 A little bit to see. All right, we are recording now. Excellent. We're going to wait a little bit to see and let the attendees side populate. Before I formally start the meeting. Are you expecting show? She is. Right on cue. Yes, I just saw your Facebook post. I'm going to wait a little bit longer. I'm going to wait a little bit longer. It looks like we've stabilized on the attendee side. So. Seeing. Seeing a presence of a quorum. It is now 7.02 PM. And I am calling this. Sorry. You're creating a lot of feedback. Is that right? Let's see. Is that. Yes, that is. Okay. And we're not quite stable on the attendee side yet. So. We're going to wait just a little bit longer. It looks like we've stabilized on the attendee side. I'm calling this special meeting of the community resources committee of the town council to order on October 24th, 2022 pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapters 22. And another one 107, I think it is 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 I'm going to take a roll call to make sure that everyone can be heard and we can hear everyone. And we'll start with Pam. Here. And Mandy is here, Jennifer. Here. Pat. Present. Joleney. Present. And we welcome Michelle Miller. Can you hear us? Present. And Rob more. Thank you for joining us, Rob. And Dave Zomek is also here. Thank you. So the point of this meeting is a community forum. So you will notice that the agenda only includes the community forum. And it doesn't include public comment because the community forum is public comment. And so that's, that's what we'll be doing this whole meeting. Right now, just so people know, we have about 32 people in the audience. Um, and Rob more, thank you for joining us, Rob. And Dave Zomek is also here to answer any questions that people may have while we go through this. So the point of this meeting is a community forum. So that is wonderful. And how we'll be running this is I'm going to put up a couple of slides and we're going to go through those slides one by one. The packet included a brief summary or of, or a compare contrast of the current bylaw with where we are with the draft bylaw. We'll talk a little bit about that. And then for each slide, we'll accept public comment questions and comments. They can all be done at the same time. And so that's, that's what we're going to be doing. So that's, that's what we're going to be doing. For that slide and those particular sections of the bylaw, we are hoping with this community forum to get feedback on the bylaw draft itself. Anything that concerns people, anything that people really like. Um, people, things that people don't like. It can go really specific. It can go really general. Um, you know, down to this part of the bylaw, this definition just doesn't work for me or, you know, it can be as general or specific as you want, but, but feedback that would help us as we continue to draft. And revised draft a revision to this bylaw. Um, I want people to know that this is not a bylaw that is set in stone right now, just because it looks like it's a near complete draft revision. We are still very much in the conversation stage, which is why we're doing these forums. Um, we are constantly reviewing the language, constantly talking about the pros and cons of each of the sections, how that will affect, um, the various, um, constituencies as we go through it and hearing your feedback and making revisions based on that. So please don't say it's too late for the comments. We're still making changes. Uh, nothing is really set in stone at this point. Um, and in fact, you'll have seen that there's a set of regulations in the packet. Those regulations haven't even been discussed by CRC. So they're there because they're basically a catch all of things that we thought should be in regulations, at least topic wise. And then thoughts from committee members as to what that might look like, what they would put in there and all. We haven't even gotten to that yet. So, um, we're looking for feedback on that too, but please know that it's there, but hasn't even been discussed, which is why it's still in very much a draft stage. So with that, um, I'm going to open it up to see if any of the other committee members would like to say anything before we move to our first sort of slide. Um, and, and. You know, public comment. So Shalini. This is actually not about the bylaw and this meeting, but it is India's biggest and South Asian biggest festival. So if there any people who are here today celebrating the valley, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy the valley and that everyone knows that there will be a formal celebration. On November 5th at the Unitarian church from 3 30 to 6. That's all. Thank you. Thank you for that announcement, Shalini. Seeing no other hands from my fellow committee. Pam. Hi, I thought it would be just a very quick, um, and very helpful thing to just remind folks of the goals that we set forward as we started to work on this project. And in, in a nutshell, it is to ensure that rental homes are properly maintained and code compliant so that they are safe and healthy. Um, that we have an equitable fee structure. That we have a clear licensing program and process. So it's easy for people to get through a permit process and obtain a permit. Um, that we safeguard strong neighborhoods. And that we also, if we can address climate action goals. So that's the intent and purpose of, of reworking the guy, the bylaws. So thank you. Thank you for that nice reminder, Pam, of those goals. That was, that was very helpful. Um, with that, I'm going to move to our. Um, did you just raise your hand again, Pam? Okay. Um, I'm going to, Athena, can you give me the ability to screen share? Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to show on the screen the, um, the first, um, slide, and then I'll talk about it. We'll take it down. Um, we can always put it back up if people would like to reference it in the comments and all, but I think we'd rather. Maybe not stare at it, but I'm, I'm happy to leave it up. But this is sort of the first set of summaries of what our current bylaw has versus what the working draft has and some of those changes, um, currently in there. Um, in the red between the time this working draft went out to the public in all of the packets for the second half of October. CRC has had a meeting. So in that time, we did some discuss some things and, and made some potential changes. No new draft has been issued, but the red indicates some of that change that might not have been in the draft that you're seeing that, that will look different in any future draft based on recent CRC discussions. So what the current, what, what these four sections are is that, you know, the current bylaw and the working draft will require a permit. Um, the difference between the working draft and the current bylaw based on the most recent discussions is, and I didn't fix all of this as I, as I look at it now, is that the current working draft requires a permit before operating or renting, um, A premises, um, a dwelling unit. The current bylaw, you have to obtain the permit before renting or offering to rent. So we've removed tentatively that offer to rent requirement in the new draft, although in the draft in your packet, it still has it in there. That's a most recent change. Um, and we've added a requirement that if you're exempt from obtaining the permit, um, that you must submit your documentation to sort of show proof of that exemption. Um, the exemptions remain basically the same, which is lodging how lunch lodging houses, halfway houses, group homes. We have added into it dorms owned and operated by higher educational institutions. Um, so that has been an addition in it. And then also an addition to clarify that properties rented less than 14 total days in a year, um, would be exempt from this. But if you rent a property for more than 14 days a year, you would need to obtain a permit. Um, and that clarifies something that is not quite clear in our current bylaw. The issuance and denial section is a lot more specific. Um, and it right now it just says permits shall be issued if you complete an application and the current working draft is that permits may be issued if certain requirements are met. And then a permit can be denied for specific reasons. That there is the potential for a conditional permit for properties that might not have a passing inspection, but are working towards passing an inspection. And it also, um, changes that if you need to transfer your permit upon a change of ownership, that that will require a new inspection upon change of ownership. And then the final one on this slide is the consent and other requirements. And this is where the current bylaw, um, has that the lease is required to have tenants agreed to reasonable access. The owner is required to make leases available and the owner has to provide some information and information sheet to all tenants. The current working draft has much of that same language in it, including the, um, reasonable access language, um, consenting to inspections by owners and all of that, but there are a lot of changes. Those changes will be discussed at Thursday's meeting because we are still working on receiving legal opinions on whether some of this is legal or not, but some of that is in there. Um, and all, and so at this point, I would ask that if you'd like to make comments or have questions about these four sections, permits, um, issuance or denying of permits, the exemptions for obtaining a permit, and then these consent and other requirements, if you would raise your hand, um, I'm going to stop the screen share. If any commenter would like the screen share back on, I can do that while they are making the comment if they request, um, but it'll make it easier for me to run to see who to call on if I don't have my screen also shared. So this time, if you'd like to make any comments on those four sections, I just summarized or have any questions, please raise your hand. Each person will be allowed three minutes to speak. I'm going to try and recognize all new individuals that wish to speak before I re-recognize someone who has already spoken, um, for anything, and, and we'll see how it goes from there. Um, and so at this time, um, Jocena Reggae, um, please unmute yourself, state your name and make your comment or ask your question. Hello, um, I'm Jocena Reggae and I live on 96 Farview way. And thank you, Charlie, need to saying happy Diwali. Happy Diwali to you too. Um, I'm just, um, wanting to know whether there's anywhere in this section or later on where it will make a distinction in the permitting process between owner occupied properties or what do they call them owner adjacent where somebody lives next door or opposite versus sort of corporate owners who live out of town. Will there be a different fee schedule or a different inspection schedule? Um, I feel that, that we should be friendlier to owner occupied and owner adjacent and we should be more, we should be very strict with people who are absentee or corporate entities. So I just wondered whether that's should it should be in this section or if there's anywhere else where that will be addressed. And just to add that our neighborhood is a very much a changing neighborhood right on the edge of the northern edge of UMass. And so this is a very real issue for us. We're nearly, you know, we're nearly at a tipping point and we really would like to do everything we can within equitable, you know, the law and being equitable to, to try to maintain a healthy balance in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you for your comments and questions. I'll do my best. There is not, there's, I think, let me think about this. One distinction in the current bylaw draft regarding sort of owner occupied owner adjacent and what some people refer to as absentee or corporate, which is the requirement for a, a person in charge if the owner does not live within, we just recently changed it to within the tri-county area, Hamden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, they would have to appoint a person in charge that is within those areas. That is the only distinction I believe that is in the current draft bylaw. We are currently working on the draft fee structure and schedule. And that is currently up in the air as to whether that will have any distinction between any type of owner occupied and owner adjacent type fees and non-owner occupied fees. We've just begun talking about how we could structure a fee schedule to make it more equitable. And so that is probably the most likely place to see any distinction, I would say at this point, but I offer up any of the other seriously members or Michelle, if they would like to add any comments in response to that question. Jennifer. Sorry. I just wanted to, you know, kind of reiterate that we certainly wanted, I think we agree that we want to do everything we can to encourage owner occupancy, you know, and nothing to discourage that because, you know, that's, you know, and we just tend to, you know, in terms of, you know, sort of noise and nuisance complaints, they're almost never to owner occupied, you know, dwellings and that's something we'd certainly like to encourage and do nothing to discourage in revising the bylaw. Thank you. I'm showing. You know, in term, in terms of the survey responses that we got, we also saw that that was a very predominant theme that. Tenants who lived in owner occupied homes where they had very good relationships with their landlords and the landlords were very, you know, so that was a mutually respectful relationship. And as Jennifer pointed that those properties seem to not have many problems associated with that. So we will definitely be looking, you know, we will be sharing the full report, a summary of the survey results. We got more than 250 responses in that. So there will be a summary that will be shared and we will be drawing from that to inform our discussion. Thank you, Shalini. Next up is Daniel Raphael Sagolin. Please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Hi, sorry, it's taking me a long time to unmute myself. Hi, my name is Dan Sagolin. I'm the owner of the house in Amherst on Lincoln Avenue. And I wanted to ask what do the proposed draft. Rules, regulations, whatever you call them. What are you saying about inspection? I wasn't quite sure what the plan is that the new, the proposed changes with respect to inspections. Thank you for that question. We'll actually hit that on the next slide, but in brief, the inspections are moving from us right now. The inspection requirement is a self-certification by the property owners that all of the requirements of state law and code are met. And we are moving towards an inspection requirement. The inspections will be done by the town. We'll get into a little more detail on that. In the next slide after we've gotten through these questions on these first four sections. So feel free if it's still, if you've got any other questions at that time to bring them back up, but that's the main move right now. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Bob 10 creedy, please unmute yourself, state your name where you live and make your comment. Yes. Hello. I live at. 57 high street and Amherst. And I have a couple of apartments and a house in my backyard. And, you know, and just hearing the first couple of questions, a couple of things come to mind. Well, first off, after this meeting is over, is there any way that we can go back and hear all this and see all this or that possible case? We case we have to leave. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So my thinking is owner occupied. Shouldn't have to pay any fees. I think the big, you know, you know, the hundred, 200 unit apartments and any unoccupied rental houses and things like that, they should bear the burden of everything. You know, it's a totally different thing. Owner occupied is no burden on the town. As you said, we take care of our tenants. We have good relations. We keep up our property. We never call the police. I mean, it seems ridiculous to even throw us into the same. Category. It's a totally different animal. And I think that, you know, I think I pay $100 a year. To get a rental. To get a rental. To get a rental. To get two apartments. And some big complex that has a hundred units also pays $100 a year. You know, give me a break. Again, I know you guys are working hard and, and looking at all of this stuff, but owner occupied as a separate animals that should not pay any fees. It should be the last units that are inspected. We're here. We live in town. We are members of the community. None of these other places are every, every break or in the world should be made available to us. That's pretty much it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Bob, for your comments. John Varner, please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live and make your comment or ask your question. You just muted yourself again, John. John Varner, Jeffrey Lane. I have several questions, but I think the overriding thing that I would like to get to is. It seems like a lot of the revisions that are being discussed are going to require increased enforcement and increased tracking and bookkeeping. And I definitely encourage those things, but I'm just concerned that the town manager is going to turn around and say, well, we don't really have the budget for that. We can't do that now. So I'm just wondering how is the funding for these. Increased levels of enforcement and. Inspection. And record keeping in the town. How's that going to be funded? Thank you for that question. Right now we have just begun discussing the fee schedule. The goal of the committee so far is to try and create a fee schedule that would self fund. So we've been working with the city and the city to try to provide. And regulations that go along with the bylaw, the permitting system, including the inspection requirement that will be added. By the town, which is why we have just, we can't say much more than that because we've just started discussing that. And we have no idea right now what any schedule might look like and what. Fees and levels of. Funding decision, but it is, it is, that is the, the start of where CRC is starting with the goals of funding. Do you have any follow up with that, John? Or any other questions? Not with regard to the, the funding. I understand that it's pretty early stage to have that all figured out. I do have more specific questions. One of them is regarding the. Is there any provision to have landlords state the nature of the occupancy of their dwellings? Because how are you going to track where for unrelated individuals are living? Unless you have landlords come forth and say, well, this is an unrelated group of individuals. This is a group of students. This is a family, you know, categorize the rentals in some way that will identify. How are you going to track where you are living? And how are you going to track where you are living? Student housing. So right now the bylaw has two. Provisions for doing that for two specific. Groups of people, maybe groups of residents. The bylaw requests in the application, the bylaw says that the application needs to ask and the. Property owners would need to identify how many units on their property are being occupied by. That qualify as student rentals. And that is a specific definition in the bylaw right now in terms of what. We have defined as a student rental. In the bylaw. So those are the only two. Sort of sets of areas in terms of nature of occupancy that right now the bylaw is attempting to. Differentiate and identify. Within the rental units and dwelling units on any particular permit. Thanks. That answers that question. And I think I can hold off on asking anymore right now. I don't want to occupy too much time here. Thank you, John. Next is Narayan. Sam. Please unmute yourself. State your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Great. Thank you. My name is Narayan. I live in Kendrick place and I have. Owner occupied rental. So it's two units. And I just wanted to follow up on the gentleman before this. Who spoke about. Fees on owner occupied rental. And also. I'll wait for more information about inspections, but. I think the committee should also consider that. You know, the fees that you add on to us. We eventually. Would pass on to the landlord, right? At the end of the fees at the $150 is not. That big of a deal. But, you know, when there's an inspection in and things come up and we'll take care of it. But at the end of the day. We also would need to consider whether we're going to pass it on to the tenants that we have or not. So it's just a comment. Thank you for that comment. I rubric, please. Unmute yourself. State your name where you live and make your question, your comment or ask your question. I am. I rubric. I live at 255 strong street. And just to build on what the last couple of suggestions. I had written a letter today that I hope you will read that makes several points. But. I agree that if you have any kind of user tax on landlords that they're going to pass it on to tenants. And I would suggest that the. Proper party to pay. This would be UMass to increase their pilot to payment lieu of taxes. By the actual cost of what it would take for the town to hire. The inspector. So instead of turning this into a profit center, I'm going to pass it on to tenants. And I think that. It's going to take for the town to hire. The inspector. So instead of turning this into a profit center. Where the town actually might make money on something like this. To not make money on this, but to just have UMass pay. The salaries and benefits and whatever else it is. And I think that. Because UMass. Is actually the root cause of this student. To help them to create. Thank you. Thank you for that comment, Ira. I'm not seeing any hands specifically to this right now. This is not our only public comment. I'm going to move on to the next. Set of changes. Which are inspections and other permit requirements. And the current bylaw, as I mentioned earlier, is to move inspections into an actual inspection by town officials. And the property owners need to do that annually for all properties. And they have to do it as part of the application requirements. Substitutize housing is fully exempt from this inspection requirement. And there are some other exemptions, including long-term tenants, occasional rentals. And all. The current working draft of the bylaw is to move inspections into an actual inspection by town officials. So any deficiencies found in those inspections would need to be corrected before a permit issues, although I did talk about that contingency. Type permit while inspections are going on and fixes are being made. The inspections would no longer be tied to the application. The regulations would determine frequency. But the bylaw itself. The bylaw is to move inspections into an actual inspection by town officials. And it could last for 30 years. So a permit applied for, if there was an inspection that was passed within three years of that application, no new inspection would be needed. It could lengthen potentially up to five years under regulation. The regulations right now are draft that the thinking of CRC. When we were discussing these lengths was if there aren't. Violations that that could lengthen to five years. If there's a draft bylaw, it could be exempted from inspections, but they could be exempted from inspections upon the. Discretion of the building commissioner. And occasional rentals would be exempt for the further regulations, or if there are a certain number of violations within a permit year, the long-term tenants would also have an extended cycle from three years in the current bylaw to five years in the draft bylaw that we're looking at. And if there's a draft bylaw, it could be exempted from inspections. And occasional rentals would be exempt for the first year of the permit, but if that occasional rental turned into a rental for a second year, they'd need to get that inspection on the second year. And then not every dwelling unit would be inspected on the larger properties. It would bottom out at about 25% of the units to be inspected. And that's not a requirement. The occupancy limits are mentioned, but it's unclear whether it's a requirement of the bylaw. And there's a parking plan requirement in the working draft bylaw. There are. A mention of energy efficiency standards. The occupancy limits would be required to be met. Law and regulation compliance is required. Parking plan. Clear requirements for obtaining a permit. So the parking plan remains in there. And that's not a requirement of the bylaw. And that's not a requirement of the bylaw. The C.R.C. recently received the request. And the updates from ECAC on what they would be seeking. And the efficiency standards at this point, what they're asking CRC to put into the regulations are a required energy audit for properties that have one to four units. And that's the ever source. Sort of the mass save energy audit. And then. The C.R.C. is not a requirement of the bylaw. The only requirement that's required to produce. Reporting system is what ECAC has asked CRC to put in the draft regulations. They're not in the current draft because we received that after this draft went online. So those are the changes in those two sections. This is the inspections and other permits. I'm going to stock sharing at this time. get to violations and penalties in the next slide. But Pam, comments from you first. Sure. I just wanted to point out that parking requirements and occupancy limits are in our zoning bylaws. So they are clearly in place within our current laws. And the question would be if we want to repeat that in a rental permitting bylaw or point to existing requirements. So that's been a good conversation. It's clear that we need occupancy limits and we need parking requirements. How they are handled in this draft is TBD. Thanks. Thank you for that. Jennifer. Yeah, I just wanted to add in the current bylaw it does reference the zoning bylaw. So it speaks to it that way. It says that what's in the zoning bylaw will be complied with by the rental bylaw. Thank you. So at this time if you've got questions or comments on the inspections that proposed at this point working changes to the inspections or the other permit requirements, please raise your hand. And I will recognize you each in turn. We're going to start with Narayan. Sampath, please unmute yourself and make your comment. Great. Thank you again. Regarding the MASA, the ECAC inspection, would the committee consider, let's say I just had an inspection done and I did what I could afford to do, but what if there are suggestions that are relatively expensive that need to be done which I would love to do, but I really can't and I'm sure I speak for other landlords like I would love to have solar panels in my room, but not right now. So what would the committee take into account is to, okay, you've got the MASA audit done and you have these five recommendations, what needs to be implemented and what is a recommendation that could be implemented later, is that something that the committee would consider? Thank you. Thank you for that question. So right now all ECAC is asking CRC to put in the regulations is that the MASA inspection be required or energy audit be required to be done. Not that anything found in that audit need to be done, but just that the audit be completed and ECAC recommended, I believe it was a three-year timeline to be able to complete that audit. So they had suggested a timeframe of until July of 2026, I believe. Again, we've just got those recommendations. We haven't been able to put them in writing yet and discuss in detail what we would do with them, but it was only a recommendation to mandate the audit, not to mandate anything recommended by the audit to be completed. Do you have any follow-up questions? No, thank you. Okay, you're welcome. With that, Daniel Rafael Sagolin, please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. Take me forever to unmute myself. I think the inspection is a good idea. It's all an implementation and how long it takes to wait to get an inspection. Do we have any idea on how this would actually work in practice? Not completely, but what I will say is the bylaw has foreseen that it would take at least three years or the goal is to have all of the rental properties. We now currently have a little over 1,100 rental permits issued, so that's 1,100 parcels with rental permits on them. And we have at this point said three years to get all of the initial inspections by the town inspectors done. That may change as we actually start discussing those numbers and figuring out whether that's even a reasonable number or not. But it is not an expectation that if the council passes this change that within two months, all 1,100 would be inspected by the town. We know it will take time. The bylaw plans on the building commissioner or the principal code enforcement official making a schedule of how to get those inspections done within that amount of time. And so it gives some discretion to that person to determine which ones to start with, which ones to leave till year three, or if we extend to year four or five that long. So we don't have a plan right now on how, but we do know it will take years. Right. And so many, if you do go forward with that, you'd have very clear information available for what are all the things that have to be up to code. The bylaw does say that there would be a checklist created that would be used to determine the things that are being checked. But again, we haven't gotten that far as to what would be on that checklist. Because that's foreseen to be in the regulations. And we haven't discussed the regulations yet. Okay. Thank you, Daniel. Ira, please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. Ira Brick, still at 255 Strong Street. I would like to suggest that an educational video would be helpful. The video could be aimed at both landlords and tenants at the same time. And just show what an inspection is going to look like, what are the kinds of things that student tenants might realize are problems and how they can complain about it. And also just setting a standard for landlords to know. And it could include some, you know, local expertise from Rob Mora and people like that about how you're protecting your investment by keeping things up to shape and not deferring maintenance. And I think probably there's people at UMass film department that could make this and it could go viral and it could increase the reputation of UMass and Amherst of this is how we clarify things that need to be done. Thank you. Thank you for that comment and suggestion, Ira. Renata Shepard, please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Hi, Renata Shepard of Justice Drive. I have a question regarding the Mass Save inspections. They're great, love them, done even through field assistance. The question is, for example, renting a unit in a condo association. Sometimes we run into the issue of Mass saving doing the whole property. So not necessarily you'll be able to do one unit or your own unit because they normally go by the whole property. So just, you know, there has to be some kind of leeway in terms of what is done via Mass Save and condo associations. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Renata. John Varner, please unmute yourself and state your or make your comment or ask your question. John Varner, 54, Jeffrey Lane. I was just remembering a meeting that was a Zoom meeting that was held in late August, I believe with John Thompson and the building inspector. I'm not sure the man's name, I can't recall it. But they were talking about going to apartments and seeing violations and then going back in a month to see if the violations have been corrected and they hadn't been. And I was wondering why Landlord wasn't being assessed at least $100 a day, I see in the new proposal it's going up to $300 per day per violation, which is the state limit on those things. But I was curious to know if there was some reason that the Landlord involved hadn't been issued fine commensurate with the offense. I mean, if it's happening one day and it's happening another day a month later, I think it's safe to assume that it's been ongoing for a month and the person should be assessed to find for every day of the violation. I don't know that that's really happening. And I was curious, I mean, that would really bring in some money to help counterbalance the expense of tracking and prosecuting these things. Thank you for the question, John. I'm going to go to Rob Mora, who's our building commissioner, to see if he can talk a little bit about how his department decides when and how often and how much to assess fines and non-criminal fees on things like this. Hi, Rob Mora, building commissioner. So yeah, we do, you know, face that quite often and, you know, have to make a decision whether or not we're going to assess the penalty under non-criminal disposition. When we're looking at health safety, building and fire regulations, we tend to cite those codes rather than the rental registration bylaw, which is the one that gives us the non-criminal disposition. So we start with our codes and regulations that are enforceable through the courts, not necessarily through fines, although there are some exceptions to that through the fire regulations. And, you know, if we're unable to get compliance that we're satisfied with, then we can cite violations of the rental regulations and look at ticketing under the non-criminal disposition section. We tend to use that more often for zoning violations. So parking, you know, I saw two today where John Thompson wrote to the owner of the property and said, you know, bring us into compliance, otherwise you're going to face fines. And, you know, that's kind of the last warning before that will happen. We also have a lot of experience with supporting those fines and arguing for those fines in district court. So we have a pretty good handle on what we think the court will support us with the types of fines. And as you probably can imagine, oftentimes they've been dismissed or significantly reduced by the magistrate and district court. So we're not too loose in writing the fines unless we feel like we're unable to get compliance and a response from the property owner for the situation. Thank you for that explanation, Rob. John, do you have any follow-up on that? No, I'm good. Thank you. Thank you, John. Tom Crossman, please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live, and make your comment or ask your question. Good evening. Tom Crossman, Amherst native. I want to express my gratitude for everybody putting forth an effort to make us safer, healthier, better neighborhoods for Amherst. Just my comment or question would be related to occupancy limits and taking into consideration what is still a safe and healthy environment but is being underutilized. In example, a property that may be 6,200 square feet but is a single-family home that has seven bedrooms built within compliance of the laws of the land but can only rent to four people. Meanwhile, there's rumors that there are people put up in hotels right now because they can't find housing. So I'm trying to think about our housing stock and our inventory and if there's going to be any flexibility in granting more opportunity for people to find safe and adequate housing in our community. So just taking into consideration occupancy limits and if there is any way to consider adjusting that rule so that we can use the shelter that we have in our existing stock to provide housing for people who are interested in living in our community. Thank you for that comment, Tom. I do want to say that the occupancy limits, as Pam Rooney has said, are part of our zoning bylaw and the rental permitting bylaw, just as an information for everyone who's attending, is not in the zoning bylaw. It's not dealing with changes to the zoning bylaw. Occupancy limits are listed, I believe, four times in the zoning bylaw in terms of unrelated individuals, two in the definitions, one under non-owner occupied duplexes and one under the accessory dwelling units. What the permitting bylaw is dealing with and what CRC is discussing as it relates to the permitting bylaw is how do those occupancy limits and those zoning bylaws get reflected, as Pam mentioned earlier, into what constitutes a violation and then how do you treat that violation. And so while we as CRC have had lots of discussions on that number and I'm sure we will continue to have lots of discussions on that number, that number won't change as it relates to the permitting bylaw because the permitting bylaw is not dealing with anything related to changes to the zoning bylaw. The permitting bylaw is a general bylaw, but it is certainly something we will be discussing and have heard a lot of. Jennifer? Yes, I also wanted to say that in, you know, one always can rent to families and there's no limit on the size. So, you know, if you have a big, large older house, you know, that's, there's families that would, you know, lots of families that would love to rent houses and amours. So that's, there's no, you know, clearly there's no cap on that in terms of occupants. Thanks. Thank you, Jennifer. Pat? Just a quick reaction to what Jennifer just said. I think we need to look at what the definition of family is, whether it's a man and a wife or two women or two men and their children, grandparents, cousins, whatever. Our families are diverse and I think they need to be looked at individually, not lumped together with students or students create families as well. Thank you, Pat. Jennifer? Yeah, I also wanted to add, you know, the zoning bylaw is pretty, is expansive on how it defines families. So that, they were, you know, maybe that needs to be revised, but they were, that was mindful when that was crafted in the zoning bylaw. Thank you. And if anyone is curious, that definition is found in Article 12 of the zoning bylaw under the word family. And then in parentheses, I think it says household. And with that, Tom, did you have any other comments before I move on to the next hand? I appreciate your response. Thank you. The next hand is, is Daniel Raphael Sugglin. So please unmute yourself, state your name, we know your name, and make your comment or ask a question. So just quick question back to following up on Tom's question about full unrelated people. Isn't that a Massachusetts, a state of Massachusetts law or regulation or rule, not just an Amherst bylaw or zoning issue? I'm going to move to Rob to see if he knows the answer to that question. That's a local zoning bylaw and you can, you'll see that buried from town to town throughout the Commonwealth. So it's not, it's not a state or general law. Thank you, Rob. Thanks. Janet McGowan, please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live, and make your comment or ask your question. I'm Janet McGowan. I live at 706 Southeast Street. I just wanted to briefly talk about that occupancy limit. I grew up in Stony Brook on Long Island, which is used to be a small teachers college and is now one of the largest, you know, universities in the SUNY system. And the, the town of Belter nearby put in an occupancy limit of four unrelated individuals. And that went up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court upheld that. And I just want to, you know, there's a lot of good reasons for that in terms of when you grew up in a student town to limit the number of students living next door or how many students are living next door. There's a lot of complaints in Amherst about there, you know, there's six or eight, I know of one house that had eight students in a small ranch. You know, if your occupancy limit is four and people are violating it to six, but what happens when your occupancy limit is seven or eight and then there's 10 or 15 people there. And so it's legal. It's constitutional. I grew up in a college town. And, you know, I keep on hearing about this house on, I think it's on, you know, North Pleasant Street or East Pleasant Street. You know, if you have a 6200 square foot house and you want to rent it, you could always break it into two or three units and make even more money. But at least each unit would be, you know, four people or less or a family of, you know, related people in some way. And I just think there's, there's always going to be some exemption, exception to the rule, but you just need a rule that really takes care and does achieve like the best for the town. And we should just sort of think about that and not just think, oh, this is a big house, we can only have four people in it. I know from being on a Facebook page for UMass off-campus housing, there are many, many apartments where there are more than four students. People are living in living rooms, you know, sharing bedrooms. And so I just think we should keep in mind like we're trying to do the greater good, keep a town where we can have a mix of people in every neighborhood, calm, nice neighborhoods that are inviting and not kind of overrun by rowdy behavior. And so I think, you know, I just think, you know, there's always an exception or you're thinking, oh, that's a tragedy for somebody who has this giant house, but they could always convert it to a dwelling, you know, three dwelling units under our current zoning and make money. Thank you for your comment, Janet. Jennifer, you wanted to make a comment or a response? In an owner-occupied home, if you have a large home, there's no limit on how many tenants you can rent to. So if you're living in a home that has five bedrooms or six bedrooms, you have one, you could rent to five. So they're, you know, just wanted to, you know, remind that if that wasn't clear. Shalini. Could we have Rob Narra comment on that he had shared in the last meeting that in one case the recent case where lawyers were hired and it was not upheld by the court because there was no health or safety concern. Rob, would you like to re-summarize? I think you did that for our working session last week. Could you, could you do that summary again? Yeah, it's actually a case that's not resolved yet and it's not that the court hasn't made a decision on it yet. I'm not sure if there will be a decision from the court, but the point I think I was trying to make is that when we were at the hearing at Housing Court, the question that came back to us was, is there a health and safety violation? And, you know, it made us feel like, well, if we had a health and safety violation, it would be looked at much differently than it's being looked at and it was continued off until a date in November, mid-November. So I think it wasn't, you know, being seen as urgent as we would have liked it to have been seen. But that is a case that has more occupants in the House than before and we've gathered enough evidence to build a case and use that to gain compliance. But what we're up against are the eviction laws and procedures. So, you know, the best case in eviction, you know, can be handled with within two to three months if it's perfect. So we're finding out that we're looking at other ways to try to bring the property into compliance by getting the owners and the individuals involved to, you know, participate in that discussion. But that's not resolved yet, that particular case. But it's not uncommon. I guess it's an example of something that's pretty common over the years that we've dealt with. Thank you, Rob. Shalini. I think I just want to put it out there that the first and foremost thing is the health and safety, right? The second thing that we're hearing a lot from the surveys was the concerns about the, when they're excessive students or tenants living, there is parking on the lawns and trash or noise. So those are the concerns that are there when there is a concentration of tenants living in small spaces. On the other hand, if we could look at these accommodations in a different way, where we are taking into account the parking space, the safety and health, and it wasn't about the number. It was more about what can this unit accommodate or this house accommodate given the neighborhood? We might actually find that some homes should not allow even four, they should allow three. And then some homes should allow six or seven. So it really should not maybe be about, it shouldn't be about that. And that's, I mean, that's again a discussion I think we need to have and I don't think we've had it yet. So I just wanted the community to know that we are going to be looking at it in a very detailed way from all angles, from the landlord's angles, from the tenants, from the residents, and then, you know, see what comes up from that. Thank you, Shalini. Jennifer, and then I would like to move back to see if the public has comments and all to for, since it's a public community forum. Jennifer, though. Yeah, I just wanted to say, though, that we are not, we aren't just looking at how many tenants, you know, can safely or live or that a square, a house of a certain square footage can accommodate X number of occupants and that, but we're also looking at the impact on neighborhoods that I know are very important to many people. So I wanted to make very clear that we're not just looking at how many people can fit in the house, but what the impact will be, you know, on the surrounding street and neighborhood. Thank you, Jennifer. I don't see any other hands in the audience right now, so I'm going to share my screen again and go to our last slide. Once I find the right one. And the last slide we have here, and then once, once we open up comments on this slide, it can be this slide and anything else you guys would like to say to us or any other comments you have to us. We don't go into detail in the regulations, but this section, this slide talks about the differences between the current bylaw and the working draft bylaw on complaints and violations. And then also talks a little bit about the regulations. So in the current bylaw, the enforcement options include the fines, include a civil action to compel compliance enforcement orders and suspension of a rental permit and instances of egregious violations after efforts to have been made to gain compliance. And the fine, if, if leveled, would be $100 a day on offense. And if a suspension is leveled, it would take effect at the end of the lease start. The first suspension would be 90 days, and then it would be 180 days if a second one needed to be issued. And then it would be three years if a third one needed to be issued. And any appeals of the suspensions will move to a rental appeals board. The working draft bylaw has very many of the very similar options, criminal, non-criminal fines, violations and fines, in order to remedy problem. The newest one is this problem property designation that we've been talking about. You can suspend, revoke or deny a permit for failure to correct outstanding violations or for having life safety violations or continuing as a problem property designation as a designation as a property. There's a potential requirement as a potential penalty or after violation to require that the property owner appoint a manager or potentially a different manager and then the possibility of an order to vacate. The fines would be increased to 300 per day per violation. That is the maximum a town can enforce under state law. No town can go over $300 a day per violation in their fines. The suspension would again, if it was suspended, would take effect at the end of the lease and it would start instead of at 90 days at six months and then go to a year and then anything else would be dealt with in regulations. The appeals of suspensions, revocations and denials would go to the board of licensed commissioners instead of creating a new rental appeals board. The regulations, there really aren't regulations right now based on the current bylaw that I'm aware of and the working draft bylaw provides for regulations and those regulations at this point where the working draft bylaw talks about them are for potentially more application requirements, those energy efficiency requirements. We talked about how to designate a property, a problem property and what requirements are there or what violations and how that would happen and then also the standards for permanent suspension are in there right now. As I said, we have not discussed as a committee the actual language or the actual items that are in that it's basically been, oh, could we do that in regulations? Let's move that language over. We'll talk about it later and then as people have sent and mentioned things about potential for those sections, they've been added into this document to provide a starting point for conversation. The reason we're looking at regulations and looking at putting a number of these things into that is to provide more flexibility, especially with things like energy efficiency requirements or application requirements. It's easier to amend regulations than it is a bylaw. That means regulations can provide the flexibility to change as necessary given changing circumstances, especially around what energy efficiency programs there might be. That's what that is at this time. If you would like to have any comments or questions on the complaint and violation section or on the regulations, please raise your hand and ask to be recognized. And Athena, could you at this point mute Janet so that we don't have the going the back and forth sort of noise, I guess it is. She was being very quiet, but I could still hear some. So I just want to mention I've been tracking attendees for people and I think we hit a maximum number of attendees of about 42 at one point during tonight so far. We're back down to about 34. So if people were wondering, that's sort of where we've been on attendees. So we're going to start with John Varner. John, please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. John Varner, Jeffrey Lane. I was just curious to know if there's any way the town could further the general knowledge of of land scoff law landlords basically in the community by releasing to the media and or the off-campus housing office at UMass, the properties that are in violation with behavior or building codes or rental codes, I think would help both in terms of sort of shaming landlords into behaving more if their deeds were out in public a little more visibly. And it would also help alert renters who are looking for properties as to whether or not they want to deal with landlord who has a history of problematic rentals. Thank you for this suggestion. I'm going to go to Rob. I know in the past we have had a system where we could where the town somehow reported or had a website that indicated where noise complaints and violations were had and also I think code violations. So Rob, could you talk about that? Sure. Unfortunately, we lost the capability to display our code enforcement actions on the GIS. So if you're if you're searching for a property on the town mapping system and you use the permits, complaints, tab, you'll see some old complaints. You'll see old violations and even the progress with code enforcement. And that was our way of trying to make sure the public was aware of what was going on at the properties, having information about the point of contact for a particular property and prospective renters to be able to look at a property and see the history of it. For reasons I can't explain but was told by our IT department that we're no longer able to use the system in that way. You know, we've asked IT to help us build a program, you know, another system that will take our information like that, our progress and our actions on properties and make sure they're readily accessible. So that's I don't have any other information on it, but I think it's an interesting point and question that Mr. Varner raised and we're also interested in being able to do that in some way. And I think maybe, you know, depending on how the bylaw finishes out, if there's a point or grading system to a property that would also be displayed so that a prospective renter in particular would know, you know, how a property has been performing. Thank you, Rob. John, do you have any follow-up questions or comments on that? No, not at this time. Thanks. Thank you, John. Renata Shepherd, please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. Hi, Renata Shepherd again. I just described. I have a couple of comments regarding, you know, different things. Said we could comment on different things on the bylaw as well. And let's say, you know, I still believe that, you know, 5% of rents for each unit would be a fair rate for fees. Rents are generally advertised and reported as income, but if that doesn't pass, any fees over like $80 or $100 can be a burden for small landlords with one or two properties versus bigger landlords who even having higher overhead costs still charge more per rental. Parcel permits are great because they reduce paperwork, but the fees need to be, you know, fair. I would then suggest like a $50 to $100 for one unit versus like 1,000 from 10 to 20 units. And I want you guys have the tier option, you know, 2,000 for 21 to 40 units, for example, you know, just some ideas in hopes that would look a bit fair and cover program costs, you know, hiring people, etc. Also regarding renters being the representative, I personally know responsible people who get a rental discount for acting as managers and can therefore afford their rents. And I hope that can continue. I also know properties, when in particular, whose owner and helper used to be in town meeting where the rental permit is not even listed and I know the property was rented, that owner certainly receives her tax bill at a different address, but for some reason the permit is not listed. Regarding the point system or the public reporting of the landlord, if the problem is the property management not necessarily the owner, please have some kind of provision where the owner can remedy this point system efficiently. Property managers are notorious for keeping bad records or for bad record keeping and tenant response and sometimes owners are not immediately aware, especially if they live far away. Like for example, they say that I moved to, you know, the south at some point and have a manager and I want to make sure that they're managing properly, but you know, sometimes just get a bad manager. And lastly, you know, it's hard to accept when we feel that government is placing a larger burden on small versus larger businesses like LLCs. And having observed this bylaw process has been very educational and I do appreciate, you know, the thought and effort you all are putting into it. You can't please everyone, but at least I feel that, you know, we'll be heard and feel that you care. Thank you. Thank you for those comments, Renata. Ira Brick, please unmute yourself, make your comment or ask your question. Hi, Ira Brick. I have a suggestion for this section that when you communicate that there'd be some kind of preamble that would go to both the tenant and the landlord about the reason for this is to protect the health and safety and the quiet enjoyment of your neighbor's properties and also to just make the point that, you know, if you establish a relationship with your neighbor, it can really be much easier than having people feel like they don't know that the noisy neighbors next door and have to call the police. So, you know, a lot of these issues of noise anyway, can be solved just by going and talking as I am about to do with my neighbors tomorrow. And I think that just the same way that in your right column, you have reasons for the changes. If people understand the reasons for rules, they will feel that it's a fairer process and go along with it. Thank you. Thank you for that comment, Ira. Andrew DeCervo, please unmute yourself, state your name, where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Hi, thanks. Andrew DeCervo, I live at 10 Northeast Street. I'm referring to what's on page 22 of the draft. We didn't cover it here in depth, but this is referring to the points being assigned for, I guess, a problem property. And my larger concern here is that there's a lot of things here that are being done ostensibly by potential tenants, you know, disorderly conduct drugs and possessions and tend to deliver alcohol with minors, sexual assault, aggravated assault. Certainly these are things that we care about, but putting this on the shoulders of the, you know, the property owner doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And, you know, ultimately I was like, what sort of agency do I have? What do the laws allow me to do? I mean, I can certainly report this to the police if I think the law is being broken. But, you know, I mean, my ability to go in there and to put a stop or an end to this behavior doesn't seem realistic to me. So number one, I don't know if it's going to, it would ever hold up in court, but, you know, I would hope that it would never get that far. I mean, what, what's your thoughts concerning this? Is this something that you really seriously are considering to add in there? Thank you. Thank you for that comment. I'll let the other CRC members also comment after I make this statement. As I said, these are, the regulations have not been discussed at all by CRC. That set of lists has been transferred directly from, basically directly from, I believe, state colleges set of lists for their point system as a potential model, which is why it is all in there. But CRC has not had, I don't think we've had a single discussion on whether we would keep any or all of them or none of them at all or make our own list. And so comments related to that will certainly help inform us as we begin those discussions later. But that's where that list came from. And I believe it was directly pulled from state college. Pam. I would appreciate hearing from the former speaker to understand who is in the best position to provide some control or management of the tenants and the tenants activities. If, you know, obviously we would like the tenants to be self managing, but give us some feedback on who else is appropriate to do some of that work. Thank you. I offer that up to not just Andrew if you would like to respond, but anyone else in the audience if they would like to answer that question. Well, I'll step up to the plate for now. I think the concern that I have largely is, like I've had tenants that I've had difficulties with, you know, they lived directly next to me, they were loud. And, you know, my ability to say, you know what, this isn't reasonable behavior. You need to go out there and address these particular issues that I have you with you. It doesn't necessarily always work in your favor. You know, they are free agents. They will find, you know, act out to the limits of the law if you will. I'm being quoted by them. This is past tense. Happily. When it was just like, yeah, well, you know what, I mean, the sound ordinances say that we can be as loud as we want till nine. It was like, you know, I mean, I don't see it that way. But having said that really honestly, I mean, the legal sort of issues here, rape and all the rest, you know, am I able to go into their property without warning? Am I able to go out there and enforce the laws? I mean, this is a certain point where you need to bring in, you know, law enforcement when it gets to that point. Certainly, I can encourage and control. And, you know, I'm not saying that I'm completely without agency, but these these are these are signing fines to me on behavior that I don't want in my neck, you know, in my property. But I my ability to go out there and affect these things is limited. Thank you for those comments, Andrew. Sure. Reba Novi, please unmute yourself and state your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question. Yes. I'm sorry. I joined the meeting late. I had a different commitment. You were talking about the energy efficient standards. And I read this entire draft, but it didn't enumerate what energy efficient standards are going to have to be in place. For instance, the rental property that I own was built in 1974. And we have done several upgrades on the property, a different furnace that's more efficient. We replaced the windows, etc. But where do I see the list of what's being recommended or is going to be required for energy efficient standards? Thank you for that question. It is the draft that went out here was incomplete because we didn't have those those standards or what our energy and climate action committee would be asking. We now have what they are asking for. And so I will I will summarize that for you. And the next draft that comes out for this bylaw and regulations will have that in there. But what our energy and climate action committee has asked us to put in regarding those standards are two things for units for parcels that have one to four dwelling units. So one to four rentals, they would recommend that we require a mass save energy audit be completed. And that completion date would be approximately within three years of the effective date of the bylaw. There would be no requirement to do anything that is recommended within that mass save audit. So if there was a recommendation to add insulation, you wouldn't have to add the insulation just completing the energy audit would be sufficient to comply with the regulations as ECAC has asked CRC to put in the regulations for units or parcels that have more than five units. They have asked us to require that an EPA energy reporting program I never remember remember the exact name of portfolio manager be completed. And that is a free online system that reports energy use and EUI use and things like that for the buildings that have those beyond that. And again, it would be to just complete that within three years. I can't speak much about what that portfolio manager entails because I have not been in the system. And I'm not an EPA member that's looked at it, but those would be the two requirements for the quote energy efficiency standards at this time. So it would not at this time we are not being asked to put in a specific like you have to meet a specific energy use intensity where you have to have a certain rating on your boiler or anything like that. We've not been asked to put that in. We've just been asked to basically require these two reporting mechanisms or things done so that we have an idea of where things stand. Okay. And so that's like calling ever source and asking ever source to do there. I have another question. When I read the draft, one of the requirements or proposed requirements is that there be I can't remember the exact wording every but it was like a safety lock like the kind that's either on a hotel door or a chain so that you can open the door only a few inches instead of actually opening it for somebody. And where I used to live with this was discussed with the fire marshal and the fire marshal said that you should not have those because in case of an actual fire if you have that lock on in that panic state that a person's in trying to get out of their place, they're pulling and pulling on the door and it's not registering why the door isn't opening. So my suggestion would be yes, you should definitely have people's and they should be at a level that your tenants can look out possibly to one for a child or someone who's in a wheelchair and one for a standard adult but to not have that kind of chain. So that's an opinion. I would not like to put that on my rental. Thank you for that comment. What I will say to you and to others as those comments are very helpful we have that list too I believe that that what you saw there was part of a potential inspection checklist things that an inspector might go and look and again a lot of ideas went into that and CRC has not discussed what may or may not remain so any comments we receive about what concerns people are helpful as we start those discussions in the coming weeks. Thank you. Dorothy Pam, please unmute yourself, state your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question. The thing about controlling people who live next door whether it's your responsibility or not I mean the charge having a rowdy house is a very old one maybe from the 18th 19th century. So people are responsible for what goes on in a property they own but I could say that it's really easier to deal with than you might think the house next to me student has many students in it and it was very wild the first year we lived here. If there's been no problem for number of years obviously the people who manage the house decided to spend a little more time choosing their tenants maybe they're older maybe they're graduate students I don't know but whatever it is they're responsible young adults and they don't cause me any problem at all so I think the one has to think about who you're renting to because a disorderly house is something that is the responsibility of the landowner and nobody really wants to live next to one and I'm you know whether you own it or not so I do feel also that's a good reason for keeping the number of students unrelated students two four so you don't get out numbered thank you. Thank you for your comment Dorothy. At this time I'm going to open up the floor to anyone in the attendees who would like to make any additional comments on what has been proposed what you saw or any other thoughts you have as CRC moves to continuing to come up with and can discuss this draft bylaw but also as we move into discussing the draft for regulations too so essentially the floor is open for any additional comments it doesn't have to be related to anything any specific part of what we've talked about today you can go back to permit issuance if you want for example. John Varner. I'm still I'm still wondering about the funding for an increased data management system for the town a lot of the things that are being proposed require sort of an ongoing database that will cost money to construct and maintain and things like the property map where you could actually go and see where rowdy houses were being located or zoning complaints of different sorts were being located I mean that seems like a pretty essential part of keeping track of what's going on in a town going forward so that we can deal with all these things as they come up I think part of the problem we're having now is a result of the town not having very good records about student housing conversions and the rental problems that are popping up now have a long history of building in a town and I think part of it's because data hasn't been tracked for these things what is the I don't understand town government well enough to figure out where the money is going to come from for an increased database is that something that town council votes on is that something that comes out of the manager's budget proposal and how do people in the town sort of push to get that real fundamental foundational block to this whole change process in place try my best to answer that one so I think what you're asking is when Rob talked about the IT seeking an IT a new way for IT to for the town to be able to log those noise nuisance bylaws beyond the GIS system that it used to log in how would that get funded in the current budget or with this right and so that would come potentially from funding from within the IT operating budget depending on how expensive that is and whether that is required say a new application or software package or something it might come out of the capital budget which is something that might last for more than five years and costs more than five thousand dollars is how we do capital and so we have funded in the past the town has funded software improvements and stuff like that through the capital budget so it could be potentially a capital budget line item it could potentially come out of the IT budget itself in terms of what we're working on now we're also as I said before we're looking at finding a fee structure that will self fund the bylaw itself and if the bylaws determined to need that tracking system in theory the goal would be to have that self funding of the fee structure fund any necessary IT improvements to get that tracking system up and running and budgeting comes directly from the town manager to the town council the town manager proposes an operating budget proposes a capital budget the town council then holds hearings on it and votes on it that process is actually starting now I believe our budget hearing is in November the first sort of hearing on what do people want to see in next year's operating in capital budgets I believe that's in November I'd have to take a little bit of time to look up what the plan is on what day that is but then from there it goes to once we've had that sort of financial indicators of where we might have stuff our finance committee the council finance committee will discuss the financial guidelines and then the council will pass them generally and adopt them generally in late December sometimes early January after that the manager uses those guidelines to create the budget and then the manager proposes that budget the operating side in May and the council finance committee reviews it and and recommends adoption or not adoption to the council by June and then the council votes on it in June for capital that process generally starts with the manager proposing a potential capital plan in February to the joint capital planning committee at which time the joint capital planning committee meets on a regular basis to make a recommendation to the manager who then formally files his capital budget with the council in May so I hope that gave you a little bit of an overview of where those things might come from did that help John? It was helpful I just have one last question about for instance if I wanted to email somebody in town to encourage them to do this who would I send that email to? I always recommend sending that to the manager and the council so the manager's email is town manager at amherstma.gov and the town council's email is town council at amherstma.gov. Thank you. You're welcome. Ira please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. Ira Brick I would just like to suggest that you add one more type of housing to the exemptions and that would be you have a dorm owned by a university I would add a dorm owned in a public private partnership with a university and it could be a little incentive of another way that an outside investor instead of buying a block of homes and ruining the neighborhood that they might approach the state and just build an apartment on campus with all the amenities that students want and some of the amenities that they claim that they get off campus like a place to study if that's so you know it could just inadvertently bring in a developer who's going to build more dorms on campus. Thank you for that recommendation Ira um to add a little clarifying or some information our current bylaw exempts dorms owned by institutions of higher education the three in town they don't have to be operated by them so what we've been informed as a CRC is that the new dorms going in through the public private partnership near Lincoln Avenue on Mass Ave would be exempt from this bylaw because the underlying land is and underlying building is owned with that agreement is owned by the University of Massachusetts even though they will be operated by a third party that may not be how every public private partnership works and so your comment is certainly worth digging into a little more as we look at those exemptions but the current one that we're aware of would be exempt from this bylaw from what we've been informed. I don't see any other hands what I want to do is give the opportunity for CRC members if they have any questions they would like to pose to our attendees right now to see if any of the attendees want to respond to those questions if they're wondering about and would like some specific feedback on anything that that we've been discussing in CRC while we've got this opportunity with people here I want to give our committee the opportunity to ask those questions to see if there's anyone in the audience that would like to respond to them so I'll give I know I'm throwing that on you right now without any thought and I apologize for that but it just occurred to me that we should take this opportunity if there are any questions like what Pam asked earlier about how could we do stuff best position to provide some control over the tenants if there's any questions like that that we'd like to put out there I'll wait a couple of minutes to see if anyone has questions they'd like to pose to the audience members themselves and then in the meantime if the attendees would like to have any other comments or questions feel free to raise your hand if we get none of that in the next couple minutes I will be looking to adjourn the meeting but I'm going to hold it out open just a little bit longer to make sure we've allowed the chance for everyone who would like to speak to speak so while the committee is thinking Janet McGowan please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question thank you thank you again I want to commend the CRC for taking on this incredibly complicated and really important issue to Amherst you know it's my experience both in and outside of town government and just listening to friends and residents who live in neighborhoods with a lot more rental housing than I do although we have a fair amount it's no one has really been addressing the fact that Amherst is a small college town and has college town problems and I see this as a great effort a great start on trying to get a handle on these things you know my experience is that renters are paying really high rents for poorly many not all of them but many are paying high rents and poorly maintain properties I've been inside the houses and units of my children's friends and been aghast and also they're paying really high rents and you know I assume the same is true um you know at other you know for for other renters also and with when you have such a tight rental market people don't have a lot of options students I don't think know the rights and there's no other place to go and so the town I think needs to step in and create you know good standards to enforce them you know to make common communities but also just to help the renters live in apartments that don't have dripping water under the sink or bathrooms that don't work or you know bad flooring or I mean just you know I just you know you have to see sort of student housing poor quality student housing to really believe it and it's not just a problem in Amherst my my son's law school town when he I couldn't believe what his summer sublet was like I just was aghast and so I think you're doing a good job to try to help renters and also the neighborhoods that they're in so I do I do appreciate it I know it's complicated and I know you're putting burdens on landlords and as a landlord myself I know business people don't sit around and say I'd like some more regulations I really want to pay some more fees but I actually think that's just part of the deal and these are not heavy fees for what in a town with some really extremely high rents you know some of the rents are higher than Boston runs so I just appreciate the effort I know it's complicated so I just wanted to thank you thank you for those kind words Janet um Hilda Greenbaum please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question Hilda Greenbaum 298 one with you both um since 1959 my husband and I think he began in 59 I joined restoring old houses that otherwise would have been torn down mostly historic houses and taking things that have really been in very poor condition other people would have torn down and replaced them but they had enough aesthetic value to say I have turned around several neighborhoods and I have lived here for over 60 years I think people know me um there are things that really bother me terribly about this the problem is the single family homes in neighborhoods every single one of the rest of us is controlled anything bigger than a single family home is controlled by a permit from the zoning board or more recently I think planning board is giving permits at least to the larger units maybe some of the two family also if they're on a rocky bike but anyway those permits are supposed to be enforceable the conditions on them aren't supposed to be enforceable the problem is the single family homes and neighborhoods I suggest that instead of rewriting all the state local and federal laws you concentrate on the problem and I think each one has to be solved neighborhood by neighborhood and I've noticed in the latest zoning by zoning permits for Fearing Street and a few other pine street that came after that neighbors and landlords and tenants knocked heads together to great success solving the problem within the neighborhood and I think that what has to happen is you start enforcing the bylaws that we have state federal and local don't charge every ten in a town I don't even know what your student is you're talking about students I am surrounded by rental housing of adults who have lived here for 20 25 years I never see them they're very quiet I have one owner occupied house that abuts me I never see that they are not problems they shouldn't have to pay for this if in fact it's a town problem it should be paid for out of the tax rate if you're dreaming if you don't believe that these all of these increases added on to the five hundred dollars I have to pay the bid which doesn't even plow my sidewalk but I do get a pot of flowers to decorate the bus stop right in front of my house I get that but it cost me five hundred dollars on top of what you want to charge me the same thing for a graduate student occupied studio as a four bedroom slum in a neighborhood it's not fair I think that people with the problem should be paying for those inspections and for the multiple inspection don't charge everybody else who who's quiet and are not bothering the neighborhoods I think you need to find a way of solving the small problem Rob Moore knows who they are John Thompson knows we've known who they are for 15 years and it is getting worse yes but hopefully with the raising mortgage rates now getting up to above you know six seven percent of might slow some of that down but um I think you're going way overboard rewriting all the laws that are already on the books which have not been enforced and if you need more money take it out of the tax rate the tenants obviously would be owning their own houses if they could afford it families would be owning their own houses if they could afford it don't make the rents higher because all of these fees believe it or not are gonna get passed on in higher rents find a way to solve the problem without invoking unintended consequences that we can't even think of at the moment that could happen but first of all I I don't know how are you going to decide if somebody buys a house if he's running it to students or he's running it to four adults who happen to be 22 and their grad students or their older undergraduates army vets coming back from the war going to school their students so you've got to figure that one out because otherwise you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble the other whole thing that I I picked up listening to the lawyer for the fearings sunset complex is you may take a student to court but what happens if that student is one of the protected minorities he may be a student but he's going to sue you because he's a protected minority under one of the categories that the law protected and and so so where you're going to be after that you'll end up in a court case that drags on for years and years and years and you haven't solved the problem of a noisy coming in the neighborhood so I think you have to figure out a way of neighborhoods making neighborhood associations like Amherst Hills and Echo Hill and and Amherst Woods all have neighborhood associations which control what happens to houses there and solve it within the neighborhood with the problem and not impose it on all the rest of us who've been around for 50 years and are trying very hard to save save old houses so that you're not filling up the landfills and they're not you know putting stuff in the environment that shouldn't be there you know the best use for houses and adaptive reuse and and try to encourage things like that encourage you're going to catch more bees with honey more flies with honey than you are by beating us all over the head and making me pay more and more and more taxes and fees on top of what already is a very high tax rate and that's my rant for today thank you for your comments Hilda and Alan St. Hilaire please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question hi Alan St. Hilaire Valley Property Management I just wanted to speak to Hilda's comments about the fees and I think the fees in general you know I think that something would be worth considering is tying the fees to the assessed value of the property that is how all taxes for all services in the town are levied and I don't see why this should be any different you know if you look at Puffton for example where there are 400 rental units versus a duplex on Main Street those taxes are levied based on the assessed value of the property and the assessor takes into account the best and highest use of that property which may well be a rental so that is something to consider it's very formulaic it's already existing and for someone to argue that it's not equitable would have to then look at how the taxes in the town for all services are levied so I just wanted to put that out there for consideration I know you haven't discussed a lot about how to do the fees and I think a lot of the smaller landlords are worried and concerned and I do think that Hilda makes a good point that these are going to get passed along and the other comment I wanted to make is that we are a small management company in town we represent a lot of these smaller landlords that have one property two properties and I like to think that we have a good relationship with the town officials and do a good job and you know control our properties and to to reflect what Hilda just said you know there are a lot of good landlords out there that take good care of their properties and are after their tenants and do drive buys we drive by their properties once a week to make sure parking is in control there's not litter all over the property there's not pong tables left out in the front yard so I think that there's a lot of landlords out there that are doing this and are doing a good job and there are a few landlords that are not and those are the landlords that need to be brought into compliance and gone after I do agree there are a lot of mechanisms in place to do that already one of the biggest is the state sanitary code any tenant in town student or not can call the health department and get a thorough inspection which then is a violation of consumer protection law which for a landlord is one of the biggest laws out there if you're sued under consumer protection it's triple damages so that is something that's already there the town inspection officials code its inspection officials have tools at their disposal to go after these landlords that aren't doing a good job I do you know Andrew DeServo mentioned about you know landlords being responsible for things out of their control I agree we are careful with our tenant selection we get good tenants we watch over them we respond we get weekly police reports from the police department we check those every week if we have problem properties we go after them we talk to the tenants we talk to the tenants cosigners if they are applicable so to have you know the great majority of landlords who are doing a good job and the students we love our students a lot of our students are very good tenants most of them in fact we read those police reports and there's eight ten properties a week townwide that are a problem and if they continue to be a problem they should be dealt with but to put this on all of the landlords and all of the students you know the students are the economic engine in our area they're the lifeblood of our community and I think that they should be welcomed and not made to feel like they are you know the enemy or unwanted in town so that is what I think should be considered and focused on as opposed to broad regulations that capture you know the greater majority of good landlords and good tenants thank you thank you for your comments Alan um Hilda your hand is up is this a new hand or is it just lingering yes my hand was up I just wanted to make one comment building like like a puffed-in village are not the problem they are inspected inside out by lots of agencies that fund the the runs of the tenants but also I have to point out that the insurance companies are even more rigorous in inspecting the houses than even the sanitary called because they're scared to death of insuring houses with undergraduates in it so any repairs I've had to make over my over the years with what happened to be the steps of 351 Main Street I think was done because it was required by the insurance company not by the town and so I again I want to reiterate that the rest of us endure already lots of inspections and that we are not the problem it's the single family homes out there but but number one may not know all of these laws I had to go to school to learn them and that was generally done by the floor runners I guess a little of the valley people had to have to manage a lot of tenants had a little more representative who taught us will all the rules were 30 and 40 years ago so again places like puffed-in should not be subsidizing the the the problems that are relate to single family homes and neighborhoods because puffed-in village and the large complexes are not a problem they are already heavily regulated state federal and local and that's the end of my second round. Thank you for your comments Hilda and Riva Novi please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question. Hi I'm Riva Novi I live at 24 North East Street I I don't believe that blanketly charging everyone the same amount is a good idea especially a landlord or an owner who has only one or two properties possibly tying it into the evaluation of the property as was just suggested might be a good solution but surely there should be something graduated there's really a huge difference between a person who owns one or two properties and a person who owns 10 or 12 or 15 properties and even the jump from $100 to $250 that was a pretty big shock it's not that I can't afford it it's just that I consider myself a responsible landlord I'm very picky about who my tenants are and just as an overall comment over the years of owning this property and renting it out I've had undergraduate students I've had graduate students I've had couples I've had families and I have to tell you the worst tenants I ever had it happened to be a family so and some of the best students I've ever had it happened to be a group of undergraduates but I think educating landlords about how they should be interviewing for their tenants is something that you should consider and I do appreciate that this committee is trying to make some standards that will apply to everybody I have been in some rental properties when we were considering a purchase they were appalling the condition that some of those landlords allowed their properties to be in and I just think that you know as a person who owns two rental properties total at this point one because we're living in the other one I I think that something needs to be put in place so that it's not that much of an economic burden I do think that the higher you make the fee the more that landlord is probably going to pass it on to their tenants and so there should be some kind of graduated fee schedule depending on how many properties you own and I do think actually having an inspection with a specific list is probably a very good idea so I think there is a part to educate landlords in choosing their tenants and I think there's a part about educating tenants on their responsibilities thank you thank you for your comments. Mary Sayer please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment or question or ask your question. Hi Mary Sayer I live on Pine Street in the Pine Street co-housing and unfortunately I came in on this late because I was looking at the Amherst media thing not realizing it wasn't this or anyway so I came in late but I just want to say that what Hilda says and the other two people make a lot of sense to me I inherited my mother's house and I've rented it because I didn't want to let it go and I have wonderful tenants and my I guess my feeling is too that I'm my money is going into making that a really good sustainable house with super insulation and good heating and so I get you know it's hard to be penalized because I'm doing that and and I think the somehow going through inspections really makes a lot of sense there was a one of my daughters lives in the Harlow Drive area and a little house came up well it's very clear that that house should be inspected we we talked to the students there and there are six students living in that house the there's no parking plan obviously because there's enough space for two cars and there's up to six cars there so all in a town inspector has to do is drive by that place and there's you know there's there's trash there's a pile of trash by the the um garage and I'm just feeling there's so many houses there was one house on Pine Street down near the center which looked to me as though it probably had knob and tube wiring and um I would be terrified to have my children live in a place like that because it looks like a a fire trap and I just feel there needs to be some way to inspect these places and make the landlords follow the rules that are already in place um and and say to students we like having you here you're in a neighborhood and you are a neighbor and you know I anyway thank you very much for listening to me thank you for your comments Mary um Lily Bruce please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment or ask your question hi sorry I can't figure out how to unmute myself um my name's Lily Bruce I'm a UMass student and I'm on this I'm a representative of the student government association and so I just wanted to come and share some concerns that we have um just because I feel as though this might um stray some landlords for from wanting to rent out their properties to students because if they had to say like if they think that students are just going to cause problems then um that might be an issue like they don't want to have to like deal with that and stuff like that um and so housing is a like really big problem with students like I know right now um I've been trying to look for housing and the leases are very very high and there's not much available for students so I just don't want um this to become something that landlords where landlords don't want to rent out to students anymore because then we won't have a lot of options available for us and we need options because there's already not enough housing on campus for us already so I just don't want this to become a bigger problem anything like that but thank you thank you for coming Lily and thank you for your comments to my committee on fellow committee members on CRC are there any questions you would like to pose to the audience Shalini um so one of the things that I noticed from the survey was that there were three situations in which there were good relationships between landlords and tenants whether they were students or you know long term um tenants and so one was where they were living with the landlords the second was even the downtown buildings actually they said the maintenance was really good the big the newer buildings where there's very professional management and and then the third people mentioned where the neighbors reached out and they invited and included the tenants into their um you know into their parties or potlucks and picnics and so there was an effort made to include the tenants and that's one of the things that also came up was that tenants felt they were not included in the town emails and uh newsletters but so I think there's room over there and that might be a question for if there's anyone in the audience that has successfully engaged with um tenants and what are ways that you're able to build those mutually respectful relationships uh with tenants thank you Shalini um Riva Novi please unmute yourself and make your comment I'll respond to it Riva Novi 24 northeast street um I've owned my townhouse here since 2003 when my daughter was a student and ended up in a dangerous housing situation at which we told her to immediately leave and go to a hotel as it worked out we have been contemplating buying a place that's the townhouse that we currently own and we're actually living in it now so what we've done once our daughter went off on her own bought her own house we've used this as a rental until my husband retired and um and now we're here contemplating living here full time um what we have done is when we have we have our daughter when we weren't living here show our property or we had our current tenants showing our property our current tenants because we weren't there could say whatever they wanted to those prospective tenants also after the prospective tenants left our tenants told us what they thought of these prospective tenants so there are lots of people that we just you know did we're not interested in because the feedback we got from our current tenants we've always had good relationships when we when we weren't living here we would still come to town several times a year we would take our tenants out for breakfast or out for a beer depending on what the storyline was and we always had good lines of communication every month our tenants needed to email us or when they used to pay by check then they would he have to enclose a little piece of paper that said that they tested the fire alarms they looked at the fire extinguishers to make sure they were still full and that they had changed the furnace filter that we provided so we've always gotten along and fostered a relationship and our um townhouse is part of 10 townhouses we made sure the neighbors next door knew who they were and that the trustees for this little development also knew who they were we have literally never had a problem with any of the tenants that we've had in this particular property and like I said we have owned this from 2003 when our daughter was living here as an undergraduate and um we do own another property in town and we we've actually had the same tenant we've only owned it for a few years but we also have a good relationship with her email back and forth when we're in town we always go and visit now that we've been here for several months we drive around that property at least once a week so um I think that the things that were said is you did as I said before I think that long hours have to be very particular about who their tenants are and I also think you do have to foster a good relationship because it also helps make sure tenants think you know what I have a really good landlord I need to treat this property really well I must admit that our property is kept in very good condition also but I think it's a it's a relationship that you build thank you for your comments and observations Riva um Dorothy Pam please unmute yourself and make your comment hi I live at 229 Amity street and in our district the old precinct 10 we have a monthly neighborhood brunch what has been going for over 20 years rain or shine snow or whatever um and we've always invite the students who live on our street or live in the houses that of our members there are a lot of students living amongst us here but the problem that's happening is if a street no longer has quote unquote non-students or you know doesn't have families in them anymore and the street becomes nothing but student rentals that street we can't we can't reach out we can't do anything and that street gets out of control and that is what's happening on some of the streets on the edges of the neighborhood so I think there was some talk at some point um about doing something uh as they do in um some other college towns of saying that there can only be so many of them on a street or so many within so many feet because where we have our students integrated in the neighborhood we have no problems at all but when a street no longer has families renting it and it's just a series of student rentals the whole thing falls apart so that's something I'm hoping from from this um you know and of course we joke about how everybody wants to have a student because many of many of the students who who live uh you know in owner-occupied rentals are in fact wonderful at helping with computer problems for their slightly older landlords so we all want one so it's just we just need to keep a decent a mixture a balance in the neighborhoods between the owner-occupied houses and the student rentals thank you thank you Dorothy for your comments Mary Sayer please unmute yourself and make your comment or ask your question um hi I guess what the recurring theme I hear is that um the houses that are owned this is what Hilda was saying that others have said too that the houses that are owned by mostly people who live in town and two don't have a bunch of properties are fine the students are fine they're integrated in the neighborhoods it's the it's it's over and over the LLCs that are buying up these properties and really don't care and the house that I was talking about on a harlow drive it's it's you know it needs painting um it's it just looks really unattractive outside so I can imagine six students living in that house what would be the incentive to mow the lawn or make it look nice or anything and so to me it's it's this investment with the with all these LLCs that um I don't know it's how you I I think Pam Dorothy Pam had an interesting thought but it feels a lot like that's where inspection services should be um pointing their headlamps because uh as as as landlords you only own one or two properties and our citizens of the town I know I'm invested in this town but somebody an LLC from Oregon is not invested in this town so I'd really like somehow concentrating on how we can you know if you own x number of properties or you're not a resident I don't know but um I I think a lot I think that it's not students per se are not the problem I I honestly think that mostly it's the landlords and the LLCs that are are you know making this a problem okay thank you thank you Mary for your comments I see no other hands from Shalini I did have one more question and I don't know will Tom Crestman has his hand up so should we wait to hear from him but I did have a question for the audience regarding and I don't know if anyone is willing to answer that but that is something we wondered whether homes are rented per bedroom or per house and I don't know if anyone wants to answer that and maybe it's both but that was my question thank you thank you for that question and Jennifer will have you speak and then we'll see um we've got a lot of hands coming up so after Jennifer we'll get all the questions out and then people can respond to whatever they'd like to Jennifer um yes I did just want to pick up on you know what Shalini said um you know what we mean per bedroom is would you charge the same for is it per half would you charge the same for three tenants as four or four tenants as six but I just wanted I was really um encouraged when I heard I think it was Rina Nove and um Mr. St. Hilaire that particularly Mr. St. Hilaire because it sounds like you're with a management company that manages a number of properties that you actually do go buy the the houses like on Mondays and make sure kind of the litter from the weekend is picked up because you know I live in the um represent the same uh district as Dorothy and we live in the same precinct where there's many you know um many houses rented to family students everybody but there are like I'm thinking of one two family two units side by side a block away from me eight students have lived there for years it is immaculate and I see the um property owner lives in Amherst and comes regularly you know and takes very good care of that property and then there's other houses where the beer cans from the weekend I mean I see the same they're there two weeks later and I just wonder you know why the it's these are usually management companies don't come regularly and just it's wouldn't take that much time and effort just pick up the beer cans so I was interested in how um Mr. St. Hilaire um how they handle this they really do just you know do you retain someone that just visits the properties because that would go a long way towards um you know uh you know some of these houses living harmoniously um with the community because most do but some are just problematic and I I um hold the you know would look to the management company or the property owner more than the tenants living there and I think that's where I would say that yes the landlords have a responsibility in in terms of the tenants um you know and it's it doesn't seem to take that much effort to just make sure the litter is picked up from the front lawn and the sidewalks in front of the house thank you Jennifer we're going to move to the attendees we are down to 21 attendees in case people were curious um Tom Crossman please unmute yourself and make your comment um yeah hi um hello everyone uh Tom Crossman Amherst native um I uh grew up in the community uh quick process would be I grew up in a single family house I lived in foster care I lived in subsidized housing I lived in multi-family housing and that was by the time I was 12 years old so I was exposed to a lot of different things in the community um most of my time was spent in Amherst and Amherst offers a lot um I am uh I do kind of miss the the vibrancy of the family communities for sure absolutely um I think that the university being the flagship school of this state of Massachusetts is going to continue to get uh funding for more and more educations so we have to embrace the fact that that that's our number one industry is academia and so I what I try to think of is um you know um I'm sorry I'm trying to unload three hours worth of thoughts into four minutes or less but um um I think that right now there's a couple of things that that pop into my head uh one of the things I've heard in the past is that uh the many are paying for the sins of the few um I'm also curious about data because I I'm pretty data driven I I love numbers and I'm curious is anyone collecting data to see um what the inspection services were like up to 2013 prior to the implementation of the safe and healthy neighborhoods what inspection services volume was like after 2013 um and then what it was like in recent years to see if there has been um an uptick all over again if there was um a downtrend an uptrend or stable I'm real curious if anyone's collecting data um and and to see if that is taken into consideration and then uh yeah that I'll wrap it up there I have another 107 ideas but I'll just let that be what it is thank you thank you Tom for those comments and for you and anyone else that has a ton of ideas that would like to be in front of CRC feel free to email the easiest one I'm going to say is the whole town council because that's just one address and that is town council at amherstma.gov it will come to all 13 counselors which means it will make it to all five members of the CRC before I recognize Hilda Pat. No I was just going to say it's getting late for me and but these are important issues but I'd rather go to someone who hasn't spoken yet and I believe that's Freddie Manning um and there may be the people who have spoken several times I'm wondering if they could email us their comments thank you for pointing that out so we will um speak with we'll recognize Freddie Manning first because I did say I would try to recognize the people that haven't spoken before those that have so Freddie Manning please unmute yourself state your name where you live and make your comment I'm Freddie Manning Winifred Manning I live on the corner of Fearing Street and Nutting Avenue I've lived here for 50 years I have seen about all the action that any of you can possibly imagine with students and all I think that what I would hope for is some kind of consistent inspection I know that you know there's all the LLCs that each one can be like a separate entity and so they don't get lumped together and there's there's some very responsible ones but there's larger groups I also was not here at the beginning of your meeting so I may be repeating a whole lot of stuff that other people have said but I there just has to be something done about being responsible for what's going on at these at the properties because we haven't you know closed down like down on we're right on the edge by the university and and down on Phillip Street there's only one permanent resident down there and so they are very heavily affected by the partying that goes on and we all you know I'm not going to go on about that because you've all heard those stories but I think that the inspection services that are consistent and have set rules would make a big difference and I don't think that there's been very much and I think inspections have had to be according to what I've heard is an inspections have to be triggered by something that rather than having it be a consistent regular kind of thing so maybe that's something that would make a difference it's a great great neighborhood and I love the action of students and the liveliness of students and all that but it does turn dark and sometimes it's not so nice but so thank you thank you for your comments Freddie and I'll just respond a little bit with saying the current bylaw is a complaint-driven inspection system the to get the permit the owners do a self-inspection they certify a self-inspection and our building commissioner and inspectors only go on a property if there's been a complaint in general that is a generalization in general the proposal that we're working on would have every rental parcel inspected generally approximately every three years by our town officials and so it would move from a complaint-driven inspection basis to a permit-driven inspection basis so hopefully that answers some of your questions as to where we're trying to go with this we've got three hands up and if we have none after that we're going to look to adjourn the meeting afterwards but we're going to start with Hilda so Hilda please unmute yourself and make your comment I want to just answer Shalini's question very quickly renting by the bedroom is a disaster it's a it's a recipe for a very unstable living situation if you're trying to rent a four bedroom unit or even a two bedroom unit to people who don't know each other you're going to have coming and going and coming and going if they don't get along it's bad enough when you know you have a group of three that know each other very well and the third one doesn't get along with them but but you can't have tenants moving in and moving out three and four times during the year it it just does not work out and then if they don't get along you're not going to get the rent and you know etc etc I will not do that and it seems to me that the my impression over 60 years is that those that are renting by the bedroom are renting that way because they can't get a stable group to go there and they get desperate and want to rent something you know don't want to leave an apartment empty at the last minute but but basically my son rents stuff a year and 18 months ahead just from one tenant to the next tenant year after year and that seems to work out really well if you've got a good place the tenants recruit the next group to their friends but renting room by room not a good idea very bad thank you for those observations Hilda um Riva Novi please unmute yourself and make your comment I'll adjust the question about how we rent our townhouse we rent it collectively to the tenants together we do not rent it by bedroom and um actually our property insurance um highly encourages us not to rent by bedrooms so um that's what we do and uh when we do have a group where everyone is not moving out at the same time we um but some of the tenants want to stay if it happens to be students I offer to help them find a new tenant but they're the ones that have to live with the person or the few times that that's actually happened they've always wanted to find the roommate themselves and as long as the required long as they satisfy our requirement a maximum of two cars and absolutely no smoking inside or outside they have to live with them we do it so to address that question we only rent a collective lease thank you before I go to Jennifer um and Andrew you just un raised your hand um now you've raised it again so Andrew please unmute yourself and make your comment I was waffling whether I want to talk about this or not but um this harkens back to I just wanted to comment on what some of the bias that I've heard so far here which is you know people should pay better attention to who they're renting to and I just want to remind people that um we have a set number of students now maybe we can push them out to other municipalities maybe you can rent houses and um our neighboring towns and whatnot but really you're going to get what you're going to get sometimes you're going to get somebody or a group that's going to it's not going to work out the way that you want them to and I think some of the considerations that I don't know how you would fix this but a lot of times it comes down to normative behavior I mean this is why they had rowdy behavior in dormitories and the like you know I mean you have people acting crazy um that particular at this age group they're going to go out there and they'll ramp it up to go out there and stick out and I think you know if you remember where I live northeast street right there by the intersection I know there's someone else right down the street for me but you know there's some crazy party houses here and you know if that is what's the dictating the norm for this population uh I'm swimming upstream sometimes and I think what it kind of comes down to is like if you have four people in there and they decide that's normal um you're going to have a hard time and you know it doesn't happen every time you have a group of people but it's a dynamic that you know again you're putting this on the landlord uh who is supposed to have vetted this group out before and I do that I have them screened um but you are going to have these particular challenges and it just kind of comes down to you know what neighborhood are you in what what are the surrounding environments going to be like and you know what kind of agency do you have and I mean I don't want to go back and harp on say I can't control my tenants I can influence my tenants um but you know what these other factors are factors outside of my realm of influence really ultimately maybe I should go out there and live in a quiet neighborhood and bring students in but you know we're we're set with what we have so my two cents thank you thank you Andrew um Jennifer yes I just wanted to I mean I don't think we think that they're um literally renting by the bedroom just they're renting to friends um but when like I think it was mr cross asked earlier you know he said if we have a house with six or seven bedrooms and we can only rent to four I mean if that house is rented to six or seven tenants there will be a higher charge for the whole house than if they're renting that same house to four isn't that correct if anyone can answer that um Tom um I'm going to go to Tom Crossman because Jennifer sort of addressed that question to him and then I'll recognize you Mary so Tom please unmute yourself yeah I mean there there can be a case to be made that uh when you have a larger house you have larger um uh responsibilities for the thermal envelope as well as the shell insulation and so yes there's going and in addition to that with uh more bedrooms you'll have more wear and tear on the property you'll have what more water usage more sewer usage so um yes you're right if there's uh more bedrooms and you rent to more people then yes there would be a higher rent that's that's correct there would also be um higher expenses that are associated with that so uh yes I I agree that there would be a higher rent and at the same time uh from the perspective of uh property manager slash landlord um you know we take into consideration the people we hire and their expense and the cost of supplies and so yes rents are going up to to keep up with inflation and uh it's it's it's very uh very challenging balance uh managing resources in the uh environment that we're in and I you know yeah yeah so to answer the question yes more bedrooms would mean more rent uh for that particular building in addition I want to uh make sure that it's considered that there would be also more expenses to that particular arrangement yes I'm not um yes that would make sense um I just that uh it it yeah it certainly becomes a you know um you can make more money from a larger house than a smaller house it's not that student more students will get to split the same rent but you know that makes sense and then yeah so just just to answer the question that yeah so joint and several is usually a more favorable um uh avenue to navigate where everybody is responsible for the health and well-being of the house so they're they're responsible joint and several whereas you may see an example like 116 flats that tries to rent individual rooms that's a business model that may work really well um outside of the state of Massachusetts that's a company from Texas that's that built a complex in Sunderland um but I think uh Massachusetts being an attorney state with uh with a lot of um kind of laws geared towards uh uh protecting the tenants which which is fine um but yeah so renting joint and several tends to be a preferred method for people who rent properties which joint and several for those who don't know just means that everybody is responsible equally for the rent and the well-being of the house thank you Tom Mary Sayer please unmute yourself and make your comment just quickly to answer the question I rent my mother's house out as just a house I don't rent it it's um I've I've I've had two families so um that hasn't been up but I also know and this is maybe a misinterpretation of what you're saying about bedrooms but I know I've spoken to a North Amherst landlord who says I can get a thousand dollars a bedroom if I rent my houses so I can rent basically a small bungalow with four small bedrooms for four thousand dollars now that's a problem because a family couldn't probably afford four thousand dollars for a small bungalow with three four tiny bedrooms and my guess is like my mother's house has two bedrooms a study and a and a basement that's made to be livable so I could call it a four bedroom house and rent you know a thousand dollars a bedroom that's nowhere near what I charge for a family to rent my house so there is a thing with some landlords that they rent in their head anyway by the bedroom so when these landlords are looking at Harlow Drive and those places they look at a little ranch house and they say wow you know I can make four bedrooms out of this and I can get four thousand dollars so I don't think that's actually what your question was but I think it's a real problem they do rent in a way by the bedroom thank you thank you for that clarification Mary and your experience um Hilda Greenbaum please unmute yourself and make your comment very quickly I wanted to point out renting by the bedroom where the tenants don't know each other would be covered under a different section of the bylaw which is rooming house and that comes under a different kind of a permit and the regulations are quite different and I think it requires a living manager also depending on whether they're under three rooms or whether there are six rooms but anyway rent that that would invoke the the boarding house rooming house bylaw which is very different and you really ought to know that that exists so the again the renting to the group as a whole is the way to go if you want to be under this section of the bylaw thank you for that Hilda um it is now 9 20 I see no other hands um and so unless I get other hands from CRC members in the next about 10 seconds I'm going to turn our meeting with that I want to thank um Rob Mora for taking the time out to be here in case there were any questions for him as building commissioner I want to take this thank you to my fellow CRC members and also Michelle Miller who had to leave at some point um for coming here and listening and I want to thank everyone who from the public who attended um we had as I said a maximum of about 40 some people here um listening but also commenting and giving us their input and I know for myself it's given me a lot to think about as we go on and continue these discussions so thank you all to having come um and given us your thoughts and your input um and feel free to continue following us and continue sending us your input as these drafts change and as we move on into the regulations our original goal was to have something to the council by December I haven't formally told my committee this yet but I've told some of them in private which is I don't think we're making that deadline because there's a lot still to do um and so you know we'll we'll make a report to the council as required by December but I'm not sure we're not going to have a formal proposal to the council by December because there's just a lot more to talk about and and we want to get it right before we bring it to the council um so with that um thank you all I'm adjourning the meeting at 9 22 p.m. have a nice night thank you everyone