Committees - Regular Meeting

OK, so I'll call this meeting of community hazard board to order. We have our minutes from last month. Let's take a minute here to check them out, make sure they look good. On the agenda, we have a few items. I think we'll be going into executive session at the end. Not sure if that's supposed to be on the agenda.

Yeah.

Okay. So. We'll, we'll do that at the end. Um, once we've talked through all this stuff. Question to approve on the minutes 2nd. All right, all in favor. So, let's have written. I see we have some people in the audience.

And Matt's on.

Yeah, Matt's on. I know that Mark said he might not be able to make the Zoom as well. And I don't think Ben is coming, right? Yeah. So it's just us. Stephen Jacobs, do you want to speak now? I'd like to just let you address us before, and then we can get on with the rest of our agenda.

No, not really. I see you have on the agenda an ADU Plus One update, and I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond to the issues I raised a couple of days ago.

Well, I can do that now. The town clerk and the attorney met with Liz today. So they're responding to your request. I don't have an update for you on that.

No, I wasn't seeking an update on the foil. I just, as I thought my email to you and Bill on Tuesday had indicated, I just wanted to ask you directly for the information. The foil just goes to documents.

I don't have a response myself. I'll let the attorney and the clerk figure out what what to send you.

We're not communicating. I'm not asking you about documents or how the town should respond to the FOIL. I would just like, and I think the public would like, some basic information. In particular, to date, what is the number? And this information does not involve any personal privacy issues or personal information of anyone, but it simply goes to, to date, what is the number of applications for ADU grants that have been received?

You know, I think you are misunderstanding something about the process that happens with the ADU. applications. They go directly to CDLI. They are not reviewed by the Community Housing Board, and they are dealing with the eligibility of people's income, where they live, all that stuff they're figuring out with the building department. So we are not seeing the applications. I'm sure CDLI has a number of how many people have applied or expressed interest. There are a lot of people who express interest that drop out. We have running tallies, but I think there's a lot of questions that you're asking that are sort of in someone else's ball. They're not happening with this committee.

get back to you we can get back to you or just contact cdcli directly well well i can do that i thought it was more appropriate to approach you in the town first but who who would i contact at cdli they have a um i can forward you that email i'm not sure what it is right now but uh it's the same email that you would

used to express interest for an ADU.

So let me just understand, you as a committee do not have any information as to the number of applications that have been filed, the number of applications that have been approved, the number of applications that have been rejected, the grounds for any rejections, including whether any of them cite the location of the applicant's property, the number, if any, that cite the size of an applicant's property, the number, if any, that reject an application based upon the applicant's income. You don't have any of that information.

That is correct. We know approximately how many are in the works. We never see the applications. They just inform us who is applying and the area that it's in. We don't have any say in denying or accepting. We don't look at the applications. We don't know their income level. We don't know anything. They basically come to us for information on the property itself. That's it.

You don't even know how many have been approved?

Yeah. Yeah, that we know. That we know, three.

Yeah, we know that. I mean, what do you mean approve? Yeah, three have patients. There's a process that people are doing when they apply for an ADU, when they you know, there are four, five that are complete. The other ones are under, there's three under construction. We have about four, five applicants still in the system that are working through their application process. And that number is in constant flux because people drop out of the program or for many reasons. Right now, Like, I'm looking at a spreadsheet of 13. 5 of those are complete. 3 are in some phase of construction or design. 5 are applications that have not signed a contract yet. And may or may not sign and may or may not sign the contract. They may decide it's too big of a process. It's, you know. too much debt for them to take on, you know, whatever. Family circumstances change. So people, there's a lot of people who have sort of expressed interest but haven't, you know, followed through all the way.

And none of you know either from CDLI or from other sources whether any applications have been rejected or denied?

That would be, CDLI would be the one that would be rejecting them.

That's not the question. The question is...

Yes, we know that some have been rejected.

I can't tell you how many were rejected before we ever know about them. That's not something that we would know.

And on what grounds have they been rejected?

Again, we don't know all the ones that have been rejected before got to us, so it's impossible for us to answer that question.

Well, without knowing all of the ones, do you know any of the ones?

I think that we should refer to the FOILs. I think that that's going to answer your questions better. It's been a several-year process, and so I don't want to give you an incorrect answer in a public forum.

Just seems as though you are not being transparent with the public about what the results of this process have been.

Steve, you've had many information meetings about these ADUs.

We give an update.

Every single meeting. Every meeting there's an update on this.

Okay, so then I'm asking for an update, which was on the agenda, which is why I didn't initially want to speak.

And Grant just gave you the update that we get CDLI contracts with the state for this purpose.

There's nothing to do. It's not our program. It is a New York state program.

We try to help people. Correct.

That's it.

It's this New York State program.

Anyway, we'll get on with our agenda then. Let's move back to our housing needs assessment. The survey we're working on with Taylor and I sent you guys the latest version. I think we should, you know. It's too long to go over. There's a lot here, but I think they whittled it down to, what, 30 questions, 20 questions in our main 20 questions in our main. But I think they're all important. I think, you know, let's take another look at it. Maybe in the next day or 2, I'd love to just kind of give them a sign off. On this, and we'll start figuring out how to distribute it. It's a printed form and online. In English and in Spanish, yeah, you said 30 questions. yeah the main section like for anybody um anyone on shelter island would be about 12 no it's 30 questions 30 and then there's 10 business owners and managers so there's 23 multiple choice and then 24 through 30 that are you can write in open-ended open-ended open-ended and kind of like the last three i think are sort of would you like to sign up for this mailing list? The last couple. And then the second section would be business owner or manager survey questions, and that's 10 of 10.

A multiple choice and some open-ended bid. Yeah.

Did you do the flyer, or did they do the flyer?

They did the flyer. So yeah. I think we could get some maybe better stock photos.

I think the business owner slash manager survey questions are very good. It's going to be difficult to get them answered. That's the problem. But that's where we're going to find out the real needs.

I think visiting people in person and kind of sitting with them and maybe answering it with, you know. That's a good idea.

It's only 10 days. Yeah, that's a good idea.

I mean, I think there's a lot of complicated answers people could give us, but if we can get sort of the broad picture of how people are dealing with their employees and stuff, I think it would be really helpful.

So yeah, that's kind of the next thing. I could... If you print these out, I'll go around to every business owner and say, we're doing it right now. That's right. That's I know most of the people with the business owners anyway.

So that's the way we should be doing next. You know, once we get these. Yeah. Printed just is there a timeline?

Yeah, that's I was just going to ask when do you when is the timeline?

Because I think we're pretty close. We're 1 last.

Look, middle of July. Oh, great. I'll check in with Taylor and see when she thinks she can get us the materials. If we can do this August, September. We were talking about doing sort of public meetings with it in the early fall.

So I think we didn't do it at Green Options.

I thought we said we were going to consider tabling again at Green Options. Yeah, we definitely should. Yeah.

When is that? That's late August. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, once we have it, I think we could do a table at the farmers market, talk to them. Just to, you know, publicize and see what else, you know, see how else we can distribute it. Library here. yeah and then think about when we should do that meeting maybe in mid-september later september kind of like find you know close it out and have a kind of information session and that they can do that with us also kind of facilitate do we have a means of

Putting this on on the web, I mean it would take nothing to generate a questionnaire for what. yeah i'm sure there's another. place to capture.

it'll definitely be online. yeah and, like the flyer that they had I think had it, you know what the qr code here. yeah so that will be good.

Wait, maybe Julie could write a little something about this in her column.

Yeah. She teased it. She teased it for us when we talked about it last time. She said it might be out any time.

We do let it to the editor.

Yeah.

That would be a good one. That's a good one. That's a good idea.

Yeah. So once I, let me lock down, give me final edits, I guess, everybody, in the next couple days. I will talk back to Taylor and Eve about what their process for like, publishing it will be and when we can expect like the physical surveys and then we'll kind of roll it out from there. So I'll just start a new thread or continue that old thread on email about all that.

If you want to assign some business owners, if you don't want to, I won't have those connections like you do, but like you could just tell me. They're not that many.

I can do it all in a day, but thank you. Yeah, I think, yeah, if you want to take it all along, sure, but I think delegate to some of us if you want as well. There are a lot of landscapers.

Yeah, we can also just reach out to people we know. That's where I think, you know, you get a lot of information too. Yeah, definitely.

Should we have like a spreadsheet with who we've contacted so we don't like... We don't duplicate each other. Yeah. sure that'd be helpful yes do you want to make up the spreadsheet yeah right things like that yeah i can make a spreadsheet and just do all the businesses yeah i could just do a search and then we could put ones that don't just come up you could say you know there are a lot of landscapes landscapers and other businesses that so i could do a first phone book is actually helpful yeah exactly that yeah so i could do a first

If you do the spreadsheet, I'll go around and take it.

Also, it's like the town itself. All the workers here, the highway department, the library, the school, those are important places to hit.

Yeah, I could absolutely start that. And if you can't put it in the spreadsheet, just email me and I will put it in the spreadsheet.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

Can I pitch in with a survey format question? When it goes digital, are we going to be able to see these responses? I guess this is a Taylor question, but are we going to be able to see the responses in live time, or are they going to collect everything and then dump it off to us once it's all pretty much wrapped up?

Yeah, good question. I'll ask Taylor. I mean, I know I've done Google Forms in the past, and if you're the administrator, you can go in there and see. But I don't know if they want to give us the live now.

Right? Yeah. That's wait till we get everything and then discuss.

Yeah, because we're going to get. Information is going to be outdated all the time. Yeah. Right. And some of it will just be garbage. Yeah. Yeah. They'll figure that out.

Okay, anything else on the housing needs. Okay, ADU plus one update, as we alluded to. I missed the last meeting. I was out of town.

Peter, did you talk to Casey? Yes. The one that's going for the variance is still going through. She's still pursuing it. Is that under the 300 destruction or? No, it's not under, because she needs a variance to get, she's in near shore. Unsigned application. Correct. Yeah. She has a signed contract. One that was approved, they started the work and the construction before they got signed off on. So now they're out. They're finishing it on their own. We have, what is it, three CFOs issued. Oh, yeah. Okay. And then I think two new inquiries, which both when I looked up their addresses, they were perfectly fine.

And you sent me one today. Yeah.

Oh, good.

Good. Yeah.

So another one in the hopper. I've actually spoken to that person quite a bit. And I think, anyway, I'll, I think that their property is fine, but when it comes through, I'm sure they'll, you know,

And then, as far as round to the state is still hasn't decided anything around two of the grants yeah we're trying to get so.

And we still have. Right now, it looks like about three open slots. To fill so you know, trying to get those people in the process and see if we can. get them an ad you. Yeah.

That's all I have on the AMUs. One quick thing, I think, which, Steve, this might be helpful to you. On June 3rd, CDLI made a presentation, and it was recorded discussing the program, and there was a Q&A session. That's the thing. It's up on the website. Yeah. Casey and I did? Here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it might be worth looking at. For more information on the process? Yeah. In terms of the overall process.

OK. Our 114 rental project is ongoing.

and we just got drowned correct draft of a management agreement yes first two at least management yeah i know you gave her a little Push some was Jessica copied on that because she wasn't copied on.

No, she was on the lease.

Yes. So maybe we could get, you know, we could stop by and pick them up at some time. I can pick it up tomorrow.

So. Let's take a look at these drafts, circulate some notes on them. And. Try to meet up with Miriam maybe in two weeks.

Have that special group.

Yeah. What are you thinking, Liz?

I was just thinking about the call we just had with the county today, that timeline that was expressed. And maybe it needs to be set up in two weeks.

Yeah. Right. So the other part of that is Liz and I met with the county and CDLI. today to talk about possible funding, looking at their funding stack draft that they sent us a couple weeks ago. And there's some things in the mix there that look good. Obviously, it's still nothing's figured out yet. But the county thinks we should have all our stuff in order by September. so that we can kind of lock it in by the end of the year so i think that's what we should work backwards and try to get as much possible to cli so we can get all these pieces of paper signed and they can figure out how this thing's getting funded in the next month and a half

When they say September, the beginning of September or the end of September? Yeah, the beginning.

I mean, I don't think it's going to be everything just because it's on the call. But basically what they want to do is be able to be in... have things organized enough that they can basically go for the funding and ask for it. So if we're just in like a, oh, we feel good about each other phase, we'll miss this round. And at CDLA, I had expressed that it was possible to get that to start this fall because obviously, sounds like crazy, the bats, we have to really think about the bats in the fearing season. So basically, if we don't Make that threshold, then we'll have to wait to the next year. For the thing, so anyway, we can talk, we can talk a little bit more about it, but that's just like.

So, what about next Thursday night?

Sure, and doesn't the town highway department have to clear out everything.

Yes, yeah, there's just like, it's like getting, but it needs to be. Anyway, we could like, it's like, we have to. get it, we have to have things in order to go to the county to be able, like we wouldn't be able to, we wouldn't start like the clearing or anything like that until we have like the funding preliminarily figured out. So it's like, like Fran said, I think working backwards from there.

Are we, is the room free next Thursday night? That's a priority question.

We'll get back to you on that. Public site, it looks like it. I don't have access to the internal calendar at the moment. I'd have to get back to you on that for sure. Public meetings, the 16th, there's nothing to meet.

so could we have a meeting you know i guess it would be an executive session to review contractual uh issues i mean it would be interesting because you call the meeting to order and go into executive session but what do others think sure and that's between us and miriam Well, I don't know if we want miriam that that yet do we want miriam there yeah.

Why don't we.

Do some things.

Why don't we read it when we see if she's available read it and if we in a couple days we feel like all of our questions are for each other now and then.

I think in two weeks is more realistic we've got now have two agreements in front of us yeah.

So why don't we.

I will be gone on the 23rd. Just FYI.

When are you leaving? The 23rd. So if we did it before then, like, let's say... Third is the Thursday. So say if it was the 21st, you'd be good? Yeah. Maybe we could... I'm just I, I have no idea my own schedule for that off the top of my head, but I'm saying we can maybe do this by email and because the room has to be, there's a lot of moving parts to that.

Well, 1 thing is, let's go into executive session at the end. To discuss the funding stack stuff. Yes. And I talked about so. Yeah, okay.

Man, yeah, this agreement's only a dozen pages. It's not going to take long to work through.

OK. So let's move on. A few more little items here. I'm sorry, I did not get to prepare a slideshow for this. I know. But our fund update is exciting. But you're going to have to remember these numbers. We started last month, June 1st, with $1,789,826. We made $101,401 in our grand total at the end of the month. June 30th is 1,896,600. So almost 1.9. Yeah, it's getting up there. And there's a. Approximately 38Million in contract right now.

So.

At 5.5%, that's almost another 200,000.

193 coming months. Yeah. Accrued. Yeah.

We're getting there. Nice to be open to that. But it's still some of the fun. There still is a drop in the bucket. It is. It is. I mean, after the last meeting, it's a real drop in the bucket.

It is. I mean, we're going to find ways to spend it. And we're going to find ways to keep funding it, you know, and keep putting it back in there. So. But it is nice to see that account growing and making a little bit of a dividend as well.

Those three ADUs have already received the funds, so that's subtracted out from this?

No, that's not part of this 1.8. That funds don't come in. Correct. Totally separate.

Yeah.

separate bank accounts. You don't see any of it and the homeowners don't see any of it. It's going directly to the contractors through CDLI when the work is done. And then it's a grant once that grant gets forgiven after the 10 years of, you know, renting it out and compliance. Okay. Town board. You guys got anything? What's happening?

I mean, just the meetings that we were on together.

Yeah.

So that's really it. It's like just thinking about the funding staff. I think that's the number one thing on my mind.

Yep.

That's my update.

Yep. And we're going to try to find money. Right. Get in touch with people. I'm going to connect Matt with the CLI team so they can talk about surveys um cool any old business anyone we've been covering it any new business got our work cut out for us yeah this is this is our focus yeah yeah yeah yeah All right, great. Let me see if there's any other questions from Julie or anyone in the audience. Pam?

Yeah, I just have a really quick question. You just mentioned Matt was working on surveys. Is that Matt Sherman who's helping the town with this process moving forward?

Yes, Matt Sherman did some engineering work two or three years ago on the properties that

part of our 114 rental projects so i just have to connect yeah so he did do plans for 12 south ferry and 69 northberry anything on man wearing i hadn't seen anything on that one yet so he did surveys surveys so we're talking about like yeah we were talking about that he did some work uh basically helping us to kind of figure out where the preliminary stages like what that maximum, I'm going to say it wrong, the density, the sanitary flow was on those properties. And so we're just connecting him with CDLI with that initial assessment because Brandon and I explained it poorly to them. So that's the engineering we're talking about. We're talking about sanitary flow.

I know that I saw plans, though, of the actual properties, putting the six on South Ferry and the two on North Ferry, I guess, but I didn't see anything for man-wearing. I was just wondering.

Yeah, we're just talking about the sanitary flow stuff.

Anything you saw, Pam, like when we were initially doing that stuff two or three years ago was like drafts. It was like just...

Yeah, I absolutely understand that, Brian. I'm not holding you to the plans at all. They actually looked like they would be feasible, so I just like... Right, yeah, yeah. They did look good, and it looked like it would work out, so, you know, that was fine. Are you still doing an environmental study on 12 South Ferry? I thought that you had hired an expert.

Already done that. That's already been completed.

And is that available to the public to take a look at that report? I mean, if it's done?

Pam, that's one of the things we're trying to get to is get a recap of all the engineering that is done so that we have a recap for ourselves because this has been a multi-year project.

I don't see why they wouldn't be available to FOIL if you know we're trying to consolidate all our resources yes okay I know it's been a long process I appreciate your efforts for certain and I wish you well going forward thanks thank you Julie do you have anything

I'm okay. Thank you.

Great.

Okay. So I think if we want to close to executive session, you need the motion to close to executive session. Second. All right. And then, so Matt, you'll stay on?

Yeah, we'll stay forever.