Amherst Town Meeting agrees to create rental registration bylaw.
AMHERST - Rental property owners will now have to register their units with the town beginning Jan. 1 following a Town Meeting vote to approve the rental registration bylaw.
The proposal was put together by the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Work Group and supported by the Select Board and the Finance Committee.
A Coalition of Concerned Landlords and Tenants and the Amherst Landlords Association opposed it.
Town Manager John P. Musante in his memo to Town Meeting stated that the bylaw would benefit all stakeholders in that it would “have clear guidelines and reasonable expectations” for property owners, tenants, neighbors and would protect housing stock and facilitate code enforcement.
The bylaw will require a parking plan with each property and establish clarity on occupancy limits.
The town currently has a bylaw limiting the number of unrelated people living together to four. Some tenants have said that landlords never told them about that bylaw when renting to more than four.
The bylaw will also ensure that tenants are aware of the other zoning bylaws including the nuisance house bylaw.
Landlords would have to fill out a registration and self inspection checklist and attest to “understanding of an compliance with legal limit of four unrelated person’s bylaw and “making that limit clearly known to tenants.”
They would have to submit and receive approval for their parking plan, among other requirements. The permit fee is $100 per property.
In a letter from Stephen Walczak submitted to the Amherst Bulletin and Town Meeting he wrote that “the proposed rental regulations bylaw will do nothing that cannot be done under existing laws to correct any housing problems enforcement personnel currently encounter.
"Landlords are more than willing to work with the town on solving housing problems and strengthening the existing Rental Regulation bylaw.” That bylaw has been in place but is voluntary.
Walczak was a member of the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Work Group.
Property owner Patrick Kamins, II, president of Kamins of Amherst, submitted a letter sent to him by Mark Grumoli, senior vice present of Greenfield Savings bank, that the “bank would deem financing these types of investment properties as high risk,” referring to the permit process.
But Building Commissioner Robert Morra said there have been discussions with other banks and because the permits can be transferred to new owners, banks did not have an issue with it. His office will be registering and enforcing the new bylaw.
"I’m really pleased with the outcome," Musante said. "We knew there was a lot of support in the community to put together a bylaw that increases awareness (of the bylaws.)"
“With its vote, Town Meeting acknowledged residential property rental as a commercial activity with community impacts that require more regulation, more clarity about expectations, and more enforcement resources than the Town had previously provided, and it remedied that,” said Select Board chairwoman Stephanie J. O’Keeffe in an email.
“After the registration and permitting system is fully implemented next January, we'll get to see if the bylaw is working as intended, and amendments will be proposed as necessary.”
Morra said he was not surprised with its passage. “We had a good process leading up to it. There was open discussion,” he said, and there was a clear indication that’s what people wanted.
Now, he said they have six months to put the process in place. “We’ve got a lot of work to do building the on-line system.” He said there are at least 1,575-rental properties the town is aware of that will need to be permitted.
He said they are considering perhaps issuing permits for half of those properties in January and half in July but the details have yet to be worked out.
Between now and January, they will be preparing the application and doing some educational outreach.
Musante said there is money in the fiscal 2014 budget to hire the full-time inspector and full-time administrator to handle the permitting. The inspector will also be charged with responding to complaints.
“We’ll be fleshing out a much more detailed application timeline with milestone dates,” he said.