Okay, so this is the January 29th, 2020 meeting of the Community Resources Committee of the Town Council. We have a quorum, so I am calling it to order at 8.33 a.m. Before we take general public comment, I'm gonna just jump to number six announcements to get that over with while we wait for one more member to show up. And that is just that there is a Community Resources Committee retreat scheduled for this coming Monday, February 3rd. At, I think we're 6.30 p.m. right here in the town room. That agenda is already posted online. The packet will be posted later this week, probably sometime tomorrow for that. So anyone's welcome to attend. There will be no public comment at that meeting because it is a retreat and our standard operating is that the retreats are for internal discussions made in public. Does anyone else have any announcements? Not seeing any. So is there any, our next item of agenda item is general, oh, I forgot to say, we are recording this. So for those out there that is being recorded by the town. So anyone in the audience would like to make general public comment, we do not have scheduled any public comment specifically on any of the action items. As chair, I reserve the right to add that in as necessary because I know we have people who are directly associated with some of those items in the audience. But is there any general public at this time? Any general public comment at this time? Seeing none, that moves us on to our action items. The first action item is the draft affordable housing priorities policy. This was a, and here comes Dorothy. So as I give the introduction, she'll be able to get herself set. Back in November, the community resources committee wrote a memo to the town council on our feedback as per our referral from the town council to look at the housing priorities plan and produce some potential feedback so that the council could send that feedback back to the Amherst affordable housing trust. We did that in November. Finance committee has been working on it since that time to produce their feedback as they had a referral to. And in light of what the finance committee has produced in their report and their feedback, I have put this back on our agenda to discuss whether we would like to add anything to our feedback before the council as a whole discusses this. So I'm gonna pass this over at least for introduction a little bit to the chair of the finance committee who happens to also sit on CRC to talk about what the finance committee recommendation is and why that might be relevant to why we're on back on the agenda here. So Andy. The finance committee draft report that was submitted for consideration by the finance committee is in the packet for today's CRC meeting. And the reason that I wanted to start there is because the recommendation that the conclusion of the report is not changed by the discussion yesterday. It was adopted unanimously in the vote of the finance committee, the resident members of the committee were supportive of the action. We always ask them for comments that they may have to offer before we take up a vote because they are non-voting members. There were some changes that were made in the report. They're more about some of the, just a few of the points, not very many, and conclusions. I think that the most significant one that I wanted to make sure gets noted is that after discussion and after input from the chair of the Affordable Housing Trust who's here also today, Mr. Hornig, we wanted to make a little bit of a stronger statement about the fact that at times when the town puts funding behind a proposal, it is a generator of money from state grants and that the money that is received from the state is not really recognized in the calculations that have been put forward by the planning department so that we wanted to make sure that that was recognized. That's the decision that gets made on a case-by-case basis depending on eligibility and something that regardless of what we do, I think that is a policy that will always be there because it is the logical thing to do and the best example I can give to you is what we already know is happening with Valley CDC's effort to develop a project at 132 Northampton Road and that the step that they're now engaged in is to seek state funding which is an integral part of their funding package and so we strengthen that point for very deliberate purposes. Another thing that we wanted to emphasize a little bit more strongly than was in there before is a point that Ms. Pam has raised in both committees and that is that there are a number of strategies that can be pursued that will generate more affordable housing that are things that are really zoning changes that we've talked about and things that do not have direct cost to the town that can be productive of housing and can be economically feasible in that they will not discourage but housing from being built but take advantage of housing that's being built so we wanted to strengthen those points but the bottom line recommendation is that we feel that the question of the goal needs to be considered very carefully, we're in no way suggesting that the goal is an inappropriate strategy but that it needs to have a little bit more thought given behind the goal. There's a lot of feeling in the finance committee members that the housing policy should be a policy of the town council and should cover more than just housing for people who are below 80% of AMI but cover a broader range which is not to say that 80 people below 80% is not an important element of what we're doing but it should be a broader policy and to recommend that two things that the policy be referred from the council back to a committee and we also said specifically that it probably should not be the finance committee to develop a final policy for council consideration before adoption and suggested that that possibly could be this committee, the community resources committee, the other thing, another suggestion that we made is that any policy of number should have explicit flexibility for the council to reconsider as it considers each proposal and not let ourselves be bound by the goal, goal is important but the ability to revisit is on an ongoing basis is important for the council to have. So that's basically what is there. As I said, the conclusion at the end is therefore not really changed at all and it has been adopted and we will do the final edits based upon the conversation at yesterday's meeting and then get it off to the council hopefully before the next council meeting. Thank you. So with that summary, I think that gives us a little idea of why it's back here which is there is a recommendation from the finance committee that will be going to the council of that the policy should be developed by the council, a broader policy and that potentially that referral to develop that would come back here. So before the council decides as chair of this committee I thought it might be wise for us to be able to talk as a committee about that at the council level and so I thought we could come back and revisit our response to the referral which really just dealt with our concerns and feedback on the policy itself not the process for redoing or revising that potential policy and where that might sit. So I'd like our discussion initially to sort of focus on we had some of this in the prior document but to focus on should we as a council or we as a committee at this point recommend a broader housing policy adoption instead of one focused solely on ADMI and lower and beyond that where should that policy be developed? And so those are sort of the questions I think we should discuss first. So I'd love to hear any feedback. We have two finance committee members sitting here too so we've kind of heard some of that through the report from the finance committee but it would be good to hear it from a CRC view because you can always look at things differently. Dorothy. Well I think that Andy has summed up our discussion quite well and I'll also add that he pointed out if we count the, I know actually it was Mr. Hornick who pointed out that if you look at what we are doing and what's in the pipeline that we have already are making progress towards the goal which I believe it was the number of units within five to 10 years. So I think that we are very supportive of affordable housing. We are faced with reading about the housing problem all the time but I do agree that I'd like to fold it into a larger, more comprehensive housing policy which the whole town council would get behind. And so I guess Mandy Joe's suggestion is that the CRC formed this into a, I guess a request for further discussion with the town council. Perhaps the president and I'm not quite sure. There was a mention of a committee that has not yet been formed. So I'd like to ask you about that a little bit. So Pat first and then I'll, okay. I was gonna respond to two things. The first one was my request for the conversation today. I think the conversation today is do we want to modify any of our recommendations or portions of vote back to the council regarding the referral including similar things to what the finance committee put into their recommendations. To respond to your other one, there is a proposal from GOL that's been introduced initially to the council for a committee reorganization. If that passes, the community resources committee would retain under that proposal, housing and master plan and planning and development land use. The new sort of renamed committee town services and organization or outreach would receive from the CRC charge more of the public works, public safety, transportation, bus services and that type of services. So housing would stay with the committee that is here today. Pat. I actually would like to hear from John Hornick in response to the question that's been put out to us about a larger policy. John, would you like to respond to that? You're still chair of the affordable housing trust, right? Yes. That hasn't changed. So John is the chair of the Amherst Affordable Housing, there's an AM, municipal, I was like, there's an M in there. Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust in town. So we are the Amherst Affordable Housing Trust, therefore we offered an affordable housing policy and asked you to act on that. Now, as I look at the larger problem, which has to be acknowledged, we didn't avoid it entirely. We do have some language on 80 to 100% that's also acknowledged by the finance committee. But when you go above 100%, there are no immediate or obvious or easy solutions plus, as I said, it was really beyond the scope of what the housing trust is intended to work on. As I think about the problem, it involves things like speaking to the university about adding several thousand more student residential units on campus. I think that's what you need to change the marketplace in Amherst because I think there's an estimate out there of something like four to 5,000 students living in housing in Amherst. Some of it obviously especially built for them and what I would imagine the university doing in its newest construction and in future construction is also building housing that would be more attractive to students perhaps than what's now offered on campus. But my point is that's one possible solution for the larger housing problem. Others involve rent control, which comes up. Other kinds of zoning changes that would promote more development in town. So in the hope that having more housing would help to drive the price of housing down with respect to either rent or home ownership. Those are big issues. And I'm not saying that town council or anybody else should not tackle them. I absolutely believe they are important. On the other hand, I think to bury the affordable housing policy in those larger issues is not the right thing to do. I think you've got an affordable housing policy before you that that's what town council should act upon and then it should take the next step for a larger policy that would address the broader issues that I know you all are concerned about as am I. So that's my view, Pat, thank you for asking. Thank you, John. Do you have any other discussion, Pat? Okay, not right now, okay. Yes, I just wanna amplify what John said that these are separate, that we need to work on the affordable housing policy and we need to create a larger, separate town council generated policy on housing. I do have one question. I'm channeling Jim Oldham a little bit who I'm curious about the impact of if housing is built and subsidies given to a family so they can purchase it, there doesn't seem to be any drawback of that amount when the house gets sold and part of me understands that because it doesn't belong to, it's my house now and I should be able to reap the profit of it. But I'm thinking about Jim always talking about that $50,000 or whatever was generated for the first to come back into a town fund that could then be reused by other people. And I guess I'm being not very articulate and I apologize, but I'd like your response or thoughts about that. Yes, John. Okay, thank you. Actually, the Community Preservation Act Committee of which Jim recently left had made that concern clear to Valley Community Development who applied for a home ownership subsidy program a year ago. They have now submitted a new proposal and in order to be responsive to that complaint, their new proposal is structured so that the $50,000 that each family would receive would, I believe, and I may not get this exactly right, but my understanding is it would be an interest-free loan for the period in which the family owned the home and then when they sold it, the $50,000 would have to be paid back to the town. A couple people I talked to suggested there was some ambiguity that whether it just goes into the general town revenue pool or it returns to CPA. I would hope the latter, but I really can't speak to that. So I'm gonna take an opportunity to talk about my thoughts on what to do and recommend on housing policy. The council under the charter is the chief policymaker in the town. So from that point of view, I think any policy, whether it be affordable housing or housing in general or some transportation policy or some other thing we might come up with at some point and should be adopted by the council number one and maybe should be generated by the council. Certainly when there are town committees that specialize in those areas using their expertise to help generate it makes a lot of sense to me because we as counselors in some sense are more generalists than specialists. And so from that point of view, I really thank the housing trust for starting that process because you guys are more expert on affordable housing than I probably will ever be. But the question in my mind is at what point does it then does the council sort of take control of that policy and start modifying it to what the council believes the town needs to create under its authority as chief policymaker, the policy. And that timing for me is probably somewhere about now. And so I think if we were to expand the referral that we had from the council to expand on recommendations I think my recommendation would, my thoughts would agree generally with what finance came up with which is that there should be a recommendation to sort of send this off to a committee for revision for potential recommendation back to the council for adoption. And I hear what John says and I hear what you say Pat about affordable housing might need its separate policy. And so I struggle with doing that before a full housing policy. To me, I think of housing most of what I've heard is not just that we lack affordable housing but we lack lower A as people like to say affordable housing, what I've termed workforce housing, those at 100% AMI and slightly higher and those between 80 and 100% AMI. And to me, the policy can't be separate from the big A affordable policy. I think they're interrelated. And as you said, there's a lot of big issues to deal with that workforce housing but that also relates to the 80 AMI and lower housing too. And so I think in my mind, I'd prefer a comprehensive policy that maybe sets forth specifically in it, affordable big A affordable housing policies along with others so that it's one policy not two or three. That's sort of where I'm thinking now. I'm not set on that because I'm still figuring things out but that's where my thinking is now. I don't know where other people's total thinking is. We've heard a little bit. Dorothy. I agree with you. And I think that we're at a very important time in which many people are thinking about housing and many people are speaking to me or trying to get together to talk about how does the town work? How do we come up with a complete picture? And so I would be very happy for CRC to work on and to work with the town staff to work on generating such a policy to bring forward to the town council. And I think that the report that John Hornick has brought to us is a very important part of understanding the picture. I also do agree that it's a very big picture which has to include UMass. It has to include the whole system. We're very interrelated. Andy and then Pat. Now turning to this committee and speaking as member of this committee and thinking of it in a broader sense than just the finance issues housing is I think as we experienced from our own lives and from our campaign and what we observed and heard as we talked to citizens during the campaign when we were running for council it needs to be addressed in a comprehensive manner. I think that there's another point that we were sort of circling around a little bit in the finance committee discussion but in this committee's discussion that needs to be considered and that is the degree to which we need to really look at housing opportunities broadly because we don't want to isolate communities. We want to have people who are of varied incomes and backgrounds living together in single communities and that speaks for a larger policy. I think that the biggest concern then would be if it takes longer to develop a policy that's a comprehensive policy, does that in effect delay making progress towards achieving some of the affordable housing initiatives that might otherwise be undertaken? And I guess I don't think so because we have a pretty strong commitment in this community and we want to formalize it with a better policy but we're making a lot of progress right now. There's a lot of new opportunities that have been opened up and developed in being pursued over the past couple of years. Nothing has slowed us down and I think it's a point that has been made by several different people in this conversation. So I think we can as a council say that we encourage the continuation of every possible effort to create affordable housing at the earliest opportunity as we develop a policy. I don't think it has to be mutually exclusive. Pat, I think we should move forward with the housing trust affordable housing policy and that it can be integrated into the larger document that the town council creates. I am concerned that not moving forward with it will affect what happens with affordable housing as defined right now by the trust. So I think it's very easy to lose sight of what we have control over and what we don't have control over. We don't have control over the market forces in town in terms of properties. We do have control over zoning and can create some new zoning laws that allow for denser development, tiny house development, accessory dwelling that could affect townwide housing options for people who are above the 80% limit. But I think that we should move forward with the housing trust policy now. Can I ask for clarification? When you say move forward, one of the things we were discussing was where does the final modification of if we stick with an affordable housing policy only? Where does that final modification happen when you say move forward? Do you foresee that happening in the trust or with a council committee? I see it happening in the trust. Okay. I actually wanna ask John and Dave a question about housing policy development. I don't think we've ever asked you, did the trust receive any staff help in developing the policy that was presented to us? And if so, what was it? If not, how did you guys go about developing that? And then to Dave, a similar question in developing policies in the past, obviously we've never had a council before so it's sat in town committees. What kind of staff help has been used for the development of similar policies? So we'll start with John. I would say that we did have some staff help but not a huge amount of staff help. Nate Malloy is staff to the housing trust and Nate certainly participated in most of the meetings where this was discussed. He may have provided some information to us but he wasn't a framer of the policy or a drafter of the policy. The second person is Rita Farrell who is our consultant. Again, this isn't a main part of what we rely upon Rita for but she's typically at our meetings and she would also being present have contributed to it. The main drafting of the policy was done by me. We also formed committees that met and disbanded and others that met again that were all formed of people who are members of the housing trust. So really by and large, this is a policy of the housing trust. It was not something that was framed and developed by town staff. The other thing I'll say in just, in generally I like this report but one thing honestly that I found a little funny is that a number of the recommendations particularly beginning with the very first one were the opposite of what I was getting from members of the trust. Every time I would present a new draft people would have criticism of the content but also they would say John it's too long you have to cut it down. And that was something that we heard from Alyssa Brewer when the policy was prevented in the first discussion of town council. So again, I don't know what the conclusion is but I do think that it's something to keep in mind when there's all these things that we think should be in it. You just can't have them all in it because then people don't read it or pay attention and so I was constantly getting the feedback from the trust this has to be streamlined. Thank you, Dave. So I would just echo, obviously on this policy John is spot on. I guess historically I think it's fairly simple that staff normally in my time with the town would not get involved in creating policy. The select board had some policies I think it's a little bit surprising if you do your research and Andy certainly might be more knowledgeable than I am as a former select board member but how few policies we actually have. We have lots of plans in Amherst but not a tremendous number of policies. So staff would perhaps support the select board or the town manager in working with the select board formally but we would not be in the driver's seat on developing policy. I did just wanna just make a couple of quick comments. One is that from a staff standpoint, from my staff standpoint we fully recognize that affordable housing is a very critical priority for the town. So whether there is a policy or whether there isn't we are moving forward at the same pace. I think that we would, whether this is adopted or tomorrow or not. So we recognize the importance of affordable housing. We're working through CPA, East Street School proposal, et cetera, et cetera. I did just wanna acknowledge all the discussion that I've listened to over the past couple of months on this policy I think has been really important and has raised awareness about this issue even higher than it was before all these discussions. So on one hand I really wanna kind of acknowledge John the trust in helping to raise the bar through these discussions but also that I feel that we don't wanna lose that momentum if you will. So if the council decided that they wanted to create a larger policy I wonder if there's some way to acknowledge in time to say the policy as of January 2020 that has been developed is by and large the council is supportive of it. If you decide to go to a larger policy that this can be incorporated in. I don't wanna put words in John's mouth. We've never talked about this but if I were in the trust position I would just want to make sure that if the decision is to make a larger policy that we wouldn't need to go back to square one on this a month from now or three months from now or whenever that policy gets developed so that there could be some acknowledgement that this is really good work. It's very close to where the council wants it to be but they wanna plug it into a larger policy that may take a little time. So it acknowledges all the work. It acknowledges where the council might be on affordable housing. So I'm not advocating for the larger policy. I'm just saying I think it would be a shame to go back a couple months from now. The other thing is I think we need to look and say okay, what other communities have a comprehensive housing policy and how quickly could staff work with you all and the larger council to develop that. Thank you. Pat, I'm not opposed to a comprehensive policy but I do feel that I would like to work on accepting the housing trust policy on affordable housing because we need to stand forward and show that Amherst is really committed and we have a tendency to pat ourselves on the back and I think we are doing fairly well in terms of addressing affordable housing but I would hate to see any fallback because we didn't vote for this now or the acceptance of the policy. Dorothy. Well, I'm very aware of the many long discussions we had in the finance committee as to why accepting the policy as it is now might not be a good idea but I do agree with Mr. Zomick that it obviously would be part of the considerations of a comprehensive policy. In terms of keeping up momentum, perhaps we could try to do a zoning change slash clarification to make sure that inclusionary zoning which has not been triggered as often as it should be clarified so that new construction include, I believe it's 12% inclusionary zoning that would keep some momentum going and in the direction that we need to go. I also agree that we should consult with other communities and look at their policies and see if there's something that seems to work for us. One other item that I mentioned yesterday afternoon in the finance committee was that when we look at the chart that I've been given many times of what the town has done and it's quite impressive. Over time to aid affordable housing, I can't tell from it which is, I can't tell the cost effectiveness because the figures are all in different formats. They somehow we need to have a sense of what kinds of things we have done and what they have cost and to make some idea of how many of them are the ways that we think we should be going forward and emphasizing more. But I think we need a comprehensive policy. I do believe in what I call integrated housing where people of different incomes live closer together and because I think that's how our town functions best. Yeah, I think that there is a way to pull all of this together. It's important to note that in the finance committee discussion and in the discussions in this committee, I don't think that there was disagreement with the idea that goals are helpful and important. It was a point that was made by the trust when it created the proposal for consideration by committees and a goal keeps one focused on moving in a direction that the two points that were being added really by the finance committee to the goal question was in the end, one was that in the end, you look at each particular proposal as to whether it is a cost effective means of moving towards achieving the goal. And so you have to do a case by case assessment always of each proposal coming forward as to whether it is the right step to take. And the other is the question of flexibility to recognize that as we did with the percent for art that council would have the ability to come back if need be and look at the percent for art number and that the same flexibility should be built into any goal with this policy so that goals don't end up driving us to do things that are economically or just policy wise an unattractive option for the community to take. Another thing that was recognized I think in both committees is the importance of not losing sight of moving forward with other initiatives including the various zoning proposals that have been referred to several times during this discussion. So I think that we're not that far away if we keep it in its first step focused on affordable housing and then if we decide we want to recommend looking at a broader policy, consider that as a second step. So that's one thing we could suggest from this committee. In the end, I do believe that if we look at our form of government as determined by the charter that a council passed policy is town policy and that an affordable housing trust policy is a suggestion of the affordable housing trust that it is not town policy. There is a big difference and if we can take the work that was begun with the affordable housing trust, make the modifications that have become evident in the discussions of both committees and move it forward and develop a concrete town policy and have it adopted by the council that it is a stronger policy because we've taken that step. I want to acknowledge it's been a couple of minutes since our fifth member arrived, but Steve did arrive, so he's here and listening now. I don't know if you're on video or not. You might be out of the video range, out of the camera range. But I thought I'd acknowledge that you're here and obviously you've heard a little bit. Do you have anything not at this point? Okay. We've been discussing this for about 40 minutes and I'm wondering if we're ready for any motions. I don't know if we'll have a consensus on any motions given the discussion I've heard, but it might be good to have something in a vote to send back to the council. I don't know what that might look like at this time, but I thought I'd put out there whether anyone has a motion or some sort of item they'd like to ask us to vote on. Do I think? I can try. I'm not the best motion framer. I move that we CRC set forth to work on a comprehensive housing policy for the town of Amherst, taking into consideration as one of the important aspects, the housing trust policy or suggestion on affordable housing and that we consult with other towns and with the town staff and work up a policy to present to the town council for discussion and hopeful acceptance. Why don't you rephrase it? That would be very nice. I'm just gonna have to rephrase that. So what I heard was that you moved that CRC begin working on a comprehensive housing policy, and taking into consideration the draft policy in order to propose a, in order to make recommendations to the full council. Is that okay? So before I ask for a second, I wanna clarify something in that motion. Is your motion to recommend that the council task us with taking a look at a comprehensive housing policy or that we just do it on our own? Well, I thought in your previous remarks, you felt that we had that already and did not need to be asked, but I yield to your judgment. I'm just asking which one your intent was. Well, we haven't done the reorganization yet, so that's part of the problem, right? The new committee has not yet been officially created. I guess if we'll stick with past practice, I am asking that the town council task us with creating this policy. So based on what Dorothy just said, I've got a brief revision of what that motion might read. So I'll read that and see if that's okay with you. Move that the CRC recommend that the council refer to CRC the development of a comprehensive housing policy for the town of Amherst, taking into consideration the trust's draft policy in order to make recommendations to the full council. Is that in line with your thinking? Okay, do I hear a second to that motion? A second. Andy will second it. Do we have discussion on that motion? Yes, Pat. I would like to see us a friendly amendment where the housing trust and CRC work together to develop housing policy. So my inclination is to have that as a vote. But I'm not hearing immediate friendliness that it would be friendly from Dorothy. So let's have some discussion on that before we vote on whether to add that it would be an adding in some clause that says working with the housing trust would be added into that motion. Refer to CRC to work with the housing trust. Yeah, John. When we're talking about a comprehensive policy, the devil is in the details. And a not important element but a large part of a town comprehensive policy is going to be necessarily include areas that are the province of the planning board when we talk about zoning, particularly, but lots of other things, encouraging accessory dwelling units, various kinds of zoning. I mean, and it is also an area in which the housing trust did not develop as part of its report. So I'm not sure that it makes sense for this committee to say it would work with the housing trust. Rather, I think it should seek input from the housing trust, seek input from the planning board rather than trying to create one larger body with all that representation. The other thing is a few people said, well, you might view the first task as completing the review of the affordable housing trust policy and sending that back to town council before biting off the much larger piece of the apple that involves a comprehensive policy. And I'll be say, I would welcome a comprehensive policy. Anything that you can do to increase production and drive down costs in the town will benefit affordable housing. At the same time, it benefits other people who aren't included in that definition. Any other thoughts on Pat's motion to essentially add working with the trust to the... I see there would be opposition from the town council of singling out one body. I think John's comments were very on target. Obviously we would work with those who have in the past dealt with housing, whether it be the housing trust, the planning board and town staff. So I think that your suggestion is that we do not accept the friendly amendment. So as I said, we were gonna have a vote on it. I realized we might not have formally received a second. So I will be that second for the purposes of the minutes because we've already started discussion. And I said we would vote on it. So we need a second for it. Is there further discussion on this amendment? So then I'll ask for a vote on the amendment to add the phrase working with the AMT into the motion. All those in favor of it, please raise your hand. All those against, please raise your hand. We've got a zero five, so that motion fails unanimously. You can move and then not support it. It's totally possible to do that. So thank you for your comments, John, on that. That does give, what I wanna say is before we, as we move into discussion on the main motion, is that his seek input, while I personally don't believe that wording needs to be in a motion, as chair of CRC, I think it's our duty to go to the experts as we're doing this and those experts, as I said earlier, and so a development of a policy from chairing CRC's point of view as we've done with the master plan process have gone to the planning board and all of that I'd foresee would be sent off similar to what the trust did when they developed a draft policy that we're discussing now sent off to multiple committees for comment. And so I would see something like that happening in this instance too, but I'm not sure it needs to be in the motion itself personally, any further discussion on the motion that is for CRC to recommend that the council refer to CRC, the development of a comprehensive housing policy for the town of Amherst, taking into consideration the trust's draft policy in order to make recommendations to the full council. Andy. The only thing that we could consider adding, but I don't know that it's necessary, I'll just point it out, is that a key sentence in the finance committee report is that the final development and approval of a housing policy should be a council responsibility and priority. And the words and priority was included purposefully in the finance committee discussion because we didn't want delay unnecessarily in suggesting this, whether we wanted to put something from this committee to create a similar thought. Thoughts? Pat, not Pat, sorry. Sorry, Dorothy says, implies she supports that. Would that, you know, we've got a motion, I'm not sure, how did you word it in the finance committee? The development and approval of a policy should be a council responsibility and priority. So I'm just looking at our motion here and how would we add that in, in order to make recommendations. I think it would be as part of, we could add within a certain amount of time of quick date turnaround or. People argue with the dates. Yeah. I like, and their priority. As a, so we could potentially add the development of a comprehensive housing policy as a priority for the town, or for the town council as a priority or something like that with that, okay. So the. I like the word responsibility. Well, council responsibility by referring the development. I think that implies the responsibility. It's, it's the prioritization of it, or refer to CRC to prioritize the development of a comprehensive housing policy. I'm trying to figure out how that would go in. So there's move the CRC recommend the council refer to CRC to develop, to prioritize the development of a comprehensive policy or refer to CRC, the development of a comprehensive housing policy for the town of Amherst as a priority, taking into consideration. Those are the two options I've come up with. I don't like making it a verb. I think the first as a noun, it's better. So the noun was the second one. The noun was a priority. Okay, as a priority. To prioritize has slightly different senses. Yep, okay. Dorothy was the one that made that the original motion. It was seconded by Andy. I'm not hearing a lot of disagreement about it. So I will ask Dorothy and Andy if adding that language in is okay without a vote. Yes, I did. So that's what we will do on that one. Any further discussion on Dorothy's motion? Seeing none, I will take a vote. The motion as it stands reads, move that the CRC recommend that the council refer to CRC the development of a comprehensive housing policy for the town of Amherst as a priority, taking into consideration the trust's draft policy in order to make recommendations to the full council. All those in favor of that motion, please raise your hands and say aye. Aye. I've got, there are four there. All those against, please raise your hand and say nay. We've got one. That is five, so there's no abstains there. So that motion passes. In order for report writing, I think I've gotten most of what you've said Pat, but is there anything you'd like to ensure that I include when writing this? I'm just concerned that the housing trust policy be the policy that we follow until CRC can draft something else. I feel like there's a, while there is an overall need for housing in Amherst, the critical element here for me is that it's for people 80% of area median income and less. And that in truth we have done very little for the people who are at 15% or below housing. So I just don't want to even for a moment step away from the goals of the housing trust. I will make sure to include that in. Any further discussion on this item at all before we move on? Seeing none, we are going to move on to item three B on our agenda and that is the percent for art bylaw proposal and discussion of report from the ad hoc committee. So last, oh yes, thank you Dorothy. Thank you John for coming. I appreciate you taking your time to answer our questions and give us your opinions. And we'll be in touch especially as, if it's referred back to us as it gets developed. Last meeting, the CRC voted to, let me find the motion. We voted to recommend that the council refer the bylaw back to the ad hoc committee to address concerns regarding the membership of the qualified arts jury and its role in the process. That was a four to one vote with Steve in the negative in the rest of the committee in the support of that motion. In the meantime, since the meeting they took that and didn't bother to wait for that to show up to council which is actually fantastic I think and just had another meeting and dealt with what our recommendations and our concerns were and have already brought back for consideration a revised bylaw. I received that from the chair of the committee and we have the chair of the public arts commission here. So I'm gonna let him discuss the changes in the discussion that you had in that ad hoc committee that brought us the revised version for our discussion today and in dealing with what our concerns were. So thank you, Bill Kazan, William Kazan for being here to talk about that today. Thank you for having me back. There were two issues that came up last time to substantive issues. Mandy pointed out that while we had a qualified arts jury in the draft of the bylaw, the jury wasn't the final decider. It was the public art commission and I think that was an excellent point to have raised in something that didn't come up in our conversations and it really led to some deeper thought about the issue and we realized that there were two that the implication of having a jury is that a jury decides. This is certainly true in the art world when you convene a jury, the jury becomes the final arbiter but as the bylaw was worded while we had a jury the public art commission could overrule that jury. So there were two models on the table really as far as we were concerned. Have a jury and allow that jury to make the final decision or continue to allow the public art commission to make the final decision and change the name of the jury to an advisory board. And so after a lot of conversation we decided for a variety of reasons that it was better to keep the public art commission as the final deciding body and to not stick with the misnomer jury which doesn't mean that the advisory board can't vote in my mind that they would still actually vote for their choices. We use rank choice voting to give us their preferred choice and then we would strongly follow their recommendation but it allows the public art commission which is a town appointed body of town residents to make that final decision and we are the people ostensibly who know best about the town in general, about the desires of the town, how the council works, what the staff input has been. And so if there's any situation, financial or otherwise that might cause us to have reservations about that decision, it allows us then to overrule it but I would expect that the precedent will be that the advisory board will give us their final decision and that we will base our decision strongly on that. So that was one piece of the change that we made. So if you look under definitions now instead of saying and throughout the document jury we now refer to a percent for art advisory committee. The other point was one that had come up several times Dorothy Pam had raised it a number of other people just to ensure or try to be as clear as possible about stakeholders being involved in either the jury or what is now we're calling an advisory committee. And so we tweaked the wording a little bit. We felt like that was already part of the vision for this and part of the wording but we adjusted the wording a little bit to make that even stronger under the section of definitions just to make it clear. So those were the two changes we felt like your input was very helpful and we feel like the bylaws stronger for it. Thank you. Thank you and I wanna acknowledge so the chair Bill has sat on that committee and I believe two of our CRC members are on that committee Andy is on that hot committee and I think Steve is on that hot committee, right? So, and what was the, can you remind me what the vote on the committee was for this revision? Was it a unanimous vote? Yeah, okay. So is there any discussion on the new, it was this whole bylaw that has been referred to us and along with finance to make a recommendation to the council. So, is there any further discussion on we had a very comprehensive discussion last meeting about the bylaw in general and those were the concerns given the revision. Do we have further discussion on a potential recommendation to the council on this bylaw? I wanna thank the committee for the revisions. I think they're good. I'm having much more trouble supporting this than I had before and since CRC is looks at impact I've been really talking to a wide range of people around town, around taxes and I feel like I can't now support something that could add quite a bit of money to town building projects. So I just wanna be straightforward about that. Andy. Yeah, I need to quickly pull up the finance committee report which was adopted yesterday in support of this. The reality is that it actually does not have a substantial impact on the cost and that we need to emphasize that as we go forward in our discussion. The amounts, you might have it right at your hand because I would have to go look as I'm speaking and that's hard to do. But the amounts were not of such significant significance that the finance committee was hesitant to on it. Thank you Dorothy. Except the table is incomplete because it has access to the boxes as opposed to the numbers. That's the total. I think what Andy was going with per person, per resident on the resident tax basis is smaller versus the number you quoted which is 175,000 on a $35 million project would be the total amount. So we'll do Andy and then Pat and then Dorothy. You just have to remember that it isn't the total amount it's the amount, you need to look at it in two different ways. One is that if you bond on a project and it is being paid for from the general fund it is not the total amount that you're adding to the bond but the amount you're paying back per year and the effect that that has on the other capital needs. And if you're looking, if it comes to debt exclusion override how much is the debt exclusion override adding to the taxation of an average property? So those are the key numbers to look at. Yeah and if you look at the numbers I finance came back with on it the biggest number we're probably looking at right now is about $20 million. You're talking about 5,000 a year or so if it's coming from the general fund 2000 this is at a 20 year bond the 30 year bond would be about 2,500 and then if it's an override it's about $2 to $2 and 50 cents a year per average taxpayer. So it is, there is money being asked for for this absolutely it's not a huge amount of money so I think it's up to the council to decide and the town to decide whether that amount of money is appropriate to have art projects integrated into these construction projects. So I think my order was Pat then Dorothy then Steve. So Pat's gonna pass now so Dorothy then Steve. My mind is very brief. I think that we need to have this put into language that not only can I understand but that I can actually explain to other people and we're not there yet. I'm taking it on faith that it's not gonna cost that much but I would really need to know what Andy was saying how much you would add on to your tax bill per year because it can look pretty frightening and I think unless we can really understand it and explain it to other people we'll have a problem but I am totally in support of percent for art. Steve. Yeah so I have a different viewpoint on this that my viewpoint is that it might not add anything so half a percent is very absorbable into the cost of a building project. So Amherst doesn't have recent experience with vertical construction. The police station was the last ground up building that we built but when we do build buildings we tend to build really good buildings and within really good buildings there are a lot of variables from furnishing to finishes to on and on and on. So the way that I see this is simply directing the building team to be redirecting some of those funds saved from, I don't know, finishes to art. So I actually don't think that it should even be presented to the taxes but that's something that's simply reallocating the priorities of how the building is built to ensure that art is part of it and so the price to pay for that is completely absorbable from in my humble opinion from the other components of the building project. Any further comment from committee members? I'm gonna add to it very briefly with a I share Pat's concern despite some of the numbers we hear from the ad hoc committee and the finance committee who worked hard on figuring out what those numbers would be. What allows me to support this bylaw is the fact that there is in the middle of the bylaw the ability to have the council vote to exclude. The council may by majority vote lower or eliminate the percentage for art on any qualifying construction project so that really does allow us to say it's really important but it's hard to guess those numbers and figure out how they might affect the taxpayers or the funding and annual budget and so we can look at each project individually and say this one doesn't have a large effect or any effect on the taxpayers depending on what the budget is and therefore it should go forward or this one does and so that's one of the key parts of this bylaw that allows me to support recommending it. Any further discussion? One comment. One thing that's kind of confusing is we've seen in neighboring towns projects go down when they're told this particular project on an override is gonna cost you this much even though it was made common sense to have the thing, people are getting very annoyed about taxes and tax increases. So I really liked what Steve said about don't think of art is something that we stick on extra that costs separate, that it can be integrated into the building but on the other hand this is, we're talking public art, we're talking about art that expresses the town, the town's feelings, its history, its culture and that we the public are part of it, that we are helping to choose, create and pay for it as we pay for the building. So I'm not quite sure how we present it but I think we need to have some, we need to spend some time thinking about how we talk about financial implications of this when we talk to people because people are gonna ask questions. But on the other hand, if we ever get through with some of this people are gonna be very proud and happy and they're gonna feel that this is something that we in the town of Amherst have done. Any further discussion? I just wanna say that we're also gonna have to figure in maintenance of the works of art, maintenance of this area around it, impact on design. I, as a former artist, Dorothy, you know that I love the art world. I've talked a little bit about my reaction through seeing my first live van go at the Guggenheim but this feels to me, maybe it's my working class roots even though I've made it into the middle class. I feel strongly that I don't wanna add another dollar right now when I hear people across economic, a range of economic levels here in town saying that within the next five years they may have to leave because of increases in taxes. And this just is one more penny. I just can't do it and it's hard because I voted for it in town meeting. I can't do it this time. Any further discussion? So based on the discussion, I'm gonna recommend that the motion that we make be to recommend the council adopt the percent for art bylaw as presented. Does someone want to either make that motion or make a different motion? So Steve is making that motion. Is there a second to that motion? I will second it. Is there further discussion? All those seeing no further discussion, we will be voting on the motion to recommend the council adopt the percent for art bylaw as presented. All those in favor of that motion raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye. I see four in favor. All those against raise your hand and say nay. I see one against or no, pick your negative word. Pick the no word. What the process will be from this point, once our committee and finance committee received, has made their recommendations and has finished working with this, the original referral on this was that it would go automatically after this to the GOL committee for its final bylaw review as required by our rules and their charge. So I will make sure I send our notice to the GOL chair that CRC has made its final recommendation and is from its point of view, has completed its own review. And so that CRC can take it up for its final review. I assume the chair of finance will do the same if they have finished their review. We have finished our review in court. So we'll send a note to the GOL also. Excellent. Dorothy. Just a quick comment. I totally do understand where Pat is coming from and I have similar feelings at various times. But I was just thinking to myself, if we don't do this at this moment of capital projects, the boat will have sailed. And then I remembered one of my little hobbies is to go to WPA projects, the national parks, the buildings. And I go to them because they're beautiful and they were built in a time of great economic difficulty and they also provided work for people. This is partly an economic development, I think, proposal to help employee artists. So it's hard because I really do feel this, it's all around us the worry about taxes. But I think that we can create some things. We can make the things that we need for town. We can make them buildings with beauty if not in perhaps even beautiful buildings. But if we don't do it now, it'll be too late. Pat, I just wanna say when I write the memo, I think I've gotten all of what you said. So if I'll try to forward it to you for review, but I've got your comments down. So I just wanna make sure since it's gonna be included in the memo that I acknowledge that. That takes us to agenda item three C at this point. Thank you, Bill, for appearing at the meeting and talking about the committee's work. I appreciate it. And so three C is master plan review and respond to the planning board recommendations and feedback on the process that we proposed to the town council on December 18th for updating and adopting the master plan in accordance with charter section 9.8. We had initially reported back to the council on December 18th. The planning board took up the final memo I had presented and sat in front of the planning board to answer some questions on December 18th and then on January 8th, I believe, they also had a discussion and that discussion resulted in myself as chair being forwarded a number of feedback matters. And so I felt we needed to discuss that before it gets back to the council as a whole based on the vote that we had on December 18th. So I have brought it back onto this agenda. The packet itself has the feedback that we received. We received feedback from the chair of the planning board and one of the members, Michael Burtwistle, from the planning board, we received comments from both of them and so I would like to open up a discussion on our process as put in the December 18th memo based on that feedback and whether we would like to modify our process and recommendation to the town council based on that feedback. Maybe I should summarize what that feedback was for the people that don't have the documents in front of them and the audience. So I will do that as I pull these up. So the planning board chair, so I can get these up, indicated that the planning board were unable to, members were unable to agree on how to respond to the CRC memo. So she herself wrote, the chair wrote that she strongly agrees with the necessary and obvious restriction and supports the thoughts of keeping the updates to items that are justifiable, relying on plans, policies and goals. And specific comments though that she had was that the six month timeline that we suggested was quite ambitious and she interpreted that timeline as suggesting that it be a high priority for the planning board and the staff to update the master plan and expedite the effort but she recommended that a nine month deadline may be more realistic. A second comment was the phrase on the last paragraph of page two of our memo. The phrase town priorities is somewhat subjective and so maybe if we could clarify what we're referring to in that one or remove that sentence completely, it would help lessen the subjectivity of potentially that sentence. Step four of the memo, she said she appreciates how vague that is on how we would be involved and informed through the planning board process and that it allows the planning board the freedom to develop its own process and plan. And so that was feedback but there was no suggested change to potentially anything in the memo regarding that one. And then she suggested that a flow chart be created the next time we bring this up at a council meeting or to forward to the planning board so that people can with a visual aid really see the process that this updating process would go through with a nice visual aid. So those were the recommendations and feedback we received from the planning board chair, planning board member Michael Burtwistle and talked mostly about the differences of approve and adopt and then thought that that was relevant to our proposed plan and basically in the end said that it seemed appropriate given the new organization of town government in the age of the present master plan that an updated version of the master plan should be developed for the council's adoption however given the planning board has sole statutory authority for the creation and approval, the process proposed in CRC and its memo seems unnecessarily intrusive and overly complicated. So that was his main feedback for the process did not really provide feedback as to how that might be modified though. Both of these documents are in our packet. He did indicate that on January 15th the planning board will move ahead as a forced order in timely fashion with necessary and obvious incorporating other documents and postpone the equally necessary creation of a new master plan. So that was the feedback from the other planning board member based on all of that. Do we have discussion on our current memo and any changes that we might make to it in an updated way before sending it back to the council. Dorothy. I was at that meeting and it was a very interesting meeting. The objections to the memo were several. One was it's too long and in your meticulous listing of feedback going back and forth it gets, they got confused as to when it stopped and there was the feeling that it was just gonna go on forever but I know that's not what it says. And I just had wished that you could have been there because I think you could have explained things well. So I would suggest and I, your memo, the memo does say that the planning board has the chief responsibility for the master plan that is said here. So perhaps, but that was an area of contention.  So I think emphasizing where CRC sees itself in relationship to the planning board that the master plan is theirs but that we have been asked to do something which you did say in here, shortening and clarifying the memo. And if there's any way to reduce some of those feedback loops or maybe you could repeat them to us again because that was where I think exasperation set in, the feeling of what this is not ever gonna end. And then I think we should discuss, adopt and approve because I think that was a very interesting discussion that Mr. Burtwistle put forward but I think that we can answer that. A little bit changing from six months to nine months is relatively easy. I think that the harder one is the next one where, because it actually requires rewording and it's gonna be difficult to do that drafting as a committee right now on the whole, I think we could request that the chair propose language. Let me, I guess there's a question maybe I should ask it this way. Do we need to take final action today or can we postpone it for two weeks and have worked on that one section that really needs some thought given so that it's carefully and appropriately worded? I don't think there's an absolute need to take final action today. That postponement would just postpone final action by the council and delay further the potential process. I don't know whether maybe Dave can talk to this whether our discussion of what that process in getting to adopting a master plan under the charter as required for the council to do so is if that delay is affecting when town staff and it sounds like the planning board has already agreed to start the process. So if our delay in getting to a council vote on what the council process would look like is delaying that process from the town staff point of view. So maybe Dave can address that. I don't think it's gonna delay town staff work if the planning board has agreed to take this up at one of their upcoming meetings. I think that's great. And we're gonna proceed and there's plenty of work to do behind the scenes before we have further meetings. So with that statement delaying our final revision to a plan probably does not affect moving forward on the actual adopt modifications that the planning board may make. And so it's probably not necessary to adopt anything and vote on anything today. I think that they don't need our permission to be working on or looking at the revisions of the master plan. So we don't have to have the town council vote for it happens. And I do think that you by yourself or you with somebody else can work at the memo to make it something that's a little bit more presentable to the acceptable to the planning board members. There was questions and comments. I think the complexity was an issue and I trust that you know how to simplify it. So let's start with the first one so that it sounds like we're not aiming for a vote today. We're aiming for a revision being presented next meeting, which means if I'm gonna be doing the revisions I need some guidance. So the first item of discussion from the chair of the planning board was the six to nine month change. Where do our committee members stand on that change? Andy. I'm fine with making that change. I hear a nodding from Dorothy. Other committee members? A nodding from Steve Flotzpat. Yeah, okay. Nope, that's fine. I have to find where that six month change is in this document. I wanna say that we will be working with the planning board and it's very important that our relationships be amicable. So I have no problem in agreeing to the nine months. How come I cannot find where that, oh there it is. So I will change the document to nine months and do we want to add any qualifying statements about desiring it sooner if possible? Flotz, I'm seeing no desire for that. So we will just change the number six to nine. And the next one on the chairs list was the town priorities one. That is one, she had a recommendation to either reword or remove. It sounds like there's a preference for rewording, not removing that clause. Changes in town priorities since the approval of the master plan is the clause. Is the preference for a rewording instead of a removal? I see no problem with removal. Other thoughts? Pat says she doesn't see a problem removing it. Steve's nodding his head, but that would be okay. Andy? I personally don't have a problem. I just am trying to think of my fellow counselors too. And one, I think that there's a lot of support for not losing anything that gets moving forward with the ECAC recommendations and the policy we developed. So I guess the question is whether there's that cross effect that we need to be aware of. So the clause after that says town adoption of plans, initiatives, and goals, and then lists, climate action goals, flood mapping, a whole bunch of different things. We could actually pull, one option is to maybe pull the council climate action goals, which is the only thing in that list that's really from the council. And do instead of changes in town priorities to reflect the change in the form of government, the council's adoption of climate action goals and town adoptions of plans, initiatives, and goals, or plans and initiatives, remove the goals from that one and still keep the rest of the list the same. Because I think the town priorities, my memory of putting that in there was the one priority that sort of has really changed in the last decade has been the sustainability focus. So we could potentially reword it that way. That would make sense. Mandy, could I just add one quick note there just so the committee knows what staff has been thinking. Since last we met, there was also the announcement that we received through the MVP program, the funding for our climate action plan, which is really very exciting news. The grant was $100,000 or so. And so that has a very tight timeline. In fact, we need to have that plan produced early in June of this year. So that's gonna, I think, fit very nicely with our master plan work, working with the planning board because that is going to cover or certainly be a document that can be referenced in the updates to the master plan. So I think we're gonna get a real boost, if you will, with a wonderful consultant helping us to identify and articulate a number of climate action goals that really we identified in the 2010 master plan as not being there because a lot of people weren't thinking about it. So we're gonna get a real boost there. So as we're working on the master plan, there'll be a parallel track for the climate action plan and it'll be really nice to have them, that done, say, in the early June, mid June of this year. So right now I've modified that sentence, including revisions such as those to reflect the change in the form of government, the council's adoption of climate action goals and town adoption of plans and initiatives, parentheses, including the transportation plan, updated flood mapping, et cetera, removing the climate action goals from that list. So that is the redraft of that at this point. The next planning board was, appreciate step four is vague. The wording allows the planning board the freedom to develop its own updating process plan and working with, they're currently working to define a specific process for themselves, addressing the communication. So I don't see in her feedback any particular requested action on changing item number four in our proposed plan at this point. And then the flow chart, I can certainly work on one of those for next week to come up with a flow chart. And then the next memo is from planning board member Burt Whistle and that one had talked about the difference between approve and adopt. And then basically said that the plan, the full plan that we presented seemed unnecessarily intrusive and overly complicated. Dorothy had requested a discussion on the difference between approve and adopt, as mentioned in the Burt Whistle memo. So any discussion on that at this time? Dorothy? Well, I have not been doing dictionary work, just mental thinking. I do kind of enjoy looking at words. So I believe he's thinking, saying that adopt means we give you the plan, you follow it. But yet we have also many instances where the word adopt means vote for and then carry out. So I'm not gonna say that the examples he gives are wrong but that there are other examples of how the word adopt is used. You are the person who put the words in the charter, I believe, so why don't you talk to us what you think adopt means? I'll speak on behalf of my membership on the Charter Commission at this point and what our discussion was and the purpose of the whole 9.8 section. And I will also point out that the section 9.8 actually says that the council shall adopt with or without revisions the master plan. So it specifically allows for the council to modify the master plan that is approved by the planning board. There was concern in the Charter Commission that if the council did not make a public statement in support of a master plan that the council and the planning board could end up working at odds where the planning board has adopted a plan for that has approved a master plan for the town that maybe the council doesn't like. And then therefore when the planning board suggests changes to zoning that are in accordance with that master plan, the council will not necessarily agree with them. Not that they have to agree with them when they are in accordance with the master plan that the council adopts, but that if the council doesn't sort of buy into the master plan as approved by the planning board, then all of the work that is done by town staff and the planning board in response to the furtherance of that master plan that has been approved by the planning board under state law and becomes the master plan could be counteractive to what the council desires. And so there was a desire in the Charter Commission to sort of ensure that the town bodies, the planning board and then the town staff that have to react to that planning board approved master plan. And the council who is the policy setting body in town, chief policy makers in town are at least sort of on the same page because they've adopted and agreed to a document and said, yes, this is the document that we as a council as chief policy setters are also in favor of moving forward with. The with or without amendments was put in there for the recognition that well, they might initially not agree. And so at some point there might need to be a discussion between the planning board and their vision and their desire on what they came up with with the master plan and the council on their vision and what they ran on and what they were elected for by the town's residents and their chief policy making ability to actually figure out a way to reconcile potential differences. And that that's the, as you said the potential unending loop that we don't want to be unending. But that's the history around sort of why the charter commission felt it necessary to have the council formally adopt the master plan that under state law is not required to be acted on at all by the council. Dorothy. So now you have confused me. I thought that the planning board had the last word. Now you're saying that the planning board can after a process of back and forth give us a document that they say this is our final document. And that the council can say, well, I like most of it but we want to change this one. And then the council votes to change one aspect and that's it, which means that in fact the master plan is not the sole that the planning board is not the one that's total in control of it that we can be. And that's what I think the problem is. So what is the history of this in terms of planning board and town government and is this a change of power? That's what I guess I need to know. So you described the potential conflict that the charter commission did not resolve in its language that in theory you could have a master plan approved by the planning board that the town planners and the town staff are by state law required to follow that is in conflict with a master plan adopted by the town council. So the whole point of the process we've been going through is to try to minimize as much as possible that from happening in order to create a dialogue between the two so that the document that is approved by the planning board is the same document that is adopted by the council. So Steve had his hand up. Yeah, what am I gonna say? So there's a history at least in New England of separating out who does land use versus who does everything else? So for example, just south of us in Connecticut municipalities have separately elected planning boards who are the keepers of, very clearly keepers of the master plan and have autonomy to interpret those master plans. And then often town meetings like board, whatever the rest of the municipality is has jurisdiction over everything else. But there's basically that separation of duties. So Massachusetts also gives great authority to its planning boards. It's in master and all law section 81 D which I'm reading right now. And actually I don't find the word approved in there. So just to read the very first paragraph of section E1D MGL, a planning board established in any city or town under 81A shall make a master plan of such city or town in or such parts or parts thereof of said board may deem advisable and from time to time may extend or perfect such a plan. So I guess that implies approval but it doesn't actually use of the word approval. But clearly authority is given to the planning board and then that master plan then becomes, first of all, any changes to land use have to refer to the master plan but having a master plan on file also makes the town eligible for certain state aid. So it's very important to have that. So we do have this conflict. It's not totally unusual Massachusetts. It was approved by the attorneys reviewing this but there are other communities that require this two-step process. So we seem to be debating the words approve versus adopt but I don't even see the word approve in here. So maybe it's make versus adopt. So one of them makes it, the other one adopts it. I'm not sure what. The charter uses the word approve for the planning board. Can our charter Trump state law? So the state law says make, okay, it can. On certain issues it can. From the charter commissioner perspective, I think we used approve because that was the language probably that staff had generally used for what the planning board does when it votes on the master plan. So other thoughts on this issue that planning board member Burt whistle brought up and whether we are going to seek any changes or suggest any changes to our own master plan process in response to it. Andy. I don't think that we can effectively make a change. We need to recognize that our charter which has now been adopted by our voters says what it says. And the, we do know that there's history here that there were many members of town meeting who were dissatisfied with the fact that they had no authority to adopt or comment upon master plan that it was totally something that belonged to the planning board under the former form of government. The charter commission was responding to that. It did. It's not something that we need to discuss further because it's done. And now we want to make sense of it. I think that the important thing that we want to do is make sure that we have a process that is appropriately respectful of the planning board and recognizes that the planning board is the body that develops and makes the recommendation and that our goal is to have sufficient communication between the two bodies so that when it comes back for that last step to the council that we have the least chance that there actually will be a rejection of anything significant in the master plan as it's presented and that that is what our proposed policy is intended to do and if we have a statement of that sort that gets developed and sent as a response, I think that's a strategic question that I'll leave to the chair. So it sounds like we are looking for a flow chart to be developed. We've modified the master, the proposed process that we will propose to the council. I don't hear any desire for any more modifications to that process than what we've discussed already but I do hear a desire for potential drafting of a response to the feedback we received specifically the feedback from planning board member Burt Whistle that addresses his concerns and his memo and the reasons why we're sticking with the proposal as indicated, is that what I'm hearing? Well I think you should include what Andy's historical comment that the town meeting as representative of the citizens of the town was unhappy with not having more, I guess, input, maybe that's the wrong word, on the master plan that is why the charter does leave the final word with the town council but that the strong hope is that the process that you have outlined of going back and forth with revisions will result in no conflict at the end. So the question I have for the committee as we come up to our potential end time for needing to adjourn is are we ready to vote on the updates to the master plan we talked about the process that we talked about today and leave a drafting of a memo and is that memo a memo to the town council or a memo directly to the planning board from the CRC chair and leave that up to the chair of CRC to get that feedback back to and that indication back to the planning board or do we need to bring that back, do I need to bring that back to CRC at a later meeting? Can you send us the revision and ask us for comments? I think maybe it is important that we see the final copy because we're talking about partly a question of fact and partly an issue of communication so we want to make sure that we're communicating very clearly. So I'm hearing that the vote will happen on the final proposed process to the council will happen at the next meeting and we'll also include some of the discussion and summary today in that, Dave over here is looking confused. I wanted to make two comments. One is I'm going to check on this but I think a flow chart based on your memo may be in the works. So let me check on that. And then I just wanted to clarify what Dorothy's request was because was it to have the chair create that memo and then revisit it for a vote at your next meeting because I don't think the committee could send the comments back to you, right? I mean that's really deliberating outside of a meeting. You follow me? Yeah. So we need to just be careful. I've been drafting the changes that we've discussed today into a new document. I've read them all to you. I can certainly just post that document as part of the packet for next meeting and we can vote next meeting if that would be more comfortable for you to see those changes in writing. That's not a problem. We've already discussed that a delay of an extra meeting to the council is fine. I guess the question is what is my duty, what does the committee want me to do with regard to what we talked about in giving feedback back to the planning board or specifically responding to planning board member Burt Wissle's feedback to us? What does the committee want that to look like? Is that something I bring to the committee next meeting or is that something I just draft and send off to the planning board chair for distribution to the planning board? Pat. I trust you to draft something and send it off. Others? I agree. I trust you, but I just know that part of the reaction was the length of the memo. The length of the process itself? Yes. I think the longer it got, the more they got upset, so if there's some way to make the points but make them simpler and clearer and shorter. I will work on that for a draft response. Some of that might be just breaking the proposed process or the process is a separate document and it doesn't quite seem as daunting. Right. Because then it's about a page and a half versus the explanation and all the attached documents that we gave to the council. So I will do that. Okay, so I think I've got it. We'll put on for the next meeting a final vote on the process itself. I want to hold things up so I really would love to know what other people are thinking. Are others ready to vote on those amendments to the process today? I can go through them again. Actually, I might be able to... Do we know how to turn the screen on? Because I think I've now got the right set. I think I've got the right app on my computer now. It's not the Samsung 7 series. Two, you can... Do I have to be into the HDMI port? Because I'm not into that. Given the time constraints... Yeah, so I will read them. And all the changes are in the second paragraph of the proposed process. The first one is to the very end of the first paragraph of that second paragraph where it says, and are necessary and obvious and that the planning board attempt to propose revisions to the master plan and vote to approve them within nine months instead of six months. And the second set of changes is three paragraphs later with the paragraph that begins. It is CRC's understanding that town staff has been compiling a list of potential revisions. The second sentence of that is CRC's definition of necessary and obvious includes revisions such as those to reflect the change in the form of government, the council's adoption of climate action goals and town adoption of plans and initiatives including the transportation plan, updated flood mapping. The changes we removed to the phrase changes in town priorities since the approval of the master plan removed the phrase in the parenthetical council climate action goals because it got incorporated up to the top and got rid of the wording and goals since the only goal in that list was the climate action goal and so changed the wording to reflect that. Those are the only changes we discussed today. So if we are ready to vote, our last vote on this was the vote was to recommend that the council adopt the process outlined as its process for working toward adoption of the master plan as required in the charter section 9.8. So the new motion I guess would be to recommend the council adopt the amended process or the process as amended below or as amended January 29th meeting. So moved. As its process. So moved. Okay, so there's a motion by Andy and a second by Pat, I believe. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Please raise your hand and say aye. So I see five votes in favor. That is a unanimous vote. I will send out the final process to you guys once I've put it into its own separate document and then I will write a memo and all. So with that, we are at 1030. So I will, oh, yes, Mr. Hornick. I beg your indulgence, but I have one quick item. It is related to housing, but not anything we've been discussing before. About two days ago I sent to all of you as well as the rest of the town council a note indicating that the housing trust was endorsed or sent to or state representatives support for two bills that are before the legislature. One on right to council for people in eviction and the other on eviction ceiling. And the intention of my note, if it wasn't entirely clear for the town council to adopt also resolutions favoring those two legislative actions and to let our two representatives Mindy Dom and Joe Comerford know that you support that. I think that's an important thing to do. I think that the five of you, when you take a look at it, if you haven't already would certainly agree. Perhaps particularly a former director of Western Mass Legal Services who probably knows a lot more about these issues than I do. So I urge you to push the larger council to put that on the agenda if possible at the next meeting and adopt a resolution supporting those two legislative initiatives. Thank you. Well, what I was going to clarify, you said you sent an email to the whole council. Yeah. I am not in memory of that email. Could you resend that to the council? And I just checked my junk email. So it didn't go there either. So if you could resend that, that would be fantastic. I will resend it. Maybe I'll resend it individually because I use the town council address. Okay. Yes, Pat, I think we need to see it first. But yeah, I will keep that in mind as it, when we get copies of them. My apologies if it somehow didn't reach you. I will make my best effort to do that immediately. Thank you. And I am quite familiar with the right to council proposal. I've worked on that both on the national level and the state level. And I have had conversations with both our senator and representative about it as an individual. And so I'm quite familiar. I'm sure you're familiar with eviction ceiling as well. So if you could send that off back to the council, since a number of us don't remember receiving it, that would be fantastic. We are over our time. I'm going to postpone adoption of the minutes to the next meeting. Are there any items not anticipated by myself? Seeing none, we are going to adjourn at 1035. Thank you all.


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