 Okay, I was just a dry run. I'm sorry. It is February 27th. We're recording Dave. Yep. We're good. We're good. Okay. Good. It is now 631 calling the meeting, the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council to order at 631. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extends by chapter 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022. Extended again by chapter 2, the acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public is possible, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real-time via technological means. Again, we have a quorum and we have all attendees. Good. Okay. There are no public hearings tonight, but we can open with public comment on matters. That's the point of order. Sorry, Pam. You have to check to make sure all committee members can hear and be heard. Thank you. I'll start with Councillor Ate. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Hello. Hello. Councillor Haneke. I'm present. Councillor Taub. Present. And Councillor D'Angeles. Present. And Councillor Rooney is also present. So we are all here and accounted for. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder. Again, so we public comment, public comments on matters strictly within the jurisdiction of the CRC. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the CRC chair based on the number of people who want to speak. We will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter that's raised during public comment. Are there folks in the audience who would like to make a public comment? Councillor Crossland has his name up. Would you like to bring him in? Hi, Tom. Hi, good evening, everyone. Hope you're doing awesome. Just looking back over previous meetings and I noticed that one of the meetings has not been posted. The meeting from January 30th. So I'm wondering if that's going to be posted. I just, you know, I want to go back and take some notes from some of the dialogue that took place from the landlord's perspective as well as the CRC's perspective. I did take notes on the meeting, but being able to review the video would be helpful. So that's that's it for now. Just wanted to check in about that meeting because it has not been posted yet. I'm going to look to Dave. Dave, can you respond to that, please? Sure. Thanks, Bam. And thanks, Tom. I did just check in within the last two hours with our IT director, Sean Hannon, and he assured me that that meeting would be up if not this evening tomorrow morning. So it will be posted. I appreciate that. Again, just wanted to, you know, make sure I have resources that I can go back to about the dialogue that has taken place between CRC and the landlords. That particular meeting was the one that had a little bit more content associated with landlords feedback on the matters of things that the CRC are addressing and continuing to work on on a meeting by meeting basis. So I just wanted to make sure that we had access to that one as well. I appreciate all of your hard work and your time and commitment. And that's it for this evening. Thank you. We also do not have any, any minutes from that meeting yet. So we're waiting for those as well. Renata Shepherd has her hand up. Let her in, please. Hi, Renata Shepherd from Justice Drive. I just want to say thank you for doing the work on the spreadsheet. I looked at that and at least it makes things a little more clear in terms of what's being charged than, you know, the amounts being used. And I really, really hope you choose the lower end of the fees. Thank you so much. Anyone else from the audience interested in participating? Raise your hand. We'll let you know. I don't see any other hands. So I'm going to move on to the next item, which is action items. Starting with VBA vacancies. In the last meeting, we determined that the pool is sufficient for the current vacancies, which is one remainder, the remainder of one full position and the ongoing open associates lot. And this time is, oh, and, and the bulletin board announcement was amended on the 14th of January. And so it is within, roughly within two weeks of today. And the question is, is there sufficient cool for considering openings beyond the current, the two current ones. Welcome any thoughts on that. And there's a listing in our, in our SharePoint package, which is not the public consumption. Just a listing of those people who have submitted activity forms. Jennifer. So from what I'm seeing, we did not receive any additional calf since the last meeting. So we're at eight for six spots. So I'm going to confirm that. And we can continue. If we declare it sufficient, we can of course still continue to receive calfs. I believe so. I'm seeing Mandy not heard him. Any, any comments about sufficiency of pool. I mean, as always, I'd love to see at least double the number of openings. And I'm not sure that. But I also like to work efficiently as a committee. And I'm not sure. We're going to get many more if we wait longer. We've been open since November. The new vacancies are not necessarily different than the ones that were already posted in November that we've strived hard to get this many for. And so, you know, I, again, as I think I said last meeting, I would lean towards in some sense, resignedly saying the pool is sufficient. We can move forward and get these filled and be done with an important part of, you know, press forward and get it done an important part of what this committee needs to do. Thank you. Yeah. Jennifer. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, we've put notices in our newsletter. I think twice. I think we've all been doing a lot of outreach, which we can continue to do. But I guess I'm saying it's maybe, I mean, there's always more we could do, but I think. I think we have more applicants than vacancies and we can keep receiving cabs for another, you know, until the interviews. So I think we do have to move on. I agree with Mandy Joe. Would anyone like to make a motion to that effect? I move that we declare the pool of applicants sufficient to go forward to the next step. I'll second. Thank you. Jennifer, you muted yourself before you finished. I don't need to go any further. That's the motion. Thank you. Any conversation, any discussion on this? I'm going to use the other thoughts on that. So I'll start with the both of them. Pat, the Angeles. Hi. Hi. Mandy Joe, Hanna key. Hi. Jennifer town. Yes. At Rooney. Yeah. It's a. Okay. It's unanimous. We believe we have a sufficient pool to take the next step, which is a nice segue into the next step. And that is Jennifer has nicely volunteered to pull us and the applicants for availability for interviews. And I think it might, it might be helpful, at least I would find it helpful to give her some. Parameters on what days are best for you all. Before we try to reach out and then include eight other people who may be. The applicant pool. Jennifer. Yeah, no, I'm actually opening my calendar. I just want to. So we'd be talking about. Not before the week of March 18th. We'll see Mandy. There's a two we would have to post. Remind, remind me the process here. So the interview meeting needs posted a minimum of a week in advance with the names of the applicants that will be interviewed and the statements of interest posted at the same time. The statements of interest obviously needs submitted to whoever's reviewing them for compliance with the policy, and then gathering all of the packet for the posting in enough time for that person to be able to gather. And then when I get it to Athena for posting, I generally leave two days. Sometimes three between when the interview. So about 10 days before the meeting is the interviews are is when I tend to have in the past had the statements of interest do. And then at that point, if you're counting back, it's how long you want to offer the applicants the ability to write their statements of interest. And then you can save them at least a week. Yeah. So, if it if it was, we're all looking at our calendars here. If it was any time during the week starting the week of 18. We would want to have statement of interest in our hands by look like about the 6 or 7. Yeah. Which means you'd have to have the interviews already set and the deadline out to them, although you don't have to have the interviews set when you do that if you know the earliest they can be, but you'd have to be communicating with the applicants. This week to give them enough time for that deadline. In terms of what that works that statements of interest need submitted. I have poll committee members to see when you're available for the interviews and applicants. Do you do committee members first or you do it all together. I do it all together as I believe I sent Pam a sort of a. I don't know it was a duplicate of a past poll to create a new one. It's it's a it's an I do have the form. I do have that form. So I can do us all together the applicants and us. Okay. Yeah, I send that out to everyone. It's like we would, we would want the interviews no sooner than 316 to allow essentially a week of communication to get a poll get interview date and and to ask people to submit their statements. And we have to recognize if someone does not submit a statement of interest, then they are not eligible to be included in the interview or for consideration. And that means some people may drop out at that Jennifer. So shoot in the Google calendar should I do the weeks of the 18th and the 25th. What do you really do we want to get them all done the week of the 18th. Yeah, that would be possible. Right. So I'll do both. So you will get a calendar. Yeah, you will get that for the last two weeks in March. Okay. Thank you. Again, I'm looking at Mandy. You can't tell but I am looking at you that. Were there were there unusual opportunity that you tried to add into the mix so that, you know, sort of off, off meeting typical meeting hours. You tried to include. So I always try to include the mix of hours and days always and I think I always included various start times within our regular meetings themselves. So like the beginning of the meeting or midway through a regular meeting. I always tried to the committee we have last time was much more flexible on date on times to meet I believe then this committee is in terms of availability. So I always tried to include some early mornings, some midday around lunch hours, and then some afternoons and evenings, but that that might not be useful if we already know this committee doesn't have availability at all of those various times the last CRC did. In general, so it might be good to get an idea of availability of committee members so that the form the form can get very unwieldy, depending on how many times you include. Are there are there times that that might be. And I'm going to say for myself, there are often like Wednesday mornings or Friday mornings that aren't typically meetings that might be available for me. Is there anyone else who has some, you know, to give a range, maybe some morning, morning hours as well. Just to give Jennifer a target or lunch hours are people with potentially three in and around a lunch hour. I am I have some flexibility maybe it's easier to ask who, you know, doesn't have flexibility, you know, because of your teaching you know when you're you know, teaching a class or there's things. That's really done by now so that we don't know Mandy was just suggesting we do it now but I will just send do the Google poll, we're not the poll but what this is. If anyone if anyone would like to share with her some opportunities for sort of off off traditional timeframes, please email Jennifer directly. Or I can stick to the times that we times and days that we usually need. I think we wrap that up. So we'll look for a poll and we'll do as we reach out to people to ask for a statement of interest. Okay, so let's move on to the next actual item that is the nuisance by law. And I want to appreciate that acting captain acting chief ting is with us as someone who has had some input on this by law and will continue to provide insight. And Mandy, would you mind bringing that by law up. So just as an overview since we have not talked about the nuisance by law and quite a long time, in fact, since, I don't know, last December or so. And this is not that different from today's nuisance house by law, but it spells out in a little more detail some of the definitions. And it also approaches this as a nuisance that is not necessarily limited to partying and underage drinking, which was really the focus of the previous nuisance house. That said, are there any comments that people have about the few changes or that have been made, and if they are still appropriate or applicable we can vote to accept them. I don't really think I need to go through this chunk by chunk unless someone has a specific item that they want to address. Pat, I'm sorry, I didn't see your hand. That's okay. I still, I see that there was a change made. I muted myself, I'm sorry. I see there was a change made to the indoor furniture being outside. And now it says upholstered furniture on the front lawn. There's no reason why somebody can't have an upholstered chair, a lot of garden chairs, etc., are upholstered. And you can put a, I don't think I would, but I might put an upholstered chair on my lawn and then bring it in. The issue is that there's a health code violation if it's left out and gets rained on and stuff like that. So I'm not sure where we have general bylaws relating to, it feels like why isn't that just there. So I'm not going to vote against this for this, but I feel like this is one of those oversteps that is a taste thing. Not a real nuisance issue. Because a nuisance issue would be taken care of by the health code. Yeah. Yeah. In thinking about this part a little longer, there's such a difference in what upholstered means, including, I think we talked about this last time, outdoor fabrics are still technically upholstered furniture. And, you know, as Pat indicated or Councillor Dandle has indicated, if there's a health code violation and it's much more of a health issue, and I know this one is this bylaws trying to get at things that, you know, as the purpose says sort of create, you know, protect, it's trying to protect the quiet enjoyment of residents and all. And so I'm just having more and more of a problem, including the upholstered furniture on the front lawn as a property, as something that makes a property in nuisance. Because what's the difference between upholstered furniture that's indoor upholstered furniture and upholstered furniture that's outdoor upholstered furniture and non upholstered furniture that's outdoor or indoor, right? It could all still be ugly, or it could all be very tasteful. And so I think in some sense, this number C3 here, I would probably prefer to have it deleted completely at this point in time from this before we recommend an action to the council. And I have some other comments later on, but we can stick with this one until we're done with it. I'm going to weigh in, and I think I would, as much as the site of all of this really starts to annoy people, and I know personally annoys me when I see it, I would have to agree that it's a tough one to, no one ever gets pulled aside because they've left furniture, you know, it just doesn't happen. There are so many more important things in life than I put on, as much as I dislike it, I would probably, I would probably agree with striking it. Anyone else, anyone else weighing in on this at the end of the day? At the end of the day, what do you all do? It seems like there's no mechanism for enforcement anyway, so I shouldn't, I don't know what it's getting at. There are maybe other issues in the place, it doesn't really, it's not indicative of issues by itself, but it's, okay, good, let's move on. If we could go to F4, I think that was the next change, and this is already been highlighted, the loss of a permit designation of the property as a nuisance property may result in a suspension revocation or denial of a permit under the bylaw, if the bylaw is applicable to the property. And I think this was, it says we need to cross-reference, and the cross-reference is in the bylaw itself, which is G3C, and there it says, can't get a permit if your property is, is under suspension or revocation. And here it says may, Jennifer, I mean, Mandy. So I'll explain that, but I actually, in thinking about this part of it, this is the part I wanted to discuss, I think I would have favored deleting this section, and this potential enforcement. But no, the cross-reference means the rental property bylaw would need to add as a reason to suspend or revoke or deny a permit, a designation as a nuisance property. That, that's what that cross-reference is there, because the, the rental permitting bylaw does not have that as a reason to be able to suspend a permit or deny a permit yet. And that, that's what that note means, it would need to be added into that bylaw, not this one. It would need to stay in here, but it would need to be added to that one for it to be possible. But the longer I think about this, I take to heart a lot of commenters that have said the penalty for violation of a bylaw should really be geared toward the person or persons who are violating the bylaw. And many of the acts that could violate this bylaw and cause a nuisance really relate to the people who are living there, which may or may not be the owners of the property. And if it's tenants that are living there, it may not be the owners of the property that are, are responsible for the behavior. And this bylaw has already created a way through the third infractions of bringing the owners of the property in to talk to the town and try and work out the situation between the owners and tenants and what's going on to rectify what's causing the property to be a nuisance. And I think that's a positive. And the rental registration bylaw has already incorporated into its regulations, I believe, and we can check later this meeting that if a property has been designated a nuisance property, the inspections can occur more frequently for that reason in order to get your rental permit. And I think those two together are the most appropriate actions for nuisance properties, but suspending or revoking a rental permit seems too harsh to me. So I, after thinking a lot, would like to delete Section F4 completely, and then it would require some deletions of some other references down later in Section G, and if there's an H and H, but I think my preference is to remove this as a potential penalty for having a property that is a nuisance property. Thank you. Jennifer. Well, not surprisingly, I think it should be there in 10 years of having probably more because we've been doing this for two years. So in 10 to 12 years of having this residential rental permit bylaw, residential rental property bylaw, there has never been a revocation or suspension or denial of a rental permit. So it would, but I, so it has never happened and it may never happen. It's not something that town clearly just, you know, does willy nilly, but I think that that it's, that should be there if, you know, there's if, and I, if you have a nuisance property, I mean, if there's, you know, if there's a call coming once every two weeks, I don't think that happens. I mean, I think there's some, some circumstances where a property owner does lose their right to continue to rent, at least for some period of time. And again, it's what will probably never happen, but I don't, I think that I mean, you know, you can have your driver's license suspended. There's any kind of a permit or license. That is the ultimate penalty down the line. And I, so that it's the occupant and maybe not the property owner who's violating the bylaw. I think we're trying to get the message across that the property owner does have some responsibility. I know that I've seen in my own neighborhood that there are houses that have been nuisance properties for a number of years. And then there'll be a new property owner, a new management company, and they will, the house stops being a nuisance house because they lay down certain rules, whether it's more careful, diligent screening of the tenants or it's, you know, like one house around the corner that was a nuisance house for the last two years. This year, as part of the lease, the eight students that live in the two units where there's a limit to the number of guests that they can have, that's, that's part of the lease and the house went from being nuisance property to not being. So I think that this is, you know, if it gets the message across that the property owner, you know, where there's a will, there's a way. I think that that's one of the reasons that we are looking at this bylaw in the first place and looking to strengthen it. We'll go with Chief Ting first. Okay. Thank you. Chief Ting. Good evening, everybody. So one question in regards to this is if you have a landlord or a property owner that owns several properties and let's say they own five properties, but they only have one property in question, that's a problem. So if their rental permit is suspended, is suspended for every property or just that one property? And I guess that's question number one and question number two would be if it was a rental property company that's managing it, you know, how does that, how does that play out? You know, does it, is the owner still on the owner of the property or is the management company now being held responsible? So a couple of questions to throw out there. I'm going to answer one if I can, and that is that if it is, if it doesn't actually matter how many properties that person owns, it is the one in question where the nuisance has occurred. So that it should not, it should not engage them all. Pat, why don't we go back to you? Thank you. The major flaw in your argument, Jennifer, goes to the driver's license. Yes, I can lose my driver's license, but it's because of an action of mine, not because of an action of my passenger or the owner of the car, if I'm not the owner of the car. So I agree with Mandy that this is not, that this should be removed. I'm wondering about the fundamental reasoning for keeping and not keeping it. I am ambivalent about four, but I mean, interested in having something in a buyer that is consistently not enforced. Is it ineffective because it's not enforced? Or by keeping it in, does that prevent people from acting in a way that would actually make it enforced if they go over? So I'm not really sure about that. And that actually applies as well to the upholstered chair. Should we keep that in even if it's not going to be enforced? Or should we take that out? Because, again, it's not enforced. Sorry, can you repeat that? I think I understood that your question is, having this in here, is it effective if it is not enforced? But what was the alternate, the opposite of that? So it could serve as a warning of what could happen. And because it's in place, there's a possibility that we won't have some nuisance spots. So even if it's not enforced, it doesn't mean it's not effective. But then if we have something that isn't being enforced, there are others who would look at it and say that it is ineffective because for 10 years, 20 years, it's been on the books, but nothing has been done about it. I tend to lean to having it removed if, for this long, it hasn't been enforced at all. But I'm wondering about the logic one way or the other. Thank you. And I might look at Chief Ting again for the discussion of enforcement. So in terms of our existing nuisance town bylaw, I would say that we average probably about 20 to 25 annually citations that we issue. And usually, it's a secondary offense. We rarely use it as a primary offense. Usually, it's a noise complaint. And we find underage drinkers there, or they're particularly rambunctious or whatnot. So we might add that layer of enforcement. However, I think what you're talking about is discretion, right? And that's something that we really take into consideration in terms of being reasonable given whatever circumstance that brought us there. The one good thing that I can say about the nuisance bylaw in terms of the violations that we've issued, the recidivism rate is really low. So usually, when we issue that citation, we rarely see repeat offenders. What I do like about the expansion of this bylaw is something that you're kind of talking about, the potential. You know, if we do find a property owner or a specific property with tenants that they're there in violation with really egregious offenses, this kind of gives us a tool to potentially use. But of course, anytime we are affecting any type of violation, you know, we have to rationalize and justify our actions. So we're not just handing them out willy-nilly. You know, really anytime we are issuing these citations, it's for a solid reason and we can back it up because there is an appeal process. And when the folks do appeal it, rarely do they win because we have really good cause for issuing those citations. I hope that's helpful. Yeah, I think the reason my point in saying that they have never revoked or suspended or denied a permit over the last 10 to 12 years is as Keith Ting said, that is not that would only happen in a very egregious situation. So it's something that a lot of restraint is used on the town's part. But I think having it there is does, I don't is putting the, you know, making it clear that that can happen. I would think into answer the chief's question about who would be responsible, the property management company or the homeowner or the property owner. I still think it would be the property owner. I mean, if I go away for two years and I rent out my house, even if I have a management company and the tenants in my house are just causing a disturbance of the inability of my neighbors to have the peaceful enjoyment of their home, I don't think I can say from, you know, I'm on sabbatical for, you know, wherever I am. Well, it's not me. You just, you know, that's, you know, kind of what you have to live with. I think that I would be responsible if there was, you know, if there were three or four, you know, I think we have three times that there's it's a nuisance call is made. But I think if it's a perpetual problem, and I have to say in my neighborhood there have been houses, and most of them have been corrected over time. But there have been houses where calls are made, you know, repeatedly throughout a year over a period of years. It may, I mean, it may be on, I'm not saying this as a joke, it may be all 20 of those houses are in my neighborhood that you're going out, you know, but in certain areas, you know, certain streets, certain neighborhoods, there, you know, and again, this house I'm thinking of on Sunset where there was a nuisance house for two years, and the property owner really, maybe it was through the management company, just, you know, said we are going to try and change what's going on here and they did. So and I think, you know, some of these, the nuisance bylaws, you know, were part of the incentive for that happening. Let me go to Mandy Joe and just add, if you have another question, then we go back to Chief Ting. I don't have a question. So if Chief Ting wants to answer before I comment again. Yeah, I just want to throw this out there. Definitely, I hear what you're, what Councillor Talb is saying, but just a couple of variables that throw in there, you know, a lot of times, you know, the rental tendency changes hands, sometimes semester by semester. So that's something that just, we just need to take into consideration. You know, a lot of times with landlords, sometimes they lock out, you never know what you're going to get. A lot of times, you know, when you're renting it out, especially the undergrad students, they're going to put on a good face and tell you all the things you want to hear. And then once in the house, it just turns into a problem. So I see that all the time. And sometimes you get rate tenants, sometimes you don't. So I'm just saying, you know, perhaps that's something to be taken into consideration, that you're going to have different tenants, you know, from one semester to another or one year to another. I think I'd like to weigh in since I haven't spoken on it. Part of, part of me wants to, to have a statement in the book that says, if things really get out of hand, the town has the ability to say no to a permit. We understand that there are appeal processes. We understand that there are, you know, essentially three strikes before something really gets to this point ever. We're not talking in this F, number F4. We're not talking about an emergency situation where a house has to be evacuated. That's, that's a different scenario. Part of, part of what, part of what gives me a little comfort that we have this as almost like a backbone is that if it's just the frequency of inspection or, or the application of fines given, you know, associated with citations, that's, I mean, that's exactly what we have today. Is, is it any different going forward if we remove this sentence? I think at the beginning of this process, we talked about a point system that sometimes used where if you reach X number of points in a, in a year that your, your permit is up for discussion. And it feels like this is probably the one phrase that we have maintained of that nature. I think we've, we've sort of gotten rid of some of the excess stuff. This one doesn't say you will. It doesn't say will. It just says may result. It's, it's within consideration and at discretion. I don't think the town wants to be heavy handed. I, I almost would say this may never be used, but for a new landlord, a new owner coming into town and establishing themselves as a new manager or, or owner, I think it's, I think it's important for them to be warned that their, their attitude and their approach to their tenants can make a big difference. And it, and it behooves them to, to do the right thing in sort of training and educating their tenants. If, if all gets out of hand, I personally feel like this one phrase might come into play at some point. So, Mandy, Joe, a couple of things in response to both some of the comments that were made. There are two big differences in this nuisance property draft bylaw than the current nuisance house bylaw. And I think both make a big difference. The first is, as Pam started the meeting with, or this section with, is we're expanding it to apply not just to possession of under, underage alcohol violations and large parties. We're saying there's a lot more that's involved in a nuisance house and causing a nuisance property. And so, and, and many of those disorderly conduct, public urination, public fights, litter on the front lawn, blocking of public ways due to gatherings, you know, even refuse collection in a sense, but obstruction of public ways, you know, some of those general bylaw ones, unlawful noise in particular, are the sole responsibility of the tenant or maybe even the tenant's guess. If there's a tenant, the person living there, that might be an owner because we cannot forget that this applies to every property, no matter whether it's a rental property or a non rental property, yet we always come back to those rental properties. The second big difference is down here in corrective action. The correction process that we have here that literally brings in the owner of the property, whether that owner lives at the property or not, after the third violation, to talk to the town and say, what are you going to do? That does not exist in our current bylaw. And I think that Jennifer is what you were going to of how do we get the, if it is a rental property, how do we get the landlords involved? This correction process is how we get them to care. That's the very important part of this rewrite of the nuisance property bylaw is the correction process that requires a corrective action plan to be filed by the property owner. That property owner might live in the property and have to file it or that property owner might have to talk to tenants if they don't live in the property. That is huge. But there is exactly one enforcement and penalty that only applies to a subset of property owners in this bylaw. The monetary penalty will apply to property owners equally starting at the third or greater infraction. I think it's the third one up here. Third or greater infraction, it's not just the occupants, it's the owner. Abatement, all reasonable means would apply to an owner if it's applicable to an owner equally, response costs equally, no matter whether the owner lives at the property or not, depending on who the town goes after. But loss of rental permit would only ever apply to a subset of property owners. I think that's the other thing that sits wrong with me is that we're writing into a bylaw something that doesn't apply equally to all members of the status of property owner in this town. And that doesn't sit right with me as well as the fact that it's the correction process that gets them to listen. Maybe someone believes it's the potential loss of a rental permit, but here we go. You can have a nuisance property with an owner that lives there and you can't kick them out. You can't. No matter if they have that nuisance property designated for a year and a half or two years, they still get to live in their property and just keep paying the fines. But you're going to say, oh hey owner, because you don't actually live there and you rent it to tenants, we're going to pull your permit and you can't have someone live in it other than maybe yourself. But you might have a different house you're living in. That seems wrong to me. The correction process is there for a reason. The correction process is what we should see if it works because that's the new thing. So I cannot support this rewrite anymore if it's got the loss of rental permit in it. Thank you. Good point, Jennifer. You are different if you're renting it out. It's like having a business license. Yes, if you own the property, you could move into the property if you wanted to. But if the correction process doesn't work, this isn't what I'm going to die on, but I think that the logic doesn't hang together for me. It is a privilege to be able to have a rental permit and rent property in town. And if you are not meeting, if you are negligent according to our rules, then you may be suspended for six months or some period of time or in some cases not be able to renew or get a permit. But it is a different, you're talking about different people. So again, I'm not being articulate, but this is clearly by the fact that says rental permit only speaking to people who are operating a business through their property. So I would say two things. I mean, they're having the correction plan. You hope that it will work. It doesn't always work. And I know when I've done research in other college towns, State College, Pennsylvania, they regularly suspend or don't allow permits to be renewed if a property owner has a nuisance property over a certain period of time. I would like, I mean, if it is more palatable, I don't know that it would be to property owners to know that there's, they would never have any possibility of losing their permit to conduct rental business. But I would also just want the message to be out there that I have seen it because I live, you know, represent the district where a lot of these 20 properties are and that property owners can't houses. I have seen them go from being nuisance houses over a period of years to not because the property owner or landlord has taken a different care in the parameters they set, the rules they set and how they, you know, how the wording and what they require in the leases and the interview process for selecting tenants. So there is the property owner really can have an impact whether a property is a nuisance house that is real is changing the way the people around the neighbors are able, you know, to to live peacefully in their homes. I appreciate the points that Mandy did bring up about the correction process. In my mind, this number four wouldn't apply to an owner occupant just living in his or her own place. It would be, it only applies to rentals, but rentals is in fact a subset of the category of housing and operation in the town. But it doesn't mean that everything else doesn't apply to an owner occupant. So in my mind, it wasn't being discriminatory, it was simply saying, if you're a rental, this might apply to you. If you're not a rental, it doesn't apply to you at all. But the other the other elements do. Pat. Yeah, I just want to check with Chief Ting, because initially Jennifer said, I don't take all 20 properties in my neighborhood, but it feels like that. I thought you said, but you just got done. I said, maybe all 20 are in my neighborhood. Yeah. And then this last time you said they were in your neighborhood. So I would like Chief Ting to confirm that one way or the other. They all had, that would require some research. So are they all on Lincoln Avenue, Amity Street, all there all? No, I don't think so. I think there's one. I might say district four may have a lot disproportionate. If you don't live in other neighborhoods, you should check out some of ours. So this is, this is a, sort of a watershed right here. I mean, it is, it is definitely a point of consideration. Is, I'm trying to ask, what is the harm of having this statement? If it is never enforced, or if, if something doesn't come to this point, is having it in the bylaw reflect an intention and a, and a word to the wise, to anyone, anyone in town, Mandy Jo. So we can't say it would never be enforced, because this is brand new. This part, you know, the current, there is no current bylaw that says being a nuisance house or a nuisance property may result in the revocation of a rental residential rental permit. That doesn't exist in our town right now. So there's no way we can say no one would enforce it. And to just say, oh, leave it in because it's not going to be enforced. Well, to, to answer councillor Hattay's rule, I am not a fan of writing a law that you don't intend to enforce. That seems, you know, we have, as a council over the last five years, have tried to get rid of laws we're not enforcing, not write new laws that we say won't be enforced. It makes no sense to me to put something in there that you just say, but we don't want to enforce it. And we're not don't intend to enforce it. So to me, it makes a lot of difference. And if, if it's in here or not, if it's in here to me, it says, yeah, this is a real possibility and, and it might happen. And if it's not in here, it says, no, it's not going to happen. But if it's in here, there's no way you can say, ah, it's in here, but it's not going to happen. I think that would be disingenuous to even make that statement. Thank you, Jennifer. Well, if it's in here, it should be able to happen. The point is just that we are a, you know, our, we are a responsible town and we would understand that if a permit was ever to be revoked or not allowed to be renewed, that would be an extraordinary circumstance. But I think if it's there, it should be because it could happen. We in our current bylaw, you can have a permit suspended or revoked. I mean, the reason it has never happened isn't because it's not permitted. I didn't say you couldn't suspend or revoke a permit. I said you cannot do it for being or for a nuisance for being a nuisance. Okay. But I, I, I think if it, if it stays here, I would, I would say it's not there just to be empty words, but it is something that could happen in an egregious case. We seem to be at a, we do seem to be at a watershed here. I, I will just make a motion to delete section F for second. Okay. Well, let's take a vote then. Any, well, any other discussion before we take a vote? Any other comments? I would, I would like to ask maybe I'd like to go back to Chief Ting one more time and, and ask about the enforcement. I understand that it is, it is a, there's a low probability of something happening, but the fact that we say this could be the consequence. I mean, we learned to grow up with understanding what the consequences of our actions are. This is the consequence of a, in a sense, a poorly managed property, which I think if we have everything else in place, there should be a corrective process. It should not, not ever have to come to this. And I understand that the landlords are particularly concerned that actions of their tenants should, should reflect on the tenants themselves and the tenants are responsible, responsible for their actions. All that said, there are a number of things in this bylaw, as, as many jail pointed out, that are not necessarily all tenant actions. And, and so appreciate being able to keep this one phrase in. Councilor Etting, you had your hand up. I thought better of it. Thank you. So we'll go to a vote. I'll just go from, in my viewing screen, I'll go from top to bottom. Councilor Etting, excuse me, we're voting to remove line item four. Hi. Hi. And Rooney is a no. Councilor Hanneke? Hi. Senator Taub? No. Pat DeAngelo? Hi. So it's an aye. Ayes pass. And I think that was the only other item that had any potential changes. Is that correct? Amanda Jones? With, with the deletion of that, I believe G2B needs deleted. There were a couple of references to that possibility. Thank you. I'll see if there were any others. I know there was, there was that one, but there might be another one. I'll see. C3C. Councilor Etting, while she's looking for that. I was wondering what we have decided with the upholstered shares. We took it out. Or I heard, I heard no one saying no, please leave it down. So in my mind, I'll just comment on this. In my mind, it feels like we have, we have watered down this particular bylaw, even though we added a whole slew of references to other, other bylaws and other forms of management. But it does feel like we have taken the teeth out of the fact that nuisance properties, which are annoying, egregious sometimes somehow doesn't have the weight of closure to force an owner to sit up and notice. I, and I understand that we have a corrective plan, etc. But I, I suspect given how long it takes sometimes to look through that system that we may get the end of the semester and the tenants may change and we don't have anything to show for it, except perhaps the frustration of the manager or the landlord, because they had to go through the process, which in itself might be forced them to correct their actions the following year and be a little more stern with their tenants to begin with. I think we've, I think we've made our way through this. I just expressed my feelings about that part of it. Would anyone like to make a motion about moving this forward, Andy? That's what I raise my hand to do. So I move to recommend the town council rescind the current bylaw, general bylaw 3.26 nuisance house and replace it with proposed bylaw 3.26 nuisance property as amended at this meeting. Right. And you'll, and we can change the revision number and the date on that. It'll get changed when I get saved, but I didn't feel like doing that on shared screen. Any, any second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor, I'll start at the top of my screen. Mandy jump. Hi. I'm Rooney. Hi. Councilor Ette, Jennifer Taub. Yes. Pat DeAngelo. It is unanimous we have, we have moved nuisance bylaw to the next step, which is to take it back to town council for consideration and vote. Yeah, I have a question about that. We should go back to the referral. I think it would actually go directly to GOL for consistency and actionability. Do you mind checking on that and taking the correct action? I'm happy to otherwise. So the passage over should always come from the chair of the body. All right. I will do that then. Thank you. And that's going to go back into our SharePoint packet and you're going to save it as today's date. Great. Thank you. I will send a clean copy to GOL for their review of whatever they review. A little three, the three liner that they do. There any consistency and actionability? Okay. And I will take care of that before the end of the week. I'm very excited. We got through one. Rob has joined us. Thank you, Chief Ting. I think that was your, I think that was your bailiwick and you are more than welcome to stay if you'd like, but you do not have to as we go. You must be so happy we're done with this. I think I'm good. I appreciate being involved in this process. I really do. Thank you and have a good evening. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. Take care. And Rob is also very appreciative to be back talking with us again. I can tell. We are going to look first at fees and I want to thank Mandy for a really, really nice job of organizing the variables that are based not only on the base fee, but also on the any kind of fee for additional units and then the maximum number of units to which it applies. Her table, if you want to pull that up, was organized in a way that went from I'll just say from maximum revenue to minimum revenue. That's correct. And again, that was very, very helpful. I'm happy to talk about this, but if anyone else wants to talk about it, you certainly can. So Mandy. Yeah, I just wanted to explain a little bit more, including the coloring. So yeah, I organized it. So A on this one, the top one is the one that would raise the most revenue from fees and use the least amount of strategic partnership agreement revenue to backstop to get up to the estimated program costs of the bylaw. As you go farther down towards the bottom, the usage of the strategic partnership agreement revenue to to meet the estimated cost of the program increases. The last two would use more money for the more strategic partnership revenue than is actually available. But I was asked to include at least one of them on this chart. So I did not leave them out coloring wise. The green one is as as marked, though, the fee structure that was recommended in previously. So that's where where what we recommended as sort of a baseline of where these other ones fall. And the blue sort of coloring is the 10 unit option, basically, and the yellow sort of coloring is the 20 unit option. So so that that's the other coloring if people hadn't figured it out. Thank you. Yes. And again, it was it was relatively easy to make your way through this to understand what the different variables are. Anyone else want to comment on this before I weigh in? Okay, so I'm going to weigh in. What I appreciated is that, in fact, it it does work at the bottom item K. And I just added these the alphabet. So it's easier to refer to a line that we want to talk about line K and line J. And actually line I do not do not meet our basic condition of as many just said of trying to meet the projected cost of managing this program. If we if we're going to implement this, we would like it to at least minimally meet that rough cost so that we do not place additional burden on the financing of the town. So in in my mind, we could gray out the bottom three items. And if anyone else wants to discuss those further, you know, as as having potential, please do. These are just my reactions to the numbers that I saw. When I looked at the what struck me is that letter E, which is the green one, is pretty much on target. As as we were asked to do, like how would you structure this so that you're so that your costs are covered. So that one hits it pretty darn nicely. It's slightly over the projected program cost of $474,000. I ran a couple of scenarios based on, you know, one fee, I mean, one unit, three units, maybe up to eight units to see which ones are most favorable for property owners in town. And I was looking pretty favorably at line H. And I'll just give you my my thinking on that line H. But one of my other considerations is that I would like to keep every single fee as low as it can be and still meet that bare minimum of cost to the program. So letter H to me with a revenue of roughly $454,000 on the far right hand side line was based on having about $68,000 coming from the special revenue essentially UMass contributing toward the key of the infection of properties for the health and safety of their students. And it occurred to me that the number was a little that the 453,000 is a little lower than 474, but I would not be opposed to raising the amount from special whatever that's called the SBA by another $20,000 and making the contribution from UMass be $68,000 to balance our number out. I liked this because the fee for an owner occupied unit is $150 rather than $200 or $250. I really don't want to see those fees at $250. So to me the fee the scale of the fees that are purposes and basically meets our target using a little bit more money from UMass. So I'm going to stop talking. Andy. So I have my own thoughts, but I wanted to clarify one more thing. This the amount of estimated revenue in this column here, if added to this column here, the base revenue will equal 474 together. The amount in this column here right here is base revenue plus complaint. So this column here of estimated base revenue plus the complaint and reinspection potential fee revenue is what you get here. We have had in previous meetings, Rob Mora say that it is unlikely that this complain and reinspection fee revenue will be collected, which is why we haven't really been using this column here as the total revenue. What it means though is if some of the second to last column is collected, complaint and reinspection revenue is collected, it would reduce the amount of strategic partnership revenue needed to be used to get to 474. So if you actually collected the 453 from column H over here because of a hugely guesstimate of how many complaints and reinspections there would be and if it was all collected, then you would actually need only approximately 20,000 of the strategic partnership revenue because it would reduce the amount needed. All of it would reduce the amount needed by approximately $50,000 of this number here. So I just wanted to clarify that. I had it completely wrong though. Yeah, it's okay. It's been confusing, but it's been based on Rob asked us to really consider these numbers here and then this number here that puts the numbers in this column up to 474. What I wanted to say is when I looked at this set, I actually liked item D because for a similar reason it reduced the the first unit application fee to 150, kept the fees charged to 10 units with given our regulations of only 10 units will be inspected or so in a property that seems to at least align a little bit better than charging an application fee on up to 20 units but then only regularly inspecting 10 units over the course of five years and then it charged you know some of these were half of the 150 for each additional unit. This one went pretty high right 125 for each additional unit which means the maximum is actually somewhat less than the 1575 down here but still brings in enough revenue within a comfortable range is actually quite close to what the finance committee and CRC previously said was a recommended number up here. The 68 still concerns me because it's getting closer to the maximum of strategic partnership revenue if we have underestimated the estimated total base revenue. So I would personally like to see us keep on the low side of potentially needing strategic partnership revenue so I thought line D given all of these options was in some sense my preferred line. This is more of like an accounting question so because we don't know we will not know till the end of the year how much we're going to have to use of the strategic partnership funds so does that mean they'll just stay kind of in an account and that they can't be then we can't say for sure that we were only going to use like $49,149 so that the other $50,000 could be budgeted for another use we would have to keep it there in case we need more of it because we didn't collect as much as we thought from the inspection and so this is just a question. A question perhaps for Rob Moran. Yes. So my understanding and Dave might be able to add to this if I've got it wrong is that the money from the strategic partnership agreement from the first year that it's provided remains in the account and you know we'll be able to utilize it if we need to in future years. I also understood today that there's only three additional years beyond the first year that we've received that we can really rely on so just so you have that in mind that in the future we may have we don't know if we're going to have it in the future and that may need to be dealt with by the top manager for financing the program going beyond three years from now but those funds as needed would be available in the account for us to use. That's where you know when we come to the end if we didn't do as many inspections as anticipated or enough to meet our base value that's how it would be utilized. I have a question while Rob is still talking. I just forgot my question, Mandy. I had a question too so it actually popped up. I was curious if Rob had a thought on which of these options the inspection services department might prefer? Yes you know I actually like gee probably for many of the same reasons that everyone else has mentioned but differently in that I feel like more of the strategic partnership money should be put to this purpose to keep the fees down and you know to go towards its intended use and I think that leaves enough. I mean you know going into this knowing that we have one year of that strategic partnership money in the bank right now and you know $30,000 approximately per year going forward I think that's good. I think most of this will become pretty predictable as soon as we build the program and you know we'll be able to conduct the number of inspections that we need to to complete the five-year cycle. So I'd rather see the fees lower. I remembered my question and that is why would we not be charging for complaint and reinfection fees? May not do it today but if we're really concerned about this program why would we not? I think we will have some. I don't want us to rely on it and I'm not sure in the first few years we would expect much. You know it's a big change to this program and I think we need to spend expect to spend a few years educating and working through the problems and not you know running around writing tickets everywhere. You know the other side of that is if we write tickets there's a lot a lot of work that follows up after that you know in a perfect world the ticket gets paid money comes in get it if not we go to court you know we have to see that process through so it's not a not an approach with the program that I want to take from the day day one with it but in the long term I think it absolutely will be utilized more than it has. I was going to add then and I may have been looking at this entire table slightly wrong but I did do the math for the small some small units so the one and and up to three units that we had originally talked about having at least some soft spot for and so when I did the math for that letter B came out as as the most advantageous for the small number of units it's it's a slightly lower fee than today and then the 75 per unit max was kept kept cost within range a little bit to what what Rob just said Rob I'm sorry can you explain again why G felt good for you because when I did the math for that it was that that fee structure is is pretty steep for the one two or three unit property owners so G is is the hundred dollars 150 and then 100 to a max of 1050 right am I looking at the right one yeah I'm not sure why that worked out to be higher yeah so G is 150 for non owner occupied G is 150 for the application fee for the first unit and if you have two units you'd be paying 250 for the application fee if you have three units you'd be paying 350 in B your first unit you would pay 200 which is 50 more than G your second unit you your total cost would be 275 which is 25 more than G your third unit would be 350 which is the same as G and so it would starting at four units to 10 units it would be slightly lower I don't know where the break even where it would then where it passes a 1050 but it would be at four units that B becomes less costly than G so we have a proposal sort of on the table we have G as a starting point Mandy you said you you liked D I could do G okay I'm I'm actually comfortable with G now that I know the math is my math was wrong anyone else want to weigh in on that Jennifer I'm good with G too David yeah I just wanted to follow up on on what Robert said earlier you know I don't have much to add we did talk with the the town manager a little bit about the strategic partnership funding but yeah I just wanted to to reiterate you know that we we do have the first year of that funding you know in hand and to Jennifer's earlier question about you know will it will that funding be you know lost in the general fund or whatever now it will be kept year by year in a separate account any unused funds in that account as Rob said would roll over so you know I I think that's kind of where Rob is on G that you have year one which in essence is for FY 24 and this program will not get launched in this fiscal year and then you know in in G you have roughly you know $30,000 if if if all the numbers play out and all the inspections and whatnot it plays out you have that that cushion as well so yeah I just wanted to reiterate kind of some of Rob's points any other comments from Councillor Ate or Pat? G seems fine it's nice to trust the staff they've done the math too hopefully not accurately but I still like the far the the far column though with the potential revenue I mean it still makes sense I'm looking for then I hear no objection to G we've talked about it it seems to have merit it's supported by staff is there anyone that would like to make a motion the motion shouldn't be on the on that document I'm working on modifying the document the motion would be on and I'll put that up in a second I was thinking more to to vote the acceptance of this approach and maybe we've already come to a consensus 150 100 max 10 50 you're actually modifying our schedule sheet I'm just having problems finding it hold on so I think this would be the fee schedule based on that that concept we just discussed for principal residents 100 for all other parcels 150 plus 100 per unit over one unit up to a maximum of 1,050 that is the same as our sheet yeah an inspection fees of 150 and the rest of this yeah anyone want to make a motion I'll make a motion to adopt the fee schedule as amended well to to recommend the council adopt the fee schedule as amended second de Angelis all let's see not all those in favor uh Jennifer we'll start with you yes come is next yes councilor etay hi councilor hannacky hi that de angelis hi unanimous that we support the fee structure um has discussed and amended to to now we're getting there Rob um we're going to talk about regs and bylaw we have not talked about the actual bylaw for a little bit I would like to briefly talk about the regs for a couple minutes what time is it oh it's eight um I don't think we have any other business really okay let's keep going till just about quarter after we're having so much fun you know just time flying and if you could bring up that the 1214 version um regs or bylaw regs so this needs to be changed uh modified based on the fee inspection or the fees and inspection that we just discussed so that would go to the frequency inspection frequency schedule I'm not sure it does but we'll look where is that should be right up under the one the one two and three so maybe these numbers don't change I did have a note on this if we could look at that number item two which is the bottom of page one well yeah right there so it discusses gentle bylaw 3.26 nuisance house bylaw if we could just call that nuisance bylaw that way we don't have to come back to this if um one way or the other and then thank you just to leave that well someone wants to keep it um just above b in item number in item number two so it would be a a two yeah um it talks about uh response to a message left on the by the town in case of emergency should be returned to respond to within one hour um I'm I'm wanting to ask Rob if we if it changed to two hours two hours is the is the amount of time that man tech it allows for emergency contact would two hours work one just seems like it just incredibly short period of time um I don't have a problem with that I mean there are there are situations where you know responses you know quicker response is really necessary but I don't have problem with that changing to two hours anyone else feel strongly um where we got rid of nuisance house bylaw could we just put in nuisance property since it looks like all of it's going to come at the same time and then just sort of keeping our minds if nuisance doesn't pass we need to modify it back because it probably should read the title and we've just modified it to nuisance property we're recommending so can we just put the word property back in like that are there any other suggestions or changes that people saw in this document that they feel strongly need to be corrected or changed I don't see any hands shall I make a motion sure I move to recommend the town council adopt the regulations for general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property as amended second let's start um any any comment before we go for a vote I'm going to start at the top with councillor Atte and Rumi is next aye for her councillor Hanakie aye at the Angelus aye Jennifer Tobbe yes the regs are unanimous and let me just double check hold on um if we want to keep going we could we could get make our way into the bylaw itself we still have a couple minutes this document itself has gone through GOL for actionability and there were a couple of changes and notes here from GOL I think we've worked through these before to accept them yeah so these are actually from after the council sent this back to CRC for consideration after the first reading so all the red lines in here are changes we made after the council referred this back to CRC just like all the changes in the other ones the red lines were those two yeah okay um I'm going to rely on folks having read this and gone through and made their own suggestions um and if I don't see a hand I'm just gonna start reading off the things that struck me um and I'm going to start with number it's on page two number 19 under under definitions so we have short term rental 31 or fewer consecutive days in um in e4 it is described there's also something that's very short term um and right there which is less than 14 days I'm I'm suggesting that maybe we for e4 we call it very short term rentals because the definition is right there it says in the sentence rented less than 14 days so it's not to confuse with short term which is the 31 consecutive days that's in item number 19 that's uh Manny yeah um we've been confused well our our attorney was was had had a recommendation and so yeah we should probably get rid of short term in front of residential rental property so so short term residential rental for the definition that 19 is meant to distinguish an air a property that is rented in air bmb style from something that is rented essentially long term yearly things like that with a much longer lease um so if you're you're renting it out a day or two at a time or two weeks at a time or whatever like that instead of years at a time um the exemption is is here saying if you're that type of rental a short term rental but you don't do it that that that rental isn't occupied as a short term rental for more than 14 days you don't even have to apply for a permit you know so if you air bmb your house for three weekends of a year nine total days you don't need a residential residential rental permit but if you air bmb your house for 20 weekends a year you do need a residential rental permit um we just haven't figured out a good way to essentially say that um um now i'm confused because i thought an air bmb has to register as a air bmb and it is registered with the town no matter how many no matter how many days they rented out and that then it wouldn't have to get a permit under this bylaw i'm looking at my unders rob can probably answer this but my understanding is the town does not have any requirements related to air bmb rentals right now for permitting the rental the town does tax that rental um and this rental property bylaw would require in order to get a permit would require them to have permits if they're renting it for more than 14 days in a year um and would require them to prove that they've essentially are paying that tax in order to get the permit but rob might know more the only thing different there is that uh air bmb now would permit with us through the current program there there isn't an exemption for that so should we take line four right out or is this line four was for you rent your house out for graduation and that's it i think that was the intention yeah we have the the the short term rental now which is not air bmb in our bylaw but an air bmb does have to permit because there isn't any other exemption to that type of rental in the current bylaw or based on number of days or anything so we have the 14 day exception for the short term rental which is really supposed to be that kind of occasional temporary rental um so i agree with what you said mandy just that we do permit those now when we're asked do you need a permit we do uh we do permit those when we know about so can we in this in this case can we just take out the term short term and just leave residential rental property rented less than 14 days and that makes sense so we don't get hung up on the rob does that does that still make sense yeah i think if it said you know property rented less than 14 days it would cover that it would cover that situation okay um my next next example is going to um item g which is issuance and if anyone has anything as we go through are there any other considerations of everything we've discussed that's in strikeout and red so issuance or denial this this comes back to our conversation about nuisance property and we need to just double check that we aren't inappropriately linking this document to nuisance if i go to item three so g three right here it says that um application will be will be denied and a permit will not be issued and i wondered because we have taken out the nuisance link that if it said application for property may be denied any permit may not be issued if does that make sense rob not yet can you go over that again sure um mandy can you highlight number three on this page it's it is hard to read yeah right there so right now it says um thank you uh application rental permit application will be denied and a permit will not be issued if property fails to comply application is incomplete or a residential permit for the property is currently subject to a suspension or revocation mandy so the first one is i think it should be suspension or revocation order maybe or is currently suspended or revoked maybe i think maybe we lost a word in many of these versions but i would say it needs to stay will because if the application is incomplete i don't really want to give inspection services an option to perm issue a permit if they don't finish the application i want the application denied and i want the bylaw to say hey if you don't complete the application you're not getting a permit um so i think the will is appropriate there for given these three options unless there's an issue with a concern that if it's currently suspended or revoked that maybe it would get issued for the next year anyway um i i guess maybe rob can weigh in on that one but at least for a and b i don't want it as a possibility that it'll be denied i kind of want to say it's going to be denied the the only reason i'm still thinking about this is that somewhere in the language and and i'm not sure if it's in the regulations um the requirement is that any town local state regulation shall be complied with and then we're saying here that if the property fails to meet the requirement of this bylaw which could be any of those regulations that we will you know not issue the permit i just want to think about that a little bit more um how that connects with another section somewhere so i'm i'm looking at the clock and i'm thinking that that would be a really good thing to come back to um if rob does need some time to think about it um i'd like to look at the very next item which is for conditional permit we had a short conversation oops you went too far yeah right there conditional permit and perhaps breaking this into two parts a being the first being a a residential property that does not pass the initial or renewal inspection and then b being a residential permit that might be issued after inspection or reinspection so there's sort of two categories of um actually this is now mixing apples and oranges i think um so one is somebody's waiting for their schedule to come up you know it could be three years down the road before they're actually scheduled for an inspection that's that's one conditional permit so they keep getting a permit even though they haven't been scheduled the second one is a conditional permit meaning there have been some violations they're in the process of fixing them uh we're rolling into another year and they get a conditional permit because there are some outstanding issues that are being worked on so those to me are two two different categories so a for a could be a residential property that has has not yet been or has been scheduled but it has nothing to do with passing the initial the initial does that make sense everybody i think this would be a b sorry it would be a b did there be a comma after above i don't know i mean maybe i don't know whether we do it anywhere else yeah i guess it because it's like a clause after inspection which above that one this one yes this one no no no no this one g g point two above comma i would i think i don't know oh yeah okay for both of them yeah you're right so i'm going to ask rob if this makes sense we talked about this a bit earlier yeah um and if you want uh the last section we talked about makes sense to leaving it alone uh without having to change the the will to amai i think you can say as well uh as written okay it's it is 25 after right there um i had i have a few more odds and ends but the question is do we want to stop right now and um and and come back to this one more time um what's the push through personally if it's just a few more okay anybody else yes no up a thumbs up to push through i'm not seeing a lot of action here let's push through we'll see if we can do this um i'd like to limit the push to nine o'clock oh definitely definitely i was thinking five minutes but okay under k under k this is just closure notification other requirements um there's a confusing sentence under under a and it says uh permit should be conspicuously displayed and should be made available by the owner within 24 hours upon request by any person and i'm thinking no i can't go to an owner and ask for that so it should not be any person i i said by by those listed officials or those listed above in tenant inspection officials and emergency personnel you could just say upon a request by those by those persons so that's interesting because now that you mentioned it why would the town need to ask the owner for it when the town could just look up the permit itself so do we need the 24 hour request or should we just deal with conspicuous display could we just stop the sentence at emergency personnel easily accessible to and delete the rest well that would be a rob question yeah i agree that i don't think that last clause was for the officials getting it within 24 hours that it may have been some other purpose if that was pulled from another bylaw you know if a tenant perspective tenant or you know family member or something you know didn't see it posted and was asking the owner for it the owner would have to produce it within 24 hours but it'll be readily available through through our electronic system anyway so i'm not concerned if it's removed so immediately below that under b this is this is what a permit shows a permit shows date of issuance maximum number of persons and then number three is maximum occupancy for the residential property and i have no idea what that really means if you have a if you have a residential permit plastered on the wall in a conspicuous space number two is clear you can only have four four people dwelling you know in this dwelling unit but number three is maximum occupancy for the residential rental property we just we talk about the property being could be could be 20 units could you know on a property so i think we either strike number three or you know so let's say a large management company has a property with 400 units why would that have to be listed on the permit because i think this is this is we're talking about it being displayed conspicuously this is this is not the application itself well any any comments on that i think it makes sense to get rid of it personally thank you number two tenant information sheet we were provided by actually pat camons i think or somebody provided us a recent issuance by the state that talked about tenant rights and so i wanted to suggest that after the word tenant information sheet we might say in addition to documents required by the state the owner shall distribute to each tenant an information sheet that's defined by the regulation and i don't know if that's just redundant um it's not it's not up to us to dictate to a manager or owner to to distribute it's it's really the burden is on them so we could just as easily not include that i wanted to ask if that made sense rob i think it's okay to be redundant here and we're actually handing that out and have been since it became part of the later regulation you know sometimes we're handing it out to landlords or owners that have no idea what it is and sometimes it's just to get it directly into the hands of the tenants so i think it's okay to be redundant but just so you know that it become it will become part of a reference in our tenant information sheet and whether it's incorporated somehow or an attachment to it it'll be distributed whenever possible right i will move through that and then i think one of my last items is and i'm sorry i did not mean to dominate this i was hoping everybody else would come in their comments as well l consent uh item number two and item number two talks about for all inspections owner will make good faith effort this is a real sticking point to arrange access by the authorized town personnel to any permit blah blah within 24 hours of receiving a request and i just felt that 24 hours of request for an inspection access is way too little and i just said how about five working days or five calendar days is is that again i'm looking at rob so i'll let jennifer go first and then i might make my comment oh that no that was i i had the same i was really thinking would it be less onerous when completing an application for a permit to not have to commit to the 24 to an inspection within 24 hours so i always i always understood l2 to mean that sort of what i just modified it to that that once the owner is contacted and says from by the town says you know we need to arrange an inspection that the owner must contact the tenant within 24 hours to start making that good faith effort not that the inspection must occur within those 24 hours um this rewording might clear that up i i know it's been a sticking point with with a number of commenters that getting access within 24 hours is going to be extremely hard and problematic but i always took it to mean you have to contact the tenant within 24 hours not actually arrange the access for less than 24 hours from when you did it hopefully this rewording might do that but we can talk about if if rob's got a how many days i don't know what the town normally does for you know when they contact an owner about an inspection no i think that's fine in fact i mean i can see now we can read this a couple of different ways but i was reading it the way you just described it mandy that the effort is being made immediately to make those arrangements so i i do think the the edit that you made helps clarify that it's like you're contacted we're in there in 24 hours okay um and so we don't we don't necessarily need to add something about what is a reasonable time frame for for establishing the the inspection date we'll just leave that open that was a question sorry i would because i think it might depend there might be arranged at different times in different various sometimes it might be hey we need to do one within the next month sometimes it might be hey we want to get in in the next week so that was the end of my comments does anyone else need to add anything can i make a motion you can tell i'm excited again you see my guess i move to recommend the town council adopt uh general by law 3.50 residential rental well sorry let me rephrase this i move to recommend the town council rescind general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property and replace it with general bylaw 3.50 residential rental property as amended at today's meeting second i don't think we need any more discussion um let's start with pat de angeles hi councillor etay hi Jennifer tab yes councillor hanakey hi amrini hi unanimous support for moving this forward i want to really say thank you thanks for keeping at it and keeping the feet of the fire tonight it is definitely not nine o'clock um thank you so those will be transmitted to all will be transmitted to gl with a little cover letter dave you have your hand up i do too pardon yeah i just i just wanted to ask about implementation dates and schedules when when will you be talking about that or who meaning we would anticipate it has to go to council what has to have i think it needs two readings because it people people don't remember it from you know i meant i meant the program implementation when the bylaw would be effective and and whether you wanted to hear from rob on you know kind of an implementation plan that kind of thing sure man did you want to say something other i'll say two things the first one was this referral was only to us it goes directly to council um council can decide whether it needs to go back to gl but but the residential rental property one because it was already at council and had a gl review is slated based on the december referral to go directly back to council for what i believe the president and vice president and clerk are assuming as a second reading but obviously they can decide on all because we've already technically had the first reading um and after that reading it was referred back for some changes based on comments so it could be a second reading i don't know what they'll do um it's probably still posted on the website so i will get you all of the documents we've recommended today in an email pam secondly when crc first made this recommendation it voted to recommend that the bylaw regulations and fee structure be effective april one of this year um we obviously could revisit that and i'd love to hear from rob given this couple month delay on when we expected a second reading and vote to occur what his thoughts are but there is already a crc recommendation that these bylaws be effective april one which might not be potentially possible right now but um we can get close to april one if it's a second reading on march 18th but who knows whether that's happening and i'd love to hear from rob on recommendation so one another question mandy does it go back to finance because we changed the proposed fee schedule and um relying on the strategic partnership money that we weren't talking about with them before um that's up to council that is okay um so otherwise uh you know i definitely would like time to put together an implementation plan it is not something that's going to happen you know for this renewal for july 1st there's no way we would be ready so there's a couple ways to think about that do we just put it off till next july 1st or do we phase in the first round of you know over a longer period than one year and started off as soon as we're ready later this year uh so i can think about that some more if it's not part of crc's recommendation to the council they you know i'll definitely try to be prepared for the council meeting to discuss that um have some thoughts but you know not i guess ready until i have an idea of when we might be adopting this thank you i was i was thinking as you said that that we have a proposal for uh essentially a reduction in the fee and that i would i think a lot of people would appreciate if the fees were were adjusted according to what we're suggesting um even ahead of time i don't know if that's possible mandy um that might be possible we should look at the current fee schedule that we adopted um if yet it would have to be adopted under the current bylaw not a future impending bylaw so it might require two votes if we want to change that um but i have i personally have no need myself to continue keeping a recommended adoption or effective date at crc before this goes to council but council when it votes the bylaw the bylaw is effective 14 days after it votes unless it votes a different date so rob if you want a different date you should probably work with davin paul and lin and anna about when to set this up for the next reading so that you know what effective date to ask for in the motion unless crc wants to wait before it forwards it on so it can ask for a specific effective date but whatever date and phase in you would want should be part of the motion to adopt otherwise it's technically in effect two weeks after we vote rob and then jennifer so my question to that mandy is do we have to do that do we have to have that date figured out you know if the bylaw becomes effective 14 days later wouldn't i just issue all conditional appointments uh conditional permits on july 1st and as we whenever i whenever we have the staff the system everything built say it's september or january i don't know that's when we start our you know first scheduling of inspections the five-year cycle for any permit holder starts from that point for the inspection purposes so we're just i mean i think the fee reduction is something to consider will we actually be losing too much revenue because we're not doing the fees in the first nine months perhaps um but i'm not sure if we have to try to figure out a date that i can't really figure out a date for we were talking about hiring three new staff uh it services schedules for hr schedules for fine you know there's just a lot of things here to try to figure out if we're going to have to do that i'm probably going to say july 25 you know is going to be the realistic date uh to make sure that we have time to get everything set up okay yeah so i just was going to ask i mean can we pass the bylaw if it's passed can we say with implementation you know july 1st 2025 so it's not a state law that it has to go into effect 14 days later or is it i mean can we it's a charter it's harder but we can pick a different unless a different effective date is voted at time of adoption so since it's not going to the council i mean could rob come back with the recommended date you would like us to have by the time it has to be posted in the council packet you know so you don't we don't have to vote on that tonight we would could do that when it goes before the council i mean would that give you enough time to give us a date for implementation to begin implementation i'm gonna i'm gonna suggest that we not decide that tonight um that gives rob and dav a bit of time to just think that through and then we can strategize i think i would like to get this package wrapped up and ready to go to council or gol whoever it goes it goes to with this kind of consideration i'm not opposed to to rob's statement that we we just changed the wording on conditional permits and those are all those permits who have not yet been scheduled for um for for inspection that could in fact happen at any time right if they're just all conditional permits nandy and then i think so yeah the only caution i have for rob's comment of could we just pass it have it start 14 days later and then conditional permits just issue initially um is i'd want rob to consider of the bylaw section then i one c that says all residential rental property that has a residential permit on the effective date shall undergo an inspection within five years of the effective date so if we pass it say at our march 18th meeting which is highly unlikely given scheduling going on right now but say we did that the effective date would be 14 days later unless we set a new one that means the five-year timeline for all current permit holders would start then and it sounds like maybe you're not quite ready for the five-year timeline to start now and that that's where i would caution us adopting this without sort of knowing when rob's ready for that five-year timeline to start because i think the effective date should probably be whenever inspection services is ready for that five-year timeline to start or we could change the five-year timeline in the bylaw to six-year timeline or something rob if you if you think that a conditional appointment still couldn't be issued after that five years then then we may want to consider changing that um i do think it'd be valuable to have everything else this bylaw offers available as soon as possible and these are things with enforcement and dealing with problem properties that we could be utilizing immediately even if we don't have the the structure in place for the inspection component maybe there's a way to specify that in the adoption that the inspection gets rolled out over a period of time and i can think about that as well and then i'm also thinking i've got to propose a budget to the town manager you know for to support this program is that going to happen now am i doing that in this budget cycle you know is that going to take to july 1st or longer is it a special uh appropriate you know adoption by the council to fund the budget depending on the timing i don't there's just a lot of things there that um you know david and i can work on and try to have maybe better information next time about implementation that would be really helpful so let's let's plan for the meeting of um it looks like march 12 is our next meeting somebody can correct me i think that's right um let's have that as a primary conversation and work through those kinds of details thank you everybody um let's try to wrap this up we have no minutes i have no announcements at this point next agenda preview um we are going to scratch nuisance bylaw rental registration bylaw and we can talk briefly about the solar bylaw process and i think i would like to to bring that up so that's definitely an item and then we'll add as as the next agenda also just a solid discussion on implementation okay and there were no items anticipated uh 48 hours in advance and i unless anyone objects would like to adjourn the meeting and thanks for your patience and sticking with this it's really helpful thank you thank you rob and day tonight yeah thank you rob dave and dave and let's and let's get the meeting minutes posted and um and those recordings up so people can get asked them see you later thanks everybody thank you bye bye good night