And then it is. See draft. Amherst to dash section C dash D. Okay. Draft blah, blah, blah. If you're still having trouble with SharePoint, can you, can you touch base with me tomorrow or over the weekend so like we can figure out what's going on. Yeah, for some reason or other things aren't there. There were more things this time today than there were yesterday. So I'm literally having to go through the town website, which. Yeah. Yeah, you shouldn't have. Let's touch base offline. I'll have a little bit of time during the day tomorrow. So let's get that. Okay. Thank you, Athena. We're welcome. Mandy. We're recording. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. And okay. I've seen a presence of a quorum. I'm going to call the April 28th, 2022 community, meeting of the community resources committee of the town council to order at 432 p.m. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted by a remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or telephone. I'm going to take a roll call before we get started with the meeting. No in-person attendance of members of the public is permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. At this time, I'm going to take attendance a roll call so that we can ensure that all committee members can hear and be heard. And then I'm going to roll call a couple of other people and explain a couple other things before we really get started with the meeting. Members of CRC, Jennifer Tom. Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking at that document. I'm sorry. Yeah, because we're all trying to read it. Pam Rooney. And is Shalini here yet? I do not hear Shalini. We'll catch her when she arrives. Mandy Jo Hanneke is present. I'm also going to make sure that Michelle Miller, another counselor that we've invited her. And I'm going to make sure that she can hear us. As a committee for conversation during the rental, residential rental registration, bylaw conversations can hear us. So Michelle. Thank you. Shalini has just indicated she is running late. So she will be joining us. When she does, and we will make sure she can hear us at that time. The first order of business. So a couple of things about the agenda, I'm going to go back to the agenda. I'm going to show you some. Some explanations. There are no public hearings. We have removed from the agenda for today, the proposed preservation of historic structures, general bylaw. The historical commission has not finished reviewing and making determinations on that bylaw yet. For us to then take it up again. So it has been removed. It will show back up on our agenda as soon as the historical commission has finished reviewing and making determinations on that bylaw. So I'm going to talk about last meeting. The bulk of our meeting today will be on the residential rental bylaw types of licenses, license exemptions, student home discussions. All of that is the plan for today. Because we'll have more time than normal. We will probably. Maybe go a little, a field of that, but we're going to try and keep it to that. And then we'll move on to the agenda. And then we'll move on to the agenda. And then we'll move on to one particular section. Because they really do interact. I will be taking. Very good notes. For that. But before we go on to that and the rest of the stuff, one of the things we're using with that. And then we'll move on. No later than 6pm to the rest of the agenda. During the residential rental bylaw discussion, we're going to be doing two things. We're going to in the middle of it, move on to the agenda. And then we'll move on to the agenda. And then we'll move on to the agenda. Also, I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a, any department member discussion to move to public comment on that issue. And so we're going to take specific public comment on that during that discussion, but we're also going to try to, we're going to incorporate the community click. Platform into this discussion.  So let me see. Try this and that's not the portion I want to share. Let's see. Pardon this is I have to share a portion of my screen only. Okay. So right now everyone should be able to see the QR code. And the web address to join community click. So that is the site that you will go to if you want to. Try out this system during the meeting. I'm going to. Pull up something else. I have my own script. And this is the problem with a portion of a shared screen. Where did that go. So let me read this and then I'll move through the slideshow while that link stays on the screen. Community click virtual is a real time companion web application that enhances online town. Meeting attendees engagement by allowing them to express themselves in real time silently and anonymously without needing to speak up in a zoom meeting. It is designed and developed by the HCI lab at UMass Amherst. Community click virtual allows attendees to provide feedback during the meeting by using a collection of customizable reaction options such as agree disagree important confused and more attendees can also use a live chat option to provide detailed feedback or share opinions on the meeting agendas topics and discussions. The system also provides meeting organizers with analytics dashboard to control meeting settings and display real time statistics on the ongoing attendee engagement. These can also send public or private messages to respond to attendees questions. Community click virtual was deployed first as a first town council deployment use on December 2 2021 in the town services and outreach committee public hearing. At that time there were 15 attendees in the meeting all of whom used community click virtual and 11 of them actively participated using community click virtual features the engagement patterns and responses suggest that attendees were enthusiastic to participate and share their opinions because of that we're attempting to do the same thing we're going to be doing the same thing through that is not what I wanted throughout. The process CRC has embarked on for getting to a revised residential rental bylaw. So the address has been up for a while. Let's the next one is how you get in once you're at that address you click I am an attendee. You can use a new web browser and you can use your computer or phone and once the page loads you see this page and you select I am an attendee to participate. Once you've selected that you'll select the meeting CRC residential rental license types. Once that gets selected.  Because this is a discussion on housing it would be really nice if you answered the housing question to but they're the only mandatory question is the location. We find that your participation is completely anonymous and we do not collect or track any information that can be used to identify you in any way. Once you've answered those questions. The next screen you'll see is this screen that has this and this is where you will participate as we go through this discussion during the meeting you can use the buttons to share your opinions. You can click agree disagree. Tell us if you think something is important tell us if you think you're confused or unsure and let us know if you have other thoughts. If you click the small triangle that will bring up this small triangle here that will bring up a chat window which will look like this. The chat option to share your thoughts and opinions during the meeting by sending messages, your message is private and only the organizers will be able to see your message during the meeting. You can use the triangle button again to close the chat window. So that is the extent of the slides and the mini tutorial on how to use community click and we hope the attendees will use it as I see more come in. I will attempt to again put up that that slide and also that we can see that so that others can join that too. Shalini you have your hand raised and welcome Shalini. Thank you I just want to say I'm here and also just a very small minor clarification the new version I believe has instead of the triangle it actually says chat. So I hope people just don't go looking for the triangle because it just says clicker and then if you want to go and add a comment or see you can click the chat button. Thank you for that clarification Shalini I tried to update the slides. I have a question, if someone is in the audience looking at that screen that they just have to type that because that was not a live link so I tried to copy it to paste it but I guess someone would have to actually read it right and type it in. Yes, you would have to type that in it is also a link provided in the bulletin board notice for our meeting so if you got to the bulletin board notice for the CRC meeting. There's the zoom link there but within the description is also that link to be able to click that directly. Or when I have that up and I'll try to put that up a couple times during the meeting as I see if attendees increase the QR code just scanning that with your phone will also then allow you to go right to that website without having to type the website in. And are there any questions about that before we actually begin our discussion on rental registration by law. Oh and and for for information. One of the UMass researchers Mahmood Jasmine is in our panelists section he is he's one of he's one of the researchers the head researcher that is doing this and so he's there in case we've got any problems with it. He would be a panelist so that the communication with that if need be would be easier than if he was in the attendees so for committee members that is that that is the name you probably don't recognize and wondering who he is. So we thank Mahmood for being here to monitor and and hopefully gauge the participation of the attendees that we have. We're going to move into the residential rental bylaw discussion. Today, I received an email from committee member counselor Pam Rooney with some thoughts she had that she wished to be distributed to the committee. I've been busy all day so I did not see that and could not deal with it until right before this meeting. And because it has some opinions and all in it because it's a that I needed to ensure that Athena could put it on the website before I put it in SharePoint it is now on the website and it is also in SharePoint. It is extremely late and therefore cannot necessarily be read immediately during this discussion or before it, but I am attempting to provide as much information as possible to everyone this is not the only time we're going to be discussing all of this. So the point of today's discussion, my thoughts are to talk about what we want to see in bylaws relating to licenses types license exemptions who it should apply to all of that. So that two weeks from now, we can come back and look at actual language and how that would look in language so I don't want us to focus really specifically on language today. So to focus on a rental registration system will start with, you know, how many licenses or permits should we have different types and then we'll move on to who should be who should, who should it be applicable to. And that includes as you see in the sections C and D of the working draft sections two and four of the current bylaw. Do we exempt things like dorms, do we exempt section eight housing. Do we exempt them from abstaining a license or permit and an inspection or just an inspection so that's sort of the exemption side. What doesn't need a license what might need a license but not an inspection. And then the license side is do we, how many types do we have. So with that, I'm going to basically open up the floor. So for discussion. It's now 445 around 515 I'd like us to move to public comment. Initially, and then we'll see if there's any public comment on all of this and then we'll move back into discussion for us and all and, as I said, that's what I'm looking for to get an idea of what we should be putting in a draft bylaw and the draft language will come back with. No words. But I'll start with you. So first of all, I do apologize for putting my thoughts on paper and giving to everybody late, but I just started to, you know, throw stuff down and I think, you know, we're all starting with the same basic draft that was that was put together by the sponsors. And it's a step in trying to, you know, just start pecking away at some of those sections. What went through my head though as I was starting to do that is I wondered if it would be worth a very short discussion about what this bylaw ought to contain and so I just asked myself. The following questions. Who needs this license. Who doesn't know what what what does the bylaw really want to cover. So who needs this license. Who doesn't. How do I get one. How much does it cost inspection requirements. What if I don't pass inspection what constitutes a violation and anything else. So in terms of categories of stuff. And I think this pretty much reflects what is in that bylaw but the bylaw is so detailed already that I wanted to just see if we could step back and just make sure that we're answering all of the right questions. I'm open to ideas. Thank you Pam before I go to Jennifer I'd like to ask Rob I see that John Thompson is in the attendees John Rob would you like John brought in. Thank you, Athena can you bring john in. And I want to let the staff know here that it's not just a committee conversation it's a conversation with staff to so Rob, Chris, john. I just feel free to raise your hands use the raise hand button and and chime in. You don't have to wait till all committee members have spoken or anything. Consider everyone part of the conversation. Jennifer, and welcome john. Hi, just quick question are we on license is the same as a permit. Okay, well, that's a question actually for Rob do those terms have different connotations and is there is there a reason to pick one over another, Rob or john. Well at this point we've chosen permit. So that's what we have done for the last several years so just for consistency and not to cause more confusion I think that would be the only reason I'd suggest to stick with permit. Okay. Thanks. That's my only comment right now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I did the questions that Pam was asking as we're thinking about the bylaw. I just want to again remind us that keeping that question what are the problems we're solving for, and what kind of behaviors do we want to promote. I think we need to align with the goals that we have and what kind of behaviors we want. So that I would add that question to it. If I may just add another point is just that when we're thinking about the comparables I think it makes sense to get look at other bylaws within Massachusetts because I believe the bylaw laws and state laws are different across different so we can look but just be try to get more examples of towns with the cities within Massachusetts. Thank you. Jennifer. Yeah, that comment actually was brought up at a TSO meeting, I think by another counselor about not, you know, looking at Massachusetts and I would push back a little on that because I think yeah we should look at Massachusetts in other jurisdictions because when we've looked at other jurisdictions they have been jurisdictions that are usually home to a large state university. And there are actually a lot of books about college towns, it's almost like it's own little subset of urban planning or urban studies. So I think we, you know, in many respects have more in common with other college towns even if they're in other states than just another jurisdiction in Massachusetts. And I think yeah we, you know, would have to be mindful if it's permitted in Massachusetts but I think we'd really be limiting ourselves. If we don't look at other jurisdictions just like ECAT looks across the country for examples. One of the jurisdictions we have looked at is Salem which has Salem State and they actually have a good, I think they have a good bylaw. And one thing I'd like to start with in my mind is in looking at a bunch of the options. We saw a bunch of some some communities had a type one a type two a type three that were based on things like percent of violations in an inspection or percent of sort of, you know, criminal complaints and violations found during the process of the prior year. And depending on how many those were you got a license that might be three years a license that might be two years or a license that might be one year. But then there's in the working draft we had and this was based on in some sense those differences but also conversations that I had with members of the Board of License Commissioners about Airbnb type rentals and I'm not going to use the word short term to all different thoughts of short term so I'll just call them Airbnb rentals, which in my mind are actually different than non Airbnb rentals the sort of full residential rental and do we want to have different licenses for those two types of rentals. One thing the board of License Commissioners Gaston DeLis Reyes pointed out to me is the Airbnb needs some sort of state business license I don't know whether it's a license or some tax ID or something because they have to pay taxes to the state and technically they have to pay taxes to us to because we've instituted that and a license would allow us to if they obtain one to sort of check on that. I'd like to hear from the staff about, does it make sense to have a separate permit or license for the Airbnb rentals over the other rentals, because we could potentially require different things for them, and should that be in one bylaw. Michelle. Yeah, I was going to add that as we, from John in particular to Amherst, that we should really be considering this very, because I think obviously looking at other bylaws, whether it's within our state or outside of our state is very important, but I think we really need to understand as Charlene said the problem that we're trying to solve and lead a problem within our community. I'm very grateful that John is here and I would like the particular. Would you like to respond to that. I can only stay for a few minutes I'm sitting in front of First Church on Main Street waiting for a copper artisan to come talk about fixing the gutters so I thought I'd tune in for a minute while while I wait for him. So, particular problems with rentals. I think it's a small set of rentals that we have a problem with here and it's kind of one off properties that are owned from, you know, by people that are from away that's, that's, that's been it historically right from the beginning, and there seems to be quite a few properties in town that have recently changed and gone that way. So, often there are places that already had a rental permit and the new owners don't know that that's even a, you know, a requirement. So I end up spending some time chasing. Thank you john. Rob, do you have any comments right now. You're muted Rob. Yeah, so I think that's a great question that Michelle asked and I think we'll probably come back to that in almost every discussion, and you know, as it relates to the two sections that we're talking about today. I think we did a fairly good job of capturing all the, the unit types that we wanted to originally with the bylaw and I don't, I don't see anything really proposed here that's looking to do more, except for one situation so I just wanted to talk about that if it seems like a good time to get into this about the draft language but in C one. We, and you kind of you got to read these, you know you got to read CD and definitions altogether to have it make sense, but in C one. It discusses and captures a rooming unit. So I think that's one of what we have now in our bylaw except that by definition a rooming unit would be a boarding and lodging situation that's accessory to a dwelling so an owner occupied property that might be letting one or two rooms would be captured by this as a rooming unit. And it isn't in our current bylaw and it was addressed in a way in our current bylaw that's kind of was confusing at first. Until everybody understood what the language was really trying to say but in our current bylaw we say that lodging and boarding houses that are operating as principal uses receive a permit and are subject to the bylaw, which in doing that we exempted without saying as an exemption we exempted the accessory uses. So I just wanted to note that it's worth looking at that and reading it along with some of the definitions for residential rental property, like a house and rooming unit because those definitions try to exclude certain types of buildings. So, you know, it makes me wonder are those further exemptions like, you know, a mobile home is at an exemption because it's excluded as a residential rental property so it's just kind of making sense of the various pieces there. Yeah, I have other comments as we go through to D but that was my initial comment with section C. Thank you, Rob. Jennifer. Um, yeah, so I just wanted, you know, um, John who I took, you know, well, before I was a counselor and I could just call staff directly I called John all the time. He was incredibly responsive. There's an overview of the whole town, but I also feel like, you know, I have a lot of student housing. So I know from my experience my, you know, constituents, what some of the needs are. I wish I could only had to ask John that I don't because they're all around me, but some of the concerns in terms of what we're, and again john's right it's certainly it's more the absentee landlords that aren't in town, and those that are right here. So, so absolutely right about that. But you know some of the what we'd be looking for the owners to be responsible for I mean number one concern is overcrowding.  I would want landlords to be mindful of, you know, properties that on weekend mornings you know are kind of carpeted with beer cans. And, yeah, I mean I guess, and just, you know, taking some responsibility. You know, for which I for for noise repeated noise and nuisance I mean I know on sunset, there are some houses like very close to the Gillins that are problems every weekend. Again, I think there's a lot of landlords that would tolerate that but some and the concern is increasingly as john said, as more houses are bought by out of town investors. There's, you know, there's just a big gap between who's living in the house and actually who's paying attention to what's going on there so that's, you know, but but how that but so that's a part of what we're a large part of what we're trying to address in the bylaw. In addition to just the fact that I think every town everywhere you know you have to having a rental property, you have to ensure health and safety for the tenants so you do have to get a permit or a license. So that the jurisdiction, you know can track what's going on and know that the houses are up to health and safety codes, you know and that the town, the jurisdiction have some inventory of what house you know where what number of units or rentals where they are, how many people are living in them, because it really it's, it's a business and it's also real health and safety issue. Thank you Jennifer Michelle your hand is still up I've been bypassing you because I thought it was residual is it residual. I'm so sorry about that. It was but I actually do have a thought that I'll quickly add. Is there, it's actually a question. Is there a way to, or has anyone this research that being a transfer of property ownership, or something that at the transfer of a property with some sort of registration. Rob, or john shaken his head no it looks like just do either of you Rob or john know if we could put something like that in. I think we attempted in this draft I know it's a different section of saying you know something about that at property transfers. The new. The purchasers must be notified of this bylaw based you know sort of that one was based on our right to farm notice I guess it was, is that something that would be logical to do was that something john that would help you know or Rob that would help you tracking these down is that notice that says hey we have this and if you're planning on renting it, you need to do this Rob. It could be. So we actually do that now to a certain degree so we we get a report from the assessor's office on transfers monthly. We don't want to review that. But we're trying to pick out the obvious, you know, exchanges that need our attention so if we see an LLC or a name of an investor and property owner that we're familiar with, we reach out to them. I think we do that to some degree and could take it to another level and make it just a, you know, a requirement. What we've, what we have found because we have tested the kind of the blanket messaging we do mass emailings. We have sent letters. We get a lot of angry calls back from the people that are not participate not part of the program. You know so we, we decided instead of dealing with it that way and sending it to everybody. We try to pick out the ones we think that is subject to.  So we should consider that but you know just so you know we've done that and it has been useful in the way we've monitored it for the, you know, I don't know, doesn't or less, but fewer exchanges that happen on a month to month basis. Thank you, Rob. And, and john look like his inspector or whatever came so hopefully we'll be able to have john at these conversations regularly. And then Shalini. I just had a question which relates to something that Rob said before. And that is, how much have the people who have been writing this, then cross referencing it with zoning bylaw. And so for instance, there are different accessory uses in section article five of the zoning bylaw that allow homeowners to rent rooms in their homes, and the house needs to be owner occupied. And there are a couple of levels of that one doesn't require any kind of special permit from anyone. That's up to three people that you can rent to and the other one is I think four to six people where you do need to get a special permit but I just wanted to suggest in case you haven't done this yet to take a look at the beginning of Article five accessory uses to see how what you're proposing here meshes with what is in the zoning bylaw. Fantastic suggestion in the working draft which as I've, we've made clear or attempted to on many occasions is a very first rough draft. When I was drafting the definitions I attempted to cross reference the zoning bylaw as much as I could and use those definitions or reference those permitted uses, especially with dorms and all. So I think that's something we need to be doing more often so that we're not at cross purposes. So john has left but maybe Rob can speak on his behalf because what john mentioned was that there are small set of rentals that create problems and could we get a sense of what are those problems. Rob. Yeah, um, you know I think you I think it's safe to say that, you know, more than half of the complaints that john responds to has to do with parking and trash furniture outside visible very clearly visible matters that are generally easily dealt with. So those are usually taken care of really quickly as soon as they're, you know, they're made aware of that. And then the other, you know, not as many but you know, less than half of the complaints are some type of code issue fire health safety code. Those come to us a number of different ways. Often then before parents of students living in the dwelling units contact us, and we'll ask us to arrange an inspection and their their child will, you know, meet us there and open open the unit and have us walk through. So that's really, you know, the bulk of the work. You know, again, I'll probably repeat this over and over again, complain only. So, you know, as although I'll agree with john, you know, it's a small number of properties that we have that we will put into the category of having regular repeat issues with that we know too well, and know and know we're going to be dealing with pretty much year to year. And that's only because we haven't seen all the properties and I think, you know, to Jennifer's comments, I, you know, I agree with the priorities, maybe in a different order. But, you know, we talked about the health and safety of the unit and ensuring that we can't ensure health and safety of the unit until we've seen it at least once, because we are completely relying on information that's put into our application system and you know, if john was here, I'd have him, you know, comment on this because it seems like weekly for me, working with john that he's dealing with an issue that he's finding that the information isn't accurate. Number of bedrooms number of occupants just specifics about the unit itself. And everybody's opinion on, you know, what is in compliance with it without a code and, you know, as the person looking at it really qualified to make that decision. You know, the self certification was an idea. It got us to this point, but it has its, you know, it has its laws. So I know we'll talk about that more as we go into the inspection sections but hopefully that helps. Anything else, Shalini. Yeah, I was just going to add that I think, you know, hearing from residents from the town staff and then also from property owners like what are the challenges they encounter, and and from students. You know, hearing from all the different people who are involved in this ecosystem would be helpful. Thank you, Pam. Yeah, I would, I would say we certainly want to hear from all aspects of this issue. We had so long. So I was going to say, so we could spend a lot of time talking about the background and the details and things like that but I wondered if today's today's action is to kind of think about. And I was told in the in the conversation of so who gets a license and who doesn't. And I think we've started to talk a little bit about who doesn't really need a license and perhaps if we could, if we could tap Rob's brain as as we're kind of going through that. Maybe he could help remind us currently who does not get I he started to and I didn't track it fast enough. Who doesn't need a license today per zoning, or per. Today's code. And then let's talk about, you know, one by one just categories and do we think that we should include them or not. Does that work people. Yeah, that was actually where I was going to move after I did public comment because I think that's that that's a good segue into that. Before we go we've got about five minutes before I try for public comment. So some thoughts on, should the license or the permits be separated into different types should say Airbnb's have a separate permit from non Airbnb rentals. That and thoughts on that and should I know the working draft I think has a separate permit. Did it include at one point the working draft had a separate permit for student rentals and then, and other rentals. I don't know whether the working draft still has that or not because there's so many drafts out there, but should those be separate to or not or or should not so thoughts on that Pam your hands are still up. It's up again. I mean, so that's, that's exactly what we're trying to get into. So now we're just separating off Airbnb from everything else. If Rob were to able, we're able to currently say what we, what we currently need a permit for that be really helpful. And then we can figure out if there's anything missing that we think ought to have some kind of. Robin then Jennifer. Okay, so we'll come back to, we'll come back to permit types then so the right the, the, the permit is required currently is required for any rented dwelling unit with just a few exceptions. And as I mentioned earlier, just the way we kind of crafted that language, the lodging and boarding house that's accessory to a dwelling unit that Chris also mentioned, does not require a permit so that's, that's any owner occupied home that might be letting out rooms. And then the other exceptions that are listed in section four of the, of the bylaw, the current bylaw are really the only exceptions you know the group homes a halfway houses the congregate living arrangements that are licensed by the Commonwealth. And that's not listed there that I don't make that I made a decision way back because I thought it should have been listed there is door and I wrote it into my bylaws I'll just read what I had written years ago. dormitories owned and operated by an educational institution and located in the educational district shown on the official town zoning map and that's just the way I wrote it for myself. Because when that question came up initially, you know, it didn't seem worth revising the bylaw so quickly. And that's just the way that I, you know, applied that moving forward so off campus off outside the district and our residential districts. So that's all Jones properties of course we know there's privately owned buildings, those all receive permits but the ones within the district out. So that's about it that's about it that's what we currently, you know, work with for applicability and exemptions that's all. By the way, we only have one boarding house that is a principal use. So when we said principal use boarding houses receive a permit there's only actually one that's a legal non conforming property. One and month, one in North Amherst. I wish John was here. I'm not sure the address. Thank you Rob Jennifer. I'm curious so Airbnb's. I would think they would, are they a business, I would think they would have a different, I would think they're a different animal that another rental. I mean it's not like operating a business. So, Rob Airbnb's technically fall under needing a permit currently right under this bylaw, under the current bylaw. The current bylaw does not. We do not require Airbnb to get permits. And I think that when you look at all you know you have a bunch of drafts in your, in your packet of other communities I think they address it mainly by consecutive days of rental. So I think it does make sense to draw, you know, create a different permit for the Airbnb which is generally less than 30 days of rental. And on the flip side of that, you know I had always thought, maybe it's worth exploring properties that have long term tenants, you know and treating those properties in some other way and I think there's other categories, you know as you start to talk about this more properties that are monitored or inspected by some federal agency like hot or housing authority inspection programs. That gets complicated because not all the units are always associated with those programs so we have to think about that but there might be, you know at least two or three categories in addition to the, you know everything rental everything else that's a dwelling unit that's rental that might be treated a little bit differently fewer inspections maybe no inspections, and possibly different fee structure. Jennifer, and then just continue on that side. So, I, yeah I mean I, I, not that we would necessarily give a different permit but I, I think it would be very useful information, and I don't see why any property owner would, would care. If to, to be able to keep track of what are the student houses and what are being rented to non student households just so the town has a sense of what's going on and you know I mean people that rent to students are very upfront about it I can't imagine anybody not, you know, wanting to disclose that information, but I also think, you know as we get as we're looking more into, you know, the housing we have, you know, rental units, as well as all others for, you know, our long term non, you know, non student households, it would just be good to see really, you know who's living here, I mean, or you know who, who do we are we providing housing for who needs housing. So I just don't see why we wouldn't want that information. Thank you Jennifer Shalini and then we're going to move to public comment on this agenda item. With Rob, my answering maybe that question like why would it would it be easy to manage like what are the challenges in having a different license for students, what are the pros and I mean the pros I think I can see since we're hearing that a lot of complaints are coming from houses with beer cans or noise and all of that so wouldn't it make sense, like Jennifer saying to have a separate license so that it'll be easier for inspection purposes maybe later on. I don't know if it has to be a separate license just a note of whether it's a student. I know yeah yeah just yeah. So what are the obstacles to doing something like that or negatives. The challenges really are how do you maintain the record of that and ensure that it's accurate. And I'm not sure how we do that you know I thought about this. You know, sometimes it's easy to see and pretty clearly understand that a property is rented to students and sometimes it's not. So we would be leading it up to the applicant to tell us, you know, and we would be establishing a license that basically gives them, you know, gives them the ability to rent it as a student rental maybe they will maybe they won't. Maybe every unit in the property isn't a student occupied by a student so it will get really challenging to try to break that down and know accurately what it is but you know it's, and I'm not sure that I think that there's a, what the value is in that so if we have these types like Airbnb and possibly something that is clearly understood regulated by hot inspection program and everything else whether it's a student or not a student rental property is is going to be much easier for us to manage it's at least accurate at least accurately year to year. But in any case it seems like it really be reliant on what the, what the application, the, the information put into the application process, and really no way of knowing if that's, if that's correct or changes from year to year. I'm going to ask Jennifer and Michelle to hold their comments and Chris to to hold your comments. We're going to go to the public, and then we'll come back because I don't want to put the public comment in the middle of this we found it in prior CRC that it's helpful to have it in the middle, and then come back and and continue the conversation so members of the public who wish to make public comment regarding this particular agenda item residential rental bylaw. And in particular it would be helpful if it sticks to license types license exemptions student home issues and things like that. So that we try and stay a little bit on topic please raise your hand right now, and I will recognize you in turn. And everyone will have three up to three minutes to respond we're going to start with the individual who was signed in as green miles Lipton, please unmute yourself and state your name and where you live and then make your comment. Thank you. My name is Michael Hill. I'm an attorney. You see green miles Lipton because that's a law firm where I am a partner. At the beginning of April, Shalini sent me the draft and asked me in effect. What thoughts did I have on how to improve that. This is a subject that has been close to my heart most of my life. My second year of law school I quit the law review to help start a student tenant organization and start a tenant legal services program. If anybody knows about legal education. You have some idea what kind of a career fork in the road that was and I've never regretted it. So I put in between two and three days right researching and writing a memorandum. It came to about seven or eight pages that I sent to Shalini. I don't know if that's been forwarded to anybody else. That in a nutshell is my input since I have only three minutes. I would respectfully request that you please read that. Okay, I have a lot of experience drafting local bylaws in my hometown of shoots. Okay, I am doing this on a pro bono basis in a nutshell. I suggest first and foremost, make it more obvious how to request an inspection today. Second, and this is Rob's point. It seems that your focus is going from self inspection to inspection. I have a narrow focus at the beginning of the memo. I emphasize keeping it simple. Begin by improving and pulling together your enforcement you're in legal framework I discussed that in the memorandum have specific achievable goals and number one is going from self inspection to inspections everywhere else. Jennifer Todd mentioned Salem. Maybe a coincidence that is the one bylaw I attached to my memorandum. I have a master's degree in urban planning. Early in my career. I was a visiting assistant professor of urban planning teaching land use law. So what Jennifer said is correct. It sometimes is very helpful to go to other states. On the other hand, I emphasize the need to be very, very careful. Massachusetts has one of the most well developed tenant legal frameworks of any state in the nation. And you need to focus on that. For example, the draft bylaw refers to rules regulations generally, I tried to pull out and put in that memo, just about everything you need specific citations. Also, there's very little premium in originality. Okay. So in the definition sections, please look at chapter 64 G section one capital G of the mass general laws. A lot of the terms are defined in that section. I would recommend to reinvent the wheel or bite off more than you can chew when it comes to legislation and what I would urge you to do is start with the points that Rob and John have made and start with the Salem bylaw and see to what extent you can adapt from that because that like the ones in other towns have track records Rob can talk or John can talk to the public officials in those towns, find out what works, what doesn't, what good experiences have they had, and what, what would they want to change in that bylaw. And all I can say is, you know, I probably put $5,000 worth of time into writing that memo, which I'm very happy to do. Okay, this has been a subject close to my heart all my life. My master's thesis in planning was on housing. So, I don't want to keep other people from speaking or go over the three minutes which I hope I haven't done. If there's anything else I can do to assist as a citizen, and as somebody who in this case happens to have some legal training and a fair amount of experience going back about 40 years and drafting local bylaws. I'm glad to do whatever I can to function as a resource for you folks. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Janet McGowan, please unmute yourself state your name and where you live and make your comment. My name is Janet McGowan I live at 706 Southeast Street. I want to speak more generally to support what Michelle Miller brought up, which is to really identify what the problems that the CRC or the town council is trying to solve. And to understand what the issues are for renters, student and non student renters, and the people living in neighborhoods with a lot of student rentals. I've gone door to door and I've been inside apartments where my son's friends were renting they were UMass students, and I was pretty taken aback at the really poor quality of the rentals I'm a landlord myself. And I think that, you know, students don't advocate for themselves they're in a very tight housing market. They're not a lot of options. They don't know what the code is. They're also paying really high rents. And I also have friends who have been looking for apartments to stay in Amherst when they've sold their house or their family lives have have changed, who haven't been able to find good quality rental apartments and Amherst, because of the poor conditions and the rents are very high so they've they've moved out of town. I think the goals like what are the problems that you're trying to solve and I think the problem is really poor some very poor quality rental apartments at high rents. And you know student behavior and it's not saying all students behave in a negative way but when you have a neighborhood that's dominated by student rentals. You know it you can see it and the people living there suffer from that. I think the goal overall goal is to keep neighborhoods strong and stable and to have good quality rentals in Amherst. I think you have to gather information from year round residents living in student neighborhoods, student dominated neighborhoods, we need to look at other college towns for examples talk to the planning director see how things work. We need to talk to students, and actually you should go look at their apartments. You know I'm sure they would have you in, and also non student renters because they have a different situation, and also to landlords, large and small. I think until you really see what is happening on the ground in people's neighborhoods. I've seen videos of hundreds of students walking down Fearing Street people, you know, passing out. Imagine, you know I live next to a rental house I have rentals in my neighborhood. We don't have that behavior, you know, but if you live in a neighborhood like that you're different you're going to have a very different experience. I've heard people talking about that I've seen neighborhoods in Amherst go from being a mix of owners and student renters and non student renters to you know student rental neighborhoods and they sort of get written off and it seems to be sort of spreading. I think this work you're doing is really important but we need to have be very grounded in what's happening in neighborhoods what are people's experiences and I think they just you have to talk to them. So thank you for your work I think this is, this is the issue for Amherst basically one of the key issues for us. Thank you. Thank you Janet. Thank you for your comments at this time we're going to move back to committee conversation there were three hands up before we moved to that it was, I think, Shalini and Jennifer and Chris Brestrup, although Michelle might have been up to. Yeah. Okay, and Michelle there were a bunch of Jennifer and then Shalini Michelle and Chris. Thanks a little I guess when I'm, you know, I'm about student, you know just keeping having some inventory or what's a student house. Some college towns do I think maybe have a student on house license. I don't know that we have to have a separate license I just think, you know everything that's on the application is the property owner, you know, putting what's on you and putting it out. So, if you know if the question was asked you know are you renting the students or who's living here I mean, it would be as accurate as anything else. And then if they renew the license, or they have to get a permit every year. They just, you know, that's how we know from year to year what was going on but I just think it's, you know, it would be good information to have just to know who's living here and who's renting it doesn't seem like it would, it would be burdensome. So that might be something to discuss as a requirement for an application instead of a license when we get to the application questions sort of things. Exactly. Yeah, so I'm happy to share the letter that I got. And so just send it to you Monday Joe. Yes, send it to me and I will put it in the packet for everyone for them. Actually, I can put it in today's packet. And then I'll probably carry it over to the next packet too. Okay, and the question was, I'm trying to figure out what, what, what is the rental registration, how can the rental registration by law deal with the challenges we're having with, let's say noise and nuisance or. Is that something that needs to be enforced by the noise and nuisance by law by the new crest department, or is that something to be dealt by. I mean, I think the inspection part could somehow be maybe involved but is it really a rental registration and inspection issue or is it a news or is a nuisance by law issue. Yeah. It is a good conversation, not for the types of licenses I'll make a note of that. Okay. Yeah, when we get into, you know, inspections and the, the requirements to obtain a license not what type of license it is. Okay, I think is where that conversation. Okay, and then the question about licenses is it legal to have different types of licenses and then I think I do want to get a sense of why are we not doing an Airbnb license or like I mean there's a whole list over here like the dorms. And I think Rob already mentioned that dorms are exempted from licenses when they're on campus but when they're not, they're not on campus are dorms and frat houses exempt. So dorms cannot be located anywhere but in the educational district under our zone and bylaw if I'm correct and frats cannot be located anywhere but in the residential fraternity zone under our bylaw right Rob. Exactly. So we do have, we do have a couple locations where privately owned dormitories can be built and we have, you know, Olympia Place and we have another one that'll be constructed next to that. Amherst College has a number of properties that are in the RG district that they register I think they register, you know somewhere around 20 properties annually. And they vary in size. They're not all dormitory size buildings but sororities and fraternities so we have 11 pre existing non conforming off campus sorority fraternity. And those do register and receive a permit every year, in addition to other inspections that we require you know we acquire there because of their particular use, but they are also part of the permitting program now. Thank you. You wanted to go to exemption so I know you had a comprehensive list in the document you provided that's in the packet that included a lot of what was in the working draft, but also some others. So, why don't you start with the first one on that. And then we can get Rob's take on whether that should be included in a license or exempt from a license and then we can just go on and have sort of a short conversation on each one of those. I'm shall any your hand is still up is that just lingering and before Pam starts I just saw Michelle's hand so I want to take Michelle, and then we'll we'll go through that list that Pam came up with and get some thoughts on it. So, Michelle, since we started talking a little bit about how they can know, I wonder if it would be worth exploring what mechanism or jurisdiction, we would even have. I know that probably seems I think that didn't do a lot of registering when they start. If we can get through that list in 25 minutes and kind of come to some sort of agreements or thoughts on some stuff. Okay, ready to rock. I did want to just say though in response to Shalini comments that there are we have we have a number of ordinances including noise and nuisance, but I think what we're trying to do is help the inspector and the inspector services to be able to link those kinds of complaints and issues with the opportunity to deny a rental permit. And until we have sort of a package put together, we don't have any tools that that that we can enforce. So, so, so onto the list of exemptions. According to what we heard from Rob, we do have already exempted. We have lodging facilities, such as hotels motels in hostels and then bed and breakfast I think we could leave and come back to later okay, because that's a bigger conversation. The next item that I think he mentioned was halfway houses and group homes. And those are residential facilities are authorized and operated under commonwealth and federal law congregate or similar housing for the elderly we are disabled have the houses for persons with substance use problems congregate living arrangements for persons with disabilities or other similar housing facilities operating under license under license by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The next one is that that I actually added is dwellings owned and operated with Commonwealth or Amherst housing authority. If these are otherwise already inspected and I think we could come back to is there some other mechanism for inspecting other than this file off. The next one was section eight vouchers, whose vouchers are administered by the Amherst housing authority and our residential rental property located in Amherst. And again if these are inspected otherwise, or part of the complex that gets regular inspection, it would definitely be. Do you want to stop pause there or are there other sort of the state ones on that list before we pause and take them as one state one that's University owned or private college own dormitories and I like Rob wording much better, but this is just me trying to get down. Something that would be exempted if they're owned and operated in the zone. So that's a list of I think I had five on their hotels motels in B and B's and those B and B's Rob are B and B's is principal uses. So that's different than the Airbnb rent out a room type thing. It sounds like Rob thinks those should continue being exempted from this bylaw. They were in the prior one any thoughts on not yet. And specifically, should we keep those exempted from a rental registration bylaw. Chris. I have a question about the section eight vouchers because don't section eight vouchers go with the tenant and not with the property. So you could live at rolling green and you could be a student. You could live at rolling green and you could have a section eight voucher and live there as a family. I'm not sure what the point is of exempting section eight vouchers from this bylaw. Thank you, Rob. So I agree with Chris, and so I think three and four should not be exemptions of the permit. You know, we can address in inspections how to, you know, deal with those properties appropriately if they do get some sort of inspection, we'd also like to understand what type of inspection it is. And I think as I mentioned earlier, it's not always every unit in a complex, you know, that gets that inspection, certainly not every unit that has a voucher holder. And as Chris mentioned, they move around sometimes. I would suggest three and four are not exemptions to the permit. That would be that would be those offered by Amherst housing authority in the section eight. That's right. Potentially they could have a different inspection requirement, but they'd still need a permit is sort of where you're thinking at this point for those two right. I am and I mean, interestingly, we do actually a fair amount of response to properties in those categories. So I, you know, I'm not, you know, really anxious to just exempt them because we do we serve a purpose for the tenants in those units. Sometimes they're very different issues than what we deal with in other cases, but we have a health inspector that really focuses on that type of work. Thank you. Michelle. Following up on that and Chris as well. Is there a distinction between a property that is they managed and fully occupied by residents who hold voucher, a resident who has a mobile voucher that is living somewhere else and what the housing authority is doing is really just keep management for that aren't there aren't there isn't there a distinction between those two things. Yes, so that that exists so there's there's properties that are owned managed operated by the housing authority and then there are voucher holders that the program is administered by the housing authority but those tenants are located in the village or presidential apartments or any anywhere throughout town. So yes there is. There's certainly a difference in those properties, you know the main thing that we look for is the on site presence of a management team, and some of those had some of those don't in both situations. And yet you would still want both those situations to obtain permits so like and well and you'd still want to obtain that rental permit but then maybe deal with inspections differently. I would because I think the criteria that will want to decide whether or not we conduct an inspection or how often we conduct an inspection. We don't fit every property solely because who owns it or who operates it so I think we, I think we're better off to include them all in the, and these, we all these properties have been in the program for, you know, since 2014 so I think they should continue in the program, and we would talk about whether or not inspections occur and how those occur. Okay. Rob, you sort of added it. I don't know whether that's informally or not to the current one so dorms are not at least University College owned dorms are not required to register for the permit. Would you recommend keeping that exemption. I would recommend yes putting that exemption into the proposed bylaw. Yes. Any other comments on those five before we move on with Pam listing a whole bunch of others. See none Pam. Okay, then I don't know the wording for a sanctioned sorority house or fraternity house I know they were there are unsanctioned people living together in in rental unit that are in fact fraternity members but aren't in the sanctioned one so we're talking about sanctioned ones that I understand get by annual full fledged inspections by the town already. So we would, we would exempt them. We talked about this earlier the owner occupied dwellings containing up to six residential rental units in that same structure. These are not six different structures. These are all in one building, if it's owner occupied and we have an example in North Amherst of that. And I don't know if we need to spell this out quite so specifically for you, or for the main house where one unit is owner occupied. And I don't know for you already have something that covers that category. Okay, we'll stop there. So those were an additional three to talk about. Let's start with sorority fraternity houses I assume those sanctioned Pam's referring to means under the zoning code of sorority or fraternity. And Rob what are your thoughts on that. So we, we permit those now and I think we should continue to permit those and not exempt them. Okay, you know thinking back why we started this program it was to identify where these properties are who the responsible parties are established emergency contact for them. And we don't have any other program that does that, even though as you mentioned we do go in there with an inspection team twice a year. That's something that was established a long time ago and it's just continued to be part of our periodic inspection program and we're glad we're able to do that but it isn't connected to any particular program. So I think we should keep these properties in the program and we do have issues at those houses, occasionally, not all of them and having a permit that hopefully someday is something that could be at jeopardy to lose might be a tool that we would want to have available to us in the few and rare instances on those properties. There are those pre existing non conforming for zoning purposes so we're not allowed by the zoning code today to be created or if they're expanded or changed in any way, it's a process with to review with the zoning Board of Appeals. And some of those do operate under the conditions of a special permit and some of them don't because they've just been there in the same operated the same fashion for so many years before the zoning. Bylaw restricted them. Thank you Jennifer and Chris. First Jennifer then Chris on just quickly I guess just you know, um, yeah, you know, glad to hear the drops, you know, would like to, you know, keep that in the system I guess I was just thinking of an example I sit down on the campus and meeting and just last week John Thompson was sharing with the group that they had inspected that day of fraternity, and really the kids, they probably didn't know but they had dismantled all the smoke alarms. And I guess, one of them, it's he he sat down with them and said you know it's actually a felony you're not allowed to do this they were kind of shaken up they didn't have any idea just. So I mean it's really for the safety of the students it's really a very good thing that they remain in the inspection system. Thank you Chris. Thank you. I just passed an ADU bylaw, and our ADU bylaw does require that the rented unit be have been in compliance with the residential rental property bylaw. I don't see a reason for exempting those units since we just you know considered this carefully last year and established that they should be part of the the rental bylaw. So, so thank you Chris for that. I'm understanding before before I get to Pam because I want to talk about these two specifically but I would like to hear first from Robert Chris, our ADU bylaw now requires that one of the two units on the property be owner occupied and so it. If we were to talk about the two that Pam listed owner occupied up to six units and ADUs ADUs are actually a subset under our bylaw of owner occupied so these are really the same sort of potential exemption. Is that correct so that we can just sort of talk about owner occupied units as an exemption without splitting out the two. Is that correct Rob or Chris? Yeah, I agree. I think seven includes eight. Yes. Okay. But if you were to change, if you were to exempt ADUs, then you'd have to change the zoning bylaw. And the other category I don't think we actually have a use category that. And I know these two listings were added by Pam there were not in a working draft so they're a new proposal Pam and so I'd like to hear before I hear from other ones. You're thinking around not requiring an actual permit from owner occupied units instead of some sort of as we've talked about others there's there's a permit issue and then there's a potential inspection issue so can you talk about what you were thinking about as to why owner occupied units wouldn't you didn't think they needed a rental permit? So we've heard from a lot of people that I've heard from a number of people that are concerned about the fee structure so right now we're not talking about fees, but we wanted to be able to differentiate between owner occupied and absentee or not owner occupied units. And so I had forgotten that the ADU bylaw requires now a rental permit for the non owner occupied portion of it. I was thinking that perhaps, again, we would, we would want to encourage, we would want to encourage the opportunity for people to do ADUs and not get bogged down in any kind of a rental permit for their other other half of the property. That brings up the question though that because we have difficulty with tracking rentals and, you know, you have to you have to register to be tracked. Does that cause a problem? Does it cause a problem in the in the tracking system? Well, could you register without having to pay? Well, that that's a potential possibility of, you know, a fee structure that addresses some of these. And also Jennifer, further comment. Well just I write, I believe now, right, if you're an owner occupied, you know, if you're an owner renting you don't have to pay a permit fee, isn't that correct Rob? You don't have to register. We think you'd have to register because the town, again, you still have tenants. So you have to ensure, you know, that it health and you're up to health and safety standards I guess you probably do and even if you're not renting but if we think you want an owner occupant to register so you have that house as a house that's being rented, but now they don't pay a fee isn't that correct, which I think is good. Because they wanted to encourage owner occupancy which is why the initial bylaw didn't charge owner occupants for fee, but I thought they still had to somehow register so they were part of the inventory of rental properties. Owner occupied properties that have more than one unit do require registration and the permit and pay the fee. They're not exempt. The only exemption is if the, it's a single unit that the owners renting rooms within their dwelling unit that is owner occupied, but if there's a second unit, it requires a permit and they pay the fee. So if you're renting in your house, do you do anything?  You don't do nothing. Okay. So then, then I would suggest that we take off the owner occupied dwellings with an ADU and up to six units and just take those out if we have determined that. So number seven and number eight of this memo to just get taken. So I've noted that will likely require a permit for them, but we might want to think about a different fee structure for them or potentially even a different inspection structure for that type of unit. Next on your list, Pam. We'll see. Next on my list. I think this was a carryover from the other one dwelling units located within residential properties that have been issued a circuit certificate of occupancy within the last three years. I, I didn't actually understand this I carried it over from from the previous version. Having a recent C of O is any reason to not get a permit. I'll speak to that I think that that was again might be an inspection thing of if they've been issued a certificate of occupancy. They were just built they probably don't need a new inspection but again as you say we probably want the permit Rob thoughts on that permit but maybe consider different inspection requirements. I would say definitely the permit and I think, you know whatever we use for criteria and establishing the inspection requirements or duration between inspections would be the same whether the building was built three years ago or 20 years ago I think, you know when when you we look at sanitary conditions. It really doesn't matter how old the building is certainly the building systems, hopefully are in good shape and being maintained three years later but I'm not sure that's that would be, you know, alone, a reason to, you know, change an inspection schedule. So we could strike this one as well because I the question was this really appears to be an inspection issue. Short term residential property rented less than 14 days. And again this I think goes to the Airbnb thing. And it's another whole topics maybe we skip over this one and go to number 11.  I had no problem with that. So there was the next one which is 12 which is, if you have a house that are, and you're not paying, if that house that are is not paying to live in your house. And the owner resides in a dwelling a minimum of a half a year, then there is no permit required. So I think those those are what we'll start with rentals between house sales. I think that one's currently in our current bylaw Rob is sort of an exemption from needing a permit, what are your thoughts on that one. What's in our bylaw what's in our bylaw now is a short term leave of an owner occupant for, you know, work, other reasons up to six months. But with the intention to come back and occupy the home again so that's what's in our bylaw and that doesn't require a permit that actually now requires what is just a registration is how the bylaws is created. I don't, I mean I don't have a problem with this situation I just not sure if it needs to be addressed in the bylaw. If there's you know but I don't, I don't, I think if someone told me this was happening. I'd probably say all right we'll check in them six months and make sure you're gone and that we have a permit on it. I don't think I would get too worried about it. If that was happening. I think right now one of the things that we run into a lot because we don't have language. You know, like some of these other draft bylaws do about actually collecting rent. So if we're not, you know, if there isn't money exchanged and we get asked that pretty often. I wouldn't say it's not a rental, you know, just by kind of plain meaning definition so I think that, you know, maybe that would be the case in a situation like this, unless unless the new bylaw addresses that differently. I'm happy to, I'm happy to strike number 11. You know if it's already, if it's already, as long as we include the whatever the current line would do. And then the last one is sort of a take off on the same on the same concept, where you have a house sitter. It's basically if you're not renting it is not a render if you're not collecting money, you're not running. So we could strike. In my mind we could strike 11 and 12. Well, well striking is is so so yeah the house center sitter what Rob would say is he wouldn't consider that a rental anyway and so it doesn't need listed as an exemption, as long as we're yeah. Right, depending on how we define things. Right. We'll just take these right off the full list. So we could go back to the short term rental. I have, we have the short term rentals. And then I have one other one. And so let's start with short term rentals. That definition came from the board of licensed commissioners draft changes to this so I don't know whether Rob you put input into that of their intention was to change this to make clear that Airbnb rent their rooms for over 14 days a year do have to get a permit but if you do it less than 14 days a year, you don't need to get a permit, I think was was the board's intent. Rob thoughts on sort of those Airbnb short term rentals that are a day or two at a time lots of people coming through. And when should they have a permit when shouldn't they. Yeah, so I, you know, I definitely aware of what the board of licensed commissioners is working on and supportive of what they were, you know, talking about for a possible amendment to the bylaw. And I, I thought it was good I thought it was, you know, drawn the line, you know, they picked 14 days it really doesn't matter, you know, pick a number of days, where it's a occasional maybe last minute. And then depending on what is going on for events in the town you know if a lot of things could happen that would be nice to be able to have this exemption and not really worry about it. And then there's the properties that do it, you know, more regularly as part of a business, you know, and, you know, our, and don't have a presence, you know the owner doesn't have a presence or management have a presence with the property and I think that should be captured the permit and part of the program so I was fine with it, you know I don't have a strong opinion on 14 days versus 21 days or 30 days but I think the concept is good. So, CRC members thoughts on 14 days longer shorter. So where, where thoughts on, should we just go with the BLC number on does 14 days sort of capture the, the difference, potentially between those that are doing it as a business versus those that are just occasionally saying oh hey it's a busy weekend and I can make some money. Once a year on it. That we might not want to pull in. Do you think 14 days is sort of a good number to pick. Yeah, I think it's a good number to draw, but yes. I was, I was going to ask, is there any way to track it, you know, if it's 14 or 30. Do you have any way of tracking them. Probably not tracking it but if there were suspicions of some property being used beyond that. I guess we can, you know, we could investigate that and, and react to it. So, you know, without any other, you know strong opinions on that I would, I would say that the Board of License Commissioners probably spent a lot of time talking about this and thinking about it, and I would probably just go along with their recommendation. Thank you. I have one other one which Rob touched on and all, which is the rental of rooms within a home. You know, right now, I guess you don't need a permit for that. As Rob said, if, if I were, you know, I have a four bedroom home, if I wanted to rent one of those rooms out to someone for an entire year I wouldn't need to get a permit. What are the thoughts on that versus requiring someone to get a permit for that. Or something else too is fine. No, no, no, let's just stay with your question and can you repeat that I got distracted. Right now, it's my understanding from what Rob said that if I were to rent a room in my house to someone I live in a single family home so it's one unit I'm owner occupied but I wanted to run out one or two rooms. You know, because they're not being used and hey I could make money doing it. I don't need a permit to do that. From from what I've heard, I think the working draft bylaw might require that permit, but the current bylaw does not. And so what are, what are the thoughts on whether someone in that situation needs to get a permit or not. Well, and Chris I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too but Pam and then Jennifer and then Rob and all. Yeah, Pam. To me it feels like it's a different scenario when there is someone renting a room in your house which we did for eight years with a graduate student and they are responsible for your home just as you normally would if it's a separate and that person lives in your house and probably uses your kitchen, but if you, if you have a separate dwelling unit, you have much less control and more management of how that that space is treated unless somehow you have the ability to knock on their door, but you don't, you know to ask to come in and inspect you have to, you have to plan your inspections ahead of time. So I, I, I think we're we might be over complicating things to include the in home sharing of space. I don't think I don't think we need to burden our system with that level. Yeah, I would agree that and especially given that our goals are to support families to have, you know, additional rental revenues, small family homes, rentals, social justice, all of that taken they want to make it easier for people to stay within families to stay within Amherst and one of the ways they do that is by renting out and so to make it as easy as possible. And it's not conflicting with our goals here of maintaining the property and quality because the people are living in it. So I think we don't, we need to leave it out. Yeah, I agree. I mean my experience for years living where I live is, there is no issue, you know, with owner occupied and really even if it's an ADU and their students if the owners on the premise it's just a whole different. It's fine. I mean, before I go to Chris, I do have one question that maybe Chris can answer which is why I want to ask it before she she talks which is the Airbnb's potentially many of them would fall into this category to is that correct and should we try to treat Airbnb's that are renting serially to different people different than a person renting a room to the same person over the years so so add that question to Chris and Rob's responses, Chris. I'm not sure I fully understood the question but I think that our zoning by law covers the issue of renting a room to someone for an extended period of time. And so, and that would be an owner occupied dwelling that where you would rent a room so I was also thinking about my question while you were asking your question so I'm not sure if I fully understood it but what I wanted to say was I wanted to get some information about duration of rental and you were talking about this with regard to Airbnb's. So I remembered that there was some condition, and it was on one East Pleasant Street, and the condition was that the tenants in that building could not have a guest for more than 14 consecutive days, or more than 30 days per year. So that's another way of looking at it, you know, number of consecutive days and then number of days throughout the year so I just wanted to offer that information to you and I'm sorry I wasn't able to really answer your other question. That's fine. Thank you. Rob. I think I agree with everybody so far. I think the letting of rooms in your home is, is a very different situation I can't say that there aren't ever problems in those situations and you know I can say that we're available to respond and have helped in those living situations so you know people still can contact us and get a building inspector or health inspector to help probably more often in those situations helping the owner of the property with what they're dealing with. But I don't, I was, I don't suggest that we need to permit or register those those properties and I would feel the same way about the Airbnb that's operating in that way short term that you know clearly has a short term timeframe to the state. Thank you. Any other comments, Shawnee. I was looking at our goals for this bylaw and I was just looking at the climate action goals and I wonder if they play out here in determining the type of license or exemption. I'm just throwing it out there that do we want to give some sort of incentive. Like if the license type is going to help later on with the inspections or, you know, like fee structures or things like that. Would it make sense to create or have like a form which is kind of some sort of it's an energy efficient home, you know someone has invested in their rentals, then giving them some sort of break later on like even if it's a thing in the form so that later on then they are given some sort of exemption. Thank you, Shawnee. I'll note it down for future conversation and for thoughts on things here, given our current conversation it sounds like that might be an exemption to something else or a fee structure, lowering the license, not having to get a permit, given what I've heard the conversation heading towards here. So it's 610 right now I think I'm happy to hear any last comments I think we've gotten through what we wanted to to get an idea of how to come back with a draft in two weeks. So my plan is, my plan is to take some of the language we've had take these notes I took great notes come up with a draft, and I will present that draft in two weeks, I intend to speak to at least one CRC member myself before I present that draft I've made a draft with the comprehensive housing policy before where I've made a draft and then send it to one member for comment before I said here it's going to that that's not assigning to two people. That's my intention to do that and we can talk later as to whether we send these sort of drafts to different people depending on the different things so it doesn't all fall on me. Given what I saw today from Pam that Pam might be interested in putting some of those sections together too. But but that is my thought is, is at least for this one to, for me to start with it or you know if Pam wants to to take that I don't know how good of note she took so but we'll assign each one to one person to bring it back with language and then we'll truly discuss specific language and make comments on that at the next meeting. I'll take, I figured I'd take this one this time just so we can see how it goes, but thoughts on that before we move on to the rest of the agenda. I'm going to go with Michelle first, and then I'll go Jennifer and Pam. I just want to say Mandy if I can be a resource at all given I'm not a member and you won't run into open meeting law issues with me I don't, I don't think I would be happy to help you with that. Thank you. Jennifer and then Pam. This isn't a direct responses to something I want to say before the end of the meeting. Can a committee have any like, I guess, following up on Michelle's question at the very beginning of what kind of our goal of what is some of the issues we're trying to address. Can a committee have something like a public forum where we might at some point to hear from residents what's going on and then also to share what we're doing so they have input. We'll probably call that as a special meeting and then treat it like a public forum. Yes, if we wanted to at a certain time. I think if I haven't looked at the work plan too closely recently but I think there's a couple of them sort of fed throughout when we have more language and have had more discussion. And with the community click we use today and, and there will be eventually the small towns web page also that will do that as we get that going where community will be able to give offline off meeting comments on stuff and the drafts will stay up on that website as as the UMass folks work together the goal is to use a website similar to engage Amherst to continue these conversations outside of meetings so we can talk about when to put the forums or special meetings with forums throughout when the best time is but yeah we could do that. I've actually had gotten emails from people saying, could we invite, you know, counselors to their neighborhoods. So that's just to put that out there. Pam, I would love to support the idea of the public forum. I think that's excellent. And, and again it's sort of, let's get people's thoughts more generally before we have these detailed discussions of, you know, is the comma correct because I think people don't want to weigh in on basic premise basic concept of it so well I love the idea and support it. And then I was actually had raised my hand to volunteer to do this text because I had already prepared it. But if Andy wants to do it, I'll be glad to help. Thank you. Yeah, just a quick comment on public forum or public meeting it needs to include students. So there needs to be direct outreach to students who are renting prop in town. Absolutely. I will figure out and come up with some proposed dates for something like that. Involving students gets very difficult given the time of year right now for even if we were to try and do this in two to three weeks you mass is gone. Even if we were to try and do it very quickly with the turnover and my understanding of when rentals like leases and so that might we'll have to talk because I'm not sure we could get something organized and publicity out in under two weeks, and given when you mass graduation is. So we'd be looking at late August, early September potentially which I know is three months into our schedule but given how long some of these are that's only about halfway through our process. Plenty of time to still be modifying stuff and all, and we won't have talked about a number of the things already anyway so I'll talk with Pam Rooney next week as we agenda set to figure out some thoughts on that but yes student outreach on that and inclusion. Okay. So, I want to thank my mood for sitting through this I hope I know we haven't had a lot of attendees for this one I hope the ones that were there were able to log on and participate on this. I thought it was a very fruitful conversation and we're going to, it's going to be a long, a long chat that'll go back and forth so thank you all for that. We're going to move on on our agenda. This time to item three C. The planning board appointment recommendations adoption of selection guidance and preferred interview dates and times. So the selection guidance is in the packet I know we talked about it last week, or two weeks ago I guess at the last meeting. So I'm going to go back and reviewed specifically the town council policy it says we must adopt it by majority vote of the of the committee. So that's why it's back on the agenda for the actual vote, instead of just a consensus of here's what it is. So, so that should be in the packet. I'm basically looking for a motion to adopt the selection guidance planning board selection guidance as presented, unless someone has some modifications to it. Shalini. No modifications that I need to leave because I have a district meeting starting soon. So, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Shalini. Pam. I move that we adopt the selection criteria as as prepared device April 15 2022. It's basically what are we looking for for an effective body. It does not include actual interview questions, but I think, you know, so we don't need to go into that it's basically what do we look for in a healthy and engaged body so I would. We adopt it. As presented, I'll second that motion. Any conversation on that. See none. I'm an eye. Pat. Hi. Pam. Hi, Jennifer. Hi. That's unanimous with Shalini one one absent was just Shalini preferred interview dates and times so I don't think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think the past recommendation cycles. The CRC has endeavored to do the interviews. On the day. And at the time that the board that we're interviewing for meets, but off week from that board meeting, if that makes sense. That's not a ZBA that would be a Thursday night that is not a ZBA meeting. Thoughts on going that route we're trying to do these interviews during a meeting of CRC for third sometime between 430 and 630 on a Thursday. What is this committee's preference before I pull for open dates for people. I don't have a preference. Pat. I would prefer if possible, I would prefer it to be during the regular 436 30 CRC meeting. My schedule is very tight. Pam, do you have a thought. Yes. What is your thoughts. I think that. I believe more planning board or potential planning board members actually we don't actually. They don't already have the schedule because they may not be on the planning board so it does it would make sense to me to do it on an off week for the planning board. It would get whoever is applying use to that schedule. I don't have a preference. I would prefer it to be during our period. Maybe we have two options. One is during our particular meeting period and the other isn't off Wednesday. So it sounds like there's some preference for one or the other. And so I'll pull all of the committee and all of the current. We're going to take a break and that's, that's what we'll pick if there's no true strong preference consensus wide from the committee one way or the other. So that takes care of item three C, look for that poll and the next couple weeks Pam. I was going to say if we could, if we could target the week of they starting May 11. We've got 1112 would be really logical opportunities to do something that's a couple weeks out. That's probably actually not targetable. Because if we go with the 11th, the statements of interest have to be posted on the fourth no later than the fourth, which is less than a week away. And so I have to get all of that to the candidates and they have to have time. So I would actually be targeting probably the third or fourth week in May, or fourth or fifth, whatever these are. I need to let you know that I am very likely going to be out of town on the 25th. I may be able to participate on the 26, but I'm really not sure. I will be targeting that week the week after. And the week before probably is what I'll send through with dates and because I'll look at all sorts of things but but we'll see what I can get back. I can put a preliminary. I'll see what I can do. But those are probably the weeks I'm targeting. Moving on. I didn't say this at the beginning. Obviously the ZBA appointment recommendation sufficiency of applicant pull I did not pull from this agenda. But you've noticed there is nothing in the packet related to this one. And I think Pam who's sort of in charge of this will agree that we still do not have enough of a pool and we still have enough time that we can continue urging people to apply without having to make a tough decision as to whether we need to move to interviews and statements of interest without a truly sufficient pool. Pam, would you agree with that? Totally. I think our point on this one is keep urging people to consider ZBA. It's the real point. So with that there are no discussion items general public comment. We, everyone has left at this point so we don't have anyone left for general public comment, but we did accept public comment during this meeting for the bulk of what we discussed pack. Yeah, this is separate and it's personal. I had to leave the meeting briefly. I let Mandy Joe know that that was happening. I have been in remission from Crohn's disease for several years and given medication that I'm currently on. I'm having symptoms again so this will be true about every meeting I'm in, because I can't trust my body right now. But I wanted you to know that I'm not just sliding out because it feels good to leave or something. We were boring you. Oh, wow. Thank you for making that known and being so open about your health, Pat. And obviously, whatever you need, we understand. We're going to move on to minutes. I'll make the motion to adopt the April 14, 2022 meeting minutes as presented is there a second second. We're going to give that to Jennifer she was like a half a second ahead I think. And any comments on that. See none. We'll start with Jennifer. I am. Pat. And Mandy is an I so those are adopted. I'm going to say this again, I always feel bad because Rob's the one that cuts out so quickly, but I want to thank for coming. I know these are conversations and all and and you guys's input. I know he's been silent the whole time but when he offers input your inputs invaluable to the work we're doing here so we thank you for coming please pass that on to Rob I one of these times or many of these times hopefully I'll continue to remember to do that earlier before he leaves. But I know you guys are extremely busy so so we thank you your input today was was very valuable. I have no announcements. The next agenda will be as every agenda will be the residential rental bylaw whatever we can fit in that will obviously be on it. We've had flood maps referred to us so I got probably will not be next week I have to be on make myself a note I have to get on noticing the public hearing for flood maps. And so, we're going to figure out when that public hearing is we'll schedule that in we have until mid April, May, June, late June to get that one done sort of but we probably don't want to wait that long. But Pam on that you look like you're trying to say something about flood maps. Yeah, I would say the sooner we can do that better. And the reason I'm just thinking that there are so many conversations about the different school sites. And I know that the flood, the flood maps and the adjustments of flood maps. I think if I heard correctly we're the basis of the site conversations before river. So it would be really important to know what's possible for there. So I'll see what I can do with that. Our next meeting is the 12, but the first notice would have had to go in the paper today so I will probably aim for the 26, which is about the first time I can get the notices published for. So, because yeah, so we'll aim for May 26 and I'll get those notices out if we end up with a, and no soon enough with a different meeting of CRC because of interviews we might try to do two things at once on a different date maybe if, if we can figure out some quick enough appointment process will always be on the agenda and then I'm not sure if the Historical Commission is going to be finished with their work or not and ready for us to review the preservation bylaw but if they are that would go on next that it would go on the meeting after so that's pretty much what we're doing flood maps residential bylaw and historic preservation, the preservation bylaw for the next month or so that month month and a half that's what we'll be dealing with an appointment so it's going to be the agenda most of the time any other comments Pam question preservation bylaw do you have any idea what the topic of conversation is. I will send out some information I got from Chris she said that they pretty much the conversation at the last meeting was very informative. But they didn't reach any type of consensus and I think they might even have a subcommittee talking about trying to reach consensus to then bring back to the Historical Commission. I think my gist from her email was that they're struggling with the information about the open meeting law and only one person, but also managing amounts of work for them. And there was also some there were some other recommendations from the planning board that I know they talked about regarding 75 years that all sort of basically our conversation that they, they were heated right 75 years versus 50. So does that affect how many buildings and all of that and they just weren't in one meeting able to get to a decision. And so we'll keep monitoring that to see when it comes up. Any other questions comments or items not anticipated. Seeing none thank you all for your time. I'm adjourning the meeting at 629pm. Have a nice evening. Thank you.


It's time for Mac Geekab and Porthose John brings us our quick tip of the week by saying if you are an iPhone on your Mac and you don't see your recent photos that you took on your phone, assuming you're using iCloud Photo, it might be due to the fact that syncing is currently paused on your iPhone. I have all the options set to allow cellular data etc, but still I find my phone seems to pause photos syncing a lot. One reason it seems is that if I use quick camera access from the lock screen without unlocking my phone, those don't want to sync until I unlock my phone Wi-Fi or not. The quick fix is to go into photos on my phone and at the bottom of the library, I see a little line of text telling me that whether or not syncing is paused and sometimes why, and a small link to resume it.