##VIDEO ID:MMaOPvcVwVk## okay we're live uh recognizing a quorum the chair opens the August 12th 2024 meeting of the community housing committee this meeting is being held in a hybrid model both in person in the hearing room at y of Yarmouth Town Hall 1146 Route 28 and remotely via the virtual computer platform Zoom committee members May participate in person or through remote participation pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of the 2021 uh an act relative to extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16 2021 and extended through March 31st 20 25 the information to access this meeting via Zoom was published on the on the agenda with the Town Clerk and on the town's website with a minimum 48h hour notice to the public the public is welcome to attend in person or remotely this meeting is being recorded So first order of business minutes there's none sorry okay um second uh affordable housing act hous cling Bond Bill update y so uh last week as many of you know um the state passed and the governor signed the affordable homes act um and so it's a rather long document I'm hearing that it's like 200 Pages I've asked Town Council for the the final copy that was signed by the governor Town Council has been reviewing it very carefully because there's some zoning changes there's some changes to chapter 40a and chapter 40b um so um I shared with you the August 8th um advisory from um Town Council who is me talaman and Costa and Jay talaman is our Point person and what we've decided on a staff level is to uh get together as a staff you know have a working group to go over this and then meet with Town Council um building inspectors and the Building Commissioner getting questions already so wasn't the town planner they're uh sending stuff to me so um basically what's going to have to happen um is you know staff is going to have to like really understand exactly what the ACT meant so that the town's protected um I don't know if you've had a chance to look at this but it right away Town Council has identified seasonal communities at designation as an issue for the town I apologize that was my main question if if Yarmouth was designated as C Yarmouth is not automatically designated as why I saw something that said every town on the cape were in Dukes County barille County Dukes County was not not in no it says here certain municipalities in Barnstable County and how was it was it do you know how it was decided settled at what 30% maybe you said y so so so maybe the way that they're going to calculate it we will count we don't know yet um some numbers um off the internet say we're at 27% could you say 27% of what so I don't get 25% 27% of our housing stock is used seasonally okay so um but other people have found numbers that bump that up to 30% I see so it really I you know we have to read the law and see exactly how they Define how to calculate that percentage there's an alternative way to apply um so Myra uh had some nice correspondences with Senator se's office about that um and they said the language is in the act so I've asked Town Council to give us the ACT Okay now what's interesting is if you go to page P two and you go to the second paragraph to be designated or to maintain that status as a seasonal Community you have to adopt certain zoning ordinances where are you looking on page two page two second paragraph Okay seasonal communities must adopt zoning ordinances Etc so to permit unsized lots to be used for the creation of attainable yearound housing and they've actually defined attainable housing as housing that serves households earning between 100 and 200% of the area median income so that's great they've legally defined that correct yeah I like that um and we already have a a bylaw that allows um it's called the affordable Lots bylaw you can develop um by right a home on one of these undersized Lots in town if it serves a household that earns 80% of or below of the area meeting income so we already I think that would pass town meeting we just tweak that a little bit um and the other thing is that uh the other type of zoning is the town would have to allow tiny houses um so we have to look at the definition of what a tiny house is and it is defined 400t or less 400 square feet yeah excluding Lofts so there's these modular units these pod houses that you can just buy prefabricated that can get just plopped down so we have to be careful about that because sometimes they have whales on them so right and so we have to make so you know the town might say well the benefits of getting the designation of a seasonal community that you have to weigh that against these two requirements so um says 400 square fet or less we believe we already allow tiny houses it must be more than one tiny house on a lot or something there has to be something else because you can already build a house that's 400 square F feet some communities I can't remember where have done really tiny houses to house the homeless yeah within the development has a thought so what are the next what are the next steps of um so whether we're adopted as a seasonal Community or not it has to be weighed with the I think staff is going to read the ACT meet with I'm hoping that staff can read the ACT this week and meet with Town Council next week um Town Council will be you know Town Council represents I don't know dozens of other towns so this is going to be something they're looking into for all of us uh continuing on this so it's conceivable we might automatically comply uh might automatically qualify as a seasonal Community but but it looks like we have to adopt those two zoning ordinances also yes must it says yeah and did you find out something about an alter Myra an alternative way to become a seasonal Community if I guess if the town decides that's where the town wants to go mhm right of course the um trust is considering a study that will down into that information I'm sorry to U the trust is considering a study that will try to get some of that information there's a list of of um like qualifications you have to have to be designated as a seasonal community and um we may be waiting for the results of that study right so so it's like under the Senate language and of course this was before the governor signed it so something might have tweaked um the St this is from Senator dea's office the state still would have the ability to designate a town as a seasonal Community Based On A number of factors such as the high rate of short-term rentals MH right so it's not just the percentage of units that are used year round but how are they you I mean seasonally how are they used seasonally so it's still a significant seasonal population increase like does your population double right a disparity a dispar disparity between medium home price and the medium income we've got that um the percentage of housing stock owned as second homes and monthly employment variations hotel rooms don't don't count is that and that would have been a good suggestion right but they don't no it's not it's not counted in this calculation so there's one thing that will be interesting to learn about all like it says right here that all municipalities in Dukes and Nantucket counties and certain municipalities in in Barnstable and Berkshire counties are automatically designated as seasonal community ities so I I think that means that all such communities have to must by uh change have the zoning that complies must adopt these new zoning bylaws right they don't have any choice right so it could be that Yarmouth might have to adopt them possibly we're not quite sure benefits of being a seasonal Community oh don't outweigh the yeah no no what I'm saying is T towns aren't necessarily allowed to opt out of this right you can't just say I don't want to you get what I'm saying it says here that uh well for example it says all municipalities in Dukes and an in Dukes and Nantucket counties are automatically designated as seasonal communities right so I'm thinking well they can't opt out because they're they're automatically designated I don't know but that's what it sounds like does that Mak sense to you or am I and we haven't read it you know what I mean that that paragraph that Town Council wrote yeah when I when I first read it I thought that he was referring just to the communities that would have to apply so we'll have I'll have to look at act yeah just how I'm reading this that if you're automatic this reads the same as as as the right we're not sure but I'm just saying that's how it came across to yeah yeah yeah um then the next thing is there's some language that's changed some laws that have changed under chapter 48 about accessory dwelling units they take effect in 180 days which is February 2nd uh 202 so there is some opportunity for towns to and municipalities to change their bylaws and ordinances we don't think Yarmouth is going to make that deadline but um um basically um you know adus are now Allowed by right um in the state of Massachusetts right now in Yarmouth you have to get a special permit from the zoning board of appeals um they can't be linked to you know like a family Rel at ated uh situation um but also they can't be used solely for short-term rentals um so that's good news so just so I want to be clear so if you're going to do it in Adu it needs to be a year round rental that's a good thing but you can't rent to a family member well before we allowed them here in in Yarmouth and a lot of other towns did that just for a family member we changed that in the most recent passing of the changes there could be either are right and now the state is saying it can't be no town can can have that restriction because some towns wouldn't be but they can allow it it can't restricted to family but they can allow family correct okay but it can't just only be family correct okay correct um uh they can have reasonable regulations such as you know setbacks and design review um but it can't be um at the level of a special permit like they're they're Allowed by right um there's a size uh restriction it's 50% of the um gross area of the principal dwelling unit or 900 square ft whichever is smaller um sounds like you can require one additional parking spot for the Adu um in any area that's not within a half mile of a Transit Hub like what does a transit mean what does transit mean does it mean Route 28 we don't know so an Adu needs to be 900 square feet but a tiny house only needs to be 400 no it doesn't need to be 900 the biggest it can be is 900 or or half the size of the dwelling small is a town evaluating what we approved for the Ada is that the right adus yeah Adu in comparison to what the state because it sounds like we are meeting some of this some of it we are and some of it we're going to have to let go and I noticed uh that you can't require owner occupancy yeah there's no more I think that's the biggest difference yeah which here's how it struck me again this is just how it strikes me but that seems okay because you have to the person has to live there on a long lease you know they can't you you can't operate it like a BNB that's forbidden I believe to operate it as a short-term rental which I think is what people are worried about right well I think that people are also worried about duplexes duplexes yeah so what happens is when with with a with a Adu necessory apartment in your property and you and without the owner NE necessarily having to live there it's basically a duplex and that's bad because that's you're afraid of that of what so s so I mean here's my you guys decide what you want in your town my my call is that if people bought into a neighborhood that was a single family neighborhood they might want to always live in a single family right home neighborhood we heard about some of that when we when we had the hearing and people didn't want too much crowding in the neighborhood too many cars it wasn't regulated properly and so forth so there was a lot of issues around so it's saying that it I can't see where it says that it can't be ownership or it doesn't have to be ownership living in the dwelling or it's at the bottom of page to new legislation also removes municipality's authority to impose an owner occupancy requirement on the on an Adu in a single family residential Zone yeah that's it's a little ambiguous to me can the I mean does the does does it have to be that the owner can you still require the owner to live in the principal dwelling or something I don't get it but I don't yeah okay that's that doesn't freak me out yeah I mean the thing about operating it as a revolving door you know every couple of weeks changing People I get that freak out totally yeah might be that people just think that if the owner lives there the property would be Cas up yeah that's maintain that's not as I've rented many many years in places and I didn't consider myself a scary character cuz I rented you know I did more for the properties I rented than the owners did so it doesn't you know so I'm not clear with saying that it can't be owner occupied or it can't be required to be owner required okay but it can be own can be owner occupied it can be we just can't have that requirement anymore but I mean this has the potential to change the complexion of some neighborhoods yeah yeah within the within the town I mean so you might like some places you might see less pressure for that to happen and others you're going to see a lot of pressure for that to happen yes it it really depends on um you know so I'll just take mash for an example right Mash B A lot of people who bought in Mash B brought a lot of wealth for them and really with them and they really do want to be in a single family neighborhood and they're not going to build a yards are big and they really like the distance between them and there's other places where you know maybe somebody you know has been there at the unit for a while and their income stream has has changed and having a rental property on their on in their on their compound would make a big difference for them so you'll see more pressure for that and I just can't imagine places that you know you know that are more urban you know the the rents that they can get are just huge well their good portion of Yarmouth is on relatively small lots and you start adding an Adu in a parking space and it is that accurate that a good portion of the property is on small Lots I think is it really it is accurate should be used I don't know if they still do they used to have two acres zoning in the parts of the Town yeah those are well I know in Dennis it's some of it was point one yeah we have the highest density we do y in Yarmouth we do highest we just have a ton of little small little Lots yeah people realize that yeah and I think a lot of the neighborhoods you don't really realize it because the it's it it's they're kept up so nicely right right um but um you know they do have like driveways that are really for two cars only do you know what I mean like it's it's starts to get kind of funky um when you add all the cars so in other words those might be the neighbors that could benefit by this income wise but it's a neighborhood that might not be able to accommodate oh no they'll be able to accommodate it now okay a lot of places couldn't come I mean people I've I've met with people who wanted to put in a accessory apartment and they didn't know we require we we required two parking spots per Adu and they didn't know where how they would fit in two parking spots I just didn't know how to do it here's something I keep forgetting and then remembering whenever we bring this up is that we uh when you build something like this you still have to uh comply with the Wastewater situation like if my lot is allowed certain number of bedrooms on that lot right in order to comply with the human waste release you can't just start adding new bedrooms on the lot right whether it's an Adu or not Yarmouth is a flow neutral Community right what does that flow to get the 0% financing and to make ground on our water quality um um in town when we went to install sewering we passed a bylaw saying that we would be flow neutral so there's going to be a flow allocation um regulation that comes about in Yarmouth well that could prevent you from considering building you can't just put another bedroom on a lot right and and and another bathroom is what I'm saying cuz the cuz the Adu has to have it own bathroom so that would still prevent the construction of an Adu is what I'm thinking because right yeah um I keep forgetting about that when when when we start talking the fla in town you know that's something that the town is working on but that's all when we have when we have sorage right and we don't have they have sorage in a very smart small part of the town and for the other areas where you know I think any up the septic is required to be be available for three bedrooms yeah I don't know what happens with the with the areas that are not sewered well isn't it true that like a c like a lot has an allocation of you you you're I I think you're allowed a certain number of bedrooms right like if you put in a a whole new bedroom and a whole new uh um bathroom that that might not be allowed Protection District right yeah you're limited to the number of bedrooms per for square footage of your lot yeah I think it's one bedroom per 10,000 square feet right so if you have one of these lots that is 25,000 Square fet you can only have two bedrooms so how do you fit in the Adu yeah that's a big negative side thing which would supersede these this so when I think that's what I'm thinking anyway this these are the comments that we yeah we gave our rep and our Senator and um that's okay it's all good yeah are there also restrictions on how many people can be in a bedroom or because I know when I was in the city there was certain square footage for the number of people in a bedroom and how much extra space you would need for ex for another person um is that is that something that happens in your armor yes so there's so there's health and safety code the state there's health and safety code for the town they are enforcing that so you can't have five people in a in a bedroom so home ownership it's hard to regulate right how do you how do you regulate that we have each rental unit in our town must be registered with the Board of Health and they inspect and so if they see evidence that there's too many people there they will note that in the um the rental uh permit right I wanted I don't know if it's a permit or what um or the rental registration they will put in there how many the the uh occupancy limit I I don't want to get off track I'm was just curious I was at an inspection with with someone from the town and they noticed that people had you know beds in the living room and they were like uh wait a second uh how many people are here uh no that was an apartment though that wasn't a private home and it was but it was you know the the Board of Health person was you know there is right there is some control over that and you know our our health department you know every year right their program gets better and better and better and better and they're able to regulate more and more and more and more and more and what I'm hearing that for a while they've been looking at number for people in rental units um they they they can and they have been so so um that impacts flushes is there um we have any idea how long it's going to take to review the act itself and to kind of sift down some of these things whether whether you I'm hoping to get to the point where we can have a meeting with Town Council next week that staff can get their questions MH to Town Council next week um because people are already asking for advice on this developers Property Owners um residents are already asking about this so that's what I'm hoping I mean this is a this is a big change I'm hoping that you know um was it the MMA comes out with some training on it usually what happens is that town councils start looking at this the town councils kind of start to communicate with the um mun Massachusetts Municipal Association is that what MMA stands for and then they'll they have an attorney or they'll hire an attorney to do a briefing and all the town councils will go to it and town planners and uh cuz you know it's law we want to implement to correctly so this this even with us understanding it all this will take a while for this to be implemented um also what's very interesting is back in the day subdivisions you know happened and they were on smaller lots and those lots if they weren't uh if they were owned when we change the zoning to larger lot zoning and I Myra might know the history a little bit better than I do um um when there were two lots that were touching each other that were owned by the same person they were merged to one lot so that's been taken away that that lots that were you know created back in the day they were legally created uh they can now exist as separate Lots as long as they have 75 ft um of Frontage so that should be interested again we have an affordable Lots bylaw that allowed those lots to be developed there weren't a lot there wasn't a lot of interest because most people when they went to these subdivisions if they bought two lots they bought them because they wanted a backyard the Lots were so small they wanted the land around them um so that's the non-conforming lot SL merger um there's a there's some stuff about you know if you start to appeal stuff uh you have to put up bonds there's a a there's a preference for veterans in affordable housing now so that's what there's on page four page five okay there's affordable housing for Veterans it talks about up to 10% of the units can be set aside with a veteran preference good um and then again chapter uh 40b they talk about tightening up the language um for uh getting appeals processed by the housing appeals committee and there's money there is there's lots and lots and lots of money the bill in total because this first started as a housing Bond Bill fin a fun mechanism $5.1 billion um there's 49 policy initiatives um it's $2 billion for repair Rehabilitation and modernization of the state's public housing portfolio that is really good news that's super good news that's something that the Housing Authority should really pay close attention to say that again please $2 billion for repair Rehabilitation and modernization of the state's public housing portfolio that's right yeah so housing authorities should really pay careful attention to that [Music] um so at this point we're at kind of a wait and see we are and I'm hoping that um you know there's millions and millions of dollars and stuff um so hopefully that brings on new units we just have to be careful to apply for everything when we when it comes available but we're in good shape to do that so next is uh Soldier on veteran housing model yep no update okay and then compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and accessibility requirements in housing um I sent out uh some things that everybody got I think and um um Mary Did You Were you able to get with um The Ready Rental people and find out if there is demand or what the demand is I'm trying to think no I didn't I forget what I was going to try to do for that oh I was going to look at the list that's what I was going to do yep I can do that sorry okay um yeah so I mean it I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on this today but I mean it it it in Massachusetts it's all going to boil down to probably the Fair Housing Act and the uh CMR 521 I believe it is or 521 CMR which is the accessibility U regulations for Massachusetts that's tied directly to the um State Building Code and in my um um the the Massachusetts accessibility code is the most stringent accessibility code that I worked with when I was practicing um there's a lot of areas where it's more much more restrictive than Ada is and we're only really doing we're only dealing with Ada title 2 um because Ada title three is for public accommodation and so we would only be dealing with title two and title two generally talks about parking Lobby you know any public spaces within um a Housing Development okay title two is public spaces in a housing yes development okay I this was helpful to me cuz I'm on the disability commission and we were doing a survey of ADA compliance in public buildings in Yarmouth and this clarifies how that all sorts out like so title three is the public uh title two title two is the title three really doesn't come into play okay because title 3 is basically um Office Buildings hotels uh any any public build any building that's open to the public any private building or Andor public building uh no Public public buildings like this building for example are I think public buildings are exempt of ADA if I remember correctly they've got their own this they would have to deal with the state what the state wants in terms of of uh because in in like I said in the most part the Massachusetts code is is much is more strict stringent than than Ada is right so um so we would be dealing really with most of the time now fair housing does come into play and there's a sheet on uh page five that talks about some differences between um fair housing and and uh the state code yep that's this and then and then the state code really talks about two different types of units in in terms of of uh housing units there's um type one is uh basically there are some size restrictions in terms of how the the maneuvering space that has to be within a bathroom it doesn't go as far as it does for a fully accessible unit which is a type 2 unit and um so the um basically type 1 units there are some size restrictions and things that we should be paying attention to and then they need to be built so that they don't have to be structurally modified to be adapted to um help somebody that that doesn't need a a type two unit but may need grab bars they may need you know for instance all the doors are are 3T or 32 in minimum sort of thing so um I think there are things that we should be paying attention to when we're dealing with develop you know with unit designs coming in and looking at uh because I can't remember where I read this but it said um 11% of people 65 and over require accessibility enhancements and 45% of people 65 to 79 have household activity limitations and not surprisingly 90% of seniors would prefer to age in place rather than you know be moving into another unit that can't be adapted to um to some extent and then the percentage of of Yarmouth residents that are in that um 65 plus is 42% so it's much higher than than you're going to run into in in a typical typical Community well the Cape is in general is some of the oldest populations yeah think in the country actually bons County certainly in the state so what I like on page five is the second page in this packet is it actually has dimensional requirements for things does the ma the Massachusetts code well it it has like you know the the Fair Housing Act requires a minimum 108 Ines vertical clearance well for instance in in a um type A type one unit according to the massachusett code you need to have um 30X 48 in clear floor spaces in front of a vanity and and at a toilet and things like that so it does to some extent um dictate the size of a of a bathroom within a housing unit but it doesn't go so far as to require type two requires the actual 60in okay um turning diameter for Wheelchairs and things like that that also include a like a rolling shower yeah but but not in type one um type two type two you're basically um you it's all the bells and whistles for turning radiuses and uh reach ranges and uh knee clearance thresholds at doors right yeah right gosh home require on page nine home requires all three that you meet the 521 CMR yeah now th this document that I um took this stuff from is dated fall of 2006 so I'm not sure whether these agencies are relevant anymore or not or there may be new agencies that would be needed to be added to the to the table but but you can see like when you use the home money when you use the federal money it all applies you know what I mean like it's it's um that's good oh yeah that's a good chart there right and so that's when sometimes we do new programs we try to comply with the federal programs because we won't miss anything as they make you well it's smart too comply with everything yeah well I um John I did just learn that the a a requirements do apply to State and local government facilities but not federal government buildings because there's an earlier law for federal govern I just and without your comment I wouldn't have figured that out so I got less confused today about I knew it didn't apply to one of them but I right so that helps me with the disability commission for sure so um devil's advocate for like like the the project the department on the second floor those none of those can be accessible correct because they have an architectural barrier right they have stairs yeah there's no elevating so if we were to put into our affordable housing standards just something the minimum we should put in is something like we'd like to see uh you know developments where you know some of the affordable units are accessible and then maybe we could describe describe the different levels you know something like that well we talked about this last time a little bit in in when we we're really pushing mixed use development um and mixed use development is going to for the most part be you know units above retail or commercial space down below so I don't know if we want to you know modify the language of some things to say um at a certain size an elevator is required or accessible units have to be provided on the ground floor at grade level there there are mechanisms that aren't exactly elevators where someone in a wheelchair right can roll oper along a stairwell yeah that's a another possibility yeah well the steel lift if you're in the wheelchair that's not going to accommodate steer it's not it's not a ster lift it's it's it's it's it's almost I want to hate to call it a cage but like you kind of go the B County community building up in the hill has has that it's not not a fully enclosed right it's mostly used if it's not a full floor of of elevation difference okay they're not really meant to uh be used in Li of an elevator or something like that but you know um no power though that was going to be a problem too then you have someone who can't can't get up or down it's like being in the reclining chair that's electric you can't get I just bought one biggest mistake I ever made I hate it lose your power I'm just so used to do it this time I got to hit a button and wait for it I'm like what am I doing here given that I've I've known people elderly people that have had those and when you have a power fil trouble I'll take it off your hands cheap what do you say well let me see I keep thinking I'm going to get us to it but I'm not getting used to it but we'll see I'll let you know though you'll be first on my so I think for right now maybe we can just table this and and but it would be good to know what the demand is from okay you know from renters that are I do like this information it is helpful to me yeah yeah I think it's really important too that that that we know this moving forward um because you just mentioned some stats that are are going to be important and I think those stats are just going to climb I don't think the population on the cape is going to get any younger anytime soon no cuz the younger people leaving not this part of the population anyway I know that 88 811 Route 28 mhm if if they had read in our uh affordable housing standards that we want you know we want some accessible units you know the architect would have made one of those units just a one floor living space you know that that would have happened that would have been easy but now that it's all designed you know it's it's gone too far those plans were those plans are done um so we need to think about going forward how and what we want to tie in yeah because I I given we know we have an aging population and given that we know that we can't say that people don't apply because they might not apply because they know that it's not going to work for them yeah that's what we were talking about last meeting with right you know I think so we're doing a lottery right now for a building that has two accessible units and they were advertised as accessible okay so that might be the those might be that might be a realistic U Lottery W work knowing there were there were accessible units I won't know that till the end because there's an accessibility preference for one of the units so um there's not right now they've received 50 applications the application is due in two weeks so we just did a another social media you release that today it released that email today correct yeah yeah that's you have 50 applications for two units for six six units okay and how and what's been the time frame for the applications have been the marketing period is a minimum of 60 days um so 60 days 50 applications um oh it's 45 days and you do you get some at the beginning right away and at the end when the deadline comes exactly um you have people that can't wait to to sign up and then you got people who wait till last minute so we're hoping for another 50 uh to come in and that would give us something to work with so everybody post the poster right right um um you know like ordinarily when when a development you know that's not being done under chapter 40b or anything isn't there a number where it hits and they have to give a it's 20 20 units for for the Massachusetts accessibility code but fair housing it's four units but I'm I'm not real clear on how that works I need to do some more digging on that so when and and we do I I'm a little still a little bit um at a loss for how fair housing and the massachusett 521 CMR how they inter interlock because fair housing is asking four units or more and but my understanding is fair housing covers virtually all types of of Housing Development too so right and um so anyway anyways I put the word out to the county and uh to Drew because I know he sits on the um disability commission just to put the word out you know there are people that work on this stuff professionally so maybe we could get a guest speaker um so Beth Albert from the county she's just retired but that was one of her big things Beth Elbert yeah she's retired I heard today that she was going to retire so she's retired in I would I would be very interested in that guest speaker yeah yeah so that's how I first learned about accessibility issues was through bath when she was the director of over at human Human Service County Department of Human Services yeah um I knew much more about ADA when when I was in practice we did my office did nothing but Hotel work and um um my train of thought where was I going with this um we're looking for a good source for guest speakers pardon yeah we're looking for sources of guest speakers what I was going to say was that one of the problems is that there's there's no agency that really governs this um accessibility um it's a civil rights law that's right so yeah it it building inspectors for instance don't don't review for accessibility um so and the only the only recourse that a lot of people have is is to sue a developer because they're not providing accessible um accommodations well I I go to a um an inn that's on the little Bay and they have one room that they say is for the disabled and it has lots of clearance spaces in the bathroom mhm but you had to get into a tub to take a shower so how accessible is that I mean I I when I stay in a regular room I keep saying can you put grip bars on the outside of the shower cuz I won't get into the shower in the tub without any grip bars and I know the foric tubs it's hard to do their inside but you can always put one on the outside so you can get in and out safely so um I couldn't understand how they could consider that room a room the service is disabled if you have to get into a tub it's like how old is the end pretty old yeah it probably it probably has some some grandfathered laws where they can call it maybe but you could just easily get rid of that tub and just have a walk in shower you roll in shower Ada was passed in 1990 right and so that's what 34 years ago and um they did put some limitations [Music] on um hotels because hotels for the most part renovate every seven years or thereabouts and so the they thinking was they weren't going to really put too much pressure on them right away because within seven years everybody should be in compliance but that never happened and so there's still there's still hotels out there that is the back track real quick John when you said um a new development every 20 units requires one unit to be fully accessible is that fully accessible it's uh under the 20 unit well 20 units or more and it's at that point it's 5% or a minimum of one unit or but once you once you trigger you know if you're doing 80 units or whatever it's basically 5% of 80 units that that unit that needs to be accessible needs to be fully accessible with the roll and show the 5% does and then there's and then all of the other units need to comply with what is essentially type one which is the ability to be adapted to provide an enhanced sense of of uh accessibility well I should have raised up a storm when I brought this up important because I think it is too it's you're right on the money because what you noticed it right away all those lovely units are on the second floor yeah you know and um well we did have I can't remember the woman who said that they were going to see if they could do a lift right she said up to a lift and you know we he any further if that's going to happen or if they still so it's a funny thing right because you select the tenant through a lottery right right so a lot the a lot of the affordable so the affordable housing world right they don't make those accessible improvements until they know the person going into the unit needs that you know what I mean so it's it's like a weird it's a weird thing but if you if you um if you you could have a separate list of people that need a fully accessible unit and when one becomes available then that lottery pick comes out of out of that pool of people right so we have one of those in fouth B Kil has one accessible unit and right the it's supposed to be filled by an accessible household so the initial Lottery it was difficult mhm to find somebody to fill that accessible unit did would did you have to leave it empty until you found somebody because that's kind of a waste too youve got an empty unit some it was the unit that was empty the longest we had a building it was just difficult 11 story building 22 units on each floor so one unit on each floor was fully accessible R you know the building had an elevator yeah it yeah we and we had no need for accessible units till we filled the building and then someone needed it and we were like okay what do we do now uh right and the person who moved in I'm not leaving uh right right so um lot to think about well if you're looking for a speaker I suggested you might see if there's anybody at cord that's a good idea okay I know uh I have a good contacts at cord from the disability commission I'll ask I won't forget yeah cuz it's kind of cuz you know when we first start this stuff in Yarmouth I'll tell you you know it's mostly encouragement right so we're looking for somebody to come and tell us how do we encourage these units come online yeah are there any grants are we going to have to rely on only the affordable units being accessible is the affordable housing trust going to have to step up to to add You Know cover that extra cost that kind of stuff there's a woman called Jessica Simmons who's a Yarmouth resident who works for cord and she's on the disability commission so that's a person we could ask about that what yeah cord might have to offer along those lines yeah we're looking for the right words right which John's already started yeah but also you know the best practices to get these units online um I know that um community actions shelter family shelter um they it's an old converted motel and they had a house on the property that hack owns the property housing assistance Corporation and they had one house that was rented separately which I never quite figured out and once hack gave it up as a rental they completely converted that to be completely handicapped accessible including an induction stove with the right dish pans and everything everything completely handicap I never I I don't work on those grants anymore when they were applying for funding for that so I don't know what's happened in being able to fill that unit but the whole house is completely handicapped accessible handicapped compliant I guess is the word yeah is that the word compliant it is sometimes yeah well yeah the demand thing is would be is in will be interesting and it'll be interesting whether it's it's not there because it's not needed or it's not there because people just assume they're not going to be able to get into do an accessible unit so next item uh Community preservation committee application yep so I drafted up um an application um it's in your packet so it h so the trust meets tomorrow so they'll take a look at this um the application is due um in September September 20th um so I figured I'd give it to you now to look at um now I I don't know if you're familiar with this cover sheet um but it has you know the total program cost and your CPA funding cost so um what I'm going to be recommending to the trust is that they submit an application for $622,000 of community preservation money um the total project um is 1.7 million and the reason why that's bumped up so high is we're going to go for um a big uh block grant from the state for next year so that's where that comes from um so This falls under community housing um and you know this is a lot of this is from past years the project summary talks a little bit about what the what's the objective of the of the affordable housing trust is basically to create and Preserve affordable housing project summary basic we have a need we have an inadequate supply of um housing that is safe decent and affordable to our low and moderate income households um and that the trust is the key funding mechanism for our affordable housing program so while we might get other sources the state might come in and help us even the federal government might come out come in and help us it's really the trust that's been the driver because once you get that local commitment of Hard Cash not financing but Hard Cash um these other programs start to pay attention um so into project summary that that's the first that's the first paragraph the second paragraph talks about what criteria we're meeting for the community preservation uh program um and then the next paragraph with the goals um I don't know if anybody had any questions about that my question is is there enough funding in the community preservation committee to fund that amount given that a large amount of the money has been committed to um is it Recreation and um and the bonding issue so that that's a big question but yeah um the community benefit um is creating a preserving high quality affordable housing um and you know there's some basic things that are are affordable units serve um how they serve uh Yarmouth and it's safe and decent housing a stable Workforce that doesn't have that can live locally um they find that households that live in affordable housing have more cash for healthier foods so they're they're healthier um how households with students in them do better when they don't have to move a lot um we've used affordable housing to redevelop bled uh properties um and those construction uh projects brought in work to the so um we don't do anything with um anything that we don't control the site right we're either buying something to control the site or working on something we already control we don't ask for any waivers from permitting um we have uh a great team the affordable housing trust has a lot of experience has a current Town Administrator a former Town Administrator uh a select person Mark Forest who was also you know um an aid to uh un US senator um uh Debbie Clark's been involved in uh the town uh for years and Myra theen is a member of this committee um has a wealth of Municipal experience including Community preservation work and I've been here for 17 years working on affordable housing been here a little bit longer but working 17 years are affordable so are these cost estimates tied to specific projects oh yeah okay I'm sobody say that question again uh if if these cost estimates on page six are tied to specific projects so that's the budget right that's our budget I didn't know if they were you know everything was identified that the money would be spent on or whether so if if the trust has programmed out $2 million for this fiscal year so if we spend all of that money we're not going to have much left is that clear in here because I remember being at your last meeting um and I I think it's the first time I've ever been to that meeting but that was discussed and how the Comm the trust was spending down the funds that they had so you think I should I should okay yes all right I'll add that I think that that should be clear in this because they might think that this request is extravagant and they think they need to understand that okay all right I can add that um and um so yeah we're basically G to be very shallow on what we can do um if we do spend all the money in this fiscal year so what we're asking for what I'm recommending in is $250,000 um to create uh new housing and that's usually enough to get people's attention um should be really 500,000 but we'll see what the trust says um number two is uh we have we're working on several septic repairs um and that's through our community development block grant so that's where the $60,000 come from um number three is the 900 $1,000 Grant we're going to ask for from the state to do repair work uh for housing um we you have acronyms beside those are you explaining that somewhere so it's down below and another table other funding yeah okay thank you and that's their form okay okay um just want to make sure nothing's changed in the forms and oh you said you got this at the meeting so you know this is the form so the 60,000 has one Aster so you go down toow that now thank you um yeah the n and I have to add um it's septic um connections that's the other thing we can do under three um neighborhoods that get um sewered there might be some people that need money some assistance hooking up um the next one is uh $300,000 for housing preservation acquisition buy down we have a series of older um units that have weak deed Riders and when they come up for resale um they need some help from the town to keep them affordable so that's what we've budgeted out that 300,000 and then we'll get a little bit of money we'll get $50,000 from cdbg and $60,000 from the state for those um then the next one is my salary um and then uh program income so it adds up real quick it adds up real quick um so so my understand as you asking this committee to approve the application because you have that in here so does that require a vote yeah any motion I um now I'm trying to figure out how to word it I move that we approve they want a letter of recommendation so you you would recommend your motion would be to recommend approval um as written well you were going to make one correction to this right it wouldn't be as written it would be um I would just say approval of the application yes yeah I move uh that this committee approv approves the application that we've been discussing second that motion okay um take a vote Drew yes Myra I Le I I John I do we have any members that are un un okay so we can just do regular votes and we have a quorum and you have a quorum so we've got we've got a couple other things that you sent out Mary um the Harwich affordable housing tax exemption and The Province Town um yep so Mark sent us the mark Forest sent us the howich uh affordable housing tax exemption and I think Myra you sent us the article about Province Town and I think that's the least to local least very interesting yeah um so the trust is meeting tomorrow that's on their agenda okay um I found the Province Town very interesting but yeah my concern was that there's not automatically any funding for the second year so that was a that was a serious concern because very different approaches from the Two Towns right very interesting in Province Town I didn't understand whether um when they get the Grant from the town is that a one-time Grant or is that an something that annually it's just a one-time Grant because they they weren't getting it doesn't sound like they were getting a lot of repeat um landlords that wanted to do this if they weren't getting so um when uh McKenzie Perry spoke to us about that yep she said that is it placemate right yes the the the the app or the organization that runs this for Nantucket and Province toown said that once they establish a tenant right with that bonus that first bonus that typically the majority of those tenants stay in place everything's set up everything's going smoothly you know they and and these are people that want to lease to locals right so it they say that usually just everything just stays in place not every single one but the majority um but that's not what and some of this it talks about how without the without that additional funding so some of the renters the owners would not be able to continue with the program so that's that's how to keep that going and if there are additional funds that they could use or some way to subsidize the rentals well it might be interesting if you do a combination of the two right right like you wouldn't get a tax the amount comes down each year a little bit gradually oh you would get the tax exemption after a year something like that right you know because those tax exemptions they take a while to to kick in right so maybe that's how to do it I have a friend who Volunteers in the library in her town on the cape and gets um a discount on her taxes is that a tax work off is that what it's called I think so yeah yeah sounds like it yeah so are you all like in general you know in favor of this if the you know trust goes forward with this and you know actually what you just said sounds like a really good idea you know incentive and then you you kick in the um exemptions and out years your incentive is the tax relief yep okay I think that's really that's kind of a great idea neat thing yeah yeah and then you'd be able to control how many tax exemptions you get because you're kicking it off with a a subsidy and it seems like most of the renters that they were getting in Provincetown are longterm residents M you know and I guess um if you if you were thinking about renting and you find a a tenant that is very um a good tenant that certainly goes way to you want to keep a good tenant if you exact exactly bad tenants are expensive in Massachusetts yeah yeah yeah that could be interesting combining the two of them yeah now is McKenzie per Perry on that committee uh she works for the town she the deputy but she has come and presented this but she's not in this committee is she is she is okay I think they've done according to this they've done a good job in selecting tenants that have invested in the community yeah and I I think they they hire placemate to do that right and so there's that arms there's a v yeah there's a vetting process I would imagine and it's an arms length so it's not like nobody would be coming into to Mary Wan's office you know what I mean yeah it wouldn't be it wouldn't be somebody's cousin that I know it would be you know on the objective evaluation you know and that's that's why we use you know one of the one of the several reasons why it's nice to have Plymouth Redevelopment Authority doing our lotteries yeah because it's like I might help people make an application but Plymouth Redevelopment Authority looks at them and reviews them and so it's worked out nice so that might be an awesome I think we're on the home Consortium yeah um I I put together some notes but I'm not going to read all of this to you uh the the highlights of the meeting were that um the Consortium funds are pretty much depleted at this point they had uh 97 um th000 dollar in change or they're down to $7,000 and change uh they usually would get more funds July 1st but those have been delayed until later in August due to the um bappa are you familiar with bappa buy American build American so that if you're going to build something and you're going to use federal money you it you've got to buy American Products so they're trying to figure out how to work around that so it may add costs to things um so it's it's a little bit complicated probably have some more information actually the next meeting is this Thursday so we probably won't have too much more information but um so it's it's I mean it's a good idea to help about that Baba no I ne you hadn't heard about that yeah um I remember reading something about it a year ago um so it's I mean it's a good idea to help American industry but if it's going to make things more expensive and if it's going to slow down housing Pro issues and you know um anyway um it is what it is so um probably in September there'll be a little bit more information about that um but um so that if you are going to build something and it's involves Federal money or some housing situation there are going to be some regulations that you need to um so so funding should come in late August but they they need to figure out how they're going to develop need to know how this is going to work things like that so um and I I brushed up on it I'm sure I'll I'll get some more information um there was also um Barrett Planning Group um they um are giving us information Mary are you aware of um their shared Regional Housing Services prior okay you is it is it a good thing yes yeah so it's up to each municipality in the county get 30 hours free uh for um from Barrett planning um the woman who does the presentations is awesome I I don't remember her name on the top of my head um but uh so do we do we use those 30 hours or so I've just been designated as the official representative that's what I thought okay that's what I thought and which is great and we have we have three ideas okay one is to um apply uh for help them have them help us with our application for the state's cdbg money the second one is help us get our designation as a seasonal Community right and the third one uh would be um to help with our local comprehensive plan chapter so we've got three really good ideas for that um that uh I had a feeling you would be the person that the point person involved in this a question I have in and I and I didn't ask it in the meeting I wanted to ask you so you have these 30 hours if you don't use them in one month say you use only 24 do those six other hours go into the next month so you now have 36 hours or is it a use it lose it yes and it's an on an annual basis but what they've recommended is for us to get our requests in ASAP so they can schedule makes sense right so it's not 30 hours a month it's 30 hours annually 30 hours a year and I think it's uh oh I thought it was 30 hours a month I thought she said monthly no okay oh no I think we get I think we get two free hours all right a month or something like that but then I was going to say 30 hours a a month for 15 different towns that's a lot of time right so you really need to give them a 30h Hour project to work on and then they'll they'll work on it because they they need to draft stuff and send it to you and look oh I know was a lot of the research I've done their names on a lot of yeah work that they've done in the islands and so forth right um the last thing I wanted to mention about the home Consortium is it was brought up that uh the cape view way um project in Bourne which I worked on is 50% complete so I'm very I'm GNA I'll take a bow uh how many units do you remember uh so Drew we talked about this it was originally 54 yeah but um there was a lot of push back there wasn't enough space for fire trucks to get in parking things like that not enough buffer area so they toned it down to 42 so 42 is reason 42 is better than zero so it's a lot better than zero there was a lot of push back but they were able to get it we were able to get it through good I I know that you know you're oh we only have $7,000 left I'm like yes they spent 900,000 that's the other part of it right they used the money there some years the point of it isn't to have a fat fat bank account it's to use the money in a productive way right my my concern though is now it's depleted and yeah so you got work to do now have a little bit of money in the bank you never know what's going to pop up uh all right okay Yarmouth Housing Authority well um a the uh select board had invited the housing authority to appear before them to give them an update and the how the decided to write them a letter explaining what we were doing and that letter is in is included um and that's that's everything right there but it's outdated um we've especially our executive director uh Wendy Olsen has been in contact with eohc who are uh and the director of public housing of that agency and he he knows about this proposed project he's familiar with the he's been here to see the land and all that stuff and he uh recommends that we send him or them his office the request for proposals and he'll look at it and see what he thinks about it and give us his wisdom on that and if he thinks it's a decent idea we will then uh approve it and put it out for developers to respond to and um at the end of that process if a de if a developer does respond and is interested we would then uh ask the eohc to release the lean they have on the land because they had a long time ago spent a little money on that and so that that's the point of a lean and I assume that they would because they'd be on on board with the idea and uh the request for proposals the there's a the the draft of the request for proposals has been shared out um I don't know if you guys want to look at or interested in looking at it what it is I'd like to see it yeah I could send it out to you like an email for you know in an email and uh I don't think it'll be changed in any substantive way but but you'll see it isn't quite in final form but so that's where that is and uh so just to clarify the draft is going to e o LC whichc to this particular person and they're going to review it that person is the what they call the direct these are all new titles I think now that they've reorganized so now he's called the director of public housing so he's the boss of this kind of thing call his name true Ben Stone young man I believe yeah and uh I think there's a good chance that they'll well we'll see how it goes yeah we'll see how and there they have a lease on this land Le no yeah like quite a while ago they signed a contract for financial assistance with the yha and spent some money on an earlier iteration of this and so that causes there to be a lean on the land but I don't lean on the land right it's not in significant it's over $200,000 yeah and it it was the cost of the architectural plans yeah for I think it was a 508 development or 502 development so HUD had this program and they went to apply for these HUD funds and they B they got this technical loan from the state which they're calling contract for financial assistance CFA right and so what usually happens is you hire the contract the architect you get the plans in you send them into HUD HUD funds your project and as part of that financial piece the state is paid back that technical loan yeah HUD program stopped and so the program never got funded so that lean for the design work is still on the land um but there's a there's communication between the state and the US the Housing Authority about how the sequence to make all this happen right is what the point of this all is yeah and you meet later this week tomorrow the public meeting just like this one uh affordable housing trust yep so the trust meets tomorrow um the agenda like I told you has on it um the lease to locals and the tax exemption for yearr round rentals it also has the CPA application um the the town the community preservation committee funded a home repair program through hch M and that needs a little bit of Gap funding so that's on the agenda um if I've got all my work done they'll get a report on the ready runer program annual report and fees that's a program that's supposed to make money so we'll see if it did and then also on the agenda is the short-term rental study that my referen there's a whole list we're working on five addresses to preserve uh the affordability of units I hope one of them is Plymouth Road yes one is 19 Plymouth Road we so 19th Plymouth Road had a mass health lean on it right so Town Council has worked with the state they're going to release that lean there's a tax lean on it that was bought by somebody so Town Council has worked out a plan with them so now we're ready to have the um ears of the people that used to own the house the parents that used house there's an offspring who now has to apply to the state to sell the property so that's where we're at um planning board I don't have any update except to say that they're going to be very busy updating the zoning bylaw to comply with the affordable homes act do we have a PL board representative on this committee and so the the the representative is is Jim Sav uh Jim who Jim Sav my point exactly oh okay Jim who is he staying on the committee I I I I could check I think I think they reorganized and he is still the appointed good you might want to recheck that because I'm not sure he may be retiring from I heard something to that effect that could could be that's a possibility yeah right I think they I think they reorganize in um beginning of the fisal yeah so let me see when does when the state and local fiscal years are different [Music] correct Federal is different Federal's different that's why it's a surprised not to have the grant due in September because that's the end of their fiscal year and that's what they always have done the HUD cons care application I'll have to um uh did we do community preservation no we didn't okay but I'm the representative and the RFP has been released and they have the deadline and September 20th September 20th okay yeah and they'll be um reviewing the applications and when they all come in and the committee meets I'll be on vacation I'll be out of the country for a week for you so um yeah yeah I'm very excited about it but the timing is weird so when I come back if they have everything ready I'm not taking any work with me I'm not going to do that but um if they have copies of the applications I'll get that packet they usually put that online I don't know the applications applications I don't think so no they get them electronically yeah and they but they do have public hearings they have hearings that but I just wonder other towns do put the applications on really yes yeah I don't think that the community preservation committee does that but that's a question for because it's you know always interesting to and then they bring in the applicants and they do an interview with them and the committee ask questions and so forth so I'm going to miss some of that process I don't know where they'll be by when they come back on SE October 10th but well maybe some of us can watch it and just you know kind of get a feeling for it yeah it's a great they're great meetings they they really are it's a packed room that's the only thing that they're in room a right and the committee I think is nine is it nine members I think it's larger than this committee one of two absent people and so they fill that whole table so then everybody has to sit in that you know and it's packed but it's they're really great well it's they're I'm sorry I'm GNA say it out loud they're fun projects yeah you know what I mean it's a fun committee it's a fun because it's I've tried to go to one once and um I just my zoom wasn't working at all and uh so but I want to try it again it is a hybrid for the most part yeah it should be an hybrid it's true truly comprehensive right it's a way of really evaluating if the project is ready and some of that happens before they even come to the table um but if because we had one project last year where we met with this person two or three times and it really wasn't ready and the person kept wanting it to be and it wasn't so that person's gone in another Direction I won't I mean it's all probably public record but I'm not going to say much more about it um and then there was another one the housing one that the person was didn't have the nonprofit status right great idea there's a great idea um um but yeah they that wasn't ready I don't know if that's something didn't have a what what really was the problem with that is they wanted me to find the site for that and I'm like I can't find enough sites for our stuff what was the idea the idea was a group home we haven't done one of those in a while and um it's kind of like forward did um well we funded the second stage of forward that was funded um part forward is for people with um mostly um autism autism and Asbergers but I think it branches a little bit and it's been highly successful they came in under budget for their or within budget for their first project and on time and everything and then last year we awarded them funds for phase two we can and we have funded um brick and mortar like real property for group homes in the town you you really need that nonprofit partner who's going to run it for you right so this nonprofit that we're talking about is still in its development right and it wasn't ready it wasn't ready for prime time at all and project I'm sorry a lot of the nonprofits that we have funded when that key staff person kind of moves on from doing that piece the the that piece of the project or the that piece of the agency's work just kind of Falls so once in a while they'll get a property manager that will work at a nonprofit they're like yeah let's go buy some and we'll we'll house our we'll house our clients but then they retire and then who's going to run it after afterwards right so the project forward is actually in Dennis and it's a Cooperative funding I I don't know where I heard it but I remember when you said forward I was like well I know what that is yeah and it's um one of those projects that other towns including the town of Dennis have come pulled together funds to create these projects then um development no update okay anything else anyone anyone all right next meeting is September 9th at um 3:00 so make I will be late okay so the meeting's adjourned oh who made the motion oh we move we adjourn this meeting I second it he beat me all in favor hi hi hi hi folks I got to run