 The appointed hour of 6.30 haven't been reached. I welcome everyone to this meeting of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. My name is Steve Judge as chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals. I call this meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, general laws chapter 30A section 18 and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This public hearing of the town of Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but the public can listen to the proceedings by clicking on a link on the town's webpage. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts general laws chapter 40A and article 10, special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning Bylaw. This public meeting has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and mailed to parties at interest. We will begin with a roll call of the regular members of the ZBA who have been in paddle for consideration of the items on tonight's agenda. So Steve Judge, chairman is here. Mr. Langsdale. He will be joining us in a moment. Yep. Ms. O'Mara. Ms. Parks. Here. Mr. Maxfield. When they Joan Maureen, they can announce their presence. And associate ZBA members Sharon Waldman. Yeah. Mr. Barrick. Mr. Greeny. Mr. Meadows. Also in attendance is Maureen Pollock, planner. Christine Breskup, planning director. Nate Malloy, senior planner, may attend and Rob Maureen, a building commissioner, will be attending. John Whitten of K.P. Law Firm, who is serving with outside counsel to the board on this matter is also attending the meeting. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 48 of the general laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. One of the most important elements of the Amherst Zoning bylaw is section 10.38. Specific findings from this section must be made for all of our decisions. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff. Each petition is heard by the board is distinct and is evaluated on its own merits. And the board is not ruled by precedent. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents his application to the board during the hearing, after which the board will ask questions for clarification or additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board may seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen. The chair with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, present your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. I want to remind the applicant, my fellow board members and the public, the public to seek recognition from the chair before speaking. The board will normally hold public hearings where information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is when the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. Within 40 days from closing of the public hearing, the ZBA must render a decision, denial, approval or approval with conditions based on a majority vote. Within 14 days of this decision, the ZBA must file a copy with the town clerk. Within 20 days from the date the ZBA decide, decision is filed with the town clerk, the application or public can appeal the ZBA's decision. I want to review the ways in which the public can be informed about and comment on this application in addition to these public meetings. Residents can sign up to be notified of any additional information received by the town concerning this application through the notify me feature on the town website. Copies of all submissions can be found on the town website. Go to the zoning board of appeals page, click on the link for 132 Northampton Road. That link will bring you to a page which will allow you to navigate all the public information regarding this application. Public comments can be submitted on the 132 Northampton Road page or email to Marine Pollock, the planner, at P-O-L-L-O-C-K-M at AmherstMA.gov. Lastly, Amherst media will not be broadcasting tonight's hearing live. However, check their website for information on when it will be rebroadcast or you can view a recording of this meeting on the town's YouTube channel. Before we go to tonight's agenda, I wanna confirm that Mr. Maxfield is in attendance. Is that right? Mr. Maxfield, yeah, Mr. Maxfield, are you here? Can you hear me? Yep, now we can. That's fine. Mr. Maxfield and Mr. Langsdale, you're here. Yes. Great. Tonight's agenda is as follows, a public hearing to consider ZBA FY 2020-39, Valley Community Development Corporation, 132 Northampton Road, requesting a comprehensive permit under MGL chapter 40B to construct a new two and a half story residential multifamily building containing 28 small studio apartments and related common areas on an approximate 8.88 acre property located at 132 Northampton Road, map 14C parcel 8, general residence and educational zoning districts. This meeting has continued from August 25th, 2020. The subjects to be considered tonight, A, responses from the August 25th ZBA meeting, responses to questions we had given to the applicant, a discussion of local preferences, a discussion of the applicant will present and we will discuss the pro forma and applicant will present and we will discuss the financial need for proposed 28 residential units. Also, the board will compile a list of questions, requests and possible conditions and other items that the ZBA chair deems appropriate. As always, we will have a public comment period at the end of the meeting on matters that are not on tonight's agenda and any other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours. We have a full agenda tonight and so I hope that we are able to have some time for public comment. But if by nine o'clock we have not finished with the presentations and the questions from the board, we will dedicate time for public comment at our next hearing on this application in two weeks. Since the August 25th hearing, the board has received the following documents, a letter from the town council recommending the adoption of a 70% local preference. The applicant submitted a PowerPoint presentation, answering the questions posed by the board on August 25th and also dealing with other issues. And we have received three public comments, one from Maura Keene submitted via email on August 23rd, one from Meg Gage submitted via the town website on August 24th and one from Thomas Kegelman submitted via the town website on August 25th. The first item on tonight's agenda is answers to the questions we asked at our August 25th meeting. Ms. Baker, are you here representing the Valley Community Center Corporation tonight? Yes, I am here. Would you identify yourself for the record? Sure, my name is Laura Baker. I'm the real estate project manager for Valley Community Development Corporation. We're located at 256 Pleasant Street in Northampton. Great, thank you. Your PowerPoint presentation has answers to our questions, but at the beginning is the end of your presentation. And in the middle, there are some questions, deal with some discussion of the local preference, pro forma and other issues. So what I'd like to do is just deal with the questions first. So let's move through that and then we can go and have separate discussions on the other items that the host are having mixed up back and forth. So how I'd like to do this is we'll consider each of the questions by themselves. You present your answer. There are any discussion of questions from the board. We'll deal with that question and we'll move on to the next question. And I would remind, ask the board to let the applicant present before interrupting or asking questions about the answer. And we can deal with questions after they're done with their presentation. I just think that's an easier way to work on this. So why don't we begin then on the first question that we had from the board, which is, if I recall, the intention to expand the size of the proposed dwellings. Sure. Can everyone see this beginning slide? Yep. Okay, wonderful. So the first question was whether we intend to expand the size of any of the dwelling units in the future and we're responding that we do not have that intention. We had a creative suggestion about whether two adjacent units might be able to be joined together at a future time through removing a wall or adding a doorway. And we did look at this with some care and in the end decided it would be misleading to commit to do that down the road. And primarily because there would be a significant impact on the income to the project. The rents received from two studios is significantly more than from one bedroom unit. And that all of the funders, including the town of Amherst will have legally binding deed restrictions on the property, promising that we'll have a certain number of units, a certain size of units, certain income limits. So it would be very legally complex for us to actually change the character of the development down the road. So we wanted to acknowledge that we understand the concern that was raised about flexibility for households and household sizes. We do anticipate that some household sizes may change and we're reflected in our documents and on our lease. We certainly have experience with tenants getting married or being coupled or having a child. Some of the units as we've just talked about before in this property are large enough for two people to live in them under the state sanitary code and some are not. So if someone's in a unit that's too small for two occupants, they can request assistance from property management, the resident service coordinator or a case worker to help them find a new appropriately sized and affordable apartment for their household. Residents would be given a reasonable period of time to move to a new unit. And we've operated this type of housing for about 30 years and have ample experience helping people relocate as their household size might change. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Baker. Are there questions for the applicant from the board? If there are no questions, let's move on to the next question, which is about closets. Yes. So the question was, can the size of the closets in the proposed dwelling units be enlarged? And if so, would we provide updated floor plans showing this? And so again, we looked a lot at whether that would be feasible. What we decided as a team is that in our typical sized unit, which has a mostly open floor plan, there really wasn't a good way to add more closet space without detracting from the usefulness of the overall space in the unit. What we illustrated at the last meeting is that some of the units, and there are eight of them all together, do happen to have larger closets or double closets just because of the way that they laid out in the building. We wanted to note that a lot of our tenants use underbed area for storage. Someone mentioned seasonal clothing, for example. Sometimes do have a loft bed, bed with built-in shelving underneath a rollout storage that would go under a typical bed. And we were able to add a linen closet in the bathrooms to increase overall storage. And that would happen, we believe that could happen in each of the apartments. And so I have an illustration kind of showing what's possible between the space where one would enter the shower and the vanity, which also has a storage area under it. We could fit this too by pretty tall. It's like almost up to the ceiling height, linen closet with shelving. So it's another way to help people store things who live in these small units. Thank you. Questions about the closets from the board members? Hearing none. The next question was on the smoking area. Sure. The board wanted to know about what you're doing with the smoking area and anyway. Sure, sure, sure. So at the last meeting we had proposed having a non-smoking site and one of the neighbors asked, well, will people simply stop smoking if they don't, where will they smoke? And so I'm bringing forward an excerpt from our original application submitted on May 26th about our thinking around this. So initially we had proposed it would be a non-smoking building, which it still is. And we thought about making the grounds non-smoking based on our past experience. This can result in tenant smoking on the public sidewalk directly in front of the property. So that is my answer in terms of the most likely outcome. If we make our property non-smoking, which is what we're proposing at this time. Are other properties you manage, are they non-smoking or is it a mix? It's a mix. At this point in time, I mean, we used to have buildings where smoking was permitted and that's pretty much- We all remember that, yeah. Universally that the buildings are non-smoking and we have a variety of sites. Some have a smoking area designated. Some are non-smoking sites. I mean, this is the kind of pattern that we see is that if people are smokers, they will just seek out the closest location probably that allows smoking. And in this case, it's gonna be at the sidewalk on the street, it looks to me. Because you don't allow smoking. Yeah, you're not gonna allow smoking on the grounds and so they'll go out to the- The sidewalk. I guess the question is whether that's more detrimental to the neighborhood than a smoking area on property. Correct. And I guess that's something that the board can, we can discuss that with there's a consideration of a condition on smoking at some point. I just lost, oh, there we go, sorry. Are there, Tammy, go ahead. I mean, it sparks. I would prefer to see a smoking area on the property. I'm concerned that if you, I mean, of course it would be best if no one smoked at all, but if people are gonna smoke, it seems to me that it'd be better to smoke in a particular area. As an example, when you first had no smoking, people immediately moved to a sidewalk that was in front of a daycare center. There were people all around the edges of UMass. And so for me, I think that having a designated smoking area is a good idea. I work at Hampshire College where we have designated smoking areas normally parking lots. And it has made a big difference with people not smoking in other places on campus. So that's it. Other comments, questions? Yeah. Mr. Langsdale. First of all, if the entire area is non-smoking and this potentially puts people out on the sidewalk in front of the property to smoke, yeah, that's maybe not the best thing and people shouldn't smoke, but maybe they will. But that puts them across the street from any neighbors. So I don't know, anywhere from 40 to 50 feet away from the neighbors. And as well as the inhabitants of this apartment complex, the problem with the smoking area is that it's 11 feet from the building at this three-story building. Okay, two and a half, but there are three stories of windows. It also puts it about five to six feet away from the gardening area. So that is far closer than people standing out on the street. Question was raised a couple of sessions ago about finding a different place for the smoking area. We have not heard anything about that. So I, for one, would like to have that addressed. Thank you. Mr. Langsdale, do you want them to address it now or would you prefer that they come back with a considered look at the site and propose a different place the next day? Two sessions ago, I raised this exact thing and asked them to come back with a different place. And I suggested one and I asked why that couldn't be used and we've got nothing from that. So I would like them to come back with something. If in fact, we are going to consider that there should be a smoking place on the campus grounds, I would like for that to come back because the place where it is now is against the rules of the smoking areas. It's right up against the building and even closer again, as I say, to the gardening area. For me, that's not possible. So if they could come back with plans for locating it somewhere else, that would be great. If they intend to make it a smoking area or instead of a non-smoking property. Yeah, and I think that at our next meeting we want to deal with site amenities, architecture and layout. So that would be a good time to have that discussion and we could do it at that point if you'd like and we can bring back a different location that you'd propose for smoking. Now I know you came back and said, we'll just make it non-smoking. So therefore that's why there's no smoking area. But if we're looking at having a smoking area can we look at other alternatives? When Mr. Langsdale proposed shifting the smoking area to the front of the building, Rachel responded that we have our stormwater features there. So we have a rain garden and other things where we can't put pervious, we can't have people kind of traipsing through that area. The question that came to us two times ago was to show other areas or to declare the property smoke-free. We opted to declare it smoke-free. So that is why we did not propose alternate locations. I can tell you we've looked at many different places already and I can describe them to you. Initially we thought about being at the patio. We had a comment that it seemed too close to the trap. We've had very strong opinions expressed by our nearest residential neighbor that they do not want it even on that side of the building near their property. We can't put it where we already have stormwater features. So we're kind of running out of likely places. The place where it is now is about 14 feet from the nearest window. It's about 75 feet from the nearest door. It is close to a property line, but there's open, I mean, there's a parking lot that abuts that with some open space. So, you know, we have, we feel like we have exhausted the options that we have with this particular site to get away from all the abutters who don't want it near them, to get away from other features on our site itself. And I would also add just to address, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, identify yourself. Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to add one other comment to address something that Mr. Langsdale brought up, which I believe has been a public comment as well, which is that for project based section eight properties where there is a 25 foot rule, this is not that type of property. So while we respect the idea of that rule, it does not apply to this site. So if I understand it, you've picked out the place that you think is best and you don't see another place to go. And so it's really up to the board then this to, in, when we do conditions to examine whether we want a, just to be non-smoking or not as a condition of the approval or whether we want to have, or whether we choose a place with discussions with you, of course, but whether we choose a place for a smoking lounge or a smoking area. It's not that there's no other area. It's that there are going to be objections wherever we go. And so we're trying to choose the blesser of the evils. And by doing that, you may end up having us choose it, but that's up to you, Mr. Langsdale. Yeah, excuse me. At this point in time, they have said that they need to make it a non-smoking area complete. Right. So I don't know what, I mean, how can we then go back in conditions, impose some other place to put a smoking section when they have decided to make it a non-smoking property, period. Well, we should look at that, but I think that we could make a condition that they provide for those convenience for their residents. We smoke to have a place and we could make that a condition and we could put a place on there. But I would check with you. If they have already said that they're going to make it a non-smoking property. How, I mean, that's like, the thing we had about the trees is they said they're going to take them down. And there was question about whether they should come down or not. So what are we going to do in conditions? Go back and say, no, you have to leave them up. I mean, I just don't understand. I think you can really make a case that it doesn't make much, it's hard to justify, but I think we could legally make a condition that there's a, and I would want to check with the town council, but we could legally make a decision if there's going to be a smoking place. And if that's part of the condition that we conditioned the son, I think that we could do that. But I would want to check with the town council on that. Okay, I want to hear what they had to say. I want to hear, for me, this is really important because what we're doing at the moment, and what I hear you saying is that we as the board are going to impose upon them something that they don't want. And I don't think we can legally do that. So- I don't know the answer to that either, Mr. Lumpkin. So I would like to go- I want to hear what the town council has to say about that. Well, we will ask, we'll go to the town council and ask them, we have a lawyer on the call now, but that's not his job. His job is to talk to us about the process. I'd want to go back to the town council of Amherst and talk to them about it. Or Rob Mora and see if maybe he would know as well. Right. Okay, but we'll do that. We won't do that tonight. We'll get that information over the next two weeks and come back in two weeks and have a discussion about that. Mr. Chairman, could I just make one more comment? Yep. I appreciate the point being made and I think it's a good one and I think this discussion is important. I just want to clarify that in response to the known resistance to the location of the area, we did come back and say we were willing to make it a non-smoking site. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding that we are stuck on that point or refuse to consider a smoking shelter. We just felt like the evolution brought us to that point of bringing that up again. Ms. Parks, you had your hand up. Is it possible to make a picnic area where you were putting, where a smoking area could go? And if it turns into an issue, then to use that for a smoking area. In other words, kind of have a possible plan for the future. I know a lot of, it's hard to dictate to people what their behavior should be. So if there's a way to compromise, I think that would be nice. So we have Mr. Langsdale's question for other areas for this. You don't think there is one. What we need to do, we do have a question for town council about the ability to impose a condition requiring a smoking area. And we'll, we can get that for next week and we can have a discussion about that aspect at that time. Mr. Jones. Yes, Mr. Langsdale. Then I would say if their position is that they are only proposing a non-smoking area or a property and that they would be willing to make a place for smoking and that there are real objections to the placing of the smoking area as it exists at the moment, I would like to have them then come back and talk about or show us where it could be located. So it's not close to the building and it's not 14 feet. It's 11 feet on your floor plan, the drawings from the building that, and they're saying that it can't go where I asked about because of the drainage things. I would like to have someone tell us that that's impossible beyond just them, that there is their designer, landscape artists, whomever that we understand why it's not possible to be there and what other possible places because if we're going to go into a session as a board and make conditions, if we don't have anything more than just, well, it can't go there, then we're flying blind. Mr. Maxfield. I can't hear anything. We can't hear you, now we can. Excellent, sorry, having a little bit of trouble with my microphone, thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, if we're going to get bogged down and smoking again, the smoking discussion here, I look at these plans and I feel completely opposite as Mr. Langsville does. I think that is looking at that site plan. I think that is the perfect place to put a smoking area. I agree, I wouldn't want to put it on the other side right outside of where the immediate butter would have to look into that. I wouldn't want to put it closer to the road where you have a smoking area where at that point you might as well just push everybody out onto the sidewalk and you can only go so close to the building. I think that is a very good spot for a smoking area to be and I would definitely not want to impose more cost onto the developer here of having to hire someone outside to do an assessment of a smoking area where as somebody who was a smoker for six years, I know a good smoking spot when I see one and the place that they chose is a very good spot for one. And I think that there does need to be one on site. And additionally, I thought my understanding was I think Mr. and Mrs. Lockler said it, but my understanding was they were proposing a, the proposed plan has a smoking area in it. They were simply saying that they were open to the idea of making it a non-smoking area if that's what the board so chose to do. So would we even need to go to the town council to find out legally if we're allowed to impose that? Cause it sounds like that's what they've already applied for and we're simply open to making it non-smoking. You know, the question is, the legal question is, can we impose a condition that says you must have a smoking space and it must be in such and such a place. And I think that's the question. Regardless of whether they want to have it someplace or else, if they came back and said, number one, we would make it no smoking. After first wanting a smoking place and they said we'll make it no smoking and we're asking and Mr. Langsdale asking if we can impose a condition on them to require them to have a smoking space. I think we can, but I defer to the town council on that question. So let's get, let's ask him and we can not have this discussion tonight. Let's ask the town council. We can have the discussion and when we get to get the ruling or opinion from him or her. Mr. Chair, if you will. It's actually not the town council that you would be asking. Oh, I don't mean the, I don't mean the board. I mean, the lawyer. It would be the town council attorney. Yes. I don't know if, if John Whitton, the attorney assigned to this project wants to comment right now in this meeting or do a little research on this and provide us a written response or a response at the next meeting. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Whitton. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm happy to respond if the board would like quickly. The board may impose any reasonable condition on this project to protect public health, safety and welfare. So without having any further details, it's my opinion that the board could impose a condition of approval that required the applicant to designate a portion of the site or portions of the site to be used for or designated for smoking purposes. That certainly is well within the board's authority. All right. Thank you, Mr. Whitton. And Maureen, I was talking about town attorney, council SEL as opposed to CIL. I don't want, I don't want this to go to the town council for a vote. All right. So I understand we've, Mr. Whitney, thank you for your opinion. I want to double check with the city attorney for the town attorney. And I'm pretty confident that that's would be an agreement, but we'll get that back for next week, okay? And so I'd like to move on from the smoking what Mr. Langsdale has asked is another look and maybe a discussion item at the next week. And then that's the, I hope that's the last time we talk, the last time we spend time talking about smoking in this place, but that's what he is asking for you to come back with. Just give a consideration again, all right? Yeah, I just point of clarification. The request was either to find another place or make the property non-smoking. We did the option of making it non-smoking. So just, that's how we got here. It's how we got here, but where we are is we're looking, we're asking you to take another look and see if there's another place and please do that for next week. And then we will be done, we will not spend much more time talking about smoking at this point, okay? Any other questions about this before we move on to tenant selection process? Okay, let's talk about the tenant selection process. So we talked to quite a bit about selection last time. There was clarifying questions about the tenant selection process and how kind of tenants are matched to live at the property, specific involvements that service providers and Valley participate in as part of the process. So all incoming applications are screened for participation in a lottery initially. After the lottery, they're added to a wait list in the order of the date of their application. There are certain standards that each applicant must meet. They have to be 18 or older. They need to be income eligible and they have to have a household size appropriate for the unit size in compliance with the state sanitary code. And applicants rental history, credit history references, interview and follow-up communication must demonstrate that the applicant is capable of meeting the terms and conditions of occupancy, including having reasonable accommodation if necessary. The tenant applicant must provide all required information documentation in cooperation, including a background check and documentation of their income eligibility. The service provider is, and there are multiple service providers in our community. For those applicants who indicate they meet the homeless definition, which as we've talked about is a pretty broad definition. Often a service provider will help provide necessary documentation that a particular person is homeless. For example, a shelter might provide a letter or a case worker might provide a letter. If not, this task is done by HMR, which is a property manager. Support may come from the service provider. They often assist tenants to complete and submit applications. If a homeless tenant is next to be offered an apartment from the wait list and does not have a service provider connection, then property management will make a referral to try to match the tenant's needs with appropriate services. And we also work closely with the three county continuum of care, which is a coordinated entry system for homeless persons. They'll also make referrals into the property. The Department of Mental Health reserved units are closed referrals, which means that only DMH can refer clients for these two units. And then once they make those referrals, those tenants are screened according to all the standards that I described on the previous page. The lottery and the waiting list for the initial lease up interested in pre-qualified applicants are entered into a lottery. Those chosen in the lottery will then complete a full screening and application process. Any applicant who participates in the lottery but it's not selected, maybe they're low on the list, will be the first group included on the waiting list and will be notified when future vacancies occur. Separate waiting lists or a coded unified waiting list are allowed to accommodate at properties preferences. So for example, we could have a wait list for the homeless units, separate from a wait list for other types of units. We could have a wait list for 30% AMI people, separate from 50% AMI people, or we can have one big wait list that just codes out who's eligible for which type of units. I guess I'll stop there, see if there are questions. You know, I do have a question about, I guess it's the TSP. You had other TSP's approved by the Department of, is it Department of? Housing and Community Development. Housing and Community Development. Yeah. It must go beyond rental history, credit history and references. What other characteristics do you use? Other than, this is kind of general, but I mean, what is the checklist that they provide or that they approve? You must have seen other ones. But this doesn't, so what I see here is just three things that I think is very hard for a homeless person or a person who is likely to be homeless or in danger of becoming homeless to provide rental history, credit history and references can be really difficult for somebody who's been living in the streets. So there must be more than that. Sure. So we've talked about it before. So service providers can provide references for someone, for example, who doesn't have a rental history or who doesn't have a recent rental history. Yeah. Credit history is something that we'll look at through the lens of whether someone will have a project-based subsidy or not. So for example, if you are applying for a unit where there's a subsidy that will adjust your rent based on your income, your credit history may not be as meaningful as someone who's a self-pay tenant where we might wanna see that they have a solid credit history. And references are, you know, hopefully everybody can come up with a reference from someone that speaks about who they are as a person. So, and then we'll also do our own, they'll interview people as well, make sure they can kind of follow at least through the application process, even if they need supports to do that. Go ahead. That questionnaire or that TSP. Yeah. It's actually approved by the Department of Housing and Community Development, correct? It does, and I mentioned it was a long document, partly because it's not simply about what are the criteria for screening tenants. A lot of it is about how you conduct the lottery in a fair way. A lot of it is how the agency will market the units in an affirmative way. So it's a little bit broader than just what we're talking about tonight. I see. And I do, and you would have different criteria for 50%, below 50% of income and probably then at 80%. I mean, it would be that's, those are different populations and probably have, you could have a different criteria that you'd use, I would think, right, or not. I don't think so. I think the difference is in income level because someone could be working 30 hours a week at, big Y and they're at 50% AMI and someone could be a section manager at big Y and they're doing some overtime and they're gonna be over 50%. So I don't, I think it's really about income. Go ahead, yes. I just would add to that that it's actually key part of fair housing practices is that you do not treat people of different income levels differently in any of the criteria you said. Instead, the marker is a percentage of income being paid for rent. And so whenever you have units that are bringing with a voucher or any type of subsidy that is automatically met by anyone at the, who's eligible for that voucher. They're paying about 30% of their, or they're paying 30% of their rent. So that same rule is applied to someone who's paying the full rent themselves. So if someone comes in and they're making income and they do not have a voucher, it's 30% of whatever their income is as a percentage that they can pay the rent at 30% of their income. So I just think that's an important detail about the need for same criteria across those income bans. That's for eligibility. That puts you into the, that you're eligible for the 30% or the 50%, right? No, that's about the criteria of looking at someone's ability to pay rent. So when you're evaluating them from a screening perspective, if someone came and said, I'd like to rent a unit that costs $800 a month, but my income is only $500 a month, they would be denied because they don't even have enough to pay their rent. But their rent, their income has to be high enough to support that rent payment. That's a part of the screening for that eligibility, not just the income eligibility. Okay. So exceptions to that are people can request accommodations. So if someone has a disability, for example, they might request an accommodation. If someone is primarily speaking another language, they might request an accommodation that is a translator. If someone is blind, they might request an accommodation to have someone help them fill out an application. So there is a little bit of case-by-case analysis when people request an accommodation. Other questions about this from the board members? Mr. Maxfield. Mr. Maxfield, we can't hear you. Can you hear me now? Now we can. You might have to give me a moment when you call on me. I have to keep fighting tonight, apparently. So how exactly, who are you looking at and how are you looking at them when it comes to credit history, exactly? Because I imagine you're gonna be getting applicants who could otherwise qualify, but might have a negative credit history. And I can't say I love the idea of somebody who, if they typically have a bad credit history, you're talking about somebody who has fallen on hard times. Now there would otherwise be eligible for this apartment that could really help them, but the issues that gotten in there in the first place, no longer get this apartment. Right. I can answer that, or I don't know, Jane, if you wanna feel that, you might have more experience than I do. I don't mind taking just a kind of a broad pass at it, which is that there actually have been fair housing issues about setting a number for a credit history for affordable housing because of the way that can exclude people in a very unfair way that is biased against certain protected groups. So typically what I see in tenant selection plans is an approach to credit history that is somewhat relative to some conditions and some properties depending on, as long as you're consistent with all of your applicants at the property, sometimes that would be something that would say, you know, you can't have any judgments against you. And sometimes it might be, it's okay if you have some medical bills, but that's applied to everyone. That's not just one person who gets that. You would say, if you have some medical bills that are late, that's not the same as having built up a lot of retail or personal credit. And that's a good example of, I think, what Mr. Maxfield's referring to, you wouldn't want that to get in the way of someone's housing. You put those caveats and those exceptions in writing so that all applicants are aware of them when they apply and they're used across the board. Mr. Maxfield. Excellent. Yeah, I guess I'd just like to see some point during this process. I could really see what those conditions are on what would be exceptions. Somebody has bad credit, what are the exceptions of when they wouldn't be denied and in what cases would they be denied? I'd like to see specifics on that if that's possible. That makes sense. Thank you. Again, we just always have to add this caveat that we can bring this forward as a draft that would always be a draft. And then we could discuss it and bring it back at a future date if we needed to, but that's our best we can do is use the best practices we are already aware of and have in place and then it would go for finalization by DHCD. Fantastic, thank you. Yep. Thank you. Other questions regarding this topic? All right, let's move on to the next question and answer. There was a question about criteria used to determine whether perspective tenant is eligible for independent living and to explain that process. So we just wanna be really clear. Everyone is welcome to apply to live at any of our properties and then we'll use a consistent measure to see if tenants meet certain criteria under the tenants of the collection plan. Service providers and case workers are not in the role of subjective decision makers in the process. What they do do is they're able to have the experience to make referrals that are appropriate for their clients. And they're certainly versed in other housing options such as a safe haven model or an inpatient treatment program. So when we get folks referred onto the wait list from a service provider, we expect that provider knows that it's a reasonable match for that person. But then we're gonna use the same screening criteria for everybody coming off the wait list. We've talked about the final tenants list and plan of being approved by the state that they're very keen on making sure our plan complies with fair housing law. And we set forth the criteria used at application in the tenant selection plan. I think we've pretty much repeating ourselves at this point, so I'll stop. All right, questions, comments? Let's move on to the next question, which is... Oh, I just... I guess we had a question about mail and gender mix, I guess. You know, honestly, I threw this in myself. I apologize, it's a little out of order. We continue to have concerns that this property will be all men or mostly men. And to be fair, in the past, this type of housing has had more men than women, but I was interested and wanted to share with you that the property we just rented up at Northampton Sargent House, which has 31 small studio apartments, is a majority of female tenants, 58%. And we don't screen or discriminate on sex or gender, but there is evidence that there's increasing demand from women, both at the shelter level, at our properties, giving an example of another studio building where four of the last six tenants to move in were women. So just wanted people to be aware that it's a changing landscape of who needs this kind of housing and the perception that it's, you know, all men or mostly men, it seems a little dated at this point, we're seeing a shift. And that's all. I just wanted to mention that to people. When any of the proposed units come fully furnished, if not talk about how people might get assistance furnishing their units. The units will include all appliances, but they will not include furnishings based on our experience. Obtaining basic furnishings and household items has not been a barrier for incoming tenants. Even those who are coming out of homelessness, we see churches and social agencies assisting. We know that the Amherst Survival Center has a community store where everything is free. It's clothing and housewares. And then places like the Goodwill Salvation Army also offer inexpensive furnishing and household goods. We just haven't seen it be a barrier to people and we don't think people all want the same furniture. We do think people want to decorate and furnish to their own taste. Questions or comments? Mr. Chair, I believe General Merrill has a question. Oh, Mr. Merrill. Thank you everybody. Good evening. Just a question. I'm a little confused about how the town council, CIL, weighed in on the local preference and how that tabulates with tenant selection process at this point. I'm a little confused. So I guess your question is, you know that the town council voted nine to four to encourage us to provide for local preference. Your question is, how does that work with the tenant selection process? How does that- And is that something the town council can do and would Mr. Whitten comment on that? So first, Mr. Whitten, can you comment on the question that Mr. Merrill has, which is does the town council have the authority to encourage us as opposed to mandate, but to encourage us, I think, with the letter says to enact local preference? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a political decision or a political request. So yes, I think they have the authority to request the Board of Appeals to consider that as a condition of approval. If the Board of Appeals chooses to do that, and I think there was a response from the applicant earlier today, there is a process for seeking DHCB approval for local preference. So no, I don't see any problem or interference by the legislative body, the town council, suggesting to the Board of Appeals to impose that as a condition of approval. And then Mr. Merrill, was your question, how does that, how do you integrate that into the tenant selection process? Correct. Okay. Ms. Baker and Ms. Lockler, can you speak to that? Sure. Or we- Go ahead, Laura. I can, or we can circle back when we're at that point on the agenda, whatever you prefer. Let's deal with how you integrate into your tenant selection process. Now we can talk about the policy, the broader public policy of sort of a local preference. When we have properties that have a local preference, the local preference is in effect during the initial lottery for the property. And typically you'll have two separate pools, a local preference pool and an open pool. Local preference folks can go into both pools. You need to balance your local preference pool so that you don't have fewer minorities in that pool than you have in your general statistical area. And then you're, you're, you basically think about two bingo bingo balls and you're, and you're pulling, you're pulling names from them. So the folks with local preference have preference if they are equally eligible to the folks in the open pool. So, and I'll give you an example. We, the one thing that I'm aware of kind of SuperSeed's local preference is the handicapped accessible units. So we have a mandate to provide those to someone who needs a handicapped accessible unit before we have a mandate to provide it to someone who's local. So we would choose someone needing a wheelchair accessible unit from Hadley prior to someone who doesn't need one from Amherst. But then after that, as long as people meet the other criteria, which is primarily, you know, we have income eligibility criteria. We certainly have the homeless preference criteria. So you kind of layer all of those together. You don't necessarily end up with everybody being in the property being from the local pool, but it kind of shades it in that direction. And then your wait list will also reflect the fact that you had a local preference when you initially rented up the property. I would comment just for your information that we tend to see people apply from Western Mass, typically in the Northampton Amherst area. Just whether you have local preference or not, it's very likely that's where people will be coming from. Does that answer your question, Ms. Amira? I guess so. All right. Indeed, yes, sorry. All right, thank you. I think the next questions we have, deal with why affordable housing is so expensive to develop and cost factors, right? So what I think we should do, that seems to me to be really pertinent to the last item, which is the item where we discuss the need for 28 units, the number of units. And so I think this is more connected to that, there are general comments. And then we're into the pro forma and financial need. And I think you have questions, you answer some questions at the end here, which is, I think the question about bankruptcy, whether you go out of business is really about the pro forma, but the question about butters for families is one that you should answer. Okay, so that's the ZDA question, some of butters wish there were some apartments for families. So I do have a slide about that. I don't know if I can find it quickly. I think it's number 32. All right. That's the one you're talking about. Sorry. So some of butters wish that there were some apartments for families and what would happen to the economics of the project if there were some number of family apartments, could the project be economically viable in those terms? So we did look at a mix of apartment sizes, for example, 24 efficiencies and two one bedrooms for a total of 26 units in a building of approximately the same size. And what happened was it opened a gap in our development budget and it also put pressure on the ability to support the resident service coordinator position for the number of hours that we want to, partly because there are a lot of fixed costs in the development world. And so there are just a lot of things you cannot reduce, whereas staffing is a little more fungible. Amherst has made positive headway in creating family affordable housing. Valley's done two previous developments in Amherst. They're both benefiting families. Other 4DB projects approved by Amherst that contain affordable family units are Butternut Farm, Olympia Oaks and North Square. Also we have Rowling Green, presidential apartments too, Mill Valley, Estates, Village Park and several Habitat for Humanity properties, all of which are family housing. And at the same time, the identified need for single person supportive housing has gone unmet. So there haven't been any projects that have met this specific need. And then based on the data provided by the neighbors, the neighborhood is home to many family households with children or grandchildren. And based on our own research, North Hampton Road, up and down North Hampton Road contains a strong majority of renter occupied properties, many serving as student housing. And so given this kind of characteristic, we would say that what we're proposing will actually diversify the housing stock in the neighborhood, which is the goal of Amherst master plan. It will diversify the economic character of the neighborhood integrating lower income persons into a higher income census tract. So the census tract that this property is in, the median family income is over $100,000 as compared to 78,000 in the larger statistical area. And then based on well-documented statistical connections between income and race, we expect it will also increase racial diversity in the neighborhood. Any follow-up questions for the applicant on this? Nope, I guess you haven't finished. I'm sorry, Laura, I expect it continues. Everything else is money, so. Yeah, yeah. I think we should hold on that stuff. Right, okay. So if there are other questions regarding what we've discussed, we should ask, what they had presented, we should ask them now. I'd like to go to the pro forma once we have answered all, asked all the questions regarding the presentation that they have given us on our questions and answers. All right, let's go to the pro forma next and run through that. And I think the, how do you intend to go through the numbers, Ms. Baker? So how do you want to do that? I just want to check in because the agenda had the local preference discussion. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. You have local preference first. Thank you very much. Sure. Yep. I know we're going to have a town. The town is going to present some information on that. Maureen, are you going to do that or did Nate make it here in time? I believe Nate's other meeting just started. So I will be filling in for Nate to go over some summary points on local preference. And Attorney John Winton or Ms. Baker, please chime in or John Winton, please chime in during this presentation if there's other facts that I may have missed. So the Zoning Board of Appeals and no other board or committee has jurisdiction to condition a local preference on a 40B comprehensive permit application. The Zoning Board of Appeals can accept advice from other municipal boards and committees such as the Town Council. It is best if the Zoning Board of Appeals and developer agree on the use of local preference during the hearing process. Local preference is prioritizing affordable units for local residents, prioritizing meaning that when tenants are selected at initial lease up, applicants who qualify for local preference are placed in a lottery pool that is drawn first. Once this lottery pool is exhausted, the remaining local preference applicants are placed in the open or general lottery pool with the remaining applicants. A local resident according to local preference is an applicant that is one, lives in the community in the town of Amherst. Two is a municipal employee. Three works at a business in the town of Amherst. And or four has children in the schools of the community. So here in Amherst, the Zoning Board of Appeals can determine the local resident categories to use for local preference. However, the Zoning Board of Appeals cannot put requirements on these categories such as having lived in the community for 10 years. The town and not the developer must justify the use of local preference to DHCD, Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, providing information and data from reports and studies such as the Amherst Housing Production Plan, waiting list or tenant information from similar housing and information from regional agencies. For example, the Amherst Housing Authority in Wayfinders. This step occurs after the 40B comprehensive permit is issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals. Missapality must provide documentations required to support a local preference to the developer within three months of the Zoning Board of Appeals issuing a comprehensive permit. DHCD approves the use of local preference when the community meets three requirements. One, there is a documented need for local preference from reports or waiting lists. Two, the proposed percentage of local preference units is reasonable in relation to local and regional housing needs. Local preference cannot exceed 70% of the affordable units. Three, the proposed local preference plan will not have a disparate impact on people in classes protected under the Federal Fair Housing Act. These requirements were summarized from the chapter 40B handbook for Zoning Board of Appeals, March, 2017 by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. This document has been distributed to all Zoning Board of Appeals members at the beginning of this public hearing process. Local preference applies only to the initial lottery and lease up of affordable units. After units are occupied, the applicants who may be local preference can remain on the waiting list for units. However, each time a unit becomes available, the owner slash developer does not need to use local preference as a priority to fill the unit. The Zoning Board of Appeals can request a local preference up to 70% of the affordable units. The town would need to prove to DHCD that there is enough need for this number of affordable units. DHCD could reduce this percentage. If DHCD approves local preference, the developer incorporates this into their affirmative fair housing marketing and resident selection plan. Advertising for the initial lease up of units should not have a discouraging effect on eligible applicants. As such, local residency preferences must not be advertised as they may discourage non-local potential applicants. According to the affirmative fair housing marketing and resident selection plan guidelines dated May 2013 by DHCD, the affirmative fair housing marketing and resident selection plan should demonstrate that what efforts will be taken to prevent a disparate impact or discriminatory effect. For example, the community may move minority applicants into the local selection pool to ensure it reflects the racial ethnic balance of HUD defined metropolitan statistical area, the MSA. Also from DHCD guidelines, a lottery for projects including a local preference should have two applicant pools, a local preference pool and an open pool. The developer should determine the number of local resident minority households there. In the community, in the municipality and the percentage of minorities in the local preference pool. If the percentage of minority local resident households in the local preference pool is less than the percentage of minorities in the surrounding HUD defined area, the developer must adjust the local preference pool to reflect the regional percentage. And Chris Breastrup is here as well, the planning director. I don't know if you also have any comments to provide. I do know to note that in the past, the town zoning board of appeals that is issued a comprehensive permit has routinely approved up to 70% for local preference and have provided that documentation to DHCD that happened with Aspen Heights, with Beacon and the other project, I'm forgetting the other item, but Chris, I don't know if you can remember the third project or was it just those two? Yes, Chris or Steve? Go ahead, Ms. Breastrup. So the other projects that have had 70% local preference include Butternut Farms, Unlong Meadow Drive, the Beacon Communities North Square Project at the Middle District, Olympia Oaks up in North Amherstown Olympia Drive and the 70 University Drive and they will include University Drive South and they've also included Aspen Heights which is at 408 North Hampton Road. So it's sort of a typical condition that the zoning board of appeals has put onto these projects, but again, it's up to the ZBA to decide whether it wants to impose this condition that would require the 70% local preference if it's approved by DHCD. Thank you. Any questions? Yep, are there questions from the board about the local preference model and how it works? So I hesitate to venture into this because it seems really complicated but I understand at the beginning the first rental when you're filling it up, 70, 30 and I know you have some adjustments in that 70 but what happens as you go two or three years out and you continue to have a resident pool and a non-resident pool so the goal is to keep 70% of the people renters in the unit as originally from the area up to 70% and the 30% would be people who are not originally from the area because they're all eventually residents once they live there. So you try to make, right? So that problem solves itself but down the road, three years if you have three people who were originally non-residents if three of those units turn over you just put those with non-residents same thing with the residents unit. So I don't know how that this works after the initial rent up. So you understand my question? Yeah, so the local preference applies only to the initial lottery and lease up of the affordable units. Is that by law Maureen or is that just by practice? I will let John Witton step in and to answer any legal questions. John, can you help us with that? Sure, the board and this is where the board cooperates with the applicant and vice versa. The board can impose a condition that has a continual requirement of local preference so that if it's just the rent up then the board will satisfy that condition only once and then it'll get lost. So that serves the board and the town no good purpose. So no, the board wants a condition if the board is gonna take this direction. The board wants a condition of continual local preference as part of the lottery selection process. And this is where cooperating with the applicant and vice versa really becomes important because it should be a cooperative effort as opposed to a unilateral condition. Additionally, other questions regarding local preference. All right, oh, Ms. Parks. I was gonna say, is this the time to say that I would like to see that? Well, I would like to see the local preference initially and I don't know, I don't know. You know, I think it's good to know that. If we wanna make this be a condition we're gonna have probably two meetings on the conditions that we're gonna put out. So I've made a note that that's one of the conditions that will possible conditions to discuss and then we can approve, amend or vote down such a condition and that's where we can get into the details of it. But it's good to know what you're thinking about. All right, if there's not any other questions about local preference, I'd like to move to the pro forma of finances and look at that. Okay, I might have muted myself. Can you hear me? Yes, you can. All right, so we're gonna go back up where we left off and I will try my best to walk you through the finances. It's not for the faint of heart. They tend to be pretty complex, but we'll do our best. So I heard a question at the last session. I think it was Ms. O'Mara basically, why does it cost so much to build a tiny little unit like this? And this is a question that we get pretty much with every project that we do, because it's expensive. So I just wanted to make you aware of some of the factors that drive development of affordable housing. This is true throughout Massachusetts, throughout most of our country. So it usually takes a long time. So a lot of carrying costs over four to six years. The state is looking for basically desirable locations that are near transit, and so you can have a high acquisition cost. There are multiple public funding sources to secure and to coordinate. There are high legal costs associated with the tax credit syndication. There are pretty demanding standards for handicapped accessibility on these properties, as well as high standards for use of green materials and exceptional energy efficiency. There are minimum standards for unit sizes, numbers of bathrooms, et cetera. There are goals that the state end funders will implement for minority business enterprises and women-owned business enterprises. There are rising construction costs, which is something that's happening pretty dramatically right at this current time. We've got trade and tariff and COVID and supply chains disrupted. I'm sure people are well aware of that. The factors that those general factors apply to this project, as well as some others that I wanted to highlight. Again, we've been in planning on this project for two years and just in the middle of permitting. So you can see that it's gonna be a long period. We're gonna coordinate multiple funding sources. We have 11 sources projected for this project. We have a goal of making passive house, the development passive house compliant, which is a very high standard of energy efficiency. We're proposing a traditional building design, which is having these tall pitched gable roofs and traditional siding and trim materials. It is a more expensive way of building than kind of a flat roofed, more modern type of construction. We are providing accessibility in the form of an elevator, sensory features and two fully accessible apartments. We're installing 29 bathrooms and 29 kitchens. We have one kind of bathroom for general use and we have one kitchen, kitchenette that's in the common area. That's why it's 29. So the mix of kind of expensive spaces to less expensive spaces is way off in this property. Outdoor side amenities. We've talked a lot about the plantings, the patio walkways, bike storage, et cetera. And we have significant capital reserves. We'll go over those for operating repair replacement and also for the supportive services that are an important part of the development. Cost comparables in terms of per unit development. So we are gonna go over a budget today that is priced at 265 in change for what's called the total development cost per unit, taking the overall development cost and dividing it by the number of units. And then I'm providing some comparisons. So the statewide association of CDCs does an annual survey. So when they did this 2018 survey for units that were completed in 2017, they found that this was the average cost per unit for all of the units, including renovated units as well as new construction. And this was the average per unit cost for new construction. So over half a million dollars. The low cost for new construction was 250,000 and the high was 750,000. And these prices are all stale at this point, several years old. And then we also looked at the M mass to its housing partnership database. So of 12 previous single person developments. So these units above might've been of different sizes, might've been larger units, but this is only looking at very small studio or single bedroom units that were developed only in Western Massachusetts. The average development cost per unit was approximately 241,000 and the median was 233,000. So this is 12 projects that were in Hamden, Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester counties between 2005 and 2018. So again, the numeric data is quite stale because we've been seeing escalating construction costs every year. So we're gonna launch into the, we have two kind of basic. So Ms. Baker, before we do that, I know it wasn't Ms. O'Mear that had the question about that. And so I wanna give her a chance to perhaps ask any, she has a question about the cost, why it's so high to do single room occupancy. Sorry. No, I'm getting the picture. Okay, all right. It's overwhelming, but I'm getting the picture and I thank you for your due diligence. Thank you for understanding our pain. Okay, all right. So go ahead on the pro forma. So when people use the word pro forma, they're basically saying budget and there are two budgets that we mainly work with. One is called the development budget and it's essentially all the costs that go into creating the housing until it's ready to be leased up to tenants. And then the operating pro forma or operating budget is the annual cost of running the property and they're kind of distinct phases of development. So this is our preliminary development budget. It will continue to change and we'll be tinkering with it until the day the construction is finished, honestly. What I would note out to you is that 700,000 of these development sources, which is 9.4% are town funds and about 11% are local funds. 88.5% of total sources are from statewide foundations or state and federal public sources. All of the sources with the exception of those that we plan to request from the Department of Housing and Community Development are committed. So I've kind of highlighted in green here those entities that have committed funds already to this proposed development. And then those pending sources, all of which are available, meaning there's a program to apply to at the Department of Housing and Community Development, these are very competitive funding sources. So I'm not saying we just walk in and get them, but they are known to us, they're available and if we do a really good application and we're ready to go, we should be able to secure these sources. We do what's called a one-stop application where we ask for all of these sources in one kind of ginormous application packet. So that's our source side, close to 7.5 million. And then the use side, this is a lot of detail and so I may kind of try to summarize it a bit, but. Yeah, don't go through every $12,500 outside of it. So, but break it down to hard costs and soft costs. Sure, sure. So we have an acquisition to the cost to buy the property. Hard costs are those that are basically construction related costs, which is always our kind of largest number. And then soft costs are all the other things that aren't hard costs, design, legal, surveys, permits, accounting, marketing, taxes, et cetera. And those total soft costs, including a contingency will carry both a soft and hard cost contingency are about 1.7 million. I mentioned reserves before. And so this is where the development budget kind of holds hands with the operating budget. So we put aside money as part of the original development that is there to benefit the operations. So typically funders look for six months of the operations to be in a reserve, capitalized operating reserve. We have a relatively small replacement reserve because we're doing a new construction property. And this is the first time we've used this type of reserve. It's called the capitalized services reserve. It is there to support ongoing service delivery. And then we have our earnings. So we have developer overhead, which essentially is intended to pay us back for the four to six years that we've been working on the development. And then we have a fee, which typically wouldn't be earned by, it won't be earned by Valley or any other developer until the project is completed. It serves as a contingency, a further contingency that's cost overruns. And that brings you back to that same, just under 7.5 million. And again, this 265 per unit for 28 units. Questions so far? You know, I have some questions in more detail, but what do you want to talk about next? I'd like to go through some of these numbers. And is this a good time to, okay, so, and then other people can ask questions as well. But so I was looking at the, I didn't receive this until I had already looked at the yellow sheet that you produced earlier from your PEL. Yeah, and it's not that much different, but it gives me a, so I'm gonna be operating off this. I couldn't match it up the numbers exactly, but operating off the PEL. What I see here is that, what you've got is about 70, three quarters percent equity and three quarters percent and a quarter percent debt. You're kind of 76, 24, 34. So I'm gonna, you got mostly equity and you got some debt. So I, but what I don't understand is the equity portion very well. Explain to me how the long-term housing, the long low-income housing tax credits benefit you directly. I think I know that institutions and individuals, I think this is how it works. Institutions and individuals will agree to fund this, give you money, grant you money, and they get a tax credit for doing so. And so that is in effect equity into you. It's not, it's not repayable. It's a grant money. And so you got, if that's correct, okay, that's both state and federal tax credit money. And those aren't, do you have to get a blessing from the state or the federal government for that to be eligible? And that's what you're, that's what's pending or is it, does the state allocate this money out? Yes. I think that's credits out. Okay. Help me with that. I will get to that. So we have no permanent debt on this project that we need to pay every month. Some of these sources are deferred payment loans. So on the books they read as loans, but unless you violate the terms of your affordable housing agreement, you don't have to make payments on them. The same is true with the tax credit equity. You don't repay it unless you mess up. If you rent to the wrong income folks, if you don't follow all the regulatory requirements, you can be in big trouble with these programs. But assuming that you follow all of your commitments, you would not pay this money back. And in fact, these equity investors would exit the partnership that will create this housing after 15 years. That's how long their kind of stake is in this. All of these pending sources, we go to the state and compete for. Massachusetts gets an allocation of federal low-income housing tax credits on a per capita basis. So for every person living in Massachusetts, they get a certain amount of this tax credit. It's an IRS program. It's not a HUD program. And then developers such as ourselves, both nonprofit and private developers compete at the state level for an allocation of federal tax credits. And then the state has its own kind of parallel program that is separately funded for state credits. So the state essentially will say, yes, we'll give you this many credits of our annual allocation. We like your project. And then we go to a tax credit syndicator and they actually get sold on the private market. So it is typically large institutions, large banks. It could be a combination of investors going together in a pool who will purchase the tax credits and they will be the beneficiaries over a period of 10 years. They'll be taking those tax credits. So we get the equity as soon as we finish construction and have an operating property, they get the tax credits over a 10-year period. Ms. Hardy, identify yourself. It's Felicity Hardy, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to summarize what Laura just said. Essentially, the way the tax credit program works is it's a little bit of genius. And the way it works is that these investors get tax credits over a period of time that they apply against their income tax that they would otherwise have to pay. And in exchange for that, they buy the credits. And the credits are allocated to this project. They go through a syndication process. They buy the credits and the money that they use to buy the credits is the equity that's put into the project. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so that other questions about the tax credits for the loan from the board. I do have a question about the sub-ordinated debt. I notice that there's no, you don't have to pay anything back. You don't have anything budgeted for debt payment. And sub-ordinated debt is typically, I think of it as the last thing paid out in a capital structure. But I don't know how it works here. You have Housing Innovation Fund, Facilities Consolidation Fund, and the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Trust Fund. 1.7 in sub-ordinated debt. And is that, so that's debt that's forgiven over as long as you rent to the right people? Is that what eligible people, is that the deal and the state will forgive this debt? So it's called soft debt. They do take a lean against the property. And that's what binds us to compliance with affordable housing restrictions. Typically, there is no principal and interest paid. And for example, if it's a 30-year loan, it will show on paper potentially that it's payable in year 30. But if you're in compliance, they will roll it forward for you. So that it can be kind of a perpetual source of equity for the project. It's really only repaid. If you're refinancing, for example, you might repay one of these sources. If you would have a principal balance on it. But generally, it feels a lot like equity. But the advantage of having it be debt is it's a way for the state to enforce its affordable housing restriction. And to inhibit the likelihood that this is sold for some other purpose down the road, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. So this is kind of a goal. These are handcuffs, you know, if you have to keep it as, all right. Yeah, affordable, yeah. Affordable, okay. Exactly. I got it. I did not understand that. All right. You did quite well, Chairman. Your question was well phrased, so you did well. I spent some time on these numbers, and I think I was finally getting it. Ms. Hardy, you want to comment? I just wanted to point out to you and to the board that the affordable housing restriction for that's applied by the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Trust Fund typically is a 99 year restriction. So these affordability restrictions, you know, they vary somewhat from funder to funder, but the one that's the most restrictive is the affordable housing trust fund and it's a really long one. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And I guess before we, before I throw this open to other people who have questions about your income or your capital structure, how confident are you that you'll be able to get this, which is the lion's share of your capital structure, are these jazz instruments that are still pending? And if you would lose the housing tax credit, the 3.2 million, this thing becomes... Right. Moot. It's impossible to do. So you really have to be fairly confident that this is going to happen. Yeah. Right? So Tyler, talk to me about that. Sure. So we engage in conversations, we've already been talking with the state finance agency about this particular project. They know us, we know them. And so this fits into a number of priority funding categories at the state level. They're actively looking for creation of units that serve homeless people. They're actively looking for creation of accessible units. They're actively looking for units that serve very low income people. So we design something that we know is something the state wants. It's going to be attractive to them. And then we look at a lot of cost categories and things like passive house and other things that we know will be interesting to the state. We get pre-development loan money through an organization called CDAC. And they are closely affiliated with the Department of Housing and Community Development. So we know that they will advocate for us when it comes our turn to apply. I am extremely confident we could get these resources from the state. It's really a question of timing because it's so competitive that many applicants with perfectly good projects will go in and get turned down and come to have to go back in the next year. So it's an annual cycle. So to me, it's not so much about could we get it, will we get it as how long will it take for the whole process? And this presumes our economy doesn't fall apart. I mean, we're in pretty rocky economic times. And that, I can't even begin to think how that would affect all my entire industry. It's not this project in particular. But yeah, the tax credit programs have been very well sheltered from cuts because their credits. I mean, it's partly why the federal tax credit program has been around for 30 years. There's nothing to cut because the money never comes in. And so again, you can argue the merits of that. But it's been very effective at protecting this program when some other programs have been cut. And honestly, it's the private sector that benefits people who live in low income housing benefit but banks and large institutions benefit as well. And so that also helps to protect it in a political sense. One last question that I'll open up for the board members. Are there any of the housing innovations funds or the facilities consolidation fund? Are they appropriated funds? So tax credits or tax expenditures, they're not appropriations. So they're hard to cut, like you said. But appropriated funds are easy to cut. Are either one of those at risk because they're appropriated funds. Sure. So the housing innovations fund, the three ones you mentioned are all state bond money. And they come in the housing bond bill and they come in usually a five-year tranche. And so I think we're in year two of what was a massive housing bond bill. So yeah, they are subject to the political winds that blow. We think they're pretty safe for the next couple of years because they've already been approved by the legislature. But yeah, it's just like the town or subject. They're not taxpayer. They're not based on property taxes or interstate income taxes. They're based on a bond issuance and they actually do a lot more protection. Okay, I got it. How about other questions? Are there questions for other board members regarding the pro forma? I would note the CPA funds are also intended to be a bond funded contribution. Okay. If there are no other questions, I don't want to dominate this, but I do have another question. I'd like to turn to your operating budget. I mean, we've talked about the capital budget, the development budget. I think I understand that. Go ahead, I have one other question about the capital budget that I just saw here. So your capitalized reserves, go over that with me and for everybody else. Cause I think that's, when I looked at that, I thought that's just reserves you put, but those are reserves that you pull down from an out years to subsidize operated costs. So you're in effect pre-funding some of your operating costs. And that's what that capital, that $500,000 is for, right? Correct. And then the two $280,000 figures, your developers overhead and developers fees, those basically go back to you to reimburse costs and to give some obtained earnings to the Valley Development Corporation, right? If we're lucky, yes. Yeah. Correct. And lastly, then you said something else that I wasn't aware of, that the developer fee is a contingency fee against cost overruns. So that's there to incent you not to have both cost overruns cause it would come from the 280, is that right? Yeah, it's the last stop gap, really protecting the state and the towns if we don't budget accurately, if we don't manage properly, if something happens on a site, we have other contingencies, but we only get this fee when we've produced the product. We get it at the very end. And if there's a shortfall, we don't get it all. Yup, it comes out of that. Yup. Once you've exhausted the other contingencies. Correct. So that serves to protect the town and serves to protect the town in some regards. Okay. Did you want to talk about the operating budget now? I will get to it if that's all right with you. Sure. So it's a little, it's hard for me to pull apart the budgets from the need for 28 units. To me, they're kind of interwoven. So, you know, we've had a lot of questions about why the project couldn't be smaller. And I just wanted to talk a bit about how scale impacts the budgets. So first, just to note that this project originated between, in a contract, a planning grant with the town of Amherst CDBG planning grant. And the goal of that planning grant was undertake key pre-development tasks related to creating a small to mid-sized 16 to 40 units supportive housing enhanced SRO development. So that's what the town gave us money to do. They didn't give us money to create family affordable housing or, you know, a six unit project. They really wanted this particular housing resource. And so we took that to heart. We went out to do that. So this contract was predicated upon Valley developing a project at a scale to be financially feasible and financially sustainable and large enough to make a dent in the level of need. 28 units happens to be the midpoint in this range, 16 to 40 units that were identified as the purpose and the goal of the money that the town gave us. That kicked all of this off before we ever located a specific site. The largest funding source for this development is, we've just been talking about it, the federal long compounds tax credit program. So we're showing about 3.2 million from this source. The second largest source is the state tax credit program budget at 1.5 million. The state only lets you use this if you're already using this. So you have to have federal tax credits to access state tax credits. You just can't get them by themselves. The Massachusetts Department of Housing Community Development minimum threshold for an application to the low-income housing tax credits is 20 units. So the most recent notice of funding availability, I just quoted it, 20 units will be the minimum project size of the sponsors seeking tax credits. And partly this is driven by how expensive it is for syndication and legal to use the tax credit program. It just doesn't make good public policy sense to use it for something that's very small. So to be eligible for LI-TECH, this is what this tax credit abbreviation is, an apartment most rent to a household is 60% of the area median income are below. The project that we're proposing only has 20 units that are eligible, 12, 30% units and 8, 50% units. So we are at the minimum number to be able to access our two largest funding sources. Although the development includes eight additional units, they're not eligible for tax credits because they're targeted to people who are 80% of the area median income. The desire for a mixed income development model, including these 80% units that reduces segregation and congregation of extremely low-income homeless persons was advocated during planning about three years ago by the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust and has been echoed by neighbors of butters and other community members. So we've been talking about a mixed income development from the very beginning. The trust was opposed to a development that would solely be for homeless, very low-income homeless persons. They just didn't want that model in Amherst. Amherst College, which is our main largest of butter has shown particular interest in the development of 80% units as appropriate workforce housing for its staff. If we don't reach this threshold, which is the 20 eligible units, which is exactly where we're at, this is the number, it's 64% of our total development budget that we cannot access. This gap would be further increased by the fact that the state awards funding on a per-unit basis and has a per-unit ceiling for these resources. So each unit that you take away from the development then reduces some of those other bond-funded resources that we talked about that we saw in the source side of the budget. And then every time you take away a unit, your total development cost per unit goes up because we have a lot of fixed costs. Acquisition of the land, design, legal, caring costs, those costs are then spread over fewer housing units. So the smaller it gets, the bigger your expense per unit tends to be. So now this is starting into the operating side, but I guess I wanted to see if folks had questions about this part. Any questions from the board on the cost per unit? Okay, go ahead, Ms. Baker. So the operating side of the budget primarily has rental income as its revenue source. We carry a vacancy allowance for when units are turning over. We don't usually have ongoing vacancies, but we always have, you know, we may have a few months here or there and the funders like to see us have that. And then we have an effective gross rental income, a little bit of other money coming in. This is a source that comes from the Department of Housing and Community Development and it's tied to the state's rental voucher program. It is only when you're supporting people who are homeless that you can get this particular resource, it's $15,000. And then we have what are pretty typical operating expenses listed here, management fee, audit, legal communications, administrative salaries. Actually the resident services coordinator position is one of our larger administrative expenses. People have asked a number of times what money Valley would earn from operating the property and that's best reflected on this line here, the asset management fee of $1,200 a year. Again, we'll only get that if the property has positive cash flow. If it doesn't, we won't get that. This is a fixed fee that we'll owe to the state. And then we have a bunch of upkeep and maintenance costs. Again, a lot of these are fixed costs as well. Snow removal tends to be, you know, you have to pay for the snow to go off no matter how many people are living there. The elevator, you have to maintain no matter how many people use it. Grounds have to be kept up. And then utilities do fluctuate depending on the number of people there. We used to have a line here showing gas but we've been able to eliminate gas from the plan and have a non-fossil fuel-based property. Real estate taxes, which we do pay taxes annually to the town, insurance. Each year, in addition to that upfront capitalized replacement reserve, we need to put aside money in the event of a large capital need down the road. Like 25, 30 years down the road, we need a new roof, for example. So we're accruing this money over the years to pay that expense. So we get expenses, operating income less expenses, we get what's called in our industry the PUPA per unit per annum. And this is a number that state funders used to compare from project to project because projects are very different sizes. So our per unit per annum is 8772. If I take out the service portion, it's 7165. So most of the state's affordable housing is not supportive services. So we're looking at this number as a comparison for what is it costing us to operate this property versus what other people are operating properties for. In year one, we're looking at a net operating income. If all these numbers prove true of about 14,000. The state requires that we use adverse trending. So we kind of stress test the operations. They require 2% per annum increase in revenue versus 3% per annum in expenses. So each year you start to kind of erode this bottom line. And then in the out years, you start using some of those capitalized reserves that were set up initially on paper. Should I stop there and... Yeah, let's see if anybody has questions. So I mean, this is an example of how it's going to change over your numbers change over time. The PEL had you at 13 and eight and change. And now you're looking at 14. So it does get adjusted and interest rates and costs and everything just changed. But you're really looking at, you're looking at $14,000, about $1,000 a month of operating income on this 28. So that's thin, right? That's a really thin... Thank you for noticing. That's a thin budget. Yeah. And that's why you have a 527,000 capitalized. And you earn interest on that or you invest that or what is done with that? Yeah, we can earn interest on the reserves. But you have to put it in a safe place. Yeah. We're not buying gold with that. No, it's usually on a CD or something. I would tell you the difference between the PEL and this is probably that the fair market rents change every year. And they went up a little bit between the time that we did the PEL and this one. So every year there are adjustments that we're making. Mr. Chair, Ms. O'Mara. Oh, go ahead, Ms. O'Mara. Thank you for your wonderful presentation. I hope you can hear me. Yeah. I'm a little curious about Amherst College interest in 80% of the units for its staff, which might equal eight units. Is that correct? So they were interested in those units and there are eight of them that where the ceiling rent is 80% of the area median income, which is about right now, it's about 47, 48,000 for one person. So they looked at that number and thought about all the staff that they have who would qualify for that housing. And I would interject that I don't think quite honestly, as a taxpayer that we need to be subsidizing Amherst College in their billions of dollars of endowment, I think they can build their own housing for their employees. That's just my personal opinion. Sure. I guess I mentioned it because they are our primary So anytime we can find common interests with them, we think that's a benefit. That's all. Right, but they also had the option to buy that property originally. Yes, they did. Yeah, and chose not to. Yes, they did. They chose not to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your wonderful presentation. Sure. Any other comments or questions? All right, Laura, let's go, let's do, let's talk about Cooper. So our Cooper, the 7165 is below the state average for this kind of a finance development. This average from Massachusetts was 7,500 several years ago. So the proposed development has a lean operating budget at its current scale. And so I'm really just pointing this out in the sense of what happens if it got even smaller. We talked about how that would have an adverse effect on our ability to raise the initial capital, but it also would have a significant adverse effect on our ability to operate the property. So we talked a bit about this, the stress test that we do. So in this budget scenario, the budget starts to trend to negative cash flow, which means you're spending more than you're taking in in year six, at which time we begin to draw on the capitalized services reserve. And then in year 14, it begins to also draw on its capitalized operating reserve. So that's why those reserves are in place so that we can show the state what they want to see, which is a 21 year budget, where the project is whole and can operate. So some of the impacts on reduction of scale on operating feasibility are that the fixed costs stay the same and the revenue goes down, that we are hard pressed to afford this level of staffing that I think we and the neighborhood would like to see at this property. And that what can happen if the project gets too small and it's too tight is that you end up with poor capital conditions over time. You can't keep up with the maintenance of your property. And we don't want that and I'm sure the town does not want that as well. I was just poking around doing some research and came across some comparison rents at Amherst just for your information. So a lot of people in Amherst rent a bedroom, basically in a shared house. And I looked at current listings, I think I looked in Craigslist and apartments.com and the average was $663, but then you'd pay utilities on top of that to share to basically have a bedroom. The average rent for a zero bedroom studio apartment in Amherst was $14,000, sorry, $1470. And there are brand new studio apartments that are now advertised that are 297 to 381 square feet. So they're bigger than our proposed studio apartments, but not by a whole lot. They're going to be renting for $1450 to $1500. So we're giving people something slightly smaller for about half the price. And the average rent for one bedroom part was $14.94. So I list these because these are the folks in the housing market. This is our market, basically. These folks who would otherwise be looking at these different situations. So we had an early question from a ZBA member and we kind of deferred it till we were going to be talking about budgets. So it was basically what happens if the state or federal government dramatically changed levels of housing support. Could we stay in business? Some assurance that if we went broke, the town of Amherst would be not left responsible for subsidizing attendance in the project. So this is our response. If the state's rental subsidy program were discontinued, it would cost some level of financial challenge for this property. This would also be true for virtually all public and private affordable housing. The majority of units in the proposed development have no rental subsidy. So 57% don't have a project-based rental subsidy. We're a little bit better buffered against a downturn in state or federal rental subsidies than many properties in which all units have project-based subsidies, such as public housing. So in our experience, because it can happen, if an affordable housing developer goes bankrupt or out of business, another affordable housing agency assumes their portfolio. This is by far the most common outcome. This proposed housing of multiple public investors, mortgage holders, who have much deeper pockets, most of them being state agencies than we do and who will be highly motivated to ensure the property does not fail nor lose the benefit it provides to low-income tenants. So we have seen situations where the state has kind of come in and refinanced properties that are in trouble. So those are some ways to think about what might happen in a very negative situation down the road. And then we already covered this. Before we do that, before you move on. I mean, the real, I think the real risk is that there's a cutback on the rental subsidies. Yeah. That's the problem for your eight units or your excuse me, your ten, your eight units of property that's subsidized, has a subsidy from the state. Yeah, three to 12. That's the real risk. There's 12 total, excuse me, there's 12 total. I think that's the real risk. And that could have a real profound effect on your ability to be financially in the black, I think, quite frankly. That's, rather what you do in that instance. Right. So we consider, and I believe the state agencies consider that we're partners in these projects. And so there have also been instances where the state DHCD will substitute one, say a section eight, for example, for its own MRVP or vice versa. So we're pretty confident they would work with us to try to make us whole. Yeah, I mean, I think if this is happening, it's hitting a lot of properties, not just, we're not uniquely exposed. It's every bit of the affordable housing stock that has a rental subsidy. It could be faced with this challenge. Yeah. That was, I know there were other members of the board that had that similar question. Does anybody else have any comment or questions for Valley before we move on to the last question that we asked? Okay. So we covered this last question. This was about why we do not do family apartments. And that's all that's prepared for tonight. All right. Any other questions for Valley regarding finances for many of the board members before we move on to compiling a list of questions, requests and possible conditions for the project? Okay. So one of the things that we want to do every meeting is go through and make sure that we captured the things we talked about, the questions, possible conditions that we talked about and that we then are able to discuss and review when we get to the conditions and the waivers later on in the process. So it seems to me that there's a couple of things and then everybody add in if I've forgotten one, that we're looking at giving another, we're asking you to come back with another look at the no smoking proposing an area. We are going to ask the town attorney as I've been corrected to advise us on smoking. We did get something from John on that as well on a condition. We'd like to see a little more specifics on the tenant selection process. We had a request for that. And those are the notes that I had for either questions for the applicant or possible conditions. Were there other things that people brought up or that Mr. Maxfield? Can you hear me now? Now we can. The tenant selection process, does that include my question about specific credit? Yeah, that's what, that was the shorthand for your question. Yeah. Ms. Parks, did you have a question? I thought I saw you, I guess you didn't, I thought you raised your hand, that's all. Just about the preferred local preference, was that, did you have that? Yes, the local preference, preferred local preference, yep. Mr. Linesdale, did we capture your concerns about smoking correctly? Yes, I think so. Okay. Can I ask a clarifying point? You know, I'm hearing different opinions, which is splined from the board about smoking versus non-smoking on the property. Is it at all useful to just do a straw poll so we know where to put our energy? It's gonna take our design team some work to try to think of other places. And if most of the board is feeling like non-smoking is good, it doesn't seem like that's a good use of our professionals time. Whereas if a lot of the board thinks they really are invested in us having a smoking area, it would just be great to know that. Well, you know, we're not gonna take a vote on that condition tonight because a lot of it would be dealt with and would be based upon what you eventually come up with as an alternative potentially. But I think you heard at least two members and that's, it only needs three to pass. You heard two members say that they would be interested in how you could create a smoking place that would be not where it currently is and that would be okay for the neighbors and okay for the abutting properties. So I think you have, there's at least 40% of the board that wants that. And so I would encourage you to go in and come back with something on it because that number could be higher. Mr. Chair, it looks like Ms. O'Hara has raised your hand. Yes, Ms. O'Hara. Hi, just a point of clarification on municipal employee. Is that restricted to town of Amherst employees or is it wider? I believe it, Attorney Whitton, please correct me if I'm wrong. I believe it is restricted to town of Amherst employees for local preference in the town of Amherst. So within the same community that the comprehensive permit is being proposed then. Perhaps we have to make sure that the local preference condition stated that that town of Amherst minister employees to clear it up. But Mr. Whitton, do you have an opinion on that or advice? That's absolutely correct, Mr. Chairman. It would defeat the purpose to have the local preference be preference for another municipality's employees. I mean, I have seen regional local preference programs where there's a memorandum of agreement between the budding communities. I don't know if Amherst has had those conversations with the budding communities. So absent that, no, I think the local preferences for Amherst municipal employees. Okay, and we don't have to, in terms of other conditions, we don't have to be limited simply to what we were talking about tonight. If over the last two weeks, you've thought of other conditions that you would like us to start as board members that you'd like to have considered as a condition of this application, bring them up at any time. You can do it tonight. You can also get it to Maureen at some point to she'll be keeping a list of potential conditions. But if there are any that people wanna discuss tonight or highlight for us, we won't discuss them, but highlight for us, that would be helpful. Okay, we've gone through everything that we set for our agenda earlier than normal. This does give us the opportunity to have public comment, which we hadn't, which we should take advantage of. So I'd like to open it up to the public to comment if they wish. Please, if you, I would remind the public what you wanna do is to identify on, use your raise hand function on Zoom so that we know that you wish to comment when you're recognized, please identify yourself for the record. Try to keep your comments to between three, four minutes, something like that. And remember to please speak to the board, address your comments to the board, and not to the applicant or any other, and any other commenter. So Maureen, do we have people from who are interested in commenting? Not as yet, not, yes, here we go. Amy Gilbert, Amy, you'll pronounce your last name. Amy? Okay, thank you, Maureen. It's Amy Gilbert-Lynes, and I live at 14 Orchard Street. I just wanted to make a note of a couple of things. Firstly, that, you know, just talking about the tenant selection process, I just wanted to note that in the July meeting, I think it was July 25th, but I'm not sure about that, but the Valley did say that they would, for their homeless preference unit, they would rely on their service providers that they have relationships with to refer clients, and that those service providers would follow them for, excuse me, nine to 12 months. So if there's a shift in that policy, you know, I'm not saying anything about the shift in the policy, but I just wanted to note that that's a change from what I'm hearing. So, you know, just to take note. And I know that the whole, you know, application has to go to DHCD, but just wanted to note that. Secondly, I just wanted to make a comment on the smoking policy. You know, my field is public health. I've been a practitioner for over, for almost 20 years, and it's just a little disturbing to hear that the board would mandate a smoking area on the property. And I understand I listened to all the arguments about it, but to have the current location, 11 feet from the building, and maybe 14 feet from the property line, I'm not sure, on the other side, on the Amherst College side. It's not really the standard, you know, I understand that it's section eight housing mandated, and this is not section eight housing, but it is the gold standard for affordable housing and for just the trends that are happening in affordable housing and public housing. So keeping that in mind, that the decisions you make today, you know, should adhere to those kinds of standards. We shouldn't go against, you know, public health trends. And if we're looking out for the public health safety and welfare of residents of Amherst, surely the people in the building have the right to those same standards. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Is there other people who wish to speak? No one has indicated. We'll give it just a minute. So normally at these meetings, when we get public comments, we also allow the applicant to respond. So I think in this case, instead of waiting for you to respond in two weeks, we have time for you to respond to the question that she had regarding whether the service providers will continue to provide six to nine to 12 months of follow-up after residents are there. And I don't recall that you changed that, but I do recall that it was something you spoke about before. Is this something you've changed or is it just something you just didn't happen to mention in the last two meetings? I stand corrected. So the tenant selection and lease-up process is not directly in my domain. So I went to those whose domain it is to get deeper clarification on it. So everybody's selected off the wait list. The outreach to service providers happens at the time that we're gathering. You know, we're taking people into the lottery or if we, for some reason, have an opening and we don't have people on a wait list, which is hard to imagine. We would be doing outreach. And we are looking for people because there are almost always, folks who are homeless are almost always kind of referred by someone. So we are looking for those linkages with the appropriate service providers so that when someone is coming from a homeless situation into our housing, they do have a service provider and there are entities like Elliott Services. This is what they do. They help people through this transition that are there during the stabilization period, which is typically most of that first year that they're in housing. But it is a different outline of how it works than what I presented before. And I apologize for the change or the inaccuracy of the information that I gave before. There is, while I'm raising their hand, KS. Hi, thanks. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can. I would prefer not to state my name or address, but I had a suggestion about the smoking pavilion that I was just hoping to offer. So if there is going to be a designated smoking area, then if I'm looking at page 49 of the application to the ZBA where there's a map of the property and there are two paths in front and on the front side of the property that are somewhat near to its parking lot that seem like another location that might meet some of the criteria that Mr. Langsdale was suggesting. It would be a location that would be far from the building. It would be far from property lines. And it would be closest to the parking lot for Valley CDC itself, but it wouldn't be too far over, I would hope, towards the Wilbur side. The other suggestion would be that if there is this swale there where it's hard to have people, why not build a small bridge or a small area that goes over the swale that can take water through it, but also people would be able to stand on and smoke in. And I understand that part of the concern that Valley CDC expressed was that they didn't want this to look not like a residential area. I believe that Jane said that in one of the meetings. And so a suggestion would be to provide a sort of three-sided pavilion with some type of screening so that the smoking area can be shielded from view so that people feel like they really have a private and safe place to smoke if they need to, but that it's really then it looks private, right? So it would be sort of like three sides so that people still have enough air in there, but they're far away from the building. So just a suggestion, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I don't think there's a need to respond to that question tonight. You're gonna be bringing something back to us in two weeks, but you can factor in the comments you heard. All right, looks like there's no other comments from the public. The next item after public comments are is to close or to suspend the public hearing on this, or you would continue this, not suspend, right? Continue the public hearing on this matter until September 24th at 6.30. Do I have a motion to do that? Mr. Maxfield moves it. Is there a second? Second. Ms. Parks seconds it. Is there any discussion? This needs to be a roll call vote. If there's no discussion, I'll call the roll. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale? Aye. Ms. O'Mara? Aye. Ms. Parks? Aye. Mr. Maxfield? Aye. Motion passes. So our next ZDA meeting will be on September 24th at 6.30. It will be on this and we intend to discuss, I'll bring out the responses from questions and site amenities, architecture and layout for the items. We'll open it up to public comment again and we'll be collecting ideas and potential conditions for the approval of this application. And then coming up, we'll have meetings on motion. We have to go through the waiver requests that those are pretty expensive. That will require some time. We'll complete the conditions that we look at and we'll have a discussion about the approving or not approving the application in early October. So if we have a meeting on the 24th, a meeting on October 8th, October 15th, perhaps the 22nd, I hope we have this done by, it'd be great if we could have this completed by mid-October or at the latest by the 1st of November. And I think we have sufficient time to do that. And we've gone through most of the, we've done a really good job, I think, as a board going through the issues, we'll have to deal with conditions and questions in the next couple of meetings. So that's what we have planned coming up. And the last item on the agenda is the comments from the public on any matter, not before the board tonight. That's a requirement of Amherst public committees to do that and we always do that at the end of the meeting. So if any member of the public wishes to speak on something that was not the subject of the hearing tonight, they may do so now for three minutes. All right, nobody has raised their hand. I move that we adjourn this meeting of the ZBA. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Maxfield, is there any discussion? This is the roll call vote. I vote aye. Mr. Langsdale. Aye. Ms. O'Meara. Aye. Ms. Parks. Aye. Mr. Maxfield. Aye. Motion passes. We are adjourned. Thank you all again. Thank you so much, Chairman and board members for your time. Thank you. Thank you to the applicant. Thank you to my fellow board members. Thanks.