 be here. Hi, it is. It is October 13, 2022. This is the regular meeting of the Community Resources Committee, Community Resources Committee of the Town Council pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022 and by Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting. They do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance or members of the public are possible, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. I need to go around and see if everybody can hear us. Pat, do you want to? Present. Mandy Joe. Present. Jennifer Tau. Present. Cameroni, present. I think that's it. And we have Rob Mora and John Thompson joining us. So thank you. There are no public hearings today. So we go right to the action items and the associate member of vacancies on the ZVA. I have not reached out to the folks that are on the list from within the last two years. I will certainly do so by the next meeting, which is the 27th and have some feedback by then. Sorry, this is a scratchy throat. So the next item is 3B residential rental bylaw. And on the agenda was review of bylaw language in the working draft focusing on purpose definitions and other recent revisions. And I wonder if Athena could put up the first page of revision based on 2022, I think 0912 is perhaps the last round. I'm sorry, Pam. I wasn't ready to share the screen tonight. What are you looking for? The general bylaw, the residential rental bylaw, the draft of 10-4? Section A and B, the purpose, the definitions. Are you asking me to pull up the pages that say purpose and definitions or a different document? No, could you pull that page up? That was our homework assignment. Perfect. So if you could scroll down to A, which is the purpose, I was reading. I'm really sorry about my voice. I have come down to something. Looking at items number one, two, and three, they're all, at least one and two are fairly similar. And I had a suggested alternative to the wording for this. And so I would start with number two, if we could add different words in perhaps in a different color. Athena and I. I'm sorry. It's going to be really difficult for me to edit this document while I'm taking minutes at the same time. So if you'd like someone to do that in real time, then I can give share screen permissions to everyone else. I can try, Pam. Okay. That'd be great. I'm sorry. I don't have enough hands. I've been asking for extra hands, but I've only been gifted to in this life. So I'm not sure I can do anything about that right now. So what I was suggesting is that number one and number two are actually very similar. And so I was going to propose the following wording and it would be based on item number two, to implement a proactive rental inspection program. Oh, excuse me. Number one. This is this is line number one to protect the health, safety and welfare of its residents through a proactive registration and permitting. Number three would then become item number three would become then to eliminate housing blight and force force stays as those try to consolidate the first two items. Pat, I see your hand up muted. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the work, but I think the way it's currently written just is very clear, very simple and direct and it's starting to feel I was very excited to see in number one to protect health, safety and welfare of residents and to eliminate housing blight. Everything else is how we're going to do it. So I would like it to stay the way it was. Any other comments? Randy, Joe? So I'm still thinking it through, but I liked in some sense, I like the separation between even though kind of repeated itself, the health, safety and welfare and housing bright blight. But also the the difference between that and the proactiveness of the program. Because in some sense, they're two different things in my thinking. You know, the whole purpose of the first the one we have now was to protect health, safety and welfare, but we didn't have that proactiveness that we're trying to go after now. And so I liked the fact that those two were separate. And the one thing that was eliminated when you did this wording, Pam, was the proactive inspection program, which is really what were the biggest change that this this revision is doing is that inspection program being proactive all over the place, you know, every single rental unit. And so I'm I don't like the elimination of that part of what was number two. I actually I actually had inspection process, but I didn't read it properly. So yeah, I'm comfortable with taking it back to the way it was. But I just just seem like there were some redundancies. But if you're comfortable with that, let's move on. Can we eliminate the red typing? Okay, moving to definitions. That was quick lived. I would any any suggestions on definitions, Andy? I just wanted to see whether John or Rob had a better definition for dormitory or whether this one is sufficient for dormitory, at least on this page, I might have questions beyond. But on this page, I knew there was some concern about the original dormitory definition. John, John or Rob, John or Rob, any comments on dormitory definition? Rob, what's a building code say about that? Is that where we're going to take our definition from? I don't have that in front of me. But you know, we can look at the building code definition. But otherwise, no, I don't I don't have any other idea on that right now. I don't see any other comments. I would actually ask if it makes sense to add one called dormitory like apartments. And we have several examples of dormitory like apartments. One is 47 Olympia Drive. I I the two downtown ones, one is pleasant and the and the upcoming 11 is pleasant are actually dormitory like apartments, but they are, in fact, mixed use buildings. So I just wondered, though, if we could, if we could add dormitory like apartment buildings, because they are certainly a category. And I think I think the ones on the new new units coming in on Lincoln are also apartment like dormitories. Pat? Thank you. Can you say a little bit more about why specifically they're dorm like? And I honestly don't I have an idea, but I'd like to hear what you're thinking. It is a it is a category in. No, I know dormitory is a category, but you're talking about dormitory like. And could you clarify for me what you mean by that? I was looking at a rental thing. It's actually outside of Amherst, but it was being advertised for Amherst. And it seemed like there were apartments, but there were shared facilities. I'm not sure if it was a kitchen or what, but there were downstairs rooms that were shared by everybody. Is that what you mean by dormitory like that the rooms are not independent other than for sleeping or I'm just I just need a clarification of what you're thinking. I'm actually going to look at Rob, especially because I think we do have a separate category for dormitory like apartments. And they are in fact, the the the restrictions, the setbacks, etc. I think are different than dormitory. As if I am not mistaken, dormitory tends to be on or owned by the university or a higher ed institution. I may be wrong. Rob. Yeah, so for the purposes of our zoning bylaw, we have a used classification that includes the dormitory and the defining piece there is that it's related in some way to the university or one of the colleges. It doesn't really define it. There's a little bit of criteria in that section of the bylaw, but it doesn't define it any further than that. I think what you're referring to is with those recent buildings is something that was presented to the planning board with the first Olympia Drive application, calling and and and bring support for the idea kind of nationwide that there's an apartment style dormitory as a model. And the planning board accepted that and but it stayed in the same used classification. So it doesn't carry a different definition. It doesn't carry a different meaning or set of dimensional standards in the bylaw based on how it's laid out or constructed. So I think more traditionally, before these apartment style dormitories, and more like the fraternities or sororities or other social dormitory type buildings that John would inspect, you know, there are a series of rooms with common hallways, common living rooms, common kitchen area sometimes. And you know, that's very different from these new buildings that are per digits, apartment buildings, you know, they might have some amenity spaces or common spaces for studying games, exercise and other things. But it's really just an apartment building for the dwelling unit purposes. So is there not enough? Is there not enough differentiation between dormitory, which, which I understood was either owned by or operated or located on a higher ed institution, and usually in the ED zone, which we don't actually say here. So that's not the case, you know, that it doesn't have to be on property owned by the university or the college board, it doesn't and it doesn't have to be on ED district because we permitted in the RF district as well. So there's, there are, you know, some other possibilities there. And it's not restrictive in the bylaw one way or the other. Okay, so, so from your perspective, does that make any, any sense to differentiate this? Or shall I just drop it? Right now, I'm not seeing, you know, a need to, to have, you know, a different meaning for that. I mean, for the, what we're talking about is whether or not it's subject to the permit and the inspection program. And in both cases, they would be. So I'm not sure there's a meaning, a reason yet to separate them. Okay, that's, that's what I wanted to make sure is that we, that we didn't somehow lose the ability to, to inspect. Okay. Does anyone else have any suggestions on additional definitions? I have a question. Go ahead. So I just want, so on Amity and Lincoln, there's a, is that like a frat? There's a residence that's like 17 students. What does that qualify as? Believe it's owned by Eagle Crest or managed by Eagle Crest. What's the address right on the corner of Amity and Lincoln? Yeah, Lincoln and Amity. Yeah, it's a, it's a multi-family. So those are separate units. I think there's maybe four. And they have their own kitchen facilities? Yeah. Oh, okay. Thanks. So they're covered. We've got that covered. Okay. Anything else on, on definitions? I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn to Mandy Jo. So you have recent changes that were added into this text, which are, I believe, in blue. And are they, oh, sorry, Pat, why don't you go ahead and mute it? Yeah, I'm sorry about the muting thing. I've missed some meetings, so I apologize if I'm wasting our time, but I'm, why do we have that the authorized person has to live within 20 miles of the Amherstown line? And then, and not be a current tenant of the order, well, except as provided. So that seems fine. But what's the 21, what if it's 25 miles? I mean, I don't understand what that's for. Andy? So I was going to ask the same thing, but more of is that the right limit? There's something similar, I think in some other bylaws, I'm not sure it's in our current one, but I think the goal is to have someone that is accessible in an emergency contact situation. And so the question is, how close does that person need to be? And so I might want to, one of my questions was going to be is 20 air miles an appropriate distance? John, you've got your hand up. Yeah, so I'm not sure where the 20 miles came from. Rob probably knows we probably did cut and paste that from someone else's bylaw originally. But there's a little bit of leeway with this 20 miles. Yes, we often ask Google how far it is from here to there. And this year, especially, one of the admins has been pestering me with, well, it's 21 miles, John, you know, what do you think about that? Yeah, 21 miles is okay. It's, you know, they live in Greenfield. That's that's good. It was really aimed at folks that are really in the eastern part of the state. They're in a different state. They're out of the country. We need, we need a way in an emergency to have somebody's pretty local that could respond. Yeah, again, I mean, that's someone who can respond. They don't have to live here. You can own a property and live anywhere as long as you have somebody nearby that is either managing or it could be called an emergency. Well, that would be the person in charge, not necessarily the owner. Does anyone feel uncomfortable saying 20 to 25 miles or approximately 25 miles within Amherst? So I wonder if instead of air miles, we go with counties, would it be appropriate to say Hampshire, Hamden, Franklin County or something like that? You know, John just said Greenfield's 21. Well, Greenfield seems local enough to me, you know, like would a county designation, whether we include Berkshire or Worcester is a different discussion, but would a county definition make more sense? Yeah, that just feels more flexible than 20 miles. And so I like the idea of the county. Thank you for thinking of that. Will that put any undue strain on on access to these people? I'm asking John and Rob. No, I mean, I don't think so. I actually don't think there's a problem with the way it's done now. Can we just add the word approximately? When I think of when I think of Hamden County, you know, that's some of that's quite a ways away. Definitely, definitely more than 20 miles. I guess my concern with approximately or even just sticking to 20 is 21, then it's technically a violation. Our town might not cite it, but it's technically a violation, right? Approximately well as 30 approximately 20 is 25 approximately 20. If you use the word approximately or down through. Yes. Everybody feel comfortable with leaving it for the time being at Hamden, Hampshire or Franklin County? OK, good. OK, let's move on. We have resident, the resident manager, which I think we talked about last time, if I'm not mistaken. Do we have any restriction on where the resident? Oh, that's the resident manager. What about the what about the property manager? Where the person in charge? Any concerns about number number 12? I see no hands. So let's let's move on. So we we have now we're in a totally different category, but but it's still recent additions. If we want to delve into item six, C one or C one, excuse me, can can someone explain the additions of the blue text? Looks it looks to me like it's the timing of the of the advertisement and whether you have a permit in hand. Before you go out to to advertise, is that right? Yeah, there was some concern that if you don't have the permit, you can't even advertise for renting, given the wording up above in the first sentence of one or the first half of the sentence. It's a really long sentence. So that addition has been added to say that, you know, if you've put the application in, you can advertise even if the permit hasn't been granted or issued yet. So then I'm looking at the the last sentence of the blue language and, you know, in that case, the rental permit number wouldn't be available yet. Yeah. So it just kind of make that connect that and make that work together somehow. So maybe, Joe, I think you added that wording. Do you want to strike it, Jennifer? I'm sorry, I was having trouble on muting. Now, is our tenants allowed to move in before the permits in hand? I thought we talked about the fact that they would not be necessarily in hand, especially if it's a rotating inspection. That may not that may not hold any water. So I guess what I'm thinking is this may be too nitpicky. If it's a renewal and it just hasn't totally come through, I don't know, I guess, you know, so there has to be some evidence that they've applied, you know, because we say you need a permit to have tenants living there. I can see advertising, you know, if it's, you know, July and you're not having tenants move in until, you know, the first week in September. So I don't know, has this been a problem in the past? Well, the wording here says it should be unlawful for the owner to operate rent or offer to rent until applicable residential rental permit has been issued. So that's saying you've got to have it in hand before you even advertise to rent. Is this possible? And now we're saying you can advertise, but they shouldn't move in until, is presumably if they don't get if they've applied. And I understand maybe it's different for renewal, but if you're starting for the first time, and you don't want to take the chance that there's a tenant living in a building that, you know, isn't up to code because they haven't, you know, and then if they moved in and it's not, you don't want to have to evict people. I don't. So I don't know that situation could happen. Andy. So a couple of things. We'll see it later on. But the permit is the way this bylaw is worded is disconnected in some sense, the timing of the permit from the inspection. The application will just have to detail that they've had an inspection within the certain amount of time that they fall under. So it's not in many towns. It's apply for a permit, get inspected, get issued a permit. That's not how this bylaw is written, because everything would have to be inspected in a one month period, basically. And that's just unreasonable. And so and then the other thing is somewhere below is a conditional permit. I forget where it is. It must not be in this one. It's it's probably an E where if the inspection has not passed and they're working on it, a conditional permit can be issued while things are being corrected. So I think that addresses some of Jennifer's concerns. So I'm wondering if we maybe look at that first part of number one and just eliminate offer to rent in that section. And and and leave it as, you know, you know, operator rent must have the permit. And then maybe that doesn't need that new language to clarify that. Just a thought that seems to. So that the any advertisement shall include the rental permit number assigned by the town or if the application is pending. It seems like a funny sentence. Could you just say unless the application is pending? I don't know. I guess if you eliminate the offer to rent, you don't even have to have an application before you've offered to rent. So the sentence makes no sense then. I mean, it would be hard to enforce because you could actually offer to rent without that even application there. So let's let's think about this for the next meeting and come back to this item. So we're looking at the next the next change. And if we want to go through item by item here. Any thoughts on on E1, this the states that we would be looking at it on a parcel of land basis, a parcel by parcel. I think we ought to discuss if we want to if we want to. Deal with permitting on a parcel by parcel basis, a building by building basis or a unit by unit basis. And I'm looking at the enforcers, John and Rob, to just discuss the pros and cons of that. And in given the through the lens of sort of an equitable fee structure where where the single family owners are saying or the owner occupies are saying, we're paying more fee than, you know, venture what he does on his property. That's not fair. So can we talk about this from. So I think, you know, last time when we when we discussed this, I'm pretty sure I recommended that we keep it, you know, per parcel of land rather than getting into the either buildings or number of units, mainly to keep, you know, manageable numbers for us on permitting issuance and and just maybe a little simpler to. Have information on the property. And that might have been the main reason for it. I I still don't think that whether we permit by parcel or building or unit has to define how we set a fee schedule, which can on its own be by unit or number of buildings. So I don't think they have to be to get, you know, we don't have to think of them working together in that way. I think we're really used to the parcel of land. And that would be a significant change for everybody. A lot of and John would know more about our system, as far as the time it would take for an applicant to enter, you know, 30 units, permits for 30 units into the system rather than one. Just my experience with it, it seems like it'd be a lot more work for everybody and not much gain for doing that. OK, Mandy. You know, I. I think I lean towards what Rob said, but I do think it it relates to what fee structure we potentially decide on and how we. Word that fee structure, so it might be better to come back to this one after we've talked about the fee structure options and how that might. Work to then fit parcel versus building versus unit on. I agree, but I did want to talk about the dorm exemption here. Which goes back to what Pam was saying earlier. There's a note still here about PPPs, right? Where do they fall under this exemption? Right now, it's written as they have to be owned and operated by the educational institution and located in the Ed district, which I read means Olympia Place would not be exempt. But what about what's going up on Lincoln Avenue? Would that be exempt or not? Because I don't remember who's going to actually own it. And would we want those exempt? I guess that's what we have to talk about is which ones are exempt and which ones aren't. And then word this properly. Jennifer. The ones going up. Well, you know what? No, this the I know I don't know if it's both. This there's a graduate student dorm of like 201 and an undergraduate with 823 undergraduate is a public private partnership. And it's actually being managed by another entity, not UMass. So it's a bit of a hybrid. It's a dorm on it's on UMass own property. Rob might, but it's I mean, there's literally like a professional management company. I think they're Canadian that they manage college dorms, these public private entities. Rob. Yeah, I think you have that right. I've looked at the agreements with the developer. They're the buildings are owned by the university. They're not owned privately, but they're managed and operated by the private entity. So, you know, and I looked at that for the purposes of determining whether or not we needed to. Permit the construction of the buildings in the building department. And it was the fact that it wasn't owned privately that made that decision for us to allow that to to stay with the state building inspector's office. So but does that mean? Oh, sorry, Pam, go ahead. I was just going to say, by this wording, then they would need to obtain a permit, a rental permit. I think they'd be exempt. Because it operated by the they're not operated by the educational institution. They was not. So they wouldn't be exempt then. Correct. Correct. Is that something you want, Rob? Not really, not for that, that particular building I'm trying to think of other examples just to make sure I'm not missing something. But we actually won't be doing any inspections of that building annual or periodic inspections will be done by the state inspector's office. If there's a housing complaint, it would be responded to by the the Department of Health and Human Services at the state level. It wouldn't be our health department. So if if it only turns out to be that situation, that type of arrangement, we would probably not bond it anyway. Jennifer. I was going to say, I can't imagine that the managers of that building are expecting to get rental permits that I would think it functions as a dorm in that respect. Can we come back to the conversation about dormitory like apartment buildings? So far, we have not exempted them from rental and that would be Olympia Drive. That would be one East Pleasant. That would be 11 East Pleasant. So I would definitely like to keep those on the hook for for our program. So they are still required, Olympia Drive and all, but I guess I must just say that I I disagree with referring to 11 East Pleasant and one triangle or whatever it's called as dormitory like buildings, not everyone who lives there as a student. So I think that just perpetuates a misclassification and a misinformation about those buildings. And we need to be careful because they are definitely managed much differently than an Olympia place that was built and permitted under the dormitory use in the RF district. And so that that's just something I have to say. They would still get inspected though. Anybody else on this particular item could could, Mandy, could you actually type in the on a parcel of land that's blocked out in green? It's pretty hard to read it. Could those letters be black? I'm looking at number three and I'm just not sure I'm ready to talk about permit denials because I just want to make sure that we are able to link if we decide to go with a point system that we're able to link points to problem properties. I know we have a nuisance house bylaw, but we don't actually say how many actions creates the nuisance house. It just talks about, if there's a party, if there's underage drinking, but it doesn't say once and done, you're now a nuisance house. I think we need to be clear on essentially how many transgressions are allowed before they become a nuisance property or problem property. My guess is that has to wait for a legal opinion and also a review of the regulations to fit them in. Yeah, item number six. I'm not sure how, Mandy, I'm looking at you. Getting through all of these, I'm not sure where you would have planned to stop and change gears to talking about fee structure. Keep going a little bit. We could probably keep going a little bit. I don't know how much more blue there is, so. There's a fair amount in H, but we'll come back to G's, the fees structure, fees and fee structure. Pretty hard to read. I didn't personally didn't have any specific changes on these, if anyone else does, raise a hand quickly. It feels like we need a whole session to just talk about inspections, inspection regularity, inspection cycle. I think that would be very helpful and it may not happen today. Rob and Joan. There is a typo there, very minor, by the Commonwealth or federal government, instead of federal government, fourth line, yeah. When we get back to the talking specifically about inspections, it would be very good to refresh our tables on that whole list of exemptions that are already inspected on a regular basis. It would be really, I think it would be very helpful to document what those undergo already, just so we can be really clear about what we're changing or what's not required. So could we potentially bring, I don't know whether this is Dal time, Steve from the audience in, he had sent an email that I forwarded to the rest of you and is in the packet now, regarding the energy efficiency stuff. I don't know whether we need to change the wording in the bylaw or not, but now that I see it here, it just reminded me that he was here to answer any questions we might have had about what ECAC is recommending we add. And I apologize, John and Rob, I forgot to forward it to you, the email, but it is in the packet, so it can be pulled up from there. I'm fine with bringing Steve in, if we also have an opportunity to bring Renata in as we're talking about these items, rather than waiting through the whole thing to get to the very end where we go to address some of her concerns. So let's bring Steve in then. Hello. Hello, Steve. Hi there. What can you tell us about energy efficiency standard? Okay, I guess since not everyone has seen the memo that I sent to Mandy Jo just last night, I'll briefly summarize it and spell out the recommendations from ECAC. Previously, we had been working on a concept where rental properties might have to get rated with a building energy rating system. And this is a system that would rate the amount of insulation in the walls and the types of windows and would kind of be like a miles per gallon rating of a car but it would be an energy rating for a building. And there are several of these, but what we've learned over the summer from speaking to some people that do these sorts of rating systems, they're primarily done during the building design process for new buildings and then that gives them a chance to get a rating and tweak the design before the building is built. They can be applied after to an existing building but it's somewhat logistically complicated and there's a lot of estimation involved. So considering that we've moved away from that recommendation and moved more towards I guess a data gathering approach where a couple of suggestions to include as part of the registration bylaw. The first would be since it looks like the town inspectors will be doing fairly comprehensive inspections, we suggest that they do a couple of additional, add a couple of additional items to their checklist. One would be to confirm the information that is provided on the rental permit application and that would be information like the building age and the approximate square footage of conditioned space, the type and ages and efficiency of the heating appliances, both space heating and hot water heating and make sure the fuels used, whether it's natural gas or electricity or fuel oil, those things are recorded properly. And then the inspectors would do a whole, but I think a quick qualitative grading of two key factors there. One would be the amount of insulation in the building and it could be largely a presence or absence. And the second would be a qualitative assessment of air leakage. I think we may want to have more conversations with the town staff, building inspectors to see how that sort of an assessment could work. Hopefully they have some experience and to do that. It could simply be an ABC where you're good, fair or needs improvement type of scoring. So that would be sort of the first component, having inspectors both confirm information and add a little bit of new that would help us identify those buildings that really would benefit most from energy improvements. The second two are new, they weren't in our previous recommendations, but we've talked about them and we like these concepts. The first is that apartment complexes that are five units or more become required to report their actual energy use using the EPA energy efficiency, sorry, the EPA portfolio manager platform. This is a free platform, it's quite commonly used by building managers, many states and cities require buildings to report this way. And there's a way that the results can be electronically transferred to the town of Amherst staff. That would only be for the larger buildings where the data can be aggregated so that avoids problems with sort of privacy issues about exposing a single tenant's energy use patterns. And then the third and last would be a requirement that all rental properties get a mass save audit within three years or some grace period following the adoption of the new bylaw. And the rationale for that is the mass save audits as you probably know, those are the door to all kinds of incentives and rebates and interest-free loans. It's pretty much the starting point if you're gonna do an energy retrofit, get one of these free mass audits, they have them for single-family homes for smaller rental units and even for larger ones. So they are customized by the type of rental unit. So those three things would combine, I think raise awareness, help the town and the ECAC understand which buildings might need further sort of targeted incentives or help to bring up their energy standards. And it would help get their energy efficiency on the radar of the building managers and the owners so that they could begin to plan to improve their conditions. So no required rating system, we're no longer recommending a particular level of energy efficiency and required improvements to bring it up to a threshold. Rather, it's more gathering information and going, providing some incentives to building owners to make energy efficiency improvements and take advantage of the incentives that already exist. So I'll stop there and see if there's any questions or thoughts or comments. Like any question, Andy? I haven't gone back and compared what we've put in the application, sort of part of the bylaw and maybe even our regulations that are not haven't been discussed yet, but are there specific things you would want included in the application that ECAC would want to be asked on an application? And if so, could we get that full list? I think you mentioned a bunch in your email is what was in the email, sort of everything you'd be looking for. Are there others to make sure we've included everything you're looking for? I can get you that list. I think we provided it before and then the language that was in the draft previously left it up to the discretion of the code officer rather than encoding every particular item into the bylaw. And we are fine with that approach because it could be that after a year or two, we decide that we don't need to ask this anymore but we might need to ask something else. So leading it up to the discretion of the code enforcement officer, I think is fine and I will dig up that list that we provided before and can send it to you. And can you kindly include Rob and John? Certainly. Thank you, thank you. Feedback from Ron or I mean Rob or John? Yes, I had seen this earlier in the packet and I thought it looked good. My only reaction to some of it would be that we wanna make sure that, so this will be part of the regular inspection of all the other things that an inspector would be looking at. So we don't wanna make that too big of a task at every inspection and keeping it to visual assessments, not needing any special equipment or gadgets to set up and just thinking efficiency with the numbers that we're gonna be dealing with. And probably not likely that we'll be able to bring ladders and climb up into attics to measure insulation. So I think some of the information is easily gathered more like a check off type of fuel, whether or not insulation exists. Some of it might be asking the applicant, the owner, what they know about the property. But I think really kind of leaning, going in the direction which we often do now is really pushing that massive audit. I mean, I had a conversation with a landlord or a property manager yesterday that pretty much company in town and came to the same conclusion. I did, there's no reason not to do that. So, that's good to hear that from a property manager. And I think if we can continue to spread that message, we'll be able to gather that information through those reports or the information that's created by the firm that's conducting the mass-save audit to get a lot of this information more accurately. So that's all I had. Thank you. I'm gonna bring in Renata Shepard if she is ready to talk. Kind of a short notice, but we've talked about just some of the inspection items. So we're going through, we're now in the section of essentially requirements to obtain a permit. And Renata, did you have any thoughts that you wanted to share? First me, Andy Job. Is this under public comment? It can be public comment. Because if it's not, we've got other potential problems with just bringing in one member of the public. So Steve Roof is the liaison to CRC from ECAC. So that's why he can be brought into a committee meeting. But if it's not under public comment, there's some other issues with anyone else who might be in the public just bringing people in. So personally, I would have it, we're just moving to public comment midway through type thing. I'm suggesting then we move to public comment for a brief period and open it up to anyone who wants to speak. Generally about this or generally about anything. And then we may have another public comment session at the end of this discussion. Renata, are you interested in sharing any thoughts? If not, we'll just keep going. Sorry, I couldn't find the unmute button. Hello? Yes, hi, you're on. Sorry, I couldn't find the unmute button. Renata Shepard, Amherst residence, small landlord. I don't have anything like new to add. I've sent all common suggestions, concerns. And again, I reiterate that, please make sure that the situation is fair across the board and not benefiting only LLC companies that can have access to a lot more resources than somebody that sells their, buys a house and keeps their condo and wants to rent it out to that it doesn't put them into like undo or complicated situation to be able to make a little bit of money every month. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. If I may, I'll add a personal comment, not at all associated with VCAC, but a personal comment. I too am a small landlord. I have a one unit, two family unit. And as far as the fee structure that you talked about a little earlier, it's slightly annoying to sort of have to pay the same fee for a two family unit that big companies pay for a hundred family unit on a single parcel. So I think there's a perception of fairness if the fee is somehow graduated based or scaled based on the number of units on a parcel. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments while we're having a public comment session? I mean, then let's move back to the- Oh, Renata's hand went up again. I'm not sure if you wanna call her again. Sure, Renata, did you have another comment you wanted to make? Oh, yes. Just a reminder of my suggestion regarding setting the fee as a percentage of the lease for everybody. So if a lease is $2,000, if you pay 5% of that is an amount, if you charge $1,000, it's less. So based on per lease or per unit, a percentage of the rent, that would also motivate landlords to charge maybe lower leases. They won't feel like they're losing money because of this fee. Therefore, it won't have to raise rents to cover fees that we find unfair. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to ask that if we went an approach like that and we would have to ask people what they're charging, are we allowed to do that? That's just, you know, because I thought that was a creative suggestion, but that made me wonder whether then, you know, we're asking people what the rents on, they may not wanna disclose that. Rob? I think we can ask. The only issue I see with that type of fees schedule is that it's completely self-reporting. We would have no way, you know, it'd be a lot of work to try to confirm that they're proper, that they've inputted the right amount. And, you know, it all becomes public. So, you know, people, other people might be looking at it questioning rents. It just seems to create a lot more, you know, discussion and issues that don't exist by not having it that way. I think it's an interesting approach, but I see it could have some flaws, you know, in operation. Thank you. So we can put it on the table, we can talk about the pros and cons and maybe exactly how do we approach it and is it workable? Do you wanna go back to the changes in the text? It's 5.30, so we have a whole lot beyond that. So let's keep going. Oh, let's actually, let's table it for now and we'll just pause where we are, which is roughly on page nine of, I have revision seven printed out, so I know that's not the latest. But I think it'd be really helpful to talk about the fee structure and Mandy Jo proposed in a text format a number of fee options if we could switch to that. So Mandy Jo, thank you very much for putting out a straw proposal. Very good, gives us something to chew on. I had a couple of questions that I was unsure of. So in your option A, I'm sorry, in your option A, it is predicated on the permit, including all of the inspection fees, both for the initial inspection and for renewals, as I understood it from your text. So for single family or owner occupied duplex, it would be a permit fee of $150. And my question is, is that per unit in the duplex or is that as we spoke earlier per parcel? So the intent is a duplex as long as it's owner occupied would pay $150. A duplex that is not owner occupied would pay 150 plus 15 per unit. The thinking on this one was a single family dwelling unit and an owner occupied duplex, both of them only rent one dwelling unit. And so in theory should have the same fee. But a duplex that is not owner occupied rents two dwelling units and therefore should have potentially if we're looking for fairness, a slightly higher fee. So yeah, for those owner occupies, it would be whatever number we picked. And as I said in this, I just put numbers down. I didn't do calculations as to whether it would be self-sustaining or anything like that. It's more of a, let's start the conversation and then we can get information from Rob and John about what we would need to do in terms of the numbers to get the right amount of money to hire the right number of inspectors basically. So that also then plays into, I think, your recommendation or your proposal for townhouses and apartments, those are the two to 25 units. And again, it was $150, I assume, as sort of a base cost for the complex or for the, I mean, an apartment building can go up to 24 units. So I'm guessing that you're proposing $150 per building. So an apartment building can go up to 24 units but there can be multiple buildings on a parcel. And so it is not per 150 per building. All of the other ones are based on the, right now, how many units in the regulations we are having inspectors inspect. And so the regulations as currently drafted are if you've got under 25 units, every unit is inspected. If you've got over 25 units, 25% of the units are inspected or a minimum of 25 units are inspected. So if you've got 30 units, 25 of them are inspected even if there's, you know, that's well more than 25%. And at 100 units, 25% are inspected. And so the splits here are based on basically the cost for inspect, essentially the inspection cost, that initial inspection cost because our inspectors would have to go in in a 28 unit building and inspect the exact same number of units that they'd inspected in a 99 unit parcel or that parcel that has 99 units even if it's three buildings. And so they would pay in some sense the same amount because it would be based on, in some sense, time at the parcel to complete those inspections was the thinking around those splits. So it wasn't on a per building basis, per se. It was on a, how many units are getting inspected basis? Okay, that's good to clarify that you're talking roughly 25%. Which is why number three is just a flat fee because everyone in that category basically has the same number of units inspected on that 26 to 99. So that's the permit. It also covers inspections per year, presumably. Jennifer. I'm sorry, I see it down below. I was just gonna ask about, you know, like the situation I think on your street, Pam, where the owner owns some different properties right near each other but they're technically different parcels. Not technically, they are different parcels. Yeah, yeah. That would be. It's like one parcel with three units on it but it's immediately adjacent to the homeowner. So that's getting to where you have VA one. No, they would fall under two because they're not owner occupied and they're not a duplex. No, it says, Oh, option B, sorry. Yeah, yeah. I think we also need to discuss owner adjacency because I know there are a number of folks in town that literally own the house next to them and it's pretty comparable to being owner occupied because you are right there, right there but we would have to set up some sort of definition of how far is adjacent. Okay, so in your option B, that does the permit B does not include inspection fees. So they are separate and you're suggesting that a single family or owner occupied up to six dwelling units would have a base fee of $100. And I think that is again, per parcel because it is essentially one building with six units of it. Yeah, I mean, the difference between the two is what I set forth in the comments. In the first one, the costs are saved only in the number of units there are because you're paying that every year whether or not you're getting inspected every year. You're paying that rate even if your inspection lasts five years or three years, right, even if you're not on the one. And so option B, the savings results in both the number of units that are getting inspected and how often the inspection is happening. So if you're on a five-year inspection cycle, four of those years you might only be $150 and the 50 or you might be 150 plus the 150 plus the inspection fee. So those are the, in my mind, the big differences between options A and B is do you want a fee structure that graduates solely on number of units or also on how often you are inspected too? And the comments, I can expand some of these comments that show some of those differences. Yeah, why don't you do that? I tried to pull those into a table as well just to see if I understood what you were suggesting. So I think I can only do one at a time. So option A is everything is included in the permit. The inspection is included in the permit. Yeah, so for example, option A, a triplex would pay 195 a year every year, whether they get inspected every year or every three years or every five years. Option B, I did it with a non-owner or an owner-occupied duplex, but option B that triplex would pay 305 in whatever year, 315 in whatever year they were inspected, but only 150 in the years they were not inspected. So if they're on a yearly inspection schedule that triplex, they would be 315 a year. But if they're only inspected every three years, they would be 315 one year and 150 the other two years for a total over those three years of 615, slightly more than the whatever, I had 195 a year on option A, which would be over the course of three years, 585. I think it will help to see this in a table, which we can share. It's harder because option B depends, the costs depend truly on how often the inspection happens on how much a owner would cost over three or five years. So it's hard to put it in a table. It can be done, but it would be a complicated table guessing on, are you gonna be on a one-year plan? Are you gonna be on a three-year inspection cycle? Or are you gonna be on a five-year inspection cycle? It seems like it would be on a as inspected schedule. So if you are in fact only doing it every three years, your option B single family or owner occupied would be a $100 permit every year. And then the year that you get an inspection, you would pay $150 plus $15 per unit, if I understand your math. In addition to the $100 permit fee. Yeah. Yes, that's correct. And so trying to compare what someone would pay under option B versus A gets tough because we don't know how often their inspection would be. That's what I mean. I just wanna make sure I'm following this correctly. So how frequently you're inspected has to do not necessarily with how often you're changing leases, but if you have had problem-free inspections, then you having the less often. So nobody's being penalized if their tenants change every year, but we're rewarding those who have problem-free inspections in the previous two years. We'll make sure, thanks. I would be curious to hear what Rob has if he has thoughts on structuring the fees. Thanks. My thought when I saw this is that, it's probably not gonna fund the program. One or the other fee structure, and it might be a combination of both. The graduating permit fee annually, and then a fee per inspection on top of that might be what it takes to actually make the program work. I don't know how many times I tried the option A to come up with a scenario that made sense. It's just that there's so few properties with in two, three, and four. And there's, I don't know, there's now 800 single families, I believe in the program of the 1160 that are permitted. So we got to put the work out the formula and see what the total revenue would be for the program. Thank you. I had some thoughts about another option for permitting or for the permits and fees. And it was predicated similarly to Mandy Jo's option A. It would be a permit that included all the inspection fees. And it would be so that in a sense simplifies it. But again, like Rob said, it would have to be commensurate with a lot of other factors. So it started with owner occupancy duplex or owner occupancy adjacent up to six units included in the permit. And it would be say $100 a unit. The inspection cycle would be one to five years depending on the points accrued. Any follow-up inspections would be $50 a visit for owner occupancy. Then you get into the non-owner occupancy. And again, I'll share this table. I did not get it to Athena in time, but non-owner occupancy would be one to four, like a multi-family, multi-unit house could be $250 a unit. That would be the permit. That would be the inspection fee all wrapped up. And any follow-up inspections might be a little steeper since it's non-owner occupied at say $75 a visit. Then I took the categories that are in the zoning bylaw, section three point, whatever, two, five, two, six. And I looked at townhouses, apartments, mixed-use buildings, apartment-like dorms, which is when I thought about adding it to the description. And that those would be a modest fee per unit, but it would be the equivalent of $100 a unit or $50 a unit for an apartment and that we would inspect 25% on a rotating basis. So I can share this with people. Again, it would be interesting if we're trying to classify it by building type rather than a specific number of units. And I would appreciate some feedback on that approach. Yeah, I'm thinking about what you said, Rob. And I'm wondering if, and you might not have it and that would be fine, whether you have a sense of what it costs to run the program, how much income is needed to make this work, basically? Irrespective of these fees right now, just kind of knowing a sense. Well, what I can tell you is that the program currently has one staff position. That's John's position. And we share an administrative assistant with other functions in the department to get the work done that needs to be done, which has become much more efficient with a new permitting program for us just in the past year. So it's made a really big difference. But looking forward is going to be really what we have to focus on. So what the bylaw will require for inspections will help me recommend how many staff would it take to implement that program. I mean, generally, an entry-level inspector is gonna be a cost to the town, $75,000 to $80,000 for the salary and benefit package for an entry-level position. So we really gotta narrow down what the scope of the program would be and then have to figure out how much staff is it gonna take to run it. Thank you. And does that include so, John, if you're inspecting whatever, a single-family home, are you spending what kind of time does it take to do a basic generally kind of okay dwelling unit with a few issues? And then there's always the follow-up, of course. Yeah, I was thinking of that when you were talking about $50 to go in and inspect something. I mean, you're gonna be in there for an hour. $50 isn't gonna, isn't even gonna cover the costs. And then there's gonna be a follow-up because you're gonna make a page of notes in that time. Yep. So we're shooting too long, it sounds like. Pam, could you repeat what you just said? I didn't understand it, I'm sorry. I said, so it sounds like we're shooting a little too low in some of the fees that we're proposing. Thank you. Thank you. Wanna move on? Any other conversations? Oh, the other option that I added to this table was Renata Sheppard's. And she talked about, say, pick a number but say 5% of a month's rent. So if they're charging $1,000 a month, you get a $50 annual fee, $2,000 a month. And that would be per dwelling unit, not per bedroom. It would be $100 annual fee, $3,000 a month would be 150, et cetera. So that was yet another approach that based on rent being charged. Mandy. I'd like to hear where the committee is sort of landing on all these options. And I haven't added Renata's into this one as her proposal. But because I think we need to land on sort of what we prefer before we can start thinking about costs, as Rob said, because once we know what we prefer, then we can start getting the data for X, Y and Z. And so in some sense, I like the simplicity of option B. You know, it's easy to calculate, no matter what. And it differentiates the costs for an owner based on both the size that they're renting and also how often they're inspected. At the same time, I worry that that option may bring unpredictable revenues in order to hire a predictable number of people because it's based on how often something is inspected, right? Not just the fee. And so maybe, you know, so that's where then I look at, Rob said maybe a combination of A and B where there's a permit fee that's based on a unit thing, but also an inspection fee that doesn't necessarily include the initial or renewal inspection, that inspection that's required every three years or whatever. But I'd like to hear what other people think. Thanks, Pat. Yeah, and I'm interested in what Rob and John think more than, I'd like, so I've been leaning towards the original option A but I really would like to hear from them because they have a sense of the money in a way that we don't. Jennifer and then Rob. Yeah, I'm always echoing Pat a lot, I'm sorry. But no, I was leaning, I like that. I guess you can't see my cursor. A made sense, the structure, although maybe we would have to change the dollar amounts, that single family, you know, so that residential permit fee. But so I guess that taking, you know, also into account Rob and John's input on what it costs, which I have, I can't offer anything to put there. But that structure of A seems fair to me and reasonable. And that's A, the topic. And I thought both A and B were simple enough for us to manage. You know, I didn't think either one of them were complicated in any way. And I know our permitting program can handle both of those scheduled designs. And I guess I'll stick with what I said earlier. I think, you know, at this point from what I can see, I feel like it's going to be both, you know, I think we're gonna establish a permit fee under like the concept A that tries to establish what appears to be a fair permit fee based on size of property. And then I don't know any reason why an inspection per dwelling unit would cost different from one building to another. So, you know, that flat rate for an inspection would apply equally to any property for any unit that's being inspected. And that would be maybe a place that I would want to start looking at, what does that, you know, what does that translate to for potential revenue for the program? And, you know, agree with Mandy that, you know, for us to, you know, pitch this to the town manager, we have to have a pretty solid predictable revenue stream that I think that'll be really important. Jennifer. Well, maybe this is a pipe dream that I have this idea that vision, whatever, that as we're, the town is renegotiating a strategic partnership agreement with UMass that maybe they would fund a building inspector or two. No. Like it. Yeah, I don't know how that would work. I guess we have to have something until that happens. I'd like to build on what Rob just said. So, having a consistent inspection fee, I think is per dwelling unit inspected. I think I was trying to be easier on larger complexes because, you know, there are so many units and therefore it would be very expensive. But I think having an inspection cost, whether it's a single family home or three units in a townhouse, I'm understanding now that the work is similar per dwelling unit inspected. And I like the simplicity of that and the consistency. Any other thoughts, Mandy, did that give you kind of the sense that you're, it sounds like we're not there yet, but if it's a combination of two factors, we come back to this another time and we again spend some time literally on inspections. And then. I think it makes it easier to run numbers based on A1 and potentially some of your A2PAM, where I could potentially run with permits if permits are per building instead of per parcel. You know, cause then the apartments would be, we would know they would all be up to 24 units, right? If it's a per building thing, where as mixed use would be over them. So I think it's hard to say I'm gonna, we can run numbers on 20 different options, right? And that's why I wanted to hear we can get numbers on some of these then and try and figure out what might make sense and where things would be. They also don't seem onerous even for the large buildings. It's a big enterprise. I mean, those are big enterprises. If you're going, even the $25, $15 per unit seems fair. We're not overly burdensome. But again, we may really want to look at that fee and figure out if it's cost effective. Right, right. I mean, it's, it has some room to, if it has to be increased. If we could segue just for a second, Mandy included in the packet on this particular topic the unit counts and numbers of properties that Rob provided looks like provided all of us back in January of 22. And that was unit counts, number of properties and number of units by essentially by category. And I guess that number still holds. We have a total of roughly 400, 4,379 dwelling units from the rental permit process. And I don't know if that's complete, Rob. Yeah, that is outdated information. I don't know how much you want to know about numbers of units right now, but as far as this schedule, this information goes, we're currently in the system. We have 1,166 permits. And that will cover 4,972 units. And I know Pam, you in particular asked for some information about assessor's data. I think with the idea that, maybe we're not capturing all the properties that should be in the program. And I have information about that, but I don't know if this is the right time to get into it. But so I'll let you guide that. Could you, pardon me, but could we go back to, you said 1,166 permits now in the system and that covers how many properties? You gave a number, it's like 11. Well, that's 1,166 properties. Okay. That's how many permits we have. 4,972 units. That's right. Thank you. And if for whatever reason, if it's of interest, we also collect bedroom count now in our latest renewal and of those units, 10,273 bedrooms were reported in the application process. Rob, it would be very helpful if we could get the new numbers. Cause I know this is the last, the prior permit year and you've got a new permit year so that we can start running numbers on those options again. Yes, and Mandy, I have the breakdown in a similar way. So I can give it to you the same way and unless you need it, unless we end up changing the breakdown of the unit types. Rob, since we're on the topic, I would appreciate delving a little bit more. It says data on types of units and Amherst, both rental and owner occupied. Some of the categories are two apartments, 801 estimated dwelling units. What do you mean by two apartments? Somebody owns two apartment buildings. The next category is three or four apartments. Is this by owner? I don't understand. I think these are dwelling units. So two dwelling units would be a duplex and three or four dwelling units. So we have one detached that would be a single family home. One attached sounds like it would be an accessory dwelling unit plus a single family home, is that right? I forget where I pulled this data. This might be from DHCD. I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure what this is exactly. You gave it to me. Sorry. The assessors and when you're looking at property cards, they have a number of different ways of classifying the properties differently from zoning, differently from what we're looking at. And depending on over the years, they were called different things. You could find an apartment building in one property card and the same type of building is called multi dwellings on another property card. There's two family duplex. There's just a lot of different combinations. What I did want to tell you is that we have a new assessor who is extremely helpful and interested in improving the data we have and we're working with them to do that. So we've pulled numbers like this out of the assessors records with the help of IT to get every property that looks like it may possibly be subject to the program. As a place to start. And then we started eliminating them or getting them through the program. And that's an effort we're now, I don't know, six or eight weeks into. But just to give you an idea of what it translates to numbers is that there were about 550 properties that we flagged. And it could have been for a number of different reasons, I guess. One criteria we looked at is that they permitted it in a prior year but didn't permit with us now. So we wanted to get all those just to look at those and check on them. We looked at properties that have a different mailing address for the owner than the actual site address. And then we looked at anything that was more than was two or more units that had any indication of not being owner occupied by the notes that the assessors put on the cards. And again, they're not entirely reliable but it's an indicator. So we've now since we've taken that 550 and we've narrowed it down to about 370 properties. 60 or 70 of them have been permitted, which might be why you see that number at 1166 differently than the 1070 from last year. Probably is where that's coming from. And we've done first round mailings to all of these properties to the owners that tell them, depending on which category they fall into, we either think you're subject to the program or could you kindly call us and tell us about your property so we can talk about this? And that's what's happening right now. And you can imagine every possible scenario of multi-generational living and brothers and families and kids and back from school and all kinds of things in laws. And we're working through all that in the way that we did back in 2013 when we started this program. It was much more labor involved at that time with the help of IT, we've been able to move into getting getting some counts pretty quickly here. So we're hoping that we're gonna work through those 370 properties. It seems like every day, some come off the list and some get permitted. That's what's happening right now in the office. So we're gonna continue to work on that and hope that we'll be able to report that we're really confident in the number of permits as being accurate here. And then what we always did and we'll continue to do is monitor the transfers. John will look at the transfers monthly. We have Steve McCarthy in the office looking at them now as well. And whether it's a letter or phone call or whatever's appropriate to follow up when we see something change owners and not appear to be owner occupied. So that's just a little bit about what we're working on and the information that we started gathering prompted by your question, Pam, I don't know a couple of months ago at least now. Well, I would express my gratitude to you and the staff that have spent time on this because it's a, I worked with space data at the university and like you really have to, you just have to get into the weeds to figure out if it something qualifies or doesn't qualify or I just really appreciate the effort in sorting through this. Cause I think it will give us an ongoing looking forward. It will give us just a really good basis for trying to implement a strong program. So thank you, everybody. Thank you. That was involved. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for the update. Making sure people have permits is that important. Yeah, exactly. As we heard from the forum, there were concerns about quality of life and safety in some of the apartments or some of the units and we're on it, which is great. I think that we kind of covered this base. Let's see. Any other discussion items that we want to cover today or at least put on the agenda for another time. Besides coming back to actual fee structure again and inspection schedule. I don't see any hand. I think I will offer a very quick public comment, Renata, if you have any additional thoughts that were generated by this conversation, be happy to hear it. Raise your hand if you feel like adding any. Two cents. I can't tell. It doesn't look like your hand is up. So let's keep going. Minutes, we have a minor modification of the minutes from September 29. I think there was a time change from 430 to 435 at the start of the public hearing. Would anyone like to make a motion to accept those? I would move. I don't have them right in front of me to get the date, but I would move to accept the motions. I would accept the minutes. Let me, let me put them up. As amended. Yes. Any second? Second, DeAngelo's. Right. Take a vote. Pat. Aye. Mandy, Joe. Aye. Jennifer. Aye. Pam. Aye. So the meeting in September 29, approved as amended, and we'll get those back in the packet when they're done. Mandy, we'll hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to talk about the announcements. When I made this agenda, I thought we would be putting the public hearings on the food and drink establishments on the 27th of October. We will not. They will be at our November 3rd meeting because I found out that the planning board is not opening their hearing until November 2nd. So we will open ours the day after they do theirs. So I just wanted to, the next agenda, well, I'm not sure what agendas have been posted, but the October 27th agenda will obviously be fixed, but I just wanted to make that announcement so that people knew that that date is wrong for food and drink establishments. It will be November 3rd at 430 for the food and drink establishment hearings for CRC. Great, thank you. And the other announcement that Mandy put in me in the meeting agenda is the October 24th, which is a Monday evening. Again, if they follow up rental permitting forum, to hear back from folks on more of this basic text that we've been hashing through, not just specific topics, but really sort of the just of the text that we're discussing now. Mandy, can you remind me or remind listeners when the renters rights forum is going to be held? Yes, there is a know your rights forum being or webinar being sponsored by the SGA at UMass, the student legal services office at UMass, the off-campus student life office, and I am also attending it. It is on October 20th at 6 p.m. I will be working tomorrow to get some of those announcements onto the town community calendar and forwarding the flyer that I just got today, to counselors to do it, but it is geared towards informing tenants about state laws, state regulations, and also the rental permitting, our current rental permitting laws and regulations, not what we've been working on. So it's not for feedback on that, it's to let people know what they should be receiving, who they report to, who they can make complaints to and all of that. So it's the 20th at 6 p.m. And can you remind people where that's going to be held? It's on Zoom. Okay. Yeah, and so the flyer will have a QR code to register for it. Thank you. I think John and Rob might have some questions about it. John has a question. Yeah, I missed some of the planning. There were some planning meetings about that and then it seemed like there were a lot of planning meetings and I got overwhelmed and didn't get to any of them. Am I playing a role there? Did you know of? I have asked Paul to ask you guys, you and Rob, if you guys could attend if you wanted to. I am planning on doing the presentation on the rental registration by law, but I know SGA and off-campus student life and the SLSO would love to have you there to answer any questions. There is intended to be at least a 20 minute question and answer session. Okay. But I have gone through Paul, he was supposed to ask you guys if you could show. And I don't know whether he got that back to you or not. I'll put it in my calendar and wait for his request. And I will ping him again. We did get asked. If we want, I think we got asked if we wanted to attend. But, and we're happy to attend. What I was going to mention is that if I could get the notices for both the 20th and the 24th, we're happy to distribute it to our email contacts through the program, six or 700 contacts. I think last time we sent it out really last minute and we got some responses to that. So if we could get it out sooner, if we have the information that would be, we can get it out relatively quickly once we have it. On my list to 10, send you emails tomorrow for those requests. Thanks. That's excellent. That's terrific. Anything added to the next agenda preview, which I guess our next agenda is actually the 24th. I did not print out the 27th, but I think it's just, looks pretty straightforward. Virtual meeting with community forum on residential rental bylaw. And it'll be a continuation of people providing feedback on a series of topics. And we haven't, I'm not sure if we've talked about what topics and what order, but the previous one was structured pretty nicely to sort of check through the list of considerations that we're talking about bylaw. John, do you wanna add something to that or do you just have your hand up? Thanks. Mandy. Did you want me to say something about that? Do you have any, have you already drafted a list of topics that is going to be presented at the 24th? I have not. But when I do next week, or maybe this weekend, because I have to prep for the working session at the council, they'll probably be similarly structured. I'll try to send it out to you guys, definitely before the community forum, hopefully before the Monday working session for you for any feedback on if I missed anything. The both have already the report that has a comparison table in it. So this, the report I wrote regarding the work for the working session and the community forum is already in both packets. So I'd encourage you to look at that because I'll probably go through that, find where the biggest changes are and pick the topics based on the biggest changes and the biggest ads or subtractions and all. Great, thank you. And thank you for all your background work, even though you were even planning to be here tonight. Also, I wanna thank you, Pam, for doing a really nice job sharing the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And hope you both feel better. I'm hacking. So let's see. Items not anticipated by the chair within 48 hours. Nothing. I was gonna ask Athena or Athena and Mandy with the table that I did try to craft together. I would like to send it out, but I didn't know if that needed to be, can I send it directly to all members of the committee or must it be in a packet? Athena, you can post it and once you do, I'll put it on SharePoint. She's nodding, I'm sure. She'll send me an email once she's posted it and then I'll put it in the SharePoint packet for this meeting. I'm doing it right now, yeah. Great, thank you. So I think we are ready to adjourn. I will adjourn the meeting at 621 p.m. Thank you for everybody's time. And thank you, Rob and John, thanks. Thank you too very much. And thank you, Athena. Bye. See you at the next meeting, bye-bye.