Affordable Housing Trust - Regular Meeting

[Music] All right, it's 7:30. I will call the uh August 14th, 2025 meeting of the Affordable Housing Trust to order. Uh first on the agenda is planning and scheduling our outreach meeting. Uh so uh yeah so we have uh uh we have this outline of uh of the meeting. uh what I guess do you want to I guess talk about the the points in here that we're that we still need to kind of figure out.

Yeah. So I think basically what we need to do I just wanted to like put pen to paper of just getting us organized on all the details just so that there's no confusion of who owns what and so I think after discussing with Amber she will you know kind of be responsible for logistics once we decide when we want to host this event kind of organizing the location promotion flyers and of course we can play a supporting role but our main focus is the content so what are we going to talk about what are we going to present on and I I think so two things. One I I outlined I made a suggestion of kind of three areas. One is kind of this introduction to our affordable housing trust. And so I have some questions that we can answer just to kind of help us formulate that. I don't think that needs to be in slides. Um, we could even have that be like a Q&A where we could literally have like we could just kind of do a run through of like how long has the trust existed, where do we get our funding, those types of basic things, what type of projects do we take on? Um, then the next one being really what Nicole put together, which is kind of the the importance of affordable housing and kind of general education. And then the last piece is kind of a more specific look at one of our projects which is 25 Worcester Street. Um, so maybe inviting Andy. And then the other thing I think we should get prepared about is spending time writing down questions from the public. That way we're just prepared and do our due diligence going into that meeting, making sure we're answering questions. So,

so gathering questions in advance, I think. So, just kind of brainstorming what do we anticipate people are going to ask and then that way we're prepared. Why don't we ask them? Okay. Yeah. Like if that's like a not going to be logistically too difficult. Um I think we should ask for questions and then we'll be covering the topics that people want to cover. That makes sense. Yeah. So you want to put out like a survey and Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Um I'm just looking at the September date and that makes me nervous. I We're not going to be ready. I agree. I'm just thinking about like there's a ton of information here.

Yeah, that's both good and bad. Um and I think especially if we're going to do some type of survey, I think we should do that. I think it's important. Um we might look at November. Okay. Something like that. I hate to keep putting it off, but I feel like since this is the first one, we want to get it right. And once we've done the first one, we'll have those collateral materials and whatnot, and we can do it more regularly. That's just going to take more time to put this first one together. Sure,

Matt. An idea that I had um watching the the select board meeting this week and talking about the the next um ask me anything. I know you had kind of thrown your hand up to to possibly host a soon to be future one if this, you know, depending on on what happens with um the one that they're trying to pull together. now thinking about trying to draw the biggest possible crowd. Do we think it might be helpful to either audience to do it joint a select board ask me anything with a focus on affordable housing as part of it? Um

I mean I'd be totally up for that. Uh yeah, sure. We could invite somebody from the ZBA too. I mean we've done that before. We've we've uh coordinated with planning and um and other uh yeah bodies in town. So, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Just think about something that might appeal to a larger group or try to get more people in in the seats. Yeah. Um, that's a great idea because actually looking at our goals, we have listed that we want to host our goal is to host two of these outreach meetings a year. So, actually, if we consider that ask me anything as one of them. Sure.

Then, and I almost wonder if kind of to your point because so I just want to go back to what I outlined that is very open to discussion. I just wanted to give us some structure to react to what I thought would make sense. Um, but if you want with the survey, would it maybe make sense to host that ask me anything meeting first and have those questions and then kind of push people to say, okay, we can spend more time on that and kind of use that also as an opportunity to collect questions. Just an idea. So, so in in chronological order, we would do the ask me anything

and then like two three months later host this forum. Um I don't know. So I guess if we were going to do the ask me anything, that would be something we could schedule sooner probably. Um definitely a lower effort. It would be a lower effort thing. Yeah. Um and I think it would be less um PowerPoint and you know that the ask me anything tend to be just uh couple of select board members in a room and people just come and usually it's honestly three to five people show up. So it's a it's a small amount. Okay.

Um we have had a couple that were larger uh where we did coordinate with other town bodies um and when there was uh topics going on in town. So, um, that's possible. Um, but I would suggest if we're going to do ask me anything first that we get that see, I I told Craig and Mark that I would they're going to schedule that. So, I need to not step on their toes. So, that's can't happen quickly, I guess. So, okay, I'm going to withdraw my support for the idea of this combined fund and let's just focus on on what we have. I think maybe next spring like a like a future I'm with you.

Yeah. So, you know, let's say they get their thing organized for October, November. Um yeah, maybe in January, February time frame, then we can do another ask me anything and presumably I would be on that one and we can um yeah, partner with the affordable housing trust and maybe planning maybe ZBA. I think it would be an interesting thing to get together some of the principal stakeholders um as far as land use priorities um and and have a a good discussion about um land use and balancing housing needs with with other needs in town, commercial needs and and whatnot. Yeah.

So where does that put this then this meeting? So, do we want to then reverse it back and do this first? I think we should. Okay. I I also think it makes sense to do this meeting um to or at least if we're going to do an ask me anything kind of thing, at least begin it with uh an overview of, you know, affordable housing and where the trust fits in just to I feel like cover some basic questions. Y um but I think doing doing this event first would also allow us to um you know have that have those materials ready like I agree

at presentation quality and then maybe even make improvements for the next time. Um but yeah, I think it would be good to to do, you know, what we already have outlined here. I think it's a good um I think it's a you know, it's an outreach meeting. Um, and I think it'll be it'll be good to to get like the information out and also get information in from from people who are

interested enough one way or another uh to come out and ask questions. I think last time had we talked about um you know if we weren't going to try to rush this for um September or or even early October use town meeting as a as a forum hopefully you know coordinate with moderator see if we can get a a blurb in um to to promote it there um and then possibly have it you know if we think a couple weeks after that or early November um could make sense and you know giving us an opportunity to keep it fresh in people's minds. Um, yeah. So, we could add that to the promotion and outreach section.

So, should we meet like just to focus on developing content for this and like kind of like drafting out potential questions going doing even like a run through of the presentation, doing kind of a run through of our kind of Q&A just so we know who's just so we're prepared. I just don't want to get up there and then just be like, "Oh, I'm so and so. I'm so and so." And then just Well, I think we're going to need um more than the monthly meetings. Yeah. So, like a separate like workshop time, right? Okay. Well, and if it's um a quorum of the trust, then it would be a public meeting,

which I guess is fine because like it's not like it's secret information that we're going to reveal at this outreach meeting, right? You know, it's all I mean, it's in the packet already, right? Right. So, um but yeah, just a detail to keep in mind. Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. Yep. I think that's the way to do it. Um but I if I mean if you guys are like comfortable and have some time tonight, I think we should like I definitely I really appreciate what's been put together so far. um and definitely have some some ideas on like based on having something to react to now too. So

um I think generally this um this agenda is a good one. Um I think uh one thing that I really didn't see in the materials or the agenda was a couple of things. Um so just from a high level standpoint um I would I think there's significant benefit in u showing people what affordable housing actually looks like the the physical buildings um and maybe some profiling of typical residents. So, you know, I don't want to um you know, we have some potential anonymity issues and things like that, but I think just describing what kinds of people are in affordable housing, um I I think makes some sense because I I every time affordable housing gets spoken about, it tends to veer off into this direction of crime and drugs and um undesirable people and you know that's just not what it's about at all. Um and I'd like to figure out some way to highlight that that's not what that's not what it is. Um and that actually it's such an important part to be integrated in our community. Um, so I don't know if there's a way for us to get some actual visuals of some of the affordable homes in Grafton, but you know, there's super nice places all over Grafton. Yeah. Um,

to just show people like this is what we're talking about, you know. Well, your stats that you found really point to that that you emailed. That was like of just how many people the percentage of our town that fall in that category. So that would be really helpful. Yeah. And um there was a slide in what Nicole had pulled together um talking about you know who qualifies for affordable housing and it has kind of ranges for what the you know 30% 50% 80% of AMI

were with with dollar figures. Um I wasn't necessarily a huge fan of listing types of occupations within each of those buckets. You know my wife's a social worker. he's not necessarily in that 50% AMI, you know, sort of group or where social workers are listed, but I think generally, so maybe not in the columns, but as a kind of general note on that slide or even just conversationally, we're talking about our school teachers. We're talking about our, you know, um, yeah, DPW workers, truck drivers, and firefighters. Yep.

You know, um, you know, core members of our community. Um so uh so yeah you know we can decide how how specific to get but um but yeah I think that sort of high level understanding and you're right I think some of those statistics you know from the the housing production plan are just shocking you know and absolutely

um you know without getting too specific you know those uh public comment at the select board meeting about you know affordable housing project and um there are definitely concerns with a lot of these projects they're just not in a vacuum there. There's a balance to, you know, what the development would provide to a core member of or a core group of of town um that desperately needs this housing and is currently in housing that's completely unaffordable for them. Um so yeah, something that came up for me during that discussion was just, you know, how how did we get here?

Yeah. you know, because there was some some discussion about, you know, local zoning regulations and whatnot and them being followed. Um, I don't know if this makes any sense to to put into the presentation, but I'd love to figure out some way to sort of paint the picture of how we got here today where Massachusetts is requiring density and zoning because towns zoned out um affordable homes and um and density and and just homes in general. Housing production has been suppressed for decades. So, um, we're at a, you know, we're in a difficult situation now where, you know, at a state level, they're just, they're making towns do it now. So,

um, is there like an expert that we could maybe have speak to that? Like, maybe I Fiona might be able to talk to that a little bit.

Yes, there are. Um, I can speak I can reach out to um a few different folks that I just know from my um just my time working with them in the past. Um yeah, and I think that there would be a a appetite for just um somebody from like Chapa or MHP or one of those similar organizations coming and speaking speaking to this. Um I'll reach out. Yeah, definitely. Um and just yeah give a um sometimes hearing it like having a a housing consultant who is doing this type of analysis and working in um you know towns across the Commonwealth all the time. I think that would that would go a long way. So yeah I will reach out.

Yeah in terms of credibility that makes sense. I like that idea. Yeah, because that would be nice. Not like an extensive thing, but to have like cap it do like, okay, you have 15 minutes kind of the floor is yours to kind of share and then can answer questions throughout. But I think that makes sense to kind of because that's the thing is that this isn't a Grafton only like this kind of goes beyond our borders. So it' be nice to kind of funnel in and then talk directly speak more specifically around Grafton.

Yep. Yeah, I think some context would be helpful. Um, as Brian said, these things aren't done in a vacuum. There's a there's a whole ecosystem of housing development and um and other things that um are in play here. Um, another thing that I just um uh there was a a slide around the um sort of what was it? housing goals. Um I think that we need to sort of rip off the housing production plan strategies section. Um because these goals I think are good, but they're not as um you know, the housing production plan was very good um in being a little bit more expansive in terms of the types of things that are needed to support affordable housing. So that was

Yeah, I feel like a few slides on that would be good. Yeah, for one slide this is kind of the the most detail you can squeeze in, but

Yep. Absolutely. Um yeah so uh I think you know somewhere in this you know in terms of what can you do maybe you know put some links in to things like chapa and MHP and uh the housing production plan and to just ask people to educate you know it's it's difficult but you know groups like um like chaper they're pretty um prolific on social media is another like they they're they're pretty regular on social media and other um so you know if we can hook some people up to that to just keep that like public consciousness there. Um I guess just I want to give time for everybody else but the other observation that I made about the slide deck was it's u very heavy on statistical information and I think we're going to need to a way to tell the story. Um, and and so maybe that's that's some of the work that the the trust can do in another workshop is to try to figure out because there's so much information, try to figure out how to boil down for people who are looking at this for the first time, what does it mean? Because there are some truly shocking things. Um, so we need to highlight some of those things and and tell people kind of what they're looking at because even myself, I've seen this a lot of this before. Um, it's dense and it's difficult to look at and consume for the first time. So, um, just helping people be able to ingest the information in a easier way. I think to me like there's a lot of great content in here and but it really just needs to be clarified into

what are the key messages I guess you know to take from all of this information and maybe put a lot of that statistical information in an appendix so that people can refer to it and look at it um but not necessarily in the slides. Yeah. almost find a conversational or a, you know, descriptive way to to get to some of the the details, reference them in in a footnote or something like that. And, you know, this is where you can see the table or whatever. Um, but kind of hit them with the highlights and and here's the rest if you want to go see it. Yep. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing with a lot of um the materials that that Fiona had sent. It's like, you know, every single one of these these graphics and and data points is incredibly salient. Um, but how do we present it? Um, yeah. There's too much as is. Yeah. So, it just Yeah. Yeah. My uh the person in me who puts together presentations from work is saying this needs to be cut by twothirds to even be like close to being presentable um within some reasonable time frame. You know, people are not gonna come to a three-hour housing form. So,

I would I might too, actually, but I don't. Anyways, uh awesome information. I mean, really just just incredible what's been done already. And and some of that might just be putting together notes for the slides.

Yeah. Um, one last thing is, uh, I do think we need to talk about 1727. It's a major project we have going on right now. The trust has spent a million dollars plus on it, and I think we've got to we've got to talk about it.

Yeah. One thing I was wondering is on for topic three um and this might impact whether or not um you know we use Andy as the as the speaker per se or maybe it's it's tag teamed but um but yeah I wonder if we could just open that up to just projects in general. Um yeah I think the the majority of the conversation will probably be around 25 Worcester and 1727. Um yeah, it's a good idea. Okay. So, it sounds like so just to kind of recap what our plan is so far. So, we're going to do a survey to the public and to kind of get a list of questions and then we are going to focus on what affordable looks like through what the housing looks like, what typical residents look like and also from the perspective of an expert. So, an external expert to talk about the impact of affordable housing at large beyond Grafton. Um, and then yeah, boil down our slides and then talk specifically about the projects in play. And so maybe not, we could consider asking Andy and I forgot the gentleman's name for 1727 or that's just something based on the questions we get from the survey we plan to handle ourselves because that might be a lot of speakers. Yeah, it's already a lot, isn't it?

And then the other thing too is when we schedule our planning meeting to go over all of this, we'll have to have the survey results already. So, we'll have to just figure out what would be a realistic timeline to put together to collect feedback like is and also I also want to I I think it's a great idea. I do also want to be mindful of resources and everyone's time

doing a survey like it might if it might just be worth us setting a workshop meeting in a few weeks and kind of brainstorming potential questions and kind of feeling good about that we've captured the sense of the community. I don't know. I've never done a survey in Grafton before so I don't know it I don't think it would be um a a huge lift but I don't know I don't know how much you guys would learn from it. I mean, I think you can kind of predict what people are going to want to know about. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, I'm I'm still happy to What do you think, Fion?

Do it. Um, I also don't think you can do the survey too far back from the meeting. You don't want to say, "Hey, could you ask us a bunch of questions and we'll answer them in two months?" I don't know. Yeah, fair enough.

Yeah. Um yeah, I definitely see the the merits of getting an initial um you know, get initial thoughts of people. you know, we could share it on uh, you know, share share it on social media and we can push it out and I can physically post it and I can send it out and make sure that I'm doing absolutely everything that I possibly can to try and make sure that we're gathering some substantive feedback and questions from people that then we can kind of evaluate at the next meeting and just kind of sus through the questions and see if it's um, if we're getting if we're actually, you know, got anything out of it. Um, I do agree with Amber that I think um to overcome the kind of yeah, we'll answer it in two months thing is just putting a disclaimer on that landing page when you first log into the survey saying you know this is going to be informing our our future workshop um where we plan to uh provide um you know answers to all of these questions. Um but if you are uh you know looking for specific answers here's you know we can we can think through how it's going to shake out. But um yeah I mean I think I I I don't see I I think outreach as much outreach as possible is always a good thing. I I would think um just coming from you know a planning perspective like everything we do is outreach and communication and being transparent and open and trying to include people in the process and ultimately I think it wouldn't it wouldn't hurt it would just make it would make the event better.

Well, another way we could do it is maybe in our communications process um solicit uh feedback from people as far as what they're interested in. So as we're advertising it, we can just put a a mechanism for them to email somebody or fill out a form or whatever. So that it's not something that we do this survey and wait for the results and you know, so it's a little bit more on the fly, I guess. Um, and then we'll just shape the content as we go. Maybe that's the way to go because I I sort of I hear what you're saying. I probably could just use AI and say, "Tell me the top the top 12 concerns about affordable housing and it'll come right up." So, um, yeah.

Yeah. So, maybe that's a better approach than a than a survey up front. The other thought too is there's a lot of information even if we just look through the public commentary on um Snow Road when it was in front of the select board for the lip um 1727 in front of the planning board for Snow Road. Now, um, just, you know, you're going to see common themes, um, of, you know, what the valid cons I mean, and they're all valid concerns to to the people that that are make raising them, but there's a lot of a lot of them are rooted in misconceptions. You know, what can we correct? Um, what can we help provide greater context for? Um, it's a great idea. Yeah. Use public input that's already been submitted, right?

Yeah, it's a great idea. Okay. And I'd be happy to sift through that. I've already done that for a few projects. So, um sift through that and and look for those themes. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's great. That'll um Okay. Take a step and process out of it. Yeah. Okay. And just one last thing before we move on. Any thoughts? move this more for Fiona and Amber on where to get uh like potentially outreach to typical residents and because that would be nice to maybe before we schedule our kind of workshop um to have some people in mind

or like who we could talk to about connecting someone or

Yeah, I've been gathering a lot of great contacts just through other planning efforts. through the master plan and then the actually the Grafton common traffic study we engage with a lot of folks um even like the housing you know the housing production plan like we still have you know information you know people who have signed up and said you know I want to be updated on um information from the planning department um and you know 99% of what the planning department does is housing related so I think you know we can probably um rely on some of those resources I think it'll I think it'll just be be a mix of things really. Obviously like the convent, you know, the standard um electronic channels that we always use, but um maybe a little bit of um mailing, you know, me probably physically like going to the senior center, you know, we'll just have a kind of multifaceted approach and I'm, you know, I'm I'm more than happy to do that.

Yeah, we can uh put it in these select board announcements, too. Mhm. Planning board too. Yeah. ZBA. Yeah. Makes sense. And everyone really. Yeah.

Yeah. Particular groups. Um I just top of mind um the faith-based organizations. I know the Unitarian Church um in the common there is super um interested in this topic um and has they've reached out to me specifically about learning more. um and they have a lot of connections. Um yeah, just kind of th those type any anything, you know, any sort of like nonprofits in town. Um we can get we can get the list and I can work with uh the library and the senior center and see if they have a a list of the groups that they work with um even some regional organizations too. Makes

sense. Cool. All right. Anything else on the outreach meeting before we move on? So, we just need to schedule our workshop. Yeah. Okay. So, once we get some So, we're we're thinking November. Yes. So then so then working backwards we probably have to have this workshop like in early September. Yeah. Your regular meeting is September 11th. So

I mean I don't know I think we would have time during the regular meeting to cover this as well. I don't know that you need a separate workshop. Okay. But that's up to you if if you're more comfortable having extra meetings like or like you know one that's totally dedicated to this. I think that's fine. I because then that gives us a month to do all these action items of kind of because it seems like yeah we have outreach kind of people to get in touch with to gauge interest and so forth. So I think a month is reasonable and then we can I think that maybe October would be more helpful to do a workshop where you're actually doing a run through.

Perfect. Okay. All right. So September will be like collecting information and people and kind of confirming that and then October will be run through. So we'll have time in between and October 9th is our regular meeting. So if it's if it's looking like we'll have a light agenda. October 9th, we can do it then if it looks like we have a ton of things to do. Um, you know, we can we'll have a few more weeks before November even starts and then whenever we have it scheduled in November. Well, the 27th is Thanksgiving, so got plenty of time in November before that to schedule it.

So, we should probably like in our next meeting, we should like kind of set a date. Makes sense. That way if we're having speakers and stuff Yeah. it's fixed. Yeah. So I guess then when reaching out to any speakers like gauging availability just so we can like Yeah. And then like early mid November. Makes sense. Okay. Cool. Can I just ask a quick question? So um for for me just I should start putting feelers out there for the speakers now obviously gauging their availability for November. And um so did we did you want me to um work on some survey related work or are we

I think we decided we're not going to do a survey. Okay. We're just when we advertise it, we can give the public a an email address or some way to connect. Yep. To just ask them, hey, you know, if there's something that you're particularly interested in, we'd love to hear from you. send an email to the trust or planning or wherever. We'll just gather that information on the fly and then Brian's going to do a little bit of research with some of the projects that are ongoing. Yes. Okay. Got it. Perfect. So then but the outreach for you Fiona is Chapa MHP and then a typical resident

or residents of an affordable housing of programs. So, um, as far as faith-based organizations, what would the discussion be, I guess, with them? Would it be just, hey, we're thinking about having this or we're having this housing form in November. Can you advertise it or

I think that's what Fiona was saying. I think actually I think we were talking a little bit about two different things. I think it was because what you were talking about earlier is how you want to paint the picture of a what does a physical affordable house housing unit look like and what is a typical resident to to kind of combat that typical conversation of well it brings crime well the you know kind of what is a snapshot of a resident and then I think Fiona what you were talking about is reaching out to groups that may be affected or interested in affordable housing for their for informationational purposes. So I think it was just too different. So

Okay. And I don't and Fiona if that's something you want to table for like the picture of a resident you like how do we I know the senior center sounded like that was the right avenue but I don't know like if for this particular goal if like going to the church or the library is the is the path other than for promotion which will be once we set the date and we want to spread the word around it.

Okay. Yeah. So, Oh, yeah. No, I I'm Yeah, I'm following. I just I just um want to make sure that I have it clear. So, I think we but we did agree that's probably not ideal to be picking sort of like um when you're saying like paint the paint the picture of like you know somebody who is living in affordable housing like focusing on maybe like their actual occupation right I think Brian had mentioned that it might be tricky if we start get that

I think I think it's well it's just an idea but I think I mean I have no problem. I think it's important to to humanize um

what affordable housing is so that people get a sense of that you know families that are actually living in affordable homes and and I wonder if one of the folks that uh groups that that Fiona's um probably going to be reaching out to already might be able to provide listen I don't need names I don't even need to know like where people live but give me a profile of you know I've got a somebody in an affordable unit that's a a single mom with two kids. I've got somebody in an affordable unit that's a family of four and just happen to be, you know, two public school teachers that, you know, they they're making salaries that qualify them for for an affordable unit. Um, and just kind of draw a couple different examples of um, you know, different types of of family or living situations that um, you know, that could be very very similar to what we've got in town. Yeah, I think people will be a little sensitive. So, I'm not suggesting we reach out to residents and sort of profile them, but

um I guess what I'm thinking about the flavor of it is, hey, meet the families. Yeah. You know, and it would be generic anonymized. These are some typical examples of people that live in affordable homes. Um this is what it look these are the types of families that that we're talking about. Just again to just kind of humanize it. And um Got it. Yeah. So, so that's what I was thinking about, meet the families kind of kind of thing.

And one thing that came to mind, it might might have been on that same slide. But, um, a question I'd like to either weave into a slide or or somewhere in in the conversation, you know, do you qualify for affordable housing? I wouldn't be surprised, especially looking at how large the numbers are in Grafton based on the census data, that there's people in Grafton that have no clue that they would qualify for an 80% AMI unit. Um, makes sense.

All right. Okay. Sounds good. Just one thing for um for maybe Fiona to have as context um when she's reaching out to potential speakers. Are we thinking weekday night, weekend, whatever this the speaker's availability might be? I don't know if we want to give them any parameters or I think we had been looking at like a Wednesday night. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um Thursday's we could make it Thursday work too, but I would say November 5th, 6th, 12th, or 13th. Mhm. Okay, sounds good. I would want to stay away from the week of Thanksgiving. I don't even think, you know, going into the week of Thanksgiving is a good idea.

I agree. Okay, cool. I I won't be um I will be away on the 12th and the 13th, but that doesn't really matter. Just wanted to let you all know. Sure. While we're doing well where whereabouts, um, I'm going to be in London in for the September meeting, so I won't be able to make that one.

Okay. Are there any other action items that we can work on individually between now and the September? Um, so like I know, yeah, Fiona, you're looking into speakers, but in terms of like boiling down the key points um, like I'm happy to take that on um, and have a draft ready in advance of the September meeting, maybe even share this feedback back with Nicole. Um, and then Brian, it sounds like you have you're going to be looking into some information maybe for like handout kind of appendix. Um, anything else I'm missing or anything anyone wants to

I will just say I it was mentioned Matt said this earlier but yeah maybe teasing out um the information from the housing production plan and maybe some planning efforts that are speaking directly to housing just so we can highlight you know and we you know we're we're always tying back what we do to a to these planning efforts um yeah master plan and housing production plan and then the trust also has a um 2016 which is you know outdated now but it's still the content is actually still pertinent I think the action plan I think it would it would be something to highlight you know the trust went you know got a very good consultant to do it there is good information and then it's it also kind of breaks down some of those uh fundamental questions of you know where does where does affordable housing trust funds come from how are they formed um you know what can what are the different things that you can do with this money etc.

Would you be a Sorry. What was the name of that docu? I know that's like a big one. Could you share that with us or just Yeah, it has its own page on the website. I'll action plan. Okay. Yeah, I think it's like might be like buried on in the resources page. Okay. And it's called it was done in 2016. Yeah, I think it's affordable housing trust action plan. Okay. Is a five-year plan. So, you know, again, it's a little bit outdated, but I do think that a lot of the information is I'll share those with everybody. There are a bunch of documents linked from there. Like they're, you know, old presentations from when they were building it and Perfect. Okay.

Should be helpful. Cool. All righty. And anything else else on the uh the outreach media? Keep going. It's good stuff. It's important detail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Uh next is the update on 25 Worester Street. Uh hand it over to Fiona.

Yes. So I spoke So I mentioned at the last meeting. So, I spoke with um Worester Community Housing Resources Council um a while ago trying to set up a meeting with staff. Um he he was going to get back to me and then it kind of fell through but we were able to connect um a few days ago. Uh they are ready. They are officially ready to set up a meeting with myself um ZBA administrator. Um I'm hoping that maybe we can um try and get a maybe Bill McCusker or somebody from the ZBA on that meeting as well. It's just going to be internal just to kind of talk through what they you know what to expect through the permitting process and what you know what they'll need and those logistics. But one thing that they did uh want to figure out beforehand is they used Bowler Engineering for the initial feasibility work and they would like to work with them again because Bowler is a very good firm. But I just out of an abundance of caution just given the sense of nature of the project I wanted to just confirm that there would be no conflict of interest or any sort of um concerns raised from using Bowler twice. Uh so I am waiting to hear back from the state ethics commission and our town council just if there's any problems with that. Um they also were looking you know they um mentioned Quinn Engineering. Yeah Quinn Engineering as well are the two firms that they would they would like to work with. So waiting to get a confirmation about that because they will need obviously to um bring a uh engineering firm onto their team to do some of that, you know, the preliminary um permitting and design work that will ultimately inform their project eligibility letter and kind of get the pro that process started. So uh it's you know it's it's it's moving. I think that they're very eager to um to try to try

and get this going and I think I followed up twice um with council and the state ethics commission. So hopefully I'll hear something by early next week and then I can get them an answer um and then in the meantime they can get their team together and then we can just still meet and go over some of the logistics from the permitting side of things. So that's the big update that I have on 25 Worcester. I don't have much else, but they do seem like they are ready ready to move now that they've gotten um some of their other um preliminary work done. Cool.

Questions on that? All right. And then next is the town planner report. So I will hand it over to Fiona again.

Perfect. Yes. smooth smooth transition. So we um so I just right off the bat I will say the um flexible development work that we had talked about previously I have had not had an opportunity to um give CMRPC some actual proper feedback. So, that project is on hold, but I did want to just kind of start off and and say that um we're still working on it, but just the roll out might be a little bit slower than anticipated. So, have no fear. It's I will keep you updated when there's a something to update you on. Um that's and that's my fault. I I do need to refocus on that effort. But um we I did had a I had a meeting with CMRPC the um last week as well regarding um the ADU bylaw uh language that we're going to be bringing to town meeting in the fall. Um we you know we have a game plan moving forward. Uh we are going to have CMRPC present a draft at the August 25th planning board meeting. Um, I wanted to ask you all if you were interested in posting that as a joint meeting and attending so that you can provide your thoughts on on the draft um or just kind of voice general support or what whatever. Um, it's it's you know if people are around I do realize that it's not giving you a lot of notice but this did kind transpire fairly recently.

The the draft ADU bylaw. Yes. So, CMRPC is working on the draft language now and is going to get get it um uh present present on uh the 25th for the board. It's going to be just the first kind of initial round of comments on the draft. So, we want to make sure that you know if the trust can come, they can come and voice their concerns or support or what have you. Uh yeah, I I think I can send out an email asking for folks availability so I know whether to to post. Okay,

cool. Awesome. And other than that, uh I haven't heard anything about High Point yet. MHP is probably busy and I know that there's a lot of crazy summer schedules there. I'm getting a lot of um out of offices. So, um we'll follow up on what about the site visit um once I hear back. Uh we did uh planning board officially close the public hearing for a um project at 27 uh 277 Providence Road. It's for uh duplexes. Um there are no affordable units because it did not meet um it needed to have uh more than eight units uh in order to trigger the affordability component. But um it is uh you know we are you know it's a great project in an area that um definitely needs housing. There's a similar project across the street at 274 Providence Road. Um there's more there's more units obviously in that development but um it will bring you know much needed housing more compact style housing to the area. Um generally it it was great to see you know the board was generally supportive. We did get some initial commentary about the aesthetics of the building. Um but other than that um it it um it was kind of done in in two meetings and um I'm working on that final permit, but that's kind of been the the the big, you know, the biggest housing project that we've we've had honestly since 17 and 27 Upton Street. So, um looking forward to closing that out and I think they're going to probably start construction very soon. So, um, other than that, I don't I don't have much. I'm happy to answer any questions about anything specific, um, that I mentioned or anything that I should be prioritizing um, from your perspectives.

No, it doesn't. Cool.

All right. Uh, select board report. Uh I don't have a whole lot to report other than on 1727. So the select board has met a couple of times in executive session. U the town is in negotiations with the developer um to um address the funding of the remediation um of the hazardous materials on site. So, there's I don't want to go into it too much, but um there's some ambiguity in the purchase purchase and sales agreement in terms of who's responsible for that remediation. Um and that's what's being discussed. So, uh right now, um that's where we're at. Um we're doing the best that we can to move through that process as quickly as possible. Um, of course, you know, protecting the town's interests in the in the process. Um, unfortunately, the project is where it is until that issue gets resolved. Um, the purchase and sales can't be um executed. We can't convey the property. There can't be I don't think that they want to pay for building permits until that's been done. So, it's sort of this is where we're at. Um, so yeah, that's about all I have there.

All right. Uh, I I accidentally left goals review on there. I apologize. It's always good to It was good to have it on there, especially I didn't realize we committed to two of these having it handy. Yeah, I think that's actually and I think we had actually discussed that of actually leaving the goals on the agenda, just standing up. Yeah, I think that's why I forgot to get rid of it. I'm just so used to it being

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know one of the goals was to to have the goals workshop within 90 days of July 1st, but with last year's not taking place until January, I didn't know if we were just if the plan was kind of roll with those goals, if we wanted to have kind of a brief update to see if anything, you know, has either been addressed and can come come off or if there's anything else to add um since then. But

yeah, because I think the whole point of doing the within 90 days of July was for new members and I I think that's a great I think that is a good idea to get in the habit of kind of having something for new members to kind of like welcome and inform you of kind of um yeah, I wonder if we can kind of use the I think it's great timing that you're coming in now with the timing of this outreach meeting because it's like the perfect collection of all of this information. And then um yeah, I don't know if anyone I I don't really feel like since it has been so recent that we need to like change the goals, but I do think maybe it's worth having maybe like a little bit more of an overview around them.

Yeah. In one of our next meetings. Um we could just make an incremental update to them and say this is our goal starting for this fiscal year. Yeah. Um and not make a whole lot of changes. Yeah. Yeah. That does make some sense to me too. It's just as like sort of a onboarding for for new members.

Yeah, I agree. So, is that something that do you think we should carve out time like in our next meeting? I know we're going to have kind of a lot to discuss during our next meeting or like the October meeting or how should we handle that? Uh, I would say let's plan to do it September and then if it turns out there's something big that comes up, we put it off to October. Okay. And maybe what we could do is just um yeah, put it out uh and solicit uh emails back um for any additions. Yeah.

To that, you know, or Yeah. minor changes. Otherwise, we can just look at it, review it, maybe check off things that have been done already, and then just reissue it essentially as the goals for you. That sounds good. One little thing I would like to change though is 90 days after July 1st. Can we just pick a date for that instead of having to do the math every time I think about it? just make it like so that would be like before October but yeah okay there before fall town meeting.

Yeah. Well, so the other thing though is uh later down in the goals it also says hold two outreach outreach meetings each year around the time of town meeting. Um, and so I think the um, yeah, I think part of the reason for that was that we wanted to um, like if we had something at town meeting that we wanted to advocate for, like that could be a part of it. Um, I don't know if we will. like kind of I guess that depends a little bit on whether planning board has any zoning uh uh articles that might relate to affordable housing. Uh but I'm not aware if they're considering that. I mean other than maybe the ADU by I don't know if that'll be ready for October F. Is that probably going to be ready for October?

Yeah. Yeah, it should be ready for October because we we really are going to be we really aren't going to be straying too too far from the law. You know, it's they have a great model bylaw with all of the information that's needed there and we don't want to be, you know, contradicting or inadvertently contradicting, I should say, um, you know, the goals of the state. So, we'll probably we should be, you know, fine. Okay. Um,

but yeah, that's uh that's just one thing I wanted to kind of point out the so that with the goals workshop, I feel like I don't know if we wanted to like coordinate those in the future, but obviously we're not quite sticking to the uh that um aspir aspired uh uh schedule there. So maybe for next year. Sure. But yeah, it's going to be so much easier once we have done it once. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. Uh, all right. And anything else on goals? All right. Uh, we got minutes uh, anybody have any corrections uh, for amendments, etc. for the minutes?

Just one question. And we all probably saw um the the new town clerk's note on on minutes and you know materials and links and I think where we typically have the links to both the recording and the um the packet or any any meeting materials. Are we confident that those are quasi permanent links or I guess as permanent as a as an internet link can be? Um, yeah, this link that I use goes to the agenda center where all of our materials are. Yeah. Rather than going to a like instead of making a very specific link to a document, it goes to just where all those materials live. Okay.

Um, I guess the YouTube links are are pretty solid. I know. Um, and when I ran into this, I was looking up something that was a little bit more ancient, but there was a cycle where GCTV was kind of cycling through, you know, once something got a certain age, it got purged from from YouTube. I don't know if we have a limit on how much space we have or or things like that, but um, I guess, you know, a recording of the meeting, I think it'd be less sensitive than than the materials themselves. Um, I think we should be good there. Cool. I was nervous. I thought I was going to be 0 for two with Brian on my minutes.

All right. That note, I move we uh we accept the uh the meeting minutes for July 10th, 2025 um as presented. Second. All right. Motion to second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Uh oh, we can vote. We don't have to do roll call. All right. All in favor? I opposed. All right, the uh minutes are approved and the last thing is adjourn. I motion we adjourn. Second. Motion made seconded. All those in favor? Opposed. All right, we are adjourned. Thanks.