuisance by long and, and we're in the middle of discussing what constitutes a nuisance, but. I think the current draft has some upkeep as nuisance, mainly related to shrubs and stuff. Not necessarily related to the painting of a house or the painting of a porch. Some upkeep. You know, if we remove the renter side, say some owners don't have money. They don't have a house. They don't have a house. Right. Exactly. And so if they don't have them, you know, and I'll give an example. We're, we've been. Quoting out painting of our house to get it repainted this year. And, and it's close to five figures. You know, it's just quite expensive to paint a house. And so not everyone can do that every five or six years. They might only be able to do it 10 or 11, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good question. Yeah. Um, is that something we should be citing people for? And I'm not sure it's something we should be citing people for. Um, and so. Yes, it might look like a nuisance in the neighborhood, but it shouldn't be. You know, this. I don't want to say criminalized because not all our vials are criminal violations, but civil violations and all. And so what then. Is the rental permit. I guess is what I go back to. And, um, I think about it more as. Going back to my reasons for wanting to revisit the rental permit and do this. And it's more on ensuring that. That everyone is living in a safe. And. A safe. Residents. And so that that goes back to the code violations which are covered in number one and two, but it doesn't really go back to tenant behavior. Although I do agree that a lot of times sometimes tenant behavior can be reflective of landlord negligence management whatever the word is I'm looking for right. And so, where's the appropriate place to deal with that and I'm not sure the issuance or not of a permit to rent is the appropriate place so I go back to this one and I say I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this being a reason to suspend or revoke a permit or not issue one. But I'm still torn. Jennifer. Yeah, I mean that, again, probably another conversation but you know a real issue for people with, you know, in neighborhoods where there's a lot of particularly probably all maybe I'm not saying it's just with students but that's what I see here and it's has nothing to do with the occupants and I agree you can't with people to paint their house or you know of course you can't do that it's for a whole host of reasons, but I think what really gets to people way more than anybody having anything to do with anyone who lives in it is seeing some big land on you know. So this 20 Allen Street was the house that was condemned it has new owners I didn't know until a couple weeks ago who owned it. And it's a major property owner in town, you know so we have who could well afford for it the house not to look that way, first for the sake of the tenants living there. I don't know how we deal with that but I'm just saying that is it. I know you think some of you know people may have issues. It's I think less who's the students, I mean sometimes you know if you have more than a certain number things. There's, you know, issues with that, but it's the way some of these landlords who are taking a lot of money out of the property and they're really putting nothing into maintaining it so this may not be where but if we could solve that issue. It would solve a lot of concerns in town. Yeah, anyway. Shalini. Yeah, I think this, this probably needs to first be discussed under new sense and then we can come to this because we haven't yet decided also, you know, who's bearing the, who's responsible is it always the landlord or is it sometimes students or tenants rather. Sometimes, look at me, I just missed tenants and students made them synonymous. My bad I apologize. But I think yeah this needs a further discussion before we can decide about this. So, in, you know, one of our goals as a committee is to get this out of our committee and back to the council. So, what about a proposal where we, you know, so I'm looking at ways to finalize things so that we can get to a vote and and be done with it in this committee. And so I think if it needs further discussion and we're, we're nowhere near finishing up news by law. It would take months probably. I think my recommendation or my thinking would be to delete number three, make a note, at least for notation purposes for now, put it into a final report on this that says hey, we might want to when nuisance bylaw is finished. I can potentially look at modifying this bylaw or adding it in depending on where it is in that process to think about and reconsider whether or not that should be part of issuing suspending or revoking permits violations of that bylaw. So sort of put it off but not wait for this, not hold this bylaw until all of that is decided. What are people's thoughts on that, deleting it from here and from the denial up there. But making sure it's part of the report out of this stuff that says, these are things that we might want to revisit in another year or two to this bylaw. I see a nod from Shalini. Shalini. I agree with that but I'm also just curious what John and Rob think about with this help you in with respect to the nuisance or would it be unfair to landlords or like what is your take. Currently, we don't enforce the nuisance bylaw that's handled by the police department. And I guess my concern for bringing them together in this way is how far the draft nuisance regulation has expanded or may expand. You know, I'm looking at it now for things like sidewalk construction, you know, overgrown grass and weeds and things like that, firearm, false alarms, junked vehicles. And I just didn't think there was the need to tie them together with our new rental bylaw being so much stronger. So I think we'll work well on its own. And then this bylaw could also work well on its own so I didn't see the need for the connection at the moment but I think it does make sense to finish that one up and then make that decision. Okay, so I've made the notes that note would obviously be deleted. John. Yeah, Rob makes a lot of sense there. My, my, my gut reaction to, to tying these together is a lot of these nuisance disturbances or behavior things and it's, that's on the tenants, usually, or the occupants, or even, you know, people wandering by. The police have pretty wide discretion about what they cite and what they don't but, you know, a noise violation is to lose your rental permit. That's, that's hard on a landlord and I don't know what, what control they have over a thing like that. I mean, something like townhouse apartments you know where you got 3000 people out of control who's, who's rental permit are you going to take away there. Thank you john. Yeah, after listening to Rob and john I feel like we should unhook them. The nuisance bylaw is a separate bylaw and it doesn't need to be integrated in this spot or anywhere actually in the rental registration. And I think I've hit the two space spots that it was. Now. Next up is this green one I think it's just this is the principal code official shall schedule to hearing on the order to vacate. Is that the appropriate person to schedule to hearing I guess is the question Rob are you the one that sort of does those. Or is it should it be someone else. I think that's fine because it would be or designate I guess you know by definition so I think that's all right. We'll just put it in just to be clear. You're muted Pat. Sorry, I have a very minor thing. It's, I can't find it now where it says oh yeah. The here. The purpose of the hearing will be to review the vacation order. I think it should say order to vacate. You don't like. I thought it was weird too. And I was like, oh that works. I think suspension and revocation procedures. Notice effective date, and then there's an appeal with KP law stuff. And I think I added that regulations governing appeals may be adopted just to be clear that they can do that. And then it's added to the regulations. And I think that takes us through this draft by law. And I think that's something else that moves us on. I'm actually going to do the regulations over the fee structure, given the time. Because I think, actually, no. Because I know why I put that last. The board of license commissioners is still discussing their the regulations and the review of that they're actually discussing it right now. I haven't been able to make their meetings because I'm at these meetings. And so I think I was waiting for us to do the final review until we heard from them, particularly with the new language on appeals. I thought it would be, you know, sort of duplicative if we reviewed it before they did and then after they did. So I'm waiting to hear back from him on regulations. So before I go to fee structure. What are our next steps on bylaws the bylaws are basically done the regulations have very little left to do on them. Do we want to next vote to recommend, you know, do we want to vote to send these back to the council next or do we want to send these off to KP see if we could, if we send, if we could send them off to KP law for review now. And then if, if we, and then whenever we want to vote to send back to the council is our vote. What are people's thoughts on whether the vote would be a recommendation to adopt or a recommendation to send off to TSO for review and a recommendation. Because I think if everyone remembers, I think the council assigned it to us to work on, but thought that maybe TSO was the technically correct committee to be making a recommendation, I don't know. And so I think we need to be thinking about what our vote language would be in terms of what are we voting to recommend or send to the council and is it a recommendation to adopt or recommendation to send to GOL for final review. Thank you. And when do we, do we want to see if we can get a KP law review now or wait for have GOL do that or TSO do that or whatever the council decides. Pat, and then Shalini. I think we should get it sent off to KP law as soon as we can, because when it comes back, we'll have some work to do. I'd hate to see it go to one or two other committees and then go through KP law and then come back because would we then have to refer it back to those committees. So I think that's the most efficient thing to do. Shalini. I have a question about you had said that somebody or someone had said that there was a group of people who were in the original neighborhood association something something who wanted to meet with us again and are we not doing that. Jennifer. One of the questions is there were actually a couple of landlords who were concerned about the inspection process. And they wanted to talk with us about it. So it was, how would we handle that. So that's that it's not really that mysterious like one of them happened to be on the initial, you know, healthy, safe and healthy neighborhoods task force but that was not really relevant to it. So I think there's, you know, some of the big landlords were, you know, who own were concerned about how many inspections did I mean they probably talked to you some people have spoken to you Rob. Like, you know, they were interested in speaking with the CRC. So, you know, but, you know, I can say as we were, we would refer it back to all of you. I don't. Rob, are you going to say something. I can just add that I have talked to most of the owners that you're talking about met with some of them. They're not here for time. And, you know, remind them that this is a good opportunity to bring their opinions and comments to this group that meets regularly. They're not here. You know, I'm aware of their concerns. But, you know, I don't I, there was nothing that I needed, I felt I needed to recommend to this committee. I know for changes, I think we did address one of the concerns that that I know that they had related to the the need to collect the energy information. I know that was a concern of theirs, but, you know, establishments or complexes that are subject to other inspections for other programs. And so we have ways of dealing with that in the bylaw now and I just not sure that it was all understood at the time that I met with some of them and went through the bylaw the draft bylaw. That wasn't much different than the version we have now. But I continue to remind them that this is a good place to come have those conversations. I think I'm just also thinking back to the time when they did come and talk to us in the listening session that we had and I don't know if we as a CRC ever debriefed about that because there were a lot of questions raised there if this is adding to the bureaucracy how this might harm smaller landlords and will only be left with a big landlords who can afford all of this and so they did come to us and I don't feel at least I don't remember us doing a debrief of or how we are factoring in or how did we respond to those some of those concerns and questions. Jennifer. And these were the, you know, like Rob said large landlords and I think there's, but, you know, I think there's a feeling. Well, you know, focus on inspecting the problem properties but, you know, like you said you don't necessarily know until you inspect so I don't know what that the happy medium is that, you know, I think there's just a feeling of if the sense that they've been, you know, some that they've just, you know, they run a good shop and there hasn't been a problem. But I think I don't know so if you want to have the conversation. I'm not advocating for I'm just saying I guess there's no way. You know, it's like, have you put it, I have to abide by the speed limit, even if I've never had a violation. So I maybe this. So I guess the question is, is it that we can't make everybody happy or should we, you know, have a conversation. That's right advocating one way or the other. But, you know, Rob, I think there's a feeling on some of the large landlords that this is not this isn't. This is going to be an imposition to them. And I don't know how to handle that. I don't know if you have any feelings about it. Or it's just, it's just kind of the way things work. Oh, can I speak. Yeah. You know, one of the things, you know, there's, there's one of those land landlords in particular that is, you know, is looking for some information that I'm putting together that tries to explain kind of what we deal with. And, you know, because they, I think that group of those larger property owners. I don't really have a good sense of what happens with these one and two family homes, which is, you know, the bulk of our work. You know, that John deals with are on the single family and two family properties and smaller smaller properties. But there are cases, and there are examples where we are responding to the larger complexes. So, you know, I think are the history doesn't suggest that they shouldn't be part of the program. And I know they're really concerned about having to carry the fee that will support the program because of their large number of units. They're, you know, taking into account the fact that they have on site staff and all of those, you know, all those obvious things. I don't, I don't feel like they're unsupportive of what we're doing. I just think they're really, they really want to kind of be sure about the final details related to fees and how often we would be inspecting the properties. In fact, my conversations there, they weren't opposed to an inspection. And, you know, I think there were concerns about how often and for how long does it have to go on for. So there's there's just questions there that I don't know if we have the answers to yet. Thank you. Yeah, I'm just looking back to the listening session and I actually have people who are smaller landlords and I'm just reading some of the comments were small property owners rely on rentals for retirement and if with the added bureaucracy and fees structures is going to push the landlords and they'll sell to investors. So I'm actually reading more from the smaller landlords who are concerned about the additional bureaucracy and fees structure. So is there maybe a way to ask people specifically like what do you feel is adding to the bureaucracy or because if people are just generally saying, Oh, this is too much. Is it just the feeling or like you said like they did not have the full information so maybe they haven't understood it correctly or are we really adding hoops and loops where we don't need to add. So, I mean, one of the things I would say is we've done a lot of public forums. Rob's office has grew, I think Steve has for every public forum I believe distributed a notice of that to all of the current owners who have permits for at least two of them I know that was distributed. And so, and in those public forums we've offered, essentially, for at least one of them open comment to be able to talk about some of this and it, we can only do so much if they're not willing to come to us, despite all of the outreach we've done. We can only guess, right. I think we've heard some of those concerns and tried to address some of that right we've eliminated energy efficiency requirements we've tried to address some of it we've at Rob's suggestion, up the inspection to every five years, in general, and you know so I think we've tried to address address some of it, but it's hard to do more if we don't have people talking to us and, and I'm not sure this is a case of people not knowing as Rob said he's talked to people he's encouraged them we've sent out to the list of people who we know would be affected by this. So, you know, yes, maybe we could do more but I don't think we've shirked our responsibility in letting people know this is happening. Pat. Yeah, a quick thought. I had a wonderful conversation with Fred Hartwell the other day and he told me how he how much money he makes from his rental property. And also the expenses that he can apply to reduce his tax burden overall both federal and state. So it does seem to me that people who are earning money, you know, through rental, whether they're small or large, isn't there a way for them to reduce some of their tax burden by, because this is an expense. And if you're going to rent property there are expenses attached to it. So, it just seems to me, we're not going to please everybody and I think we really need to have in place some way to care for property in town but also to care for the staff by having enough of it and having clear guidelines for them to use and work with. I think you do a tremendous job and in many ways. But I think if you're going to make money in our system, then you have expenses attached to that and you can reduce your taxes. Thank you. I think it's John. Yeah, I think you're running a business. You know, there's, there's rules that apply to it. And I, and I gotta say that these little one off owners and landlords are where we spend most of our time. Thank you. Okay, so I will send the bylaw off to KP law. Well, I will send it off to Paul requesting a KP law review. I will request that review for return by the first meeting in May, whatever that one is. Actually, that might be two weeks from now we might end up with three in a row, although maybe we're on May 11. I have to look. But in order to do that, I realized we actually haven't made it through all of the regulations. I don't want to do appeals today, but I would like to make it through the parts of the regulations that aren't appeals. Just so we have made it through it all. And so let's do that quickly. And then the next time we deal with this we will do fee structure. So we stopped at parking site plan. And so the question is, does anyone have any additional changes to the parking site plan requirements section? Or requests for that section. Not seeing any hands. It does look like people are reviewing it. I'm going to page up. And then the only other one is the tenant information sheet. As I said, appeals. I, I don't, I think it would be more efficient if we wait until we hear from the board of license commissioners on their thoughts on this section before we review it. So tenant information sheet I just drafted. It's in two paragraphs. The paragraph basically matches what we removed from the bylaw today to move over here. The first one indicates where it should be. Just that it should be on the town's website. So that owners can download it for distribution. And that could be either there or link in the application, whatever. Any additions, subtractions, or whatever to that new paragraph for the information sheet. Looks like Jennifer is still reviewing it. Oh, no, not okay. It was looking back and forth so I thought she was still reviewing it. One of the things I was thinking like this is really important, but could they be like a cheat sheet or something for them because my sense is the tenants don't read even I don't read when I was a tenant. They're like the general things are so long. But if there's like a cheat sheet that can be provided to them about, you know, complaints or like what are the key pieces of information that needs to be included here. I think that's what this goal is and this sheet Rob correct me if I'm wrong it's only, is that a front back or is it just a front now. It's just a one page document. Okay, okay. So, yeah, because we already do this. Any other questions on that that takes us to the appeal section which we will review later I know it's all new I will leave it as new. I'll make everything else the same. That leaves us with time let's see so we have. That's the bylaw that's the regulations. I'm going to go to public comment at this time we're not and one public comment finishes I will describe what we'll do with the other things. We'll start with public comment, public comments on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC are accepted this time residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. CRC will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment at this time if you would like to make public comment please raise your hand. Okay. We have one hand raised. I'm going to go to the shepherd please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment. Hi, I'm not a shepherd Amherst. I just saw the paper on the, the fee structure. And apparently the lowest fee is 175 if I'm not mistaken. What happened to the $100 fee structure I guess that went away, maybe I missed that. Please include inspection. Yes businesses have expenses, but the more expenses, the higher the rent, and if the rent can't be higher than the business go bankrupt. About the number of violations before suspension a please consider who's responsible tenant versus landlord and who will be affected. A tenant may face eviction and not really care, but the landlord may suffer tremendous loss during eviction because it has to be done, you know, with the legal counsel. For parking on the lawn or removing smoke detectors, etc. is a resident issue not a landlord issue. Yes, the landlord can go and try to resolve that. But if the tenant keeps doing it, you know, what do we do. The tenant must be fined. The landlord must have the opportunity not to renew at least due to their behaviors but not lose their livelihood over it by losing their permit or trying to evict, given usual leases have one year terms. So we cannot renew when the lease renews. And if this committee is going to be even more intrusive and try to regulate what or how to paint or how to paint your rental then, well, you must do it for the whole town. How can you run a business like that I mean it's that in itself can cause a town not to be affordable so if you have any wishes for affordable housing, please take those things into consideration. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comment with that. We have recognized everyone who has raised their hand for public comment so public comment is closed. Before we go to minutes, I wanted to see how long public comment would take. I am going to, we're not going to do nuisance house bylaw today, which has been renamed under the draft public nuisance bylaw. I would like to take a few minutes before we get to the minutes and announcements and next agenda to talk about the fee structure and schedule and see what we want to do. I'm not going to bring it up, but I'd like this committee's guidance so what is in the packet is a blank is a document that's blank that lists all the fees we could do. We haven't set any fees yet we haven't even agreed on what some of them might be even some of the more basic ones. What is also in the packet is an Excel spreadsheet that shows some options. For what fee structures might look like based on two of the structures we've talked about in this committee, one where the inspection fee for the required inspection is separate from the annual permit fee, and one where the two are together. Those are the two structures we've kind of talked about in this committee and and said go forward with with more investigation. That document has been updated for to reflect the potential number of inspections that would happen on a five year schedule versus the three year schedule that the prior document showed because we've moved to a five year schedule so it's updated with less inspections per year. Obviously, all of this is just in some sense speculative and guesswork based on how many permits are issued how many inspections might have to happen every year and all of that. That is just an example. What I would like to know from this committee is, is it the committee's goal when we make a recommendation, whatever we make on the bylaws and regulations to also make an actual recommendation on the actual fees. Are we aiming to make a recommendation on some of the fees, maybe things like the appeals fee and late fees and no show fees for inspections and stuff like that. And then leave the rest of the fees up to another body. And I ask that because we have struggled as a committee to not just talk about the fees but come up with actual fees. And in my thinking, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking, we as CRC may not be the best committee to discuss the actual fees and how we should be aiming the fees to collect a year in terms of revenue. We've always operated under the assumption that this program would be revenue neutral. But my thinking has sort of evolved to maybe we recommend a structure and some of the more basic fees, but when it gets into the heart of the fees, the permit fee and the inspection fee. I think that it might be more appropriate for the finance committee to delve into that because they could make a better recommendation based on whether the program should be revenue neutral, or whether there are other considerations to include such that then they don't know what number we're aiming for whereas we're operating under revenue neutral right now. We don't know, for example, we've heard requests for UMass to pay for some of this program. We don't know where the town's negotiations stand with something like that. But the finance committee I've come to think might be the better committee to delve into those conversations they have the right people there. They do the budget they do stuff. But I would like this committee's guidance on where sort of which I see it as sort of two options right now and if there's a third option or fourth option I'm welcome to hear it. I'm not going because I think that will help me structure a future conversation and what documents get presented and how the report gets written to the council and where we're going in terms of just what are some thoughts given that and I know we don't have a lot of time in this meeting but I thought I'd present that now so that the next time fee structure comes up and we have time, I can have the right documents ready basically and and all so thoughts about some of the options I presented or whether people have other thoughts on potential other options regarding what to do with fees and recommendations to the council. Jennifer. I think I'm referring it to the finance committee is a very good idea I personally wouldn't have. I felt the whole time I don't really personally have a clue how to address fees, although I think I do think that, you know, there has to be some distinction between owning one property and owning multiple. But I think if the finance committee will take it, I would be happy to send it off to them. Shalini. But I think we because we've heard residents tenants landlords perspective so drawing out the broad guidelines maybe you know we definitely heard even from tenants that when they're living with the landlords is a good relationship they're taken care of. So, you know they will those homes definitely or I don't know so we based on what we heard we create the broader guidelines for the fee but then send to finance. Do you have any thoughts. I'd like to send it off to finance I would really like from john and Rob and Dave, if you have opinions about this as well. But I think the finances probably the right place to really look at this. So, that is here from Robin. Yeah, so the next time this comes up on the agenda, I will. We will structure it for an aim for the broader guidelines and not numbers. And so, so that's what we'll put in there and I'll present sort of some, some options on those broader guidelines and that's where our discussion will focus so that we can maybe make a recommendation and that vote we can't send it directly to finance ourselves we would make a recommendation to the council that says, this is our recommendation on a structure. We also request that we recommend that the finance that the council refer the fee setting and the decisions regarding fee setting to finance to make a recommendation on the fees. That is sort of how our motion would be worded that we'd ask the council to that we would recommend the council refer to finance. That would be the rest of our things, but, but that will be the discussion the next time on fees. We have to, we'll have to finish the regulations. I suspect then that this takes us to. Yeah, so that's been that I said we're postponing nuisance house minutes, the minutes were in the, I forgot to move them to today's packet. April 6, April 13, 13, 13, 13 packet. No, six, six. We didn't try to schedule on on the 13, the April 6 packet, they are the minutes of March 16 and March 30. There will be no minutes for April 6 because there was no meeting I will say I did sign on with Athena. I asked her to put that sort of as part of the meetings. There was no one in attendance when we signed on because the meeting had been noticed as counsel what happened as I said in the email was that it accidentally got posted on when when it got posted on Tuesday the fourth it actually accidentally got posted as a Monday, April 3 meeting. Even though it was posted on the fourth who knew that the town calendar could post meetings. After meetings could have happened. And so that was an accident. So I went on to, and we recorded the explanation that it was accidentally posted incorrectly meaning we could not actually hold the meeting. And then indicated that the hearing would be to the next move to the next regular account to CRC meeting. So, are people okay with making motions and adopting the minutes of March 16 and March 30 I will, I will send Athena an email and get them into the correct packet since I had them in the wrong packet. Or we can postpone them off to the 27th if people are not comfortable voting them today. If people are comfortable I would accept a motion. So moved. So Pat is moving to adopt the March 16 2023 and March 30 2023 regular meeting minutes as presented. Is there a second. I will second it. So Mandy seconds. I didn't unmute. Okay, that's fine. You speaking sorry Jennifer. It's fine I just with that we'll start with Jennifer on the boat. Yes, unmuted. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mandy. Yes. Pat. Hi. And Mandy is an I those minutes are adopted as presented with a four to zero vote with Pam Rooney, Amson. Okay. That takes us to announcements. I've kind of given them all because there really aren't any other than next week is the continued hearing. The next agenda is posted because I just had Athena post them all so that the hearing was posted. So people could know that it was there on the 27th. I'll go back and review that agenda. I forget what all I put on it. Other than the hearing. I will go back and review it and update it and ask Athena to amend the agenda by tomorrow. Well, I'll send her the amendment by tomorrow. We'll have the hearing on it. We will add the engagement on it. And I'll go back and review that agenda. I'll go back and review the next agenda is posted. Because I just had Athena post them all so that the hearing was posted so people could know that it was there on the 27th. I'll go back and review that agenda. I forget what all I put on it other than the hearing. I will add the engagement report for vote on it. When I hear from the bylaw review, the, the board of licensed commissioners. I'll make a determination as to whether regulations can go back on, but I will be sending them off to KP law so I doubt I'll put the regulations and the bylaw on next week's meeting. I'll probably just wait to do everything until we've heard from KP law. I will try to put structure, the fee to have that conversation on the agenda and potentially the nuisance house bylaw. I'll look at what else is on there. I think right now what else is on there is a continued discussion of zoning priorities. So that will remain on there too, because that kind of goes with the zoning revision discussion that's kind of happening. So I'm trying to keep those two group together and all the rental and nuisance stuff group together. I will go ahead and review the agenda to make sure we have enough items on it to last two hours though. The March 16 minutes, I just checked that agenda in the packet. We're on next week's, but it doesn't matter. Well, I always put the minutes on the agendas in case we don't get to them. When I post agendas well in advance, they get like every set of minutes and then they just get moved if we haven't done it. Or if we've done it. So I'm not surprised they were on there because I probably listed everything on there. As it. Okay. Any other questions or any requests for agenda items for upcoming. It was a very interesting presentation on tiny homes and I wonder if we wanted to have a conversation about that. I like the idea. Perhaps we can get a video of the presentation to share with CRC. The video is online under the trust meeting. It starts about an hour into the meeting. Because I watched it through the video. But it was the trust meeting of the 13th, I believe, right. Last Tuesday, last Thursday, last Thursday, so it was the 13th. If you haven't watched it or weren't at the meeting, it was a fascinating presentation. I think, Shalini, that's a perfect topic to include as we discuss zoning priorities. Potentially, I think it feeds right into priorities for looking at zoning and what to encourage through zoning changes and all. So, but I will note it in my notes for potential separate discussions and all too, but, but bring it up when we have those continued discussions. Dave. Thanks maybe yeah I was just going to mention I was away on vacation when that presentation happened but certainly when Nate and I were at the meeting which I don't know if we have a date yet of the joint meeting another joint meeting the CRC and the housing trust. We would include some reference to tiny houses, you know I separate from the video which I've been told is very informative, but we would we would talk about, you know the possibility. There are any regarding tiny homes during that presentation so I think Mandy, you and I and maybe the co chairs of housing trust we're going to look at some dates in May, which is now you know seems far away but it is right around the corner. So preferably not early May, but later in May would be perfect. Yeah, so check your email Dave, we want to meet with you and Nate, early next week to finalize some of the questions and data and all of that one of those emails asked and maybe you can answer this now the trusts preferred date given the survey thank you for the reminder I didn't include this in my announcements, given the survey from CRC members was May 4 the question to you and Nate was. Is that enough time and I'm seeing from David it's probably not enough time. And so the next preferred date was May 18. That sounds better. Yeah. So, so CRC members please mark your calendars for May 18. I will let the trust individuals know that the fourth is too early or Dave just respond to one of those emails so that the trust chairs get that one. There's a couple emails that went through while you were out. myself because our TSO meeting just started so is that okay. It's a seven o'clock meeting I thought. Oh yes you're right. I'm aiming to be done. I'm meeting timings also in your mind. Okay, I'm still here. What time is the trust meeting is at seven. So, I had told the trust that I surveyed for any time between 630 and nine so I think the trust normally starts at seven so we haven't. So I think that would be really good for me because there's a workshop at the truth school I'd like to do from 430 to six. So seven would be better. I will we will I mean I'll make the meeting no matter what but I would like to do the workshop that I registered for. Seven's fine for me. So, I think that's normally when the trust starts their meetings. Yeah. So we'll aim for seven to nine ish as the conversation but yeah so so that was the other one will plan for the 18th. So Dave, myself Jennifer I think I started including you on those emails as since you were the liaison to trust members to CRC members Dave and Nate getting together to try and finalize. Given the conversations and the questions that have been forwarded and asked to be able to structure the conversation and agree to what we want staff to provide information for and be ready to discuss so we just need to get it scheduled. I think we're aiming for early next week because we knew Dave was out for most most of this. It would be really good to know how many real affordable units we have in town not that. I had sent those off to Dave and Nate as well as the trust in terms of the convert the questions that we had so that will be some of the basis for the start of our conversation to organize the structure of the meeting and provided. Any other questions comments or moving on to items not anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance are there any seeing none I am adjourning this meeting at 634pm. Thank you all for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Thank you. The three musketeers. Bye bye.