 But we can start right now and then. If she doesn't, we'll make sure we're done by five. Okay, we're recording so you can go ahead. Okay. I just want to make sure she wasn't in the audience. Okay. I'll try and keep an eye. Okay, I'm seeing a presence of a quorum of the community resources committee. I'm calling this May 26, 2022 meeting to order at 431 p.m. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. We're going to at this time make sure that the members of the committee can hear each other and be heard. So I'm just going to call a roll. And I will start with Pat. Present and I can hear. And Mandy is present. Jennifer. Present. I can hear. Thank you. And Pam Rooney will not be with us today. And we are hoping Shalini attends. And so we will keep a watch out for Shalini if she arrives. At this time, I'm going to move to the public hearings, which is our first order of business. The first one. And so we will start with those. And then at the end of that, I will talk about the rest of the agenda when we finish those and we'll talk about them. And then we'll start with the public hearing. So during the hearings. So. At. 432 p.m. in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a. I'm calling this public hearing of the, I'm opening the public hearing of the community resources committee of the Amherstown council, which has been duly advertised and notice thereof has been posted and is being held for the purpose of providing the community resources to the zoning bylaw. Zoning bylaw article two zoning districts article three use regulations and article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district. To see if the town will vote to add article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district to the zoning bylaw amend article two zoning districts to add FEMA floodplain overlay district. And amend relate amend related sections of article three use regulations to regulate activities in the 100 year flood floodplain as shown on the flood insurance rate firm maps issued by the federal emergency management agency FEMA for the administration of the national flood insurance program for maps indicate areas that have a 1% chance of flooding in a given year. The purpose of the floodplain management regulations is to protect the public health safety and general welfare and to protect the public health and general welfare and general welfare and general welfare and the overall impacts of flooding upon the community. While I was reading that I want to just check. Shall any joined us. So Shall any. Can you hear us and be heard? Yes. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. So. We're going to start the order for the public hearing will be board and committee member disclosures. And then we're going to hear from the planning staff. because the planning staff is going to talk about. The current status of what we can and can't do. But once we hear that, we will, we do have Jennifer Moss here from, is it ICOM? AECOM to answer any questions we may have. So then we'll take some questions from the Board and committee. Then we'll go to the public for questions and then we'll take public comment. And then after the public comment period, I will be making a motion to continue the hearing. And I will, you'll find out more about why that is the case from Chris as she starts. I don't know whether it's going to be Nate or Chris when they explain what is going on and why we're going to need to continue a hearing. So any board and member disclosures. Seeing none, Chris. Good afternoon. Very nice to see you all. I wanted to give a general introduction to this project and I will include in it. The information that Mandy was referring to. So hello, I'm Chris Brestrup planning director and I'm here to talk to you about our flood mapping project. Seems to me I've done this a few times before. I have with me senior planner, Nate Malloy and project manager at AECOM Jennifer Moss. AECOM is our engineering consultant on this project. On February 28th, we gave a brief presentation to town council members about the project. And then on April 25th, town council referred the zoning portion of this project. To the planning board and the CRC for public hearings. On May 2nd, the town council referred the firm maps flood insurance rate maps and the flood insurance study to the CRC for a recommendation. These are two different but associated items for the planning board, the CRC and town council to consider and adopt. One has to do with zoning amendments, the text and the map. And the other has to do with the FEMA maps, the actual firm maps that are created by FEMA. And the flood insurance study. So the town of Amherst is a participant in the national flood insurance program, which is administered by FEMA. And the program provides flood insurance for property owners whose properties are subject to flooding. If the municipality in which the property is located participates in the national flood insurance program. The town has been working on the project of updating these maps since 2012. And here it is 10 years later. So I'm hoping that we get through it in 2022. The purpose of the project is to create accurate maps that are federally approved for land affected by flooding in order to provide information for banks, landowners, conservation commission, planning board and other interested parties. Amherst flood maps were last updated in 1983. New and better technology for mapping flood prone areas is now available. And town meeting appropriated funds during several town meeting cycles to update the flood maps. The consulting firm AECOM was hired by the town and has been working with town staff and FEMA to create more accurate mapping of floodable areas along rivers and streams in Amherst. In September 2017, the preliminary flood insurance rate maps were presented to members of the planning board, the conservation commission and the public. And at that time, the town became aware of a new method of analyzing flood data and determining flood boundaries. This new method had just come into use in the spring of 2017. The town decided to go ahead and appropriate additional funds to update the maps using this new method. And the new method mapping has now been completed. And we've been through three appeal periods with only one appeal during the first appeal period. Most of these maps have been available for view since July of 2020. And recently revised panels, there are three of them have been available for view since July of 2021. These maps were presented at public meetings, the last of which was held on June 25th, 2019. And at that time we sent notifications to all of those who own property in the floodplain as depicted on the new maps. The old maps were based on USGS topography with 10 foot contours. They were also based on data gathered up until the early 1970s. The new maps are based on town GIS topography, which is very accurate at one foot contours. And the new maps are also based on more recently gathered data. This means that the new maps are much more accurate in terms of where flooding occurs. So what action steps does the town need to take? The town needs to adopt the firm maps that were produced by AECOM in coordination with FEMA. And they also need to adopt the flood insurance study. The town also needs to adopt the zoning amendment that we are presenting and changes to the official zoning map. Staff with the assistance of our state flood hazard coordinator Joy Dupro at DCR has developed an amendment to the zoning by-law, which we are calling Article 16, FEMA floodplain overlay district. And we've also developed an amendment to the official zoning map showing areas that will be included in the floodplain overlay district. The zoning amendment and changes to the map have been proposed because for municipalities that are part of the flood insurance program, these municipalities need to show that they can and do manage and control development in flood prone areas. We had hoped to receive our letter of final determination from FEMA with a final set of firm maps by early May. However, due to an issue with paperwork at the federal level, the letter of final determination won't arrive until later on this summer. And that's the thing that Mandy was referring to, the little glitch or fly in our ointment. So we're meeting today to hold the first session of the public hearing regarding the zoning amendments and the first session of a discussion about the firm maps and the flood insurance study. We'll be back to you later this summer or early fall to continue the discussion. So what will happen if we don't adopt the flood maps? If the town fails to adopt the new flood maps, the town of Amherst will no longer be able to participate in the flood insurance program. And people in Amherst will not be able to purchase flood insurance through the flood insurance program. In your packets, you received copies of the presentations that Jennifer and Nate had given in earlier this year. And if you'd like to hear those presentations again, Nate and Jennifer are here to give them. But whether or not we review the presentations, I recommend that you use the rest of the time today to hear questions and concerns from the public and to ask questions and make comments on the project yourselves. And then continue the public hearing until a date, probably in September. I'm sure Mandy has a date in mind. And by telling us your questions and concerns today, we'll be better able to make a full presentation when the time comes. I would like to address an issue that's been brought up by some council members as well as members of the public with regard to Tan Brook. These people have raised concerns that there is no flood plain shown in the Tan Brook panel in one panel in the center of town. And it's not included in the flood plain mapping. So I'd like to tell you a little about that. FEMA has a threshold for mapping that requires that an area be at least one square mile of watershed in order to be mapped. The Tan Brook does not have an area of one square mile of watershed. The conservation commission recently had a discussion about Tan Brook and they and the DEP are working on an issue of whether Tan Brook watershed exceeds one half a square mile of watershed. And that relates to its potential designation as a perennial stream. But that's different from whether or not it can be mapped by FEMA. Aside from the fact that Tan Brook doesn't qualify based on a watershed size, there are some facts that I'd like to share with you with regard to having a flood plain designation on your property. First of all, anyone who owns property in a municipality that participates in the firm flood insurance program may purchase flood insurance and Amherst we hope will continue to participate in that program. So whether or not your property is mapped as having a flood insurance program, you can still purchase flood insurance through this program. Second thing is that flood insurance doesn't cover your whole property. It only covers the building. So if some people along Tan Brook are noticing the parts of their property are being flooded, that wouldn't be covered by flood insurance. Only the building itself or if you have an outbuilding that would be covered. And another thing is most property owners would be more likely to be taken out of the flood zone rather than being added to the flood zone for several reasons. One is that there can be a decrease in the value of a property that's shown to be in a flood zone. Another one is that properties that are in the flood zone may be required to purchase flood insurance in order to obtain a mortgage or get a home equity loan. And the third is that properties shown to have a flood zone on them are subject to more scrutiny when they're making changes to their property. And they may need to apply to the conservation commission for permission to make those changes. Since the hundred year floodplain is considered a wetland resource area under the Massachusetts wetlands protection act. So in terms of the vote that would be needed eventually on this, the adoption of the zoning amendment and the changes to the official zoning map would require a two thirds vote of town council. And I understand that the adoption of the firm maps and the flood insurance study study would require a majority of the town council. Thank you for holding this important public hearing today. And we'll be happy to answer any questions and that you are the public may have about this project. Thank you. Thank you so much for that Chris. The explanation of everything and all. Well, I think that's a good question. Thank you for that. Well, with that, we are going to go. We're going to go directly to questions from the committee. I do thank Nate and Jennifer for being here. The presentations, as I said, as Chris said, are in the packet. And so we've, as a committee. Seen this multiple times. So I think we'll. Dispense with the formal presentation and see if we've got any questions. So this is the zoning overlay district. This is not the hearing for the map that will be after we make a motion on this particular hearing we noticed these is two separate hearing. So this is any changes to the actual sort of wording of the addition of the overlay district. And the articles two and three zoning districts and use regulations. Yeah, thank you. Chris that was really helpful to get that summary. You mentioned there was one concern or something like that there was just one concern in. Is that the word I don't know what's the word you use but it sounds like there was one concern that was raised by a resident and also by counselors is that what it was, or was that the 10 book thing. Did I answer that. Yep. Yeah, that has to do with 10 Brooke and why 10 Brooke wasn't included and why there was a blank panel in the center of town so that was the concern that was the only one. There's no other no one else has written about. Yeah, about the property being impacted or anything. Okay. Thank you. I'm seeing no other questions. We're going to move to where's my order. We're going to move to questions from the public. So at this time, if there are any members of the public that have any questions related to the female floodplain overlay district that is proposed for article 16, or the related changes to articles three and three in the zoning bylaw, please raise your hand at this time. Seeing no questions from the public, we will then move to public comment if there's any members of the public who would wish to comment on the proposed article 16 female floodplain overlay district, or the related changes to articles two and three of the zoning bylaw please raise your hand at this time. Seeing no hands. I'm going to move the CRC members another opportunity to ask any questions at this time. And as I do that I'm also going to state that my intention is to continue this hearing until September 8, 2022 that's the motion I'm going to make. That's our first scheduled meeting in September. We are continuing instead of closing is because if we close the hearing the council has to vote within 90 days. And if it does not, we have to notice another public hearing. And since it is not expected that we will receive the letter of final determination within those 90 days. I would rather not have to spend the money to notice another public hearing. So we are going to continue the hearing until hopefully we'll have received that letter of final determination. And then we will obviously have at that time another opportunity to look at these, again, potentially with changes if the firm maps or whatever happens changes in the meantime with the between now and when we get that letter. So Jennifer. I want to thank Christine because Tam book is in part of it's in my district and I really appreciate this information if anybody asked me a question I feel like now I can answer it completely so I really appreciate that it was very understandable. And I just wanted to ask just out of curiosity so the last public hearing was in June of 2019 and what I heard was that we were already using the new GIS topography. So why, so what happened between then and like why the lag between then and now. We went through three appeal periods. And during the first appeal period there was an appeal of a property on Meadow Street, the landowner appealed that designation and it took a while to get that all settled. We went through another appeal period, there was, which I think there was a problem that was unearthed by FEMA, and so they had to resolve that and then we had a last appeal period and that one was settled with no issues at all. So that took a long time and even though FEMA and a ecom give us an estimate of how long things are going to take. I think that those estimates are very. How can I say this. Now those estimates are not realistic given COVID because people are all working remotely and things take a lot more time than they normally do so. I think that's why there's been such a delay. And do we were not anticipating any appeals going forward. No the last appeal period ended I believe it was December 9 of 2021. Okay, so that's it yep. Seeing no other hands I'm going to move to continue the public hearing on zoning bylaw article two zoning districts article three use regulations and article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district to until September 8 2022 at 430pm. Is there a second. Second Johnny. Any comments or questions. See none. We're going to vote. Shalini. Yes. Pat. Hi. Mandy is an I Jennifer. I, that is four to zero with one absent. Thank you for that. We are now moving on to our second public hearing in accordance with the provisions of MGL chapter 40 a. This public hearing of the community resources committee of the Amherst town council has been duly advertised and notice their own has been posted. And it's being held for the purpose of providing the opportunity for interested residents to be heard regarding the following proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw zoning bylaw official zoning map FEMA floodplain overlay district to see if the town will vote to amend the zoning map to add the FEMA floodplain overlay district for the purpose of regulating activities as described in article 16 FEMA floodplain overlay district. It is 453 is the time we are opening this public hearing. So again, are there any disclosures. Seeing none Chris, would you like to add anything regarding the map that we would like to ask Nate to make some comments about the map and I don't know if someone wants to put that map up on the screen but I think that would be helpful. And then Nate can talk about it. Would you like to put that on the screen to make sure I have that. Let's see I have I had a few, I have all the packets pulled up I just have to find the right tab. So is that is that visible the yes, yes. Great so thanks everyone Nate Maloya planner with the town so the, as Chris mentioned there's a few pieces to the project one is, you know, the flood insurance study and the flood maps. FEMA has the official map panels right where you can go on to the FEMA website and the conservation commission will use that and then there are local regulations to manage development in the floodplain so as part of updating the new maps the state and FEMA require that we have regulations in place and so we're using our zoning bylaw, you know, to have to have those regulations, and that that includes an overlay district where the new maps you know that shows a new floodplain area so you can you can use the FEMA maps to see this and then this will also become part of the zoning bylaw where there's an overlay district, and then article 16 that the text the narrative regulates what happens in this area. So, on the map, you can see here the the black cross hatching is from the 1980s 1981 and 1983 maps and then the blue color shows that 2000 and 22 proposals and so, you know, it's roughly the same area in town. As Chris mentioned with the new one foot topography, you know there's also 40 years of data that FEMA has collected so in New England in Region one and also in New York State there's been in stream gauges so they actually measure stream flow during flood events that helped FEMA develop new formulas to help calculate the floodplain so you know if we zoom in certain areas in town it's just previously for instance. The outline using the 1980s maps, you know sometimes they actually went uphill or they just you know they weren't as accurate so now using all this new information. The boundaries of the floodplain are a lot more accurate so it shows the floodway. If you look closely it actually shows you know the floodway where the river is then it shows the, you know the 1% chance of flooding so the 100 year flood is the boundary of the blue. So, this map will be adopted as part of our official zoning map, and our official zoning map is actually online it's our online GIS. And so this will become a layer in our GIS viewer so homeowners or applicants contractors can you know turn this layer on and see it. The conservation commission will also use it as Chris mentioned for part of their review for project so. We have a new map we have the language, and then we have this map and so one piece of the language that you. And the FEMA in the state asks is that any project in the floodplain, get a permit or be reviewed and checked off by the town and so most of the time that means the conservation commission will review a project. You know it could be planning board or zoning board to for land use permits but there may be a few types of projects that wouldn't require any, any permit. It's going to be very rare but you know we're going to have this this overlay and so then with our permitting software. This will become a you know a checklist a question that will be on applications. And so you know it just helps that you know the town verify the types of products that are happening so for instance someone in this area couldn't do a lot of earth work couldn't, you know, take down trees or, or, you know, move a lot of earth bring in fill without getting a permit if they're in the floodplain. So, that may also require review by the conservation commission but by having these maps here it'll help us identify where, you know where a project is taking place. And so you know this relates you know these are this is actually the same as the firm maps but it's part of our zoning and it's not you know, but it should be really, really similar to the FEMA maps that show the, you know, the flood boundaries. Thank you Nate. Are there any questions from the CRC members. I have one I just want to make sure I'm clear on the map itself, the blue is the overlay district not the crosshatch section. The crosshatching was the pre is the current you know the 80s maps and that was just to show where there could be some differences in terms of location on the ground so when it's an overlay district it'll be just the blue will become the you know the boundary of the flood. That's what I thought but I wanted to make sure. Are there questions. See none we're going to move to questions from the public if there's any members of the public that have questions regarding the zoning map proposed change to add the overlay district and what it would cover. Please raise your hand at this time. Seeing none if there are any members of the public that have any comments to make regarding the proposed changes to the zoning map to add the overlay district and where that overlay district is located. Please raise your hand. Seeing none. Any other questions from the border committee, the CRC members. Seeing none and I will make a motion to continue this hearing and the hearing on zoning by law official zoning map FEMA flood flood plain overlay district until September 820 22 at 435 p.m. Second Angela's thank you Pat. And with that I'm going to be leaving. Thank you. Can we take the vote first. We'll start with Pat. See no hands. Hi. Thank you. Mandy is an I Jennifer. Hi. And shall we. Yes. That is four to zero with one absent. Thank you Pat for coming and she's already gone. Thank you. Actually, we're not quite probably done with Jennifer and Nate yet, although there have not been many questions. So I'm not sure we appreciate you coming. And that takes care of our hearings for the day. There are two other items that are on the agenda that were related to this under action items. The first was that we would discuss and make recommendations on the proposed zoning by law changes, but we haven't closed the hearing. So we're going to avoid that item, which is action item three a we're going to postpone that until we actually close the hearings. And item three B is the flood insurance rate maps the firm maps and the flood insurance study, which is as Chris described during the first hearing, the other two parts of what we need to make recommendations on we had received that referral two weeks after we received the referrals on the zoning by law, and we need to make a recommendation to the council on those. We cannot be making any recommendations today, because we cannot make the council cannot pass and adopt those maps and insurance study until it receives that letter of final determination at least that's what I've been told and so, since there's always a possibility that between now and when we receive that letter, it doesn't seem appropriate to make a recommendation to the council. We will postpone that recommendation part of this item, until we've closed the public hearing and are ready to make recommendations on all four items after the letter has been received but we can have a discussion today. If there are any questions regarding the maps and the flood insurance study we've got Jennifer here we've got Nate here and we've got Chris here to talk about and ask those questions and get any more clarification that we need. Chris. I thought it might be helpful if Jennifer described what the flood insurance study is what it represents and why we need to adopt it. And, and also if either Nate or Jennifer can show some of the panels. So we all become familiar with the panels because those are the things that you're going to have to adopt as the firm maps. And you know we don't have to get into a lot of detail but I think it would be helpful. If you all kind of looked at those maps and asked questions about them if you have any questions because they're different from the map that they just showed in the sense that they have different kinds of information on them, although the firm the flood plane is the same. So the information the way it's shown is different. Thank you for that Jennifer would you like to start with what Chris asked for to explain to us what that insurance study is. Sure, sure. Nate do you have it pulled up. As I talk, or do you want me to grab it I'm just getting on to the females website here to pull it up. I do so I don't have I'm not you can pull it up from our website. Yeah I was here I was, I was, you know I was hoping to show it through the FEMA map center just to be official. Let me share my screen share. All right, can you all see the FEMA flood map service center site. Great. So, you know just a little bit of background about what the host on the site so what the town has on their site, FEMA is also hosting it. This is FEMA's official location for all things that are legally binding or effective and up and coming preliminary. So you can just see I've searched through just they've got great little drop downs, got to the town of Amherst, and you can see you've got your effective products so these are what you have now from 1983. And what's upcoming so they're still called preliminary because we have not finalized them. So what we have on this on this site, you'll see you've got firm panels and your FIS reports right and this is just giving you, this is all the legal background information that that FEMA likes to have. It explains to you details about the study so it explains, you know, the responsibility of the community to update and maintain these maps it describes what, what the zone information is. It's going to give you information, you know that you already know but the scope of study and community description. It talks about some of the principal flood problems. It talks about, you know, flood protection measures that you that you may have, and then describes the engineering methods and methodology that that FEMA uses in all of their studies so it gives you some more detail and describe what FEMA has done. Also gives a lot of the background and the engineering details that someone would need if, if there was land development in a floodplain and someone was trying to evaluate what the impacts of that development would be. They would come and they would use this report. They would find, you know, how, how does the water flow. How is how is the analysis done so they can recreate that analysis as a part of their, their requirements talks about the vertical datum and then how, how these floodplain boundaries were created. So it gives you a lot of the background details talks about what the zones are. What the map is designed for, and then the history of the maps and in Amherst. So, you know, you'll, you'll have that report that it leaves and then of course the maps themselves have changed quite a bit. This one from 2021. These are can be a little bit large six, six and a half megabytes. Trying to pick a smaller, smaller one of the bunch here for you. Well that's downloading. FEMA also has their national flood hazard layer viewer. So if, if someone in your community is more tech savvy. And they're interested in seeing where the full planes are they can always come to this, this national viewer and type in their address this one takes a little bit, a little bit to load. And you can see that the maps are here and again this is going to give an engineer or a surveyor all the information that they need if they're, if there's going to be some plan development. You know, what do they need to look for. They'll also help your residents understand and assess their risks, you know for emergency management purposes these maps to tell you, you know, is the is the roadway going to remain open. So you know there's a lot of applications of this data, beyond just this insurance piece. And so, you know, that's what you can, you know, that's what it looks like and that's what you can lean from it so hopefully that gives you a little bit of Chris I see your hand. I just wanted to mention that these maps are also available on our town website and I think that the reports that you've gotten from the town manager have links to these maps and so you know it'd be interesting for you to go in and study them because I think they're very revealing they show street names they they show houses they show barns they show a lot of things that are on the landscape so you can kind of find your way. This particular map that we've chosen here is actually interesting because it's been the subject of a lot of controversy over the years it's the Meadows Street property owned by Andrews and Lavertia and so that map has changed and there have been changes to the flood zone and the brown areas I should point out are the 500 year flood zone and the blue areas are the 100 year flood zone so you know I encourage you to go in and study these maps and you know really see how they how they are so much more accurate than the older maps and it's really interesting to look at them. So quickly I'll just jump jump in again height Nate Maloy for those if there's new viewers. So yeah so the orange or brown color is outside. You know the what the overlay is so the overlay map that I showed you this town wide will just cover the, the blue area blue green area and then the red hatched area which is the actual flood floodway and so you know this has does have a lot of information the old maps are also not over aerial images so this you know this information is over you know aerial imagery so you can have a more accurate idea of where a structure is located so in the current maps the 83 maps it's almost it's it's you're guessing quite a bit about where a structure may be so here. The maps are the FEMA maps are 24 by 36 so they're actually pretty large sheets of paper if you printed them, and you can zoom in, you know digitally to online and so you can get a better picture of where a structure is located in relationship to the flood boundary. And then the elevations, you know like if you can see that 153 to and you can see the cross elevations of the of that area survey or can use that then and go in onto a property and determine if it's really close if if a structure is or isn't in the flood zone. So, you know these new maps are a lot more user friendly in terms of providing information than the current maps we're using. And I just wanted to point out that if anybody's interested in looking at the real paper maps we have them in the office and people are welcome to come in and look at them. Thank you. Are there any questions from CRC members comments, thoughts. Seeing none I want to say I think it, the lack of questions means you guys did a fantastic job and we trust everything you've done. It's not that we're not interested I actually find looking at the maps myself fascinating. And I've done it multiple times in multiple areas but I think it's just that you guys have done so much work on this and that the you know, bringing us along with the multiple presentations from Chris and Nate at the Council and all, we really answered all the questions, probably that we have. And so that makes our work so much easier. But it's not that we're not interested so I'm seeing that there aren't any questions. Thank you Jennifer for coming and being able and willing to talk about this and to be here to answer any questions if we had had some. We will put this one back on the agenda for that September meeting to because the goal is to make a recommendation on all four of those parts at the same meeting. So that it goes to the Council all at once so we've already got a portion portion of our September night agenda set. Maybe if the letter of determination is not there in time, we will still have to open the two hearings that were continued we will open them and then we will continue them on to another date, but the other portion of what should be on that agenda would not appear on the agenda for that reason. So I want to cover everything Chris and Nate and Jennifer. Okay, so I want to thank I think Nate and Jennifer might be done for the day so I want to thank, thank you all for coming and for being willing to answer all our questions. We're going to move on at this time. So, I think Chris is going to stay on because we've got rental registration coming up. We have I just want to Steve is in the audience I know he's part of rental registration. I indicated that rental registration would not start before 530, because that we would do ZBA appointment stuff first. So Steve you get to hang out for a little bit longer because we're going to wait for a couple more people to arrive. Before we move on to the residential rental bylaw portion. And so we're going to move on to the ZBA appointment recommendations. So a couple things as we move on to this one. Last meeting we declared the pool sufficient to at least do what we're doing today. So when we declared that we were very concerned that the pool may or may not actually be sufficient. So I, as you saw sent out a survey regarding interview dates. The only people that have responded to that survey from what I have seen at this point are committee members. So, and there's one more I haven't looked because we were in the middle of this meeting there there may be one person who is not a committee member that has responded because I just saw an email that says there's another response. I today email the town manager seeking help with finding applicants and getting people to apply for ZBA. And I just wanted to let the committee know that that I, I asked him and he has agreed to review the CAFs that have been submitted for non council appointments. So there are two separate CAFs, and to have his staff review them and contact me or contact them if they find anyone that has applied there that may be maybe interested because of what they said or or have have disclosed any qualifications to see if they might be to talk to them either through me or through his office to see if they might be interested in submitting a CAF for the ZBA. So I wanted to let the committee know that I have done that so that if things start coming in or people hear stuff that it's not a surprise to the committee. But, you know, I think we are all worried about the sufficiency of this pool. And so I, I went to the manager and said, Hey, can you help us. And he has agreed to help us. So I am hopeful that we will have a better applicant pool by the time we get to interviews. See, right now it looks like given that survey and given where we are that we will tentatively plan interviews for the 23rd of June, which is our last June meeting of the CRC. So I will not set that in stone until I've hopefully heard from others to make sure people can do that but the June 9th, the June 9th, June 9th is pretty much off the table right now, given we don't really have applicants. And so I'm going to be aiming for June 23. So with that, we have two things we need to adopt the first one is selection guidance. The 2021 selection guidance that was adopted has been put in your packet. I can put that on the screen if people would like. And it is it is the same it is put in your packet like that and there is no other additional to that. Because the response that was received from. Let me see if I can find it from the chair of the ZBA. Regarding a request regarding that input. Is that the selection guidance this is the chair that has given the selection guidance for last times to and his response this time was that response is still my response basically. So there there seemed to be no need to to add that into the selection guidance he basically confirmed what last year's selection guidance was. And so are there any questions regarding the selection guidance if people would like me to put it on the screen, I will. Otherwise we can just chat about it without it on the screen it is in the packet. Seeing no questions, I will going to just make a motion to adopt the ZBA selection guidance as presented in the document. As the selection guidance as adopted. On October 12 2021. Second. Any questions. Yeah I was just looking at the, the recommendations by the chair and just overall what we've decided and it looks fine. It's just that like, if we, if you're looking for more diversity and all of that it sounds like we need to know what's already who's already there in the CBA or are we just saying that in the pool, we should, I mean which is not a very large pool to begin with so I mean what does that really mean that that criteria. Um, which part of the criteria that a or the be one second let me open it. It says the chair of the ZBA how I did some items when making appointment B. Economic age, employment, diversity and then back, I mean just generally background and housing. Okay, okay that's more specific to the pool, like whether they have, like we want a diversity in the pool with respect to different fields like construction design and all of that. But the first one geographic economic age residents overall. I mean, I was just wondering if we should have a sense of who's already there in the current CBA and what we're looking for are we. So, so what I can say is if we would like that sense it probably doesn't belong in the selection guidance but it can be provided to the committee during deliberations after interviews. We've done that before with other appointments and what the current chair of the ZBA has emphasized many times is that in geographic diversity. The chair has felt that there are that the members are concentrated close to downtown and that it would be beneficial to the ZBA to have members that live throughout the entire town instead of in a much smaller, or what has been perceived as a much smaller geographical area of Amherst instead of encompassing the entire geographical area of Amherst. We don't tend to ask information about where in Amherst people live not even on the CAFs I don't think I think we just ask I can look at the CAFs again. We ask age on the CAFs. So that is something we could find and then the other items could potentially go to the questions of applicants if we wanted to ask questions regarding that some of that should be brought out in SOIs in some sense in terms of their experience and background. And sometimes it's done that way. But um, yeah, so I would say that if we are, if we would like what could be done is to, as we get closer to interviews, see if the chair can provide sort of some information related to that first bullet point of current members, if it's possible to. Jennifer. No, I think that's a very good suggestion. I mean we can't know if we're diversifying if we don't know who's already on it. So that would be helpful to know. And I think the geographic diversity is very important and I wondering if we can know if both these questions could also apply when we do the planning board interviews. Because I find it's interesting, I didn't realize that the ZBA tends to have a preponderance of people that live near downtown, because I think it's almost the somewhat the opposite on the planning board. So we would be good for both boards to have geographic and other diversity. Yeah, I can put it on the list of things to potentially ask the chairs of each of the committees to see if they can provide that for the current members, as we move into deliberations to help us with that, you know, in terms of like, how many live of North Amherst, South Amherst downtown area, you know, central Amherst east. It could be that general we don't need to know what that general we could find the ages and all but I think it's more to the geographic and then, you know, economic depends on how we'd be looking for in the past we've asked about rental status and all because economic diversity is is just hard to imagine with any, you know, with just an income or anything. But I can think about a way to formulate that question to the two chairs, and, and see if we can obtain some of that information regarding the current members to move forward with as we move into deliberations regarding after interviews. Jennifer, your hand is still up. No, I was just gonna say I think, you know, it's a hard one because like with the ZBA, you know you need, you do want people that have an expertise on the board, but I know when I read it. I feel like you almost have, which may be what is needed but almost to be a professional in certain areas like I can see why we haven't gotten that many applicants because I certainly wouldn't feel qualified to be on the ZBA based on the criteria and that you know I know that you do need people with expertise. So it's tough. Yeah. Seeing no other questions or comments we have a motion on the table to adopt to the guidance the selection guidance as it was adopted, you know I'm presented. So essentially the same guidance as was adopted in October on October 12 2021. And so it looks like we're ready for a vote I'm going to start with Jennifer. Yes, I shall any. Yes. And Mandy is an I. And Pat and Pam are absent. So that is unanimous with two absent. We will move on to. Where's my agenda. Interview questions. So this one came late. I did to Athena earlier today. Pam had thought she'd sent me the draft. It never got sent to me in Athena. I did that to Athena with next week's planning board interview agenda I thought I sent it on Monday and I never had so sorry it was late in the packet. So I'm going to pull those questions up because I've always found that potentially helpful as we as we discuss and potentially modify any of these questions so let me get those on the screen. Why does this do that. So these are the draft interview questions. I believe Pam based them on the prior questions. So let's let's take a moment to read them and then talk about whether there are any we would like to see changed added deleted things like that. We had requested questions from the public from the committee, the council. And as far as I know, none were received or if they were they would be in this document from Pam. So, Jennifer. And the last three questions that are highlighted. Is there is that, you know, queuing us. I actually don't know why they might be so number six would be the one we added to the planning board questions last week so it is probably based on, it was probably put in this draft based on the addition two weeks ago to the planning board set of interviews questions. It was not in the last time we asked applicant that last time the CRC adopted interview questions for ZBA. So, and a seven and eight is that so eight would have been very similar to what was there. I don't. It might just be held over because of the numbers changed. They don't look any different than any of the other questions that were there before so I, I, my guess is it might just be a hold over from something. And question five where it says, or are we supposed to decide whether we want either or both. Number five. So, you know, I don't know what Pam was thinking on this. So I think what she saw is number five. Was the question that was asked of ZBA candidates the last time we CRC interviewed ZBA candidates but she saw the planning board question that was similar was what she's got in italics. And so my guess is her, her thing was one or the other probably not both. If I had to guess what her attention is with the or. So thoughts Jennifer. Well, I definitely think we should have what's in italics. The first part, you know it's a good question but I kind of if I was asked the question I'd say everyone it's, you know that's a bit of a leading question. But I do, I would, I would like to see the second portion in italics included I think that's relevant. What are your thoughts. Like the question number five. So yeah so what Jennifer just said was, she would be okay deleting that. But she wants to keep this. Or I probably both would be the best but it was a feeling. Great. Okay, give me another moment to think about it. I think in some sense, if we don't have a large applicant pool both would be quite interesting. If we're not concerned about number of questions right that's always the trying to keep the number of questions down to keep the time of these down. I vaguely remember the last time we asked question number five of ZBA applicants that we got some quite interesting and diverse answers that that it was not a it was not a simple answer from anyone of everyone of course you know it was not a simple answer to keep it. It wasn't a lot of the candidates I my my vague recollection is candidates expounded on like thoughts about all of it and it was one of the ones we're like oh this one kind of actually worked is okay let's keep it. Shalini is that your recollection to know I don't have any recollection actually zero, zero recollection at this point but I do like the question though, I think it's a very important one. I'd love to hear with how people think about the first part I was talking about the first part the second one part is more technical and I don't know about it but I think the first one is more like a process question to me that's always interesting and important to me. So, Jennifer. Yeah, I was just going to put another plug for both because I, I, I'm very interested in how they, how they would answer the second or what does their feelings are about it. So here's my proposal, it's nine questions eight that could take. I assume we're going to change the two to two to three minutes like we did with the planning board on that eight could take a while if we end up with a whole lot of candidates. And so my proposal is to adopt these as is and then when we've got a final pool or closer to when we might have a ability to make that decision that maybe we revisit if we think we might end up with four hours of interviews. Because of all the questions to see if there's any we would like to delete but for now. Keep them all and and make a decision. Depending on size of the pool. So with that, I'm going to make the motion to adopt the the interview questions for the upcoming ZBA applicant interviews as amended at today's meeting. Is there a second. Second. I'm seeing no other comments or raised hands. And we're going to go to a vote I think we're back around to Shawnee. Yes, Mandy is a yes. Jennifer. Yes. Passes three to zero with two absent. That brings us now to I think we've got nearly everyone here now. So Steve McCarthy's in the audience and Athena can you bring him in. And the question I have is, is the Rob in the audience Rob moral. If it is please raise your hand Rob in the audience. Without the last name I wasn't sure so Athena can you bring Robin to without the last name Rob I wasn't sure. Okay, so we are going to move on to our residential rental bylaw. I think we've got nearly everyone here that is coming. So Steve for coming from it and Robin john, we may get Steve roof from ECAC he wasn't sure he could attend or not depending on timing but he did send some stuff over from ECAC. And I don't know whether Stephanie is going to join us or not I know she was on the invite list as requested. We'll see and I have not heard from Michelle to see if Michelle will be here or not. And so I think we've got nearly everyone on today's discussion list. Rob. Sorry, Randy, I just wanted to mention that Steve McCarthy is the licensing coordinator and services. He is very familiar with our programming and does the, the customized setup for each of our programs. If there happens to be something that we need it support for he'll be the one to be able to get those answers or bring the right person from it at a future time. I'm clarifying Steve's role sorry for giving you the wrong department Steve I apologize for that. That's perfectly fine thank you Mandy and thank you for keeping us updated on the progress of the meeting is a well on here. So yeah so today's the plan for discussion is to discuss application process and requirements, what we would want to see what what we would want property owners to be required to disclose or put in any application what they should what information wise is there anything we want. And then questions about is that possible with the system and it and all that we have is is part of it. Or is there a way for some of the information that we might want to not have to have do it on an application because you can coordinate with other documents and information we already have like the property cards so I think, as we've been doing, I would like to start I know I always seem to put Rob and john on the spot here, but you guys are the experts and so I'm hoping you've thought about what information you really do need. In terms of applications what do you need from property owners to process applications and stuff like that and then are there is there information that you would also want that would help you do things like enforcement and respond to complaints and stuff like that that would be wise to include on any application so that we have that information. I'll just start this off a little bit and you know I think Steve is going to be most familiar with what we currently are asking for john as well. And john might have some comments about what we need but I think I want to say that we, you know we have continually adjusted our application questions over the years. And we are so much more sophisticated now with this new program and can very easily ask things like, you know, in the last, you know, version of our application. We asked for a number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms, you know just as another data collection point that we can report on or talk about in future years something that we didn't necessarily collect in the early years of the program because we want able to So, you know, we do ask for units, number of units, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms. And I think have the ability to look for more information if we want to have it needed to based on our current bylaws so I think it really will depend on what happens with this regulation. What happens with the property manager or responsible agent sections, because I don't likely change the questions we asked for. And what will happen with inspections, and that'll certainly change the self certification. I don't have anything specifically that needs to be added to the list right now but I just wanted to mention that and let others give a chance to talk. Thanks Mandy. I did take a look at the draft before coming to the meeting today and I like the questions about the owner. We, we ask about that currently and we often get, you know, a management company puts their name in there so across the bottom of the, for the contacts on a rental permit out in the field you'll see vertex, vertex, vertex, vertex with a, with a number that rings through to an answering service. I like the idea that it has to be a monitored line. You know I've been out in the middle of the night at an emergency with students that need to be rehoused called one of those numbers and gotten a, you know a recording asking me to leave a message that's, that's not great, you know in the middle of the night. Thank you for those comments. Steve, do you have anything to add at this time. I think Rob and john probably have a cover they have more experience and I do in terms of actually addressing the issues with these properties. We did make some changes when we adopted the open gov program, a couple years ago to include as Rob mentioned the bedroom and bathroom count that's been helpful, especially in in finding people who list more bedrooms that are typically legally allowed to be rented. But I can't think of of anything else that's clearly missing really in our current, our current collection scheme. I can follow up myself with john and then with Rob with some questions that I have john, you like, you mentioned that the draft that we had the monitored line, the response line is there. You know, I think we pulled that from state college but it might have been from some other jurisdiction, but there were multiple options to choose and it was things like and I and I don't know when I drafted that how much I consolidated or not. But is there a preference you know some of these had an email and a phone number that has to be answered within like 20 minutes or something and all and then another one that's like within a day and stuff like that. Are there timeframes like that that you would like to see what that would be helpful. And I think some of that showed up in the draft bylaw that was referred to us others may not have. You know, things like that would would having timeframes versus just a monitored line be helpful to require the timeframes. Absolutely because you know that's that situation that I mentioned we were, you know, an electrical inspector and I were out, you know, at midnight, responding to an emergency. I don't want to wait there for three hours wondering if someone's going to call me back or not I need, I needed to rehouse those students now. And what I found out afterwards was the university has a monitored line to they have a dean, a dean who's on duty, you know, over the weekend, but I didn't have that information at the time. I mean, you know, actually, I have a lot of these landlords cell phone numbers in in my personal phone. And that's, that's the best way to get in touch with them, but I don't have them all. And they sometimes don't answer. So yes, maybe, maybe a timeframe of 20 minutes is a is a good idea. So certainly cell phones not potentially might be a very good idea to instead of just even a quote monitored line requiring since cell phones seem to be ubiquitous. So if you call if you call came in reality, you know, they, they manage probably 1500 units of rental housing in town and you're going to, you're going to leave a message. And I'm going to ask Jennifer and then I'll ask my other question. Okay, so she just said to go ahead so my other question was to Rob which is more towards the mechanics of a written bylaw, you know, as as you saw in the one draft. There were specific things that the bylaw required and then it had things like and anything else. I think we put the building commissioner once. And so the question I have for you is, as we move towards writing the bylaw, what stuff would be appropriate for requiring within the bylaw itself versus leaving up to you, you know, as bylaws are harder to amend than just an application process are there some things that you've seen or saw. You know, in terms of requests that we might make or anything that you wouldn't want to see in a bylaw versus just do anyway, and stuff that you would actually want to see in the bylaw language. Well, I think, yeah, I think it's important to make sure the bylaw language addresses, you know, the expectations, you know, any of the information that we want to have available to the public. Anything that we're going to commit to making available publicly, you know, such as the owner information and contact information. I saw, you know, I saw a list, you know, in the, in the packet of potential things that could be on that. I don't think they all need to be on there necessarily but certainly if the group decides it's something that's important to have. We should put it into the bylaw. You know, I don't things like what John, you were just talking about the expectations of a response time that that absolutely needs to be in the bylaw. So, you know, we don't want to make it too long. And, you know, we will obviously, you know, be able to create and modify the application itself as needed with with information but Yeah, I think I think for us, we currently collect what we need to for the current bylaw. And I think that's what I, you know, keep thinking about is, you know, what does the final bylaw look like and what other questions do we need to ask and and I just, you know, we'll continue to think about that as we develop the remaining sections. Jennifer. It's something that a suggestion I have about something I'd like to see included shy away till another meeting. This is the meeting to talk about those. Okay. Okay, so what I have to last night and we had a job was there we had a neighborhood meeting. You know, regarding a lot related to off campus have housing. And there's some there's a university has a module I guess it's online called responsible neighbor workshop. Is that something we could suggest, or I guess we can't require it, but it couldn't hurt to have maybe the students. If the landlords renting to students to encourage them to take this. I don't know how that that could be part of a bylaw order. Yeah, so interestingly I met with a landlord this morning they own a half a dozen properties and she was telling me that she has designed a module like that that she requires her perspective tenants to take and I thought, I suggested to her that you can touch with Sally at off campus student housing and, and have module to be attached to their program, and just put that she has it in her lease you know that you have to do this thing, because here's, here's what it means to live in a house and here's what you might come up against them. Yeah, I think it's a helpful thing. A lot of these kids have never lived away from home what are they they don't know anything about living in a house. Yeah, I didn't know the university offered it, and it's easy to do so, but that's just a suggestion. I know we don't have to make a decision now. And then my other because I know I say this all the time but I, it would, and it was reinforced more than at the meeting we had last night. I could ask a question about whether it's going to be a student house because the Sally Linovsky and Tony Morales were there, and they were saying that they, they do, you know, try and visit or keep an eye on the student houses on the streets that may have many of them, because I know you know this there's three or four streets in my district where it's almost there's maybe one non student household on the block. And that's where students actually, you know where there's often emergency medical calls and there's just not a pair of eyes and it would be helpful to know, just to know what's going on like where the student houses are and I think even, you know the kind of keeps an extra eye if they know that there's really kind of no grownups around aside from those houses. And state college Pennsylvania actually has what do they call it a student home registry, and they they actually have a map of where the student houses are. Thank you for that suggestion Jennifer I have a question for you and then a question for Rob related to that. The question for you Jennifer is would you be looking for indication as to whether it's any that is whether anyone that is living in that rental is registered at any university or college within you know the 20 mile radius in any program or would you be specifically looking for anyone registered in an undergraduate program, or would you be looking for multiple people in any one unit registered versus say if if I was a renter and I happen to have a college age student would I be considered, would my family be checking that box so so I'm trying to get sort of where what you're not so you wouldn't. I mean you're not filling out a rental permit application. I mean if I was renting someone would be. And we can decide what we want. So this is I'm reading off from state college says student home definition a student home is defined as having living arrangement within one family dwelling one family dwelling within an apartment or two family dwelling by persons who are unrelated by blood marriage or legal or attending undergraduate graduate programs, offered by colleges or university or on a semester break or summer break from studies at colleges or university, or any combination of such persons the residents of a student home share living expenses in my live and cook as a single housekeeping unit, student homes include living arrangements where the landowner or landowners or landowners family members may reside, may are members of the dwelling student homes do not include fraternities to our these rooming houses. I mean we can have our own definition but they they get very particular and how they find it. And I guess what I'm asking you is would you be looking for undergraduate and graduate students or just a notice regarding undergraduates. Um, I would personally be looking for undergraduates because I think there's a world of difference between graduate and graduate students. I mean there is a world of difference. Okay, and then for Rob and john and Steve the people who process these applications, one of my concerns with with that sort of checkbox is not that it's appropriate or inappropriate it's more of, is it possible to do, meaning we have a system where people can apply for the permits in May and June. And they don't actually have to, depending on how we've worded this bylaw the current draft that was referred to us said lease rent, or offer to lease or rent so in some sense you had to have your permit before you even advertised you have something, which means you don't know who's going to be in there. And so is something with a question like that. On a prospective basis. In terms of what you know of in terms of the, the timing of the leases in this town in general, and when the applications come in or and and if that's not would have has your experience been that the house was rented to say undergraduates. Last year, you know the lease that might be expired in July one or whenever it does that it tends to be rented to undergraduates in the lease that comes up to such that potentially asking that question for who just leased it would be just as helpful. I hope that made sense in my question. Rob. Yeah, yeah, I think your question made sense to me and I and I definitely will turn to john because I know he knows more about the leasing and has has viewed more leases than I have but my personal opinion is that we would want to try to capture the perspective of the leasing policy. And even if that meant moving the renewal date a month to do that, from what I understand or what I've done, I've seen. It shouldn't be a problem as a July 1 renewal but you know I'm hoping john has maybe has better insight into that on the timing but seems like that's easily dealt with by an adjusted renewal date to, to capture the majority of the lease cycles that John or Steve. Yeah, I'll just jump in. I your question does make sense we absolutely have the ability to you know put this box in there and get it, you get it checked. I am trying to think of a property that went from being a student rental to having a family in it and I'm, I'm, I'm coming up empty. I don't know that that happens because I think that it's too expensive pretty much for a family to rent one of those houses you know the, the idea that you would pay $800 or $900 per bedroom for a family. That's, that would be a hard nut every month. And I think that there's, there's really not enough student rental housing as it is this landlord I talked to today said she's got parents calling up and crying that they can't find any place to house their kids in September. You know I, I think if it's a student rental house now it's going to be one next time to. Thank you john Steven. I think john is is correct in the vast majority of cases I can just say from my own personal experience I'm an Amherst resident I rent a one bedroom apartment. I'm not a student, and I believe the previous tenant of my unit was a student. So I can have to say it does happen in some vanishingly rare circumstance but I do think that the majority of the market is generally targeted towards towards students or or not. Thank you. Jennifer and then I have another question related to this potential question. My next question is, you know we're talking about houses here I think that I'm not remembering it but I think the state college definition included up to a certain size of number of units on the parcel or something so so one bedroom, a one family, a four duplex or triplex maybe. And so I guess this is more towards Jennifer, but to others. To me this question seems unmanageable if you're looking at an apartment complex, I agree you're looking at potentially a six family, you know six unit building or something and so what should be the break on when that question is asked versus when someone doesn't have to answer that question. Jennifer. No, I agree because I also think some of the larger buildings have some more better management or there's some management on site, so it's not. Yeah, I agree there should be, it doesn't have to be for. I don't, I don't think it's applying to Wendy's pleasant. Rob, what would you think Rob john your experiences with issues relating to rentals. Is there a certain number of units within a parcel that this would be a helpful question for and then afterwards may or may not help such that is there a logical break for when to say you don't have to answer this question. Rob. So I actually thought it's a good question to ask in every application for every development. And, you know I saw in the draft, I think it was three units, or, you know, three or less units. But I think, I think it's easy to ask the question, I think it's not that difficult for the, for the landlord to provide that information. I think it could be valuable information I'm still, you know wondering how exactly it's going to be valuable for us in the future but interestingly we're having this conversation my next meeting at the ZBA that starts very soon tonight. We're talking about this specifically. And you know we'll be suggesting that the, the property owner report to us, the number of units that are occupied by students. So I think that's going to be valuable information for us for the planners in the future. To decide on zoning make zoning decisions. So I'm actually in favor of asking the question, asking a question related to this I'm not sure exactly how to phrase the question but you know something like, you know, maybe pieces of the language that's that's in the draft about units number of units that are occupied by a student and, and you know, putting a definition of a student in there. And I'm more interested in that than I would be of establishing a student home license as a different license type. I think that that makes things more complicated, maybe unnecessarily complicated. In fact, I only, the only event or reason I suffered doing that in the draft was to potentially charge them a different rate. And if that's what we get down to, maybe there's a way to make it less complicated, but gain the information that we're looking for and you know where, and I think anyone who's at the ZBA meeting later will hear this but I had this discussions with our town attorney. You know, it's interesting how, you know, a class of individual or protected class of individuals is so similar in in legal terms as the type of tenant, and that's what we're discussing. You know, tonight is to be careful there because you couldn't inadvertently, you know, run a file of a protected class or a fair housing matter by trying to regulate a type of tenant. So instead of trying to regulate that, we are going to ask for the data about it, you know, ask about it and we, we feel like legally we can ask those questions. We don't feel like we can say you can't live here, or only five of you can live here, but we feel like we can ask who's living there and expect the property owner to have to give us that information. And that is something that I had our town attorney research and give an opinion to me on. Thank you for that, Rob. Jennifer. Yeah, no, I would agree with Robin because it may be in certain units. If you have, you just know that you have a certain number of undergraduates that maybe there's a different management plan that you would want to have in place. I would like to, and I'm going to see if I can pull it up, but ECAC ideas for permit applications. Let me see if I can pull that up and share it. Because I'd like to talk specifically about those. If I can even know there it is. So, I'd like to hear from, you know, ECAC is our energy and climate action committee so they're very interested in finding ways to gather information regarding energy uses in our rentals and then also energy upgrades in the rentals and I think we can see that from the types of information that ECAC provided in terms of ideas for application questions or application materials or information to include in that and so I'd really like to hear from John, Steve and Rob about and obviously the rest of the committee to about some of the information in the proposed information they're seeking and whether that would be appropriate for a rental permit application, whether some of it can be cross referenced once you have a address to a property card easily or not or whether it needs to be on some sort of the same database to be able to be done easily. And just your thoughts on some of these questions and whether appropriate for an application or maybe a completely different bylaw too. I'm not sure what that bylaw would be, but like, should we try to meld things together into one bylaw or different. So thoughts from committee members and John, Steve and Rob would be helpful too. So, first, I'm happy to, I mean I'd love to hear from the town staff of course from my perspective as a counselor since we have these goals of climate action goals I think it's great to incorporate some of these questions and which questions is I think my question was going to be to for ECAC is like, what is the purpose of collecting that information? And like I can see like one of the questions is more education the purpose of collecting even like would you be interested in learning about this is to inform people and that's a big thing actually is like even to let people know. And maybe the rental registration form is one other channel through which we can educate and let people know so I can see that's one of the reasons but there are other questions like how many electric vehicle charging stations you have and rooftop or any things like that. What is the purpose of asking and then what are we going to do with that information and who's going to do what with that information. And that's really important before we start putting questions in. But I would also be interested in like I was mentioning earlier, we can incentivize building owners who are being energy efficient. So I think that's one goal to ask some sort of questions that would allow us to at some point maybe not right away but at some point figure out if someone is putting in solar or energy efficient have energy efficient things or something if we can give them some sort of breaks either an inspection or reads or something like that. Thank you, Shalini. Other thoughts. Stephen. Thank you Mandy. I can say, I think a lot some of these questions would be very easy and would be a good database for the ECAC to use. It might be a little bit more challenging. In terms of, you know, linking to the people who might be interested in learning more about energy saving programs. You know one way we could do that is if they answer yes to the question we could put a link that would pop up if they answer yes that they could click on right there. You know that may or may not be effective depending on you know if they're kind of focused on getting that done or not. What I want to run into is that a lot of times people won't owners won't know that much about their property, they certainly might have might not know the last time the heating system was renovated or, or what type of insulation is in there. Oftentimes as property managers and especially with the bigger property manager groups they will have, you know their office staff will submit you know however many hundreds of applications they might have. They probably wouldn't have access that information, and the owners may not as well. It's, you know, we do have the capability. The IT team does have the capability to kind of cross reference some of our rental permit information with assessor's data. The IT information lives in our open gov system which was just implanted a couple years ago. We've almost entirely switched over that for all inspection services permitting, and it is a fantastic system that saves us a lot of time. But it is a separate database from the assessor's database which holds, you know, more of our legacy information a lot of these types of things I don't think there's any capability in the open gov system to to import that type of information. But it is something that, you know, myself working with the IT team to do, you know, on a yearly basis maybe is to kind of get a list of the rental properties. And they could try to pull whatever you know they could cross reference that list with assessor's database and pull whatever information that might be there to create a database if that was you if that was useful or somebody. Thank you, Steve. So I'm going to ask Rob and John another question some of these are very specific and as Steven just said, owners may or may not know. Is this something that would be appropriate for putting into the bylaw for we need these questions or is this something that you and the IT services, and as building commissioner would prefer to sort of have a little more flexibility than if it's written into the bylaw. Like maybe right into the bylaw energy efficient information regarding you know questions regarding energy efficiency and energy usage and then allowing you to tailor them appropriately or something john and then Rob. It seems like this is the kind of information that you want people to volunteer, you know they they want to you want them to invest in this. I, I think as far as I don't know that we have any lead certified apartment buildings in town. There are a couple of buildings at the colleges that meet that standard. You know and some people like of, you know some of Kyle's building certainly they they have, you know, an energy rating and they're, and they're striving to hit that target. But most of the stuff that I'm going in and out of you know ranch houses and old capes and, you know, three families. What kind of insulation do they have none. You know, they're there. It's, it's pretty dismal. But I, but I see the value and collecting this for sure. Yeah, so I think I think the question should probably be less specific. And let us adjust that as needed in the application so less specific in the bylaw, but certainly to address this topic. I do think, you know, all of these questions are important. I just would like to know why, you know what, what are we asking them for. I may suggest it an incentive later in the bylaw maybe with, you know, having to do with inspections or fees or whatever it might be. Absolutely makes sense. I think knowing this information to understand how buildings over time are being improved on their own, you know, just to know are there more mini splits or their, you know, you know, less fossil fuels just having that data I think is useful. And, you know, whether or not the town looks for resources to offer programs to developers to to make upgrades that would allow us to ask more specific questions, you know, as needed in the year where that might be occurring or there's an effort to to implement a program, you know, related to something like mini splits. So I think I think it's all good information, but maybe not so specific in the bylaw. Thank you Rob, John and then Stephen. Sorry, that was a legacy hand raise. Thank you Mandy. I would just from a technical standard advise against any kind of fees being adjusted based on the energy standards of the building to kind of go a little bit into the weeds and how the system works. In an ideal world. It has a, an open gov has been tremendously helpful for our operations but it's not perfect and it can be challenging for people who are less tech savvy. And in a perfect world how it works is you can apply for your application. And after the years done when it's time to renew, we can kind of manage a renewal campaign from our side that will pull in. And even though you know on a strict technical level it's kind of a new file new application. There's a lot of information from the previous one in. And, you know, there's ways that we can lock that information. And there's ways that we can allow people to change it generally for things like rental permits I try to let people change it because there's all kinds of different things that may change and if somebody you know filed a building permit that shows that they might have had some modifications to the building, it would take manual cross checking to, to kind of to kind of verify that and put that into the rental permit. And what's been so valuable from this new program is that it allows us to really tremendously streamline and move through in previous years where it might take us you know in the worst case for five months to process the backlog of rental permit applications this new systems allow us to cut it down to less than a month, which has really been tremendous but I think we'd lose a lot of those gains if we were kind of go to cross check if we're going to lock things down and and then have to cross check against that. And even with the renewal, the renewal process itself. You know, for, for me for somebody who spent most of the cove would locked on messing around that it seemed very simple and very easy, but a lot of people who are less familiar with the system or less tech savvy, aren't really able to to find that that renewal, that renewal system and end up submitting new applications. So even if we were to make some kind of office use only section of the form that would allow us to mark that kind of thing down. If they did then spend a new application either we have to be calling them and walking the person through the renewal process, or we'd have to cross check everything so there are some trade offs there. Thank you for that that reminded me about a question I had which is renewals. And it seems like that's obvious so maybe one thing ACAC said or others are, do the renewals have to ask the same questions and it sounds like with the system we're using. It doesn't matter because they're already populated. If the people use them correctly yes they would already be populated. And some people are do do that some people don't. I mean there have been times where we have kind of not even done the renewal at all. We built out the food license application actually this was when we are still pretty new to the system, and we ended up being a little bit more ambitious and the system was able to handle and if you go into the food code the food application has all different kinds of questions that it asks and we tried to put everything in there it's probably a 20 something page application on paper. And that didn't really end up working out an open couple we tried to put that in because it became so long and cumbersome that it loaded very slowly and it was difficult for staff to use and we ended up actually changing that system around to really just kind of take the, take the basics the things that we'd want to be able to run quick reports on email addresses, phone numbers, things like that. And then we had a paper supplement that new restaurants would fill out that would take in all those kind of initial application type questions you know what what what what what are the walls made out of you know where's the drain those kinds of things. And, and that actually worked really well as a more hybrid type of system. I saw in some of the other towns where they had point system like you know if there's a certain problem then or good or bad but there are points so I wonder if this energy efficiency will go towards one of the positive points that good to you. Which you bring up a good question, if we based fees on points. Is that something Stephen that would be able to be managed through open gov somehow. You know, if, as Shalini said sometimes there's, there's systems out there that say, oh if you've had a new noise call, you get five points. And when you hit eight points or something you can't actually renew your license, you know, or, you know, it might get suspended for the next year for six months or things like that. Is that something the issuance of those points. Is that something that could be managed through open gov. Into this system of permit applications such that on a renewal, the point numbers would show up and so if you then based as I'm randomly thinking here if you then on Shalini thoughts based. A house or a property that has had two points has, you know, two or less points has this fee, 10 or more points has this fee that's a lot higher because you know they cause more staff time usage and all, could that be managed through an open gov system or would that be sort of not manageable. It may be possible it would be challenging and not something we've done before. It would certainly take a lot more staff time and attention to that type of thing which is a trade off I mean you know that's that's what we're here for is to is to put work towards this but it would be challenging and and kind of working the system in a way not exactly as design but it may be possible. Thank you Shalini. I mean it's true or I mean the staff will have to help us or figure out how because I'm imagining if it's positive points for energy efficiency but negative points for noise or other stuff they can't cancel each other out you know they have their two separate things. You can't like overall the score is really good, you know, it'll have to be its own buckets, somehow. Sounds like we're going to have to think about that as we draft other portions of the bylaws to whether that's a logical thing to do. Shalini. I mean yeah maybe the EC, you know probably like how are other towns or if our staff knows how are other towns with the best practices of promoting energy efficiency rental buildings. If there's already other people towns that have systems in place. We could just borrow from that. We can ask that of ECAC, if one I contact Steve Roof and send stuff back to him. Anything else regarding applications application process, things like that. Steven. This is a bit of an odd point but it just popped into my head as I was reviewing the draft on the other screen here and we can I think we can kind of take this or leave this but I do know that the draft requires submission of email addresses. And there are probably five or five to seven people in town who, who submit rental permits and annual basis who don't use email or don't use computers. And up until now we've been able to accommodate them on paper. And just just something to think about. That's a good point. So thank you for that. Anything else before we move on. See none. I want to thank Rob, and john and Steven and Chris for staying on I know she didn't say anything, but for staying on and listening to this conversation and these thoughts about applications and permitting and requirements for the applications and all. So thank you so much for your support on everything in two weeks we will have, I will work on the draft language for those sections of the bylaws for two weeks from now based on the conversation we had today, and so we will review potential language. Based on what was in the draft that was referred to us and be modified as, as discussed today in some sense to review some additional language we will also have additional language for many other sections that are much smaller sections that didn't need a full discussion before seeing language because it's more basic standard sort of language in bylaws so Jennifer and then Michelle. I just want to thank you because we do have these conversations. And you get them all on paper I don't know so anyway. Thank you because we would be lost. It's nice to have an attorney also that's your chair. Understand all this. Thank you, Michelle. I'm pretty consistently now getting emails and talk to you know when I'm out a clear channel to communicate concerns and ideas. And so it's really ramped up for me. I don't know if you're all having that experience and I, my concern is I don't want to treat anyone differently, you know, like, I may run into someone and have a little more time to speak to them and then I get emails and I might not have adequate time to respond I just, I want to give everybody an equal opportunity to provide feedback. Thank you, Michelle. Last meeting we discussed that and we were thinking potentially in June depending on whether there was a Monday available, if not moved to one of the Mondays in July, that is not a council meeting. And Shawnee and I, Shawnee was going to propose something to me we haven't had a chance to meet yet, but Shawnee's got her hand up so maybe she's got some other things in order to do that. Shawnee. I'm definitely going to, you know, you should connect Mandy Joe but I really do appreciate Michelle your question and suggestion. And I think that what I would love to see happen also is that we have one place where all of this material and discussions videos, you know, just the way we have an engaged website for projects. Maybe it's not an engagement that's a question I'm going to be saying, you know, ask Paul to meet with Paul and Brianna, and ask them like, can we house all of the questions all of the paper you know the documents video links, all of that in one place. And maybe Dave, that's something you can answer I don't know. There's one place where we can direct people if they want to know where to find what information or meetings or want to watch one of these videos or the public hearings, all of that is housed in that one page. I've spoken I love that idea and I just will share that I've spoken with Brianna about this in relation to reparations actually, and setting up place on engage hammer. And actually, it's there are so many fantastic options available there and from what I can tell, you can put everything in one place. It's visually appealing. There are ways to allow for people to actually leave comments that are also viewable by the public. It's really engaging and it's, it's something that I think just connecting with Brianna and as you said Paul and asking for that for support with that I think would be a great first step for us in this process. Thank you Jennifer. So this would be no I think it's a great idea. So we could, if, if there was like a public comment specifically, you know some vehicle online related just to this bylaw that we could let people are constituents know was there that they is that. Yeah, I think I think that's what Shalini is trying to figure out. We had talked Shalini and I with the UMass group about doing it through Amherst talks but I don't know where that stands right now. Shalini might know better, but engage Amherst might be a possibility my only concern is who manages it. Which committee member is willing to take the time to put everything up, gather everything, monitor all the comments, answer questions, all of that. Or would it be a staff member and is there any time for the staff members to do it when it's really the committee that's managing this process, obviously, we're relying on John and Rob and Steve and and Chris and all and our departments to give us information about what they need and what they want to see but it really is, in some sense, the committee drafting the stuff so that's the concern I have is. I don't know how much time it takes to get managed and by who and how much time that takes, but I can explore with Dave. I can at least talk to him about that potential but Michelle. You're muted Michelle, and she just disappeared. I think she was on a phone so maybe she came out of range Shalini. Yeah, we can definitely use Amherst talks as well which is the UMass. We're thinking long term, whether we you know which one we want to use and whatnot. And I think it can be made clear that that place will be not to go back and because we're not supposed to have a counselor is kind of have a discussion I think open meeting law but it but we can make that clear that this is a place for the community to give some feedback and then we can just collect and the we meaning we figure out who that we is to collect that information but I think that's like we want information and and I'm not saying we don't but I know putting committee meetings online they need cut or they need posted to a specific part of the meeting so that it goes directly to the part of the meeting where that conversation happened there's there's a lot of work that goes into getting all the documents and all the videos and all that in place and that's what I'm saying is to discuss as to who is doing that because I think Shalini you underestimate how much time that actually takes. Oh, no, no, no, I totally appreciate you for doing all that for the CRC. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about that a little bit offline and try to figure out what sort of help. I'll, I'll, I'll work with Dave to talk to figure something out to have some information and potential options or answers for the next meeting. I've added it to my to do list. With that, we're going to move on in our agenda. I did just hear from Steve was in the audience. Steve, did you have anything to add I don't know when you showed up. We are concluding our conversation on ECAC and application and all the requirements. So, Steve, if you have anything to add before we move on to public comment. Please do so. I don't know how long you've been here I've tried to watch the attendees. I just showed up I had some family obligations so I, I guess I don't have any comments I'll check the notes to see what I missed. And I will touch base with you on that because I know we had some questions for ECAC that we were hoping to send back to ECAC. So, I will touch base with you on that but thank you for showing up even if it was late. I appreciate the collaboration and what ECAC sent over to us for this conversation because it gave us some things to talk about. So with that we're going to move to public comment public any members of the public are able to comment on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC at this time you can express your views for up to three minutes. And CRC generally does not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised in public comment if you would like to make a public comment at this time please raise your hand. Seeing no hands raised. We're going to move on to minutes. We have the May 12 meeting minutes in the packet. So I'm just going to make the motion to adopt the May 12 meeting minutes as presented is there a second. Sorry, I was gulping. Yes, second. Are there any discussion changes and discussion regarding that motion. Seeing none we're going to vote Mandy as an eye. Jennifer. Aye. And Shalini. Yes. There's our adopted unanimously with two absent announcements. I don't really have any announcements that don't relate to agendas. There is a meeting a special meeting next week, June 2 at 4 30pm. Before Chris and Steven, Rob's already gone. He goes very quickly. Thank you all for coming. And we appreciate it. We will probably see a few of you in two weeks at our next regular meeting but I will be in touch with everyone for what that agenda looks like and who needs to be here or should be here and all. So, but thank you, Steve and Chris for your time today. And Steve roof too, because we're where I will touch base with you Steve roof, regarding ECAC and stuff like that. June 2 at 4 30pm is a special meeting of CRC. It is where we will be interviewing the applicants for the planning board and then also discussing those interviews and those applications and making a recommendation to the town council on the two impending vacancies for the planning board. And that meeting will start at 4 30pm. The packet is posted online, both in SharePoint and in on the website. It got posted today. Thank you so much, Athena for not only forgetting I thought I'd sent her the email on Monday for that posting and I never did and she was on top of where is it it needs posted today so we did not mess that up, despite the fact that I never sent the email I intended to. And so that is June 2. That is the only thing that will be on that agenda. June 9 is a regular meeting. At this point, I believe the only things on that agenda are residential rental bylaw and anything we need to do for ZBA, which at this point I'm not sure will be anything because we did pass interview questions and other things today and so we'll definitely get an update and all right now the plan is if possible to do ZBA applicant interviews on the 23rd. And there may be other things on the next agenda. I just don't quite know right now. But that's sort of the plan for the next two to three meetings, Shalini and then Jennifer. Yeah, it's difficult for you to have a district meeting. Once you leave, we have no quorum so we This is the thing that was my agenda preview if there's nothing else I will be joining the meeting. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you all for sticking through it and for us getting it done by 630 so the meeting's adjourned at six. It just turned to 636 30pm. Thanks. Bye.