presume it's Alex oh they're gone i don't know the only other thing I could think of is it might be the person from the land trust oh yeah here's Linda yes um so um I will uh I guess Linda can hear us now so Linda I'm going to make
you a panelist because these are kind of informal but technically these are uh public meetings that are recorded and uh I'm going to promote you to become a panelist now and you know welcome you for posterity I guess
so Linda you should have a popup on your screen that invites you to be a panelist There we are and you're still muted but welcome um so Alex did say he was good for this um let's make sure he's not emailing me
um um so I I would expect he'll be here in a minute but maybe Oh here he is now all right we're here everybody do I is this be do I have to be official about Oh just Yeah so you can just say that this this is a meeting
and we're starting um so this is a subcommittee of the Ammerst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust um this is the education subcommittee it is Friday April 4th at 9:16 and we are called to order
great welcome um and I see Mora is in the audience here too um um and I don't know here on behalf of the the the ACLT in which case maybe I I should promote her as well or we can Yes please
um so I don't have an a formal agenda right in front of me but I know we had invited the community land trust to come talk about possibly doing some sort of education or outreach or webinar together and so I'd like to honor their
time and have them go first and then we can go through our other updates if that's okay great so welcome Linda and Mora um thank you for having us just in case we haven't met before and Alex is
us as well and Greg obviously um so I guess one of the things that came out of our strategic planning was trying to be um more focused in some of the education and outreach events that we did and
trying to kind of hold more of them as well so Alex and I had identified the land trust as possibly a good um partnership to to hopefully maybe host some sort
of you know this is what you guys are up to now um and raise more awareness about what you were doing um especially as we try and think about different ways than just developing new units um to to make affordable housing an option for people
in town so um welcome and we'd love to hear a little bit more about what you're up to and what how you think we could partner well thank you very much for thinking of us this this uh comes at a very good
moment for us actually uh we've been going for 10 years now and kind of plottering along adding one home and one family at a time and suddenly last fall uh four families came forward to invite
us to at least consider with them whether their homes could become part of our portfolio in every case that would involve the family walking away from some part of accumulated value i mean the manifestation of generosity has just
been stunning um so but it also from a point of view of the organization felt like you know we'd been going along kind of like this and suddenly we were expected to operate you know due diligence on four properties kind of immediately so it's been an exciting
moment um we also have been sort of quietly accumulating enough resources that we could manage at least a half-time staff person we've been totally volunteer um from the time that we started so all that we've presently
accomplished we've done with no staff at all and we really are outgrowing that there needs to be someone whose day job at least partially is to mine the store and so we've launched a search uh we're just still in the interview process and
again I've just been really heartened by you know it we advertised that it was 20 hours a week and we sort of hoped that that would fit for somebody with appropriate skills and we got 17 applicants any one of whom I would have
been happy to have had come forward and say they were willing to give this a try so now we're involved in a difficult choice process to actually choose one of them and and respectfully communicate with the ones not chosen that it's no
lack of you know value on their part so it it's just um as I say it couldn't have been a better moment to invite us to tell the story a little more publicly and I hope that's useful um to to the trust work to have that be
more visible um I'm curious at the um the forum that you hosted recently with the League of Women Voters for the developers that was just very helpful to us
um again a fortuitous moment to have the public reminded of what it costs to produce these uh units and the various ways they can be thought about so it uh we we are delighted to have the
opportunity to discuss being part of such a forum and and so just I did reach out to um the League of Women Voters to say you know would you be willing to partner again on some sort of um perhaps
differently focused forum and they said absolutely so that would be I think a helpful resource to have in terms of advertising and you know getting the word out and having people show up to it um if if
that's the direction that we choose to go in which I right hope it is so we have given a little bit of thought to what we might uh present one of the things occurred to me but as I was just pulling a few things together
for this meeting um we would be delighted if this focused wholly on ACLT but there is the option um there are um other organizations that
we've tended to appear with before including this one uh but obvious ones would be Habitat um and and Valley CDC although both of them cover a greater region one of the unique things about
ACLT as about your organization is that it really is totally focused on Ammerst u so I'm just curious whether you've thought about um again we'd be happy to be front and center they're certainly plenty to think about to take up an hour
of people's time um but it didn't feel right to just go forward and kind of lay out well here are all the wonderful things we could talk about without acknowledging that particularly we've worked very directly with Habitat and Valley CDC we'd have been dead in the
water without them as partners in the early days well I honest I hadn't given it much thought um I guess you know I know CD Valley CDC was included in our last forum um and I don't necessarily think it would be Yeah
makes sense bad idea to have them but I think maybe maybe if it was more focused on you know habitat and the land trust um that might be a place to start just because I think again there are different ways that they operate than you know I I understand Valley CDC is
nonprofit but it's still a develop developer in a sense where we're talking about new units being built as with Habitat but there's kind of a different model there um so that might be Alex do you have any thoughts on on maybe having like a
Habitat and Community Land Trust or or inviting CDC as well or Um Honestly I think I need a little more time to to think about it to see what I think that event would look like in my head greg it looked like you had something to to say
yeah I mean I was just going to maybe ask a focusing question and and there may not be an answer to this yet which is fine you know but um whether or not anyone's given thought you know sort of putting a kind of a communicate like a functional communications lens on it of like like who you know what a target
audience might be you know and I think that's that might help um like what what like what a target audience is and and and what our hope is for them to do you know is is sometimes even a more specific way to look at it you So I mean that could be
sort of you know the general populace of Ammerst get involved with ACLT and home ownership initiatives or it could be um you know it could be perspective homeowners or it could be existing homeowners you know I mean I but I think sort of maybe focusing on
um and of course like you know you kind of frame out a target audience and then you get maybe you succeed in getting that and then layer on more folks and it's usually fine you know if someone's not quite in your target demographic That's you know I I think you know community events always like include
layers you know but I think sometimes it can be helpful to define that to sort of focus to kind of reverse engineer you know what the content and the the participants are mora I see your hands up yeah I think ACLT has traditionally focused on um
like um I don't know how to put it um neighborhoods where um they feel under threat from being bought houses being bought up by developers and so because
we deal with houses that are already built for the most part a couple of the Habitat ones were new and one of our new projects will probably involve some new construction but um the emphasis is on preserving neighborhoods and providing
home ownership for people who might not otherwise be able to afford it um so I think it's a pretty broad demographic that we would want to appeal to since that is a big topic in
town whenever um housing comes up um neighborhoods kind of feel under threat sometimes from the university so I guess in terms of thinking about thinking about you know our mission which is making sure that people can get
into affordable housing and and stay there it seems like it would be helpful almost like to match a prospective home donator to the land trust and then also let the the general public who might be
looking for housing to know about this you know and again I don't know how you are matched with families that are interested in then purchasing the you know so I think there's a lot that goes so maybe it would be helpful to hear from you what your thoughts thoughts are
about what you could present um and and if that helps kind of clarify whether it would be you know I I'm glad that you brought up Habitat because I hadn't even thought about that recently but you know maybe that is something that down the road we would have a different kind of
conversation with with Habitat or you know if if there's I'll let you talk because I'm talking in circles well I just I was making a very similar segue in my mind as as the conversation
went around that um just some storytelling about our existing homes and the ones that are um in the offing would expose exactly the issues of what kinds of people we're dealing with where do the homes come from and where do the
buyers come from um and and we had a tidy view of that when we started now that we have seven families in homes and four potential new ones the the view is just broadened hugely the um I had a
fantasy at one time that we would cultivate awareness of a set of homes that and catch them before the family actually and put them on the public market which immediately takes 6% of the value out for the marketing and sale
effort um and that we would have a set of people patiently waiting for an opportunity well of course people's lives if they really need to do something they aren't still on the list after a while but I still think having that in the background is valuable but
let me just tell you a couple of the stories just briefly so you can begin to see how we might present this um first of all we did the very first project we did was a partnership with Habitat we were very new at the time we
didn't know how to handle um the public money it if a project is funded with public funds and our first funds came from the community preservation act then immediately kicks in place a whole set of state regulations about how you
recruit beneficiaries and they have to approve literally every marketing piece you can't put a handout up on the bulletin board at Whole Foods without they've approved the language in it as appropriately equitable we needed to learn all that and so it was a real gift
to us that we were able to get CPA money to buy a piece of property to partner with Habitat which took on all the parts that we didn't know how to do yet how to do home ownership training there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes with that
that they had into a settled routine so they built the first two homes and we learned as we went along um and since then um about half of the properties we've added have been with public money
we got another uh allocation of CPA funds which allowed us to provide uh $125,000 subsidy to each of two families and at the time that that that kicked into place right as the pandemic was beginning
$125,000 was pretty close to the value of most parcels of land in the areas in Ammerst that we were working in um so it made sense to say well we'll put up enough to purchase the land and the homeowner only has to come up with the
cost of the home as things actually unfolded by the second family the first family that won the lottery for that and and the lottery was managed by Valley CDC that's why I have so valued their
partnership again we still weren't set up to do the qualifying of people and and they again had experience with dealing with potential new homeowners and knowing what the state regulations were about equitable presentation of the
opportunity and verifying that people were in the income group that made them eligible and running the lottery the first family that won the lottery within like three or four days of being notified had the last affordable home in
Ammerst by which I mean the last one for which a subsidy of $125,000 together with what they could bring to the table was enough to get them in the second family chosen in the lottery looked for 18 months and eventually had to resign their access to
the lottery because the the prices were rising all literally week by week and month by month and I I am not exaggerating when I say the first family that got their hands on the subsidy got the last home in Ammerst where
$125,000 was enough to close the gap between what a family at 80% AMI could bring to the table and what a home in Ammerst cost uh even a fixer upper so um eventually um we get to kind of the next
phase of the story which is the gifts began to appear um the the first major gift uh occurred when our founding president Moran Adams passed away um she left us her whole property that is the
house the land and $150,000 because she knew that the home needed work it was a home built in the late 19th century and it although she'd been living in it until just weeks before she passed um she knew that it needed things uh to be brought up to
sort of what we think of as Habitat standards i I picked up in the early days with Habitat on their sense of what's an appropriate home for a modest income family which is that it doesn't look luxurious but it's built to a very
high standard technically it has a super high R value um you know the electricity is all as modern as you can get it that kind of thing and so making those conversions in a home where Morian had just been cheerfully paying totally
outrageous utility bills um that took some investment but when finally all of that was done then um one of the families that had in fact won the subsequent run of the lottery for our
first CPA bench this story occurs in loops when they saw Morian's home and the neighborhood that it was in which is a culde-sac they have three young children and they had been looking at things with that they viewed much less suitable for having small children
playing outside and um they just fell in love with it so they did they resigned the subsidy in the interest of being able to buy uh Morian's house and that yielded um they paid an affordable price
for that home which was $200,000 now we had $200,000 in the bank and and still a live subsidy which we hadn't used an allocation of CPA funds so we upped that subsidy to
$225,000 and that put another family in place that was enough that was how much the prices had risen in terms of the gap between what a family at 80% AMI could afford and what the simplest um single family homes in Ammerst were
going for it also included the 25,000 from AMA from AMAH that's right and we we put in 75 and you folks happily put in the last 25 thank you for that reminder
so um in the meantime another model of gift began to show up so we now have um a homeowner in place who has gifted us his land formally uh and is still resident in the home and
the relationship between ACLT and its homeowners is governed by a ground lease um so the homeowner is a special kind of homeowner they're not just getting a windfall they're buying into the concept that their home is going to be perpetually affordable um and that it's
going to be owner occupied so there are two critical elements of the ground lease one is that the owner has to occupy the home if their circumstances change so that they wish to live elsewhere they have to sell it on um and
and they can sell it for not more than proportional rise in the area median income in the time that they were owners so that home is always going to be available to a family at 80% of AMI so
the donor um that's in place now who's continuing to live in his home obviously he doesn't need the subsidy he has in fact gifted a great deal of the accumulated value of his property to us because he lives as a
homeowner under a ground lease um that's we set the base price that would make his home affordable at 80% AMI um and that's the base in his groundly so he if he leaves while he's still alive or his heirs can charge not more
than the base price in his groundly times the proportional rise in area median income since he signed it so we have models in place now where um the um the money allocated by the town by CPA
or by AMHD has enabled a purchase um and and we have um case a case where there's a there was a gift of the whole property outright including some cash um and and
we have a case where the um owner has gifted the land while they're still in pl and then one other model of gift uh we had a a family come forward an older couple who um lived in a home that would
be a classic starter home on Logtown Road um and they were eventually successful enough financially that they could afford a home with more land around it um I'm talking about Clier and Ruth Hazard i don't know if either of you any
of you have come across them ruth taught um vegetable agriculture for many years at the the university she was a faculty member uh well f maybe a staff member but within university extension she was a guiding light through people um
growing food uh locally for a long time and they always wanted a property where Ruth could really be expansive herself and the property on Logtown Road although it's a nice home uh had big trees and not much space for a serious vegetable garden so they eventually
bought the land adjoining the North Ammeris community farm in which they had been active members um and were using the home on Logtown Road as a rental so they came forward again voluntarily just appeared one day in our sites and wanted to know if we
wanted to partner with them so they sold that home affordably to its then existing tenant a single mom with one child uh who could afford what the house cost but could not have afforded the whole cost of the property then again
the relationship is governed by a ground lease so those are the models that we've seen so far uh and they're kind of reflected in the four properties that we have in the hopper now um one of which
is uh 174 AMD Street a big old historic home uh being offered to us by the grandchildren of the family that lived there for decades in the uh early to middle 20th century um and they've been
running it as a rental for a long time they're getting older themselves and and they came forward um the gr the granddaughter particularly Deborah Gross um she actually came to the town and ended up speaking among
others to Nate Mallaloy and Nate sent her to us so now we're talking about um that this is very much in the due diligence phase um but the idea is that that home sits
on a big enough piece of land to have an additional home and the original building um which has already long ago been divided into two family space um could could realistically be divided
into a three family space um and an additional structure built so that project is at the stage of discussing uh with NA and others uh how we go about the special permit so it would be a mixed project for us if it happens as we
hope Habitat will partner with us and do the new build and we will manage the renovation but there's a lot of fundraising between here and there again the family's agreement in coming to us is that they would accept half the
market value of that property uh from us with the thought that that would enable um it kind of sits across Amity Street from the very upmarket condos that were built into the old funeral home there so
it would it would create a lovely symmetry in my mind across AMD Street would be an equally carefully developed uh cluster of five homes that would be marketed affordably but that's now we're into not
quite pie in the sky i certainly hope we pull it off but very much a future project so forgive me for monopolizing the conversation for that long but that's kind of the narrative and the question would be sort of which of the issues that you'd like to surface and
the the audience that should be reached um does that prompt in your mind you know would be drawn in and and what would be the most effective way to present it so I think hearing a little bit more about how you've collaborated and might
continue to collaborate with um at least Habitat it seems like maybe it could be helpful to have them as part of the conversation i mean I think I think it's interesting to think about certain neighborhoods where it
might be a more like a targeted model in a sense you know some of I'm I'm just thinking could could a model like this work in a place like Ammeris Woods where the homes are already like not affordable at all so
you know thinking in terms of grabbing you know gravitating towards people who might be in a place to either donate land or think about a way to donate their home you know how do you is that the target audience or is it
both those people and people who are interested in home ownership opportunities um who might have some patience and might have um you seen how the market is going currently and and had some struggles in finding a
place to go the other the other um project that we are currently working on that Linda didn't mention is an older person who was a longtime member of ACLT who now
needed to go into more of an assisted living situation and wanted her house to go to a family um and so her her family correct me if I'm wrong Linda is her
sons are are willing to um forfeit some of the profit although she needs money to continue living but forfeit some of that to sell directly to an ACLT family um and so I think they're being patient
about it they said within you know a year to come up with that we could come up with the money between what the family could afford um but the neighbors around there are are fairly enthusiastic about raising money among themselves to
help purchase that land uh that house um also Linda didn't mention that we recently received a community development corporation status so that um any donations of $1,000 or more to
ACL hopefully will receive a matching tax credit and they haven't come out with those tax credit allocations um yet for this year but that's I think that's also an important development in our
organization alex do you have any thoughts kind of hearing some of that i do yeah so I'm thinking back to something that I don't remember if it was yourself Algra or Greg who mentioned this previously but the idea of hosting an event that was
more of a resource fair than anything like a so you want to support affordable housing in Ammerst right with a a combination of so many interesting groups and committees and boards and nonprofits that all are plugged in in different ways
that work different ways so in my head this is still geared more towards people wanting to contribute but not sure where to start and this idea of great if something that you have to give is time then absolutely let's invite Habitat and have them talk about their need for
volunteers and what people can do in that if what you have to give is land or capital let's invite our friends from ACLT um and being more expansive with that i'm thinking actually of a a conference structure that I went to recently where they had what they called
lightning talks and every organization that was represented had five minutes to come up and just really quick give the skinny on what their organization was doing and then be available for questions after so in my head something like that is more of a let's shoot wide
with this and try and bring in a lot of people who are interested in helping and spread the word and at least build some community and solidarity in town and and help people know that these resources exist um but I that's that's where my thoughts
stop right now i just um I think it was I'm trying to remember now who actually organized the event i think it was AMH i think I remember dealing with John Hornick about this you you did run an event like
that maybe three years ago um that's partly um how I know as much as I do about Valley CDC and and well I already we already were partnering with Habitat but
the um it and I think it was very wellreceived it it's not that long ago that that happened in people's memories you might want to I don't I don't know if you're going to continue to do this sort of month by month or every couple
of months um you might want to remind people of that and of the the wealth of resources to think about uh but maybe allow maybe two at a time or three at a time that um I'm I'm I'm being blatantly
self-interested here the ACLT story um I can tell in five minutes basically I present what the community land trust model is we uh we end up owning the land and the homeowner only has to come up with enough up uh to to buy the home um
and and the basic ground rules that that it stays affordable uh but the kind of even to tell you a a little bit of the story took more like 20 or 30 minutes um that gives a little flesh on the bones
so I'm thinking of somewhere between what you would do if it was the first time the town had a chance to hear about all of these various players um and having at the opposite extreme only one at a time which might not bring out the
same audience but I think two at a time would give time to really put some flesh on the bones of the stories i mean I think I think somewhere between a lightning talk and 30 minutes of conver
of a presentation would be ideal i mean I think I like the idea of kind of a resource fair but I think I think inviting Land Trust and Habitat would be very different than having like say Craig's doors or Ammeris Community
Connections come in because I think those are different audiences and and different outcomes that you're looking at so I I think if we're thinking of more of a like a mini resource fair if we're thinking you know we could think
about it as like a mini resource fair about home ownership and then it would make sense to have Valley CDC come in too since their their groundbreaking for Ammeris Community Homes is at the end of the month um not saying that this is necessarily
going to happen by the end of the month but just thinking of these are there are various things in place or in the works happening around home ownership opportunities so would that Alex kind of make sense as a focus like a mini
resource fair for affordable home ownership in town yeah I think so i think back to Greg's original point then if we're looking at a smaller group of organizations being represented I think that Greg's correct it's it's just focusing on what is the
through line with all of them and why are we pairing them together in changing who we're reaching out to right and so I guess I guess if we're if we're thinking about what can
you donate versus how can to benefit there that is two separate strategies but I think they do kind of weave together in that if we're not targeting people to donate then there won't be opportunities for people to
benefit um and I think while some people you know I think if you're if you're going through the community homes you know they have all these things about how to get you know um why is my brain blanking like
first-time home buyer stuff and and stuff like that um which I'm assuming would also be a benefit to a person who's looking for a land trust home or Habitat um and while yes it is a different I'm sorry I just saw new
stamps in front of me and they're manatees and that made me smile um I apologize my brain is on a train and it's going off the tracks um but can those two audiences come
together i I think that they can you know I think I don't greg you've had your hand up for a while though so let's hear from you and maybe my brain will Yeah i mean I I think um you know I I think the
format sort of like audience targeting questions are are are important to to have clarity on right you know uh and to and I think if you know including both intentionally and
and again even if you do an event aimed at donors you're going to get people who are more interested as beneficiaries or vice versa right um uh but regardless I think if if we decide to go with both you know really being thoughtful about
managing the dynamic would be I think very important one of the things um you know like one of the things especially I mean really in all like affordable housing stuff is really um you know when we're talking or communicating with beneficiaries it's vitally important
um to be responsible about expectation setting you know um uh and um you know and and to be because like you know I mean the worst thing that can happen is you know you like you put a flyer up like come learn about like you know how to you know get affordable you know an
affordable home ownership opportunity and then like you know there's there's five or six opportunities for you know five or six hundred families you know I mean you know I mean that that's I don't think that would happen in the context of an event but that's the dynamic we sort of have to be responsible about i you know so point being working that
stuff out important you know um I was actually going to sort of talk about content though as well and kind of riffing off of Alex a little bit you know the um the different ways you know from and
thinking more with with the one segment of folks who might participate as um as donors or volunteers or folks giving of you know of their their time or resources um I think there
is and then listening to Linda sort of talk about you know which I've heard some of these pieces before you know you know about the the various models they've they've used ACLT has used there might be another way to come at it you know might be an interesting
sort of exploration and and I don't I don't Alex would have a better sense if there is an academic or to that in town that can speak to this but to me getting at the talking about the the the ground lease and the um and
the structure ownership you know as separated um which is a technical and functional way that ACLT works kind of beneath that there's some interesting like uh economic and almost
socopolitical dynamics like that are really rich you know and I mean that if we could find the right person or people to speak to them you know um but you know I mean I you know in the sense that
um you know there I think everyone is very aware of of the sort of output and the the end result of our messed up housing system but there's less common knowledge about the sort of tectonic dynamics beneath that that that drive it
you know everything from market demand to you know uh to you know to land value versus you know there there's all there's there's fascinating stuff there so that and and I guess the you know zooming back to the specifics of ACLT um I think you know just and and and I
don't know that I would publicly frame the event this way but I think um there is a you know there is one dynamic where we look at homeowners you know who have have have already committed their
um you know like you know committed you know part of their som or part of their wealth to um you know to this initiative and I think you know there's interesting you know there there's an interesting dynamic there of a just like
spotlighting those specific stories so you know if I were spotlighting I wouldn't necessarily tell the sort of linear history of ACLT so much is like del another way to come at it you know might be to delve into one or two you know specific donors or you know I don't know what the phrase is here donors or
you know former home owners but to sort of like you know explore their motivations and their you know um you know and their uh reasoning and and you know and how it fits into their overall context i'm gonna land a plane here but
I guess the the point specifically that I'm thinking about is um I think there are people in Ammerst u many people not certainly not all but there are many people um who um you know who have
been unintentional but just sort of circumstantial beneficiaries of this incredible growth in property values you know um and um and I think that you know the ACLT donors are people who uh probably on some level have thought
critically about that you know and have you know and and I just think there's an interesting constellation you whether it's the sort of like talking about the um you know the complex economic dynamics beneath that or like how individuals should respond to that or and I guess there's an interesting to me
potential opportunity to say like you know actually some of us not all of us some of us have some agency to to to respond to this you know um and you know and I think highlighting you know it might be interesting perhaps it might inspire others you know and then
just a I'll say a smaller thing to another kind of offshoot theme which sort of relates you know but I think there is a um uh you know an ongoing conversation and I think it needs to become more targeted in town just about um you know you know
one of the themes in our housing production draft housing production plan is demographic shift you know of you know of senior housing you know and of like you know homeowners who are stuck in their homes you know who would rather be in a senior housing situation um um you know in some cases you know
or and and at least one of the ones the examples Linda spoke about you know reflected that dynamic you know and so that's a little more practical thing but um but there might be some richness there too mora
so those are excellent points Greg um yeah and I think also you know ACLT is not unique the land trust movement has been going on for what like a hundred years in all the from rural to urban um
you know there's big ones in Boston in Burlington is a huge land trust all with similar um similar setups with sharing the land and and homeownership um I think ACLT is
kind of unique in that most of the other ones don't have donors giving their property but um maybe that'll come and also you know there are nine now land trusts being set up in the valley uh in western Massachusetts that are all kind
of in their infancy uh I think Franklin County is a little bit farther along but um so it is part of a general movement to help home own affordable home ownership throughout the country
the the socio political dynamics that you talk about really resonated for me Greg the if if I had to just simply characterize what has driven ACL sort of what makes people show up for the
meetings and work on it uh as well as give property there's um there's a demographic in Ammerst am the university grew to its current size that is a step function jump from the having maybe six or 7,000 students to having in the 20s
and then in the low30s that happened much later in Ammerst than it did nationwide because private education had been so strong and it took Massachusetts a while to decide to invest in a state university so we were like a whole generation later or even two generations
later than the Midwest in building a first class uh flagship campus from what had been a much smaller operation and the consequence of that is that we're still seeing the first generation that made that change in the university i was
hired in the last year that the university made a step function increase in the size of of the um faculty and the corresponding in the the size the number of students and and the size of the
staff so all those houses in South Ammerst that were built in the 60s and 70s they were built to accommodate a rush of new homeowners that correlated with the building of the university the buildout of the university to its
present scale and all of us going down the years together are are kind of commonly appalled that what was possible for us as young people is not possible for current young people and it's sort of well you know it it's not just about
fussing about the noise of student rentals it's about the fact that student rentals has driven out the the whole economic middle of the town of Ammerst it's the cost not the drinking on the weekends that really deeply troubles
people um and so we see the reflection of that and people just being willing as I say to walk away from that appreciated value um they believe that they're buying a future for Ammerst as a town that it's not going to exist i mean the
volunteers who serve on the committees now many of them are in this generation is they look to see who's going to come along behind them and they see things like the 30% shrinkage in the size of the school age population and they say
we're this this can't continue um it's it's a very interesting dynamic to watch and for some people that translates into being willing uh to just make the investment of what in a sense
appears to them funny money i mean it if you don't sell your house that you bought as a starter house for $600,000 then you probably can't get into really comfortable senior accommodations or maybe you're worrying about your grandchildren's ability to
get college educations so there's some amount of protection of that value but there's also a lot of capacity to just uh invest it in the next generation of people that you don't necessarily know until they come forward to purchase your
house it's quite exciting to watch it play out so I guess I'm wondering if it might make sense to send a follow-up email and maybe loop in Habitat and CDC and see if
see if a we can come to an agreement about you know what what we can maybe do as a thing and then when that would be um but I'm also just checking with Greg to see if that can be
done in an email versus having to wait until the next meeting to have everybody or or would I have to send out an email to plan for the next meeting for um I I I think it's fine to send emails
um to to query interest and availability you know um and um and I I think at this point also be transparent about you know we we're not quite sure like of shape precisely yet but you know but it sounds like home ownership um uh you know as a
theme and um um you know creating you know creating avenues for uh you know for families um um yeah I think it's fine to do that out of reach you know and for folks who are listening or u I don't know I don't think we have any other audience members
but um you know so valley is Um you know Valley has a development side and and technically the Paris Community Homes piece is housed in the development side not technically literally it's housed in the development side of valley but then valley also had separately from the development world
has a a home ownership services um side which um which is where uh you know ACL is partnering with Donna Cabana probably on um uh and so that's and so probably depending on which direction we went it
would probably be Donna I would guess but um and you know but I think you know yeah my guess is they'd be interested in knowing what um you know I mean I think Donna is probably more interested in the
um on on potential home buyers um than communicating with donors you know i mean I'm is my sense you know um that's kind of what her role is but um but yeah we can certainly do that that that outreach but I think Habitat
might have more of a well-rounded uh like relationship to this conversation if that makes sense yeah Alex um yeah Allegra if you're wanting to do that outreach over email I'm happy to put a motion forward saying that we authorize
you to do that if that would help you feel better about it and then we'll Okay okay yeah so I I move that Algra Buth authorized on behalf of the subcommittee to reach out to Valley CDC and Habitat for Humanity to discuss logistics
surrounding a potential upcoming outreach event and do I get to second that motion and then we vote is that I think so yeah right i second votes alex I and Algra is an I okay so I think that
will be our plan and I really appreciate the time that you've given to us today and it's really exciting to hear about you know the different prospects you have in the works and you know hopefully we can partner on letting people know
more about it and and maybe getting you more more people who are interested in giving you houses or land of course we got to finish the ones we have so right so a lot of money to raise but yeah one
of the things if we can circle back to a much earlier point in the conversation does it make sense to develop a cadre of potential buyers so they're ready to move on an opportunity there does create a moment when a family is suddenly ready sometimes they've prepared and sometimes
you know falls happen an elder person is more suddenly in need of support than had been anticipated and and there's a flurry of activity and if we just had a few families that we could call that come forward then we don't need to go
through a public sale but that means there are families out there that are kept waiting um we do in fact have a couple families waiting and that have cheerfully said they would happily step forward when the next opportunity arose
so it's a tiny it occurs in conversations one- on-one somebody knows somebody and they have a kind of metastable they have a rental they wish they weren't paying all that money in rent but um but most of the time when people are ready to buy a house they
want to move quickly though kind of developing the social sector who are who can afford manage to be patient but would be there when the moment came there's there's one other thing that I don't know what position you're in um to
act on this but um one of the the things that is concerned to us is um racial equity in our homes uh to to put it very simply we don't have any black people in our homes uh we have good working
relationships mora and Paige Wilder attended most of the meetings of the reparations group we have a nice conversation going with that group now disbanded um but it um the numbers are small and it didn't happen to lead to
successful applications and I'm I'm alert to both the legal nuances that you can't specify that a particular opportunity go to a particular group of people uh but I'm also alert to the sensitivity of groups of populations
that uh have seen a lot of promises broken in the past i'm just curious about where AMAT is around what what can we legally do and what can we effectively do to fully engage uh the
populations that that we would like to see benefit i will say by the way that ACLT homeowners are an extremely diverse group but that's brought by immigrant families who are you know prepared to jump in take a risk don't have the
history of disappointment or mistrust um that some other populations have that's a really big question and one we probably don't have time i'd leave you with an easy one to think about probably nothing we can do in the short term but
I just want to insinuate it into the thinking and I do think I think it's important to bring that up and I think it would actually be good to get some guidance on that because we in in another area of my life we've been having these conversations about how can can we
specify preferences in terms of you know people involved in a committee based on certain you know protected class so I I think that might be a big conversation to have in a different like in a in a way that not in this forum but but I
mean I think I think it is something that the town needs to think about and needs to be open about especially with all the executive orders that are going on but um Linda I have a couple ideas that are kind of separate from this conversation but I'll I'll I'll drop you
a line um about a couple specific things so let's see i'm going to email ACLT with Habitat and Valley Community Development and just gauge
interest it's my action step um just writing it down before I forget it um and I think I because Greg you have a time crunch is that right yeah loosely i I I can go a little longer than 10:15 but I I I should probably be done by 10:30
um so I think we have a few other things that we were going to discuss and you're welcome to stay um and listen but I will be in contact with you um regarding putting something together and then reaching out to the League of Women Voters as well just as Thank you if you
can be helpful with your other matters I'm happy to stay but I don't want to get drawn into distracting you as as you've just seen manifested once I open my mouth you have to shake my shoulder to get me shut up and let somebody else
we're just going to talk a little bit more about other groups that we've reached out to and our guiding mission statement that we're trying to develop for the trust as a whole so you are welcome to stay and listen um but I think we I think that should those
updates should be much shorter i I would like to stay and listen why don't you just take away my status as a panelist all right I'll do that thank you so much for joining us it was really nice to hear from you
um so in terms of my communications with other people I have reached out to HRC and attended their meeting last month this month I don't know what month it is um March i
went there in March and so they are willing and interested in partnering with us about coming up with at least a a list of resources that can be housed both on their website and our website related to tenants rights can you tell
me HRC is I'm sorry the Human Rights Commission yeah so um because they I had seen they had done a pretty um robust job of coming up with immigrant um resources so I thought
that would be another important issue um and that is one of their target areas that they're trying to work on as well as like discrimination and inability to afford housing um for residents in town so I think um we kind of talked about three target areas that
we'd want to discuss or have resources for which were you know discrimination and looking for housing so what are your rights in terms of if you're a renter who is a person with a child under six and there's lead poison or lead paint laws and things like that you know what
what are the rights that you have as a family renting what are the rights against discrimination based on protected class um and again this somewhat complicated by the fact that the Fair Housing Center in Holio is no longer going to be able
to look into these sorts of things when there is a discrimination complaint um I'm going to double check because I think there was some money that was re released it's it's it's really head spinning to try and keep track of what's actually happening so as the last time I went to their website it did say they
were no longer taking calls as of March 5th um so so sorry and so that is the dis the getting into housing and and like protected status anti-discrimination rights then kind of what are your rights once you are a
tenant and in a unit if there's concerns with conditions do you have rights in that regard and yes you do um but making sure you're going about it correctly and then what are your rights if you are being asked to leave um in terms of
eviction there's a process a lot of people just think okay I have this notice that says I have to be out in 14 days but really there's a whole court process that you can go through so collecting resources around each parts of those like what the actual laws are and where you can go for help are kind
of where we're where we had been thinking so we've kind of gotten We're populating a Google doc together um great and and the person from HRC has actually reached out to the offices at the different colleges to kind of see
what their off-campus resources are for in terms of how they're supporting their students who don't live on campus yeah I think that's great um you know and and I think I am interested in in
um specifically thinking about student renter rights in this uh you know as well you know I mean and I think specifically I think there are some people who might not be aware of um um you know of just code stuff you know um that you know and I know
inspections folks come across like you know concerning code stuff uh you know where students are starting aware like I don't have to accept you know this leak or this uh this plumbing issue or this you know I've never heard of electrical issues but you know I'm sure I'm sure there's different stuff out there and
and a relative lack of literacy among newer renters you know the other thing too I want to want to name is voucher holders um uh as a a population that um it's more nuanced but it it's an important conversation and and I think
it does have to do with you know with their housing and renters's rights so no I think those that's good to remind me of as I am in the rabbit hole of tenants rights and and whatnot because I think I think those resources I think
sometimes people also don't think that like the law necessarily applies when you're in a certain group and like Sure so um and then I think once we've compiled things and I need to also I was going to check in with um like ACC and
um Craig stores if they already have some sort of pamphlet that's more locally focused made i mean I John Hornick had something from like 2016 that I can like update and stuff but but it would be nice to kind of have something that's a one pager as
opposed to like here's 27 different links to go to um yeah so that would be probably a down the road you know we're compiling right now and then it would be nice to Yeah so that's kind of where we are on
that project and then I did speak with um the energy oh my god ECAC the energy climate action committee I think is what it stands for um and one of the things that's coming
up is the sustainability fair at the end of the month on the common i think it's the 26th or whatever that Saturday is of that weekend um and they always have a booth um and they have resources available for you know in terms of like
energy upgrades that can keep your house um less leaky and whatnot um so so we kind of had talked about how do we you know can we focus on maybe some sort of information
for lower income renters who are in you know can Massave go out to them how do we get landlord buy and that was kind of where our conversation focused which so I had asked about the landlord registry um and wasn't sure if that a way that we
can push out a communication or or not um um I I I'm not sure yet i don't know um you know Yeah but I think like um probably conceivably I I think yes um you know I think it's just a question of um
I just don't know if like if that tool has um Sorry I'm finishing up a meeting uh I don't know if that tool has um um a communication function and or if it would need to get like like mass communication function or if we need to
get pushed over to something else in which case that that might be tricky um so yeah okay so that's kind of I mean that's where we were so I think at the meeting I'll just announce that the sustainability fair is happening and you know that mass save is a thing that
people can look into and I mean I think at the very least I mean I know when I was renting we had Mass Safe come but we didn't talk to our landlord and I don't know if we were supposed to do that but they came and they did what you know they gave us a power strip it wasn't like shadow yeah yeah I think that you
know they can do it's like this the deeper stuff like insulation and you know like um where you need landlord buying and I um yeah I don't maybe there's a like probably it's probably worth doing research to see what kind of models are out there um for
incentivization for that kind of thing um um but yeah we did uh in this light in the housing production plan there is a uh in the most recent version of the goals and strategies there is
a plank or whatever I'm making seeking to maintain the affordability of current units and you know uh utility efficiency is one um one strategy there um so I think those are my updates uh
Alex do you have anything to add no I don't i apologize i was hoping I would have a draft of the flyer for us to look at today but it's still in progress so I'll have that next all right all right um and I just I know Grover was the only one who'd weighed in
on any changes to the elevator pitch and that change was to suggest replacing housing developers with housing providers or developers land trusts and others working to create affordable housing um I'm okay with that as a
friendly amendment yeah same here all right um I am aware that our next meeting would fall on May 2nd and I am also a newly aware person that that is the day that Wildwood kindergarten screening and
I have an ingoing kindergartener i have not yet received my time slot for that so I am wondering if maybe we can hold our next meeting on May 9th instead and let me just make sure that
that It's a reasonable thing to Yeah um that work for that that is fine for me in the 10 o'clock slot is that okay Alex yep that works thank you um so all right so our next
meeting will be May 9th and um Oh gonna put that in later because I almost just erased I'm I'm sending you both a change right now calendar um and and you said 10:00 a.m 10 a.m or 10:15 I think i've got to think that
ends at 10 usually in a few minutes but uh I just sent you the uh the invite great change that Zoom right now too so I think with that we can adjourn and
I appreciate all your time today great thank you both thank you thank you bye bye