Portland Rent Board tables two applications due to data discrepancies

[5:44] Speaker A (unidentified): Hello, everyone. Sorry for running a little late there, but I'm here. Present. All [5:53] Speaker B (unidentified): right. Well, then, you still need a sec, buddy? [6:03] Speaker A (unidentified): No, I'm good to go, I think. Just pulling everything up. I'll call roll. Kristen. Here. Buddy. [6:16] Speaker B (unidentified): Here. Jonas. Here. And I am also here and Laura will be joining us later and Gordon is stuck in delayed travel so we have a quorum and we'll continue on to approval of the May 27th 2026 [Speaker C (unidentified): minutes anyone] have any changes that they saw that needed to be made for that does somebody have a motion to approve that then? [7:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Motion to approve the May 27th minutes. Second. [7:13] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you. You have a motion and a second. And the motion will call to vote. The motion is to approve the May 27th 2026 minutes. [7:24] Speaker C (unidentified): Kristen? Yes. Buddy? [7:27] Speaker E (unidentified): Yes. Jonas? Yes. And I also vote yes. [7:33] Speaker B (unidentified): So wonderful. Improve those minutes we do have a communication it's in relation to the 963 Washington Ave application if I'm correct and so my thought was that we could wait to review that until we're at that so and then we can just maybe check it or if needed read it into the record though all right so then let's get on with our unfishish business which starts us off at the 72 William Street all three units and that's a public for public comment so let me go ahead and do the little review of our general flow of the public hearings and then we'll get into it so as we start the for each of these scheduled public comments the applicants will be able to state their case for the board and provide any actual witnesses they had that maybe wanted to make some testimony. And also if there was some documentary evidence that hadn't made it into the packet or that sort of thing, this would be a time where they could potentially present that. Following the conclusion of the applicant's case, any objector may present witnesses and offer documentary evidence. Objectors are defined as follows. In the case of a landlord applicant, each tenant of the dwelling which is or the subject matter of the application shall be deemed an objector if present and participating the hearing in addition we may designate people as our organizations as specially interested parties and in that case grant them the right to the object objector to speak at this time and later when we refer to the objector as well. For each person, if you can always just come and introduce yourself so that we can establish them standing there and know that you're speaking on it and at the right time. Once we hear from the applicant and any objectors and specially interested parties, general members of the general public who are neither applicants or objectors may offer evidence statements relevant to the matter. Each one of those speakers will be limited to three minutes and in special cases may be given another three minutes to speak. Applicants may then offer rebuttal evidence to anything that's happened since they spoke and objectors may then offer evidence in response to anything in the applicant's rebuttal or I guess potentially statements made by the general public. Then acting through the chair the applicant and any objectors may cross examine witnesses if any witnesses were brought and it'll be conducted through the chair as we said and I think it's a good time to mention just kind of to keep all kind of statements and questions directed at the board as much as possible and then we'll let people respond. Then members of the board can ask questions of any of the interested parties, as well as checking items with city staff, members of the public may then Be given an opportunity to respond to any new issues raised during that time. And just as this goes, a nice little reminder to kind of not just reiterate the same, you know, repetitive information. It's really a time to respond to things that have come up since. And at the conclusion, we will close, generally close the public portion of that proceedings and move into deliberations. And if we find somewhere hopefully we don't anymore because we have the completeness review but if we do find that we really need some more information based on issues presented with the consent of the applicant we may vote to postpone the deliberations and allow for more information to be submitted. Hopefully that was all decently clear. I feel like that was one of the better times I've read that. All right, so then let's get Mr. Heber in here, Will, and we will continue with this. Great, just a sec, and we'll get, we should have Will in here and able to speak. There we go. Hi, Will. Hopefully you can hear us all right. Are you muted? I'm not sure if that's affecting you now. Anyways, Will, if you'd like, I know you've already talked to us a couple times, but if you wanted to just summarize, particularly for the 72, right? So we're, I know we've kind of dealt with this in a little bit of chunks in some of the other, but since we're doing this public hearing right now, and we'll go into deliberations, we'll just deal with the 72 for the minute. It and so yeah, if you had any particular highlights or items you wanted to mention again, like the, you know, driving factors or any particular items you wanted to mention. [14:08] Speaker F (unidentified): We'll go ahead. Yeah, can you hear me now? Yes sir, okay, thank you. I had you on mute. I don't have a lot of big information to resubmit because we've already met twice on these matters. I guess the most important points I'm trying to highlight is I'm trying to keep my rents affordable and provide quality housing for people who live and work in Portland. I have invested a lot of money, certainly in 72 and over the past six years. And I would like to be at a rate that can help offset those costs as well as still be a little bit under market so there's quality housing for the people who want to live there. I guess one of the big points for me is that when asked for the snapshot in time in 2019 as a starting point, that doesn't take into account really where people's lives are at and what situations are because it wasn't my situation. What if I had like an elderly relative who was living in a space and I was way,, way under market? And that was the number I was using. Then it would become obviously an issue for going forward at this point. So there's just a lot of confusion around that. I'm just at the end of the day, I'm trying to stay a little bit under market, but provide good quality housing and safe quality housing for people who live and work in Portland. [15:44] Speaker G (unidentified): So thanks so much. Well, OK, [15:52] Speaker H (unidentified): Dude. [15:54] Speaker B (unidentified): Then do we have any tenants that want to speak or people who feel that they are especially interested in parties as I just described in our attendees, if you could please raise your hand. I see Amy in there. So let me get Will back into attendees. And give Amy a chance to talk. Hi Amy, hopefully I'm doing your name justice and hi, you're [16:55] Amy Lafreniere: welcome. Okay, there I am, sorry, technology stuff and I was scrambling to get done with work today and then join this meeting so thank you for your patience. I just want to let you know. Can you introduce yourself? Of course. My name is Amy Lafreniere, and I live at 76 William Street, number 3. [17:19] Speaker B (unidentified): Okay. I'm doing 72 right now. [17:22] Amy Lafreniere: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, it is. [17:24] Speaker B (unidentified): No worries. Yeah, I was trying to have you. [17:26] Amy Lafreniere: Okay. All right. Put me aside, and I'll just stand down. [17:29] Speaker B (unidentified): I want to keep it separate here just for the sanity of it. [17:34] Amy Lafreniere: For sure. For sure. I'm sorry. I thought they were being handled as one thing. Never mind. [17:40] Speaker B (unidentified): No worries. No worries. Yeah. Sorry. They are technically two separate applications. So hopefully that didn't make your scramble too in vain. And we'll get back to you in just a little bit. And if for some reason you do find that you think you're going to need to leave before we're getting to that, just give your hand a raise and we'll try. Okay, I should be all set now, but [18:05] Speaker C (unidentified): thank you. Wow, thank you. Thank you so much, all [18:10] Speaker B (unidentified): right, any other objectors, tenants, specially interested parties for 72 William Street, let me just give your hand a raise if so. All right. All right. Not seeing any. Then there's, do we have any members of the general public that wanted to make comment? You can go ahead and raise your hands. Amy, I suppose if you had general comment you wanted to make here that you feel applies to the landlord or both buildings, you could, but otherwise, I'll just wait until 76. [Speaker C (unidentified): All] right, seeing none there, that removes the need for rebuttal evidence and cross-examination. And so let me get Will back in here, and we can move on to questions from board members for Will, for the applicant. Welcome back, Will. [Matt Hutchings: All right.] All right, do we have questions from board members [Speaker C (unidentified): or the applicant?] All right, so let's see, what do we got here? Buddy? [20:17] Speaker A (unidentified): Thanks Mr. Chair, sorry, I realized my video was still off and was trying to get it to go faster. I just have one question and maybe I missed it because I just pulled this up again after looking at it already, but do you have any banked rent for any of these units, Mr. Cheever? I'm actually not sure that I've worked with Dylan [20:45] Speaker F (unidentified): a couple times to try to understand banking. It's not something I have a complete grasp on, so yeah, I [20:51] Speaker A (unidentified): mean it, yeah, it's effectively like if you defer a rent because I'm just seeing that there's like there's no increase for unit one. Yeah, we're on 72 unit one in the rent worksheet, so I'm assuming that rent and you said same tenant for three years, so I'm assuming rent hasn't gone up, which would, it's not going up in three years. Yes, right. Yeah, it makes me feel like [21:19] Speaker F (unidentified): There probably is banked rent there. Okay. Great. I prefer not to increase rent every year on my tenants. I like to wait three to five years. And then if there's a chain of tenancy, that's when I used to get it closer to market value and make the adjustment then. But obviously, that's not the rules of the game now, which is unfortunate, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Now I've got to hit my tenants every year with a rent increase, which I'd prefer not to. [21:54] Speaker A (unidentified): All right. Well, that's okay. I mean, I don't think it's going to be an issue until a little bit later on. And if you don't know off the top of your head, maybe I'll just flag that for Dylan if he maybe has an idea. But I don't think we need that info immediately. So that's all. That's really the only question I had. So thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Cheever. [22:13] Speaker G (unidentified): [22:22] Speaker B (unidentified): I had a couple questions. One was that at the end when you kind of described in your response to like the original completeness review questions, you had said that you spend around two hours per week managing the properties, like collecting rent, paying bills, responding tenant questions, etc. Is that per property or for both properties? [22:50] Speaker F (unidentified): I would say probably we could, I would say probably for each property that would be reasonable, because then that covers all the little phone calls that let them in because they left their key out or come check this or come look at that or great. [23:11] Speaker B (unidentified): And then so somewhat along the lines of the banked rent, so I know I thought when we started that there had been some notices of violation issued for these units, and then I think you had to re make some reimbursements to tenants. I had to privately subsidize them. Yes. Yeah. And so what I wanted to check is whether that has been backed out of your gross rental income numbers or if those reflect the rents as they were actually charged, because right, like technically now the rent's been set back to a lower amount. You've maybe had to reimburse some of that money. [24:01] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, like eleven thousand dollars. Yeah. You and I spent ninety thousand dollars out of my pocket to [24:06] Speaker B (unidentified): renovate. So that's, and so that hasn't been taken out. That's, that's hasn't yet come out of like your calculations for the, no, I haven't put that in anywhere, but Dylan should have [24:22] Speaker F (unidentified): be privy to that because of his side of things, that it's been satisfied. But yeah, I don't I [24:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Don't know where to put that into the equation. Okay, so yeah, so that's the like gross scheduled income is reporting what you were charging prior to being given the notice and having to like. Yeah, wonderful, Dylan. I don't think we need those now, but I would love to know those exact numbers for when we get to deliberation for this in just a few. I guess now is a very relative term because it seems like we'll be delivering on this soon. Those were the couple, those were my first ones. Other questions? From other board members also. Well, this isn't the one. It's 76 that you have the unit that you want to change, that's going to change from the two-bedroom, right? [25:27] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, from one-bedroom to two-bedroom, right? Because that's what it was before. Actually, when I first bought it, was that way and had been, but then I changed it to one-bedroom just to keep all three. But we can deal with that when we get to 76. [25:38] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking that it was just that unit. [25:44] Speaker F (unidentified): There's no change in 72s. All three of them are two-bedrooms. The one on the second floor is has a one more room than the than the first floor with the similar layout and then third floor is a little bit smaller than first and second. [26:04] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, thank you. Other questions from board members? All right, then seeing none, then hopefully we have enough, everything, everybody has everything they need to deliberate on this, and I guess I would look for a motion to close the public hearing. [26:41] Speaker E (unidentified): Oh, Jonas, sorry. Yeah, I actually had one question for Will kind of before we let him go, and it sounds like you had some kind of confusion surrounding the adjustment of the base year. It does look like you kind of started to fill it out a little bit. You know, one of the pieces of document we look at is an appraisal of comparable fair market rental values. I'm looking at section 18. I'm wondering if you have any supporting evidence other than what you've listed here that the rents in the base year were under market value. [27:24] Speaker F (unidentified): Just from my historical experience of owning that building for 37 years. Yep, okay, thank you. Well, thank you, wonderful. [27:40] Speaker B (unidentified): Any other questions before I move it all back out or well more somebody have a motion to close the public hearing motion? [27:50] Speaker D (unidentified): To close the public hearing for 72 William Street, all three units. Second we. [28:04] Speaker B (unidentified): Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing for 72 William Street and call to vote. Kristen, yes. Buddy, yes. Jonas, yes. And I also vote yes. I know so sometimes and I have been thinking about it in terms of this meeting too. Sometimes, you know, I'd like to try and push the deliberations towards the end of the meeting, but with and Laura potentially joining us in a little while, I feel like that'll make a mess of things and that we should just continue with deliberations and handle these agenda items and in whole one at a time so that if when and Laura joins And they can pick up at least on the next piece of business and be fully up on it. [Speaker G (unidentified): So I'm not] sure if somebody has a place they want to start these deliberations. I think somebody has a place they want to start. [29:27] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, can we can we just check numbers and math because it could be me, but I was just checking some of the math on the applications and it looks like maybe there's just a couple of addition errors so I just thought maybe we could start with just going through the information on the application just the income is fine but just the operating expenses and then the yeah [Speaker G (unidentified): sure] and then i don't know do we want to talk about is the nov for 72 or 76 there's one for each i think so we want to think about [30:18] Speaker B (unidentified): So I think that's going to be part of us having to get numbers right. So if you want, I can share a calculation sheet and we could start looking at that. Yeah. [30:31] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. And maybe we can handle like how we want to adjust the income since there was a payback. [30:37] Speaker G (unidentified): So slightly [30:42] Speaker B (unidentified): less of a mess on my screen. [30:46] Speaker C (unidentified): And I can share that. [31:03] Speaker B (unidentified): seems fine yeah and then we're going to need to talk about the you know if there's a base rent adjustment but I think but that makes good sense let's make sure that we feel like we have the right numbers up here so let me show that all right does that seem yeah visible to everyone so maybe the gross rental income is a good place to start dylan did you have a number for what that actually what the reimbursement amount for that for 72 william street yes i do have an exact number for a 2025 [32:29] Speaker K (unidentified): reimbursement the total for 72 william street reimbursement was eight thousand one hundred dollars which was due to nine hundred dollar overcharge over the months of april through december 2025 so nine months of nine hundred dollars came to 8100 okay and i assume some [32:56] Speaker B (unidentified): Rents for kind of reset about that right too, so I guess we'll, we'll get to those in a minute because I think we'll need them to calculate base rent or not base rent, banked rent in the end, right, so [Speaker C (unidentified): That look] Right there at least for that adjustment [Speaker C (unidentified): Yep and] Then we're still looking good there, so let me come down, everybody see the whole of that, yeah, hopefully no 2025 right in this current year to adjust the CPI on the front page, but it all right, I wound up adding up the same as his numbers came out here, so I don't know [34:05] Speaker D (unidentified): If you had call out items, Kristin, no, I think that's okay, I think it was the NOI now that I'm looking at it, isn't, oh, can we, sorry, can we look at the amortizations, yeah, that I don't have in [34:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, yeah, that was what I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but the owner performed labor caps out at five percent of gross, which we've put at 60 200, so I think that caps out at 3010, is that accurate [34:39] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, so we're gonna have to discuss because there's also a lot of owner performed labor in the capital improvements, so I, yeah, I think they're both items to touch on, let's so [Speaker C (unidentified): All right] So let's look, so it was the, it's the capital improvement amortization, Kristin, that [35:07] Speaker D (unidentified): You want to see, yeah, but now that Jonas is bringing up that point, do we need to just, you want to touch on this first, well, if a lot of that owner performed labor, I mean, because I believe Mr. Cheever is a contractor, right, so he's legitimately doing the work, he just happens to be the owner, so maybe we just need to recategorize that, well, so there's two pieces, so this is like [35:40] Speaker B (unidentified): The owner performed labor for seeming management and normal repairs, and then there's owner performed labor on the, as I read it at least, there's then a bunch of owner performed labor on the actual capital improvements, and so, you know, I'm not sure how board members want to handle that, I basically, I was looking at it, seemed like the rates were fair and it's not, you know, we can see from the invoicing that it's really all materials, you know, we're not, we're not being given an invoice for the for The actual labor being performed by, you know, some other entity. I was looking at the invoices and at least right from my view and seeing that they were like primarily, you know, that it was materials, it was the cabinets themselves, it was the range and stuff, but I really didn't see like installations or any of that sort of stuff in there. And then whatever this is, the 72, right, all this is shared. So and then right in here there's like the owner labor in each of these and the additionals or whatever. And I saw them depending on the which one the rates, I saw at 65 an hour or 50 an hour, and didn't seem unreasonable for, you know, for any of this actual work. If it was the management work, I think, you know, we might be talking about that being a little high or something, but really I think he's saving, right, saving in the long run the tenant's money on this unless other people had a different thought on that. So I do think Jonas is right, we need to address the regular owner performed labor, particularly because that does wind up coming out at a pretty high rate on the management side like that. This also comes to like 60 something dollars an hour or something for the response, which I understand is opportunity cost, but I think Jonas is right, let's, unless somebody has other thoughts, I'd think that we'd just cap both of these at the five percent, but I'd look for a motion for whatever we want to do about it. [38:20] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristin, okay, hang on, let me let me offer another. So and I think we may have talked to Mr. Cheever about this in previous, but like he doesn't have a management fee and I feel like maybe that owner performed labor, I mean, it's in lieu of a management fee, right. So I don't know that I necessarily, I mean, the work happened, somebody would have had to do it, somebody would have, there would have been a cost associated with it. So I'm not sure I think it's entirely fair to just subtract it. Or do we, I mean, we could do we do a couple of things, we could move it into a management fee cost instead. But I just I'm not sure I think it's right to just delete work that happened just because he didn't categorize it up front the way we're used to seeing it, right? He's percent would be six grand, right, so do we maybe just, I mean, it's it's six of one and half dozen of another, right, if we just put it into a different category even [39:34] Speaker E (unidentified): If we put so owner performed labor, if we're using the new gross income caps at three thousand, if we move that other 3000 to management services, that's so well below the 10% that we usually allow for. Right. [39:54] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah. I guess, I guess my whole point is, I, feel like he, I just feel like we're just categorizing it differently. Right. I mean, [40:14] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah. Yeah. And it just, you know, it just keeps coming back around as the you know, one way or another this owner perform management is it is something we have to manage and yeah well I think it's probably I'm kind of open to I'm open to kind of either in this case I guess I'm not you know to me I still like I guess what I see then is like the rate is still kind of high and like I said I understand it is opportunity costs one way or another and if it's not really coming across the 10 we'd see that from a management company anyways but I 'm a little shy to just kind of move it around to like make or perform labor something else buddy [41:19] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah I guess my question and I'm not like disagreeing at all here necessarily I always kind of like have I'm a bit wary of the owner performed labor and the self-performed management fees generally but I guess like can we identify or can you identify like what numbers would maybe fit that category that are you know what I mean because like if some of it's like what we would consider owner performed labor as in like I don't know like, the, like, contractor kind of work and what is, like, administrative. I mean, I feel like that's maybe kind of the distinction. And I guess, like, I'm just asking generally if that maybe helps clarify what your point is. Is that to me? Yeah,. If, like, identifying those numbers maybe clarify sort of like how we might go about doing that rather than it just being like an arbitrary like well we should move this over here or that over there so I'll let me start by [42:35] Speaker D (unidentified): saying I think this is something we probably need to address as a board because it is a yeah this is a it's vague right because I don't know what the difference is between I mean I guess you could say So if you, if you're, we're seeing a lot of landlords come forward that are managing their own buildings, right? Like if you've got a large management company, we're not seeing as much, we're not really seeing this owner performed labor. So I do think we need to address if the landlord is performing, replacing, you know, painting units and performing clean outs. I mean, legitimate labor that you would, like, to me, that type of labor is, you know, that's the same stuff that a management company does, right? They just contract it out. They have, like, a maintenance team and things like that. So I do think we probably need to address this and put some more guardrails around it so that, because we keep having this conversation. Conversation so and maybe we need to bring Mr. Cheever back in but I mean he was talking about you know going when there was a they forgot their keys right that is something a management company does right they go deal with lockouts or something's broken so he was dealing with maintenance requests so what I heard him describing sounded a lot more like management where owner underperformed labor is I had a vacancy and I repainted the entire unit does that kind of help [44:10] Speaker A (unidentified): A little bit I mean no totally no yeah and again like it wasn't I was just trying to kind of try to like maybe see if we could identify like a distinction or an allocation in the moment but I totally agree with you that this is a conversation I definitely have my own thoughts about how we handle that around like income and expenses but like we don't necessarily we haven't had that conversation yet so that does kind of get at what I was wondering I suppose so thanks did [45:00] Speaker E (unidentified): He I'm sorry let me raise my hand go ahead did it is interesting because Will kind of did identify some of this and it feels like he put kind of all of his hours into owner performed labor. And to your point, I see it highlighted on the screen. That's more of a management that two hours per week. Was that two hours per unit per week? I know he clarified this for us, right? That per property. Yeah. Two hours per property. And so that comes out like on the [45:30] Speaker B (unidentified): The figure for this property that comes out flat to the same 65 an hour on the estimate and so but you know I think it's really hard for us to define like what an hourly should be or [45:43] Speaker E (unidentified): Something sorry Jonas continue I didn't mean to no I'm I'm agreeing with you right here I think not to read too much into the tea leaves of the board here but it does feel like there should be something under management fees here but whether or not we take his hourly rate as a contractor is maybe a little bit more up in there I mean even if we move over that 3 000 it is still well below the 10 percent [46:16] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, and the other side I didn't know is since that's basically what this is, another thought I had was maybe that we say, you know, we basically start to create that hard definition between like underperformed management and underperformed labor in terms of repairs and other things like that. And you know, like the, difference between like, cause the management company would hire, as we've seen these contracts, right. They've got a set rate that they're going to charge for like repairs and that sort of thing. You know, they, generally put it in the contract. They're like, Oh, it's 75, it's a hundred something, whatever, an hour that you're going to pay for service visits, and that's charged in addition to the 10%. And so that's, I wonder if that's, that is like kind of the clean line here, not clean, but, you know, a line, if we could say that management, owner-performed management could be a separate thing that maybe caps at 10% itself, and owner-performed labor in terms of actual repairs and that sort of thing, which in the case of this property is, totally separated as far as I saw into the, renovations themselves, because there wasn't, you know, these units weren't really repaired, they're renovated. Although there's a bunch of normal repairs in here. Right. But so that, was kind of, that's, I guess, at least my idea for the moment is that we could take both sides, cap them at 10% and move them into to management and have it basically be owner-performed management capped at what we generally have seen in contracts as the going rate for management fees. I like it. And the other part of it, not to kind of get off of this exact one piece, but just to kind of tie for further thought, is that we have discussed in the past potentially limiting the management fees themselves to something like 10% because that's what we see the rate is so maybe that also kind of this fruit you know something to be talked about and discussed more later but that maybe this provides us with kind of some solid guidance of vets as a whole no matter who performs it we're going to cap that in a place in order to [48:51] Speaker A (unidentified): To control it, buddy. All right, Mr. Chair, please stop me if I'm being too heady with it with this next point, because I'm fine with moving forward. Yeah, like what we're saying, yeah. I just, let's, let's, I know, I just pulled us off topic a little, I guess. Like I'm trying to not get too pulled into the bigger discussion in with this case just for the sake of time, but I guess like maybe it's also just like a framing issue, because like when I look at like when I think of like a manager and management services, I feel like implicitly that's like a third party, right, and then owner performed labor is just like all else, like all other things, like, and so like in that interpretation, I think this would be the right, the way that Mr. Cheever's done it would be the right way, sort of, and still like we could still cap that at an amount that feels appropriate, but I guess like it just, it's a little more quantifiable in my opinion when you can be like, I did this thing and this amount of labor went into this thing and here are the materials for this thing, as opposed to like a management fee or management service, I guess, is what it says, is like someone is providing you with a service and you are paying them a money, that's more quantifiable, and then everything else is like the labor you had to do. Now I think my next question would be, does that also count as income then if you're charging yourself for it, but I think that's maybe getting away from what we're talking about here, but I guess I would just offer that to, but honestly I feel comfortable with kind of what you were saying of capping out at a certain amount, but I felt like I need to get that out there as we're talking about it. [51:11] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, [51:14] Speaker B (unidentified): I generally agree, buddy, too, that, and I'm kind of, you know, to me, I'm, to me, all of that, like, falls as owner performed, like, in the original, like, context falls as owner performed and caps at the 5%. And that kind of like caps the rate at which somebody gets kind of hourly from their, you know, basically kind of, it's, it's a recoup of time they spent. I would definitely hope the person isn't paying themselves, well, I guess we've seen it in weird ways, so, you know, it's hard. I think there's a number of situations too in that can be problematic [Speaker C (unidentified): but,] Yeah, I don't, I, think we need a lot more discussion on it. I'm, I'm most comfortable with basically just capping them as owner performed labor at the 5%, because that's kind of how we've worked this so far, but I'm, I'm also understand the argument of that. We say, oh, this is owner performed management and we cap it at something slightly higher. And so, I think knowing that this is that we're still trying to figure this out, and it needs definitely some more discussion and kind of to see some more different cases of it too. I think it's just going to take some time to see how different landlords handle it differently. But I would, I'm, I'm into either way honestly, we're somewhere in the middle, so if somebody wants to propose something, buddy go ahead, I don't necessarily have a proposal, I just [53:11] Speaker A (unidentified): Wanted to agree with you is all on the record, just that you know the fact that we're trying to work through this, it, I guess it just helps me feel like whatever decision we reach today isn't just like an arbitrary decision if we decide later on that a different methodology is more appropriate, you know, so like it makes me feel better about whatever we decide today seems fair, that like if in the future we have these discussions and that way we assess that changes, it doesn't feel like arbitrary or Different, so I just wanted to say that on the [53:49] Speaker C (unidentified): Record, yeah. [53:52] Speaker B (unidentified): That's, I think at the minute right, we're dealing with these very one application at a time until we see some more and have a established some sort of baseline, that's, that's very clear on the application, because that's the other side of it, I think we're going to need for the applicants is something that's really clear on the application to tell them what they should be, what they can be counting as what, so somebody have a motion for one way or the other on this, we want to get it moved, we want to Set a cap somewhere and we want to come up with the numbers so we could maybe at least get this in and move a little, make some movement on this application as we see is [54:42] Speaker D (unidentified): This in relation to the just that particular labor expense right, just [54:47] Speaker B (unidentified): Just this labor, just to this labor expense. Exactly. So do we, I think basically the question right now is, are we capping this at 5% and adjusting these down in the owner performed labor category? Are we saying that we're going to move them to management, consider it owner performed management and cap it at something higher? I think it's awkward. I guess the one that I find awkward is splitting out what doesn't, you know, like capping the owner underperformed at the 5% and say, oh, I'll just, all the rest goes into this other category to me seems like the more arbitrary of the, of the options. Because it's not like, you know, I think in future applications, if we say, oh, we'll accept owner performed management, but it's capped at this and we'll accept owner performed labor, but it's defined as this and capped at this, then that would allow us to have applicants provide, oh, this was exactly this or exactly that. But in this case, he's really kind of just listed it all as management style work. [55:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristen. Okay. So before I do, I just want to throw it out. I would like to make a motion. I'm not making the motion. I'd like to make the motion to move the owner-performed labor to management services because everything that you highlighted in the email and the landlord described himself to me is more defined as management services than it was owner performed labor right the lockouts the rent collection I didn't hear I painted a room that seems to be in the capital expense side where it's more appropriate so that would be the motion I would make and I just before I make it and we let's discuss it now because If we agree or don't agree then because we don't we do that I [56:42] Speaker B (unidentified): Guess you need discussion I mean you can you can go ahead for it I think too I mean in this there's all right I'll make the motion then yeah okay all right I move [56:52] Speaker D (unidentified): That we recategorize the owner performed labor as management services given that the communication we had and the description of the services provided by the landlord are more appropriate in that category second [57:14] Speaker G (unidentified): [57:19] Speaker B (unidentified): Discussion I do see Will has his hand up too if you wanted to hear the input I think the only thing that's missing from that motion for me is a cap on it somewhere [57:41] Speaker D (unidentified): I don't know that we've it's in the application that there's a written cap we have never imposed a cap we've just more accepted that it is a you know 10 is reasonable I don't know that it's appropriate to make a cap here because to me that would be a process change that we should do like in a workshop or something and make it official in the application looking at you buddy come on what do you think but [58:19] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, no, I do, I, yeah, I guess I do kind of agree about the cap thing. If you know, if there's a cap that's spelled out in our application, right, and then we just assess a different one that's not spelled out, it feels a little weird to me. I guess my issue here though is that, like, how, like, the way I think that this number is being quantified with the owner performed labor is by, like, hours. And is that, like, typically, I, like, don't know, like, I don't think this is the case based on, like, other applications we've seen with, like, quoted packages of management costs or whatever, but it's not necessarily, like, assessed in, like, an hourly, like, wage employee way or, like, cost way. So, I guess my, like, where I'm kind of confused on if this number is, like, the appropriate number for a management service or, like, fair is that it's maybe not assessed in the same way that you typically would. But I don't know if that's necessarily disqualifying. I guess it just sort of throws me off a little bit in terms of, like, how this number is being determined and if it's reasonable, whereas, like, if it's an hourly labor thing, then it's like we have a number and we multiply it by that number and we get another number. So that's kind of my main issue there. And I'm, I'm a little bit nervous about just, like, moving things around generally, but yeah, that's really it. I do think if we change things we should be doing it, you know, out through, at least have a good basis for why we're doing it. [1:00:39] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, thanks guys. So I guess my issue with not putting some cap on it of some sort is, that there's no, yeah, that it's an hourly thing, and at that point I'd want to see the hours, like, truly accounted for instead of, like, a general estimate. And I think that's the big thing for saying, you know, if this is done hourly, I understand, right? It's hard. You're managing the building week to week. It just adds overhead to track that time. But without tracking that time, to me, it's a totally arbitrary number. It's a guesstimate. And so that's where I'm more comfortable saying, hey,, we see these contracts from management companies, 10% is the going rate that everybody pushes to us, whichever end, I'm perfectly comfortable saying, okay, you did this management and we'll just call it the 10% for now since they feel their costs exceeded the 10% anyways, or at least their management fees was where I think my angle is that I don't, I agree with Buddy, I don't like saying this is an hourly rate without really, you know, like Some thorough accounting of the actual management work, buddy. [1:02:05] Speaker A (unidentified): yeah i guess i would just add to that like that is kind of why there is that cap in the first place with it in the other category right like, it's to sort of control for, or not control, but, like, mitigate, you know, like, in an arbitrary inflating of the numbers or whatever, if there isn't, like, a ton of evidence to show exactly what happened, like, physical evidence. So, I'm with you there. All [1:02:43] Speaker D (unidentified): right, we've got a motion on the table, Matt, so either vote it up or vote it down. [1:02:46] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, my question is, do we, you know, are you, are you, would you consider amending it to cap those numbers? Or we could vote on this, but I'd immediately, like, raise a motion to cap it back down. Down, and so I don't know, it feels more comfortable and succinct to me to have it in [1:03:13] Speaker D (unidentified): the motion to move it. What are we capping it at as a, as a group? That would, do we want to cap it at 10? I mean, is that what would, I don't want to choose a cap and then we go through this all over again. So, I mean, we're, yeah, forward 10. [1:03:37] Speaker B (unidentified): Was just my thought, because that's, that's the rate that we keep getting presented with and that we've seen in a lot of the contracts. Buddy, what are your thoughts on that? [1:03:49] Speaker A (unidentified): What the cap that Matt was just saying? Yeah, 10. Yeah, I think that seems fair, because, like, I do kind of agree that, like, maybe this stuff wasn't, like, what we think of as underperforming labor, but the way that it's assessed, I have the same concerns in terms, you know, versus management fees. I have kind of the same concerns if we're doing it that in the same formula, if that makes sense. Makes sense to me. Sorry, but yes, 10 sounds [1:04:22] Speaker D (unidentified): good, Ben, because there's a second. Can I amend, or do I have to, with what do I do? I'm [1:04:32] Speaker H (unidentified): not good with the rules. Yeah, so first I would just add, I think if the board is going to impose a cap on owner performed management fees that isn't necessarily already established by your rules, I would recommend that the board make explicit findings as to what it is relying on in order to develop that number. And I think the board has articulated where that proposed cap is coming from. I might say just in this case, maybe it's just cleaner to withdraw the motion and make another motion that encapsulates what's been discussed by the board. [1:05:18] Speaker D (unidentified): Okay, then I withdraw my motion. [1:05:28] Speaker B (unidentified): Crystal, I see you don't have your hand raised. [1:05:32] Speaker D (unidentified): To make a new motion? I think what Ben's saying is we need to make a, is it a finding for the 10%, Ben? [1:05:41] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah, [1:05:44] Speaker H (unidentified): Well, I think as long as the board members are in agreement, it sounds as though the board feels that a 10% cap would be appropriate on owner performed management fees because generally the board has received evidence and other proceedings demonstrating that 10% of gross income is typically what professional management companies charge landlords to do. Manage their properties. Assuming the board is in agreement with that, I would just make sure, you know, I think you have discussed that for the record. That will be reflected in your findings, assuming that all the board members are in agreement on that. And I don't necessarily know that you would need to motion to establish that. But, you know, I think I would just want to make sure for the purposes of making sure the record is clear that all our board members are in agreement with that if that is going to be a part of the substance of the motion that the board will make alternatively the board could make a motion to sort of establish that as a finding that underpins the basis of a subsequent motion that you make but [1:07:21] Speaker B (unidentified): You are going to wonderful [1:07:22] Speaker D (unidentified): I have my transcript on, so I can make sure I don't. Okay. I'm going to make a motion that we find that, as a general rule, we use a 10% cap on owner-performed management services based on the, that is the most common figure that we've been presented with when commercial management companies are used. You want to restate it? You want to adjust it? [1:08:37] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I guess that's my, I want to keep it to that we're discussing that we're currently taking this application by application at least. And I'm concerned with the wording that maybe we're saying that we're [1:08:52] Speaker D (unidentified): Establishing a rule isn't that what Ben just said is [1:09:02] Speaker H (unidentified): That let me suggest this to the board I mean the board confronted this issue recently in another application and the basis for its allowance of management fees in that other application was premised on specific findings with respect to the evidence that was presented to you. In other words, it was sort of a narrow finding on those particular management fees that was based on, you know, the evidence that had been presented by the landlord rather than a broader ruling that might have implications for future applications. And I generally agree with what some of the board members have said, that I do think this issue is best addressed through a rulemaking process. That being said, I think it is definitely true that what the board has seen is, generally speaking, property management companies are charging something in the range of 10% of gross revenue to manage properties. So you're not sort of pulling that number out of thin air. That does seem to be an industry standard. So, I mean, I think there's a narrow approach to addressing this issue with respect to this application based on the facts that have been presented to you. And there is another approach that might have more broader implications for future applications until you do amend your rules, and maybe the board wants the flexibility to continue to be able to address this on a case-by-case basis until you have amended your rules to establish something that's a little more hard and fast for these types of situations, or at least a little more clear than what you currently have in the ordinance, or excuse me, your rules and the ordinance as well, okay. [1:11:15] Speaker G (unidentified): [1:11:18] Speaker B (unidentified): I feel like we've been talking about this forever. Let me try and roll this into one if you don't mind, right, expert. We're short a second on that other side, on the other motion anyways, so for lacking a second on that, so I move that we move the owner-performed labor for both the base year and the current year to the manager, management services category based on the description of what the labor was for provided by the applicant. And that in the case of this application, we cap those amounts then of what is now owner-performed management at 10% of the gross rental income for the year based on previous contracts and other evidence that we've seen in other proceedings. Enough? I second. Further discussion? All right. I'll call a two vote. All right. The motion is that we move the owner performed labor for both the base year and current year to the manager management services category based on the description of what the labor was for provided by the applicant. And that in the case of this application, we cap those amounts then at what is now owner performed management at 10% of the gross rental income for that year based on, with that number based on previous contracts and other evidence we've seen in other proceedings, Boston. [1:13:14] Speaker C (unidentified): Yes, buddy. Yes, Jonas. Yes, and I also vote. Oh, yes. So now [1:13:48] Speaker B (unidentified): it remembered my calculation. Look at that. [Speaker G (unidentified): All right.] That looked like I got that right. [1:14:08] Speaker E (unidentified): Yes. Yeah, I'm liking it. [1:14:16] Speaker G (unidentified): All right. So [1:14:19] Speaker B (unidentified): Now on to capital improvements and some math here. And did you have some specific call-outs, Kristen? Because I did not plug in the capital improvement side of this particular. [1:14:36] Speaker D (unidentified): Can we just add up column I and make sure that it agrees? [1:14:56] Speaker B (unidentified): Yes. And if you want, there's also at the bottom, I guess it's without the math. If there is numbers in here you wanted to check, then. [Speaker C (unidentified): And then, so,] and the other side with this is there's not all units were impacted by the renovations, and I'm not sure if we want to adjust those. It's my understanding, I think, you know, my thought is that all the units got renovated. So, even though, you know, one renovation went to one unit and one renovation went to the other unit, we're kind of dealing with it as the whole of the property. But all right so 154 right 899 49 or 19 140 196 [Speaker C (unidentified): if] I go wide enough do I get that there we go all right so [Speaker G (unidentified): that's] oh sorry I added college yeah I was like yeah [1:16:46] Speaker D (unidentified): if we could just do because column i is what ties to the application so yeah you [1:16:52] Speaker B (unidentified): guys just let me do the whole thing and you're probably staring at me with i saying matt what do you do interrupt okay 10 790 okay 1850 plus 10 790 5 plus 592 plus 5025 plus 1679 seven, nine plus two, three, five, seven. Oh, sorry. And I realized I'm also like acting like you can read my calculator, but you can't because I'm not sharing that. 22, 293. That's what I get is 22, 293. Yeah, that's what I got too. So I was just noticing thing and the column was off okay so 22 293 so that comes into here right that updates yep all [1:17:56] Speaker C (unidentified): those all right so [1:18:03] Speaker B (unidentified): and we backed out that and i think we're really getting somewhere here okay so unless i'm missing something i think we at least have at the moment reconcile the current issues being discussed and I think the next unless again unless pull me back if there's something you want to hit before that but I think the next discussion is the base year rent a gross rental income adjustment if there's any adjustments to have [1:18:47] Speaker C (unidentified): there. And my shows. [1:18:58] Speaker B (unidentified): So here's some historical rent we had. [Speaker C (unidentified): So what] I had really seen is that I thought there was really only one or so of these units that at least by inflation from this or by Boston Metro CPI. I did November to November for 2008 to 2019. And anyways, this one that's so right, so we really have ones that started at 900. And then ones that started, let me see if I can move this note so I saw and I can pull up hopefully where I did some math on it, but so for the units that started at 900, this I saw, I saw the 2008 to 2019 November to November Boston Metro change as a 22% increase. And so then from those, I think the only unit that I saw that maybe in 2019 hadn't come up far enough was this first floor unit one of that. And I don't know if there's other factors people want to continue consider, usually without kind of like anything else to go on and when it's just kind of like oh wish it was market seems like this that we generally just use this kind of escalate where we were given rental history to with this with the CPI pause for comment. [1:21:44] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristen I'm just gonna say I agree with you, I mean I know what we usually look for in the base year adjustment and I don't think I'm, I don't think this is qualifying. [1:21:56] Speaker B (unidentified): I will and I mean I do stuff was kept decently low but it did seem to follow the you know we saw it so there is that one piece so I would think you know I'd propose we take this at least there's an extra 98 20 21 times 12 months potentially that goes into the base here. [1:22:21] Speaker A (unidentified): For that unit buddy, oh yeah I put my hand down because I didn't think it was that important but I just but I'll say it anyway I guess like I do think this is gonna come up later and probably will keep coming up, it's the theme here, but you know I guess like I just do want to know, I mean it's like kind of irrelevant here based on the math but like I don't know if like the pattern like I don't know if like rent increases not pacing with inflation is sufficient on its own to adjust the base rent. Which like I know we've kind of like looked at in the past but I feel like for me the question is more so like if that pattern of rent increases prevented or like caused a disproportionate gross income right, like there's some except exceptional circumstance that's causing them to not outpace inflation, not simply that they didn't outpace inflation, but again not really an issue here at all but I guess I just wanted to flag it because I think it's going to keep coming up and could potentially come. Up against how we interpret things in the future, yeah. [1:23:55] Speaker B (unidentified): I think it's definitely one of the points for that stuff. [Speaker G (unidentified): For that feature.] So, and we do have an agenda item to talk about the application update and stuff, so we should definitely, we do need to get on addressing it. But yeah, that's kind of, I was basically holding with the pattern we've done. And to me, this does, like, particularly Unit One has seen a hundred dollar increase in the last 11, you know, in the 11 years leading up to the base year. To me is pretty exceptional. You know, I've, I've rented a long time, and I think there's only one unit that's come anywhere close to leaving me at rent for that, you know, without anything thing, and I do consider an exceptional, that was an exceptional situation. So not to draw too much on the personal experience, but as a, from my professional experience as a tenant, to me that is at least particularly that it's exceptional. You know, some of these others, it's right, at least the particularly because it was higher. These other ones have come up decently. You know, I've also come up at least 200 or something from the lower rent number, so that was kind of the one that I at least flagged was like stuck with, you know, how we've been doing, and [1:25:25] Speaker E (unidentified): that was, that was my thought. It winds up being right. We're gonna an adjustment of 1178 is what I got. If you take the 98 21 and multiply it by 12 for the 2019, yeah, 178 right, even 52 maybe, so [1:25:47] Speaker C (unidentified): so I'll [1:26:00] Speaker B (unidentified): just move it for discussion, at least. So I move that we do find that at least in the case of Unit One for 72 William Street, the rent was kept exceptionally low and in comparison to even the CPI change for Boston Metro, and that we increase the base year gross rent income by that $1,178.52 that difference would make. That's my motion. Second. Discussion? Seeing none, I'll restate and call it to a vote. I feel like I said a long mouthful of words. All right, so the motion is that we find that in the case of Unit 1 for 72 William Street, the rent was kept exceptionally low, even in comparison to the CPI change for Boston, and that we increase the base year gross rent income by $1,178.52 based on the change for the Boston Metro CPI from November 2008 to November 2019. [1:27:51] Speaker C (unidentified): Kristen. Yes. Jonas. Yes. Buddy. Yes. And I vote yes. [1:28:03] Speaker G (unidentified): So, all right. Now [1:28:28] Speaker B (unidentified): I think what we're missing is banked rent. Yeah. So, Dylan, if you don't mind, I would love to draw on you, unless somebody else has done some math they feel really good about. I would love to draw on you for what these rents have been set to and when the payback was from, so we know kind of like what year we have a last legal rent at, and we can calculate banked rent from there, unless you have a banked rent calculation for these, Dylan. [1:29:09] Speaker K (unidentified): I do not have a banked rent calculation due to not knowing the amount of tenant turnover and variables like that and tax rate run adjustment. So I can tell you the bank, the only unit that had to be reset rent was Unit 3, and that was reset to $1,200 for the year of 2025. So that 2.5% of $1,200 could be banked, but I don't know the other variables and history behind the unit. [1:29:53] Speaker E (unidentified): So $30? [1:29:54] Speaker C (unidentified): And [1:30:01] Speaker B (unidentified): So then I think we need to go through and look at the, we had somewhere in here, right, we have the, maybe because that's not the real numbers for this, we did, Buddy, do you have the page that the [1:30:19] Speaker C (unidentified): actual rent worksheet was on, so I'm pretty close to it [1:30:31] Speaker E (unidentified): It is page 22 of our packet. [1:30:36] Speaker G (unidentified): It. Thanks so much. [1:31:45] Speaker B (unidentified): Doesn't seem like maybe all this has been taken. I'm looking at page 24 of our packet. And right, so do we want to get the applicant in and confirm when there was new tenancies? And so because I'm also wondering about the like, so on page 24, right, it's got rent using the current year income calculation for like unit one is 1500, but rent as of date petition submitted is 2100, and so an initial rent of those tenants is 2000, so I think that's, there has been increases taken for the unit one tenants rents. And if that was 15 [Speaker G (unidentified): million, I] should have gotten a better worksheet for this from this time, right? So when just unit three is brought down, all right, let's just do this one time. All right, so the unit one, I don't really see how there's banked rent. I'm not sure where this, you know, when this increase came in, and we may just need to pull the applicant back in, unless somebody else is seeing some other good piece of information in the packet. I think we just, we requested a lot of rent history but not that specific one, all [Speaker G (unidentified): right] So I don't really see there being banked rent on unit one, Dylan. [1:37:11] Speaker G (unidentified): Thank [1:37:17] Speaker K (unidentified): you, Mr. Chair. I do feel like I have to flag this, that this information given on this adjustment worksheet does not match the information we provided during [Speaker C (unidentified): the audit. Okay.] The lease for unit three were provided for 2025 was for 2100. Okay. [1:37:39] Speaker G (unidentified): For [1:37:56] Speaker B (unidentified): Unit five or for Unit 3. But Unit 3 has now been reset back to 1,200, right? [1:38:06] Speaker K (unidentified): Yes, that's correct. The information for the other units don't match what was provided to our office, though. Okay. [1:38:26] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm not sure how you guys want to, yeah, you have a proposal for how to handle, or Ben, if you have thoughts on something potentially conditional. Buddy, go ahead. [1:38:35] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, Mr. Chair, I mean, I hate to do this I guess, but also like sunk cost fallacy a little bit where I do wonder if it's maybe better to let the applicant and the housing or the licensing housing safety division sort this out and make sure that they're providing us with the right numbers before we go down this path, because I do feel like the margin of error is increasing and I don't want us to like make a ruling that is based off of the wrong math or the wrong numbers and it seems like things aren't really lining up matching up with what licensing housing safety has with what we're working with, so I do wonder if it's maybe better for us to put this off for another month and let the applicant get all of that squared away, because ultimately, you know, the burden is on them to provide all this [1:39:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Jonas, just before you jump in, I just counsel, do you feel that we could make a decision with the condition of the bank of minus the banked rent to be determined by the city? I know we always specify this [1:40:09] Speaker H (unidentified): number generally but i 'm generally in agreement with buddy that the best approach is probably to table and direct the applicant to provide you with accurate bank rent figures, particularly if you can't determine what those are based on what's in front of you. I mean, alternatively, I think the board could move on to the remaining agenda items. And if the applicant is able to provide you with that information, then perhaps the board could move forward with the decision tonight, but it sounds like the city has some concerns that maybe there are more significant errors based on the calculations you're seeing, and given those concerns, I think it would be reasonable for the board to table so those issues can be straightened [1:41:01] Speaker E (unidentified): out thanks council jonah sorry i didn't mean to step on no i 'm agreeing with what everyone's saying and personally i do think we should table it i guess i'm i'm a little frustrated that this wasn't caught during the completeness review right so i guess my question is how do we make sure that during a completeness review our numbers are lining up with h&s just so we don't get to this point in the future yeah [1:41:33] Speaker B (unidentified): Yep, I agree. I think, you know, in some cases we've actually, we've had the city provide some information into the application, and maybe we kind of make some part of that a standard not to put too much more work on the city. But I think that's maybe the only place we're gonna get validated numbers from, particularly in a case like this. All right, then, does somebody have a motion, I guess, to table this for us to get validated numbers, at least on the rent history between the base year and the current year for this application, if not also getting the actual banked rent figured out? [1:42:28] Speaker A (unidentified): Motion to table until our next regularly scheduled meeting. Motion to table this application for 72 William Street. My [1:42:40] Speaker C (unidentified): second. All [1:42:44] Speaker B (unidentified): right, motions to table it. Any further discussion? Could we at least, I mean, I think we've kind of outlined what we need to see, but I don't know if there's, you'll be helpful to be specific in what we want to get back here. You know, we can work with the city independently, but I think the applicant needs to potentially to make sure that these numbers are right. That's what we're saying. Yeah. [1:43:18] Speaker A (unidentified): I mean, yeah, I think it's kind of implicit what we've been saying, but like specifically, like as Ben kind of was mentioning, like the correct rents adjusted for those, you know, potential violations or for making sure that the city's numbers line up with the numbers on the application and letting us know how much bank rent there is. That's, I think, pretty crucial for us to be able to determine an actual amount here. All [1:43:52] Speaker B (unidentified): right, so the request is exactly to have rental numbers for these units for the application years that are validated by the city and ideally the remaining banked rent for every unit to go with it. All right. I will call that to a vote, then, to table this application without any further discussion. Kristen? Yes. Buddy? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Yeah. And I also vote yes. So, Dylan, you probably kind of have the full list, but I'll make sure to send you notes as well if you want something. I just meant, like, making you show your face sometimes, Dylan, just to... All right. All right. Does... Do we want a short recess, five minutes or something, before we carry on to the next agenda item? Or is everybody good to go? [1:45:48] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristen? And I suggest that we get to the next application, just because we're waiting on public comment. It's, I think we're gonna have a lot of the same issues, so we can hear the public comment and then decide what we want to do, and then maybe we take a break after that because we have somebody waiting. [1:46:03] Speaker B (unidentified): Sounds great. All right, all right, so we are addressing unfinished business item B, the rent increase application public comment, 476 Williams Street, all three units. It's, will, I'll get you in here and welcome [1:46:43] Speaker C (unidentified): back. Will, there we go, now we're unmuted, right, the [1:46:57] Speaker B (unidentified): coming in muted is always its own little trick. All right, I know we've kind of done the review, but for 76, I think, yeah, if there's anything particular you want to point out about this unit [1:47:09] Speaker F (unidentified): it just hitting on 72, so 72, Dylan's gonna reach out to me and clarify what, is incongruous and needs to be answered as far as questions go. [1:47:28] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I think that sounds right. Dylan, is that, 's functional for you, can reach out to [1:47:33] Speaker F (unidentified): the applicant and then he can obviously help me with the bank right question, that sort of thing. [1:47:38] Speaker B (unidentified): Exactly, then he can get the rest of the information, we can, he can verify the numbers, get the information on like turnover or those sort of things, and yeah, and yeah, okay, because [1:47:49] Speaker F (unidentified): yeah, I'm sure everybody, not my, not, you know, myself included, is kind of, you know, this would be the fourth meeting for this. Yeah, we should have, my hand raised before, I didn't realize those [1:48:02] Speaker B (unidentified): numbers, you know, we had the mismatch there. No, I'm not, you know, I don't, I'm not trying to [1:48:07] Speaker F (unidentified): to lay blame, and it's just, I just pointed out it's frustrating for everybody. Yeah, and I was raising my hand only to try to help process for you guys, because I think, I think you're spot on that the management stuff probably is just the number you keep in house and is a percentage, like you're saying, 10 of the gross rents, and then the owner's supply of labor would be just hard cost, so owners applied labor and direct materials to do repairs, renovations, that sort of thing, so that way it does help delineate and help clarify, because right now the process is pretty vague and unclear, as you know, so that was that, but as far as 76, it was kind of the same, I mean, I've had that building for 34 or five years, and that second floor was originally was a two bedroom. It was a two bedroom when I got it. And then when those first tenants moved out, I changed it back to a one bedroom just to kind of simplify things because there's less political dynamics with the fewer bedrooms you have in situations and you have less turnover. So it became much more stable with one bedrooms. But then this is a man who lives there by himself, then his girlfriend moved in, then her dog moved in, now her one of her kids moved in, then one of his kids moved in. So it's like, okay, now you clearly got it as a two-bedroom, you know, because you have four people there and two dogs. So to help him out while he's trying to find a place, I suggested we change it to make it a two bedrooms so I didn't have to fight them on it constantly who was there and all this stuff because obviously it puts a toll on the infrastructure, yeah. [1:50:06] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, and that's the big difference here, right, in this particular unit. I think that's the, yeah, the other ones don't have [1:50:12] Speaker F (unidentified): they're not giant renovations. I'm hoping to do those as I have changeovers because my, I usually invest when I have change over, that's when I really update things. So great. [1:50:29] Speaker C (unidentified): Thank you. [1:50:31] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, now I do know, as stated, that we have a tenant here to speak, so we'll all get you back into attendees for the minute and Amy. [1:50:58] Amy Lafreniere: Amy, thank you very so very much for your patience. Hi there. Okay, again, my name is Amy Lafreniere and I live at 76 William Street number three. I have stayed through the whole meeting in attendance and have listened to all the proceedings and I, have two things. I have concerns of the tenant, and then I have more philosophical concerns about the way this entire thing is being administered. As a tenant, I know that my rent is abnormally low for this city, and there is no way I would be able to find another apartment that is as nice, comfortable, safe, well-kept and quiet as what I live in now. And I don't understand how we are as a city putting the onus of low rents on a small operator who genuinely, is a straight shooter who wants to keep good people in decent housing and make sure that their needs are met. I would not be able to find another place to live for this rent. And I feel like this is putting Will through the ringer in a way that is, you know, if he owned 100 units, he would have a legal team to deal with this. And I don't think that he is, it's just apples and oranges with other operators in the city. I think that, you know, I'm a very politically progressive person. But I feel like this policy is landing unfairly on small operators. And it's really a subsidy. And if it's a subsidy that you're trying, you know, because the cost of living in Portland has grown a lot, but the way in which rent growth is being administered does not take into account things like tax increases, utility increases. I don't pay for [1:53:18] Speaker A (unidentified): my own heat. Mr. Chair, this feels a little out of order. Are we talking about the application at hand here? Are we talking about people's general political stances on rent control in general? I just don't feel like this is really appropriate anymore. I think what I'm getting [1:53:40] Speaker B (unidentified): Amy is what you're saying is that you are for this increase, that you're not, you're not an objector in the sense that, not at all, I am, I am very happy to make sure Will gets his [1:53:51] Amy Lafreniere: I'm, I'm very happy with my situation, and I'm concerned that the amount of pressure that's being put on him is that he's going to sell the building to somebody who's a bad landlord and is going to raise the rent because they are going to have the resources to do it in a way. I see what goes on in the neighborhood here. There are people running Airbnbs that aren't registered with the city. There are people who are running other kinds of, you know, rental situations that are underground, and he's not doing that, and I'm really concerned that I'm not going to have a place to live that is as comfortable, safe, and quiet, and lovely as I have right now, because of what's happening with this. That's my concern as a tenant. I want, I want for us to have a nice place to live. [1:54:41] Speaker B (unidentified): This increase is basically the, you do want to make sure that the landlord, you're, you're, you're not opposed in this situation to the landlord getting an increase in [1:54:55] Amy Lafreniere: Oh my god, no. Rent beyond what rent control states, I considered one of the other units that has been in question during this, these proceedings, and it is beautiful, and it is, it is still under market. It is absolutely under market. Quite frankly, I don't know how he's going to get his return on investment based on the way the math is working that you're talking about. I don't understand how that works for somebody who's invested a considerable amount of money in these properties and keeping them good. I don't know. Oh, all right. I'm done now. [1:55:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you so much, Amy. I appreciate it. It's rare that we have a tenant, I think, come and speak on behalf of the increase. And so I very much appreciate you coming and sharing the reality of your situation from that perspective. [1:56:01] Amy Lafreniere: Right. Because he hasn't arbitrarily raised the rent. He keeps it the same unless changes happen. happen. [1:56:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you very much. All right. I'm going to move you back to attendees. If you'd like to provide some general public comment, but it still should be in relation to this unit. I know we have a lot of like, the rent control still has a lot of work to get it to get it right for Portland but I think if you have other commentary probably unrelated to the this particular application I think the proper forums are either a we will have we do have workshops from time to time so watch the agenda announcements for the rent board because that's definitely a place where we take public comment when we do a workshop to discuss one of these items, to discuss rule changes and that sort of thing. And I do think if you want, the city council meetings are also a good forum, and they sometimes have also subcommittees that particularly address issues related to the rent control. All right. Looks like we've got Ann-Laure. Hi. All right so we are in the public hearing for 76 Williams Street and we've heard from the objectors and I'll give a chance for members of the general public to speak if there's anybody who's not a necessarily interested party but of the public go ahead and raise your hand all right Will if you have a chance to offer rebuttal to the statements provided by Amy but I'm not sure there's something to review to rebut I'll get it right one of these days raise your hand if you did want to speak there And all right then and so now if members of the board oh well I'm just gonna well I'm just gonna allow you to talk instead of moving [1:59:00] Speaker F (unidentified): You in at the moment sorry about that I'm a little slow on the buttons yeah I guess I guess the big point is that my long-term tenants in four of the units are this process because they know I'm going through it has made them extremely nervous. So, and upset. So that's, that's all I'll say about that. Thank you. [1:59:30] Speaker B (unidentified): All right. Now questions from the board for the applicant or objectors. All right. Seeing none. And there's really nothing else to respond to then. I look for a motion to close the public comment. [2:00:15] Speaker D (unidentified): A motion to close the public comment for 72 William Street. 76. 76, sorry. Thank you. [2:00:26] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll second. A motion to close the public comment for 76 William Street. I'm called to a vote. [2:00:35] Speaker C (unidentified): Kristen? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Yes, buddy. Yes. And I vote yes. [2:00:45] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, now I will give the chance if we want, if people wanted a short pause for relief or whatever, otherwise we can continue with these deliberations. [Speaker C (unidentified): All] right, well then let's continue. So I think first probably a quick discussion of Ann Laura's participation here. At this point there's, there's not really much of public comment that was missed, but there was discussion from the other unit that was missed, and I'm not sure if it's best for Anne-Laure to just abstain from this particular deliberation. Counsel, if you have thoughts, or Anne-Laure, if you have thoughts. I [2:01:57] Speaker L (unidentified): thought I would abstain since I didn't have the context of what you all just heard in the public hearing, but Ben? [2:02:05] Speaker H (unidentified): I think that's fine. I was just going to add, I don't think there was much new information that was provided. And given that, I don't have any objections to Anne Moore participating. I'm assuming the landlord doesn't either. If the chair wants to ask him that question, I think that's appropriate, but given what was presented in the, public here portion of the meeting, I don't see or have significant [2:02:34] Speaker B (unidentified): concerns with antler participating. So, and Laura, if you'd like to, and then I'd want to check [2:02:42] Speaker L (unidentified): with the applicant as well. Yep, I'm happy to if the applicant is okay with that. [2:02:50] Speaker B (unidentified): And will, I, you to talk for a minute, and I just want to confirm if you're okay with that. I will [2:02:56] Speaker C (unidentified): summarize the, that's fine, thanks. [2:03:04] Speaker B (unidentified): And so, and Lord, to summarize, I think the primary of the public comment was, and the questions asked is, was really that one of the tenants spoke and in favor of approval of an increase that will has done the management himself and was also the labor for the construction for renovation work, but we can discuss that when we, as we get into deliberations too. I think if you have questions from that previous one, but I think in terms of this, that was really the only public comment there. Let me pull back. And get wills, yeah, oh, and so the other big part of the public comment here is the clarification, and I know Will's clarified this before, but just we asked him to reiterate, I think, so that the second floor was originally a two-bedroom. He turned it back into a one-bedroom because that's an easier rental situation, and then the current tenant started as a single person, added a girlfriend, added a dog, and a kid, and now is adding another kid. And so in that, he's converted that change that to a two-bedroom, and I think the one piece we didn't catch with that, and I thought it was in the application, but is the what the rent increase or change in rent may have been given with that change to the two-bedroom. I don't think we discussed that at all, so that wasn't, that wasn't touch on in the public comment, just that it was changed. All right, so somebody have a place they wanted to start things in terms of we have any math to recheck, Kristin? So I'm gonna suggest [2:05:42] Speaker D (unidentified): that we maybe start with the same conversation regarding the owner performed labor. Same situation in this application, and then maybe while we're doing that, we're going to come across the same banked rent, and just because there was an NOV for this one, too. Is that correct, Dylan? [2:06:06] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that would be the first thing just to back out. [2:06:09] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, yes, that's correct. [2:06:11] Speaker D (unidentified): So I just anticipate we're going to have the same exact conversation on this application of, is the information on the rents correct? What is the banked rent? What is the NOV? So we can adjust the income, and then are we going to end up in the same place with this application? And do we go the same route? So Matt, I don't know which one you want to start with, but. [2:06:35] Speaker G (unidentified): It [2:06:39] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, I guess let's just go through that manages fine, or Dylan, if you have the change what was reimbursed in the NOV, we could just start at the top right there like we did with [2:06:51] Speaker K (unidentified): the other one, and yeah, so I do have the reimbursement totals. The issue with this one is the reimbursement total includes 2026 overcharges. I don't have it separated out into to which reimbursement amount went to what year, so we did not know, our office did not know the starting point of the rent increase that was ineligible. [2:07:19] Speaker B (unidentified): Okay, so we're gonna have to get that from the applicant. [2:07:29] Speaker D (unidentified): And Dylan, is that gonna be a similar conversation about banked rent? [2:07:36] Speaker K (unidentified): Correct, we don't have updated banked rent for these units. I do have the amount that they were reduced to for the 2025 rent amounts. [2:07:49] Speaker D (unidentified): So Matt, can I just make a suggestion for the board to consider? Do we table this application as well and just allow all of the update of information so that we can have one conversation when we deliberate this application? Because we won't be able to, we can get through some of it. My other thought is it would give Ann-Laure an opportunity to review the part of the meeting that she missed so she would understand the conversation we're having about the owner-performed labor versus the management fees and she'd be able to participate in that [2:08:24] Speaker B (unidentified): conversation. I'm sorry, I froze for almost all of that. Did you [2:08:33] Speaker D (unidentified): read the transcript? Maybe. Yeah. [2:08:36] Speaker C (unidentified): Let's see. Yes. [2:08:47] Speaker B (unidentified): That did. Wow, that's fun. Awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's the other board members feel like that's the best course here. Jonas, I think it's a little tricky because I feel like [2:09:05] Speaker E (unidentified): we got 72 Williams to like the, you know, five yard line and we're like basically almost done with that. We just need the H&S numbers to match up with what we're talking. This one though, I mean, if we knew what that NOV was for 2025, right, we could do the same thing and get to the five yard line, but if 2026 reimbursements are in that, I don't even know how we would get to the gross income for 2025, right? Like, so, and that's kind of how much more can we, I guess, where can we put into this, I guess, is the question. So I'm kind of with Kristen where I'm leaning toward tabling this, but if we want to plug away at a little bit, it just mean we're in better shape next month when we revisit this, right? So [2:10:03] Speaker B (unidentified): either way works for me if you wanna if someone wants to make a motion to table otherwise yeah i mean i think you're right we can work through these things but we're gonna talk it out with and laura a bunch of explaining our arguments and thoughts on the management change as well so yeah maybe that is really just and again she could abstain on those on those issues so you know i think i don't know yeah i think you're right if we can if you want we can get the applicant in and find out when those rent increases were, or we can just table this and have part of that be provided by the city worked out with the [2:10:47] Speaker G (unidentified): applicant. I'll take either. Yeah, I [2:10:59] Speaker E (unidentified): Mean, if we can figure out the gross income for 2025, I feel like we can again put in some real work and get this closer to the finish line. But I think that really does mean we need to get Will back in here and we understand that one piece, and if that piece we can all understand and move on, I think we can put in some more work on this. But absent of that, I'm happy to table it. I'm just looking ahead to next month and trying to, you know, check things off our list. Let's [2:11:35] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, unless somebody's gonna make a motion table at all, I'm gonna to grab the, allow the applicant to talk and see if we can pin down when these rent increases were. Hey Will, hopefully you're still with us. Hi, so as you've heard, we're at the place where those NOVs were resolved, but what we need would need to know is, I guess when, how much of those reimbursements, or what your total reimbursement for 2025 rents alone was, is really just the number we need. Or you need a total for the building for the building of everything you reimbursed for just months of 2025. Hold on a second, I do have that information here [2:12:45] Speaker F (unidentified): one of these files in here. So no, maybe there it is. Yeah, hopefully I got it right here, some checks. Yeah, I can, let me, let me grab my checkbook. That's probably [2:13:25] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah, we'll give you a few if you want to just raise your hand when you think you have the number. Does that work? All [2:13:37] Speaker F (unidentified): right, and my checkbook ledger here. Let's see [2:13:53] Speaker G (unidentified): it is [2:13:57] Speaker B (unidentified): no worries, you can, like I said, we can kind of continue discussion if you want [2:14:02] Speaker F (unidentified): one of the apartments was 2500, the other one was 750. Don't [2:14:15] Speaker K (unidentified): so those match the reimbursement checks that I cited earlier, but those include, as far as I'm aware, those include 2026 overcharges [2:14:27] Speaker C (unidentified): yes you're [2:14:31] Speaker F (unidentified): right Dylan, I didn't, I didn't separate out between 25 and 26 so [2:14:41] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah, that's, that's the piece we're going to have to isolate. So there were two units, both were being charged an overage amount of rent. Do you have when that rent increase was given, that [2:15:00] Speaker F (unidentified): was above the allowed amount, that I'll have to look up. I'm sure I have it in my pile of paperwork here. So I think we're gonna have to table it and all right and get like Dylan and I work out what exactly what everybody needs so that we can have one final go at this and get from the five yard line across, cross the finish line and be done with it. Yeah, yep, all right, all right, thanks Will [2:15:32] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, if you do wind up carving, you know, finding that somewhere or hitting it in the next few, just give your hand a raise so that it seems best to table, because I think otherwise, I think it'll be easier and lord of to watch our discussion from the 72 and at least be fully up to pace of the conversation we had about, because we did have a conversation about order perform labor versus owner perform management and how we handle them, and then made a on this application only for this specific situation for now decision on it, and so that's probably best. All right, so then I'd look for a motion to table this for Anne-Laure. [2:16:29] Speaker L (unidentified): I would, I'll make the motion. Maybe it's just me and my drive, but are the notices a violation with the application? I'm not seeing them. [2:16:42] Speaker K (unidentified): They're not currently because they have been resolved since they are in the old folders. [2:16:48] Speaker L (unidentified): Oh, in the old folders, okay, got it. I wasn't seeing it, so I wasn't sure, but I didn't dig. Okay, great. I would then move to table 76, Williams, to the next regularly scheduled rent board. Second. [2:17:02] Speaker B (unidentified): All right. And Dylan, you'll reach out to the applicant with both those requests, because we now have two-piece information. information we need to confirm the actual rent numbers and therefore the banked rent, and then also confirm how much was paid back in 2025 so we can get the gross right. And then I'll also call that to a vote to table the 76 William Street application until our next regularly scheduled meeting. Kristen. Yes. Jonas. Yes. Buddy. Yes. And Laura. Yes. And I also vote yes. [2:17:56] Speaker C (unidentified): Let's make some notes. Give [2:18:01] Speaker B (unidentified): me just a sec. Update notes. All right. Well, now I'll offer again. Is there a recess desired prior to going into our next piece of business? Yes we got five minutes. Yes, all right, let's take five minutes, sufficient for everybody and notice like I'm fresh. All right, take five minutes and come back at 7 27 [2:19:00] Speaker C (unidentified): 7 p.m. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Welcome [2:24:48] Speaker B (unidentified): back to the June 24th, 2026 meeting of the Portland [Speaker C (unidentified): Rent Board. We] are now going into the public unfinished business item C on our agenda, And rent increase application public comment for $6.93 Washington Ave. All four units. All right. I know I had a few Jermys and attendees. So, Jermy, if you have one that you want me to promote in here. Yeah, there we go. Let me know if any, if you want to refresh on the public hearing, public comment proceeding, but yeah, generally here's your chance to kind of summarize, highlight items from your application. [2:26:16] Matt Hutchings: Sure. Can you hear me okay, Matt? [Speaker C (unidentified): Yes, very clearly.] Great my I had to switch computers my camera on this one's a little out of whack yeah so thanks to the board and Matt's chair Jeremy Hutchings I'm representing my parents Don and Fran Hutchings they've owned and ran the business was originally a flower shop Moon's Florist that my father bought from his mother my grandmother I also have on the phone my sister-in-law Alita Hutchings she married my brother one of my brothers she hasn't I don't think intend to speak but just to let you know she's On yeah so just real brief because I don't think Ann and Laurel was part of the completeness application so Moon's Florist was the original business my parents slowly converted it over to residential apartments And then eventually they closed the business and they're kind of retired and converted more and more of the structure over to rentals. So right now there are four residential units and there's one non-residential unit that's not part of the rent control board. The completeness application was submitted and approved last month. month. So we're here for the hearing. Just in general, there's several things that we're trying to get adjusted. The base year adjustment, we're asking for an adjustment based on the appraisal that we included in the application. And it's all summarized in the cover letter as well, just to make it kind of easy. The rent increases, we're asking to maximize them out at 10%. after the rate adjustment of the base year, and I've also included a schedule of how that would look over the next roughly five years. Some of the units aren't as far behind in the base year as others, so they would cap out earlier, and you can see that in the schedule. So there's two things. A third thing would be the expenses. A lot of the things like the utilities,, snow plowing, lawn care, they typically are passed along or not being charged, at least in my opinion, appropriately. I think they pay for power. I included a summary in the letter of the utilities that the tenants do pay for. And the reasoning behind that, as best as I can tell, is when the place was more of a business run, you know, a flower shop, the cost for the utilities were largely paid by the flower shop because it made sense at the time. It was just an expense to the business. But it doesn't make sense anymore because there is no business there to absorb those costs. So we're asking for those utilities to be able to be passed through to the tenant. The fourth thing that I don't think I hit upon very well in the completeness review is the management burden. I've been listening all evening, your time, afternoon my time, about management fees. And you can see here, actually having my letter, a request to do 10, which is what you guys came up with, your previous applicants, that lines up pretty well. I think that's reasonable. It's just too burdensome for my parents not to dwell on it, but they're in their, are 80s now, and they're starting to get some memory loss, unfortunately. So my brothers that are back east still are having to take a more active role. So I think 10 percent's, you know, fair and reasonable. So the completeness review, I think, Buddy, you weren't, I think you were on the road, and we're asking for some additional information, and I think the chair, Matt, you said it could be optional. I don't think I see it in the updated packet from Dylan, but I did ask my sister-in-law to go research some more historical rents. And I thought I had hit send, maybe I'm mistaken. I thought I hit send to justify or to show that even before the base year, the rents were fairly stable. But you can see just from my cover letter that the rents, they really have not been adjusted to keep up with markets. And yeah, so that's kind of it in a nutshell. I'm happy to answer any questions or just go back to the waiting room. Great. [2:30:52] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, we'll probably send you back there for a minute and then bring you back in and then send you back as we kind of just run through the public comment for a minute. That's the way it winds up being in the Zoom meeting. I do see, I did see that we have a letter from you with rents back to 2015, so that sounds right. Yeah, that sounds right. It's a little difficult. [2:31:18] Matt Hutchings: My mom ran the books and it was all paper, and you know, as the years go by, it just, it's hard to research all that back. So I think my sister-in-law Alita, I think she used tax returns to try to determine the gross rents and tease out the non-residential from the residential. But I think you can see that I'm not trying, not trying to hide anything. It's pretty stable, I think, from what I recall. Great, thank you so much. [2:31:53] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, I see we have at least somebody else in the participants with a hand raised, so I'll, I'll move you back to our attendees for a minute, and I'm sure we'll have some questions, so thank you, Jeremy, stick around, we'll be right back with you. All right, so now for any objectors to speak, this could be tenants or people who feel that they're specially interested parties and want to state why, so and I'd also like to bring attention now that we have, We have a piece of public comment from, we have some, we have some written public comment and I'd like to just confirm that at least all the board members have gotten a chance to review that. And Dylan, was that in the general public packet? [2:33:14] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, I see it. [2:33:16] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, in the drive, it's in the communications. [2:33:17] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, and it's in the public packet, so I don't think there's a need to, like, read it into the record or anything, unless council feels differently. And so, all right. So, April, you've had your hand raised. And let me give you an opportunity to talk. And please, of course, just introduce yourself. or standing. Can [2:33:54] April Bostridge: you hear me? Yes. Great. Good evening. My name is April Bostridge and I'm the tenant in apartment two at 963 Washington Ave. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I just want to raise some concerns with the petition. So I'm going to just jump right in. First, the vacancy at apartment three. The petition zone worksheet shows that units sat vacant for six months in 2025 march through august that vacancy was in the landlord's control not the tenants but that lost income is what's driving down the current internet operating income figure used throughout the petition the lower that number is the larger the gap appears between current income and the fair return target and that means the landlord can claim a larger increase I'd ask the board to consider whether a vacancy the landlord could have shortened should be allowed to inflate the rent increase the rest of us are asked to absorb second the multi-year schedule and also a number that's already changed there so this isn't a request for one increase it's a request to pre-approve six consecutive years of 10 increases that removes this board's oversight for six years and removes our ability to raise concerns as each increase actually arrives. If the board finds any increase justified, I'd ask that it be reviewed year by year, not locked in all at once. Also, the petition's own schedule starts from a current rent of $1,155 for my unit. That's no longer accurate. I did receive a 7% increase on June 1st, and I'd ask the board directly, does approving this petition's year one figure mean I owe an additional 3% on top of what I'm paying today, or does that schedule need to be recalculated entirely from my actual current rent? And depending on the answer, the real cumulative increase over the six years could run as high as 90% and not the roughly, you know, 70% the petition implies. Third, the base year adjustment. The petition asked the board to replace the 2019 actual income with a higher number based on an appraisal claiming our rents were below market. I understand that at the last hearing, the board's own counsel cautioned that an appraisal is an opinion not a fact and that the board isn't required to teach it treat it as such. I'd ask that the board weigh that caution tonight especially alongside the rent history the landlord submitted afterwards which shows apartments twos rent actually jumped from 850 to 1000 between 2017 and 2018 which is about a 17 increase in a single year well before rent control existed. That's hard to square with the petition's own claim that rents have been stable. Fourth the commercial space so this building also includes a commercial office out front rented to a bible study group bringing in roughly 21 000 a year separate from the four residential units. I'd ask the board to confirm that the shared building expenses like insurance property taxes snow removal dumpster are being allocated proportionally across all income sources including that commercial tenant and not loaded disproportionately onto the residential rent calculation. Fifth on absorbing utilities as a quote special circumstance the petition argues that the landlord absorbing water sewer and other costs historically is a special circumstance justifying a base year adjustment but the florist businesses own profit loss profit and loss statement which is newly submitted shows utilities were real recurring expenses every year from 2007 2015 to 2019 typically 5 to 7k annually. That's the ordinary cost of running this property not an unforeseen hardship. I'd also note that operating expenses rose about 33% from 2019 to 2025, while CPI over the same period rose only about 23% by the petition's own figures. The ordinance excludes unreasonable increases in expenses since the base year, and I'd ask the board to have the landlord identify which specific expenses increases were reasonable and necessary, rather than accepting the total figure as given. I'm almost through here. Hang with me. Separate from the commercial space, the application also lists Unit 5 as a small office the owners keep for personal use, claiming as fully exempt. I'd also note the petition includes a phone expense being charged pro rata to all four residential units, which is separate from the security fire alarm line, which we do have through Cunningham. This phone charge doesn't appear anywhere in the underlying operating expense worksheet, only in the per unit allocation table, and I'd ask the board to verify what that actually covers and where that service is being used before approving it as a pass-through. The management fee, so section one of the worksheet already lists Andy Hutchins, we know him well, as a paid manager, and the expense worksheet shows a management services line of $4,450 for 2025. The petition separately proposes adding a 10% property management fee on top of that. I'd ask the board to clarify whether this is a new expense or whether it risks double-counting the management costs already in the current operating budget. Budget, finally, I'd also know a second appraisal dated this year has been added to the petition estimating current market rent from my unit at 1600, about 450 above what I currently pay today. I don't believe that appraisal was part of the part of what tenants were originally noticed about, and I'd ask the board to clarify whether and how it factors into tonight's decision. To be clear, I understand landlords are entitled to a fair return. I'm not here to argue the ordinance shouldn't apply. I'm asking the board to scrutinize whether the inputs to this petition's fair return calculation actually hold up before approving it. Thank you. Thank you so much, April. I'm also happy to send a written copy. I opened this in my mail at like seven o'clock last night, so I didn't have time to do written notice, but I'm happy to send it along if my nervous [2:41:23] Speaker B (unidentified): talking was too fast. Thank you very much. I think, yeah, actually that was pretty, quite well-organized set of statements. All right. Anything else to add there, April? Nope, [2:41:42] April Bostridge: that'll do it for me, unless anyone has questions. Great. [2:41:45] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you so much. Yeah, we may allow you to talk in a few, just if there's further questions. All right. So now, are there any members of the general public that wish to provide comment here? Please raise your hand. [Speaker G (unidentified): And seeing] none, all right, Jeremy, then, if you would like to provide rebuttal, commentary to issues that were raised, let me, I guess since you don't have video, I'm just going gonna do the allow you to talk you should be able to talk momentarily yeah [2:43:03] Matt Hutchings: thanks quick question for dylan i'm not sure i did get a copy of the written public comment is that something that [2:43:13] Speaker K (unidentified): dylan could email me direct please i can it's also publicly available on the agenda and meetings [2:43:21] Matt Hutchings: portal okay maybe i'll go through the comments from april 1st and then try to download that because i'm not sure if there's something in writing i'm supposed to be responding to so the comment about apartment three is in landlord control for vacancy that's true the apartment was pretty trashed i think we dumped a bunch of money into it my parents did and we haven't asked for that capital adjustment to be even part of this application, but it took a while to line up contractors and get it ready to rent again. So is it in our control? Yeah, but we're trying to make a nice place for the next guy to rent and it doesn't happen overnight. The petition year by year. No, I don't agree to a new petition every year. year that's why i put in the schedule to bring it to market rates you know at one stop shop it's fair and reasonable to do that over five years it's not a direct increase right now the june 1st increase yeah i started working on this application in october of last year and i get it submitted before then so we are allowed to increase rents for the cpi or whatever. So I can't say how long it takes to get it agendized, but it takes a long time to get through this application. It's extremely confusing and sometimes conflicting. So when the rents increase, it just happens to be at this time. I don't think I am required to go backwards in time and get re-agendized for a new application once I've been deemed complete. So that is why June has increased hasn't been part of this application. Unfortunately it's just a timing issue. There was some talk about the appraisal. As far as I'm aware there's, I think I've only submitted one appraisal, and appraisals are a combination of, you know, market research and opinions. But that's why you get them and that's why we paid for it, is a professional appraisal done by an appraiser in your area. So yeah, whether the board wants to consider or not, I guess is up to the board, but these are the rules in your own application that we're trying to follow and we followed them. So I stand by their appraisal. There was some, the commercial space and the utilities, yeah, if you look at the application closely, I did try to spread it out, not just pro rata to the four apartments. So the four apartments are paying for all the plowing and lawn care and all the rest. I tried to prorate it out and also included the office that we keep, so everyone gets a share. And I basically based off a square footage, since there's really a lot of ways you could skin that cat, but I think I did off a square footage, so I think that's actually fair and equitable. There's some discussion about the profit and loss during the florist business. Yeah, she's right, so when the floor and that's why I said in my opening comments, the forest business did absorb some of those costs. So the rentals at those times prior to the rent control board were, you know, it was just, it was just incorporated into the cost of that business. But like I stated, the business is closed and it closed before the rent control board went into place. My parents just kept paying the rents because there really wasn't any, if they really needed more money they could increase their rents as they wanted to at the time, but they really haven't. And I really dispute the fact that they've increased them dramatically. We're not required to go back prior to the base year and show more information, but we did. I still think it shows reasonable increases. I've been a tenant and a landlord and I've, I've certainly had my rank go up by more than what my parents have increased the rents over the last 20 of the 30 years they've been running these places. We talked about unit five. There was some discussion about the CPI difference. I'm not sure I totally followed it. I used the formula you guys came up with, which I think uses the CPI based on the Boston metro area and your formula, which I think pencils out. But again, it's, it's complicated to follow. And I'm an engineer and my sister-in-law is a CPA. We both struggle with trying to figure out the application. But I think it's correct. The phone expenses. Yeah, the phone. I don't even know if anybody truly uses the phone anymore other than maybe my parents. If that's the sticking point to the rest of these things, I can take that out of the calculation. That's not going to tip it over one way or the other. Frankly, but I know they do get phone service there. I know they do have it fire alarmed as well, and I think the fire alarm relies on the phone and oh, the management services. Yeah, the 10, and you can see this clearly in my cover letter, is it wouldn't add on to the nominal amount of management fees my brother currently gets. We're going to add on 10% of that. I'm just looking for 10% of the gross as a typical management fee, which you guys have already confirmed that 's reasonable from our last application. So it wouldn't be additive. It would be 10% of the gross. And it would be pro rata because there are other tenants in there, not just the residential, but it'd be spread across the business as well. I think that's all I can respond to as far as I took notes from April's comments, and I will go back to the waiting room and see if I can find the written comments. [2:49:31] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, if you look at the city of Portland's meetings and agendas page and then the meeting, the remote redboard meeting for tonight, there's then various pieces like all the pieces like your application packet and that sort of thing as well as the agendas in there, and there is that public comment and council. If you feel it's a better idea, I can read it, but it is a decent page that I would be reading out into the record. I [2:50:12] Speaker H (unidentified): think that's up to you, Mr. Chair. I certainly think it's fine if you want to give the applicant or the landlord a moment to review and respond. Yep, yeah, that seems fine. Jeremy, if you want to take a [2:50:26] Speaker B (unidentified): look and then either just raise your hand when you're done or raise your hand if you're not finding what we're talking about at all, and we can, yeah, I'm on the portal, I see the June [2:50:38] Matt Hutchings: 5th and then it goes to I'm not sure if I'm in the right spot. I'm sorry, usually I'm pretty tech savvy, but for what reason it's not, yeah. [2:50:55] Speaker B (unidentified): It's like the portlandme.portal.civicclerk.com. [2:51:02] Matt Hutchings: Yeah, Dylan's actually got a link for me that takes me to the website and it does have the agenda. [2:51:12] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah for tonight i see that and then so in that if you in that column where like there's kind of like a menu column to the left and if you scroll down in there 's a city of portland mail written public comment 693 washington ave i think right under your the item c oh [2:52:02] Matt Hutchings: Maybe I need to go to, I think I see what I'm doing wrong. [2:52:07] Speaker C (unidentified): For faculty's sake just or. [2:52:15] Matt Hutchings: If you're looking at maybe just putting it up on your screen I think. [2:52:17] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's what I'm in the process of making happen. [2:52:21] Matt Hutchings: Yeah, apologies. I'm usually not this slow with the... [2:52:29] Speaker B (unidentified): Is that sharing cleanly? It's coming up now. [2:52:34] Matt Hutchings: Let me just grab a screen capture of this before it goes away. What page in the packet is that also, Matt? Do you know? Does it say? [2:52:50] Speaker B (unidentified): It's not in the packet. It's a separate item from the packet. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just read this. [2:52:54] Matt Hutchings: Let me go on mute for a minute, I'll read through it and I'll raise my hand when I'm done, thank you, and have. [2:53:07] Speaker B (unidentified): Questions for the objector B, oh no, we didn't have one here, oh yes we did, anyone have the questions for April at all, Jimmy should still be able to talk. [2:54:51] Matt Hutchings: Okay, yeah, sorry, I was just trying to skim through this, trying to pick out actual points to reply to. I don't know what we've taken, so they've done some labor, so yeah, I mean, he's talking about cleaning the apartment, okay, yeah, and he says there's no improvements between us and the old tenants, well sometimes there aren't any needed, so you don't always get that, yeah, it's just one of the things, if there's specific things. [2:55:45] Speaker B (unidentified): You feel like really need I think responding or answer to, yeah. [2:55:53] Matt Hutchings: Not, I mean, the phone seems to be a big thing, I mean, I think he's kind of right, it's like I don't even know who uses the phone other than maybe my dad, if he happens to come in once in a while he might, but even he has a cell phone now, so maybe that's something that, you know, I mean, like I say, I, if the board's like, oh, I'll get rid of the phone thing, okay, we'll get rid of the phone charge, it's not going to break it, 's not really where the equity is. Oh, he's talking about the schedule. Well, so in my mind, we would be in year zero. So the year zero, if the board approves the adjustment to the base rent, we'd go to what that would be with the CPI. I think that's pretty plain in the application. So the 10% increases wouldn't be applied until next year. And even when you do a rent increase, I believe, according to the own ordinance of the city, you got to give them, I think it's 90 days notice that even to adjust it to the base year wouldn't start for that 90 days. And yeah, the 225 plus, I mean, that it's a lot, but that's just the numbers, that's just the reality of where the utilities are at. I think that's it, I mean, I'm happy to discuss it further. Well, [2:57:27] Speaker B (unidentified): it's just fine, thank you so much. We'll be asking more questions of you, I'm sure. So that's it's really just the response to the public comment. Oh, let me get you back for a sec, April. You can go ahead and raise your hand if you had any response to items specifically just brought up in Jeremy's response. [2:58:01] Speaker G (unidentified): It [2:58:05] April Bostridge: sounded like Jeremy had some questions about the CPI piece, so I was noting that the operating expenses rose at about 33 percent from 2019 to 2025 and comparing that to the CPI over the same period, which was only 23 percent, and I think some of that might be included in if you look at the base year, there's no water fee, which I would think that would be expected to be there, and I'm also a CPA, so yes, I went over this with a fine tooth comb, home. But I think there just might be some errors. And again, I'm not saying that they're not do something. That's up to the board to decide. I'm just saying I don't there, you know, I have some questions about, you know, what is on this petition and the accuracy of it. [2:59:13] Speaker C (unidentified): Thank you, April. Thank All right. [2:59:24] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, so questions from members of the board for the applicant or objector. Can everybody raise your hand at once? [3:00:15] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, I have a couple of questions. [3:00:18] Speaker B (unidentified): Please, Jeremy, let me get you to talk here. I had a couple. I think we've already confirmed the phone thing that the building, where's the phone even located? [3:00:32] Matt Hutchings: Not like it's a huge sticking point, clearly I'd have to go digging for that, frankly, [3:00:41] Speaker B (unidentified): but it's not like units are being provided a phone line, like you have VoIP for the whole building or something and everybody's getting a dial number or something. Yeah, I don't think that's [3:00:54] Matt Hutchings: the case, but I'm not sure, but everyone uses the alarm system for sure. Yeah, my sister-in-law's saying no, so scratch the phone, scratch the phone. Yeah, well, that's fine, we'll figure [3:01:14] Speaker B (unidentified): It out in deliberations, and that, and then I just did, I think you've made this statement over and over, but I did the confirming that kind of all the other unit and business expenses, like you said, you did that by square footage basically. So you did, when you created all those original numbers that are on the net operating income expense sheet, as I remember, those were, those did have the other two units backed out by square footage. That's correct. Yes, as best I could. [3:01:46] Matt Hutchings: As best I could, based on, you know, the appraiser was out there to give me confirmed square footages, and so yeah, they were backed out. Great, thank you so much, and thank you. [3:01:57] Speaker B (unidentified): For providing the additional information that we did optionally request. You bet, buddy. [3:02:06] Speaker A (unidentified): Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I was just curious about, it's the profit and loss statement summary, so like this net income, that's for like the whole, is that for the whole building or just for one of the businesses attached to the building, the profit and loss? Yeah, this is, it's off, it's the last page of my packet. This is August 2015 through July 2019, and it looks like maybe it's an addition to the, rent levels, it looks like, yeah, I was sitting in the same email. It says balloons. [3:02:56] Matt Hutchings: Yeah, it's, it's the, it's the whole thing. It's, you know, when for tax purposes, I think they still went in under the corporation. [3:03:06] Speaker A (unidentified): Right. Yeah. It's not, yeah, I guess it's like not just rental. Cause it, there's like merchandise sales and stuff. [3:03:12] Matt Hutchings: Oh no, there's no, there's none, no more of that. They've retired the business, buddy. So it's the, on the income side, you get the four residential units are rented out and you get the non-residential bible study group. So there is no balloons, there's no inventory, there's no, there's no business there. It was, it was pre-2019. Sorry to interrupt. Oh, I'm sorry. I, yeah, I, yeah, pre-2019, sure. Yeah, they retired before 2019. So this goes back prior to 2019, but you still see the name Maloons because that was the name of the business that they just didn't change it. I think it still holds title under Maloons, if I'm not mistaken. [3:03:57] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay, yeah, no, that, okay, yeah. That helps a lot. [3:04:01] Matt Hutchings: Yeah, no more flowers. [3:04:09] Speaker B (unidentified): Questions for applicant or objector from other board members? [Speaker C (unidentified): All right, then.] Seeing none, and we didn't have any. [3:04:28] Matt Hutchings: Just one thing, Matt, if I can interrupt, I did just get my application popped back up, and yeah, the phone charge at like 7 bucks, 8 bucks a unit, yeah, we can, that's like I say, that's pretty nominal, we can scratch that in. [3:04:44] Speaker B (unidentified): Terms of that request. Alright, we'll figure that then. Thank you, Jeremy. [Speaker C (unidentified): And so.] So unless there's a member of the public that has all of a sudden new concerns, you can go around and raise your hand. But I'm looking at the set of attendees, and I don't think we have anybody new. So I will look for a motion to close the public comment portion so we can move into deliberations. Motion [3:05:36] Speaker D (unidentified): to close the public comment for 963 Washington Avenue. Second. [3:05:48] Speaker B (unidentified): Thanks. We have a motion and a second. I'll call to vote. Motion is to close the public comment for 963 Washington. F Kristen? Yes. [3:06:04] Speaker A (unidentified): Yes. Buddy? Yes. And Laura? Yes. [3:06:13] Speaker C (unidentified): And I also vote yes. [3:06:17] Speaker B (unidentified): So unless there is any points there, let's move into deliberations. So [Speaker C (unidentified): sorry, we have] there's a number of requests here. I'm not sure all of them are even in the scope of this board necessarily. But I think we could address the, we could either address the base rent year expenses, Defenses first, or the,, yeah, or, we could discuss, let's, let's maybe discuss that first. I think I had a point of that. We could, that, seems like the best thing to address first, unless somebody has something else that they want to discuss on Jonas. [3:07:46] Speaker E (unidentified): us. I guess I'm just kind of like you jurisdiction and the scope of some of this proposal. I mean, I know I'm relatively new to the rent control board, but has the rent control approved a schedule of increases over an allotted amount of time? Is that something that we've dealt with before? [3:08:05] Speaker G (unidentified): No. [3:08:08] Speaker B (unidentified): And I think by ordinance, you know, I think one of the key, the pivotal points of this application is there's a lot of ask in this application, but we're basically bound to MNLI. And so that's where I'm like, we can discuss the base rent year increase, you know, an adjustment and make sure that all our numbers are right. Cause I know there was some math. When I put in the whole operating expense worksheet, I didn't get the same total. And I do think we need to check that the, I want to check that the actual that vacancy wasn't backed out of the 2025 rent, which we have the numbers for. So those would be the main, yeah, so I think exactly. I don't, we can discuss these other items, but I think what we're going to hit is that there's, there's a bunch of this that we just don't really have that we're, we don't have mechanism to handle, if nothing else, and we'll probably make council weigh in on it in a little bit, but that was where Basically my thought is that let's discuss the base increase and let's check that all that our numbers on our formal are all right and maybe work from there and discuss these other items. But I think those are the two that require full, that definitely at least we're going to need to settle right now. So did someone want to lead off discussion on this, on the base year gross rental income increase request? Kristen. [3:10:14] Speaker D (unidentified): Can we start discussions on how we usually do, which, you know, was the CPI, did it not keep up with CPI, right? Because that's how we always start our base year. So can we start with that and then maybe talk about the appraisals and things like that? [3:10:35] Speaker G (unidentified): Yeah. [3:10:38] Speaker B (unidentified): I did the I did those that percent change I'm the same as I normally do from the year given November to 2019 November I saw it as a 9.72 percent increase in the years provided right because we were given back to 2015 and what I saw in that is with that nine percent increase so like apartment one right hasn't gone up at all if we look at page 133 of the packet and I'm happy to share screen again if that's if that was just [3:11:20] Speaker E (unidentified): Nice and functional and helpful that was nice okay I can flip through it around but it's kind of [3:11:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah so we're all talking about the same things and I did those and so right so there's definitely I mean there's got to be at least if we do this the way we you know we talk about this there's been no increase in the unit one and then what I actually saw math wise was that unit four would also hasn't quite come up to where that would normally be [3:12:16] Speaker A (unidentified): Buddy the floor is yours so are you sorry I was doing it I did the same thing but I did it off annual not off of November to November but are you doing 2015 to 2018 or 2015 to 2019 I sure hope I did 2019 okay that's fine I did it to 2018 so I need to just adjust it to 2019 [3:12:44] Speaker B (unidentified): Because I figured right 2019 is the year we're talking about so that's the [3:12:49] Speaker A (unidentified): But I'm up to so I guess my question is I guess I could find it to just what the rents were in 2019. Cause I was doing my math off of the 2018 numbers listed in that table. Oh, yep. And so 2019 numbers would be different. [3:13:11] Speaker B (unidentified): All those, so right. So we have these here and then 93 Washington, right? So let's check them because I think they're listed. [3:13:24] Speaker A (unidentified): I trust you. I just want to make sure that. [3:13:26] Speaker B (unidentified): No, I pulled my actual rent numbers from this figure two from the cover letter. Okay, no, that's great, thanks. Yeah, that, yeah, and I just, I didn't use the annual because to me it seemed to make more sense to call that, you know, like instead of trying to aggregate the year, but I'm not sure it matters, and I can always easily, it shouldn't matter that much. It shouldn't matter that much mathematically. [3:13:59] Speaker A (unidentified): Like I think it's fine. In November makes sense because that is potentially 90 days after what a CPI figure would have been published, right? It was published September 1st or 15th or whatever. [3:14:17] Speaker B (unidentified): But yeah, I basically just tried to pull end of year instead of annual because my hope was that was a more accurate representation of the full change there, not like, that way I wasn't shorting the applicant maybe on like the average if the first part of the year or something was lower or whatever. So yeah, so then, so that gave me, so I did see that like based on that there's potentially increases to both unit, one and unit, and [Speaker C (unidentified): unit four,] as those numbers were shown. So, [Speaker G (unidentified): and] then I don't, I guess, I, don't know what other board members opinions of the, appraisal was. I had a lot of issues with the appraisal. I felt like only one of the units, so they compared units from three different districts and they compared units that were almost all, you know, that the one unit that's in district is of a different size and why didn't I write page numbers down for this, but let's see, and so that was kind of, there's right there is these two appraisals in here, so I think, let's see which one's which, this, yeah, so this is the one about the 2019 and you know what, so I found like is the only to me the only unit in a kind of comparable district because we know like these other two units rental comparable rental one and comparable rental three are in districts one and two and they're the most expensive rental districts, so I found that a hard comparison and then so I really kind of, I feel like I highlighted it better in my actual thing, but I felt like if anything maybe that this unit two is the most potentially comparable than like location wise, but all the units in it are like 50% bigger or almost, you know, or 20% bigger, at least then, the units in this building. So I just found it really hard to, take those, you know, take this appraisal as like a, useful tool here. I think, you know, our application suggests the current application suggests that it is a useful tool for us. And I don't want to dismiss it because the applicant did get it to be a useful tool to try and show this, but I found that the, you know, it's hard to say like to take even the larger unit that's, you know, that's still over 200 square feet, that's, you know, over 20 percent smaller, and say that it should have the same price as that unit as a unit from as the other most expensive unit from the comparable property. So like even in that, I had a lot of trouble with seeing the appraisal as actually creating fair comparisons. And then as a point of reference, I found it interesting. It's like, okay, so they say that none of these units in the appraisal, the opinion of market rent, says that all of these are 1350 or higher, but in one of the comparable units that again, the units are bigger and are all two bedrooms, two of the rents are much closer to the actual rents that were being charged in the unit at the time, you know, in the property that we're being, that the application is for. So that's, I'm much more inclined. I do see the increases in the, that there are some increases just from CPI from 2015, from rents not having been increased in pace with the CPI, but I at least found it very hard to take the appraisal numbers based kind of on that, based on that the units are all in different districts, that it's compared to the most comparable district price wise is much larger units and are showing prices that are actually in line with what was being charged, which I just kind of, you know, is odd in itself to me for the appraisal to, you know, see hey, oh, you know, one of these units is like paying, you know, two of those units are paying less than two other units in the property that's being appraised, yet the appraisal says that those units in the property being appraised should be rented more than the comparable property. To me kind of came to, you know, look at the other districts, which I understand the other units are more expensive, but they're they're in other districts, they're they're, you know, once on the peninsula. So Jonas, sorry, I didn't mean to over, yeah, but I it took a little bit of finger around, sorry, go, you're the floor is yours. Well for I want to [3:20:08] Speaker E (unidentified): respond to, ask you to highlight the two units that you saw even in this appraisal were underneath what that were closer to what's being charged. I guess I'm just not seeing it. [3:20:21] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh okay, so I'm looking at, check it out, so right, I'm looking first of all, let me get, so first of all I'm looking if we look at the where [3:20:38] Speaker E (unidentified): These units are, yeah, no, I definitely [3:20:41] Speaker B (unidentified): hear that argument. So that was like, that's the part that I'm there, and then so to come back up to it, so these, so that unit two, that was actually kind of in district, I think that one's, is that one four and the, and this is in five or the reverse, but were this right, so this is comparable rental number two, and then these two units are of significantly larger square footage, yet actually if we look at the actual rents of the units, come out to be less expensive than the current actual rents of two of those units at the time for the 2019, mm-hmm. [3:21:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay, I'm seeing it now, thank you. I'm [3:21:39] Speaker B (unidentified): not sure how to make any of that go away, so we'll see. There we go, maybe that's fun, let me clear that. All right, so, [3:22:05] Speaker E (unidentified): are you disputing then that kind of sentence that this is indicative of average? These three rentals utilize our mixture of one and two bedroom units that are larger and smaller in GPA, but are representative of typical market rents and adequately reflect the subject in demonstrating estimated market rents. Is you're basically disagreeing with that statement from the property assessor? [3:22:36] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's basically that, like, you know, when we do our annual report and you look at the rent boards reports, we like break down rent by district, and these two units are in considerably number one and number three are just in considerably more expensive districts. So the idea of saying, oh, this is a fair market, like for greater Portland, yes, but for the property, I don't think so. I think this is maybe the only comparable. And again, I find number two hard to compare because of the square footage of the units themselves, even in itself. So, yeah, so basically my proposal then is that if there is anything helpful out of this assessment to me, it shows that these numbers aren't potentially too far off, that maybe some of the units that stayed really low were low, but like particularly like unit two is the one bedroom, it's not the smallest unit, but it's the one bedroom, and therefore is the, you know, is understandably the cheaper unit, and so kind of, yeah, I think that's that was my statement, is that I think I don't find the appraisal To show something that suggests that these should be significantly increased, but I do see, and I wish I could get rid of my annotation, but I'll, I might just have to unshare because, oh, there we go, there's a bar for it. So I do see that, like, I think, I think one of these, two of these units could be represented as, you know, I do see by our normal methodology, a base year rent adjustment based on that keeping up with CPI, at least. Buddy, sorry, I missed you raising your hand in my connotation. [3:24:44] Speaker A (unidentified): It's okay, I mean, I get what you're saying. I think, I guess I would just say that, like, I don't even think, I think this is the most problematic part of the application, to be frank. I don't love that it suggests for an adjusted gross income market rents, because ultimately what we're doing here is making a determination about a fair return. And the ordinance specifically says that when we're calculating the amount necessary to ensure a fair return, we cannot use market-based or valuation or market value or market rent in our sort of determination. So like that to me is just like fine, and then I think kind of what you're saying, Matt, is that like, okay, how else do we do it, and that to me is also, I kind of mentioned this earlier, also slightly problematic to me that we're just using a CPI pattern alone as the, an indicator that there were special or peculiar circumstances that prevented a fair return, because like while our application may suggest that if you meet this correct one criterion, then that means you qualify for an exceptional circumstance in the base year, however, in the language of the ordinance, let me find it, we're really talking about a presumption of a fair return in the base year unless a landlord can demonstrate that special or peculiar circumstances prevented them from receiving a fair return on their investment. So like simply a pattern of things not going up at the rate of CPI to me isn't sufficient, because it doesn't tell you anything about the actual net operating income for those units, and like I think it's a good tool, but I'm just like wary of using that, because like we really, what I'm looking for is that a demonstration that pattern, which may be a special or peculiar circumstances, prevented a fair return. Thank [3:27:42] Speaker G (unidentified): you, Buddy. Christian, [3:27:51] Speaker D (unidentified): floor is yours. I think Jonas was [3:27:53] Speaker B (unidentified): before me. Oh, I see my notifications hovering over his hand, my notification of him raising his [3:28:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Hand, great, go ahead. Yeah, just a couple of quick things and then I'll turn the floor over, Kristen. I do think this is kind of a special and peculiar case. The landlords were older, there had a been a business in here. I think this would be, like, if we're using this terminology for this specific application, I think that does qualify as being special. And then second, I have, again, maybe the application is a little, to me, right, using a professional's appraisal as a methodology here is more sound than our methodology of blanket using CPI. If we can show previous rents from 2019 remain stable. [3:29:02] Speaker C (unidentified): Thanks, Jonas. Now, Kristen. [3:29:06] Speaker D (unidentified): Along the same lines, I do think this is an unusual circumstance because the expenses were overwhelmingly being shouldered by the business, right? Right. That has been. So if the business was paying the utilities and I mean, that was a, it wasn't a true representation of the expenses of the building. If the business was taking the full share, right? So I don't, which I'm going to infer that because of the business income, the rents didn't need to be raised frequently, right? That's a typical offset. They have another source of income. Come. So I think at a minimum, using the CPI index is fair. And I guess it's a little unfair, I guess, that our application leads somebody to this. Our application is contradictory. It says this is a way that you can help to prove that. I can tell you appraisals are not cheap. So there was some considerable expense spent by the applicant at our own applications urging. So, and I mean, banks lend on appraisals. So I think it's a pretty reliable, I think it's extremely difficult to do appraisals based on the sheer variety of your, there's no way the appraiser would know if they're comparing a covered unit versus a non-covered unit. So I think that there's a lot of, that's a particularly difficult appraisal to do. So I, don't know that I put a ton of, you know, weight into the appraisal, but I wouldn't 100% throw it away. But we should address things in the application that are just very misleading for an applicant, especially when there's a cost associated. It [3:31:55] Speaker B (unidentified): application subcommittee item on the agenda tonight, we'll get there, right, because we gotta, because I'm not making any progress with it, so we'll, we'll get there on that part, buddy. [3:32:09] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, so like, to be clear, I do agree that this is a problematic part, and it is kind of cruddy that we have this. However, I do think that this specific part of the application is at odds with the letter of the law itself. So like, well, maybe it's like not great. Like, ultimately, we're not like forcing anyone to do anything. Right. And the application is not a guarantee of an outcome. And while it's problematic, like I'll just read this part of the ordinance so that we can all be clear. Section 6-232 definitions under a fair return on investment, it talks about a fair return on investment must be calculated using the maintenance of net operating income out idea methodology as that term is used in other jurisdictions with similar ordinances. That presumes that the net operating income the landlord earned from a covered unit during calendar year 2019 yielded a fair return on investment, unless the landlord proves that special or peculiar circumstances prevented the landlord from receiving a fair return on investment during that period. So the question is not, did something peculiar or strange? The question is, did something peculiar or did a peculiar circumstance prevent a fair return? So while a series of rent increases is maybe something that could help us determine that, it doesn't necessarily show us that they were not able to obtain a fair return on investment based upon those numbers. So I hope that 's making sense to people, but I really don't think, I think it really opens us up to some potential big issues if we're going against this part of the ordinance that clearly spells out that we have to, that it is a presumption of a fair return that can be rebutted and that the special or peculiar circumstances prevented the fair return and i'll also just add that the ordinance specifically tells us that when calculating a fair return on investment we cannot use market based or market rents to determine what is a fair return. So like, I really just, I just want to say that again. Thanks. Thank you, buddy. I [3:35:21] Speaker B (unidentified): Think it's a really good and important point to make, and thank you. I do, I think I'm on the side here of that, the business closure to me of around this time is like, and the business operating is that exceptional circumstance that like basically made them not need to rely on the rental income to make money from the property because they had the business there, and that with removal of the business, all of a sudden it surfaces that like, oh hey, as just some rental units, this business isn't necessarily, you know, this property isn't necessarily profitable in any way. So that's, that's, I do kind of agree that we do in this case see honestly more of a special circumstance than we see in some other cases, and yeah, at least that's, that's kind of my thought on the special circumstance part of that. I do see a specific one here [3:36:29] Speaker G (unidentified): at least [3:36:33] Speaker L (unidentified): And Laura, I might have missed this, I'm scrolling through the packet, do we have a specific date or month, year that the florist shop closed? Does anyone have that? I don't think Because in the cover letter, I'm now realizing it's pretty vague. It says, you know, they wound on the business and it retired and retired, right? There's these four units, but depending on when the flower shop closed, right? And depending on when the parents handed over the business, I think would also give us some more insight. [3:37:24] Speaker B (unidentified): We can ask the applicant. [3:37:26] Speaker D (unidentified): Can't we see it from the profit and loss? The profit and loss goes through 2019, the last page of our packet [3:37:33] Speaker L (unidentified): Yeah, does that just for the floral shop or did they say they also included [Speaker G (unidentified): the like] balloons as a landlord [3:37:44] Speaker G (unidentified): as well my [3:37:50] Speaker E (unidentified): understanding was that they were retired prior to, but I could be wrong on this [3:38:01] Speaker D (unidentified): We have merchandise sales showing through July of 19, which I would assume that's related to the [3:38:08] Speaker E (unidentified): flourish. Yeah, I had that same question [3:38:16] Speaker B (unidentified): Let's see if the applicant's available right, Jeremy's got his hand raised anyways, Jeremy, can you answer that to the specific [3:38:27] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I can. [3:38:30] Matt Hutchings: First, I'd just like to say I can empathize with your position. My day job is county engineer for Douglas County in Nevada, and we often are tasked with making applications based on ordinances by the board. So it's a difficult challenge. So the answer to your question, the business kind of wound down. I don't know the exact date because there really isn't one. They just kind of slowly tapered off and then to the point where they just couldn't do it anymore, so they stopped. So, for example, at one point in time, you could walk in, there'd be a showroom. My dad would come out and they could do, you could order a wedding. He'd go over, you know, wedding photos and see how you want to do your wedding or funeral. Funeral, then over time that kind of phased out but they still did orders. So they'd open up for Valentine's Day, you know, the big seasonal days for florist, or Valentine's Day and Mother's Day generally. So they would open up the shop just for those two days because it was extremely profitable. And then you're seeing some merchandise. My sister-in-law's reminding me because they also, they also did orders. The funeral business is big for florists, right? So Memorial Day, they do bids, would bid on cemetery orders, I think, for the city. So they would, you'll see the business still going on for a period of time till you get to like the last couple of years where those kind of smaller occasions, they just stopped doing all together. And finally, that was it. And so you won't see merchandise in the later years. So it's not like it's a grand closing day where everything must go. It just kind of reduced,, and then faded to black. I hope that answers your question. Thank you, Jeremy. I [3:40:31] Speaker B (unidentified): also hope that was helpful. I think, you know, I guess what I see to the point is like we do see, you know, they're still doing business into 2019. 19 and so to me that supports the like there was this other income coming in that would hide unprofitability of the residential rentals buddy [3:41:03] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, I guess like my only issue with that is that like I wouldn't say that's so much as an exceptional circumstance as just like in arms like the business decision, right? Like they just chose to close it down and like I don't know, I guess like it doesn't make sense to me and I think the tenant actually kind of brought this up is like why the, why the tenant should have to shoulder the cost of something that was completely beyond their control but very much within the landlord's control and a decision made by the landlord. Like I don't know, I just, I, it doesn't sit well with me as a determination of exceptional. It seems just like everyday business. Like exceptional to me is like a non-arm's length sort of situation where like you're giving a deal to someone and not gaining much from it, 's a special deal like a family member or whatever, not just like we're going to close our business, that just, that happens every day. Thank [3:42:30] Speaker B (unidentified): you buddy Kristen. So [3:42:34] Speaker D (unidentified): So if we go to application, which I understand there's a lot of concern that the application is not congruent with the ordinance, but our application actually says under the adjustment of base year, they have factors A, B, and C that are applicable to your claim. And several of them state exceptional expenses in the base year. And one of them, part C, says other expenses were unreasonably high or low, notwithstanding the application of prudent business practice. So to me, that's an example that these expenses were unusually low based on the tenants because of the business. And then even B says the pattern of rent increases prior to the base year were less than increases in the CPI. So, I mean, I, mean, I actually think this is not a terrible thing that, you know, a business was helping to contribute to, lower rents. And now that the business is not there, the expenses are more reasonable to what they are. And just a comment on the tenant that spoke was talking about a vacancy that she claimed was not, that was in control, the landlord had control of, but the landlord refuted that by saying the apartment was not in rentable condition and needed to renovate. So I think I don't consider that within control that they had a trash department. The landlord had to renovate it so that they could re-rent it. And so there was an extended vacancy. [3:44:35] Speaker B (unidentified): Let's revisit that later because that's for current year. Okay. Sorry. But I just, I don't want to like confuse the, I feel like we're almost there with this. And I don't want to lose sight of it. No, I was just pointing buddy because I guess you want to add then. [3:45:03] Speaker A (unidentified): Buddy, the floor is yours. Thanks. Yeah, I guess I just say that like what that says is the expenses were unreasonably high or low notwithstanding the application of prudent business practices. It's a prudent business practice to sell your business when you can't run it anymore. Like that's not, I guess, like it's it's just like a normal thing that happens, not like some extenuating circumstance that made those expenses high or low. It was just like the application of prudent business practices that maybe made them high or low and thus resulted in being high or low as a result of those practices. So I guess I just don't get that personally, but yeah, that's it. [3:46:02] Speaker D (unidentified): I think what that means, buddy, is that I can't claim that my expenses were unreasonably high because I'm a terrible business owner and I was being, I was paying way too much for stuff, right? And I can't, that's what I think, notwithstanding the application of prudent business practices. If I foreclosed or something because I was a bad business person, I can't say that 's why my expenses were off whack. I was a bad business person. But what I'm saying is that the circumstances were special because the business paid for the expenses. That's not bad business practice. [3:46:40] Speaker A (unidentified): I think a prudent business practice means like an arm's length transaction, right? If it's non-arms length and it would thus be imprudent because you would maybe not be making money from it as you would under normal circumstances. Circumstances, but the fact is these were prudent business practices that were made, there was a decision made to sell the business, that is not, that is completely up to the business owner in this situation, and it doesn't, just because it's sad that a business closed, it doesn't mean that the business practices were not prudent. I just, it doesn't make sense to me, but I think maybe we're talking past each other at this point, so. [3:47:31] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I think, let's get a motion on the floor and or on the table, however we wanna put it. And I think we should at least try and vote on this and see if there's a point where we need to [3:47:49] Speaker C (unidentified): put it down some more. Kristen? [3:47:56] Speaker D (unidentified): So I'd like to move that we accept base rent adjustments for units one and four because they can demonstrate that they did not follow, at a minimum, the CPI increases. [3:48:22] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll second it. I think there needs to be maybe some further finding there. Content, I think to me, the business tapering down plays into the creation of the exceptional circumstance. We didn't really get rental back that far, like rental history, right? So normally we're looking at like 10 plus years or something. We're really looking at only a few here, but we can see that those units at least stayed low between that. That so I don't, as long as kind of we find in this that [Speaker C (unidentified): that's the] case there, yeah, I don't know, well at least we have this motion on the floor, right? So yeah, and Mr. Chair, [3:49:17] Speaker H (unidentified): might I just suggest that the board frame its motion in terms of what the exceptional or peculiar circumstance was that prevented the landlord from receiving a fair return on investment during the base year [3:49:34] Speaker B (unidentified): All right, so I moved to amend the motion to include the statement that the exceptional circumstances were created by the slow shutdown of the business that was allowing rents to be increased slower than the rate of inflation. We [3:50:08] Speaker D (unidentified): need to second that. I'll second that. [3:50:13] Speaker G (unidentified): Discussion. [3:50:21] Speaker B (unidentified): Before at least voting on the amendment, because I think that's that's how we have to do that, right? [3:50:27] Speaker C (unidentified): And Laura, I [3:50:31] Speaker L (unidentified): think it's just difficult for me to understand the landlord's perspective here, and that they increase the rent on some of the properties but not all, even as they were closing down the business. It makes it harder, I think, for me to see this as a peculiar circumstance just for those two apartments. You like, if we're considering this a peculiar circumstance, I would assume that it applied to all the apartments, but I'm also not saying that I think it's a peculiar circumstance. I think to me as the more I think through this, I'm having difficulty with this line of logic just because, I mean, the situation doesn't feel peculiar to me in the sense that like it was a planned retirement almost in a way, right? Like they did a slow rollout. It wasn't like from one year to next, the income changed super rapidly and they were like, oh my gosh, we weren't prepared, right? It was like they had time to anticipate these changes and see whether or not they would be able to maintain this property with the rents as they were at, right, and still absorbing all those costs as a landlord. And it looks like, I mean, I don't know, right, what they were making in the height of their business, but it looks like those last few years, they're making a pretty similar amount in merchandise, which is the flowers. And so I think that just makes it harder for me to see this as a peculiar circumstance, because this was a planned retirement in a way, right? This wasn't out of the blue. They had a lot of years to see how the changes in their finances of lower income would impact things, even though, right, I understand that by 2019 it wasn't like they were making zero income, they still had some income from the from the flower shop that could have helped them, but that makes it harder for me to see this peculiar circumstance, and I think it's harder for me to just peg that on two apartments too. Thanks. [3:52:38] Speaker C (unidentified): And Laura Jonas. Yeah, it's [3:52:43] Speaker E (unidentified): Interesting, right? Because I kind of feel that merchandise sales remaining consistent for the four years actually proves the opposite point, which is that they didn't know the unborn expenses of all these utilities until 2019. Really, so I'm kind of seeing it the other way, that they continue to have this other source of income, so the burden wasn't felt as prominently. All [3:53:41] Speaker B (unidentified): Right, well, let me read us back and we can vote on some things. So the main motion is to approve the base rent year adjustment by escalating the units one and four for the CPI change from the shown numbers from 2015. The amendment that the sub motion is to include in that motion that the exceptional circumstances were created by the slow shutdown of the business that was allowing rents to be increased slower, lower than the rate of inflation. So my thought is, let's at least call this amendment to a vote. And then we can vote on the main motion and we can see if we're really split here, as it looks like we maybe, because I think we've all said our pieces and I'm not sure we're changing on it. So, I'm going to call that sub-motion to a vote to amend the main motion to include the statement that the exceptional circumstances were created by the slow shutdown of the business that was allowing rents to be increased lower than the rate of inflation. [3:55:14] Speaker E (unidentified): Kristen. Yes. Jonas. I am so sorry. I had a smoke alarm going off. Can we repeat? [3:55:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah. Yeah. So voting on the amendment to the main motion to include the statement into the main motion that the exceptional circumstances were created by the slow shutdown of the business that was allowing rents to be increased slower than the rate of inflation. Yes. Buddy. No. And Laura. No. And I vote yes. Yes. All right. So that leaves us back in the main motion, which is purely that we accept base rent adjustments for units one and two because they demonstrate that they did not follow at minimum the CPI increases. Kristen? Yes. Jonas? Us yes, Buddy no, and Lore no, and I vote yes, and so that also doesn't pass. So I think that leaves us with out of base rent adjustment and council, do you want some sort of affirmative vote motion that we reject a base rent increase? [3:57:04] Speaker H (unidentified): Well, I feel that 's sort of implicit from the motions that just failed. And I assume that the folks who voted to accept base rent adjustments are not going to vote no to reject the proposed base year rent adjustment. So the board can certainly make that motion. I assume that will likely fail, and again, I think implicit from that is that this part of the application, this base rent adjustment request, has not passed, and you're just, you know, applying your M I formula to the existing base rent amounts. [3:57:54] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you, Council. All right. Since we spent a long time on that, I think then, since Council has enough, let's move forward. So I would love to address the vacancy issue, if that's something that we could touch on in terms of the math here. Because one of the items I did come across is that the expense that was actually the total from the application net operating expenses is not what I came up with on my total here. So right at the total here is 49,907. But I punched these in and looked them over twice, and I come up with 45 129 78. So I don't know if somebody else wants to add those numbers up on the, it's just on the 2025 side I think I had, yeah, everything came out on the base here side, but if we could get a math double check on that, just to confirm that what I have on my sheet at least is right here, and [3:59:46] Speaker G (unidentified): Laura did [3:59:48] Speaker L (unidentified): you say 45 129 78 [3:59:51] Speaker C (unidentified): Yep, that's what I got, so [4:00:13] Speaker B (unidentified): That's at least I got that part right, and then I did also have concerns about why the, how the current year was lower, and the only explanation I can see is that the vacancy was backed out of there, and it was my understanding we don't actually back that vacancy out of this total, correct? So my thought was to simply add up these sets, because we only have the one that was vacant, and so I think we could take the increases there, and I'm not sure if that seems the functional, but that was kind of my [4:01:36] Speaker G (unidentified): Mr. [4:02:14] Speaker A (unidentified): Chair, you modified, interject real quick, please. I actually do think that we're supposed to back out the vacancy. The reason for that 's why it's on our thing, and if you look at the actual form, that's the reason that you only add lines, oh, but they didn't add lines, so then it shouldn't matter in the math. Never mind, I think they already backed it out definitionally right on the forum, cuz like there's the portion attributable to vacancy on the income worksheet, and is it also in the expenses? No, it wouldn't be an expense, it's just not there, but yeah, so let me know if I'm off base, sorry, I thought that I, like I saw that because you only add lines one and then three through 17, yeah, and so that's my [4:03:25] Speaker B (unidentified): Understanding, so right, okay, yeah, gross scheduled, so total for the calendar year, and then like the portion of tribunal for vacancy. I haven't really, my understanding of that line was that it was basically for reference, so that when they're saying oh, this unit was vacant for so long, we know, but that's still, that isn't, anyways, I thought that was part of the, that was still, I think that the vacancy didn't actually come out like that. [4:04:00] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, well, I guess I think that like the purpose is to be like there was a vacancy, this is what it would have cost or given us, but like you don't actually include that number in the calculation because of the reasons that the tenant sort of said, where it's like they could be renting it to someone potentially at some point, yeah. [4:04:32] Speaker H (unidentified): And so Mr. Chair, if I can just interject quickly, section five of your application states that gross rental income includes vacant or owner-occupied rental units at the time a petition is filed that provided rental income in the base year, shall count toward the calculation of gross rental income in the current year. The rent program shall attribute rental income calculated on the basis of average rents for comparable units at the property that were most recently rented. If no comparable units on the property were rented within the last two years, initial rents for comparable units in the city may be used. [4:05:17] Speaker B (unidentified): Good, right. So I am understanding that, right, is that we, that just because, is like even if the unit was vacant we count it as having produced income because in the future as that it will, and so that's, so I actually get the 6915 as what should be used in this total, or that really that this could be put as the sum of these. Yes, you're totally right, I missed your chair, sorry, my bad. No, that's, I wanted to make sure I wasn't, yeah, getting all off track there, and that my understanding of that is correct, and that's [4:06:10] Speaker C (unidentified): kind of why we all right, that's helpful, so I think [4:06:21] Speaker B (unidentified): those were all the key, so those were at least all the key items I had on the actual regular math, and then there's some other requests here that [4:06:50] Speaker L (unidentified): right, so there's, and Lord, go ahead, yeah, please. I was just gonna add, I see that you've done it and you've put in the income for the total annual income for 2019 is 57 000, and for anyone one that is like the total income for that year, but in the NOI form they did fill it in as 57 600, but the actual, the actual is 57 000, just wanted to call that out for consistency. [4:07:23] Speaker G (unidentified): Thank you. [4:07:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Because that's probably a finding for Ben, right? Eight, okay. So, the other things I'm trying to, let's see how this runs. Below market rent increases, below market expenses, below market. All right, so here's their three main elements. Let's see, so base year, okay, so base year adjustment we've covered. Rent increases, I mean the schedule, the whole, the proposed schedule, nice for reference, but really doesn't matter because all we do is give banked rent. And in this case, right, you know, in a major renovation or something, we might reset the whole thing, but in the only other thing we're doing here is giving banked rent basically, and the increase itself is capped at 10 percent, so the schedule is really whatever the landlord wants to do with that amount within the law. So then we come to this ask for the pass-through expenses. And I think [Speaker G (unidentified): it's] something we haven't dealt with. It's something I think the, that I'm aware of, that we haven't dealt with this change in a change of, I think we've maybe seen it the other way where the landlord said that they, you know, like unmetered something or whatever, and had to do that, and I think we had units where, so we've had units where like base year didn't have it, and then they got separate meters, and now they're charging it through, and we've just like kind of had to strike all the numbers out basically to make it make sense there. I don't necessarily see a particularly functional way, or whether we have even jurisdiction to make a ruling on this, other than, and this is just my line of thinking on it, of that. We're right, those are definitely adding utilities onto the tenant is definitely a rent increase. To me, right, there's, you're increasing the cost of living at that unit. And so within our ordinance, what I really saw is that we could grant the bank increase. And if the landlord adjusted leases, I guess, to bring in those expenses, it would just really, you know, that they'd have to be watching that they didn't increase the actual rent by more than 10%, and that the rent didn't increase in more than their banked rent, whether it comes from the utilities or not. So like I kind of, you know, I was looking and I was like, well, if we back out all the utilities from here, right, because all of a sudden like if we take water, gas, and I know I'm, I need to update the CPI number 2025 on this, so I'll change it in a sec, but if we were to remove water, gas, and landscape snow removal from just this side, right? Because they already paid it in the past. If we were to remove it from just this side, there isn't even really an increase. And I'm not sure that's the right way to remove it. But I think that's kind of my point is I'm not really sure we can, you know, they, I'm not really sure we have the mechanism to handle it properly. I don't know, counsel, if you have thoughts or otherwise, you know, I haven't seen a hand raised. You guys got to raise your hand at some point to stop me from talking. [4:11:54] Speaker H (unidentified): Mr. Chair, I generally agree with that. From my perspective, what your MNOI regulations allow you to do is to consider utility costs as an operating expense and a part of your MNOI calculations. And it's been some time now, but many years ago, and I don't know if any of the current board members were on the board back then, and the board was confronted with a situation where a landlord had basically had utilities switched to individual meters. That cost was then incurred by the tenants. And my recollection is that the board did find that constituted a rent increase. Increase. So I generally agree, Mr. Chair, that I don't see the ordinance or your regulations as providing a mechanism for the board to authorize those costs to be passed through one-to-one. I think what your regs contemplate is that utility costs would be a part of your MNOI calculation and analysis. [4:13:10] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's my thought, is they're basically getting passed through anyways. Right, I understand the applicant being like, I'd love to switch this over so that if utilities jump higher than CPI again, they're not coming to us with an application, but I within our MNOI mechanism there's not really a means of us doing that, of us like futuresing utilities costs. And I also, and then also the other hard part here on the utility, so I mean, that's one part of it, and the other part of it is that there's no there's no water in the base here. And so I don't know if that also changes, but I would think that we would strike that out. That is generally how we handle that, there can't have been no water expense in the base here, so they're not going to offset each other. You know, there's not, there's nothing to offset, so I'm not sure if that needs emotion or that simply is that it's something that we find that we don't, you know, we could make a finding that we don't have a mechanism, or I think we could Just continue to process this by MNOI and counsel that probably is more for lack of seeing discussion, that might be more of what you find functional for the decision. [4:14:47] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, I think that either approach makes sense from my perspective. I think I'm seeing some heads nod and that there is general agreement on this particular issue. So I can write it up that way in your findings. Findings and you know the board can process the rest of the application in the ordinary course. [4:15:20] Speaker B (unidentified): All right then I would I move that we strike the water expense from the 2025 from the current year expenses because there isn't an expense provided for it in the base. [4:15:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Here second. [Speaker A (unidentified): Discussion.] Seeing. [4:15:56] Speaker B (unidentified): No discussion I'll call it to a vote motion on the floor is that we strike the water expense from the 2025 current year expenses because there isn't a matching water expense provided in the base here Kristen. [4:16:13] Speaker G (unidentified): Yes. [4:16:16] Speaker C (unidentified): Buddy yes Jonas yes and lower yes and I also. [4:16:26] Speaker G (unidentified): But yes all right. [4:16:35] Speaker B (unidentified): So the one other item that I have particularly called out on this application is the management request and kind of similarly to the to the water or to the utilities change but this is actually in the current year I at least, and somebody else, raise your hand and grab this discussion if you've got some feelings here. But to me, we're calculating MNOI on a spent management expense. There's no us granting an increase for money that wasn't paid for expense that wasn't incurred in the current year. I mean, we have those numbers. And I could see, you know, I guess a future application presenting that, you know, an increased management expense. I'm not even on the right column. There we go on the right line. But that, I just don't, you know, I don't see how we perform any, you know, calculation or how we add that into MNOI when MNOI is the numbers that have been, you know, for money already spent, basically. [4:18:14] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristen? Just so I'm clear, is this expense for management proposed or was it actually paid? [4:18:22] Speaker G (unidentified): Paid. [4:18:25] Speaker B (unidentified): That's my understanding is that this is proposed okay that this number be changed that the number for management be changed from what has gone out to a straight 10 percent of the. [4:18:40] Speaker D (unidentified): rental income okay so okay that makes that makes it clear thank you that 's at least my [4:18:49] Speaker B (unidentified): Understanding of the, because the applicant came back in and, you know, said, hey, I'm not looking to add 10% here. I'm looking to get 10% as the management fee, which I could understand in future years. But this one is kind of happened. And, you know, even they're creating this application at the end of the year. And there was no like, you know, I think they're saying they were preparing this application in starting in 2025 and so I maybe even see that there could have been like some okay let's make some payout to the manager at an increased rate or something or to themselves but it doesn't [4:19:31] Speaker D (unidentified): I don't see it having happened and I just don't know how it would be okay so it is what is here and the request was to increase it to a straight 10 but this is all we can justify that [4:19:44] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah this is all we see on there and I didn't necessarily even see a I think he was paying his brother yeah and I thought I saw it in like I didn't see an invoice for it but I thought there somewhere was a line item for it right okay sorry if you raise your hand just talk while my face is in this thing trying to find the if there's a page in it mark for it [4:20:32] Speaker C (unidentified): Is it [4:20:37] Speaker L (unidentified): J Dogs Property Management [4:20:39] Speaker C (unidentified): Right [4:21:09] Speaker B (unidentified): Or is J Dogs just the nope September October but this is the I see I think this is [4:21:19] Speaker L (unidentified): The other I don't think J Dogs is the right yeah you're right it's under management fee I think on page 81 of the packet, that's where we have the 4,450 breakdown. [4:21:38] Speaker B (unidentified): It'll do management, this full management fee, right? [Speaker C (unidentified): So there's] All those items. I'm not really sure why one of them is reimbursement versus fee, but labor and kind of seems like the whole management there, so yeah. So right, so we don't have an invoice for it, but we do have at least line items in the ledger for it. So again I'm not sure if that even needs a finding or if we continue to process council if you want some sort of finding there please call it out because I [4:22:43] Speaker H (unidentified): Mean I think unless the board is moving to exclude that management cost so long as the board isn't including it as a part of your calculation I don't I don't know that there needs to be a particular finding on that. So [4:23:05] Speaker B (unidentified): Then, are there pieces of this application that still need discussion or decision other than updating this last piece of math? [4:23:39] Speaker L (unidentified): Do you want to share your final MNOI screen, Matt? [4:23:42] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, that's from, I was just trying to get to the [Speaker C (unidentified): Proper, there] We go. All right, so let's make sure numbers, I don't know why, [Speaker C (unidentified): I have in] Here, oh, from the examples. And so then I need, this is actually 25, and so let me make sure I have the right number there. Anyone wants to double check I used the right number there, but that's the annual for 2025 for Austin, Cambridge, Newton. Yep, I get the same. I have the [4:25:17] Speaker L (unidentified): same. I have all my numbers. It's the same as yours. I have [4:25:28] Speaker B (unidentified): four units in here. All [4:25:41] Speaker G (unidentified): right then. And I [4:25:52] Speaker B (unidentified): think I just look for a motion to approve this increase. Oh, banked rent. Always. Anyways, so of course I didn't, I'm just doing all of these this month for the banked rent. Does anyone have banked rent numbers for these units? Dylan, sorry to call on you, but I want to check if you have banked rent numbers for these units at all. [4:26:42] Speaker K (unidentified): If you give me a minute, I can check the, what was entered in at registration. Registration. But just a caveat, these numbers have not been confirmed. They are self-reported by the applicant. All right. I have those figures if you're ready. [Speaker G (unidentified): All right.] So unit one was reported $387.17. Unit 2 is $153.73. Unit 3 is $80.85. And Unit 4 was reported $142.30. And also, these are numbers as of November 2025. So if increases haven't occurred in between now in November, 2020, but it's going to differ. [4:28:35] Speaker B (unidentified): That's all right. I think that's generally our method is to take the banked rent at the time of the application. Right, guys? Because that's how we had to do the calculations for that other, I was thinking that was how we did the calculations for that other recent application where they, it was the second time applying. Would the board like me to check with the applicant if they feel those numbers are accurate? [4:29:38] Speaker D (unidentified): Kristen, you're muted. I was going to say they're self-reported, so I don't know that, right? I don't know if that's going to really make a difference. [4:29:53] Speaker B (unidentified): That was kind of my thought. [4:29:55] Speaker D (unidentified): So is it looking like only one unit has any potential increase? [4:30:05] Speaker B (unidentified): I think so, yeah. Yeah. And it seems like, and this would make sense if there's a bunch of banked rent here that one of the tenant was saying that they just got this increase, right? That they're at least taking advantage of their banked rent now. Maybe they were working on the application and hoping maybe they'd process the application in due time where they had additional increases, you know, additional banked rent to give prior to that increase. But since it took a while that the increases were given and so this does at least give us the snapshot of what the bank rents were at the time that they were working on the application [4:30:50] Speaker G (unidentified): Wrong direction, I guess. All [4:31:36] Speaker B (unidentified): right, if that seems all accurate, I would love motion to approve this application, unless there's further discussion or points. Kristen, the floor is yours. [4:32:04] Speaker D (unidentified): I just have a question, maybe more for Ben. I don't know that I've been on the rent board since we've had negatives. Would we just have a motion to approve the increase for Unit 3 since the others are, there's banked rent available? I'm just asking how to word the motion. [4:32:28] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I mean, I think it's technically a denial for units one, two, and four, based on the application of existing banked rent to the rent increase that would otherwise be realized in an approval of a rent increase for unit three in the amount of $13.19. [4:33:07] Speaker D (unidentified): Matt, if you're ready, I'll make a motion. [4:33:12] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm always ready to not have to make that actually,, I feel like I got that one all figured out. So if you're, if you're feeling unsure of yourself. [4:33:25] Speaker D (unidentified): I think I'm sure of myself. Okay, I move that we deny a rental increase for units one, two, and three for 963 Washington Ave. One two and four, oh I'm sorry, one two and four for 963 Washington Ave, due to the rent increase cannot be realized due to the existence of banked rent, and we approve an increase for unit three for thirteen dollars and nineteen cents, I'll [4:34:09] Speaker C (unidentified): second that discussion and [4:34:21] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll call to a vote. So the motion on the floor is to deny a rental increase for units 1, 2, and 4 of 693 Washington Ave. Due to the rent increase that would be allowed cannot be realized due to the existence of banked rent. And approve an increase for Unit 3 for $13.19, being the difference between the allowed increase we found and the revamped rent. Kristen? Yes. Jonas? Yes. Buddy? Yes. And Laura? Yes. And I vote yes. Yes. Council, do you feel you have everything you need to write up a decision? [4:35:24] Speaker H (unidentified): I do, Mr. Chair. Thank you. [4:35:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you so much, Council Plant. Okay, so it's 9.38, but we have some items on our agenda that I really, I think we have to at least touch on. We could retable the vice chair application if Ann-Laure doesn't mind. Up mind, I'm holding it for a little longer, but what did I do with the agenda? Oh, I pulled it out to show to share. So yeah, I think so. Unfinished business item D. I think first of all we need, right, we need a vote to suspend our rules to handle any of these items, and otherwise kind of need to start voting to table them. Unfinished item B, D is election of vice chair, and then we have a new business A is a conditional approval from a previous decision we made, the final approval. B is a completeness review that i mean we could that 's probably i don't know either of those may be big and have to go through but i wouldn't mind if we want to try and tackle at least the completeness review if people don't feel like there's a lot to want there and then i really do think we need to at least if nothing else attend to new business c d and e getting a special meeting scheduled discussion I guess at least getting a special meeting scheduled so that we could push these other items into it if we don't want to talk about the stuff, and I really wouldn't mind, we definitely need to get a meeting for the item D so we can discuss the annual report and get it done, and I think I wouldn't mind if we would talk over the increase application subcommittee because it's very clear meeting by meeting that we need to progress that, and I have not been, and I'd love to kind of re, maybe slightly reassign that, and you know, get us making some progress on that because I've kind of been a real block to it I think, ever since I became chair. [Speaker C (unidentified): So anyways,] I already said too much. Dylan. [4:38:37] Speaker K (unidentified): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did just want to point out, if it does come down to a choice between the conditional approval and the completeness review, I do not believe the applicant for the completeness review is in attendees right now, but the applicant for the conditional approval roll has been here at the entire time. [4:38:55] Speaker B (unidentified): Thank you very much, Dylan. All right, Kristen. [4:39:04] Speaker D (unidentified): I just would like to say, before we take the vote to suspend rolls, it's probably at least another hour of work, maybe not with a completeness review. So can we try to move through the items quickly? Because I have a very early morning flight. [4:39:20] Speaker G (unidentified): Yes [4:39:25] Speaker L (unidentified): Hey Laura, I would move to suspend our rules so we operate past 9 30 and move to table new business A and B to a special meeting to be scheduled promptly and also [Speaker G (unidentified): old] business D election of vice chair. I did a lot in that motion. I don't know if it's allowed. [4:39:55] Speaker C (unidentified): Loud, but I tried. Yeah. [4:40:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Okay so that was in one motion to suspend our rules but then also so that we can take on a new business item but then to schedule a few items we [4:40:38] Speaker L (unidentified): extend our hours and we table election of vice chair item d and then new business a and b to a special meeting to be scheduled [4:40:51] Speaker G (unidentified): [4:40:57] Speaker B (unidentified): We [4:41:06] Speaker D (unidentified): have a second. I'll second it. [4:41:11] Speaker B (unidentified): Discussion was, I am, I wouldn't mind if we could try and do the conditional, look at the conditional approval, but I understand that it could take some time. I guess let's just vote on, if there's no other discussion, I would mostly just love to, if we, if people have functionality, I would love to look at the conditional approval since the applicants are, the applicants here, but let's call to vote because we got a motion in a second. So motion on the floor to suspend our rules so we can attend to new business and to table unfinished business item d and new business items a and b to our next meeting, to a special meeting that we will schedule. That was, I get it. [4:42:23] Speaker C (unidentified): Kristen yes, Buddy yes, [4:42:31] Speaker B (unidentified): Jonas yes, and Laura yes. I vote no because I wanted to attend to that item, but let's move forward. So the table's a few items for us and then brings us directly basically to scheduling a special meeting. What does everybody feel good, oh my god, let me stop sharing this. I really feel everybody feel good about Wednesday as being the best day [4:43:06] Speaker L (unidentified): and Laura I was going to propose Wednesday July 8th at 5 30 or 6 p.m. That [4:43:22] Speaker A (unidentified): works for me, but any time, day is fine, my schedule is fairly flexible right now. It's [4:43:39] Speaker D (unidentified): functional for me. Can we do the later time please? [Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, the 6pm.] 6pm, yes please. [4:43:44] Speaker C (unidentified): Alright so I [4:43:51] Speaker B (unidentified): pretty sure I could just call it, but let's move forward, schedule a special meeting then for Wednesday July 8th at 6 p.m. Eastern time. Have a second and I'll call it to a vote, so I'm not just calling the meeting, so it's to schedule a special meeting for Wednesday July 8th at 6 p.m. Eastern time. Kristin yes, Buddy yes, Jonas yes, and Laura yes. I vote yes, and Dylan if you please don't mind sending Gordon a notification because I think we both know that it will be days before I do, potentially, but I will message thank you so much dylan all right so item d would be red board annual report discussion and i think the discussion is that we need to start working on our annual reporting get it made and that we actually are encompassing that we have we don't have our last year's annual report so we really that's we really need to get that made and so buddy yeah [4:45:34] Speaker A (unidentified): So this would be a report for last year, technically, right? Yep, 24 to 2025, I guess. Yeah, and I'm really, I hate that we've [4:45:44] Speaker B (unidentified): been doing this year lag too. So in the bigger discussion, I'd love if we could, like, even if this report, if we could catch ourselves up and get to a point where right at the end of 2025, we're reporting 20, or right at the end of 2026, we're reporting 2026, instead of the kind of lag year that we've been having. Because I just think it's confusing to the public and city council. And I don't agree. It's always, there's always this question instead of discussions. And we're like, no, wait, we're not looking at six months ago. We're looking at 18 months ago or something. It's just not that effective. But I guess, oh, sorry, go ahead, Mr. Chair. My thought was maybe to just get a subcommittee going on it with a couple people, and before we, before everybody raises their hand and says, please, let's, you know, do that, I think write two people so that we don't need to have scheduled public meetings for it. And then the other part of it is that I would also in item E, I would like to get myself off this application update increase subcommittee because I think I'm the blocking factor to it. I know I'm the blocking factor to it. And so I think there's two, there's two subcommittee reappointments or one, you know, full appointment and one re, and so just thoughts there, particularly Buddy, because I know you have a lot of thought and on the application, and I didn't want you to jump and say, oh, I'll do the, report, and then also Kristen, you know, if maybe you're not wanting to work on the application anymore, but you're interested in the report, so I just wanted to put that part out there before that. But so yeah, two volunteers for the rent report, rent board annual report subcommittee, and I know we're short Gordon, we can always volunteer him, but yeah, so I don't know if like, and Laura and Jonas, that would be something you guys would be willing to at least subcommittee and start to work on for the report, or if when you had more feelings on the board or not, the for the, application, and Kristin, you're more interested in the other way. Don't everybody volunteer at once. Buddy, are you still, oh, I see, I just, like, I'm just like, no, I just have the notification of raised hands hovering over to the raised hands and I'm not reading the notification. [4:48:38] Speaker A (unidentified): It's all good buddy. Sometimes too it like pushes yours again and then I'm sorry. I guess I'll just say I'm healthy, I'm healthy. I'm happy to help with either or both. You know I am kind of like feeling personally just like I'm a, I'm not quite at capacity but I'm like kind of close, so like both might be tough, but I think I could swing it if no one else wants to. I'm happy to help with the rules thing. I think that there's some things that could be very easy quick fixes that we could implement like as soon as a couple meetings from now, if not next meeting. But also happy to like even if it's just reaching out to Matt for someone to who might not know him or like have his contact info to reach out to him about his methodology in the past, because he kind of like spearheaded that for like two years and now he's gone. And I will say that I do think that like the report we've done is above and beyond what we're are required to do based upon the ordinance. And while I think it's good to provide a high level of detail, I think it would be okay if for at least this year, it was not quite as detailed. I think it would still meet their requirements, but that's, I guess I'll have to say for other people, like feel really strongly. I would love for other folks to like get involved in those of subcommittees too. So that's all. I have a question for Ben. [4:50:24] Speaker D (unidentified): I feel like the application would really, and I may not know what I'm talking about, but I feel like a workshop would be a good forum. I just don't know the rules around that. And I almost, maybe I'm going way off on a tangent here, but I almost feel like even getting some public comment and you know from people who've gone through the application process and just but I feel like all of us working together would be much more. I think there's a lot to tackle in the application right. There's just a lot of areas in it and Matt and I tried and I think it was a good effort, but I feel like we've talked together so much through it that we all know the areas that I feel like we went through as a group and I don't know what the options are [4:51:13] Speaker H (unidentified): To workshop it. Yeah, so I think that would be a good time for the chair and I to sort of disclose what we've been discussing as a path forward. And I don't know if we've talked with the board at large about this, but at least my thinking is that it would make sense to basically create standalone regulations that establish how your MNLI formula is implemented and the rules that govern it, and a separate streamlined application that dovetails with those standalone regulations. Regulations, I've always sort of thought that the melding of the two into your application has created a lot of confusion. And what the chair and I had discussed is sort of working hand in hand to develop those two things all at once. And assuming that the rest of the board members agree with that as an approach. I think that it makes all the sense in the world for the board to hold a workshop to discuss your regulations and a streamlined application. And, you know, frankly, I mean, I think this is going to be an iterative process. I think you'll probably have a couple workshops to try and iron this out. And I bear some responsibility for not having completed the regs that I've been working on, but I think I should be able to push a draft of that out to you fairly shortly. And assuming that the board agrees with that approach, I definitely think that it would be a good idea to workshop that. Awesome. I mean, does that make sense to everyone? [4:53:07] Speaker D (unidentified): Yeah, I'd like to do it as a group. [4:53:09] Speaker H (unidentified): And, you know, I don't... Yes. I think, yeah, I think it would be a good idea for the board to choose one or two people to work with me on the application. You know, I'm envisioning that I'll take a first stab at the regulations, and I think we can all meet and discuss what I've come up with. And I fully anticipate the board will make tweaks, right? Because these are policy choices that all of you ultimately have to make. And I'm sort of thinking that probably less is maybe a little bit more with the application. And I don't know exactly what that will look like. And I don't know sort of the order of operations that makes sense. But the folks that I'm working with, I'm wondering if it would be helpful for me to develop a draft of those regs for whoever is working on the application itself to review and consider how you distill this application down to just the bare essentials and cross-reference the regs in a way that will be helpful and informative to people. People who are filing applications. And I think there's going to have to be a lot of thought that's put into that. And I am more than happy to work very closely with whoever would like to work on the application. But I've sort of been feeling as though maybe it makes sense for me to push out a draft of the regs first, and then for whoever I'm working with to think about how to streamline the application after having reviewed those so [4:55:04] Speaker B (unidentified): Then would it maybe make sense to replace me on that subcommittee with Buddy so that Kristin's still carrying forward like what we've discussed in our kind of lines of thinking before Buddy at least has a little more computer time maybe on that side and also a lot of research and experience into the side and has is closer to the original application and like the lines of thinking there and that sort of thing and then maybe we schedule a workshop for the middle of August so that you guys could Have July if you want to connect about it and kind of like refine you know and into August and then maybe like August middle August 12th or something We have a two-hour workshop, two-and-a-half, three-hour workshop or something where we try and, like, nail down that to, you know, only needing maybe one more good revision before we could potentially, like, have, you know, a new approved application that we start. You know, that's just an agenda item on a meeting, a regular meeting. [4:56:19] Speaker D (unidentified): That sounds pretty good. [4:56:21] Speaker H (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, if that was the timeline, Dylan, how quickly could all of that get before the council? Do you have a sense, just in terms of, you know, if we were on that schedule, on track, you know, able to sort of efficiently work through developing the regs and an application, would like end of August, beginning of September be potentially realistic? [4:56:50] Speaker K (unidentified): Realistic yeah I would say yeah September would probably be the most realistic I can kind of talk with corp council and let them know that this is being discussed and maybe coming up on a future meeting and [4:57:06] Speaker B (unidentified): I've been dragging my feet on updates for this whole past year, like I said. So I'm not sure, you know, the a few months of timeline is much better, as long as we're making progress, than, me not. So if that's, so, to not go so out of order as to like move that into place, let's close out the annual report discussion side. And so, and Laura, you had raised your hand. Do you, yeah, you, have feelings? [4:57:42] Speaker L (unidentified): Feelings, I have feelings. Maybe one of them's pretty strong is, well, first I would ask Buddy, you said we could do a lot less than what Matt Walker previously did. I'm looking at his most, yeah, I think the most recent from 2024. I would be willing to take this on if I could do it alone, loan, and I would plan to come to the next rent board with an outline of what I would include in this one so that I could just get agreement from everyone that what I put together would be enough, or if there's specific things from Matt Walker's report that we would also want to add that I hadn't originally included. Is that okay that [4:58:32] Speaker C (unidentified): sounds great. I'm [4:58:37] Speaker B (unidentified): not sure that needs further motion then, that will agenda, other than Dylan agendaing a item for discussion of the annual report on next meeting, not on next regularly scheduled video. Is that functional for you and learn? Great. So then now on to item E, and I'm not sure, let's at least schedule the workshop meeting, right, and I'm not sure if we need a motion. You feel counsel to change that subcommittee membership? You're [4:59:27] Speaker C (unidentified): muted, Council, you're muted. [4:59:33] Speaker H (unidentified): I was on leave when the board created the subcommittee. Did you guys make a motion to establish it and establish the people who were on it? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Then I think making a motion makes sense. And in terms of timing of the workshop, yeah, I think I think mid-August is reasonable and would work for me. With the goal of obviously pushing something out to the subcommittee sooner than that and having a discussion with you folks about thoughts on how to dovetail the application with proposed regs, or excuse me, that, yeah, right, I said that right, I think [5:00:26] Speaker B (unidentified): sounds great. Then I would move to change the rent increase application update subcommittee membership to be Kristen and Buddy, and to schedule a workshop for the full rent board for Wednesday, August 12th at 6pm. [5:00:58] Speaker L (unidentified): Second. And Laura, I can't make the 12th. Okay, I could do the 19th, but also if it works for everyone [5:01:09] Speaker B (unidentified): Else it works for everyone else. No, let's not exclude you from that intentionally if you already know that you could be there. So then, so then that motion would be to change the membership of the subcommittee to be busted, to be, I got both your names together, to be Buddy and Kristin together, you can be one, and to schedule the workshop for Wednesday, August 19th. [5:01:46] Speaker A (unidentified): At 6 p.m. Mr. Chair, can I please know something? Yeah, I'm not trying to make it more complicated, but I do just want to know that there are five Wednesdays in July, so our July meeting will be the 22nd, right, the fourth Wednesday, which means if it was the 22nd, we could do August 5th, which gives us two weeks in between rather than doing the 19th, which is just one week before our next meeting. I'm personally fine either way, but I did just want to point that out. It's one of those five months. [5:02:30] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm fine either way too, because I'd like to limit the workshop to three hours at the absolute most. but and hopefully it's a little lighter than processing applications but yeah i think my concern was that the fifth is moves the timeline up for you guys so that 's up to you and if ben thinks that 's adequate time as well losing a week in what we had just proposed [5:03:00] Speaker L (unidentified): Proposed. So and I also can't do the fifth, I'm sorry, I'm out of the country for the first. [5:03:09] Speaker E (unidentified): Two full weeks of August made that very easy. 19th. All right, sorry Jonas. No, I said sounds like it's. [5:03:21] Speaker B (unidentified): The 19th, right? I was like, wait, did you say you can't do the 19th? All right, wonderful. All right, so then yes to the motion to adjust the membership of the rent increase application update subcommittee to be Buddy and Kristen and to schedule a meeting for a workshop for August 19th at 6 p.m. Eastern time, not to exceed three hours. I will second. [Speaker G (unidentified): Wonderful.] I have a motion and a second that motion. I feel like I said it eight times now, but that motion to call to a vote is to adjust the rent increase application update subcommittee membership to Buddy and Kristin and to schedule a special workshop meeting for August 19th at 6 p.m. Eastern time, not to exceed three hours. Kristin, yes. Buddy. [5:04:30] Speaker C (unidentified): Yes. Just, yes. And Laura, yes. And I also vote yes. All. [5:04:40] Speaker B (unidentified): Right, just one item of business left, number seven, motion. [5:04:50] Speaker D (unidentified): To adjourn. Second. We. [5:04:54] Speaker B (unidentified): Have a motion to adjourn and call to a vote. Kristin, yes. [5:04:58] Speaker C (unidentified): Buddy, yes. Jonas, yes. And Laura, yes. And I also, yes. [5:05:09] Speaker B (unidentified): Concludes our June 24th, 2026 meeting of the Portland Rent Board. Thank you very much to all of our board members, to the city, to our council, and to all of our attendees and the applicants and members of the public that attended and are still here. My apologies to the participants who we did not get to process your completeness or conditional, and we will Dylan if we can make sure we get notice to them that we've got them scheduled on that special meeting, and then see everybody on the 8th. Good night.