 Court in progress. The chair knows the time is 6.04. I call this meeting of the Amazonian Board of Appeals to Order. My name is Steve Judge as EVA chair. I want to welcome everyone to this meeting. We'll begin with a roll call members roll call the ZBA members. Steve Judge is present. Mr Craig Meadows. Present. Mr. Everold Henry. Here. Oh, just in time. Mr. Phillip White. Present. And Miss Hilda Greenball. Present. A quorum is present. Also attending to the public hearing tonight is Christine Brestrup, Planning Director. Mr. Rob Wachillo, Planner for the Town. And Carol Murray, our council on this matter, KP Law. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to observe the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. The Zoning Board of Appeals is a quasi-judicial body that operates under the authority of Chapter 48 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth for the purpose of promoting the health, safety, convenience and general welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Amherst. In accordance with provisions of Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 48, in Article 10 special permit granting authority of the Amherst Zoning By-law, this public meeting has been duly advertised and noticed thereof, has been posted and mailed to parties of interest. All hearings and meetings are open to the public and are recorded by town staff, and they may be viewed via the town of Amherst's YouTube channel and the ZBA webpage. The procedure is as follows. The petitioner presents the application to the board during the hearing after which the board will ask questions for clarification or to gather additional information. After the board has completed its questions, the board will seek public input. The public speaks with the permission of the chair. If a member of the public wishes to speak, they should so indicate by using the raised hand function on their screen or by pressing star 9 on their phone. The chair will be with the assistance of the staff will call upon people wishing to speak. When you are recognized, provide your name and address to the board for the record. All questions and comments must be addressed to the board. The board will normally hold public hearings where the information about the project and input from the public is gathered, followed by public meetings for each. The public meeting portion is where the board deliberates and is generally not an opportunity for public comment. If the board feels it has enough information on time, it will decide upon the applications tonight. Each petition heard by the board is distinct and evaluated on its own merits, and the board is not ruled by precedent. Tonight's agenda, consideration of the minutes from 11, 30, 23 and 12, 7, 23. A public hearing on ZBA FY 2024-03, Valley Community Development Corporation requests for a comprehensive permit under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40B to construct 30 owner-occupied affordable residential units located in 15 duplex structures, parking areas with 58 spaces, common areas and other site improvements on a 9.047 acre site was requested waivers from the zoning bylaws, general bylaws, subdivision regulations, sewer water connection approvals at 2040 Ball Lane, Map 5A, Parcel 56, RN, neighborhood residents, and RLD, Low Density Residential Zoning Districts, and FC Farmland Conservation Overlay Zoning Districts. This is continued from January 4th, 2024. So after that, general public comment on matters not before the board tonight. Other business not anticipated within the last 48 hours and adjournment. The first order of business is the consideration of minutes from November 30th, 2023, and December 7th, 2023. Let's first consider the minutes from November meeting, November 30th. Are there any questions, concerns, or corrections to the minutes for that meeting? That was the meeting on... I have one, Rob. On page five, we begin the discussion of planning board comments. And then we have references to planning board members throughout this section of planning board comments. And I think some of those should be zoning board of appeals comments. If you note, some planning board members questions whether the amount of lighting proposal, that's true. That's what some planning board members mentioned. And then planning board comments that we start to delineate the comments from the zoning board of appeals. So I think that that second reference to planning board should be the zoning board of appeals. I think the same thing is... I think that what happens here is we've got planning board comments, and then the response of the people at our meeting to those planning board comments. Okay, so I couldn't bomb page five. Yeah, I would change that. I think that one was zoning board comments. And then I don't remember if the planning board actually talked about snow storage or not, but I know we did. So that's why we... I'll have to review the comments, but I'm pretty sure that Craig brought it up. I don't think it was something the planning board discussed. Yeah, I know that I brought it up too. So, yep. Anyway, I just want to make sure we have the right reference to the right body. So I would... I guess I would move that we amend it to reflect accurately the comments made by the zoning board. Mr. Chair, I believe... I mean, I erupt you, but I think Hilda has her hand up. She might have some comments for the minutes. I have sent you some. Did you find them? I did, Hilda. I think it was a... You sent me, like, a few emails. I couldn't tell which set of minutes it pertained to. So would you mind... Oh, I thought I marked it. I'm sorry. All right. One of them is on page five. And I'm questioning line five down. Jessica Allen answered that what was proposed was the maximum if what they are comfortable with or is what they are comfortable with. Is that an IF or an IS? You said page five. Which paragraph was that again? I'm sorry. Line five. It says, Chair, Steve, judge, asked how Valley CDC decided on the lighting plan. And the next line, what was proposed was the maximum if, what they are comfortable with, or is IS, a verb? It was maximum. It's not as serious as it is. No, no, it should be as you're right. Let me take note of that. And then I had comments on page two. No, three. I'm sorry about that. Okay. I'm quoting me, which is one, two, three, four. It says the biggest liability to them will be absorbing moisture to counter that they will high solve. Something is missing there. Which is under hill degree mom, one, two, three, four. Five line five. The biggest liability to them will be absorbing moisture to counter that they will high. So it does not. You know, I remember this discussion. It was they'll, I think there are four to six inches above the ground. So it doesn't, the water is not splashing up on it. So I think you need, you just, they will be missing. And that's something I don't know. Yeah. I remember the discussion. It was just, if I remember correctly, I think it was going to be six inches above the level of the ground. So it does not have water splashing upon it. Is that comport with your recollection, Miss Greenbaum? Well, I'm just concerned with the sentence doesn't. Okay. Well, I think we've, I think we fixed the sentence because there's a, there's a number of inches above the level, but that's, that is what we were talking about here. Is it the word enough to counter that they will be high enough? That would be fine. Yeah. They will be high enough. So it does not have water splashing. That'd be great. And we don't have to go back. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anything on that same page. I have no idea what the RV is. I think you better spell it out. Same page. ERV. Okay. Same. The net paragraph. It's possible that they have a higher humidity and the ERV can be used to control. Well, I don't know what the RV is. Which means somebody reading it 40 years from now, won't either. It's a, like, it's an air exchanger. Okay. Yeah, I can elaborate and spell that one out. I'm not sure if that is off top my head, but I'll have to look into it. Good. I'm glad it's not me. All right. Are there any other changes to these minutes? I think, I think that the, I don't know what I was talking about. Okay. So you don't have any other changes, right? The screen ball. I don't, I'm just looking at one page, but I can't get it open. Right. I think that. No, I think you've got them off. Would not be able to meet their hers on page. Four, I think you better spell that out three times. Hers. Hey, it's in capital. So you should find it. Three times on page four. You better. You better. Fill in what that. Those letters are. Okay. I have some kind of a rating system, but nobody's going to know what that is. I think so. Okay. And I would entertain a motion that we accept the. The minutes with the following amendments. That we insert the word enough on the fourth paragraph on page three. That we spell out ERB. That hers rating is defined. And then. At least the first usage. And that we correct the planning board reference in some places where it should be zoning board of appeals members reference. And with that, approve the minutes with those amendments. An amendment to approve the minutes as opposed to the second one vote. Is there a second? Hi, Mr. Chair. Right. Move and seconded any discussion. If not, the vote occurs on the motion to approve the minutes as with amendments chair votes. Hi, Mr. Meadows. Hi, Mr. Henry. Hi, Mr. White. Hi. Ms. Greenball. Hi. approved to the next order of business is the minutes consideration of the minutes from the Thursday December 7th 2023 meeting again are there any corrections or concerns which that members have regarding these minutes I got another one on the second page O&M plan I have no idea what that is operations and management plan but I can elaborate on that this is for operation is this for the stormwater yeah operation maintenance you're correct was that the only comment you had Hilda unless I send it to you I think so yeah that's the only thing I could see from O&M that's the the only note that I noticed that you sent to me in your email regarding the December 7th minutes all right unless there any other suggested changes I entertain a motion that we approve the minutes as amended by spelling out oh by spelling out the meeting of O&M on the last line of the second page do I have such a motion so and second we got it we have to make it motion is moved and seconded any discussion the vote occurs on the motion the chair votes aye mr. Meadows aye mr. Henry aye mr. White aye miss Green ball aye vote is five to nothing the amendments as the minutes as amended are approved the next order of business is a public hearing on ZBA 2024-03 Valley Community Development Corporation request for a comprehensive permit under Massachusetts General Laws chapter 40 be to construct 30 occupied affordable result residential units located on a 15 located in 15 duplex structures this is continued from January 4th 2024 so are there any disclosures from any members on the board I want to go through the submissions we've had several submissions in the last several weeks they're all contained in the project applicant the draft project application report which is received and they're outlined in red we have an update on the stormwater pollution prevention plan dated 117-24 we have a new stormwater operations and maintenance plan prepared by stonefield engineering dated updated 117-2024 we have updated site plans the dates are all January 1st or January 17th 2024 and those include C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 all various site plans and drawings and we have an ANP or approval not required plan of land prepared by Gary Holdright PLS dated 129-2024 I think those are the entire submissions new submissions that we've had since the last meeting and there are no public comments that I'm aware of are there up not them aware of Mr. Chair I think people got tired of submitting public comments to us the last one to receive was back in November got it okay so proceeding to the the application before us you know we're not going to be able to complete this tonight there's still some work that has to be done the conservation Commission has to consider this they've got to review the project I think there's some other issues that there may be other issues that have to be resolved and P and a few other things but we can make some progress towards our goal and probably get into some of the conditions tonight but I would propose the following sort of order of work this evening the first is to update the applicant petitioner to provide us an update on their waiver requests we have an updated waiver request and we have the that was given to us and we may want to run through we do want to run through that I think we should discuss the plan for the abutting house which is I think staff should probably discuss where we are on that the status of the agricultural property at 94 96 Summer Street that may be still up in the air but at least we should know where we stand on that an update on the conservation Commission's consideration and Miss Allen I think you can along with other parts of this you can give us an update on that and then I'm going to ask Carolyn Murray just to describe the decision document that she prepared and produced it's a really helpful template by which we can deliberately go through the things we have to consider and I think it lays out the issues pretty well I'm not going to have a run through the whole thing just describe it for us and talk about its purpose and its function then we'll go into the details of the conditions and the findings and everything else but just to run through it would be helpful Miss Murray may yes Mr. Wachill I think Mr. Henry wanted to say something first and I'll go after thank you Rob I was going to ask if we also have time if we can just do a high level overview of the library document just so I can understand it we're going to get to that yep that's on my list yeah absolutely before we start to consider the conditions I want to have a discussion the next thing I was going to say is we're going to have a discussion about local preference and any other issues that people think are critical and large issues that we need to discuss so indeed we do want to discuss local preference and that lottery sheet that we had in our packet that's what I think you're referring to Mr. Henry yes and then a public comment before we start to vote and consider conditions all right so that's my order of business I think we can get through some of this I do want to just a second round I do want to let everybody know we'll take a five minute break at 7 30 and what and we will complete our deliberations tonight at 9 it's as far as we've gotten because there is no hope of getting it all done tonight so we want to keep to the reasonable amount of time so that's the order of business tonight and Rob you had something you wanted to say yeah I just wanted to clarify your second item regarding the plan of the house next door or the house on the property so that is a approval not required plan of land essentially they have to submit that in order to section off that house onto its own parcel the plans are finalized and have been submitted to town staff for us to include in the board's packet but they can't officially follow them until the chair of the zoning board signs off them after the comprehensive permit has been granted so I just wanted to clarify that for the board for those in attendance and of course if you wanted the applicant to present that plan Mr. Chair just briefly showing us screen share what it looks like I guess for us could comment on it up to you yep that would be helpful just so we all know what's going on all right so I think the first order of business then is to discuss the waivers and Ms. Allen I think you're the probably the right person are you the right person to go through this or did you you've been working on this along with Ms. Murray and this town staff yes I think town staff had the last take at it so we provided changes that have been discussed at a meeting between town staff and Valley all those have been incorporated and sent back to Ms. Murray so I think she had her last fingers on it so I'm happy to walk through it but it either work doesn't matter so I let's do this first of all give me your name and address for the record sorry sure Jessica Valley Community Development Northampton all right so many of these are pretty much self-explanatory and absolutely required in order to proceed with the the project there are some that are that need some clarification and some of the more recent ones Carol Murray can you just highlight the waiver requests that we should focus on I don't think we need to go through we're not going to vote on this because we need to have there still has to be some additional questions answered I am correct about the some of the waivers so with that won't be voted on today until later so I I think we should just go through some of the changes of the other ones that are most important if you agree and I love for you to do that certainly Mr. Chair and thank you to Rob for pulling it up on the screen I think the first one that bears some discussion is the one that's highlighted at the bottom of page one in front of you with respect to the buffer from you know some surrounding land you know farmland or adjacent farmland and as you can see we had hold until it was a field verification by the town I know Mr. Chair this is one of the items you just listed as something you wish to discuss later this evening I don't know if you want to discuss that aspect now or just run through the waivers now and and we come back to you know I think it's probably let's just do it right now and knock it off I don't think it's going to take a long time to describe it just discuss it out of status of that property on 94 96 Somers Street excuse me Mr. Chair so me and Miss Brushup actually went to the properties and question or reviewed them from Valley's property earlier today and I guess Chris did you want to give you update first or did you want me to do it well I wouldn't mind giving the update so Rob and I visited the site and observed that it appeared that there was that there had been farming on 94 96 Somers Street so we don't believe there's active farming there now but you might as well leave it in in case active farming resumes sometime before the buildings are built we did also observe that it appears that there's active farming on two adjacent parcels but only one of them is within 150 feet of the parcel that Valley CDC is working on and that would be parcel five B dash 160 which is located at 87 Mill Street so my recommendation would be to add 87 Mill Street to this waiver request in the active farming operation that we observed looked like a field that was used for growing hay but it's definitely in that cycle of where you know it's just not being used and might be used again in the spring potentially so that's why it be wise to include this waiver in in the official decision document alright let's go to the next page though this is the an our provision but also a topic that we're going to discuss we might as well discuss it now Robin and Ms. Brescht up the let's talk about that and what whether we need to have a waiver for that so Mr. Chair did you want us to show the plans too all right in one second should be shown now here it is so here's your standard an our plan the lot that they are separating is down here I'm going to zoom in a little bit so you can see it my apologies for trying to find the controls all right so right here this is the lot that they're going to create propose lot B and I believe just for my own sake this is going to be considered a flag lot am I correct on that yes okay so they're basically creating a flag lot here so I just want to note that Jessica did you include a waiver from the flag lot provisions of the zoning bylaw for this yes it's already in there I believe okay good so the one thing Mr. Chair that is very important to this is this portion over here so usually for any an our plan so it's abbreviated as approval not required under the subdivision control law essentially the usually goes to the planning board and the plane board reviews it and then afterwards the members vote to determine whether or not this specific plan of land requires approval through the subdivision control process usually when they vote that means it doesn't require that so that's why it's called approval not required usually the chair of the playing board signs in the section over here and that's the only person who has to sign it and then after that the petitioner would file it with the registry deeds and it becomes an official plan of land recorded so in this case this paragraph down here was inserted by at the request of attorney Murray to indicate that since this is part of a 40 B permit the chair of the zoning board and the zoning board could technically approve this plan and have it sent forward to the registry deeds for Miss Allen and Valley CDC to record so they can section off this property that has the existing building and sell to whoever wants to buy it so that's pretty much the gist of the A&R plan I don't know if anybody else wanted to chime in if I'm missing something but that's that's pretty much the reason why we're listing that as a as a waiver and Mr. Chair if I could just add to that when we first started talking about the A&R plan you might recall that I'd indicated there was an upending superior court case at that time that would decide whether or not the zoning board can in fact act in place of the planning board under the subdivision control law it was very convenient of the court to issue a decision in January on that matter confirming that yes the zoning board in the 48 contacts does act on behalf of the planning board with respect to subdivisions related to that 40 B so I'm comfortable with the zoning board endorsing the plan as shown great thank you all right in the next waiver that is highlighted in our in these waivers as the dimensional regulations we're trying I think we're trying to figure out whether it's needed or not building coverage is I think that I think Miss Allen's comment that building coverage is only seven percent walk us through the whether you need this waiver or not would you miss Allen I don't believe that we do these numbers were calculated by the civil team and so building coverage at seven percent the zoning requires a maximum of 10 so we're under under the maximum by three percentage so the buildings and that's not going to change at all in any revised side plans that are going to be done so all right and so I don't know that we need to have this could be deleted from future versions of the waiver request correct miss Greenbaum yeah um we talked about that community space um the set aside the owners who will say what they want to do with it if they build something on that space will we need this or not will that still be under the 10 percent well I think there's two questions miss Greenbaum the first is we it would be pretty large building if it was it would be almost half as much square footage as all the buildings but the 30 it's a 15 buildings they have so it may it have to be an awfully big community center or other structure to trip the to 10 percent number but if it does you would have to come either get a waiver or come back to the the zba for approval but I think that I think the answer is it is not on a plan now and I don't know why we would accommodate that with which is not on a plan and I think it's unlikely that a community building would have as much as half of the square footage of all the other buildings um let's say coverage already okay I just wondered if we wanted to leave it in just a case down the line they want to do something I don't I don't think we should waive something I think it seems to me it's probably not harmful to do it but also at the same time there's I don't think there's a need to do it okay all right are there any other questions regarding waivers and then waivers will consider um the next time we meet when these are all completed we have a fresh copy before us but we'll go back to waivers at a later at the next meeting when we um hopefully are looking at final considerations so we've gone through the waiver requests we've talked about the ANR plan for the budding house yes Rob I was going to ask for clarification Mr. Chair um did you want the applicant to update the waivers and then resubmit to us prior to the next meeting well yeah okay if it's us either staff or the the applicant I think the applicant is probably the best person to do it okay yeah it's the applicants who originally created the documents so if they want to update it and send it to us they definitely could so miss alan um unless you feel a need to have that 10 waiver there I don't I don't see a need for it um you can delete it you can come back with your suggestions for the board but for the next meeting sounds good thank you all right we've talked about the waivers we got to the ANR we did the agricultural property um information on both 94 96 as well as the amendment needed for 80 I guess that's the number 87 mill street um can we get an update on the con comms consideration of this project and what the issues are before that and a timing your idea of timing if they sure sure I'd be happy to um so after uh the last set of plans that you actually have in your board packet were submitted the civil team determined that there were um the results from two test pits that were conducted in the proposed infiltration basin area the groundwater was higher than the basin could be designed for and so we've been working over the past couple of weeks to modify the storm water basin design to accommodate that high groundwater um it's been trickier than we anticipated because of the wetland buffers because of the site constraints with the trees that are there that we're trying to protect so it's been a little bit tricky trying to make the basin work and make the numbers work um so the um civil team is committed to submitting a revised set of plans to the conservation commission by the 21st um I we are scheduled to be continued to the conservation commission on the 28th the storm water basin design is probably substantial enough that it's going to end up going into two meetings with the conservation commission is my guess um so I suspect that if we are continued in the order of conditions has needs to be modified amended um we also have an O&M plan and um a storm water management plan that are also being updated with the correct data so all of those documents need to get updated and resubmitted um and then the town has to have the ability to have time to review so I suspect that we will hopefully fingers crossed hopefully I'll go on your plan that will be done with the concom by the 13th of March okay all right yeah and there's no other modifications to the site plan just to be clear it's really the storm water system that's that's undergoing changes right now all right so I think we can hold questions off on um the storm water plan until the it's all we get a new modified plan all right are there any other updates that you want to provide to us miss allen or miss murray or staff or any other follow-ups that people have questions of people that had other than I think the big major issues we're going to talk about local preference and anything else the big issues but are there any other follow-ups or any other modifications that you or that you wish to tell the board about um no the the big one was the site plan so that's the thing that's really driving my stress levels right now so we hope to get that buttoned up pretty soon miss breastrup I see your hands up so a couple of things one is um we mentioned the site plan and we need to have a site plan that is attached to this decision when it gets recorded so um will you also be updating that uh that site plan which I think is s4 or c4 or something like that it's a site plan of the whole site so you'll be making sure that that plan is updated along with all the other plans okay you're muted you're muted sorry about so am I on now okay uh yes the whole set is going to be updated okay and then um are you going to go through all of these um items in the decision or is this an opportunity to bring up things that we have found in the decision um if this is a great up what I if there are issues that are not part of the conditions this is a time to bring them up if there are issues we're my intention tonight is to try to get to eventually get to conditions and go through some of those and perhaps vote on some of the some portion of those conditions but if there are other items in the decision documents that you think we should talk about um I would be open to doing that what I don't want to do Chris though is I don't want to go through all the findings yet I want to do conditions first because that's how I make that's how I think we should make decisions about findings once we do the conditions we can say that we made these findings so I don't want to go through findings right now I think it'd be something we do at a later point in time okay well there is one thing that came up that we were puzzling about and it has to do with um electric vehicle charging stations and how the current plan comports with the building code or not and so we came up with um a change in wording and it's on page four of the decision document that Ms. Murray has prepared and it's under item j four all right page four j four or j four so um where this document says under j four IV yeah um it says two additional spaces and we discussed this with Mr. Murray because he is very knowledgeable about the issues here and he suggested just leaving out the word two and saying capital A additional spaces at each parking area will be wired for future electric vehicle charging stations so just take out the word two and change the first A and additional to a capital A and that seems to solve the problem and that provides that there will be spaces as plural that provides that there will be at least two and gives the flexibility for there to be more if that's the decision in the future is that right that's correct Mr. Chair I think this topic actually warrants a little bit of discussion because the building code is um hasn't caught up with kind of reality in a little bit um and so I don't know if you want to discuss it now or whether you want to discuss it when we get into conditions because it's also listed in conditions and I'm happy to wait if that's your preference what I think we should do is this is one of the issues that sounds like it's a large issue that we want to have a discussion about when we get to to that after Ms. Murray just talks about the uh the decision document so we'll do local preference we will have EV a discussion regarding EV spaces um before we go into conditions and anything else it's a major issue either on conditions that people want to talk about but I think it's good to bring it up separate from the condition itself because we may not get to condition that far on the conditions tonight but we it's an issue that we should deal with all right Ms. Greenbaum uh we're going to go through this uh decision line guideline at some point because like the questions here and there yes we'll be we'll be going through it but tonight we're not going to go through it line by line we're going to go through we're going to do the conditions we're not going to do the findings until we've also already made our conditions known because that's how we in many cases that's how you can make your findings is that it's based on the conditions that you have uh agreed upon we're going through um to the to whatever to the greatest extent people want to go through it we will do that the things I don't understand my underline but I'll wait a moment we'll see what happens all right we'll get through it okay so Ms. Murray are there any other things that people think they want to put on the agenda for topics for tonight? Ms. Murray do you want to go through and just describe the the purpose of this the decision document the purpose of it and how are you intended for us to guide our conversations? Certainly Mr. Chair so the the draft decision that is before you is actually based on I believe the the most recent 40B project that your board has approved so we figured that the format would be something that should be familiar to uh to most of you if not all of you um I won't go through it line by line because we're going to do that at a later date but essentially you know the you see the key elements there being you know some some uh you know background that is provided um some information that really goes to the heart of 40B and the regulations of you know what does it mean to be consistent with local needs especially where Amherst is at a safe harbor with the 10 percent and um also based in these first few pages there are some findings which I know we're not going to discuss tonight um I just want to make it clear that these are findings that are purely speculative on my part you know this is clearly a decision that remains with the board but as we go through materials and try to describe the project and make it clear not just for all of us who've been through the process but for uh those who will succeed us uh you know 10 years from now they should be able to pick up this document and read through it and understand exactly uh what the board's rationale was and exactly what was proposed and the relief that was granted etc um but I don't want anyone to um be particularly exercised at this point about any of the findings because this was really just um my speculation as to where the board might go with respect to some of these findings at this time the next key portion of the decision um is really listing all the plans that have been submitted because we will refer to the approved plan set and I can't tell you how often that leads to a question especially by a building commissioner after the fact who says well what is the approved plan set so we're constantly updating the plan set and any other submissions so that it can be clear what was the record before the board and as as Christine mentioned um it's uh it's plan c4 the site plan that when that is finalized that will actually be attached as exhibit a to your decision and it will get reported at the registry of deeds so that again the members of the public can be clear as to what it is that the board has done um the next section really gets to the heart of conditions um and then I won't I know we're gonna go through those in some more detail again some of the conditions these are things that some of them are fairly standard from prior decisions some of them are unique to this particular project um again this is a little bit of folks like me Christine Robb uh even Jessica and Rebecca uh pulling out our crystal balls based on notes that we've been taking throughout the proceedings or comments or concerns that the board has raised and trying to formulate some conditions that we think the board might want to consider but again nothing is finalized at this point and then really the last sections that are important are obviously the board's final vote which will just be a majority vote and then um the waivers which um we will obviously have an updated waiver list for you in time for the board's next meeting um if I could just for on a procedural note um and it looks like perhaps we might have lost Mr Meadows for a moment um Mr Meadows uh was absent from your last hearing in January there he is um so it will be necessary that in order for him to actually vote on this particular project um Mr Meadows will have to go through uh you know all of the materials that were submitted and complete a certification that we have to read into the record um at your next meeting or at least before the board votes on this matter so um with that Mr Chair I'll I'll stop and and you can tell me how you'd like to proceed one clarification pending that he can still vote on um matters considered to by the board tonight um he doesn't have to file that that that is for the final the restriction on his ability to vote pending the submission of that um document saying that he's reviewed the other items is on final passage it's not on the intermittent motion such as to approve a condition or not is that correct I would I would feel more comfortable Mr Chair if actually that that certification was in because to the extent that um one of those conditions somehow or other relates back to a discussion that we had at the January hearing uh we wouldn't want someone to call that into question um but you only need a majority vote right we only need three right for everything so I'm not suggesting that you know if Mr Meadows if you take votes tonight on conditions and if Mr Meadows wants to vote I I'm not going to discourage him from participating in that vote um I think it'll only become critical if the vote is three to two with Mr Meadows on the prevailing side right okay hopefully we'll have five all votes on everything that's my goal all right and I know Mr Meadows will complete that documentation and review the material um all right so I think first of all thank you Miss Murray for putting this together I think it's really helpful uh it does outline the work we have to do and it lays out the questions in a good way so and I do recognize the format from the last 40v that we did for the affordable housing a rental housing on on route nine all right um so I guess what I'd like to do is is move Mr Scare where you move on I'm sorry I have a question yeah yes Mr Henry so the document um is heavily redlined when do we get a clean version or is that by design as we decide um it comes clean based on what we decide well I my preference is what you're seeing is the the changes and I thought I think it's helpful to see the changes that are made um and and I seems to me that we can read the the the document as intended as amended by the red line but it is it something that you find too do you find it difficult to see what the final proposed result or condition is without with all the red line material in it I do prefer if they weren't the red lines in there because if I understood correctly we're just walking through something that was previously used to match what we're doing now well you know I think what we're doing is showing the changes from the previous versions and how um I think it's been principally the petitioner and the staff and Ms Murray have walked through the conditions and I thought that was help I think that's helpful just to see how they've been changed over time um so the most part of my question but I you know if you can't if you're having a hard time understanding the conditions as redlined that's not an optimal situation for you or for the board members um so I would ask maybe Ms Brestrup to just respond to that and if um perhaps through perhaps for tonight we can see if we can go through these conditions of some set of these conditions with a just description of the changes and see if that saw solves your problem and then the next time we can create I think it's just by a of a mouse you can create a modified as modified version of these conditions and we can have that available for the next meeting but I don't want to make I don't want to put you at a disadvantage Mr Henry no so I don't think it's necessary that um anyone do anything any additional work so to speak my question was do we accept the changes as we go oh um to show that we voted on these conditions and we're accepting them is this like a working living document we work into that as we go right so we go through these conditions we will accept them or we can accept them assuming that they we like the version the board likes the version of condition one with or condition two with the changes in it we would adopt that condition as modified and shown here on the on the sheet that's what we would do yes so so that so that is fine okay no that was my question so yeah it was fine the way it is yes I gave you a long answer probably longer than it needs I'm sorry that's okay it's okay but Ms Brester has his hand up and I always want to hear what she has to say well I just wondered if that meant that you were going to do real-time edits and I'm kind of like leery about that I think what we should do is talk about each thing and maybe as a whole decide whether you want to go along with each thing and then Ms Murray will make the changes to the document that she's been working on she's kind of like the point person for this document and I don't want to be confused about what changes were made and when so if we can agree as a whole that yes this change is correct then Ms Murray can produce the next set of of the document with those changes in them and Rob and I can actually work on providing both a clean copy and a redlined copy to you for your next meeting so if it's easier for you to read the clean copy we can provide both but I I just don't want to lose track of where we are and Ms Murray is kind of in charge of this document so thank you So then if that makes sense Ms Brestra and then we would what I would suggest as a change in process here is what we should do is go through here and tentatively approve or amend or reject some subset of these conditions as far as we get tonight some subset pending us coming back the next meeting seeing the the full version as amended by our proposed action tonight and then approving them in block later on but I think we could do a I'd like to start moving on these conditions and I'd like to at least have a tentative approval on as much as we can do tonight then we can look at the version as amended both of the redline version and the final version next week and improve them in block if indeed it represents the consensus or the majority of the board does that make sense to everybody I I have one question but just a second just a second is that you understand Chris does that make sense and that's and Ms Murray does that make sense too as well for to do it that way okay yes yes yes and scream up yes Chris answered it just about everything that I wanted to say but I can't read the font this small so I'm hoping that the clean copy will be at least a 10 point font because this this looks like two or three and that's a realized right and I can't read it with all so if at least the clean copy can be and if this can be slightly bigger font it would help to um Hilda the reason why the font's smaller is because that document has comments on the side I know that's why I think take those out go back to normal so we'll definitely uh mr chair we'll definitely have a clean copy prepared as well for the next meeting you just do except all changes and we'll have a large document it's not it won't be hard to do all right all right so the what we're going to do tonight is we're going to go through as many of these conditions as we can and when we get to that we're going to go through as many conditions that we can we'll take the the tentative approval disapproval or amendment of these conditions and move on as Ms Murray and the staff to incorporate those just tentative decisions and we'll vote upon the considered uh conditions in our next meeting all right good okay so before we get conditions which we've now uh we understand how we're going to proceed on conditions what I'd like to do is have a discussion on a couple of things I'd like to have a discussion about local preference and the chart and the lottery as mr Henry said I'd also like to have a discussion I think about eds we had talked about that as well and those two things so I what I would like to do is have um a discussion on the chart that I think you provided Ms Allen on local preference and the lottery and how local preference affects the the extent to which local preference is applicable to this project which I think is 10 out of the 30 units and I think it's just I think local preference just affects the um well you're going to have to tell me because I'm that's what I'm confused about which units it's affects either 80 or 100 percent and how it affects it so that and I'd like to have a discussion in general about the local preference and see where board members are sure I'll take it away so um this was per the request of the planning department they asked for something that might be a little bit more graphic to help um simplify a very complicated topic and I will tell you that I went through probably five versions before I felt like I had something that was simple enough and I think it's probably still complicated so um I think it's this is a complicated topic it's a complicated thing to try to explain so I'm going to try to do my best um the way that this is set up is that um the I tried to color code it so as we discussed previously the first priority is for appropriately sized households Miss Allen before you go any farther I I don't want to interrupt you unnecessarily local preference applies to 80 or 100 percent which one it would apply to the entire project entire project okay all right um so the first priority is for appropriately sized households um that is the priority that's set by mass housing for a home ownership this really is to make sure that we're not um under housing people that we don't have like a a single person living in a three bedroom house when we have such a shortage of affordable housing so um this is defined under the mass housing guidelines as a household with a number of members equal to the number of bedrooms plus one so for instance in any of the two bedroom homes in this development this would be a minimum of a three person household and for any of the three bedroom homes this would be a minimum of four people so um that is the first and highest priority in terms of the lottery process the second priority would be for disproportionately impacted households or DIH as I've abbreviated on here and this is defined under the ARPA legislation we've discussed this a number of times in previous meetings and it's been well defined in the other local preference memos that I provided the board um so as mass housing has basically explained to me is that what they're seeing is that most households that are qualifying for DIH and the commonwealth builders program are those that are geographically located so people that are living in a qualified census tract as we've discussed and as we've shown in previous meetings there are two qualified census tracts in Amherst one is in the north Amherst area and then there's another one that's just south um so that would be the second priority in terms of the lottery process and how households are selected if the town were to condition for local preference local preference would then be the third priority um and so I have color coded first priority is green second priority of the DIH is blue and third priority is yellow so what I've created is sort of a fictitious lottery here with people that don't really exist um that I've made up out of my head and so under this example there are six homes that are available for the lottery and we have 12 households that are applying for it um so it's kind of a two to one in a in terms of the lottery so what you'll see is that households um if you don't have any local preference and even if you do households that either have a green or a blue tend to rise up they're the highest priority so they're going to be at the top of the of the lottery selection process if you have none of these items you're going to be at the bottom of the lottery process so for instance household one it meets DIH they live in Amherst they meet local preference because they lived in the qualified census tract um or they meet they meet look they meet the DIH because they live in a qualified census tract they meet local preference because they live in Amherst um because they don't have that top priority first priority green they don't necessarily make the cut in this fake lottery process that I've created in the local preference world they would um come under tier five if you recall we talked about the the process is tiered it's not necessarily pools so um local preference it's a tier five out of eight um with no local preference they're tier three out of four so household two meets the household size they live in a QCT they happen to live in greenfield with no local preference they're in the first tier that's selected with local preference they're in the second tier that's that's selected household number three they um meet the first priority they do not meet DIH they live in Amherst so they meet local preference in this instance if there's no local preference they would be in the second tier if they were with local preference they would be in the third tier and they would be selected do you see how this this works okay um do you want me to go through the whole chart or do you basically sort of understand the the process of how this works I can continue but I just don't want to I think it's helpful to just run through sure okay I can absolutely continue um I just didn't want to waste the board's time going through it unless they unless you really want to meet it absolutely go through which I'm happy to do it's helping me so where am I at household four I've lost crack ready going forward okay so there are three person house and looking for two bedrooms so they meet the household size they live um in where they live in a QCT they do not meet local preference but because they're they have a green and a blue they rise to the top and so if there's no local local preference they'd be in the first tier if there is local preference they would end up being in the second tier they would still be selected uh household five has a green and a blue they live in Springfield because they have a green and the blue in that first column without local preference they'd be in that first tier um with local preference they would be in the second tier household six does not meet the household size does not live in a QCT as they live in Hadley but they work in Amherst they would not meet uh they would not be a selected household because they don't have a green or blue so even though they're local preference and they live in Hadley because they don't have they're not first or second priority they would not be a selected household um household seven they have the correct household size and they live in a QCT they meet local preference because they work in Amherst they live in Chickapee um and um without local preference they'd be in that first tier and with local preference they would also be in that first tier household eight meets the household size meets the DIH um lives in Holyoke does not meet local preference without local preference they would be in that first tier and with local preference they would be in the second tier um household nine um does not meet household size does not live in a QCT lives in South Hadley has children in the schools so their only qualifier is local preference they are not a selected household household 11 um they meet the household size they do not live in a QCT and they do not meet local preference under the first um example with no local preference they would be within tier two they would be the last home that would be selected again because they are fit within that highest priority category um with local preference they would not be selected and then the last example is um not meeting any of the criteria and would not be selected got it okay so still complicated but I try to simplify it but it looks to me like what local preference does is it's a third tier and it may help it it helps at the margins it doesn't it's you have to meet number one you have to meet number two and to get any benefit from your local preference correct so when it comes right down to a household size is the most important thing correct next is living in a qualified census tract or disproportionately impacted household those two tend to be the driving factors local preference is at the margins um enough a additional filter for our correct correct and then one last question so this affects if per se we use 70 percent which is the limit we can't do it we can't go any higher than 70 percent I understand if we use 70 percent that means this factor that local preference would be in effect for 21 of the 30 units is that right correct with um sort of the side note that we talked about a little bit last meeting is that it's kind of a cap not a guarantee so say that we only have um 10 people that meet first priority second priority and third priority once those 10 are met and if there's no other qualified households beyond that and if um then the remainder which would be 12 would go into tier two so those lottery slots would go into tier two and so you would fulfill your local preference only within tier one right and then if you go into tier two you still have to meet household size correct right correct you get and in that case the differential differential is if you live in the qct or you meet the disproportionately impacted household standard correct yep so it's it's really so the tier first here would be appropriately sized household number one dih number two local preference number three once that once that tier is done and all of the slots have been filled and it's quite possible that we will have the right amount of applicants to fill the 21 you know there could be tons of people that apply but i'm just saying that if it doesn't if that's not the case then whatever doesn't get met under that 21 just goes into tier two and that's appropriately sized households and dih only right okay okay so yeah 70 percent is a cap it's not a promise correct miss greenbombed you had your hand raised and then mr maddie i do have my hand raised because i got a whole bunch of questions and i'm not entirely clear about what she just said either but um first of all if you look at the household size which seems to govern everything that happens in the end um so you have a couple who is pregnant are they number one told they can't apply because they're only two people or if it's two people who um um young new to the are they disqualified totally or just push no so so the definition of appropriately sized households there are a bunch of um subcategories within that major definition in the regulations and one of them is for an expectant mother you can count that baby as the number three within the household okay so but if somebody i like two senior citizens um um do they get dropped further down the list or are they just eliminated it depends on who applies for the lottery so you really go down the tiers and once the tier is filled once you filled the slots or you have no more applicants you can move on to the second tier and then you select out of that tier and once all the homes have been filled everybody else gets placed on a wait list so it's not that they're dropped completely there is a wait list proceed you know process and it could end up being that people who are selected are unable to get their financials together in order to purchase a house and so if that's the case they would drop out of the process and we would select somebody off the wait list okay and then lastly what is a household you're not allowed to ask marital status and i guess this comes up because we got the floor unrelated by law and amherst but can three unrelated people be considered a household of well according to the definition that i pulled out of regulations it's a household with a number of members equal to the number of bedrooms plus one it doesn't say in there they have to be related they do have to be related yes or no i can double check in the regulations but i'm just curious you know because it's an issue in this town but but uh you know three friends or three three widows widows get together you know and they're not related would they be allowed to to get a two bedroom so i'll look in the regulations yep miss alan's gonna look that up miss marie are you also looking that up i am trying this chair yes let's see if we can get an answer to that so we can move on that's a good question what's the definition of a household in terms of related or unrelated people i guess just to clarify you're referring to household under the auspices of the program that governs this correct not just household in general okay because you try doing household in general that'd be a wild mess of i'm not i don't want to go there i just i want to solve one problem at a time and i want to solve this problem regarding this program and then well i mean you see widows moving in together and various reports to save money and to have companionship sorry it's going to take me a little bit of time to put my hands on the regulations i i don't have to have it to the okay all right so i don't want to i yeah perhaps um while you're doing the presentation this alan what people asking questions miss marie might have some time to look at it um let's go on to other questions and we'll make sure to come back to the question of how a household is defined for this program okay just write that down all right mr meadows um you had your hand up do you have some questions yes i'm curious about a procedural question what what if and i assume it may be true what if there are 40 or 50 households that meet all of the conditions is it drawing out of a hat how how is that handled yep so once we determine that they qualify under that tier and they're placed under their tier categories then it is the pulling of the hat and then once the 30s 30 slots are filled everybody else remaining would be all the names would continue to get pill pulled and then placed on a waitlist thank you i don't want to move on to other topics swallows um i'd like to make sure we deal with um local preference in the lottery and any questions that people have about that before they move on to anything else i can ask one more at this point um have they already gone to the bank and been qualified for a mortgage or does that come after this so typically yeah they would um they would need to prove that they can qualify for mortgage and that would be submitted as part of the application process it's pretty simple for somebody to go online actually they can go to a bank website plug in their information and get a letter so it's not a huge burden to be able to do that but yes we would like to be able to see that applicants that have that ability before we hold their name mr. Henry i know you also raised the issue of the lottery have we been addressing the questions that you were concerned about or inquisitive about or are there other questions that you have regarding the lottery or local preference you have message here thank you i don't i do understand i don't have any additional questions okay great well so then what we find is for the local preference it can be as many as 21 units maybe local preference may be applied to you at the most local preference is third of the three of the three characteristics and as we look at it here it looks like local preference really only made a difference in one of the six excuse me one of the two of the 12 examples that you used it number 11 was selected if there is no local preference a five person household which does not mean the QCT or DIH but it met the household size was selected without local preference in this example and in household three which met the size did not live in also did not live in the QCT or was not a disproportionately impacted household but met local preference living in Amherst they were selected if local preference was involved in their selection process so it looks but on the other cases local preference did not make a difference as to whether they were expected or selected or not they may have been on a higher or lower tier but they were the selection was only relevant in those two instances is that correct Ms. Allen I'm reading this correctly yes all right okay so we'll wait for households to come up because I don't want to wait too long while we put our people rushing through the regulations of the state of Massachusetts which can be daunting I think I just put my um fingers on it but why don't you continue and I will confirm double check yeah Mr. White you've got your hand up uh yeah thank you Mr. Chair uh no Ms. Allen actually I just wanted to take this opportunity while you're looking that up to thank you for putting that graph together because I had a lot of questions kind of on the local preference aspect going into this and that really helped me a lot so thank you one of the other while you still work on that we're going to go to EV that was the next item which I know people wanted to discuss um what was the what is the issue in terms of EV electric vehicles that um was raised that was that you wish to raise is that something that you're concerned about Mr. Meadows or is that something that you're concerned about Ms. Allen um I have some concerns and um I think it'd be good I don't know if uh Ms. Brestrup wants to kind of brief first before we kind of talk about our um what we're thanking on this end all right Ms. Brestrup go ahead and I may need some help from um Rob Wachilla as well but my understanding is that the current stretch code of the building code would require that all of the units be capable of having an EV charging station assigned to them that would use their meter to provide electricity for an electric vehicle um and that's an expensive process or an expensive prospect so um Ms. Allen has been examining with her team if there's a workaround or if she might be able to or or if she understands the rules the same way that we do if she might be able to apply for a variance with the um with the state with regard to that requirement yep go ahead lacking understanding about that I looked at this decision and had questions about some of the wording so I asked Rob Mora and that's how we came up with the wording that I suggested in the beginning of the meeting it may not be appropriate there may be other things that I don't understand but anyway that's kind of the gist of it that Ms. Allen hasn't completely determined how she's going to address this issue that there's this requirement and um we're trying to make the decision flexible enough to accommodate whatever the outcome is so that's my understanding of the situation so yeah to just um add some more information to that so the stretch code has two different categories under EV charging one is for single family homes and duplexes and then there's another for all other our uses so any other residential uses we're in this weird spot because we're not just building a single family house or just building a duplex we are building a cluster of duplexes with shared parking areas so the way that the code and the way that we've um we have been advised by the building commissioner that what it how it translates in terms of like on the ground is that it would require a 50 amp breaker for each house so that would be 30 50 amp breakers so instead of having a charging station which is a pay as you go the only solution from a design perspective in order for us to meet the stretch code under this is to put a um like a low guardrail and put a bank of 50 amp breakers on there and so I think it raises a couple of questions for us um one if we have common metering for the electricity this means that everybody is now paying for other people's electric vehicle charging to it's just um it's just a a break or it's just a an outlet box so we would either have to lock those boxes or people could break those boxes and then come in outside the community and plug in and charge so it's like it's almost creating a um creative nuisance like it doesn't the code doesn't make sense to the style of this project if it was just a single family house and you could put this outlet in your garage totally makes sense but for the residential code that we meet under the building code it doesn't really match with this so we probably we could put on the plans you know this bank of of 30 breakers we could do 16 on one parking lot 15 on the other I think it's going to be a maintenance nightmare I think it might end up causing headaches for the town quite frankly if you have people going in there who don't live in the community and are figuring ways to charge their car um so I think we'd prefer to apply for variants um and able to still do the charging stations because we want to be able to do that pay as you go it seems really unfair to have all community members have to pay for the electricity charging of just a few electric vehicles um it's just that the code like doesn't match this project like this project is is weird um for the stretch code under this category so um I'd like to have it so the decision is flexible enough to allow us to be granted a variance um and that's a process that's going to involve the building department we need to put a packet together it goes to the state we're going to need support of the town in order for it to be granted um so I'm not sure how we word it in the in the decision but this is kind of the sticking point for us right now um just before I get to Rob so is the stretch code in force now and you're compelled to comply with it or is the stretch code aspirational by the term stretch it's no the town has adopted the stretch code so the municipality decides whether they're going to adopt the stretch code from the building code amherst has adopted it so therefore we need to comply with it my question and I don't think it I don't it doesn't sound like it works is that because it's a locally adopted regulation I was wondering whether we could request waivers from it because it's been locally adopted it's almost like it's a local regulation but um it sounded like the building commissioner didn't agree with that that he he said it was a state code so that's kind of a a question too that there could be a variant or a waiver provided if the town saw that this is actually a local regulation but you know that's something I think attorney Murray needs to think about and him on a little bit but he already has an answer I don't know I was going to uh to provide an answer to Jessica and to the rest of the board I was going to suggest so usually with our special permits we started carte blanche for every decision that's been approved by the board we just have the building commissioner review any sort of changes beforehand and the building commissioner determines whether or not it warrants further review by the board so usually um if it's like a minor change so say if you're moving a light post like 10 feet to the left um he'll just do it administratively as opposed to having to go back to the board but if it's a bigger change it will go back to the board for either a public meeting or if it's significant enough to where you would have to amend the permit amend the permit um so I guess for attorney Murray that could be a condition we could explore putting into this uh comprehensive permit document as well and the reason why we would do that is to have to prevent somebody from amending the whole permit all over again for something as minor as taking out a a series of electric charging stations so that's one thing I would suggest I have not reviewed in depth the most recent decision document so I'm not sure if that's included as a condition but we could definitely explore including that miss Murray thank you mr chair I I appreciate you know the applicant's um position that they think the stretch energy code since it's been adopted by the town and incorporated into the zoning bylaw um could arguably be a local bylaw that this board can rule but really all we've done is incorporate by reference this whole host of requirements from the state building code um so in my opinion share it it is part of the state building code that is not something that this board can waive um to the comments that mr Occhillo was just describing um one of the things that uh that I think the building commissioner was expressing was that if we leave the the condition sort of open that you know whatever the electric vehicle requirement may be for this project um that's simply what will apply now if the applicant seeks a waiver under the building code and that's granted then you know we will abide by that as part of the state building code you're proposing a state building code okay yes okay um mr meadows I I just looked it up ever sources is has grants that will pay for the entire cost of wiring for EV charging stations they also will pay up to 50 of the cost of the EV charging stations and there are massachusetts grants that will pay I believe it's a hundred thousand dollars per charging station yes so thank you yeah we're we're definitely aware of those the problem is right now that the code wouldn't require a charging station it requires a 50 amp breaker that's what the code requires so you know right but that's part of the wiring that's part of wiring sure but I think ultimately the 50 amp breaker is not ideal for the site in terms of long-term maintenance I think in terms of just I think it's it's better to have a charging station and we would absolutely take advantage of all grant opportunities that are available for that but as of now the code doesn't allow us to put in a charging station we have to put in 50 amp breakers so um I'll mean to interject mr chair but it sounds like miss allen you're definitely considering pursuing the variance route for this provision okay I think so so I guess you want to set up a meeting at some point with town staff to to discuss that with you or to I guess provide a strategy to move forward with that sure I mean I'm guessing it's that variance approach would happen after this process is done um you know as we get closer to the building permit process so I guess the question is you know what needs to be on the plans do we meet the stretch code on the plans how is the how is the decision language drafted so that it allows us to do flexibility to switch if we are granted the variance and if we're not then we're going to be held to the stretch code and we'll have to put in what's required it's just like it's just not ideal I mean it really I think complicates a lot of things with the condo association yeah um especially having everybody pay for somebody's electric vehicle charging fair point should we have a gas fund everybody puts money into the gas fund so that everybody's stuff gets paid so help me with this and maybe I'm distanced under what circumstances is everybody paying for a few electric car charges is that under the state stretch code is that what we will have we have one common meter that's dealing with the common electricity otherwise you would have to somehow assign assign spaces have wiring run from that space to the individual house like I just I don't understand like it the complexity of it is is in in the expense to doing that is you know crazy so um I mean that's you wouldn't be able to individually meter and that's sort of where the code doesn't meet what our project is is that the code is like oh you have a single family house you have a garage yeah so um so we have a common meter for the lights um we have so anything that's in that parking lot like the parking lot lighting is tied to a common meter which is going to be paid by the condo association fee I don't have an electric car but it seems to me one one way is you'd have some kind of a card that you would put into the meat into the electric charging station it would say this is it goes to this account and it comes from part of your as your electric bill or that's not what happens on not that I'm aware of I understand I don't have electric car but my understanding is there's an adapter that you plug into your car that you then plug into this this 50 amp and then that way you can charge your car it like translates for it but I don't think there's a there's a charging process that goes to a car that's what that's why you have you know the charging stations because those can be controlled by an outside vendor. All right. Ms. Brester. So what I would suggest is that Rob Wachilla and I and Rob Mora meet with Ms. Tybalt and Ms. Murray to and maybe Jessica Allen Ms. Allen to come up with some language that is acknowledges that the ZVA would really like there to be the ability to charge electric cars here and acknowledges that the applicant is going to apply for a variance or maybe doesn't need to get into that but just has a flexible enough approach to this topic that it can deal with these different eventualities and I think if we all put our heads together we can come up with that. So maybe Rob Wachilla could schedule a meeting for next week to deal with this. Mr. Meadows. Could I simply suggest that perhaps you might want to have the representatives from the utility company to come in and see if they can assist you at the same time since they they're the ones who are giving the grants and the wiring and everything else maybe they've got a method to deal with this that might be a little more satisfactory maybe not but at least give a shot. It makes sense. Okay. All right. So we know we've got a confusing situation. You guys are going to try to sit down. I like the idea of perhaps with the vendors as well they might be able to help and come back with some language for us for our next meeting give some flexibility or a condonance is you to go out and try to get a variance or some kind of administrative relief. Mr. Wachilla. So I do remember Mr. Mora the Billing Commissioner talked about this specific provision a while ago and I think he had some ideas for wording that we could do for this condition but he also suggested possibly leaving the condition like this out because supposedly there's a provision I don't know if it's under Chapter 40B or if it's under the state rags for Department of Housing level communities for 4B projects that allows the Billing Commissioner to approve minor changes administratively. So I think we're going to have to dig a little bit deeper into that Mr. Chair and see what we can meet and then draft something or see what we can do to make this flexible for them if they wanted to if they had to change the site layout because of the EV charging situation. Yeah I think I'm going to request that you guys put your heads together and come back with the best ideas you can in a month and hopefully go one of the next time we meet on this topic and give us the benefit of your most creative thinking that's the best we can do at this point. All right are there other so we've talked about local preference we've talked about the lottery we've talked about this kind of thorny EV problem are there any other major issues regarding the conditions that we that are contained in the decision document that people want to go through before we go to start talking about the conditions tentatively approving more amending conditions. All right so if we're going to go into conditions that would be part of a public meeting and I want to first provide the opportunity for any public comment on tonight's topic to the public and then we'll move into the public meeting portion while keeping the public hearing portions meeting still open and we can do some business in the public meeting section but first this is when there'd be an opportunity for public comment before we move over to the public meeting section. And so Rob will you take a look and see if there's anybody that wishes to comment from the public and if so please if you do please make your comments to the board keep your comments to about three minutes and when you're recognized please state your name and address for the record. So we do have one Ms. Chair Grover Weyman Brown housing narrative lab it's a it's a big name but I will give him speaking permissions. Okay, I give your name and address for the record please. Sure my name is Grover Weyman Brown and I'm at 677 station road and apology is for my work handle being on I'm not actually speaking on behalf of them tonight. I'm calling as a member of the community and also as a member of the affordable housing trust here in Amherst just to strongly strongly share my enthusiasm for this project and really hearing where you're at in the process of considering each of the items today I'm just really hopeful that the town and the board of the zba will work with valley to you know keep the cost of each of these homes as affordable as possible so that they can continue their mission to create even more affordable homes and so that you know the tenant the homeowners can live in really excellent quality homes but also have them at an affordable price point I've been working in the field of affordable housing advocacy but also homelessness for more than 15 years and it's really really despairing to see the need rise every year and I'm really hopeful at how this project really is going to make a positive impact in our community allowing so many families to have home ownership and also address many of the economic and racial equity goals that we have as a town in terms of increasing home ownership among communities of color and low-income communities so thank you so much and I appreciate you considering the project. Thank you for your comment. Any other public comments? I see several members of the applicants design and organization so no hands raised nobody else from the public in attendance. All right if there's no other requests for public comment I would entertain a motion that we open a public meeting on this matter while keeping the public hearing open in case we need to gather for more information and when we continue this hearing for the next next meeting inside entertain a motion to move to public meeting while keeping the public hearing open so I have such a motion. So moved. Is there a second? I think Mr. Meadows seconded it. Did you want to take a break by now? I will but we're going to vote on this person and we'll take a break. Yep. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not the vote occurs on the motion. Chair votes aye. Mr. Meadows you're muted. Sorry. Aye. Mr. White. Aye. Mr. Henry. Aye. Ms. Greenbaugh. Aye. The vote is 5-0 we'll open the public meeting while keeping the public hearing open it is 740 let's take a five minute break and we'll start to process our first cut at the conditions. Thank you. See you all at 745. Thank you. All right. I think we should reconvene 746. Thanks everybody for coming back on time I appreciate it. What I'd like to do is start the process of going through conditions and as we discussed earlier what I'd like to do is tentatively approve amend or reject our thoughts on the conditions as they are contained in the discussion document and then we will come back for formal approval of the formal decision-making on conditions the next meeting that we've made a tentative decision on so far in an earlier life before there was track changes on on Microsoft word this was called in my life this was called a Ramsire and you struck things out you cut and you literally cut and paste and that's what and I think Ramsire was the house legislative council for decades and came up with a system for doing this so it's something that I'm familiar with in terms of track changes and literally in paper and scotch tape this is a lot easier so what I'd like and so that's what we'll do we'll try to go through this and then make a decision on each of these a tentative decision on each of these conditions we'll come back and formalize that decision one way or the other when we come back the next time to deal with conditions everybody in copacetic with that proposal and the process if not forever raise your hand or forever hold your peace because here we go all right the first condition I'm going to we're going to do these by blocks so the first is regulatory conditions and then move on to number to b which is I think utility management conditions so we're going focus first on a regulatory conditions the first condition is the project shall be constructed in strict conformance that's I that has to be one of it that's standard and has to be has to be a condition to the extent that anybody disagrees with this raise your hand we'll deal with it one at a time the project is initially subject to regulatory agreements this just really goes through I've read through this this just goes through exactly what is the the program they have to deal with the key parts are that there's a regulatory agreement between mass housing and the applicant and that there's 12 10 dwelling units made available to households below 80 percent and there are 20 units available to households earning at or below 100 of area median income and the that is governed by the common wealth builders program and by mass housing and subject to regulatory agreements between the applicant the program and AHR or the AHR I forget what AHR is documents applicable to each unit this is here AHR is the affordable housing restriction we just condensed it so it's a little bit easier than repeating that over and over that's great I'm all for that less paper Ms Brester if I see your hands up yes so we've been having discussions here in the office and I think we've shared this idea with the two attorneys here that we feel that the town should be a party to the regulatory agreement and I think there was some talk about doing some research with common wealth builders or someone to find out if that was appropriate but we we would like to bring up that topic and make sure that it gets resolved great um I see that that's Ms Brester if I see that that's a comment on number three the next the next condition so we'll I know it's raised here in on number two but I see that it's on three is this uh my note is it is this concluded or not so what this what this has is it describes this condition um two describes the 30 the 80 percent is that 30 year restriction 100 percent is that a 15 year restriction with a second shared equity restriction as well with it so it describes the two different programs depending upon the the income level of the successful purchaser does anybody have any questions about that okay and as I read through the struck out stricken out language and I read through the language that's proposed to be inserted in lieu thereof it looks to me like it accurately describes the programs this describes the program as we've understood it and it's been presented by the applicants number three is the question that Ms Brester raises and um it seems to me the town should be a part of the party to the regulatory agreement what what is the issue there that's for our consideration and why is there is there an issue about this from the either the applicant or from the state it's just that the language needs to get hashed out with mass housing common wealth builders folks there I think believe they're amenable to it and I forwarded an email as such to the town they'll just need to coordinate on language okay so we don't have language yet before us in concept this is something that we everybody agrees to is there anybody disagree with it in concept if not we'll deal with the language at the next time we meet does this give the if the town is a party to the agreement does this give the town ownership rights no the agreement the and you have a draft agreement it was given to you in one of the previous meetings along with the deed writer so you have it and you can go back and look at the details of it but um really what it is is it's an agreement between the funders and the developer to make sure that we're doing affirmative fair housing marketing plan that we're hiring the right monitoring agent um so it kind of lays out the process of how we are going about our process okay and what's the value of having a town party of that the town is one of the funders so because they have CPA money and housing trust money into the um and have committed that they would be one of the funders no I understand if it's one of the funders they should be part of the agreement I got it number four the applicant shall notify the board and the town manager when building permits are issued um then cooperate with the preparation of requested forms um with the blah blah blah the applicant shall notify the board and town manager when I can see purposes this is just keeping the town informed on a regular basis and it seems to it's not objectionable to me that it's good it's just good business sense to keep the town informed or require um communications between the developer and the town number five the regulatory agreement is an effective affordability monitoring agent has identified the regulatory agreement so the responsible monitor compliance um with the town request and the town may request and shall be provided by the applicant with all information that is provided to the affordability monitoring agent with the exception of personally identifying information um that just keeps the town informed as much as as well as the uh the affordability monitoring agent number six again if anybody has questions raise them as we go through these no provision here under shall be deemed to limit the town's authority to enforce the provision of this comprehensive permit in accordance with legal exercise of its enforcement powers if the town becomes responsible for monitoring the affordability requirements of the project the applicant shall provide the town with reasonable monitoring fee the same to be determined at the appropriate the same to be determined at the appropriate time based on monitoring fees paid for similar services all right this is the number seven is local preference and what this does is this provides for local preference as we discussed earlier of 70 percent of the dwelling units so that's now here it says seven homes is struck out that's where i got the seven homes miss allen or carolin can you i knew where there's a place where i got seven when i was looking at it so it's but so we have seven here but it's struck out 21 is struck out please explain to me what's what's going on then we can talk about the whether we want to impose a local preference or not certainly and um my understanding is that the 70 local preference can apply to the 80 percent ami units so we have 10 ami units 70 become seven and i think that originally uh 21 i think originally we were thinking that 70 percent of all 30 units could be subject to the local preference well we just we just had this discussion and and miss allen you i think you mentioned that the 70 applied i thought it applied to seven you said it applied to all 30 um how do we that this is an important difference how do we make it how do we know which how many units are is the local is local preference applicable to is it just the 80 percent or is it is it all is it 80 and 100 units my understanding when we had the commonwealth builder program up here she indicated 21 units would be applicable for local preference if it's the um if it's the will of the board i can reach out to her via email and get something written that verifies what that number is who is the determining agent for the determining it's mass housing because they're the they're the they're the subsidizing agency that provided the project eligibility letter that allowed us to move forward in 40 b and they're also the funder so so mass housing is the authority on this they are the um they are our 40 b permit grantor um at the state level and then they are also our funder okay well um we need to have that decision or to clarify it for us as you know before i think we make a final decision on local preference the extent to which it applies to the project is an important factor um mr white you had your hand up um yeah you addressed it uh mr chair like i said that's what i was just going to ask that we definitely have further clarification on what that concrete number is going to be but thank you so um what i'd like to do with this is talk generally i get people the opportunity to talk generally about the notion of local preference whether it's 70 or 21 i don't i'm not ready to i i'm not ready to suggest we take a vote even a tentative vote on this until we know where it applies but i'd like to get a feeling for the board from the board about how they feel about the concept of local preference as it was outlined in that um i think very helpful um chart that miss allen presented i'd also like to ask miss allen and miss murray um to jointly try to um get an answer to this from mass housing uh for our next meeting if you both work on that that i'd be very appreciative so let's open up the con the the discussion about local preference i'll begin um i'm in support of local preference for a couple of reasons i think it gives um it helps to to provide public support for these kinds of activities to the extent that there is some level of support given to people in our own community whether they work whether they go have to totally go to school here where they live here and it is not the most important it is not the most important factor it's the third factor out of three factors and that the other two are the ones that the other two factors are really the determinative determinative factors on whether this housing should be made available to them if they meet all the qualifications that is the household size and the the QCT or the disproportionately affected populations i think that needs i think that still needs to be the most important criteria for selection but i think it is also important to the extent that we're involved in this financially and we're involved in providing support that to the extent we can giving a little bit of benefit to our local residents and to people that live work it's in their children to school here would help with the public support for this and i also think it's uh it's responsible use of our cities our towns investment time and money in this project that's generally where i think um i'd like to hear from other people with green ball yes um i will respond to that issue first and then i have two questions i am definitely in favor of local preference because we keep building more and more affordable housing here and our people are still looking for places to love people who love work and some the whole category our neighbors are not keeping up to their percentages and we're filling the needs of the towns around us and i don't think that's particularly fair my other question is when you get back to these eligibility requirements you have an elderly couple with a caretaker would that count as a household or somebody's disabled and they have nurses that live in with that would that qualify for two-bedroom household and then in the case of if they decide that the three people in a two-bedroom unit can constitute a household even though there's a legal connection between them how would how could how would the income um what do you call income qualification work if you have three unrelated people like three widows or a couple with uh with a um a nurse that lives in something like that that was my other question i think that's a little affordable you got to establish what the household is and then is ellen would you just combine the household incomes without the you would combine all the incomes of the members of whatever is determined to be the household yeah i think there's usually said as a as a head of household and then um other other members of that household i mean you're not going to have incomes coming in for an eight-year-old so it's really um you know it's the head of household and then other members is my understanding but this is why we have a monitoring agent this is why we hire a third party to hold these lottery processes for us they make sure that it bides by the rules but if it's like three widows when you go ask a question about the household find out how they would figure the income that's just add to your list income eligibility is the word i'm thinking other comments on local preference or on the wording of the this condition other than the applicability of seven or 21 units so i i am not in favor of the local preference and concerned that under the local preference we're going to marginalize already marginalized people and i think the goal here is to start creating equity for a certain class of people that cannot otherwise afford housing um and i also i'm not sure that um the seven i do believe if i'm reading everything correctly and understand everything correctly i do believe the number is going to be more seven than 21 for local preference because again i think it's going to be the 70 percent of the 80 percent am i and so i'm not sure if it warrants saying we should you know make local preference for seven houses and then at the same time um it's i just have those kind of concerns as to if we go if if the number is actually 21 and we have a local preference i fear that um it's not going to be very equitable in terms of who qualifies for these houses other comments on this on local preference i am in i am in favor of the local preference i think it's i know know of people in town who could qualify on many bases and and cannot find housing that uh is satisfactory and it will it will greatly enhance the uh the people in this town who who can't can't find housing otherwise mr white uh mr chair if i could uh because as it stands i am in favor of the local preference but if i could ask mr henry to kind of expand upon his concerns um to maybe give a bit more definition into how that would be more unequitable if that's okay yeah absolutely i mean this is a discussion this is exactly what we should be having as a discussion on these issues so if i understood correctly when when this initially started there was um um an intent um that developments community would benefit um bipoc and other marginalized communities um who cannot otherwise afford it housing through quote unquote open markets um and so the reality is that we live in a town that um the bipod community is very small so if we just if we go um local preference and just being devil's advocate and from day one i've been saying that um bipod communities are disadvantaged with credit being extended to them and if they cannot come up with um a bank to say okay you do have a job you're working you've been working at this job for two or three years however your credit isn't what we would consider um help you know i mean again be mindful that people have to be given um extended credits by a bank um at whatever market interest whatever interest rate the bank thinks they qualify for so understanding that there's that disparity historically and it's it is going to be there because again i do not believe that the average person is sitting out there with 50 000 or 60 000 to make a down payment on a property and so if that requirement is there and they cannot meet that requirement they fall off the list and it moves down and i think you know with the local preference i'm very much concerned that that's just going to happen it's while the goal was what intended i do not believe um that it is going to have the desired effect of helping marginalize bipod community because i am genuinely concerned that they're not going to be able to get the credit qualifications that's been asked of them to get into one of these properties yeah mr chair can i ask a question of mr henry just because i want to make sure that absolutely this is certainly can mr boy your show i just want to make sure no that's fine i'm encouraging discussion here uh uh mr henry it please correct me if i'm hearing this wrong or interpreting wrong but it almost seems to me like you're discussing two separate issues um because of course i agree with everything you're saying um however an inability to qualify for program would bar anyone from taking part in this housing community um how does local preference disadvantage BIPOC individuals specifically in this situation so one of the one of the questions that um miss um miss i'm sorry i'm i'm afraid i'm afraid to get your name out this is best you're supposed to ask in is about um you know if two people live together pool their pool their resources together would they qualify um you know what what constitutes a household member and you know so i think there is that aspect of it where um there may be some people who can do that and pull those resources together and be qualified and so you know i do not believe that is going to be the same for BIPOC community because again it all comes down to what resources they have available to them and i do not and where non-BIPOC people may have family members or people who want to help them to say oh there's a house but i don't have this i can help you and through no fault of their own and and again be mindful i'm not saying you know if someone has the ability to help you know someone who needs affordable housing yes that is great and they should do that but um it's on its face i think it's just going to be where um the BIPOC community is going to be again marginalized because they're not going to be able to do the things that non-BIPOC people will be able to do to get into these houses so it's um i and and again it may it may also not have to do with um you know intent to discriminate it's just that is the reality it's but it seems to me sorry it seems to me that your issue is more surrounding the financial requirements as opposed to the local preference are you just suggesting that we cast a wider net but but even with the local preference i think on its face local preference is discriminatory because essentially we're saying that you know we're locking this down to only people that live in this town so if um if someone else and and don't quote me under this town because i saw that geography um but we're also saying that you know if someone who lives a neighbor in town who again has never had this opportunity in their town but they've been saving they've been working hard and decides oh here's an opportunity to amherst um if they don't meet that local preference or if that local preference is so stringent they may not be able to do it because again we have that local preference that says that people have to be either in our schools work in our town or whatever the crazy rick is for local preference but Mr. Henry i'm i'm really i'm i'm working hard here to try to come to your position but it comes down to in my view it comes down to that person who just if they don't have the money if they don't have the financial situation to qualify whether they're whether there is local preference or not they're not going to be able to avail themselves of of the program the program would have to be designed some way else and we can't do that we have to take the program as it's given to us by the state and by the of the state agency and that is fair and i agree with you but in in my latter example what if you know we have a BIPOC community family that is not doesn't qualify for local preference because um but if there was no local preference they would be able to qualify for these houses because they've worked hard they've saved they've been looking but maybe in their town this opportunity is not there there's no affordable housing but then they have the financial resources that they've been saving for years and years but now here Amherst has this program but there is this local preference provision therefore they cannot they won't qualify even if they have the financial resources well they would if they they could qualify for first off there's 30 percent of the program that for which the local preference doesn't apply no matter if it's seven or 21 units right so there's either three or or nine however many units were finally decided here is applicable um but they would local preference would make a difference so that there would be some available not none that's the first thing and that's not a total answer to your question but it's just a clarification that it's it's applicable to the local preference portion not the entire program i get that um and the second part is it it looks to me like that if that person from another community um meets the first and the second tiers you know they are they meet the family size which is the most important criteria or they meet the QCT which they couldn't if they're from another city but they might meet the um disproportionately impacted test that gives them you know a whole lot of that gives them the predominant likelihood that they will be approved for the program the most important those are the two most important criteria and it's only it's kind of at the it's the differential for some but not not many and the examples i know aren't real world but it didn't affect a large number of the awards in the example we were given today so i'm i'm looking at i'm thinking that it's really it's for so many people it's really the it's the fact the matter it's been a historical it's been through historical discrimination that these they have not had or systemic discrimination that they have not had the ability to gain the kind of um wealth and assets that allow them allow for um having a financial situation in which a bank is going to give them a loan that's and i don't know how we we try to we try to adjust that by giving preference for housing and the first and the second preference was the first two tiers but we haven't and so there's there's some benefit there for that but it's still it doesn't matter if you no matter who you are if you don't have the financial qualifications you're not going to be able to that person is not going to be able to qualify for the the program and and i do not disagree with you it is it is an issue that cannot be solved with us voting yes or no for this project but to to some of the points that you just made there's a historical um there is impact impact to minorities and i i just think that um local preference has discriminatory effect it's you know it may not be intended to be that way but looking at the history of when um minorities couldn't live in certain neighborhoods or um i just think that it increases local preference has a tendency to increase reinforce and quite frankly continue to perpetuate segregated housing patterns and i and given that we live in a town that the majority is not by park i think the local preference will continue to do just that yeah i understand your point we've got a couple other people that have their hands raised i'd like to first go to another board member and then miss alan's had her hand up and miss bruster has also had her hand up so i would have one before we go i would have just one question can we have a i failed to remember the definition of disproportionately impacted household and i would hope that somebody could give me can can we define what that is um sure it's uh it was in one of the previous memos that was provided so it's really three categories um one is those that live in qualified census tracks right the second is uh i think it's a hundred for a hundred and forty percent of poverty which those individuals are not going to be qualifying for a home um and third is those that qualify for certain federal benefits so free and reduced lunch um wick those sorts of things again a lot of those individuals probably wouldn't have the financial capacity to apply for a home which is why commonwealth builders has indicated that what they're seeing is the biggest qualifier is the geographic location of a household and that is that is placing them in the disproportionately impacted household um so what you're seeing is that the q the qct is the biggest fact sorry yep living in a qct um so um i can also respond to mr henry's comments regarding the financial literacy we have a very robust marketing plan that tends to address that so i'm happy to address that now or i can wait until miss green bombs had her comment why don't we that would be valuable to hear but let's have the board members and then miss brush up speaking and then we can you can provide some background miss alan miss miss green bomb you're muted sorry my 60 year experience living here is that he's incorrect we have a lot of minority more than half the school population is minority which doesn't necessarily mean that they qualify in terms of income for these houses but the school system is is more than half minority are very close to it and and we have a lot of you know um people that work at the university that are minorities that look at i understand that the word has gotten out already that people should begin to put money away for down payment and um particularly minorities who have been complaining three of them at least three that i can think of applied um ran for a town council who are renters paying more in rent now than the uh mortgages and utilities will cost on these houses so our our list is is going around of people who will be applying for these houses from everything i hear and and as they say they are middle income people who who live and work here if some born here um i think there is a local market and i think that they should have priority over somebody from someone which refuses to um have that 10 percent since he picked someone as an example i absolutely know my vote for this whole project depends on whether our local people have a chance to live there so that's just what i want to say okay thank you miss presto i think my first point has to do with um something that jessica is going to talk about and i'll just briefly mention it that valley cdc has a training program for people who are intending to become homeowners and people can take advantage of that you know a few years in advance of the homes actually being available so i'm sure that jessica will speak to that more the other point i wanted to make is emerson has over 10 affordable housing and we try very hard to keep having projects in the pipeline that provide more affordable housing but it is a matter of amherst voting to contribute to these projects and the housing trust the affordable housing trust contributes and other um aspects of town government contribute so um in order to keep people be being willing to keep contributing to affordable housing projects i think it's important that they have a sense that some people who live in amherst might benefit if they feel that only people who live elsewhere will benefit they may be more reluctant to contribute so that's what i had to say thank you miss allen um miss me mom is your hand up for a new comment no i'm sorry i forgot to miss allen you're going to talk a little bit about the financial literacy education yeah so um so to mr henry's point this is something that we've been thinking a lot about and about how do we move forward to make sure that we're marketing to buy pock households and that we're getting them in a financial place so that they're able to purchase um so we have had some initial conversations and we're awaiting a proposal from um from two businesses that are in the eastern part of the state but have assisted other common wealth builder developers in the lottery and financial literacy process um the one firm is dvm housing consultants um and the other is our village initiative and the housing consultants they would assist with the marketing and lottery piece of of the project um in our village initiative they are financial literacy they are both um owned by black women they focus on this um and understand the importance of financial literacy and so we've had an initial conversation with them we have nothing sort of set plans but um you know the earlier we are able to hold a lottery process and get people in place gives um perspective homeowners more time to get their financial ducks in a row so we're trying to look at what makes the most sense in terms of a timeline um can we do a lottery you know when we start construction knowing that we have a year and a half two years almost before people are able to move in um getting people within that uh with our village initiative um then you should just like stays on them you know have you paid down this have you paid down that how much are you saving up um so you know I think we've got a really solid partnership and and folding that in with what valley does so we're trying to figure out how does this make the most sense to work with these two organizations that have already done this with other commonwealth builder projects get people financially ready get them into the process get them excited um and so you know we'll be working with them we're already pulling together lists of black organizations black owned businesses in amherst and throughout the pioneer valley region where can we do some marketing where can we do some um workshops if needed so we do have a very robust plan we don't plan to just go in and build and hope for the best like we have a very intentional process here for the marketing piece to make sure that we're targeting households that we want to make sure are ready and able to go when the lottery is is um is happening so I just wanted to brief the board on that it's nothing set in stone yet like I said it's a proposal but we've had a great conversation and I think it's going to be a very valuable partnership as part of this project um miss allen is there a way that we can that you can work with us into trying to come up with language that requires outreach to the bi-pot community in amherst and in the area to number one advertise that these are going to be available and then work with work with qualified applicants to to um and help them to provide to apply for the program so as the town is as a member of the regulatory agreement this is what the regulatory agreement spells out is the affirmative fair housing marketing plan how that process works working with our monitoring agent so I think signing on to that um it you're already sort of part of the process I don't think we need to add more language to the decision unless you absolutely want to but you know understand that that is our intent and we are already have processes in place for it so I'm trying to find a way to um provide some definition or some certain certainty for people who are concerned that we wouldn't be having enough outreach to some of the traditionally underserved communities and I'd like to try to and maybe I have to go back and read the regulatory agreement that might be helpful and might answer my question what I'm looking for is something that's that says we're gonna we want to get out there we want to get out there early we want to give people a year and a half or however long as early as possible to get their ducks in order so that they can qualify and we want to help them do it as much as possible not only through notification but through what it sounds like your um your program has and I'm I'm wondering if there's a way to um I'll have to read the regulatory agreement first but I'm wondering if you describe that if you if you felt like you needed to put a condition there that said something like the applicant will make all best effort to um to market to BIPOC businesses organizations in the town of Amherst I mean we're available to that examples of and then say which would include a b c indeed some things that things that you've talked about doing yes sure I mean like I said nothing is said in stone we're still waiting on proposals and we're still trying to figure out what the program's going to be and how it's going to work and how valley will partner with these individuals um but I think you can put some soft language in there that you know set and I think to the best effort or to the you know something to that effect Mr. Henry I know that's not um completely an answer to the questions you've raised but I think the problem is that there are going to be some people that no matter how much outreach we do they don't have the financial they don't have the financial wherewithal to to apply but we know there's enough people that would have financial um assets and the financial standing to apply especially if they're given and successfully apply and qualify for the program if they're given a lot if we reach out to them inform them about it and also then provide assistance so they can get to there they can make put their finances in the best possible light for a bank to approve alone and that outreach would at least help increase the number of of folks and particularly local folks that might be able to qualify for this program and it doesn't deal with the fundamentally hard problems that we've got a lot of people that don't that that aren't going to qualify financially would that be something that you and I could work on that would um draw your support for a local preference and the benefit of that is that we can I think we increase the public support for for these kinds of programs in the future so I am in favor and two I want to make two comments so I am in favor of doing anything that helps um support our local BIPOC community and while I would agree that our middle school has minorities um for those that have university parents they make way too much money so they don't count um if they work if they're teacher if they're a professor at the university then I'm sure they're over the poverty guidelines um and for the remaining others that um would would qualify to this it's um I while I appreciate the outreach and I think it's great that values do all these things thank you for sharing that um it's it doesn't change the reality um that you know if uh and let's use this as an example if if there's if there's a single amount of two making um say 55 thousand dollars a year and she has and I imagine that dollar value but if she has credit card debt and student loans and you know medical bills that she's paying to get by and then she has to deal with her everyday bills like overpriced rights utilities it is going to be very very hard for this person to save any money at all within a year or two to even have arguably a two or three percent down payment of one of these properties that is just the reality because um you cannot adjust her income to meet this because again whatever job she has you know if her income does not increase you know whatever counseling she gets um whatever sacrifices she's willing to make to say I'm going to cut these bills I I just fear it is not going to be sufficient enough to actually even make any kind of significant dent that puts her on the radar but again um just going back to my overarching theme here is that when a community has a smaller proportion of minority residents than the larger geographic area where it draws applicants from the process is going to favor its residents there's going to be disparity if that if a local preference is chosen if if then it's based on peer numbers if there's going to be disparity if there's a local preference will go be disparity if the local preference is there's going to be disparity on minorities if if the if the if the community has a smaller proportion of minority residents um and there is a local preference and again tied with the finances there I fail to see where it will not adversely impact minorities but we all agree that the local preference isn't just residents of Amherst but it's if you work here or if you um go to school here or if you your children go to school here um it's beyond just you do agree that it's just beyond beyond just people who reside in Amherst but it's it's broader than just the Amherst geographical limits because you have people from other towns that come in and can meet local preference even though they don't reside in Amherst and maybe that's part of what um needs to be further sparse down is are we just talking about surrounding towns of Amherst how far away are we talking where this local preference would be applicable well that's a good point I mean I think about it and you know I don't know if people come how far they come to work at UMass or how far they come to work and some of the play I don't know what that commute is um but I would gather that we would have people from you know quite a long ways come into town that would either work here and I don't know how many people have their children going to school here that don't live in Amherst I suppose there's some but I don't know how many um there are but I think there's there would be there would be some people that live outside the jurisdiction of the town who still have the who have the um the connection through their job or through other other means to fit the local preference so um while while while I appreciate the conversation and everything that um about the CDC is doing I I am still not convinced that this will not disproportionately impact um the BIPOC community so um I will do all that I can to help with awareness and mark it in and whatever it can be done but I'm still not going to support the local preference I understand Mr. White uh thank you Mr. Chair so yeah my kind of question would be with this because I want to make sure obviously that I'm learning everything that I can how far we are talking about um like looking at an area outside because while we've been talking I just pulled up some quick numbers from the most recent census um the national this is for the United States the most recent census uh the percentage of the US population which uh would qualify as BIPOC is 43.6 percent Amherst same census everything uh is coming in 36.8 percent and once again that's by total BIPOC population which does give us a difference from the national to the local of 6.8 percentage points however I also pulled up Hadley um and Hadley is showing a total percentage of BIPOC as only 8.4 percent 91.6 percent of the census registered as Caucasian so that would be my question what other areas around Amherst and how far are we drawing that arrow out to say that this would be disproportionately affecting the BIPOC community? I think you need to remember that the second priority is the qualified census tract so Hadley is not a qualified census tract you know you have to go and look at the qualified census tract map in order to understand who could qualify for local preference who could qualify for appropriately sized household and the DIH and local preference they would have to be commuting from where? Greenfield um Holyoke Springfield Chickapee so if you have local if you're local preference and you're an appropriately sized household you're still not going to meet you're not going to float to the top because floating to the top is those top two priorities that green and that blue right and that chart the yellow is is at the is is third in line so you can and I think I tried to make a mix to show that you could where's the chart now I have to find it again but but that that really living in the qualified census tract makes a difference so you could be local preference and you could work in Amherst and you can live in Hadley and that doesn't help you you could work you could live in East Hampton that doesn't help you so you have to be living in a qualified census tract as what Commonwealth Builders is seeing to qualify under that DIH so you have to think about it in the regional sense of that way of where the qualified census tracts are that's going to bubble people up to the top of the of the tier so even if so with that rationale even if we voted for a local preference we could get to your point qualified applicants from all these cities in the census tract if they have a qualified census tract yes they would be they live in a qualified census tract they would meet the second criteria and as I've noted Amherst has two qualified census tracts the only other one in the entire Hampshire County is in where so all of Hampshire County communities would not meet that DIH most likely unless unless potentially there is section 8 voucher holder that maybe has saved enough money living in a section 8 housing that they're able to buy a house so that is one other indicator that the Commonwealth Builders has been seeing but mostly it's geographically located so it would be so the qualified census tract would be Amherst and then everybody else so to speak well no no no I think the qualified census tract would be in this case in Hampshire County would be Amherst and where and not the whole town of Amherst only two areas of Amherst and then where it's got a call and then I would guess if there's a parts of Greenfield Chickpea Greenfield Chickabee Holyoke Springfield if you go out to I'd have to look at Berkshire County but probably pit some sections of Pittsfield South Eartfield maybe would that be one those are the no huh okay so if you want I can pull up a I can pull up the qualified census tract of the region if you'd like and you can see where those communities are but the point being is that Amherst has two more than anybody else in this in this county already and so you're already ahead of the game without putting local preference on as a priority where are the two neighborhoods in Amherst it's north Amherst and I think I will review this I can pull if you want to stop uh screen sharing I can pull up this information pretty quickly please go ahead I believe one of them is in the Cushman area am I correct on that North Amherst Kellogg Street Kellogg Street that sounds about right Kellogg Street area and and north of there it may be because of all of the affordable units that are already on Kellogg so do you see this map here I can kind of blow it up a little bit hold on just give me a sec um it's like the entirety of North Amherst correct and this is again to re to recap and refresh we're able to do this project because it's located in a qualified census tract under the initial Commonwealth Building Builder financing guidelines this is a qualifying site now it's not they've changed the regulations so qualified census tracts are no longer eligible geographically for Commonwealth Builder money so this is census tract um whoops 8203 and it gives this is census data and to pull and we've talked about this a little bit at the last but for race and ethnicity within this census tract specifically we have 66 white eight percent black nine percent Asian 11 percent that um that identify as two or more and four percent Hispanic within the census tract so that's the that's the racial makeup within North Amherst now I can pull up the second one which is 8205 and it's just south it kind of like wraps around here's UMass so it's downtown area and then down here and it ends at Mill Valley so this is the second qualified census tract within Amherst and again if we go and we look at the racial makeup this this census tract is 79 percent white one percent black six percent Asian one percent that identify as two or more and 12 percent Hispanic so that gives you some census information about the two census tracts in Amherst I I fear that this map just broke my point but it also is I understand but that's the the first that's the second qualifier for selection and that's not a discretionary thing on our part that's the program definition and I understand yeah but the first one had um 60 some percent which would be more reflective of the numbers that Mr. White pulled up for um I think BIPOC BIPOC communities was about people in Amherst was 36 percent is that which 36.8 total more reflective of that well it seems to me that um this has been a really good discussion and I mean this is a hard issue and everybody is trying to find the best response possible for the the town here what I would I think there's a couple things we need to do first thing is we need to figure out if it's seven or 21 units and we'll have that for the next meeting that'd be really helpful the second thing is let's highlight the the regulatory agreement Rob send it to me and and to anybody else that's interested and see if there's some kind of language that we can come up with that that um elucidates a outreach and assistance program that we can agree upon beyond I mean beyond the representations made by Ms. Allen I should think of great but I'd like to put something in there that we really commit to in the if we need to in the conditions come up with something there and we're not ready to vote on this but this is not decided yet because we need to know the scope of the program but we should be ready to make a decision in the next time we get together on this issue that's what my proposal is and given that I'd like to move on to some more and ask my question before you move on sure my question was regarding Mr. Henry what what if we don't accept local preference and it so happens that we get 25 people who qualify under the first two sections here can we get can we put 25 people into the units if we have not accepted local preference if they qualify under the tier one and tier two I'm sorry are you asking are you asking if they're not from Amherst I'm asking if we have people who apply who live in the qualified census tracts and qualified by number of family members but they happen to all live in Amherst and more than 21 of them and we have not accepted local preference can they get these units by virtue of being in tiers one and tiers two even though they're more than the 70 percent that we would get on the local preference that's my word I can respond to that so what would happen is once you fill your tier one if you filled 21 let's say it's 21 then anybody who didn't get selected under 21 would get folded into tier two and they would go through the lottery selection process with everybody else that is also qualifying in tier two but that's not what I'm asking I'm saying we have not accepted I'm following this to Henry of his log so we have people that apply and they qualify as having the right number of kids and live in a qualified census tract in Amherst and this is without asking for for local preference and they happen to be 25 26 or all 30 that qualify under one and two but they all live here can they all even having not voted for open preference can they all come from Amherst and fill the 30 units as they qualify yes if you did not if you did not adopt local preference if you did adopt local preference you'd hit your 21 and then anybody else who didn't get selected in the 21 would get bumped down to tier two and would have to compete with everybody in tier two but they could be from Amherst they you could have Amherst residents who are competing for Amherst qualified residents who are competing in tier two correct yeah so it really doesn't matter how we vote on this is I'm following up on on his logic I think so it really doesn't matter yes or no because we might want people living there if we don't accept it but by the logic also if we have a local preference we may be excluding people from Amherst is that correct correct no because doesn't the local preference caps it he caps it yes if you did if you had local preference in the tier one would have to meet all three of those criteria the blue the green or the green the blue and the yellow um well but they'd have to meet the green and the blue without local preference correct and then with local preference they'd have to meet for 70 green and blue and then for the remaining 30 they'd have to meet green and blue and not yellow and so they could be they wouldn't be they wouldn't be put at a disadvantage by being an Amherst resident in the second pool they just be right they just be competing like everybody else they be competing like everybody else is if you had no local preference and they're competing and they're still and the Amherst residents still has a shot of it even in that case I think Amherst residents have a bigger shot anyway because they live in a qualified census track or those that do live I do yeah I do want to just comment I went back in my email and I did ask the question to mass housing um and said there was a comment at the last public hearing that the local preference would only be applicable to 80 a my homes given all the homes would be counted on the subsidized housing inventory is the statement true please clarify and I just want to read her response um I'm not sure what comment you're referring to or who made it whether or not and at what level to apply local preference is not our hunt so it's not the commonwealth builders program it's really going to be a decision under the 40 b program and I'm going to have to look to the 40 b folks to get clarification but in terms of the commonwealth builders it's pretty clear that that is not local preference is not really how they look to have the program designed so I just wanted to put that for you to think about that's all but that just means that somebody else makes that decision and we just have to figure out who makes a decision as to whether or applies to 7 or 21 right yes but I would it's not the commonwealth builders program it could be the state it could be the state it's the 40 b program right which is the state program correct okay all right so what I'd like I think we've had a really good discussion about this we still have some information we have to get um and I'd like to move on to the rest of the conditions if you possibly can and just go through them as quickly as we can it's about it's only got 10 minutes left so number eight is exactly what we were talking about miss allen um we might think about coming up with some language that provides more of an affirmative um just declaration of things to do for outreach as well as support number nine I don't think there's any you got to provide the subsidizing agency pursuant to the the regs number 10 that this the board acknowledges the restrictions and obligations imposed and shall expire in accordance with their terms set forth in each this one is highlighted for some reason why is that can either rob or christine can you tell me why that is what's controversial about this or is or in question I might be able to answer that mr chair I don't think it is necessarily controversial um it's just when we were going through various drafts with the applicants and the applicants attorney we had asked them particularly let's make sure we get the description of the program the 80 percent 100 percent AMI and and the the restrictions that apply let's make sure we get that clear uh so I think it was just highlighted because uh it is just another one of the paragraphs that relates to how the program works all right it doesn't seem controversial to me so I just wonder why was highlighted okay number 11 um so I don't require modification and number 12 deals the applicant shall create a homeowners association address maintenance of common areas and common facilities infrastructure trash recycling collection snow removal and other responsibilities shared by all homeowners the master deed of the homeowners association and individual units the shall clearly state that the individuals units all right I guess the only question there is does is this broad enough for what the homeowners association is supposed to govern and it looks to me like it does the common areas common facilities structure trash recycling collection snow removal and similar responsibilities shared by old homeowners I don't think we need anything more any changes that that seems to be pretty broad look guys we're coming up on eight minutes to go eight minutes to nine we've only gotten through the first set of our conditions and I think that we're not going to be able to get very much farther and number and be if we start with only seven minutes left to go so what I'd like to do is in this case is look towards tentatively approving number one number two as amended but we yeah number two because that's going to just that's just the description of the program tentatively approve number four number five and number six leaving number three the regulatory agreement oh no I'd like to approve number number three because we have that we have to come back with more language on that so we don't approve number three number six we approve seven we don't eight we don't that the time current time 10 11 and 12 we do so we leave out we tentatively approve everything but three seven and eight is there any disagreement with that we this is not a I'd like to know if there's any opposition to that and if there is um so stated if not then we'll come back and fill in the blanks for three seven and eight at the next meeting what's AHR eight is a description of the outreach program no no no the word so it's AHR documents I I would like that spelled out because I don't know what it is affordable housing affordable housing program yeah spelled out yep okay um and with that I would like to um move to um continue this meeting this subject to a date certain Rob what's the date we have for that I think it was the 14th of March but you're never was it sure aren't you doing public comments no no we did public comments already we're in we're in the public meeting we did do public comments prior earlier in the public hearing I don't think there's anybody in the attendees that wish to raise their hand but we we already had public comments so the dates that I suggested were sent an email um sorry those for a different project but the dates that we do have coming up Mr. Chair are um March 14th which to my knowledge as of right now it does have two other potential public hearing scheduled as well we have March 28th which I believe Mr. Meadows won't be available for that one if I'm not mistaken on that um we also have April 11th and then April 25th and those are all the normally scheduled meeting dates but if the board doesn't want to lay it out by that far we could do an off meeting date again like we've been doing normally um the date of either March 7th or March 21st um any of those times would work but um the 14th would probably be advised against because we have two other public hearing scheduled before the zoning board and this discussion seemed like it's going to warrant a full meeting so I would recommend I know we've been doing a lot of these off-week meetings doing either March 7th or March 21st as a when's the 6 months off I well first off but first off we're looking at having to get some information can we get it done in two weeks and can you get it done in two weeks and have time to given given it to the board so March 7th maybe quicker than we can get everything done is that right that's the only way so Jessica could you remind us again when your continued hearing is for the concom uh we'll continue to march um right now we're just to the 28th it depends on whether the concom will render a decision on the 28th or whether they'll opt to continue and I don't know the answer to that yet so if we continued this to March 7th um do you feel there'll be ample enough time for us as staff to do research and I guess for you to update us on the process of concom and then I guess to address all the other concerns the board might have in terms of having information available for the next meeting so the list that I have the working list was to update the waiver list and send that to the town which will be really easy that's pretty simple um we have to figure out the eb spaces so that's coordinating a meeting um the number of units that the local preference applies I could probably get an answer by tomorrow so that's not something I'm concerned about um and the income eligibility how the eligibility is determined for not related households um that's the other question and I feel like I can get that answer from the 40 b folks as well pretty quickly so I think March 7th is fine I just want to get clarification on whether your public hearing is still open or closed because there is deadlines under the 40 b law to close public hearing is not closed we okay so we moved into a public meeting while keeping the public hearing open okay so just as a reminder to the board I have flagged that April 16th is the board's deadline for closing the public hearing thank you but is it true that that could be extended if there's a written agreement between both the applicant and the board okay yes but there has to be a written agreement so I you know I we're hoping Jessica the hope is to finish before April 16th um that's why that's my hope I mean that's why specifically um I picked out March 7th because I know that'll be the week after your concom meeting and that'll still be quick enough to where it won't seem like it's going to be too far out sure one question the 20 the 14th is you already have we already have two things on the agenda for that have we noticed those already yeah we have we um or we haven't yet but we're close to and we're getting a lot of special permit applications in Mr. Chair it's just saying the minute this one is going to take priority so I was wondering if because Jessica you said you might have to have two concom meetings that's what concerns me yeah we'll see what happens on the 28th I I can I don't know um yeah all right well um I guess we should do it take this take a shot at doing it on the 7th if people can attend on that day Miss Greenbaum can you yes I can Mr. Meadows is that going to work for you yes it will 7th and Mr. Henry will that work for you yes it will okay so let's shoot for the 7th and we can get this the other thing that's on your list is we've got to try to come up with some language regarding um condition eight just some more affirmative description of what the regulatory agreement the kinds of actions you would take in the pursuant to the regulatory agreement for outreach and counseling and uh assistance okay all right Mr. Chair if I may yes I'm not available on March 7th but that being said I you know I I know we're kind of at a critical point um I don't have any problem getting a revised draft to you I could certainly ask one of my colleagues to pinch it for me that night but it is a little tough to come in at the very end of a project like this and um not be up to speed so I apologize for that I can't get out of this and I apologize for not asking you an requirement so that's was my fault I should have done that Rob is there any way that we could put the other two things on the set the two applications on the 7th and move this to the 14th what are the what's the availability of everybody on the 14th I can not go anywhere I can also do the 14th Mr. Meadows do you think you can do the 14th I can Mr. White can you do the 14th all right and Rob could we move the two things that are now tentatively you're thinking about the 14th we have time to notice them for the 7th oh you're muted Rob I keep forgetting to unmute myself um it's tricky because I would have to do the advertisement on Tuesday by noon and it might be thrown off because of the holiday on Monday worst-case scenario we could just ask them if they're willing to do it on the 21st of March um and this is yeah this and we can always put a panel together people who are available I know some people may not be available for that date um they're both special permit hearings so it wouldn't be totally burdensome but yeah I I think for right now it'll be wise so if we scale this this for the 14th we can push those two hearings back to the 21st and still have ample time to notice so let's we this deserves a full meeting and I would I want to get this done and over with and I would like to have me hurry there because um all of her colleagues are very expert and I think it is important to have the continuity and it also gives Ms. Allen and the concom little bit of time in case they go longer so let's do the 14th let's reschedule the other two things let's go forward with that okay we'll deal all right um and hopefully we'll be done by the um we'll show progress and get agreement on this before the deadline runs out so you need a vote to continue to the 14th yep so are you suggesting the 7th and the 14th no I'm just just the 14th just the 14th all right do I have a motion to continue the hearing the public hearing and the public meeting on this matter until March 14th so moved I got a lot of I got and I think it's a second there as well all right we gotta move in second I don't think there's any discussion the vote occurs chair votes aye Mr. White aye tomatoes aye the screen bomb aye Mr. Henry aye vote is five to nothing the motion passes all right the next order of business tonight is we move that just to make clear we move that to the 14th starting at six o'clock which I did not state but I need to state it now um the next order of business is public comment on any matter not before the board tonight so any matter other than this we don't have any to be robbed no hands up no hands up all right the last question the last thing is new business we normally talk about schedules but I also want to um I'm trying to reduce the zoom on my screen I want to talk to you about something a letter I had which I intend to respond positively to unless I have any exit full screen here we go unless there's some objection I got a letter from the council president uh asking if we wanted to have a council liaison to the ZVA my first inclination is you know we council members routinely listen to the ZVA we have really good attendance by council members we don't need it um but at the same time I think it's also helpful to have somebody who on a regular basis may be reporting to the town council the workload of the ZVA the kind of work we do I'm pretty proud of what we do and I think there's no reason to be to hide our our light under a bushel basket um the public the role of the liaison is they're not voting bodies not voting members of the body they they can speak uh during public during the discussion they don't speak during public comments they do not express the personal opinions these are the rules that are laid out in the town council rules they do not commit the town council to a course of action the liaisons when it's an in-person meeting they sit where the public is seated when it's a zoom meeting they sit in the attendee section and are not in the not on the participants the panel sections they receive the moat the postings agendas reports from our body they're not required to attend all the meetings they're they and they show report our information or budget recommendations the full council we don't tend to have that unless we want to give all of our staff a good raise which might need a thing that we should we should support and should propose and lastly um they they they will choose who that liaison is it's not our choice i'm inclined to respond um positively to the president of the of the council that it's not a bad thing to have a a council liaison to the zba i think the more they know the work we do and the more they understand the workload and the issues we deal with i think the better off we are but i'd like just to get people's opinion i have board members on that is anybody is anybody concerned about having a council liaison and would oppose such a thing great okay i'll inform council president tomorrow that we'd be we'd be happy having a council liaison is there any other old business or new business excuse me any other new business if not um i would entertain a motion to adjourn don't move is there is and i mr white it looks like you're seconding it yes it's only two o'clock in another yeah it's only two oh eight a.m and i'm making legal decisions yeah yeah and the bars are closed and well i don't drink so oh then well that's okay even better so the the motion is not debatable and the vote occurs on the motion the chair votes aye mr meadows hi mr henry hi mr white hi miss green ball hi all right the motion carries five to nothing we are adjourned thank you