 sure you posted was really pretty. I know. Mandy, that's your hometown, right? It's where we lived for about three years. Before we moved to our college, Shalini, I just texted you, Shalini, in case you forgot, since I practically forgot. Thank you, appreciate that. I did remember. Thank you. All right. Mandy, we're recording and open to attendees. So you can go ahead and I'm going to hand the host to you. Sounds good. Thank you, Athena. Enjoy your day. Thanks. Okay. Seeing a presence of a quorum, I'm calling this July 13, 2023, meeting of the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council to order at 4.01 p.m. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, extended by Chapters 22 and 107 of the Acts of 2022, and extended by Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. And we are also recording this meeting, video and audio. And so right now, I'm going to take a roll call attendance to make sure everyone can hear and be heard. We're going to start with Shalini. I'm present. Thank you. Mandy is present. Pam? Present. Jennifer? Present. And Pat DeAngelis will not be joining us today. So we have four of our five members here. We do not have any public hearings today. And the only thing on the, well, actually, why don't we get rid of our minutes for now? Did minutes make it into the packet? I think they did. Yes. So these are the June 22nd minutes of June 22nd was the, I think that's our ZVA interview, special meeting minutes. We're going to just do that so that we can basically spend the rest of the time without worrying on residential rental. So Jennifer, question on the minutes. You're muted. Yeah, I had to get back on the screen because I was looking at the minutes. Was June 22nd, yeah, so the minutes I'm looking at on page three, I thought that was the last meeting they have. So on page three, one, two, three, the fourth paragraph down. I think I said something in response. You said we're having a conversation about density and it says, Hanneke stated, you know, blah, blah, blah, and then she encouraged the committee members to make proposals to change the densities of specific zones if they wanted to do so. And I thought I had just made the statement then that the different zones were already zoned for different density. And the way I read the minutes, it sounds a little like, wouldn't it be a good idea to have zoning that had different densities? And that's, yeah, no, I remember it like you do, Jennifer. Okay. So I would just maybe add a sentence, some, you know, how about how noted that different zones already are zoned for different densities. Perfect. I think that sounds great. Any other questions? I'm sorry, this was not the ZBA interviews because my mind is like not working right now. These were last meetings, regular minutes. It confused me because the title says special meeting minutes when they weren't the special meeting. It made me rethink. So yeah, so you, Pam. The next paragraph leaves out the end of the sentence and it says, Taub and Rooney suggested voting on the by-law in its entirety, I think is the word we're looking for. Yep. Yep. Any other changes to these minutes? Seeing none, I will make the motion to adopt the June 22nd, 2023 meeting minutes as amended today. Is there a second? Second. Jennifer seconds. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we're going to vote. I will start with the aye. Pam? Aye. Jennifer? Aye. And Shalini? Seeing. Just because I, not because I was not there, but I didn't actually look and haven't had a chance to look at the video yet. So that is, they are adopted three to zero with one extension and one absent. Thank you for just getting that over with. I know we run over when I'm like, oh, we need to end the meeting, but let's do minutes. So I'm going to start with them this time and we'll end our meeting on time. And we're going to go to action items now. The only thing on the agenda is residential rental by-law. We're going to start with the fee structure, then go to the regulations. We have the legal opinion for the regulations, and then we'll come back to the by-law, which we reviewed the legal opinion last time. So the by-law that's in the packet is amended with that with a clean copy so we can see what it looks like after we talked about it last time. So that's the last thing we're going to review. I hope to get through all three today. With that, let me pull up a fee schedule that is in the packet. Give me a second as I'm going to be managing all sorts of things today. This is a new draft of a fee schedule. As you see, it has no fees in it. One of the things we provisionally decided a number of meetings ago was that we would potentially not recommend actual fees to the council that we would recommend a structure and recommend that the council send that structure to the finance committee to actually determine the fees because that they might be better situated and able to discuss the fees in general as it relates to the operating budget and other things. So given that discussion, I did not put I don't think I put in the packet the Excel spreadsheet because I think we were getting thrown by the numbers in there, but I went back to our discussions and saw sort of where we potentially were with fees versus inspection fees. And I think we had settled on that the initial inspection fee should not be included in the residential permit fee. So I've split them out in the yearly permit fee. The inspection fee would be separate from that. I think was one of the things we might have been leaning towards. So that's how this one set up. But obviously we can remove anything we need to and modify it. But I thought it might help if we had a document in front of us that sort of talks about what we could do and everything we've looked at that has no numbers in it. I'm happy to discuss any numbers we might take for sections CDE and F. They seem like the ones we could potentially do fees for and recommend fees for because it was really the permit fees and inspection fees we were struggling with. So with that, I noticed just in here that I didn't put the plus dollars per unit in the inspection fee side. So I wasn't fully putting in, I realized I missed that even though we discussed that. So let's start with any general comments or we can just go through the sections and see what we might be thinking. I know not all of these actually meld with each other. So we might have to get rid of some of these lines because they might not go together. So I just wanted to note that I'm not able to get into the SharePoint site. It's blocking me and I don't really have the time or energy to try to undo that right now. So if we could if we could enlarge this as much as possible, I yeah that's that thank you. Okay. I will keep that in mind. So I have six options here. They might sort of all work together. I think it depends on what we decide about options one and two in some sense right because I think one and two actually conflict with each other. Potentially. Can you explain why number two actually means? So number two parcel with a maximum of four units. So on any parcel that has one, two, three or four units, if the owner has lives in Amherst and owns no more than three parcels, so for example, this is where we had talked about what about a local owner. And this is why I'm not sure it goes with number one. Potentially it might be an option to you know we might want to pick either one or two, but this would be a local owner that maybe I think Pam you've talked about this before where someone next to you or near you on Cottage Street owns the property across the street and so is not an owner occupied rental but is close by. And so we have had questions as to why couldn't they have the owner occupied sort of price. And so I think number two is trying to get at that if your principal residence is in Amherst and you own less than three or lower well three or less parcels that require permits um since our parcels are by our permits are by parcel and the unit you'll still need three permits but and and if one of them six that one would not fall under item number two but if one of them happens to have one unit in it and the other and the other parcel has two units say you own three parcels that are rentals and one has one unit one has two units one has five units two of them would fall under number two and the other one would fall under number four. Um we're trying to I think find the this language and and these these are obviously negotiable numbers depending on if we want to go with it trying to find the sweet spot between people who are not are maybe doing this to add a little bit of income in retirement or non-retirement but it is not their main business as a full-on business I would say you know so someone you know Caymans I don't know whether Caymans actually owns property or just as the manager for properties but but Caymans we wouldn't want to fall under number two because they are that's their sole business and all is owning and managing properties and large numbers of properties and so I think we were going with sort of the small manager that just has one or two properties with this from the conversations I we've had on fees. I don't know whether it's actually doable that's one thing I'd like to know from Rob versus number one where it's the owner-occupied exemption this one's more of like local owner exemption. Yeah I think it's doable um I think we can identify that a property owner you know where their principal residence is and and apply a different fee to that. I do wonder if there's an opportunity to you know gain that a little bit over time but um you know it's doable. Rob I'm sorry I missed I missed the word that you used do something doable. I said I that it is that it is doable as far as setting up this game prior to that I used the word game you know with you know an owner of multiple properties that may not live in town claiming that one unit is their principal residence it you know just creates difficulty or you know work for us to try to sort through um but I guess the result is we could do it if we needed to. One other question I have for Rob and John is of sort of options one and two regarding owner occupancy on residential fees which one do you think is more logical or appropriate? And I'm still not sure I'm convinced there's an appropriateness for change different fees between owner-occupied rental permits um rental permits for parcels that have an owner occupancy and rental permits for parcels that don't but I'm I'm curious if there's over one or two we've talked about how sometimes the owner-occupied units require are more responsive um and sometimes you know not not all the time but sometimes more responsive and therefore maybe it's it's better to they could have a lower fee on the permit fee um but I I guess I'm looking at to Rob and John on whether one or two makes sense um if it's disconnected from the inspection fee and which one of them or both might you recommend or not? I'm looking at um number one Rob for a parcel with a maximum of six units with at least one of the units occupied by an owner I can't think of an example of that um it doesn't mean it doesn't exist um it's Nancy it's Nancy in North Amherst on what used to be Old Montague Road that little eyebrow can't remember her last name Gittle or something Nancy Gittleman yes that's up to up to six units so okay you know that we have a hundred and I don't know 10 19 properties that fall into that category we've been doing that for the past now second two years of the current renewal that's happening I think that's worked pretty well I think we've had some positive feedback to that um I guess my thought would be not to take that away if we didn't have to yeah and continue to offer that to that smaller number of owner-occupied properties and I think the logic there is strong that um there there are certainly a few exceptions and John knows them but owner-occupied properties generally are maintained a little bit differently and it's a whole lot easier to get a presence on site when needed and a response so again there's exceptions to that but I think you know I think there's some good logic there to offer that owner-occupied reduction and it's it has worked pretty well there's there's for sure fewer hours of mine invested in those properties so we would want to say for a personal with up to six units make it clearer do you think Rob that number one and number two work together or not if I had to make a suggestion I think we don't need number two I think you know property owner investor with 12 units somewhere in town whether they live here or not is a pretty significant investment and you know can probably handle the fees that everyone else is paying um can we make it work together uh yeah I mean I guess there's going to be you know a property owner would qualify in two but then also once again and then qualify in one you know for the further reduction so that you know I guess we can we could work through that uh but they would you know potentially fit into both categories and and take the lowest fee Jennifer so should we it sounds like for simplicity we maybe just um you know do away with number two and I help I'm just throwing it out there I'd like to hear from Shalini and Pam I think that would be my reasoning too is more of a simplicity non-confusion clarity ease of inspections department and and permit person and all but Pam um I'm looking at why why it's specifying a maximum of four units um that's owner occupied I think we have all of one of those in town I'm looking at the chart that Rob gave us um if it was just um where an owner has a principal residence in town and owns no more than three rental units that's that's that's simpler I mean that's really what we're talking about and I and I'd actually be interested in hearing from the from the folks that are listening in because I think there's probably a couple folks that are listening in today that have some opinions on this so you're suggesting instead of a maximum of number of units on each parcel you're suggesting a maximum number of rental units no matter how the parcels are configured yeah so that could be an owner has one you're you're the person you refer to I think on Cotta street where they live across the street and they maybe they only have one parcel I don't know and it's got one unit on it um or they could have three parcels each with one unit on it or they could have um three parcels they live in one of which is a duplex and then have two other parcels with one unit in it and that would qualify the other two parcels um I think all of those combinations might work it happens to be that they live immediately adjacent to one parcel with three units yeah or something like that yeah at that example yeah yeah I mean because we're really I mean I I would agree with John that if we're talking if we're talking 12 12 rentals um the extra $50 or whatever we come up with is not the it's not the hardship and and and and and it and it's a different I think it's a different ball of wax than than the hands-on um I'm calling it owner adjacency that you know that lends that observation and and availability to John or whoever is inspecting Sony yeah I would be in favor of simplifying it to the number of units but I'm also in favor of this section because even without the age adjacency because I've spoken to at least two people residents who are not full-time landlords but they want to they have like one unit or two units and they like to rent it to families and so forth so even though right now we may not have a lot of those but we want to set the tone where it supports future people who have an extra unit or three units and who are living here to have that sort of a benefit so I do like this I'm trying to make it more clear here I don't know if I'm succeeding we need to be clear that for this one they have to pay the fee for each parcel they're paying a fee for or permit or something I imagine if they own three parcels that might be different than the three units on one parcel the three units on one parcel is one permit the three different parcels with one unit each is three separate permits so I think it would be per permit and that might exempt them from say if we go to this route then where we might add a per unit fee or something or or finance might add a permit unit fee does that language for now look good we're not going to vote on this today we're going to bring it back next week so we're going to be able to think on it I didn't see any changes so I'm not sure what we're agreeing to oh no on this one I'm not seeing any change oh I'm sorry I'm looking at yeah sorry number two I tried to make it clearer got it yes so three is in conflict with four five and six um so we either pick in some sense we have to decide by our options one and two the only places and then do we want a flat fee per rental permit for every other parcel um no matter how many units um or do we want to in some sense stagger the cost of the permit again this does not include an inspection um at this point based on the number of rental dwelling units on the permit I think this is one where we've been vacillating back and forth basically we're trying to figure out what we want to send finance as a suggestion I'm looking for my notes I made a bunch of notes and I can't find them so I'm sorry no and and this clause could be added to this if we wanted to so we're looking at whether we're looking at item three or items four five and six and if we're doing four five and six where the splits are and for any of them whether we're going to forward a document that includes the plus random amount right now per unit I'm curious what Rob and John think but I'll go to that was my question okay yeah Rob and John what are your thoughts if we don't include if this is really just the permit fee no inspections what are your thoughts my thoughts are not include the per unit fee in the permit fee and uh we capture that in the inspection fees would you split the permit fees up by number of rental dwelling units or would you go with sort of the all other parcels I would go with all other parcels many thoughts so Rob would go with only what's highlighted so we're talking now we're talking non-unoccupied and we're talking non-unoccupied everything from one dwelling unit to up to over 100 200 yes but no inspection included this is just to get the piece of paper that says you have a rental permit I mean my understanding from all our previous discussions is that it doesn't cost this town the staff more for just the registration fee if the number of units increase right there's absolutely no additional right the additional is only when it comes down to inspections right that that's correct I think that's what I've said you know anytime this conversation has come up when the inspection is not part of the fee the work that the town staff does to generate the permit and then you know year to year renew the permit is the same from you know for a one unit property to 100 unit property it's become very automated now and really the the number of units on the renewal or the initial issuance of a permit card there is no difference you want to think on that Shalini yeah I'm thinking yeah Jennifer and then Pam just want to get to this so we would say like a permit is $50 a permit for everybody per per parcel whether so it's per building so if you're puffed in village you're doing it per building no it's just for that okay so everybody pays the same and then there's going to be some sliding scale of inspection fees based on number permits correct okay based on number of inspections units inspected so like puffed in we've written into the bylaw I think this is what Rob's potentially recommending puffed in we've written into the bylaw the large apartment complexes have to be on an inspection schedule where every unit is inspected every five years so they get 20 units a year or depending on depends on how Rob sets it up they can have 20 units a year every year if they have 100 units or they the town might say we're going to do all 100 units this year and then we won't see you for five years and that would each time that inspection happens this number here under inspection fee would be the sort of gradation and changing okay Pam yeah I want I wanted to come back to Rob's comment about the work involved we have been asking for the ability to extract information so basically creating a database rather than just a word form and I'm and I'm just wondering if um the work by staff to confirm I know we we have listed things like the number of buildings the number of bedrooms and and bathrooms in each of the units so there's a there's a lot of information going into some of these forms question one is our form going to be able to capture information based on multiple units and and two is that going to be a database so that we could actually get information based on that and that might require a fair amount or work to confirm some of that stuff Rob I think I I follow you here um but I I believe that that's a one time setup that we would be dealing with with whatever the result of this bylaw is uh we will absolutely have to build out part of a program that doesn't exist right now for inspections related to rental permits for capturing information on buildings within parcels on rental permits right now what we do is just um ask a series of questions about the total number of things on a parcel uh and that's it and that's all reportable and uh sortable uh but we do need to build that out but it wouldn't be a year-to-year thing it wouldn't be something that we do the applicant would be inserting this information through the application process we just need to develop the program uh for whatever bylaw we ultimately end up with okay so um I'm just thinking out loud that um because you're going to be you're going to be inspecting you know unit one three and let's say one three and five you have to actually have information on units one three and five within a building so you are going to have to be able to break that out that's right the program will have to be able to um uh record the inspection on the actual unit that we're talking about or looking at um there's probably ways that you know we do this already in other areas when we uh you know inspect dormitories or uh mostly the college properties that have multiple certificates within a building uh the the building gets identified and then there's a kind of a subset of all the um the spaces within the building that get information recorded to it uh so yeah again you know there's definitely going to be a cost and a time involved with setting up the program uh you know everything through uh you know John and I have talked about how we handle violations and and and fines and court proceedings and all that we don't have any of that that's all done very manually right now I'm gonna I'm gonna tangent for just a second do do we have a do we have a sense of cost for the the program the computer program that's going to enable us to document attributes like that attributes like number of bathrooms number of beds that kind of thing do we know who that will call we haven't done that yet we've talked a little bit about it with it and I've talked to talked about it a little bit with the town manager because um you know where will the funds come from to do that you know there's the the kind of the the partnership the strategic partnership funding that's related to this this kind of um use that I think I would hope is going to be available I would ask that some of that money could be available we've talked generally about you know when this bylaw gets implemented we would use those funds to develop the program we need and you know we're also talking about how to how to transition from john to a new code enforcement officer and so you know we're looking at you know what funding is available for all those things so I don't have costs yet but um when I talked about things like this with it that manages the program open gov for us it's in the tens of thousands of dollars uh you know typically these things are costing 10 to 30 thousand dollars for types of enhancements to that program uh so I wouldn't be shocked to see that kind of a number right okay thank you so are we leaning towards Rob's recommendation which is in yellow and then moving on to inspection for what we would send off to finance at least initially I think it would be better for everybody on the staff to keep it simpler but but part of me wants a a nominal add-on per unit just because there's so much you know a puffed-in village with 400 units is is just a lot more even though it may be on one parcel I'm not gonna you know I'm not gonna die out of sword for this but it just feels like it would make it a little more equitable I just want to support what um just said just it hasn't clicked in my head why and of course I'm hearing from you Robin you're the one who's doing this work so you know it but it still feels like I'm thinking from the perspective of the tenants like if it's $100 or $150 divide by 600 units or 500 units the impact is nominal versus if it's a smaller home with four families you know the cost is the burden is so much more on the tenants so and then I'm looking at some other I think it's Lynn Massachusetts that has 25 and 15 but registry it's the registration fee and not the inspection I believe it's 25 and then 15 per unit so I'm just curious like how other towns were able to justify a per unit charge and so maybe I want to take a week to again look at some other towns maybe Jennifer um yeah and I also I think Pam said this earlier um there may be some I'd be interested in what some of the public comment is when we get to that so I'm glad we're having public comment after this conversation and like I said we're not voting today so um I wanted to say you know I I think I favor Rob's approach and what I keep thinking is you know I hear you Shalini and Pam about from the tenant point of view it doesn't seem fair right but I think we when we're thinking about that we're compartmentalizing the permit fee away from the inspection fee and if we do well if we do this on the inspection fees and puffed in with its 400 units is getting 100 units inspected every year and the single family one family rental or the duplex is getting inspected every five years and so puffed in is paying whatever the fee is plus that extra unit times that by 100 every year that's going into their rent the renter with a duplex is paying as well as the the flat inspection fee whereas the renter with the duplex is paying the flat inspection fee every year but the flat permit fee every year but an inspection fee once every five years so that inspection fee is split over two people every five years and so I think that's where we get that cost differential and I know just the permit fee makes it seem if you compartmentalize just the permit fee to me yes I agree with Shalini and Pam that it doesn't quite seem fair but I think we have to think about the two together and what is puffed in actually paying yearly combined if we do this and then in that sense to me it doesn't seem as unfair even from the tenant side Shalini and then Pam okay so I think in my mind it's it's coming together that we want to look at the whole system in a way that it's equitable and so and I think inspection is its own thing because that does involve and it may actually be a single home that's more problematic and that might end up regular inspections too so that's the thing but when we're creating this system because we do have to pay inspectors we have to have staff we have to do all of this so instead of thinking it literally as how much is the paperwork per form if you're thinking of this more holistically as a whole system and how do we create a system for rental registration that enhances the quality of life of all homes and makes our homes more affordable one of our goals then if you're keeping all of these values and looking at it holistically it does make sense to distribute the cost of it in a way that it meets some of our other goals did it make sense in my mind it makes sense I could think about that Pam um I was going to go back to your example of of Puffton or my example of Puffton and you know unit 4b is also only going to be inspected every five years so Puffton the organization may be shelling out a fair amount of money because they have 400 units that to them the inspection cost will be high but again it will be it will be distributed to individual units and so 4b gets inspected at the same frequency that the single family does so I think I think we just need to not look necessarily at the total dollar impact on a larger property good point next question before we move on to inspection fees which I'm hoping will be quick if we go with a plus a per unit fee so if we would if we go with something that adds the per unit on do we want it split out for example um split out by permits for 20 to 2 to 25 26 to 29 having different base fees um and then sort of and then and then a per unit fee on top of the different base fees um and then do we want to have a maximum permit fee one more question with that as I read this number six that has a draft in here again everything in green is up for talking right maximum per building and per parcel essentially complex is parcel right and so would we want a max per building or in addition to a max per parcel or just a max per parcel type thing thoughts on whether we'd essentially go with number three with or without this or numbers four five and six like number three with the plus per unit or numbers four five and six or some combination of four five and six jennifer well for using the logic of what it costs the town so the cost of town has a certain amount to inspect a unit whether it's you know each unit this is an inspections this is still sorry i'm sorry Pam did jennifer actually want to say something different i think jennifer's talking about b okay i'm talking about inspections never mind i was going to ask rob and or john about the breakdown and in my mind there is the there we've talked about the owner occupancy and then everything else is non-owner occupant and the the breakdown again i want to sort of feel from them the complexity non-owner occupied from one unit up to nine is the largest category of of units that that we deal with and there are almost a thousand dwelling units that are in the one to nine range and then from 10 to 99 there are only 43 and over 100 units there are only 12 and so it seems to me like that one one to nine is the category in and of itself and then anything from 10 over is essentially the big boys you don't have to change it right now but well i i just it would look something like this yeah or this one would just turn into 10 actually yeah and that one would be deleted yeah this one would just go so ignore this ignore number five it would look like number four and six robber john thoughts on that as a breakdown if we stuck with breakdowns yeah no i think it makes sense do you so we would start with one though so it'd be a permit fee plus a unit fee for that one well for one wouldn't have an extra permit fee it would be your base rate non-owner occupied base rate and then if there are additional units it would be a additional fee for them i'd come up with the language i don't think i think a prior draft has the additional language rob that would add the per unit only for the second plus unit another option is another option is perhaps to have non-owner occupied single families which are according to the chart around 680 of them at least um you know maybe that's the caught point and then two to nine is is sort of that subset of smaller complexes around town that makes sense john and rob sam can you repeat that last part again please yeah i was saying another possible breakdown is is single units like non-owner occupied single unit single families and there are 680 of those at least um if you know if we were to split this out a little bit more instead of from one to nine it might be single families and then two to nine is that is that the next major category of um yeah another 300 are you thinking that the base rate for a non-owner occupied say single family home that one but i'm just going to throw a number out there would be like 150 so they'd pay 150 a year and the permit for two to nine might have a base rate of 125 plus 25 per dwelling unit or are you thinking the base rate for the two to nine if we split it out would still be 150 like do you want those base rates to be different um good question um um probably not so that means we could include the one in here and just make sure that the per unit is over the first yes okay yes good good way of thinking through that so i'm going to make a note that in some sense we're deciding if do people if we go with the split are people in agreement that the split makes sense at nine to ten versus what was originally here i'm seeing nods of heads people liking pam's proposal so i'm going to delete this and then so if and so i think the decision is and let me let me what we're still up in the air with is what's in yellow or so number three or what would become number four and five but we would choose four and five over number three with what i deleted if we go with an add-on for a per parcel we would split that up between one and nine and 10 plus it wouldn't just be the add-on the three unit triplex is treated the same as the 100 unit puffed in on the per unit add-on is that what we're favoring jennifer so i just want to be clear are we so we're not going to do it 1 to 9 10 to 99 and 100 plus we're just going to make it 10 plus i think that was pam's proposal yeah and is that because the i mean do the 100 plus units get way beyond that like i'm just trying to think of somebody who has 11 how are they going to feel about having the same rate as someone that has 300 or oh sorry this would be per unit above 10 not 99 sorry so the 11 unit would pay the base fee plus whatever the number here is added on the 100 unit one would pay the base fee plus this number times a hundred okay i see their pain right so they'd be paying more because of the right okay or and depending on where the maximums are set it might not be times 100 but um yeah but people would prefer that this system numbers four and five over adding just a flat per unit for all other parcels possibly changing these numbers in here i think that makes sense such that we're deciding between three or four and five next time after we hear some feedback right yeah i i mean i would like to hear feedback on this um and i'm and i'm not suggesting that the that the additional fee per unit especially having heard from rob that it's not terribly helpful or even the theory um you know could be pretty modest yeah is there an advantage for breaking it up into these different levels as opposed to for all other parcels it would be you know the base fee plus per unit up to a certain amount what we could do is as i make notes here if we're not sure which works better we can send both options off to finance and say we're not sure whether breaking it down makes sense or just one per unit fee makes sense you know depending on what they settle on on what that per unit fee is breaking it down may not make sense we could send that to finance and say with a say with a thing that says crc favors say four and five but we actually don't know pam so it's an option yeah part of the part of the thought process about ten and ten and over is that a condominium or a townhouse starts at 10 units or max maxes out at 10 units and so that in my mind a condominium or a townhouse complex is you know a little different than an older house being renovated and has you know has multiple units or something in it so i'm i'm rethinking in terms of would there be a difference in fee perhaps between the the two to nine and and i might not be averse to having just a less expensive or not as expensive as the the fee for a a big parcel anything kind of above so i think we'll leave this with the comments we'll think about it for a week we'll come back i'll create a new document so it's not marked up with some of the other things we've done if i can get it in the packet um inspection fees i've added everything i forgot to add i think i've created the document on the per unit for reinspection complaint renewal and inspection um i think the question i have is with this beyond i i think it's appropriate to add a additional cost per unit because it adds time we've heard from rob and john it adds time um the question i have is is there a reason we would separate out any of these because they require more base fee or less base fee like so i guess my question to rob and john are initial and renewal inspections are they very so different that they might get a different base fee would they take different amounts of time or the reinspection fee should it have a lower base fee because you're looking at specifically one thing so it might take less time than say a renewal inspection fee you know um so i guess that's where i'm looking for which of these might be able to come be combined into one line instead of four separate lines or or does it make sense to have four separate lines with potentially different fees depending on the inspection or should it just be an inspection fee no matter what kind of inspection it is i i liked the initial inspection fee as a category only because we were talking about trying to gather so much information about the property and also um it's going to be an opportunity to do a lot of the the research of the history of the property check old special permits and you know look for you know any conditions on the property so that made sense to me and that would not occur in a renewal uh that wouldn't be necessary you know that said if it was just an inspection fee we'd still do that you know we want to do that it's really important to establish that that understanding of the property and and accuracy in the records that we have but i thought that having a higher initial fee did justify that john any thoughts yeah i agree it's uh the first time through is going to be pretty time consuming because of what rob's pointing out you got to do quite a bit of research on the property and that's that takes some time once you have that gathered the next time through you know you're you're just looking for um health and safety violations at that point you know is there a difference between say a renewal inspection fee a property you haven't been in in five years versus one where you were just there and you issued that notice of violation and now you're back to check that is that is when you come back to check quicker such that maybe that would have a lower fee or are you still going through the entire checklist when you come back no i mean you shouldn't well you know i just did a property this week and i've got probably 15 things that are you know need to be addressed when i go it took a little while to go through the property and look for those things but when i go back there for a reinspection i still got to look at all those things make sure they got addressed um i'm i'm unlikely to be looking for additional things there's another question i have should a reinspection fee after a failed inspection fee be included in the initial or in any of these other inspection fees should we be charging for a reinspection fee i know there's some places that include that one one reinspection in the initial fee so that they're not paying you know if you fail you get you get you don't have to pay for the comeback to pass um because it's already been included thoughts on that pimp yeah i think that's logical to have a fee for inspection and acknowledge that there's likely to be a follow-up um just maybe 90 percent of them probably you have to you have to confirm that anything you you found has been taken care of um i would say can we call it follow-up inspection rather than reinspection i think if we do all the language and the bylaws and all we can yes if we match the language robin john would if we did this would it be just the first one or would you want all of them included like if you have to go back four times to get it fixed at what point do you want to charge them for another inspection i better not you better not be going back four times that's no they're missing the point then so then you'd want to charge them for another inspection if you're going back four times oh for sure that's the first one okay i'll come up with wording does this then all look good for now um i'm looking at your number three sorry um i don't think we actually need to have the plus a dollar x dollar per unit i think this is probably going to a complaint is probably against the specific unit i'm just guessing i could be wrong let's go to john and rob when you get complaints are they generally specific units or entire parcels that have multiple units um i would say the majority of them are folks complaining about the unit that they live in or you know what comes in this time of year the thing that i'm working on this week uh family delivered their daughter to the place that they've rented and you know gasped um so that sort of thing it seems like it would be quieter in the summer but it's not because now we're gonna come we're gonna we're gonna drop we're gonna do our initial drop off here um that's i bet that that's a single family home um i it's hard for me to imagine that somebody dropping off at a complex it's still going to be a specific unit isn't it that they're complaining about um the other complaint i have this week is that you know some exterior lights at a apartment complex aren't working so people can't you know find their way to the to the public way um okay so for now it sounds like we'll leave it like this think about it over the next week i will get this out tomorrow um as an update to next week's packet next week's packet is already out there but i will get it out to it everyone tomorrow i don't know when athena will be able to post it online but i will have it out to everyone else tomorrow we're gonna move on for now excuse me just so i'm not sure we heard any feedback on the uh d or e from these folks um is there a no show fee is that is that something we do is that necessary um a late fee i i think i'm okay with the late fee as long as it's not us the town um creating the the delay um transfer of permit fees i'm okay with that and i don't know what administrative appeal is that's that's if we shut somebody down and they appeal it that's if we suspend the permit and they appeal it to the board of licensed commissioners so from john and rob to those make those the only one i think isn't entirely necessary if you want to simplify things is the no show fee um or that could get incorporated into the reinspection fee as a kind of follow-up inspection item if you wanted to make it simpler we don't john um you know you can comment on this i don't think we charge for that situation we never have charged for a no show um but we absolutely would like to be able to deal with late registration uh because that is something we struggle with yeah i agree i've only been stood up once and um you know that just makes it harder going forward i don't need to to penalize you with a no show fee okay thank you good question pam so we will move on from this um to let me get the next one open um i'm gonna open kp laws version and pam i will work with you to to make sure you can everyone can read it um i might be slow in toggling back and forth because i have my own comments on this and i'm not opening the draft that has my comments so i have to toggle on my own computer for this so um and mandy i just want to make sure that we're talking the same version i'm i'm looking at uh 2023 04 20 as the version no this is the version that went to kp law um so it is it's in it's uh i gotta be able to move something okay um it is titled working draft revision eight 2023 0609 for regulations and the the title is revision eight apparently i did not change the revision in the in the footer and header i don't always get that so it's actually it's actually revision 16 is that correct no we're on the regulations sorry not the bylaw regulations aren't as high as the bylaw in terms of revision numbers um um this one is this one actually has a kp law number to it so you should have gotten it separately by email from paul too so it has no changes except for the three in front of the kp law number um if you pull up the kp law opinion um because i just renumbered it for our purposes of agendas um so people could find it in the agenda um so this is the one with kp laws comments that we have not received the last time we received comments on the bylaw um and so um we're gonna go through the comments make any changes we need um i'm gonna try and i have to make it smaller so you can see the comments so i apologize for that the first one is um jonathan wasn't sure he thought property type wasn't necessarily clear so i believe my recommendation is to just add a parenthetical um and i'll put it in here that clarifies it um a parenthetical like that i'll fix the renumbering that just says that i think that's what we're going for what what type of building is it type of property is it what's it got on there um and then i think that addresses oh i have no idea why i got two comments um i think that addresses jonathan's concern any other thoughts on his comment before we move to the next comment and if people have thoughts on i know pam you might be working from a former draft but any comments you have on any part as we go through jonathan's comments too if i skip over something you have a comment on take us back to it pam um so this is a letter c is exactly what prompted my question about you know are we capturing number of units number of specifically number of bedrooms in our in our in the attributes that we're capturing for any given unit i just want to make sure that we're really clear that we that we capture that so that's d is the number of bedrooms in each dwelling unit yeah as long you know i want i want the i want the computer program to be able to to handle it and the only reason i'm saying it is because i dealt with a computer program on the university for the 13 million square feet of space and each room was categorized each room has attributes and i don't know if the town has anything near that capability such as that yep okay we're gonna move on to jonathan's next comments they are basically the same thing they were were um are about the response times that that we had wrote into the regulations that we found and had seen in other regulations actually um and other bylaws in other towns uh jonathan didn't like them to summarize his comments about our jonathan um yeah our our attorney said the court would probably strike him down if they were cited for something like this john uh yeah i mean this is this is critical because in the middle of the night um you know if i call um some of these big landlords i'm just going to get an answering machine and leave a message so it's up to me to figure out what to do with the tenants that can't stay there so i think the question for us is are we willing to keep it in and recognizing that if anyone challenges that it may be struck down jonathan so what would happen um you can't reach the landlord and you have to make a decision to like put the students up in a motel then do we the town tries to recoup that cost or or just you know the last time it happened to me i got i was able to get in touch with an on-call dean at umass these were umass students and they were able to house those kids for the night so i just took a little more thinking but it's you know it's happened on a two o'clock in the morning no i mean that yeah i don't have a town credit card you know or i'm just going to put you right yeah no just well that's it i would never have thought you could contact the dean so that's interesting to know but yeah and then if it was not a student they would it would be between them and the landlord to figure out what they had to do that night i mean in theory with the students it's between the student and the landlord too no matter the tenant no matter their relationship in theory it's between the tenant and the landlord it's just what makes our inspectors jobs easier and are we willing to risk lawsuits and it being deemed so pym i'm i'm comfortable leaving in for now and it's it shows an urgency that that someone reading this needs to be aware of you know we can we can always back off later but i don't mind keeping the pressure on two others tend to agree i'm seeing nods so solanis i think okay with it still thinking about it i would have just gotten rid of it i err on the side of not but for now i'm i'm willing to leave it in um inspections so this is one where i worked on trying to come up with language um jonathan kp law identified a conflict or a potential conflict between what we wrote in section a and section b the two highlights here um and our bylaw um so while so i'll i'll tell you what i tried to come up with with the bylaw um actually i did it all in the bylaw nothing in the regs so um there we go in the bylaw which will hopefully have time to get to later i basically have some modifications or proposed modifications that indicate um that the property will have passed an inspection and then i add more within a frequency schedule identified in the regulations and sort of extra language like that within the time frame identified in the regulations um so it doesn't so i hope that it clarifies that it's not every year they have to pass the inspection essentially they have an inspection that is from a year and a half ago and that meets our frequently frequency schedule because it was a past inspection um they don't need another one to get their permit so i've tried to massage that language i've added some other language into the bylaw i don't want to flip back and toggle back and forth now but i think we can address it in the bylaw not without having to change the regs if the regs are the schedule we want um um which i think the regs are pan we we have talked about the initial inspection it is a critical one i would guess that so many of the so many of these units have been self-certified and and are nowhere near what um we think they should be um um i'm not sure we can i'm not sure we can say b1a1 whether or not they have a prior permit they need to undergo an inspection with oh within five years i was thinking it was within half a year or something okay so okay we've been five years or continue pamm just i'll be gone like 30 seconds continue talking and pamm can run it until i get back on looking for an answer i i think i read it i read it wrong it that within five years everybody at least has an an initial inspection and hopefully the the renewal inspection uh within those five years am i yeah i think it says you need the initial inspection within six months and then yeah that's what i was getting confused by yeah and then five years yep can we can we do them within six months um if we need to do them all the first time no right yeah so i think b1a1 is for when we flip to this new system we're back five-year implementation period essentially we're actually we're actually on b1a now because it did say six months i thought i had seen six months in there yeah no um so i the the way i'm going to take this one the this or within the six months is um under the we have a provision for a contingent i i don't know whether it's called contingent permit for when you fail an inspection you can have a sort of but i forget what it is in the bylaw let me look it up um it's called a conditional permit um and so i think we can add language to the conditional permit or if you have a inspection scheduled so for for the six months thing here what i was thinking was i think what we were thinking when we wrote this was not the initial um trans the initial um effectiveness into this new one so the initial transition but when someone wants their rental permit do they need the inspection before they issue the rental permit or do they basically start with the application schedule the permit and can they while they've applied for the application while while they've got the application pending and are waiting that inspection which i don't know with our inspection departments once they ask for one will it take three months to get well take one month to get can they have it within a week um they don't realize they're supposed to have a permit so the tenants have already moved in but they don't have an inspection so that's what i was thinking of was with this in within six months so i've added that to the temporarily to the conditional permit if you've got an inspection scheduled you can be issued your permit so your tenants can move in we have to think about whether we want that but that's that's what i was thinking this or within six months when you're first renting the property right if i were to change my house into a rental um i needed inspected but you know what i might not get it inspected before the new tenants come in for whatever reason but i applied for the permit um and maybe they couldn't inspect it before the tenant lease was starting even though i applied for the permit can i get that conditional permit while the inspection is actually scheduled like i've done everything but had the inspection so i that's what i took this within six months of the initial first residential rental permit meant and then this is the sort of transitional section jennifer so um i mean maybe a little what john's talking about now with the parents bringing kids back to school what if the if should somebody be allowed to move into a unit i mean that isn't up to code or isn't safe i mean that's just be my concern you know if they could move in and then they might not get inspected for six months and after the six months they've been living in a dangerous situation what's is that and in some sense is the town liable for for if something got to be able to happen in those six months you know a fire because the electrical system wasn't up to code is that putting the town at risk that they've said you know we allow you know tenants to move in even though we may not inspect the property for a certain number of months or weeks so that's a question i guess to john yeah i'm not an attorney but yeah we have many uninspected properties that we let people live in right now that we're letting them or they're doing it and we don't know that yeah well we don't know because we've never been in them i don't know that i don't know that they have problems with them but you know you know and the one that i went in this week it's not condemnable um but they just just self-certify this at the beginning of the month so you know and why am i able to find 15 things wrong with it it's not it's not that somebody couldn't live there they could and it's not dangerous it but what if it was i so i guess saying i apply for permit you're very fresh right so you're not supposed to have someone move in until you've at least applied for a permit correct right i think that's that's the conditional permit part yeah that's correct you've got a conditional permit now you're waiting for an inspection when the inspection happens to get the conditional permit i don't know is that self-certification language still in no you have not self-certified to get the conditional permit right now the conditional permit until we modify it based on potentially based on kp laws comments right now a conditional permit can issue only if an inspection has failed and they're working on fixing it and we've said you can have that conditional permit so you're not in violation of the bylaw right you know our general bylaws are different than violations of state health code in a sense and what goes on that way our our bylaw is you're not allowed to rent something unless you have a permit right um and we're putting these conditions on it so we're saying the conditional permit keeps you in compliance with the bylaw even though you haven't met certain parts of the bylaw because we're in the process of fixing those parts that you haven't met change reasonable right now and and so i i'm going to propose language after reading kp laws comments here that adds not just failed inspections to the ability to issue a conditional permit but awaiting an inspection um because it just is scheduled but hasn't happened yet um so that's applied a week before the person was moving in and you couldn't get the inspection in the week you can still get your permit so you're not found in late or found in violation of the bylaw right and we and we all recognize that it could be four years later when you actually get your first permit no i mean get your first inspection well initially no this is after it's all happened so this is all happened after we've already been through all of these things and now somebody decides they want to rent their house um they're going to come at a much slower rate okay okay got it the transition is the five-year timeline because we can't expect john on his own or his replacement on his own to get through how many units is this in one year so we're allowing for that five-year transition um to make it happen which i've i've tried to come up with language that would address that of jonathan's too for the bylaw but i put it on the bylaw um because he seemed to want it in the bylaw not here any other comments concerns before we move on let me know if i'm skipping anything um jonathan here said it might kind of conflict with this item up here um that says just do it every five years so he recommended language to fix that um i kind of took his recommended language um oh wait give me a second um so i the too many windows here um so that's my proposed language that the code enforcement official has the discretion to select and inspect a sampling of dwelling units that ensures compliance with this section here such that every dwelling unit is inspected at least every five years that would allow jon and rob to instead of saying we're doing 25 every year in a hundred unit parcel or 20 every year and a 100 unit parcel or in this one 25 25 and so then they get in you get four years and then one year off they could say 20 every year or they could say we're going to do huffton this year and hopefully not come back for five years and then we'll do another large building the net another large complex the next year would allow them to set their sort of big complex schedule what do people think about that proposal the next one is concern with inspection standards of who defines it who does it um and whether we'll adopt one within the appendix because we don't have it yet um i did something somewhere else to try and address this concern um that's what i did down here so yeah jonathan was thinking who who does the checklist and drafts it and then he commented on the same thing down in four so i thought we could just add to four that it's the principal code official that creates the checklists and then we just say what it needs to include um i think that addresses both of jonathan kp-laws comments in three a and four a what do people think i have a question on historic houses where we we are fully aware that many houses were renovated or became apartments um under different building codes and um a checklist you know i want to make sure things are are not violating you know key health and safety codes but is there any flexibility when you understand the age of the building jon the sanitary code is you know just what you see in front of you so it doesn't really matter when it was renovated um when we we do look back at building permits on properties and that's what we're talking about doing research on properties and do they have any special permits and when did this thing happen um we we can find historical building permits for some of the stuff that happened but a lot of things happen without anybody knowing about it you know um so that's just going to be that's going to be today's code applied to that so question for something like electrical um if my house was built in the knob and tube era and it hasn't undergone major renovation and still has knob and tube and now i want to rent it out will it pass this inspection that includes sections on electrical because it hasn't been renovated and it conformed with the electrical or by creating a checklist are we sort of requiring an upgrade of these systems uh good question we might need to check with the electrical inspector on that but um in several properties that i've been in when i've discovered active knob and tube i've ordered it replaced and that's outside rental by law at all that's just you as an inspector not whether they're renting the property or not he it's been in rentals i mean not in private homes i i have very little reason to get into a private home and look for that sort of thing but you know the the stuff that you find now it's old enough that it's not um difficult to find something wrong with it um and so that's that's what triggers need to to replace it right jennifer i had to digress but yeah we couldn't get insurance on our house till we replace the knob and tube so i don't know yeah i think it's generally agreed it's not not really safe yeah i just didn't know whether it gets grandfathered in if you haven't actually done stuff okay moving on his next one was with e here um and and jonathan the kp law said this the state law would govern this schedule um and they we'd need to if we wanted to modify uh or specifically do this outside of the state law schedule we'd need state guidance so i guess my thoughts are just delete it to make it easier on us if it's already if the if the keeping of these is governed by some state law let's just go with that can we state that then i because i think it's important if whether they're digital or paper they're looking back folks are looking back to see what was you know a violation three years ago we want to make sure violations are noted and to me that's part of the record keeping i don't know if you have to say a length of time you could just say you'll keep them how about that that worked even jonathan gave a jon gave a thumbs up for that one moving on um life safety violations he had the same comment in the um so be here he had the same comment in the bylaw i went back to our current draft and the prior draft and we deleted it in the current draft based on his comment um and our discussion i guess that would have been three weeks ago maybe the last time we were here discussing the bylaw when we discussed kp laws comments on the bylaw we deleted this entire section from the penalty section and enforcement section of the bylaw so it no longer sits in the bylaw draft so i guess i recommend just deleting it so he's saying let me see if i understand his comment don't try to remove people from a property with something in the general bylaw use the other statutes that you already have statutes yeah that's fine that's great yep that's basically what he said and i think when we went to the bylaw with this language we agreed and said we'd remove it from the bylaw so i think it makes sense to move remove it from the rags too committee agree for now um jonathan said all violation penalties and all should be in the bylaw not in the these things so i've i've got a draft of the bylaw that moves this to the bylaw basically into a proper spot in the bylaw why is that does it give us more authority um i i think he just says well what does he say should be contained in the bylaw itself i think that's just the standard state law thing like just statutory construction and penalties i assume he's just saying put it there so there's an easy place to put it i've copied the language i'll show it to you if we get time to get to the bylaw um so i recommend deleting it here based on him but not deleting that sentiment getting that sentiment into the bylaw this does that sound logical if so i'll show you that language if we can get there today if not i'll show it to you next week um so these he did this twice this comment twice um um i think what kp laws saying jonathan's saying is that this phrase he's not comfortable with is is what i took from the comment i don't know what other people are taking from this comment that that says he cautions against using this type of criteria as a pretext to deny a rental permit um we can he said it's appropriate to review to review in issuing it for compliance with other bylaws and zoning bylaws and all of that but we shouldn't conduct a land use review under this bylaw i think what i interpreted that as is we can't add additional land use requirements to this general bylaw that's how i interpreted it i am i i don't feel like we are adding additional um to i think we are we're saying any management plan whether it's zba whether it's spr whatever every single permit um is often in consultation with fire police just in terms of can i get my you know can i get a fire truck around this building can i get access to the front door whatever it is i don't feel like we're adding requirements we're just saying we will consult to make sure that the management plan actually works so the management plan will have nothing to do with circulation of access yeah management yes it will a parking the parking plan may have parked cars so close to the building that that one wouldn't be able to pull another vehicle up close to whatever this one would and that's part of our basic management plan but if we if someone already has a management plan here and it doesn't include for some reason and i'm not sure why our zoning zba or planning board wouldn't have ensured this i think what jonathan's saying is you can't add that requirement onto this if they've already got one here if we're saying this is sufficient well it's sufficient if they already have a permit if they already have a special permit um it has gone through that review so the in fact they you know our that section review uh is twice it follows the parking one and it follows yeah and he made the comment in both yeah well i hadn't seen him but um yeah parking management i think of is different than parking site plan i don't know why in in either case in either case if we could say something like um in terms of scroll back up a little bit where it goes under a so the a and b are two different situations one is you already have a permit you've already been reviewed um um i if we if we said including the following with with confirmation by um other other town entities such as fire and fire and police a basic management plan blah blah blah blah i'm guessing then maybe tom tell me if we're wrong does anyone in fire or police actually review management plans anybody besides you or rom um that's a good question because these men are we talking about um something that's a management plan that is happening through uh the special permit process or i mean we're not we're not getting routinely management plans you know with a rental permit so the regulations here are requiring that with the rental permit that the property submit a management plan the the bylaw requires that for the the new bylaw requires a management plan to be submitted and they can either submit one of they have two options to submit a management plan that was approved under their land use permit so if they they already have one they already have one they submit that and presumably that's sufficient i think what donathan murray is saying is that needs to be sufficient if it's always been accepted we can't add management plan requirements on um and and if they don't have one we're asking a basic management plan that includes these six items so they can choose to submit one or the other yeah this doesn't look onerous to me um but then he flagged this part that really talked about sufficiency of circular and vehicular access he didn't flag what this was which is interesting as pam talks it gets me thinking about like what is he actually flagging right um and so i don't all it says is that we're gonna consult with someone from fire that right so what if instead of saying that language there because i think i i feel like that's what he took issue with that specific language if we add after principal code official others is a bad word but we add that consultation that pam was talking about i don't want to restrict it too much um so like department heads worries me or we could just say public safety officials as necessary or something yeah yeah that's good and then we could delete this right up to there that's good okay but we've added the consultation in but not put in exactly what they're consulting for which i think it was that exact phrasing that jonathan murray was concerned about does that work pam yeah that works for me okay and so he flagged it here too so we'll do the same thing does that work if so we're gonna move on he wanted this updated that's the bylaw we're dealing with so i'm not sure why it would need updated but i guess if the number changes he would want it updated but otherwise the only last comment he had was about the 60 day that we wrote in um he thought maybe we don't want to put a limit in so i guess my comment is thoughts about deleting the limit did the board have any comment on those um they have not they have been sent um i don't know whether they've had they might be meeting right now um they i have sent the chair both sets of kp law comments for them before before the kp law comments they didn't have any problem with these we might have even extended this from 45 to 60 the first draft might have 45 in it i'm not sure um i can't believe you don't by law have to have a limit that surprises me yeah and that the attorney's recommending don't put one in i mean if i if i were an owner and i wanted action and i was appealing something i would want a time frame now so the hearing the hearing has to be held within 30 days which helps for a time frame right and they're saying you know so another month and we would like your decision with another within another month i don't think it's it doesn't feel onerous yeah i mean i guess the attorney's just saying it was certainly for the person making the appeal it's fair to have a time frame i guess he's saying just if you don't legally have to do it i'm surprised yeah i think he's saying you don't legally have to do it so don't do it because if you do put it in and they don't meet it the appeal is is granted automatically right and so it's a constructive grant that's right right you're adding in a potential way that causes an automatic grant of the appeal if something happens with the timing is that the is that also with the 30 days from data filing yeah so i the board was fine with this 30 days they meet monthly um so they didn't have a problem with that and i think they supported that they they they were fine i believe with both of them and like i said i think they they moved that to at least 60 from the last time i talked to them they couldn't get a quorum that would be yeah yeah if it's in the middle of summer and they can't get a quorum they're going to have a problem here or they get a quorum for the meeting but they really have questions right here's the thing they hold their first hearing within 30 days but they're not done so it gives you there's a way to extend that with a written agreement that's how we do it on the zba that i serve on we just all agree that we're going to we agree to an extension if you get a property person i mean these these appeals are for expense suspensions and failure to issue so you've got no rent in potentially during that time um sorry does that last sentence required time limits maybe extend by written agreement that goes to what john just said um does that does that add the flexibility needed only if you've got cooperative parties that's your fate oh true i actually don't put it in then i mean if the attorney says it's not required can we say can we say she'll be made promptly so i was thinking like a in a timely manner i don't i don't know if you want to have yourself in though you want to go there right if we put something in and i would just delete it the attorney says it's not necessary i wanted to put something in instead of from the date of filing of the appeal i would stay from the date of the close of the hearing yeah that's better because you've already burned 30 days um potentially yeah i would agree with that so you know if we're going to keep a date in i'd change it from i'd change it to from the date of the close of the hearing so which do people want nothing or date of close of hearing close of hearing i'm good with that i could go either way but it's definitely better than filing we'll keep it like that and we can think about it next time that's the end is that actually a public hearing is called that yep okay close of hearing is good because you can just continue the hearing without closing it so right you know it can go on for quite some time yeah right and if you've closed it you really should make your decision so and not sit on it okay so these are the regulations um i will come in with a cleaner copy of this having gone through it next time um and then let me pull up i'm gonna pull up the bylaw that has my changes in it um or my recommendations that we talked about so that people can see it um i just have to find it and i don't think this will take too long but if it does we're gonna move on to public comment right after this um but so we talked about a couple of things i think let me start at the top to make sure um so the changes i was discussing um are in part of it is in red here um is that conditional the conditional permit can be issued if um an inspection it for a property that does not pass the initial renewal inspection or has or a property that has been scheduled for an initial or renewal inspection that has not yet occurred so that's the you applied for it you thought you could get your inspection within a day and because you know people apply late and they didn't the conditional permit can be issued instead that required i thought of adding some language because the the conditional permit is supposed to specify a time frame um and for deficiencies but if it hasn't happened yet there are no deficiencies so i tried to add language that does that so i think that takes care of one of two of jonathan murray's concerns regarding that inspection frequency if people are okay with that language um and then the other one was down here under requirements to obtain the permit the inspections this is the best language i could come up with for now um in thinking about addressing his concerns um so instead of reading the residential rental rental property shall pass an inspection um before a permit is issued or renewed i reworded it to shall have passed an inspection um in accordance with the applicable frequency schedule in the regulations adopted under the spy law before a permit is issued or renewed so i think that might take care of it i i obviously don't know but i think that's a little more clear that adding that have in there is not sort of an active pass immediately before but it could be years before and then i added the next sentence that says what the regulation shall set forth in the frequency so the frequency of the required inspections the number of units to be inspected and provisions for phasing in this inspection requirement upon adoption of the bylaw that was the third thing jonathan flagged was that so i thought if we put that in there that we're specifically saying you go to the regulations to find out that phasing does that seem like it addresses his concerns i don't know whether he'd be okay with it obviously um but it's it's an attempt to deal with his concerns and does he get this again to look at um probably after we finalize and make a recommendation maybe right because it will have never gone to go l and so in theory if we're making the recommendation to the council the council will forward it on to go l before it votes on adoption um for final legal review of the two i know you can't read that there was one other thing oh the penalties section this is the one where i said i found a place to put that penalties where jonathan murray was saying it doesn't belong in the regulations um we had a monetary penalty section that says they can be imposed and if there's a timely correction of violations the principal code official may reduce or eliminate the penalties and so i figured we'd add the if they're not made within the time limit they can be retroactively applied to the date that the received the complaint inspection form so i think that's probably this is where i wouldn't want jon to say should it say receive the notice of violation identifying the existing the existing violations or just received the notice of violation if repairs are not made within the designated time limit notice of violation the monetary penalty may be retroactively applied it would go back to the date of the violation yeah whatever whenever that notice was dated so that's the move from the other move from the regulations into the bylaw anything else for now pam um i want to hear from the folks listening and then i just have general comments about the structure because i think some of our little categories sections are out of order okay can you do the so you've structured comments can you do them quickly yeah i could just i can tell you exactly what i'm talking about yeah just say what you're doing and then we can figure out what we'll do with it later but fine fine we're trying to do you know our purposes to make a clear application process so we have purpose definitions um um state law not preemptive residential permit required and then we have exemptions and then we have issuance or denial and i would i would suggest we consider talking about the application itself before we talk about issuing it or denying it so i would simply put section f in front of section i mean section g in front of x section f from a logical standpoint i'm trying to think you know we're we're saying we've got a clear process and that's the the only section you're thinking needs moved okay um we wanted this reinspection fee potentially changed i'll look forward in other places um okay so the goal is i will get these modified clean versions out to everyone into next week's packet um tomorrow next week if we can get to a vote on a recommendation i would be thrilled so that means the job is if you haven't read them closely and you want to read them closely or you've got any other questions to add or things to add you got to come prepared next week with what you're doing and what you're suggesting pam okay i want to hear from things that the people in the audience but i have one more i have a couple of issues in terms of definitions category so i don't want to do it now i want to wait until folks have talked okay so we will move to public comment um public comment on matters within the jurisdiction of crc at this time for up to three minutes you can make a public comment um so if you would like to make a public comment at this time please raise your hand public comment is open um and you do it by pressing the raised hand button so bear with me ranata shepherd you should be able to unmute yourself and make your comment please state your name um where you live and then make your comment hi ranata shepherd um justice driving amherst and there's a lot of things to consider um i am curious to see the final proposed by law and i'm hoping that even with the final proposed by law because there's so many things to consider that we can still make some changes if need be or if legally necessary or public input um and i'm still hoping that the fees for inspections and permits um are still reasonable and fair um hopefully under a hundred dollars but um so i'm i'm i'm curious to see what the final product is and again hoping that it can still be adjusted because it still seems to be very much in progress in process um thank you thank you for your comment ranata seeing no other hands we are going to close the general public comment period um we have two minutes until we're adjourned in this meeting so ham do you want me to put the bylaw back on is it the bylaw you've got or the rights you don't okay i'm i'm talking generally about um two definitions and one is owner occupied we have we have our owner occupied um in what is it 12.36 or something in our own bylaws it has been brought to my attention that in fact um a number of people live in town who have already put their homes into trust for um medicare clawback protection and that they in fact are still living there so in in principle they are still the owner occupants but they're um by by our definition they don't qualify as their own owner occupied people so that's one thing and i think we need to give some consideration there's some folks out there thinking about it and maybe they'll come up with something the secondly secondly is a recent court case in Worcester in which the case was made that people four or more people renting rooms um in a in a in a in a dwelling are considered lodgers and so a lodging a lodging house um which is defined in state law as a house for lodging lodging are led to four or more persons not within the second degree of kindred to the person conducting the the the business such a facility is called a lot a lodging house and we have that condition in Amherst so i think we need to we need to close that loophole if we want to allow four people in a house then we have to make sure it's still complies with state law can you send the committee out the yeah you're referring to so so we can see it and and maybe include john and rob on it and and dave so maybe so dave can can see it too just so we can be ready for next week on because i believe we exempted lodging facilities from this permit system um and so we need to improve all of that we describe lodging as six units six units but not more than 10 as a lodging and the state in this in this case is saying anything four or more is considered lodging so um we we don't want to be contrary to state law yeah so just send that out to dave john rob and the committee um and i'll make sure it gets in the packet too if we send it in a form that i can print it we'll put it in the packet for anyone else who's interested in that um but yeah so those are two other things i've made note on those definitions um of those issues um so that people are reminded of them as they're going through it for next week obviously my goal is to get through and maybe vote on a recommendation next week so that it's out of our hands and to someone else's hands at least it might come back to our hands i mean i never know but it would be great for it to be at the council for discussions at the council um at some point um the earliest would be august 7th at the council but my guess is i'm not sure lin would put it on the 7th i think she'd probably put it on whatever the next august meeting is the 21st um but i don't know so um okay with that i don't have oh jennifer sorry your hand is up yeah no no this is just if we're doing definitions i just had a maybe i should wait till next week so i wouldn't discuss it now it's after a minute after six but um with owner occupancy in a town with you know a lot of academics who may go on sabbatical is if someone's gone for years that's still owner occupied that's something we have that question was asked we can get to that next week yeah so so we can get to that we did exempt sort of that short term one time one year rental from even this permit system um for a rental during a sabbatical year but if they continue that year as to a second year they have to apply for a permit so we can we can look at that issue though um and all so um i'll i'll find a way to make a note of that with that i don't have announcements i don't next agenda is already posted because of vacation things i don't think i'm going to modify it um at signing on she said she come on at six maybe not realizing we were adjourning six started at four welcome pat you're here right i'm so sorry i was in a mobile meeting and i totally fine we're about ready to adjourn though so can i ask a question sure john the next meeting is at four o'clock or four thirty it is at four thirty on july 20 next thursday this one was moved because shalini heads to tso for seven i think so we wanted to give shalini some time um so for dinner yeah so the next i will watch the meeting the next agenda is rental registration i have other things on the agenda in case we finish rental permitting early um but we won't get to those other things unless we finish the rental permitting we may be able to depending on continuing comments um that's the next agenda i will be posting after that the agendas for the august meetings shortly thereafter um i'm waiting to see whether we actually get through rental permitting because if we do i don't want to put it on the next agendas unnecessarily um so that's it is there anything not anticipated that we need to talk about not that welcome pat and goodbye everyone we are adjourned at six four you're the best meeting ever pat thank you take care everyone bye bye bye