Targeting The BIG Ones

Townehouse Apartments East Quad 4:30 PM Saturday 10/30/16

Townehouse Apartments East Quad 4:00 PM 4/24/16

If the Campus & Community Coalition has anything to say about it l-a-r-g-e rowdy outdoor parties will go the way of the party houses that plagued our neighborhoods for too many years: silent.

Connie Kruger told fellow Select Board members at their last meeting because the town's Rental Permit Bylaw and a some zoning tweaks have dramatically reduced individual party houses the CCC will be focusing more on preventing the large day drinks that formerly seemed to occur only once a season but lately seem to occur any nice weekend in spring and fall.

 Hobart Lane 3:30 PM Saturday 4/30/16

 Townehouse west quad 4:45 PM 4/23/16

One of the weapons they have always had at their disposal but never used is the ability to fine not just the tenants responsible for hosting the large party but the owner of the property as well.

 Click to enlarge/read

Once landlord's start getting hit with $300 fines they may figure out a way of reining in their tenants -- even if it means eviction.

Party On Dude

APD Captain Jen Gundersen, UMass Associate Dean  of Students Sally Linowski

The Amherst Select Board, although they never formally voted on it, gave their wholehearted support to the new joint initiative between UMass officials and Amherst police to start a weekend Party Registration Pilot Program in September for students living off-campus.

More than half of the 29,000 students who attend our flagship University live off campus.

According to Captain Jen Gundersen APD responds to between 700 and 1200 noise complaints annually and each one requires at least two officers, sometimes as many as four.

And in the vast majority of cases a simple verbal warning solves the problem.

Now that verbal warning can come first via a telephone call to the registered party house giving them a 20 minute deadline to end the party or at least quiet it considerably.

With the advent of Rental Registration Permit Bylaw the town has already seen a dramatic reduction in Party House rowdy behavior, so this experiment can be the icing on the cake.

The Select Board will hear a report in January about how well the program performed over the Fall semester.

Blarney Blowout 2014:  Party gone bad

Party House of the Weekend

24 Summer Street

This party house bust at 24 Summer Street in North Amherst is kind of a throw back to the bad old days in our little college town prior to the Rental Registration and Permit Bylaw.  A few years ago there would have been three or four more events just like this on the same weekend.

Progress is a good thing.

In Eastern Hampshire District Court on Monday all four of the arrested had their cases continued until later this month as the Commonwealth has to confer with the police officers assaulted during the event.

   Amherst Party House

Jensen Gauthier and Bailey Smith (female) stand before Judge Hadley

 Dennis Trujillo

 Mychal Carter

Status Quo Housing Allocation

Amherst Housing Authority Board of Commissioners

The Amherst Housing Authority Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 on Monday to set the HUD voucher payment standards for 2016 at 113% of Fair Market Rent for Amherst and 97% for Extended area which covers 388 total vouchers and gives all of them a few dollars more in monthly subsidies.

Commission member TracyLee Boutilier voted against the motion saying the Board should show "more compassion," pointing out a $10 month increase in payments for a family living in a  three bedroom apartment is too little.

The problem is Housing and Urban Development is only giving the Amherst Housing Authority an extra $38,443 in 2016 going from the current $3,077,917 up to $3,116,360.

And with the approved payment standards for 2016 the 238 Amherst vouchers will cost an additional $25,812 and the balance of them another $10,260. To suddenly increase the subsidy any higher would mean defunding some vouchers to make up the difference.

If the AHA went to 120% of the Fair Market Rate for Amherst, Executive Director Denise LeDuc estimates 35-40 vouchers would need to be terminated to fund the increase in monthly payments to the other 200 or so Amherst recipients.

Last year the average cost paid out for all 388 vouchers came to $649/month or $7,788 annually.

The problem in Amherst is too little housing supply combined with too great a demand.  Students who wish to live off campus pack themselves into sometimes sub-standard units and drive up the prices, forcing out families and blue collar workers who cannot compete.

 Click to enlarge/read

Although the recent passage of the town's Rental Registration Permit Bylaw and the successful completion of Kendrick Place, with more large mixed-use buildings on the immediate horizon, the future for affordable housing is starting to look a little brighter.

Five story mixed use Kendrick Place (mostly residential) opened September 1st

Forest For The Trees

 36-38 South East Street (Fort River School behind)

The Amherst Planning Board and Tree Warden Alan Snow will hold a joint "Scenic Roads" hearing tonight to decide the fate of four trees on South East Street, which is of course a "scenic road."

Click to enlarge/read

The owners of the rental property at 36-38 South East Street need to reconfigure their parking lot to keep within the Rental Permit Bylaw regulations and there's pretty much nowhere to go with the pavement other than that piece of paradise.

Three of the four trees are nothing to write home about, but one of them is healthy and scenic and therefor worth saving.

And the rule is if you can't save the tree worth saving then you will most likely have to pay the town a replacement cost of $90 per inch. Which adds up with mature trees. In this case 18 inches or $1,620.

Obviously the canopy and shade created by one mature 18" tree is probably greater than that provided by nine immature 2" trees (which the town will use to replace it).

Back in July, 2013 the Planning Board overruled the Tree Warden and voted to allow the owners of a house on the other end of South East Street,  #666,  to remove ten trees for a new driveway entrance.

But because Mr. Snow did not back down on the "replacement costs" totaling $6,000 the owners decided not to go the clear cut route and today the trees are still part of the scenic byway.

So Far So Good

APD having a chat with college aged youth carrying a 12 pack Townhouse Apartments

The long weekend went a l-o-t better than I thought it would as far as (serious) rowdyism goes.

Sure there were the usual problems associated with our annual spike in population, returning Amherst to a "college town" after a quiet summer:  zombie herds traipsing up and down Phillips Street, North Pleasant and Fearing Streets, large gatherings in the west quad of Townhouse Apartments and of course old standby Hobart Lane.

Townhouse Apartments Saturday afternoon

But there were no serious incidents of drunken mob mentality manifesting itself in the form of rocks, bottles and cans being hurled at police officers, aka Blarney Blowout.

Although Amherst Fire Department had the usual tie up in services due to drunk runs with ETOH students. 

Amherst police stepped up their game as they always do.  APD Neighborhood Liaison officer Bill Laramee worked with UMass Neighborhood Liaison Eric Beal to keep a lid on the usual pressure cooker areas.

The Rental Permit Bylaw ordinance that went into effect 18 months ago is making a significant difference by holding landlords accountable for the (late night) activities of their tenants.

And UMass, by building newer plusher accommodations on campus -- North Apartment (800 beds) and Commonwealth Honors College apartments (1,500 beds) -- gives young tenants a reason to be proud of their humble abode and much more likely to treat it with respect.

Revived my Twitter audience

Building On Rental Success

Mandi Jo Hanneke, Rob Morra (Building Commish), Pat Kamins, Maurianne Adams

Building Commissioner Rob Morra told the Rental Bylaw Implementation Group this afternoon that after 18 months the new Rental Permit Program is going better than expected but could still be improved -- most notably via a strengthening of the bylaw.

The second Fiscal Year of operation started July 1st and by the end of the month 1,260 properties had renewed their permits, almost exactly the same number who enrolled the previous year.

About 30-40 new properties joined the list but about that many dropped off because they were no longer renting, so it was pretty much  a wash.

With the $100 annual fee the program generated a $126,000 in revenues while break even for administrating is probably in the $165,000 range, a target figure that was given to Town Meeting two years ago when the program was first enacted.

The Town Manager could possibly consider a fee hike next year to increase revenues, bringing the program to a break even mark.

The main change Morra would like to see is the ability to (re)inspect properties that have been the subject of complaints and found by his department to be in violation of building/health codes.  In Fiscal Year 2014 his department found 214 violations.

Currently a landlord "self inspects" the property and town inspectors only become involved when a tenant lodges a complaint.  Morra pointed out that in some of the most egregious violations found the landlord/manager had checked off the self inspection form indicating that all was fine.

Kind of like what Iran nuclear self inspectors will be doing in the near future.

The Rental Bylaw Implementation Group was not overly enthusiastic about strengthening the bylaw just now (but maybe in the spring of 2017) to allow for mandatory inspections, siting mainly privacy concerns.  They also wish to see data to show how many of those 214 violations last year were repeat offenders.

Another idea presented by Morra was also met with wariness, also due to privacy concerns:  A joint task force made up of police, fire, health department and the new UMass neighborhood liaison (Eric Beal) with a mission to tour a usual suspect street or neighborhood.

The goal would not be to simply hand out enforcement tickets but to educate and inform residents of their rights to live in a safe rental property.  Morra thought if the pilot program does come to fruition it would kick off in late September or sometime before Halloween.

The Rental Registration Bylaw was overwhelmingly passed by Town Meeting two years ago as one means of bringing rowdy Party Houses under control, but mainly to prevent tragedies that can occur when slum lords have free reign.

So far this important public safety program is two for two.

New Sheriff In Town

Umass Amherst:  Getting out from under a cloud

UMass Amherst, our proud flagship of higher education, just announced the new "neighborhood liaison," aka "off campus Resident Assistant," and they could not have made a better choice than Eric Beal.

Eric Beal Chairs his final ZBA meeting (June 11) after 8 years of service

. 

Modeled after the Boston College program of having a school employee who is a hybrid of a cop and bar bouncer, Mr. Beal will patrol the usual suspect neighborhoods adjacent to the UMass campus to try to head off rowdy parties before they hit the stage where APD is required.

Mr. Beal will be paid a $62,000 annual salary.

18 months ago Eric Beal chaired the ZBA meetings against a prominent local landlord who appealed the hefty fines imposed by the Building Commissioner for having too many students packed into an apartment, without proper safety precautions. 

That case became a turning point, and helped in the creation of the successful Rental Registration & Permit Bylaw which is now at 100% adherence.

#####
UMass Press Release

Aug. 3, 2015

UMass Amherst Chooses Attorney and
Former Town Official Eric Beal
as First Neighborhood Liaison

AMHERST, Mass.

Eric Beal, an Amherst attorney and former chair of the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals, has been appointed to the newly created position of neighborhood liaison at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, effective August 3rd.

Beal, a UMass Amherst alumnus, will work with town and campus public safety officials, responding to incidents and complaints involving off-campus student behavior in neighborhoods near campus. He will serve as a liaison to off-campus students and neighbors during evening weekend patrols and will assist campus partners with proactive programs on student behavior, educational campaigns and community service activities.

“Eric’s deep knowledge of the neighborhoods around campus both as a resident and as a former zoning official makes him uniquely qualified for this new and important position,” said Nancy Buffone, associate vice chancellor for university relations. “This position is another step forward in our town-gown efforts and I am confident that Eric’s skills and experience are a great fit for the university and our campus neighbors as well.”

The creation of the neighborhood liaison position was a key recommendation in former Boston Police Chief Edward Davis’ September 2014 report to campus and community officials on how best to handle large off-campus disturbances. The neighborhood liaison’s role is to work directly with community members, hear everyday concerns and build relationships to deter disorderly student behavior. Similar positions have been successful at Boston College and Georgetown University.

Beal will be a nighttime mainstay in the neighborhoods that traditionally find students gathering during fall and spring semester weekends. He will collaborate with Amherst police and fire officials on proactive approaches to student-neighborhood issues and with the university’s Student Affairs and Campus Life office on its successful Walk This Way and Team Positive Presence programs.

“I fell in love with the Amherst area while a sociology major at UMass Amherst in the early ’90s, and it’s been a dream of mine to work for UMass,” said Beal. “In my eight years on the ZBA, I worked closely with town and public safety officials, residents and property owners. I learned first-hand about the issues affecting our neighborhoods and efforts of residents, the town and the university to improve quality of life. I look forward to joining UMass to continue that work.”

A graduate of UMass Amherst and the University of Connecticut School of Law, Beal has a background in human services, including a stint as a resident assistant in the Southwest Residential Area and work as a mental health counselor in the Holyoke area.

In his law practice, Beal represents clients in appellate matters, including children and families in care and protection appeals. Beal previously was an associate with Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider in Hartford from 2001-07, representing Fortune 500 clients in litigation, government investigation and appeals, and an associate with Bulkley, Richardson and Gelinas in Springfield from 2007-10.

An Amherst resident, Beal plays alto saxophone in the Amherst Community Band under the baton of UMass Marching Band director Timothy Anderson. He has served as a member of Amherst Town Meeting and is a supporter of the Friends of Puffer’s Pond. He is an avid cyclist and trail runner and serves as a lead coordinator for the 2015 Amherst Regional High School Cross Country Invitational.

 Beal lives with his daughters, Lillian and Ella, and his long-time partner, Shelley, and her two sons, Peter and Eric.

Round Two

Amherst Town Hall gets it right

Not since the 'Smoking Ban in Bars War' 15 years ago has the the little college town of Amherst seen such a successful implementation of a new ordinance.

The much needed Rental Permit Bylaw went into effect last year after health & safety problems within the lucrative industry spanning a generation (or two). 

Building Commissioner Rob Morra has issued a heads up email to all 1,353 property owners and managers and is even offering free informational sessions to make the process even easier.

Those who required a "parking plan" in year one will not need one upon renewal as long as the plan remains the same.

 Memo to all rental property owners

And best of all -- with the town getting more and more digitally savvy -- all the paperwork can done online. 

Amherst Building Commissioner Rob Morra (center) at Rental Bylaw Implementation Group 10/28/14

Improving On Success

APD Chief  Scott Livingstone addresses Rental Bylaw Implementation Group

The Rental Permit Bylaw has become perhaps the most successful local government health safety initiative of the past generation, protecting tenants from (the few) shoddy landlords while motivating them to keep tenants behavior in check or risk losing their permit.

Now, only one year after start up, the certification program boasts 100% compliance of all 1,261 rental properties in Amherst, a college town with a high percentage of rentals and the lowest median age in the state.

Amherst Police Chief Scott Livingstone paid a visit this afternoon to the Rental Bylaw Implementation Group to discuss ways to improve on the already resounding success of the program, specifically by allowing easier access to police records of that neighborhood bane, noise/nuisance issues.

The Chief told the committee that noise/nuisance complaints are not the highest priority for police response, so on a busy weekend when the weather is nice the call response can be delayed by an hour or more.  By the time police arrive the party or noise is sometimes over.

Currently the system  tracks noise/nuisance complaints if a formal ticket or warning is issued to a property.  But committee member Maurianne Adams wishes to see the system capture complaints made against a residence whereby no formal action was taken by officers, perhaps due to a delayed response.

Chief Livingstone confirmed the rowdy behavior that has disrupted neighborhoods for too many years, has improved significantly:  In 2012 APD had 1,064 calls for service relating to bad behavior and only two years later, in 2014, those calls decreased over 40% to 617.

The Chief attributed this dramatic reduction to outreach work done by his officers -- following up noise complaints the next morning for instance -- extensive publicity shining a light on bad behavior, neighbors taking it on themselves to try to resolve issues, and "peer group" initiatives undertaken by UMass and the Student Government Association (Walk This Way and Team Positive for instance).

One problem with increasing transparency of police calls via the town website is APD's computer system does not get along well with the town system used by Building Commissioner Rob Morra.

But Chief Livingstone liked the idea of sharing this information and planned to take it up with his senior staff and Information Technology person later this month. 

ZBA Drones On

Crotty Hall rendering looking from the Northwest

As usual the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting last night went on for over four hours, and as is also somewhat usual they did not come to a final vote on any of the three major items discussed.  And you thought Amherst Town Meeting took forever!

First up was Stephan Gharabegian, arguably the most notorious absentee landlord in the town of Amherst.  Mr Gharabegian owns almost half the houses on Phillips Street, the most notorious street in Amherst.

33 Phillips Street

In this case he wishes to expand capacity for 33 Phillips Street, probably the most notorious house in all of Amherst.

The house is a 3-family unit meaning it can have 12 "unrelated" tenants.  But Mr. Gharabegian had, without official permit, refinished the basement for a 4th unit, thus increasing monthly rental income significantly.

And since the bootleg apartment had major health/safety violations -- no second means of egress in case of fire -- it came to the attention of Building Commissioner Rob Morra who shut down the basement apartment until the ZBA hears his case.

Which started on October 2, continued to November 6, continued to last night, and now continued yet again until June 11.

 Stephan Gharabegian addresses 3-member Zoning Board of Appeals last night

Neighbors repeatedly pointed out the detrimental impact that 33 Phillips has already had on the surrounding neighborhood (Fearing Street and Sunset Avenue) as a 3-family, so allowing it to become a 4-family will only make matters worse.

Besides, town officials should not be rewarding bad behavior, since the 4th unit was illegally created to begin with and only comes before the ZBA because he got caught.  Member Tom Ehrgood, waiving a police summary report, said the location was a "magnet for police attention."

The board was a little more receptive to another rental property with a less than sterling reputation, 164 Sunset Avenue.  They generally came to the conclusion that formalizing the house as a two family unit was reasonable, with some conditions that will be hammered out at the hearing continued to February 12.

The most surprising event of the night was a 2+ hour discussion (borderline heated) over Crotty Hall, a sleek new building proposed for 418 North Pleasant Street at the very gateway to UMass.

The Dover Amendment allows religious and educational institutes to pretty much run roughshod over local oversight except for the setback zoning requirements, which are enforced by the Building Commissioner.

In fact they are made even more stringent as the requirements in the Amherst Zoning Bylaw have to be doubled since educational and religious buildings are oftentimes HUGE and can be plopped down in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

In this case the designers did not realize that the 10 foot side setback touching Phillips Street needed to be doubled to 20 feet.  But the Amherst Building Commissioner did. 

Gordon & Crotty Hall. Dotted line top right Phillips Street property

Thus the building was totally designed, at a current investment of $222,000 (85% of which is lost if the building requires redesign), with a 10 foot side setback in mind.  Neighbors on Phillips Street are not happy.  The ZBA is caught in the middle.

Neighbors also complained that the twin building, Gordon Hall, has a noisy HVAC system that drives them crazy from April until October, and the new building will be much closer to them.

Sounding troubled, ZBA Chair Eric Beal said, "This is a hard case for me.  You relied on the 10 foot setback in good faith."

The proposed building is named for Jim and Pam Crotty, who have lived in Amherst for 40 years.

Mr. Crotty, UMass Professor Emeritus of Economics and Sheridan Scholar, spoke about bringing faculty who now work in Thompson Hall to the new building to work alongside colleagues in Gordon Hall:  "It would be superb to get this synergy between faculty and grad students."

Two members of the ZBA, Mark Parent and Tom Ehrgood, seemed convinced the extra intrusion into Phillips Street was not  "unreasonable", especially since the main UMass campus is only a snowball throw away.

Chair Eric Beal was not 100% convinced, however, and wished to see "renderings" of the new building.

The board took a five minute break so architect Sigrid Miller Pollin could pull them up from her computer.  But when the meeting resumed the renderings only showed the impact from North Pleasant Street and not from Phillips Street.

The appeal hearing was continued until February 12.  The building plan will also need review by the Amherst Planning Board for a Site Plan Approval.

The Tide Is Turning

No single issue has dominated the public discussion in our little college town over the past too many years like the problem of unruly off campus student behavior.

Yes, let me quickly interject that it's only a small minority that indulge in downright dangerous antics, tie up emergency services for preventable alcohol related calls and disturb the tranquility of neighborhoods all over town.

But when the majority of your population consists of "college aged youth,"  that small percentage adds up to significant number -- especially problematic considering our woefully understaffed Public Safety Departments.



Plus they all seem to want to get out of control around the same time:  Thursday night through early Sunday morning.

In response to problems emanating from student rentals the town, 40 years after it was first proposed, enacted a Rental Registration and Permit Bylaw.  As of today 100% of the rental property in town is registered and have a permit that can be revoked.

Neighbors now have easy access to contact information for those adults who are owners/managers of Party Houses and a simple mechanism to file complaints with the town should they not get satisfaction from them.

UMass, the Goliath that provides the vast majority of housing consumers, has also started taking things seriously after student bad behavior started receiving the continuous attention it deserved (kind of like the bad behavior of Bill Cosby should have been exposed many, many years ago).

For over four years now I have focused attention on the weekend circus with my "Party House of the Weekend" reports, naming names of both the arrested perpetrators of the mayhem and the landlords who own the property.

These days I get requests almost weekly to take down a post because a Google search brings it up and prospective employers are probably not overly impressed (although we all were young once I suppose).

March 8, 2014

The Blarney Blowout was also a major turning point as my spotlight on rowdy student behavior was amplified a thousand times over by national and international media coverage.

In spite of the $160,000 Davis Report suggesting overwhelmed police overreacted, the average citizen -- both taxpayers and students -- knows full well the alcohol fueled mayhem was a significant black mark for the University and its student body.

 But you can still buy UMass branded shot glasses at the Textbook Annex

And it has served as an unmistakable wake up call,  or some would argue an attention getting slap in the face.

So why do I, a grumpy old get-off-my-lawn cynic, think things are improving?

Last year between August 15 and November 15 Amherst police responded to 322 noise complaints, while issuing 91 Noise Violations and 33 Nuisance House violations.

This year between August 15 and November 15 Amherst police responded to 214 noise complaints, while issuing only 17 Noise Violations and 25 Nuisance House violations.

In other words total number of $300 tickets levied have dropped from 124 to 42 in just one year.  A stunningly significant decrease. 

Now that's worth partying over!

100% Compliance!

Building Commissioner Rob Morra, head of the table

The Rental Bylaw Implementation Group heard nothing but good news this afternoon from Building Commissioner Rob Morra:  All 1,261 rental properties in the the bustling little college town of Amherst are now in full compliance with the bylaw overwhelmingly passed by Amherst Town Meeting last May.

Morra told the committee that originally using assessor records the number of rental properties was pegged at 1,575.  After the first bulk mailing, however, about 300 let it be known that they do not rent out any part of their property.

Taking a hint from President Reagan the Building Commissioner used a "trust but verify" methodology to confirm they were indeed not renting, and he continues to keep those properties on a "watch list".

About 30 property owners out of the 1,261 did not take the bylaw seriously and continued to ignore requests to come into compliance.  They were issued $100/day fines and soon enough ALL of them became believers.

But not before $8,000 was collected in fines, with the most stubborn landlord accounting for about $3,000 of that.

In total, the Rental Permit Bylaw has generated $126,100 in registration permit fees ($100 per property times 1,261) plus the $8,000 in fines for a total of $134,100 this Fiscal Year, FY14.

Yellow pins indicate APD actions taken

The other equally major piece of good news is the town website for all things rental now shows properties that have been warned or cited (or arrested) by APD for noise and or nuisance complaints over the last year or so.

Neighbors can now track the major offenders.  Once three complaints appear under a yellow pin in a single location, that property is potentially subject to a revocation of the rental permit.

$2000 Fine vs $100 Compliance Fee

 25 Butterfield Terrace

The last of the housing holdouts paid their dues and the town's rental stock is now 100% in compliance with the new Rental Registration and Permit Bylaw, overwhelmingly passed by Amherst Town Meeting last year.

   Amherst Housing Court Docs

On Monday Amherst Building Inspector Jon Thompson appeared in Eastern Hampshire District Court before a Clerk Magistrate.  Of the six cases he presented, one was continued to August 29 (Kathleen Maiolatesi), with all the others ended favorably for the town.

Deborah Kruger failed to show up for the hearing, costing her $1,700.  The three parking citations were all upheld and the perps paid $100 each.  And Alpha Tae Gamma (25 Butterfield Terrace) settled before the hearing by agreeing to pay $2,000.

FY15 only started July 1st

And Then There Were None

 

Pat Kamins landlord, Rob Morra (on right)  Building Commissioner

Amherst Building Commissioner Rob Morra reports the most recent Rental Permit Bylaw enforcement actions taken by his office to bring into the compliance the final dozen properties (out of 1,300) has been successful.

Only one remains -- 84 Grantwood Avenue -- and they have told him the "application is in the mail."

 A dozen years ago the Board of Health made an ill fated attempt to bring about Rental Registration but it was mostly ignored; and after the contentious "Smoking Ban in Bars War" from a few years earlier the Board seemed reticent to take on the enforcement challenge.  

Naysayers with a vested interest claimed the current implementation of the common sense bylaw, with its nominal $100 annual fee, would be a logistical nightmare and that the Zoning Board would be overwhelmed with hearings to approve the parking component of the program. 

But all of that sound and fury has apparently signified nothing.

100% compliance now sets the stage for rental occupancy peak season when students return next month.  So the next big test is yet to come.  

The Dirty Dozen

 

 407 North Pleasant Street, owned by Gamma Inc Alpha Tau 

The Amherst Rental Registration & Permit Bylaw that went into effect January 1st affecting 1,300 properties in this rental dominated "college town" now has an astounding 99% compliance rate. 

Only 12 properties -- some with the same owners -- have failed to heed the warnings of Amherst Building Commissioner Rob Morra, and will be brought to Eastern Hampshire District Court in the very near future.

The Rental Registration Bylaw is an attempt to bring law and order to a Wild Wild West mining town where the attraction for boatloads of people is education rather than gold or silver.

With restrictive zoning and well organized NIMBYs, housing production -- especially student housing in a town with the lowest median age in the state -- has been almost non existent over the past generation.

Thus supply and demand is out of whack, resulting in higher prices forcing out families and low-to-middle income workers, residential one family-house conversions to student rooming houses and all too many noise and nuisance complaints in residential neighborhoods.

The new Rental Registration and Permit bylaw is working.  Now we need to tweak zoning.

Code enforcement is a key ingredient

Pay Me Now Or ...

641 Main Street

Building Commissioner Rob Morra has entered a final phase for rolling in the Rental Registration and Permit Bylaw set to the tune, "No More Mr. Nice Guy."

The law was overwhelmingly passed by Amherst Town Meeting last year and went into effect January 1st.  It requires all rental properties to register with the town, pay $100 annual fee, and fill out a check list verifying adherence to basic health safety regulations.  

Out of 1300 rental properties in town that come under the ordinance only 32 have failed to comply.  As of May 30th the lower 13 properties on the list (below red line) have been issued $100 per day fines.  Yes, that's the total annual cost of compliance now paid PER DAY.

Already the town has received $1,500 in fines, and for those who refuse to pay the fines complaints will be filed in District Court at the end of this month.

The top 19 properties (above red line) will be issued $100/day fines starting this week as their deadline to comply was Friday the 13th.  Bad luck for them, good thing for the town.

 Click to enlarge/read

One Million Down ...

So I should have stayed up a little later last night because sometime just before midnight the milestone one millionth visitor came a calling.  Not that my sitemeter gives me their email so I can award him/her a prize.

Over the past seven years I have tried to cover the stories that my friends in the bricks and mortar media may have missed, or to cover them in a way that offers more of the backstory.

Living here all my life and having operated a small service-oriented business for 28 years gives me Google-like institutional memory and a fairly extensive list of ultra-reliable sources.

Sources who trust my use of "off the record," knowing that North Koreans could hold a flamethrower to my head and I would never give them up.

If you looked at my widget for "popular posts" (which is continuously updated real time) four months ago, six of the top ten stories had nothing to do with  "rowdy student behavior."

Cowardly Anon Nitwits constantly accuse me, a proud UMass grad, of being "anti-student" where all I ever write about is the tiny minority of students who screw up.

So I kind of liked that I could respond with, "60% of my top ten stories have nothing to do with students behaving badly."  Well unfortunately, that is no longer the case.  This year's Blarney Blowout -- not exactly a "tiny minority" of students -- pushed not one, but two new posts into the top ten.

Now 60% of my "popular posts" do involve student bad behavior (4 of them specifically related to Blarney Blowout).

But I take great journo pride in the two stories that were pushed out of the top ten:

The potentially catastrophic basement fire at a Hobart Lane (students) apartment that exposed a (well known) landlord coverup of shoddy conditions -- including orchestrated violations of the bylaw restricting one family units to no more than four unrelated tenants.

A case that came at just the right time to help pass the Amherst Rental Registration & Permit Bylaw last year, the most important piece of legislation enacted by Town Meeting in a generation.

And the other case that you have also read about here more than any other media outlet:  A working class family unfairly sanctioned by an overly PC Amherst School system.  A sad story that is still ongoing.

I hope to be around to bring you a conclusion.

Democratic Bully Pulpit

 

Vince O'Connor on the attack

Vince O'Connor is now 1 for 2 after last night's epic fail at an attempt to hack 10% from the Planning Department budget, which was to go hand-in-hand with with his 79-74 victory Monday night to increase Social Service spending (charitable organizations) by $125,000.

So obviously many of the 79 Town Meeting members who supported his motion to bring Social Service spending back into the routine budget disagreed on his version of financing that.

Even though Mr. O'Connor last night backed away significantly from his original plan to cut $200,000 from Planning Department by reducing the amount to $100,000 -- still a 10% cut. 

O'Connor also appeared yesterday afternoon at the Rental Implementation Bylaw Group to discuss his other (of many) Town Meeting articles, #42, which originally would, "suspend the operation and enforcement of the Rental Permit bylaw" until a new more "inclusive" committee is formed.

Yeah just what Amherst needs: yet another committee, working group, or task force.

This too he has now watered down significantly by removing the threat to "suspend the operation" and now simply wants the new committee to make recommendations.  Building Commissioner Rob Morra will take Mr. O'Connor's suggestions to the Town Manager and if he buys in to the grand scheme O'Connor will move to dismiss Article #42.

Kind of a toothless threat since Town Meeting overwhelmingly supported the Rental Permit Bylaw last year  and like all new bylaws it also had to pass muster with the Attorney General.  And yes some folks (parties with a vested interest no doubt) tried unsuccessfully to sabotage that.

Plus Article #42 is last on the list of a l-o-n-g Warrant.   When the weather turns terrific with thoughts drifting to summer vacations, the last thing Town Meeting members want to do is listen to Mr. O'Connor drone on, and on, and ...

If It Ain't Broke ...

 

Maurianne Adams, Phil Jackson, Rob Morra (Building Commissioner)

The Rental Bylaw Implementation Group heard a detailed report this afternoon from Building Commissioner Rob Morra on the implementation of the new Amherst rental registration and permit bylaw which went into effect January 1st

Originally it was thought the town had 1,570 rental properties that needed to comply, but after a mailing to all of them Morra reports a number of phone calls from homeowners who should not have been on the list.

After the dust cleared, about 1,300 properties remained.  So far just over 1,000 have paid the $100 fee, filled out the forms and received their permits.

18 have already gone before the Zoning Board of Appeals for a parking permit or to remove a "owner occupancy" condition on their original Special Permit and another 40-50 remain in the pipeline for Zoning hearings.

But that still leaves around 250 who are not in compliance and do not seem interested in coming into compliance.  Next week the town will send them a "more formal notice of violation" with a short two week time frame for coming into compliance.

If not, the Building Commissioner will issue fines which will be enforced by Eastern Hampshire District Court.

Morra reports that the 250 outliers are almost all "absentee owners" and that local well known landlords have been extremely cooperative, as has the Zoning Board of Appeals with rental housing related cases.  

Amherst police Chief Scott Livingtone has agreed to work with the town's Information Technology department to allow Noise and Nuisance tickets and arrests to be made available on the Amherst Rental Permitting page of the town website.  Morra hopes this will happen over the summer.

Currently the database only includes building code and zoning violations.  Considering the impetus for the entire permit system was the noxious influence party houses were having on neighborhoods it only makes sense to include police data.

 Vince O'Connor, a 40 year Amherst rental tenant

The Committee also heard from Town Meeting member Vince O'Connor, who filed a petition article (#42) to, "suspend the operation and enforcement of the bylaw" until after a new more inclusive committee is appointed by the Moderator consisting of 8 Town Meeting members -- four of them tenants (but one has to be an undergrad student) and four homeowners (at least one a rental housing owner).

In other words a do over.

O'Connor has now amended the article to take out, "suspend the operation and enforcement" of the bylaw and the new committee of eight would simply review the current Self-Certification Checklist and make suggestions to the Town Manager, Select Board and report to Town Meeting in the Fall.

Morra and three-out-of-four members of the Rental Bylaw Implementation Bylaw Group, while remaining polite, did not seem overly impressed with Mr. O'Connor's idea.