[0:00] Welcome to this Selectboard regular meeting. Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026 at 6 p.m.. We are in Town Hall at 6 Walker Street in Lenox, and I'd like to call this meeting to order. First, I have a few announcements from the chair. This Saturday we will be celebrating our 45th Apple Squeeze on September 26th between 10 a.m.
[0:20] and 5 p.m. in the Lenox Village. My phone says there's only a 30% chance of rain between 9 and 6:00, so please come. Just bring an umbrella. Also, I have an announcement. There's going to be a really great new event called Tending the Fire. It's the second homelands powwow. October 3rd and fourth, 10 a.m.
[0:44] to 6 p.m. at Shakespeare and Company. And we have someone who's going to speak about that during, open session. Oh, and thank you. And I'd like to also acknowledge that CTS is recording this evening. They're recording the meeting live. And is Clarence also. And Clarence Phantom is also taping the meeting. Thank you. I have another announcement.
[1:09] We're having a flu and Covid clinic. It's a no cost flu and Covid vaccine clinic at Saint Anne's Parish at 134 Main Street and Linux on Friday, the 2nd of October, from 11 to 1 p.m.. These are up all over town in a lot of great places. I think at the library, coffee shops, etc.
[1:32] you can jump on this QR code and make an appointment. And that's a great place to go get your Covid vaccines, because I know it's popping up in various areas.
[1:53] Also, I just want to state that the Lenox Historical Society is going to have a flea market fundraiser on the lawn of the Academy building at 65 Main Street during the Apple squeeze from 10 to 5. So make sure you go check that out. Now we will go to Citizens Open Forum. Lenox residents are welcome to address the board for up to two minutes. Susan Jameson. Oh, yes.
[2:13] Susan, if you could just go. Yes. Hi. Good evening. I'm grateful to be here. My name is Susan Jameson, and I'm on the board of the Homelands Powwow. And this year, it's going to be October 3rd and fourth at Shakespeare and Company.
[2:34] We have over 160 Stockbridge Munsee Mohicans traveling all the way from Wisconsin to be here for this event. So I'm very grateful to have signs approved by you, and then to invite all of you to welcome the Mohicans.
[2:54] And officially, we would love it if one or more of you could be there, especially the noon at the Grand entry, when it's an experience like none other, when you have hundreds of Native Americans dancing and singing on their land. So I'm here just to represent them and say they are very, very happy. Excellent. Well, we'll be sure to be there. And I'm going to give you your sign permit. It's ready to go.
[3:13] And the stickers are are there so much for your signs? Thank you so much for sharing your information. Thank you. Thank you.
[3:27] Well, there you go on Texas Road. I'm here to remind everyone that we have our fall fix it. Coming up on Saturday, October 17th and 17th is death and sponsored by the Linux Community Center. And it's been a great event over the last number of years, which you're up to quite a few.
[3:51] In April, we had the largest one that we have ever had. We had 43 people arrive with 1 or 2 items to be fixed, mostly two and the rundown. So those 43 people bought 31 items that needed some sewing. We were able to do 31 of them. Six of them were diagnosed or we didn't have time.
[4:09] Someone arrived at ten minutes before with something. As far as mechanical, electrical. All that household stuff. We do a lot of lamps, we do vacuum cleaners. And half of what came in on that Saturday. So we did 11 lamps and 22 other types of items and diagnosed or had no fixed situation for about eight more.
[4:33] So I am so grateful to the volunteers that we have. It's an amazing group of people. Anyone else who would like to join us? We're happy to have you give me a call. And if you are talking to somebody who is interested in coming, they have something that needs fixing, but they're not sure we can do it.
[4:49] If they give me a call or send me an email and my name is on the poster, unpaid. I can send it out to my volunteers and we can get a response. And we've done some pretty interesting things over the years, from a KitchenAid mixer to kind of a portable freezer thing, which I don't.
[5:09] Again, I saw it come and I saw it go. So I have no idea what they did, but we have some very talented people who do have skills in areas that would be useful to almost anyone woodworking, electrical and mechanical, etc.
[5:23] and my husband is the guy who sits at the computer and looks up every man in the world. So that's where we are. Be sure to come. And as I said, we're always looking for more volunteers. If you give just a half an hour, an hour or whatever, that's also great. Just check in with me. Ahead of time. All right. Thanks very much.
[5:41] Thank you very much. Anyone else seeing no one? We will go on to the consent agenda. Before you enter that, just know. Cynthia, one of our appointments this evening for conservation is present. So this is here. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay, so, Madam Chair, we have quite a few items. First nation acceptance request from Chief Keisuke.
[6:04] Seeking permission to accept the donations of the fire department and not of dollars in memorial. Second, we have some appointments and I'll put a hold on appointments in general. First appointments to the Conservation Commission. Madelyn Johnston and Cynthia Hanson. That's big. And Peggy Spot or filling her spot, rather. Second, we have appointments to the Community Preservation Committee.
[6:27] Sarah Burley filling a vacancy. We have a special license request for a one day one and malt liquor license submitted by Loretta Tenuta for October 10th, 2026, 6 to 9 p.m. at Bedford Hall, located at 104 Walter Street. Another special license request for an all alcohol liquor license.
[6:48] Submitted by Michael Lewis for November 7th 26 for 11 p.m. at Benford Hall, located at 104 Walker Street. And then, as we've already discussed, we had a temporary sign request in the public way. Temporary sign of the public right of way. Request for the home loans. Homeless. Wow. On October 3rd and fourth at Shakespeare.
[7:11] That will be 12 signs distributed throughout town. Excellent. As far as the holds go, let's address those first before we approve the whole consent agenda. I'd like to thank Madeline Johnston and Cynthia for volunteering to be on the Conservation Commission. I see Cynthia sings here tonight. Thank you so much for stepping up.
[7:33] This is a very important commission. There's a lot of legal and property types of concerns that go along with this commission, as well as, some significant training involved. So I appreciate you and Madeline stepping up to join the commission. Thank you so much.
[7:57] Secondly, the CPC, we have Sarah Berlet, who also happens to be someone who is very active in town with the chamber, and she will be on CPC, which will be a really great contribution to community preservation and all things that happen with open space and recreation, community housing and historical preservation. So we appreciate them for stepping forward.
[8:19] Now, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda before you do that. We Jake and I, Deanna had talked briefly. There's going to be a revision to the way our website shows opportunities to join committees.
[8:39] Now, I don't know where we stand on that, but we are always in need of volunteers for committees, and we're trying to make it easier to target what you want to do. Be able to upload your qualifications or background, things like that. So that's that's upcoming. It'll kind of be a it'll be a it's a software program that will be embedded in the town's web page.
[8:56] And at any given time, we can turn it on or off to accept resumes. We'll probably leave it on the entire time. So if you happen to know of a board or a committee or anything you might be interested in. It will be all electronic.
[9:08] You can just sit there in the comfort of your living room and fill it out, and it'll go to the respect. Deanna and Paul Mattingly will manage it, but we're going to try to streamline it. So it's all electronic. There'll be automatic reminders for people letting them know their term is up.
[9:25] Please communicate with your appointing authority to say, my term is up, I'm interested in serving and it'll just be a little bit better management of our large quantity of boards and committees and commissions that the town has. They're all active, but they all need your participation to really make them move Linux forward. So, it's not that much money. It's a couple grand a year to do it.
[9:41] It'll also log in the the ethics requirement, the open meeting law requirements, some of the basic trainings that everybody has to participate in to be on a public board.
[9:55] You know, one of the things that I encourage anybody I talk to that wants to get on a committee or anything is go to the meetings way ahead of time. I mean, six months ahead of time and see if it fits. Some people may like it or you may get a couple meetings. Say, this isn't for me. Move on to another one.
[10:09] Do your homework and actually attend the meetings and see what what's you know, what's on their plate. Absolutely. Sometimes the titles of the boards look more exciting than what they are, and others are innocuous and the materials more exciting. But, you know, random Tuesday night in February, make sure that when you leave your home, you're going somewhere because you're really interested in the subject matter.
[10:26] Don't just serve for the sake of it. It won't be motivation for you to commit. Commit to something you're genuinely interested in for subject matter. Good advice. Thank you. Okay, thanks. I will move to approve the consent agenda as discussed. Thank you. Thank you. Jared. All those in favor? All that passes on to general business.
[10:48] You're all set, Cynthia. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very. Do we want to do we want to move the Conservation Commission associate membership behind this first discussion. If you think you want to get our guests in. And I think that will get our guests in and out.
[11:07] So we're going to go to number two. First under general business we're going to discuss the Seasonal Communities designation. And we have several guests with us tonight. We have representative Lee Davis. She is our rep for, the 18 communities here in Western Mass. Bret Roberts is here from PC.
[11:31] We have Bob Munsch from our planning department or planning board, and, Don Weber is here from the Affordable Housing Trust, and Lee is going to kick us off. Yes. So first of all, thank you so much for moving me up in the agenda. I absolutely appreciate it. I'm actually on my way to Boston for meeting tonight and several meetings tomorrow.
[11:51] So I super appreciate, being, you know, having this opportunity to speak to you. So I am going to speak to you kind of as a champion and a cheerleader about the seasonal communities designation. And I'm going to let these nice gentlemen go into the weeds.
[12:08] You know, someone that was in your shoes for six years as a select board member in Great Barrington, as a finance committee member, as someone that served as the director of development at Eagle Mill, which we just opened up, you know, many, many units over in Lee.
[12:29] As the development director over at construct for five years, I have a real passion for housing, and I understand the pressures, the unique pressures that we have here in the Berkshires. And being in my role now as a as a representative, I get to see my colleagues, particularly in Cape Cod, on an Tuckett Martha's Vineyard, on the islands, what they're dealing with, with the seasonal pressures and the fact that it's very, very hard for workers,
[12:52] for families, for seniors to remain in the homes, intervene in the towns that they want to remain and live and work in without being forced out because of seasonal pressures. And I'm very, very grateful to the Healey administration for bringing the Affordable Homes Act.
[13:23] You know, really to us and recognizing the seasonal Communities designation and allowing Berkshire County to be part of that discussion. So back in the original round, I represent 18 towns of the Third Berkshire district and the original town in the original round of seasonal communities.
[13:45] There were some towns that were brought in, and I made a case that we really need to be looked at as a region, not as, you know, singular towns with housing challenges. So I spoke at length with then secretary, Housing at Augustus about expanding it to other towns. And that's in November of 2025.
[14:08] I was very, very fortunate to bring the housing Secretary to Great Barrington, and we had a housing roundtable, and I did my final pitch about opening it up to the rest of Berkshire County. So I'm very, very grateful that we now have 16 towns out of 18 towns that I represent that are, you know, eligible under the Seasonal Communities designation.
[14:29] So what I'm here really to talk to you about is I am hoping that this select board gives the residents the opportunity to to vote on this, whether they want to opt in into the seasonal communities designation that you now are eligible for. Obviously there's, you know, there's things attached to it. And I want to address a couple concerns that I've heard.
[14:51] First of all, you know, folks have said, is it a unfunded mandate? Okay. Is this going to be bringing housing and people that we don't necessarily want in our towns? My answer to this is that, you know, it offers tools to towns that that sign up to it. Okay. And I'm looking at chairman. That's because she's such a great housing advocate. And obviously the folks that are here.
[15:10] You know, what we are seeing is that affordability is, is increasingly getting so hard for people. And what this does is that brings tools to the towns that they can elect later on, after they accept the designation to sign on to, such as a year round housing trust.
[15:31] So if you make a decision, let's say this comes onto the warrant and the town votes to accept this. It's not going to all of a sudden just bring in high density housing. Okay.
[15:51] There's a 24 month, you know, factor that allows towns to take a deep breath to look at the model bylaws that are given to the HLC or by the OC to work very closely with them and find out what works for the town. So I want to make very clear that it's not you're not opening the floodgates by accepting this eligibility.
[16:09] Number two, before getting into kind of what it does and what it does not, which I'll let really Bob and be our PC do. Is that it addresses such things as infill housing and infill.
[16:28] And basically what this is, is this comes when we have kind of a lots that are empty that could that, you know, they're connected to infrastructure, have, you know, water and sewer and that might be in in a residential neighborhood that already allows single family housing. Right. So this addresses that, that, you know, you could have someone that's able to build a home on this undersized lot and move in. That might be an EMT, that might be a nurse, that might be a school teacher.
[16:46] And it helps solve that problem of, you know, these these kind of undersized lots that exists now in our neighborhoods that could really bring in some more families that could address the problem of our workforce shortages. So that is something I really want to address, obviously, with this seasonal community designation.
[17:05] It does bring state funding through, you know, the CIP. So as we've seen in FY 26 and FY 27, roughly $2 million have been brought in from the state for communities that have accepted this, this designation. So it's roughly, you know, anywhere from around at least $50,000 and up. The FY 27, this just came out recently.
[17:31] So we're just talking I was talking with Bob, and I think Great Barrington came around 78,000. So. Okay. And what I want to say is, you know, we're not necessarily doing it for the money, right? We're doing it to be stronger as a region so that I can do my job as a state rep and say, listen,
[17:49] we thank you for offering this opportunity to provide us tools to address our housing challenges, you know, to address the pressures of seasonal homes, address the pressures of stress. Thank you for that. And and to make my job that I can advocate clearly and say, we really want to help solve this problem.
[18:09] So without doing that, right now we have five towns that have opted in. Okay. My goal is to try to get the 16 towns that have eligibility to sign on, because at that point, you know, we could talk about housing as a region. It's not just, you know, housing doesn't stop at the border of Lennox.
[18:27] Housing doesn't stop, you know, the border of Great Barrington, right? We have people that, you know, work at Fairview Hospital that live in Lennox. Right. And they might want to live in Lennox. They don't necessarily want to, you know, be driving out.
[18:42] We've people driving, you know, an hour and a half that work for the Southern Berkshire Ambulance squad, you know, to work in Great Barrington. So this is what this Seasonal Communities designation does, is it really gives us the tools.
[19:02] It gives us the communities that sign up for this, the ability to have a conversation with the state and to say, okay, we believe that, you know, we need the tools and we are going to work with you on that. So some of it will be funding. Yes. And this funding can be used, you know, to, to go into and put money in this affordable housing into the housing trust. It can be used for zoning.
[19:18] It could be used anything that really addresses attainable housing. Now. So what a lot of times what we've seen is people say, well, I don't qualify for, you know, affordable housing, the 80%. Am I or under? But, you know, with this attainable housing, you know, with 250%. Am I you could qualify for subsidized housing from the state.
[19:40] So that allows us really to address the workforce shortages. So I guess, you know, the overarching, argument that I'm saying is let, the residents of Great Barrington, you know, make the decision at a special town meeting or a town meeting and let's continue this conversation. But, you know, it's not going to turn on the floodgates.
[20:03] You're not going to have people subdividing, you know, their properties and putting tiny homes up. It's really, you know, providing the tools and having you part of the conversation of how do we dress this housing shortage, how do we address the fact that there's, you know, workforce that cannot live in the places that they work?
[20:24] And I, you know, I have I saw in the HLC today the Executive Office of Housing Livability Communities and saying, you know, just checking in. And they want to make sure that, you know, that, you know, that they're working hard on model bylaws. So there's going to be technical assistance available to the town.
[20:42] There is a waiver process that if for some reason there is something comes down the pike that the town just can't make it work that the residents you know are unhappy about, they will work with the towns.
[20:58] So there is a waiver process that, you know, if for something, you know, unforeseen circumstances that that you can't do that you can have a conversation. It's a conversation with the state knowing that, you know, this is something we're really working on. I want to make sure that, really, you know, the people realize that this is a regional conversation.
[21:21] And the more by in that we have in the third Berkshires directly, you know, the more leverage we have as a community, the more strength I have to make my case for housing solutions. And I really think that we're stronger as a region, we're stronger as a community. It addresses isolation and workforce and schools and so many things. So, I really hear you.
[21:40] Can I just interrupt you there? As far as you know, working with the state, one of the things that's mentioned in the seasonal community is advisory council review. You know, talking about doing some additional legislation is examining caps on local preferences. Yeah. So we just opened forge and that had a 70% local preference for people within Berkshire County.
[22:01] 238 Pittsfield Road has just been approved and we've started construction on that. That's 68 more units. That also has a 70% preference. It would be great if we could get a 100% Berkshire preference for initial Lisa. Now those are just rental units. That doesn't address home ownership.
[22:22] But it would be great because like you said, we have health care people. We have, you know, people who are CNAs. We have people who are EMTs. We have municipal employee employees that work in every municipality in Berkshire County, and they have a hard time finding affordable housing on what they're making as municipal employees and teachers.
[22:43] And so if we could get that local preference lifted to 100%, that would go a long way to helping Berkshire County residents. And so I'd like you to advocate for. Absolutely. And that's that's such a great point. Right.
[23:01] So if I can come back to HLC and say, listen, you know, we started with five that have signed up in, you know, a year later now we have, you know, 16 or so, then that makes the case that we actually are doing something about this, this issue that this you know, this crisis really. And then I can make that, you know, I can advocate for that.
[23:17] If, you know, we only have like a smattering because it was really, really hard to convince HLC to to let all the Berkshires in, because as more communities join in, then the funding goes down. Right. But I'm going to make sure that they keep the funding up like we don't want it just to be okay.
[23:32] There's too many. And you know, you get $20,000. Really. I want to show that we are serious about helping ourselves. What I see is that, you know, I see a title, a I see what's happened on the Cape. I see what's happened on the islands, and it could come to the Berkshires.
[23:48] You know, when you have kind of the climate refugees and all the people that see, hey, the Berkshires, I can have my second home, you know, and avoid the hurricanes and avoid the earthquakes. You know, we are going to see more pressures. So this is a stopgap.
[24:03] This is something that provides us, again, the tools to say, hey, we are serious about solving this problem. So to your point, yes, I mean that that would be something I would advocate for. Thank you so much. Thank you for addressing the group. So I'm going to let these guys do the heavy lift.
[24:19] And I'm going to say, you know, again, thank you so much for letting me speak with you. I'm happy to answer questions through email or another time. I know time is limited. But again, you know, my ass is that you know, you offer it at the, you know, special town meeting and and let the residents decide. So thank you very much.
[24:36] We really appreciate you coming on in and speaking to us about this. Thank you so much. Very much. Appreciate it. And if I had to sum up, maybe, perhaps one of the most important parts of your your message is that the more communities out here that agree to this, the more we look like we're sending a message to Boston.
[24:52] Yeah, similar to chapter 90, that formula change. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So thank you very much. Thanks. You. Yeah. Okay. Brett, take it away. Okay. Thanks so much for having me, folks. Yeah. My name is Brett Roberts. I'm with Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, principal planner for housing there. Just give my little spiel before I started my communities.
[25:19] We work in all 32 towns and cities on housing issues. My team in particular works on planning specifically to focus on housing. So zoning bylaws, housing production plans, etc. we also do like actual building of housing too, right? So we run multiple CDBG housing rehabilitation programs throughout the county.
[25:38] We have the home modification Loan program, which we minister across the county, and we're getting into some Adu work too, which is kind of fun. So if there's anything that we can do at we're working with Dawn on the Affordable Housing Trust.
[25:51] So if there's anything that we can do it to help you all tackle this issue of housing generally, let us know. We're happy to help. And now we'll talk about seasonal communities. So I just want to get a little bit of background how we got here and where we're going. Okay. So that's kind of where we're going to start. So the Affordable Homes Act was passed in August of 2020.
[26:05] For the main portion of the bill was about $5 billion in spending related to housing. It was a bond bill, right. There's also the 50 policy initiatives to counter rising housing costs across the Commonwealth. One of those policies was seasonal communities. And what that policy did is that it did two things.
[26:23] First, it set up a Seasonal Communities Advisory Council, which was unlike kind of a group. It had folks from out here in the Berkshires on it had folks on the Cape, in the Islands on it, as well as folks from the O, C or HLC, as I like to call them.
[26:40] We call now and then automatically designated some seasonal communities as eligible to to vote on this. Right. Dukes and and Tuckett. So Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, any town in Barnstable County. So the Cape that had more than 35% of their housing stock as seasonal housing were automatically eligible. And in Berkshire County, any town that had more than 40% seasonal housing units were eligible.
[27:05] And so from there, you had kind of two paths that representative Lee Davis mentioned here, which was the blue side, is that legislatively designated towns. So I'll get to a map in a second. But that's like Stockbridge was one of those. Becket was one of those, as well as all those on the cake and the islands.
[27:25] That green side is kind of where Lenox comes in. And so the advisory Council established some additional rules and metrics they looked at to determine whether there were other towns regionally that could be brought into this, this designation. And one of those is that high rates of short term rentals.
[27:43] And so if we look at Lenox here, you were under that 40% threshold that was required by the initial legislation. You're 20.9% of your housing stock as seasonal, which is still pretty high. I will say, but overall, you had 3.
[28:01] 89% of your housing stock as short term rentals, which that's what kicked you into where we are today and why we're having that conversation. I want to just reference that map real quick before we move on. You can see even, you know, the outer cave was kind of those first communities that were legislatively brought in.
[28:18] So I would say you're kind of in that sandwich Bourne area, right, where you're kind of on the edge of that. And that's why you've been brought in. But you can see the two the two areas of the state are Berkshire County and the Cape. So we'll move on here to the next slide.
[28:29] And I'm just going to compare kind of what other towns in the Berkshires are where they sit. Right. So that yellow is the towns in Berkshire County who are legislatively designated. So again, I like to point out Hancock, because it's kind of a sleeper, one that you think about, but 58%, they're seasonal units. You know where I live? Stockbridge, 34 to 3.6%.
[28:48] Those are the ones that came in automatically. And then if you go to the next round, the next slide here, you'll see this was the yellow again, Berkshire County, the other towns that were brought in. You can see those short term rental rates there. Again so like West Stockbridge, they were for below that 40%.
[29:06] But they had a high short term rental. All these these communities are in the same boat as Lenox. Okay. Any questions about that piece before we get into the when people voted to adopt facilities. Yeah. Field. Great Barrington. Quite a few. Yeah. Yeah. So Sheffield, Great Barrington, West Stockbridge, Marlborough and Williamsburg. Williamstown, not New Marlborough. I'm not.
[29:30] I don't believe it was on their ward. Yeah, I feel less operating. Yeah, exactly. So if we go to the next. Well, I should say. Any more questions about that? Sorry. Okay, so we're going to start with the the benefits, the tools that representatives mentioned that would be offered to Lenox if you accepted the designation.
[29:51] There's kind of five overarching ones. We're going to get into the to the medium. Stop me if you have any questions. Okay. All right. Let's move on to the first set here. So the first piece is a year round housing trust trust fund. So right now you have an affordable housing trust fund.
[30:07] That's a any town in Massachusetts. Elbow to set one of those up. This is seasonal community is the ability to do a year round house housing trust fund.
[30:22] The key plan which you take away here is that trust your housing trust can support the creation of affordable and attainable housing, which means not just up to 80% or 100%, which is kind of where most of the affordable housing trusts are limited, but up to 250%. Am I just for context in Lenox, your am I is roughly about $109,000 for a family of four. Okay, so that's kind of the income levels we're talking about.
[30:41] But we've heard from across the region that, you know, doctors are making much higher than that in that 250 range. And they can't even afford housing in the Berkshires. So that's why that that is a really important piece there. It's their set up very similar to your affordable housing trust.
[30:57] We're still waiting on some clarification from see whether or not your affordable housing trust can act as a year round housing trust. We know that these are aging communities, and the volunteer base is often very slim. And we don't want to create another committee necessarily for the sake of another committee. Right. So we're getting some clarification on that.
[31:14] The second piece of this though is a year round occupancy restriction. And so right now in Lenox you kind of have your general housing restriction is based on income. Right. So someone making less than 80% can go into to have access to subsidized housing.
[31:31] If you use CPA funds, you can get up to 100% and you can have access to that housing. What the state's allowing you to do as an option here is to create a year round occupancy restriction, which says when the town acts to create housing. And what does that mean, town X? That means donation of land, donation of funds. That means inclusionary zoning, things like that.
[31:51] When the town acts to help spur the creation of housing. You have the ability to put a year round occupancy restriction on that. That isn't the case where you might have somebody making about 200% of am I? And you know, that income is a good income, right? And it might give them the opportunity to
[32:11] have something out on the Cape or something, you know, up in Maine or something. But what if they're in that housing? That means they have to live there year round. And so it's that's a primary residence. So it's kind of a unique restriction that we're putting on that housing the town helps create.
[32:26] It does not mean that any house that's built in Lenox has to have year round housing occupancy restriction. It just means when the town acts specifically to create that you have that option. Any questions about this piece? Okay. Next up, my favorite as a public employee, the essential public employee preference.
[32:45] So again, whenever the town acts to create housing, something that you now get to do and again, it kind of lists up there when you through financial assistance, property tax relief, donation of Land donation and Money Act create housing, you can designate one or more units in that, in that housing development or that house that
[33:05] that structure to be preference for essential public employees. How that's defined is in the conflict of interest law. But fact BK we are considered public employees, but so is your town administrator and so is everyone who works here in the town.
[33:24] You know, we all know this, but like in Stockbridge, none of the police officers in my town live in my town. It's like, what does that do to us as a community, right? And so this is this is a way for the town to say we actually have housing for you.
[33:36] And so when we get a fresh face from the academy and they're coming out to the birch and they want to work here, they want to commit their life to a community, we have a place for them to land. And that's really, really important. Similarly, there's also an option for artist housing.
[33:53] We we see recognizes that, the, you know, a lot of these communities that have this pressure are often creative economies and creative communities. And so towns have the option to, preference artists for certain housing as well. How that artist designation is defined is pretty loose in the regulations. Generally, the town will get to decide who is considered an artist.
[34:14] I think I've seen some examples on the Cape already where, folks, there's an IRS line where essentially, if you make more than 50% of your annual income from your arts, then you're considered an artist. But that's something that the town have to like. Consider in those moments.
[34:32] If that's a and again, all optional, all tools, not things you have to do, but things that you get to do if you'd like. Okay. This is the one that we're going to get into even more further weeds. And I will emphasize here, no town in Berkshire County uses what any town in Massachusetts can do right now, which is the residential property tax exemption.
[34:54] And one through just like very basic residential property tax exemption is if you have a primary residence in a town, you as a select board with town meetings approval can set an exemption rate. Right now, up to 35% of someone's property assessed property value. That it's from property taxes.
[35:13] Suddenly you're like, we can't run this town with less than, you know, like that's a budget issue, right? That 35% is then shifted to those who don't have a primary residence in Lenox. It's not owner occupied housing that also includes apartments. You know, non single family homes, essentially non-primary residential homes. So keep that in mind.
[35:37] But right now, any town could have up to 35% of their residential property tax exempted. And you're essentially, again, it's a way for folks to to shift the burden for folks who live here full time, to folks who might have the means to have a second home.
[35:51] The philosophy behind that is, if you have a second home, you might have more funds and income to to pay that additional property tax. Why am I telling you about this? The seasonal communities gives you the ability to exempt up to 50%. And again, no one in the Berkshires is even doing this right now, so it's less relevant for us. Most towns on the Outer Cape are at that 35% limit.
[36:11] And so they are looking for extra tools to expand that property tax exemption. Any questions about this piece? It does not require you to do residential tax exemption. It does not require you to even consider this. This is just a tool that you have in your disposal. You answered my question right there. Okay.
[36:30] Sounds like currently we have one for veterans. But yes. Yeah. You know, we I don't think it was strong appetite for me shifting and whatnot because that's how would you keep track? I mean, tracking this has got to be monstrous. Yeah.
[36:51] So and that's one of the things about our, our, our, our team is, you have to apply. So if you own a home in Lenox and you guys were accept this, you know, every homeowner that owns here and lives here have to apply for the exemption. So there's a lot of like, you know, if you're going to do this thing, you know, it's a good policy in some situations.
[37:07] It's a policy you're going to have to commit to, you know, and like and go through with. Provincetown is a really great thing called the expanded residential property tax exemption, where if you provide if you own a second home and you live in New York most of the year, but you have an Adu
[37:22] and that Adu is full year round housing for someone, then you can also get the resident. It's a way for them to kind of think about their property. There's lots I'm very interested in this as a as a side note. But anyway, and I know we're not going to go because. Yeah, exactly.
[37:36] Brett and I worked together before. One of the things that people don't understand about these exemptions, as Neil mentioned, with the veterans exemption, the money still has to be raised. Yeah. So the town still sets their budget. There's just a policy decision to say you that qualify.
[37:57] We raise that in the surplus overlay that excuse me not surplus the overlay exemption amount. We still project and raise on taxes the amount that particular people are not paying in this situation. If we were to adopt this, that 35% or 50% shift doesn't magically disappear and eliminate that amount of money from our budget, we still raise it.
[38:16] It actually creates for us with a shift from residential to sip every fall. When we when we do our split rate, it will actually create a third tax rate. You'll have a residential primary, you'll have a residential secondary, and you'll have your CIP.
[38:36] So that's where the assessor, like if Heather was sitting here right now, she would probably be stroke stuff. Well, Clarence just wrote a very nice article about the amount of tourist revenue, for lack of a better term, than we have here. I don't think angering our second home owners who come to Tanglewood and spend money at our restaurants is necessarily the greatest idea. But yeah.
[38:59] Did you say most towns on the Outer Cape do have a residential tax? There's quite a few. How long have those been in place? Oh, gosh. Provincetown has been quite a while. And I don't know when Art came in, it was one of those things that the state had to, like, legislate into power, basically.
[39:17] But that's a good question. I don't have the option on my head. Brant, those are all. It's an optional piece. Yes, optional. All of these are optional tools. We'll get to the requirements in a second.
[39:30] So last piece here is the funding, and I altered this a little bit just because I've been talking to towns like you all spring. And this has changed a little bit for you. So, in the fiscal year 26 and 27 budgets, we had $4 million for seasonal communities. Fiscal year 26. None of the towns out here had the designation, so we couldn't apply for those funds. This go to 27.
[39:48] Those five could apply for those funds. So here, if you see you wrote the grants for most of all the Great Barrington and those in those towns. So they were able to fund things like additional technical assistance to pass the bylaws. Great Barrington was looking at crosswalk down by Windrush.
[40:08] Monterey was going to do some RFP work related to the old school, kind of on the east side of town. So really interesting projects. As of right now, this is not guaranteed for future fiscal years. It very well could be. I just don't feel comfortable saying yes, this funds will these funds will be there in the future.
[40:23] Just because we all know my be raised or my pay scale. So, there is something attached potentially in future fiscal years, HLC has designated three items that you can use these these funds for planning and zoning activities. So getting those zoning bylaws over the over the align local actions for housing development. Williamstown.
[40:47] We applied for about $80,000 to go directly to habitat for humanity to to finish their one of their summer street projects for habitat and then any public projects to leverage housing development. So that's like that crosswalk in Great Barrington that's horizontal, extending sewer lines, etc.. All right. Now, what do you got to do to get all those tools? Okay.
[41:08] So these this whole slide is the zoning in a nutshell. All right. So what you have to do overall you are required to adopt zoning that permits existing undersized lots to be developed. And any tiny house development as of right in all single family residential zoning districts. So let's get into what that means first. Existing undersized loss.
[41:32] Keyword existing. No new lots are created through this. You have a subdivision process right now. It does not change that. What this means is and I'm going to use an example from the Cape, which I don't always love using a lot of of parcels on the cape were subdivided long, long ago. They're below current zoning standards.
[41:52] And so they theoretically actually I shouldn't say long, long ago. Recently they were subdivided. They were not grandfathered in to their zoning. And so they're sitting on an acre that can't be developed under their current zoning bylaw.
[42:10] What this is working to do is to bring those online so that those undersized lots can provide housing for folks, any as of right, building on those under existing undersized lots would be required to have that year round restriction and be attainable housing so low that 250% Ami threshold. Okay, I'm just reading my notes here. Oh, and key for us in the Berkshires. It must follow all applicable water and sewer requirements.
[42:36] You're a little bit different. You have you have a pretty extensive sewer and water system. So that might bring a few more online for you. In this case, in the hill towns I was like, folks were good.
[42:48] We are, you know, because you can't really do the geometry to have a sewer and a well on a small, undersized lot. We talked we did some analysis before this meeting. We talked to Aymen. There are some lots in Lenox that could potentially be brought on. We're going to do a deeper dive into those. Those lots, most of them are probably grandfathered into your zoning, which means they can already be developed.
[43:08] They were that way before, and again, any questions about that, that existing undersized lock piece. So going through our GIS and all that stuff, which I think is the same exercise, you name it, I saw something like 40 to 5045. Yeah. Oh. Right there.
[43:31] So, so what you're saying is if there's a well, we have this map, I don't really feel comfortable sharing the map because that all identify owners and stuff. But then the less I know it's available. But it was my question. My question was so undersized. Lot has access, but there's no sewer. Yeah, they don't have the square footage on the acreage to build a septic. Yep.
[43:55] What does that mean? They must follow applicable water and sewer requirements, which means that if they can't put a sewer and water on, or you're a septic in a well and they can't build. So and yeah, that's pretty simple.
[44:14] Years ago, I lived adjacent to an empty lot, which the owner sort of said, hey, you should buy this lot because I'm thinking about putting a house here. I did a little research and that lot had the septic from a yeah, other buildings. So I was like, you can't develop it. Yeah.
[44:28] It's that's way more common than you think getting into parcel data of like this side thoughts having skeptics on them. But yeah so most undersized lots I'm just going to say probably won't be developed in this way. It could be developed because they're grandfathered in. They're all in a sewer. Right. That's that's fine. But most thoughts are actually probably already not being developed for a reason.
[44:47] That isn't to say the ones that can't be shouldn't be. Right. Like, this is a good incentive. The second piece here is Tiny houses. So again, it limits as of right requirement for year round housing units. Just so you know, tiny houses is defined. So your ADUs right, are like anything 900ft or less.
[45:06] And that's a whole definition. This is 400 square more than 400ft in four era, no more than 400ft in four area. I think my first apartment in a major city was like 500ft. So that puts in context what we're looking at here. Tiny homes, they have to follow your building code.
[45:23] Any local enhancements that you may have Florida error ratio. Again, water and sewer. So most likely in this case you're going to rent a small lot. So the lot doesn't cost more than the tiny home. And so you have a limited amount of parcels you're looking at here.
[45:39] You also then can regulate whether they can be movable tiny homes or they have to be a foundation. Right now the state definition of a tiny home is either or. But this was kind of a point of contention. So you HLC made sure that you can regulate this. Most towns would probably do just on foundation tiny homes, but that doesn't mean you have to do that.
[45:57] And this is a different definition than mobile home to be clear. So that's a whole different issue. But it's totally different. And you can tiny homes are different than ADUs. So this would be a primary dwelling on a, on a parcel as a tiny home, not a tiny home as accessory to a larger primary dwelling.
[46:19] Does that make sense? Okay. Speaking of, just because we're talking about building code. Yeah. And also I'll say this because you're here. Thank you for it. Massachusetts has one of the most difficult to comply with building codes in the planet.
[46:39] Having just built our public safety complex in the middle of doing our wastewater treatment plant, grading the blower test to get the, you know, all kinds of things. Yeah. It's like, I don't want to roll back building code and make buildings dangerous, but my God, it's yeah, we're dealing with that on short term rental side too. And that's yeah, the world I worked in.
[46:59] So I will say for Tiny Homes, what's the wonderful about this. We have a lot of seniors that want to downsize. So you have these, you know, 10,000ft house, you know, homes that their children have left and they would love to remain in the community.
[47:14] And if they had the ability to have a tiny home that's in Lenox, give their bigger home up to a family that has lots of children that could make use of it. So this really provides that kind of pipeline for people to to move with dignity and remain in the communities.
[47:33] And before I mention how to adopt this, I'll just say to you and I. So this at the beginning. First regional planning commission. We're we're taking a neutral stance on this. We will support you if you take this on. We will support you. If you don't take this on, we will help you out in technical assistance in any ways that we can.
[47:49] And I will say to Representative Davis mentioned the model bylaws. Those are, we've been told, just weeks away from being sent over to us. We worked with the Cape Cod Commission, Martha's Vineyard, and and tuck it to put together these model bylaws that you can essentially use as a departing point for to to slide into your zoning bylaws
[48:09] to make these changes really easy and to make them easy to understand that town meeting, which is always an important point. And they've gone through, you'll see and ago review and they should be with us soon. And that's what we'll pass on to you.
[48:24] And we have those if you go this route now to go this route, any town must approve to the legislative body. So in your case, your town meeting, accept or deny by a majority vote and then notify the Secretary of State. But that's not where the fun ends because you can vote on it. But then you have two years from that day to adopt your zoning bylaws to make yourself compliant.
[48:44] All right. So you don't have to be compliant the next day, but you do need to be compliant in two years. But you'll help us do that, but we'll help you do it. In discussing thoughts on that. No. Relative to that, and I did understand there's a two, two year window.
[48:59] If we adopt and send in, are we eligible for the funding before the two year work on the zoning violence? If there is one, if there is funding, yes. Yeah. So, for example, Williamstown adopted after the Nova, the funding opportunity was announced and they still got to apply. So so yes, the funding would be there.
[49:21] And the other I think most important is that you said you're working on is whether or not we have to form an entirely new trust or whether our current affordable housing trust can populate and just have a second name. Exactly. Because we, as you know, I have a hard time having read somewhere in here.
[49:38] I know that I read it this morning that said, you don't. If you've got an existing trust, the membership can be identical. Yes. Is that the regulations you have to do even the it's the Advisory Council works report from there. Yeah, it's in one of these. But there was also the option to create to make it as a regional.
[49:59] Yes. Yeah. That's a good. Yeah. So if we wanted to do that we wouldn't necessarily need a pool of only Lennox volunteers. We could exactly incorporate other communities and then you could have a regional trust. So yeah.
[50:18] So if you and let's say Stockbridge had a year round housing, both had your individual year round housing trust, you could create a larger regional one. And that would be great. You know, I think that's wonderful regionalization. I'm all for it. Yeah. And I'm glad you found that. If you could send me that document or send me like I saw it, I'm going to have to think through it.
[50:31] But I was like, I'm the one that gave it to you for the packet. So I'll leave it up to you tonight. And I will say, you don't have to have a year round housing trust to accept grant funding.
[50:43] That was a really big key that we had to make sure we were good on before the application deadline. The funds have to be in separate accounts, separate accounts, but it can go towards your affordable housing trust. So like in Great Barrington, for example, those funds are going to the Affordable housing trust. Same in West Stockbridge, Monterey.
[50:59] It's just going to the town because or actually it's going to therefore we have a new one. So yeah. So you don't have to have a year round housing trust to accept grant funds. Again, it's a tool that is option for you and could provide more regionalization.
[51:15] Have the towns in Berkshire County who have enacted seasonal communities establish year long trusts? Not at this point. No, but they qualify for funding. So they're all funding coming in. The regulations are quiet in terms of how that's done. So that's kind of a gray area as to whether or not it can be overlapped with an existing housing trust. Yeah, that and they know the pressures that we have.
[51:34] So I'd be very, very surprised if they did that. That was Rep Davis also. Procurement also seemed not to be clear because in the document that Neal referenced, there was a variety of things in there along the way.
[51:50] Mary Beth had mentioned in terms of the the, local residency or the regional residency portable housing, but there was also in about 30 be two. Okay. Like our existing housing trust, the way it's established now within our bylaws is exempt from some of that. It seems to be a little bit murky on this side, as a lot of new initiatives are as to whether that they should track.
[52:07] And I think that's maybe one of the reasons why it's not clear if an affordable trust can do the same as this, because some of those rules may not have been established yet. Yeah. It seems like the intent, if you establish a new trust is to be 30, be exempt.
[52:20] So you don't like say, oh, there's some land by that land. Now we'll hire someone to do something. We don't have to publicly procure it and advertise it and spend all the money going to 30PM.
[52:36] But there's a so for the grant funding that just came through or that was just applied for a good example, is agreement right. They were putting it towards their town hall site, those four duplexes and they're expanding as well. They, those funds in my understanding, you'll see and our emails is that you do have to go through some whatever procurement your affordable housing trust has to do.
[52:53] You have to go through your standard procurement for those type of things and their situation. They were already under contract with Impact South County. So they that that procurement was a little bit different. But the procurement piece is a good question as we get into it.
[53:08] It also just seems to make sense to me to have our trust, our housing trust here in Linux, be able to deal with both the affordability component of housing production and also the workforce component, which which this we don't want two groups almost working independently and inadvertently against each other.
[53:29] It just if we have a think tank already established, they should be able to recognize what they're addressing. So I think it would be more efficient to have one housing trust that deals with all housing issues in a community. But I you know, what do I know, Brett? Well, I think you're very smart. Yeah.
[53:45] I will say Lincoln with the town meeting, it is a simple majority vote. It's not two thirds majority. So that makes it a lot easier. Is there a model? Yes. Article. Yes, I, I printed out your Barrington's and. Perfect. Thank you. Great. Love it. Brett. Sorry. Or are there any requirements there for reporting. Like do we know what the overhead is for sure.
[54:12] Yeah. So if you do any of the. So that's a good question. The income, the year round restrictions, any of the any of the housing restrictions that you would put use under this, this program would need to be reported just like current income restrictions are reported.
[54:28] Again, that would be a great place where regionalization would come in, where you would, you know, in my mind, come to see and say, hey, can you help us out with this reporting, right? Or whatever regional body ends up kind of coming this way. You know, it shouldn't all be on the town's.
[54:41] And you're one of the better staff towns that we're working with, right? Like Monterey is not going to have the capacity all the time to do that. That reporting works. So we're definitely looking solutions to make sure that reporting is done well and appropriately great. Any other questions for me. That was terrific. Yeah that was great. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[55:01] Bob. You're next. Good evening. I bob much from the planning board. Actually, we don't have to go through this day because this is exactly the same point. Yeah, I was referring to your slide deck as he was talking. Are you taking pictures? Thank you very much. Sorry for making you come in, but appreciate that.
[55:23] But what I would say is, around the grant funding just to remind you that the grants, they do offer up to $2 million. It's a formula based thing. There'll be a minimum of $50,000 available.
[55:35] It is reimbursable, and you have to spend the funds in the UK. So that's it's cost incurred reimbursement, so you can spend the money for you today. That's really about it. I don't, I don't see a personally I don't see a downside to it to lease one. I think she spoke very well.
[55:54] But if the communities get together, we have a little more, a little more authority down in Boston and then go get some more, help towards the goal of getting more affordable housing. Here's the hard question for you. If we adopt it, you folks are going to have quite a bit of work.
[56:12] I don't know if there is that much work, really, because there's only the two that are mandatory, right? So you're talking about tiny homes, which currently there's nothing on our Bible.
[56:29] Does that prohibit small houses? I don't know what else is in the tiny home model, but but I don't think there's a lot of it isn't heavy lifting. The undersized lots from the report we've got presented last night, it looks like there's not a large number there to. I don't think any of them are zoned wrong either.
[56:45] Well, that's what I'm curious about is in that analysis, you guys did wasn't all the residential zone. I think they only looked at residential zones. So yeah, you know, like if you're in R3 and it's three acres, under three acres is as long as you're 15,000ft for the 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a very small of.
[57:02] So there's not a lot there. Well that's good. I think from a, from a bylaws standpoint it's not a heavy lift. Well and if we work with BRP C and they're working on plug and play model bylaws, you know, we'll just go okay and review it with Aman and bring it before town meeting.
[57:20] And if it looks good. Oh right. I should also say sorry you applied to a district local technical assistance grant with us. And so you're already on our books to do this work. You leave. Oh, Williamstown. Some others. So yeah. Yeah, we'll we'll be there for you. Great. I'm happy with all that.
[57:38] Arman has shared that with me. The one word that I don't, I. I think I will agree with the plug and play or is all set. Just say yes. Sometimes has unintended consequences. When you adopt, things will happen first. That's why template. That's why that's fine. Clearly. Clearly. Yes.
[58:00] But for the plan two years to to to go through all the possible ramifications. Anything new that we get into I, I always feel uncomfortable about you know that. But the the thing that I feel comfortable about this is it's going to go through the planning board, and our planning board really looks things over.
[58:19] I mean, I know things don't happen quick sometimes, you know, to two kids, but they they do about as good a job as anybody can do. Right. It look, you know, looking at every angle. So I feel comfortable with that. Representative Davis brought it up as well.
[58:36] You know, we shouldn't be looking at this for the money necessarily, because there are no money in play here. It's really about opening up opportunity to get we just let workforce out of this is a tool to do that. I think that's a big takeaway for our residents at home that still might be sitting there kind of weaving this around.
[58:52] It's a toolbox that allows Linux. It opens the toolbox. There's certain tools we can take out and use. There's other tools that we can leave. There's only one draw that we need to do in that zone. It's the only tools we need to do.
[59:07] And frankly, talking to the planning board, some of those changes were on our horizon anyway as a town. So it almost seems at this point we should open that door for and allow us to be able to to use these tools. I get concerned periodically looking at the housing trends of Linux.
[59:25] We've been able to fend off what Great Barrington and some of the other communities have already exhibited, but I feel it's only a matter of time before we get to the point where we've been very lucky. Here in Lenox, I feel with a great mix of we're still a community, we're still a home for people.
[59:40] And yet Clarence's article just the other day highlights we're a visitation. We are a seasonal community. These folks. I pulled out of the parking lot the other day, and I'm still used to the summer traffic. There was nobody here right now. So where did everybody go? We did try to be here. So it fits. You know, from my perspective as a town manager, it fits Linux.
[59:56] But I think we need to make sure that we do arm our planning board and our, our requisite boards and committees and work with our neighbors and beer PC to ensure that we can keep Linux the way that we like it to be, which is a very nice balance of we can still be a home for folks,
[1:00:10] we can still have that community feeling, but we still acknowledge the fact that second, homeowners choosing Linux because we're attractive for that reason as well. And I think it's appropriate that we know enough at this point, and we should leave it up to the will of the town and town meeting, so I agree.
[1:00:30] Okay, so could I add. Oh yeah. Don was like Mike and all right, I didn't bring us home. Don. Yeah for sure. Don Weber 21. And recently, I would ask in the future if you could only appoint people named Weber. Really? Good. We just wanted to take over. Jared. I never met before. Be no relation.
[1:00:51] Well, we also have a next building inspector named Don Weber. Okay. He and I are. He's in Texas. Don Weber. Yeah, you guys are trouble. Okay. And, Lee, one thing, just for you to know that I. I just began as the chair of the Affordable Housing Trust.
[1:01:09] I've called the meeting of all the affordable housing trusts in Berkshire County. We're getting together at for one day in a couple of weeks, just to start talking about what we can do with each other. So. So we are working on that. And if there is a new trust and we can be on it.
[1:01:23] I'm just hoping that we can have double the number of meetings that we could do that to me, I'd be satisfied. It doesn't mean that okay. For me, for me, there is just one part of this I don't know about zoning. It's not my my field.
[1:01:40] But in the affordable housing parts, I'm looking at things that I kind of have to convince myself that they're real, that we have to talk about $100,000 a year income as insufficient for living in a community, that we have to say that a $500,000 house is unattainable in Lenox, not because they can't afford it, but because we can't find them.
[1:02:03] That here, if we're going to do affordable housing, if we're going to the word is attainable housing. We're going to have to do things that we're currently not allowed to do. Our cat on a house that people can buy is just under $500,000. We cannot help them if they're buying a house.
[1:02:22] More than that, if it's their first time in the house, if they don't have a parent who's going to put up the mortgage and they're not making 200 K, it's not going to be doable. So one side is the house itself. The second is the income. We have to bump the income up to let these people come into our town.
[1:02:41] Because with the current limit of what is 100 change thousand for a family of four, you can't. We all know you can't live in lax on that, not with a mortgage. So doing this doesn't put us out anything except that lets us respond to the needs that don't exist in other communities.
[1:03:01] And the reason for housing numbers are crazy is because we're second community, second housing community. So to me, this is a really good thing. The fact that there's the option of designating our own workers, to me, is a bonus. That's so important with the forge.
[1:03:25] I'm sorry that we had to use the words give away, housing, other places. It's nice that they're coming here and their residence, but I would have loved to see it devoted solely to our teachers and cops and all the others that need to work here. So if this allows us to do that, then please, I to me, my part of it seems like a winning offer.
[1:03:45] I don't know about the others. Also, the trust has not had the chance to meet and discuss this. So I'm thinking only as me, not on behalf of all trust. So this was kind of dropped at the last minute. So thank you for listening. Thanks. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Tom.
[1:04:06] I was about to make the motion, so we'll move to advanced seasonal community designation to special Town Meeting, which is in November for the town of Oda. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. Very informative. Yes. Excellent. And now I will move on to the discussion of the associate membership policy for the Conservation Commission.
[1:04:34] And was kind enough to provide us a policy, an appointment of Conservation Commission Associates. Thanks, Bob. It would have been in your presence very much. Thanks, guys. Thank you. One being here. Thank you. It is in our packaging. Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's about a page and a quarter or a page and a third.
[1:04:56] I got it up at it. Oh. Thank you. Thank you very much. The purpose is to establish an associate program to allow people that are expressing interest, observing on the commission that are motivated and qualified to sort of be members in training and to engage, in the meetings, kind of learn more
[1:05:17] about what the Conservation Commission is doing. And perhaps step into a role as a voting member. But people who are associates would not be voting members of the Conservation Commission. And I'd like to open up to discussion. I think it's it's great. It's it's well-written. It's defines what we ought to be doing in a lot of committees.
[1:05:41] And, you know, I think this is a first and other things we should do. Yeah, we could probably accept this as our associate policy for all boards that I don't know necessarily at all boards, but all but there's a lot of technical knowledge. Yeah. And so I think it's appropriate. Yeah.
[1:06:02] I think this came up because we got quite a good flow of applicants for the cons. Com openings. Right. And kind of more applicants than we had vacancies, which was nice. And some really some really good talents.
[1:06:24] So Eamon said this exists in other towns and that we should enacted so we can start getting people training and getting involved in meetings without necessarily having a vote. I reviewed the the policy. I gave some notes, he incorporated them. I asked if town council had reviewed. He said it, they had and approved. So it goes to what I said earlier about what I caution people when they want to get on something. Try it out for a while. Yeah.
[1:06:43] This is a perfect way to. Yeah. You know, you might not be your thing so but still gets people involved, right? Because people are going to meetings learning. The the only sticking point was the last bullet point shall attend all relevant training courses as time schedule and departmental budgets allow.
[1:07:03] I mean, I know that there is training involved for things like the board of assessors for the Conservation Commission. So, I would hope that as a town, we would pay for people to attend these trainings and they wouldn't have to come out of their own pocket in order to become more knowledgeable for very particular professional development training.
[1:07:25] Like this. Yeah. It's something that's required. Yeah. So that's but I think it's I think it's very concise. It seems to hit all the relevant points. And I would entertain a motion to accept this as our, as our language for attempting conservation commission. So I move to approve the associate member policy for the Conservation Commission. Second.
[1:07:50] All those in favor? I thank you very much. Our next regular meeting will be October 7th. I believe that's a Wednesday. And I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I thank you.