 Okay. Anyway, thanks, Nate. I think we should get started. I just recorded this as being recorded. So you should be all set. I expect that the town manager will be joining us. I don't know in half hour. 45 minutes. He had a TSO meeting. It started at six 30 and was going to join us after that ended. Okay. So. First thing is that I'm going to read a statement, which I haven't done before. I don't know if you've all missed this very much, but I'll just say pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting is being conducted by remote means. There is no in-person access to the meeting. Members of the public who wish to attend may do so by following the instructions for action. Post it on the town website for this meeting. A video recording of this meeting will be posted on the town website. Two to three works weeks after it has occurred. Okay. So I've done my duty. I suspect that. And. Let's see. We have present. Allegra. Rob. Sid. Myself. Carol. And Erica. Also pat the Angeles or liaison from. The town council. Rita and Nate are also on. As is more a keen and Janet. And I expect Kevin noon and also to join us a little bit later. So that's where we are. Okay. Did I miss anybody? No. Okay. So I have. Two announcements. And if anybody else has any announcements, you can offer those as well. I see you. One is Francis Goyesh for is moving to Boston. And we'll be resigning in September. And we'll be resigning in September. And we'll be resigning in September. And we'll be resigning in September. In the community action forum. Indicating their interest in joining the housing trust. So we will have an opening and should. We'll try to. Fill it as quickly as we can in the fall. The second announcement is we've received six applications. From candidates to a place. John Page is our intern. Research assistant. Four candidates will be reviewed. And we'll be resigning in September. Hopefully we'll have a decision by the end of the week. So it was a little slow because I moved a little bit slow on this. But I think we should be good. Okay. There are no minutes from the June meetings. They should be available shortly before our August meetings. So nothing to review for tonight. And the next item. On the agenda. Is the review of the final update on the covert emergency rental assistance program. And I'm going to call on Janet. To give us a report. You all should see the. Data table or. Report that she sent out to me yesterday. Which I think I forwarded today. I think we should be ready for the next meeting. I think we should be ready for the next meeting. Or maybe not bizarre or maybe not bizarre, but if John's not here, is anybody taking minutes of this meeting? I am. More or less. Thank you. We have a recording through zoom, a transcript. So then I can, I can always turn it into something. A little legible. Okay. Thank you. Just checking. Yeah. We will have minutes. Okay. Thank you. So. John shared. The final report. So I don't know if folks had a chance to look at it. Or had questions about it. I briefly out. Thank you. I'll put it off. That helps me. So, yeah. So if you look at sort of the totals for round one and one hundred and ninety six applications received. Fifty approved applications. The town assisted folks with $99,060 and 50 cents, which I think is a pretty fantastic. Number. As a reminder, I did halfway through the report, start excluding folks that were ineligible. So as you recall. Ineligible are people who didn't live in Amherst. Mostly people who didn't live in Amherst. Either didn't have a COVID reason. Or were subsidized and not behind on their rent. So we, I stopped including those numbers in the table because it seemed to sort of be skewing the percentages a little bit because those folks, you know, really weren't even eligible to apply. And if it wasn't for the online application wouldn't have even really filled anything out. So. Yeah, so that's where we're at. We did have. You know, our incomplete number remained, still remained a little bit higher than I think we'd all expected. Yeah. In round two, about 36% were incomplete overall about 42%. We had a much higher incomplete rate in round one, as you may all recall. So that's where we're at. Since our last report, John asked me to update you on sort of, so last time I think I sent a report was in April. And so since that time we had received four new applications. And three of those got approved. So those are included in the total number, obviously. And that's since April. So that's over three months or just June. That was from between. April, May and June. And then finally, I think we had a couple of applications in June. Actually we stopped taking applications, I think sort of in the beginning of June, so that we could make sure that we were going to be able to process everything by the end of June. And then as you may all recall, you approved the ability to pay some rent past June. So the folks that got recently, got approved at the end. All were able to still take advantage of that three month. So that was in June. So, you know, some of the folks that applied that at the end, we had only originally approved for one month, just for the month of June, for example, because the program was ending. And then we were able to extend that. So those additional applicants who came in at the last minute, did get the full benefit that all of the other applicants had received. If that makes sense. It does. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, I'm happy to answer any other questions or comments. I remember at one point. Did we look at race and ethnicity or were the numbers of those households so small that there wasn't much to look at? Um, I could look, uh, you know, I, so I could get you that information after the meeting. I don't, we track that in a separate place. So I have a tracker that tracks all the application information. And then the race and ethnicity, we get entered into our database where, uh, after they filled out all of their documentation. So I don't have that at my fingertips, but I could certainly give you, send you that report if you're interested in the race and ethnicity. I think there may be some interest in that. I should have asked you before. Okay. Um, I could, I can tell you language. So there were about 25. Applicants. And this is just for round two. That had languages other than English. Primarily Spanish, but we had a few other languages also. And what was that number of percent? It's 25. Okay. Of. Just make sure. Yeah, I think so. Let me just make sure I have. Oh, wait, let me add this filter. The total applications or the applications that were approved. That was total applications. Okay. Yeah, it was 25 of the total. Okay. Thanks. I have a question or more, or maybe a comment. I think it'll be really important for us to get from you before we're finished with our relationship with you. I'm sure it's long-term, but just what we've learned from this, because I know in the beginning we pivoted a little bit. You brought back to us some things that you thought were barriers, but even the outreach and what we could learn from this, because I'm sure this is not going to be the final disaster or emergency that we're going to be facing. So it would be really good to have some of that qualitative information. Sure. I can certainly put together that for you with, you know, I could talk to the staff to see what they have for feedback and then put something together for you. I mean, I think, you know, anecdotally, I mean, your program started a little bit earlier than some of the other town programs, but it started as what we thought was an emergency, right, that there was no other resources out there. And that I think what we saw is that the state and the federal government really came in with a lot of resources. So where we thought that this program was going to get over utilized, we realized that we were in some ways competing with all of the other programs out there. But I can also, I can get, I could, that's a great point, Erica, and I can get back to you with some other, you know, sort of things we learned, things we would do differently, things that we, things that we wished we could have done or weren't able to do and or things that went really well. Are there any other questions? Well, I feel Jenna and her staff at Community Action, Pioneer Valley have done a really good job on this. And I'm going to propose that I haven't composed this, but that I send a letter to Community Action Pioneer Valley basically saying how appreciative we are of all their efforts in administering this program. Thank you. I don't know if we need, maybe we should take a formal vote. I propose that. Is there a second to the motion? Yeah. Okay. So we'll do a quick rundown. Erica. Yes. Yes. Carol. Yes. Rob. Yes. Allegra. Yes. And I'm a yes. So that gives us six to zero. Yes. Okay. Thank you. So I thank Erica. I thank, I'm sorry. I appreciate the work that you've done and I really appreciate your coming tonight and having come to earlier meetings. As well as the promise to add a few bits to the report that you've given us. And I, I mean, I do hope that, you know, our relationship continues. I think for us particularly it's been really great to work with so many households and Amherst. We typically, you know, historically worked with a little bit more families in North Hampton, which were closer to our offices. And so we've actually had a, you know, it's been a great opportunity to connect. And Amherst with landlords and with residents that I hope will continue to call us when they need additional services. And, you know, really, I mean, I appreciate all of the, the thank yous, but I didn't do hardly, but most of this work other than create reports and come see you. My staff really worked super, super hard. And so I will share with them your kind words, because it really was their efforts and, you know, me just compiling numbers. So I appreciate it. Okay. Right. Thank you. So I'll get that additional information over to John and. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your meeting. Right. Okay. Bye. Okay. So our next item is to meet with Kevin Noonan. Is Kevin here? I don't, I don't see him, John. Do you want me to send him an email quickly or? Sure. I can't remember. Yeah, I told him he would be second on the agenda, maybe assumed it would be a little bit later than this. So he's not quite here yet. Okay. So we can push that back until Kevin joins us. And. Okay. We have at least a couple of updates on projects, all of which are good. One is the East street Belcher town road RFP. And the other is getting started with the evaluation. Of strong street property to see if it's. Developable. Nate, do you want to talk about both of those? Yeah. Sorry, my camera is not working. I also have an issue and I forgot to. Start my computer again. For the meeting. So we can start with, I'll start with the easy one, the East street. Belcher town road RFP, the town attorney had some questions. Staff. John Reed and I met. This week. The comments. We're actually kind of minor. I think the, the big changes, the letter of intent, you know, we had. We're requiring that the East street school building be. Reused and we wanted a letter of intent. 30 days after the site visit to gauge interest. And. We're going to have a mandatory site visit. And then we can kind of gauge interest at the site visit. And then make a determination whether or not we want to amend the RFP through an addendum to, you know, not require the building to be. Preserved. So it's. Evidently that's not in keeping with 30 B procurement regulations. Whoops. So we can't, you know, we can do a letter of intent, but it has to be due at the same time as proposals. So it defeats the purpose. So instead we're going, we eliminated that piece of the process. We're going to have a mandatory site visit. And then we can kind of gauge interest at the site visit and then we can, we can make a determination whether or not we want to amend the RFP. And then we can make a determination whether or not we want to amend the RFP. But we can't have the process. So it's. You know, there's some work around there. And there, there was also. I mean, as a few years old, there's some cases that went to the state about how much detail. In an RFP. And if it becomes kind of like a tailor made project as they call it for a town. So, you know. There's some requirements, base requirements. specific of a project. So for instance, like requiring dual head charging stations at a certain ratio. That almost is too, too detailed or asking for certain things in a management plan. You know, so we just we move some things or the attorney suggested that some things be moved just to the comparative criteria just so that you know a bitter a potential bitter doesn't complain that the RFP is you know is Yeah, I don't know too strict or something. Can I ask a question. Are those things that are actually illegal to do or just the lawyer is saying don't do it because it's a bad idea. Yeah, so there's there's probably a handful of cases where there have been complaints to the, the state about, you know, a procurement process, you know, in Lyman Terrace and Holyoke's a big one and there is another one out near Boston. And, you know, so we just don't want that to happen right so it's just a matter of if it's a competitive bidding process and someone feels like you know we for instance what if we say oh this they're not a responsive bitter because they're not going to do the dual charging stations but every other everything else was there they could say well, that's just, you know, that's that's the that's beyond what's necessary to review a proposal right it's too specific and so I don't think there's been any, you know, case law or anything necessarily on it I think there's probably just some legal opinion that borderline, you know, is some way to try to keep us from doing anything different and keep us keeping on doing what's always happened. My opinion, two cents, I'll shut up now. Actually Carol, I think what we ended up seeing from Sharon Everett who's the town attorney who was giving us advice is that she founded acceptable, as long as these very specific items were in the highly advantageous column. She did not like it when we had them in the advantageous column because it made it look as if they were absolutely required. And so I think those items have not been dropped entirely they just been moved over to highly advantageous so we haven't lost them entirely. That's cool. Yes, it's right and also you know the issue the the cases that have come before the inspector general have had to do with the fact that to the extent that it looks like there's too much control being exercised by the municipal municipality. That in fact, the municipality are in the case of, you know, one of the cases was was actually the Holyoke housing authority that if there's too much control that it should have been a public construction project. And that's not where we want to go. Because of the complexity and the additional costs. So if there's this really strong municipal control over design guidelines and the revert or you know where the property could come back to the municipality or say to a housing authority if something went wrong that the IG is saying this really is this is a public construction project but you know that's that's why we do you sort of do the handoff through the RFP, and it's hands off from there. So once you've identified the developer then there's no coming back there's no, you know, exercising up by the trust or by the municipality, except for for town boards except for the permitting process in what goes on with the development. So this is very kind of gray area and you know it's on a case by case basis, but I think we just want to air on the side of caution here, not to be. So, you know so specific as to have somebody say, oh this should be public construction. I think there's concern to that you know the procurement regulations say that has to be like free and open competition amongst, you know bidders and if things are so specific it almost looks like we're tailoring it to say maybe one person or one respondent right it will be difficult for others to respond and meet all those criteria so I mean it's happened before not at this level but you know, for instance we can't specify a certain brand or material it has to be. You always have to have an equivalency condition in there even if you like you know even for instance you know you want to use a certain light pole, you have to have. Yeah, just certain require just one, you know one thing. I don't think I don't think it's really major actually at first I thought it was really daunting but I think the way we handled it is is a good one I think the bigger challenge is still the reuse of the street school building and how many people developers applicants would be interested in that. Hopefully we'll know within 30 days. Yeah, as part of an announcement I guess I would say I went to the opening at North Square the other day was hot. But there's a lot of good speakers and the state you know really gave a lot of accolades to Amherst and you know and for that project but I will say hearing the governor lieutenant governor. It's great that you know they you know they really applauded Amherst for taking advantage of grants and for looking at housing and so it to me just bodes well for future projects right so. I think it's something that they know that you know the town will work through an applicant through the permitting and you know try to help a project through to success, even if it you know does take a long time or if it's complicated so you know I was just pleased to hear that that you know some communities they may not. You know they don't have that experience or they might have that kind of relationship with the state you know the state may not know the community as well I feel like the community thinks Amherst the state thinks Amherst was a really good job so I think that they, like they're in that position. Yeah that's great. I have to admit that I skipped it because of the heat. I was a little late I was debating myself. In terms of like this project East Street and Belgium road product I just feel like, you know again it's something that, you know we're asking for certain bedroom mix to help a need in town and I just think that you know it'll help the project possibly get funded you know maybe, and, you know quicker than if it was another community right so as opposed to waiting, you know two three rounds it could be, you know, maybe one or two. And that's when the an app applies for funding. Okay, and do you want to talk a bit about where we are with strong street Nate. Yeah strong street I think the, you know the town manager there is a disposition, a disposition policy and a kind of like an ad hoc committee to look at land and so at the trust request and john's urging the town manager said that you know the, you know have a first pass at the property in terms of looking at it for housing. You know we're lining up what would be the number of consultants you know what kind of services we need. Looking at, you know, site developability whether it's, you know, digging test pits and maybe doing a survey clearing some some areas to look at the property wetlands and so I'm not sure you know how much other staff will be involved. You know I think, you know Rita, and I can help manage with consultants you know for instance dpw might be able to go in there and do some work and I've been trying to just get. I'm a meeting with my supervisor to determine you know how much we can expect other town departments to paid in this or is it just going to be you know everything you know a private, private contracts. But it is good that they're you know they said that's, you know, go ahead. You know Dave Zomac has reached out to the neighbors before and I think he may already have, again, letting him know that this property is going to become active in terms of people going out there and so it's, you know, it's, it's definitely starting so. Nate, I haven't asked you this is there water and sewer on strong street. I'm not not right at the, at the intersection of you know where this road is, you know so there's a, you know, like a private driver common drive right now. And it doesn't on strong street though, it is but there's tracks, you know to the west, so right. I thought there wasn't actually an easement on the western part of this property for utilities, and so I had STPW about that utilities you wouldn't you bring them up through the, you know, instead of coming up the road you bring them up another way. Yeah. You know, and you know so I was the intent of the nearest is going to look at it I just want to you know. Yeah, some of that someone actually already bought a lot right so what happened was probably like 20, I don't know it was more than 20 years ago someone proposed like a 13 lot subdivision. And, you know, went through permitting the loss were created, you know the road was laid out. And then the product never happened so it's basically like a paper street right so it's on paper it's on plan, but it's never happened and because of but then because of. The issues with paying the property taxes the town took this property to tax title, and so the town's owned it, and this paper subdivision is still in place and so you know it's like 11 to 13 lots and so, you know, I think, as part of this due diligence at one point we discussed it you know Rob you said maybe, maybe some of these lots if it is developable could be sold as a market rate to help subsidize affordable I think there's by a number of options of what could happen here. I was going to say is one of the lots was actually purchased by a private entity years ago and they still own it. I said one of the, one of the end lots on the cul-de-sac so I think they were probably hoping this was going to happen and it never did so they own this you know privately owned lot out there. And there's one lot with the house on it. It is one or two yeah right yeah yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know it's 11, you know I don't know what what can happen out there. To your point of utilities yeah we can get utilities up. I really would love to do some test pits because the neighbors have said that it's ledge, you know that it's pretty rocky. And so, if there's houses there, they're part of the subdivision plot or are they are they not they must have utilities that got there somewhere no. Yeah you know I was going to try to pull up a map quickly. There's only one house that's was part of the subdivision. Yeah, and it could have, it could have a well and septic. If you didn't bring the lines back in but that's, you know, that could possibly be done without huge expense. Yeah, I think some of it is just also trying to like, you know john wants to get these things right lined up. You know it's a good thing. I think the other one is going back to East Street RFP the you know, there's two houses on the belcher town road property and an RFP we said you know the developer would work with the town to maybe move, move the houses so that there's also a few smaller town on properties is one like on old farm road and a few others that you know if it becomes feasible or something that the house could be moved maybe maybe they're you know, a house from belcher town road could be moved to a site. You know, there's no promises or anything there but So people sorry I'm wrong site. So for a strong street. If is the screen visible. Yep. Yeah, so here's where these purple lines are this is the was the subdivision right so it's a considered a private way now and they came and you know this whole, you know these all these properties are part of the subdivision and so you know now really it's just acting as a private driveway for this one house. And you know this lot right here on the end. I mean this is privately owned so someone purchased this the rest of this all his town property. And so that includes the two smaller lots that are yes towards the front. Yep. Yeah, so includes everything and you know and so yeah and for utilities Rita here's the utility map so it's you know they stop right here. You know but the 10 engineer thought there'd be a way because these lots right here come through here. Right. And so the 10 engineer thought the better solution might be to bring the utilities up. This way. Anyway, so that little, is that little blue thing signify water. Town water on 10 on the lot that's the furthest that's in the subdivision there. Right here yeah, where the cursor is. Yeah, for the one where there's a house on the front that yeah that one. Yeah you know I'm trying to grab it it's a it would show the if they're just be for a water card doesn't mean that there's town water. Oh I see. Oh okay. Yeah. But so yeah, I think you know, there's a so there's a few things to do on this and we can get that started this year, you know this this summer. If you bring utilities from that place out at, I guess the eastern side of the locks. Can those also serve those smaller lots that are not part of the back section of the property. I guess it depends on where you branch that out right yeah so I mean I think those are all considerations for how, you know, this is on a hill so everything goes downhill right the tracks and train tracks are right here but everything, you know so this is a high point so you know it's, it's either gravity fed this way or gravity fed that way so. Yeah, I mean it might make sense just to come up right the road but that's something we have to, you know someone would explore. I wouldn't want to skip those smaller lots towards the front of the property, right, because we could do something with them as well as you said they could be sold or conceivably they could be needed to pioneer Valley Habitat. Right right for development also. If the utilities were there. Yeah. And the road. I'm going to select this but I can't see what it means. Yeah, so I you know it's I think it's an exciting opportunity it could be home ownership, you know smaller development but at least it's something. You know, unless the town purchases another property there's not too many municipally on properties right now that are available in the sense that this is right there's not I think Hickory Ridge is a future one that's coming that the town is in negotiations with the owner. There's a lot of competing uses there. And although the sites really big Hickory Ridge is very, you know, over 100 acres there's maybe. I don't know it's anywhere from five to eight, five to 10 acres that could be developable for housing, you know it depends on a few things there so it's not, you know it's not even necessarily as big as this property, even though Hickory Ridge itself is a large property. Yeah, I just one other thing I was going to add is that the state has a new financing program which comes from mass housing finance called I think it's community builders that's intended to focus on home ownership. And these locks are within an eligible census tract. So that potentially gives us a path to create some home ownership properties at that site, if everything else works out. Yeah, no, it's funny actually you mentioned that John I think it was like, almost a year ago Paul and I spoke with representatives from the state in this program about Amherst and they mentioned the East Street school site, and yeah, a few block groups in East Amherst are eligible for a few programs because of. demographic or something for me, I'm not sure exactly why it was eligible but they were excited to hear that there could be some projects that could, you know, match with the program. Well, this is a good opportunity. And I think we'll spend some time talking about Hickory Ridge in August. Because I don't want to just let that go. If there's possible for us to do something on it. I want to define what we'd like to do so we can put in a bid so to speak for using the part of that properties available for affordable housing. So I'm going to zoom out and just so everyone's aware me if you can. I don't want to select anything. If I'm. Yeah, I mean on your travels before the next meeting if you want you know on West Pomeroy here, you know this is big, you know, the golf course is here. But this whole product here is Taylor Davis landscaping. But this whole area is Hickory Ridge and so. The other department is not great but the idea is that right here you can see where all the lines are this is where it kind of drops off and it gets his lower but all along the street here. And in this corner is, you know, this area is all upland all the way to the clubhouse so there is some potential along the street. So we're also talking about using the existing pathways you can see here making some pedestrian connections to East Hadley Road and River Glade Drive and actually having some walking paths that connect all the way through to the village center so that's an exciting opportunity. So we'll take a closer look at that when we meet in August. But it's open I mean it's, you know I don't know. I don't know now but you know you can drive by and at least take a look at it from the street. Yeah, you can probably drive into the parking lot for the clubhouse and get a feeling for where that is. And if you're in that parking lot the clubhouse obviously itself wouldn't be developable but what the land on which it sits would be, as well as land to the east of that there's a strip of land that backs onto property owned by Taylor Davis. That property is actually closer to a bus route than I think Strong Street the Strong Street property. Oh yeah, Strong Street is not close to a bus route. This is pretty close, because it's, you know a stone throw from the village center in primary lane in West Street. So again, we can talk next time about what we think might be possible there. It was a Paul had joined us and I thought I promoted him to a panelist but he's disappeared from my screen. I don't, I don't see him john do you know I don't, but if he's around he'll probably become visible. Yeah, soon enough. More, almost more significantly I don't see Kevin yet. No I don't either I email them I haven't heard back. Okay. So we'll move on. Unless there are other questions about either Strong Street or hit three rich I should stop and ask people with questions or opinions suggestions related to those properties. Okay the next item is state legislation. I have a brief report on something that we discussed. I think it was the last two meetings. It is a proposal. That I think started with, well I wouldn't say it started with Joe Coma for that actually started with representative Connelly in the house and Senator Comfort in the Senate. And what that would do would give the towns the authority to include an extra fee or on houses that were sold that are above a certain threshold say like half a million dollars. The towns could impose a fee of anywhere from half of 1% I believe to 2% on that, and then the funds would be used to afford to support affordable housing in the town and towns where there are housing trusts, like Amherst. Those monies would go into the housing trust. That is possible. And we had actually voted unanimously for people who were there to support that legislation. I have to say I have not actually gotten letters off to either Mindy or Joe indicating that or anybody else. However, I got a note last week from Ellen shactor. She works for the town of Somerville, and she is director of the office of housing stability, and she's leading a statewide effort actually to lobby or advocate on behalf of this bill. And so, when she asked me I said, Great, I can sign on to it. I think the housing trust already agreed that was a good idea so we're on board supporting it. I think she has about 55 signers now. There are also a number of legislative sponsors. And so maybe we'll see some action on this. I will send letters to, as I said Mindy and Joe, I just haven't gotten them off so far. So that's kind of where we are legislatively. I don't have anything new to offer. If anybody else has anything else coming from their own analysis or Chapa or whoever that we should talk about this is the moment to offer it. Paul I was just saying that the housing trust voted to support legislation that would allow a small real estate fee on properties above a certain purchase price like half a million dollars. That's in the legislature now sponsored by I think it's representative Colin Lee and our own Senator Comerford. So we've signed on to a statewide group. We're supporting that. And we'll also let our representatives know that we're in support of that. And maybe committee chairs or whoever else seems to be appropriate. Okay, so that gets us through item seven unless I missed somebody who wants to speak about that or something else related to legislative advocacy. The next item that I have is discussion of applications to the Community Preservation Act committee. These are applications that I've typically submitted to CPA see pretty much every year since I became chair. And usually I remember to do it at the last minute. I'll consult with you all, but instead I say, Oh, by the way, I submitted these and everybody should review them. And I hope you'll all vote to support it so that I don't have to withdraw it. So this year I'm reversing that. I'm doing it properly. I sent everybody the two draft applications. There's at least one thing I promised Dave's omic I would change. It refers to potentially five, sorry, 12 acres available for development at Hickory Ridge. Dave said the number is smaller it's between five and eight acres so I will change that. Other than that, I think the drafts that I sent you are pretty good. One involves a $30,000 request for a technical assistance consultant, which would be over two years. We've actually spent probably a little bit less than that in each year, but better to be a little high than a little low. The other thing that it outlines is the value that we've already had from consulting over the last two or three years. Outlining or at least naming the specific tasks that Rita has been involved in, and then goes on to list the tasks that we anticipate should be working on over the next two years at least. And that is that proposal are there questions or comments about that. Okay, I don't see anybody raising their hand or saying, I can't believe you wrote that or whatever. Okay, and then the second proposal is much larger. It's half a million dollars, and it's basically a kind of open ended request for support for affordable housing, which means that, again as it has in the past the money could go potentially to purchase property. The money could go for doing due diligence, as we're planning to do in the strong street property. The money could go to help to support a developer who has a specific project that has been approved. So any of those things are possible. It also could go to support an emergency rental assistance program. I referred to in the application. So it's pretty open ended. I will say for the past, I guess two or three years, I have asked for half a million dollars. They've never given us that. On the other hand, if they were to give it to us. We could definitely make good use of it, not necessarily immediately, but over the three year period, or perhaps more that we would have to spend it. And I always figure again a better to aim high than to aim low. My guess is they'll probably end up approving something like $200,000, which is certainly better than nothing. The amount of money that we currently have in the trust from CPA is probably made correct me somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000. That's a good estimate. That's a good estimate. And depending on how much of the emergency rental assistance program we end up paying for versus how much is the town's use of federal grants. It may be even a bit more. But basically that's where we are. And that's a nice amount to have, because it certainly enables us to do due diligence. And if a developer comes to us and says, I want to do X, Y or Z. They may simply in a position to provide that support, or they may simply if it's a much larger amount. Go back to the Community Preservation Act committee to request it. I would say last year, we did very well. We asked for money to support the purchase of Belcher Town Road, and essentially they recommended and town council approved $600,000, which is bonded, which is, or has paid for the acquisition of the Belcher Town Road property. Overall, I think that housing has done very well in the last few years with the Community Preservation Act committee. In addition to the trust programs, they have funded a rental assistance program run by Amherst Community Connections. And they've also funded a home ownership program for Valley Community Development, and going back a little bit further, a home ownership program for the Amherst Community Land Trust. And if you go back even a little further, they've provided support to Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity. And I'd like to see them doing all of those things again, particularly building up on the home ownership side. So I'm asking you to also approve the request for half a million dollars, which I've just kind of briefly summarized, but you all have the detail so that if you have questions or comments, this is a good time to bring them up. And I'm just gratitude to you for writing them both. You know, and I, I, I thought that it did a good job of asking for money with not a clear idea of what it was for. And that's kind of a hard thing to do but it seemed like you had well we could do this we could do this we could do this look at all these possibilities, I don't know I just thought you did a good job of what seems like a hard thing to do to ask for a bunch of money without really what is your budget. It's all these bunch of possibilities. So I'm grateful. Thanks Carol. I've done it before. So I had at least two years of requests to build on. Not everything that you saw was fresh and new. Although, certainly the conversation the discussion about strong street and if we're rich, we're both new. And the emergency rental assistance program will not knew exactly was reporting on that. And I'm going to add a little bit based on the information that Jana gave us earlier in this meeting. If people have additional comments, or they'd like to see changes. If you transmit them to Nate. He and I will discuss them and probably make them. Yeah just so the trust knows the CPA committee hasn't asked for the proposals yet, you know they. They're trying to do it earlier this year. And they have in the past but john's just preempting the process. Trying to be ready. Okay, I guess then we'll vote, and maybe we won't vote on the two separately since there doesn't seem to be any specific concerns that have been raised so I will ask for a vote to support the submission of these two applications to the Community Preservation Act committee at such time as they have formally invited the applications. Okay, I guess I move that we do that. Is there a second. I second it. Great. Thank you. Okay, so we'll go around. I guess it goes without saying that I'm in favor of it. Carol in favor. Sid. Yes. Rob. Yes. Erica. Yes. Allegra. Yes. And Paul. Yes. Okay, so we're good. That means unanimously or. A comment. I'm sorry I'm a little slow. No, no, that's okay. The only comment I have is that the documents look so close that I really had to read them a couple of times to make sure I didn't print out the same document. I don't know how you do it but maybe on the top makes something a little different so they know they're two separate and very different proposals. Okay, I'll try and do that in the past. When I first did this, I think I submitted it as one proposal. And the first time I did this. Either the finance folks or the committee asked me to separate into two. So we now have two and you're right, Erica, there is considerable overlap. I'll try to pay attention to making it clear that they're separate proposals. Okay. So we still don't have a Mac user. I think it's by Chad has his hand raised. Okay, sure. Hey, Chad, you can, if it's Chad, you can unmute yourself. Thank you. That's my same old question every year has the CPA reached the level of transfer that we were told is typical for CPAs to do for their housing trusts and in the state of Massachusetts. What was that something like that. Yeah I think relative to other CPAs were fine. Okay, roughly 50% of CPA funds have gone to community housing in the last two or three years. So that's, that's kind of what the other towns are doing as well. I don't think there are many towns of any that are doing better than that. Summerville or Cambridge may have higher percentages. But I honestly don't know exactly what they are Chad. At one point I, you know, there was some just informal discussion about that. So I feel pretty confident that we're getting our do. Thanks, John. Other comments or questions. Really aggressive on affordable housing. So I would not be surprised if 60 to 70% of their CPA funds go to that. I don't know Paul, do you have a sense of that. I don't I know that it's a big commitment of the city though. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay. Our next agenda item is an update on the draft comprehensive housing policy. About two to three weeks ago. The community resources committee of town council made a major change to their draft of this policy, at least as it affects affordable housing. I was personally pleased with the change. Among other things, it sets a goal of 250 new affordable units over the next five years. A hundred of those are more or less already in the bank. At least I'm hoping they are, but things look optimistic. They include the East street Belcher town road development. So we have to work on as we are working on additional development, so that we help the town to reach that goal. I think it's a regional blow. It's a bit of a stretch, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Particularly if we work on strong street we work can work on Hickory Ridge and other things come up as well over the next few years. So I think that's a really positive change. I'll just write a note to Mandy Joe Hanneke, who's chair of the community resources committee, and I'll just read from it it's very brief note. This latest draft of the comprehensive housing policy represents a very positive change from the earlier drafts. There is new recognition of the unmet needs. There is significant greater commitment to address them. There is also increased attention to the role of the university as a source of the town's housing problems. With regard to the latter I would recommend taking one further step. I would establish a goal with respect to the additional campus residential grow growth to be no negotiated with the university capacity should be in Greece to serve the needs of at 3,000 additional students and their families 5,000 would be even better. That should include affordable housing to serve the needs of low income students. So that's a personal comment I didn't submit it on behalf of the trust. And that's where we stand. This is how I think the current draft is a perfect document. But from my point of view, the fact that it sets a very reasonable goal for affordable housing is a major positive change. I don't know if anybody else has any further comments about that. I just wanted to say thank you for having them come to the meeting because I thought it was a really good exchange and I did. I do think they listened to us and and did include these two items. But I actually have another question and this is maybe Paul can answer the ARPA funding that's coming to municipalities. Is any of that's going to be used for infrastructure for developing affordable housing. None of those decisions have been made. It's the finance committee of the council reviewed sort of a general guidance for it and that will be their recommendations going to the council on Monday. But I think that there's a lot of needs and there's there'll be a lot of demands and I think they're this that's certainly one and it really is about economic recovery and helping people emerge from the pandemic and I think that's one of the priorities as well. But it's a pretty bright is a lot of money for the town. It's spent over three years. So there could be some possibilities there. Okay. Good question Erica. And I do want to say that the meeting that we had with most of the community resources committee I think it was only one person who wasn't present. I believe that was the catalyst for the changes that I was reporting on. So you're absolutely right it was really a valuable opportunity for us to talk to them and to make our case. Okay, so I guess Kevin hasn't joined us I didn't anticipate asking you this Allegra, but since you are representative to the town managers committee on the future of the seasonal shelter, both in the coming year and years beyond. I know it's only probably only had one meeting since we talked about it the last time. Is there anything that you have that you want to report. I don't have much I will say I have attended two of the three meetings, and I missed the most recent ones so I don't have some of the most recent information. I'm understanding that the contract with the University Lodge has been extended to next June or July so at least there will still be those 20 rooms that are for individual individual rooms is not the congregate shelter but they are still looking at different options for the congregate of the fall. And I think, overall, the committee's longer term vision for a more permanent place is also kind of considering more of a permanent housing idea so not necessarily. I guess considering are we putting all the resources into a shelter are we trying to balance services and and emergency shelter with also creating pathways for more permanent supported housing as well. And I think a lot of the committee members feel that that's a pretty strong need in the in the town and so, you know, hoping that we can also advocate for creating more affordable housing and also perhaps working with local landlords around those issues. Since that could be another pathway for housing and getting people out of homelessness so that's kind of I guess that's the short answer for you. I don't I can't say like as of November 1 we will be opening the doors here. I have that information I don't know other committee members might have more ideas of what as what where the options might be, but I think, as of right now. There will be some rooms at the university lodge and we're looking at where else, if there would be more hotel rooms again, and a congregate shelter or just looking for the place for the congregate shelter. Is there is the university is the uu sorry out as a location additional location for shelter for next year. My yes, but I could be wrong. I know that is ending for this year and I don't know if I believe as they were like opening back up. That was the conversation was kind of from my understanding that that was not going to be an option in the fall but I could. Okay, old information. Because I belong to the regional group that is chaired by Pamela Schwartz the Pioneer Valley, something to end homelessness blocking on the full name at the moment. And I do know that there's also discussion of potentially perching purchasing a motel in Hadley. The account a large, and there's a possibility that state might fund that purchase and converted into affordable housing, not into a shelter, or it might be mixed affordable housing in the shelters. And probably not to anybody else at this point exactly what will happen to it. But there are rooms like the university motor large that could be used for shelter, or could be converted into small single room only with a kitchen, a bath and living space space. This is Valley Community Development is doing it 132 North Hampton Road. So that's at least in discussion, the state did fund development of a property like that in the eastern part of Massachusetts. Yeah, father bills and main thank you. Yes, right. And that may be a pathway that could be followed in Hadley as well. One of the concerns immediately I believe is that the person who owns that property or the group that owns that property may want a high price, higher price to sell it, then would make it possible economically to do the development. So like where you want to say something else. I was going to say I think that the group has orders going to start a conversation about are we should we try and be partnering with some of the neighboring towns, as some of the population might be kind of transient between some of the neighboring cities as well, depending on where there's availability and if we look at the regional seasonal shelter data. And the information about where people come from. There's no question, but that Amherst doesn't exclusively serve people from Amherst. Similarly, North Hampton doesn't exclusively serve people from North Hampton, and if Hadley is to develop something I'm sure the same would be true there. We get a certain amount of traffic from Springfield and from other communities around the state honestly. Yeah, at least according to Kevin part of that might be because of the lower threshold in terms of behavior and Yeah, that's definitely true. The way they've operated the shelter as a kind of behavior based shelter. Without automatically excluding people who show up intoxicated does make a difference but also historically the Amherst shelter was the one that started the evening the latest. So if other shelters filled up, for example, North Hampton, they would send people to Amherst because they were full and no longer had any additional room. So there's a mix of reasons why not to say that what you just said is incorrect it is correct. Any other comments or ideas related to the shelter or the shelter population. Okay. I only had one other item it's a brief item. I have been asked by Amherst neighbors I don't know if everybody knows what Amherst neighbors is. It's a group that formed now, probably three years ago and was formally incorporated a little over a year ago. So there are reasons who are concerned about the older adult population and Amherst and assuring that they get access to services they need. They do work in concert to some extent with the senior center and Amherst with Mary Beth and with others who are there. But they have a somewhat different charge the senior center, unless there are reasons to cooperate. I've been invited by a member of their program committee, specifically my wife Heather to give a talk on housing particularly housing related to older adults in Amherst and that would be on. I got it here. I'm going to say September 4 at 4pm. So that's scheduled by Amherst neighbors. I'm not proposing to change it. But if I can get their agreement. I make, I may make that a housing forum and invite a larger number of people as we have with the three housing forums that took place in March, April and May. If anybody has an ideas about what I should say about housing for seniors or for older adults. Let me know, particularly those of you who are older may have some thoughts or possibly even Allegra may have some ideas. But anyway, it would be, it would be interesting to talk about that, and to think about what the role of the housing trust is in focusing on the needs of older adults it's not something we've talked about. Although I have to say that in the back of my mind as we've been talking about the possibility of something at Hickory Ridge I was thinking that a development for older adults might be appropriate there. There are other things to do with the property as well but that idea has come to me I know that Chris Brestrup, who is the planning director in the town has said on a couple of occasions to me when are you going to consider projects for older adults. So that's in my mind and I'll probably be talking to Mary Beth the senior center director and other people as well about their thoughts. So that'll be, excuse me Thursday, September 2 at 4pm. And if anybody has any further thoughts about that, either let me know by email or bring them up right now. Well, I just wanted to. Sorry, it looks like I agree you wanted to say something but um, you know, and I'm absolutely not experienced about this but I have seen some conversations about having affordable housing that intentionally mixes older adults with families, single parents to help each other. So I'm just wondering if you know, we can explore some innovative community oriented peer support family support community support models. That's not an either or, but actually provides an opportunity for intergenerational support. I think that's a great idea Erica, and those are the kinds of discussions that we need to have. You know I don't always wonder when we try to do something like that which is very sensible, whether we can do it in the context of whatever the state rules are that affect financing. But it's a very good point, and we should try to figure out how to do that. I'm just wanting to make sure I understand a kind of thought. You were asking, should this thing and September just be me going and talking, or do we want to make it a bigger thing that's a forum, and then at the end you just said, so I'm not sure if you're asking us that or not, I guess. I'm not asking you, but before I ask you, I have to ask Amherst neighbors what they think, because their event not ours. But if they're interested, then my inclination would be to say we should be interested but I, if you have a specific idea related to that Carol please go ahead. I would just say that, yes, if the opportunity is there, it seems like it would be a good opportunity for us to take on making it some kind of a forum, and ask, invite more people or whatever that means and not just have it be you going to do your talk, even though you would be doing the talk, you know, I mean, I don't even know what my ideas are other than yes we should take it on if it's a possibility. Yeah, there's another thing I should mention that occurs to me. I had a conversation with Mary Beth. Oh, at least a month ago, and she is planning to do a survey of older adults in Amherst generally regarding need. And we talked briefly about including in that survey, some questions about housing needs. I haven't figured out how to do that but she was interested. The survey is already developed. It's a survey that's been used in other communities. But when I took a quick look at it, it didn't seem to have anything related to housing. And so I think that would be useful for us to have as well. I mentioned earlier but it, I wasn't thinking of it until again this moment. Anybody again has any thoughts about what questions. Yeah, the three, you know, cosponsored forums we had this spring I think that they were just really helpful to have a panelist of people. You know, and I think they're just a lot of great ideas that were in stories that were told and so I think it just you know just helps bring awareness and can help, you know, be a springboard for different initiatives or programs and so even just having personal stories, you know, this one in September could be helpful just you know I mean everything from aging in place to what Erica mentioned to, you know, what kind of programs could already be available. I mean there's, you know, a progression of different housing types and so I think, yeah, I mean I'm sure there's a number of topics that could be covered it might just be good to hear about it. I think that when beacon was, you know, going through North Square they did mention that they also do, you know, age restricted housing or that they look at you know they actually were working with Hampton College to do Verdean Village years ago, and it didn't happen and that was you know model of, you know, condos, I think it was home ownership units for for people that could then could maybe take a continuing education courses at Hampton College or something so you know they were saying well we had already been in town. Pam Goodwin was like you know we really like cameras we like this idea so you know I'm sure there is really some interesting ideas that could be heard at this we're turned into a forum, just to you know. And it also means that I don't have to speak for 45 minutes or an hour which is good ideas. So I like that thanks. I don't know how this exactly fits in but a thing that I have heard is that there are people who are older who are on fixed income to own their own homes and don't know if they can stay because they can't keep paying ever increasing tax burden. So there's like kind of almost an invisible home ownership problem or something or or a potential home ownership problem. I don't know exactly what to call it and I certainly don't have a good idea what to do about it but it is, it is something that I've at least heard is a problem for some elders in town. Yeah I've heard the same thing. The percentage of people who own their own homes were above the age of I can remember I think it's 60. I think our cost burden is much smaller than people generally who rent homes that are of a younger age but there is some evidence to support what you're saying Carol, and I've heard anecdotally the same thing so I think that you're right. Hey John Matt Chad, Matthews rises hand raised. Sure. You can unmute yourself. Okay. Dr Brockman actually appointed me, I mean, Paul actually appointed me to the Council on aging and aging is a bit of a specialty of mine. I can say that the elderly, like a wide array of housing just like the other populations we serve. I do not want to hear the pitter patter of little feet and others really love it. We have a model in East Hampton tree house, where elders have family far around the country far away. Take on kids who are topping out of the adoption. And so there's elder and younger together. Carol mentioned cost burden homeowners. There is a service national service computer service that matches folks to rent. This is a college town. We have something called UMass off campus housing is one of the biggest housing placement agencies. And this whole end of this of the state. So there's a lot of things going on the important thing is to offer a wide array of possibilities. We like to choose just like anybody else likes to choose. So that's, that's, that's my comment. I hope the survey includes housing issues. Council on aging needs to form a strategic plan they have a new director and new board. Things have changed. It's time for a strategic plan over there and that that study would really help with that. Thanks for your time. Other comments related to this. Well, I think we're pretty much come to the end of the agenda. I'll just mention that again, our next housing trust meeting will be Thursday, August 12. So please put that in your calendars. The housing coalition is not meeting in July, but it will meet again at the end of August. I think I have it as August 24. So I'm assuming Kevin still hasn't joined us. Okay, well, I will see if I can invite him successfully to come to our August meeting then. Anything else anybody has that you want to bring up before we close out the meeting. Or any, there's a few members in attendance. So if there's any public comment, you can raise your hand as well. I don't see any hands being raised. No. Yeah, I have more more and Laura listed as the other people who are attending. Okay. Then somebody want to make a motion to adjourn moved. Okay, thank you. Is there a second. Okay, I don't think I'll take a formal vote on this. Anybody objects. Let me know. This is record time, John. I know. Yeah, it was a very efficient meeting. On the one hand, on the other hand, we didn't get to have more of a conversation about Craig stores and some little sorry about that, but we did the best we could. Well, thank you everybody for attending and for your thoughts. Anything else, please email me or I. Thank you again. Thanks. Have a good evening. Hi everybody.