##VIDEO ID:cN-Kx2Xzze8## [Music] okay Welcome to our December affordable housing trust meeting uh great to have nearly all of us here uh clear Quorum uh we have let's see how many folks in our audience uh okay welcome uh to those of you attending uh why don't we start by uh voting on approval of the minutes and first are there any comments to either of the October November minutes that Greg circulated in the packet Erica please hey it's very minor and it I don't really think it needs correction but I do believe that in November when Tony was with us we had made mention that we would like to see some comparison with some college-based towns uh similar to UMass um I know that the needs assessment has Smith and Northampton in it and South Hadley and H Mount hoolio but um I think you know we made mention so it doesn't really need to be corrected because I think you know it's part of the discussion of the housing assessment plan and the housing production plan but I just wanted to raise that sure thank you anyone else for any feedback on either the October or November minutes in in that case hearing none uh do we have a motion to approve both sets of minutes I it looks like a a yes and a second um uh all in favor of approving the minutes can we do a a thumb vote on this um all right so so so done uh minutes approved our first um agenda item is is uh our guest speaker who is going to be joining us at closer to 71 he's on uh Rob Robert is online now actually okay wonderful okay so then um go let's uh let's go ahead and promote him and and and uh get going so Rob I'm gonna promote you to uh become a panelist here and you'll hopefully have a popup here you come um so I'm happy to welcome Rob Williams uh of the UMass School architecture um as well as uh a design build studio and um some of you met him when we visited the um the Adu uh under construction um out on up by Olympia Oaks there I'm forget the name of the street um but uh Rob's got some cool um data around Adu capacity and I'm was gracious enough to join us uh tonight so uh Rob pardon my brief intro there but if there's anything you want to add feel free but otherwise I'm happy to welcome you and hear what you got to share uh that's great um thank you all for having me I appreciate the opportunity to share this with you and you know hopefully get some feedback on sort of where we can take this project next um let me get my screen share going here see okay hopefully everyone can see this now that's great that's great okay perfect um so this is um some research from an ongoing research project that um I've been conducting um in collaboration with one of my colleagues uh Ry man who some of you might know who's on our faculty and what we've been looking at is um Adu development in ammer and western Mass and in particular trying to look at um barriers to Adu development um as many of you know or I'm sure aware the regular regulations around adus are rapidly evolving you it was only relatively recently that ammer um and many of the other sort of towns in our region actually started allowing adus by right um and you know I don't have precise data to back this up at this point but I think anecdotally you know the actual development of construction and adus despite these sort of changes in regulation has still been fairly limited um so we this particular project is trying to look at we um basically you know to what extent are these zoning ordinances continuing to put up barriers to adus and what are kind of the let's say the spatial implications of the Zone the current zoning ordinances um so we conducted a series of GIS and spatial analyses to you know assess these existing zoning ordinances how they might be impacting the potential of U development and then hopefully use this research to come up with some recommendations for sort of policy changes or zoning changes that would support the development of more housing um so this is the current sort of a you know quick summary of the zoning regarding adus and amist currently so you know you can we can have adus by right for Parcels with single family dwellings there's no special permits required you know two and three family dwellings are not eligible for this owner occupancy is required ades can be um 50% of the primary dwelling up to a th000 square feet and in the general they're supposed to be sort of located you know behind at least behind the front line of the primary dwelling and then of course there's a whole series of other you know General zoning restrictions that would apply to this development including minimum partiel size minimum Frontage building coverage setbacks um two parking spaces per dwelling unit Etc then of course um as many of you oh yeah Grover go ahead I think you're getting there I was like wait uh that's not accurate so continue so things have changed or are changing I should say um yeah so as as as as I'm sure you all know the affordable housing act that was passed um by the Healey Administration last summer you know requires that municipalities um across the state allow adus by right in on single family parcels and single family zoning this is pretty significant I mean this is effectively eliminating single family zoning in the state of Massachusetts um and then also the the law prohibits cities from implementing owner occupancy requirements uh reduces the parking requirements to one parking space Max or even zero when it's within a certain radius of Transportation um and also says that municipalities may not impose unreasonable restrictions uh though unreasonable is still uh undefined I believe um if anyone knows anything else please let me know um so these are changing so and actually a lot of the research that we did we did before some of this analysis we started before this was past last summer um so a lot of what I'll present is sort of the the current right and then we've just been updating it to see you know what starts to happen with assuming this is all implemented um so our first pass was to look at the town of amers as a whole um you know again as we all know amers is very much a residential Town 88% of the total Parcels are zoned residential within that 63% of those are Parcels with one two or three family dwellings on them so you know sort of not multif family um and actually it's only 55% of those Parcels that are single family dwellings right so we have quite a number of two and three families throughout the town um and then if we looked at then we did this GIS analysis where we sort of tried to apply the different zoning ordinances to see kind of what was left over like which Parcels would still be able to satisfy those requirements um to be eligible for adus by right so under the current zoning again this is you know before the the affordable housing act um you know 83% of these Parcels are owner occupied then if you apply the zoning regulations we get down to actually only 57% of those single family residences right single family dwellings um are actually compliant with the zoning regulations like would be compliant with the zoning regulations if they added adus um and then finally we did a little bit of kind of spatial analysis to try to assess even within that are is there is there adequate space on these Parcels to put adus given trees Wetlands setbacks um and that that actually didn't make that big of a difference once we got to you know down to this 57% then then interestingly enough um if we then apply if we remove the owner occupancy requirement from that from that analysis um we're still only in a position where 68% of those single family dwellings um could be compliant with the zoning regulations right which is you know of course to say 30% of the properties that you know could be eligible are are not right and again this is all um by right so of course people could apply for special permits right um Carol has a question this is just the mathematical part of me but how come the 63 and the 55 don't add up to 88 say that again oh it says there's 88% of total Parcels with then 63% have one to two families and 55% have one family and it seems like they should add up to 88 oh there's there's um those are Parcels that are uh there are Parcels that sorry it's of that 88% right so of the parcels that are zoned um residential and within that include that's multif family and then also you know Parcels that are undeveloped but zoned residential right so 63% of the 88% right not 63% of the total Parcels do you know what I'm saying sorry if that was but that was confusing and then again when I get down this is also maybe confusing when I say 83% of are owner occupied I'm saying 83% of the one family dwellings our owner occupied so we're sort of okay we have to be you know we we can only look at single family residences 83% of those are owner occupied so apologies if that was thank you for the clarification um thank you yeah so then so then we sort of jumped on to try to look at these um at the scale of of individual neighborhoods and try to see sort of how this this kind of broad analysis was playing out at a smaller scale so we picked a couple neighborhoods to start that we thought were kind of typical of different conditions in ammer so one of them was Orchard Valley which is a you know very kind of suburban um development from the I believe from the 60s and 70s in South amest um this is sort of between Mission Cantina and Hampshire College um and you can see here on the Left Right these are all the residential Parcels in this we picked a square think it's a square mile um and then you can see down here all the red indicates the ones that are that are not eligible for adus by right given the current zoning ordinances so pretty substantial right um and then from there you know we jumped into an even kind of smaller scale analysis of what we might call a couple blocks in that same neighborhood um and again you can see here you know most of what's in in this case it's actually it's not really the owner occupancy Clause that's removing people from eligibility but it really has a all these lots are are undersized relative to current zoning ordinances right so most of these sites don't actually are out of compliance with current zoning um and then would be sort of further out of compliance with lot coverage um with the addition of adus but I also think um you know you can see from this map right there's definitely an argument that there is you know space in the neighborhood here for Adu development um particularly given how deep many of these lots are right we're not sort of missing space necessarily um Alex yeah yeah um I had I guess a clarifying question and maybe our town manager can provide some insight to this on CCR but I thought that the Adu law from Governor Healey allowed for conversions of lower levels and garages so when you're talking about Lots not having enough space base how how does that play out um that's great yeah so lots you could you are allowed to and if if the town manager here and wants to jump in please do too um yeah you I mean even under the current regulations garages can be um converted I'm not sure how that would be handled by the town if you have an existing Garage on a non-compliant parcel if that road require special permits or not it's a good you know it's a good question question um this also says you know we're really looking at the in most cases here looking at the potential for detached adus right of course you can have an Adu uh inside of an existing residence um right you could convert some part of your existing dwelling I I don't know how you know that would be handled either if you're in a parcel that's non-compliant in some capacity that's a good question Alex um where was I here and then finally we sort of zoomed in a step further looking at a handful of parcels and then trying to just sort of speculate on what you know it could look like to start adding a lot of adus in here to sort of ask two questions like one you know like is this feasible what does it look like and what changes would be required um in zoning ordinances to allow something like this would happen you know and again pretty consistently you know reducing that minimum lot size right makes a big difference and then I also think in these neighborhoods you know potentially allowing the reduction of setbacks for adus would also make a big difference in terms of um how they could sort of be situated on these on the sites right and there's actually quite a bit of precedent within the neighborhood for garages and other accessory buildings that don't abide by current kind of setback standards um then we also did the same we repeated the same thing for another neighborhood that's over in um Central ammer near the schools I'm going to forget the names of these streets right now but I'm sure some of you are familiar with this area the schools are just to the north yes exactly yeah yeah the schools are just to the north of here um and you actually see a pretty similar config you know um situation here where we have a lot of residential parcels and then you know quite the majority of them are in fact not eligible for ad development and I thought this is particularly interesting because this to me is a a part of the town where we might most want to encourage density because of its walkability you know accessibility to downtown to schools right that it's not sort of out on the outskirts in large Parcels um like with Orchard Valley we see you know what's really affecting it is uh parcel size and lot coverage in here um and again I think we sort of looked at this and obviously some of these lots are pretty pretty tight as they are um but there's a lot of places where there is still we could imagine there being ample room for the introduction of adus and integration of adus into these neighborhoods um one thing that really stuck out was there's a lot of these these corner lot situations where we have these kind of long elongated Corner lots that have streets on both sides and I think it's actually seems even though these are quite small in terms of the the partial area it seems like they would be set up quite nicely for the introduction of some small adus that have their own access um and then you know sort of and this just final image then is it's that same neighborhood um this does start to look at kind of the impact of um if we sort of started to imagine again it's kind of hypothesizing like maximum development right like you know how many places are eligible for it um you know and under the existing zoning you know 28 of these 58 Parcels could have adus by right if we remove the owner occupancy Clause that jumps up to 38 you know and then if we reduced the minimum lot size just to 10,000 I believe it's currently 12 in this neighborhood this Zone um and if you excluded adus from the kind of building and lock cover you could get that up to 53 out of 58 so pretty dramatically you know increasing at least the the potential from an from a um with respect to the ordinance for development in here and that's kind of where the project um you know sits right now you know I think the next step to in some of this work is trying to continue along this line where we start to actually kind of Envision what some of this development could potentially look like as a way to start educating people you know provoking a conversation about kind of how um these I mean particularly the State Legislative changes might be implemented you know within these within the neighborhoods and within the town um so yeah that's a that's a kind of quick summary of where we're at on this be happy to answer questions or discuss or anything wonderful uh thank you so much Rob Okay who wants to start with some questions I mean I'll I'll just jump into the question have you been able to reduce this to a list of addresses that you can make available uh we could yeah I mean with the gis we could definitely make a list of addresses that are that are currently eligible by right yeah that's interesting sure yeah because um in the development subcommittee one of of the strategies we're exploring is what can we do to promote um consideration and development of adus I was talking to some banks today there are definitely Banks interested in the market here and so uh can we um be uh strategic about disseminating information and and uh reaching out to folks who happen to own those homes yep uh Carol excuse me Erica um I have a couple of questions so you looked at all of Amherst um there are some small small parts of Amherst that have septic systems how does that impact uh developing adus that is a great question um and that's something we've talked about we can't we don't have the data on that to look at it um it would impact it in two ways you know obviously you can't put a ad it would limit the space that's available on those Parcels to put an Adu and then two you know there's a question of the capacity of those systems um and that and it's actually you know now that you raised that question you know it makes me think even more about that we ought to put some attention on these on on more Central neighborhoods like this where there is where there where there's Municipal Plumbing right because that definitely makes a big difference yeah my second question um is do you know of any municipalities that have actually offered uh incentives to create adus and what are some of the models yeah I do um I don't know if anyone in the state right now um which doesn't mean they they aren't the ones I'm familiar with is um in or in Portland Oregon um they offered some incentives that um I think primarily around the fees uh reducing the fees that might be involved um which sounds like maybe not much but I believe in Portland it was actually a fairly substantial amount of well like it was enough money to that they felt like it made a difference um I know there's some models in some other places where um particularly with respect to affordable housing that the states have uh or cities have incentivized um you know zero Co zero interest loans if you're willing to you know de uh um maintain the Adu as affordable housing for eight or 10 years I know that's been tried in um in LA with some success and I believe also Austin there's definitely some models for that um La has done another really interesting thing too and I'm sure they're not the only one they have a standard plans program where they have a whole bunch of um they they actually requested these from a whole number of Architects including some fairly famous people so there the city now has a whole set of plans for adus that that are pre-approved um and again in an effort to sort of facilitate the process right and to make it easier as as an individual thank you taking up on that um last comment Rob um what would the what features jump to mind in terms of a standard plan that would make sense to go to the lengths of pre-approving in Amhurst what what are the features that jump to mind as Worth codifying or standardizing that's a that's a good question um I mean I do think there's some some question of sizes right so um you know um the current ordinance you're only allowed to be up to 50% or 1,000 square ft but we we have a lot of houses that are in the sort of 1,00 to 1500 square foot range and again that's something we can pull out pretty quick from this GIS and identify like oh actually you know a a 600 you know a 600 square foot unit would be applicable to you know X number of parcels in the city um you know I also think uh I don't know how strict that's a good question that somebody else might know how strict the design standards are but I could also see sort of you know finding something that designing something that sort of was accepted as fitting in with the architectural character of the Town also being helpful right um you know yeah Rob there's a question from an attendee if you want to notice or not I don't know oh sure there's uh Kathleen Anderson yeah yes hi I am um wanting to mention that some of the properties in the Orchard Valley neighborhood that you showed us M are wetlands yes yeah I think that that little chunk the chunk that we zoomed in on doesn't have too much I don't believe but yeah that is definitely um another limiting factor in ammer for a lot of these Parcels right is the is the is the prevalent of wildlands yeah I just wanted to mention that no I I appreciate that you're right and and that the um when we looked at the town as a whole we did try to pull like at least the places that were identified in the gis as Wetlands as part of that kind of spatial analysis that was it's not totally perfect because it gets a little it gets pretty it's hard to do it precisely um but we some of the some of the properties on in the um Orchard Valley neighborhood on the culdesac that you showed us yeah behind those houses the lands are wet when the spring oh really okay yeah in the spring when the um the river Rises those backyards are are like little Lakes little pools of water I I'll double check that or I I'll have to yeah let me and it's possible too that places are wet without them being s designated as Wetlands um you know at least in the gis systems but yeah yeah you're right that's not insignificant um and we've got a question from uh your colleague Reay here can I go ahead and may maybe I'll promote Ray into a panelist mode if that's sure oh hopefully ra there hi thank you sorry took a while sorry yeah actually I mean I Rob sort of answered the question but I I do you know we did try to take into account the wet Wetlands because you can see them roughly on GIS and we we did also try to take a survey of of trees because that's the other big thing here is a lot of people have matur growth and there and we don't want to uh but again it is a very kind of rough rough look at the possibilities so um but in some ways we were trying to think about like is there a way to start to automate this I mean we did it kind of by hand in a sense or with with fairly minimal GIS programming but could you actually start to you know get a student who's doing AI or something to you know be able to run these sort of more detailed analyses of the different conditions and I I do think that if we can be use that to be a little more proactive about who might be able to have an opportunity to do this we thought that'd be interesting thank you Grover do you have like layers of numbers of how many like how many plots based on the the state law given all the considerations are currently eligible and then if you had the the little orange Square the recommended zoning change how many more homes would be possibly available like it would be good to get a sense of if you know if we're doing public messaging or if we're considering advocating for a change of the rules how many potential homes are we talking about is it like 20 or is it like 500 yep yep um if I don't have that data it's something we can get and if actually if you bear it with me for a second I'll look and see if um I started doing some of that and I honestly can't remember where I landed um but I agree I think you're right like yeah that that's like a really good drunk argument for the changes to say oh right like I mean just in that neighborhood right was like going from 12,000 fet to 10,000 square fet you know you've almost not not doubled but you've added you know 30% right and it like if I'm feeling excited about the governor's changes but then what you're showing me is like oh actually still half of that neighborhood or most of that neighborhood is still not Adu eligible then right there's a different problem yep no I think that's I think that's interesting too like on that you know on that first map I was showing it's like the owner occupancy added 10% to it right not not 50% yeah and a couple of the issues that we saw pretty quickly that be worth investigating is this issue of 50% limit on the existing house because you know honestly a 600 foot unit might be great but it's you know way smaller than what we probably really want to provide which is maybe you know 900,000 square feet so you know we'd love to sort of think about like if we tweak this rule what does it mean if we TW that rule and you know we think it'd be quite interesting to be able to run those analyses so we're we're sort of starting down that road after this initial 4A other questions percolating among our group um I mean it's really exciting that you've been you're reducing this to real numbers and I understand your concern with you know how much more it could be but you know the glass is half full there's there's you know hundreds of possible units right now and and so that's what I think we can keep our eye on and and motivate us to try to open some doors to vment yeah I agreed that's definitely the right it's like actually the right way to look at it it's like oh we know 50% of the town is eligible for this that's an awful lot of um potential right that's that's hasn't been taken advantage of yet um you know I do think the geographic distribution of that is interesting too you know because like I said it to me it's it seems like we want to be where we'd want to promote it most is in some of the areas of the town that are more walkable you know and accessible to the schools and um town center and I actually think it's some of the more outline areas where there's you know higher rates of Eligibility you know just obviously because we get larger building sites out there um looks like we got one more question from Kathleen can go ahead go ahead Kathleen okay I wasn't unmuted I didn't get the unmuted signal yet well we can hear you go ahead okay so um so the adus are at the discretion of the homeowners correct so although my lot may be eligible for Adu I don't have to build one oh of course not no yeah okay I just wanted to um for anybody else who might be listening that's clear that they're not required to build it but if the they wanted to and their uh lot qualifies they can correct yeah absolutely and you know I think that's the next layer of work that that we can do is try to see who are the owners for whom this would make a lot of sense and what can we do to facilitate this given their very specific situations yeah one thing we were inspired by is there's a group I don't know if you might know Russell wallik who uh is very interested in Chestnut Agro forestry and he's very skilled in GIS and he was able to do an analysis of all the soils and properties actually Nationwide and then he would approach people you know there are like ideal circumstances for Chestnut Agra forestry so he would actually approach owners with the proposal that they either lease part of their land or are encouraged to do start Agro forestry so was an interesting inversion in the kind of usual course of action where you sort of randomly wait for people to have an idea but a little more proactive in in pointing out an opportunity and we thought that was very interesting yeah 100% I mean I will say for my research you know the our research you know more broadly I do think that the financing piece is another major hurdle um and so it's good to hear that some some local banks are getting interested in understanding how adus could be valued because in a lot of places um it's hard to I mean it's hard to get the financing for them so they often end up it's like the only people that can do it are people who can self fund it yes so uh yeah I've got um a meeting with Lighthouse um uh which is based in New Hampshire but has just received approval to London Massachusetts I talked with someone from Cape Cod 5 who can't lend this way but is very willing to speak to us about their experience on the cape which you know the the pressure on the cape with tourism is somewhat parallel to the pressure that we experience from students sure and one of the things that we also were I think looking in our to to-do list was um you know we know that the you know the cost of the kind of the building is one thing but it's also all the other costs of like you know extending the sewer line and gas line or or what have you and those are often sort of the unforeseen expenses that can really blow a project up and so is there a way to kind of assess also because we have so much data here in this town kind of the like a kind of difficulty Factor in addition to putting the unit itself you know is it a very steeply sloped site or you know so could you help people anticipate kind of these potential issues and then if there's an incentive one could develop an incentive program to you know help balance that somehow in in indeed and I guess that that touches back on the idea of the kind of pre-approved design that might uh standardize some of those expenses and then also what can we do to learn from the number of adus that have been built in in ammer already um I I assume we've got records of those but can we do some Outreach um to those owner developers to find out about their experience all right well uh this visit has been super productive uh La last chance for any any questions I why don't we cut it short here so that we can uh maybe do a part two or or three in the future um uh Ray and Rob really uh delightful to have you join us and help us out here absolutely you know it's our our pleasure and definit and keep us in the loop because I mean our our I mean Our Hope in doing this work is that we can have you know an an impact in the town and the region so I think if there's if if you all have ideas on other things that could that would help support these kinds of initiatives um you know and housing issues in the in this in the town we're we're really interested you know continuing to work on that or contributing to that work so excellent excellent thanks y'all okay thank you a lot thank you very much thanks Rob thanks RI all right well um I'm excited to um meet with Grover and Carol and Greg on Monday to uh we can kind of run with some of these ideas and and uh see what what might be next um so unless we want to do any reflection on that conversation why don't we go ahead and and move to the the next topic which we began to discuss at our last meeting um and that is a proposal from uh the Community Action tency preservation and uh Greg would can you uh set us up here sure oh so as a reminder um this uh we talked uh in vague terms not naming the organization I can now share as you've all seen that this is a request from Community Action um in uh sort of informal partnership with Family Outreach of ammer which is a uh CHD program but long time I think even preceding their association with CHD um based here in ammer um so um the uh basic background of this um is you know it is that Community Action um observed an increase of of inquiries from residents of amest um roughly correlating with the expiration of am's arpa program which was not through the trust but was a um Amis had a number of oper programs including one that was aimed at folks um requiring support for rental aers or utility AAR so um and those funds uh you know were I think exhausted in the summertime and around that time is when community actions started noticing more calls from amers uh so um you know so we uh kind of brought it to you all conceptually uh last month um and you know and you all kind of told told me to um ask them for something more formal um which uh which you've all received in your packet as far as um a proposal um of of what they would seek to do um but but basically the um the model here is um filling in um gaps that you know they observe uh in um in what the state provides uh which is something called raft um uh raft um offers more substantial sums than they would offer here um by by in some cases a significant amount um but raft uh is is less useful in uh a number of uh sort of Niche circumstances including ironically folks who are in some sort of subsidized uh apartment um whether a tax credit or with a voucher or whatever um raft looks less favorably on helping in those scenarios um I don't know what percentage of folks community actions working with fit this profile but some folks may have seen an article in Mass Live uh a couple days ago um about people living in uh in affordable housing units in tax credit units um who who were nonetheless cost burdened um so and how this happens is perhaps somebody who's in a unit pegged for 60% of Ami but maybe they only make 40% of Ami they're still below the income ceiling but they but but the rent is pegged at 60 Ergo they're going to be cost burdened um and there was some Reflections from folks like that uh in that article um this is an example of of of uh you know one type of of household that might benefit from you know what Community Action is doing I should note too that they're already running this prog program regionally um and they do it with uh at the moment with fundraised money um U but that if we were to slot in resources they would be um reserved obviously for folks who are ammer residents um and the basic idea here is uh preventing eviction um and and preserving folks ability to to live in ammer um you know we hear from most Partners in the community that if somebody goes through an eviction it's incredibly rare that they're able to maintain a residence in amers usually they end up someplace else um and so that's um maybe a quick nutshell I don't know if I can fill in any specific details gestone or anybody yeah why don't we get some questions Grover please um it didn't see clearly stated and apologies if I missed it it was a very wordy document but is this request for a [Music] onetime uh fun because it said they would report on a quarterly basis is that through the course of a year or do they expect it to be ongoing um it they're not requesting multiple tranches of money I mean I think what the request is is for uh is for $188,000 I think um at one time and they are open to our feedback on they think they could spend it in a shorter period of time where they could stretch it out a little bit um and I had asked them basically because this is kind of outside of our application framework you know for how we do um capital investment I sort of came up with some quick um uh criteria for you know how they might throw together you know a a fairly low resource one or two page document and among the things I asked them for was um to Just note their ability their existing reporting capacity um uh you know that they could plug this into and I think that's kind of where that came from yeah Carol please um I have a bigger question that has been growing you know we did Craigs doors and that at least got people to have a permanent shelter but especially coming off of what we just heard about what might be possible with adus I'm concerned about doing things that are kind of stop gap for the person that's in the house right now I'm concerned learned about how much of our resources we put into that I look at our our plan that we just made it doesn't say anything about that really it wants us to make units I would so and and I'm not saying the Need Is Not Great I know the need is great there is no question about that but I feel like we may be one thing that is kind of uniquely position to be able to do something about more units and J sest helping the people who are in the units that they're in now and I don't have an answer I'm concerned to see us seem to go in this kind of a direction right at the beginning of a process we're trying to figure out ways to do some things that are more creative and we just heard about one that's kind of exciting if we were able to put together here's where you can get financing here's some incentives here's some ways to do this and go knocking on doors like we did trying to get people to put solar panels on their roofs knocking on doors at the places that seems like this could happen and say look here's all the stuff try and do this there's these incentives what if we could do that stuff but that's going to cost money too so I am just that's it I'm concerned on a on that kind of a level not about this particular thing in a way but I will now stop talking good no uh thank you for kind of reaffirming the big picture question of our mission and focus algra please um I definitely understand like the concern about what our plan that we just put together was and is and what we're trying to focus on and I also think it's useless to have all these units if people can't stay in them like um but I get my and that is I I'm not necessarily saying yay or nay immediately but I'm just I'm my question and I think this was in there and I can't remember is is this a program that would only address people post like receiving a notice to a 14-day notice to quit so like when the eviction proceedings have actually started or is this just anyone who starts to fall behind on their rent might be eligible or did they specify yeah Greg Greg do you have are you clear about algra's question um so I have to review the document you know I I don't know if they told me precisely what their juncture for Action is um raft I'm fairly sure requires a 14-day notice to quit um but the um but what you know one wrinkle of this is that they they would require I think most households for rental aers to go to Raft first um which is their policy currently um and is um um and and and for some you know it's it can be a challenge but they can get them on the back end if raft doesn't work out for rental reers um in fact it's utility arear that are more challenging in that generally when you get a shut off notice it's within two weeks um and raft can't in Hampshire County cannot Act within two weeks um so um in in the case of um so yeah with rental rear they'd push people to Raft and then and and support them in that process and then and then come you know and then have resources available if um if not um and utility rear that they act more immediately though so just to um think about how it could potentially tie into what we are what our big picture idea is is I I think that could be potentially helpful as part of the education committee um maybe having not a building of affordable housing 101 like we are also talking about but a actually like this these are your rights and responsibilities as a tenant type Workshop because I do think having worked in the field of eviction prevention people get really scared when they get a 14-day notice to quit which is a really scary thing but it also doesn't mean that you actually have to be out of your house in 14 days there is a whole court process that has to be gone through and tenants have a lot of Rights in this state so perhaps if we were to consider this proposal we could potentially go back to the agency and say you know what we like the idea we want to give some money but we also want to have some education for tenants you know as as a caveat to us giving money and we can work with somebody to AR you know to arrange something like that was a big idea that I just had that it came out really disjointed but just thinking if you know if we wanted to try and tie it into our plan maybe that is a way that we could do that uh very very good idea of linking it to be ancillary to our our mission and and strategy Alex please um I'd actually like to hear from r manager first okay Paul yeah so I have for three things um one is um I think this is a very real problem and I think it's going to get worse as the governor starts to pull back from um funding homeless services and we'll see I think we're going to see shrinkage in the number of uh beds available so I think it's going to Cascade in terms of if people become evict are evicted and then there's no place for them to stay so that's that means there is urgency I think um I I also agree with Carol and that we didn't articulate this as a goal um and that's a what's how good is our process if whatever whoever walks in the door next says and we suddenly look at the next shiny thing it's like this is great it just and that leads me to the third thing which is I've said this before that I don't like our sort of whoever walks in asks money we say we almost always say yes there's no comparative analysis done by where should we put our limited funds we have lots of funds but it's limited and what where are we putting them we've tried to do that through our strategic planning but we haven't done that through we have a grant opening period we we're welcoming times for people to come forward so um I struggle with this one quite honestly because I think the need is very real um I think um the the work we did with Family Outreach of ammer during during Co um was was successful and and they did were able to do um like utility bills and things like that um but I I really sort of think um the trust we should think about what our mission is and um by our strategic plan thank you Paul Alex yeah um I had a more specific question about the proposal that we have in front of us and maybe somebody read this differently in a way that makes sense but when they detailed their $18,000 request they then said they wanted to help the the 10 and the 15 families and gave maximum amounts for those awards that in total equal the $18,000 and then at the end said that they would also need a 15% administrative fee on top of that um which concerned me because that means they can't actually give that maximum award to all of the families that applied so I was confused where that if they were asking for the 18,000 plus 15% so actually 20,700 or if they were reducing the amount of the awards that they were discussing okay yeah uh Greg do you want to respond to that point directly yeah and I'm reviewing um the specifics you know and I think Alex that and without being able to do the math quickly but I think probably the inherent assumption in this is that not every payment is going to hit the ceiling of 600 and 800 um does your math presume everyone everything was at the high numbers of 600 and 800 I did assume that yeah because that's how I interpreted their application so yeah so I guess in um in fact you know because some of these folks you know might be voucher holders for example so their actual cash rent um and and the amount of AAR might be like quite modest you know $3 $600 something like that um so in some cases um some of these uh payments wouldn't actually hit the maximum of of 900 in the case of of rant or or 600 in the case of utilities that's so I I assume that's well just on on the math I mean 1530 times 10 and then 15% I think we're at the 18,000 or so um we can check here but I I think if if we're looking if it's 900 plus plus 600 time 10 then the numbers are in kind of in the right ballpark Erica yeah I had that question too um so I'm glad Alex you raised it um but I also want to state that when we discussed our action plan we actually had a discussion about does that preclude any other action and I think what we said is um it depends what the request or what that action is so um I think you know our action plan is important and I agree that this is our guiding tool but I don't think we should be inflexible and um I agree with you Paul around the urgency um I think um and I actually agree with algra in terms of her Innovative thinking in terms terms of that maybe we can utilize this as an opportunity to do education and try to do some preventive work um but $18,000 in helping families not be evicted uh if there were 10 and 15 that's 25 families in Amherst um especially after reading the the housing production plan assessment in terms of um people who are extremely burdened lowincome families and the impact that could you know that Co still can have on on the individuals and families I think it's really important to think about um keeping families in amers and if we can do that I think that's critical um and trying to then again think about more prevention um but 18,000 I'm trying to think about how much the Interfaith um group gave to us and if that's an opportunity to use it because I'm sure that Interfaith group might think that this urgency this would be one of those exceptions to not having met our action plan for the future so I really I really want to think about the fact that we could we could keep 25 families in Amherst and Erica picking up on your comment about where we might Source the funds one question is I or less a question I guess one point is that the funds that would seem appropriate for this are the unrestricted funds that didn't come from uh the C CPA and and so indeed that's uh one of those sources around the corner um that that indeed we could kind of Peg uh to to this use of funds Grover it's more of a Thinking Out Loud comment consideration is I very much feel the like urgency around X number of families who this could be used for and also agree with Paul that it's likely to grow more and more and more and the and the stakes of a family being pushed out of housing are really high and at the same time when I was reading the description from Community Action i i a question that kept coming up is like what is going to keep these families from not having the same problem in 3 months with their U bill or with their rent costing too much and I know that's a big existential question but 18,000 seems like in some ways so little to actually solve the problem and also I know Community Action is a large organization and a lot of the funds that they're trying to rely on like so much of the description was like we have these buckets of money from state and federal governments and they don't work it's like what I was reading and like we need you to to work because these buckets of money don't aren't actually working um and so that doesn't necessarily inform how I might vote on this but just noting that out loud of like what this one Housing Trust uh in this town that is not so large is asking to shoulder in terms of uh the fiscal systems that are supposed to work to keep these families housed and and also that like Community Action has a $30 million budget um and so not that they need to use their operating budget to scoop families out but also at the same time you know the 15% transfer fee right like these things is like they also have access to a lot of resourcing that maybe other uh entities that are going to come to us might not have so I'm just noting those things out a loud about the specific requests um yeah okay uh uh we haven't heard from from from you Rob I haven't exactly weighed in um I guess uh I don't know Rob do you have a comment you'd like to make um uh I'll I'll make a comment as as well um just to say that that I'm not uh really troubled by um ad hoc requests fact that's what we tell CPA we need the money so that we can respond to ad requests yeah but what but people raised some interesting issues and and I'm really sure yeah yeah I guess picking up on that and and and and kind of following up on on Paul's comment uh we we don't have uh a formal process we don't have application windows and maybe at a certain point will need that in the absence of that there's kind of no better marker of need than someone coming to us and presenting us uh a need and and so um I also I I think there's a certain um kind of method in the ad hoc method that is you know information revealing it's revealing the present uh the present need and we have to evaluate whether we we we see it as such uh Greg um yeah I just want to offer a couple clarifying comments uh in response to the first part of what Grover shared uh really asked I think was around sustainability and what's going to happen to these families after resolution um part of you know the dynamic here is that Family Outreach doesn't want to be involved financially in this they're not able to um but you know but they were part of the sort of in in inciting discussion here um and the and would play a role in followup with any families um that access um these resources um so community actions kind of you know committed to to partnering with them as they I understand they do already um and the other thing to the resource question is that at least as it was pitched to me that this would open up folks to um other resources at Community Action uh you know that they might not know about so you know so it is within their practice like hey if you were um you know you have a rental a issue oh you you're probably eligible for Wick you're probably um you might be eligible for some heating assistance can we help you access that etc etc so that that I think speaks a little bit to some of the uh I think use the term sustainability or or maybe I did but um I just want to sort of insert that in response to your thoughts yeah legra um I thought that I'd heard the other day and I don't remember where but that I thought I'd heard that raft was exhausted at this point and I don't know if that is true or accurate or I don't think raft is exhaust I don't think that it works that way um I mean I think they just keep funding it um there might have been something else that I I think there's emergency shelter money that is more um that you know where resources run out I don't I think they keep funding raft though I'm their their website continues to take applications if tells us anything maybe it was a specific case that they had exhausted their award for and I just you know but I but I have heard you know directly from Community Action and kind of maybe more informally from others that there are sort of Contours in how uh accommodating or non-accommodating raft is um and it's unclear at what you know because basically applications come through Regional agencies and then go to the state who really knows where the filter is but um but Kate Shapiro of Community Action suggested that they'd observe in recent you know months uh what feels like a higher uh bar to clear at a raft guess my question if you're a little soft maybe can you bring bring down your mic yeah sorry yeah good idea um if we were to do this then I guess I would want to know more about how it actually is g to happen or I guess what I want to know is if somebody does whatever they're supposed to do to get this and it's not quite clear from all this what the requirements would be that in fact with the money goes exactly what we've all been talking about the support so that hopefully you can do things so that this doesn't happen again or at least whatever the support there is that there is available and I was also curious that they have a number of families they think they can help for this money and there's not exactly I don't know if they have a time frame in mind or we would want to have a time frame in mind and do we just will they just get here is $18,000 tell us when you get done with all the families or will they kind of the way happen with uh or will they show you know just a lot of detailed questions that I don't feel like I know the answer to and it the most important one for me probably is that if if this goes forward then there is a clear understanding that the people who get this support of this financial support will also be getting all the kind of other support that Family Outreach and Community Action and whoever else needs to be involved can provide them so let's assume that we could you know be in a position to make some more request or specify uh a few details uh but bracketing that where where are we right now on whether we're inclined as as a trust to um apply some of our unrestricted funds of which we we do expect this other um uh money to be coming in shortly that that was on the order of $40,000 Greg was that is that right that's the expectation from Interfaith em yeah um so are we inclined to apply some unrestricted funds to this this need and and uh organization Carol oh that just leads me to the financial question of I don't remember when the last time we got a a financial statement and I'd love to see whatever the most recent one is and then we we know okay $40,000 is may be coming in and whatever else we know but it would just be nice to know where we actually are sitting as we decide to do this Nate actually submitted one to all of us I think was it not in the packet I don't think I saw it but that might be just I don't know I if I I might have missed it that's quite possible especially lately it was not in the packet but he he replied kind of immediately with it um and I can I can share share that yeah um yeah so um bear with I have in in a PDF if that would be useful I got it um okay let me Zoom here oh much um how's that um so the interest of folks seeing pardon not not the most ideal Zoom situation so um the actual overall balance right now um minus uh commitments we've already made but still remain on the books in with you know with the town um so subtracting those items which are are committed we're at 114 um and change uh of of of development funds um and then some other balances you know up here we have uh the this one here is um sorry I'm Zoom back over is unrestricted uh resources fairly modest um that is um that comes from some original gifts that we received I think when when the trust launched um and this is where we would put the incoming um Interfaith gift um which we expect to be around $40,000 but we should you know not you know count our chicken so to speak um this is just interest resources um um and then um I'm not quite sure the the provenance of this smaller line here um but then this is uh how we pay yours truly and then the development line down here um but again this balance is is actually 114 um minus our our commitments to ball Lane please um it says that for the development funds two times 37 uh $375,000 I think it was actually 350 and 375 not two times so that's $25,000 a little bit more that we should have um but that's yeah that's correct and that's math in I yeah you're right that's um and and Nate Nate produces these out of like a a complex accounting system that spits out in unreadable Excel and then he formats it into this um that does not show these two amounts um from what he's looking at so I think this is probably just from his head um Eric I think you are um correct yeah so yes so that's that's $25,000 more than in this development line though I think we're probably talking exactly that's right it's not unrestricted but uh and then 40,000 on top of the unrestricted would be now uh 65,000 and that unrestricted line so um once we have the the interface but yeah I mean I've been I was told probably January but we're waiting on the Attorney General's office you know not something where we're gonna be able to call and say hey cut that check you know so um you know I certainly wouldn't you know write that money critically into our plan uh you know uh in the next two months or something like that and the other question I have is the uh if you move it a little bit to the left uh the line that says uh the the one with the contracts um Consulting yeah uh there's one there that said uh something with contracts what is that encumbrance and contracts three 07280 under yeah technical assistance um Erica I do not know to be honest um um did shell no no we did not pay Shelly um I I wonder um and and Paul you might know perhaps this is an accounting line or something like that for how we account for the town's management of the trust's books um but this number has never been high so I honestly I haven't oh oh I see it's under encumbrances though yeah right contracts sorry I I was looking at the left here um I thought at some point Nate said he thought that those things were done and it could be released but it hadn't happened because of some takes some accounting thing to release it but that it could be it's worth looking into cu I'm not positive of that and it is and if it should if it could be released then let's get it released and not have it sitting there like that and if it is really for something then let's know what it's for okay sorry I was I was looking left and not up you know my my suspicion is probably that uh the trust may have been contracted with um you know some an outside person kind of doing doing what I'm doing now um and maybe maybe that person didn't Bill all the way to what um Rita wasn't her name Rita something like or something along those lines that's what I'm guessing um but yeah I can look into that thank you yeah uh Greg a question given that they contemplated quarterly reporting would it be a reasonable uh step to break the the request down and basically admit that we're we're uh we're we're we're not in a position to to kind of give the full amount assuming that we all wanted to even if we all wanted to um it's uh it's kind of cutting our funds tight and that we would be more comfortable kind of giving a quarterly amount so to speak of of the of the request I think if we committed to the whole thing and you know that the to to to funding their whole request and said we'd like to pay it out in um you know whatever in $4,500 increments or whatever that is um you know um I think I doubt they'd have concerns there but not conditional but but I I think we would have to probably commit to the I don't think we could put in you know reporting obligations or whatever that you know that um we predicated the release of money onto for at at this level right I don't think it'd be okay worth it for them okay wouldn't that be more of an administrative burden for the town though uh in terms of quarterly I I would yeah it'd be easier to cut one check all right we we've seen our we've seen our uh piggy bank um we've uh I think explored this issue in in some depth and so we're in a position to kind of express our views U Move one way or the other or um be stuck I move to authorize $8,000 for Action okay did you frame that as a motion Rob I didn't hear the first word yeah Okay so we've got a motion uh we've got a motion on the table um uh any uh discussion alra so one thing I'm thinking about is that if we are talking about this money is being requested to go to people who might already have subsidies or might be struggling to pay a utilities Bill my guest is that that would put them in kind of one of the lower income brackets in term terms of the town you know in terms of socioeconomic status in town um if they're qualifying for a subsidy so I think I I'm just just looking at some of the housing production plan data and seeing how much of this town is actually overburdened in terms of housing costs and I would wager that that includes people who have subsidies since it goes off your gross income not your what you're actually taking home I I just think that if we're if we're you know thinking about like little a and big a affordable like we have people in quote unquote affordable and subsize housing that still aren't even making ends meet and I think that if if there are small buckets if it's a smaller bucket that can help save save a teny or help pay a utility bill so that rent can be paid I think that we would be doing a diservice not to provide funding for that even if it's a large agency that has a huge budget um and maybe some nefarious pots of money or maybe they're not nefarious but we're just unsure what what other pots of money there are um I just I just think again maybe it's because I'm looking at it as a social worker and I think of like people first and like the people that we might actually be helping versus like a building that we might be supporting um I I just think that this would be one of the most atrisk populations to serve um and again with I mean I got an email yesterday from Craigs doors saying they're asking for money for motel vouchers again because they're concerned about shelter space and funding for for housing so I just I think that there would be a big trickle effect of evictions and homelessness might look different than it did last year at this point because of what resources are available and um so those those would be my concerns and I think my reasons for voting yes even if it's not necessarily outlined in our bigger plan but perhaps in perhaps in going back to them if we do approve it we could talk about also can we do some Community Education so that would be my great good so the the call is very strong and we're here to serve people not buildings even if buildings is how we serve people uh Carol both um I just want assurance that I mean Rob's motion says $188,000 and I want to know that that isn't $18,000 plus 15% I want assurance that it's that's the whole ball wax they get their 15% out of that okay well if that's what we're moving to uh approve then that's that's what the um that's what we are uh approving um other other discussion so we have a motion on the table and we're discussing this motion um uh Alex please um I think Greg's said was first oh so yeah just and I just caught a thing in their in their proposal actually um nobody else may have noticed but but I think it is relevant to what uh algus raised which is uh the SE the income ceiling we're talking about here um I believe that's a typo in that proposal they wrote 200% Ami um Community Action serves Folks at 200% of the federal poverty level which is considerably lower um you know probably uh like like 50 55% of Ami probably more with that um what that relates to so um so yes that we are talking about uh very low-income people um uh you know who would be beneficiaries of this okay Alex okay yeah um kind of just talking as I'm thinking here because I'm I'm genuinely really strug struggling with this I agree with everything that said that this feels like it is really important to Mission to help people remain housed um it I do think it's interesting that I unless I just missed it in The Proposal the justification for that specific amount the 15 emmer residents um with utility arear and the 10 with rent arear doesn't seem necessarily be coming from anywhere like in their proposal they say they think that there's a need they believe that there's a need um but it's also a lot of our like non-restricted funds that we're talking about so I guess my gut is that I would support this in a smaller amount but I think the 18,000 is High um especially when we're not quite sure from a couple of possibly mistakes in their application what their administrative Fe is coming out of and what their actual awards that they're looking to give out are yeah Erica um and it may be that I overread it but I thought they had talked about the number of calls that they've ever gotten from Amherst residents and I think they extrapolated from uh you know the the calls that they've gotten already from Amherst residence in the past year and that's what they were sort of EXT extrapolating from um for those 10 and 15 um individuals um but I might have over overthought it in my wanting to help yeah uh thank you ER gr just note that in my opinion $118,000 is actually a pretty low number um and considering that the 40,000 is about to come in from the Interfaith uh Coalition I'm I'm inclined to support it and also because 18,000 when we think about uh the cost of doing homeless services for even one family or one person is much more than 18,000 um just for one so preventing potential homelessness in in a dozen folks that's a pretty good return on the number uh so that's the approach I'm I'm taking at this point okay I think we've had a a good discussion if if there's other points we will hear them um but otherwise uh why don't we proceed to a vote on the motion on the table which is to uh approve the request for $18,000 um I'll go around the the room here uh uh that I'm seeing Erica yes Paul I'll vote no okay Alex I'm voting no algra yes Grover yes Carol h not a v I'm gonna abstain I know it's not I don't know what to say so maybe I'll just abstain but I hate that idea so no I'll vote no okay Rob yes okay and I will vote Yes and so I am uh I think we have approved this by a vote of four to three my math is correct I believe it was five to three 5 to three one two okay okay um well uh you know it's good that we have Rich uh conversation and we're not afraid to uh disagree um because then we can actually take on hard things and and deal with them honestly uh so I appreciate everyone's cander and um and the quality of the process um so moving on to uh the next item on our agenda uh we have got the um uh are we shall we skip to town updates Greg I'm sure sounds great um and we're at 825 here so um Town updates um the uh housing production plan um uh continues a pace um I think uh first you know we looked at the needs assessment a little bit last month um and uh Nate myself and and Nate and a couple other colleagues in the planning department have been kind of offering fairly comprehensive feedback um on that document um and I'll just highlight um uh you know after further absorption you know kind of where we all landed you know as we we are directing Barrett to um develop um a bit more articulation and conclusions from some of the data they present um you know like you know specifically you know for example like looking at um you know cost burden data we've talked about today um what what does that cost bur data imply as far as what we should do you know um you know how many units might we need uh in an ideal world for um some subset of people who are of low income in our town questions like that encouraging them to sort of boost those conclusions uh or or include them whether they're entirely missing another example is you know there's this section on barriers and the needs assessment that includes um things like zoning or natural barriers or whatever um so uh kind of along the lines of what we heard from Rob Williams earlier um we have zoning issue X or y um and we're asking Barrett to kind of put in the conclusion and so we should do Z to resolve X and Y um you know things like that um so that's kind of the tenor of the feedback we're getting to them along with some language and you know just general uh communication gr more granular things but um if folks uh want to offer additional feedback just in the needs assessment portion of that um uh this week would be ideal I don't know if anybody um has specific questions right now regarding the needs assessment or anything anybody else wants to raise regarding that document it's okay if not it's it's a little bit weedy and we're hoping to make it a little less weed go ahead it's just very minor but um uh some of the graphics especially the gis pieces you know I know it it's a map of Amherst but there is no like thing to reference where these pieces are um so to to help a little bit you know um I think um uh the young man today did it well where he actually showed where this was in you know in context to the rest of Amherst otherwise it sort of becomes meaningless looking at it yeah that was a really spectacular graphic that uh Rob Williams had actually with uh the central amorist I love the trees um yeah and that's that's we've also asked us more Graphics more pictures uh you know just a bit a bit prettier um and I and I think there hearing that um so that's kind of the needs assessment um and then a piece which is technically also part of the needs assessment uh is uh the survey um and uh I owe um some number of people thanks for uh spreading that around uh we finished our survey with 326 or seven complete responses uh and then about 420 something total responses um which I'm super pleased with um uh you know as far as volume um you know we you know I push that a lot to all of you and and we got a lot of help uh from the town manager's office thank you Paul uh uh Sam um geffin Giffin our um Communications uh um forgetting her title right now but she runs Communications for the town and she did a lot of great work in pushing this uh both to the press and on social media um and we did some you know some direct Outreach as well um we had Partners like like Family Outreach um doing that work um you know with you know with colleagues I was at the survival center on Friday so you know we really kind of got it out there um we're gonna hopefully tease from that um uh for some press Outreach uh for our January 7th uh community meeting which is coming up um that's going to be more focused on goals uh kind of emerging from what they've learned from the needs assessment and that will be more of a drop in format between 4 and 6:30 um so it's not required to be there the whole time there'll be interactives and sort of Graphics around to respond to and that sort of thing we will then have a trust meeting two days later which will uh I think we should probably also drill in on goals I would say it would be beneficial if at all possible for at least some members of the trust to join us on the 7th to sort of get a taste of what's there and then I'm guessing we can a more sophisticated conversation on the ninth um just because we're a narrower group and a bit more steeped in some of this stuff um uh and uh yeah and then I'll just uh tease one going back to um our previous presentation uh this was kind of outside of most of what we asked in this survey but of those 327 responses 30 people said they were um interested in in potentially uh exploring the possibility of an Adu in their home uh and uh the biggest obstacle they noted was Financial um so um you know I thought that's some interesting data um so yeah Alex a question yeah sorry taking one step back it took me a moment to pull up my notes on the um if if we have feedback on the draft housing needs assessment would you prefer that over email or like I mean I I would say if it's if it's nitty-gritty details over email but if it's more of a bigger picture question I think now is a great time okay um I'll send some over email but one larger one now um they talk in only one place that I saw in the document they talk about the purchase of single family homes by investors to be converted to student rentals they talk about it as an interview response but then never revisit if they actually find data to support that that's happening or not um that's I know that that's a big lift that it can be hard to W through um sale records and and property personal data but if we could at least kind of get some idea on if there's evidence of that happening in recent years or not I think that'd be helpful because it comes up in town discussions a lot but I've also never seen anybody be able to produce evidence that it is or is not happening well one one one um fairly indicative evidence of it's happening is when um llc's are buying single family homes and every week in The Gazette there's a report of sales and that's available to them and they can obviously go to the the source of that data um but that's a a pretty good indicator of of of uh of of the companies and um I can tell you that you know I get emails all the time uh from companies wanting to buy my house um yeah and they have accessor data from the town Barrett does so I'm guessing I'm guessing they have something how hard the drilling is I could not tell you but I can certainly ask for that I think it's I agree I think that'd be a very valuable data point to to boost um GRE can you can you remind us the the details of that January 7th event sure so that'll be the uh Tuesday January 7th um between 4 and uh 6:30 um drop in uh as you will we'll have some pizza and some graphics uh and you know kind of summarizing some of these data conclusions it'll be in the Woodbury room in the Jones Library which is the one downstairs and and that's open to the public that's a you know a public meeting so my among my task list tomorrow is to um start um hashing out the uh sharing out the flyer that I got today so okay I I will not be able to get there I can unfortunately uh Erica I just want to um tell you Greg um the Dei department does a monthly newsletter that would be great to put it in that monthly newsletter um to get as many diverse members of our community to come and talk yeah thank you I didn't actually know they did that um so yeah and then you know the other thing um you know there's some uh limitations around Census Data um both just based on what the census uh collects officially and then also the fact that our most recent census was particularly wonky and ammer and that it was from April 2020 so um you know so we're uh we're overcoming some you know where we can overcoming and where we're not we're dealing uh with some challenges there um but one you know one thing you know I've also directed them to do is to sort of hone in a little bit more on on need um both in town and in uh in the region um so they'll be um trying to gather some weight list data um to sort of articulate that need a little more clearly and also boost there's one table in there around uh tanif and food stamp eligibility which is a pretty good proxy for low-income families in town um but it's kind of uh graphically doesn't quite pop quite as much as it needs to so things like that we're we're we're asking for you know a little more um uh you know usage of graphic design to highlight some of those things so that's kind of what I got for um the HPP right now um but but so like I said in the seventh we'll start embarking on um developing goals um and then on the uh and then in early February we'll do a session um drilling it a bit more into strategies and there will also be opportunities to weigh on both of those um in these meetings it's my hope that this group can take a pretty good swing at at goals and strategies uh you know as a part of that I think that's a key role the trust can play so look forward to that January um and at our regular meeting it doesn't necessarily have to be in the public meeting um and then popping over to um uh other Town updates so the uh wayfinder on projecting East Street Road East Street and belter toown Road um remains before the zba um and it's just I guess kind of slowing down they're through the line share of things as I understand it um I did ask today if if it is expected that they'll have a comprehensive permit um in time to apply in this round uhh to with the state and I was told yes um but I think that is a thing uh for zba Watchers to pay attention to is is making sure that the zba approves a comprehensive permit beating the deadline for uh for wayfinders to then go to the state for funding um so we are getting a little closer to that um I'm not I'm not ringing an alarm Bell yet but I'm gonna pay attention to that next week kind of learned about that crunch today so um um if there are ma major concerns there I'll consult Gast Stone and and we'll go from there um so that's the wayfinders after but but the zba is I understand through all the big questions about what the building looks like and you know uh you know the lot coverage and all those nitty-gritty details it's more about management plans and and this sort of thing now into the um the programmatic weeds the uh overlay the University Drive housing overlay continues a pace um uh and again I I learned today that we think it it looks like it will get approved in some fashion it's just a question of of how a how much continued dialogue there is and B how much um uh you know just additional little complications get added to it um I think that's kind of still unclear um the you know interesting Dynamic there uh is that the you know the overlay we hope will do one thing but the market will do other things too um and we learned recently that probably the the building that precedes the overlay that just got went through the zba on the corner of University in Amity um I sent you all an inquiry around them adding a story and now they're taking that away because of the price of steel I'm told or something along those lines so you know things fluctuate um uh you know and these things are complicated so that's just a interesting wrinkle uh but that's not passed yet um and then finally going back to adus actually the planning board uh did take a look at the Adu uh or bylaw in order to match it with the state one and did propose to add a um a fairly exotic wrinkle of identifying a a new use of a student home um which uh they defined um echoing something in Pennsylvania I think basically a day or two later the state produced regulations uh uh are based on the the previously passed uh legislation which looked to prohibit what the planning board passed so that probably won't go very far um but uh um but it was interesting that you know they they did do that but the the overlay is not passed yet but um um so yeah so I think other than that my understanding is the um the Adu byaw didn't have much exotic that that the planning board um has I don't know if they've officially voted on the whole thing yet or just that piece of it um but um but perhaps there's you know a window based on what rap shared to uh in in the future you know come at some more comprehensive stuff based on lot coverage Etc um as far as Town updates I believe that is what I've got um y so I think we're into subcommitte last Eric you had a question yes regarding a town update maybe um Paul you can respond or or uh Greg you can find out the answer to this so my understanding through the M bulletin is is that it looks like our town is going to be building um a firehouse on Hickory Ridge which is wonderful because I know it's been in the works and there's a need for South amers to have it but does that preclude any other Housing Development since we for a very long period of time had discussed um while John was still here um senior housing the possibility of creating senior housing on that property um no there would be room for that I mean there have been a lot of different proposals for use of the land Beyond you know affordable housing senior housing Youth Empowerment Center Senior Center so there's a lot of um but the highest priority for the town at least from the Town Council as they've articulated as a new fire station you know we're looking at the path of leas resistance for creating a fire station this mon meets our needs we already own the parcel which is a major uh barrier typically so um that's up for the council to make a decision whether they would us like us to start working on plans for that site and so they're still in the consideration of that Pro process but it wouldn't take the entire site but you will see the clubhouse coming down in the next few weeks so the contract for that has been LED and then you'll you'll get to see the really the the extent of the parcel that is buildable there more more easily I think thanks Paul and I'll note as well to one thing um uh we are going to try again uh with um doing something similar to what we did with the VFW with a a brief engagement with either an architect or development team um on the uh the other South ammer School site um uh to sort of do a a short-term um uh sort of feasibility effort um there so that's um you know we did release a um seeking written quotes uh request and didn't get responses to it unfortunately so we're going to try again uh in January um and and try and get that [Music] going okay well I I think we're um uh up to get some many micro updates from uh any committees that have met since we last uh met as a full group our uh Development Group as I mentioned earlier will be meeting Monday so we don't have um anything um anything new uh as of yet but other subcommittees would you like to share anything out um so the education committee met um and I don't recall if last meeting we talked about actually signing on as a co-sponsor to the January 23rd event that we have been talking about with the League of Women Voters did we make a did we approve that I I think we we might have talked about it but I don't think we voted so it would be good to do that now if uh um um so there is in the packet there was a flyer um I think there are some word changes but based basically it's going to be a constructing affordable housing in ammer um from 7 to 9 on January 23rd it will be a hybrid event um taking place in the town room or on Zoom um we will have Laura Baker Tom Keelan Keith Ferry and John Hornick as panelists and then Mindy D and gastan will co-facilitate a discussion um and I will also give a little blurb about the trust and the work that we're doing um so that is the main thing that I think we've focused on other than the wonderful little elevator pitch that Alex has put together for the trust so can I make a motion as the non-share of the full committee but the chair of the subcommittee to sure okay I don't know Robert's Rules very well so I just am gonna all right so I move to um add the Housing Trust as a co-sponsor of the January 23rd event I second it okay any discussion um I feel like we could do a show of hands but I'll just go around um uh Carol Grover Alex okay okay we're we're all we're all happy with this as well so um wonderful uh thank you for kind of running with this so effectively um a minor point if you can make the D and L in in delis Reus lowercase I uh that would be nice um Erica please um after the presentation by Rob I I really think that he might act he and r might actually be great to be part of this um or at least be in the audience to talk about adus I think that's a good at least to include them in the invite list um would be you know maybe a targeted invite saying thank you for coming to our meeting in December we'd love if you could at least have some representation here there might be questions there might be an opportunity for you to make a little pitch or something so I think that's a great idea I should probably write these things down qu questions or comments for the education subcommittee Alex did you w to um go over your little pitch um I can speak to it for a second yeah in interest of time um I just invite everybody to review it if they haven't it was included in the packet um subcommittee has been working on producing some literature and like the elevator pitch is part of it but thinking towards a brochure or a flyer or something that we can give to really consistently communicate who we are and what we're doing so algra and I with Greg in our subcommittee meeting talked about what's included as a draft um if people have specific feedback I look forward to welcoming that did you just say bya email yeah yeah yeah I mean we can we can have a discussion as well now I'm just trying to be aware of time and letting um everything on our agenda be discussed got it are are we allowed to email that kind of feedback in terms of the open meeting loss I'm always a little confused about that I think so one onone or not a quarum right I see so I can email Alex directly but I can't just reply to the thread yeah okay and I think yeah and and probably not an exchange Pro probably just email your thoughts and then you know we can incorporate them and I'll note too like I just thought it would be cool to include a draft just to demonstrate kind of the work that's happening in that group but I don't you know I don't think we've yet proposed that as a formal thing so my my only comment is that um kind of headlines of our strategy are are pretty piffy right to um build so many homes raise so much money and engage the community I mean it's all kind of in there but um that that one two three might be kind of a follow on to the pitch um um that that's my only uh thought uh Erica is is that a new hand yes sorry um so one of the things that you know John always taught me when we were doing uh presentations or having conversations is to end with so what can you do um and so um you know certainly our subcommittee has some ideas of what people can do like you can donate land you can donate your house um so we can send some of that to you Alex um but in thinking I'm sure you know uh part of the presentation that's going to happen on the 23rd that there's going to be a piece where um what people can Ag and that can support you know affordable housing um I think that was in the housing production plan that people want to have affordable housing but they seem to have not a in my backyard type of thing so uh anytime we talk to people I think there's there's got to be an opportunity of not only what are we doing but you can also do something R so rather than try to schedule an email that might get dropped I'll just say my a feedback that of something that stuck out to me is a request to not put the word projects after affordable housing because the negative stigma associated with it so promote homes that are affordable to Amorous residents for example is as how I might that good catch okay well uh this uh sub sub committee division is really working out um getting a lot of fruits of of this division of labor um uh uh fund fundraising team did did you uh have yeah okay take it away yeah we met um um unlike Education team we have not raised any money yet um so I I think we've we've decied of that um the first thing we're going to try to do is is is um find a way to get this short-term rental income money directed toward fun that's that's our seems to be the lowest hanging fruit um we are also we've also started developing a strategy around um approaching the CPA committee for a a dedicated um bud every year and and we've we've also been brainstorming about um the creative or innovative ways of of raising money that was part of our our list of but again so we're we're we're we're just L the groundwork here we don't have any any results to show you um okay well U I'm I'm excited to uh kind of run down our our our checklist on on on Monday um in the development group um when when were we likely to hear from the CPA does anyone know what their usual turnaround is they they just started meeting I think they have their first meeting tonight or um okay so it's usually during January February all right okay um I think we're we're at the end of the agenda um does anyone have anything that wasn't anticipated to share yeah Erica it wasn't anticipated but it was on the agenda which was the western Mass Network okay yeah thanks Eric uh yeah and I i' propos to put that on there um through gastone and after kind of looking actually the other requests and kind of looking into the background of that I it's my thought at this point that it's probably outside the bounds making a gift like that is probably outside the bounds of what the trust is able to do um so I'm Contra my original uh proposal to include that I'm suggesting we don't fund it um and kind of the background is that indeed we we did a little just confirming our uh powers and authorities and conferring with Shelly about the request that we did discuss at length and the product of that discussion was realizing okay we it's it's got to be on the unrestricted side of things here and um but that discussion and review made it seemed like there wasn't a very clear anchoring in our set of authorities for um basically being kind of contributing members is sponsors yeah yeah but thank you we we should have reviewed that I'm glad we did um okay any any other anything else um well do we have a motion to adjourn I motion we adjourn okay second second second okay all in favor third fourth fifth yeah all right okay all right very good uh uh again we're keeping the schedule although we shouldn't feel like we have to always go right to nine o'clock um but uh at least we're keeping our agendas in in in check um so thank you uh have a nice night have a nice thanks G see you carollyn Grover on Monday thank thanks so much see you in the new year happy New Year all right