 And enjoy your Thursday evening. Sounds good. So we are recording. I'm going to give it a little time to see if anyone decided to attend the meeting today. Before I start. My view just changed. So it is 432pm and seeing a presence of the quorum of a quorum of community resources committee. I am calling this July 28 2022 regular meeting to order pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022 and chapter 107 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 by a technological means. At this time, I'm going to call the roll to make sure that all the members can hear and be heard. Shalini is not here. Pat. I present. Nancy is present Pam. And Jennifer. Present. I ask that everyone be patient with me today. You'll notice that Athena is not here. I am trying to take the minutes to get to the meeting. So Athena has offered to go back and watch the meeting, but you never know if anything crazy happens. So I'm, I'm in some sense the official minute take or two so I normally take good notes anyway but I've got it on multiple documents right now so just be patient with me as I have to note specific things that I normally don't have to know when I take my own minutes. So with that we're going to get started right away. Into our meeting we welcome John Thompson Rob just signed on and Stephanie signed on Oh and here comes Shalini so we will wait for her to join so she can hear us. Excellent thank you Shalini for confirming that. Okay. The next item on our agenda is discussion on review of the language for inspections and other requirements to obtain a license. I will put the language up on the screen as Stephanie has indicated that she can only be here an hour so we're not going to start with the big inspection section. We're going to start with me. Let me make sure I can get the right thing on the screen. And I know that just got smaller so give me a hopefully everyone can read this. So what you should be seeing on the screen is the section we're going to start with, which is not very long, but it's when we talk last time. And we're not going to necessarily we can talk specific language but we can also talk. So general requirements and all continuing instead of you know so both get into the weeds and and also stay fairly high this sections already fairly high. But this is part of a section of things. Property owners would have to prove or comply with in order to be issued a license by the building commissioner, or the planning department, whoever is going to be issuing these licenses in the end. And the one I want to talk start with because Stephanie can't be here the whole time is this energy efficiency provision. Which when we talked last time. We thought about the you know the discussion ended in from what my notes said in a, let's leave it up to the regulations. I'd love to hear from Stephanie and the others as to whether. So this is the language I came up with, but whether we still believe it needs left up to the regulations whether this works or doesn't work from a licensing point of view, and an application point of view and all of that. I will try to monitor hands, but I've got a lot of windows going. So I can't guarantee I can monitor all hands so if I don't notice your hand. Just you know, you go out. And this, the one that's in pink and I think the note was the, yeah, so the note shows you what the boulder language was which was issuance of any license requires meeting the energy efficiency requirements of, and then they had a completely different statute so they referenced the statute they had. I'd like to hear from Stephanie if she had thought. Hi, thank you. So, unfortunately, Steve roof cannot be here at the meeting today so I'm kind of sitting in for him. And he did report back to the energy and climate action committee, but they didn't really come up with any specific recommendation. So, I'm sort of at a loss as to which direction they wanted to go in terms of referencing the regulations I think, as long as the regulations provide some sort of specific guidance as to how that would work whether it's either building orders provide information as part of their permitting process, or there's independent inspections those are kind of the two approaches so I guess I would leave it at that for now. Thank you Stephanie Jennifer. Yeah, I'm not trying to be the devil's advocate I'm just trying to think of what's, you know, how some of the landlords might respond so I, one of the landlords. I don't can't recall might have been in the survey responses had asked if we're holding landlords to a standard that we don't hold other property owners to is that relevant concern in this part of the bylaw. And what those regulations are and, well, I know we can look up what each one is but. Yeah, I mean, yeah the regulations obviously haven't been drafted yet right so this would be leaving that up and potentially before we even presented just to the council we'd have draft regulations. And I think it would be in the council to even though the regulations would be the board of licensing commissioners under current draft language purview. But yet the answer is yes, we might be right. And Stephanie I'd love you to address whether what the reasoning behind trying to put this in here and holding landlords to a different standard then owner occupied non rented housing. So I think. Well, I think part of the rationale is that in this case, you know, renters tend to have less control. So I think it's trying to, in some ways incentivize landlords to do the right thing I think, you know, again I feel a little bit of a disadvantage without Steve here. I know we discussed it and I think the. We were a little stuck on the carrot or the stick approach. So I think the idea was to put in regulations so that there would be at least some requirement but like to the degree of what that would be is I think what's up in the air. So, you know, we see two kind of pathways. One feels a little bit more obligatory and one. You know, feels like there's more like one could perhaps include some kind of penalty which again I think we're trying to stay away from I personally think that might be problematic but the other is to sort of have this checklist of things that inspectors would, you know, inspectors inspectors would basically have a checklist where they would go in with their in their routine inspections and just sort of update information so I guess as far as it being a different standard I'm not I think it's more just trying to sort of find a way to ensure there's some accountability at some level. I think incentives, if it's presented as incentives then they, I think there's let we may deflect that response that we're holding to a different standards we're saying we're not going to penalize you but we're going to. These are the incentives or the benefits that you might accrue if your energy meet these energy efficiency standards. I'm just going to be adding notes to the document itself to as we talk, I can't read them by the way. I'm working on it. Really, really hooked up. Hold on. I should have hooked up. Here we go. Give me a second. I will work on looking this up to a different screen so we can get all of this fixed. But in the meantime, Shalini, while I'm doing this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking of it in two ways. One is that we haven't yet finalized a plan and hopefully that will come from ECAC with respect to efficiencies and buildings. And then what, because I can imagine it's going to be phased out. It's not like tomorrow everyone needs to do X, Y, Z, but it's going to be more like starting with where are we right now? And what are some things we can start putting in place right away and then some things that we are hoping to reach in the next five years. And so whatever that path is, that's kind of what we're probably expecting from landlords as well as other residents, homeowners, right? So that's one thing. And the second thing is we heard over and over again the difference between smaller landlords who have a few homes and the burden it puts on them. And I know personally speaking with some of them that they are really trying to keep the rents low so that families can live in and whatnot. So adding any kind of burden to them is not a good idea. And then the third thing is that when we do increase the burden through additional expectations, we know that it gets transferred on to tenants. So I don't, I guess all of this to say that I think incentives definitely seems the better route to go and it's good to have a plan in place. What are we moving towards so that those are the expectations we can then weave into the regulations? Thank you. Pam and then Pat. Thanks, yeah. I was thinking along similar lines that certainly would encourage people to phase this in. They can't all afford to do it all at once. But maybe some of what we're expecting can show up in the checklist that Stephanie mentioned actually that such things as the standard health and safety inspection does include windows must be airtight. You can't have leaking windows. That's the kind of thing that perhaps in the initial inspection checklist people are required to, you know, put it out there, you know, you can't you can't rent this place out with leaking windows. So the idea of, of encouraging or in fact even perhaps requiring a mass save energy audit is something that a perhaps a landowner can come back to and, you know, say show proof that you had the mass save inspector at your property. And these are the basic things that, you know, are covered, some of which is actually covered by mass save incentive dollars. So it wouldn't necessarily have to come out of an owner's pocket. But maybe putting in a, you know, the energy audit is a requirement of coming back with that, you know, with the application is is scheduling an audit date. Thank you, Pam. Pat. Pam, I'm really glad you added the mass save energy assessment idea but so somewhere in here between where Jennifer started and Chalene added to I'm having still having trouble with requiring of landlords things that we don't require of homeowners. And I see that makes me very uncomfortable I can't believe I'm defending landlords, but it seems to me that if you have a regulation about efficiency in buildings that should have that is not required of a homeowner. I don't I don't see the, I'm read being redundant I don't see the fairness in that, but it really makes me incredibly uncomfortable just like the labeling student houses makes me uncomfortable, we're doing. I guess I'd like to hear from Stephanie or somebody. As a homeowner I can't I'm very lucky I'm very privileged person I have solar panels I've deep deep energy retrofit, but suppose I couldn't. And I have the mass save thing done. And, and this is as a homeowner now, and there's some money and I use it, but it doesn't fix everything and it doesn't make my house really energy efficient yet because I can't afford to do all of it. Why should a landlord be required to move beyond to do anything after that assessment is done the mass save assessment with a smart landlord would be helpful because they would say oh I if I fix this I'm going to save on heating costs. But what are the I'm really uncomfortable or drafting something and saying, oh the regulations will come later. So that's a little bit where I am right now. Thank you. Stephanie and then. Shalini and then Pam. I thought I had my hand up. You do but I don't think I think Shalini has spoken since you have said. Okay, but Stephanie first because I try to get the town staff in there. Sorry. So, yeah, I guess to Pat's discomfort level I guess I would say that the difference you know was certainly that. You know, a landlord who is renting a property to someone else if someone is in a unit that they have no control over. I think that was one of the concerns is that, you know, they, the tenant can't necessarily call in the mass save audit even if they want it. Whereas, you know, if a property owner of a homeowner has a mass save audit, I mean, you know, I would love to see this applied to all buildings, including homeowner buildings, but just saying that this is sort of where we're starting. It's because people are renting and they don't have control over there, the units that they're in. So the idea is that if, you know, hopefully it's seen as an incentive where if there's a rating system a landlord would be motivated to maybe work with some of those massive audits, so that if there's a rating system, it just kind of shows this unit is more efficient than that unit. It's, it's not a penalty it's not anything more than just shows the efficiency of the unit. So maybe there's an incentive for the landlord to to to follow through with that massive audit. So there's that piece. And then I think the other thing was that asking for mass save audits is certainly one of the things that we were sort of considering. And I agree it makes it kind of hard not to have the regulations in place to kind of say what that would be. You know, because I agree I think that the ECAC would like to flesh this out more and make something more specific of a specific recommendation to you. So right now without that I can see why it seems even more arbitrary. Thank you Stephanie, we will go in order Pam Shalini Jennifer. Thanks. I guess one of the one of the one of the big differences between a homeowner and a landlord. One is the fact that the landlord has a property with the intention of covering expenses and making a living or making an income from that property. So I think that's a fundamental difference between being a landlord. It comes with some responsibility to have a safe and healthy environment for your tenants. And frankly we heard we heard a number of comments from folks last night that that apartments or dwelling units are sometimes in pretty bad shape. Having some very basic requirements. Given the fact that rental units are what somewhat around 60% of our housing stock. It's one very, very small way to at least get started on meeting our climate goals. And I, and I frankly don't know how else we could do it rather than saying at least get an energy audit at least, you know, try to implement the freebies that they that they suggest. I'll give a very short story my my neighbor. I was three and the siding was coming down. Well, the house that that is rented out as a wonderful little rental unit was built in 1837, and the tenants had been experienced with their pipes freezing under the kitchen sink. And so I walked over and watched the guys working, and I said what's the pile of bricks and they said well, the pile of bricks was, they used to have stud walls and they would literally brick in between each stud. That was their form of insulation. And, you know, so, so this neighbor is doing that on her own position because she understands that her tenants shouldn't have to pay outrageous amounts of fuel to keep a house warm that has no insulation like that. So she's doing on her own without any, you know, without any incentives. She's a good landlord. So I think people need some encouragement. And I think many landlords do this again on their own relations. I'm not, I'm not too worried, as long as it's not too high a bar to reach. I'm really comfortable with that we putting that forward. Thank you Pam Jennifer. Yeah, I agree with what everything Pam said and part of why brought it up initially is so we do have a response. When we get the feedback that we may be holding landlords to a higher bar guess that is part of the responsibility of being a landlord like Pam said that you provide a safe and healthy living space. I mean it may be different if you're someone living in a house and renting out a room. People have to be safe and healthy but that you know again maybe where that would be a burden. I think people that do that who are helping to defray the cost of their, you know, mortgage payment living expenses. They may. You know, the people I get concerned about over burdening, but I think for providing an incentive and again I think it's fine to say, if you have a rental property particularly that you don't live in that. That's just part of the cost of doing business. Thank you Jennifer Stephanie is your hand still up or is that a lingering raised hand. Sorry that's lingering over. No problem I just wanted to make sure with that. It sounds like for now we're going to leave it we definitely need to hear from me see I see more we need to potentially see regulations and we definitely have to have further conversation, but we're not to a point where we take it out or be done with it is what it sounds like to me Shalini. Another thing that we could do is use this registration process as a way of even educating people landlords and tenants what are the resources available and there's some low hanging fruit like maybe the audit or some other things and that I think it'll be great to get that from ECAC as well that here are some resources for tenants or here are some resources for landlords. That's all. Thanks. So with that we're going to move back to what is a very long section one. Yeah, inspections, which is a very long section one. I just paged quickly through it I'm going to leave it up here. There's a lot in this section. I'm going to get through the specifics of the language today, especially if people have on really specific things about certain things but as you know, talking about just inspections in general is this the the inspection you know is this the the way we want to aim for inspections like is this the path forward we want to go regarding inspections, regarding exemptions regarding that or did I completely miss it when I drafted this and pulled it from other things based on conversations. I think you know, this is one of the when I presented this draft both in the last one and in this meeting it's one of the least comfortable drafts I've presented to this committee, because there's so much in it and so many choices. And I don't think it can actually be complete until we've done sections we haven't even talked about yet. Is the other thing like I think there's other sections we have to truly talk about that intermingle with this but but I think it would be good for us to talk a little bit about is this the direction we want to go. Is there anything in here that's just completely wrong, completely not wrong, you know, like that you love or hate, and then we can get into specifics later. So I'm going to open the floor to all of it. For this, I can page down to wherever people want me to be. If they want to have people see specific sections. Pam. I looked at this section, and I didn't see anything that jumped out at me as being superfluous or or missing but but I don't know if it's missing yet because we haven't really gone through it. Okay, I took the sections just to double check in my own mind. Are these the sections that are reasonable and would be expected so I, you know, did sort of chunk by chunk. And the way it's written out with their, there is another inspections there are the health and safety issues and repair requirements. There is timing and frequency of of inspections. Again that ranges with, you know, some kind of a tiered system. And, you know, cycle of X number of years. The under under timing and frequency of inspections there's, there's that tier of categories. There's also violation penalties and exemptions. And then finally, inspection standards and checklist and I, it feels like a bylaw probably would not include a checklist. It's the kind of thing that would, that would be delegated to a probably to regulations. So that you could, you know, not take up a whole lot of paper space with the actual checklist. So, of those of those three basic categories, you know, the people feel that we've covered everything is my question. And then maybe we talk about each of those sections or any, any that we're missing separately. And John and Rob, feel free to, you know, jump in with anything, any comments and thoughts you have about it too. That would never well. I'm giving people time so so here's my thoughts I, and I'll give my thoughts. I would love to see the standards and regulations. It's not where we had them in the past, I don't think but the more and more I look at this bylaw. The more I'd like to see as much in regulations as possible. One, it makes a bylaw easier to read, although you have to go to a second set for something else, but number two, it's easier to amend regulations than it is a bylaw. And, and I guess, when you're looking at something that gets administered every year. And we were talking about energy efficiency standards if we were to put in the specific things into the bylaw, they'd be there probably for five or six years even if new, new energy, new technology came up and all. And maybe with the regulations, it wouldn't be as daunting to say you know these regulations aren't working anymore. Let's just push through a change whereas when you're proposing a bylaw change it just seems a lot more daunting. So, you know, I'm all for pushing as much as we don't believe needs to be in the bylaw itself to the regulations to allow that so that's one of my first initial thoughts. Jennifer. Um, so I just did want to ask though in terms of a point system, would that go in a different section, like when it said, what is it number B three problem property, and then it says, you know any residential property three or more building code violations, the permit shall be subjected to, I guess this is the regulations it says then you'll be subject to an annual regulation if you have three or more violations in a year. So, we were going to impose also a point system if you include a certain number of points you might actually get a license, your permit suspended. Is that a different section of the bylaw. The way our previous bylaw was drafted yes, which is why it's not in here and why I said I think some of where we're getting to now is definitely in our related with conversations we haven't had, including do we want to point system or how long, you know that incentive system potential, what does that apply to and all of that so. That's another conversation. No, I so so I think we can talk about it now in a way of would we want, you know, like, yes and no, it is different but it's the same right like I think this is the part of the conversations where we can't chunk and say we're only talking about X, because too much interrelates at this point I think we're getting to that in a relation. And I guess it would show up in a different part of the bylaw in terms of language. And part of what I'm thinking of is when you explained it very well at the forum, when the question was asked has it has a permit ever been suspended or revoked. And you said no it hasn't because we haven't really have the criteria for what would trigger a suspension, which I think we should have. I mean if you have a permit system, and there's enough violations, the most extreme consequence I would think is a suspension or revocation of the permit. So I just wanted to mention that we do have criteria for suspending the permit I think what you know I discussed earlier on was that it's not really useful in, you know, an effective way to, you know, either bring change or gain any compliance but the criteria for that current bylaw is clear about how you, and under what term conditions you would suspend a permit we've just never done it because it wasn't the most effective way to get done what we need to get done. Thank you Rob. I'm sure there's follow ups to that statement. Rob explained why it wasn't effective. The bylaw states that you can suspend a permit. If you know if there's a, you know, there's three criteria about it being, you know, a violation repeat a landlord ignoring an order of the code official or knowingly violating a regulation. And even if those conditions exist, the penalty and the suspension doesn't occur until the end of the current lease term. And it's for a 90 day period. So, when you're looking at how do you gain compliance how do you try to make change at a property, all the tools that we have that we'd like to see put into the bylaw that we just use, you know, day to day like, you know, requiring the landlord to make weekly inspections and report to the tenants, their findings conducting monthly or quarterly inspections of the property with our inspectors communication with, you know, a lead person or point person that is a tenant of the property. You know, that's what we've been able to those are things that we've been able to do to make sure change that a property and ensure that it continues to stay in that condition. So, you know, writing, writing a suspension order to take effect six, seven, eight months from now. During the summer, when the building might be empty anyway, doesn't see it didn't never seem to us a way to get changed to the property so we never felt that was necessary. I mean, we threatened it. I mean, you know, we use it, you know, in discussions with landlords but we've always in the can now we got to remember these are complaint response situations. So, these are these are just the ones that were were required to get involved in because they come to us. We were able to get the results we were looking for in those situations and satisfied with that. Otherwise we would have taken further steps, including using the court system rather than the suspension. So, I said one follow up question. Yeah. So 20 Allen Street, where literally it was condemned on the spot so did that landlord. I mean part of his penalty did he lose rent because the tenants couldn't continue to live there. Yeah, I think John has more details about that but you know I think they were vacant the building was empty for a long period of time, and they weren't allowed to regain occupancy so they have a legitimate definitely legitimate claim to not pay rent during that period. But John probably has more specifics on that. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. There was, there was an item that a violation that was egregious enough that I was able to condemn the building and, you know, make three pages of orders about all the other things that I saw so the place at that point once once it's got that condemnation sticker on it and it says it can't be re occupied until I'm satisfied and it took a while for him to work through all of that, you know that there were there were contractors involved plumbers guys working on the heating system, part of the roof needed to be redone, you know, electricians, new service to the place they couldn't get a they couldn't get the panel for the outside that the meter sockets go in because of supply chain stuff too bad. You know, you can't use the house until I'm satisfied so he lost quite a bit of rent and ultimately he's, he ended up just selling the house you know, it all got fixed and it all got fixed up but he got out. Yeah, I can definitely see where that makes more sense. You kind of have to pay the price right then and not have to wait. Those tools that we that we already have ours are strong. So why it just never it's what Rob said it never made sense to go the other way I don't care about your rental permit I have you under my thumb right now. Yeah, well that's really that's, I've, yeah that's great information for us to know. Thank you that puts it. I understand it that way before. Donnie. Yeah, I, I really like the way Boston has their point system, like, it's like failure to comply with in a notice of violation of sanity code is one point failure to make good fit effort to correct up to two inspections is two points, and then based on the point system it has, you know, like it determines the how regularly the inspections will be held and things like that. Thanks. Um, so, so, you know, this was one thing that I didn't know where it could go, or whether it belongs in a regulation, which is that inspection frequency. I think that Shalini brings up a good point that I'm going to say again to for Rob and john I don't think I don't know whether I put it in here we put the exemptions in. But I'm not sure I put in here the frequency. There's, there's some frequency in here. Where and you know, like, I know Rob's indicated some properties he's want to be seen going in yearly, no matter what, but others probably don't need four or five and I think Rob's even, you know, indicated that he'd be okay with some doing self inspections. Where should that be in a bylaw or should that be in regulations. And, and if we're putting it in the bylaw. What is the frequency are we you know what's the sort of default frequency that we're looking for I guess is is that we put in the bylaw, john. Yeah, I'm happy to jump in here I think that any, anytime in the bylaw you can point to the regulation. It's what you said before the regulations are easier to tune up you know so just refer to that document. And it's found somewhere else it's attached to this but it's not this. Rob and then Pam. I'd like to see the bylaw require an initial inspection of the property so that so that that we ensure that whether it's, you know something that's currently rented, or five years from now, it gets a property turns into a rental property for the first time that every property is that initial inspection by inspection services I think from there. The point or grading system is, is what we need to determine the frequency of inspections from that point on and that could be in regulations. I agree. Pam and then Shalini. I agree completely with that bet that as we initiate people into this into this process. Turning something into a rental definitely gets inspection. And then, and then I think there's good room for opportunity to talk about the frequency I know Salem has a three year, three year cycle, unless, unless tenants turnover, or unless it's an owner occupied unit. They have sort of a default of three years with flexibility on either end, which seems to be probably pretty reasonable. And I'd like to look more deeply into that and come back with, you know, how that's operated. Shalini. I think we also heard from students that there are repercussions for, you know, for speaking out about the problems and they would prefer there to be a natural without them reporting a system of inspection but then also balancing that out with it, not being too much burden on again coming back to some sort of a point like first starting off I like what Rob said starting off we have everyone inspected and then new properties that are coming in they get inspected, but then after that it's based on some kind of a system. But it's the burden shouldn't be on the tenants to complain. John. This didn't really come up at the, you know, at your public hearing but a lot of times tenants don't complain because they don't want me in their house. You know, because it's overpopulated. I'm that's the thing I'm going to see when I come so they're a little bit in cahoots with the landlord that way. Shalini. I remember the number of tenants in a house. I was informally speaking with people from the fire department. And just, you know, what they're seeing and and what I heard from them was there's an opportunity to increase the number of tenants. And get everyone's heart palpitating here, but in certain situations where there is space, like we have a shortage of housing, we are adding new layers of burden on the landlords. So if we offset that by allowing. And I think we do need a feedback from, you know, all the inspect and the inspector is fire police and whatnot, because what I heard from them was that under certain conditions and certain areas that would be actually a good idea to allow more students, but then in certain cases where they have to look at the number of sprinklers and there's like certain things that need to be in place for it to happen in a safe way. So I just wanted to put it out there that that's something we should definitely look at given our housing shortage, and given that we're increasing some of the costs for landlords. And this may be a way that we don't increase when I say about landlords I'm not trying to protect them but because I know the cost is going to go to tenants. So how do we make sure that with all the new things we're putting adding on that it will actually offset some of the costs. Pat and then Jennifer. Chalene thank you for that. I agree with you hold hardedly about having fire departments make judgments about number of students in a residence. I also have, I just want to remind us that students who share bedrooms in order to survive the cost of rent and housing we're penalizing them with this bylaw. And there are a lot of things that can happen as long as my son lived with his now wife. And there were it was a three bedroom apartment for people so they were illegal, because they weren't married. And, and that really was silly they were sharing one room together the other two roommates were separate individuals and had separate bedrooms. I think that we're unless we're going to advocate for rent control which is illegal now, you know, against the law in Massachusetts now, we need to make accommodations for what student needs to facing costs, and that came up over and over again in the forum that we held on Monday. So the majority of students are fine. And if there are clear regulations about where to park out of our way how to behave that are enforced, then they're going to do it. Jennifer. First of all, in this, I don't even know where. The more tenants that can be can live in a dwelling the more that the landlords are going to make. I mean it's not that they say this apartment is $4,000 you. You can have four students or you can have six students it's still $4,000. If they're charging $1,000 a bedroom, and there's six students. If they're going to charge the landlords are not going to allow more students to tenants to live there in the student apartment that are paying rent. What I saw over and over again I mean if we were reading the same surveys is how many people said, the problem is, when you have more than four students, you don't live in a neighborhood that has a lot of student rentals, having increasing the number of students a lot of college stands don't allow more than three students unrelated people, however, we allow for I'm not, it is going to exacerbate every problem that we have in the neighborhoods where there are many, many absentee owned student rentals. And if you don't live in those neighborhoods. It's very easy to have to say, let's increase the number of students that can live in a house, however number of students you have, you have that much double it, because of guests, and yes, you know, partners, you know, significant others that don't want to go over, but you are not reducing the rents for the tenants by allowing more students to live there. It's just more money for the, for the landlord, and more cars, and more guests, and it's, there were so many days, asking to enforce the limit of four that to say well we've decided we're going to increase it. It's like why are we asking for feedback. If we're going to do the opposite of what so many residents have requested. And I only read, I think, two or three where the students said it would help them if they could have more students to share the rent. But that is not what happens. I mean, in my neighborhood before we had rental permitting, there were, you know, older houses where they have doors in the dining rooms and living rooms they had seven eight students living in the house, even though the limit was four, and the landlords were, you know, charging per student, whether it was a bedroom or dining when they were living in and instead they were making, you know, seven eight thousand dollars a month. So we're only helping the landlord in that if we increase the number of tenants, unrelated just let's just say just students undergraduate students they're allowed to live in the house I think that would be, we would literally be doing the opposite of what so many people have already told at the form expressed. Thank you Jennifer. I since I'm host I can't raise my hand so I'm going to make my comment before I recognize Pat and Shalini. I have a couple questions, and then some comments and the comment is, I think we need to keep in mind what the permitting bylaw is for. You know my one of my primary goals is to keep housing safe and healthy. If if a regulation in the zoning bylaw of four unrelated individuals does the opposite effect of keeping that housing safe and healthy because those tenants are afraid of being kicked out of their homes, because they have five people in that house in, if they allow inspector into, you know, cite the black mold. We're not keeping those houses healthy, because no one can get in those houses because they're afraid to allow the inspectors in. And so it's, it, I don't know what the solution is. You know, I understand there's concern about more people in a building and how that may have a detrimental effect on neighbors depending on the behavior, but we're, I'm trying to make sure that you know all of those comments we've received from tenants that say, there's black mold, there's not a working stove, they don't have heat, they don't have a kitchen at all. Like we had comments that said there's no kitchen in their rental. You know, leaking doors, holes to the outside and walls, doors that don't lock, windows that don't lock or even close. If the students, if any tenant, whether they're a student or not, is afraid to call our inspection services when they can't get that fixed from their management or their landlord, because they're afraid to lose their home, because there's five people in there instead of four, I don't think we as a town are doing our job. So one thing I want to ask Rob and John, because for the experts on this are, is there a way we can write up bylaw for permitting that does not that that allows you to ensure that you can get into those buildings to do those inspections, and that even if you see more than four people in there, you don't have to shut that building down from occupancy or kick the extra one or two or five people out. Like, how can we, you know, this conversation is not to solve that for unrelated but how can we make this bylaw strong enough to encourage tenants to call you to get in there when they've got problems without fear that you're going to kick four of them out or three of them because you see it being occupied potentially safely I understand if it's not safe for other reasons that that's an issue but safely because there's five building five bedroom actual bedrooms in that residence. And I know of residences in town that have five actual bedrooms, you know, and so there's five people there but that violates our bylaw. How do we do that. Because I'd love to hear it. And because I want you to be able to go in and force those fixes that we've heard from tenants are not getting fixed. So that's my question. Rob. Well I can suggest how we don't do it and we don't call occupancies over for a life safety violation like the strap bylaw does. So I think we have to find a way to separate those violations by definition, being those health safety code items that are our focus and establish a different path of dealing with over occupancy now in, you know, in real examples that we deal with today. We come into properties we see violations of health safety building codes, and then we also see over occupancy. And we are treating those differently, we are not shutting the place down, as long as it's safe, even for the fifth occupant to be there if it's safe, we're establishing a timeframe, a plan with the owner to to resolve that problem. We're acting more aggressively on any of the health and safety building violations that might exist. So, you know, that's, that's how we're handling it now it's not prescribed in the bylaw now I think that is probably a good way to move forward, making sure that we're not attempting to, you know, revoke permits on the spot and this place occupants when there isn't a harm of, you know, health and safety to the tenants, which is really what we're trying to judge when we're there during those situations. Thank you Rob. Pat, then Shalini then Jennifer then Pam. Thank you. I just want to remind us that what Shalini said was in a conversation with the fire chief. He said that there were some properties, rental properties that the number of people in it could be expanded. That trigger is a whole lot of panic. And, and I think we need to recognize that panic for what it is because our job is not to panic but to figure out what we really need to do. The other thing is this whole renting by bedroom. I'm used to that and I know that that's what's happening in Amherst and generally speaking an apartment in Boston in and I thought in Amherst and many other places had a cost per month. And the number of people who were in it split it however they were going to split it. So I'm a little confused by the rental by month there must be some limit on what any landlord could afford it could charge. So I'd like some clarity about that issue, but I want to remind us what Shalini actually said. Thank you Pat Shalini. Yes, John. Yeah, I'll respond to that so thank you Shalini for bringing that up that that is not a new conversation. It's a conversation that's been happening in our inspection team for a couple of years now because the reality on the ground is almost everything's overpopulated so how do we make that safe. It's about safe and healthy. If you have one of those houses, you know that's got five bedrooms or it's got six bedrooms. If it, if it could be made safe. I can sleep at night. I, I'm not, I'm not worried about that then. And one of the ways we thought it could be made safe. Is an incentive to the landlords. Yes, you're right Jennifer they charge more rent but if that if that dwelling had a monitored alarm system and was sprinkled. You can't tamper with a monitored alarm system like you can with, you know, hardwired smokes or battery powered smokes what I see all the time is they just take the smoke detectors down where they put a bag over them. And that that's just so dangerous. But if it was as if the dwelling was sprinkled. I feel like people would have a chance to get out. And could it handle six people then. Yeah it has six bedrooms you know if they have if they have adequate parking and all of the other items that we need. I'm okay with it I drive around I go in and out of these places yeah there's five people there. And the economics of the thing it's it's it's what Pat said you know they're the rent divided by five is less than the rent divided by four. And I think that the landlords play along with that too they know that it's five okay now it's five let's see if we close off the dining room now it's six. So let's just think about how to make it safe. Shalini then Jennifer then Pam. So the, I just want to clarify that the research we're doing and we're getting such amazing response by just being more intentional in reaching out. And the purpose of that is to hear the concerns of people. And the residents when whether it's about the quality of the housing how it's looking whether it's the noise that's been created whether it's the over parking. And yes to all of those we need to listen to those and we need to solve for those. And we are getting solutions from people. You know whether it's that they should be, you know, a limit to the number of people or whether it's like they should be an itemized listing of the cause I mean we're getting solutions and yes those are great ideas let's put them in a database, but it's not required that we will act on the solutions. It's our job to respond to the problems that the people are facing, but not it's not obligatory and asked to accept the right the solutions that they're providing because we're listening to so many different points of view. So yes we do want to solve for the quality of housing in neighborhoods, the nuisance, or noise, or other problems that they're facing. And what I'm hearing what we're doing is exactly that till now that didn't work because we didn't have regular inspections we didn't have all the things in place to ensure the safety and the good quality and safe of housing. So, and maybe we do end up with four maybe we end up with three I don't know I don't think we're going to end up with three, but maybe we'll stay with four but I think we have to be at least open to discussing that if we did open it up. What would that look like where would that be possible and as John was saying like what would need to be in place to ensure that it's safe. So we are going to have point system we are going to have the crest working we're going to have all these different aspects that are going to ensure that the neighborhoods feel more safe and our, you know, have a good quality of living for all its residents. So I hope that address some of Jennifer's concerns. Thank you so many Jennifer. Pam did you have your hand up first. Yeah let me let Pam and then I'd like to speak after that. Thanks. I think, going back to Mandy Joe's question of, you know, how do we, how do we solve the mold problems in houses that have five students. And I think, I think our very basic requirement is to have a very intentional and very predictable cycle. And I want to just, I just, I don't think there's anything negotiable about that, or at least for me, I, I think that is our one tool that will help solve the number of these things. When I hear, when I hear the possibility of increasing the number of occupants, so we don't, we don't have contracts with landowners, we have no, we have no weight to bear to bring them into compliance with keeping better accountability for the number of people in their, in their buildings. I, I know that there are very responsible landlords, and there are some very irresponsible landlords. And I think all of this effort is for two reasons. One is because we want health and safety implemented equally. We want housing for a rational number of students from, from the university who can't live on campus. And we also need to absolutely maintain the integrity of community, which, when I look at a Shumway street has been totally, totally evaporated. Has been totally gutted. And we have, we have this, I'm not going to use the word I want to use because it's just a really gross word, but we have an erosion of the quality of life so when we have a six, a six bedroom house. The house was occupied by a family. They probably only had two cars in the family, but in this case you would have eight cars parked in that because every, every student is probably going to have somebody else in there sharing as, as Pat, as Pat suggested. So, we have a responsibility to the people that live in Amherst, contribute to Amherst, and, you know, make do working their way around the incursion of student rentals in, in their neighborhood so to my basic comment, a very consistent inspection system. I hope we'll give John and Rob the opportunity to say you have too many people in your house, you have four max, and that's going to be it. Thank you, Pam. Jennifer and then I have a comment to make and then I'll go to Dave. I really, I, there are a lot of people living in units that are not safe that filled out those forms saying oh my unit's fine except I have mold and mice or my stove doesn't work I mean the list goes on and on. And I don't, I mean, to say that most, you know people aren't calling there are maybe some instances where people don't call it they have more people living in the unit. I don't think, you know, that's the majority I don't think we're putting lots of people in harm's way because we have a limit on the number of students every college town has a limit. If we raise it to six, they'll be eight or nine I mean whatever the limit is there will be more people living there. So for and I mean I live in a neighborhood where people are school teachers, music teachers, UMass faculty UMass administrators, this is not where the 1% live, but they also do have a right to sleep at night, and if you have a lot of houses on your street with, you know, if you're going to now raise the limit the number is enough because there's each, you know person invites three guests and you've got 2425 people I mean you, you read those surveys, you are eroding, and making it a very difficult place for people who are living, you know just trying to live their quiet in a modest house, and it shouldn't be that you are living, you know basically like you're living on a campus if you can't live in Amherst Woods or Amherst Hills, and we're seeing neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood, where there are the whole fabric of the neighborhood has changed because first of all when you have, I mean, it's, it's fine you have a certain number of student houses but it gets to be there is a tipping point where people are moving, you know, part of the neighborhood is people live their long term and they develop a relationship. So if you have half the houses on the block, and people are moving every nine months, that that erodes the fabric of the neighborhood and I know I'm getting beyond the bylaw I just can't believe after all that I am hearing that the way to make houses safer and the way to make neighborhoods in Amherst a more appealing place to live, particularly the in town neighborhoods where people, you know go to the businesses downtown every day they walk into town they live the way we claim we want residents of Amherst to live. And that the way that we're going to, we're going to come out of this, telling residents in many neighborhoods in town neighborhoods and increasingly neighborhoods that aren't just adjacent to campus and downtown that the way we're going to solve their problems is we're going to allow more students to live in a house. I just, I promise you if you lived in neighborhoods where absentee owned student rentals were accelerating you would. I, I don't believe you would be, you know, you would be advocating for increasing the number of students that are allowed to live in a house I can't even, you know, and I, again, I mean I, I hear that, you know, again, john that you, you would feel you could sleep better at night if you knew that if there were five or six tenants in the house, they had, you know, a sprinkler system. But I, then I think that we then change the requirement for sprinkler system to be for so we can ensure that four students are safe in their house. And again, whatever number you have there'll be more students living there. I know you've heard me say this before. So, thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. I can't stay quiet when I hear comments like we need to maintain the integrity of a community that seem to imply and I don't know whether you were implying and is implied that seem to imply that students are not part of the integrity of our community. Community in neighborhoods means different things to different people. I have been reading over 200 responses and sometimes I've been flabbergasted. My husband's heard me be flabbergasted at some of the responses. And we've had lots of conversations of what things mean. And one thing I've come across is community means different things to different people and what it means to be a community in a neighborhood means different things to different people. Because there are seven, eight, nine residences in a neighborhood that change over every year doesn't mean those seven, eight, nine residences are not a community. Students can make community with themselves. They don't have to introduce themselves to the 30 year residents to believe they live in a community. We don't know whether they believe they live in a community. They might. That doesn't make it not a community because someone living next door that's lived there 30 years believes it's not a community because they haven't been introduced to the students, or haven't walked over to introduce themselves to the students or don't like having to introduce themselves to students every year, because they change over every year. I've lived in Amherst Woods. I've only lived here for three years I lived on Orchard Street in a very much what what has been, you know, between in the middle of Amherst College. So I've not always lived in Amherst Woods, but some some of the comments I've seen from residents on these surveys seem to expect expectations that Amherst Woods doesn't even follow. All of my neighbors. I don't think I should have to want to name all of my neighbors, and be friends with all of my neighbors for it to be considered a neighborhood and a community. But yet it seems like Amherst Woods is declared a community because it doesn't have students in it, but that same interaction in a neighborhood on High Street would be said to be threatening the integrity of a community. Because there's students that might not want to interact with 30 year residents that clearly don't like them and don't want them there. Based on some of the comments we've seen that have actually written, what would make my neighborhood better is not having any students live in the neighborhood. Like, that's offensive. And so, I think we have to get away from one person's idea of what a community is and what a neighborhood is and recognize that a community and a neighborhood means different things to different people. And that my vision of what a neighborhood is is not necessarily your vision of what a neighborhood is. And neither of ours is necessarily the better vision of what a neighborhood is. We have to accept that also that neighborhoods change. Like, you can't move in and 30 years later expect it to be the exact same neighborhood you moved into 30 years ago, because it's not going to be the same people won't be there. Neighborhoods go through themselves, various resurgence when I moved in on Orchard Street a little over a decade ago, people walked up to us and said it's great to have kids back in the neighborhood. Because that neighborhood went from lots of kids to it growing up. No kids they'd all graduated and moved off, and then kids started come you know families started the families with young kids started moving back in. Doesn't mean that the neighborhood when there were no families with young kids and there was bad didn't mean that the neighborhood with family with kids was bad. It's just different. And I think we have to accept that neighborhood and community means different things to different people and be careful on how we behave and what the integrity of a community is. Sorry, I will get off my soapbox now but I just couldn't not say something. David. You're muted Dave. Not sure I'm prepared to follow that. I wonder if maybe him or Jennifer want to go in front of me and respond to that because I'd like to revisit some things that were said before is that okay Mandy. Hold on me after them if you will. Okay, Jennifer them Pam. Um, first of all, I don't even I just don't know where to begin because I think you have no. If you haven't lived it you don't know what many of the residents in grant on Grant would the grant would Avenue residents are experiencing on Jeffrey Lane on North Amherst fair view far view lane now. I would say in the neighborhood, you know, south of adjacent in south of UMass and maybe, even, maybe less so in Pam's but I would say there just gets to be a point if a neighborhood. If I would say, nobody wants students. I'm just going to say it, urinating on their lawn, which people. I'm in my neighborhood that's something to experience regularly of people getting sick on their front lawn. I've had two trees pulled out of my front lawn. That that happens regularly. People wake up to lawn strewn with beer cans, pizza cans. Several residents, including counselor Pam has actually woken up to a student. You know, I think she made him breakfast but sleeping on her couch, because he came into the wrong house. I mean, the stories go on and on and on and I would say that any of us would say that's probably not high on our list of what we're looking for in the neighborhood and we do live in a college town and I mean we. We laugh at things we accept a certain, you know, a certain level of this kind of, you know, behavior frequency but it can get to the point where the neighborhood is unrecognizable and I feel pretty sure that is not going to happen in Amherst Woods because in terms of design, I mean houses have to be a certain size certain proportion on the lot I mean I would say a butters have. They know what they're getting into property owners when they move into, you know, certain subdivisions, particularly if they have homeowners associations. I find it it's almost, it feels condescending to me to say that there's all different definitions of neighborhoods I can tell you there are certain behaviors and when they get to be too too much and too frequent and to present in a neighborhood. Nobody thinks that's okay. And I'm, you know, I just it's it's very upsetting because people's home I mean that's whether you went whether you own that is where you live and this. There is a sense that it's okay that that situations and realities on the ground should be tolerated as long as it's not in one's own neighborhood and what I'm saying is there are an increasing. And drive out your residents from many neighborhoods and I guess then Amherst will be, you know, will have just kind of a outer shell of kind of year round permanent residents who send you know a few kids to our schools, and then the rest of the neighborhoods will just, you know, I, I hear it all the time where people are leaving because there's just, you know, too many student absentee rental houses and to, and to be offended by that. I don't even know how to respond. So I'll leave it at that use just your, you, you're asking us to tolerate which I firmly believe none of you who don't experience it would. Thank you Jennifer Pam. I would like to back to rental registration and the fact that what we're trying to do is create safe and healthy homes and living conditions in in and I would like to not lose track of or get lost in the fact that there may be a desire to increase the rent for dwelling unit. In my mind, we have a four, we have a four occupant maximum. I will just say that there are a number of other college communities who have found that that was too much, and it made it too lucrative for for investment opportunities to turn a single family or any other dwelling unit into a student rental. Let's acknowledge that let's keep the limit at four occupants per dwelling unit for now please and and let's not venture into the realm of expanding that at this point. Thank you. Thank you Pam Shalini and then Dave. Dave did you want to go I'm going to speak to the same thing but so should I go first. I think what we're hearing are very legitimate concerns, and I'm hoping that john and Rob and and all of us are really working hard to figure out how to solve for that. You know the discussion of whether we will allow that it's not even yet decided if that's a good idea or not that's just allowing for other ideas to percolate and see what are the benefits of that. It doesn't mean that we are, because we're allowing for one more student, because that house allows and it's already probably housing one more student that we are ignoring the plate of people who are living and I think when we, I feel confident in speaking for at least some time that when we run, when we take on this role we're not just speaking on behalf of things that are affecting me, I am fighting and advocating for people who don't have a voice. And so it may not affect me, but I'm very conscientious about listening and that's why I'm working so hard to on the consumer survey and you know on the surveys to hear and really solve for those problems without pointing fingers at each other of just because we have not you have experiences and I have I mean it's not about you and me, it's really about the town collectively so I really invite us to stay focused on the problems and they're hearing these are really solid problems and digit problems that are there and which is why I think the rental child law was pushed forward because of that because there are problems and I'm hoping that through this conversations that we will hear from John and Rob and find out some solutions to do these problems. Thank you, Shalini. Dave. Thanks Mandy so no I've been listening intently and and this is, you know, I find this a very interesting conversation. You know, I think Rob and others on this call will will like me go back to you know I was the co chair of the of the safe and healthy neighborhoods working group which met for many many months, perhaps a couple of years that that really was the sort of of of what we propose to town meeting for the rental bylaw. I also live in a South Amherst neighborhood that has experienced change both with a turnover in new and and younger families coming in with children as was referenced earlier but also with rentals I do not know what kind of rentals but certainly they are non owner occupied dwellings. So I'm coming at that from from that perspective and Rob and john and I and Chris Brestrup and many of us on staff have had these conversations for years and and there's so many elements to this right where we're talking about, you know, how do we, how do we, how do we continue to make our these dwelling units safe and healthy and I know I heard john say that loud and clear moments ago that so much of this work is focused on on how do we, how do we keep tenants safe how do we keep, you know, everyone safe in these dwelling units. I do want to point out a couple of things and, you know, we, we wrestled, and I guess what I want to do is separate, you know, I heard, you know, 20 minutes ago, a lot of focus on things like mold and and energy efficiency and holes in and to me and and and to me. Those are those are and john I think very carefully. Rob pulled those apart. Those are issues that we can and should deal with through inspections. Many of them may or may not be life safety issues they may be energy efficiency issues certainly mold is we don't want mold. We want running water we need we need to require working kitchens things of that sort. But john also kind of differentiated that between you know what makes him sleep at night or helps him to sleep at night is knowing that those tenants are safe and they can get out with with the appropriate exits and egress and access and and fire fire exits and and where need be sprinklers. But I also want to talk a little bit about what permitting can't do and we reached the same conclusion years ago was safe and healthy neighborhoods and, you know, I don't want to start us off on a whole nother track but a lot of the things where we struggle with in some areas around our behavior issues that certain members of our community and I'm not going to say whether they're students or not. Where we're outside behaviors where nighttime behaviors run afoul of sleeping and and what we what our expectations are in those neighborhoods and most of the things we're talking about with permitting really, you know when we came to the same place years ago will not address those behavior issues. I think the town working with the university working with john and bill Laramie and some of the programs at the university, you know, have made, made great strides so I just wanted to point out that permitting can achieve some goals, but, but some goals are outside the inspections and permitting can achieve some goals and good planning like for parking and things of that sort can, can achieve a lot of goals but behavior may not be one of them. Another thing I just wanted to talk about and I'm not a strong I'm not strongly advocating for this but I've had pretty long discussions with Rob through the years and, and again we've, we've talked through, and from a, from a permitting standpoint, I will say, I struggle with for unrelated I, I, I struggle with it for this reason that if you logically take a 4000 square foot home, I don't care where it is an Amherst over here, and then you take an 1100 square foot home over here, simply putting a blanket for unrelated bylaw over those two dwellings and saying that so many people unrelated can live in those that 4000 square foot home over here or that 1100 square foot home over here. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. And I think it runs counter to some of our goals for affordable living in the town of Amherst so I think when we need to be careful with how we describe this by saying to increase the number of unrelated people that live in it in a dwelling. I don't. I'm not. I'm not promoting that I'm not describing to that but I'm saying, maybe we should look at every dwelling and decide what is a safe and healthy number of individuals, unrelated individuals who can live in that as tenants safely, because of 4000 square foot homes and 1100 square foot home, they are not equal so why do we put this in terms of livable space, it should be based on the number of bedrooms the size of the kitchen the egress access. So should we really be assessing every rental and saying yours is six, but yours is three, yours is for yours is five what is that number based on what is a safe and healthy number of people living in it. It's based on the square footage and the, and the features of the home. So, those are just some random thoughts that I've been thinking about as as you all have been talking but I think it's, you know, these are challenging issues and we grappled with many of them back whenever that was six or eight years ago. So thanks. Thank you Dave Jennifer and after Jennifer I'm going to try and summarize a little bit because we have to get to the rest of our agenda. Yeah. I just want to say that I'm not just here advocating, you know, for, for myself, I mean I was elected because, you know, my district, particularly one precinct has been felt under assault for decades, and not listen to. I am, you know, representing the my constituents. And this is, and they feel very passionately about this, they, as I said, they deal with challenges and, you know, a lack of being able to peaceably in enjoy their small we have small houses on small lots here, you know, which is another concern that the next door neighbor can be, you know, just 40 or 50 feet away and if you have 12 students living there that, you know, changes your reality. So, I mean, if, if we say, okay this is a house that was eight bedrooms so we're going to let eight students there, and then they'll really be 12. We, we have in my in my district, you know what they call satellite fraternities, and they are huge problems. I mean I just, a house may be able to accommodate 12 students but I just don't, you know, might be. I don't see how that helps the greater neighborhood, but I, but I did just want to make the point, I mean I know I am going on and on, but I just, I, that there are, are many people, you know, who live in Amherst, who are really being, you know, impact their, their, their ability to just live comfortably and quietly and peacefully in their homes in their modest homes is being will be impacted by some of the decisions that we make. And I just want to say that I won't say anymore I know I'm meeting a dead horse. Thank you Jennifer. So it's six o'clock we've got a half an hour left of our meeting. I know you expected us to get through this discussion in one meeting at all this part of it. I will take what I've heard from this meeting and see if, even based on some of that, if some more stuff can be done to the working draft of the bylaw. I, I in this working draft, I know it's been shared the whole time. There is, I started putting sort of like what regulations might include. It sounds like many of us might support moving more to regulations so I might just move some of those sections down to that regulation sort of part of this working draft that's here. And see what else with things. We never did get to the parking plan or anything at all so we'll definitely have to discuss that in general terms next meeting. But we'll also continue this discussion and I know I allowed this discussion to stray from just inspections. But we need to have these other conversations and sometimes allow conversations to stray directly from one area because it still doesn't form. And we'll inform many of those areas and we'll inform other discussions later on, especially when we get to penalties incentives violations, those items too. So next time. So, so we're going to stop this conversation for now I'm going to stop the share for now, so that people can see each other better. Next time we'll continue this discussion will probably also have a discussion that doesn't relate to language at all on whatever's next on our work plan which I actually think might be the issuance of licenses or something I haven't, I don't remember exactly what but we'll move on to the work plan to for the next meeting. I know there are hands. So, I'm Pam and then Shalini, before we move on. It was first. Oh, she's listed. Oh, she is somehow you popped up in a different order for me, Shalini and then. I have a clarifying question for Dave. Dave you said that the behavioral issues cannot be controlled through this are rental registration by law, and I'm wondering if the point system that we create for requiring additional inspections and things like that. Would that, like if they were more crest calls coming in and so forth, is that a way that could actually inform the inspection or some other, you know, incentivizing the landlords who are in, you know, keeping and talking about whatever. So, yeah. You understand the question. Yes, yes, I understand the question. I would defer to Rob or john on this, you know, we do have the noise bylaw. But I would, I would defer to Rob or john on that to kind of comment if they would be willing. Again, my point was, some of the things that have been mentioned and were mentioned years ago and challenge us all like, you know, you know, noise in the neighborhood late at night, urinating on front lawns, pulling out trees, and the list goes on and on. We really are not focused on the dwelling for the most part the dwelling itself maybe the noise you know, loud music things that that's our parties things of that sort. We have a bylaw to address that which is, you know, the, the nuisance house bylaw and and that deals more more with noise but again I would defer to Rob and john if they'd be willing to comment on that. I agree. You know we've been talking about this for so long and you know, we've, you know, at times felt like we ran out of ideas. But you know we're trying new things and you know at least we, we think we can try to make a difference in this area but a lot of the things that are being discussed are hard to even connect to a particular property sometimes. So that's, you know, that's one issue we run into. There might be just suspicion that you know their tenants up along to a particular property maybe the activities that are current are not on or in front of that property. But what we've been trying to do, lately and if anyone's been following zoning board of appeals meetings, we've been trying to establish some different types of conditions that aren't old enough to really report on yet but hopefully we will soon. And it's, it's really about having a complaint logging and reporting system managed by the, the property owner. And we're finding out that it's fairly easy to do electronically for these landlords to set up, maybe the more sophisticated landlords are, you know, taking this on, you know, with a little bit more. emphasis on producing a product for us but I'm hoping that that'll help you know and I think that will, that would complement a rating system. And I feel like that could be that could contribute to improving, not solving, but improving some of these issues that we're dealing with. So we're trying to test out what we can. And I just, you know, as just a kind of general point that how successful I feel like proper properties with special permits are because of those conditions because of that additional oversight because of the, the time we require property owners to establish management plans and really think through how they're going to, to be part of the daily operation of these properties whether it's parking or maintenance of the lawn or the building. We find that to be really important. So, you know, whether it's a discussion about considering larger occupancies or anything else, you know, I think that comes with a special permit process for a process like that where these conditions are established on the property, all of these properties that we see every day for unrelated single family homes duplexes have zero conditions connected to them. So I think that that extra level of looking at the property, specifically crafting a set of rules and expectations makes it helpful for us to enforce but also establishes right from the beginning with a property owner that they, they have a responsibility and obligation to see some of this through. Thank you. Pam. That was very helpful Rob. Thank you. And maybe we could have a short session that Rob explains exactly what they're trying to do. A question that came to my mind is well how many of these special permits you actually get a year so that you have any kind of making inroads and in the long, long list of rental property for the hours. Second question is for Mandy Joe so in the text that we're looking at the rough draft. Can we just go in and start typing in new new wording or stuff like that with our name on it so that we all can see it simultaneously. I mean you're adding you're adding comments you're moving stuff. So that was on my hard drive and since when I share you can't touch the document I'm sharing right. So, what I can do is send me send me stuff in time that I could put things in the packet. And it is my understanding Athena she was here would, would not be happy, but it is my understanding that if a document that expresses opinions is posted to the public simultaneously with being distributed to a quorum of the committee it is not a violation of open meeting law because the deliberation did not happen in private if you want to call it that. And so what I'm willing to do is if I have don't send it to the whole committee send it to me. I can read them. If you say this is for the packet and it's a track changes document of whatever. I will put it in the packet and I will make sure Athena has posted it before I actually put it into SharePoint for others to see, so that no one can say a quorum of the committee saw it before it was available for the public. I believe there are rulings out there that say that is okay. I can send something to you and to Athena at the same time and she could she could put it in our packet. So, so send it to me because I think Athena is always concerned about posting to packets without permission of the chair or without acquiescence of the chair. If I collect them. I don't generally post the packets till you know our next meeting is the 11th. I wouldn't even send a packet to Athena to post until the fourth. And so, if I collect them all I can tell you I will not read them. I don't actually people might be surprised when we do the interviews. I don't the only thing I look for is that they comply with our rules before they go in the packet and I don't read them before they're in the packet. I don't think I should even though I'm getting them early read them before everyone else has a chance. I do confirm that they're under 700. Send them to me, and I will make sure that they all go in the packet. Any comments people have before the whole quorum of the committee can read them. Such an inefficient way to do this. It is what the law requires. It is what the law requires if you start, you know the SharePoint document is a word document if you start modifying that and saving it in SharePoint it's a violation of open meeting law. It's just that simple it's a violation of open meeting law. So, it has to be done this way if you don't like it talk to Mindy and Joe and get the legislature to modify the rule. They don't have these rules for themselves, but they think we need to follow them if you don't like it talk to them. We really do need to move on, but that's the solution I can offer Pam. Just a quick thing to respond to that but then that would be a lack of transparency. Right. If we did not do everything publicly and that's the push and pull of it. Like, but if we did have privately discussed then public would be like, Oh, who's talking behind the door is back backdoor dealing and whatnot. So, I guess we have to work through this. Okay, so I want to thank Rob and John for being here. We have a couple things that are not residential related. There's also the outreach coming but we have to do one thing before we get to that outreach. We're not going to have a long discussion on outreach because we're going to have to do other things but so I want to thank you. My guess is we're done with your contributions today so you don't have to stick around for the next 15 minutes but thank you for for coming. Thank you. We're going to move on to the ZBA bulletin board notice. It's in the packet it is the exact same one we posted back in January February Pam. I'm not sure when it got originally posted. And but the policy requires that the committee review it before it goes up on the bulletin board. So are there any changes, Shawnee. Maybe this is not about the changes, but it is about the ZBA. And so maybe it's a future agenda item. Can we talk about the process or does that, does that go to TSO does it go who discusses the process because they really do feel that having an committee to hear from people like not just one question either never getting a chance to hear back. That's a problem. And yeah, so at what point and where do we address that. So GLL is the committee that last year was tasked with drafting and proposing to the council a proposed policy. The policy itself and any changes technically would, would logically sit with GLL or the council as a whole. So, I don't want to get too much into that discussion because it's not on the agenda I know it's a big discussion I am happy to put that discussion on our next agenda. To make sure we can have time to, we could as a committee always making motion. It's always our option to recommend the council refer review of that policy to GLL for changes for specific things. So I can put that on an agenda for the next meeting, if people would like. But I don't want to get too much into that because the way I put this agenda was, we were dealing with the bulletin board notice not policy in general so Pam. So on the bulletin board notice it looks fine to me it looks like exactly what we put in last time on the process I too had a thought and that is that since I would be the one reaching out to people. I know there are at least at least two or three people that have submitted community activity forms, the CAFs. Since the last time we published this and went to the, the interview process for ZBA. I would, I would like very much to not make those same people have to do another CAF just to get reconsidered for this next round, when we open up the pool again for the associate members. I'm just asking to wave that, you know, third second or third CAF submittal and reach out to say if you have submitted within the last two or three months, whatever it was since our process cut off. Please just submit your statement of interest rather than having to do a second CAF which is simply their name and address and that they're interested. So, I'm going to reword that as I take minutes here. Again, we can't wave that. So, I'm going to reword that into a motion. Which is, let me type first so I can get it here. So the motion is to recommend the town council. Wave. If someone could look up the. Let me see if I can find it quickly. It's going to be to recommend the town council wave, it's, it's policy on making recommendations. This is the problem with it being a council policy section. I think it's section two. Yeah. And two way section two of the town council policy on making recommendations for town council appointments to multiple member bodies to allow consideration to allow individuals who have submitted CAFs. What date do you want on or after. Yeah. May 1. May 1 2022 to be considered applicants. Without, without having to submit new caps. Right. Is there a Pam is that your basically your motion. That's a lotion. Okay, is there a second. A second. Jennifer. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on that one. We're going to vote. Johnny. Yes. Pat. Mandy's and I Pam. Jennifer. I. That is unanimous. So. Further discussion. So I will submit that to. The next meeting. The next meeting. The next meeting. The president for inclusion. On the next council agenda in August. We won't have necessarily. Even gotten to. We won't even be able to consider the sufficiency of the applicant pool before that meeting. I don't believe because those. The next meeting. I don't think it's going to be on Monday. Monday. So our next meeting is not within the time to be able to consider the sufficiency of the applicant pool. So that motion should be able to be heard before the next time we can consider the sufficiency of the applicant pool. Jennifer. Yeah. So I had a question. If so we, we now don't ask follow-up questions. If we, if that's not a decision that CRC can make, that's not a decision to make. So that wasn't just the CRC's decision to handle it that way. No, that's part of the policy. So we can, we can discuss. So what we can do beyond, I'll put it on the agenda for next, a future agenda item, discuss the policy. And recommendations to the council that can include desires for waivers of the current policy and recommendations to GOL, to consider the policy and changes. So we would need to seek a waiver of that, that if, if it is this committee's desire to ask follow-up questions, we would need a waiver of that policy from the council prior to the interviews themselves. And if the council doesn't. Affirm our vote. We have a committee meeting today to allow other CFs. CAS that are currently on file to apply. Will there be time. Between when we scheduled the interviews and that meeting for people, if they have to resubmit their CS. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. Okay. So the next motion is to approve the ZBA member vacancy notice that's the motion I'm making is there a second. I'm giving that one to Pam. I heard her first. We're going to follow it. Pat. I didn't mute. That's why. Pam, Pam. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I have no idea what's going on. Let's see if that took care of it. I don't know whose mic it was. That's unanimous. So I will add the next, those items to the agenda for the next meeting. Or a couple of meetings. We're moving on to the next item on the agenda. Is, is. Oh, it's Shawnee. Shawnee. You're causing. When you want me to. Oh, okay. Hold on. Is it better now? Is it. Yeah, it is. Whatever you did work. We had rental. Residential rentals by law outreach on the. Agenda. I'm going to pass over it for now to go to general public comment. Since we have to do public comment. During this meeting before we go to the outreach. Because it's required under regular things. And then we can talk about how long we want to continue this meeting or not. So general public comment at this time. Public comments on matters within the jurisdiction of CRC will be accepted. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. CRC will not engage in a dialogue. Or comment on a matter raised during public comment. If you'd like to make public comment at this time, please raise your hand. And bear with me as I take minutes and control. All of the zoom functions. For allowing people to. Be unmuted. So. Ken. You should be able to unmute now. Please unmute state your name where you live and make your comment. Thank you. Madam chair. My name is Ken Rosenthal. I live at 53 sunset avenue. I was a member of the safe and healthy neighborhood working group. And I want to emphasize the word. Neighborhood. I'm glad that it was brought up. I have two comments to make. I was very impressed with your conversation about how the. Rental permits affect students. I suspect if you look at the rental permit, you will not find the word student in there at all. This is a permit that has to do with landlords and tenants. And when we speak of tenants and we speak of our neighborhood, we think a lot more about students. I live in a neighborhood which has a lot of students. But let's not forget that the university. Massachusetts has thousands of people who are not students. They are faculty members. They are maintenance workers. They are kitchen workers. They are people who are there to support the faculty. And also in this town, we have many people who would love to be able to. Walk to work just as those thousands of people who are associated with the university would like to work. Our neighborhood should be. Could be, should be designed so that they encourage those people to live here. We have lost. We have lost the opportunity for people who work in town, in town hall, who work in the fire department, who work in the police department, who work in less lucrative jobs at the university, to be able to live in our neighborhoods near the university, near the middle of town and walk to work. So. Please understand that a lot of us who speak and are concerned about the growth of student housing in our community are not concerned so much about the invasion of students as, as we are about the flight of all those other people who would like to live here. I'm, I know I'm limited to three minutes. I will talk more and I have more time to talk to you about how we can achieve that. Thank you very much. Madam chair. And commission and the committee for listening to me. I appreciate it. Thank you for your comments. Ken. Are there anyone else who would like to make public comment at this time? Seeing none. Six 26. Would people like to have a brief discussion on outreach, even if it takes us past six 30. Or would we like to just move to minutes and then. Adjournment. Shalini. I have open meeting. Open hours for that district five meeting right now. So I will leave. But. I just wanted to. Mention one thing about the outreach or question rather. That, you know, we've got all this really good information feedback. And. Did you want me or someone in the group to kind of. Group it down because there's so much of information. It's. But if we could all decide what are kind of the. Columns or whatever that. You know, there's a way to synthesize this. Like in terms of what are the challenges we're hearing. What are the. Suggestions people have, like we can discuss what is the criteria and then I can find a way to. Group the things and put tally marks, like how many people. Wrote about this and, you know, kind of synthesize it. Or is it something that Tom stuff. I doubt downstaff is going to do that. So I don't think we have full time to discuss all of that today. I know Pam's been doing a little bit of work on her own on some of it. I was going to do some of mine. I would like to explore what engage Amherst can do. In terms of output. Because I have not explored that yet too. We haven't closed the survey yet either. So that. Begs the other question that we have to discuss maybe at the next meeting is when to close the survey so that we don't do all the work. And then more comes in. So I can add it. For a more full discussion at the next meeting. With. That in mind. As well as explore what engage Amherst will allow me to produce. And all Pam. I finally muted. Can we all get in there and. And see the data and sort of. You have a sense of how to organize it or is this locked to the. The two co-owners or however it's set up. So it is my understanding that. The administrative privileges. Shawlani, do you still have them? Or have you never been able to get back? Yeah. So Shawlani no longer have administrative privileges. Once the survey went live, I actually lost them. And then I got them back so I could pull these documents. I don't know how long I'll keep them. Because apparently engage Amherst, the town has a limited number of administrative privilege accounts. Or people that they can have as administrators. And so Shawlani and I got kicked off at one point because someone else needed to be on. So I don't know how long I'll be able to, which means I don't think I can. Get everyone on that to explore the back end. But I will see if I can get more than just a PDF. Because I know the PDFs are not as helpful. So let, let me see if I can find more than just the PDF printing. If I can get a CSV or something like that, as well as the PDFs I've been doing. To see if that would help. Because I'm, I'm happy to, like I said, I haven't explored all of the options for pulling things other than the two basically I pulled in terms of pick dates and go response by respondent. For question. But I know there's other options. But I think I might be able to pull CSV too. So I'll look at. Huge explanation. Just, you know, can we download the information. So that, that we can start to kind of play with it. And if it's a CSV or something like that, that would be great. I will see if I can get a CSV for everyone. Jennifer. The graphs that were, that are on there. Is that part of what engage Ambers? Right. You did something. I did not do those, but I might be able to change. One of the things I want to explore is whether I can generate a document based on the answer to the first question such that we can see a separate demographic graph of only those that indicated they were tenants or only those that indicated they were landlords. But I don't know. I haven't explored it yet. But the graphs that were, that are on there. Is that part of what engage Ambers? Right. You did something. I did not do those, but the graphs I have not generated those are auto generated. All right. I'm leaving. Bye. Thank you, Shalini. Please. One second. Even from Shalene. Yes. I have missed quite a few meetings and that I just want people to know that. I have been wrestling with a health issue and that is why I haven't been here. You know, I haven't been here or sometimes, and hopefully that won't continue to happen because this committee means a lot to me. I just wanted to address that. Thank you, Shalini. Feel better. Feel better. Pat, so we're going to move off of outreach. I'm going to put it back on the next agenda. Because I know we have more to discuss with that. Including what else we want to do. We have minutes to do. I'll make the motion to adopt the June 23rd meeting minutes as presented. Second. Great. I don't have to change last week's last set of minutes is. Okay. I have to. Lined at all that Athena wrote. I was moved in second to that. Thanks, Pat. And. Question. Pam, yes. I know I was there for part of the meeting. And, and I went through the entire interview. and certain when I looked through the meeting minutes that each of the applicants spoke to a certain question and they kind of summarized what that person said. But the only thing that they had for John Warner's or Werner's, whatever his name is, Werner, it just said that you read his written response. So there was no summation of what he actually said, which is kind of necessary. And I wonder if you go back to the tapes and just say he said, you know, or spoke about, I don't know, it's just so lacking. He didn't speak about anything. So the document is referred to in the minutes. What I could add, what we could modify those minutes to do is put in quotes what was read. So quote his answer in the document in the minutes itself. But the minutes do say, you know, do refer to his written responses as a document in the packet. Right. Is the packets, are his responses in this packet? Yeah. Okay, I didn't actually see that. Yeah. And so in some sense, the minutes were saying that I read the answer to that one, people can then go and read that answer because that document's in the packet. But if it would be more preferable, we could move to modify the minutes to copy those responses directly into the minutes. That would work for me. I wasn't looking for extra. It was more that it was just sort of an inequitable treatment of responses. Do you want to make a motion to amend the minutes, Pam? I make a motion to amend the minutes to include the basic statements made by John Werner in his responses. Cause like right down here is that number four, I'm just seeing Hanukkah read Werner's response that common sense should be part of government. That's plenty, but the one above it didn't say that. And the one above that didn't say that. So I just was just feeling. So I've got the motion is to amend the minutes to include the written responses of Werner in the minutes. I know it's kind of redundant, but you know, I'm typing at the same time. So that's by Rooney, second by Tav. Any discussion? We'll go to a vote. I think I'm the one that's supposed to start. I will say aye. Rooney, Pam. Yes. Jennifer. Aye. Pat. No. So that is. So should I do that as part of prepping the minutes for the... Hold on. Sorry, when you got to take the minutes too. Mandy, go learn how to delegate. I agreed to do this for Athena. That's impossible to do. So this means, so now the motion on the floor is to adopt the June 23rd, 2022 meeting minutes as amended. And the amendment is to put Werner's statements into the minutes. So is there any further discussion on that one? Seeing none, we start with Pam. Aye. Jennifer. Aye. Pat. Aye. And Mandy as an aye, that is four to zero with one absent to adopt the minutes as amended. Okay. So that means, Pam, that before you send them off to Athena, you need to amend them as we agreed, which is to insert Werner's statement into the appropriate part of each of the minutes. And I'll send you a copy if you want to look at it first. Okay. Okay. With that, I don't have really any announcements than next agenda previews we've talked about. We're going to put permitting outreach back on. We're going to put a whole bunch of ZBA, well, council recommendation, the council policy regarding appointment recommendations different from the ZBA vacancy part on the agendas. What we just discussed with rental will be back on the agenda. Maybe some more stuff on rental will be on the agenda. That's all I have. I think for the next coming agenda, we're getting close to putting flood maps back on. September 8th is our continued public hearing. So we've got two more meetings before flood maps have to be back on. Are there any other agenda items people want me to see if I can fit into the next agenda? Jennifer? I'm just, well, we have a chance to kind of just, I don't know, discuss kind of the big picture from the surveys. I mean, I just thought we got a lot of information. I mean, it just shows, I mean, people are really engaged to this issue. And so that's part of what I want to put, that I want our outreach discussion to also be is sort of like the results of outreach, right? Like, what did we hear? What do we do with it and all? So I consider the discussion of what we've read as part of the outreach portion versus the action items of coming up with the bylaw itself. Does that make sense? Yeah, we just try to be clearer. Unpack it all. Yeah, I'll try to be clearer on the agenda that outreach includes discussion of responses, you know, what we've heard, including the forum and also like other outreach, like further outreach to get more responses and what to do with all those responses in terms of how can we present that to the public too. And Michelle might want to be here for that. Yeah, I try to remember to invite her to all these meetings. She can't always make them. I don't know whether she got this email or not because so much was going on. So anything else, items not anticipated by the chair? Anything? Seeing none, I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 6.40 p.m. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Make sure I do this properly. Enjoy your dinner.