 This program is brought to you by cable franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. Okay, good afternoon. I'm going to call the finance committee meeting to order this is actually a joint meeting of two committees at this point. So when I'm finished calling the finance committee to order and doing the formalities with that I will ask Mandy then to take over to call the community resources committee to order. This is meetings of Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 2pm. And this meeting is being held as a virtual meeting pursuant to Governor bakers, March 12 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30. This is a section 18 meeting of the finance committee and the community resources committee is being conducted via remote participation. And because it's being conducted by remote participation, I'm going to do a quick roll call of the people who are present from the finance committee to make sure that every they can hear and that when they reply that we know that they, we can hear them. So, Lynn Krusner. And Bernie Kubi act. President. I'm a heckner. Dorothy Pam. As it. As it is. And that's, I think that that is constitutional quorum. The, there are two members who are not present at the time present time. We have a meeting with the meeting involving the messages school building authority and Kathy Shane is the chair of that committee so she will not be able to join us at the beginning, but we'll join the finance committee meeting when they're meeting with MSBA and our newest red member, non voting member, change Schaeffler is not able to join us today. But said that she will be fully engaged with the committee as of the next meeting and she's looking forward to participation. I'm going to call your committee to order. I was just going to text Sarah has joined us to and she's not late because I haven't called the meeting to order yet. Ditto to everything that Andy said about the virtual meeting and seeing a quorum of the community resources committee present I'm calling it to order this special meeting of the community resources committee to order it to 04pm I'm just going to run through their names to make sure they can be heard and we can hear them. We're going to start with Sarah Swartz. Present. Evan Ross. Present. Steve Schreiber. Here. Mandy Joe Hanneke is here and shall any ball mill is not here yet but we'll be joining us shortly. So we'll catch her when she does get joined in. So the reason for the joint meeting is that we have a request that was referred to both committees that requires us to act before the next meeting of the council. And it is a request for approval of the expenditure of amount from the community resource, excuse me, from the community preservation act committee for housing acquisition. And also pressed with us today is Dave Zomac, who's assistant town manager. John Hornick from the housing trust, Sarah Arshall from the community preservation committee and Rob Mora. And of course, staff support for the finance committee, Sean Mangano is also present. So with that, I'm going to ask Dave to Sonia Aldridge. Sonia, you're joined too. Thank you. Hello, Dave. Great, Andy. I think with your permission, what I was hoping to do today with Rob and with John and I know Sarah is here to speak to the CPA sees recommendation on this on this acquisition. But all members of the finance committee have heard the full presentation we were hoping to quickly go through the slide deck that was shown to the council with that work for the, for you Andy and for the finance committee. Fine with me that I did ask that we did send the slide deck to the resident members and asked them to review the slide deck in advance so that if they had questions that they could be prepared to get to their questions fairly quickly. We could, we could really quickly go through we're not going to read the slides or anything like that but I think it would give it a little quick context and then we can refer back to maps as questions come up. So I don't know whether Sean or Athena is controlling the So great, thank you and I will be brief I think there's a couple of slides that I'll handle then I'll turn it over to John and Rob has one or two as well. So we're excited to speak to the finance committee and CRC about this, this potential project on belcher town road. I wanted to say that this is, this is a somewhat new approach for the town of Amherst the town is taking the lead on this on this acquisition we have engaged and and secured a purchase and sale agreement with the owner of these three parcels off of belcher town road with a potential closing date of February 16. This is not unlike being a more aggressive and more proactive at acquiring land for affordable housing is not unlike what other communities do throughout Massachusetts and in particular our neighbors to the to the West North Hampton does this creatively and and quite consistent quite consistently over the past 1015 years. Next slide. What we hope to do is is purchase this land and and open up the opportunity the possibility of building 40 new affordable units on the property. We'll talk a little bit more about the property attributes in a minute. We've already done most of the development viability work we've assessed the property. We've done appraisals we've done wetlands work survey work is is pending but we don't need that right now to move forward. And the hope is to possibly work together with the housing trust to create a combined RFP for this property and the property known as the street school property. Next slide. Why this property just to set the stage this is in the east village. As you can see in the slide in the upper upper center is Fort River School and the three parcels are outlined in red. There's a flag lot and two frontage lots. Why this property as staff and I looked at this property that came on the market some months ago, we really began to look closely at its, its proximity to the village center proximity to Fort River School to shops. It's its workability. It's on bus routes. It's near conservation land, and it's also happens to be near very near East Street school which is in the upper left hand corner. So all of these characteristics all of these attributes really caught our eye and we started to put together kind of a profile of the project and the property and say, this would be a good property for the trust and the town to work collaboratively to purchase and develop into affordable housing. Next slide, please. So this is just kind of a Google Google Street views showing the property in the in the upper left upper center flat dry. It does have two structures on it. The left much older I believe 1950s that is currently rented the structure on the right the house on the right is 1990s a modular construction, and it's currently vacant, both properties have been rented in the past by the owner one owner owns all three parcels. And of course, later on we might talk about some of the potential possibilities of renting one or more of these structures for income, until we are able to build new affordable housing on the site. Next slide. As we assess the property as we looked at analyzing the property. What we saw was 2.66 acres total which is a significant piece of property and Amherst. There are three properties as I said, and close to two acres are flat and dry we've already assessed and and taken a look at any of the wetlands on the site. And we are very confident that the the properties combined have plenty of buildable area for a sizable affordable housing complex. As it as it states there in the slide 280 feet of frontage on route nine is significant. We've executed a purchase and sale agreement as I said, and our final contingency in that purchase and sale agreement is to hopefully get approval by the town council. Next slide. I think I'll turn this over to john. I just want to add one thing to what Dave said about the property, which I is repeating if something I said last night. Laura Baker Valley Community Development when looking for the property that eventually was identified at 132 North Hampton roads that Valley Community Development is working on took two years to find that property. Also, they decided to purchase the property. Shortly after identifying it which it's not something they usually do and the reason for both is that it's very hard to find property in Amherst. And so I personally really appreciate the town finding this 2.6 acres plus on belcha town road because it's not easy to do, based on Laura's experience of hunting for two years. We do need this. Again, this slide basically talks about various reports or studies that were done to look at the need for housing. When we committed to the housing production plan as a town over five years ago, we said we'd build 45 new affordable units a year, less than 50 units have been added in the last five plus years. So we haven't really kept up with what we promised. The rental costs of new places are extraordinarily high. The number the occupancy rate is really high. So it's very tough to find affordable housing in Amherst. I think that's I'll conclude they are people can look at the slide if there are additional questions they have, particularly about the table which comes from the housing production plan. And next slide please. Dave are you a Rob taking this one. If you're muted so John I think you were going to take this slide and Rob the final slide. Okay. This basically again goes a little bit further in adding information to the slide Dave had earlier about the context. I suppose the couple of views from the property. One towards the East Village Center. As we pointed out earlier it's probably a quarter to a half a mile from the center of East Amherst. So in one direction, you can see the buildings that are there in the other direction you can see the conservation land that is immediately connected to the north of the property. So the property will help with the critical need. It's connected to this form conservation area. Actually this says that the requested funding level the town investment is less than $30,000 per unit, I think it's probably going to be closer to 20,000 if not less per unit which is quite good for Amherst. As Dave mentioned earlier, for a number of reasons we think it makes sense to bundle this property with the East Street property for development. And last but not least, the purchase price of $735,000 was I think about $30,000 below the appraised value. So overall we did pretty well on this purchase. Okay, Rob more here. This slide was intended to provide a potential development concept, not at all what anyone would expect to actually be built here. Once designers and developers have a chance to look at it will certainly have their own ideas but it's intended to demonstrate that there's a great property here with a lot of potential for the type of in size development that would make this attractive. This, this concept shows a footprint of a building outlined in red. It's approximately 13,000 square feet. We are looking at this at this point as potentially a three story building that could house up to 40 units to the rear of the property shows a parking area, and then a little extra parking as the entrance driveway comes in. Approximately 2.66 acres includes a delineated wetland area. This is now that where this work has been completed in the Northeast corner mainly of the property and it measures approximately half an acre so there's you know there's a good two acres of good developable property here. The house at the rear of the proper most northern part of the property number 72 is a mid 90s modular building that we think has potential to be repurposed relocated and reused for housing. So we would like to have that option looked at in the future. Up in the front corner, the existing building is an older structure about 1000 square feet is is located so far into the corner of the property that we also think that there's a potential to use that because it's not really in a location that would be built on in any, any proposed development. The property is located in the in the neighborhood residential district which means this apartment building idea isn't permitted by our zoning bylaw. So the permitting path would be through the comprehensive permit 40 B process with the zoning Board of Appeals. We have completed the initial wetlands delineation as mentioned, we have a contract with a professional land surveyor that is active and we expect that work to be completed over the next four to six weeks. We'll be providing the next step with a baseline survey of the property and the existing conditions. The building up front is rented we are taking over if we purchase this property in February we're taking over a lease with tenants that will continue. The monthly rent on the property currently is $1950 and we would take over management, moving forward. And I think that's over to John. Yeah, this is a review of both our costs and anticipated expenses related to this item. The sources of money are a combination of the funding we're requesting or CPA has recommended that's before you now, which is the $600,000 to be bonded, plus an additional $225,000, which comes from existing CPA funds that have been deposited in the housing trust in a past year or years. The total that gives you the total. And that's to go against the purchase price. Plus a variety of other expenses that we anticipate. The services which Robin Dave have described, which we've already paid for, or will pay for in the near future since they've been completed, like the appraisal like the wetlands analysis, etc. There are various legal fees that we pay through kick to KP law and fees to the property management company, or assuming we use the same or possibly a different property management company. Since I doubt the town is actually going to take over the management of the property, assuming it is continued to be rented as Dave suggested earlier. Maybe there's a contingency of $50,000 or things that we cannot anticipate, or if we need to end the leases and move people out of that house that's rented. We may be liable to pay for their expenses in finding a new place to live. So that's the major reason for the contingency. So that basically gives you a summary of what we have available in funds, and what we believe we will have to pay out when we acquire this property and immediately thereafter. Next slide. And I think am I unmuted now. I think this just this gives the both committees just an overview of our timeline. Our goal is to bring this project back to the full council on January 25 for a vote, up or down on the CPAC funding. And with our goal of of course closing if that vote is favorable on on February 16. So I think we'll stop there. I don't know Andy if you, Sarah is here I know representing as chair of the CPAC and I would turn it over to Sarah and then we're available of course for questions. Sarah did you have anything you wanted to add to Thanks Andy. I think all of you except the non voting members heard my statement last night. Which was really only to express our support for that obviously for this for this project and hope hope council will vote for it. So, having just heard from john or and or Rob have some questions about the, the budget that was outlined there. It's my understanding that all the funds are essentially CPA funds in origin. And all the expenses shown would need to be eligible and I don't know Sonya or Sean maybe will know if costs associated with getting out of a lease or relocating tenants would be expenses that for which CPA funds could be used. And you know if not obviously then they have to come from another source. I don't have any questions for us for CPA can weigh in on weigh in on that one Andy when you're ready for questions. Okay. We can actually handle that one and then what I was going to try and do is ask people after we respond to stairs questions and since it's now out there if it's possible to respond to it now. We can focus on housing questions what is anticipated for the property and try and hold the financial questions to later than if CRC members are squeezed in time since our meeting for the finance committee is continuing afterwards. We need to make sure that we got get to the questions that are of the greatest relevance to CRC sort of at the beginning so once there's a response to stairs question. I have a response if you want to hear it please go ahead. And even though the funds are going into the housing trust, it is CPA funding and it's still held to the same same regulations of CPA has to be spent on CPA purposes. Is the anything related to the management, including the specific topic that Sarah raised regarding if we have to do a pay out to tenants who are currently in that one house. Is that a permissible use of the CPA funds related to this project. That's why I think we need to run by town by the town attorneys because I'm not sure when it's relating to a purchase of a property. I'm waiting on that, David. No, I would prefer this is a great question but I don't think any of us have the answer to it and I think I would prefer to to put it in our list of questions. It is certainly, it is certainly a, it is certainly a legal, legally related cost to developing affordable housing. So I think we need to check with our town council with our town attorney and see what Sharon Everett knows about past practices and, you know, eligibility for that cost, you know. So, if we could put that one in the, in that, that box we'll research that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. First, I just want to acknowledge that Shalini has joined us. So, so we do have Shalini or fifth committee member here on a related question I'm just going to start with my questions it relates to if we purchase this property with CPA money. I have a couple questions about what its use can be. And so I'm going to try and group them. If, say, there is no interest in building affordable housing on it like we have a problem with E street school right now if say the RFP doesn't work out or whatever. What are the options the town has for the use of the land is my first question. My second one is with the use of CPA money and it looks like holy CPA money to purchase this land. Can a building, can an RFP actually have a requirement for workforce non 80 AMI or lower units in it or will the entire building and all buildings, including the houses on the property right now have to be affordable in that CPA required capital is John Hornick likes to say affordable manner of 80% AMI or lower. I think those are my two questions sort of related to how does the sole use of CPA money relate to what we can do with this property and the RFPs. So, I think I can start on that maybe john might want to jump in or Sonya. Maybe I may need a little help going back to your questions there. Mandy Joe but so your first question was about. So if the if the if the if all the land is purchased with CPA dollars it does need to be used for affordable housing for business. So I guess, if the town were unsuccessful in one or more RFP processes and decided that at some point. The land could not be used for that purpose. I think the land would probably have to be sold and the those proceeds put back in the CPA fund. Okay. So your other question I think was related to can there be a mix of affordable and non affordable units. My understanding is that there can be even though this the money for the purchase of the land is coming from CPA. You know, we get into leveraging but the amount of leveraging that will come from this is many, many fold, you know, we're talking millions of dollars here. The town might invest, you know, let's say 850 in this property and the legal and other related costs, but to actually build 40 units on that land is going to be millions of dollars. So that the town will not have to put in the state or the developer will leverage from the state and federal government, those dollars so. So, so there is an opportunity to look at mixed use I think to some degree that would be up to the trust to work on both properties to decide. We're looking for a 100% affordable complex. And how does the budget work out with regard to that, or, or is there a mix of affordable units and market rate units. And John, I don't know if you want to add to that or, or tell me I'm wrong. Well, I think what you said is correct Dave. When we drafted the RFP that went out for the East street school site, which we will now redraft, and at the same time we're drafting a new RFP Belcher town road and putting them together. Allow for the possibility the developer might want to propose a mixed rate housing unit that would include some market rate units and some affordable units. There had to be a minimum of affordable units of 50% of the total. We also had a hard number of 15 actual affordable units. So, it's possible that the housing trust will decide to do the same thing year. What I will say which I think is part of your question, Andy Joe is the units that are market rate will not be subsidized. We can't expect that the Department of Housing and Community Development will provide money to the developer for the purpose of the units that go above 80% area median income. I also want to say, again, going back to the example of 132 Northampton Road, they provided a mix of allowable air incomes from I think 30% AMI to 80% AMI. And the expectation was that people at the level of 80% AMI would actually be working. So, at that level you do get workforce housing. They're working at jobs that don't pay very well in the town of Amherst and the case of that development in order to be able to qualify. So I think if we have a limitation of 80% AMI, it's not that nobody in that development is going to work. We would expect to open it, I think. Again, I'm speaking for the housing trust, which is yet to actually draft the RFP, but I would hope that we would expect that it will be set up so that there are working people who could be in these units. Tonya, do you know whether the affordable, whether the Community Preservation Act and Sarah can answer that might answer this question too. Does it refer to community housing or affordable housing in the requirements of use for this purpose? It's community. And is that a defined term in the statute or regulations? I believe so, yes. I'll double check, but I'm going to say yes. My understanding is that you can use CPA funds going up to 100% AMI. How you would do that when you're mixing it with a significant amount of state funds, I'm not sure. Okay. So, Bob Hegner, you have your hand up. I had two questions. The first question is, I'm a little confused by the numbers now in terms of how many affordable units that we're actually going to have versus how many total units that can be supported on the property. So, my understanding is, property can support 40 total units, some of which may or may not be affordable, some of which may be market. So I think we need to clarify what those numbers actually are. And I guess the second question I have relates to the zoning and whether you anticipate there would be any concerns by the butters or by the property owners, like there's a couple of apartment buildings across the street. Would those owners have any issues with potentially competing units or things like that. Andy, maybe I could take the first one and start on the second and Rob might be able to comment on how this would go through the process. So, I think I while I appreciate all the interest in the number of units and I know that's, that's the prize right that's what we all want we want units. There's really just no way at this stage in this project, or in the East Street project that we can know the number of units. We don't, we can't know how many on Delta Town Road and we can't know how many exactly on East Street School, and therefore we won't know the total. That's why we've been using ranges. And therefore we, we also don't know whether there might be a mix of affordable and market rate units. So that's all things that will come out in the RFP process, and the responses we get from that process. So, I know it's a little bit frustrating for all of us to say well, how many units are we going to get because then you can drill down into. That's an investment of $20,000 per unit which is very, very reasonable and quite low for for Amherst, but I just want to put it out there that we're using ranges based on what we learned over at East Street School. If you recall that process that was a very rigorous process, and Cune Riddle was hired to help help us explore what is possible on the East Street School property, which includes the old East Street School itself. There are a number of different scenarios outlined by Cune Riddle and I would encourage any of you to look back. All of that is online. And I think their range was I want to say and John can help me somewhere in the high 20s, 27, 28 units to maybe 35, 36, depending on the scenario with the East Street School. And then, even with the East Street School that brought in uncertainties of cost, because as we know sometimes renovating an old structure can be more expensive than just demoing it and starting new. So, I, I just want to put it out there that we're using ranges we know from Rob's analysis and the work that he had contractors do on the site with wetlands. There is a significant portion of the Belcher Town Road project property properties that is high dry as good frontage, and we would or excuse me the developer would then need to take this through the 40 B process, not unlike what 132 Northampton Road went through and Rob do you want to talk a little bit about how that might look. What would what would a developer do from there. Sure. So it's an application to the zoning Board of Appeals. And, you know, that's the time where we are required to provide notice to all the abutting properties and really truly get their feedback. There's no way to anticipate what the reaction would be. What we do know is that the investors on the prop that own the properties directly to the south at Colonial Village and then to the West are looking to either redevelop or reduce the density on their properties themselves. So, I, you know, I would be less concerned about this looking to be competition for those developers and maybe even encourage them to move ahead with their plans that they have already begun being right at the border of the Village Center zoning district. Our project along with other potential projects there could really be a nice way to serve a need in that part of town. The zoning Board of Appeals process. The last one mentioned 132 Northampton Road went through several months, many, many sessions. That's typical the board is equipped and familiar with the 40 B process this this one wouldn't be their first neither was 132 Northampton Road. So it is a very lengthy thought out, complete process on the potential land use, which would include the other boards and committees as well as advisory to the, to the whole permitting process. Thank you. Just a quick clarification. I believe this would be the answer would be would come out in the RFP process. When you talk about a range of 40 units and refer to 132 Northampton Road are you talking about a single size unit, or would there be a range of from studio to two bedroom or anything like that. And it also might be very much easier to go through the 40 B process here, because it's a working class neighborhood and you're not going to get the same kind of elitist resistance that we got to 132 Northampton Road. John perhaps John could speak to units and what the trust knows from their work. Again, if we look back to what we did with the East Street site RFP. We asked the developer to create a plan which had one two and three bedroom units with a preponderance of two bedroom units. And the reason for that is that the location from wayfinders from their Amherst properties indicated that two bedroom units had the longest waiting lists. So that's what we hope we could encourage a developer to do. Sorry. No, I just said thank you. Oh, okay. Yeah, I will add that. As Rob said earlier, it's great to have the work that he did for us because it gives us an idea of what might happen on the property. But once we contract with the developer, things can change dramatically. I mean if you look at the changes at 132 Northampton Road. When they were initially deciding what to do, they were going to use the house and retain the house and add on to it in order to create the 28 units that they intended to have at the end of the day. And after several months and two different architects, they wound up saying no, we really can't use the house we have to start over. And also they had very elaborate plans for the property. I know I sat in on the ZBA meetings and I think they did an extraordinary job of talking about not only what was going to happen with the house and what that would look like, but also with what the entire property would look like. So as again, I appreciate what Rob's done, but once the developer comes in there, they're going to do a very detailed analysis of what they think is the best way to take advantage of that property and what's the best way to construct something. Hopefully that would be 40 units, maybe it'll be a little bit more maybe it'll be a little bit less. And it's really hard to say, because I'm not a developer. And that's why we aspire somebody else to do this work. Bernie. Yeah. I'm reminded of what will Roger said, you know, you always want to buy land because they ain't making any more of it. I did a great job locating this property and I've been told by more than one builder that the biggest constraint for creating affordable housing in Amherst is the cost per acre or the availability property. So, so that said, it's really difficult to argue about this location. My question though is how, how wedded are is the group to requiring this to be developed along with the street school, or will a developer be given an option to respond to one property, but not the other. To be blunt, my concern is around the requirements that we reuse the street school, which I see is a real chore. I know that's being heretic I understand that, and I expect the pitchforks to be outside my front door before too long. But my concern is tying those two properties together is going to cause won't get us the maximum bang for the buck that we could get from this property alone. Maybe I could start in and turn it over to john. So those are great questions Bernie and we're exploring those as we go. We're putting out there the possibility of bundling these we want to keep our options open if the council. If we can see that this is a good way for the town to proceed and to buy this property, then it gives us the opportunity to look at bundling the two properties, Rita Farrell who is a consultant to the trust I know is on this call listening she has worked in the affordable housing field in Massachusetts for more than 20 years and is an expert on this throughout many communities, and has helped us for years. I think it would work with Rita with the trust to explore and also john has has already reached out to some affordable housing developers in the region to say, if we were to pick this up. What doors does this open for us. Is it good would it be better to bundle these because of course if you can bundle you can presumably reduce legal costs and closing costs and, and the potential for more units. The only thing that we hear pretty consistently is is north of 40 units the higher 40 and above is a really good number if you can get 506070 units, and the cost per unit and the cost of developers comes down and it really makes projects do as you look for the tax credits from the state and, and funding from the federal and state government so we're we're keeping the bundling option open, but we haven't hooked the wagon to that. And I think it'll be some probably a few months before we know more about that and john I don't know if you want to add anything to that is that accurate as you see from the trust standpoint. I think that's accurate I want to respond to something, an assumption that I think Bernie made, which is that to develop the East street school site means you have to keep the East street school. That is not the case. We are open to not keeping the East street school, and we are particularly concerned about honestly the cost for somebody doing so. We are going to have a report on the amount of asbestos and lead that's in the building, and about other barriers to reading the school, and we may simply go forward and tell developers that we simply don't expect that them to go through or we may give them the data that we have available and ask them to tell us whether they think the school should continue. As you said, Bernie, that's kind of heretical. But it is something that we will definitely be considering. I mean, there are other reasons to combine the two sites because they're both together. They may allow some economies of scale in the building process for the developer. As Dave mentioned, we're looking for low income housing tax credits to subsidize this development. And there is a sweet spot. When you look at this as a problem, the problem really is paperwork. Nobody is really enthusiastic about being doing paperwork for development that's small. There's a huge amount of paperwork that's required of the developer and of the Department of Housing and Community Developments, and possibly others who touch on this process. So as a consequence, having more units to develop is really a huge advantage. And that's one reason for combining the two sites. Again, from my discussions with various people, I think that's a very significant reason to combine them. But my colleagues on the housing. Consider that or to weigh in on that. I'm just giving my personal opinion. I'm going to just make one statement and then if there's, it doesn't need an answer unless my assumption is wrong. The current East Street building has no historic preservation attachments to it that would interfere with our ability to just remove the building, if that's the best thing. I know we have a number of hands up. I wanted to ask Lynn, if you could bring Rita Farrell into the meeting, since Rita is a consultant to the time to the trust and she has. And then they'll go. Well, she's doing that. When did you have a question. Were you waving your hand because you had a question. I did. I do have questions and unfortunately I, because I'm doing the other stuff I can't raise my hand because the function's not there. At this point, the housing trust owns or possession of East Street school. I'm assuming, and that's why I voted the council. I'm assuming, or please describe to me who will own this property and it what phases along the way. That's one question. The second question for me goes back to the assumption of 2% rate of vacancy and wondering how current that is, and whether that has been affected by co bid, and the lack of students, renting, or maybe they are I just wonder if it's been affected by co bid, and therefore, is it a reliable number or is it worse or better. So those are two of my questions and then my third one is I, and I think the answer is going to be no so I'll just accept that but is there any opportunity with this property to create housing that leads to home or condo ownership. I can try. Oh, you want to answer those Dave. Let me let me take a shot john at a couple of them and see where I go and fill in the blanks. So in terms of who will own the property Lynn it's a great question and I want to be clear so the purchase and sale agreement is with the town of Amherst, it was signed by the town manager and the closing would be with the town of Amherst, and not the trust again the trust is part of the town we are collaborating together I want to really make that clear. Unlike say a nonprofit we we've we've enjoyed a wonderful relationship with the Kestrel Trust, they are a 501 C three nonprofit, they have given, maybe millions of dollars to the town for open space, that is a completely different this is a relationship whereby the trust and its holdings financial holdings are controlled and managed by Sonya Aldridge's office and, and so it would be the town of Amherst closing on the property, the town of Amherst would then own the 2.66 acres, and they would be managed by the town of Amherst, until such time as we decide on a pathway through the disposition, the disposition process. So, we would likely in stay engaged with the current rental management company. That's Kendrick properties. We would likely have them continue to to manage the rental property on site, and that the town of Amherst likely working through Rob's office would oversee other things on the property to make sure it's, you know, it's secure it's it's, you know, kept up etc as we work through the RFP process. It would only be at which time we decide on the pathway forward that decisions would come back through the council to decide on do we need to transfer the land to the trust, and ultimately to developer X is there a long term lease. There are many branches on that tree that we haven't explored yet. We did just want to also put out there that to two things related to that questions ever risen about property tax. The three properties currently right now pay about 14 or close to $15,000 in property tax every year. The building was posed to us through one of the meetings. If a building were built on or buildings were built on the on the property. How much would that bring in. I think the short answer that it is it depends. It depends on the size of the building let's say it's one building with 40 units. The, the assessor's office assesses a building like that, based on the rents that are charged within that building. So, a lot of the assessment will depend on the composition of one bedrooms two bedrooms three bedrooms that are ultimately in the building. We can say from looking at say 132 Northampton Road, I believe that property prior to it being bought by Valley CDC paid on the order of about $5,000 a year. The Valley CDC estimated through the zoning board of appeals process and other questions that came about that that would ultimately pay four or four to five times as much in property tax. That's a general rule that once a multimillion dollar building that has multiple units in it is built on this property, it would bring in far greater than the current $14,000 it is, it is currently bringing in tax revenue. I also want to put out there that in the interim, while the town is renting, at least one of the houses on site, perhaps to we don't know that yet, that rental income will also come into the town of Amherst. Where that rental income goes I would work with Sonya and Sean on where that rental income goes, but the rental currently, if you subtract the property management fee which is about 15% is probably on the order of $18,000 a year. So, some people have said well while the town owns it do we lose the tax revenue we do, but we would still have more than that in rental income coming in. There would be some maintenance of the house, etc, etc, but we could, we could, we could address that through the rental. So anyway, and I guess I would turn over to john or others on the call about rate of vacancy I don't know john you want to say anything about that I probably am not going to say much about that in town. I don't have a current number. The number that we had on the slide comes from Nate Malloy and Nate is not on my guess is that the vacancy rate would probably be somewhat higher right now, because of the COVID epidemic. We have certainly heard about college students simply abandoning rentals in town. So, you probably correct. On the other hand, I believe everybody's expectation is let's say by next fall, when assuming the university and the colleges are going in full enrollment that everything that might be vacant today, or virtually everything will be rented and we go back to the 2% situation. I mean, again, that's speculation on my part. I did want to answer one other question you have is, could we put up some form of workforce housing on this property. I think the big question for that would be well why would I say two questions one would, why would you do that, instead of fan housing for families and individuals who are low income. I mean that's a value choice. I think this particular property is especially helpful for people in those circumstances, because of its location on public transportation. If it has another piece of property in it might where we could put up, say workforce condos, so to speak, it's possible we could get financing for that from mass housing finance. Honestly, I don't know much about it, but I am at least aware that they have a workforce program that goes up I believe to 120% of area median income, which is significant. Which they would substitute which they will offer money that essentially allows a subsidy, so that families at that level could be housed. And that that I believe is a home ownership program. Sure, because like I said I need to be more familiar. And I think that's something that trust will be looking into. And I mean john, you know from a previous conversations that, you know as we look at the issue of racial equity and social justice, accumulating wealth with a home or condo is part of achieving that goal. And I think we need to be looking into those options, but thank you. So I wanted to introduce Rita Farrell to everybody. Rita is a select board member in one of our neighboring communities. She's very but more important than a lifetime career or a long career working in affordable housing and work very closely with my former fellow select board member. And she's been working with along with the system, the housing trust. And I gathered from your hand up that you had some comments on questions that have been previously raised Rita. Yes, and thank you for that introduction. So I want to clarify a couple of things because I think this is really important. You're using CPA money and CPA money come for the acquisition. And so CPA money comes with a lot of statutory requirements and I'm going to read just a couple of sentences here that I think are germane to the discussion. So any property, any real property interest acquired with CPA funds must be owned by the municipality, but management of that interest for affordable housing properties may be delegated to the housing authority or nonprofit organization, which means not only because the property is being acquired with CPA funds, then a long term lease rather than an outright sale would be in play here. Secondly, you know, we've been talking about, or you have been talking about affordability and the level of affordability and whether or not workforce housing. The guidelines say that, you know, the maximum area median income is 100 is 100% the maximum Mary income. Permanent deed restriction is required when you acquire with CPA and real property interests acquired in whole or in part with community preservation monies must be bound by permanent deed restriction that limits the use to the CPA purpose for which it was acquired with CPA funds with the property and perpetuity. So you could not do anything over 100% of am I, given that this property is being acquired in whole with CPA funds. Some developments, you know, the, the 10, you know, towns have put X number of dollars into a affordable housing development and designated certain of those units as being, you know, CPA units but in the case where you're acquiring land. It's very different. So I want to make sure that's clear. Now, East Street School has no CPA money in it. It's not to say that it couldn't, you know, if it's part of this development or it's separate that there might not be some CPA funds needed for the East Street School. But it doesn't have the same requirement because the property is is a town on the property. So I wanted to make sure that was understood. Well, thank you Rita. I'm going to continue on business with about five more people with hands up right now and I'm going to continue on the list in order. So Dorothy Pam, you're muted Dorothy. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. First, the land abutting it is called farmland conservation. And is that a special kind of conservation and so I'm just, it's the word farm there that I'm interested in. What does that mean farmland conservation. Dorothy I'm not sure what map you're looking at but you might be looking at a zoning map there might be a farmland overlay district in that area but the property to the north and to the east is owned already owned by the town of Amherst it's called the Fort River farm conservation area. And that's what I'm asking. I read it from the chart today. So what is that about what we bought that about five years ago, and it's being developed into community gardens. There'll be a trail system there and then it is possible that we may rent out portions of the property to farmers for small pilot projects for them you know some, some farmer wants to get on a half an acre of land but they don't want to afford land prices in this area but they want to, they want to get their hands dirty and their feet wet. That was designed or purchased for that purpose. Okay so so it's not, I guess I in my mind I thought that that land was classified as wetlands but it is not the the small farm thing my daughter got started with a one least acre in Hadley. I've grown tremendously so that would be a great use there are so many farmers that need that start. So my second question has to do with that same map. If you could put it up again. Because the first times I saw it. I read it completely wrong and I can't figure out what the middle stuff is. The square, the building is going to be in the plain red box, and the other stuff is either parking or lawn or playground. And there was one area that was very complex kind of in the middle of some grass. I had no idea what that was. Maybe Sean or Lynn who's ever controlling could put up the development potential map again. I'm working on it. All right. And because that I wanted to look at the other thing is, I've been told it but I forgotten it. 80% of AMI is approximately how much money. It depends on the number of people in the household. If I recall correctly, and this changes year after year. It's probably around $70,000 annual income for a family of four. Okay. That's, that's money. Okay, so Rob, Rob is back on and this is Rob's drawing concept drawing. Do you want to tackle that first question? Yes. So the, the red box outlined in red, the white box outlined in red is shown as a potential building site. All of the gray is either driveway and parking spaces right around there. The green is just a background color to kind of give some contrast to those two elements that line that kind of goes all over the place, starting from the midpoint on the eastern boundary. And then goes in a little bit and jags around like a boot and then back up around is showing the wetland boundary. The hatching up on the north side there is a flood zone located there. And then shaded in the background or the other the existing structures that you kind of see underneath these images. Throughout the green area, there's markings for a potential playground area or picnic area, that type of outdoor space. What is the, the area in the middle of the gray that has that's what is that. The parking spaces, the darker areas are actually if they were zoomed in, you'd see the hatch marks on them. They're indicating a accessible parking space the loading zone next to an accessible parking space. So it's just reserving the area needed for, for those spaces. I was wondering if because it seems like the parking takes up an awful lot of the piece of land. And I guess I was looking for more of a sense of some common shared green in connection to the building. And I know this is just temporary design but whether in the land underneath the parking has to be of a certain type or there are other options for how the parking could be done in a less intrusive way and more of the green land be around the apartments. There will be many options. You know we ourselves had various concepts with two buildings to smaller footprints with parking between or off to the east. We had concepts with the driveway coming in on the west side before we learned before we had the wetland delineation and saw that there was even more area that potentially could be developed than we originally thought. So there absolutely would be a number of probably different ideas that the developers design team will be able to present moving forward with this. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm concerned about with stopping affordable housing workforce developers and I heard two things today one is the paperwork and then the cost is I think with Bernie I couldn't really make up I think it was about cost. And my question was, do we have other properties other than East Street that are not being used and could be developed for affordable housing. And my other question was how do we advertise and try to get developers in affordable housing because it does seem like there is affordable housing their developers who are really committed to it and it's just like maybe we're just reaching them. So what is our process for reaching out to them, how do we advertise it. Let me let me jump in there first. Shalini so so again all good questions. You know. Yeah, I mean, any, any property in Amherst or any town Northampton, you know, it begins with a series of decisions and certainly the cost of land and the cost of development we you and I have been on many many meetings where this has come up with the chamber with the bid. So the cost of land and the availability of land is very key in Amherst and john spoke to this a few minutes ago. And I say this a lot, which is, I firmly believe, you know, our future lies in the redevelopment of land in our village centers. This is redevelopment in our village centers. And for a whole host of reasons. It doesn't make sense for us to spread out at the very least, perhaps the most important one is global climate change. Every time you move horizontally on the land, you need to expand water sewer electricity pavement all of those infrastructure costs, and the maintenance of those and the environmental impacts of those. So here is a property in the village center that has been used for a whole host of things, most recently to rental houses that we are saying, isn't this a higher and better use now to do dense housing in a village center. I wish we could bring down the cost of things I mean Massachusetts has one of the highest development costs in the country for any kind of residential development and that's a bigger nut than we're going to crack here today. But I think I want to go back to something john said a few moments ago which is Valley CDC spent two years looking for a piece of property, and they found 132 North Hampton Road and kudos to them for finding it and taking it this far it was not easy. We just started this. I don't know john when did we start this in October. So here we are on January 5. We have a closing date of February 16. We are moving at lightning speed if we decide to move forward with this. And that will give us a huge leg up because we haven't looking for land for two years has a cost. That's a staff cost. We have we have put in some staff time john is volunteering his time Rita is there with us. But here we are on the cusp of saying this is a really good piece of property that is affordable to us and can translate into units that are at an affordable cost per unit. And I think that $2,000 per unit in the end is very affordable for the town of Amherst and we hope a developer will be will be very interested in that john has already reached out to a few developers and I don't know if you want to say anything about that john and, and kind of talked about this a little bit and there's certainly interest in this moving forward. I'll stop there but there were other parts to your question that maybe john can address or Rob or read up. Yeah, I'll just say a couple of things one is that formerly, the procurement is the responsibility of Anthony Delaney works for the finance department. Anthony is responsible for releasing the RFP. And I believe at least one of the things that he does is to put it on the state website. So that people who are interested in this will find it there and become potential bidders. So I talked to a couple of people that I ran into at a JAPA meeting who said, This was flagged for them by somebody on their staff, and they did look at it this was the East Street School RFP, but ultimately decided not to bid. I had the expectation that at least Valley Community Development will did, and they're perfectly good developer but we'd like to attract more. I spent some time, actually Rita and I spent some time talking to Peter Graham. Peter Graham is somebody who has been a developer, but currently is the director of an organization called MBL consulting. What we do is assist small developers primarily in figuring out how to finance a project that they're working on. So, all of this is a pretty arcane business, and there are specialties that developed in each part of it. I said I talked to Peter, and I asked him for some recommendations for people we might talk to, both within Massachusetts and outside. So I have a list of names and contacts. I get to follow through with that, because I've been busy with this and other things related to the emergency rental assistance program, and the trust generally but read and I do intend to make contact with those other people. So we hope to bring interest from more potential developers than we had at the East Street School site, originally. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else? Because I was back to CRC chair Mandy Johanicki. Thank you. I'm going to move off of the affordable housing part of this for a little bit because CRC has deals with what the land uses so one question about the farm conservation area that's behind it. And you've talked about creating trails in that area, and I know you've talked about Fort River Elementary being close. Would it be possible to create a trail through the conservation area to Fort River so that anyone needing to get there doesn't have to walk along the sidewalk on Belcher Town Road number one. Number two about that transportation on Belcher Town Road. I know a lot of people who are afraid to bike on Belcher Town Road and I know there's some state potential issues, looking into redoing Belcher Town Road, what a project like this. The redoing or help the ability to move forward on the redoing of Belcher Town Road to really make Belcher Town Road safe for not only waiting at bus stops, but also biking along the road and walking along the sidewalks that don't feel safe to a lot of people like what what what are what would we like what are the results I guess of either this project or ensuring that people that are at this project but also colonial village and the other areas around, have actual safe access to the village center and to bus stops and is there a cost associated with that. Thank you very much Mandy Joe. I think we would all agree. If you've driven or ridden your bike or walked along Belcher Town Road in that section it is. I don't know is it a moonscape I'm not sure what it is but it is, it is a mess. I do know that Gilford mooring our superintendent public works has been working with the state on on future plans there. And survey points out there for some time those big. I believe those big white squares are part of that whole process. And I believe there is money moving forward in in state processes to redo that section. I don't know if Rob nor I have not been involved in that at any level. I'm not sure whether this project it certainly could be. It could be added to the urgency but I'm not sure this is going to put anything over the top I think that state process will move like other state processes do and it'll eventually happen. You know I do know I was someone involved in the route nine, the redevelopment of route nine. And I'm not sure if I'm the center of Amherst down to the Hadley line, and the state was very open and receptive to improve crosswalks improve bike lanes improved pedestrian safety, etc. So, I have confidence that those elements will be there and given the concentration of housing residential housing particularly apartment style residential housing there. There are thousands of residents who live along that stretch in Aspen chase and colonial village and then moving farther west in the various apartment complexes behind the street school etc. So, you know I have a high confidence that those kinds of things are being worked into those plans. Your earlier question about connectivity to conservation land. Again, I try not to get too excited if we were to acquire this property, and then move forward with the development. I think we would then look at what are the possible connections to be made to the Fort River Farm Conservation Area, other than the sidewalk. That is clearly a way to get people there. Your question about can we connect Fort River School with with the Fort River Farm Conservation Area. Absolutely and if you go, if you really want to you can go back to see my presentation at town meeting about five years ago I made that case that we were going to try to do that. This is just a question of, it's on my list. I need to get it in the queue. And you know, I'm sure Sonia and Sean will find money for me to make that bridge happen. There is a stream between Fort River Farm Conservation Area and Fort River School. We need to put a bridge it's not a huge bridge it's not a station road bridge, but it's a bridge. And Sean loves to fund and JCPC love to fund bridges so I'll, I'll be coming with a request. Okay, thank you. Okay, Kathy you've been escaped you've escaped MSBA and you're with us now. You have your hand up. Thank you. And as everyone knows I'm coming in late so I'm going to watch the tape later to try to avoid asking questions about your ass. But I want to follow up on what Rita told us about CPA money restriction. John Hornick during the an earlier public meeting. I asked about the 40 units, and would they all be affordable, or would some of them be market rate and you had said the RFP might be 50 or 75% affordable but I think Rita was just saying that they have to all be affordable and did I hear that correctly because I'm talking about this property not the part that's the East Creek rule did I hear that correctly. It was 100% of AMI was the answer. Right, so they can't go up and but but not that you know 10% of the units would be market rate it's it's everything if we do succeed in getting 40 units 100% of them would be in, you know I understand that affordable 50% AMI 80% but I'm talking about not any market rate which you would answer you just answered differently the other night and I'm not going to hold you to what you said the other night but I'm just trying to understand when Dave does the quick math of 800,000 40 what a good deal it is I did a, if it was only 50% I'm going to divide 800,000 by 20, you know in terms of how many units are affordable. So, are we, we are constrained based on what I heard Rita say because we're buying the whole people, it's not CPA is buying half of it. Is that correct. We believe we are constrained Kathy but we are going to follow up on that and we'll get you a written response to that. We're going to check with legal counsel on that. I don't have a problem with it, you know it's not that I think that's a bad idea it's more. It's getting what what amount of creativity to developers have and I was very struck with Valley CDC on the small studios for single singles in 132 when I asked whether you could build the building in a way that two units sitting side by side at least a few of them didn't share any electrical and plumbing so that if later on you decided you should have a one bedroom. You could just convert some of the units to one bedroom. And they said that's a great idea in terms of design but we can't make the financing work for the building. If we don't have every unit paying you know the way we've done it, it had to be every unit paying a rent rather than some of them might be a two person unit we combine to so I'm just trying to understand the limits of the money. We later go for because the attraction of this is it's a bigger space and the square footage would allow 123 bedroom, not all small spaces. It's still going to be fairly attractive to developers given what the state money funds. So that's my question, because if there is no market rate, it's a different business plan that they would have to come up with. So, I would certainly defer to Rita. When I answered you the other day I think I was thinking about what we did at East Street site which is as Rita pointed out, not property that was purchased with CPA funds. I depend on to set me straight when I make mistakes and I'm, and she will be our consultant in drafting the RFP. So, whatever we have in there will be consistent with what the regulations or the statute have to say. I just want to be clear I'm not against that it's just I think it's a little it's another piece of risk because we didn't get a bid we loved on East Street, and it, they had some flexibility so the, I had sent some questions in advance to you but you know this, this is potentially leveraging a lot of money. If the leverage in the money doesn't happen is there after five years after six years is there some point at which we say, Oh, it just didn't happen or, you know, or we're pretty sure that leveraging can happen because of the location and the attractiveness of this property so I'm just trying to figure out, you know, if, if you offer this to them will they come. And will we get what we want out of it. I think though, the problem with East Street had to do with the fact that we couldn't answer questions that the developer had about wetlands and about the extent to which hazardous material including asbestos and lead were present in the building. And so they were uncertain about how to move forward on a bid. We are currently working to correct that so that when we go out with the East Street school, that information will be present. Again, I think that combining the two properties will make it attractive, because it will be more attractive honestly to the Department of Housing and Community Development to finance their so called regular. Community incentive or tax program will be should be responsive to the larger size of the development that we can do when we combine the two properties. Now, obviously with respect to anything there are many potential slips between. You know, what we think will happen and what actually happens. It may be that we'll discover that we made some critical mistake that we weren't thinking about in the RFP and it's not attractive to any of the developers. So what do we do I don't think we give up. I think we look back at the RFP and look at what we need to change in order to make it attractive to a belt developer to come in and make the best use of these properties. I think both properties have plenty of advantages. You know, which Rob has really pointed out, and we should be able to find somebody to do this. Rita you were your hand up to the source. Thanks. I think in answer to your question Kathy, the greatest leverage you get is through low income housing tax credits which john spoke about earlier. And what makes this development, and particularly if it can be bundled with East Street, both attractive to developers but also very competitive for financing is size so you achieve certain economies of scale. When you get to larger developments and the reason being is that the transaction costs in doing a tax credit development are so significant that the only way to kind of spread out those transaction costs is to have more units and most developers who use the tax credit program will tell you that you need to have a minimum of 40 to 50 units in order to make it sort of worth their while. And you know for those costs again to be spread out over a larger number of units. So I expect that that this development will in fact attract many more developers than than East Street as a standalone did and that is because it's expensive. John's pointed out there's a lot of paperwork involved in doing affordable housing development and if you're going to do 20 or fewer units, it just, you know, unless you have a lot of money and have a tremendous amount of subsidy it just isn't worth the brain damage. Thank you, Rita. I'm going to ask one question that's going to Sonya mostly and also the Sarah. And then, at that point, I think we will have circled around I see the Dorothy's hand is still up but I want to check with Mandy then about whether she wants to continue the CRC portion of the meeting. Let me get to the question. Have you Sonya calculated what you think that the annual amount that's going to be required from CPA is going to be to repay the anticipated note that's going to have to be issued, because that is the amount that will be then not available for other CPA purposes and community housing for the length of the loan. I did but I need to find it before I can actually give you a number. And while she's looking I'll just say that, you know, whatever CPA funds have to pay for the debt service that money is not available for any purposes not just not available for community housing. But we, you know, we don't know exactly what the cost would be but we did spend quite some time kind of looking at our debt obligations, debt existing and potential given our recommendations, what those would look like over the next 10 years so we can handle it, you know, there may be some years where there's a significant part of the CPA budget is going to debt service but we think all these projects are worthy so we can live with that. You have some current debt that you're paying that is expiring soon that will help lessen that burden. Yes. I can't I mean some of them are community housing projects. Before my time like that they were 10 year notes that are maybe Sean knows like something was done to rolling green or we did something to enable some permanent create some permanent affordable units there I think. Sorry. I pulled it up. Yeah. So if it's, if I'm looking at the right one. The first payments for this would be 112,000 will be the first year and then we'd start to go down from there. And that was based on a higher number because the original estimate that we had for CPA was at 800,000. So it'll actually be no more than that it'll end up being less than that. Once we do the actual borrowing. And I was also using a very conservative interest rate which we know we move relatively quickly with this the interest rate will come in much better as well. And then there are a number of projects that will come off the books in the next few years. Anne Whalen also. Yeah, there's an Amherst housing authority one. Yep, Anne Whalen comes off an FY 24 rock farm comes off an FY 24 PRS like that's going to be paid off an FY 23 so there's a there's a number of projects with existing debt from CPA that'll be rolling off the next two to three years. Yeah, Andy, I know you, I think we're nearing closure or at least on this discussion I just, there were two things that I that were kind of touched upon that I just wanted for the record to put out there and now that Kathy is here to One is that if we look at these two properties the street school which as we've said really was a long standing town property came to us from the schools. Was an elementary school was not purchased with CPA dollars and then we have Belcher town road which if we look at a total acquisition and other costs at 850. I believe one of the finance committee members asked about. So what is the total if we are bundling these and putting this out there. What is the value of the street school property. And it's one thing to look at the assessed value. I won't go into I'm not an expert on assessing but the market value of the street school currently. Staff and I threw this around a little bit earlier today and if we put that out on the market right now. I mean we think that it would certainly sell below half a million dollars maybe in the 200 200 and maybe $300,000 range it's not a high value property it's a very oddly shaped property and has the liability of the school. So just for round numbers if we think about the town's donation the town's contribution to this project of affordable housing if we bundle them is approximately a million dollars if we move forward with belcher town road if we think of it in the range of a million dollars. Let's keep in mind that the developer might come back to the CPA in a future year and say, we need a cash contribution of X. Let's move this forward so this might not be the last if we bundle these and and we find a developer which we we hope we we do. There may be another ask of CPAC that is a modest ask. If we look at other other communities. Again, we're often compared to Cambridge Cambridge is very creative and and uses a tremendous amount of their CPA dollars and other funds toward affordable housing. That's a regular and it's as john said we need to prime the pump and keep them moving through the pipeline. That was one point I wanted to make the other point I realized I did not answer shall and a question about town land. We are we have been and continue to look at already owned town property that's where East Street school came from that came from our inventory of town owned land and we said in conversations with john and Rita year a couple years ago, hey, let's look at East Street. There's a couple of other properties of the town owns there's not a lot that are not encumbered, and by encumbered I mean they don't have a current use, or they're not. Let me just you know, there's a couple of properties in North Amherst there's one or two and South Amherst. Many of them we've already looked at with kind of a first lens. The second is, we own them because somebody didn't want them. Typically they're very wet, or they have limited access. They're not large. But then there's other properties. There's the North Amherst school which comes up from time to time. We're currently leasing that out to some very worthy nonprofits serving children and families in our community. The South Amherst campus which we know is vacant on the South Amherst common. We're going to be looking at that with the town manager. What are some of the potential future uses of that. There's the old Hitchcock Center building, which is a lovely old building, but really should probably be demolished it is in such it just, it's an old barn. It should be reused for affordable housing and it comes with encumbrances on the deed. So we're looking at all of those but shall I name none of them rise to the top of access infrastructure water sewer electricity bike bus routes sidewalks. That's why this one jumped out at us and leapfrogged over anything we own other than East Street school. And that's why these two rise to the top together. So we're not saying we're not looking at those other properties. Some of those might be more appropriate for a habitat house, but not for 40 units because there just isn't room on the property given the wetlands the access, whatever, the setbacks so we're still looking at those but none of them scream 4050 unit affordable housing development. So I forgot to answer that question I'm sorry. Thank you. So, Mandy did. What is your thoughts about how we proceed now I do want to ask Dorothy if she has the additional question that I want to ask you first. You know, I'd like to ask my committee to raise their hands if they have any other questions, or desire to not adjourn this meeting at this time of CRC because I think I've seen the people who I know had questions and asked questions of CRC so I'd like, you know, if they, if they want to continue on the meeting or still have questions, please raise their hands and the raise hand section otherwise I think I'm just going to adjourn the CRC portion, the CRC meeting. So I'll wait a little bit. And I'm not seeing any additional questions from CRC at all or any, any indication that they want to continue on in this meeting so I think it tells me that CRC has received the information it needs to go and deliberate next week on January 12. And so with that, and your permission in some sense your permission Andy if you if you don't have anything else to add for CRC, I would adjourn CRC. I think that's up to you as the chair of CRC. What I was going to do is ask Dorothy to ask her question after CRC leaves, and then we're going to go into discussion on the finance committee of the issue. You have another meeting scheduled I believe for the 12th of January. And then we'll be back on this special meeting. Yes, CRC will be back on the 12th for deliberation and recommendation other. And with that then at 339pm I'm going to adjourn the CRC meeting. Thank you CRC members. Thank you. Thank you. Dorothy, you had a question. Yes, this is in reference to projects which are desirable to developers and let me just preface it by saying, I'm very excited about this new project. I think town donation of land is the way to go on these things. Dorothy was worried that from what something Laura Baker had said about 132 North Hampton that small unifying units were somehow more easy to do financially and worried that the one two and three bedroom apartments might ward off turn off developers. I'm thinking about Olympia Oaks and is John. I hope John Hornick is still here. Okay, because that's a fabulous project. It's underway finders. I've been there several times. I know it's smaller, but it has, you know, variable sized units, and it was developed. I know it. I've heard it took a long time, but so I wanted to get a little experience and knowledge from John on how that came about because it's a wonderful location, wonderful apartments, and there's a community building to which is very, very nice. So, how did that work out john. Well, I've been there and toward the property and I agree that it's a well designed property and and it works very well. I have to say that I was not part of the development process. So I can't tell you exactly how it worked out. Maybe in a better position than I am. The only thing I will say is that I think when the Housing Trust drafts an RFP, it will include a requirement for one, two and three bedroom apartments with, as I said earlier, an emphasis on two bedroom apartments like you did with the East Street RFP. So, I don't want to go into great detail, Dorothy, it's a great question. You don't want to know how many years that project start to finish I think to 25 years. We got the land we got the land from the university with the intention of someday doing affordable housing. There are numerous kind of processes through town meeting that eventually resulted in Roy Rosenblatt who is a wonderful staff member who worked for the town for many years and community development. And I think Rita I don't know how involved you were with that project with Roy, but I worked on it for maybe a couple of years as I was just coming on and it, it really brought together dozens and dozens of professionals and I think there's 42 units there if I'm not mistaken 42 sounds like the number, I'm not mistaken. But it was the town donating the land, the property is surrounded, not unlike Beltratown Road with some conservation land and trails. Eventually we're able to get the university to donate to us the public way. So we now control the public way to Olympia Oaks, and then you have the adjacent development which is private at Olympia place. So Rita Rita can probably give more details on that but it really, that was a big win for Amherst, but it took a long time. It's still good. Yeah, I just want to clarify something on the debt service. The number that Sean gave you that was when we were basing it on 800,000. It's now 600,000 so I just updated the projection and it's 84,000 is the first payment, which is at 4% estimate right now, and pretty sure it'll come in lower. Yeah, just one handy one other thing on Olympia place, excuse me Olympia Drive development there. We, Olympia Oaks, we donated the land, and then we also we gave CDBG funds to the project. I don't know if we gave CPA but we, I want to say was around three quarters of a million dollars I don't really recall it's been a number of years but it was north of 500,000 I think that we put in in terms of cash and then the land itself. So Rita may have more details that I just can't recall at this time. And I can just add a couple of things. Wayfinders which was then half was picked through an RFP process and Dave is correct. The town did, I think used about $350,000 and CDBG funds to do the infrastructure, prior to the disposition of the property. They got some of the roads and utilities in there and there was additional CPA funds, all of the units at Olympia Oaks are affordable. And I believe all of them are are at or below 60% of area meeting income because it was financed with low income housing tax credits. Thank you. Am I able to do a share screen and show something because I want to move this along and I want to put up my version of the order because I highlighted something. If not, you're able to share your screen. Okay, let me make sure that I have here it is. This is it. Okay. So, for everybody's. I hope you have seen this, this is the council order that's being proposed. And what we're going to have to move to is a vote on the council order and I know that Bernie had his hand up and I have not neglected that, but I wanted to get this at least out there because I think we need to move along to a conclusion. And the reason that I highlighted the piece in yellow is that the order sort of does two different things are several different things because one is approving the CPA funding request. And, but it's also a quiet dealing with the acquisition of the property and authorizing the acquisition of the property. And I noted that when you get into it that the amount of the. The, that's, that's mentioned in that I put in highlight is the amount that's anticipated to come from CPA does not include the amount that's coming from the housing trust funds. And does there is there a problem in that the order doesn't include the actual purchase price of the land. And is that a question that we need to ask before we approve the actual recommend the actual wording of the order. You want me to answer that. Yes, please. This is all already gone through with the town attorney and everything on there and we went back and forth on this. And to keep it as simple as possible this is just an appropriation from CPA on authorization to borrow. As far as as the trust is concerned, we don't have to appropriate funds from the trust it money can be spent by a vote of the trustees of the trust. So after consulting with Sharon from KP law, this is what we came up with and this is what I need as the comptroller to book this budget for authorization. So it was just meant to keep it simple all the presentation and the report that went along with this had the total purchase price. So it was transparent. Okay. This is legal for from a finance perspective and illegal for the purchase. So I just want to point out to everyone, the obvious and Sharon for years from KP law. So if she's looked at it on, I'm happy, but just to just point out the first paragraph authorizes the town manager to make a purchase of property. The second paragraph really is dealing with the authorization of the borrowing for the Community Preservation Act. And then the third paragraph C has to deal with the conveying of allowing the long term lease agreement. And then the fourth one is kind of a catch all of other instruments that were authorizing the town manager to do so that being asked to recommend is this order. And I just wanted to make sure that it was up on the screen for a moment. So that if there are any questions about it that you can, we can ask that. I don't know if there are any other hands up at this point because since I'm sharing now I've lost my participant list. You've got Bernie, Sarah and Kathy. Okay. Take them in that order Bernie. See if I can now I can unmute myself. Yeah, I just wanted to welcome readers involvement in this project. She and I met in the last century sometime working on affordable housing in Delta town. I canceled cross from time to time, just a consummate professional and I feel very very comfortable having her helping us with this whole process. I'll second that Bernie. Sarah. Yeah, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm looking at paragraph C. And it refers to a qualified purchaser. And I think we've been told that the town has to retain ownership of the property since it is purchased with CPA funds. So I'm wondering if it means something something other than than what's obvious to me, but I could be wrong. Part C also includes to lease all or a portion of said property. So it has both both there convey a fee or. Why would you say to a qualified purchaser if that's not an option. Just to a developer of community housing. The question is, is the first part of the sentence under C has to do with conveying. The fee or enter into a long term agreement and the question is why. Have the first part of it convey the fee. Or are those words. Then creating a problem for the CPA statute. Isn't the question whether the word purchaser should be there Andy if you just change the wording to a call developer. The first is we're doing it one way or the other but the word purchaser says they are buying it. Yeah, that's my concern unless it's like you're purchasing the agreement but I would have thought it was purchasing the property. Yeah, that's the way I read it I read it as it could be a purchaser of the property but it could also I read it to be purchaser of a lease. And we can have Sharon take one more look at it we're going back to her anyway. So you know the, we can bring that question to her and just make sure that you know I don't think that affects the recommendation because we all know what the intent is so we can bring that back and just get it confirmed. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and take this off in a moment so I can get back to a more normal view, but with the motion today that we recommend this order to the council subject to a final review by KP law and for for the purpose of making sure that we should be comfortable with sub paragraph C. And then we can get Sharon's final say on it. So, going off of stepping to share for that in Lynn. Yeah, I'm ready to make that work. Okay, you had a question then I had one more question and as I do apologize if this got asked earlier. As we enter into the contract to purchase. Have we already done complete surveys of the land so we know the developer, any issues, and the question is, is there any contingency rich you know when you go to buy a house, you the final inspection you can get out of the deal. Do we have to address that here. Has that already been addressed so we've, we've done whatever due diligence. You know, I was struck by john talking about lead paint and some other things that were after the fact with the houses. So is this when we authorize it it's a done deal or when we go into something like this do we have that final clause on the purchase and sale subject to a whatever. That's my question. We've already for that we've already for all intents and purposes we've completed our due diligence. If the council on the 25th of January decides not to move forward then that is the ultimate contingency that we can back out of the, we can back out of the deal. The main contingencies were wetlands buildable acreage, developability of the site. 21e things of that sort and making sure that the land appraise for at or above what the town was willing to pay for the land. Unlikely to be any surprises like an old oil tank underneath the whatever that was never removed or, you know, you know, I know it's not a toxic waste dump so I'm just, it's, it's what I did we didn't do very well when we bought our house I must say. Rob wants to say more about that but I'll just say that we, besides our own research of the history of the property we've had an environmentalist out there to look at the property and walk the site, including the, the formal wetland delineation and reporting which is done. And now we're moving into survey so that would be the next step so we feel like we've passed that that stage. That's what I want to know thank you. Yeah, I want to add on to that. Have we done an inspection of the houses. And do we know that they are able to be rented as is or will we have to invest in them. We have not done our own home inspections probably what you might be thinking of on a typical purchase. We are managed by a professional property management company and have been certified through our rental registration program. And then through the appraisal process, you know, the condition was highlighted in that reporting as well. That's the extent of the work we've done related to the structures so far. Thank you. There's two other. First or do you want the motion. Why don't we go ahead with the motion and see if there's any discussion on the motion and we can move forward. I recommend. I move that the, that the finance committee recommend the approval by the town council of the appropriation and borrowing authorization and land acquisition and development order F 21 dash 0, 8. Subject to final review by legal counsel. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Congress. It's been a motion in a second. Any further discussion on the motion. Sir, I see your hand up and I assume that was from before. Yeah. Sorry. I don't know. I suppose to put it down. Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry. He went from the committee have any. Yeah, I just, I just want to say to, I, I'm very familiar with this area, the area. I drive by it more often than I should and it's, I think it's a very, very good location for affordable housing. My only concern, and this was raised earlier, is that the infrastructure around where route nine and and East Street meet is not very safe for pedestrians and certainly for bikers. And I think it will and will require some further investment, especially, especially if, you know, there's the other development going on on East Street, if this goes through if the apartment start, you know, increasing the number of residents there. I don't think it's a showstopper, but I do think we ought to be aware of that that there is going to be. It's just not safe as it is now and there's a lot of, you know, there's Cumberland Farms people cut it in now there's that little triangle by the bank and people cut across route nine I mean it's, it's pretty dangerous place. So, I wouldn't want to walk there I wouldn't want to have young kids there so just bearing that in mind that we're going to have to address that at some point in the future, but I do support the idea. Anything else. I, you know, I would just in our report Andy I think it's important to that to note that, because it is a housing comes with infrastructure and we don't don't often finance it in the cost so I think it is the, we're taking on it to me an obligation to do something about it at some point, not in this thing so it. I think it's a really important point to emphasize, not to hold this up but it is. Yeah. It does have a complication and Dave alluded to it earlier. And that is that this is a state highway. And so we don't have, even if we weren't going to say to our DPW folks put up hiring a list actually it's not our road to maintain. That's a point well taken Andy, I, but I mean, I do think we need them to advocate with state. Yeah, I think that the important point that you make in the Kathy's suggestion that it be included in the reporter well taken. But I just wanted to point out that there's that additional piece. So, having gone through that. I'm going to first ask Bob and Bernie if they have any comments that they would like to make to the committee. And since they're not voting members but I always want to make sure that we have their statements, and I will also then call for a vote from the voting members of the committee. Bernie, any. Yeah, real real quick. I know that route nine has been on Guilford's to do list for quite some time and he's been going back and forth with the Commonwealth on that. The other thing is I think our ownership the town's ownership of that property and our plans for housing there. Well, it could actually bump it up unless dots waiting with us so those concerns are valid. We've been moving. We have a, an opportunity to kind of move things forward here. I'm in support of the project. I think that it's, it's a good, like I said, it's a good find this particular property and I think it's been well. I've got some concerns about time with with East Street School but, you know, we've also got some assets working with us and for us so I think things will work out. I would recommend to the committee that they that they support the project. Bob, anything else to say. No, I mean, as I said, I support the project wholeheartedly. I just wanted to point out that one issue that is, you know, something for the future. Okay, so for members of the committee I'm going to go through and ask for vote, so that we can have it recorded in the minutes that we have voted on the motion that's on the floor, made by Councilor, Council President please. Dorothy Pam. Yes, I strongly support the project. Kathy Shane. Yes. Pat Angelis. Yes. Lynn. Yes. And I vote yes, so that it is unanimous five to zero. And we will indicate that the two resident members have indicated their support for it also. So with that. Dave and Rob and Sarah, thank you very much this and Rita. Thank you very much all four of you. It was very helpful for us, and I'm confident that it is going to be helpful John also I didn't mean to leave you out in CRC CRC will of course have to take it up as a separate recommendation. Because it was referred to two committees, but thank all of you for participating today and making the presentation to the two committees. So, thank you very, thank you Andy and we've already got questions the questions that arose here we've already got those out to town attorney so Sean and Sonya and I will work those and and get those back to you and CRC and the full council. Thank you all. Thanks for your support. Bye bye. So, we want to put the, if you have the agenda easily available. I will find it. So that we can get back to where we were in the meantime there was one piece of. There's no attendees left so we're going to have to wait up public comment. There's one thing that I was going to take up under item seven, which is topics not anticipated. One of the things that yesterday at the council meeting, the council took up the question that this committee had recommended a policy for FY for the current year for the inventory, and the basic. That was for the, not mostly for Bob and Bernie who are not there. There was some suggestions that some additional information might be needed on the property questions. And there were three things in particular. One was whether there was any zoning that affected the use of the, any of the properties that we might be considering particularly if they are surplus and going along those lines whether there are any leases that are involved in the use of the buildings that will affect any of the funding that has been used for the acquisition or maintenance of the building creates any encumbrances on use of the building. What we talked about at the council meeting was is that we would consider that at a future finance committee meeting so that because we had a provision in there I don't have the exact language in front of me right now but essentially that we would have a different box for each property so that those kind of additional information, including and there was one thing listed about the future use could be added in so that we felt that these are things that fit within that category. I just wanted to report that to you. I don't intend to have the discussion today, because I don't think we have time and unless Sean tells us that he needs the answer. Immediately, I don't think that it's worth spending time Sean. Yeah, I mean I think our position is you know unless somebody on the finance committee objects to us putting that information in there that we're just going to go ahead and do it. There's sort of one time things that we would put in for each property and once it's in there then we would just keep it from year to year. So, we're fine going ahead and just, you know, adding that to our list. Okay, I have a email that I will forward to you that I received from a counselor brewer this morning. I think that she kind of basically restates it, but I will make sure so that we have the exact terms. That gets done forwarded to you so the question of the stormwater management by law and elicit discharge by law. Key staff for that are going to be at the next are going to be available at our next scheduled meeting which I think is January 26. We don't really have to get into the discussion of this today. I did encourage you to take a look at the presentations that were made. I think that late. I think the meeting in here the staff that were involved really answered some questions that get into the financial questions that were posed at that meeting. Amherst media as of yesterday had not yet posted that December meeting on its website and I don't know that. I have to wait that between now January 26 by assumption is that we'll be up there and the resident, the those of you who were not at the meeting and want to take a look at the discussion and hear those questions and responses from our very informed staff in advance will have the opportunity. I think that meeting got posted late yesterday afternoon. Okay, because I checked early in the early afternoon though, if it's if it's up there now, then that's available. Are there any other questions or media comments about agent item three s listed on your screen. I don't know if we have the rewrites of these bylaws yet because we were waiting for the rewrites and voted automatic referral once they were received from legal counsel. We can double check with Gilbert, if that's come back yet. And, and once it comes back I assume go for it and his staff will prove them to make sure that it's all consistent with what they understand to be the case. Okay. Yeah, I'll ask about that. I'm going to get up for a second just to put some additional additional light in this room because it's getting darker. But is that answer. Linda is my understanding that it has been referred and that we were just assuming that we would have the rewrite of the bylaws before the 26th and that they would be available to the committee. So we are to our being able are having the discussion on that day. And Sean has confirmed that all of the staff that presented at the council meeting. Beth Wilson and Amy second, possibly Guilford will be able to attend. It's February. Right. January. I don't think that we needed action before that. Yeah, I mean it's not it's not moving that quickly when you look at the timetable, but we do need to move on it. And then the other thing that's on there, I'm just going to keep going because I think we're actually pretty close to the end of the meeting then to the resident members of the committee. Mamo that was distributed yesterday for the counselors about items that it actually covers. It's really dealing with the entire council saw all committees but there's a large section that is labeled as finance and the request is that each committee schedule that a time in which it can review the relevant portions of that to do list. Council activities for the next year for its committee and then comment back. I, it's not something that we were intending to do in detail today because of the amount of time involved in the fact that it's now getting on towards for 15. And I don't think we have the bandwidth to take the issue on at this point, but I did want to encourage attention to it for the next meeting. In the meantime, my suggestion was is that Kathy is Vice Chair and I, and I'm going to call on Kathy then after this is after I finish this statement. But Kathy and I take a look at what is immediately on the list and what needs to be addressed in a in a short time span. The second thing that we do is continue to schedule our meetings at two o'clock on the day following council meetings whenever council meetings occur, which is where that next date comes from. And that we just assume that for about it at the next meeting. Thanks Andy, I was just going to comment on that but not in specific I think there were items on that and then trying to look at what some scheduling and we had had a separate quick discussion and it's come up in the past Mary Lou had raised it on things that we might want to as the finance committee with our ability to ask for analysis or comparisons of budgets, I mean advanced budget. Do we want to raise the issue of how much Amherst spends on schools compared to other schools in western mass as we're hearing about the flat budget would do for them so when we look at the agenda items I just want to figure out whether that's something we would want to talk about at the committee level we whether we want to have a separate conversation. So I just want to raise that as is an issue that I'd like to figure out some way to have on an agenda. So on this future agenda items holding slot here. I'm not saying tomorrow, or a date, but I'm not sure it was on the larger list Lynn. So it is not on the larger list, I would assume that it would emanate from this committee. Right. And, and then at some point we need to discuss the feasibility of being able to have that done this year versus for next year. I wasn't thinking like this year but how do we get it in a pipeline, what would be the nature of it because I think it's a third, it's an outside third party kind of look for us so we're, we're not just bombarding the schools with questions it's more a comparative analysis yeah. Let me also just explain this, this process this memo messy as it is the first step to getting the setting up a future agendas list and for the entire council. I have a small job. And I also want Sonia and Sean to look at it from their perspective, because I may have missed certain key dates. Like for instance I'm thinking now did I put approval of CPA projects on there. Okay, so there are certain things on this list that we have to do. There are certain things on this list that seem to be higher priority, but there's going to come a point where we're also going to come back and say, which of these are truly our priorities and which we just can't get it all done. It's too, it's too ambitious list to get done in one year, and I don't want us to rush to do things and not do them well. So, um, but I, I really appreciate all of them in the input from people, both counselors and staff, looking at this who really know what they bring to the council. And made that suggestion but unfortunately I didn't follow the instructions very well and sent a separate memo as opposed to trying to do it on the document itself and I think that's why. Your comments are on the document. I'm not worried. Dorothy. So I want to check about our committee meeting. Will we be meeting at the same time as CRC because I don't want to do that. I want to be able to attend quietly attend to CRC meeting if I need to. Are they the week after or they alternate weeks from the town. Meeting do we know. What I had been told was is that their general proposal was to do it the alternating weeks, and that we had talked about that is when we made the decision to stay with the day after. Because it was then take. With that. Is there anything else that somebody wants to raise and again there's nobody in the audience at this point is attendees. So I'm not asking. I don't have to ask for public comment, even though it's on the agenda. Just a quick point, Andy, if there's nothing else. Yeah, just a quick piece of information. I didn't get to say this. But, you know, as each year, as we elect officers, we also then give counselors the opportunity to affirm. And or to say whether they would like to be on other committees. And I'll be sending that email out soon. That is not a suggestion that anybody should leave this committee. It is just to let you know that that does happen annually after the election of office. Then after that, we have our election of officers within the committee committee vote. That's the process going forward. So with that, I think that there's nothing else that we have today. So, I know it's a long meeting on an ultra town road, but it really was. I felt a helpful presentation, a good discussion. So we got to the end. It made a recommendation which we can now forward back to the council, hopefully get the answer from KP law and the one question that we have asked. There's nothing else from the committee. I'm sort of looking to see if anybody's raising hands and I don't see anything. So, I'm going to just clear the meeting of the finance committee is adjourned at 422 p.m.