Affordable Housing Trust - Regular Meeting

It is 7:31. Uh I will call the April 9th meeting of the Affordable Housing Trust to order. Uh we will start with the roll call. Uh Colleen here, Dan here, Brian here, Matt here, uh Nicole, Nicole here, and Sarah

here. All right. Uh and then uh we have public comment. Uh I think we have we have nobody. Uh so uh we will move along to um updates from on uh 516 and 95 High Point Drive. Um, who's going to give the update? Is that Is that Emma? Yeah. Okay. Hi, Emma. Hi, everyone. Good to be with you all.

Hi. Welcome. Um, so I know that my colleague Carson kindly took over for me um, last meeting and gave some updates to you all um, on the concepts and the updated due diligence. Um, so I wanted to use this meeting to see if there were any questions um, on that. I have a few updates on those on my end. Um, and then go through uh, the RFP questions. I don't know if those were shared with you beforehand, but I can either share my screen um or I can just ask them live and we can go over them. Um and that will just help with moving forward with drafting the RFP. Um and I was curious, is your legal counsel, is she joining us today?

Um I don't believe so. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. No worries. I know there were some outstanding questions just about um the 40B um like amending the permit or just kind of how to handle that, but that's something we can address um at a future meeting. So, no worries there. Um so, I guess going back up to the first thing I said, which was the um due diligence and concepts. I didn't know um if there were any questions that you all had after that meeting or anything you wanted to go over. again. Good. All right.

Yeah, I think we're good.

Okay. So, one thing I noticed was I was looking back through the due diligence report and Amber kindly provided this answer um late this afternoon, but I noticed that the report still um has not been updated to note that there's access to water on the site. And I realized that was on me. I didn't put that in my list of updates for them. So, if you all are looking at the due diligence report and notice that that um hasn't been updated, it's on my radar. I'm going to email them and um and ask that to be updated. Um I think that was the only thing I had on that. Um so, I guess going into um well, actually I haven't introduced myself either. So, um I'm Emma, the associate program manager here at MHP on the community assistance team, um working alongside Carson and you all to um move forward with this project. So, really, um nice to be with you all in person finally. I think you've been seeing my emails and um these reports. So, great to see you all. Um so, would it be helpful to go over these questions? Um would it be helpful if I share my screen or do you all have them in front of you? uh if you want to share might as well be I mean we don't have any members of the public at the moment but people will often watch the meetings later so

okay help sounds share my screen okay I just sent a request to share yeah you should be live now okay thanks screen one. Okay. So, this is Is that big enough for you all? I'm never sure how it shows up on your end. Is that big enough? Can you see? Great. Yeah, it looks good.

Okay. Um, so this is um a um the version of questions that I had shared with Amber for you all to look over beforehand. I realize that some of these are ones that we actually don't I think need to address. Did we confirm whether or not these are going to be strictly home ownership? Is that correct? That they'll be these will be home ownership. I think not rental. That's what we've been looking at. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Sounds good. Then some of these um I bolded the ones that are relevant for today. the rest of these um I aren't relevant since this will be um the home ownership model. Um so I know there's been some conversations about um building design and being sensitive to the existing homes that are on site. Um Carson probably gave you our spiel on like not being too prescriptive on that. Um, but I was curious if there's like any language that you would like to include there um that would kind of help guide responses so that they're sensitive to that.

Good.

So, I don't know if this language exists already, but in a in a 40B development, isn't the idea to not be able to pick out which unit is the 40B unit, right? So what what does that language look like where it would be similar to that? Like it it's a two family but it blends in with the neighborhood where it's not too prescriptive like you're saying, but is there already like boilerplate language in 40B like that that exists? Um so yes under like the they can't like the affordable units can't be substantially or like visually different than um market rate units in these 40B developments. As you know this is a bit of a unique situation because some of the project is already built. Um but yeah, let's give some um I'll make sure that we um we can like come up with some language on that and then run it by you all. As you know, this will be an iterative process. This is just like the first time we're going to go over these questions. We'll draft something. There will be opportunities for you all to add comments. Um but I think you rais a good point in terms of not wanting these to stand out from other units substantially. they will just because it's likely going to be a different developer. But um in terms of something substantially different, I I hear that concern.

So I think just to um to that point quickly, I think we'll be at a little bit of a dis disadvantage in terms of completely blending in or you know having slightly being able to follow the exact same design and things like that just with the plan for these to be duplexes. Um whereas everything else in the development as far as I'm aware is um is single family. Um there is a development in town uh I'm not sure how familiar u folks might be with the the Peters Way development. Um but that that's one where um there are there were 10 structures in the development. Um nine of the 10 were built as as single family sold as market rate. Um, but then one of the 10 structures was built as a duplex, which blends in completely with the other nine. Um, so it's it's really even hard to tell. Um, you really have to kind of be looking for it to to tell that um that that one is a duplex and that the two units um were affordable. Um, and so I think the the guidance that you might be referencing is probably more applicable in a rental development because you want those to to literally be carbon copies. You want the the affordable unit in a rental development to to be exactly the same as as a market rate unit. Um, and a lot of times that's because those outside of the the initial lease up, those can move around. um here and and even just using the Peters Way example, I don't that obviously couldn't have been the case because the the two affordable units being, you know, literally half the size of the others in the development. Um, I don't know if the same type of restriction would apply, but I think for our purposes and and I don't know if anybody's been able to to research the affordable/notaffordable component I meant to today and then had

a conflict and ran right up um to meeting time. Um, but if we ended up in a situation where one of the three lots could be market rate and the two others were affordable, I think we would probably want all three to look the same. Um, so for the purposes of those three lots, I think we'd want them all to kind of have the same look, feel, and just if two of them end up being market rate, then two of them end up being market rate. Uh, so I think that's probably how we could apply that sort of thought process to what we're trying to do. Um, Peter's Way is a fantastic example. I think that's what I was thinking in my head when it comes to when she was asking about design. Um, that's what I picture. I want it to look like Peter's Way. Yeah.

Um, where you can't tell, but it is a duplex and it is perfect.

Yeah. Um, so I think in terms of kind of overall design, um, I know I assume it probably came from from you guys. The, um, Amber shared, um, a sample RFP for an ISW switch project. Um, and there's language in in there that talks about, you know, the the hope for the development being similar to um other construction in Ipsswitch. I think here we could probably be even more specific and say we want it to blend into this specific neighborhood. Um, you know, similar materials to the extent possible, assuming it's all economically feasible. Um, and you know, kind of as close to a similar look as as possible. Obviously, like you said, it's going to be a different developer. It's inherently going to be, you know, a little bit different. We're we're building different structures. Um, but I think that's what I had in mind for overall design as similar to the neighborhood as possible.

Okay, sounds good. We'll be sure to include something like that that is definitely not an uncommon request. So, we can definitely include something like that. Um, the other one here is site design. this gets a little bit a little more specific than we maybe need to get here. Um just given that this site is already largely built out. Um but is there anything we should be aware of for this um in terms of water, wastewater um storm water you want to comment on now? So, I know one of the lots had a drainage issue at one point, but I don't know if that necessarily comes in here or I know part of it was resolved as well. I don't know how much that gets brought up in the RFP process.

I don't know if that's a huge issue in that lot anymore, right? Because the majority of the issue I think happens in the lot that's sort of behind them. That's so the hill like the drainage comes off of the hill and goes down sort of lands on that middle lot that was there before the development was and that's where the issue was and I know that there was some issues with this but I think it was kind of off to one side right um but I also did site work though and I know some of it's been resolved too so I don't know if it was just during the construction where it was really

the issue and now that everything has kind of settled down and and uh a little bit of remediation happened. But I I guess this is my first RFP I've put out, so I don't know how much you want to mention in there, but I also don't want to surprise anyone either if it's still I think we want to be very upfront with it. Yeah. Okay. Um and probably have a little PTSD after 1727%. Anyways, um maybe we could put something in there which just says um heads up, you know, there were previously um yeah, some waste

drainage issues concerns um from um yeah, higher elevations basically mostly on an adjacent property, but that they should do their due diligence to make sure that there's no continuing issues And if there are, they need to to just design around those. Okay. And you know that sort of thing just so that when they're responding to the RFP that that's not going to be a thing that they win the RFP and then later on they're like, "Well, you didn't tell us and our bid was based on this. So even though we were a low bid, we're not going to be able to build it for that." You know, that sort of thing. So yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think across the board um in some sites or some of these parcels more than others where I think topography is definitely a concern. Um and I think you know that wouldn't be a surprise and getting the the feasibility report I assume as an attachment to the RFP. Um you know that's that's laid out pretty clearly. Um, but I think we could highlight something along the lines of, you know, it's it's incredibly important to make sure that, um, there isn't any runoff kind of running off of any of these sites onto another property. Um, so the sites should should be designed in a way to to make sure that that doesn't happen. Um,

yeah, that's a that's definitely a good thing to to call out. And I think um certainly it's just kind of an added thing that a developer would need to consider is just they are designing wastewater management per site. This isn't like a whole site that you're considering or are existing um homes. So definitely um calling that out so that they're clear on that. Good point for sure.

And I think um there should obviously be um you know final plans available for the overall development. So, if there's, and I don't know off-hand, but I assume there's some degree of um, you know, storm water management kind of built into the development that they might be able to tap into um, as and if necessary. Um, so if we need to, you know, include those plans with a potential RFP, those should be available.

Okay, I'll make note of that. Thank you. Um, this one is a little I don't know if there's anything you want to say about this. Um, but just energy efficiency if there's anything that we should know about for that. It's okay if there's not preferred maybe but not you know.

Okay. Yeah. I guess I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are on that. Just um like I guess I'm kind of guessing that requiring more energy efficient design might bring the price up. Um so I guess could you kind of tell us a little bit about sort of the what the common things are here and what the trade-offs are?

I don't know. I might have taken off the blush. Yeah. So there's sometimes like um if a town has a moratorum on gas hookups or if there's anything where the building should be all electric, this is a good place to make note of this.

Um I think as we've discussed this is a a bit of a unique site where these are scattered um small lots um kind of some earth work will be required challenging topography. So I think there could be a way that this is captured in the um review criteria um which is how you would score the RFP is like putting in some preferences and then some scores for those which will help you put together. And so as we move through this we can consider and I'd like to talk to Kirsten too and see what she thinks about the trade-offs of including something like that might be here. Um, but it certainly it it can definitely add to to the cost. Um,

I mean, so especially for the affordable units, you know, the sort of run costs of those for the person who's living there, it would definitely be a a huge benefit if obviously if it was more energy efficient just your utility. And that's also true. Yeah, that's a really good point. So, if it's possible to sort of incorporate some language in that with the affordable unit, if it's not going to cost too much extra, that might be a worthy investment um to thinking about the people that would be living there with their income restrictions and and whatnot.

Yeah, I think this is another area where I thought the IPS switch example was um had some decent language in in a section on energy efficiency. Um they had the authority is looking for proposals that include building and site designs that increase the owner's energy and water savings um and limit the project's environmental impact. Uh then it goes on into into green building certification and stuff like that that I don't think we necessarily need unless there's a a preference on the board or the trust. But um but that first sentence I thought was was probably on point to what we might want to target and to um what Matt was just saying. I I wonder if we don't want to put some specific language though about the on the in the affordable unit. We want to think about the sort of homeowner running costs

specifically to just if there are ways to design that to be as um inexpensive to run as possible while not you know I don't know I don't know how what the right language is but while not compromising the um build

yeah feasibility of the you know cost feasibility of of the the build. Okay, noted. Um, development team experience. Um, any thoughts on years of development experience, experience in residential or affordable housing or both? Um and then any thoughts on if they need to have had successful similar projects?

Is it typical to require uh some amount of experience in residential and or affordable?

I think that that would be a good parameter to put in. Um, there's usually language in these RFPs that's like we're going to score on these criteria, but if for some reason outside of these criteria that a certain proposal benefits um the project that you can move forward with that one, but it is really helpful to have some guiding language to rank these proposals. And I think this is kind of one of the qualitative ones where they either have the experience or they don't. and it can be a good way to kind of get a sense of what responses look like. Um, so I think putting some some guard rails around this um would be a good good thought. It could be like five years or 3 to 5 years, 5 to 8 years. Um, but it could be a a helpful guide when reviewing.

Okay. I do like the idea of having affordable housing experience. To Matt's point, they're going to be thinking in that way um because they've done projects like that. They understand and maybe they have, you know, ideas that we haven't even considered because they've been doing it that way. Do we want to um be specific in asking for ownership uh based affordable units versus sort of apartments and rentals, that sort of thing? I think that might be too specific. If I could just chime in here. I think you're you're the person who knows.

Yeah, I I appreciate the sentiment. I think I do want to be sensitive to the the inherent trickiness here and kind of wanting to keep your options open in terms of who might respond. Um, but I think affordable housing, whether it's home ownership or rental, is just kind of its own world altogether. Um, so I don't know that this is one where separating them out. Okay. Would make a difference if that makes sense. That seems sensible. Um, it makes sense to me though that we would want a wellestablished developer. So some number of years of development experience definitely I would want to put in there.

What's the metric for determining if the project was successful though? that that part has got me stuck in this climate. I would almost say getting it to completion. So, especially with an ownership unit, like once that they complete it and it sells to that first buyer, they're done. Like I I consider that a success. Okay. And especially, I'm sure, you know, with costs going where they're going and and stuff like that. just there's so many of these projects that die on the vine um that that yeah I would say getting to completion is almost the you know it's like the the bottom watermark and you know all you can ask for at the same time it's um but

okay Nicole go ahead yeah if we so if we ask for someone who has experience in affordable housing specifically and then ask for successful similar projects at least we would maybe have an idea of like the quality of work too. Um just being able to quickly even like look up similar projects that they've worked on before. I like that idea. Great point.

And these developers will often include like a lookbook is the word that's coming to my but it's not a lookbook. It's like an examples of projects that they've done when these um when this kind of language is in here. So that's something they're very used to providing um is like some samples of their previous work. So you might not even have to Google, they would just have it there for you. So

what would what would your recommendation be in terms of the minimum number of years in development? just I'm aware that affordable housing can often uh take longer. So I guess I'm I was thinking five years, but now I'm wondering maybe seven years. I don't know. I think that around five sounds reasonable. Um, I'd like to double check with my team, too, and just kind of see um what they think, but I feel like five is a good like either below or more than that, but a good kind of starting point to to work from.

So, five plus a successfully completed affordable housing project. Oh, are we talking years or projects? Uh, five years in development. at least at least one affordable housing completed project sounds reasonable. But I can see how this starts becoming very narrow if we start getting Yeah. Um and the worst would be to put this out and have zero responses.

Yeah. speaking to something that I saw in IPS which I thought seemed overly limiting to to that point was they had that the proposers must be a nonprofit entity and I think that that'd be great. Um but at the same time if a for-profit entity thought that they could do what we're looking to do with the sites I don't know why we would necessarily not entertain it. Um, and hopefully, you know, expand the pool of of potential respondents. Um, yeah, I'm excited to get home. Agree with that. Um, yeah, I'm not sure I would feel comfortable like working with a development company that had only been in business for two years. So,

so, but if it but if it was two years and they had two successful projects, how do you feel? I still don't not sure. Okay. Um, yeah, I just I can't see that happening. Um, right. Uh, so yeah, I don't know. Maybe. And on the flip side, and again, these will be these will be like it's like if you picture a chart that you're then going to score based on and it'll be like highly favorable, favorable, not favorable. So these will be like it will kind of average out if that makes sense. So these aren't necessarily things that you have to be like we definitely absolutely need this.

Oh interesting hands down it can be considered altogether. Okay.

Um which will kind of give a flexible but guided way to review the proposals. I thought I thought what you were saying earlier was we would have requirements and this would be a good one to sort of that you could measure against uh very directly and empirically I guess um where we would have a requirement of minimum of three years or five years or whatever but um if it's more along the lines of just give us the number of years you've been doing development and then the number of successful affordable housing projects that changes things quite a bit. So that is that is a good distinction to make because some of these are like minimum requirements to be eligible um to submit a proposal. Um so I'm trying to think if we're does it feel comfortable for now if we say five years and then I'll talk to Ksten and we'll kind of fiddle with this language about kind of what the best what the best way is with that.

That that sounds very sensible. Um I'm wondering Okay. And I'll put a star next to this one just if this is one that we want to come back to. Okay. Do we want to think about uh asking them if they have previously worked with municipalities or affordable housing trusts because we may get developers that maybe haven't done an affordable housing I don't know. I'm just I'm trying to think about how But that's one of the asks is that we're we're asking that they have. But you're So, what you're saying is that Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah.

Yeah. So, if we don't get any that have actually, you know, could make this work financially and have done a successful project, could we think about then sort of reaching ones that maybe they don't have those, but they've worked with towns on on development projects as one of the metrics to measure against. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's getting a little more specific than you might want to get on this. I think that's something like qualitative as qualitatively as after you filled out the criteria and you're kind of deciding between. I don't know that that is one that I would advise to put in specifically. I don't think I've seen that before, that level of

okay um specificity in terms of um who they've worked with. And most of these will have worked with a municipality like it is that is fairly common. The trust less so. But I think having affordable housing experience is a good kind of starting metric on that. Correct.

Okay. So I'll star this one and we can I'll make sure that I'm we come back to that one. Um so financial feasibility um who would you like to review um the financials? Sometimes an outside consultant is hired to do this or if you have someone there that I think we would have had to do this for 25 Worcester Street and I don't remember how how we went about it.

I don't recall either but I feel I mean if we can look back and find out how we did it that time we should probably just follow the same Okay. Okay, I'll wait for for a note on that. No problem. That makes sense. Yeah, I think unless we somehow did for for 25 Worester Street, I would operate with the assumption that we don't have the in-house experience. Yeah.

To um to be able to manage it ourselves. Um so I'd assume there was some third party that was engaged. And then I think you all talked about this at the last meeting, but is there anything you would like to say about um encouraging them to apply for development funds or that local funds are available? So, for me, this one feels weird because on one hand, theoretically, we're asking them to possibly pay us something for the sites and then we're saying, "Well, we might be able to give money back to you to help support the development." Um, so I don't know how we kind of to me it any anything we'd be willing to offer to support and I I I think the trust probably would be willing to offer some support um and or you know at least go to CPC and see if we could work something out with them. Um I don't know how we kind of blend that with also asking to you know what are you willing to pay us for these three sites? Are are we are we asking for money for these sites? I thought we were.

I thought I think it's on the table, right? I don't think we've decided. Um, so I I think it's all part of kind of the evaluation, you know. Um, I guess number one, would you be willing to pay us for these sites or um is offering the sites, you know, for no explicit fee part of kind of the trust's contribution to the project? Um, I guess I would just consider that all kind of the same bucket. um you know what or if we're charging anything for the parcels and what we might be looking to contribute to the project itself.

Speaking for myself, I was under the impression we were going to be putting these lots up with, you know, the request of we need affordable housing on these lots, but here's some free land. Show us what you can do with it and then we have a sweetener we can offer. But I don't know how, like to your point, how do you put that in there? Because you don't want to necessarily limit it, but you don't want to also tip your hand too. They're like, "Yeah, do you have 20,000?" Yes, I do have 20,000. Do you have 200,000? I don't know anymore. You know, like

so, and I think if there's language in terms of like that there is money available as you could say like some communities don't have that available and so they wouldn't put that in an RFP. And if you do have that, you could just say it's available. Not committing to a dollar amount or saying making any commitments, but just noting um that that is available if you would like to include that.

Do you I I don't know if if you were involved in this IPS switch example. Um, so I I don't remember seeing if they offered any additional funds, but they um they asked for um you know, something to be offered in terms of a price per unit. Um, and they set a minimum at 50,000. Um, but do you don't happen to know if they offered any sort of support um any other financial support to help the project? I'm trying to think. I wasn't involved in this one and I don't know off the top of my head if they have I think they have a trust but I don't know um if they did and I think they would have put it in there. Um I can get back to you though.

I'm wondering why we would offer additional funding. We're we're sort of I feel like our contribution is the lot. No, I agree. So, the reason my mind goes there is because that's the way we did get additional funding as part of the settlement. We got the lots and we got some money to help development happen. Um there are challenging challenges to the sites and if if they needed some additional funds that no this isn't going to be workable for whatever reason um we would step in to say well does this make it workable if we provide X. That was the whole point was to get housing there. So, I'm also confused like we think we need to agree. Are are we looking for money for these lots or are we looking to gift these lots to get houses made? I think we have to at least be all on the same page there, right before we go to RFP.

Yeah. Yeah. We have to determine some commercial model, right? I guess what I'm saying is we've got, you know, three potentially developable lots. Mhm. The developer should I I think we should just instruct the developer that if it they've got to sell one of those lots or develop one of those as market rate and they can make enough profit, it has to subsidize the other the other units or however it works out so that we can then use that money for that other money for other initiatives. Yes.

So, I do I think that a big question that you all are touching on um which would be helpful to have um your council weigh in on because based on my conversation with Carson, I don't know that we got to an answer last meeting about whether there is a requirement for all of these lots to be affordable or whether um one of them can be market rate. So I think that would be a helpful thing to circle back to that was at one point

it is. So but I don't know if it's prescriptive to which one has to be the market rate one right like we can't let them come in and say well I want that one to be market rate if that one was assigned affordable. I think that's where it's always been a question which which is the market rate lot. Um and I don't I don't recall the answer to that. Let's get clarity. I thought that there was no we had one that could be market rate, but it wasn't prescribed which one. Okay. Specifically,

I agree. Definitely one is market rate, but I can't remember if it was they get to pick or if it was assigned. I think we need to figure that out. And then are we giving the lots or are we selling the lots? And then will we help with any developmental like funds? Um I don't know. I I think the cleanest way to start, unless there's some legal reason why we can't offer to just give the parcels away. Um if we have to just charge a dollar for them or something,

um especially if we're looking to support it in some way, rather than saying like I switch did, you know, we'll get we want you to to pay us at least $50,000 a piece for these lots. Um and then turn around and offer them some sort of grant. I think the easiest baseline is to say, listen, we'll give you the properties. Um, and then we can decide whether or not we want to elude to possibly being able to further support if somebody comes back and said, "Listen, this just isn't going to be financially feasible." Or maybe we come to that determination if we don't get any responses to the RFP. Um, so maybe we we're silent on anything additional and then if nobody responds, we kind of take that to mean, well, nobody thought this was financially feasible without additional support.

Um, I think that's good solid thinking. in a hurry, right? And we can't deny that CPC wouldn't I mean that's a tenant of CPC is affordable housing. So that if that developer went and said, "Hey," and I can't say CPC wouldn't support that. They they would, right? Sure. I mean, I can't speak for CPC, but that's that's a project that seems like it would fit right in the tenant there. So, um I mean, we do have a robust CPC, I guess we could say. I don't know. Yeah, there's but I like the idea if we don't get any responses to then beef it up, right? I like that. Is that Does that make sense?

Clear as mud. I guess I'm Does that sound like a good idea uh to you, Emma? Or does that sound?

I think I mean you bring up a good point which is a thing that we should talk about is there is a event in which we put this out and no one responds. If has happened before you would not be the first, you will not be the last. Um and it's not the end of the world. So there sometimes they'll give a specific some kind of feedback on it. um and we could just re-release it with minor or major changes. Um so MHP is here to help kind of if that event comes and we need to re-release, we can definitely help you through that um through that process. I think if there are local funds available that you would like to call out, I think it makes sense to put that in this first draft. Um, if you would like to not, that's totally totally fine, too. Um, can we just say we are a member of CPA and that should trigger to someone who does affordable housing that there could be potential funds there.

Yeah, we are CPA community. Yeah, I think that to to a developer who has affordable housing experience, they should recognize that sentiment and be able to tease out. Yeah, I'd be really reluctant to sort of say it really explicitly that there are local funds to help subsidize the financials. That's just going to make things very complicated to evaluate. Yep. Especially if we're opening this up for for-profit developers. I I think a nonprofit might not be looking to to find every last dollar, but a for-profit developer would understandably be looking to find every last dollar that they don't have to put in themselves.

Absolutely. And I think I'm thinking about a little bit differently too because we don't know how our financials are going to be reviewed and we did get a little bit of money. If we could put that money towards a consultant and just have that buttoned up. Sure. I I you know I'd like to be able to do that too. Right.

So I think the other the other side of that um like yes for-profit business exists for profit and for-profit developers want to make as much profit as they can. Uh but they're also, you know, theoretically competing for uh for this. So, but I I don't know how that actually balances out. Like if we get one bid and they want like tons of money from uh from CPC versus if we don't mention CPC and then they we we would get a bid that doesn't ask for that money. I think that's it sounds like that's the concern. Is that like what you're kind of

um No, I don't have that particular concern. For me, it's just um it it complicates the financial feasibility equation. If there's like an potentially unlimited local source of funding, um you could have multiple uh respondents which would qualify and their expectation would be that Grafton's going to kick in and could be various amounts depend. So to me it that just doesn't seem like a wise way to approach it.

I think I think for round one, you're right. I think round one it's way better to just say we're going to donate the land. We got three lots. Yep. Um work within those parameters and if they can't, you know, we don't have to be in a hurry on this, right? Um, so that that would be my approach and then you know if we and uh Sam's point like if we get um feedback from the developers as they're because they'll they'll have an opportunity to ask questions about it and whatnot then you know and if if it becomes really clear it just isn't going to work without some additional funding then it can just open up a conversation I think right

and nobody's getting a ton of money from CPA that's got to go town meeting that's going to go and any developer that's done affordable housing with CPA, they know that too. So, they're not going to they're going to come with reasonable asks if any. Uh Sarah,

yeah, I was just going to um ask and I don't even know if this is possible. This is my first time being in involved in an RFP like this and this audience of developers and the market of developers I'm not familiar with. And I just think kind of like a basic product launch, you kind of do market research first. So you say, "Hey, you know, do you like the color of the candy bar wrapper and then get input before it goes to market?" Are there My question is kind of with that in mind. And maybe Emma or I don't know if you can point us in a direction of somewhere. Is there a developer or a few developers that we could talk to casually kind of with just um asking them for input? So in their kind of just generosity of some time on their end and their point of view and expertise about how we should best approach this before we even publicly post an RFP and maybe to a developer that wouldn't even be considering something like this but would be familiar. I'm just trying to it's it I feel like we're circling some great ideas but there's insight that we're missing and I don't have that information. I don't know this kind of developer audience and what they would be looking for and what would appeal to them. So I'd rather kind of I know it would be adding a step but potentially before just putting it out publicly and then going we got nothing we got no responses now we go back to the drawing board. Can is there an opportunity to first do some information gathering from maybe a trusted developer or two and just ask for the kindness of their time for input and that might not be totally that might not be possible but just throwing that out there.

Yeah, that is something that we've done in the past. Um, our team has um some developer contacts and we have called them up and not told them where the site is or any details but just asked for their um for their input. Um, and I'm glad that you mentioned that. I think that is something that might be be helpful in this case is just to um to see their thoughts. I've been making notes of this kind of conversation and the sensitivities that you all are bringing up and I would like to kind of mle this over with my team um and kind of see if we have some guidance or two cents on what the best approach might be. Um, so two things I've made note of are the sensitivities that you all are making note of with the local funds and then also what you just brought up Sarah about talking to um developers who might have some two cents to share on um what they might be looking for to make this um feasible. So um stay tuned. Um so the last question here which may be similar um answer to the Worcester Street project that you just talked about in terms of reviewing the financials but just giving some thought to the review committee um and who will review the proposal. I don't know if there's anyone from planning that might be helpful to have um on there. Um there's probably a vacancy in that right now. So um I don't know what that's looking like, but um just giving some thought to kind of what has worked in the past in terms of reviewing these would be

um helpful as well. What did you guys do for Worester Street? So I think it was just trust members and council. Was it the whole trust? When I read this, the first thing I thought was will all trust members review? It's like, well, I don't know that I'd want to have to do it in open session. So, I'd say at three at most three members, you know, plus council or something like that. Um, I think we pretty sure we had everybody I think we had an executive session at one point. Um, we had an executive session to contemplate the responses to see to confirm.

Well, we had a Yeah, we had a question about one of them. Yeah, I think um because the the trust didn't do the bid opening. The bid opening was done by town staff during the day with our procurement officer and then the trust reviewed them at the next meeting in open session. Okay. But yes, you did have a meeting with Kathleen the same night in executive session. Yeah, in executive session for a specific question. And I think that too was to I think that was to make the award basically. Yeah. The Well, the award was made in open session. Yeah. After you guys went back upstairs, right? Yeah.

Yeah. This was before my time. I did not participate in any of that. So, this is exact times. Um, so I guess the review committee, um, I it makes sense to me to have somebody in planning as well as our council. Fiona,

okay, sounds good.

How long do RFPs usually hang out, right? Like, so we have a couple more things to figure out. So, we probably won't even get this up until what soonest? Maybe maybe, maybe June, right? Unless we meet again sooner. So, when are we I guess I'm because I'm also thinking about Kathleen and like when all that is going to transition and she's just been so integral with all of this. Like what's our timeline on this? Do we want to meet sooner? Do we want to try to get this out sooner? Are we I know we're not in a rush, but I guess the Kathleen part of this has me thinking at least get the RFP done with her before we transition. Um, or do we want to wait and then do it all with the next person?

Great question. I mean, I love Kathleen. I love Kathleen. Uh, so I think there's some wisdom in trying to lock down the terms of the RFP. Is there anything you can share with me about the timing for this transition? Just so we're aware, Juneish is what I thought I remember, right? June. Okay. Yeah, that sounds right. I'd be totally willing to have some additional meetings in the in the, you know, middle of the months or whatever. Yeah. To try to make this go a little bit more quickly. I'm guessing we're going to need to meet three or four times at least to sort of go through drafts and Yep.

But just one agenda item kind of things and um that makes sense. Yeah. And it could be helpful to get the ball rolling because I think Fiona said something about um Kathleen's timeline being somewhat flexible. So if we could use this as kind of a transition. Yeah. Get her and whoever we engage as new council to kind of both participate as a handoff. Um I think that could be beneficial too. Yep.

Okay. So on on our end, what you need from us is to figure out the market rate one. Is it assigned or is it not? And then determine our financials, how we handled Worcester Street. That's our homework. And and then when we get back together, did I miss anything? Because I just want to make sure we're going to maximize each of these meetings when we when we do it. Um you're so on it. Those are the things. And then there was still some I had a question about um amending the comp permit or if this would be its own. Was there do we reach in?

So I know Kath and I guess I'll just happen to also be on ZBA. Um and Kathleen seemed fairly confident that um this would be an amendment process to the to the existing 40B um decision. Um it didn't seem like the um I'm sorry I forget her name, but the person from Kirsten was necessarily on the same page or or as confident, but um I think she was kind of deferring to to the lawyer. Um,

so I don't know if Kathleen, you know, was 100% confident or if she still had any any more digging that she had to do, but I think that's kind of where she was at least leaning um was that it would end up being an amendment to the existing 40B decision. Okay. It sounds like I think she was going to do some digging. So, if you could just nudge her on that, it would be um be helpful to have an answer on that piece.

In terms of the open items, I was planning on researching it anyway. So, I'll dig into the deeds for the three lots because I I'm pretty sure when the the deeds were filed, two of them got restrictions placed on them. So, I'll do that research and reach out to Kathleen um with this tickler. Um, and then once we get answers, we can circulate those back to everybody. Okay. Yeah. Two of the lots are uh valued uh at $100. So, I I think that might be the the two affordable restricted ones.

Could be. Which two are those? Uh just uh it's uh five as far as the financials and 16 you can look up or

okay I made note of that and we'll wait for confirmation and I'll Perfect. Great. Well, thank you all for going through um going through all those questions. Um I will get things moving on our end. I may also have some follow-up questions for you once I take these notes back um and go over them. But as I said, this will be an iterative process. Um, so we can certainly flush things out or adjust things um down the road as well, but this is a great starting point.

Um, anything else I can can answer or questions about do we want to get feedback about availability for our next meeting? I got my calendar open right now, buddy. I like where your head's at. So the the 23rd in two weeks is does two weeks seem reasonable? Um I only say that because the 30th CPC is meeting that night. Uh so I couldn't make it, but it doesn't mean you guys can't all hang out. The NFL draft is the 30th. 23rd.

The 23. Oh, sorry. Uh we can put it on the screen for you. Why do you know that so quick? Are you a huge Clearly huge fan? Yeah, my mom and I watch it. I love that for you that week. Okay. Yes. All right. So, 23rd's out for Amber. Um, maybe we should have a clerk. I advocated for getting rid of the clerk position. Right. You did do that. Yeah, because you have staff clerk. Maybe we need a clerk for that night. Anyway, well, if it takes Amber off the hook, I also have a ZBA meeting on the 23rd. The 22nd. Oh, 22nd. You'll be driving.

No, you're available on the 22nd because draft doesn't start yet. Correct. You'll be doing your homework that night. Okay, perfect. I will be remote from New York. That's fine. And beyond. I'll be probably remote, too, because Justin's out of town that week, but I can make that work. Uh, Wednesdays are a little rough for me just with uh my wife working late um and having to do, you know, the kids bedtime on my own. Um, but well, I guess if if you want to if you're fine calling the meeting to order, I could hop on at like 7:35. Yeah, I can do that if we do the 22nd. No problem.

Yeah. I don't want to hold things up because I'll be a few minutes late. Um just if you guys are both know that you're going to be remote, we want to just make it remote only. Yeah, that would be good to eliminate. It's a one agenda item thing too, right? Yeah. Yep, that works for me. And then obviously if this doesn't work for Kathleen, then we start over again. Yeah. Oh, and the 30th is a finance committee meeting. So I would be double booked that night, too. No, we're going to be fighting for rooms that night. 29th and 30th. Committee.

Exciting. CPA is on 29th, too. We're gonna we're gonna fight you again. The library the library trustees are meeting at the cable because we ran out of rooms. Thanks. It's busy time of year. Who's are you admin for finance committee? Yeah. work with Katrina to figure out who's going to be in which room for Okay, you're enough. What did you say to him? So, 23rd. Uh, do we want 22nd? Oh, sorry. 22nd. Thank you. Uh, do we want to look beyond that for another one or or do that on the 22nd? I feel pretty solid about that. And then

after that, we'd have our normal meeting on May 14th. Yeah. So, all right. Well, I guess we can decide on the 22nd if we need something sooner than the 14th, but cool. All righty. Anything else on High Point? No. Thank you so much, Emma. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. Uh let's see the agenda here. Uh update on 17 and 27 up in the street. Do we have an update? Uh the closing date is April 14th. Okay, nice.

But that's really the only update we have right now. Um stuff's all set. I did talk to Brendan about a groundbreaking ceremony and as soon as it's closed, they want to do a little bit of sight work, get it kind of cleaned up and then get it going. So, I thought that would make sense and make it look pretty for us. And we all get to wear hard hats for show because there's nothing above us to fall yet because it's I've never done one. I'm pretty excited about it. So, yeah, figure that out when it comes time. So, I'll just guys keep you guys in the loop as it gets closer. But that was that's all that was. And I think um are we going to extend an invite to CPC as well since

Yep. invite everybody. Now everybody open to the public. Everybody come that's excited about it. It's across the street from the fire station and the library. Invite them. I still think we should do it at the end of the 4th of July. Invite the post office. You know, they're not municipal, but anybody who wants to come. It'll be a good time. Have you all

uh cool? Uh anything else on that? Uh all right. Uh so the next thing is uh selecting new trust council. Uh so the um so I talked to Evan a little bit about this. Um and basically there's kind of uh there's sort of like threeish um approaches we could take. Uh so we could um what one would be uh to have uh a few options uh brought before the trust and we kind of uh look at them and talk about them and you know vote on something. Um we could the second option is we could uh vote to authorize the chair to uh basically do all that and select a new council. And then the third would be to do uh like an RFP process uh to solicit bids that uh have been recommended against uh going through that process if you don't need to. Um but it is you know something. Um so

and then another option was uh the town uses Harrington Heap reaching out to them and seeing if they have somebody with affordable uh housing trust experience and if they say yes and if they're willing to work with us just slide in there and and make it simple. Um I like that model, the Harrington heat model because they've got different specialists. So you need somebody who does really goes deep into development then they can do that or contract or whatever. Yeah. Um

so I think that's a good idea. I think generally Dan I trust you to make a decision on behalf of the trust but I think we all want some input would be my guess. I I like that option. And the only other thing I had in mind before you mentioned that was um did Kathleen say if she had contacts that she was going to try to refer us to or

she did not. So that was another like in the when Dan was giving an example if there's a bunch we could part of that like solicitation process would be like Kathleen who do you think we should work with and um go through that. But I I'm with Matt on this. I I like the idea of Harrington and Heath. I like the idea that they're they've got some people within the administration already that like works with Grafton um and then have somebody who specializes in this. I kind of like that. Yeah, Evan did say they do have, you know, somebody who specializes in affordable housing. So, that is um something they would be able It's nice that they know Grafton. Yeah. So,

so you want me to make a motion for that? that we authorize the chair to enter in a conversations with Harrington and heap about potentially moving over there. Sure. Are we just authorizing conversations or so? I think I guess what I would envision have Dan have some of those initial conversations and then bring them into a meeting to to meet everybody before we make a final decision or are we giving Dan the green light for the whole shebang? What if they say, "No, we don't want to work with you." Well, then they've taken either way. Tan's over here. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you guys want to do, I'm fine with it. Oh, what if they don't like me specifically? No, just

it's always a risk. Yeah. Um I mean, I I don't think I have a preference either way. Um I think if so I I don't know if anybody on the trust right now has like expertise relevant to this. Um I guess maybe maybe Nicole just being you know uh in real estate but um yeah. So like as like as far as uh attorneys go, real estate attorneys

like I guess evaluating a real estate attorney. I don't know. It's feels like a bit of a stretch, but just wanted to I guess give you the opportunity to say if you feel like this is something you want to have more of a voice in. But I mean, I guess my point was I don't uh so I it's not I feel I could uh tell if uh Harrington and Heap is, you know, a decent option for us. um if it's the best option is I feel like not necessarily something that I would be better qualified than anybody else to decide. Um so if other people want to have that brought back to the trust, I'm totally fine with that.

We could also just ask them to, you know, send over a a quasi proposal or or kind of, you know, what's your breath of experience look like? um just to give us something to to look at for cuz yeah a face to face it's like interviewing somebody for a job. It's like you only get so much for um you know how the relationship's actually going to materialize. Yeah. Um but yeah, it's if we got something from them saying you know this is what we bring to the table. This is our experience. Have you done have you served as counsel for similar trusts or or you know housing authorities or anything like that? Um, I think that would be helpful. But,

okay. So, I I think I would like all that information, but I don't need it to know that I would feel comfortable moving forward with Harrington He would also really like to maximize that little bit of time. June seems far away, but it's not. Um, so if we authorize Dan to engage with Harrington and Heap so that they can maybe even potentially join April 22nd as our council to start that transition process, I I would prefer that. Um, but if other people want more information first, I totally respect that, too. I think I'm on the same page. I am. And isn't it important that we connect them whoever is taking this over with Kathleen? That Yeah. We have like a little out overlap. Yep. Absolutely.

Yes. Yes. For sure. Okay. Is that a motion? Yes. No. So, I move that Dan uh or that the chair is authorized to engage Harington Heap to become our new town or our new uh council for the affordable housing trust. Second. All right. Motion is second. Uh any further discussion? All right. Vote by roll call. I Dan I. Brian I. Matt I. Uh Sarah. Sarah I and Nicole. Nicole I. All right. Motion carries. I'll uh reach out to Harrington and Heap and then uh potentially invite them to July 22nd or April 22nd.

Yeah. It's my brother's birthday. Skipped right over June. Yeah. Already in July. Um All right. Uh and treasurer support.

Yes. So um I can be brief. So, in the um the updated report through February that was in the packet, um not a whole whole lot going on. Uh just some some payroll and and um investment income. Um the only other thing I'll mention is um at Colleen's um invitation. I met with CPC last month. Um had a really good conversation. they seem very happy um with the level of of financial information that we'll be able to to share with them going forward and the historical um kind of roll forwards that that have been done. So I think that's um I think the relationship was already in on really solid footing, but I think um they're specifically kind of pleased with with where things stand financially. Um so I thought that was productive. Um

super productive. Thank you so much for coming out. Yeah. So and doing all that work again. very much a fan of that. No. And it seems like so uh CPC's treasurer um Mr. Hberger had had done kind of some back of the napkin calculations on where he thought we would land for for a split and we seem to be fairly well aligned with with what he expected. So, um it was good to hear that, you know, that kind of sanity check had been done um and that he came out to to roughly the same spot that that we landed. So, great. Yeah. But that's all I've got. All right.

All right. Any questions on that before we move to the best agenda item? Move we journ. Second. All right. Motion a second. Uh Colleen I. Dan I. Brian I. Matt I. Sarah. Sarah I. And Nicole. Nicole I. We are adjourned. Bye guys. Thanks everybody. Thanks