 Just in case, okay. But yeah, we'll start and get through stuff. You have a quorum. So it turned, it turned into summer again. Yes, it did. Jennifer, are you outside? We can't hear you, but it looks nice where you are. I didn't realize I was muted. Yeah, I'm outside. So they did open Lincoln at Fieldstone. And I may have to go inside because I just realized it's traffic time. So there's a lot of cars going by. No. Okay. We're going to get. Okay. Oh, and Shawnee's joining us. Okay. Let's make sure. Shawnee, is it four in the morning? No, 130. What are you doing up? We're going to get started because we're on a tight schedule today. I texted Pat. So hopefully Pat will join us. Okay. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I am calling this regular meeting of the community resources committee of the town council to order at 403 p.m. on October 5th. 2023. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapters 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022 and extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted by a remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. While we do that, I will take a roll call. Oh, we're also video and audio recording this. We're going to take a roll call of members to make sure people can hear and be heard before I do that. Athena Pat says she's trying to join. So you can reach out to her maybe. I'll do that. Thanks. Thank you. While we get Pat on, we'll take a roll call of the rest of the committee and start going through some of the plan for today. So we'll start with Shalini. Present. Pat is, as you heard, trying to join, we will catch back, we'll start with Shalini. And then we'll take a roll call of the rest of the committee. And then we'll take a roll call of the rest of the committee. I'll catch up with her. Mandy is present. Pam Rooney. And Jennifer top. Present. There we go. Okay. So while we wait for Pat, we will go through some of the logistics of this meeting. So we are starting a half an hour early. We will end. Probably by five 30 is the goal, I think. And I think some people would like to end even earlier if we would like to end. We would like to end. Residential rental property really early today. We will not be doing anything with items three B or three C on this agenda. We won't be doing new since house at all. But if there is a little bit of time and we end early, and I don't expect there to be, we will be talking up. Talking about town manager goals because GOL needs some more time. I don't know if we have any recommendations on town manager goals as it relates to the joint CRC AMHT meeting we had about affordable housing and all we've, we've had brief conversations about it in the past, but I don't expect us to get there either. I expect it to be all rental registration. I don't believe there are any minutes in the packets right now. So once I confirm that, I haven't seen any myself. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I said. I was trying hard to get the other, but. I will have more time this coming week to. Okay. Which set did you put in? Let me check. Yeah. I think it was the most recent. Yeah. 21st. Oh, okay. I'll look it up. Well, you know. Oh, it's September seven. Sorry. September seven. Okay. Okay. I'll give her a call. Okay. So. According to our, the state rules, we will pause until we can see if Pat can get in. So. Cause that is basically what we need to do with a fully remote meeting when someone is having trouble connecting from one of the members. So with Pat having trouble connecting, we will pause a little bit to see if. If we can get her on. And so we will just wait for that. And while Athena's our minute taker, so it would be hard for Athena to do both at the same time too. Oh, there's Pat. It's pretty capable. Okay. Pat, you're muted. I am stopping at five o'clock no matter what. Okay. We're going to try it. What I was had explained. Well, welcome. We can clearly hear you now. So that confirms that. Thank you to Athena for helping Pat get on and for Pat for being here. We are going to move now right into residential rental property. We're going to see how far we can get in that before people need to start leaving. Pam, you have a question. I'm sorry. I was actually looking at general public comment thinking that came before the action item. I was wondering if you wanted to take it in whatever order. I would like to get through some of our residential rental property first so that they can have the public comment can have the benefit. We're not going to finish it today because of a couple things. So this will be back on our agenda in two weeks. So I think hearing our conversations related to finance before we go to public comment, especially because of some of the fee structure stuff I put into the public comment. So we'll do it that way. And as I said, we, we are not doing items being three B and three C today. But I, I want to, before we start on, on things, the plan is to go through the by law. We have in the packet, the comments from finance. And I took those comments and you will see in the packet, regulations and by law that are that have some changes to them. And a lot of comments added of saying, here's the section that addresses the one comment and finance and all of that. So that's what we're going to go through. We'll start with the by law, then we'll go to the regulations and then we'll go to the fee structure. You'll see, I put numbers in those are just sort of a way to see what something would look like in one document based on some of the things that finance said they are not necessarily any particular let's vote on them type thing, but I thought it would be helpful if we started looking at real numbers in a document. So then we'll go to that. There is, I want to address for the committee because there are probably questions given. Resulting or revolving around the email that the town manager sent to the council yesterday. Regarding a letter threatening to sue the council. If our, if. The residential rental property by law as drafted is passed. We are not going to discuss that letter today. That letter has been sent to the town attorney. And with a question from myself and the council president about what and when can the council or our committee discuss our town attorney's opinion and thoughts on that letter. And whether that can be done in an executive session or must be done in an open session. So until we receive some information back from the manager and KP law about when and when and when and when and when and how we can or should discuss that letter. I am, I am going to wait. But I wanted to acknowledge that we received the letter and that it has been sent to the entire council. I will put it because it's been sent to the council. I will put the letter in the packet later tomorrow or get, have Athena put it so that the, now that we've mentioned it on this meeting, people will be curious as to what it is. So I will make sure it goes in our packet for that reason, but I do not plan on discussing that letter today. It's not on our agenda. And I feel like we need to be waiting for guidance from our attorney before we discuss it in either open or executive session. And whether it's discussed at a committee meeting or at a full council meeting. So I hope that answers some questions. That might have been had with that work. We're going to any questions before we go on to the bylaw itself. Okay. Oh, Pam. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to note that in fact we did run everything past KP law. When as, when and as we were developing the bylaw and the regulations. So I, I appreciate the concerns. Of the, of the real estate. Community. I'll just say that I'll just leave it at that, but. I'm, I'm, I'm a little concerned because we in fact did run all of these by legal. Review. Okay. Thank you. So with that, I'm going to share the. I also want to welcome Rob here, Rob, Rob, as we haven't talked to Rob, but Rob is here. Thank you for joining us again on residential rental property as, as we start to discuss the finance committees. Comments to us. So I'm going to share our. Bylaw this one. As you will see all I did here, I did not propose any changes from what the council has seen and that we voted. I did make a comment, a couple of comments about where the finance committee had finance committee, this section on subsidized housing finance committee, their second bullet in the section was about questions as to whether subsidized housing should be fully exempt from inspections instead of. Generally exempt or maybe exempt. So right now the bylaw is written as a. They, the, the. The town can wave the inspection requirement, but does not have to wave the inspection requirement. And so the question from finance was, should that inspection requirement. Be mandated to be waived if it is a property that is regularly inspected under the requirements of the commonwealth or federal government. So we can discuss that. I would like to hear personally from Rob about his thoughts on that he was at the finance committee meetings where this was brought up to. So Rob, do you have any comments on this one? Yeah, I think, you know, originally I wasn't in favor of entirely exempting that. These properties, you know, mainly because we do actually, you know, have issues in properties that. Are inspected and they're not all large complexes that are. Managed with onsite staff and. You know, I know. You know, the, the property managers that were speaking during that meeting, you know, have very well run properties. There's no question about that. Larger properties and, you know, fall into that category where I would not expect to be conducting the inspections, but still thought it was worth having the bylaw leave that in there in case it's needed. No matter what we would respond to complaints, whether it's in there as an inspection, mandatory inspection or not. We would respond to complaints and all of the regulations we enforce, you know, apply even though they're inspected by the, you know, by these other agencies and their inspectors. And we just don't always agree. The other thing that's different between the inspections is that we're looking for, you know, things beyond. The, the, the, how the sanitary conditions of the property. So when we're doing our inspections, we are looking at our general bylaws and our zoning bylaws, which would not at all be done. By these other types of inspections. Thank you, Rob. Pam. Question for Rob. Who currently inspects the area's housing authority properties? I've forgotten that you, I know you told us in the past. Well, inspect the common areas of the buildings. So those, those are not done by those other agencies, although, I mean, I think, you know, they probably are to some degree, but those are, that's a specific inspection that we do in any large apartment building is the, you know, common hallways, boiler rooms, meeting spaces, anything like that, but not the individual units. The units are inspected by a housing inspector that's engaged by the housing authority, whether it's their own. And we have inspectors that come into town from, you know, the chickpea and Hoyle housing authority, depending on where the voucher originates. So you, it's not a, it's not the same agency or the same inspector across town for these, for these properties. Thank you, Pat. Yeah, I'm trying to get a sense of whether tenants in the, in the buildings that we're talking about would feel afraid to report something. And because we've had experience with complaint driven where people are afraid to do that. The other thing is, would they know that they could do that? I mean, sort of, you know, that they can contact the town if there's some egregious thing going on. Rob, any thoughts? Yeah, I think that's, you know, part of why we feel this is necessary. Yeah. So when we go, when we go back to our, our goals, we established however many months ago, you know, we, I think we all agreed that. And with the public comment that we had gotten along the way that we agreed that, you know, an inspection has a lot of value. I think we know that I do want to say, you know, if we, you know, if we were inspecting a building, we come up across up to a unit and the, the tenant doesn't want us in there. We just, we move on, you know, we don't, we don't force entry. You know, it's because it's, you know, maybe the, the, the one of the units we were planning on inspecting, that's just not the way we would conduct the inspection. We, we'd continue to move on and find, find a representative number of units. The best that we can. I think when I. Had provided, you know, one of the fee schedule. Scenarios to the finance committee and worked on with Sean Mangan, you know, I was only accounting for about 30%. Of the. Units that make up those larger 25 plus complexes. In any given years. So, you know, I was, I was working with a 3000 unit number over the five year period. So, you know, I think. And because I, that's all I think we could have done with the program at that time when I was looking at it. You know, we're not in any way going to be able to inspect more than that. And there'll likely be less once we see that, you know, properties are well managed and in good conditions and no complaints. Thank you. I'm you're confirming how much I want to keep this in place. Any other comments or questions on that? And can we get to potentially a consensus on a response to finance committees. Question or comment to us on this bullet on potentially changing it. Shalini, you were partially raising your yes, yes. So I just wanted to clarify that in this, I agree with everything that's being said, and I support the section. I just wanted a clarification on whether the waiver. Requires the landlord to apply for a waiver or would this, the way will be provided by. The way it would be initiated by the town staff, just because with the landlords, if they read in a hurry, would they know that someone might read this and think that all our properties are going to be inspected and they may not know that they have to ask for a waiver. Is that question clear? Yeah, no, that question is clear. When I was reading the language, I was like, are we clear on the language? I'm looking at the regulations now to see if. That one. Inspection checklist. So the regulations don't talk about waivers or exemptions in it. So, so we can mark that as needing some clarification maybe. This part needing clarification. Thank you. Okay. Am I correct in sensing that the committee. Rob first. Just thinking as, you know, a possible response is to rewrite the section as instead of it being that the principal code official may waive the inspection that, you know, may elect to conduct the inspection, you know, that way it's presented as more likely to not be done. But could be done if necessary. Okay. And maybe even go further to, you know, a representative number of. Units. You know, not to see 20% or some number, just to give some kind of. A little bit more there to the. Operators of those. Apartment projects. Yep. Okay. Well, we'll think about that for the next draft. Am I getting this? I think I'm getting the sense that the committee is. Is reluctant to. Outright exempt these units from inspection as. Finance asked us to look at, but to. To just be more clear as to what sort of the expectation is, which is it's expected that many of them will not be inspected. And to clarify the language, is that sort of the consensus? I'm seeing a lot of nodding heads. So. I'm doing this so I can respond to the finance committee. Memos. Right. Consensus to keep this, to keep this paragraph. I think we have some of the considerations that Rob just brought up. Giving some flexibility as needed. Instead of mandating. Yeah. Okay. The notes are not the greatest wording. I'll be better when I write something to finance. I think in the bylaw and paging through here, I think that was the only bullet point that related to our bylaw. So with that. I'm going to stop and we're going to move on to the regulations. You had, you had a couple on the. I thought it was B1 a. I think that's the regulations. Did I miss one? Let me look up the bylaw. I thought we were on regulations. Sorry. No, we're moving to regulations now. Thank you. We were on the bylaw. So I'm, yeah, the regulations had more of the. The, the comments. And I think they start at B1 here. Right. So. B1 a one is the section I identified as referencing the bullet point number five where the finance committee wanted to be explicit that it is to be phased in over five years. I believe we have been. Five years. But feel free to contradict me. It says we will undergo an inspection within five years of the effective date. That sounds like a five year rollout. Rob, is this clear enough for you for. A five, five year phase in. Yeah. Yes. That was clear to me. Okay. So that said, indeed. The five year inspection requirement. If we use the words within. A five year period. Each residential property should be inspected. Does that make more sense? So something like this. Yeah. Jennifer. Yeah. That this does make more sense. So I just wanted to ask if, well, maybe that's getting more into what a finance committee question recommendation. If it were decided that within five years. We would have to amend the bylaw. So. Every property would be inspected. But after that we might make, if we were going to make some properties. Less frequently, you know, extend the period beyond five years. Would we have to amend the bylaw or can we put that. Right. So. I believe the bylaw does not let me, let me pull up the bylaw in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations adopted under this bylaw. Residential rental property property shall have passed an inspection. In accordance with the applicable frequency schedule in the regulations adopted under the bylaw. So the bylaw does not set forth five years. The regulations do. And so if after five years. Rob. Believes that it should be seven or even after two years. If Rob's like, you know, we're going to need seven or something, what would need changed is the regulations. And once the council has adopted the regulations under the bylaw, the board of licensed commissioners would be the one to make those changes and adopt them. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So finances memo for. Item B one B was. That. Allow properties that have a clean inspect. To not be subject to another inspection in five, seven or 10 years. We had five. Is there any. Thoughts to changing that to a different number at this time. Pam has her hand up. Pam. Sorry. I'm doing it. Visually here. That's okay. I need to ask Rob, because we, because we talked about it. You know, essentially dividing up the entire block of properties to be inspected into five year. You know, cycle. Was that was. From your perspective and from a staffing perspective. Is that just not. Attainable. And therefore. To save money. We go to a less frequent. Infection. Yes. I think if we are not. Able to. Add the staff that's needed. The staff recommendation was for this program. With five year inspection. So if, if that's not. Going to work out, then we need to change this. Inspection schedule or maybe eliminate the inspection requirement entirely. I don't, we're getting to the recommendation about adding a half of the inspector, I guess, you know, which was part of the finance committee's recommendation. And you know, that, that would not allow any inspections to occur. Right. So it doesn't make sense. But you know, I mean, we could do a lot of different things with this. I mean, we can, we can kind of. Build on the recommendation that. You know, any. Any property that received through its initial inspection, you know, had any violation goes into a five year cycle and anything else that didn't have a violation goes into a 10 year cycle. It's just not right. It's just not right. It's just not right. It's just not right. If you have a two year cycle and anything else that didn't have a violation goes into a 10 year cycle. It's just not predictable when we're trying to figure out how much staff you need, because I have no idea how many are going to fall into each category. Just, you know, splitting them up equally over five years. It was a lot easier to come up with a recommendation on staffing. So Rob, this point, is your recommendation to stick with five years? thoughts on where finance was and the questions they were asking would you be recommending that we modify this to seven or would you recommend that the phase in be seven or eight years, you know, because would that would that help even things out if the phase in was a little longer than not like is is there a recommendation you have to either keep both five year requirements or to change something. Where are you, where do you stand I guess is what I'd like to know. I think five years is a long enough time. You know, I, if we have properties that have the problems that we experienced with the small number of complaints, five years is way too long, you know, for reoccurring inspection. So we will be using the authority of the bylaw to, to create a shorter term schedule, you know, a reinspection schedule for those properties that have problems. So I think five is five is good, you know, and I think it's reasonable it was reasonable because, you know, we can't add six inspectors, you know, like some of these other towns have that run these programs we can we're going to do this with two and a half inspectors or whatever it might be. So I think five years is about, as far as I would be comfortable with saying we have an inspection program. Thank you, Pam. Yeah, I appreciate that Rob thank you for saying that I would be very uncomfortable extending the period beyond that. I think the the opportunity to allow some flexibility given. I think the good behavior is important and there's the discussion but not in not in lengthening the initial cycle because, you know, we just, we, I want to get a handle on it now, and five years is still a really long time. Jennifer. Just I agree I think five years. I think beyond five years. Yeah, it's like we don't have an inspection program. So. It sounds like there's a consensus here to keep five years for the clean inspections, basically. You know the annual is violation of local regulations, then you can do a different frequency. So the clean inspections would be five years. The next item, since it seems like we've got a consensus is item. What am I on B13 part of the frequency schedule which was the 25 unit items and all I opted to change it here. Instead of the number of units inspected is sort of in the same spot. But it seemed easier to change it up in C3 instead of to be finance memo bullet three wanted to allow inspections for larger buildings to be done on a random sample. And a random sample in total over the five years not a random sample every year to ensure that. So the comments from finance were basically don't in don't have if you've got 100 unit apartment building in the course of five years to inspect a random sample of those units over five years not to aim to inspect every single one of those hundred units over within five years. So it would be whether that be five units a year every year to total 25 units or 25 units once every five years but we had written the bylaw, the regulations here such that it would be 100 units every five years for 100 unit building and finance recommended not that and it was my understanding from being at those meetings that Rob also recommended that so this is the proposed language I have drafted for that change. It's obviously a draft because the committee has not looked at it it went back to prior drafts that we had of this to find some language so I want to make sure that I did not that I did understand Rob and that this was sort of his goal was, for example in 100 unit building, if there are clean inspections in five years you'd want to inspect a percentage of them not all 100 units did I understand that correctly, Rob. I actually think I had misunderstood the bylaw and had been thinking along. At some point that that's what we were doing until during those meetings with the finance committee and reading the bylaw it. I realized that no we still had them all in there but I, I am comfortable with this I think you know this is, you know, taking their recommendation for this changes is good. Can, can Rob, can you then in your own words explain what this wording means. This wording means that we will visit the property that has the 100 units, we will visit the property, likely once every five years so that'll, when it comes up for its five year cycle, we would visit that property and pick some random units to inspect and you know that gives us the flexibility both, you know, who would like us or not like us in their units to be respectful of that and be able to move through the property or buildings on the property to get that representative inspection result from from how the property is managed so 100 unit property. If we were looking to target at least 20% inspection of those units every five years, we would go there to do those 20 inspections of those 20 units on the year that that property is up for its inspection. For whatever reason, you know, if it was useful to the property owner or the manager to break that up year to year and do even fewer but to get to that 20% over the five year period. We could be open to that as well at my senses that because of the demand of the inspections and the time involved we wouldn't refer to do that for ourselves for efficiency, we'd want to visit the property every five years. Yeah, that's that's sort of an 80% reduction of our inspection. Which, which I'm not sure was the intent. So I want to make sure that if we're reducing by 80% the actual number of units that gets inspected. Are we, are we making sure that with the other conditions and in the regulations or bylaw that if there are, if there are issues, issues found or for other violations encountered or complaints called in that in fact the town has the ability to to increase this frequency. So, yes, the town does. I'll go to Jennifer and then I'll answer in case Jennifer has a similar question. Yeah, it was similar if you're finding issues. The building commissioner has the authority to inspect more units. Yes. So under to be down here, if the inspected dwelling units do not pass inspection the code enforcement official. I'll have the discretion to inspect additional dwelling units in that property so okay, don't pass in these building in the large ones the above 25 then Rob's department could go in and say, we're going to do more or we're going to change the frequency right if some of them pass the annual inspection of found in violation, a higher frequency can come into play to the question I have is more for the committee than Rob but I guess the percentage is a point of finance and talked about maybe 20%. So I put 20% in, but we have a minimum of, if you've got 25 dwelling units or less, all of them are getting inspected. And so 20% until you get to 125 is less than 25 and it seems weird to say, oh, but if you've got 50 units you don't need even 25 inspected. So the question I have is, do we want a higher percentage say 25%. Do we want 20%, but I did put in this but not less than 25 so everything up to 125 is 25 minimum, no, even though that's a higher percentage and only when you get above that sort of 125 unit count do we want to kick in that 20%. Or do we want to consider for rental properties. We put sort of the threshold of 100% inspection at 25. Do we want to consider a smaller number there. And I guess that's more a question for Rob, for some of the specifics but also for the committee. I'm thinking of small small complexes that are, you know, two or three chunks of townhouse for instance, and they're definitely under 25. They are definitely more than five. I'm not sure that I'm as interested in having those smaller complexes, inspected on a decent schedule, but I would be willing to perhaps allow a percentage of those units to be inspected rather than the full 25. Yeah, similarly, I would probably say like 25% of total number of units but because the intention here is to do the sampling. So if you do a few homes, we will get a sense of the rest so I think we should not penalize the smaller ones and have all of them inspected and just have a sampling but then I was thinking it's 20% of 25 units. What is that, you know, 225. Yeah. 25, yeah. Pat. So, yeah. Sorry, Felony. Yeah, go ahead, Felony. No, I just. Okay, I just wanted to ask Rob, or ask the group is, are we ensuring that we can pick the sampling, not necessarily go to the sampling that management company wants us to look at. Yes. At least the way this is written and this number would change down the code enforcement official shall have the discretion to select and inspect. I missed that I'm sorry. Yeah, it's awesome. And so I wonder, I'd like to hear Rob's, when I look at the distribution of our size of number of rental units on a parcel up to nine, you know, you sort of get though then there's a big chunk of nine of 10 to 19. And starting at 20 it's sort of, we split 20 to 29 30 to 39 in the charts that you give us Rob so in some sense, a split either up to nine they're all inspected and then 10 or more. You have to inspect at least 10 with a minimum of X percentage maybe, or you split it at 20 not 25. At least for our record keeping where some of the bigger cutoffs are for what we have in town. But Rob, what are your thoughts. I actually thought it worked pretty well the way we had it. You know the larger complexes that you know would be seeing this 20% or whatever number it is there's so there's 11 properties that are 100 plus units. I thought there was some, I thought it was it made sense that, you know, the properties of that size are staffed with onsite management service maintenance staff. And when you're down in the smaller properties 2550 units even they're not likely to have that presence or they might be, you know, covering multiple properties, even in, in multiple towns. So, I thought that was a good number and seem to work but certainly we can, we can adjust, we can adjust it and still work fine. So, are we, do we sort of have a consensus to go with this language as as amended here in response to finance and and Rob's considerations to keep it amended like this, or do we want to play change it anymore. Oh, so I agree with the 20% now but what was the reason for putting but not less than 25 dwelling units. So, because if you have 25 or less dwelling units, all units get inspected. But if you have 30 units and you don't put 25, you go from 20 if you had 25 units you'd have 25 units inspected but if you have 30 units without this but not less than you'd only get six inspected. I don't know whether we're okay with that right that sort of having that cliff of once you hit 26 units, you actually decreased dramatically how many units are getting inspected. So, I think that's the purpose of having the not but not less than 25 dwelling units to sort of ensure that this, this residential rental properties with less than 25. That you're still inspecting the same minimum number across the board. I think I'm okay with, I think I'm okay with the 25 dwelling unit number in both three and two a for the reasons that Rob just mentioned. That's just Pam speaking. Revise as revised gotta love the language but not it sounds like I think we're at that consensus here where where, if we're not please let me know, then we'll continue the discussion. I think Pat's not letting us know I think that's a different conversation. You weren't loud. I'm sure you weren't trying to address us. No, I was trying to get Carol to walk the dog because I can't. Okay, so if that's the case we will move on. And that was it for the regulations and the bullet points so we will move on to. So, the fee schedule at this point looks a mess. I wanted to present this we will go back to the Excel document because a lot of this comes from the Excel document at least in section a and B. The finance memo for section this section a with initial permit fees, the finance memo requested having a lower renewal fee than an initial registration fee. I had, I think mistakenly indicated we had considered that I think I was referring to the inspection fees where Robert said a renewal inspection should be less than an initial inspection because some of the paperwork and investigation is already done. I, it might be the same with an permit fee the first time you apply is that paperwork related to the inspection Rob or just issuing of the permit the first time, or both such that we could, we could indicate and justify different staffing time costs for inspections and initial differential fees for the first time you apply for a permit being more expensive than the next time you apply for a renewal because finance had requested we consider. I think it could be both. If, if the property isn't, say, in an inspection schedule till your four or five from when it makes its initial application, there's still a level of review that should be done to confirm that the number of units being requested, at least aligns with, you know, if we have a special permit or look at our assessors records of the property so there's a little bit more work. It's sort of the way we do it would do it now without an inspection program there's a little bit more work and time on that initial permit to do the review of town records. So I think for inspection, we'd like it to take, you know, be a little bit more involved on the first inspection so that we can gather that baseline information about the property and have that updated and inaccurate going forward. So, the question for this document is, are we in accordance in consensus with having separate initial permit fees and renewal permit fees as requested by finance. Ignore the numbers for now. Just the, the set of having two different fees. Yeah, I look. Sorry. Go ahead. Pam. Yeah, I looked at two other cities just two others and they did have that where the renewal is generally lowers it makes sense to do that. Pam. Yeah, I would, I would say the same except. Yeah. The only the only catches that that nearly all of our properties or whatever percentage the department has has unearthed and brought to light. You know, have already been permitting for a number of years so it's really we're just talking about the two or three a year perhaps that come in as new as new rentals that make a difference so in in a way it really doesn't matter it's not going to be a significant gain, you know, of cash flow. So I, for that reason I'm, I'm also very comfortable just having a modest standard fee that is applied all the time. That's what I would agree. Okay. Unless we find a lot of properties that haven't been taken out of permit but then they take it out for the first time at the higher fee. Yeah. Yeah, so in this case, in this case, actually, so that's a really good point. If, you know, the 1200 or 1500 or whatever have been doing it, they're not going to be affected by that by that initial fee issue. So it really is just the new, the new ones coming in and those who have neglected to get a permit. And I wouldn't mind that fee being higher. So I'm, I'm now, I'm now changed my mind. So I'll make the note that we're fine with adding it in, but we don't think it'll make much of a difference to the fee schedule at initially what's received. Yeah. Okay. So the next question, at least related to the fee structure, right? This is, this is the structure of fees. You'll notice that this second number two is deleted in both sections because I basically just copied the section and then made them parallel. The finance committee was concerned about the legality of separating out, not owner occupancy from others, but sort of this, we had talked about it as like owner adjacent or local ownership from others. And so their recommendation, I don't think this showed up in their memo, but it's, it was there when I attended the meetings, they would, would be concerned with keeping that in and would recommend deleting that portion of our permit fee structure. Would you make it larger, please, Mandy Joe, the document. Better. Yes. So thoughts on that. We could either delete it, we could ask town council for their thoughts on the legality of it. We at this point are unsure how many properties would fall under this category. Think a lot. Does Rob have a just off the cuff estimate as to how many properties might fall under that sort of. Yeah, I do, but it's not, we can't rely on the number. I'll tell you why it was 416. But when you generate that kind of report, you get, you get things like, you know, middle initials are missing from one name to another, or, you know, there's just the the LLCs, the, the trust, you get these different names. So it's not entirely accurate. So it's less than 416. That would be the worst case scenario or the largest number. But I'm not, I'm not sure how many, you know, it would actually end up to be because we know a lot of property owners are are a lot of properties are owned in common but under different names and structures. Would that would that difficulty be sort of the roots of problem I would otherwise totally support this is like a local, it's like a local benefit a local preference. But if, but if in fact, you know, we charge, we give this discount to, you know, one one person because their initials lined up properly, and then their other property or their fourth or fifth properties or somehow listed differently. And they shouldn't have gotten the discount I think that's where people would start complaining. Is that going to be a problem. It's going to be complicated for sure. And, you know, almost we have to we would almost have to just rely on whatever they say to us you know if they check the box during registration that I only own three properties to generate that feed to be lower. I'm not sure how we would be able to check that in any reasonable way because you know, and then you know we'd have to define something here because as the owner if you have three different LLCs. For your obvious reasons being in business does that those are three different owners, you know that's why we've always looked at that for other purposes. So we'd have to work through those issues as well. There goes the nice local discount them. So does that mean I'm sorry. Go ahead Jennifer. So does that mean if you, I'm sorry, up to parcels. If you own the prop, if you're renting out the two properties next door to you. Would, would that would you come under the up to six units, or is that what we're saying when you could no longer. No, the six units is one parcel. One parcel item number two that's tentatively deleted was the, the attempt to get to the instance I think Jennifer that you were mentioning you own three parcels in a row you live in one and you rent the other two parcels out that are technically separate parcels. And what Rob is saying is sometimes those parcels are under different names are under LLCs and sometimes they're not. Well, what if we said they had to be under that what if only if they're under the same name is that something one could do, I mean I'm thinking of someone whose door I knocked on. Yesterday, you might have also manned and he owned his daughter lived next door and then he knew that you know he owned the other side. Yeah, I think the concern with finance was it's discriminatory as to place of residence. And is it legal. So I guess I would, I would want to ask KP law whether such a distinction is legal to institute in a fee basis. I think we can work out the language for clarity purposes for Rob's purposes if it is and we want to pursue it but I guess my response to finance would be let's go ask KP law. If, if other people are, are thinking about just deleting it because I would like to. I'd like to I support the KP law this let's have them look at it first. That's all good for everyone. I agree. Yeah. I mean I can see it gets really muddy quickly if, depending on how the ownership is described, or if they're, if they live in Amherst, but they're. He has a greenfield post office Park, see that's just all of that. And I don't want to get robbed that much more work. So that question was the same and then I just gave ranges for fees finance was looking for more so I looked up some prior documents that had them in. The goal here is to send finance a document back that has a proposed fee schedule with fees in it. The ones that do not show up in the Excel spreadsheet are these transfer of permit and administrative appeal fees. So I would like to discuss those before we move to the Excel spreadsheet. And now, and as you can see the rest of the fees I put in based on certain options in the spreadsheet so so we'll discuss the spreadsheet, but also we're coming up on, we're at five o'clock and so I'd like to stop right after this. Okay. Let's see if we can get these two done and then, and then we'll go I based the 110 on as you see from the comment what ZBA is charging for appeals from decisions of the building commissioner. So it seems like a logical place to base a appeal fee on thoughts from Rob or any committee members on that number. It's fine. It's fine with me it seemed to make sense similar to the other appeals process we have I mean just so you know the ZBA process also includes a legal advertisement fee that wouldn't be needed here. But they paid that you know that's another $300 for those fees so the, the appeal application fee itself would be the same and that seems fine to me. That's for a permit fee. I don't think it's necessary but you know it doesn't hurt anything at either. It's just more work, you know, there's, there's few of those were lucky if the owner contacts us, we're usually looking at transfers to, you know, through the registry deeds transfers to see that properties change in the relationship. And if we can get them to update their information and as easy as possible for the rest of that current year we're happy with that so we have updated contact information. Never been worried about collecting a fee for that. We usually do it by email it's pretty, pretty simple. Shalini then Jennifer. I just wanted to make sure we have enough time for a public comment. Yes. So consensus on the 110. Is there any consensus on whether to drop or charge a transfer permit fee. Jennifer. If when I just heard from Rob if it's more work for them, why should decide it. Yeah, I agree. Everyone good with deleting that fee. Okay, so we're going to stop this one for now. We will start next meeting with the spreadsheet and the options for that. You talked about the fee spreadsheet, the fee spreadsheet to try and get something back to finance by the end of October is when I told them I would try to get something back to them from this committee. So we will, we will do that. We'll start next meeting. I believe with that. And all. So with that, we will move to public comment at this if it's okay with the rest of the committee will move on and end this discussion and all and work towards closing out our meeting. We will move to public comment. Thank you. Are we general public public comment on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. We do not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment. So if you would like to make a comment at this time, please raise your hand. Okay. Renata shepherd, please unmute yourself and state your name and make your comment. Hi, Renata shepherd and justice drive. Let some of the fees were changed, but really $200 inspection fees. How long is this inspection plumbers and electricians charge $100 an hour shouldn't take more than an hour for a small units like a two bedroom condo, or a studio. I should reflect the time that the inspector is there. I think more than $100 is outrageous complaint inspection for 150. Maybe something added that you should say that, you know, if a violation is not caused by the owner a tenant then the, I mean, the owner landlord, then the tenant should be billed for the or the fee should be waived to avoid, you know, the professional tenant, trying to do something to the And the remaining is more of a request than a comment. I really requested that CRC or people on the town council role play, being a landlord of one or two units on one single family house and a condo or studio and go through this process that you are proposing the application notifications inspections, dealing with difficult tenants, etc, and do all the paperwork you are required, requiring from us, as well as balancing your income and expenses to see that, you know, the remaining is not that great. Considering all the fees and preparation you propose before finalizing your documents and voting on it. I would be happy to assist with any related information for my proposed role play. Thank you, Renata for your comments. There are no other hands raised so we will close general public comment at this time. There is one set of minutes in the packet that is the September 7 minutes thank you Athena for confirming that I think, before we do that will say goodbye to Rob, we will be back in two weeks right on the 19th. With a full meeting and a full length of time for our meeting and we will start with rental registration and then probably move directly on to nuisance and all with that but thank you Rob for joining us again. Minutes September 7, 2023. Are there any requested changes to them. We will make a motion to adopt the September 7, 2023 meeting minutes as presented is there a second. Second to Angela's. Thank you is there any discussion. Seeing none we will vote Shalini. Yes. Pat. Hi. Mandy is an eye Pam. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. They are adopted. Yes. They are adopted. Yes. They are presented. And with that, I've pretty much gone over announcements and. Next agenda. Is there any items not anticipated by. Myself. I don't have any. Does anyone else. Pam. No, just, but just to reiterate that the. I'm not sure if we can get him legal hands for review. Is that correct? So Paul indicated in his email to us that he had sent it on to KP law. So I believe it has been sent on to KP law. And I'll, I will be in touch with him. Again, to see what next steps of particularly our committee are as it relates to the whole council. If there are any questions if we're allowed to, if committees are allowed to versus councils are allowed to, or anything related to that or discussion or anything. And I will keep the committee informed about. All of that. And, and when, if, when and how. Conversation around that letter. And or will occur in this committee versus at the council as a whole. It may not be. It may not. And that might mean sending this back to finance or the council might take longer, depending on what we hear. Because I presume this committee might not want to vote yet. Another recommendation until we've heard from. KP law on stuff. So we might be seeing more of this over the course of more meetings than I had hoped. But I will keep us updated. And I think we're going to have a much longer answer than I expected. So thank you. Just in time. We'll see many. And the fun continues. We're ending the meeting. I'm going to go watch my hair. This is the greatest meeting I've ever been to. It's over. Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming and for everyone else for coming. And Dave, we'll see you later. Next meeting will be in two weeks at the regular time. Timing is everything. Yes. Go, go, go. I'm so nervous for you all. Okay. Get a good night.