 reading through things. All right, we're recording. Thank you. And we're just going to check the participants to see if we have to bring anyone in from there. There's Dave and no ones in the attendees yet. So we're going to go and get started for now, because I have five minutes of stuff to do, right? So seeing a presence of a quorum of the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council, I'm calling this June 9, 2022 meeting, regular meeting to order at 4.30 p.m., pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021 and extended by Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. At this time, I'm going to read the names of the attendees of members of CRC to make sure that we can hear them and they can hear us. So I'm going to start with Pat. Present. And Mandy is present. Pam. Present. And Jennifer. Present. I expect Shalini to show up momentarily and we'll watch. There she is. We'll wait till she has her audio set to make sure she can hear us. Shalini, are you present? Yes. There we go. So we've got all five members. We've got John Thompson from the Inspection Services and Dave Zomek is here too. So we're going to get started because I have a feeling there are CRC members that want to attend something that begins at 6.30 tonight. So we got to end on time. But with that, we don't have any public hearings. We have two action items. One's more of a discussion. Two types of action items with one more of a discussion. And then we'll briefly update on ZBA appointments. But we're going to start with the review of the draft language on what we discussed one meeting ago. The way we have been doing this with residential rental bylaw is have a discussion is what we want to see in the bylaw in certain sections and then see the language later to draft the language based on the discussion we had. So then the next meeting, we review the language. So we're going to start reviewing the language on application process, fee authority, regulations, transfer of license and renewal of license. We're going to spend about a half an hour on that. Then we're going to move to the discussion of inspections and other requirements to obtain a license and talk about that. We're not going to probably finish that discussion today. In the work plan, we had two meetings set forward for discussion before we would even see the bylaw language or the draft language based on that discussion. I suspect we will need those two meetings before we can really dig into actual language that reflects what we want the bylaw to achieve with respect to those sections. So don't expect to finish the discussion today is what I'm basically saying. And then we will move on to discussion items of residential rental bylaw outreach. We'll do that for about a half an hour after about 45 minutes of discussion of the inspections and other requirements. And then we'll do the updates on ZBA. I'm not sure there are any general public comment minutes and the adjourning of the meeting. So that's the schedule plan. We're going to move right into the review of the draft bylaw language. I am going to say I see Rob has joined us and Stephanie has joined us. Welcome Rob and Stephanie and Chris. I think I've got everyone that has joined us. And so I'm going to share my screen so that we can all see the draft bylaw language so that we know what we're talking about and discussing in each sort of section. And what I tried to do was highlight in blue the new stuff so that you don't have to compare to the old one. And I'll keep doing that the next time we see it what's in blue this time will be in black and new stuff will be in blue. I want to start with the definitions and then we'll go into we'll sort of work in groups the way down. Are there any concerns about the two definitions that were added to the bylaw for this round of revisions the person in charge definition and the student rental definition. And I'll try to monitor all the raised hands. And this is staff and committee members. Everyone feel free to just raise your hand if you've got something to say. So Jennifer. Yeah, this is kind of a question. So although I think I just as I read it again can answer it. So it says except where the person in charge is also the property owner the person charged to be responsible adult 25 years of age or older. So there's there have been houses there's right now one or two on sunset where let's say the parents bought the house and their son is living there. I don't know if he's on listed as an owner but he might anyway he's considered there's more than four students there because he's it's considered owner occupied. So I guess I would ask John and Rob. Is that that's just a way around it. Even though the person's under 25. John. So we've had a few of these in town where folks figure that that's a way around it but unless the you know son's name is on the deed or on the mortgage as the owner of the property. That's that's how we look at it. So it's it's it needs to still be registered as a rental and regardless if I think I know the house you're talking about he can if he's the owner he can still only rent three rooms you know so we already have some language about that. Does that answer your question Jennifer. It does so I'm actually oh okay because I thought if it was owner occupied then the limit of four didn't so that's good to know. Thank you. Okay any other thoughts on the definition as drafted for person in charge or student rental and I will point out given Jennifer's question the student rental definition I tried to draft to so that it would include a prior one we've seen was only like one and two families or one two and three family units or something so this one includes everyone but then I tried to include there were some that talked about owners families being in and whether that's a student rental or not so I tried to put that clarification into this which is the last sentence I think where student rentals would include property where the owner or owners family members are occupants if they are unrelated to occupants in the dwelling unit. So I tried to so the way I crafted that was an intent to say if I'm if my daughter when she goes to college goes to UMass and lives in my single family unit I don't qualify as a student rental because she's as long as we don't rent to someone else we don't rent a room out to someone else it's not a student rental it's not a student home because just because she's in school but if we were to rent to someone it would count as a student rental if we were to rent that room because we have one person who happens to be a student I think that's how that definition reads now even if who we rented to was not a student because our family members so I don't know whether we've quote captured in that definition everything we're wanting to and excluded everything we would want to from that definition but I attempted to do that and I did do undergraduate only Jennifer yeah so I actually if you're living there I don't think anyone has any issue with that let's put this way the problems that are associated with the absentee owned student rentals it's the absentee own that's the issue so that you're living there does make it a different animal I think so maybe instead of including owners the it be the owner's family members that are occupants if there are unrelated occupants in the dwelling units because that would then if we don't that would then if we get rid of the sentence it might not capture the incendance you just referenced but right right we keep the sentence but get rid of the owners of the owners so it just includes owners family members I think it still would right Pam yeah you're muted Pam I was gonna say let's apply that to the the example that Jennifer just gave so if a given John statement that if the son's name is on the deed he then in fact is an owner and if he rents to one two three other persons that are students he qualifies as a student rental right under what's written now but if his name wasn't on the deed if we deleted these words and his name was on the deed it wouldn't be a student rental where the owner's family members are occupied because if his if his name was on the deed and we deleted the owners right because but if we kept owners that would qualify but what would also qualify is the situation that that I just described of if I'm living in the house my daughter's at UMass she's living in the house and we've got two extra rooms and we want to rent that to someone um under this definition that would be a student rental Jennifer so I I just have to it's up to the you know committee but I would say that no that there are the problems that are associated with absentee owned student rentals I wouldn't it's not an issue with the owner if you're living there so I would say let's be less stringent we and we want to encourage owner occupants not the 18 year old son I don't know but but you renting to students great John thoughts yeah so we have several of these um which I which I think is what we're talking about here where um you know they set up an LLC they make the 21 year old son an officer of the LLC so on paper he owns the house he's a student at UMass and he has his buddies who are also students at UMass live in there and they're paying money that's the student rental so you would say owner on there but yeah okay okay Jennifer yeah I mean I agree if we have is that that's what we have to do then that's what we have to do but I would say you know certainly the situation where you're living there right it's going to be fine no one's ever going to come to your house and play or whatever but okay thank you sounds like we can move on to the next blue section for now um which is the biggest part the application and permitting section and I think um I don't think I can put it all on one page um so um we'll start with one A and B Pam hold on uh John still has his hand up but I was wondering if you could scroll that bigger I I'm lucky because I have it on another monitor but this is hard to read yeah yeah yeah better great so any thoughts or uh or comments on what's on the screen I know there's section C the address of the residential property this is just portions of what the application would have to include um but for these two sections um owners and then person in charge the person in charge is where I put the contact you know sort of the hour responses to highlight some things a voicemail to the town in one hour a voicemail to tenants in three hours and of an email within 48 hours that's either from the tenant or the town I know John you had said something like you'd love it to be 20 minutes or so but um I was concerned when I started reading that so I'd love to hear from John and Rob about the hour from the town you know at two o'clock in the morning time is of the essence I mean the question is is something under an hour reasonable to require in a bylaw I guess is the thoughts Michelle welcome Michelle and Michelle I'm actually on screen this time um what is the penalty so if I guess how do we enforce that and if it's over the 20 minutes or whatever it is that we decide what actually ends up happening as a result who's tracking that how does that so in theory we haven't gotten to the violation section but we would probably deem that a violation of the bylaw which could then be issued a fine okay we just haven't gotten there yet Chris so this essentially means that someone has to keep their phone by their bedside and you know if the phone rings at two o'clock in the morning they either look at the phone and turn over for 20 minutes or or they answer the phone and they respond within an hour so that's kind of what this means right they are responsible for being on call 24 hours a day right yeah okay are the town officials comfortable with that Jennifer um I guess I would ask John you know if what condition is the house if there's you know there's an emergency at two in the morning where the students can't go back in the house because the house is unsafe so I would say maybe if somebody's keeping their house in that condition they they should be able to be pinged at two in the morning and respond uh yeah fire um you know burst pipe um there's um it's often a small fire they can't go back in the house and now they need to be rehoused and you kind of need to get to that are people comfortable with an hour would they like it less more shall any yeah what are the norms for this like what would do other towns do um so what I saw I'm hearing it weird to me what I saw um was three hours which is why I moved the voicemail to three hours from a tenant um three hours was what was in the um the the samples we saw that had this requirement so um so it's why I went to one but not for the tenants um because I could totally see tenants abusing it too Pam um I I think I would be comfortable with leaving it as you have it here with um I want them I mean if the town is calling them for any reason it's an important issue it's not trivial if if it is the tenant and it is in fact in the middle of the night um I hope the tenants actually have the number for the owner and or the property manager and they darn well better do that within three hours I I think I'd like to leave it like this or suggest we leave it like this and then we probably can get some pretty good feedback during a public public conversation on this okay shall any just a quick question when call comes from the town does it say it's a town of Amherst or does it just show like a number because how it sometimes I just don't pick up calls and if it's in the middle of the night if it doesn't say town of Amherst John John it's gonna come from my cell phone so unless there's a way for the concerned people to know that this is an important call um Michelle and then Chris I'm wondering about texting I know that might seem a little edgy but I mean even doctors offices are texting nowadays um so I'm just wondering John from your perspective do is texting a practice that you have now uh with landlords or tenants and is it something that we should consider as at least an alternate means of being in touch which also gives like a written sort of um record John doing it so we could put in voicemail or text at all times something like this and I did see um Athena that Steve Roof is in the audience if you could move him into panelist that would be great um so we'll leave that for now we're going to move on so that we can get through a lot of stuff we'll obviously see these multiple times see defghij is the rest of the stuff that would be required in an application um this is I know I think Steve and Stephanie wanted to talk about I um which is where I did my best to balance ECAC's request for a lot of information required in the application and what Rob and John said maybe we can keep the bylaw a little more um fluid and flexible so I'm looking forward to hearing from Stephanie and and Steve about whether that might have been accomplished or not so any thoughts on the rest of what's required in the application and the language is written here um Steve yes hi um thank you for considering that and I think as far as the bylaw goes I like what you have there under I um that gives some discretion to change that um as per the principal code official um some of that information we wouldn't need to collect every year um some of it on the list that I provided you all um would be useful every year but I think this gives enough flexibility so I'm happy with that level of language there excellent thank you for that I'm gonna scroll down to the application process renewal and transfer of permits so this is just the basic language on renewing when they have to be submitted by what you have to do to transfer if there's a new owner and the process to apply any thoughts requests for changes or concerns about the language here seeing none we're going to move on hold on hold on take the hand up um to to notify what's the lesson new owner designated is required to promptly notify the new town of the town of changes in ownership and submit for review and approval any proposed changes in the provision of the permit um does the permit automatically transfer to that new owner I would like it probably not to I would like that that new owner to have to go through a hoop to be essentially made credible in you know name and contact information all of that does this does that allow for that so this is I'm not sure this is an automatic transfer but it's not it's not a reapplication this transfer at least the way it's written and the way I interpret it is is not a new application but it's not an automatic transfer um they have to submit it you know they have to notify the town within 15 days and submit proposed changes which would be all the changes to the application right all that information changes within 15 days you know and so as long as they do that in theory you know depending on what other requirements we have for the permit right we haven't gotten to the rest of the stuff there might be other things um that would all need done in 15 days and it says review and approval presumably that that word would mean that if if those changes do no longer comply with the permit requirement you know the bylaw requirements um the issuance could be denied or non-renewed you know we haven't gotten to those sections right but that that has that language so that it's not automatic yeah good because I don't I don't want so we'll move on because I wanted to actually talk about some of these um so fees the blue is we don't know what fees we're charging yet are allowing in the bylaw so we'll fix that as we get through um so I I want you to ignore what's referenced in fees but I wanted us to confirm that we wanted the council to be able to determine the fees or do we want that under the building and commissioner or someone else I don't know where Rob would like the fees but you know is is the council the appropriate location for that obviously that's where the bylaw is now um do we want to maintain it there or would Rob and John prefer to have it and Chris prefer to have it somewhere else Rob certainly fine with it being with the council but you know it could also be with the board of license commissioners uh or you know that I don't think it would be staff but you know or my office would be there the the council the board of license commissioners or the town manager CRC member thoughts on those options Pat yeah yeah I'd like to see it with the building inspector um or the board of license uh commissioners I mean it seems appropriate there I don't think the council needs to weigh in on this thank you Pam well I was thinking about the the fees that we just talked about for parking and it does feel a little bit like it does feel like the responsibility of the council to kind of set a target for it that you know perhaps we could we could write into it that um you know it could be adjusted you know within 10% or something every year that's that's really awkward perhaps and and clunky but um I don't remember what what other fees does board of licenses actually collect and manage Rob can answer that best I believe yeah they're responsible for all the alcohol licensing um there's a a list of various license types like um car dealerships and vending machines and coin operated machines and common vicular licenses so there's a you know there's a dozen or 15 different application types um and if we had you know for we're actually thinking of proposing a fee schedule change that we'll be taking them so it's not something that they would be unfamiliar with you know if it you know if it was decided that it would stay with them are those are things like that um established at all at a state level where you know you I mean I have no idea what they charge for a you know car sales license or something like that it not at all it's it's it varies widely and you know like I think we do like with every fee that we have we look at other comparable communities just to get an idea and use that for you know justification for making a proposal but um there isn't a standard fee and it it can be very different from community community for all those types of permits thank you just to finish up on on my thoughts on that then um so at least through the CRC and with the council it makes sense to um establish the different categories of of rental permits and we've talked a little bit about how we want fees to be equitable you know perhaps based on the number of units and or the number bedrooms as opposed to uh one property um or an owner occupied or owner adjacent kind of property so I think maybe once once we once we establish those categories yeah it may be clearer who needs to manage them thank you Jennifer and then Shalini let Shalini go first she hasn't spoken yet Shalini um yeah I think I uh agree with what Pam was proposing that since we are coming up with a certain logic and listening to all the different sides of this issue and creating like a logic for what the fees will look like it makes sense for us to start and then after that maybe the board of licensing whatever because I think it also safeguards the staff like I remember with the parking there's a lot of like the staff has to face the anger of or the wrath of the residents who have to pay the fees so it takes away that burden maybe if the staff is not the one implementing it and and uh coming up with it but and it's like they can then just say oh it's the town council it's the board of license see whatever that term is um so I think it's better for the staff if they don't do it but I may be wrong I'm comfortable like the way though thanks Jennifer yeah you want to ask if the board of license sets a fee it doesn't then come to the council that's that's final right so um yeah I mean I in um one way it would be kind of nice getting it off of us but I don't so what I'm just thinking is and I'm not advocating for one over the other but when we set change the fee just for this coming fiscal year I receive so many emails from people that were disgruntled about it you know um and it would in a way you know like I'd kind of like say what's up to the board of licensures but I feel like I don't know if well maybe like Pam and Shawnee just said if we set some parameters because I feel like they will if there are questions about it they will definitely be telling their council representatives about it so I feel like it's maybe so I don't know I just want to put that out there I don't know that I feel where I'd like to say oh go bring your you know gripes or whatever to the board of license I feel like it's maybe that wouldn't be very satisfying to them that maybe is our responsibility it sounds like we'll need a fuller discussion we might want to send this to TSO also for discussion for their thoughts on who should set the fee um and also I'll mark it for discussion for future public forums and all so that we can hear as a specific discussion item for those those um those forums and those avenues um thank you that would that's a good idea just so we can you know it sounds like the language other than the choice is fine so we can mark that as future discussion uh Dave yeah I was just gonna go back I I think I support if I heard Rob right I and I've been listening to the conversation I really I favor this sitting with the board of license commissioners I think I think there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons to do that I think they're and correct me if I'm wrong Rob but they're they're very in touch with the business community they they have a lot of interaction with with restaurants with people you know doing business so they're they're they're they're very in touch with what's going on in town and and I think uh going back to something Jennifer said a minute ago about the number of comments you had I mean I just don't know if the town council you know has the bandwidth to kind of get into this level you know of of detail every time again I don't want to be presumptuous there but you got a lot of feedback when when those fees came through so I don't know I just think uh they're they're a group that is working very well they're structured very well and they as Rob said they they they deal with a lot of different fees so I don't know I again that's just my two cents I like that idea thank you Dave Michelle and then Rob Rob okay do you want to go first Rob okay it doesn't matter just quickly I was just going to say it's not really uh unlike the zoning board or planning board you know I think it would function the same way that staff generally would make a recommendation on a fee fee scheduled change take it to the board or committee and have them review and adopt it and and you know I initially suggested board of licensed commissioners because I see you know we'll get to it later in the document that if they are truly going to be responsible for rules and regulations I just thought that you know made sense to have it all together thank you Rob Michelle I I do see it both ways and I'm wondering if it's possible for the board of licensures to be the body that sort of gets into the weeds of reviewing it and determining but could it then come to the council or is that is that out of practice to do that could it come to the council for sort of a final approval so so in theory yes there's a couple of bylaws that the bylaw sets the permit fee or the license fee so right now in theory to change it the council would have to change it through a bylaw change I in my context with the board of licensed commissioners I've received requests to remove that from the bylaws and just put in the bylaws the authority for the board to set those fees because when they're in when the fee itself like not the fact of a fee but the actual amount is in a bylaw it never gets changed because you have to go through a bylaw change but that's that's that's how those work right now is unless the council's going to bring it up that request for that change would come from the board who's handing out those licenses and say hey we really need to change this and then it would come to the council but it would be through a bylaw change I'm not sure it's the most efficient or the most logical which is why I think the BLC has requested in various times for us to change that through me and I've got some drafts out there and working on timelines for that that I have to touch base with them on but yeah so it's always possible but is it logical and efficient Pam and then we're going to move on to the next sections yeah I would so as as this all gets handed off obviously we'll have public hearings um I would like I would like CRC and with the persistence of the town staff here to help us target a at least a base fee structure so that we can give board a license to a target and get them rolling I would I would like to I'd like to have a say in that because I think this is this is a pretty big step and it really does need to get supported by the council and you know just just to kick it off and get it going yep sounds good um we're going to move on to the next ones which are just I think just i and j which is the regulations and then the disclosure notification um we didn't actually talk about disclosure notification we've mentioned it so I thought I'd put something in here but the regulations as as Rob alluded to um this is sort of a catchall if there's needed regulations um I have this draft says that the principal code official would develop them and once they're developed they can be amended with the approval of the board of licensed commissioners it's not the greatest wording because it doesn't say who adopts them initially it's almost like Rob can adopt them initially but if he ever wants to change them the board has to allow him to change it um so it might need some working but I thought I that's the proposal that is in here is that they're they either sit with the board fully you know or partially or they sit with Rob I didn't know where Rob stood on the the thoughts on this and then the disclosure notification is the attempt to um similar to like the right to farm notifications to have any property sale in town uh the purchaser of any we could probably do this with residential property whether or not they are permitted right now as rentals or not receive this notification that says hey if you're planning on renting it know that we have this bylaw um so that's the attempt to do in jay of what to do so thoughts on regulations and disclosure notifications I'm sure Rob has some but others anyone Jennifer just I like it I think that's that's very efficient let everyone know whether it applies to them or not Pam I was unmuted um yeah it could could Rob or John or whoever um give a couple examples of regulations so when we have a bylaw like this um break it down for me as far as put some examples of regulations might be Robert John so um you know the regulations could they're depending on what's in the bylaw and what's not in the bylaw could include a lot of different things uh you know the operation of the board of license commissioners and their roles through any appeal process uh could be an example uh we could get into very specific um inspection procedures you know what what types of buildings receive what types of inspections uh and and what durations uh so there could be um what are the kind of the protocols for follow-up or repeat inspections or regular routine um monitoring our properties um so I you know and there's probably a lot of other things that we could think of but I think it all depend on what actually lands inside the in the bylaw and and what's missing uh to kind of fill in the gaps for the day-to-day work um so my my comment about the regulations though would be that um I think it would be fine if it just said that the rules the regulations may be adopted and amended by the board of license commissioners I don't I don't think it needs to um say developed by the principal code official and and again it's only because I think in our our normal practice that's how it would work we you know staff would absolutely be involved in working on this and making recommendations uh to the board or committee that we're supporting and I think it works nicely to have that done at the board level you know whether they're taking it on their own which the board of license commissioners uh has done already you know I think Mandy knows they you know they were working on amendments to the to the current regulation on their own uh some of that you know I brought forward but some of it I didn't so I think it's good to have that option and you know we'll always uh you know have a good line of communication with the license commissioners to bring them our ideas and and try to gain their support for things we'd like to see uh amended in the bylaw or in the regulations yeah right there we go just limited to regulation yeah I was like oh we don't want to because we don't know but regulations are in this bylaw so so that that would be the new wording and and I wanted to say one more thing when Pam had the question and then we're going to move on to that that conversation regarding inspections and everything is the other thing that I can truly foresee regulations which while the board might have to adopt the ECAC might want to be truly involved in is stuff related to if we're going to potentially require the that the rental meet certain home efficiency standards under whatever program I know there were a lot of documents in the in the packet today about potential programs the regulations about which program gets used what score they need and all of that that would be part of the regulations in my visioning instead of in the bylaw itself where the bylaw itself might just say they have to have past x efficiency standard under the regulations adopted pursuant to this bylaw or something like that so that those can be changed more easily than a bylaw michelle and then we're going to go on to that inspections and other requirements discussion I'm touching on the disclosure disclosure notification is that there okay the current language feels like there's a likely risk that this would not that this disclosure happening through the property owner might not happen and I'm just wondering what we can do to include real estate agents or realty you know companies into this at least through some sort of education or letting them making them aware that we require this or there's a fine for violations because I can see how this could potentially get missed this is going to be a pretty a pretty hefty bylaw I think in the end and there's going to be a lot to it so I do have concerns about that okay john yeah I am also interested in how this gets disseminated you know when I first started doing this work I made it a point to go to each of the real estate companies and put on a little presentation and maybe that's a way that this happens again they have monthly meetings with all of their realtors and then you know the information gets out that way but I wanted to thank you for putting this in here it's absolutely critical I'm finding so many properties changing hands now and you know the new owners really don't have a clue thank you okay so we're going to move on from this this is obviously not the last discussion of this one and we're going to move on to the next item on the agenda which is discussion of inspections and other requirements to obtain a license and there are you know in the current bylaw there's sort of two requirements from what I can see there's sort of the self-inspection and then there's stuff relating to parking Stephanie and Steve are here because I believe they want us to add some sort of energy efficiency inspection or requirement into those requirements to obtain a license and so we can I think I want to start with what Steve and Stephanie and ECIC would like because they're here now and therefore we might they might not have to attend the next meeting if we get their discussion over with them to save them some time before we truly get into because you know that involves sort of everyone here and because it's a subset of other inspections but John you still have your hand up do you have a question oh okay but we can also talk about inspections in general because they kind of overlap and so you know and all and then any other requirements we'd like to see to obtain a license and like I said this will be not the only discussion regarding this I expect this to happen in two weeks too to continue this discussion in two weeks so I'm just going to start with Steve or Stephanie because Steve you provided I want to say thank you to ECIC the information provided by ECIC I found extremely helpful I hope the rest of the committee members did too to help us understand where you're getting this push who's done it before I now know I can go to Boulder and look for some language which is very helpful and I will be doing but but gave us some background as to how it could actually be incorporated into a permitting bylaw because I know that's one thing I was struggling with as to how that works so do you want to talk a little bit about what what you think what ECIC would like in terms of to see in terms of a requirement to obtain a permit to rent or I can address that and if Stephanie has more I hope she can jump in as well we have been working on this for a little over a year researching your different opportunities and we've had some assistance from the Rocky Mountain Institute or now they refer to themselves as RMI they've provided us with a coach who's helped us with some research and they've also offered to do some research on the Amherst housing stock and we have some data but not as much as we would like in terms of the the styles of how the rental housing and Amherst but in general what we want to do is to because we know we need to improve the energy efficiency of all buildings in town and rental properties in particular have the problem of the split incentive where the owners don't have the incentive to increase energy efficiency when the tenants pay the utility bills so we would like to find ways to incentivize those owners to do that to get some energy assessments and they there's a variety of those and some of those could be the free mask save inspections that provide some indication of energy efficiency and then also provide the incentives and then they're more in-depth incentive or inspections that can be used we've done some research on the different types of inspections that can be used some of them are checklists most of them evaluate the building and not the actual energy use so it doesn't it's not influenced by the tenants behavior nor does it infringe on privacy some some folks consider their energy use sort of something they don't want me public so most of these look at the building the the amount of insulation in the walls the ceilings the types of windows the type of construction and then the efficiency of the heating units and any air conditioning units in them so that's often a checklist that go through some of these are provided by the department of energy energy.gov they're free to use but you would have to have some they're qualified inspectors that are able to go through and do these that's one way of raising awareness and then providing some incentives either incentives pure incentives the carrot approach or perhaps some other requirements that as a condition of having a privilege of renting there has to be a level of minimum energy standard and then raising awareness of some of the specific programs that are available for building owners to improve that energy efficiency and that the mass save program for some there's also the pace program that the town has adopted that are would work for some of the larger buildings so we have not gotten to the point where we could recommend a specific energy efficiency rating system and that's going to take some more discussion I think with town inspectors and others to kind of we go through those and decide which might be best but I'm glad we've had this chance to raise the idea the concept of what we're trying to do and get feedback from everybody here as to how we might achieve that to help improve the energy efficiency and the comfort and life living conditions for renters and reduce the energy burdens that that's a key thing I meant to mention we want building owners to increase the energy efficiency but we don't want them to raise the rents and cause problems to the tenant so we've got to find the right balance there some some communities that have adopted these have limited the amount that building owners would have to upgrade or the amount they would spend to upgrade so let me let me pause there see if anybody has questions or if Stephanie wants to chime in with more Stephanie do you have anything to add before questions Stephanie you got your hand up and you're still muted sorry yeah sorry about that um so I there's not a whole lot I can really add to what Steve said I think he covered it pretty comprehensively but I mean I think it's an opportunity for the ECAC to to sort of help look into that and to create some kind of a recommended model for the town I mean I think that would be a good use of of them as a body and as an unknowledgeable body I think you know there are other communities as well as Boulder Colorado there's also Burlington Vermont that you could look at look to as well to see how they've done this but I know that there's also an effort in the state and I'm part of another effort that's looking at creating some kind of building disclosure bylaw that's separate from the one that I've been involved in with RMI that also includes Massachusetts communities so you know I think that the state is even moving in this direction so by the time we sort of get this all pulled together there might even be some guidance from the state level so I would just say you know ECAC can serve as a body to help create a model for you um and they could sort of do some of that legwork I guess that's just the recommendation I would make because it's so broad and open as to how we could go. Thank you Stephanie I'm gonna start before Pam um one of my questions is I I was quite impressed by the as I already said by the information sent it sounds fantastic it gave me an idea of how to put this into a bylaw and one of the ways I was thinking could be incorporated into a bylaw was through sort of saying um they have to pass whatever energy efficiency but don't create you know I'm not sure what the wording would be but say you know just like we might say you have to pass an inspection by the building you know by the principal code of enforce for our officer or whatever we might say you also have to prove the adequate level of energy efficiency those regulations could be passed by the board of license commissioners but ECA under the regulation thing we just saw but ECAC would basically create those or work with the board to have them the board would then adopt them that would then be more modifiable and more quickly so that they're not necessarily I always feel like regulations are more flexible um and easier to change than a bylaw and it would provide that flexibility if we went that way um and so my question in thinking about as we get to language would be how to provide the right level of flexibility but also guidance within the bylaw itself so things like should we in a bylaw require that be passed every year or every two years or every three years this is going to be the same with inspections type thing um and so some guidance about what would be what should be in the bylaw as as that language starts getting drafted would really help me um as well as if the rest of this committee thinks this is a fantastic idea I would almost say start thinking about what those regulations might look like you know so that they might be close to ready to go by the time the bylaw is ready to be passed that would sort of be my thinking but I'm going to go to Pam and then Stephanie I'm going to ask sort of a general question that's I I hope to bring it up a number of times and that is that with the staff doing the permitting let's let's let's say there are town staff involved in all of this um I really would like to meet with the IT folks or whoever the GIS folks whoever is helping track the data because I think to not get in the weeds too much having some kind of a searchable database is really the only reason that we could ask for this level of detail and um you know and expect to do something with it nobody is going to leave through printed you know applications to see what kind of insulation is in the 1960s split level um it it has to be you know as easily accessible as the number of units in the building that kind of thing so that's just a something to keep in mind thank you Stephanie I know you unraised your hand but I did um I did but then um that response made me think that you know I think our ideas that could there could be some kind of rating system that initially looks at those features and as Steve said you don't necessarily have them be something that has to be reviewed every year and so there could be a rating system that takes that into account initially but doesn't necessarily mean it's annual review I'm gonna I'm gonna come back because I I like that I yeah if there's a way to establish you know you just said something about RMI helping review the let's just solve the characteristics of rental units and Amherst and we know that you know whatever 20% of these buildings are 1960s split level houses we know the basic construction types in that era and I think you know maybe there's a way to just say here's my house it was built in you know this year and we understand sort of automatically what the characteristics are if people have made energy improvements I'd like to have that as an incentive so that I don't know I don't know maybe their fee goes down or something but but we sort of work from a basis of of the basic characteristics of any architectural style just an idea thank you seeing no other hands directly related to this I'd love to go to Rob and John about what types of inspections requirements or other types of requirements they'd like to see for a building to obtain a rental permit like I'll just start it off with you know I think it's really important that we do a conduct an initial inspection of every property you know from that point on I think I'm open to how often a building would get reinspected in some cases maybe ever again you know unless there's an issue but I think we have the opportunity to go through get baseline information about the property that's accurate that we don't have now and then consider some sort of a you know whether it's a rating or what it might be about its condition to decide whether or not it goes into some some ongoing regular routine reoccurring inspection schedule I think that's a minimum requirement and that's you know something that we we are sort of you know missing now and struggle with quite often but I'll let John add more John yeah I agree that we it would be beneficial to get eyes in every unit at least once and that'll that'll help develop a database of the properties that need you know more vigilance a lot of these properties we're going to go and look at them they're going to be just fine and you probably never need to go in again I know Pam's going to have some thoughts and questions on this but one of my thoughts are one of my questions is are there specific when we're writing a bylaw are there specific things you'd like us to include in the bylaw in terms of how inspect you know how a property might pass inspection or not pass inspection you know in terms of I think we've got some drafts that are like if they don't fit 60 percent or 30 percent violations or you know things like that then they need reinspected and stuff like that um do you want do you want certain types of criteria like that in the bylaw and if so like would we be citing and referencing the state sanitary code the state building code or would we be picking specific parts of that and specific items to be looking at so I actually think that might be better off in the regulations because it'll be really unpredictable what what will come of that and we could have the ability to modify that pretty easily if we need to you know it could be a situation where we just aren't able to fulfill whatever requirement that the bylaw calls for or maybe there's a need to go a little bit further because you know because we don't have issues that you know as many issues so I I think that's something we're interested in establishing in writing but maybe not in the bylaw other committee pan so just to follow up on that does that does that say what Mandy Joe just said that if if we reference that they must meet you know mass building code or or unified building code whatever it is um that's the kind of thing that would be helpful because you have standards that have been laid out we don't have to list them each and every one right that's right I mean there there isn't a choice they have to meet those standards uh and that's you know that's what those standards are what will be used when conducting inspections the severity the number of those you know violations of those types of provisions will be that'll be the piece that we try to develop you know decide what what happens to a property that has so many violations or so many types of violations and where and how often that might be continued to be inspected on the kind of the other end of all of this in the inspections piece I think it's really important that we have the ability to upon complaint upon found violations repeat violations the ability to clearly mandate a periodic inspection reoccurring inspection for for those properties that are not performing well that was you know one of the changes that I was working on with the Board of License Commissioners for the current bylaw it's a it's a small number of properties but it's a small number of properties because we're only doing complaint response right now so I would I would expect that to go up when we actually look at properties that we've never been in and and get a closer understanding of their conditions but it is a small number of properties and it's something that we really feel we need to have is that ability to hopefully change the property you know work with the owner and and instead of just dealing with one issue and then you know next year the year after we're back there again for the same issue or oftentimes John I'll tell you you know one semester to another you know having an inspection program that could be instituted customized for that property will probably be our best chance at ever getting changed at that location thank you John yeah that's that's right and Rob seen this we've seen this work with problem properties we've already put them on a schedule where we inspect them you know three or four times a year we charge the landlord 150 bucks a pop to go and do it and you know after a year of doing that the properties in better shape because they know we're coming again so I have a question this one goes to not just these inspections but also any potential energy efficiency ECAC type inspections that ECAC might want to see because I see them as sort of two different types of inspections and I I'm getting from multiple conversations with Rob and John that you would like the building type inspections to be done by town staff not for the property owners to be able to bring in you know a home inspector like purchasers do when they're buying a piece of property that you want it done by town staff I just want to confirm whether that's the case so that that can go in the by-law and then I want to ask Steve and Stephanie do you see those the energy efficiency type inspections also be done being done by town staff or would they be or do you see them potentially being done by someone hiring these certified inspectors paying for that inspection you know the property owner paying for that and then submitting the report as part of the application process so John and then I'm going to go to Steve yeah the the building code type inspections and and you know Massachusetts sanitary code housing inspections those need to be done by an inspector who's certified to do that and that's that's what we have in town staff now somebody who does inspections for a prospective home buyer you know they don't have the same qualifications and they can't they can't cite those violations the way we can thank you and Steve we've looked at a couple of systems that are sponsored two of them by the Department of Energy it's the one is a home energy score or HES that is about a one-hour inspection I'm told and that looks at the home's envelope and normally there are people who are qualified to do that I private private companies will do that for a fee I don't know what the qualifications are the Department of Energy and that's also that particular one is only good for single-family homes but DOE has a newer building energy assessment score which is for commercial and multifamily residential buildings that one looks more straightforward there's a one-page form a checklist that can be used to inspect a building and as boxes to check depending on the style of roof and walls and appliances so conceivably that could be done by town staff but our thinking was more likely that it would be a requirement that the building owner get hire somebody to do an inspection and produce a report that would then be submitted that said the city of Boulder Colorado has that as one options then but they also do I believe most of the building owners choose to go through the checklist that the city's own checklist and that is administered by city staff in Boulder a third way of approaching it or yet another way of approaching it might be rather than the building asset we could consider asking the building owners for actual energy use which they would have to request from the utility and in some cases larger buildings can do that using the EPA portfolio manager and the utilities can automatically link to an account and provide that data at least the electric utilities Berkshire gas doesn't do that yet but that's another way and that's more often used for commercial sort of office buildings and bigger buildings so that's what say Boston uses for the energy disclosure rules for big buildings so yeah all three of those possibilities owner hire somebody to do an inspection the town has staff that can do the those inspections or the owners submit energy use data aggregate energy use data using from the utilities so those are all options we have to discuss further about which might fit best here in Amherst thank you um Stephanie yeah I just wanted to concur with Steve about having more discussion about which option fits best because I don't think we can say concretely right now and make a recommendation right now as to which would be the best fit but I I do think I do think some responsibility on the landlord I don't know something that's going to require town staff to have to go through a bunch of you know utility data I think that's going to be cumbersome but I do think some requirement that the landlord take a large portion of the responsibility and then some kind of a certified professional be involved okay that helps in thinking about how this might look drafted um any other thoughts on particularly on inspections or ECAC type inspections before we move on to other other requirements Shalini yeah I don't know how this fits into the inspection but when we're talking about collection of data from building owners regarding energy use I think part of the goal of ECAC in our town was to create awareness uh and so is there like while we're talking about what information we're collecting from them can the ECAC also think about what information we're providing to them as like here's why you should be doing this or you know what is the educational aspect for the tenants and the landlord thank you I know our current bylaw has additional requirements to obtain a permit including meeting some sort of parking regulations and all that may or may not be part of the zoning bylaw I haven't cross-referenced it myself are there any other items besides a complete application an inspection and an energy efficiency requirement of some sort um that committee members or anyone on the you know staff you know Steve and I would like to see as part of obtaining a permit Steve and then Pam one other idea that's not related to energy efficiency of the building itself that ECAC has come up with and that is consider some kind of requirement for on-site electric car charging facilities at apartments at rental housing as you know that can be a major showstopper for tenants if they don't have the ability to charge their car at their residence that could be a big a big problem for them so that that could be something to include some requirement for a number of car charging stations uh at a rental property that could be part of the parking plan perhaps thank you Steve Pam so I wanted to just sort of generally ask town staff about checklists so we've got you know potential checklists for energy efficiency we've got some checklists for what your health and safety review looks like is that the kind of thing that we included the but we should should think about including in the bylaw so that we are really clear these are the kinds of things that those owners every owner will have to meet or is that the kind of thing that is best left to regulation um Rob I would suggest it's best left to regulations there are things that often change new technology or whatever the case may be there's there's always adjusting to those checklists so I think just for efficiency we'd suggest they'd be in the regulations Stephanie and then Shalini um yeah I was just going to say that I suggest that they be referenced in the bylaw but not specifically outlined just so that they can be adjusted as Rob just said based on technology they'd be better referenced and then in the and then put into the regulations Shalini it's just like the on-site electricity uh electric cars charging I think we could add maybe other items like solar ready roofs and I don't know maybe the ecc can come up with the whole list their wish list of what an ideal building looks like and that could be part of the checklist and and maybe then giving them points or like whatever our point system is going to be in how we assess buildings um so yeah I'm Jennifer um again just to put it out there is for probably another future discussion but so I know we'll probably get some pushback particularly from people that are just renting a single family house you know saying you're like having the battery charging station which I think is a great idea but there may be a response of well why are we being held to a different standard than other homeowners so again we might just want to make the decisions kind of a policy decision that you know by um if you have the privilege of renting an Amherst you you know have to meet certain energy efficiency standards but I'm just saying I can imagine when we ask for public comment that we may get these kinds of comments and I'm not I'm just putting it out there thank you for that um ham yeah thanks um again I was responding to something that Shalini just said about uh as we track to see what uh energy efficiencies are being provided today or you know as people buy properties uh again it feels like that's the kind of thing that we want to inform educate and then add as incentives because I don't have a roof that can accept solar so I will never have solar on my roof um I I don't we certainly we certainly can't penalize people because they don't have you know walls with our 40 or whatever or roof with our 40 we want to leave them that way but we don't we can't demand it thank you for that Stephanie a couple of things as far as the charging I think um I don't anticipate that you know a single family home or you know would be required to have um a charging station but it may be that units that have you know like a building with four or more units might potentially be required to have charging so you know I don't think it would be an across the board kind of requirement um and also I would say that you know the future of the automobile industry is moving towards electric and so I think we're going to have to have more of this infrastructure and it's a lot of pressure for the town to have to provide all of the EV infrastructure so I think some of that responsibility will have to be on um apartment dwelling units that are you know multiple um that's one thing and then the other thing I think to respond to what Pam just said is that I you know I think we want to make sure that we have some requirement um more efficiency for building efficiency that is um you know certainly reasonable but um I'm sorry Pam I just lost my point of I just lost track of the point that you made what was the last thing you just said I'm sorry that we that we provide incentive perhaps for adding rather than then penalizing them to begin with we we incentivize them to do the right thing right exactly so I think that the point was we were looking to you know some kind of a rating system you were saying that some buildings can't um you know the walls are a certain r value and they're not going to change I think the point we were making before was that um you know with a rating system the incentive would be the rating system itself right so it may be that the incentive for a property owner who has you know on a scale of one to ten a property owner that has a building that's a three when a more efficient building is a nine um may be incentivized to to um increase the efficiency somehow because there are there are opportunities to do more and there's usually programming especially now through Massave and others where there can be some additional help to support them doing that kind of improvement okay can I follow up on that sure it'd be great because if you have if you have all of your buildings rated and a person could actually pick their their house that they want to rent based on feel good because I you know I'm renting a house that's a a nine point as opposed to a two point so that may be a way to do it so I have one question and then we're going to move on to the next items on our agenda because we've got plenty of time at other meetings to talk about this which is um and and you might not be able to answer it now Rob but I noticed you know the current bylaw has parking requirements in there and meeting that and are they different than the zoning requirements for each of these buildings in order to get their single family home or their duplex you know special permit or site plan review or building permit for a single family home and if so why and I guess wouldn't any parking requirements be better off in the zoning bylaw themselves with just a reference to meeting all require you know in the building in this rental permitting is just meeting all requirements of whatever building you know of our zoning bylaws like maybe someone knows the history as to why the parking went in there and if they're any different than our zoning bylaws so the the parking regulations piece of the rental bylaw is that the the plan be provided so that that's really it about that you know providing a parking a parking plan otherwise it's compliance with the parking regulations of the zoning bylaw the only part that's really different for properties is if they're then further regulated through special permit conditions that might have very specific parking requirements that are different from the bylaw like the total number of cars or where they can be parked or the number of compact spaces or we've been for the last several years requiring parking management systems you know stickering and or placarding of cars that are on the larger unit developments so but but there aren't really any new there aren't any new regulations created by the bylaw other than what's in the zoning bylaw itself thank you for clarifying that john yeah the only the only reason it's it could be different Mandy is is um you know these single family homes often have four cars parked they they need to provide parking for those four cars and um and you know most most single family homes in town don't have that kind of parking there they never anticipated that there's probably only two cars associated with the place okay thank you for that clarification that'll help me as i draft we're going to move on and we're going to change slightly the order i was planning on doing things because there is a member of the audience in the audience who's had their hand raised so for that reason i'm actually going to go to public comment right now um before i anticipate people leaving soon as town staff so i'm going to start with public comment and members of the audience may comment on matters within the jurisdiction of the crc up to three minutes um and so i think we've only got one member and they've got their hand raised so i'm going to recognize ronata shepherd please unmute yourself and make your comment hi um thank you for allowing me to comment i actually i wasn't sure if i would if i would be able to comment so i did write an email responding to a pansy mail so it should be there it's regarding the amount of oversight if you want a condo and you're renting it out you're bound by the association so any improvements possibility of energy efficiency all that is bound by a condo association the trustees and the the ability to for the condo association to actually afford to do that that's why people pay a condo fee because that's supposed to be managed by the board the other thing um car charging station i mean people can go to a public place for that and i i like the comments that i've heard regarding um yeah you rate the property and you rent a place that you can afford if they don't have a charging station i mean that's your choice there there shouldn't be so much control in terms of what and or cannot go to a property it shouldn't be at a higher standard than a house that you own i just think there should be a fair play here because otherwise only big companies will be able to afford to be a landlord a small landlord will have no ability to compete and then you're going to have only big companies regulating or controlling your rental properties in the city and usually they are harder to deal with i mean they have the money they have the resources so i guess that's what i wanted to say think of the small landlords and what they can afford to do and you know people do have choices when they want to rent a place thank you thank you for those comments ronata and um thank you for attending the meeting and listening to the discussion we welcome any emails you have and any thoughts on you have uh that you have about this as we move through it um and so with that there are no other hands raised in the attendees um so we're going to close public comment we're going to go on to discussion item rental residential rental bylaw outreach so i want to start with two things um the first one i'm going to start with is a date for a public dialogue forum or meeting and then we're going to move to um the chart excel spreadsheet that shallony had i i think some people may choose to leave so i want to thank stefanie john rob dave chris some of them are already gone i think steve um for coming you can you're always welcome to stay for this but this is talking about public outreach more than the actual bylaw itself and what would be included in it um so if if you'd like to stay you can stay um if you don't want to or you have other things to do and think you're not needed feel free to leave but thank you all for joining us for the conversations for the first part of the meeting too um so the first thing we're going to talk about is a date for that big public thing um and then we're going to go into shallonies thing and so i looked at our work plan and we had been talking about doing it sooner rather than later but not so soon that we don't have time to plan so in july um the mondays that are available are july 11th and july 25th the 11th is about four weeks away one two three about four weeks away and the 25th is obviously six weeks away two weeks after that and so i would like us even if we're not ready with knowing how we would advertise it and what we're going to ask and all of that i would like us to pick a date so that we can actually start putting it on town council things so that district um counselors and anyone with a newsletter can start putting it out on their newsletters that this is when it's going to happen that i can tell lin here's what we're doing and this is the date type thing um so so thoughts on july 11th or 25th um i was thinking 7 p.m um i expected to go given the level of interest a while um and all um we don't have to decide format necessarily right now but i would like us to try and find a date uh jennifer so this will not be at um on a thursday crc it'll be at a monday so not at a council meeting these are the nights that there aren't council meetings if i looked correctly um but i was thinking that monday nights um crc members would have available whereas thursday nights and we would want it in the evening not in late afternoon to get as many people here as possible to be participating and so that a monday night might be easier to schedule for crc members and also for um the public and other counselors since we meet on monday nights the ones we don't have council meetings are generally free um but but those dates can be we can find other dates potentially personally be on that on summer vacation on the 25th but could make the 11th whatever that's worth that's just my personal pamm i was i was gonna just and i thank jennifer for that comment i was looking at the calendar thinking seems like more time is better than less time but i then thought well i better check if i love vacation i do um i i could do either yeah and um it's just that i will only have a short period of time you know about a week when i get back to dive into helping get this ready so that was the only reason for me reaching a later target i can live with it oh shalini yeah i think more time is better than less time and i will be away on the 11th but i could try to connect from wherever i am so but my preference is 25th pat i'm available on either date jennifer um yeah i in spite of my own schedule i think it probably is better later if i'm not on a plane i will try and um that's like when i'm coming home but i will i'll check hopefully i can zoom in we could also look into the august dates because i think i don't know what are i have to look at my calendar um there's august first um you know which would be one week after the 25th is there a town council meeting that night that's what i'm looking hold on okay there is yep there is on the first um but not the 8th so the 8th would also august 8th would also potentially be a date so could we chat just for a second about what we want to try to i mean i know we haven't talked at all about what we would do for outreach um i think in the past it has been helpful for folks in the community to you know realize that things really are in draft rather than being seeming very cut dried and already being processed um so it i guess the question is what what do folks feel we want to um put basic topics up you know how do you feel about this this and this puts your reaction to this this and that um those two as opposed to putting out you know draft texts and say well what do you think about this fine yeah so i'll answer um and pat and shalini can can chime in or ask whatever they were raising their hands for um we would obviously discuss this in more depth because we're not intending to decide this today i'm just trying to get a date settled on this part but my vision is coming to that forum with you know some potential specific questions to ask you know um on particular particular topics we will probably disclose the working draft wherever it is in whatever form it is um as a you know if you're interested in text this is where we've gotten to right now and our thoughts now and one of the sections of the night might be if you're interested in that text and want to comment on that text now's the time you know but that would probably be after in my thinking any of the comments on a specific inspection you know sort of what we've been doing general inspections general fees general you know comment on those things you know sort of but we as a committee would come up with what topics we want to hear the most from and and you know sort of do it that's that's sort of what i've thought the committee would have to decide so i don't foresee it as a sort of a free for all i see it as a structured public comment ish period with a dialogue where we would answer questions um you know where the staff may be here to answer questions themselves um you know we wouldn't we would aim to talk as members as little as possible because we'd want their feedback but when questions arise we would try to answer them pat and then shalini thank you uh the i'm looking at this and i'm realizing that uh renters who are not students will be here uh in july and august but we're looking at regulating student housing with good reason but i feel like the students and the renters who are students also need a voice and we're not providing any if we do it in july and august so i'm concerned about that and i i would like to either have a second public forum or um or move this as far away as early september thank you for that comment shalini and then jennifer yeah thanks pat that i think that's a excellent point um hadn't thought of that but yeah that makes sense and um i would be okay with pushing it forward or having two um public forums because every time it's a touch point for people to get information where we are in the process and then you know so that's fine and uh also i i was thinking what the purpose would be is um you know as we discuss today's outreach uh ideas that there are specific questions and i think mandige already alluded to that and also pam you said that there would be certain topics so we we could uh we would because what we're interested in is understanding people's lived experiences with respect to the quality of their life safety in their neighborhoods and so forth so some of the forum could be used in these this is what we are interested in hearing about and then the other aspect is of course them talking just about whatever they want to talk about but we could and then we are thinking of having maybe a survey if you decide that today to have like a google survey which uh can go out to students and through specific channels to try and reach as many different communities as possible so uh people will hopefully already have answered some some may have answered so we have some data and some feeling of where people are what they're responding to so so yeah those are some of the thoughts i had thank you shalini jennifer then pam yeah i i think that's an excellent suggestion about you know getting having students participate which is you know can be hard to do but so i was going to say whether um salad linowski at um the off campus yeah she could really help us reach out to students and they actually have some zoom meetings with students in august so working with her we could since it's zooming in we could reach out during the summer and also have something when the students are here but she will be very helpful with that thank you for that um pam and then john yes i agree with jennifer i wrote down sally linowski for a couple of reasons because we had there was a really wonderful document that michelle miller put together or or found from state college or something that helps talk about being good renters being good neighbors etc etc really wonderful um program that that they run there and i think it would be great to start sort of greasing the skids for getting that kind of thing going by engaging sally and and her students um i would like just for the record i would like to have umass be required to track where their students live off campus they try to do that but it is not a requirement and i think um i just think that would be something that would give us a whole lot more information on you know especially just population and hammers so however we can marry up those different needs would be great thank you we're going to do john pat and then um jennifer just took her hand out jennifer's like someone else did and then we're going to actually move on to shalini's spreadsheet because that that's where sort of this conversation is already sort of trending but john pat then jennifer i was going to say that um we can get students into a zoom meeting they're they're know how to do that they're fine doing it we already do that um and and what you were saying about um you know doing that outreach to to students we do that um we've been doing that for a couple years and we've been doing it we used to do it in person and we started doing it on zoom um during the the lockdown and the pandemic for um you know new renters in neighborhoods so we meet with them we lay out um we talk about what the neighborhood is like um we lay out the expectations and they love showing up at a zoom meeting because you can do it at 10 o'clock in the morning they come with their cereal they um you know they're perfect thank you john pat then jennifer yeah john that was good to hear uh but i'm not wanting students there to explain to them how they should behave and what the neighborhood's like i want to hear their experiences renters so that that's informing this bylaw and i just want to make sure that that's clear i've been in my own district in the meetings where we've met with students and and landlords and stuff and they're excellent and it really is helpful so i'm not diminishing them but that's not what this should be about thank you pat jennifer you're muted sorry um i wasn't thinking of them coming so we could talk to them i think i want to hear what that to say because the i mean if they're properties that aren't well maintained they're the ones that are so we definitely need to hear from them so that that would be why we want them but i i'm i was actually talking with tony morales morales yesterday and he said that they are they have started asking where students are living in tracking off campus you know where they so i think and we'll put words in his mouth but i think 100 yeah okay okay we're going to move on to shalini's um excel spreadsheet um um this is the tab for rental registration that she has um begun uh drafting proposing and then filling out um i i want to say thank you to shalini for starting this uh pam and jennifer may not know and i don't know how much pat knows but shalini on crc has been pushing for i think the entire time she's been on crc so it's nearly four years um to find a way to do outreach in a way that is not um too overly burdensome on the committee members but is more standardized so that it can almost be implemented on a much more regular basis so that we know what we're getting and how we're doing it and all and i have worked with shalini to try and um get her to get these into the right places um which is why i'm thrilled she's on tso because i kept saying outreach that's the committee but i've worked with her in crc to to try and do this on multiple occasions with with various things including our conference of housing policy where we did a little bit but not much um and so i just want to say it's been a long road to even get to this point and i know it's not finished and i know tso has not talked about it but i want to just give a shout out to all the work you've done and the continued emphasis you've put on finding a way for the council to be able to do outreach in a um more concerted um and doable manner that can potentially be tracked and thought of and implemented in in many different ways so we've got a draft of this i don't want us to deal with steps one two or three at all today they're not filled in we will talk about them at some point but i'm going to have shalini trying to start filling them in and come back at a next meeting with them already populated at least in the answers section and potentially even all the way over so we have something to talk about so that we can get through it in a um frankly a more efficient manner than trying to as a group answer all the questions with them starting blank um but what i do want us to talk about because if we're moving to um a public forum or dialogue or i'm still not sure what we're gonna call it for the 25th and it sounds like everyone's okay with july 25th um i'll make sure there's no problems with that with the rest of council leadership and staff and all um it would be good to start getting questions out there now to be able to have potentially surveys out there now even if we don't know who they might go to to have a a CRC agreement on questions to ask people sooner rather than later so that maybe we can have some of those responses back before the 25th that might inform the questions we want to ask on the 25th and what we want to pose on the 25th so that's why i want to focus on this step four engagement with the questions to ask shallony has come up with some potential ones with some splits between who might answer which ones specifically to those who are renting out property um those who are renting property and those who are neither of those so residents in amherst that neither rent property or or rent property so so basically i guess that's like owners or visitors or those that want to live here um and things like that and what type of questions we might want to have answers to to get an idea of things so that's what's on the screen i will make it a little bigger um i'm i'm going to try and i didn't close hold on by doing that it thought i closed the window um i'm going to make it bigger and see if i can actually track changes and i don't know in here whether i can but um i will type the changes anything we have on here we've got about 10 minutes to begin this conversation before we have to go on 10 minutes um and a zba update but but we'll we'll see what we can do with it jennifer um yeah i i did have a little um so the first question on what's your lived experience of renters so that i think it's i i think it's great to get feedback about how people feel about renting and those who have rental units what their experience is but that question felt a little um anti-rentor to me so that because you know again i know i've said this before but really living in a neighborhood with a lot of renters it's the the issues are particularly with absentee owned student renters and it's not like people said always the rent the students it could be the way often very often more than not it's because of how the building is maintained so it's not renters it's so i feel i don't so i don't even know if we need that question i mean unless we're going to designate specifically absentee owned student renters rental and it's rentals it's not renters i mean nobody has a problem with renters i guess that's so i found that a little like why would we i mean there's no experience with renters pat you're muted i'm sorry and i couldn't raise my hand it seems to me that i would really like to hear this is going to seem contradictory maybe to you jennifer but i would like to hear people's experience because i have renters near me student renters and and other renters and so i and i've had very good experiences i only had one year where i had a bad experience so i would like to hear more in a situation where the public is coming together what is the range of response i mean i i'm not i know the response of your response i know uh nathan and pearl marglitte's response because they're living in a situation that's very difficult but i would love to know what people who don't rent but are homeowners are experiencing throughout the town so i think it is a valuable question so i've attempted to reward it um renters and with renters and rentals in your neighborhood i don't know whether that's a better wording or not um the red would be deleted i just can't do strike through in excel apparently jennifer you're muted there's families that renters couple single people that rent and i don't even know that they're renters i mean i just i don't jenn i don't distinguish between renters and anybody else but so that so it just seemed to say what's your experience with renters i don't know that just that feels like it feels like it's like a lot of renters shall i people i'm sorry i'm sorry pat go ahead no i don't know i was just i think i think when she's unmuted we get feedback yes okay is that better no no oh wait if shall any mutes that'll go away did it go no idea why it's happening but it's shall he's for some reason given us to be back today what about yeah yeah go pat what what's your lived experience of people who rented in your neighborhood i don't know i mean i still think it's an important question so how to shade it i think your point's important jenn um but i'd like to get a richer picture of of people's experience shall any okay is there still feedback is it better i don't think we ever had it oh yep it is okay good um yeah i think that was the intention was to get a sense all of it right of what is actually the lived experiences with renters i like to change in the language mountie joe the lived experiences with renters and rentals and i think in the feedback they might say that you know x y z because in our district meetings there were people who had very good experiences with renters and and then and at the same time there were other parts of town where people talked about what they didn't like about what they were seeing with the renters and so it's like it'll be like a whole mix and that's kind of the ideas not to lead them on but to leave an open um open-ended question to start off with and then we can go more specific okay what do you love about it what are the challenges and then go into more specifics jennifer i'm just gonna say this one one last time but um it's probably no it probably won't be the last time but um just i live in an rg neighborhood so we have we already have multifamily houses we have there are lots of people that rent here and we're not othering students but there is just we nobody thinks twice about renters so it's fine to ask renters what they feel about renting here because whether they're students or not and because we're trying to strengthen the rental bylaw to make the quality of life better for renters no matter who they are but i can't imagine that anybody anywhere in amherst is concerned that there are people renting and the people are paying rent instead of paying a mortgage they're the what they're concerned about is very specific so i just want to get that out there pat then shalony okay jennifer can i keep talking because you made me realize that every time i see renters i add the label student renters okay so um but i still think this question is important so if there was some way and i i don't know what the way is and and and but but i think we all have to acknowledge generally i think all of us think about student renters i don't i don't think about the family across the way who's renting i'm thinking about student right so i think so we're not we don't ascend them we should that's why i'm concerned about things yeah yeah i think it's valid but so how do we get the rich picture of all kinds yeah shalony and then stephanie maybe we can let stephanie go first stephanie um this has nothing to do with any of your efficiency but i'm just thinking about your challenge here what about asking a question of are you a renter or are you or aren't just are you a renter so identifying the questions as living in the neighborhood rather than you know those who are renters and those who aren't in the neighborhood somehow it has a little bit of an us and them quality to the questioning and maybe you can make you know merge the the groups with just basic questions and then just the question of are you a renter in this neighborhood or not i don't know i'm just trying to find a way to help you here i don't know if that was helpful at all i think that might be thank you thank you stephanie for bringing that up and uh the way we were thinking of creating the google doc is to start off with the question that are you a renter or a land or a you know or a land i don't know landlord or whatever or live in or a neighbor or something like that and so and then the it would take them to the to the survey that's relevant to them as a neighbor and we were kind of trying to understand what is experience as a neighbor as a renter and as a landlord and try trying to keep the questions as parallel as possible so as a renter what is my experience and then as a neighbor what is my experience and then as a landlord so all the questions is sort of some sort of parallel um and i think the next question is what do you love about living in a neighborhood so it's kind of sure is that it's not we're not necessarily saying it's all bad so the idea is that if you don't know what is what are the challenges that neighbors have i think part of this is education and awareness in the whole community that this is what we love about having different renters and this is where we feel a little challenged about and there's nothing wrong about saying uh that if i have a young kid and there are kids in my on my lane playing beer pong naked i have a little challenge they're not naked but you know like whatever so yeah they are having fun but it's okay to have a dialogue around that at some point i don't know if that will go into the rental registration but i think part of all of this is just also creating that awareness and then how can we use a rental registration by law to improve the quality of life of people where possible okay so i want to move us off question number one so that we sort of think about the rest of the questions thank you Stephanie for your suggestion there um we're we're going to come back with potentially a way to do this and maybe a survey or a form that that combines all of this but you know as you can see most of the questions are fairly parallel and are there other questions on a survey like this or a google form or however it's going to be done that the committee members would like to see um that that might be missing from something like this um ham and then i'm going to go to Stephanie because her hand is still up just in case she has something else to say so i'm if we're trying to keep these parallel under the renters one question number three is if i'm trying to compare it's what are the challenges of living in your neighborhood you know what are the challenge that's that is a different question than living in your rental because rental might be conditioned of you know the bathrooms or something so this is really we're trying to get in your in your neighborhood yeah i noticed that too yet at the same time i would actually like to ask the question about living in a rental um like that particular rental right which i think might parallel something we might be able to ask the property owners who are renting um you know it's not quite here but there might be a parallel to that of what are the challenges of um maintaining or whatever your you know managing a rental property in Amherst or something like that um yep so but but make it a separate question right so let's see if i can yeah thank you for that catching that yeah because they had two separate questions yeah me i'm not i don't know how the spreadsheet set up so and would people be okay with um adding in sort of that question about for the landlords the sort of parallel one of what are the challenges of maintaining a property your rental property in Amherst or something like that yeah yeah yeah that's good mm-hmm well mandige is typing are the other questions yeah on demographics or certain things we don't want it to be too long and cumbersome but i need to think about it a little more like you know like what would i really like to ask them so i think what i'm going to try and do for the next meeting is combine this into some sort of actual survey we might be able to look at the survey with um so that we can see what it would look like maybe i i i don't know whether i can do that in a way that can make it into a packet or not um so i'll i'll think about that for the next meeting but uh jennifer other potential questions no but i think i i honed in on what is kind of getting um i'm trying to get at is distinguishing between renters and residents because renters are residents yeah okay non-rent non-renting residents yeah well we'll figure something out between now and the next meeting anything else you want to say before we move on to the rest of our agenda pam yeah very quickly this definitely should not be a questionnaire like the dementia and aging question which was like 40 pages long just not appropriate i envision no more than like four pages but not even that and i i mean we've got what i think i can do is combine these into five or six questions um what i don't know whether i can do depending on which one i'm using is whether depending on how they answer say a question about whether they rent or own or rent property enamors to others whether i can remove questions or add questions into that so they see or don't see potentially relevant questions um so um we'll track that shalini is going to work on one two and three filling that out for next time too pam so i think i mean if we really are truly thinking about questions it it really should be uh relative to step one like what are the issues we want to address and and ask some things related to um inspections and related to um you know staffing needs or something like that or penalties for health violations i mean those are the kinds of things that if we're truly trying to get some feedback um it might want to ask questions like that hi yeah and i think the uh so there are two types of questions one is you because if you ask very specific questions and it leads the respondents into thinking in a particular way and not think about the other experience so i think starting with like these more general questions gives us rich data but then we could have the second page which would be more like specifics that are optional that they can rate or something like that how happy you're and then comments with that but then also i think there's a way to have three separate surveys so that people don't see all the questions and they just say like if you're a renter click here and then if you're a you know a resident well i'm going to explore whether we can do that just through tagging certain questions depending on how a previous question was answered and sending to different pages on one survey so that the link is the same for everyone which makes sending out a link easier um so that's what i'm going to explore um so that they don't see you know if they don't rent property out in Amherst they have no need to see any question related to maintenance issues with being a property owner who rents you know um so i'm going to see if i can figure out a way to do that because i'm pretty sure i can i'm pretty sure it's possible so the question is can i do it so we're going to move on um cba appointment recommendations update pam i think the update basically is we still don't have additional applicants so there's a deadline of next tuesday to submit statements of interests jennifer i've emailed two people i'm working on them so we oh pam we do have one update which is we have determined of the current terms who are ending who is sitting on current zba cases and so that motion will be in front of us no matter what in two weeks um to make a recommendation to the council um to keep those individuals on those matters extend their terms till those matters finish um so it was done last year um there's there's a motion but we've now got that information pam so pam was able to get that and so that will be on the 23rd we'll have that motion for recommendation on the 23rd you've sent me the draft language i haven't reviewed it totally um we're not dealing with it today because of i if we're doing interviews on the 23rd which is the plan there is the potential that one of those people may be recommended for full appointment and therefore may not need to be part of the extent of the terms for certain matters and maybe we'll get others that are currently terms ending and we can convince them to apply again so it's always good to do them all at the same time jennifer oh i guess there is a zba meeting on the 23rd that'll start at six if we're going to be but we could interview them before if we have anybody that's currently on the board we're starting at 4 30 and so the interviews should be done we'll make sure those interviews are done so um yeah shalani did we all too want to come up with a future and i don't know if that's covered in our agenda or it's a future discussion item but like what happened last time do we need a process in place that if you last minute there is a cancellation of withdrawals is that a future agenda item that's a future agenda item um and it might end up being a recommendation to change the policy to the council because we're operating under a council adopted policy so um we'll have to look at the current policy and whether any discussion on its future agenda regarding what happened requires a policy change or not or whether it fits within a policy depending on what we discuss so that's future agenda item and i i did send an email out okay we're going to move on to minutes and i'm just going to make a motion to adopt the may 26 2022 meeting minutes and the June 2nd 2022 special meeting minutes as presented is there a second second we've got multiple seconds any comments see none we're going to go to a vote shalani yes uh pat hi mandy's and i pam yes jennifer yes that is unanimous i don't have any other announcements um the next agenda preview is basically depending on how many so i's come in will depend on how much goes on next agenda beyond zba interviews it's that simple so we'll see how many so i's come in and i'll make a determination as to how long that part of the meeting might take and then we'll guess some other things for the agenda uh anything else before i adjourn shalani make quickly uh it's people have ideas of who we can reach out to for the different you know whatever uh channels or people or other things can they send it to me or yes yeah okay that would be amazing and that will help me fill up the chart thank you you with that i'm adjourning the meeting at 6 32 p.m thank you all thank you bye bye