 Thank you. Seeing a presence of a quorum of the Community Resources Committee I am calling this April 14, 2022 meeting to order at 430pm pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. At this time, I'm going to take a role to make sure everyone can be heard and we can hear every and can hear everyone. So I will start with Jennifer Tom. Pat D'Angelo's present Pam Rooney. Mandy Joe Hanicky is present and I do not see Shalini Balmillan yet. Athena Jane Wald is in the audience so can we bring her in. Welcome to the meeting as we get started. We're going to move right on to our agenda. The first order of business on our agenda is a public hearing. This is a, okay at 432pm. Next with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a this public hearing of the Community Resources Committee of the Amherstown Council has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested residents to be heard. We're guarding the following proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw zoning bylaw article 13 demolition delay for structures of historical or architectural significance. We will see if the town will vote to amend the zoning bylaw by rescinding article 13 demolition delay for structures of historical or architectural significance for the purpose of adopting a similar bylaw as a general bylaw. We are going to use the public hearing process that was just modified in our rules of procedure for the town council. So we will start the order will be board and committee member disclosures applicant presentation. And so that will be the historical commission and planning staff questions from the committee questions from the public public comment. Any response or answers and then further questions from the board or committee. I want to state at this time that this is the hearing solely for them requests to essentially move that bylaw from zoning bylaw to general bylaw. Once we close this hearing we will go on to item three a in our agenda, which is the proposed preservation of historic structures general bylaw and at that time we will run something similar to a public hearing but not formally a public hearing. And that will include tight time for the public to comment on the actual language of the proposed bylaw in the general bylaw. And so at this time, I'm hoping that everyone will keep their comments to the appropriateness or their thoughts and questions regarding the move from the zoning bylaw to the general bylaw not be bylaw that has been proposed for adoption as a general bylaw. So we will start with are there any board or committee member disclosures at this time. I'll quickly confirm that Shalini can hear us and be heard. She just joined. Thank you. Yes, Shalini. I'm here. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Shalini. I'm seeing no hands for board committee member disclosures we are going to move to, I'm going to recognize Jane first if she would like to say a few words and then we'll move to probably Ben but maybe Chris on just talking about the move from zoning to general. Pam Rooney's hand was up. Oh, sorry, Pam. I totally missed it. You're muted. I was simply going to say at some point it would be beneficial for someone from town staff to describe for the public. Why one would want to go from a zoning bylaw to a general, and that's, that's really all I wanted to say that is what they will do between Jane and whoever we recognize before we take questions. So Jane, would you like to say a few words. Thank you, Andy, Joe. I, so my comments may I hope, I hope they won't drift too far into the second agenda, but I just wanted to give a little background on why the historical commission planning department took up this bylaw examination in the first place and so this goes back to about 2015 when the historical commission and the planning department began a kind of a joint effort to revise the current demolition delay bylaw in the zoning bylaw. In the prior few years there'd been a kind of noticeable increase in the number of demolition permit requests coming to the historical commission for review. And in many instances the permit applications didn't didn't necessarily touch on or address questions of historical significance but as the bylaw was written and interpreted this the safest thing to do was to forward them to the historical committee. So, kind of realizing the circumstance. It seemed that a bylaw revision could achieve perhaps three important goals. First, it would provide greater clarity about the goals, processes and definitions to applicants to, you know, in some cases developers or in many cases ordinary homeowners. And that they would know what to expect from a demolition permit request process and timeline. Second, the same clarity in definitions of terms could provide clearer guidance for the building commissioner in accepting and processing demolition permit applications that were related to historic structures. And third, we hope to tighten up timelines and waiting periods to provide better service to Amherst citizens. So, in the course of our work with the planning department we realized that a bylaw fitting Amherst needs would require a more a more thorough going reorganization to get to the kind of clarity that we thought would be most useful to the town. So our process included review of the bylaws of about 25 comparably sized towns in Massachusetts. We consulted a widely used now widely used by law template developed by the Massachusetts Historical Commission. We also held a workshop with staff of that historical commission on bylaw best practices and receive much valuable and targeted advice. In these past years we've worked closely with the planning department staff and we've had the real benefit of the building commissioners and planning boards review and commentary on a few occasions. So, we think this has been a good and thoughtful process and we're pleased that this is now on your desk. And I think maybe I'll just stop there for now and come back if I meet it. Thank you. And yes, you're you're welcome to stay through the agendas, all the agenda items that deal with the whole process, not just the hearing obviously. And so, yeah, and Ben, are you going to give the brief overviews to the reason for the move. Yeah, that sounds good. So, I had prepared a presentation but I'm realizing that's probably better suited for the second agenda item when we get into the nuts and bolts of the proposal but I will just show this slide that has the rationale for moving from zoning or from zoning to bylaw bylaw so bear with me here so I echo completely what Jane said just in terms of process and you know where we are today and you know I'm definitely pleased to be have moved this bylaw since you know I started with the town two years ago working with the commission and on this bylaw revision into to where we are now so a lot of work has gone into it. And so, I would say, a big part of the proposal is moving from general to zoning, as well as, or sorry moving from zoning general bylaw as well as some of the more substantive changes. So, I'm, you know, glad arriving the opportunity to look at that closely and hold the hearing just about that move so you know in terms of rationale. You know there's the first two bullet points you know essentially it's you know most cities and towns have this bylaw in their general bylaws. So you know, you know, one could say an applicant would, you know they'd be more if someone's new to town they might be more inclined to be looking through the general bylaws to find information about demolition. So that might provide some clarity for applicants, if they're, you know, coming from another town and want to, you know, are assuming it might be found in the general bylaw so that's one reason. Secondly, you know the mass historic commission it's their recommendation that this should be a general bylaw, and they are the, you know, state experts on all things historic preservation demolition bylaws so you know I definitely want to take their advice closely. You know thirdly, we have the local historic district bylaw in town. And that is included in the general bylaws. And so, you know this preservation of historically significant buildings bylaws you know fairly similar in in what it regulates to that bylaw you know there's obviously differences but I think they are both better suited for the general bylaws. Fourth bullet point you know a more tangible change would be that if something's in the zoning bylaw be an appeal for that zoning decision goes to the zoning board of appeals, however something is in the general bylaws, the appeal would go to court. You know, I think it's our under, you know, opinion that an appeal of a demolition decision or a, you know, this decision of significance is better suited to go to court rather than the zoning board of appeals because the ZBA is better suited to make decisions on, you know, zoning zoning matters, special permits that those kind of things. And then lastly just in general, you know as we all know you know zoning deals with, you know, types of uses that are allowed in a given district. It deals with development regulation overall, and you know while preservation of significant buildings is, you know, definitely part of zoning it's maybe not a core focus. You know, in a way it is a land use regulation but it's also, you know, more about people's property rights and, you know, a goal to preserve significant buildings in town so we think it's better suited for a general bylaw than the zoning bylaw so those were the kind of core reasonings for this change from general from zoning to general bylaw. And so definitely happy to elaborate any further if anyone has any questions or go from there. Yeah, thank you. Thank you Ben. Are there any questions from CRC members. Chris. I would just like to point out that when we spoke with Joel Bard we've spoken with him on a couple of occasions and he's our attorney from KP law. And he's mentioned a few times that when he first came across our demolition delay bylaw in our zoning bylaw he was surprised to find it there, because in his practice he has mainly found this type of bylaw in a general bylaw. So I just wanted to mention that thank you. Thank you. And Jennifer. Yeah, this is just more comment it does seem unusual that the local historic district bylaw would be in general and the historical commission would be in the zoning so that, you know, so it makes sense to have them in the same place. Thank you. Seeing no other hands we're going to move to questions from the public. And these are questions at this time there will be an opportunity to make a comment about this, if anyone would like to make a comment but if anyone has a question about the move from zoning to general please raise your hand now if you are in the audience and would like to ask that question. Seeing none. Are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment on the proposed move from zoning to general. Do the applicants want to say anything else in that wide range of comments before we move to final questions from the committee. Not at the time. Seeing none. Are there any other questions from the committee on this particular issue. I am going to myself make the motion to close the public hearing on zoning bylaw article 13 demolition delay for structures of historical and architectural signature significance. Is there a second ruining any discussion. Seeing none we will take a vote we'll start with Shalini. Yes. Pat. Hi. Yep. Jennifer. Yes. The committee is an eye that is a unanimous vote to close the hearing it is closed at 446. Now for the, the main part. We've actually been wanting, which is we're going to move on to item three a, which is the proposed preservation of historic structures general bylaw. This is a public hearing. This is a proposed general bylaw does not require an actual public hearing, which is why it was not noticed as a public hearing, but the way I'm going to run this is similar to a public hearing. We're going to hear from the Ben, his presentation that he wanted to give the last time, but he's going to give it now. And then we will go to any questions the committee has, and then we will go to comments and questions from the public. And then after that, we'll come back to the committee and potentially begin a discussion, but what I wanted to say is the historical commission meets on Wednesday, April 20. And so I'd like to, I don't intend us to make any motions regarding recommendations today or get into exact any exact language changes we might want to make. But I think we should take this opportunity to pose any questions or any proposals we might want to make on language changes or, or changes to years or anything like that now. So that the historical commission can discuss it at their April 20 meeting and we can hear from them and their discussions when we come back on the 28th, at which time we can have a fuller, robust discussion about surrounding the recommendation. That's, that's my hope for today and the 28th. So with that, Ben, you've got the floor again. Thank you, Mandy. All right, well, let me bring up the slide show again. So the Jane covered a lot of the background. And this, I'll kind of get into a bit more the substance of the bylaw changes, as well as some of the starting with some of the just overall goals of the demolition. Now preservation bylaw so we're all kind of on the same page and from members of the public who are in attendance just an overview of the goals of the demolition. What was once the demolition delay bylaw which is now the preservation bylaw. So just starting off you know demolition of a historically significant building is a permanent loss to the community so that's kind of just the, the, the, one of the main, you know, reasonings here so. And secondly, your preservation and adaptive reuse of a historically significant buildings provides many public benefits, whether it's, you know, the tourist coming to Amherst to look at the historic buildings or you know even sustainability benefits in terms of not needing to build a new structure altogether, you can reuse an existing structure that can save a lot of energy and materials. So essentially recognizing that a demolition is a permanent loss to the community. This bylaw authorizes the Historical Commission to essentially put a pause on an imminent demolition project. And during that pause a 12 month window to work with an applicant to seek out alternatives to demolition, whether that's adaptive reuse restoration. If you're Barry Roberts you can relocate a building and the like, and you know there's been also times where a an applicant during that 12 month window it becomes it becomes very clear that there's really no alternatives, and a demo to like can be lifted, and demo can be allowed to move forward within that 12 month window. So just a little bit how about the, about how the bylaw works, you know when an applicant proposes demolition for building or structure that's over 50 years or old. It's determined whether the building is significant or not using criteria in the bylaw. And then secondly whether a 12 month delay is appropriate for the structure. So there's kind of a two step process built in problems with the previous demolition delay bylaw. There's big, you know definitions in the bylaw. There's, and that, you know, makes it tough for the building commissioner to do his job in terms of interpreting the bylaw. There's a high caseload for the Historical Commission members. There's no way for staff to really filter out buildings that don't need a necessarily rise the occasion of meeting a public hearing so as you'll see there's a new kind of review step built in. And secondly, this is maybe more internal to, you know how town hall works but there's no distinguish between the building or demolition permit process handled in the building department, and then the Historical Commission review process. And because those processes are intertwined right now it creates issues with, you know how noticing is done and also how these timelines work together. So we're looking to kind of pull those processes apart with this new bylaw. I already did this slide so moving from zoning to general bylaw. So now presenting the new preservation bylaw. Here are some of the proposals in the new bylaw. So firstly, I already went over this that move from the zoning to general bylaw. Secondly, there's kind of this new certificate process that's developed so basically the you your Historical Commission is your first stop and you either you can be issued a demolition authorization or preservation order from the Historical Commission. And then your demolition authorization is your ticket to go get your demolition permit from the building commissioner. And so there's two different application processes, and it really separates the, these two permits apart, which is our goal. And then thirdly, there's a two step review process that we're proposing. Currently, when an application is proposed for building 50 years or older, it's pretty much automatic that there's going to be a public hearing. And at that public hearing, the commission first determines if it's significant. And then if it's significant, then is goes on to decide whether or not to put a delay on the building or not. And our goals is to have a initial review process to first determine if the building is significant. And if it's not significant, there's no public hearing required. So it can, you can be issued much quicker. And the applicant doesn't need to come to a public hearing, it saves money because we don't need to advertise the public hearing as well. So what we're proposing is a first, the Historical Commission can authorize a designee to make this determination of significance. A little note. One thing that came up just yesterday with our conversation with Joel Bard is that when the commission authorizes designees to make this determination. If it's two or more individuals, whether it's a planning staff member or a commission and a commission member or two commission members. It would constitute a subcommittee and would thus be required to subject to open meeting law and so our goal was to kind of have that decision made quickly and not necessarily need to hold public meetings per se. So that's just one thing to consider that came up yesterday. So, but I think we can, you know, find a way to work that out, whether you know and we'll discuss that with the Historical Commission at the April 20th meeting, but just something to keep in mind. Secondly, so then, if a building is determined to be significant by this individual or group of designees. Then that's required public hearing is required to then, and that's the full commission to determine if a significant building should be preferably preserved, which is a 12 month delay on the building so that's kind of how the two step process would work. Secondly, another big change was clarifying the definition of demolition. The current definition has some vagueness to it and it's kind of hard to interpret whether it's, it really means only total demolition or it can include some of these partial demolition projects and that's been a it's been interpreted differently over the years so one goal of this bylaw is just be very clear exactly what definite what demolition actually means. So there's a three part definition, you know it's not. It became lengthier I guess there's but it's I think it's more clear so part a is initiating the work of total destruction of an entire building with the or the intent of completing the same. So that would be total demolition part B is any act of pulling down destroying removing or raising 25% or more of the front back or side elevations of a building. So this A and B are fairly common in, I would say a is the most common definition you see of demolition in in Massachusetts for this bylaw be I would say a good amount of towns have something akin to part B. Part C, maybe unique to Amherst I've not seen this part C and many other bylaws. And so the function of part C is really to be able to capture the act of changing modifying or removing important architectural elements from a building. So that could be you know changing out a, you know, windows stooped porches chimneys, you know similar elements to that. That's something the Commission felt strongly about and feel like it helps protect you know some of the unique elements you might find on a historic building. I think I forget if we spoke about this at a previous meeting we'll just go over basically. The staff had some concerns about just the sheer number of applications that would create, because we are really talking about you know pretty fairly routine activities that someone would. A homeowner could take on you know replacing windows doors porches that type of activity so we put this first sentence on here. We're buildings listed on the Amherst inventory of historic buildings, accepted by vote of the Commission and updated periodically. So it's our goal is essentially to really narrow down the number of properties that that this part C might apply to, and really just focus it on the most historically significant buildings in town. Okay, some of you might wonder what is the Amherst inventory of historic buildings, and it in that at this point it does not exist. It's something that will be developed over time with the work of the Historical Commission. And so again I think we'll talk about this as a commission at our next meeting, really did kind of focus on what is this inventory going to look like how will be composed how will be developed. You know there's a, I think it's open, potentially will be open to discussion you know whether, maybe we wait on part C until we have a better idea of what this inventory might look like. But I think there needs there's, we're going to discuss that at our next meeting and I will say to the. We have a lot of PPA funds and we're about to embark on a update to our historic preservation plan. We're going to work with PVPC on that so I think PVPC they're really their folks in historic preservation are really experienced and I hope, maybe over the year that we're working with them, they could help develop a better scope and framework for this inventory of historic buildings but. So, yeah, I think I'll leave that part C there for now. I see Chris has a hand up. Can you just finish the rest of the presentation and then we'll go to Chris. Sure. Yeah, it sounds good. Yeah, I'm nearly done here so just briefly there's other items that were considered but actually not really updated for the new bylaw so the Commission had a lot of discussion about, you know what is that first threshold that triggers a need to look at the significance of the building. And so currently it's 50 years and the commission decided to stay at 50 years. So essentially, buildings that are 50 years or older that are proposed for some type of demolition whether demolition partial demolition or removal of architectural features. There needs to be some level of review about the significance of the building. Some towns use 75 years other towns use a year and just, you know, pick a year and say anything built previous to that is considered historic 50 years is what the National Park Service uses as their first, you know, as denoting something as historic. And again the National Park Service runs the kind of the National Register of Historic Places that's their involvement in this. So they stuck decided to stay at 50 years. The delay period stayed at 12 months. So there's some discussion of going to 18 months. Amherst bylaw started at six months actually when it was first adopted in 1999. And then I think in 2005 it was increased to 12 months. There's some cities and towns that use 24 months. The Amherst commission decided to stay at 12. And then lastly, can a delay be lifted before the full 12 months has elapsed. Yes that that can happen and does happen and will continue to happen in the in the new bylaw so that here are some nice pictures of historic parts of Amherst and thank you all for listening and happy to clarify anything or answer any questions so thank you. Thank you Ben Chris. So I just wanted to note that there's the reference on slide number six is not correct. We recycle these slide shows as you probably guess. And there's a reference at the bottom of C. And the reference is correct in the text of the bylaw which will probably be going over with you, but the reference in this slide show is not correct. Awesome. No shame on Ben it's just that I say these things change. Yeah, so anyway, I wanted to point that out. Thank you. Thank you for pointing that out Chris. Before we go to public comment are there any initial questions from CRC members, before we hear from the public if they want to comment, and then we'll come back to CRC members. I'm still not sure about the 50 years. And I understand that the main commission or whoever has it as 50 years but it almost, I mean, I wish there was a more compelling reason, and what that might be. I've also heard that anything prior to a certain year that makes more sense like anything above before 1960s, let's say is historic versus. I don't know. That's the only question I have. Thank you. I, my question is very similar to shallow nays. I'm curious about the 50 years. It feels like that gets us back to 1972 and it seems like it could affect an enormous number of structures in Amherst. 75 years gets us back into 1947. So I have a little question about one building and it's curiosity. The, it's now Garcia's but it was Bertucci's. And that building, I believe, and I might have the story a little misaligned but that building, someone wanted to demolish it and it was stopped because at some period, I'm assuming in the last 50 years, it was a car dealership. And there was nothing particularly just as a resident, particularly interesting about that building and a lot of people felt and that it was being designated historic to stop development. And I don't, I'm not saying that's why because that's not a position I held but it was a position that many people in the public held. So I'm kind of curious about how all this works and why the 50 year limit. Thank you, Pat. We'll do Jennifer and Pam and then we'll see if there's some answers to some of these questions since they seem similar Jennifer. I hope this may be more of a comment than a question, although it is something I would, you know, maybe ask when the Historical Commission meet on April 20 that they discuss. I'm concerned, particularly in light of what KP law just said about open meeting law that through, we couldn't even have two members of the Historical Commission designated to determine if the building is historically significant, that it would just be one and I would, I, I guess I'm confused as to why the whole commission, we have all this expertise in historic preservation and what's a historically significant structure on the commission. It seems like too much responsibility just to maybe a designate one person and if the, if the idea behind it is that we'd be able to move more quickly. I guess I would argue for more thorough, you know, rather than quicker gets determining if the building is historically significant is really the purpose of the commission, and that, you know, if it takes a little more time. I guess echoing what Shawnee and Pat said, if it would, you know, curtail a bit the caseload, if we, you know, did just look at buildings that were maybe 75 years and older, I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather if for maybe the agency and to, you know, keep the workload reasonable. I would rather see just buildings that are, you know, maybe not 50 years but 75 years and older but have, you know, all the commissioners involved in determining that historical significance. That's my thank you. Thank you Jennifer Pam. Thanks. The question about one of the things that came up is, is who might be a designee for the historic commission I wasn't sure who they would designate or who they would turn that possibility over to. And, and then secondly, one of Ben's bullets was raised the question if it's if something is not deemed significant. And that, can that reading or that assessment be revisited at some time during the process for that building if new information comes to light. Thank you. Thank you for that. Before we go to the public are there any Chris, Ben, Jane, would you like to respond to any of those questions now or just take them for the historical commission to, to think about and talk about at their next meeting. Chris, I think we can answer the first one of Pam's questions about who might be the designee for the historical commission, and that would be up to the historical commission to decide that but among the choices would be. One or more of the historical commission members. And one staff member, or, and or one staff member from the planning department presumably the person who is the staff person for the historical commission so those would be among the choices. And I would also add. I think it was Jennifer who asked, or had this comment the we, I just, we added language and we're proposing an additional language that I hope was sent out today but that the designee or designees may request that the full commission retain the authority to make the determination of significance so if it's a, if it's a, I don't know if it's a big project or controversial in any way they can kick it back to the full commission to make that determination. I don't know if that solves all the problems necessarily, but we thought that was important just for as a kind of a pressure valve if you will. I have some questions which have been touched on I'm going to save my until after we hear from the public. So we're going to move to public comment and question right now if there's anyone in the audience that would like to ask a question. Pat looks like she's going to say something first. I guess I would like a response to the first two questions before we move to public comment. Sorry. Thank you. Any comment on the 50 versus 75 or the concern that Jennifer had of, given that it's 50, and has to be a public meeting is it. Is it, is it serving its purpose, number one and number two, the concern that keeping it only one to avoid a public meeting. You know, like all that interaction, I don't even know how to say, but, but yeah, that interaction between those two. Yeah, I, I've been, I've been thinking about this bylaws like it has all these different levers you can push and everything affects a different part of the bylaw so it, it definitely in the, it's not it's it's not a simple bylaw there's there's a lot of complexities to it and you know you add a little bit of workload over here you can take some away over here or something like that but I do agree that the, I guess, confirmation we had yesterday from the town attorney about adding the, you know, that does essentially does a group of designees becoming a subcommittee does, you know, complicate things a little bit, and maybe isn't serving the purpose that we wanted it to. So I think I really, I don't know if we've had time to fully digest those implications and I kind of wanted to bring it back to the historical commission to figure out there's different levers to push and pull to change in light of that information. Yeah, just to add a little bit to that. Yeah, the, since this information has just come yesterday the historical commission hasn't really considered it at all. So one other outcome of potentially having to declare a group of designees as a subcommittee is that that it kind of returns us to the same model we model similar to what we have now. And that's where there would need to be a meeting to determine significance, and then either in the same meeting or at a subsequent meeting to determine whether a structure is preferably preserved. That and that is actually one of the levers that Ben is referring to and we haven't had a chance to kind of weigh the pros and cons of each combination of those. So I think that it'll be helpful for us to get to that. I guess for the 50 years, that's in a way that's been kind of a long standing criterion in historic preservation and is widely accepted as the threshold for for considering for distinguishing something current from something historic. And it's still, it is still a period of time that's widely in use. I can say that I mean the question about buildings built prior to a specific year. I'm aware that that can be used in some bylaws and is used in some bylaws but that introduces a difficulty with having to then periodically advance the year and change the bylaw which seems like a sort of a bureaucratic thing that wouldn't necessarily need to happen. And then finally for the the Bertucci's example. The reason I believe that that that there was a demolition delay placed on that building wasn't because it had been used as a car dealership within the last 50 years but that it was a structure built. I believe in the 1920s and therefore was nearly 100 years old. And some on the commission who know more about, I suppose industrial design perhaps then then then I do really pointed it out as an unusual building in Amherst. So the goal, the idea there was not to. It certainly had nothing to do with trying to restrain development I mean the, the bylaw itself only puts a temporary hold on demolition that then can be lifted later. So that was not the goal. And the. It was really the, the period. The building was built its design and function being somewhat unusual in Amherst. So that that's my memory of it. Thank you Jane. We're going to move to the public now. Anyone in the audience would like to make a comment or ask a question and I'm combining them because there are two attendees right now. If anyone would like to make a comment or ask a question regarding the preservation bylaw as proposed or you know there there I will say there is an update to it that was added. So I think today I, I think it might have been able to get into the online packet in time. I'm not sure it was. I did my best to to afford it to at least the committee members and all, and, and all and if it's not in there already it will be in there soon. So if anyone would like to make a comment or ask a question regarding the general bylaw that it has been proposed please raise your hand now from the audience. Seeing no hands. We'll go back to committee members. I'm going to make a couple comments on, since I waited, I'm going to make a couple. I also have concerns about the 50 year deadline. And partially that's because nearly all of our major developments, or many of our major developments residential developments in Amherst are 50 years or older. Orchard Valley Grantwood Avenue, lots of stuff up there would all fall under this and so as I've heard some of the goal being to lessen the workload of the Historical Commission, putting it at 50 might not actually do that. Because so much of our residential housing stock is 50 or more years old and so I think that would create potentially more work especially as you look at. If you're not having one person make that determination you're now into multiple meetings the entire commission which is not, I'm not sure does save work of the commission so I think I would love to hear from the commission how the new advice from KP law or you know ruling from KP law that says open meeting law would, you know, public meetings would have to be held if it's more than one person determining significance how does that, what are their thoughts on how that relates to the 50 years or even having a one question I have there is, do you have to have a public hearing for determining of significance or would it just be having to be done at a public meeting can we save the public hearing if it's a two step process. Again just thoughts coming out on that issue because I know the commission is going to need to discuss that. And then my next question was, let me find actually I'll go to Pam while I find my next question because I have to scroll through a bunch of things so Pam. Just a couple, actually a couple comments. And I'm really delighted that that the conservation that deemed a conservation of historically significant buildings rather than demolition delay I think that puts a really good spin on it. I'm really pleased that that shift has taken place. Excuse me. And I'm also, I'm, I'm also happy. I know there are going to be questions that are raised but I'm also very happy that the Historic Commission is feeling comfortable with this bylaw with a new twist that just got added which clearly needs some clarification because that affects every, every committee in town that I, you know, I looked at the Historic Commission to sort of be our eyes and ears for preserving and protecting and at least bringing to the forefront, the importance of historic structures so if you're comfortable with, with most of this. And you're feeling that you maintain some ability to be vigilant in what you do. I'm very pleased to hear that. I'd also like to send a message to the Historic Commission that let's get on that list of significant structures right away, because that's a really good thing to have. And then a comment about the 20 of the 50 year standard approach for for historic buildings I, I think it's a little tough in a town like Amherst which was basically built up in the 60s and 70s, making as somebody just said, most of our housing stock is is now historic. I mean that it's always necessarily top quality or significantly important structures, I know. There are so many split level homes that were built about the same time so so one would not be incredibly indistinguishable from another one. So I think that's something that I don't know that the workload. I don't know if there is just, just on that. I'll just leave it at that. Thanks. It's Pam Jennifer. Yeah, I just had a quick question I know when I was on the local historic district commission that it wasn't from time to time we would have somebody come they'd want to take down like a garage that was built in the 1960s or 70s and of course, we'd say yes, and but it still had to go to the historical construction because it was over 50 years old. And so it's something like that like a garage which you don't you don't even have to spend time determining if it's historically significant is that something you could just decide on quickly. Going forward or that now get bogged down in the process. Yes, so. I'm trying to answer Pam's last question and your question all at once is. Just because there's a lot of the homes that are, you know, built in the 60s and 70s might be not, you know, not indistinguishable and, you know, not necessarily found significant. There would still be staff time spent researching those properties for every application that comes in, whether it's partial demolition of, you know, a back a back wall or side wall or something. So that that's a concern is just the workload in town hall to even just look at all these applications which could, you know, you know, you want to do it right and make sure that you're not missing something maybe there's a famous architect involved in one of these buildings or something and you want to be mindful of that so just the research involved in determining significance you know something we we don't take lightly. And, and then you know wouldn't necessarily be kicked to the full commission so it might reduce the commission's workload to have this initial review process but it's still staff and potentially a commission members time to look into that and do that research. And to Jennifer's question about the garages and outbuildings I guess they built in the 60s yes they they would in the current bylaw they are subject to review by the commission so in the current bylaw they would go to a public hearing, because that's how it's written in the proposed bylaw. It would be a review by this group of designees what and that would now be, you know, would be a public meeting potential, and if it's two or more. So, did that, did that answer your question Jennifer. Yeah, I guess it's my question is if it's north, like a garage in the 70s where you would, the commission would just immediately vote yes you could take it down I mean it wouldn't be time consuming I mean, I would I would, you know, I would support the supportive of it being 75 years, but I'm just hoping that some of these. I guess I'm just gonna call them no brainer is that they don't take up a lot of time. Like a, you know, I'm thinking of a garage on Fearing Street that we let come down and I, we felt badly it had to go to the Commission, historical commission but I would hope that that would just be something that could be quickly decided. Thank you, Jane. Just slightly tongue in cheek. Yeah, we, we have had applications for 60s and 70s garages come down and we've never denied the demolition. But really the thing I wanted to say was. And this is a little bit thinking out loud, the commissioners commissioners on occasion have discussed almost tangentially these, these trapped homes these neighborhoods that are those developed in the 60s and 70s. And I think there. You know, the goal wouldn't be to want to delay changes to any single home, you know, to every single home in the hundred, you know, home neighborhood. The, I think what historical commission members see in those developments is that it that that the entire development itself is a kind of a statement of a period in Amherst social and economic history. But that's a, I mean, yeah, this is a good question and I'm wondering if we, if there's a way to handle that separately. So that's, so that's one sort of end of that 50 year spectrum and then on the other end, there are these very, you know, there can be very interesting buildings. In those 50 years, such as, you know, kind of the brutalist architecture at UMass that they're, you know, they're, they're pretty interesting and noteworthy and certainly have made a big statement in Amherst now, because they are owned by the state. I don't think the historical commission would have any purview over them. It may be just informative. But, you know, that could be the case elsewhere. But since I'm not aware of any, I won't take that argument. Thank you, Jane. I found my questions and one's more of a statement that I'd concern. But, but I'll start with my questions which are mostly in the enforcement penalties and remedies provisions. I'm concerned that that the commission that this bylaws drafted has the commission and building commissioner authorized to institute law and equity proceedings to quote prevent a violation of the bylaw. Like forward looking and that is a phrase that always worries me when a violation hasn't happened and worse, you know, what would you know like giving authority to someone to say hey we can sue you because we think you're going to violate something. Because that's basically how I read that so I've got real concerns about that one phrase within that section, section j one a the demolition permit is authorized I think that might be a hold over from prior and so I just ask that it be looked at as to whether the demolition permit should even be mentioned at all. Because it says something about subject to the bylaw knowingly performs a demolition without first obtaining a demolition authorization or a demolition permit is in violation of this historical significant bylaw. And so that that's where I get concerned because I'm not sure failure to obtain a demolition permit should put you in violation of the demolition historic structures bylaw. And then the causative action I just want to confirm that section B says notwithstanding the section does not create an affirmative obligation to maintain a property but section a says any owner that by some causative action contributes to the deterioration of said building is in violation of the bylaw so does that mean if someone doesn't have the funds to maintain a building they're technically in violation of it or does section B completely cover that to let them not be in violation of the bylaw simply because they didn't maintain it because that's sometimes some causative action. And then finally just so I'll stop there and then the one thing I still have concern about is the determination for significant for preferably preserved. One thing I hope for and bylaws is consistency predictability and I'm still struggling with the section on preferable preservation in that it just doesn't seem to provide any predictability or information to an applicant as to how the historical commission is going to make its decision whether to preferably preserve a building, and I don't know whether that can be solved I had a lot of conversation with staff but I wanted to mention that within this, this meeting that I still struggle with that because I want an applicant to be able to show up to that hearing about preferable preservation and know what they have to say, one way or another to avoid, you know to obtain their demolition permit, or not. And that section that I read doesn't seem to help me if I was an applicant with a 50 year old building and echo Hill, I wouldn't know what to show up to that hearing about if it was deemed significant to attempt to be able to demolish the building, or get my demolition authorization and so I struggle with that particular section from a, you know, from a predictability from the applicant's point of view set and like said I'm not sure it can be fixed but I wanted to mention it during this portion. Pam. We had one other question that came up. And that would be one of the sections is partial demolition is the removal of 25% of a wall or something. So would just hypothetically if somebody came to put an addition on their 60s building with the addition and the removal of a portion of that wall actually come come to the building commissioner or would it come to the start commission. As a first step. Do you want to tackle that. But I think what would happen is we, you know, the applicant would probably find out about this, the need to go to the commission by coming to the building department and filing that application I think, you know that'll happen on almost anything in B or C of the definition. I don't think it'll be expected that there would be a historic review of anything other than a full demolition for a long time. So that that first stop would probably be with my office the permanent administrator or building inspector to and then be directed to the planning staff to complete the application for the historic review. Okay, thanks. Before we move on, are there any final questions that people want to get out there. We have the benefit of Jane there for potential discussion at the historical commission next week before we do this again in two weeks. I mean, none. Thank you Jane. Thank you Chris and Ben and Rob. Before you go Jane, I want to say we were slated for the 28th, but we know that this open meeting laughing if the historical commission cannot deal with it in one meeting. I will work with you to make sure that we don't take it up till we have a recommendation or you know that the historical commission has heard and figured out how they want to deal with that part because I know it's there so so don't you know just, I'll be in touch with Chris and Ben about whether we do do this on the 28th, if you guys have finished on the 20th or not. So don't feel pressure because I keep saying the 28th will will make sure you have adequate time to discuss that issue. Yeah, I noticed the comment that this is apparently going to affect be have an impact townwide. If anybody else is thinking of this model. But anyway, thank you very much. Thank you Jane. With that we're going to move on to item three be on our agenda proposed rescission of zoning by law article 13 demolition delay for structures of historical or architectural significance this is the recommendation side. I know we don't have the ability where we're not ready to make a recommendation on the bylaw in the general bylaw that has been proposed but now that we've closed the hearing I figured we might be able to make a recommendation on this one on the zoning bylaw potentially any recommendation I would suggest you know we have with the hearing closed we have 90 days to as a council to vote on the rescission portion without holding another public hearing. So the recommendation is to a recommendation if we're going to recommend the move to the council is to recommend that that vote even if it needs to be held within 90 days and the his the, the bylaw the preservation bylaw and the general bylaw is not quite ready that the vote be, you know, upon adoption of a general bylaw the zoning bylaw is rescinded so that we can take that vote within the 90 days to not hold another public hearing, but if we need more time for the preservation bylaw of all these interactions and interconnections that we get that time without having to hold that public hearing on the zoning. So with that that that's sort of my thoughts on how to do this without worrying about getting that recommendation out now. Thank you. Are there any other thoughts before we try to attempt a motion or comments that people would like to put in me to put in the, you know, report on this, this part, seeing none. I'm going to try the motion, which is, I move that to recommend the council rescind article zoning bylaw article 13 demolition delay for structures of historical or architectural significance with an effective date upon adoption, or upon the effective date of adopting a general bylaw, a similar general bylaw. Is there a second to be able to get that Pat seconds that any further discussion. See none will take a vote. We'll start with Pat. Hi, Mandy's an I Pam. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, and Shawnee. Yes, that is a five to zero unanimous recommendation to move this from zoning to general. I believe that finishes. I believe that finishes all of the historical preservation stuff for today. So thank you Jane, and then you might be done. I'm Rob and Chris probably aren't but I think Jane and Ben are. Well, we're going to take up now the residential rental bylaw discussion on goals for revisions so whoever's supposed to stay for that. Stay on. I know Rob's probably one of them, but I don't know whether Ben you are. I don't think so thank you all. Thank you all for coming thank you Jane for your time. So we're going to move on to the residential rental bylaw discussion on goals for revisions. We're hoping to do this in about 30 minutes. We're running. We're, we're on sort of schedule which Pat's going to hate. Not want me to say but we're doing okay here. Pam Rooney you proposed or you wrote a memo to me based on all of that we had where we've got this discussion at the recommendation of Rob who wanted and thought that it would be helpful for us to sort of as a committee agree on some goals. As we approach this revision of the residential rental bylaw, so that we could always track back to those goals. So Pam has a document that is in the packet. Let me see if I can pull that up. Once I find it. And Pam, would you like to say anything about this document before we just discuss it, or. Sure. It's a little lengthy. And it kind of one of the things that that we tried to do is to actually identify the issues that are that are trying to be addressed and that's typically something that that we're always asked for is okay so what are you trying to solve one of the problems. And we. I hope everyone, you know, feels comfortable with the issues that that are listed here in the first section, the resident concerns that there are deteriorating properties that we have, we have an inspection system now that's not sustainable because it's really just complaint and we don't get much financial payment for for doing inspections. There aren't any penalties one way or the other so we have a we have a system that is kind of the honor system, and doesn't necessarily work we also understand that the system. If we start to impose fees and structures, it needs to be equitable and we, and we know very clearly that there are, that there are singles and, you know, a few people that that own a few rental units, as opposed to people that rent and own lots of rental units and that we need to have a system that is absolutely supportive of owner occupancy and and small number units, because that typically is something that provides a an income for a family. So all the issues that are identified, then, you know, as a result of that the, the need for a an update was identified, and then we have the broad goals that the committee itself put together which are ensure homes are probably maintained, adopt an equitable fee structure, create a clear licensing program and process, safeguards, strong neighborhoods and address climate action goals. So I don't know what else I need to say. Thank you for that Pam. And so my hope is that we can turn this memo from Pam into some sort of issues and goals document. So what I would like to hear from CRC members and Rob and Chris and Dave. We want your input to is, is, we'll start with the issues section, would there be, if, if we were turning this into a document that we could identify the issues with and then the goals, you know, those two kind of go together goals and issues. But would there be any, are there any comments on the issues part of this document from committee members or Robert Chris. So I'll make my, my comments I have three. The first one was in the second bullet point. I like keeping things as general as possible so the phrase potential long term residents of working people families and retirees that Amher says at once. I would just change to just potential residents, because I'm not sure disruptive behavior I guess I look at what what the building deterioration disruptive behavior is generally less attractive to any potential resident not just potential long term residents of X, Y, and Z, and so I would say more general. The next bullet point down inspection of rental properties that starts instead of identifying occupancy limits and I know that is a big concern of certain areas of town. Again, on the general side I like saying things like building codes and compliant with building codes and zoning bylaws because it's not just occupancy limits that we're concerned about in needing more inspections and all, at least in my in my thinking. And then the third to last bullet point the one that started resident reports that their streets no longer have a majority of long term residents so making connections with an engaging short term renters is impractical. I would delete that. You know thinking about what was said by some counselors. About, you know, how language comes comes out at our at the council meeting before this was referred. Just because someone's a renter and short term isn't defined right short term for many people as many different things just because someone's a renter doesn't mean they can't connect with people in their neighborhood. And so I was very uncomfortable with that particular bullet point. And so I would. I would delete it because I'm not sure that's an issue that rental registration is attempting to address. Other thoughts on the issues part. Rob. Yeah, I just wanted to mention in the bullets let's say it's 12345 and six bullets having to do with penalties and enforcement. I generally don't, I don't have any concerns about the issues being described here. I just, you know, why people understand that there are penalties there is enforcement capabilities. It's really the issue is because we are complaint response program that we're not actively out there viewing these violations and making and all of this relates to the rental permit not necessarily health and safety codes which there is clear strong enforcement capabilities once we're aware of it. So it's the kind of the lack of knowledge of these the conditions of these these spaces. But, you know, for example, you know, no enforcement for failure to obtain a permit. That's not really true once we're aware of that there is enforcement capability to ensure that a permit is obtained. So it's more about strengthening those two items with its respect to the rental permit. You know, staying in good standing or at the highest level of standing depending on how the program is designed. Jennifer. Yeah, well I guess my comments are going to surprise anyone. I would I have, I think I would like to see occupancy limits remain I know it's as part of the code but that was really a driving force behind having rental permitting to begin with and that's one of the most persistent violations. And it's, it's a health and safety violation it's I mean that's, I put it right up there if we're going to say safe well maintained compliance with occupancy limits is a part of that. And I don't have a concern about potential long term, you know, defining that in the second bullet because I'm not saying this is a criticism to anyone but honestly, if I were a student to say it living in a house for eight or nine months. I wouldn't mind if there were too many cars in the driveway. I probably be doing that myself when I had my friends over so I, you know, I don't want to get nitpicky here but I think that there are certain things that happen that are problematic to the long term residents whether they're renters or homeowners that are not a problem to more of, you know, students in group houses renting for a short period of time. You know and again like the parking that's, that's one way you can tell, you know, kind of who a house is being rented to by the number of cars. Thank you Jennifer Dave. Yeah, I just wanted to make two comments yeah I harping back to years ago when when we we did some of this work that created the rental program, the second bullet disruptive behavior. And I'll go with that a little bit and I think it's been called out earlier is, is whether is that that may be an issue but is that a, is that a goal of this, of this effort. So I just put that out there. I'm not sure that inspections really address disruptive behavior in any way shape or form and then I think in the seventh bullet. Again, I, I, this is your document but residents reports that their streets no longer have a majority of long term residents so making connections with an engaging short term renters renters is impractical. That to me. You know, just seems really kind of value laden. I think there are many. Honestly, I think there are many neighborhoods in Amherst where it is entirely on our occupied homes, and I bet people don't know their next door neighbor so I just, those are two thoughts I had. Thanks. Thank you Dave. Pam and Pam. I was, I was going to talk about the bullet the third from the bottom all so the majority of long term residents includes people who rent. We were a long term renter in North Amherst for seven years. And we were absolutely certainly part of that community so we were there we were long term we had a commitment. And I think that's what we're trying to talk about is, is people who are here for along the longer haul than, than the semester by semester and I think of any issue that we address in town with this with this rental permit process. It is the sort of the behaviors and the, the visible signs of, I'll just call it neglect and lack of engagement by the people who happen to be who exhibit that behavior, as opposed to someone who, you know, puts in some roots, rents for a long time, or rents for a short time but it's engaged in the community. It does sound a little valued laden as I say that. But it is, it is some one of the crux of the of the matter is one of the crux of the issues here. Yeah, thank you. There are several houses near me with that are rented to students. The one closest to me has been rented for many years now by a group of students who were graduate students at the engineering school, and they were here for five years There were more of them. And I'm putting quotes around them, then we're allowed. I think the home was a three bedroom home and there were five residents. Two of them were a couple. And I don't. So, So what we did with them was we made real connections, we did and the house the other house on Pelham Road that is caddy corner to us. That changes pretty much every year, although some of the renters and there they add some new roommates. That house has been a little bit more crazy but the same thing that has happened as we went over and we made connections. So I never think that connections are impractical. I have heard residents in my district say they were afraid to talk to some of the renters. And that's a very interesting dynamic to me. I don't know particularly what they were afraid of. But that that intrigues me a lot because I often think that our assumptions make us afraid. And that concerns me. And I think Dave made a really important point, inspections don't address renter behavior. And if there's neglect, it's really neglect by owners that we need to address. And I don't support an occupancy limit of three. One has been in violation of that one day he and three of his friends from college moved on to graduate school in Boston. They rented a three bedroom apartment and he shared his room with his partner, Sadie, who 11 years later he married, but they were illegal in this sense. One of the things that might make it better if we increase an occupancy limit, there'd be less hiding, there'd be less. I don't know. So, I think that we need to be really careful about what we're trying to do and try to be as honest as possible about what we're trying to do. And I will also say to the sponsors as an aside, I went on to State College, Pennsylvania to try to find their bylaws about student rentals. And every time I got to the town's website, they, the page for the bylaws or ordinance weren't there. So if you have either a link that's active or can send me information, I'd appreciate it because I'd like to read a look at that as well. Thank you. Shawnee. Yeah, I would also just come back to the question. I agree with the quality and safety issues that are being highlighted. And regarding the limits, I think it's sort of been said, but I'm just kind of repeating it in a slightly different way that when we put a limit on the house, then it actually makes it a social justice issue because when we allow, let's say we increase it from four to five, it's making the rent go a little lower. And we're allowing more students to live in that house, which means also we're making other places available for families. It's overall bringing down because it's solving some of our rental problem, the demand issue by allowing more people to live in. It's helping also bring the rent down. And there was one other thing I wanted to say, and it allows the landlord because he's getting more rent to do the upkeep, he or she. I think increasing it is solving more of our problems the way we've stated them. And then the other thing about the same street and losing, we had a district meeting where people were concerned about more houses being converted into student rentals and asking them, okay, what were the specific issues in that particular area, they did not have any issues, but they were just concerned about losing family single family homes to students. So that if that, you know, and that's a discussion we need to have, but again, I don't think this particular bylaw is solving for that. So we need to be really clear about what are we trying to solve for and then provide solutions that go there. And I guess the last thing that's not in these issues is about environmental and climate change. And if that is something we're trying to incentivize then I think that needs to be an issue that can be highlighted over here. Thank you, Shalini. Jennifer. The first thing is, we have an occupancy limit for four and nobody's requesting it to be lowered from four. I don't even kind of know where to begin because the occupancy limit is four many have more than four if we set it at five will be more than five if you set it at six will be more than six. They are not lower the rent. There were houses before the rental permitting. Many houses on my street that were being rented to eight one to nine students they use the dining room if there's like a den they use again if it's an old house they can close up the living room. They are charging the same. They're making it in. If you have eight students you can be making like $7,000 they are not lowering the rent. It's just and it makes purchase if we raise the limit, it makes snapping up these kind of starter houses and single family homes that much more appealing because you can put more students in them. There is on the 300 block of Lincoln, a very modest looking grip house. They divided it into first floor and second floor although it only has one entrance to one address there's three students on each it's renting for $5600. You would never know that if you passed it. I know that's not what this is dealing with I just have to be very clear increasing the limit there will always be more people than what the limit is, and that's exacerbating every problem that people I have to say, you know I know Pam and I are probably one of us the strongest on this and that's because we live in neighborhoods, particularly in mind where hundreds of students, you know, charge down the street on weekend nights. If you don't, if you haven't experienced that on your street, you really don't understand what we're talking about so just to increase the number of students isn't going to solve a problem it's going to be much more lucrative for the property owners, and it's going to exacerbate all the problems that residents in increasing number of areas are experienced things so I just had, I had to say that. Thank you. Thank you Jennifer pim. Thanks. I think Pat's example of, of reaching out to the neighbors who are renting is a really lovely example of how many many of us tend to interact with our neighbors. And I think what we're trying to, what we're trying to get at is that at a certain point on a street in a neighborhood. If there are more short term rentals than there are the people like Pat and her family who take the time to reach out to people. There aren't, there isn't a critical mass of the long term caring residents to help the short termers I'll call them that short termers transition to, you know, part of the neighborhood. So it's, it's, it's essentially a matter of numbers, and sort of the, if, if someone just commented the other day, if, if you look at some way street, I think, when I was, when I was campaigning on some way street, there was literally one home on the other street that was still home, you know, was still owner occupied. The rest were entirely student properties. I think when I look at this by a lot and I say what are we trying to do. I think we're trying to manage the health, safety and well being within the town within this, the purview of rentable housing. And, and I, and I want, I want there to be when someone comes to invest in Amherst I want there to be several stronger sideboards and, and, and guidelines for, you know, not just walking in putting down your money and turning something into a very lucrative student rental. I want there to be more structure and responsibility placed on an owner so people say well maybe, you know, maybe it's not quite as easy as we thought to just invest in Amherst and, and pop something into student rental that's, that's one of my goals I think the need to the need to keep some housing stock available for purchase or, or rent by families workforce is, is really very, very important for the health of the town. So that's my spiel, but that's, that's what's in my mind behind why I so strongly support something like this. Thank you Pam. I'm going to page down on this share to the goals to guide and inform revisions and see if we can, if there's any comments about that one I know Jennifer you did have your hand up, but I thought I'd put this one on. So, so that either they're similar to the issues. And, but I wanted to hear if there were any comments on these particular ones to as it relates to, you know, these words themselves but also what we've been talking about. I just wanted to comment on the equitable fee structure. I wanted to caution the members, not to raise the fees on some of the well managed multifamily developments because I think, you know when they're well managed, which most of them are as far as I know. There's fewer problems than some of the single family rentals, you know, if you have a single family rental and the manager is not nearby. I think you're going to run into more problems there than you are with, say, you know, a development that has, you know, a structure of management and certain requirements for their tenants. And so I'm just cautioning you not to, you know, have the differential between the rental registration fee for the single family house to be that much different from a development that has, you know, many more, many more units because there may not be, there may not be a connection between how many more units there are and how many problems there are. That's all. Thank you. I'm Pat. Yeah, I want to echo what Chris said, and also to say that in district two we've had neighborhood meetings and the managers from rental properties, particularly the larger ones were involved in those meetings and directly worked with their tenants to be clear about what the guidelines were. And we found that there was a great deal of change in, in how residents behaved. And I'm going to put quotes around how residents behave but I also want to say to Pam and Jennifer, I'm not, I have some of the same concerns that you do about workforce housing, etc. We don't see how, even if this these all these changes were made it would increase workforce housing, because we're a capitalist society and if if I want to make money then that's what I'm going to do by renting it out. My concern, my concern will always be, are we labeling people and limiting people from engaging with each other or engaging with the community I'm really grateful for a lot of the students who volunteer throughout the town and stuff. And I think we need also to call out the university, because they have done very little to address student housing, and over time, and you know they've increased the size of the university without changing. The other thing is you mass is downtown, of course they're going to be hundreds of students rampaging and you didn't say that word. But, and, and that's not okay when it gets crazy like Blarney blowouts and stuff like that. It's just not, but that's not due to students who renting homes, and trying to go to school here and working here and and volunteering here. Thank you pat Shalini. We did Jennifer want to respond to something, or should I go. You may go Shalini and then we'll take Jennifer. Okay. So, safeguards strong neighborhoods again I think it's a similar idea encourage respectful behaviors I don't see how this by law is promoting that. And again, with respect to creating more work for us family housing. I think we need to focus on zoning and how to incentivize I think there are ways to incentivize local developers who really care about a community, and into focus over there. Like that's more preemptive and promoting housing of certain kind for alumni seniors, you know the kind and start a home so I think working there would be a more positive impact than being punitive over here. Umass taking more responsibility and I may be wrong but my understanding is that you mass provides more undergraduate housing 60% or something, then other college colleges I had read that somewhere, I may be wrong. But anyway that's something that we should keep pushing your mass to do but we don't we don't have that much control so there's that. Yeah, okay, that's all for now. Thank you so much Jennifer. I know we don't this conversation people on literally for days but um, so what I'm talking about is do I'm not talk I don't even know what goes on downtown and middle tonight I mean we're not that close to downtown, but I can tell you like on sunset from Elm Street down to the University one resident just wrote me the gallons who you may know they've lived there for 40 years, and they said that whole side of the block over a period of years went from being primarily year round residents renters and homeowners to majority student rentals. And they, there's firecrackers going off in the middle of the night, there's parties till two in the morning at the houses and now it's good they're taking ubers and not driving. But they said lots of you know students, you know on the street in the middle of the night waiting for their ubers and making you know I mean it's a whole. If you haven't lived it, you, you kind of don't. It's hard to understand, but it's again, and this these are not the, you don't see this kind of activity with graduate students like literally people are like, Oh, the house across the street we rented a graduate students. The residents are thrilled there is a reason that all these plans and planning and were made before Blarney blowout because there are behaviors. And many of us may have, you know, participated them ourselves between, you know, undergraduates of a certain age when you get a large group and, as Pam said it's a tipping point if you, you know I really encourage you to go to Alan, to develop some McClure streets, which are, there's maybe one family living on each block and we would just like to keep more streets throughout and Hearst from from becoming those. And, you know, when you talk maybe I, you know that's UMass, there's some people say they house 40%, some say 60%. We're in a unique situation in Amherst because we are one of the smallest towns in terms of year round population that hosts a state university so it's a very easy it's much more precarious where we kind of get a little out of whack but Pat I will send you the information on state college Pennsylvania where they also have something called minimum distance requirements so one way that they preserve houses for non student households is by requiring a certain distance between they actually define a house they have a certain distance between student houses and that ensures that a certain number of houses on a block will be for non student households. Thank you Jennifer. Just a quick response to shall any actually, I think is you, as we get into the details of requiring some inspections. That is something that is as Rob said earlier, it is complaint driven right now so he doesn't really have the authority to go in and do inspections to make sure that things are in working order and or so so as we as we develop a rental permit process. One of the things that we might consider is to have point a point system that rewards good behavior and and penalizes violations of health and safety and occupancy limits and things like that which we just don't really have the staff to do right now. That was just a response to that. I would love to get back to the goals and just make sure that everybody feels comfortable that we're we're actually addressing or that we want this document to whatever it becomes. We wanted to address these goals. Thank you Pam. So I will summarize shall any and then I'll some, but I was going to summarize and say I've heard a lot I've taken a lot of notes. What I've heard in general consensus is some of the highlighted stuff that are on this screen properly maintained code compliance homes. I've heard general desire for that to be one of the goals like like agreement on that one. I've heard some some comments about equitable fee structures but but I think that's more into the details versus just the statement about a goal of fee structure we need to look at it and ensure that this one does what I heard from some people was, you know, the way this is written incentivize proper maintenance and lack of nuisance and behavior complaints so I know we've got some language issues on some on this committee with use of the word behavior but I think what's written underneath is generally what I've heard said by this committee about the goals of safeguarding fees and clear licensing, at least the green part of that the clear licensing program I've heard general consensus on that. What's underneath maybe we're not fully consensus on, but at least the, the, the, the main part is the biggest problem is the safeguard strong neighborhoods because of the language around it I think is what I've heard. And then climate action goals, I heard a few committee members say that that might be something we'd like to address. What I will do is attempt to come up with a document that sort of addresses this we're not going to discuss this in particular to come up with an actual agreed upon document per se. I will bring it up occasionally as we have time, but we're going to next move into. And I'll keep putting it in, in a packet. So I don't want people to think it's not going to show up and you'll not see anything but but I think some of these issues and goals will come out as we talk about the actual specifics of a residential bylaw. And so, you know, there are things about, you know, so I think we'll have something we can sort of keep in mind as we and have in the packet like the work plan and this one, as we go forward on some of these other issues and talk about more specifics. And so that's sort of my thoughts next but Pam and then Shalini. Thanks. I'm a little confused about what you're, what you're thinking of for a new document that takes the goals. And what kind of what are you thinking. I'm not sure yet. I was thinking of taking what you have and then basically making it, I don't know. Let me just say I'm not exactly sure what it'll look like and all but I've taken good notes and I'll come up with something but I think our time is better spent discussing the actual bylaw at this point then the goals which is why I don't want to spend time on getting us to a document at this point that we can all really like say that's it, which is why I'm not sure what it might look like or how it might come up in the next packet. At this point. So if we have ideas we should email you and copy everybody else. Don't copy anyone else that the violation of open meeting law. Email you email me and I will keep this on the forefront as we continue discussions, you'll see this come up on the agendas every so often don't worry about that. But, but we'll. I'm still formulating exactly what will go forward with this. That's why I'm having a hard time figuring out how to say things, Shalini. And more for the bylaw I think the equitable fee structure that, you know, just as we consider points and all just to keep in mind that just the fact that there is police being called because there is maybe disabilities or drug issues and whatnot. There are social inequities over there that people who are well off also have those issues but they may have resources like doctors and, and they may not involve calling of the police just because this police coming in should not be a reason I'm just putting it out there. And maybe it is, and maybe they'll be crest by then so crest will be looking. I'm just saying think of the just consider all the nuances when you think of the equity part. Thank you. Thank you. And that, that's one of the reasons I think as we get into discussions of specific things will be able to flesh out some of these, these issues we're having now. We're going to move on to the planning board appointments, appointment recommendations. There are two things I would like to do today. One will only get done if we do the other one so we're going to start with sufficiency of the applicant pool. There are two impending vacancies on the planning board. Your packet has exact details the number of applicants that the number of applicants we currently have because they have filled out a calf since the, the bulletin board notice was put forward that number is six. And make a determination as to whether that is a sufficient number to move forward to statement soliciting statements of interest and then scheduling interviews to, to fill these two impending vacancies, which will become actual vacancies on July one. So we're hoping to not have any path between them. Okay, too far. I always forget before Rob leads to thank Rob for coming and Chris for coming I always forget it till after they've already signed off. So I'm going to try and not forget that this time thank you guys so much for coming. So, so we need to decide whether six and I want to say at this point we do not talk about names. Names do not get disclosed under our council policy that has been adopted on making these recommendations until the interview meeting is posted and the statements of interest are posted. And so we're basically talking about numbers right now and whether those numbers are sufficient to do we think that's a sufficient size to give us adequate choices and make adequate recommendations to the council on planning board appointments. And if we make that decision and say yes, and we're moving forward then we're going to deal with selection guidance. So thoughts on sufficiency of the applicant pool. Thanks, Dahlani question. The we've received these caps and have these people because I was seeing communication with sent and I couldn't make out whether the what we have in terms of six is the number of people who responded back and said yes, we are. I was a little confused. Six is the number of so that that document. So what happens is under the current policy, only those CAFs that are submitted after the bulletin board notice is posted about the vacancies are considered applicants. So the rest of the numbers in that what numbers and all are the number of people that the policy requires that. I or my designate for the planning board, it's me contact all of the people who have submitted CAFs in the last two years prior to that posting to see if they're still interested and tell them if they are, they must submit a new CAF. So an email back to me saying yes, I'm interested is not good enough. They have to submit a new CAF under the council policy. It requires me to contact any member of the body that we're seeking to make recommendations for whose term is expiring, because that CAF might be longer than two years old because a lot of these terms are three years. To seek their interest and tell them if they're interested, they must submit a CAF. And so, so a lot of those numbers in that document are saying here's how many people I contacted because they we had CAFs more than up to two years old. And here's how many I heard that said no, I'm not interested. So they didn't submit a CAF, but they contacted me back and I thought that was nice information for the committee to hear. So that's where that information is, but the number we're looking at is six. Those that I never heard back from, and then those that I either heard back from. Those that I heard back from, and I put that in quotes because the reason I heard back from was they submitted a new CAF. So that's where that information is, but the number we're looking at is six. That is if we move forward, those are the only individuals I will be contacting from here on out are those six. So in fact, if we move forward, and I did post that statements of interest for the interviews is considered a candidate too. So it doesn't close the applicant pool at six, but it starts us on the next process forward. If we determine that the pool is sufficient today. Jennifer. So I just want to make sure I'm correlating the right. It was the six. And then there was, um, A document that was more that wasn't yet for the public. in green the green boxes that it submitted. So where I think that six could be enough applicants for two spots to consider the green it there didn't seem to be much diversity. And we always that's always a concern right which is why we have to look at the CAFs to determine is six the number and given where they are do we want to continue on given all of that. And so I would think we would. As in what would be the alternative to continuing on if we decided if we don't we have to recruit more right that's that's the alternative to not make to saying the pool is not sufficient is we don't move on until we get more CAFs and we recruit more. So in the past it is it is usual for this committee to say we have enough to move to interview interviews but we are still not happy with the diversity of the pool that is a lot of what we say all the time just just for for people that have not been this before and and we're working it's it's actually slightly more diverse than it's been in the past. But it's still not obviously where we would like it to be. Other thoughts. So seeing none I'm just going to make the motion to declare the applicant pool and for the planning board no I don't know Shalini speaking to declare the applicant pool for the planning board sufficient to continue on in the process is there a second second and I do want to say one other thing in the past we have made this determination and then so if applicants don't if the applicants we have now do not submit a statement of interest by the deadline that that will be created they are no longer in the applicant pool there has been in the past situations where we've made the determination of sufficiency and then that deadline hit and then I came back to the committee and said here's what we got here's our impending vacancies what are we going to do and we then declared the pool insufficient anymore. So this is not the only time we can always back away from this and say you know what it's not sufficient anymore and so you know because because that happens so I just wanted to let people know that that's happened in the past. Any other comments Jennifer. So it means that we will move forward to you know to make extend the invitation to interview these candidates and we will still keep doing outreach. Yes. Yeah. Pam. I'm going to ask a related question it may not be the topic and that is that some people have at least expressed interest in the ZBA and and the planning board. I'm guessing that perhaps if all six can't be appointed to the two positions that there may be a few people that would be willing and interested in pursuing ZBA so we would have a fairly tight fit of a parallel track with the ZBA process as well given that everybody everybody needs to be appointed by July 1. Is that correct. Yeah. These processes tend to move somewhat in parallel. The reason ZBA is not in front of us today is because in my determination it wasn't even a question as to whether the pool was sufficient. I believe there are exactly three applicants right now for two full membership to full impending vacancies and for associate impending vacancies. And so I made the determination that that wasn't even worth bringing to us for that determination at this time. Now at some point we might have to make that consideration to make sure that the fools do not go vacant as of July 1. But but I thought we still had a little bit more time to try and continue recruiting ZBA before we have to make a decision that might not be as easily made as six for two slots are for planning board potentially. So I will keep working with Pam on that one on on when we bring that forward but they do kind of move in parallel slots. I'm going to take the vote. We're starting with myself. I'm an aye. Pam. Aye. Jennifer. Aye. Shalini. Yes. Pat. Aye. That is five to zero. The pool is sufficient. That means we are moving on to the the the selection guidance and this is basically two parts and and hopefully will not take long because we're almost out of time. The first part is the pool directly from the policy. That's the part that you had in the draft selection guidance. It's pulled exactly from the policy that the council has adopted. And the second part is generally which I left blank because I did not have the guidance when I posted that document as I get to to pull in some of these up is the input from the chair. And I gave you in the packet a couple of examples of inputs from the chair. So section A is pulled from the policy. So since that's the policy wording I recommend we do not change it because that's the council policy. Section B is what we would add from the planning board chair. There is a separate PDF document in the in the packet of the plan. Sandy. Sorry. I had to verbally interrupt. So are we talking about the 3D guidance, planning board selection guidance draft 2020-04-06? Is that the document that you're actually referring to now? So we're talking about this document. Oh, okay. It was left blank in B. Okay. So A comes from the policy. Verbatim. B is where we normally input the bodies, the input we put in and copy in the input we received from the chair of the committee which would be the planning board's chair. That input was received in a PDF so I have not copied it over yet but that PDF is in the packet. In past, CRC members, CRC has decided sometimes to take it verbatim. Other times it has not. The easiest is to take it verbatim unless there are any concerns about the verbatim wording. And then if there are some concerns then we sometimes summarize things and do other things but we do not have to take it verbatim. I thought, personally, I thought Doug's input was very thoughtful. I don't know what anyone else thinks. The easiest thing for me to do would take it verbatim but I'll do whatever the committee wants basically. So thoughts on section B input from the body's chair, what should be added into it? Yeah, I think Doug's recommendations were thoughtful and I can't remember and I don't have it pulled up. I can see that you're doing that. One of the things that we really need to work on is getting diverse candidates and getting people with different kinds of experience. So somehow or other, I know these are qualifications but I wonder if somewhere in this document there shouldn't be a statement about the importance of diverse candidates. And I'm not sure how I would phrase it or anything or exactly where it would go but. So we have it in section A from the policy. It's not as probably bold. Maybe we could work on it a little. We could potentially add something else somewhere. Yeah, and I'm sorry I didn't think about it in advance but it's. What I could do is, the question is does that pertain to selection guidance or does that pertain to the importance of having diverse candidates is not in my mind not necessarily pertaining to the selection guidance of who to recommend versus to us as counselors doing our job. So I can add it to things like our committee reports of we are still not succeeding in our goal as a council and we have to find other ways to better obtain diverse candidates than what we've been doing. Other thoughts on selection guidance? Would people be happy? Would people be okay if I just put the chairs PDF document essentially into this under section B? Pam? Yeah, why don't you just attach it? It seemed like I mean Doug was looking again at it not necessarily our intent but certain qualifications which are which are wonderful. It doesn't mean that everyone has to have all of those qualifications to be a good planning board member. So I think there was nothing wrong with the qualifications that he laid out. So you know we have them that's great. They may not fit every candidate. Other thoughts? Shalini? Yeah, I would I support putting his letter in and I thought his minimum qualifications are fairly open they're not like limited to being an engineer that that wasn't additional points he made later but the minimum qualifications like fair and open and I think an important one which I don't know if you've considered that in our questions that we ask which is willing to reconsider previous positions when presented with new information to me that's a very important criteria actually and we've never included that in our selection criteria or the questions that we ask and I think that's what I feel most frustrated sometimes personally is that we are sharing information yeah I don't know if this is the place but just to say that this is an important quality in a candidate to be able to really listen, digest and be able to either shift their position or be able to speak to it and so yeah just saying that I like what he's proposed. Thank you Shalini Jennifer. Yeah I um this is um more intangible but so I don't know if we can really include it maybe it's just more something to keep in mind as we interview candidates but I think it's important to have members of the planning board who represent different perspectives I guess I have felt that yeah that there's been very little diversity and kind of points of view or it's all so that that in that I think leads to a lot of I don't know like six to one votes. Thank you Jennifer Pat. Yeah number five the an understanding of the town system of governance boards and committees. I wouldn't be a counselor if I had to live up to that qualification I mean it was a town meeting member for a short period of time but it didn't help me really understand what the hell was going on and I think that there's something about that maybe it needs to be or an understanding of or willingness to learn because um because that would preclude a lot of people I think oh I don't know anything about how this committee system works and I don't know so or a willingness to learn would satisfy my concern. So I can add that in um to to when I put this into the input from the chair I can add that language into it um if I see nods from many others um so I will do that um and all and so at this point I don't have a document for us to vote on even though we're supposed to vote but I'm just going to note in the I think we're supposed to vote it um but I will note in our um in the report that we reached consensus on what to include I will bring this document back so people can see it I will put it in the next packet but um I will at least create it put it in the next packet and be able to send this out this goes out to the candidates when I solicit the statements of interest I may not do that immediately because I have to figure out things like when the interviews are um which you'll get some polls on to to see when we should do them we have to try it you know so so it might take me a little bit to move to that section um but but I will note that we've reached consensus on what to include I will make that change on this one um thank you for all of that um and let's see where is my agenda um we have two things to do hopefully they will be quick um the first one is um general public comment before we close out our meeting um if there is and we will public comments on matters within jurisdiction of CRC will be taken at this time presidents are welcome to express their views for up to one up to three minutes and and so if you'd like to make public comment at this time please raise your hand seeing none um we are going to do minutes um I'm going to move to adopt the March 31 2020 meeting minutes as presented is there a second second cow are there any comments seeing none we're gonna vote we're starting with Pam I think we have to you yes uh Jennifer yes Shalini yes uh Pat hi and Mandy is an eye they are adopted unanimously um I had a draft next agenda preview on this I have no idea if it's going to stay the same so I doubt flood maps will be on it I doubt flood maps will be on it flood maps need a hearing and all um and so we will I think have them referred to us by the next meeting but they will not be on the next meeting um and so we'll see you know historic structures will or will not based on what I hear from the historical commission is to their readiness based on their discussion given given some things so I will think about it and figure it out and get back to you guys you'll see it then um I'll talk to Dave and Pam to see what else um so yeah um any other announcements agenda items or unanticipated items see none thank you all for moving through this very packed agenda basically on time I really appreciate it it helps us move things forward and so I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 6 38 p.m thank you thank you Dave and Athena yeah thank you thank you thank you good night everyone good night