 I don't think John Page isn't here yet. I don't know if he's joining us tonight. I expect that he is. He didn't tell me isn't. And I have been in communication with him today. So I think that John will be. He's probably just a few minutes late. Yeah, we have the last two months of meeting minutes to review. And I have to say, I don't have those in front of me. Okay. There's Will. Hello, everyone. I will. Thanks for. Joining us. Well, I'll give John another minute. Because if we have to comments on the minutes, it would be helpful if he's present. Hey, John. Hello, John. I'm here. I'm here. Just taking your name. Order, John. I'm sorry. Shall we call to order? I generally don't do that. I don't. I don't. I know you all read the governor's. Dispensation. But I typically haven't done that either. And so far I haven't been jailed or. What before court. So I think I'm okay. So I will at least formally call. CRC, the community resources committee, special meeting to order at 7. Oh, 3 PM because we have a quorum present. Four of our five members are here. Great. And thank you all for joining us this evening. Sorry that Evan couldn't make it too. Okay. So hopefully we can dispense with minutes. If anybody have any comments about the minutes. From our last two meetings. You can start with. March. I thought I saw you holding the minutes or something up. So. Do you have comments? No. No, I was just making sure I didn't have comments. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And. Well, hearing no comments, then. I think we. Assume that they're accepted as submitted. And they become part of our official record. So thank you. Let's see. So. The last time we got together. We talked about the draft. Comprehensive housing policy and particularly a little bit about. The comments that I had written. On our behalf. And you all were clear that you didn't want to accept those. Until we had a chance to talk to. At least. Mandy Joe. And actually, as it turns out, the full. CRC committee. So we're fortunate they are joining us this evening. The way I wanted to start was this. I wanted to review the comments that I have made. And this is going to be redundant for some people. To get us started and then ask housing trust members what additional comments they might have. And then we'll move into hearing from the CRC members. About what responses or questions they have or. What they might see themselves doing. As a consequence of these comments. So I'll try to be brief. I wrote them out so it chances are, I will be a little briefer than if I were ambled. Just quickly, John, do you want me to share the screen and share the policy, the current version? Or are we okay just with. I wouldn't share it until we're ready to go to it because I'm not going to reference specific sections. But if a member of the CRC or somebody else wants to do that. We can share screen. So thank you for buffering. On the positive side, I think the community resources committee has done a fine job in reviewing past reports related to housing and Amherst. 51 strategies have been scooped out from these documents. And collated into the present draft. The strategies are organized under five overarching goals. And each strategy is identified as. An affordable housing. A medium priority or a low priority. With the exception of a few that seem to have been skipped over. So now to the five critical points that I wanted to make. Affordable housing is not clearly valued in this draft document. Generally the strategies associated with it are. Among the lowest of all priorities. And I believe that affordable housing should be clearly its own goal category. With associated high priority strategy. So that's one change I'd certainly like to see. A second issue for me is that the university is largely ignored. With 28,000 enrollees typically. And only 13,500 on campus residential capacity. And I think that's one of the most important things. The policy and planning plan is to rely entirely on Amherst. And the surrounding communities. To provide housing for students and their families. I believe we need a commitment from the university to add capacity for new residential units. To high house somewhere in the neighborhood. Of three to 5,000 students and their families. And we need a commitment from the university. And we need to immediately enter proposing strategies. Without describing first. What problems they are designed to address. There should be problem descriptions. Based at least in part on available data. There is no presentation of any relevant data. For example, we know that 57%. Are either cost burdened or severely cost burden. And I'll just remind everyone cost burden means that renters spend over at 30% of their income on housing, which puts them at risk for housing insecure. Is that a problem the town wishes to address? And what are the strategies proposed to address it? What is the numerical goal that would be an indicator of success? Those are the kinds of problem descriptions that I personally think should be part of this document. Among the strategies listed, for example, are improving access to home ownership ownership to persons who are black. Indigenous persons of color. This is certainly a laudable goal. But how is it to be achieved. Some discussion of existing barriers and how they might be implemented in the past would be helpful. And last, the same could be said of many of the other 51 strategies. As I pointed out earlier, these come largely from existing document. It is reasonable to ask both why these have not been implemented in the past. And what assurance is there. That by including them in this new policy report. I think that's a good reference. So those are the, I think key comments that I have. That I wanted to be sure everybody was aware of. And now I'll ask other members of the housing trust. If there are comments that they want to make about the comprehensive plan. Carol. I think the first thing I want to say is I read an earlier draft than this. I just feel like the categories make more sense. And some of the things that are addressed make more sense. Maybe there's two things to me that feel difficult and problematic. One of them is that there's only, there are two low priorities in this whole thing. And one of them is finding funding to do this. I have no idea how to do that, but not making it a high priority isn't a good idea. It's not going to help it happen. The fact that there's no way to do it doesn't make it any less of a priority in a way. It makes it more of a priority. So I hate seeing that thing kind of hanging off the end there as a low priority, even though I do not know how to do it. I don't, but I don't think it should be a low priority. And I guess the other thing is that there are a lot of place. A lot of places where there are efforts made to a low priority. That allow increases in density of one kind or another. Smaller lots more units per smaller area demanded for each unit. Most of those things do not seem except for the inclusionary zoning bylaw. Most of those things in the first high priority, for instance, don't say anything about affordability. And I really think that Amherst in any town has the opportunity with its zoning laws to say, if you're going to be able, if we're going to let you build things more densely, or however way you want to call that, then we have before, then you have to contribute to our affordability in some way or another. So I would just like to see many more of these things, kind of differently than what John said. Instead of having a separate part about affordable housing, I'd like to see it everywhere included in all of the things that are, that are the changes that are, that are good ideas. But, you know, I guess I don't see here anything to convince a developer. I can build more apartments in this little space so I can get more rent money. That's what I see happening. Not I can build more apartments and so therefore I can keep a lower level of rent. I just think, I think that it is our, our, our, what is it? It's our responsibility as a town, I think to make sure that affordability is built into these changes. And I think those are my two main things. I guess I would just say that I kind of like that the measurable things were, in a way were, were like kind of an addendum. And I would imagine that it could be possible to have the, the details of what, what the current situation is as an addendum because hopefully the situation will change. Hopefully the situation will even change for the better. And so, yeah, I think that's all least for the moment. Thank you for listening. Thanks, Carol. Any other member of the housing trust want to comment on the draft comprehensive housing plan. Okay, then we'll. I had something. Oh, sorry, I didn't see you. I guess I agree with everything that's already been said. And I think one thing that I would add is just under the, on page six, when it's talking about specific demographic populations, it seems like senior housing and people who are homeless would certainly be higher priority, especially with affordability needs. And I guess, again, with a student housing district, I'd like to see some support from the colleges if that were the case, especially if part of that is to free up existing rental stock housing for families by relocating students to more centralized districts. That's part of that's how I was reading it. So I don't know if that's incorrect, but that's, that was my two cents. Okay. Any other member who I've overlooked. Okay, let me turn it the floor over to Mandy and either she or other members of the CRC can speak to what they've been trying to do and what they think of these comments. Yeah, well, first I want to say thank you for inviting us and thank you for offering the comments. I know we got John's draft comments in our packet on Tuesday and we didn't quite have enough time to talk about it then. So we haven't much talked about it, but just a few things I want to start with, which is this is very much a work in progress. So, so to Carol's point of it will probably change substantially in the next couple of revisions to this is by no means it in some sense the council hasn't even really seen it and talked about it. It's that much of a work in progress. And we won't send it to them with a recommendation until they've even gave us their own comments. So, you know, you're, you're part of that process and everything I'm writing it all down and all some great things. The plan, the policy is meant to be a comprehensive housing policy. So I take personally, you know, as chair, I take this comment seriously about the affordable housing not being prominent enough at the same time. At the same time, I, we were tasked with coming up with a comprehensive policy. So it will by default deal with more than just affordable housing. So I just wanted to state that because that, that's what we were tasked with is not just an affordable housing policy. So that's why you're seeing a lot, but I do take to heart that we have that you feel we've had a lot of work shift to the affordable housing portion of that policy because part of our housing problem is that our housing is just not affordable. And so, so we have probably not. Addressed it, you know, in a more and an inexplicit enough detail is what I would say. And so we have to go back and do that with UMass. You know, the lack of UMass and student in the policy was pointed out very early on, actually, I think when John back in, was it November we met with all the chairs? And that was one of the first things that came out and we haven't had time to figure out where to put it in yet crazily enough. So it is not something I've forgotten to put in. We haven't gotten to put it in. So it's probably time for the next draft to just, as I present it, figure out a way to put it in and then deal with it. And then we'll be talking about it. You know, in. We will probably be. Trying to figure out how to put in all of the goals. Not the goals, the supports that John talked about. You know, the relevant data and all of that somehow in the policy. I'm not sure what that will look like, but that is one of the goals that I have for bringing back a next draft. So I'm not sure what that will look like. But I'm just wondering if you have any comments and comments from town staff about things like that. And in terms of the strategies, I really appreciate. Pointing out where you think we went wrong in prioritizing strategies. Again, it's a work in progress, but it's something that we need to consider. As to whether we should have any low priorities in there or whether anything should be, or whether if we're going to name them. And so, you know, those are some of the things I just wanted to say. Off the off the top in response to things. I would open it up to the rest of my committee to respond to some things and then, and then, you know, questions to me about any of that. And all I'm happy to try and answer some more. So Dorothy, I see your hand. So I wanted to make a couple of comments. I think that Carol is correct that at this moment where the policy has it, there's density, but there are no incentives for affordability. And I believe that the premise for some of the things in the policy. Was that. If supply was increased. Then prices would come down, but I believe that we're really facing now in our more recent discussions, the realization that we can never, ever meet the demand for student housing. So we just, which is no way are we going to build enough housing to have the law of supply and demand bring the prices down. So I think that we do have to. And I agree with you, it's a comprehensive policy. I think we should weave in affordable. And I would like to say moderate priced housing. In all that we do. Just for information. I just, I read a Queen's newspaper online all the time. And there's this huge development that's going to go up and will its point, which is going to have a huge number of affordable apartments. Now this is New York City affordable. 60% AMI, which is $64,440 for a family of three. And 71,580 for a family of four. So, and they go up to 80%. So they'd be affordable includes what we would definitely call moderate housing, but it's just housing that has, there's some kind of a limit that's been put on it. And in this case, it's because the city was able to donate some land, which, you know, is, which is kind of like the Amherst approach to affordable housing. Now the plans that we have that seem workable. Involve some land that the town is giving or leasing or whatever. So it's reduced the cost to a developer and in return, requiring affordable properties. So I think that we do have to make sure that we include that if we're offering developers more, we always have to say, but you have to give us something that we need very badly. I know that in there, there is the mention of a student housing zone. I just want to say I am totally against that. That's the job of the campus. An all students, you know, where I'm living, we have students integrated into the neighborhood. And sometimes there's problems, but most of the time there's not too bad. Okay. I do not think that we, the town of Amherst wants to take on a student only district when, because the history of police calls in this town is that that's not good. You know, encourages huge parties and things that get out of control. So I think we have to find a way to weave housing for all of the people that need housing, but I think we have to find a way to do that. I think we have to find a way to, to include requirements that affordable housing be included in many more places than it has been. And I do think that the CRC has been working towards that on the housing policy. We're not there yet. Thank you, Dorothy. Shalini, you just lowered your hand. I wanted Steve to go first. I feel like he's more knowledgeable than I am, but I will definitely be contributing later. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great work on the book. So yeah, hi everyone. So. I think, you know, I've been pondering this a lot, but I think we're largely a community of either owner occupied. Single or owner occupied houses like houses and a lot. Or rentals. So rental apartments. You know, rental. You know, I'm not sure that we have any sort of owner occupied apartment complexes. I'm not sure we have any actually. There are obviously some. There are some condos, not that many. But to me that's where affordable ownership really can happen. So on my street, which is near the middle school. You know, I spent a lot of time sort of pondering the. Assessed value or the appraised value of houses. So I think that's, that's basically assessed at $150,000, which is very affordable and it's a context. So it's basically a two family house. With each side being owner occupied. So I think we, I think that. The document that we're creating has, you know, we've definitely talked about apartments and other kinds of housing. But really the assumption it always seems to be that when we're talking about. Home ownership, we're always thinking of a house on a lot. And we're not thinking of ownership as being say. Three people owning a three family house or, or, you know, something like that. But if we were having the same discussion in a place like Somerville, that would be very much what the discussion is, is about more middle housing, home ownership within middle housing or. You know, something like that, but that's something that I would like to see. And I see some of our strategies. Like smaller lots. I think in some areas. You can make smaller, smaller lots. That'll not get you to affordability because what's happens is it's a limited supply. And the basically the cost of each bill, a lot stays the same around $100,000. And so no matter how small of a lot. It's always going to sell for if it's a vacant lot in the center of town is going to sell for $125,000. That doesn't get you to affordability gets you to density, but the more people you can get. Per lot and especially the more homeowners per lot. You can get like in a context. Then that is a way to affordability. Thank you, Shalini. Yes, I would love to hear from you all if you have. Um, strategies that have been effective in the past for generating affordable housing. And why I'm asking for that is because, you know, when we, we think of, again, as an example in Cambridge, the better Cambridge came up with an affordable housing overlay. And so that generates way more affordable housing. then let's say inclusionary zoning. And the other concern I have, I mean, I'm fully in support of inclusionary zoning, but my concern is as people who are in the business of making profits, will they provide the inclusionary zoning because you're forcing them and not giving them any incentive the way it is right now, will they end up increasing the rent on the other apartments? And it kind of increased overall at the end of the day, it ends up increasing the rent overall. And so doing some sort of study on that, I know it brought this issue up, but what I'm trying to say is we need more focused strategies and there are, and like inviting builders, nonprofit builders who are willing to do like starter home district. And that's where the increased density is important because it's just not profitable with the current zoning to allow starter homes with the kind of space you need. And so therefore using strategies like I forget, I think it's PURD, P-U-R-D, which allows for more density, but then that would allow the local builders to engage the banks to provide mortgages, whether it's by-law community or lower income people. Like we can really use these very focused strategies to generate because again, I think inclusionary zoning will only be incremental and at best. The other aspect I think I have is of focusing as a CRC in community engagement because even though we bring in proposals like we've seen in the past, they get shot down because people have fears or concerns. So having a very healthy community engagement process to bring people in from the get-go is very likely to then address people's concerns and fears and have transparency in the process. Then when people like, oh, we didn't know and things get kind of to do some of the thoughts I had. But I would love to hear from your experience with strategies you think have been most, like give a tax benefit or inviting nonprofits, which strategies have generated the most housing for us? Oh, you can't count on any single strategy. The plan has to include multiple strategies pursued in parallel and together. So you mentioned inclusionary zoning. Yes, that's one of the strategies that should be a part of what we're doing. Encouraging not-for-profit developers to come in and purchase property and develop affordable housing is another strategy. That's something that Valley Community Development did at 132 Northampton Road. It's not obviously a finished project and it wasn't easy. It took Laura Baker, who's the lead for that project over a year to find a parcel of land. I think it was close to two years, Nate. You can correct me, that they were able to purchase properties that seemed like good possibilities to her earlier on were snapped up by other for-profit entrepreneurs before she could reach agreement with a seller. So that's an important path, but it's not an easy path. And it's something that the affordable housing developer like Valley Community Development really has to work at. And then once they find a property, honestly, we don't make it easy for them to speed the process. Between the time that Laura started looking for property and the time the first tenant walks in the door at 132 Northampton Road is probably gonna be six years, maybe seven. I'm not quite sure. So something that we could do that would cut short or simplify that process would be great. I'm not sure. Well, I'm quite sure Amherst can't do it alone. Well, that also involves requirements imposed by the Department of Housing and Community Development. Another strategy that we're currently pursuing that Dorothy mentioned is for the town to buy a piece of property or use an existing piece of property that it owns to develop a plan and then put out a request for proposals that would bring in a developer to do that work. Then you also have the example of Beacon Communities which chose to buy property through an agreement with Cinda Jones and do a development and with significant tax incentive from the town to add I think it's 26 or 28 affordable units within that development. So those are four examples of things that have happened relatively recently. We've also seen some additions through inclusionary zoning for Barry Roberts' development on University Drive and a new development that he's doing at the corner of University Drive in Route 9. I think it's Aspen Development or something like that that's developing another project on Route 9 just a bit west of the center of Amherst. So all of those things are happening. There just aren't enough of them and they don't happen fast enough. But the point is there are strategies which have been successful. We just have to figure out how to increase the speed with which we're able to successfully promote those developments. So I don't know, does that answer your question, Charlene? Yes, thank you. Yeah, I was gonna say or just comment that the staff discussed the policy with the CRC this week and there was some comments about the length of the policy and how to structure the overall document. So I think that is something too for the trust to consider that is the policy, the entire document or is it the goals and objectives? Does it also include implementation? I think some metrics are good in a policy but I think with so many strategies it's hard to prioritize what are the right ones to undertake if your staff are the trust. And so I think there's five goals right now and if each goal has a few objectives that can be a really kind of concise way or prioritizing actions. And so maybe the goals are expanded, John. I think as an agreement as a comprehensive housing policy there's a lot to cover. So it's not just affordable, it's also housing in general, different types of housing for different demographics. And so I think that's a big task. And so I guess while you were speaking I was wondering, is there another policy in town, like a template? Do we have another, is there another current policy on whether it's something else or is this gonna be kind of a... So it's likely to be one of the first. The Councils only adopted a brief policy and that was on public ways I think or delegation of public ways. In trying to find a template, we looked at a lot of other cities throughout the country, specifically for trying to find a comprehensive housing policy. And I think we settled on sort of this particular template but we had no idea what length it would be. We saw policies that ranged from two pages to hundreds of pages depending on their listing of whether they did include strategies, whether they did include measurables and all of that. And we, as a CRC when we were starting to draft something said hundreds of pages is not what we want but two pages might not be enough. So we're trying to sort of like meet in the middle and that gets really hard I think. And I think you're seeing some of that as to how detailed do you go? How much do you do with that? When Shalini was talking it actually brought up a question I have for the trust. We pulled some of our measurables directly from some of your documents including the 250 new units for households earning less than 80 AMI I believe came directly from one of your documents over the next five to 10 years. And the question I've received from some counselors and that I have even with a new IZ if we adopt it is in the last five to 10 years I think our affordability production rate has been about 10% of overall housing production rate. And so where I guess it's a twofold question for the housing trust members is if that sort of what type of rate were you assuming for getting 250 new units in terms of how many units that might be and so because at a 10% rate that translates to 2,500 new units over the course of five to 10 years, total units in town. And the second one is that 50 or so 25 to 50 a year is that a reasonable target that we think or you think we can meet or is there a different number that might that would be more readily met or not just aspirational. I'm not sure how to word it but yeah. The issue came up when we presented our document to the CRC and the finance committee and I know I spent some time with Andy over it and I can't remember the numbers now but I think between what was in the pipeline and what we could reasonably expect we could reach 200 to 250 maybe not in five years but six or seven years. I mean, if you count the new inclusionary zoning units if you would count now the expected development on Belcher Town Road and East Street the 132 Northampton Road, you're beginning to see those numbers develop year in and year out. What we don't have is a pipeline behind the developments that I've just described. And so we need a policy that supports that pipeline. The other thing that I wanna say again you know, I talked about the university I know Shalini box a little bit and I'm very critical of the university which is fine. I don't want the university to go away. I don't think the university is a blot on our community by any means but I do think that the university needs to do its share and it hasn't been doing its share if you look over the last 10, 20 years or whatever timeframe you choose it's been adding students and not adding residential units. In fact, you know, there's now gonna be a little bit of growth but the net growth for the new development is probably less than 300 new units. And of course it's not there. And that is enormously important in terms of making housing more affordable in Amherst. If the university does not develop more housing for students, we're gonna be exactly in the same situation with a few added units that we're able to create through our own efforts but the bigger problem is still gonna be there and it's not just there for Amherst frankly it's there for the surrounding towns and all of Hampshire County and stretching into Franklin County. That is a regional problem. And, you know, I don't necessarily feel like Amherst has to take it on alone. On the other hand, we're the town that for the most part is most obviously affected. And so the idea of us advocating for more residential development on the university campus I think is very important. And if, and I don't think that's being mean or unnecessarily critical or nasty to the university I think they're just not pulling their weight and we have to call them out. Again, I'm not saying we want the university to go away or we wanna eliminate certain departments or anything else. We want them to build on campus and they have a master plan that includes additional residential development and they're not doing it. And I admit that I understand that a lot of the reason they're not doing it is because they don't have the funds to do it. So that's why they started to go with a public-private partnership approach. Well, fine, if that's the approach, go ahead use it but use it to some real effect not just to replace some graduate student housing that was just decayed and effectively no longer functional. They've got to do more than that. And if we don't ask them to do that then it's definitely not gonna happen. I have one other thing I served on the ECAC, one of their work groups for development of a report that's coming out. And one of the things that, it's not like I didn't know it before but I understood better as a part of my participation was that there's a lot of substandard housing still high price in Amherst, a lot of it occupied by persons of color. And we really don't have a strategy for what to do about those places. I know that in looking over some of the documents from other communities, there were two or three communities that said, okay, we're gonna put some money into improving substandard housing. We'll provide tax incentives or subsidies or something to people who own existing property. And this isn't just a good policy from the point of view of improving the housing for people who are living there. It's good climate or sustainability policy too. We will have a climate sustainability and housing forum coming up on the 25th of this month. And one of the things that we have experts talking about is what you do with existing developments to improve sustainability. So I think that's another thing that is an important way of making the quality of housing better and hopefully also managing the costs. I'm just gonna just quickly say, John to Mandy's question. If the town's been permitting on average about a hundred units a year, that's single family, multifamily. And we have about 15 affordable units a year, but doing 50 a year seems unrealistic. And so even if we have a 40B every few years, maybe on average it's 15 to 20 affordable units a year. But I do think staff discuss like having 50 deed restricted, SHI eligible units a year is very, can be very difficult to achieve. Even if we have pipelines, I mean, most developers can't have four projects in the wings and waiting for years, right? So I think it's, I think it's the housing production plan use that number because DHD recommended a half percent of your year round housing units as your goal. And so I'm not sure that it's actually, maybe for some communities that type of statistic works, but for Amherst, I think that the way they came up with those numbers, it's not necessarily based on the demographics of Amherst per se. And so, I mean, I do think to, I think Mandy is a really good question. What becomes a caring capacity? If we're saying 250 new affordable units, does that really translate to thousands of total units? Like, do we really want to have 5,000 new units in town in seven years? Or is there another way to think about, how to build up those affordable units or mix of units? Well, you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we do understand that there's a real need out there, and even at 50 new affordable housing units a year, we wouldn't be meeting it. And on the other hand, I do recognize that there are limits to the capacity of the existing developers and the town and the available property to easily meet a goal like 50 new affordable units a year. So, like I said, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think it's better to aim high and say, okay, that's our problem. Let's figure out how to reach it. Sean, you had your hand raised first, it looks like. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that I'm not against collaborating with UMass and inviting them and partnering them. I'm just concerned about the language that we use and saying that students or UMass are a problem. Because if we say that and then approach them, let's work together. And on the outside, people are saying they are a problem, then it just creates more of a divide. I mean, I don't think anyone meant it in that way, literally, but I think that does just the climate right now, nationally, locally is so divisive that the more we can bring people in and with the collaborative. So that was my intention. And my questions though were around, like what I've also heard is that the trends, because my husband works at UMass and even like some of the reports we've received that the trends are declining of students. So given the new production of the partner, public-private partnership, homes they're doing and the new trends in students enrollment, do we have the latest figures of what that might look like? And do we know what sort of efforts have been made so far? Like who's making those efforts and having those conversations? Because I think the important thing is to work with them and help them see why this is important and it impacts them as well. Maybe it's their faculty who they're hiring, maybe it's getting good quality students or but somehow we need to help them see that this problem also affects them. And so who in town is having those conversations with UMass? Well, I've had conversations on and off with people at UMass, mostly Tony Maroulas while he was still there and his boss, whose name is escaping me at the moment. John? Who is it? John Kennedy. John Kennedy? No, woman. Oh Nancy Buffon. Nancy Buffon, thank you. Yes, right. And honestly, those conversations are cordial but they lead nowhere. They're not the decision makers though. Yes, I understand. And I don't know who the decision makers are. The decision makers may not even be in Amherst. Exactly. They may be in Boston. Exactly. A lot of the key decisions are made in Boston. Dorothy, you have your hand raised. I have a variety of comments. One of the things that's been happening recently is that we've been redefining what the problem is, not we, other people have been redefining it and have pointed out that so since many other universities only don't house their students very well and UMass actually isn't the worst that we shouldn't worry about the problem but I think that's just Sophistry to be honest. And we have a large supply of students but I think we have to say what is the town's job? And we've kind of agreed that the university has to take a larger role. I would love to know if this new public-private partnership if there were limits on that too because for us in Amherst, we get some tax money from a public-private partnership as opposed to a straightforward dorm. At least that's what I've heard. Steve says no. Oh, okay. All right, well that's too bad. That was a lovely thought I had. But I do think that in terms of what the town is supposed to be doing is that I think we have to be thinking about really much more about family housing, couples housing and about home ownership, letting people get their foot into owning property because it's the greatest thing to lift your boat, to get you able to do the things you need to do in your life and I know from my own experience. So I am very, very interested in several things that have been mentioned today. I think finding grants, public money, town money, ways in which to improve existing housing stock is very, very important. That means keeping it viable for people who either rent or own it and finding some way to increase ownership options. And I have been pushing for some kind of a larger complex. Maybe if Christine Brestrup has said in terms of a property for a larger development we may have to do it through redevelopment rather than because there aren't that many good big plots around but using smaller lot size, using townhouses, triplexes, combining owner occupancy and rental, something like the sunny side gardens that I mentioned often. That's a way to house a lot of people with a variety of incomes and having a lot with the aim of being home ownership. I just think that we really need to work in that direction. And I raised at a meeting, it's constant meetings. So I don't even know which one is there a chance that the Belcher town properties in the East street school might include some home ownership aspect, affordable home ownership aspect, as well as rental. Did Steve want to comment before I respond to that? Okay, we're pretty far down the road, frankly in producing an RFP. And so that would make a major change. And honestly, I don't know enough about the financing to know if we could mix on the same property or in the same development, what you were pointing out Dorothy. On the other hand, I do see other opportunities for home ownership. The town owns a piece of property that it got through tax default on strong street that was originally intended to be a small home ownership development. I don't know honestly how buildable the land is. We need to have consultants go out there and take a look at the property and advise us. But I could see home ownership there for condo development. It's really walking distance from Wildwood school and so that's one possibility. It's not going to be huge, but nothing we do honestly in town is likely to be very large. Another possibility, assuming the town does become the owner of Hickory Ridge. There are roughly, I believe it's 13 acres, Nate can correct me, on West Pomeroy Lane where the property is higher or more elevated. And that's an area that could be developed. Again, there's a part of it that's pretty narrow. It's a place where habitat for humanity could build maybe two or three duplexes. And then there's a larger section that could have a development with condos that could be for home ownership that would involve the town saying, okay, we're going to give up the land for that purpose. I mean, it's still going to create some tax revenues but not as much if it gets sold off to the private developer, which I've also heard discussion about. So I believe we do have opportunities to put projects like you're looking for, Dorothy, in the pipeline. We just have to do the work and commit to doing it. Steve, you still have your hand raised. Sorry, do you have a comment or? I was going to make a comment if that's okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I was just going to carry on with the student discussion, which is the, so I've been in the town, oh, I work at UMass. So, and I don't, I know nothing more about negotiations with the town of the university than anyone else on this call does. I have absolutely no idea, I've been in the town council two and a half years. I have absolutely no idea if there's a coordinated discussion between the town and the university regarding this. So this is certainly something that I know our town manager, our town council president are aware of these concerns. I have no idea if those concerns are carried forth through those pipelines to the appropriate people at the university. I think it's, and I don't know. I mean, that really is a good question. And I think that, I think we all should know whether or not that conversation is even happening. But it's, so I was on the planning board for 10 years with Rob, most of that with Rob and now two and a half years on the council with my council colleagues here. The student housing discussion, I'm gonna use the word taint. It taints everything. It taints all efforts to do right. So every time you discuss anything on the housing policy, the very first reaction is gonna fill up with students. It's gonna, and that may be a good thing and maybe a bad thing, but it is always part of the conversation. We're not even close to a balance between, okay, we'll build a new housing. Maybe some students will live there. Maybe they won't. The assumption is that it'll immediately fill up with students unless there's some restriction to prevent, to send that in another direction. So something's got, something has to, something has to happen. So one of, so about 10 years ago, one thing that UMass could do is it could require certain numbers of students to live on campus. They have that ability. And right now they require first year students to live on campus unless you have a permanent address within a certain distance or there's other reasons. They used to do that for the first year and second year. So they used to basically require half of their students to live on campus. And they got rid of that restriction when they basically ran out of housing before Commonwealth Honors College was built. And so at that point, they said all sophomores can live off campus. So that's a massive decision that has the potential of sending 5,000 students looking for housing. So when I am on my various UMass committees, I bring up this point. They always send me charts that say it has had no impact. Number of students living on campus is the same as it was before the policy. That's probably true, but still that's, that has very large implications. So another example of the pandemic, right? So very few students lived on campus. Lots of students wanted to be near campus. So where those students went is to a lot of off-campus housing. It's all seemed to be maybe okay. But the university can make policies, take away policies that have huge impacts on the town. And I'm not aware of any, I'm not aware of the conversations that say, hey, we're about to send 5,000 students looking for housing. That adds up, how do you guys feel about this? But if we can change one thing, just those conversations and some sort of a coordinated, and it may all be happening, it's not trickling down to the town council. There was a town-gown committee, but with the change in Amherst government, it dropped off the table. And nobody seems to be providing any initiative to reestablishing it. I mean, it does have an impact on neighborhoods. I live in a neighborhood on carriage and coach and Surrey lanes. And most of the houses were developed as really new or starter family homes, I would call. At this point, roughly a third of them are occupied as student rentals. Now, from one point of view, I don't care. They are not bad neighbors. We don't have the kinds of problems that have existed in some areas of North Amherst. There aren't big, loud parties. If there's gonna be a graduation party, you might see a flyer stuffed in your mailbox that says we're having a party. And if we get too loud, please call us before you call the police. So what's the problem? The problem is that those houses were all once starter family houses. So the community has lost that capacity. And it's one of the reasons why we have fewer families with school-age kids living in Amherst because we've lost some of our capacity for starter family homes through this process. So as I said, it's not a personal problem for me, but it is a community problem for Amherst. So John, if I may. Sure. I have another question for the committee. As we draft this policy, I expect we'll incorporate many, if not nearly all of what you've said today somehow into it. But one of the questions we've received a lot is how is it going to get used? And so one of the things I'd love to hear from you is, what do you need in a policy to help guide you in your decisions? You've heard from Dorothy that she is hoping for more home ownership opportunities. Is there something that if we put in the policy that would help you as the trust guide you towards seeking out RFPs that include home ownership versus RFPs with rentals? Or is there a language or strategies or things that would help you make those decisions as you're faced with a plot of land that you're looking at an RFP for? I'm not sure I'm wording the question right, but I'm trying to figure out what you need to see from us in this policy to help you do your job. Well, that's a fair question. And I mentioned two pieces of property, one that the town already owns and one that it is probably likely to own. If the policy said where there is town owned land, a priority should be turning it over to the trust for development for either home ownership or rental housing. And if you wanna put a priority on home ownership or maybe some kind of mixed, that's fine. But the important thing is that the land needs to be turned over to the trust because otherwise it's pretty hard to find land. A huge amount of land, particularly land that's accessible to public transportation is already built upon in ours. So we need policies that make land that is on public transportation, that is near services like grocery stores and the like available to the housing trust. I mean, I don't know how fast we in town hall can move to put new projects in the pipeline, but now the process is pretty slow. And part of it is that we just don't have land. So making that a priority, I think would be very helpful. I don't know if other people have other suggestions. I mean, I think that's a good question. When the trust talked about their policy and strategic plan first and then had a draft policy granted was focused on affordable housing. The idea was to have some kind of unified or consistent agreement so that if the CPA committee were evaluating proposals and everyone understands like what levels of affordability is in demand or needed and with this comprehensive housing policy, I mean, I see it as also helping the planning board, and planning staff say, okay, well, what zoning amendments may be necessary to research and assess, it could help review projects. Is there things then that we could be asking applicants in terms of, how are they meeting this policy? How is the CPA looking at projects? So I think, so that being said, how much do you put in the policy? As John was saying, do you say specifically home ownership opportunities on town on land or is it broader? And then how does that get too diluted if it's not clear enough? But I'd like to think that once adopted or even having these discussions, I'm hoping that that's a question everyone's asking, how are we using this? How can we work together to achieve some of these? But I think it's gonna take different boards and committees and staff all researching this. Yeah, that's a really good question. Sean, do you have your hand raised again? Well, it's funny, we usually have a trust we don't raise our hand, so it's just funny to see the hand raised. Everyone does such a good job of hand raising. Usually we just, you know. Yeah, I'm actually, by the way, really liking that and even have a chat feature, which I'm so missing our discussions. Okay, that aside, so one of our goals in town council and CRC is gonna be addressing racial inequities as they pertain to home ownership and affordability. So would that be something that's gonna be rooted through affordable housing or is that gonna be a separate thing, you think? Well, there is something that we can do that we're actually trying to do. And I mentioned two things. One is as part of the RFP, we've included language that really would require the development to do what's called affirmative fair housing marketing. And some of that is already required by DHCD, so it's not like we're breaking new ground, but we wanna push it or ask developers to push it a little further. There are limits to what you can do because the fair housing law also protects people who are not necessarily persons of color, but I think our goal is to push as hard as we can on assuring that the developer does things to advertise, to pull in persons of color for a development. The other thing I should say, which probably you all are not aware of is that with East Street Belcher Town Road, not every unit will be 30% or 60% area median income. Because particularly Belcher Town Road was purchased with CPA funds, we do have to have affordability, but it can go up to 200, oh, sorry, 100% of area median income, which is quite a bit higher than 60 or even 80. So you're beginning to get into middle-class housing. I don't know how much of it because we're talking about 50 to 60 total units between the two locations, but probably there'll be 10 or 15 units, maybe a few more that are 100% area median income. And part of that has to do with knowing how much money DHCD is willing to put out for a project these days to support 60 or 30% AMI. So almost not by choice, we're gonna have some units that are 100% area median income, which is allowable under the CPA regulations or statute. And so we may simply look at trying to do more of that. We probably can't go up to 120%, but on the other hand, mass housing finance does have home ownership programs, which if we qualify would allow us to go even probably a bit above 100%. And that's something we're looking into so that if we can do home ownership programs on Strong Street or at Hickory Ridge, we would try to take advantage of that opportunity. Yeah, I think, Johnny, though, do you have a question? Like the equity gap, especially as it relates to different demographics is pretty big. Donnie Hew Institute just had a report that came out in it. The results of what they found in terms of Hampshire or Hampton and Franklin County are that the wealthy white homeowners own a lot more and pay a lot less than a lot of people of color that rent and they're paying a disproportionate amount of their income for housing. And so, I mean, I think that is a standalone goal that isn't necessarily related to just affordable units. And I think that there's probably a few different ways to address it in different programs. Not, it could be related to housing, but also other services. And so, yeah, I mean, I think when we had the housing forum at the end of April, Keith Ferry from Wayfiners, their executive director did a really good job of presenting the data. And it was, to me, it was really shocking. It's something that if you see some statistics here and there, you're like, okay, but then when you put it all together and he did a good job of doing that, then you see a bigger picture of different trends in home ownership or equity. And so, yeah, I think Dorothy even said too, how do we build equity? And so, there are a lot of rental units being developed in Amherst and not a lot of home ownership in part maybe because students are taking out those units, right? They're occupying those units and then rent can be charged at a much higher rate than someone can afford to live if people are paying by bedroom. So, I mean, I do think it's something that could be discussed either as, I'm not sure, I don't have any ideas for solutions. I have ideas, but I think it's a really big question. I don't know if this is our job, but certainly when we were working on planning the forum on racial equity and housing, DeShabazz raised the question about how much people of color have opportunities to purchase regular housing on the open market. Do they encounter discrimination of one kind or another from realtors or banks? And is there something that the town can do to try to ameliorate or stop that? And we talked a little bit about the idea of getting together groups through either the Chamber of Commerce or the bid or both that included realtors and bankers and developers to talk about that. But that's not something the trust has thought, frankly, of taking on, but it is something that maybe we need to take on in order to address those issues. There was one point in the racial equity and housing forum where the moderator, oh, I'm blocking on her name, sorry. I'm tired and a little old right now, but she talked about experiencing discrimination in trying to get a loan for a house that she bought in Amherst. She and her husband, she's, I believe, from Ecuador, Peru and her husband's from Puerto Rico and her husband particularly has a strong accent and she felt they were discriminated against. They had all kinds of questions raised and requirements for what they would need to do in order to get a loan and they finally were able to purchase the house that they're in. And she says this in public, so I'm not giving something away. By making a deal with the people they were buying the house from to be able to purchase it over time from them. I think that's a sold-out. Yes, that's a sold-out. Thank you, Shal, I appreciate the support. Yeah, and yeah, if you haven't had a chance to listen to either our home ownership forum or the racial equity and housing forum or the one coming up, we will be able to post those. The home ownership forum is available. Now the racial equity and housing will become available fairly shortly and hopefully climate change will be available in June sometime. Yes, so I used, during this year, Henry, is that just when you were speaking, John, yeah, I think that in that program, I think barriers to housing is kind of a broader topic. So whether or not it's from different demographics, when we, the towns run, first I'm home buyer programs or emergency assistance for rental programs, there's always like, landlords want three months up front and a security deposit. So someone who's moving into a unit, whether or not it's affordable, has to come up with thousands of dollars to get into a unit. And with buying a home, you have to show your debt to income ratio. And so you don't have families who may not have a lot of equity or savings, but they're paying a lot per month and then they're applying for a mortgage that's actually gonna reduce their payments by almost half. And then the banks say, oh, you don't have your debt to income ratio at the right level, we're not gonna offer you a mortgage. And so I feel like in general, like barriers to housing is a kind of a topic or something that impacts both renters and homeowners. And there's probably ways to address it. And it probably is something that the town can help with, but it's almost like we have to work with landlords. And as John said, kind of a whole bunch of partners to collaborate on because I feel like when the town was doing some emergency programs, rental programs, we would tell the landlords, like we'll vouch for a tenant and please don't charge them a security deposit or write it down over 12 months. So instead of paying it up front, they can write it down over 12 months or something. And then they might agree to it, but it would take a conversation every time. And so it's not their initial reaction to try to reduce that cost, but it is a huge burden if you have to pay four times your rent. We're a little past eight. So I think I'd like to give Dorothy the last word. So I have a question I've been wanting to ask and I realized that no one might know the answer, but Christine Brest have mentioned that one way to do some of the things we've been talking about besides having a town owned land was through redevelopment of existing complexes. And I don't know much about them, but I do know that some of them that I've seen have a lot of land, way more than I would be required by our zoning laws around them so that, and again, these are privately owned places, like the ones that are off of East Hadley Road or Colonial Village where you see buildings and you see lots of kind of like land that is just kind of sitting there. Does the town or can the town or can your group do anything with that? Or is that just something? I don't know quite what she meant. How can we play a role in redevelopment of a complex, which is private property and you can't just make it new, which is what UMass is doing, they're replacing old dorms. You'd have to keep the same number of people but add more units, maybe of a different kind. Maybe townhouses or including some co-ops or owner occupied ownership opportunities. Is there any way that we, the town, can play a role in that? Yeah, I think, Dorothy, to that question, the town has a few roles, like zoning is a really important land use regulation. And so that comprehensive housing market study suggested that like Colonial Village, for instance, or Puffton Village, wouldn't, maybe they wouldn't probably tear down and build new unless they could do, increase their density, say like three to one or four to one. It's just the cost benefit of taking, tearing down everything and restructuring the roads and basically redeveloping the whole site would need increased density. But the consultant there said, the town could have like an overlay district, which we planning department had discussed, like an incentive zoning that would allow increased density, maybe with design guidelines in certain areas, possibly over existing apartments or certain areas that would allow increased density, so that could happen. And so, I think where that felt short was really thinking about, what does that look like? Do we want kind of write these amorphous open spaces around the buildings and nebulous ownership and usage? Or would we say, okay, if this is redeveloped, we want to see more of like a block style development with townhouses or something. I think, so I think there's probably some tools that could be used. I think it's kind of incentivizing it. And if there's affordable units, we have CPA money or the TIF, the tax incentive. So I think the town could facilitate and incentivize. The town isn't a developer, the trust isn't either, but I think there's probably some room for the town and the trust to work on that. But yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That sounds very exciting, complex, but exciting. Well, I think this has been a very exciting and interesting discussion. I thank Mandy and the other CRC members all for joining us in this meeting and participating. We do have more than an hour's worth of business to try to accomplish between now and nine o'clock. You're all welcome to say. Actually, there are a couple of things that are relevant to zoning that we will come up, but I don't expect you to do that. So again, thank you all for joining us and we look forward to meeting again on these issues. Thank you for having us. Since we had our own separate agenda, I'm going to adjourn the CRC meeting at 8 p.m. And if any CRC members want to stay, I would just ask that Nate put them back into attendees. Thank you. And thank you for having us. Thank you all for your work. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, so back to our agenda. And I feel safe in saying we're not going to be able to do all of it. So I kind of half-planned for the possibilities that would not happen, but we'll need to try to go through whatever we are going to do as quickly as we can. And let me see. The next item that I had on the agenda, which wasn't necessarily in this position, but I think it's going to be a very brief item. Rita and I met with Nate, Dave Zomek, Rob Mora and Christine Brescher earlier this week to discuss some of town halls concerns about the request for proposals. The meeting did not necessarily resolve into anything specific, although we're certainly moving in that direction, correct me if I'm misdescribing the state. So there were a number of ideas that came up and I had a note from Dave Zomek earlier today suggesting that what we should do is vote to accept the draft RFP that we now have and then ideally meet in a couple of weeks when we have more feedback, formal feedback from town hall about changes, and I don't mean dozens of changes, but I mean a few key changes that we should discuss that people there would like to see. So is that a fair characterization of where we are, Nate? Yeah, I think the staff in the planning department and time manager's office and building commissioner looked at the RFP. And I think there were a number of comments about a few points. I don't think anything was too substantive. One second point is the reuse of the East Street School building and the buildings on Belcher Town Road. I think that's something that is still under consideration. I think the other points, one is adding some more detail about what we mean by sustainable design and the design review criteria. So for instance, saying that there will be highly advantageous would include like ground source heat pumps or photovoltaics or electrical vehicle charging stations. So I was gonna work on a track changes in a document that can be sent to John and Rita and the trust. I think most of the other changes are just clarifications or things. So, clarifying the least terms or mentioning a few things. I don't, I feel like I'm just going through my notes right now and for instance, clarifying that natural gas that there's a moratorium because we say there's gas on the site. We're saying that there should be a 90 day response to it just because we're asking a lot of the developers. Discussing the responsibilities a little clear about the town and developer in terms of what's happening on the sites. I think we didn't change any, we discussed the bedroom counts and the 66% should be two bedrooms or more. And I think we said, if we think that's feasible, we'll leave it. So there wasn't really, I think in the end it's really just a few, there'll be changes, but I don't, there's only a few items that are really significant that the trust may wanna talk about again. So again, I'm proposing that we come back in two weeks and we hear about the specific changes that Dave and others in town hall would like us to make related to the East street school or sustainability and possibly one or two other items. I can't recall what they would be, but for the most part, the rest of it is really just information that Nate is gonna be adding anyway. So I think our first step is to agree if we haven't done this already to accept the RFP that we now have in process. So that means that as far as the trust is concerned, we are locked into that RFP unless and until we agree to make additional changes. So I move that we accept the document that we have been discussing. I don't think we need to go back over it and then move on until such time and hopefully it's not very long until we have some specific recommendations from town hall for things to change. Is there a second? Can I ask a question? Yes. I just, I'm not quite... At our last meeting, we went through in detail the whole thing that we had worked on. And I presume that is what you're asking us to adopt. There might have been a couple of changes that were supposed to be made after that, which I don't know if we've actually seen, but what you're asking us is to adopt that thing which we have been looking at. That's exactly right, Carol. Okay, thank you, sorry. Okay, so is there a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Erica. Okay, so I will go around and ask people to vote yay or nay or whatever moves you. Carol? Yes. Rob? Yes. Will? Yes. Allegra? Yes. Erica? Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay, so that passes six to nothing. Now, so again, I want to propose that we meet in two weeks to try to wrap this up. I'm eager to do that because I don't want this lag on. I wanna get the request for proposals on the street. So we begin to get responses from developers. I think the 90-day time is fine, although it does make me a little anxious. So it just means I feel ever more strongly that we wanna wrap this part of the process up. So anybody object to my calling a meeting in two weeks? Mr. Clarify, that's May 27th, Thursday. Yes, exactly, Thursday, May 27th, 7 p.m., brings her on me. I already have another meeting that night and then there's the forum on the 25th. So if the trust is meeting, most of the trust is meeting on the 25th, that would just be a second meeting that week. Well, also I'm not sure that we can do this without you, Nate, since you'll be the person who are most familiar with the changes that are coming from Town Hall. So what would be a good alternative from your point of view? The following Tuesday night, let's say. Yeah, I was gonna suggest June 1st. Okay, is that a problem for you, Will? You sort of look like, no, okay. Okay, so we'll make that June 1 and I will get a note at as quickly as I can, probably sometime tomorrow morning. Okay, thank you. For that meeting, we'll be just about this one particular thing, right? Yeah, I think that's what it will be, Carol. Okay. I don't wanna, you know, anything we're not hitting tonight, we will have to take up at our regular meeting in June, the date of which escapes me, but I know I put it somewhere. June 10th, I think you wrote. June 10th, okay, great, thank you. Anna, is it gonna be at seven o'clock or six o'clock on June 1st, Tuesday? I would make it seven o'clock. Okay. I assume that's most convenient. It would be harder if I try to change the time. So nobody's suggesting that I do that. Okay, great. Okay, so we've dealt with the RFP. Let's see. I wanna give a very brief report on what's happening with the emergency rental assistance program. First of all, I haven't been in contact with Janet Tetrow of Community Action, Pioneer Valley. Janet said that they've only had one new applicant in the last month. They did approve four additional applicants at a cost of around $5,600. So again, the program is where we thought it would be for better or worse right now. I've had a lot of contact with Keith Ferri who's the president and CEO of Wayfinders lately. And so I decided to take advantage of that and ask Keith what data he has on the number of applications they're seeing from Amherst. And Keith couldn't give me applications right away. I'm not sure we need it because he gave me data that I think is probably about the same in terms of value. What he says, and I'll quote it, they have seen a sharp increase for Amherst since January. More specifically, their financial assistance programs, RAP, ERMA and ERAP payments from January through March total $142,703. And that's equal to 75% of all financial assistance payments for Amherst resident for the entire fiscal year. And what's also interesting is that March saw the biggest payout with $78,770 for Amherst residents. So that frankly is reassuring to me. I mean, it means that indeed Wayfinders is now ramped up to the point where they are serving Amherst residents. I can't judge absolutely how effectively but probably reasonably effectively. And they're probably taking over the job, frankly, that we were trying to do with the emergency rental assistance program. So that makes me feel comfortable with our decision to allow the program to sunset at the end of June. But again, if something happens and I was in touch with family outreach of Amherst, for example, to ask them to keep an eye on it from their point of view, if something happens then we can turn around and restart the program. But at this point in time, even with it looking like there are gonna be more people at risk of eviction with the change in the CDC eviction regulation or the disappearance of that, Wayfinder should be in a good position to handle it. And as I said earlier, or previous times, their program frankly is more generous than the one that we were running. They're really helping people to a much greater extent than we were able to. Erica? How much money do we have left? And if we have money left, do we want to then invest in those organizations that are actually dealing with Amherst residents to help them with that? How much money we have left is a little bit ambiguous. I was gonna try and report on that if we're gonna talk about finance and the trust which we may get to next month, not this month, frankly, I mean, we can't easily start directly investing, for example, in family outreach of Amherst or Amherst community connections. We'd have to decide what it is we're trying to accomplish, develop a request for proposals or request for quotations. We'd have to go through a process just like we went through this program. So I don't think that's easy for us to do. I also think that both organizations have received funding through CDBG and CPA in the last year. So they're better off than they have been, which I think is good. They deserve that support. Yeah, I mean, I think some of the money we had with the emergency rental assistance through January and maybe actually later, what could be reimbursed through CARES funding. So I think the talent's still trying to do that depending on what requests come in. So we budgeted 250,000, I think we've spent, all told, I post 130,000, but then a fair amount of that can be reimbursed with CARES money or is. So I don't, I think once June rolls around or at some point, the balances will be reconciled but there will be a fair amount that remains with the trust. So the trust can vote it how it wants. So it's not dedicated to any use. So the trust can revote it or reallocate it but there will be some money. I was talking to John yesterday and it's interesting there are still a few tenants though who call the town and say, I'm worried about in the fall, I won't be able to afford my housing. And a few tenants, they don't think they're eligible for some of these programs. So I said, if you're impacted by COVID, you're eligible for the local program but then the management offices tell them, well, once you get a problem, then apply to a raft or something. But it's really interesting because they're trying to, they're trying to head off the problem. They're trying to say, well, what can I do six months ahead of time? And it's almost too bad that some of the programs aren't set up to help tenants who aren't in, it's like you almost have to be in trouble first. And so I'm almost wondering too, like if we just, if the trust that we wait a few months, like we'll next, in this, come November this year, fall of this year, will we see or hear about increasing need be just because I feel like at that time, everything's gonna be catching up to each other, right? Like more times ending, people are running out of savings, like something might actually, I feel like some of the issues may be exacerbated then, but. Yeah. And I can continue to follow up with Wayfinders to see how they're doing in terms of serving Amherst. But as I said, the information I got for the first quarter of the year looked pretty good. And John, those numbers are huge actually. I didn't realize, I mean, that's a lot of money. So all of that is good. On the other hand, I mean, they give up to $10,000 per household, I believe, maybe it's even a little bit more. That's the number that I six in my head. Okay, let's move along. Two things that Carol and Allegra brought to my attention, they're separate things. And so let's talk first about what Carol wanted us to focus on. I don't know how many people attended. I know I did provide a link. There was a CHAPA fair housing conference. Now, three or four weeks ago, and Carol identified a Boston city counciler who spoke a woman named Lydia Edwards who was really excellent. And she provided the link which I distributed to everybody so you could hear what she had to say in about 10 minutes. And I had to admit, I had to listen to it twice because the first time threw up again. What is she talking about? And the second time through, I started to take notes and I said, what she's talking about is a whole new way of thinking about the purpose of zoning. So I promised Carol I would give her an answer that I expected her to talk a little bit about this. So that's my introduction. Thank you for that introduction. That was what was so exciting about it to me that this is like zoning. She quoted a Supreme Court decision in 1926, said the crux of zoning is care for the public welfare. It's the duty, I think it's the duty and the responsibility of a town to use zoning for that purpose. And one of the really important points she made about it was, okay, there's fair housing legislation federally. There's fair housing legislation in a state, perhaps. But most of the time, the way that that is done is it's tied to the money. You have to follow these rules if you take our money. If you don't do what you want. And where can you do something about that? It's with zoning. It just seems to me that we can do a lot more than make incentives. We can make requirements. We don't have to just be, oh, I hope everybody likes this. And if we give them some donuts, they'll come and make a house. I think that we can do, I really think that we can do a lot more than that. And the thing that they set up, one of the other things that was exciting about it to me is there's a Boston outline, the outline of the Boston process, which she says, isn't everybody's, it's different for different places because zoning has been used to create a lot of harm, to make zoning that's exclusionary. Now it's time to make it work for people and make it inclusionary, but it's not just an inclusionary zoning. They have a process with at least four steps where the town, if you go to buy a property and develop it, the town is gonna tell you what that property was like in the past. And your responsibility is not just for the property right this minute when you build it, but you have a responsibility somehow to pay attention to what it was, to what you're doing to the neighborhood if you're taking away the last grocery store, and to do something that mitigates some of what, not just what's happening now, but some of what has happened and to be prepared to do something that will further affirmatively further affordable housing into the future. It just to me was mind-boggling and amazing and that way of thinking about zoning to me to be less kind of timid about it and more it's our tool. It's a tool to make our town be what we want it to be, any town's tool to make it be what we want it to be. So I don't know, I feel like I'm just making a, John asked me to come up with some ask that I wanted to ask the Housing Trust for and I don't really have that figured out. Listen, if you haven't watched, if you haven't watched this little clip of hers, please watch it. I've tried to reach out to her in the clip. She says, you know, we've gone around and talked to other town. So I'm trying to reach out to her to see if she might be in what way we might be able to be engaged with her. But as John suggested, we should get more people here involved before doing that. But I'm just trying to find out even, can I see what the zoning laws look like? Can I try to find them in the Boston town and forget that? But there must be some way. So I just want to encourage us to be more willing to really be proactive about using zoning to make the kind of town we want to have, to demand that there be affordable housing and a comprehensive housing policy will have affordable housing in it at every possible level and place because that's part of what's comprehensive housing. So I don't know, speech done, any comments? I'll just add one thing. You know, which kind of represents the out of the box thinking that she was representing. Towards the end of her short address, she said, zoning is supposed to be acknowledging injury and promoting healing. Have you ever heard anybody talk about zoning in that way? I mean, it's funny, but it's also deadly serious. And she says, if we can't expect that people will operate on that kind of principle, if we just sort of say, oh, we have to throw up our hands, then nothing will change. So I agree with Carol. It's definitely worth watching. It is really out of the box thinking. So you do have to listen to it at least twice, maybe three times to begin to absorb the message. You know, and I don't know how we use it in town or how we promote it, but I think Carol's right that more people should be aware of that kind of thinking and what they've tried to do in Boston to promote it. Yeah, because it's out of the box thinking, but it's out of the box thinking that they've made into a process that's doing something. So it's really, it's really impressive. Yeah, Erica. Well, I mean, I think bringing her here possibly and having more people from the town council as CRC, listen to her, it's one thing. The other is that she actually mentioned a committee. So they had, it seemed to me that was separate, that you had to go through this committee, the committee would review the plans. And, you know, the first thing, you know, I thought was, oh, another committee, another process. She actually addressed that and she said, you know, it may slow things down, but it also improves things. And then she also said, well, you know, people could bypass the committee, but one would hope that then the city of Boston would let them move forward. So there's a piece that's not exactly mandatory, but I think she did provide really an opportunity for engagement, a real intentional engagement in the process for engagement, which I think brings communities together versus, you know, only parts of the communities coming together. Yeah, I mean, it is quasi-mandatory, but the more important thing is that the process involves a lot of culture change, a huge amount of changes in the way people think about zoning and think about how it might be used to promote the welfare of the community, as Carol was saying earlier. Okay, so now I gave the same charge to Allegra, who was looking at the community safety working group and the proposals their consultants came up for creating crests. And I can't tell you what crest stands for right off the top of my head. I know it's not a toothpaste, but it is a strategy for creating what I think is really a new department of town government that is charged with ensuring public safety in a different way. So again, I'm gonna turn it over to Allegra and let her talk a little bit about it and how she came to draft the letter to town council that I distributed to everybody. So I guess the community safety working group formed last winter-ish. And it was kind of charged with the idea of looking at alternatives to policing and police oversight, I think in their socialization of safety and in their conversations with the community, they've really taken like a proactive look at safety as well. So like what kinds of things do we want in our community to help people live thriving lives where they're not getting to the point of being in crisis. And so they've identified housing as one of those things, education, recreational services for youth, supportive employment types of situations as well as mental health and then the more typical crisis that we hear about significant mental health or substance use issues. And I think a lot of their work has been really centered in creating safer spaces for the BIPOC community in town and hearing a lot from the community members that they haven't felt like they've had equitable access to resources in town, don't know where to turn for assistance and don't necessarily feel like Amherst is always the most welcoming of them or that they have the same opportunities as white people. So that's kind of what I've been taking away from their meetings and in terms of why I think it relates to our work, I guess part of it is again, trying to create safe affordable housing for everybody. That's one of our charges. And then the work in terms of supporting the building of it but also some of the recent things that the trust has done in terms of putting on these forums. I think obviously the conversations about racial equity are more in the forefront in town and in the trust and in making partnerships with other groups that are working in town. So I wrote the letter and I was wondering how people felt about it and if that was something they'd be willing to sign on to it. I don't know if you want me to read it out loud or if you have it. I mean, I have it. I don't know if other people printed it out or have it in front of them. Should I read it? I have it. And what do people say? Rob, are you familiar with it? Rob, just yes. Well, it's a little in the dark, so I can't tell for sure. Sorry. I haven't read it yet, but I'll take a quick look. Okay. Well, why don't we, then I just moved to talk a little bit about it. In most ways, I was supported the letter. I do have one concern. And somebody asked me this question and I realized the news reports are ambiguous on this point. I'm not clear that the community safety working group has adopted the recommendations formally from their consultant. Does anybody know the answer to that question? Oh, Nate's putting it up. Thank you, Nate. You froze when you were asking the questions. At least I did not hear it. My question was, did the community safety working group actually adopt the recommendations from their consultants? It's my understanding based on the packet that they had available for their May 5th meeting that their recommendations were in line with the recommendations made by the seven gen. So they did adopt them? That's my question. That's your belief. And I believe they formally voted on their report on Tuesday night. Okay, so a few nights ago. Great. Okay, because I was just wondering if it made sense for us to support recommendations that hadn't been adopted by the community safety working group. That was really my only concern. Yeah, I don't know. It's fine, I just wrote an article about it just this week and I know they mentioned the recommendations but I can't remember if it said they adopted them or not. Well, the article was written by Scott Mersebeck, so. Oh, there's another one on the Amherst Indy, so I wrote. Oh, okay. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, so it's interesting. I think it was interesting. I feel like the discussion with the CRC tonight touched on some of this too. So I think it's interesting about, this goes to the town council, would it also go, I mean, we kind of discussed it, but would in light of the conversation tonight, I guess as a trust, would we wait to see what the new comprehensive housing policy draft might look like? Because I think there's a good discussion tonight about many, many topics, including this, in terms of how do we advance equity and other programs. So I mean, I was going to say like some of this could almost be a letter to the CRC about the housing policy, but perhaps that was already encapsulated in the conversation. Yeah. I don't know if anybody's interested in this, but I know there was a lot of criticism of the amount of money that the town manager had set aside in the budget for the development of the community responders for equity, safety and service program. Actually, I thought the money set aside was probably reasonable and within the bull park of what's needed. And I'll explain why, although Erica could probably explain it as well as I can, when government starts a new program, it doesn't start it on the first day of the fiscal year. What it does is it begins a process to get it started. And in fact, the amount of money that it expects to spend on an annual basis is not expected to be spent in the first year at best maybe half of that amount. So the town manager reserved about $130,000 if I recall correctly. And in my judgment, there's a lot of work to be done to get this thing off the ground. I mean, let's assume it's gonna be a new department of town government. I don't know whether that's the case, but that means that somebody has to establish positions through the human resources department. There have to be roles and responsibilities as well as salaries associated with them. So there are a variety of things like that in a policy way that have to be established and town council has to actually direct the town manager to do that formally before he can begin. So that's a process that's gotta take at least six months. Now, let's say it happens within six months, which I wouldn't guarantee it would, but let's say that does happen. Okay, so that's the time to hire a director and maybe a deputy director to begin to establish the organization. They're gonna have to find a place for the organization to live because there's not gonna be space in existing town government buildings. So they're probably gonna have to rent something. The rental might include space for a vehicle since the type of program that it is will require at least one vehicle. And then they need to be talking to the emergency services that is the fire department, talk to the police department, the dispatcher about how to work out certain kinds of collaboration. They need to be creating more detailed policies for town council to approve. And then towards the end of the year, they have to begin hiring people. So that's a year long process. And the amount of money that I think the town manager that is Paul Backelman set aside is probably consistent. What's then the question is, okay, how much money will be allocated in the next town fiscal year to really get the program off the ground to let it begin working. And again, that's not the town manager's decision, although when he develops the budget for the town's next fiscal year, which the process that begins in the fall, he has to have thought about that and be prepared to present and defend that to town council. So I know there's been a lot of criticism of Paul, but, and I'm not always in agreement with him, but on this issue, I think he's probably doing okay. You're not in your head, yes, Erica, because that's your experience in government too, I guess. Well, if you said 130,000, that's nothing, I'm sorry. No, no, I know it isn't, but how much can you spend in the first year? Right, no, I mean absolutely. And you do want to make sure that you have enough of a budget that people can project for next year, because if you low ball it, you're going to get less next year and less and less. No, I agree absolutely with that. But then part of the task of the town manager and the people he hires is to develop a budget for next year and the year after and the year after that, because what the consultants proposed was a phase in of this program over a number of years, at the same time there's a phase down in the size of the police department. And I thought that was a very good strategy. It just needs to be implemented. And I felt like the 130,000 dollars, well, I agree, it's not a lot, it's not what you need to run the program was what you do need to get it off the ground in the first year. Is that a comment from somebody? I never quite thought of it that way. I just looked at, they asked for 2.2 million and he gave him 130,000 and thought that's ridiculous. It's like that's not even, that's kind of peanuts compared to whatever was asked for. And I guess if somebody were to show, like here's a, what do you call it, a business plan for lack of a better word, it starts with 130,000 dollars here and here's the program that we hope to have and how we, if you did that with it, which is what you sort of just did in talking about it, it would make a lot more sense to me. I don't know any of the details. Maybe somebody did do that. So I only just sort of the two numbers and thought this is whack, this is not sufficient. Well, it's implied in the consultants report because they talk about phase in over five years. So it would take five years, let's say to reach the 2.2 million, maybe it could take four years. Maybe it doesn't have to take five years, but that's part of the planning process that needs to go on. And I think the significance of the letter that Allegra has drafted is it says that we're in support of that process. We would like to see the town move ahead, not necessarily by adding a large amount of money in the next fiscal year, but by moving ahead in the way that the plan that was laid out would require. Is that a fair statement of what you have, Allegra? Yes, I mean, I think I left out any sort of number amounts. Yeah, I don't think you need to put that in. Only the number. And I will just say that the money, the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars that's been allotted is only to the Crests program. And there was nothing really earmarked related to any sort of youth center or the multicultural center. So those were the other two pieces that they were asking for. And I think part of what I had heard about the multicultural center and what has been written is that it would help kind of bring the gap into accessing services that some of the community members identified in the conversations with the consultants. So again, you know, I think in terms of housing assistance, that would be an area where maybe people aren't aware of resources or aren't able to get to some of the resources in town. And that was something that was identified by the consultants and their conversations with the community. So I'm linking that piece directly back to the trust. Yeah, no, I think the points that you're making are reasonable at this point in the year when the town council has been mulling over a budget for several months along with the town manager. It's pretty hard to add those things in. So I think the important question for me is what's going to be the planning process for trying to include those next year and incorporating them into the town budget? I don't know if anybody else thinks differently, Rob. I don't I don't think I don't think we need to worry about how it gets integrated, how much what the dollar numbers are. I think I think just making a statement that that we support for that, supporting this, though, the safety working groups efforts is in line. It's aligned with with our work on housing. That's that's that's all that that needs to be said, really. And the way it's the way it's said here in Allegra's letter is fine. I don't I don't think we need to worry about. We don't need we don't need to try and help the town or try and help anyone else understand what's going on. We just have to say that from a housing perspective, this is this is aligned with with what we're doing. And so we support. Yeah, I agree. Other people. I mean, I think I don't know, right, to Rob's point, the last statement while we understand that Council cannot fund or can I add funding to the budget? We hope the conversation will continue as to how to fund these initiatives. I mean, we can we conclude that or not. I think the you know, the first few paragraphs, right? I think there's a really nice relationship between housing and in the work of the community safety working group. And this, you know, it really I think it really does tie it all together. As Rob said, so I, you know, I, you know, it's really the trust deciding. But yeah, I think this is a nice letter of support, right? It's nice to have that and make some of those connections. And to me, it reminds me of Keith's, you know, presentation at the housing forum to just kind of pulling in different statistics and linking them to, you know, tangible things like housing or employment or, you know, things that, you know, you know, for instance, the people here, the community safety working group, like, are they thinking about housing, but they can be related, right? So to me, I was nice about this letter is it brings that awareness. It says, OK, yeah, it's not just about, you know, this police oversight or something or how to respond to calls. It's, you know, there's a whole system and, you know, it's all connected. So I think that's a nice, it's nice to have that. Yeah, I think the only thing I would change about, honestly, the last sentences. I wouldn't say the council cannot add funding to the to the budget in point of fact, they can only can't what they can't. They can only take things away. Is that right? That's true. The council cannot. The council can't decide to increase anything. They can only decide to decrease things. It's stupid, but it's true. I wasn't aware of that, Carol. OK, then it's in the charge in the town charter. It's OK. Well, then the suggestion I was going to make is not worth making. OK, so is there a motion that we send this note to town council? So moved. Like a second. OK, well, then I guess we're ready to vote unless there are some questions or further discussion. OK, Carol. In favor. Yes, I'm in favor. Allegra. Yes, I'm surprised. Rob. Yes, Will. Yes, and Erica. Yes. OK, so we've knocked off another agenda item. That's great. And I think you're Allegra. Yes, thank you. And I will take responsibility for getting the letter on behalf of the housing trust to town council. Should go off to win by next Monday. Thank you. Right. OK. So where am I in the agenda? Oh, I know there was some suggestion that we might talk further about inclusionary zoning. I actually don't think that's necessary. I think really what I wanted to point out, unless Nate has something to add that on Wednesday, May 19th, town council is holding a hearing on the draft or proposed inclusionary zoning bylaw. I don't know exactly what it will look like at that point in time. Maybe Nate does. But I think what would be important is as many of us can to show up to the May 19th town council meeting, which is either going to be six or six thirty, probably more likely six thirty to speak in favor of the bylaw. I've spoken in favor of a couple of other meetings, but I'm quite willing to repeat what I had to say earlier to town councillors. I think we need to have a show of community support for this. Nate personally has done a lot of work to try to develop a good bylaw and it's kind of gone back and forth with various suggestions from various people. But whatever it is, I think it's something that we should be supported. Does anybody else have any further discussion about this? You know, I'll just say, right? So it's actually it's a. I'll send an email out in a minute to the trust. But yeah, it's a public hearing that's being held jointly by the Planning Board and the Community Resources Committee. So the town council the other week actually, you know, voted to, you know, voted to forward the Inclusionary Zoning Amendment as an official zoning amendment. So really, this is a public hearing to have comments about, you know, that that zoning amendment. And the trust looked at it a few weeks ago and there are some minor changes. I think it incorporated some of the trust comments about having a set aside for a lower income level, increasing the payment in lieu of I can send the current the current version around to. But please do. Yeah, I think the as John was saying, it's a it's a public hearing. So it'd be, you know, if trust members can attend just to speak in favor of it or, you know, discuss it. I think I don't think anyone's, you know, disagrees with it. I think there's some questions about, you know, the Community Resources Committee was wondering, you know, that, you know, is there enough of a strong enough housing market in Amherst that inclusionary zoning won't somehow deter development. Or as I think Shawnee said earlier with the discussion about the policy, you know, will inclusionary zoning actually have the negative impact of, you know, pushing rents higher on market rate units because developers won't be making enough money on affordable units. And so I think, you know, there are some questions about that. You know, staff has said that the housing market in Amherst, with especially with the students, they're such a strong demand that there's really not necessarily a reason to have too many offsets or incentives for developers. We already have a fair amount in terms of flexible zoning in the downtown. But so, yeah, I think that's the public hearing. I think it's let me just make sure it starts at seven, seven o'clock. Oh, it's seven o'clock. OK. Yeah, I think because at six thirty, well, it's scheduled for seven. I think at six thirty, the hearing starts with the first piece of the hearing is the moratorium, the building moratorium. And the second hearing of the evening or part of it is the inclusionary zoning. So so I don't know, you know, it says seven and might start later. But. OK. Yeah, if the moratorium comes up first, it could definitely start later. Yeah, my bedtime. Yeah, it's like the moratorium actually is first on the that's too bad. Yeah, I have something else I have to do that night. But so I was thinking of submitting some way, some kind of written comment. Do you know where you would I would send it? Nate, you can send it, you know, send it to Christine Brestrup or you can send it just the general planning department email or you can send it to me and I'll forward it along. I mean, it's OK. Yeah. OK. Carol, that's a good point. Comments can be submitted ahead of time. So if anyone wants to send in, you know, an email or anything, it's that could be, you know, just as effective as waiting till 10 o'clock on Wednesday night to speak to. Yeah, there's something nice about showing the flag on the other hand. Much past nine o'clock, I might do that starts to diminish. OK, and we're actually a little past nine o'clock. I just wanted to give a plug for the climate change, sustainability and housing forum that's coming up in a little over two weeks. It's on May 25th and there'll be an announcement showing out probably over the weekend or maybe early next week. The we've settled on the questions that are going to be addressed and the speakers. And I think the questions that we're going to talk about are good ones. What are the benefits of improving energy efficiency to our housing? And it's not just about. Saving energy or climate change. But it also is about improving the quality of life in people's living spaces. So that'll be an important issue. The second is how do we assure energy efficiency and cost savings in both new and existing housing? So there'll be some people with expertise in doing that who will talk at the forum. And so if you're thinking about doing that in a home that you own or something else, it will potentially give you some ideas. So I think that will be interesting. And then the last issue to be addressed is what are the roles of local and state government in assuring that energy efficiency and housing is achieved? So we all know that government has a role to play. Among the speakers will be Beverly Craig, who is on staff at the Department of Housing and Community Development and is involved in setting state policy regarding sustainability. An architect named Julie Klump. I don't know her of a group called presentation of affordable housing. And she will be really the expert on how to assure energy efficiency both in new and existing housing developments. And then we'll have local people, Stephanie Chickarello, who's the town sustainability coordinator, will be the moderator for the evening. Laura Drucker, who is, I believe, the chair of the Energy, Climate and Action Committee. That's the town committee that's been working on a report. Will also be a speaker. And Laura will actually probably be talking about the benefits of this kind of policy. And then there will be a couple of other people from the ECAC, Steve Root and Chris Riddle, who will talk about what the ECAC recommendations are to the town and what we need to do to implement them. So that's what I know right now. I have a meeting to wrap things up or to confirm everything tomorrow with two with Stephanie and others involved in the planning. So I hope everything gets tied down then and we can start to distribute the poster that John Page prepared for this event, for which I thank John. He's done the posters for the prior two forum, so that's great. OK, is there anything else anybody wants to say other than good night? God bless. I love you a lot. I have a good sleep, which is what we used to say to our kids. You can try that, Will, if you like. OK, well, thanks, everybody. I appreciate your participation. I hope this was a productive meeting with CRC. We certainly gave them a lot to think about. And hopefully we'll see that reflected in a new draft of the town comprehensive housing policy. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thanks, everyone.