 Welcome to the September 25th, 2019 meeting of the Community Resources Council of the Amherst Town Council. So the agenda is actually projected here. So the first order of business is the call to order. And the second order of business in public comment, we actually included your, you know, your wish to speak to the CRC in public comment. So please, you're first. Oh, I'm sorry. I should have noted that we do have a quorum and welcome to Mandy Jo Hanneke, who is the newest member of the CRC. And I'll be the minute-taker on this. Oh, you don't, you know, you guys have, you've done, I'll do the minutes. We just started. So go ahead. Yep. Okay. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much. Don't have to hold it. Oh, thank you. It's better. Good morning. This is Wayling Greeny. Thank you so much for having me this morning in the public comment period. Today I came before you at the encouragement of my district council members, Mr. Pam and Mr. Ryan. And I had them come to our office for a visit. And I realize the message that I need to bring to them is also a message that will benefit you as the town council members. So I would like to find out. I understand that the next one of the agenda items is about the affordable housing policy. And I as the agency executive director for Amherst Community Connections, we fully support the housing policy laid out by the affordable housing trust. And we want to go a little bit further to bring you attention to a segment of the population, which is not usually included. So today I'm here to ask you to think hard and in your policy decision also consider this group of people. They have been all along for the past 10 years since I have been working and running this nonprofit Amherst Community Connections. And this group of the people who are people making less than or at about 15% of the area median income, 15% of AMI. So what that translates to is people who are having income about $9,000 a year. And this group of people, mostly if not 100% of them are people who receive SSI supplemental security income because of their disability that they receive this SSI. The average SSI is $750 a month. That comes out to be about $9,000 a year. So all the housing projects so far, I want to include the most recent ones, which is the North Square at the Mill District along with other affordable housing that the town has endorsed and helped to make it happen. It's by and large limited to 30% of AMI residents. So that's about $18,000 a year people who make that much. So what is the difference between some family of someone who has a $9,000 income versus another group has $18,000 income a year? The difference is huge. When you have housing available to people who are at a higher income level such as 30% AMI, it's not available to people who are having less money, especially people who are disabled. They become homeless, they couch surf, they endure abusive relationship just to get a roof over their head. This is a group that we as the agency work with. In the course of a year we see almost 700 unique individual residents. Most of them about 60% are from Amherst per se. And this group of people, a majority of them almost 50% say they are homeless. They live with friends, couch surf, on the street, behind big wide, all these places. And they are not so visible that you can say we have 300 people who are homeless, but I'm here today to share with you there are that many people who are homeless. And the one reason they are homeless is simply because in the town's policy for affordable housing they are being excluded because their income only 15% AMI, which is only $9,000 a year. And I talked to, for example, Valley CDC and many other wonderful organizations when they apply for low income housing tax credit program. The biggest reason they say is it's too deep of subsidy and they just have a hard time securing it, but I want to tell you my father-in-law who has been deceased for 10 years. I remember, he used to say to me, for which is difficult, we marines, he was an ex-marine, he said we marines, we can do it, for which is impossible, it just takes a little bit of time. So I'm here to ask you, Valley CDCs and other wonderful organizations, they say it's impossible to do and yet we have the need for housing for this group of people. $9,000 a year, that's all the income they're going to get from the state because of this ability. The housing is not available to them, so it's impossible, but I know my father-in-law Edgar, he will be so pleased to hear I say this in public, for which is impossible, it just takes a little bit longer. So here today I'm asking you, while you are entertaining setting the town housing policy, we as an agency fully behind the housing policy, but I want to ask you from the people who I work with to think deeper, try harder, make those seemingly impossible quote unquote things happen, that is to provide housing, looking for subsidies that will benefit people who are at the margin. 15% AMI translates to about $9,000 a year, translates to about $750 a month. And I want to share with you the power of housing in my closing statement. Before you, you have a yellow sheet of paper, the sunshine I'm bringing today. It's shared with you by one of our participants. With his permission, I am reading the two small paragraphs that I checked here on this sheet here. And I will give a little bit of preface about Tom, who has been homeless and was staying in the car, and yet he worked for the town of Amherst 20 hours a week. How can one be homeless if you have a part-time job? But it happens. Tom has a bachelor degree from UMass, and yet he is homeless. Why? Simply because his income cannot support the rent that we are charging here. How do we help people who work, who has a degree, and yet can make a go? Housing First program run by Amherst Community Connections, thanks to your support. We have had 12 people in the program for the past three years. Nine of them have graduated into their own voucher housing programs. So when they first came into the housing first at ACC, they had no jobs, they had no income. But within three years' time, we have graduated nine out of 12 people. That's the power of housing. They were homeless, many of them for decades. So I will read Tom, who is in our Housing First program. The paragraph that I checked off being mentored and supported by Amherst Community Connections has made all the differences in the world. And I'm grateful each day that I have a place to cook healthy meals, rest after work, and maintain a wholesome regiment of hygiene and meditation, not at all possible in the environments in which I find myself while being without a home. Having the privacy and comfort of a place of my own has allowed me to continue work on my book and to play and record my original music. A great consolation after a year, quote-unquote, on the streets and a great recreation after a long work day. This is the power of housing. So I'm here asking you, while you set your housing policy, please remember this group of people at the tune of 300 or more that we work with every single year at Amherst Community Connections. A majority of them are our town residents, and they have no place to call home because their income is only $750. If you set a policy only allow people who have income of $15,000 a year, you are excluding this important group of people. Thank you very much. Thank you. So I'm going to suggest that, in part because this is public comment, that we are going to discuss the proposed housing policy, and if you can stay around, we can make this part of the conversation. We'll do. Thank you. So other public comment, I see none. So we'll move on to agenda item three, and these are items referred to the town council for discussion and possible action. So we have Spring Street streetscape up next. Good morning. We have action. Sure. Good morning. Kyle Wilson from Archipelago Investments and Dave Williams. And we want to come before you today to start the conversation about the Spring Street, the north side of Spring Street that we had last when we were before our town council. And we've got just two documents today to again begin that conversation. And what we're, what we wanted to show is the baseline, which is this document here, which is just the Google Earth image that shows existing conditions. And it shows the site for the project 26 Spring Street. And it shows the stretch on the north side of Spring Street between Grace Church and Churchill Street, which currently shows one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 parking spaces. And it shows pole A, B, and C. So the burial of the power lines is a separate project in the project itself. But through the burial of the power lines, there's additional opportunity for parking and drop-off spaces. And what we've asked SBE to do is give us this baseline document, which is not final in any stretch, but is something that I hope guides the conversation. We requested and received from DPW the baseline CAD file. And the baseline CAD file defines the space that we have and the space that the space of the town has between the grass area in the median at Grace Church and the corner at Churchill and Spring Street. And what SBE has laid out are 13 parking spaces that are 21 feet long and a remainder which is 8 feet. So what we want to show is that there is the options within that are going to be limited by that overall length. And some of the decisions that will go into a final plan will be the width of any drop-off area, the width of any parking spaces. So 21 feet is standard, but that could be less. It could be 20. It could be 19. There's some compact spaces. That's a conversation that could result in spaces of all the same size or differing sizes. And then what we'll have to do and discuss is how to weigh the benefits of the size of those parking spaces relative to any drop-off space that will be proposed. So again, what we wanted to do today was just begin that conversation, see what some of the goals were, and then be able to come back before you and show some options. Excellent. Comments from CRC members? Pat. In your initial presentation, you were talking about having a drop-off for people who are disabled and it seemed to be one car length. Correct. And there was talk in that meeting about expanding that because what the difficulty back up parking and doing all of that instead of being able to pull in to that spot was a problem. Have you thought about that in any way or have planned to do any changing around that issue? Well, I think what we could do is if you look at this document here, excuse me, we have an eight foot remainder of space that's left over and if either parking space four or parking space five was made into a drop-off area, then we'd end up with 12 overall spaces on that north side and a drop-off area that would be 29 feet wide, which is obviously much wider than standard parallel parking space. Go ahead. I have a quick question. Did I count right that there are currently 11 parking spots in that section? Correct. Correct. At the parking, the parking study folks who were presented to the town council made a comment that parallel parking spaces in Amherst tend to be 20 feet. And they, I think what they said is that that is probably longer. You know, this isn't an area that, you know, I'm not an expert in this, but they said that 20 feet seems to be long and that we can make them, you know, we can make the spaces shorter than that and therefore get more capacity. So I'm just curious. So your consultants or you guys are using a number of 21, but did that come up at all? Yes. And 21 is the default for, in the SBE office in terms of parallel parking spaces. There's obviously a differing opinion on what the optimal space size is depending on the municipality and where you are. And I think that if, you know, a simple measure of making each of these 20 feet rather than 21, there'd be another 13 feet. You could pick up potentially another parking space or give that back to a parallel drop-off area. And the other thing that I should mention is there's no, this plant doesn't show any street trees if that was something that the town was looking to do or insert in any way in the middle of the parking spaces. Dorothy? In looking at the drawing, the yellow spot is where the building's going to be, right? Correct. And there are, how many feet on the west side and how many feet on the east side is your property that is not the house? So this drawing shows the property line, which is dashed in dark black. And then the footprint of the building is the solid gray. So there is, you have no use whatsoever for a driveway or a curb cut for your own vehicle to get to the back of the building? There is none. And there's the grade back in this corner. There's significant grade drop across this site. So reconciling that grade is different. This back here is over 10 feet higher than this front corner. So it's quite a slope. Any other questions, comments? I'm going to go back to one of my initial concerns. Do we have any idea as to how long a pull out or pull off location needs to be to easily act as a drop off? Does SVE have any idea? I'm still concerned about double parking on the street. And, you know, eight foot would require the double parking but could potentially allow for at least the drop off. If you expanded that to 29 feet, it seems like it might allow a pull in pull out. But does SVE have any, you know, recommendation on how to avoid double parking for dropping off? Like how long that spot needs to be for people to choose to use that instead of double park? To effectively make it no longer just a parallel parking space but much wider so you can pull in and pull out. Yeah, to better, you can never guarantee, but to better aim for it not being a double parking spot that they'll actually pull off the travel lane to do the drop off. And I think the balancing there is how many parking spaces are soft. Because if we made, if we went and made it 11 parking spaces then there'd be 49 feet, which would obviously be plenty. But that might be too much and you might be giving up a parking space. Would you, if we simply got rid of parking space five and 29 feet is pretty generous. If the parking consultants are saying, you know, a standard parallel parking space is about, you know, is only 20 feet. So I think that would, we could ask them and then look to see, you know, what the tradeoff is for parking versus drop off. And then Dorothy. So I guess my question is, is this really a handicapped drop off spot? Do you have handicapped accessible apartments in your proposed building? My mother had to be transported as many people are who are in a wheelchair in a van. And if you're in a van, they're small, the vans, but you have to open the back up and there has to be room for the wheelchair to come down off a ramp. And that's a big space. And I don't think you'd really want to give up that much parking if you really weren't using this as a handicapped place for. I mean, do you have any wheelchair accessible apartments? Or is this really a Uber spot? Every new building that's constructed per code has multiple fully accessible apartments. And so how many do you have? All of the apartments? All of the apartments have three foot doors are accessible ready. And then they're mandated based on unit type to have a number per each. So I think there's three or five. I don't remember exactly the exact number. But that means the lower countertops and the different kitchen layouts and the wider bathrooms and so on. And so for the drop off again, I think we could simply make it, I think 20 feet is probably fine for an overall width of the parking spaces. That could probably be squeezed more. I'm sure the parking consultants could advise on that a little bit to say, hey, you can go down to 18 feet in some locations if you don't have a bunch of large SUVs that are trying to park there. And this layout could be revised. We could present a couple of different options and show you what that might look like. And if we decided that, hey, we think that the drop off should be a minimum of 30 feet, that will probably drop one parking space off. But that 30 foot would I think be, I'm sure we could ask somebody professional who does this all the time. But I'm sure 30 feet would be plenty for a van itself to not have to parallel park. And if it's drop off to be able to pull in and pull out without having to back up and pull back out. So the thing about this particular space, the reason you're here really is that it was seen as, I think there's different visions. One is handicap drop off. One is Uber lift pickup or drop off. One is your friends drop you off. And so these are all, you know, many, lots of pressure on a single space. So one single, you know, one single user of that will block all other users behind. So in other words, a handicap van could be there for, you know, I don't know, 20 minutes, you know, something like that. Yeah. While the Amazon and the FedEx are parked out front. Right. Yeah. So if you have your head up, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's where signage comes in. Yep. So if you were to decide, or if you were to decide that this should be for handicapped only, then the signage would reflect that information. If you feel that it should be for numerous uses, then that wouldn't change the link to the parking spot. It's, I should have done a, you know, better inventory in the area, but right in this area, like the Lord Jeff and I think Grace Church have. The Lord Jeff has a drop off. It's in the public right of way and it's a, you know. It's actually on this drawing, it's not marked, but it's effectively this area. So three spaces, right? Roughly. They're not marked. They're not, they're not sprayed. And then doesn't the, isn't there a handicap space or one or more in front of Grace Church? No. Well, they just flag the meters. They just drop off for the Lord Jeff. When they redid that, that has that curve drops. Yep. And makes me to that grade. In a pole. I'm sorry. I refer to it. It's fine. It'll take me a year to get them. I have a very naive question that you may have answered before today, but the pole removal is that required to do this? Yes. Okay. So who would pay the cost of removing the poles? We are. Yeah. It's all one. So I think our goal today might be to see what this has been presented as a preliminary discussion and that the expectation is that you'll come back at least one more time. And then we'll, based on that conversation the next time, be able to make a recommendation to the full council. Are there other questions or comments that would be helpful to move this conversation forward? So the, yeah, go ahead. So are all new buildings in Amherst, do they have such a spot? The apartments on Wendy's Pleasant and Kendrick, I mean, is this something that all new buildings have to have as a handicap accessible parking spot? In my mind, I'm trying to still figure out whether it's a handicap accessible or an Uber lift spot. It is. There are a bunch of factors that go into that relative to the building code and so it's not a requirement in this case. I think it was a request back and where before the planning board to seek it and to look at, you know, a solution that could that could do multiple things together. And so that's why we pursued it. And I don't, I don't know townwide if there's a or if there's a state law or federal law that a certain number of on street parking spaces have to be handicapped or not. If you have a handicap placard, you can park in any public space without paying. So I don't believe that there is. But you might not be able to get out. That's the problem. If it's not signed that way. So I guess I would ask for more information on how to better ensure that double parking doesn't happen for dropping off picking up. I envision this as a Uber spot, a lift spot on all sorts of drop off spot, not just handicap, but a good point about people who actually want to park. If we attach that drop off spot that I know you've talked about curb. Bringing the curve down bringing the curve down to one or two of the spots next to it that also have the curve down that could be maybe not necessarily solely designated as handicap but indicated as handicap accessible spots. Can we look at those options to as to, you know, that would be parking spots that would be accessible instead of just the drop off being accessible. Might be something to explore. I think you could. I think that that there's a, you know, ramping down and ramping back up and having cross slope is something that needs to be managed, especially with our winters and piling. And so I mean, you could probably do that for that entire stretch. But I think if you're looking at a true handicap accessible parking parallel parking space. I don't know the design regulations that would go around that if there's some some access on either side if you end up striping the sidewalk. And I don't know exactly what those would entail. I think that for for this a question about double parking. If we're trying to prevent double parking, it's it's it's use right if there's if there's someone who's looking to drop off and FedEx is there. And, you know, the trash truck for this building or the building across the street and the linen deliveries or something like that. That's that's double parking. And then there's their size to allow for pull in and pull out. And I think we can handle the size, right? We can say, hey, we can talk to the professionals and say, you know, 30 feet is here's examples of what a 30 foot drop off looks like. And that allows for easy pulling and pull out without having to stop and back up. And then that size, you know, obviously would translate to the drawing pretty clearly. And then we could all discuss, you know, how big do we think these other parking spaces could be. And I'm thinking that maybe what our next charge should be is to look at a space that's not as long. Maybe it's not 21 feet if and we could go back and look at what the parking consultant said if that goes on to 18 or 20. And then we could really give that remainder to the drop off area because, you know, we're the two sides of this are set are not proposed to be changed in any way shape or form. And we could be left with something that's 28 feet or 32 feet and maybe bring that to the next meeting. The parking consultants have said, suggested that some areas of the street could not have don't need markings. But if you have a kiosk there, you register that you're parking using one of the apps or I think they're all quite accessible, but you don't have lines. I mean, there are many places in New York where there's no lines. You just fit your car in. Right now, there are special permits on that street. And my thought is that I, this is just my own personal thought that I think we should have fewer special permits because I see it as an unfair allocation of parking. And then you would have, you'd have to remove the no special permits, but you could have kiosk. And then you could have as many cars as fit in except for your marked space, which is your handicapped accessible. And that might work be more flexible. So one thing about Spring Street is it is one of the streets that's the hybrid. So it's both resident resident permit plus meters. So resident permit basically trumps the meters. I'm sorry. I don't like to use that word resident. So removing the stripes, that's an interesting question because then doesn't that give an advantage to the bad parkers? So I guess, I don't know how reasonableness gets measured if you take too much. It assumes movement. Yeah, yeah. The thing changes all the time. And I do know that when I park, I only notice when I feel I'm too close to another car, say in the parking garage. And when I come back, it's all different cars around me. So there's generally a lot of movement going on. Yeah, yeah. I actually think that's an interesting idea just to simply remove the, remove the divider lines and just let it be, you know, what it is. So you're not having a meter at each space, but you're, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, there's lots of examples of very short term parking right out here. There's some 20, 15 minute zones or 20 minute zones loading or unloading. I think there's one open to everyone right out here in front of the coffee shops. So, but most of those are at the end of the aisle. So you, in other words, at the end of the row, so you can go straight in, which makes it so much easier. So we don't have that advantage here of being able to go straight into end of the block kind of a space. So I like the idea of squeezing either squeezing all the spaces or getting rid of the lines and, you know, let it be and then making a bigger. And I like the, maybe that's a way to handle the traffic. Maybe they're, one of these spaces is 15 minute only. Yeah. And then there is one that's larger that allows for pull in and pull out may not have to be 30 feet. Maybe it's 28 feet if we can shrink these all down to 20 or 19 or 18, you know, maybe one could be flagged for the 15 minute. That could be number one or number 13. Maybe it's number one because then that could be serving the Lord Jeff across the street as well potentially. Yep. And then in mid block about where the current curb cut is where the curb drops and the grading works to kind of bring it down to the street without having to rip up the whole street. Maybe that's where the drop off space is and that drop off space is a bit, a bit larger, maybe 25 feet, maybe 28 feet, depending on what we can fit. So it is. Yeah, I'd love to know what day this photo was taken because all the, all the spaces on the, on the north side are taken. All the spaces on the south side, which I believe are tagged. Those are. Yeah, but those are in a boltwood spaces. I think I think those are. The south side in a boltwood are just west of the drive aisle. Yeah. And to the east, the Delta is that they are not town center permit. Gotcha. Spaces. So I think that's why they're open. Gotcha. That's why they're full. They're full right now. It's a, it looks like summertime by the leaves on the trees. So. Interesting. Park on the sunny side. I think for, I think for our next visit, and this is not a rush for us at all. I mean, we could, we could come up with something that is, that has some consensus to it. And then if it changed before the building was complete, we could revisit it because we could fall back. So if there was a larger decision made on moving, removing, striping, you know, in other sections of the town, instead of this one side of one street, you know, we could come back and revisit that. And I think it's more about just coming before you so we can, you know, have this conversation as, as the building goes up. Given that it's not a huge emergency that it needs done in the next month or two, would it be wise for us to wait to see what the downtown parking working groups recommendations after the, you know, the consultant finalizes the report and we get the parking working groups to see how we could make sure it comports with whatever they're recommending and whatever the council might be looking at as a whole. For things like striping and stuff like that, so that we don't come out of this committee recommending something that downtown parking working groups as don't do. Yeah, and I wonder if that will get down to us. So. I think their study is exactly that. It's a study. So it's not policy, it's, but it's recommending policies. So then those policies would have to be discussed, debated and implemented. So by then, you know, who knows. So in some ways we're just talking about paint, right? So if we're talking about meterless spaces, we're talking about, and I think that will be one of the recommendations is meterless spaces. And I know another recommendation will be shorter spaces. So those, yeah. And so we're, we're either talking about just paint or no paint or moving meters tighter if we still go with actual physical meters. But I don't know. So in some ways I go ahead and maybe there's a hybrid where maybe we could give you another iteration of this that shows kind of current thinking. Maybe there's a 15 minute space, a drop off space, as many 18 to 20 foot spaces as we could fit. That's submitted. We have that before us. And then if there's a change that's larger, we could say, hey, how about we get rid of the paint or change the 15 minute or add a 15 minute. And that could happen, like you said at any time. I guess I really want to know. You said you're doing pursuing the handicap spot as a recommendation that came to you. So to your point of view, what do you want? Our number one goal was to get the power lines down. And by doing so, then there's flexibility. I think when we first became, came to the planning board, we actually proposed some street trees that would match the area by Grace Church. And that was discussed and the discussion was pushed more towards parking. So at this, I think we'd like to just come up with something that works for everybody. Yeah. Also there's a, I know there's a parking study, but there's also the real world and I park down across from five college in the morning to walk up. Yep. And there's a lot of pickup trucks that are double wides or double links. And it's the same trucks in the same cars every single day. In the residence. No, on this side. So it makes me think that these are police station, town hall, the same people all the time. So you have to take that into consideration as well as to accommodate those people and their parking needs. Interesting. In terms of length. In terms of that there's not too many other people that get to park in there after nine o'clock. So these are, these are prime spaces because they're so close to the CBD. They're basically right in the CBD. So the resident, you know, the blue sticker, they are, I think the closest blue sticker spaces to the town common, right? Because there's nothing else within that close. Prospect. Yeah. Interesting. So, but we are in the world. So who knows and we'll get to autonomous vehicles, but we are in the world where parallel parking is much easier. So, so every new car has, I think a backup camera at least, right? And every lots of self parking or parking aided cars, you know, that's becoming more and more. And all leads to the theory that smaller parallel parking spaces is, is a way to increase capacity. Well, and the other thing is, even if we made these 15 feet, we might not only, we might not even be able to pick up one additional space because we're set by that overall length. I think what we'll do is we'll try to come up with a best fit and then come back to you with it. Okay. We're good. So, yep. My only request and maybe we should look at when you would like this to come back to the committee. My only request is that I would like to be able to have time prior to Kyle and Dave coming in to have staff take a look at what is being proposed. So if we look at a date, what I'd like to do is, and this is something I think we need to work on as a committee is, is when would you like material presented to you in advance of your meetings so you have time to look at it before the meeting? Yep. So is a week, you know, if you're meeting on a Wednesday, would you like it the week prior? I need to also think how can I get, you know, Rob is joining us this morning briefly, but how can I have time to have Rob or Chris Breastrup or Guilford Moring review that and maybe join us or come with some sort of input and feedback for you. So maybe even in an ideal world there would be a, before it comes to the CRC, I mean that's what you're saying, is that it would be reviewed by your department? Ideally, yeah, I mean I see my role as liaison is to bring to you either the staff or the recommendation from staff that, yeah, this seems to work in whatever it is, whether it's on affordable housing policy or public way issues, whatever it might be. So we might start with a week in advance to get the material electronically. I can send it out to you. I'll get it out to staff, relevant staff and either have them review it in advance and then come to the meeting as needed. So what we're talking about is the public right-of-way, which is really the responsibility of the town to implement. And so the way that this is working now is that these are the two developers of a project that's adjacent to the town right-of-way. But what's affected is much more than even in front of their, it's affecting the entire street all the way from Grace Church to the building at the corner. And I think what would help from Kyle and Dave would be not only the diagram, but a little narrative as to why and what they're thinking about. I was very interested in what you said about who you saw parking there. I would like very much to have some clear data on who is parking there, how often, what kind of vehicles. If it is town vehicles, which have to park somewhere, then we should know that because it may be that there really is no turnover and it's all tied up, or maybe it's going to change. I don't know. I think the suggestion would be that it was more town employees or people that work in the nearby town facilities, but we can do a field trip afterwards. Yeah, I'm not sure from a time standpoint whether we have time to collect a lot of that data. I don't think the parking working group and their consultant went into that kind of street-by-street analysis. I think, I guess I would say, and Rob might have an opinion on this, but I think it's a fair assumption that that is a popular spot for town employees who have the town center parking sticker. I think it's a fair assumption also to say that it is overflow parking for our police department and their staff because they do not have enough off-street spaces in their lot. So Churchill and part of Spring Street are often police officers or dispatchers. So I see a hand up. So hang on a sec, so let me, so we can take public, I'm just trying to think of our protocol. We can take public comment. We can take public comment. Yeah, come on, come forward. I'm Janet McGowan. I just want to give a data point on parking. I was hoping to park in one of these spots because I sort of like them. And I, they were all filled. The parking in front of the town hall was almost empty. The two lots had very few things. So I think people are, my guess is that people are using those spots, maybe from the police department and things like that. And then also just a reminder that this building itself has no parking. So there's going to be more and more pressure on all the parking around here. And it was originally designed to have parking and out won't. So I think you're going to see more and this building itself will bring a whole influx of people who have cars or will be going for permits. So that's just a reminder. Thank you. So you, we have a plan. Yeah, I think if this, if it works for the committee and the council, we will take, try to represent what the conversation was today and, and submit something and then we can, again, we can meet at your convenience, whatever time is required to review. I don't think our intent is not to present a final option. Say this is what we're fighting for. Obviously this is not DBW and other town bodies need to opine on that. And we're trying to help facilitate the conversation. Awesome. And guide it a bit. So that, that would be our intent is to resubmit something that reflects the conversation today. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. Were you here for this? Were you here for the Spring Street or the housing? Yeah, I was here for this. Okay. Do you have any, the only thing there are a couple of conditions of the permit that have in part prevented the issuance of the building permit having to do with this, this situation. Just so you're aware of that. One is that they submit their plan for work in the public way to the council for review. That has been done. The condition didn't require any specific approval at that time. But the second condition that's applicable is that they provide a cost estimate for the work in the public way and provide a bond. So I think what I had asked through the town manager, when, when he was presenting this to the council that we try to establish some, some sort of a timeframe that could become a condition of a permit that would be issued. That would allow me to issue the permit, you know, knowing that these issues were going to be worked out in some, some timeframe. So I'll do my best. I mean, I haven't gotten any, you know, direct response to that yet, but I'll do my best with both of those, you know, creating or accepting some sort of cost estimate and bond based on what we believe the work in the public way will cost as well as some sort of timeframe that seems reasonable to work out this issue just so it doesn't come down to the end of the project when they're asking for certificate of occupancy and this is not, you know, finalized yet. Thank you. With that, thank you so much. Thank you. And so we'll, so here's the other thing is that should you be in touch with me or should you be in touch? Why don't you be in touch with Dave? And so when you're ready to come back. I think in relatively short order we'll draw this back up and submit it and we can reach out to, we'll find out who to submit it to. Okay. All right. We can submit it to multiple people. Brave New World. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So we are going to move on to agenda item 3B, which is the affordable housing policy. So this was presented to the town council then referred to the CRC. And we had it on the agenda for two weeks ago, but that meeting was not properly posted. So thank you for, for not coming then and for coming now. So please introduce yourself, John. Thank you. Comments? I have a question. I'm wondering about tax incentive financing and town surplus property and money going into the housing. How effective has that been? So when you first presented this to the council as an email a long time ago, you and I had a conversation about it. And somehow I can't find my notes to that, but things have changed a little bit. I still, I'm going to harken back to that conversation and some of the concerns I mentioned to you then. I look at this and I still have a hard time seeing the policy part of this versus the goals part. And to me goals and policy are two different things. I see a lot of goals in here that we have a goal of building 250 units for less than 80%, 100 units for 80 to 100% AMI and above 100. No goals. And, but I don't see the policy on how we would get to those goals. And so that I guess the implementation or, you know, so that that's the implementation side of a policy. How do you meet the policy or meet the goals? But, but what what I talked about last time was where did those specific numbers come from? How is why is that the policy or the goal? Why is it 250? Why is it not something else? Is the, is the policy we just support affordable housing? Where's the policy for above 100 AMI? And then harkening to the public comment we heard earlier, there's, there's in here no greater than 30 AMI. I don't see homelessness in here at all. And if we're going to have a policy, I, I want to see a comprehensive policy and I see this as a discrete portion of a housing policy or even a discrete portion of affordable housing policy. I don't know what the solution to that is, but it is a concern in reading this that I have. Yeah, of course. You did hit on some. I'm going to follow up with, with the subsidy costs, the sections four and five, which I guess is probably potentially where I'm concerned about a policy not existing. And section four is projected local subsidy costs and five is project evaluation criteria. The criteria actually might be policy. Like how are we going to decide as a municipality how to fund something that that's, that's where I see a policy being. Yeah, it's more of an implementation, but it's also we're going to adopt this funding mechanism with this minimums and all of that. So I would love to see that developed a little more and same with number four. Where's the funding coming from? So, so sort of a policy on and acceptance of communal goals on funding, you know, this is where it's going to come from. This is how much we're going to put in per year. That to me is the policy, not well, here's the sources, but what's our commitment to those sources. And this is some of the stuff we have to get back to you to the housing trust that's developing this at some point. But that I see that as policy. Dorsey. In reading your policy, I'm finding that I don't like some of the vocabulary. I don't like talk of just units. I don't see the word community. I think that we need to be helping develop and courage or build if possible communities where there is affordable housing of different types, integrated income levels so that they're not all all the people at this income level at one place or the other. And I do think that Wayling brings up a lot of points that are very valid that how people are treated, the kind of services that are offered can make a big difference in how it works. I also really believe that we don't want to be just increasingly a town of renters and that we need to find some way. And I don't have a solution, but some way for home ownership. There is a mention in I may have been reading one of your older reports that you did a few homeowner duplexes. So I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. But and there was there's a street just I can't remember the name right now. It's right right off of Amity, which a number of years ago, I think that maybe CPA money was used for the land and there's private houses on it in a. Do you know the street I'm talking about? It's right near University Drive. So there was some affordable aspect to them. They're smaller homes and it's it's clustered in a way in a community around a circular drive, which is very, very nice. So those are some of the things I would like to have your thoughts on. Well, yes. But the question, do we want the town to be one primarily a rental town or a home ownership town? That is still, I think, a big question. I mean, you also in at least the report I was rereading this morning said that did not account for the big thousand student P3 unit that's going to be done on the edge of campus on Massachusetts Avenue. Again, I guess I really I really want families. That's that's my bias. I want housing for families as well as as low income single individuals who are not students to be our primary goal. I see a couple of hands up and we'll get to you guys. I would just say if that's part of it, then shouldn't that be part of our town housing plan to advocate with UMass for building more on campus housing, if that's going to be part of our housing policy, we should have a section in that. About town council advocacy to, you know, it's not the trust necessarily, but if it's this is a townwide plan, we need to be thinking about the advocacy portion and what we as a town need to be advocating with UMass for and include that in the plan. We can take comments from what we'll do waiting and then we'll do Janet come come on forward. Thank you. So my comment is this, this is the biggest myth. I don't want to contradict my colleague, Mr. Hornick here, but just in reality, this is what we are confronted with as an agency, even though housing available for people who are at 30% area, medium income or lower sounds good. So that means mathematically, if you make zero income, zero AMI, you are still eligible. But let me remind you at the North Square at the middle district, the rent floor for a one bedroom apartment or studio apartment is $756 per month. So if, if this is the case, then those who are at the 30% AMI, that's what they are supposed to be available for eligible for. For these people, they are paying 53% of their income, even at 30% AMI. So that's a huge amount of money, their budget for housing. Affordable housing means 30% or less. And yet these people not only they have to pay 53% of the income for housing, they also they are responsible for the electricity use as well. Let's not fool ourself when we look at the numbers in paper, it looks great. But in reality, when our agency try to place people, we cannot even get them to be eligible to apply for housing. For example, at North Square at the middle district, their application get rejected simply because they are only making $750. And their rent is $775, even if they give up 100% of their monthly and easily income from a state disability income, they cannot even get their foot in the door. So I really would appreciate that when we talk about affordability, please think about people who are at the margin of the margin. Meaning people on the ground, their income is no more than $750. So if you want to talk about affordable housing, and if you think it's a good idea to include these 15% AMI, people who are disabled and receiving state income at $750 a month, then you need to find housing, the rent cannot be more than $250 a month. That's about 30% of their income. $250, that's a lot of subsidies that you have to put in in order to make it eligible. It's almost impossible. But I said to you, for which is difficult, we can do it. For which is difficult, we can do it. For which is impossible, it just takes a little bit of time. If you think housing is a basic human needs, a basic human rights. Thank you. And Janet? So I'm not coming as a member of the planning board, but just somebody who's mulled this for a long time. I support the goal and the policy. I mean, the overall goal is to have people housed living in Amherst at a reasonable cost. One mechanism to achieve this goal of affordable housing is to impose a 15% affordable housing requirement on the number of units or the amount of space in new developments. And this recommendation is from both of our housing reports, the Amherst Housing Production Study and the Amherst Market Study. Both of those reports recommended a 15% affordable housing requirement across the board and to simplify our inclusionary zoning bylaw. Both of those reports were adopted by the planning board to be part of the master plan. And both of those reports are actually kind of old. So I just recommend that we basically modify our inclusionary zoning bylaw to do that. And in terms of cost to the town, it's really cheap to the town because it doesn't cost anything to require builders and developers. And by way of example is that in my short stint on the planning board, we had an apartment unit of 16 apartments, a building of 16 units. We just permitted that and we're looking at one for 62. So that would be under a 15% requirement, 12 new units. And then we could take 250 and we can subtract 12 units. Now we're at 238 units and we haven't spent a dime. So the second idea is also that requirement can also be imposed on subdivisions. So it could be result in homes. And there are towns that do 15% of units and a few towns that do space. So maybe that could be two units if it's smaller like two apartments or something. The second idea is to set up a program to educate and help owners create apartments in their own homes and their garages and their outbuildings. We have that in the bylaw right now. People don't know about it. And so I think the town could sponsor information sessions, information sheets, help people in terms of getting contractors, maybe set up a low-interest loan program. And that also will help people in town who have lower incomes or as they get their empty nest or age. I think in Amherst, like two-family housing, I've seen those houses on the market and they don't sell, they're great starter homes. They're great homes for people looking for extra income. There's this very large tax benefit to having a two or three-family home. People don't know that. And so it's good entry level or just keeping people in their homes. When I lived in Somerville, our first home was a two-family house. And we got a $1,700 tax break from the city of Somerville for a living owner-occupied unit. And Amherst could do that. Maybe we could offer a bigger tax break if someone designates one of those units as affordable or maybe they get a third unit if one is affordable. These are like market mechanisms to get people to create this kind of housing, maybe with a little bit of tax consequences for Amherst. The other idea which I think I circulated was the idea of setting up a program like Nestorly to match empty nesters with students and maybe UMass could take that on as a project or we can just invite Nestorly here as a way of, you know, create it. We need to create more housing stock. There's not a huge appetite for tremendous more building and this way we could just utilize our existing housing more effectively. The next idea is to get UMass to commit to housing its increased number of students and frankly their existing number of students to build high quality undergraduate and graduate housing. Since 2000, I mean I don't know what happened before, UMass has never housed 61% of its students. I don't know where this number comes from. It's less than 50%. I think they were just counting their undergraduates and not their graduate students. And the fourth idea or maybe I'm at five, I've lost track is building non-student housing apartments and condos. This is recommended in the housing market study as a strategy. Basically the recommendation was for the town to start building cheaper or lower cost houses and apartment houses, apartments, but to prevent students from being part, like to keep students out because that's where the competition is for starter homes, you know. And we've been talking on the planning board that you can require an lease that could be a provision and a lease of not having undergraduates or students in your apartments and so that would sort of free up space for more or less expensive houses to go to families or people in limited incomes and create more cheaper apartments. I think the other piece that's really hard is that the developers who are building housing, apartment houses and houses, there's a big high end market and there's not a lot of incentive to build those lower ends because there's so much money more into that, but I think there's different ways if we kind of ease up on demand and create more space in these different ways that could change it a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. So how to move? Yeah, John. Thank you. So do we have homework or did you have enough from this discussion to help kind of, yeah, go ahead. I think the referral was for us to come back to the council with our recommendations for what to send on to the housing. It seems kind of convoluted in that sense. So I think maybe in next meeting, the discussion should be amongst the five of us as to what we want to send back to the council and recommend to the council. So rather than having John come back. I mean, he can come back. We're not going to hurt you. But I think we need to come back as a committee with what do we want to report back to the council. Yeah. So yeah, for me, I'm struck by the word draft that we're really reviewing a draft. And so I see this more of a conversation that might strengthen it before it comes back to these various bodies. And then the other thing I keep looking for is the references to the master plan. So whether and what I mean by that is, yeah, just like we say that we'll do this in the master plan and then so relation to the master plan is go ahead. Well, then I think that and I'm sorry. We don't have the, I can't pull up the full document. We have, you know, the summary sheet, but I think more references to the master plan says this. And then this is how that relates. It also would be helpful if you see parts of the master plan that could be could be changed. I also want to encourage the trust to take seriously. And I know you do the homelessness issue. And I'd like to see something as part of our policy specifically listed. I also would love to find out what initiatives are happening in other states or in Massachusetts around housing. I know they're in Texas. There's a development of tiny houses for people who have been homeless. It's very specific for that. And it has very creative guidelines about how the community is run. And so in some ways, I guess I'd like to urge us to look a little bit more creatively and to figure out what zoning changes might have to happen. I have a question. Wayling's question about where is somebody at 15% AMI to pay a rent? Now, I know in Connecticut and I think in other towns, there are housing developments where people can pay that 200, where the rent can be $250 if that's what the person's, is 30% of the person's income. Do we have any housing in the town of Amherst that subsidizes to that extent? We make a connection, which I believe is a false connection, that creating affordable housing in Amherst is going to help the people in Amherst right now who can't afford their housing. And I don't think that's true. In North Square, they're having a very hard time finding people for the affordable apartments. They're going to other towns to look for them because they do screen them very carefully. I guess from the man who's in charge of it, I guess from Beacon. We have to meet, I think, and the idea that we can make some new units and it'll deal with our homeless. But if we don't do it in the right way, it's not going to touch our homeless. We have to deal with how are we going to get housing for people who are here in Amherst now rather than bringing them in from other towns. That's my feeling. Yeah. Yeah, so I think we will put this on our next agenda for continued discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much. So we're going to move on to discussion items. So these are from CRC Goals. So I'm trying to follow, I'm trying to follow, we have a syllabus as to topics that we wanted to hear about during the fall semester, during the fall season. And actually for this today, we had public-private partnerships, which actually has been discussed quite a bit on the agenda. So Dave and I discussed this and I contacted the university to see if they would be willing and able to come speak to us. But at the same time, President Griezmiller was also asking that group, Tony Marullo, sent his group to come to our full council meeting. So we thought it would be confusing to have them come here and then come to the full council. So we're going to, you know, wait for that presentation and there may very well be a referral, you know, to us for some issue. So otherwise I am trying to keep to the syllabus for our topics. So also I wanted to get to 4B, which is the structure of our group. And then part of this had to do with the fact that we were really a body of four. Now we're a body of five, which is great. But there has been, there are some ideas about how this group may be restructured. So this might be a place where, you know, that's, you know, or structured differently. So is it okay if I turn it over? You're not in. Do you want to talk about some ideas? I wasn't planning on doing it this way. I would like to see a change in chair. I think that your life is extraordinarily busy and that impacts us. So that's a change I would like to see and also to understand what kind of process we will have as we look at different issues. I mean I thought today was a really good meeting and I appreciated what you were doing. So those are the two things that are on my mind right this second. And, you know, just I would be happy to, we have a vice chair, I'd be happy to cede to the vice chair or, you know, I do think we're finding our groove to a certain degree because we are, you know, moving our way through different processes but whatever. We don't have to discuss this right now but I have, yeah, happy to. Are you suggesting that we hold, that we hold new elections with the new structure of the committee and that we vote on a new chair and the new vice chair? Yes. Well one way to do it would be to Dorothy as our vice chair and originally we had talked about the prospect of co-chairs. So I mean a simple way would be and I do feel extraordinarily, you know, swamped actually so I, if you would be willing to. Well I don't think it would be good for me to be chair at this time. I'm very, very busy too. So we can just move it back to Pat and let Pat make some motions to see where we go. How's that? I would like to ask Mandy Joe if she would be interested in chairing the committee. I don't know. So I think we have a rule and chair two committees. You know what? That's not what I asked. I had an inkling. Something like this may come. I heard some rumors. I, if the committee wants me to chair I will accept a nomination. I am happy not to chair two. There is a rule of the council that a person cannot chair two standing committees at a time. So in order to become chair of this committee I would have to step down from the chairing the governance committee. I am prepared to do that and governance is able to hold an election within the next week and a half or two weeks if need be in order to have the rules, have both committees comply with the rules because I have, I will say I have no interest in chairing. Even if there were no rules I have no interest in chairing two standing committees at all. It's a lot of work to chair a committee and I appreciate Steve what you've done with this committee and all but if it is the will of the committee then I am able to accept a nomination should it happen and I'll make sure that GOL has a solution. So let me just say something here. I think Steve's contributions as committee is very important and I don't think that we would, if you will stay with the committee and continue to offer your experience and I'm very happy being just a member of the committee because I want to talk and think but I don't necessarily want to rule and it's, I think being the chair of a committee is a lot of work and I know Mandy Jo can do that. So I have trust in her fairness and I think we could operate well. So I have trust in all five of the members in chairing the committee and I have absolutely no investment. I think we should do what's best for the committee so if Mandy Jo is willing to, so what would be the process to simply hold a new election? I think technically it would be a motion to reorganize and then that get accepted and then a new motion for chair. I'll make that motion just a minute. I'll make a motion that Mandy Jo become the new chair of the CRC in replacing me. Only as chair not on the committee what Dorothy said was important. I feel that we really, really need your expertise Steve and I always appreciate your opinions and your sense of time. You know things from all over the place which I think is very good. So I do need to make a comment though so the, I think that this and I miss a retreat, I was out of town but I do think it's extraordinarily important for this council and its committees to have a place for people that have full-time jobs so the council is not meant to be a full-time job. The committees are not meant to be full-time jobs and I think that trying to meet every week which has been a suggestion is completely eliminates a pool of people that will be willing to take this on in the future. So and that has been a real problem for me is that this committee really got going at the same time my full-time job also was getting back going. So we need to figure out ways to be and I know you can do this. We need to find ways to make this job doable for everyone. Did we vote? We don't have a second yet. Oh, I seconded. I thought Pat wanted a second so, but I'll second it happily. In favor raise your hand or say I. You can vote for yourself. Okay, all against? You can't vote against? All abstaining. So the vote is 3-0-1. 3-3-0. So we do have a schedule for the fall and that's important to keep because the minute taker has that schedule we have the room on the schedule and then of course we reorganize anyway in January. I think I've got that schedule because I think I was on that list. My one question now that I'll be taking this one over is the October 9th meeting was canceled. Was there one put in place or is the 23rd our next scheduled CRC meeting? Is it possible for the members of this committee to come on October 2nd next Wednesday or October 16th so that we don't go a full month between meetings? For me October 16th is fine and the other one was October 2. Which would be next Wednesday. What's the next GOL? October 2 will be the next GOL meeting because of the October 9th cancellation but that is very quick turnaround for this committee given we just changed chairs. Both of those dates are okay with me. Only the 16th is okay for me. I will be out of the country on the 2nd. So October... 16 or 2nd. I can do either one. 2 or 16. Mandy. That's good. Dave. Yeah. Who's chair now? I have no idea who's running it now. I'm chair till the 1030. Okay. My preference would be 16 that would give us a little time. Coming right back next week it doesn't give anyone who is here today any chance to come back because I think we could work with John we can work with Kyle and Dave and have them come back on the 16th. That gives us a little time. Given a change in structure and all is certainly my preference at this point. I just wanted to see where people were. My preference is the 16th. And Steve you can do the 16th. So we will plan on an additional meeting on October. Lynn looks like she's got... would be the week after the 23rd. At least that's what's scheduled now. I can certainly go... 16 and 7 is 23. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll plan on the 16th. I'll send an email out and we'll get a room. Okay. I see additional public comment. I will accept it before we have to adjourn soon because GOL is starting. So just in terms of structure we were at the last planning board meeting talking about the liaisons to different committees and being assigned to them and there was no conversation about planning board liaisons to any town council committees. And so I just thought since you're doing planning and zoning and use of all lands and Amherst and really you have a huge mandate that seems to match very nicely. The planning board mandate asking for a liaison or thinking about that or coming to a plan... it just seems like a natural committee and so I was going to bring it up to the planning board about whether we should be doing liaisons to council committees too because so much important stuff is happening there. So like the...anyway. Okay. Let's see where else are we? Review of upcoming agendas? Information items? Review of upcoming agendas? So I think... Yeah, interesting. Business that anticipated 48 hours before the meeting. Anything? And then adjourn. Is there a motion to adjourn? There's a second. All in favor, raise your hand. Passes 4-0.