I think that will be offset. Okay, so we'll call the meeting to order at whatever time it is, 702. And does anyone have any announcements before we go to the minutes? I have a couple of things that I would just note, which is there's a CHAP has its annual regional meeting in September 22nd. And so I think people got a link, but that's a good thing if people want to go to. And I just heard the other day that there is a new there's a permanently permanent supportive housing development at five Franklin Street in Northampton that is just opening up very soon. And there's an open house on Tuesday, August 2 from five to seven that we are invited to anybody who wants to go. It sounds like a really cool project. So those are the announcements that I have, besides the fact that the legislative session is ending kind of any minute. And we sent out a number of things that people could try to do to influence the legislature to do some of the things that we wanted to the most one of them at least being passed the enabling legislation so that if Amherst chose to we could have a tax on high and real estate sales as a way to fund the trust, which funding the trust is always seems like a big issue. So that's what I've got. Anybody else? Can I just ask that you write the open house details in the chat or is there a chat in this thing? No you know I was we had a chat function we had started it for forums and I was told not to have the chat function for the possibility that I could you know violate open meeting law. So we can talk about that. Oh dear okay. Can you hold a piece of paper up? Could you just put it in an email perhaps into the or at all? It's at the end. I don't think I don't think an invitation to do something violates open meeting law. No but I can't enable the chat right now so it's something that has to be you know I just can't we can't I can't enable it mid-meeting I have to go in and change it and then I don't have I'm not prepared to because I don't I have it I don't have it electronically in front of me anyway so it would be hard for me to do it right now. But you can share that by email Carol so you know whatever yeah I'll do that I will after the meeting I will email it and yeah okay thank you. So you know I have an announcement it's not nothing that's you know too imminent but I know that some town council members maybe the community resource committee it's a subcommittee the council is discussing changing zoning for you know two families and different residential uses in town and so you know as part of the discussion tonight we're looking at trust actions so we can talk about a little bit more but it is you know there is interest and anyhow the announcement would be that there's interest on the council you know and the planning board to see you know what kind of zoning regulations or changes could be made to help with you know to help with housing development so you know I think as the trust we you know the trust can be an advocate or recommend certain changes so something that I can try to bring back to you as an agenda item or you know if a member or two wants to look into it more together we can so anyways that's just you know I don't want to forget that. Yes please I at least would like to know whenever somebody knows that there are changes being thought about so that we can join in the thinking about them so yeah. Allegra? Question to kind of that extent I feel like this I think it's the Community Resources Committee is doing the rental bylaw retooling or rethinking and I don't know how much of any idea building this body should have in that process or if that's reasonable for us to have some stake or interest in but I just I noticed that there was a bunch of meetings coming up with various stakeholders and I did not see us as one of them and I was not sure if we should be or not. That's a good question I don't I don't Nate do you have an opinion and answer anything? Yeah I mean I know some councils were interested in it you know it's other communities in different states have you know kind of a different rental registration with student housing and so in the building commissioner and inspectors that always thought that what was on the books could be modified you know at some future time so it's kind of it is that now that future date rental registration has been in place for a few years so I don't know if I have an opinion either way I guess you know the trust could have it you know in the next month or two as an agenda topic and if we could invite someone to come and you know describe it you know I think what they're looking at doing is making it a little more thorough in terms of checklist and providing information and then maybe having more enforcement mechanisms or options for resolutions with property owners you know I to be honest I don't know the details but it sounds like that's where they want to go with it right to make it a little bit more thorough and so you know right now it's really just a self-reporting you know process and I'm not sure how that will change if they're looking at doing it some other way but you know it's like 1200 property owners whatever every year complete the forms and submit the information to the town and so it's working and maybe there's ways to make it a little stronger but I'm not I'm not exactly sure where they're going with it you know what the trust opinion would be so it's something we could talk about is that something people are interested in talking about we can just do a sort of a straw polly thing I think about this but is that something people are interested in or if it's bigger than a straw poll somebody please speak say something yeah I mean I I don't feel like I really understand like zoning I mean I it would be great to hear from someone that even just basically explains it I mean I would like to be more informed for sure similarly I would like to have some background information on what exists now just so we're coming in informed because I am not either well yeah okay so if we asked someone to come we would ask them to get us up to speed and give us a bit of an understanding of what's being proposed reasonably then the materials that would come with that meeting would be something about what is being proposed so we could look at it also and not have to just rely on what we heard in the moment so I I think what I'm hearing is that that can be kind of on a on a stack of things that we'd like to do at some future time right all right uh let's see can we move on then to the first thing which just to review the minutes from the June meeting I believe they went out with the stuff that Nate sent so um does anybody have any comments questions concerns do they look okay I think that what we've done in the past is just uh if there aren't any concerns you don't really we just sort of accept them we accept these minutes and I don't know I don't think we have to do that with a formal vote but I'm assuming if I don't hear anybody anything that says no that that's a yes that's probably wrong way to do it but I'm trying that for the moment I had something I wanted to say to start with please if anybody has any suggestions or or if it feels like we're doing something that it's difficult or isn't working right please let us know Erica and I are trying to figure this out as we go along so we're very open to uh whatever you have to say about what we're doing so I think the minutes were you know usually when we have volunteers I'll say you know keep the minutes to a few pages um you know sometimes for planning board you know they're like 12 pages single space and it's somewhat nice but then it's also really a transcript of the meeting and we'll zoom now with it being recorded if we really need to we have a transcript of the meeting it's not you know it's maybe like 90 percent accurate or 80 percent you know it's not as good as the minutes but you know if someone really wants to know exactly what was said at some time there's a video recording that's online and there's a transcript associated with it so I feel like they're you know um you know minutes really need to have who's present who's absent materials that were submitted reviewed and then a summary of the discussion points so you know yeah and a record of any decisions that were made yeah okay well then I we accept the minutes and we can move on to Nate who is going to tell us about our financial situation yeah the trust is looking great now I'll share my screen the um the uh so you know that most of the trust funding comes from CPA you know Community Preservation Act funds and so even though the trust can uh bankroll those that money it's one of it's only the it's one of the few organizations that can so usually when you when CPA funds are allocated has to be to a specific project but in the state legislation and the state law it actually says housing trust can just accumulate CPA money for development funds or for however it can be used but it still has to follow CPA guidelines so CPA has guidelines in terms of income eligibility and percent of affordability and other things so the first line is unrestricted account so non-CPA funds so the trust does have some money that's not from CPA so that can be gifts or donations um interfaith housing uh did give the trust um I think it was 20 000 a few years ago and then there were some previous funds in a housing account gift account for the town so well the columns show are you know anything that's in contract and then what's available so in this unrestricted account we have 30 almost 36 000 and so what we pay out of that is um you know right now we pay like $200 a month for the maintenance of belter town road and east street school properties you know there's a small maintenance fee and honestly that's about it so there's not a lot of expenses on that account CPA restricted those are earnings so the housing trust is you know a trust fund actually and the town manages it and the the funding of the trust gets invested through um you know a different way than say general funds of the town the town might have a half dozen or more trust funds and so it actually earns interest so that interest right there is over the last 10 years there's been 63 000 and interest in earnings on the trust funds so there's that amount of money um technical services this is uh the contract uh i don't know if this is actually um this is no i was gonna say this might be read as contract but it's not so the the trust at one point had allocated or received $20 000 for technical services so um you know this is like if we hire a wetland scientist to assess a property or a survey or to do a survey or you know even an attorney to do some deed research or something so there's $3 000 under contract there and that's to um study the strong street properties for housing so there's 3 000 almost 3100 in contracts and then there's 17 000 available why do the numbers i'm i'm seeing different numbers technical services 3 000 and the i'm just rounding it's a 3100 okay okay got it thank you all right thank you i can make it bigger if that helps thank you that's hard yeah hard to say what's visible um and then consulting services we have um another line for consulting services so you know for instance read us under contract and there's 8 8900 left or so in her contract and then there's $18 000 left to hire another consultant and so i mean this is pretty similar to technical services um you know consulting services it could be that we hire someone again that stays um you know we hire someone for a year and they're available as needed or like a technical service we could hire someone for a specific task so that money's available for that and then development funds are typically every year the trust asks for um you know 200 300 000 400 000 maybe half a million uh john's in the audience he'll laugh we usually push for half a million from cpa and they award us two or three hundred thousand and so we have 216 000 available and we have 177 000 um in contracts and so 100 000 of that is the money that we awarded to valley cdc we have 100 000 for the north henton road project east gables and then 77 000 is um encumbered on various things so um some of it is when we purchased the east street school the town purchased the east street school in belchow town road properties the trust said we'd put in a certain amount of money and some of that money is still encumbered for that purpose in case we need to do other due diligence on the property um and then some of the money is still encumbered i think for some rental assistance um so you know some of it might be able to be liquidated but for now it's we're going to keep it we we have it encumbered so you know all told the trust has about 190 000 in contracts and 350 000 that's available that really is just um you know could be put in put under contract without any without really any restrictions so the whole those the numbers are additive not it's not like of the 216 177 is restricted is encumbered it's that there is the 177 that's encumbered plus in addition there's the 216 correct yeah okay they're separate they're separate amounts yeah cool okay so this is you know i generated this and it's easier than at one point i shared probably like a year ago a general ledger report and carol and i went through it and it it has a lot more columns and different numbers but i think this is probably the simplest distillation of this the the this is so much better than that mate you tried to walk me through the other thing one time and this is much more understandable so thank you very much yeah so the accounts here i mean the town rarely adds account lines so um for instance like development funds we put more money in there if we got cpa money and money for consulting services would just be added to that consulting services line and so unless there's like a whole nother kind of budget line where money could be put into um like for instance say the trust was a property owner or we're taking in rental income we might have a line item here like rental funds or something rental income but for now you know if we get money it will probably go into one of those account lines it's great that's great and at some point so now has everything cleared out of here that was involved in our rental assistance project yeah so there's still a little there's still a little bit encumbered in the 177 for the rental um i think we can probably liquidate that and i think i'm not sure if the trust funds that were approved just this past spring from cpa are added in the development funds um because you know what what happens is the the town cpa funds are approved and they stay within the cpa accounts and then at some point accounting moves them over into trust funds and i'm not sure if that's happened yet or if it's included in this balance so but okay well that's that's very helpful and i hope we are erica and i asked natif he could do this for us kind of quarterly let us know where we are and hopefully also show us like if something's different next time what happened what went out what came in and certainly next time the 177 will lose the hundred thousand dollars that i know that um valley has just asked for for the for the north hampton road project anyways that's great thank you so much nat does anybody have any questions or anything at this point well you did ask the question about the emergency rental um so i don't think ashley or risha were here when we voted on providing emergency rental assistant um to help uh individuals and families around covet um to mitigate you know the the negative impact of covet possibly on job loss or being able to pay the rent um i'm wondering about fema uh did we ever get any funds back in terms of what we put out and getting monies back from that yeah so we did i don't have an exact accounting of that so um you know we had allocated i think end up being like 250 000 for emergency rental assistance i think the trust may have actually spent about 70 000 and so um you know covet funding supported a lot of that um because it was eligible so you know if we had spent our full you know all that money you know our available balance right now might be you know 200 000 or 250 as opposed to three 350 000 so yeah it was a benefit so what we end up doing was um you know paying it and then requesting almost like simultaneous reimbursement so the you know it was the money was never it's not like we were the trust was ever down a lot it was like we would pay it and then request reimbursement pretty pretty frequently after and the money would just come back into the trust so but we did um get reimbursed on that thank you and we don't pay for the administrative costs that um you for you to do all this work so thank you for that yeah sure thank you um so just wondering a what are the the goals of like on the CPA funding do they have requirements that we spend it within a certain amount of time or is it sort of however long it takes us and then also yeah how does this compare to any other point in time is it yeah i mean i think the trust has been solely capitalizing and you know crewing funds so this is you know probably you know every year the trust is awarded CPA funds and you know makes you know interest earnings so this is probably the most money it's had um so like i said the CPA committee really does like to see project specific allocations but the housing trust doesn't need that so you know in the development funds line for instance if we asked for half a million this year and they gave it to us it would just add to the running balance of the trust you know uh because there's also request specific to a project right so in the last year valley cdc asked for funding for their project and you know um different you know the housing authority asked for money and animal security connections or other organizations asked for money so the CPA still you know um recommends and then town council votes on funding for a specific project so the trust could do that too you know the trust could say well we want two hundred thousand dollars for beltertown road and we also want two hundred thousand dollars just for general development funds um you know and so part of the you know what we discussed later in the action plan i mean trusts are always looking across the state ways to the fund itself right so we have some other mechanisms but usually CPA money is um the biggest uh piece and so you know i think our CPA committee has been generous but you know some committees or some towns the CPA can allocate a certain percent every year to housing and sometimes they just say that whole percent goes right to the trust right they don't also give it to other projects and so um that's different in Amherst any other questions and i'm gonna pass it over to Erica who's gonna talk about open meeting thank you um and there were lots of leads lead ins in our conversation already such as the need for minutes and transparency so thank you i think it's sometimes difficult to transition from you know being part of a coalition or other types of meetings and being a public body and so i think this is really a good opportunity for all of us to uh one think about this uh as a public body and think about what our responsibilities are and so thank you Nate for once sending out the slides and also um the regulations which i've both taken a look at but with 52 slides we decided we're just going to do highlights and i think what's more important is to open it up to ask um for everyone to ask questions so we can ensure that we're in compliance with the open meeting law um so um you can find the open meeting law guide and educational materials along with what Nate submitted to us on the attorney general's office uh website and the attorney general office is um the office that ensures compliance and also monitors compliance um and um the reason for the open meeting law is really to ensure that there's transparency in any deliberation uh which public policy is based on and that's on page four of the open meeting law as well as in the slide set i think the slide set actually provides really great overview um of the um the most important aspects of the open meeting law um but i think that what's really important is that um we think about you know how we support transparency uh in terms of the public and what it is that we're doing so um the trust is the public body and subject to the open meeting law so one of the first things that have to happen is that we have to have a notice um of the meeting um and it must be posted 48 hours in advance uh unless there's an emergency but generally it gives an opportunity for the public who would like to attend um to be able to attend um the fact that we do a recording and that we also have minutes is also opportunities to record what happens uh and for the public to also review what has happened if they can't make the the meeting but would like to make the meeting um each of us has received the open meeting law materials as part of our orientation we actually have to be certified we have to have a certification that we have gotten the information and that we have read it and we understand it and we will comply with it uh and that again that's the responsibility of being a member of a public body um deliberation which i think is probably sometimes the most confusing for me at least um what is deliberation and that's any oral or written communication through any medium including electronic mail between or among a quorum so actually you asked what the quorum was and may you said we're a body of nine and so a quorum would be five um but i think also it's really important um so i'll read that again deliberation is an oral or written communication through any medium including electronic mail between or among a quorum of public body simple majority on any public business within its jurisdiction and that's again page six of the open meeting law um but the slides are really good in um showing what is a public body and um also defines one deliberation into um what the public body is as well as different aspects deliberation uh one of the things that is clearly um you know sort of noted is that the expression of an opinion on matters within the body's jurisdiction to a quorum of public body is deliberation even if no other public body member responds and i think that's important because sometimes i was sort of under the misconception of that we have to have a dialogue back and forth and sometimes what happens is is um we may you know have a um you know an email that goes out and um i know i've done this you know john sends a wonderful email out and i'm like oh this is great this is my opinion um and it's like okay that violates the open meeting law um we're not supposed to deliberate on email because the public is not on the email and they cannot hear um the deliberation so um if somebody sends something out um if we want it as a topic on the agenda um great topic i have lots of questions can we have it on the agenda um we could put it on the carol and i could put it on the agenda for a meeting and then we can we can have a discussion here we can deliberate here share ideas um share our comments so i think that's that's really important because it helped me to think i i've always thought just well you know if something goes out and you know i just share my opinion with you know at least you know a couple of people that that's fine it's not um so we have to really think about it so you know part of with regard to the um open meeting law um is what does it really mean for us um we can send each other information announcement alerts resources or agenda items but we cannot include any opinion or discussion discussion regarding them we can state please um have us be part of our agenda but um no deliberation no comments no opinions because that would then violate the open meeting law and so how i keep on thinking about it is does the public have the ability to see here read what it is that i as a trust member is putting out um and if they don't then uh if we if we are sending it to each other it could violate the open meeting law and of course there are exceptions and again the slides are really great um and presenting what the exceptions are you know one of the exceptions is an executive session um generally my experience here has been on the trust that we post that as well as the agenda we may have an open meeting and then um due to the fact that we might be talking about buying a property um or thinking about uh acquiring a property which could then um you know give somebody advantages um we can go into an executive session and under the open meeting law that is we have the ability to do that um so we'd go into an executive session and we'd be allowed to just be part um of a closed meeting without the public but minutes have to be detailed with regard to um who participated what was discussed or what decisions were made um with regard to the um the executive session uh again to comply with the open meeting law um and so what that also underscores is that is we always need a minute taker so thank you george for today being the minute taker and and you know volunteering to be our minute minute taker but there'll be times that george may not be available uh for example he's not going to be available in the august meeting so we will need a volunteer so minutes are really really important to be in compliance with the open meeting law um just to make sure that everybody as nate says we yes we have the recording yes we have a transcript but i think it's also important to have documentation especially for possible new members who may not have been at prior meetings and want to see an account of what took place or how the decision was made or what was being focused on it's always important to have documentation so um we will always ask for a volunteer beforehand if someone is not available if george is not available to take minutes um so i want to open up for any questions they may have i know all of you have received the slides and the um open meeting law guide and educational materials but um i think it's often helpful um i was new to the trust a few years ago and i constantly had to go back and forth and either ask somebody or look at you know the materials just to make sure um i understood what my responsibility was so let me just open it up if there are any questions yeah sorry i just i just want to say quickly the the conversation um over emails and everything get a little tricky so the um a serial conversation where for instance one member emails with one member and then that other they email a second member or a third member and then you know before you know it goes through four or five members but those five members haven't talked directly but it's been you know one to one to one that is still considered a conversation or could be a violation of open meeting law and so you know i don't think it happens intentionally i think most of the time it's unintentional um and so you know i just want everyone to be aware that you know even something like that is an issue and so you know if there's a an and if there's a meeting that's not a trust meeting say there's a um a select board meet or a town council meeting if there is a select board meeting in another town we think a form of the trust is going to go there and talk about something that the trust would then maybe talk about or have jurisdiction over we could post it as a trust meeting even though it's really not you know like a regularly scheduled meeting so if the community resource committee is having a discussion on housing and the trust is like oh i'd like to go we could just post it as a trust meeting as well so that way if trust members speak at it you know we're not in violation of open meeting law and so um you know i that's one way and the other way is just to be careful of email so i think it's fine for instance someone emails an article and says i think this is a good article you know and if every people have comments or questions about it you can always send it to to me or to the co-chairs and then we can send the questions back out to the whole trust and we will just say don't respond all and let's just you know hear questions that are being asked this will be on the next agenda but it's okay if you see an article about housing or something that's really good or if you have you know you see an event or something you know that's fine to email to the group yeah so kind of rule of thumb that we've thought of is unless you have some really good reason why not just email anything to some combination or of Nate and Erica and I and we'll do something to get it to be looked at in a way that is appropriate which probably means on a upcoming agenda yeah i think again the slides are really good so things like an agenda or scheduling reports or documents those are not considered deliberation um even you know a meeting of subquorum as long as not a subcommittee one of our subcommittees but i think what Nate said about going um to an event together like maybe going to training maybe going to a conference um my understanding of the open meeting laws is we can do all of that and they and we can be there but we can't talk about it if it has to do with our jurisdiction so if we all go to a conference on affordable housing and there are five of us who are there and start talking about oh i think this should be part of our policy or you know that would be considered violation of the open meeting law we can bring it back and say oh we learned a lot of excellent things make some best practices let's put it on the agenda and we'll send you know the information to Carol Erica to put on the agenda um so yeah any other questions anything that's not clear i'm just curious do we have any at the moment subcommittees or that was i saw that on the agenda is that a possibility of forming some to kind of research some things i personally have some time on my hands so i'm curious about some things i mean i don't know much about zoning i can you know look into that but also kind of having like a more or less an in-house developer versus all those different you know developers we use a lot of developers why can't amherst employ one Nate do you want to say i uh i think that we would it would be less competitive then because it would be one developer that was always the same developer the town would have to think of something to do with the developer as employees when there was nothing at the moment to develop i mean sorry oh that's that's my i mean Nate may have i don't think the town wants to do that at all but maybe Nate has more to say that than i just said well i think it's also a matter of efficiency and so i mean from my experience just being on the trust is that you have non-profit and you may have a profit too but we're using non-profit it seems like we're using non-profit developers and it is a huge amount of work from what i've seen just from the northampton road the amount of people hours around thinking through the planning and getting it all through that's a lot a lot of work and the efficiencies might not be there when you have you know a non-for-profit organization that does this type of work that works with the state and knows how to work with DHCD there's a lot more efficiencies in that than a town having someone on hand and they may not be able to actually juggle multiple projects either they may only do be able to do one versus a non-profit organization that that's their focus and they're able to be more efficient because they have all that expertise and they have a whole staff with different type of expertise that jumps in for the different pieces and and it's absolutely complicated process but i was going to speak to that we could talk about that later yeah no subcommittees so you know what erica said about the open meeting law is that you know like a subquorum so for instance if two members are talking and you know go out and meet and have talk about something that's not a violation of open meeting law necessarily and you know like i said if it's just between two members but if there's a subcommittee of two members where you know there's a subcommittee on studying you know homelessness or there's a subcommittee on studying something then those subcommittee meetings they miss if it's only two members you know there has to be a posted meeting you have to take minutes so the trust had three subcommittees a few years ago and so there is you know things that they were looking at and it's they've somewhat um you know they they were never officially um i don't want to say like ended or terms were ended but you know we could reconstitute a subcommittee or two for specific topics and then you know we could post the meetings and you can meet in person or over zoom and you know but they would have to follow open meeting law as well so i mean i don't you know i don't want trust members to you know if you have questions always ask myself right you can reach out to me and if i don't know the answer i can find find out so if you do have questions about open meeting law or other things you know i don't want to discourage trust members from asking questions or or talking about you know this with other other members or other people so um and we are going to talk about subcommittees actually number six i think Rita had her hand up yeah i just wanted to hi um sorry i had another meeting um i just wanted to address what ashley had asked about about you know having sort of an in-house municipal developer and in fact you know the Amherst housing authority is the closest thing to that so the Amherst housing authority is a you know it's a public entity um they do development they don't do they typically you know have focused on um public housing development and administering um rental subsidies but you know there are instances where um housing authorities have you know done development too the reason why they typically don't do it well there are two reasons you know the first is if you're a municipal entity like a housing authority or a town or a city everything you do has to do through public construction and um anybody who's familiar with public construction versus doing something privately understands that it's both more complex and more expensive and so everything from filed sub bids to um prevailing wage rates any time uh you know a public entity does anything in that you know whether it's road construction whatever it you know it gets it's much more complex we think it's complex when a nonprofit does it but if you add on a public entity so um so not only is it is it the public construction part of it that's a problem but you know I think as as has been pointed out by um Erica and Carol too is um this typically not the level of expertise um of development that you find in you know say a nonprofit or a for-profit developer that has a whole team and you know try to have a whole team of people um employed by housing authority or employed by municipality just doesn't make sense unless you were gearing up to have to develop a huge number of units it just doesn't it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense so that's why it's it's done the way it is done but occasionally you know you will find housing authorities um and in one case I know municipality or trust that tried to do development development itself and they when I talked to them afterwards they said never again never again they realized how um you know how it costs so much more and how that they just were not they're just not in the business of doing development so I hope that answers your question so yeah I mean so public housing is like when basically the city or the state owns the housing outright and if you're making like a thousand units it tends to be a little bit more useful to have it be owned by the state would you say but like we have like 70 units or something or 12 you know so is that is it kind of more useful to have a nonprofit when there's kind of a smaller amount of units it's it's both a number of units but it's also the type of units so when you know public housing the funding comes from on massachusetts the funding typically comes from the state and it's specific it's a very specific population and there hasn't been new construction funding for public housing it has been for modernization but not for new construction in decades so it the state got to add to the business of doing a lot of public housing construction and guided it towards kind of joint ventures because it was you know it was inefficient and incredibly expensive okay oh me um I had a question about sort of how this plays out on social media and I know we had a conversation about that but the the question I have is personal social media I am not currently I don't think connected to other trust members but for instance if I you know shared a housing report or housing article and another member commented on it and a third like do we risk in I feel like some of these laws might not be in speed with that kind of where it's public in theory but we haven't invited anyone to witness a conversation so do we need to be careful about seeing each other's or commenting on each other's social media stuff I believe I would say yep great Nate yeah I would say to be safe yes um you know the the caveat right or the condition is that it's under trust jurisdiction and so you know um someone could make the case that well the trust deals with housing so anything under housing is trust jurisdiction sometimes it's really you know it's more narrow for instance like if the zoning board of appeals deals with certain cases that say you know case specific or something but um so you know I I do think that in some instances it's fine and some that may not be and so that's a hard call to make and just say no or yes the you know and I said there's a you know serial conversations could be a violation you know in your example it's like well what if a conversation starts and one trust member you have like you know a few comments back and forth and then third member and then really it's something that the trust might might end up recommending say there's an article about zoning reform and someone's like oh this is really interesting I really like this idea and then you know a week later someone else puts a comment in and then you know all of a sudden that is a conversation that you know could violate open meeting law because the trust really can recommend zoning zoning changes so you know but if there's something different I mean it's just I feel like it's a case by case but um you know maybe to be careful I would say just you know not to try you know I think having one comment or one you know some something's fine but once you know once the there's a back and forth conversation that becomes the could become the you know something that's a violating open meeting law sorry we couldn't be more helpful in terms of an exact answer well I think you know Nate where you're saying if you're in doubt you may want to just say comment wise let's bring this to the trust agenda to the trust meeting and have a conversation about great article let's bring it to the trust meeting there is um you know the state will put out guidance documents and there's like a hotline of the day for ethics commission I think it might also deal with open meeting law and conflict of interest so you know you kind of get lawyer of the day but there's a 1-800 number you could call and you could you know you could pose a question they'd only answer the person who's calling so you couldn't call for someone else um but so to your point Risha if you did have a question you could call this lawyer of the day through the state and ask and just say oh you know what's the you know is there you know you know I post these on social you have to say it's for you right they don't I was saying you they don't answer for someone else so I couldn't call on the trust behalf it would have to be something uh relevant to just myself but you could ask you know if you have an example but um yeah I just found an article that um mass municipal association did on this very question so um if you just google it if you do so it's a long article so I can't give you the answer right away but um it's addressed there and they um yeah it goes on and on what's the name of you you know what would what would we google to find um well it's it's um it's on mma.org and then the article is social media public records and the open meeting law what's that I just so it was written by I think it's somebody from KP law yeah it's an attorney Richard Holland at KP law which is the firm the town uses right yeah right thanks Rina okay I'll I'll um can I I'll send it to you uh Nate I'll send you the link and then maybe you can send it out thank you and FMA is the mass municipal association so can we move on we should like to be able to uh talk about the september housing form coming up and in order to do that can we invite did yeah John left did John leave no there he is yay invite John and maybe Michelle to come into the room John is kind of running at least a lot a part of this for us still it's so good to see you again John hi Michelle you're a panelist if you want you can decline but if you'd like you could join as a panelist too I think I a lot faster too okay yeah so she Michelle will just stay and as a participant if needed she can raise her hand okay so John you go to unmute yourself okay thanks uh yeah Michelle knows much of what I'm about to say but not necessarily everything because I there are various parties that are involved in this so I'll begin first of all by saying that we have a date confirmed and that is Tuesday September 13th to begin at 6 30 p.m a couple of people probably need to be present earlier to set up because the location for the in-person meeting is going to be the social hall at the Unitarian Universalist Society so that's confirmed by them in addition I've put in a request to Amherst media to arrange for some kind of both recording and online access to the meeting and they'll probably get to work on that oh probably in a couple of weeks or whatever the reason they're not doing it immediately is people may be aware they've just moved to temporary quarters there also been some staffing turnover so while the director Jim Lesko has acknowledged my requests and said they'll definitely get to it and they appreciated the long lead time they're not quite ready to work with this yes but yet but anyway I anticipate that they'll definitely be do recording and then we'll see what we work at with respect to online access what I imagine the speakers would be were first we would lead off to talk about current and planned affordable housing development in Amherst and that would be our new co-chairs Carol and Erica so this would be their opportunity to the extent they aren't already known in the community to be introduced more broadly and then that would be followed by what is really the main agenda for the meeting which is planning to date for the East Street Belcher Town Road affordable housing development and that would all be led by wayfinders I'm not quite sure what Michelle's role will be but I expect that Keith Ferry who's the president and CEO and also an Amherst resident will lead off I think as we had a presentation from her that Diane Smith who's the vice president for real estate development would also be participating Michelle is expecting that the architect for the East Street Belcher Town Road development would make a presentation and she can contradict me if I'm not right on this I'm also assuming that a member of Wayfinder staff that does building management and resident support would also be on hand to talk about those elements of the project so that's really what the evening would be my guess is it would be at least 90 minutes and depending on questions and how long the speakers go on it could be up to two hours so it would be starting at 6 30 and ending sometime between 8 and 8 30 the next piece of planning which we've talked a little bit about is outreach in collaboration with Wayfinders we will develop a poster for distribution both through email and also to be posted in various places I would use my current list of 20 to 25 local organizations and request that they publicize the forum and that's worked pretty well in the past to their membership we'd also do announcements to people in the neighborhood so that they're aware of the forum and they have the opportunity to observe or participate as they wish and finally I think Risha had suggested to this that we also do announcements to the Fort River community so that's my list for outreach and that's my description of what I anticipate we're doing so this is a good opportunity to say oh you missed this or to raise questions where I have not been clear about something so thank you John thank you so wonderful to see you this is exciting very very exciting it sounds to me that we need some help with setting up so we may need some members to come at 6 o'clock and set up and then at 8 30 if it goes to 8 30 to help clean up I mean I've been to forums before and everyone is actually wonderful everybody just you know takes chairs and cleans and gets everything ready but it might be better for us to have a few volunteers and it sounds to me that the outreach I'm not really clear about the Fort River community outreach are we talking about knocking on doors are we talking about just having it in like the embers bulletin what are we talking about in terms of outreach to the Fort River community because they're the ones who are the closest to the project I think I'd go to the superintendent to Mike Morris and ask him what the best way is to reach that community because we'll probably be we can do it obviously when the school year begins but I think one of the things that Richard emphasized is that we need to find a way of of doing it in advance so that there's a reasonably long lead time in which people can learn about this I don't know if any Richard anybody else has any specific suggestions about this so I think I mentioned last time that that date is a conflict for me so I won't be able to attend but I would like to help sort of design the marketing if that's something that I can help with as that is the thing I do sure I'd be glad to have your collaboration so you and I should talk about that probably offline and I can describe typically what I've done and you can talk about what we should plan to do to augment that yep and it might just be the posters and stuff but if I don't yeah I was gonna say John I you know I just made a note to myself to confirm you know as a trust meeting what do we need to do you know if it's in person or not or if that's allowable in August or September so anyways you know I'll hopefully can get an answer soon I was just thinking about that you know the state you know we'll know soon what the state says but you know for instance the town may still want everyone to be remote or if it's in person you know how do we broadcast it live if that's what they want so you know you know hybrid meetings work that way in that you know there's a zoom link and it's still people are still attending and seeing everything through zoom and then but you know the trust would still you know can interact with people in the room and over online but at UU I'm not sure if we'd have that capability and so you know I just want to make sure that we can have something at the UU and still you know meet whatever whatever you know meeting guide guidance we need to yeah I I don't know the answer to your questions I mean I've also selected it's possible that at the end of the day the town manager would say we're still not doing in-person meetings so this has to be over zoom but for the moment I think it's best if we not wait for that decision but to plan ahead the other thing you know related to what we can do as a practical matter with respect to allowing online access I was hoping that Amherst media could help to solve that problem for us and that's why I initiated a request to Jim Lesko so I'll find out more when he's available or somebody else at Amherst media is available to talk about planning and you know you can be involved in that as well Nate. Yeah I mean I know Amherst media right now and the trust or when the planning board and other boards meet they actually just they actually take the zoom recording after the fact and use it and so they they've been relying on the zoom to help broadcast it live you know so they do it themselves too but you know they really are taking advantage of zoom as well so I don't you know if it's in a space where they would have to you know report like they used to they probably can just you know we have to make sure that that's allowable. Yeah I mean in the past when we've done meetings in the social hall at the UU somebody from Amherst media has been there actually recording the event but it hasn't been simulcast which is probably what we're looking for here so I'm not technically savvy enough to be able to to know exactly how we can make that work. This brings me to what may be an open meeting question again but it seems like some of the organizing or the final details of logistical details and stuff about how this is going to work are going to happen behind the scenes and before the next meeting and offline and is that all okay I mean this is logistical stuff it's not deliberation except maybe about which form of remote access we use that doesn't seem like a any violation of anything but now that I'm thinking so much about open meeting laws I want to know. No that's all good. All right that's good so we so whatever needs to happen can happen so that the that's good. Yeah and we may be able to report on publicly well we should be able to report publicly on whatever progress we've made at your August meeting Carol. Yeah we have that. So I don't I don't think the open meeting is an issue. Great. Yeah I think you know Michelle's in the audience I think you know the town too would also want to talk to wayfinders about what you know how what what is presented and how information is or comments are received because although the developer does town property so you know it's a partnership project and so I haven't you know I let my supervisors know that this is happening but as you know from now that we know it is kind of a date certain we can also see what you know how we'd want to present it or what you know what where this is you know because wayfinders might use this as kind of starting a permitting right so there's a process through the comprehensive permit or how they would use to go through the development so this you know this actually becomes kind of like the first official public engagement for the project and then you know we might want to have certain documentation of it and everything just to include in the when information is passed on to the state. Yeah well it sounds to me Carol you and I are not only going to lead off and provide a presentation where we are with our plans but we'll probably also moderate unless we're thinking of somebody else moderating the whole event. You want to moderate John? No actually I I'm assuming that someone from Wayfinders will okay okay great directing traffic once they they take over that part of the meeting I mean I can ask Michelle to confirm that but I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case I think they'll be clear about who's speaking and about what in advance and who's taking questions and so forth. So we just have to start out and turn it over to them? Yes sounds good and if you and Arisha decide what we really should do is go door to door in Fort River and put flyers in doorknobs you guys can ask some of us to do that right and that's not any kind of problem either I don't know I mean I would then let me know too you know we can post up on the town's you know we'll need to post it as a trust meeting and then we can put it on the town's website we can you know to make a facebook post about it and an event and other things so you know if there is a flyer or information we can also distribute it and you know post it in different ways great and you know we don't need you know we can post the agenda only the agenda only needs to be posted two days in advance right but if the flyer is ready weeks in advance you know we can put it out on the community calendar and have information and everything ready so I mean we could have a goal of like mid-august you know so a month from now having at the next meeting things ready to be made public and you know post it on the town website and everything yeah I would hope that we'd have a poster uh and any more planning that we need to do related to outreach accomplished by the next meeting okay that's great yeah and I'll get an answer too about how we can structure the meeting in terms of in person or remote and we'll probably know you know tomorrow or early next week what what the decision is made at the state level about meetings so okay it was made it was made already Nate I just I got an email so they extended it to 2023 I learned that at my last meeting so that means this can't be an in-person meeting is that we understand Rita I I don't know what the rules are it's just extending the um the remote meeting ability so I think people are holding in-person meetings it's a waiver but it's a waiver okay because we're supposed to have in-person meetings so we can it's a waiver to we can decide not to okay so then the next issue would be what does the board of health in the town manager say and that could change in a month or two uh yeah since we don't know exactly what the spread of COVID is going to be okay well it sounds like we're going with John's suggestion which is planned for it to be in person with a fallback that we hope we don't have to use of maybe it won't be and uh that makes sense to me does anybody disagree or anything with that okay well then I think it's Erika who's gonna go through some of this part that we call trust priorities and roles and subcommittees go Erika thank you very much so thank you again Nate for sending out the strategic plan and I hope people notice that it said from 2018 to 2022 this is 2022 so we have to start thinking about our next five years so I just wanted to talk a little bit about the overarching goals for 2020 to 2022 which is there on page four and I think it's a good lead into some of the conversation that Ashley brought up but I think it's good to remember what these goals were for this for the past two years or that this year the end of the year before foster development of second town on property which we've been doing and I think we're already on our third and we're looking towards possibly hickory ridge and other places as well foster strong communication and integration of efforts among the various housing entities active in Amherst uh Allegra you've been sort of exemplary in that and Rob I think you're you're also crossing some of those organizations and John has absolutely been exemplary in making those connections explore establishing new or expanding existing rental and home ownership housing assistant programs research how to improve access to existing programs um we had tried to start doing some of that before COVID we had actually a subcommittee looking at that and now we also have the navigator um you know in thinking about how to expand rental affordable rental properties and home ownership we've been talking about for a while support and develop programmatic legislative and policy housing initiatives to mitigate the effects of the pandemic disasters on low and moderate income households and the emergency rental assistance was one initiative in doing that explore new and existing revenue sources including institutional sources but the goal of ensuring that the trust is in a strong financial position for the next five years review the town zoning bylaws and work with the town departments and planning board to affect updating of these bylaws explore opportunities for conservation based development with town departments so those were sort of the priorities for 2020 to 2022 and we've acted on a lot of them but there's also other opportunities and the reason why I wanted to sort of highlight that along with the whole strategic plan I hope that you've had an opportunity to read it um there's a lot of excellent information there and um I got you know I read it when I first joined the trust to also get some of the history and understand the the structure of how the trust works with the CPA and how we get our funding and um what our purposes and what our plans are and what our our aspirations are and that's really important in terms of a housing trust member but it also gives us a sort of a blueprint opportunities to get involved if you're not co-chairing or even as co-chairs to get involved to support some of the goals that we have in the housing trust for the housing trust so um you know as you know Ashley mentioned you know there there are there are many ways of supporting some of these goals such as being the liaison will when he first when he was with us he was our liaison to information around state legislate legislation or finding out what chapel was doing because they keep their fingers on the pulse of legislation that impacts affordable housing and other organizations so thinking about you know would you want to be doing that and bringing information back to us recommendations to the trust about supporting legislation um for example uh the legislation that carol mentioned um the uh this is actually a house built 1377 and senate 868 which talks about the transfer fee of sales um and those fees going to the possibility of those fees going to affordable housing um and in supporting affordable housing trusts um so that's really really important to think about all the legislation that's out there that we may not know about because not all of us have the time but if one person or a couple people wanted to keep track of that and be our sort of person to bring back anything that is applicable to what our goals are and things that we might want to support write a letter support or find out more information about um you could actually take that role on and to ensure that we're always attuned to what's happening and that we maximize our efforts with other organizations to ensure that if there are opportunities support affordable housing that that we're actually doing that um there was also a suggestion to increase our presence through social media and that really requires someone to be interested in first finding out what are the different channels that we could think about um posting in social media articles or information on data data with regard to affordable housing initiatives the lack of affordable housing in um in amherst trends that are happening in amherst and the need to support affordable housing in the different ways that individuals or community organizations can support the development of affordable housing either rental properties or home ownership um so there's absolute opportunities for someone to take that on um and think about um really getting our goals out there and also the work that we're doing um as the trust or with other organizations and then the last piece if you look at page 21 and we actually talk about subcommittees and as Nate said that they there have been subcommittees in the past and so we can form subcommittees specifically to enhance some of the goals that we have and some of the priorities that we have so we wanted to put that out there and then one last piece in the strategic strategic plan um Carol actually noticed this and wanted to underline it on page 21 is that we actually wrote that we would review the strategic plan annually evaluate what we have done and actually celebrate our successes um and then also see how much more that we need to do and create an action plan of that so um that's that would be a great subcommittee to take that on um to take a look at the strategic plan think about you know um how we can start as a trust make recommendation as a trust to think about how we're going to evaluate that um how we're going to actually set up writing a new strategic plan and so um that would be definitely a great opportunity for a couple of members to create a subcommittee to do that and then bring that back I think it's too difficult for nine members of the housing trust to be working on a strategic plan every every time we meet that's all we would be doing but a subcommittee could actually take that on review it come back with suggestions uh and then present it so um we really want you to think about how could you um take on some of these areas um if you want to start a subcommittee bringing it to the trust and say you know maybe we need a subcommittee on social media on social media presence um and maybe we need a subcommittee on the starting to develop a strategic plan but we'd really want you to think about how you are going to connect you know the goals that we have and the goals that you have on being on the housing trust and thinking about um you know stepping up to to to doing um and supporting those goals so I just want to open that up and see if there are any ideas well um I just because I just heard this on npr actually you know there's a gonna eventually this is not until like November there's a ballot measure measure that will be a four percent tax on everyone that makes more than two two million dollars a year has anybody heard of that and so I think that's a wonderful idea but then that's a lot of money coming into the state I assume and I guess it's not because I have not researched these things and maybe some people can tell me how are we getting like how are we getting taxes that's going to be a lot of money I think that would be wonderful to have for affordable housing in western mass how do we know well it has to pass but then also there's cannabis taxes and that has to be um I think they're kind of like reworking the cannabis tax I don't know if it's going to go up or not and then also there's the property or real estate tax how can we get more money from the state or whoever and then how can we put that into I kind of like the idea of like bigger is better public housing or affordable housing in general so that sounds like to me um it could be a subcommittee to explore new and existing revenue sources um you could focus a subcommittee you know if you or if you wanted to take that on and lead that yourself um to to really look at you know what are the opportunities out there to increase you know revenue sources for the trust that then we could utilize for affordable housing yeah I'm definitely interested and then also more I guess diverse housing like tiny houses or mobile home parks or things that aren't just apartments it sounds like it's very focused on apartments and every once in a while a house but a whole house is very expensive obviously what if there was like quite a bit more diverse kind of affordable housing we actually did have a presentation on um sometimes we have to help me with this um we were looking at uh there's a specific name for small houses um treasury dwelling unit that's what it was we had a presentation on that but the which is separate from the the tiny homes um yes we actually did have a presentation on that um but I think I mean did you like it so the town yeah the town did pass a bylaw last fall to allow accessory dwelling units you know up to a thousand square feet bit bit you know almost by right if they're bigger they need some other permitting mechanism but I think actually your second point about housing types I mean I do think that you know that could be a subcommittee that focuses on um you know just that like you know other you know zoning mechanisms or other just you know ways to incentivize different types of housing and affordable housing and so you know I mentioned in announcements that the Community Resource Committee might be looking at that too so I do think that um you know some of them might be you know a subcommittee just looks at what are existing documents the town has and then more where we think there could be opportunities and you know whether it's you know allowing trying to encourage smaller units or like you said different kinds of units um and it you know I think people have that idea and then it's really that how do you implement it and what you know what does that mean and you know is it a zoning measure is it funding to incentivize a development um you know often the development we see um you know the affordable housing we see being developed is because that's what the state programs fund right there's a priorities that may change every so many years but that's kind of where the funding is and so if the town's like we'd love to see a tiny house development right say like 300 square foot homes like 10 of them on a property uh that might just end up being a locally funded project because there's really not other funding out there there might be but you know that for that and it for instance that's something that may actually be really workable in terms of housing but it's maybe the funding isn't there so I do think that that becomes a pretty big project or something that a subcommittee could research and you know come up with ideas and um talk about them it's also somewhat relevant because the town adopted the comprehensive housing policy last year with you know like 100 strategies on how to implement it and they're kind of going through it too to determine you know where where where does the town you know in terms of town council or staff time or other is where do the resources where do you focus on so um you know I think what you know the financing and housing types are some you know pretty important topics to continue looking at others or anybody who wants to join any of these uh I think these two are I think really important don't all speak at once I don't know if you don't want to if you don't want to say something right now please think about what you might want to do and you know email us in between and or whatever because to get to get somewhere you don't have to answer right just a minute and Carol and I will plan on thinking about having a time to evaluate and we're still in 2020 but you know it's never too early to plan something for the future and thinking about you know evaluating our strategic plan and thinking about steps possibly to updating our strategic plan I know Nate it looks like we had a consulting firm or someone else um do the report right so we could hire someone else again or we you know we had kind of updated it you know somewhat recently with those action steps and so it's you know however the trust wants to move forward I will say that there is a rehousing and homelessness uh I think it's task force Allegra's on it and I'm staffing it I need to do more staffing of it but the the idea was to have an assessment of existing services in town both for you know you know shelter and for day services and other services and then where their gaps and what are recommendations and the report was started and never finished and so I think in May the the group you know we discussed writing like a summary memo or a more concise memo in the next so many months say by the end of the year but really trying to determine you know what you know what is the what opportunities are there for the town to help with you know homelessness or sheltering and you know or you know extremely low income and so that is something that you know there's a separate group that's working on it and the trust could be you know apprised of that in terms of you know at some point as material gets developed you know it could be presented to the trust for for the trust opinions and recommendations and then maybe it becomes a subcommittee of the trust or you know I don't know what happens but this is this group is really focusing on it it's a good group in a liquor you're on that group yes I am and I guess one thing that just kind of popped into my head and I think we might have talked about that in this group but it might be helpful to see about looping Earl Miller in the new director of the Crest program because I think he has done a lot of the boots on the ground just trying to meet a lot of people in both the service community and just the community at large and I think we had discussed that as a possibility in our last group but I do think that would be an important stakeholder to yeah yeah he's the director of the Crest program actually it's really funny we're in a meeting and someone said oh what should we do with this I'm like oh I'm like I talked to Earl he comes like let's give it to Earl oh he's the new guy let's put all the work on him no I forgot what we were talking about but he's a really good guy so yeah I think that's a really good point Allegra he's done a lot hearty out in the community and can I just ask you something Allegra um just in terms of like homelessness and like rehoming people just curious and because I've worked with homelessness do what do people tend to want do they want permanent things they own do they want apartments do they want hotel rooms are they do you have a sense of like the people that are homeless or you are in the transitioning to homes what are they really looking for I mean I think anecdotally I've heard from people who've been working at Craig stores that certainly the hotel room model of sheltering that we've kind of transitioned to during the pandemic has been much more favorable because it's more stable than say a congregate shelter where you have to go every night and get a number and stand in line and maybe you'll get a bed maybe you won't but I think you know I think that people are experiencing the difficulty that everyone looking for housing is experiencing and that even if they have some way of making you know a housing opportunity more affordable there aren't very many places in the Amherst where like a mobile voucher will qualify at this point and I do think that you know hopefully with the Northampton Road Apartments coming online people will have the opportunity to get into a apartment apartment yeah it's a good question Ashley I think you know we've heard in some of the models we looked at you know it's you know almost like studio apartments or smaller apartments small one bedrooms and not necessarily you know they're they're smaller you know the rentals as opposed to say like a four bedroom where they're sharing space you know where there's you know like a roommate situation or a housemate situation and so when you know there are different models for that where some of its you know transitional housing and some of its permanent supportive housing and there's you know I think some there's opinions on what's better I think in Amherst you know what we've lost over the years is kind of that single room occupancy studio housing boarding housing and different kind of types of rental housing and so you know 100 years ago there's probably you know options different options of housing that's just not available now and so we're you know I think you know I think like Allegra said for a shelter we're looking at having you know it'll be a congregate shelter with multiple beds but during the pandemic the use of hotel rooms was was really great right having people in a room um and so I think though it's like the cost of it and you know what happens after there isn't female money to support it so you know it's really nicely supported financially during the pandemic and that may or may not happen in the coming shelter season but you know the town's looking at you know what you know what can we do to support a shelter um and then you know I do think housing is a big piece but we're also you know we're looking at probably small rental rentals as opposed to you know some other model right now so um oh Risha just on the social media bit I mean it seems to me that if we have to have everything approved ahead of time that that's pretty limiting for social media which is by its nature a a quicker response kind of of thing so while I would be happy to volunteer for it I don't given that I don't think it makes sense to invest much in it okay well I mean you talk about like just having um like a like a streaming blog or something where there's I guess what do you mean by approved um well my understanding is that if we wanted to post things on Twitter and share things from an official trust account that everyone would have to approve all of those um and that the timeliness of that would then sort of defeat the purpose of those kinds of of communication channels yeah unless we unless when we read the long thing that Rita has asked us to go find unless we find some other some other suggestion in that that suggests there's some way around it then it sounds like I agree with you I mean I do think you know the town has a webpage in different media platforms you can post on um yeah I mean I think the however I do think you know if the trust has a you know a page that is updated monthly I know it's not as frequent as it could be I mean it is still it could still be useful um but it wouldn't be as dynamic as you know what maybe what you know some people are thinking right so it is somewhat static but it is still useful to put information out there and so it just might be you know I'm not sure how many people actually go to the you know the town government website to look for information on housing but if you know if they google and find housing amers or something and somehow we tag the housing trust in a way that that becomes you know part of a certain you know a result of search then maybe it is still important even though it's not as interactive as like but it sounds like that would be better than what we have now in terms of we don't even particularly on the Amherst town website we don't have like a little bar or anything that says upcoming housing affordable housing you know bulletin do we I haven't seen it but you haven't found it no I wasn't looking very hard apparently but it would be nice to just have a little box that was like red that said Amherst affordable housing is here for you or something you know it's like we can advertise ourselves somewhere ideally you know that could happen if somebody wanted to try to figure it out and connect it to the town I mean yeah I don't know who runs a town website so far it seemed to me like finding minutes on it has been fairly far after the fact um but I don't know so if somebody wants to look into all of this they could or not well who runs the town website yeah so you know IT in general and then we have our you know communication officers but then you know since I staffed the trust I'm you know technically responsible for maintaining everything that would go up through the trust web page and I can say that I don't do that very often you know we did have the administrative position you know John Page I've been doing it and he was doing a pretty good job a few years ago and then we had someone else and now we've run into some some roadblocks about how to hire someone to do that but you know someone on the trust I guess if you're interested you can you know we they could get access to the to that web you know the web pages and help keep that up to date on the town website so it doesn't necessarily have to be me we just have to you know if there's someone who would be willing to do it that's possible so maybe if somebody decides they want to take that on they could let especially Nate know and Erica and I I'd be whenever it is that you decide that you want to do that and we can go from there I would like to not I mean I'd like to manage to have time to do these the updates that we have on our projects especially uh east gable since I see that Laura is even an attendee and might want to give it herself I asked her and I have a little blurb that she sent me an email but Laura if you're there you want to is that why you're here or do you want to do you want to give us an update you can raise your hand Laura if you want to see there she goes okay hi everyone can you guys hear me yes hello um I would love to give an update so um for those of you who are daring enough to go down Northampton road these days um you'll see that everything's under construction and the project at 132 Northampton road is going along actually surprisingly well given all the challenges in the supply chain and construction environment so I encourage people to take a look if you can um it looks like we're building like a big styrofoam cooler um because there's so much insulation this is a passive house um certified building it's the first one that valley has undertaken I think it'll be one of the first multifamily um passive house developments in western massachusetts um and so it's a little bit unique in the construction methods um but the clearing is done the old house is gone the foundation is in they're doing um the mechanical systems that are going to run under the slab floor um and they should probably be pouring this slab in another week or two so it's it's pretty good progress um so we're very pleased with it um we are looking at a completion date in july of 2023 it still feels like it's a long way away but it it'll come fast um which means we'll be looking at marketing uh kind of toward the very end of this year starting to market looking at a lottery sometime in the spring you know now that the building is being built I do get inquiries once in a while um we don't have an application yet but if people want to email me I'm at least starting a list a notification list so and and I do I have been getting inquiries coming in um so I know people are out there so send them my way we'll we'll make sure they know when it's time to apply um for the project do you want me to give a one minute what it is for folks who might be new sure so it's a it's called east gables it's it's right next to the amherst college field house uh it is a 28 unit um basically all small studio apartments they're self-contained units that have a kitchen and each one has the kitchen and a bathroom um 10 of them have a priority for folks individuals that are homeless two of them are reserved for clients the department of mental health and then the other units range uh in terms of income limits but everything is less than 80 of the area median income so we have 30 60 80 percent units there um we will have uh resident services coordinator kind of a three quarter position on site property management on site there's some common areas um also in the building so that's kind of the skinny on it um there is actually I think still a ton of information on the town's website about this project right Nate it never went away did it it never went away so if you want to know everything it's there you every letter ever written 100 letters a whole server all for itself no um so and if I can grab your attention for one more minute we have another project in planning in amherst that we're starting to get ready to let people know about we will be acquiring uh an eight acre parcel uh on 20 to 40 ball lane road in north amherst it's a district what I I'm sorry I missed can you say the address once more 20 through 40 ball lane it's the corner of it actually there's a bunch of corners it's the corner of pulpit hill montague road and ball lane everybody looks confused natal show you a map eventually that's okay go ahead um there was a trucking company there it's been for sale for a long time um within the last year the kind of um industrial warehouse style buildings that were on site were demolished um the co-housing folks on pulpit hill looked at the site for years and couldn't quite come to terms uh with the sellers um valley uh has an option to purchase we have the financing in hand and we're just really kind of rolling along toward a closing date uh in august and we just sent a flyer out to the butters so we'll be having our first neighborhood meeting coming up in a few weeks um it'll be a zoom meeting and then we'll follow that with a meeting on site probably once we've acquired the property um in sometime in august there is a single family house on the property that has a tenant who's probably going to remain there um our proposal for this uh property is approximately 30 uh first time home buyer condos um probably in duplexes so it would be 15 buildings all together um we're looking at a lot at the way that co-housing is laid out it's not co-housing per se but we're looking at some of those kind of site planning um priorities and and also pocket neighborhoods so we're going to try to cluster the dwellings together have a lot of open space remain on the property um have very high energy efficiency all good things um and so 20 of the 30 would be affordable i think we're looking at 80 units 100 units and then 10 market rate units um the reason we're able to do this miraculous thing is that the state has one funding program that's really targeting home ownership it's called the commonwealth builder program and if you go on to the department of housing community development's website and you you google commonwealth builder program you can read about the intentions of the program which are really to try to start to address underserved communities particularly communities of color that have been kind of left out of um you know building wealth through home ownership so and the reason we can do this in amherst is strangely enough north amherst is a qualified census tract so the census data in amherst is such that it is falling into a category it's probably the only qct in our region you know there there just aren't many places that this is possible um in valley service area so we're really excited about that you'll be the envy of the neighboring towns who also want first time home buyer projects um so anyway we're really excited about it we will be coming back to the trust to give you more detailed information we certainly want your input um as we go into the kind of planning and design part of the project we always like to give neighbors first shot at knowing about project that's why i haven't really talked about this before even though we've been working on this for a while we want the neighborhood to hear about it first um from us uh before we start talking it around in you know public settings so it's coming that's great news laura that's exciting very exciting thank you so much yeah we're super excited about it great uh so let's see if i don't know is michelle still here michelle do you want to tell us anything about the progress with east street and belcher town road project or handed up i'm unmuted yay can we can hear you okay i have real problems with zoom zoom doesn't usually um so we're working with the town on the land development agreement um we just received the second draft back from the town uh and we will be reviewing it and getting it back to the town probably sometime by the end of next week our second draft of their second draft uh we are looking at possibly a reciting of the belcher town road property per the town they request us to take a look at moving the building up to belcher town road so we've we are working on that we have all of our civil in place our environmental in place and as soon as dlda is signed um we're ready to go with the due diligence fantastic yep and our attorney is on board and we're already looking the town wants to do this as a local initiative program under the 40b and we are already putting together all the documents that are going to be needed for the local initiative program um the application for that okay uh anything else that nate is this the place where the moving the house thing comes in or something about moving a house michelle are there any questions for michelle before i end up changing the subject slightly my only question was about moving the house okay because i think michelle said something about moving a house to belcher town road and i wasn't sure if that meant like up the property to the side of the road from now so the um you know there's two houses on the belcher town road properties there's the uh brown older cape near the road and then there's one that's set back that's a modular house from the mid 90s and it's uh the town in part of the the disposition of the property or the request for proposals was that the town would look at moving the houses and it's really not on wayfinders or you know um you know so we're looking at a town owned property there's a few few of them of course they all have wetlands on them and i have some estimates to do wetland assessments and i just have to kind of get contracts going um the town did just change its wetland regulations i think it was like two weeks ago so now that those are in place we'll get contracts going um you know so but the the hope is to move maybe one of the houses um and make a you know an affordable home ownership unit out of it but there would be relocated to a different town property not closer to the road on the current right no it would be it'd be you know it'd be taken off this property to a whole other property um yeah what i talked about um what i was mentioning is the town had asked us to move the building that we designed closer to belcher town road and because of the wetlands that is uh you know it's it's an issue and we're working through it right now but there's a lot of wetlands on the belcher town roadside too yeah so the concept design that was submitted for the belcher on roadside had parking you know it was the road and parking and the building and we had said you know could you flip that or we arranged so that the building faces the street in a way that it seems you know it creates a streetscape as opposed to um perhaps more like a an office park um look but you know there are psych constraints that may limit how this you know how it can be designed and also achieve the number of units so can i ask a question about that because i feel like i remember part of the conversation being like it would create more of a village center feel um but i have questions about like if it's for families it might be better farther away from the road because small children are really fast and they don't always make good choices so maybe having like a little bit of a buffer and having property farther away from the road might not be the worst idea just a thought yeah so i thank you yeah i would hold those thoughts and then you know this will go through permitting and the trust will probably have a chance to provide comments or you could individually as well great okay is there anything else on belcher town road or the moving of the house no no i think like michelle said we're trying to you know um you know more even hinted right that everything takes longer so you know we're going through just discussions on all the legal documents and you know it's just the the the part that takes longer than you you know yeah right and then it's all the details that take a long time to get sorted out so well then that i think leaves us to two things we were going to ask nate about strong street again and i think hickory ridges i don't know anyway either one of us to nate yeah so strong street i um you know we mentioned that there's some um endangered species there and so i filed a request with the state to get um we had a pre-construction meeting we had a filing with natural heritage and then um i submitted a request for information from the state and so when that's received then we're going to have to hire a botanist or scientist to go out and actually do a field survey on the site um and then after that we can approach natural heritage again to see how much disturbance we can have on the property so uh you know it's just kind it's kind of waiting i don't want to hire someone until the states responded in terms of what exactly we're looking for so i submitted a request for information form um about a month ago so we should be hearing pretty soon and then we'll have someone go out there so i you know i'm so somewhat hopeful that that site could probably accommodate 10 to 14 units you know unless for instance we find that the endangered species actually is wider spread than we think and then it's not but i'm hoping it's actually less than what the boundary shows and we could you know get maybe 16 or 20 units but you know we'll wait to hear you know the building commissioner and i had come up with a way where the town might actually permit it as a almost like a condo development of a common drive and not a subdivision and so the permitting you know the from a land development and regulation standpoint it's easier it's a little tricky but we're trying to come up with some creative ways to get units in there um so we're just kind of waiting on this you know this natural heritage piece so that's still moving forward it's just a little slower okay well maybe we will i will avoid we will unless erica doesn't agree with me avoid putting it on an agenda until you tell us you've got something sure because it seems like i don't know just yeah we know you're working on it we know it's slow when something happens we'd love to hear yeah just don't forget about it that's why we keep it on there so i yeah so we don't forget about it i know that's yeah and hickory ridge yeah the um yeah i think something's gonna happen pretty soon you know the um the town owns it um we just we just submitted a grant to put an accessible walking trail on the western portion um but there's still you know five to ten acres whatever i don't you know could be four but there's some amount of land that's developable and so the town is going to engage in a process to determine what you know what kind of uses could go there you know we'll say that you know they're they have been recommendations from you know a fire station to a community center to housing to just leaving an open space to an event venue and so a senior center so there's a number of ideas for it and i think dave zomac and the planning department and some others will come up with a process uh this later this summer and fall but you know i think the trust we can just keep active um and you know be part of the conversation uh you know i think senior housing has been one that you know john and rita looked at a while ago and i you know i think there's still discussions about that but you know the site is 150 acres it's an old golf course but you know 140 of those acres is most of that now is either conservation or it floods or it's solar or there's restrictions on it so there really isn't a lot of land that's left even though it is a large parcel but it is a will be a community amenity so you know we are planning trails and other things so even if housing isn't what's built there there's still going to be a process to determine you know what kind of community amenities are available on the other spaces so i think it's something that the trust can still be you know part of so we're trying to make trail connections into east haveley road and so the town's been working with property owners trying to determine how can we make a walking trail or trails that connect north and into pulmonary pulmonary village center so that there is access for neighbors and residents um you know we see it as a really good good opportunity and an asset even if it doesn't yield you know a lot of housing units you know for instance but it's still a really good thing for the town and there is solar on it right so what happened is the developer if people are familiar you know it's a there's two high and dry sites behind the river away from the road but the developer the previous owner you know applied for and um had you know i forgot how many acres of solar so there's going to be two big solar installations on the property um and then the remainder of it becomes available to the public but you know there will be you know solar fields on it and then there's some areas that will be restricted along the river that there isn't public access so there's about 20 acres that need to be kind of left wild and then they'll you know that's i think that's probably about 50 acres that are kind of off limits and then there's 100 acres that could be available for public use so will you keep it's at some if there's a point at which we should get our our digs in and say yes we would like to see housing here which i assume is what we would be saying of some sort will you help us know when and where we should be doing that yeah and i think you know um and i yeah and we could even have it at the next meeting or meet you know august or september it could be a discussion about you know is it senior housing so could the trust you know not just say housing in general but if we think senior housing or a certain type of housing and maybe spend a little bit of time talking about that so when it's time for um comment to the town it could be a little more um directed in terms of you know we think you know a mix of unit sizes for senior housing right or whatever right or family you know whatever there is whatever you know more than to say oh we think it's good for housing you know is that we think you know 50 units of this type of housing or 60 units or and we can pull up a map and look at a few things but yeah i mean i think that's something the next one to three months we should kind of formulate sounds good does anybody have any comments about any of these projects that we've talked about before we move into our kind of end of meeting stuff and i'll pass it back to erica sure well we want to open it up for public comments right now so um i cannot see hands nat you can um if there's anyone who has joined us who has a comment uh or a question um this is the time uh yeah i mean there's four attendees and i think they've all spoken at some point not so i'm not seeing any hands being raised well i want to thank the attendees and i want to thank those especially who came and presented so thank you um and so then we'll close the public comment period and we'll go to any items not anticipated within the 48 hours on this agenda i don't think we have any uh and we have a couple of items that we said that we were going to present at the next meeting um we're going to have an update regarding the forum um the september 13th forum and then another possible item is to think about more detail for presenting to the town um what we think should happen with hickory ridge road uh and i think you know we have spoken a lot about senior housing and the need for senior housing so um we can open it up to ideas so those two agenda items any other agenda items we could have a discussion of subcommittees you know if we think yep thank you anything else and i can't see hands sorry i only see a few people at the same time looks like not all right um so the upcoming meeting will be august 11th um in august and actually we do need a volunteer to do minutes would anybody like to volunteer to do minutes for august 11th um george has been so kind to volunteer to do minutes will not be available i can do it but somebody remind me of the beginning of next meeting oh i'll definitely thank you so much thank you very much yeah and it's perfect okay um so then august 11th will be our next meeting and then september 8th which will be right before our housing forum um and thank you risha for volunteering to work with uh john around the marketing and if there are other ideas about um what carol mentioned in terms of uh house to house marketing or talking to people are setting out fires we'll talk about that the next time george george uh sorry interrupt has raised his hands thank you george you can unmute yourself very quick question to whom should the minutes go should it go to the two co-chairs should go to nate who gets the minutes the co-chairs are great good we'll do thank you thanks george thank you george all right before we end any other comments questions otherwise i will move to end our meeting until august 11th thank you so much everybody and please do not hesitate to send us agenda items yes