Affordable Housing Trust - Regular Meeting

[Music] the October 9th meeting of the Affordable Housing Trust uh to order at 7:32 p.m. Uh and where did my agenda go? Okay, so yeah, the first thing is the uh uh the housing forum. Do we want to confirm? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We got Colleen. Let's do a quick roll call then. Uh Matt Otton is present. Dan is here. Brian Lman present. Colleen, I'm here.

Cool. All right. Now we're officially called to order. Uh so first thing is the uh the housing forum. So um yeah. Uh go ahead. Uh Fiona. Nicole's also here. Oh, cool. Um, I just tried to promote her, but Okay, she she declined my promotion. She's just just gonna watch. She just listens. Uh, okay. Cool. Now she's in. Now she's in. All right. Uh Oh, sorry. Hi. I'm here.

Cool. All right. Uh, so uh Yeah. So, are we uh Fiona, we're all confirmed with the the speakers and all that?

Yes. So we are good to go. We will be moving forward um with two speakers from MHP and then um Monica Keel from Chapa who will be um speaking second. Um Shellyley from MHP and um oh my gosh I'm Emma Emma McGurn I believe is her name from MHP. So um speakers are locked in. They know what they need. They're sending me blurbs um to do so I can do introductions for them. Um they have all of the details. They know that the mingling mingling is going to be going on for the first half hour. I said, you know, feel free to join. Um but you know, you will be speaking at um around 7:10 and then chapel will be going on at around 7:30. Um we're just getting finalizing the details of like tech needs, but all they're seem to be fine. It's just going to they're going to bring their laptops and plug in through HDMI which is um not an issue at Community Barn and there's no dietary restrictions or anything that we need to be a aware of um for the speakers. So yeah, we're in a good spot.

Cool. Yeah. Uh awesome. And so the uh so we have uh we have slides that we're going to do. Uh is there anything else we need to like finalize or are we the planning kind of seems to be in order, right? Yeah. the um well I guess Colleen has her hand up so I'll let her go ahead Colleen sorry as far as planning goes I know we had maybe mentioned looking into a one day beer and wine did that happen or

so we were wanted to get a feedback on on that I was wondering um just yeah I guess I sometimes I get a bit nervous with serving alcohol at at at town events so I wanted to kind of just make sure that was definitely something that um we wanted to do before finalizing those details. I don't it's perfectly fine. I just sometimes I just get in my head about certain things. So, I just wanted to just confirm that that was that was definitely happening um before we have the Amber move forward.

Yeah, I know. I had volunteered. I thought I might have a um a connection. I think what we really would need is almost kind of a one-stop shop and I thought, you know, my my option could have been that. Um, but they had a conflict that night. Um, so we really need somebody that can provide, you know, product if we don't want to deal with getting that ourselves serve and be insured. Um, and I think it's probably a little short notice to to try to pull all of that together. But, um, but if anybody thinks they have an option, I'm I'm all ears. I think at our last discussion we were leaning toward doing something like um like what EDC does. Um but that that's not this event, you know. That's something that's much more casual where it's you know

Yeah. But it's what this first the first 30 minutes of this event is supposed to be. It's not you know Yeah. the EDC thing feels like it's more of a like it's a networking thing and there you know it's it's not like open to the general public necessarily. It's like a businessy kind of thing. So I feel like it is a little bit different and it's like held at a restaurant which is already kind of serving those types of things anyway. They they typically will do it at restaurants. So yeah I just you know I was just thinking just like the based on the like nature of the event just wanted to make sure what what everyone's thoughts were. I mean, Colleen, go ahead.

Did we hear back from any other um affordable housing trusts in the area? You know, when you think when I hear networking, I think of of that, too. So, I sent out emails, but I haven't heard anything back yet, but I've just been kind of talking to to my networks and telling them to share. So, um no like confirmation of like, yes, definitely will be there yet, but and CMRPC did a big blast to um their list serve. Um, and I did post on Facebook as well, but I can do another push too.

Cool.

I think maybe um related to the the Facebook post and and kind of sharing the the flyer and stuff like that out there. Um, I know the the news flash um on the the town website links to the Eventbrite page. Um, but even on that page, it's not I didn't get feel like it was entirely clear that we wanted people to register or or or get tickets or you know, whatever that option is on on the site. Were we still trying to get account or or register folks um in advance or is it are we really just kind of focused on getting information out and um you know less focused on the registration side of things? I I believe the that Eventbrite link logs that data. So, anybody who registers it'll show up um when you log into the Eventbrite and you can see

Yeah, maybe it's just me. It didn't feel overly intuitive to you know for especially for a free event to click the the get tickets link and I assume that's what we would need to do to to register folks but Right. Yeah. But I didn't know how important that information was or if that would have been more important if we were trying to do kind of a a beer and wine or sort of situation. Yeah. Um trying to think if there's like another way that we can like capture. Is there nowhere to put like on the site with the link, you know,

free event gra, you know, reserve your ticket now. Something just like telling people like it's a free event, but like RSV RSVP here or something like that. Yeah. Please let us know you're coming. Yeah. Um I can we can Amber maybe the um the best way to do it is to include that in the future like in our scheduled blast. Yeah. Make it clear that the um and I can go the event bright link is like a is functioning as an RSVP. Okay.

No. fix my post as well. And then the only other thing I guess a little bit associated with that the site is the schedule. Um so I think most places we have the time is 6:30 to 8, but the the schedule on that site has you know Q&A going to um 8:20 and it's kind of silent to the the block between 6:30 and 7. Um, I didn't know if we wanted to firm any of that up or um I wasn't sure what our hard stop was when we had to be out of the barn. Um, if that was 8:30, if that was after

I think I reserved it until 8:30, but um I mean they give you a key card and you you lock up and let yourself out. So um I really I don't think that it matters much to them whether we're out of there at 8 or 8:30. Yeah, they're pretty good. Um, historically they've they've been um pretty like accommodating like they know that um they give us they allow us time to like wrap up, clean up and Okay.

and and do what we need to. Yeah, the Eventbrite page has that agenda on it and if we just add um an item for that 6:30 to 7 um for you know the doors will be open you know. Yeah. I just think even like on the the flyer and stuff I think it has the the end at 8 o'clock. So, and if we wanted to push that to 8:30, if we do any more copies of the flyer or for the ones that we thinking of distributing at town meeting or I don't think it matters a whole lot, but

Oh, yes. Yes, we definitely want to put it um put it with the town meeting information so we can coordinate the printing of that and make sure that's that's out there and distributed with the other with the warrant and whatnot. The only other thought I had too was if we'd do a a print for for town meeting is if we could do um a QR code or a link or something for the the Eventbrite page. Um yeah, I I printed a couple um copies of the flyer today and I just stuck the a QR code on it for the for Eventbrite. Perfect. And um yeah, I I also talked to um Dawn today and we're just going to have flyers ready to go when people, you know,

check in. Yeah. Grab a warrant, grab, you know, go down the line of all the all the handouts. Cool. Nicole, can I just registered for um through the Eventbrite link, which Sorry I didn't do that when out, but um could you just show me what you're seeing on the back end when I register? You just did it right now. Yeah, it might take a minute or two to come through, but I just I'm just curious to see um like if we could like export an Excel sheet of everyone or something like that so we can Yep. It shows one ticket out of a I put the limit at 100. Mhm. I think that was like the lowest one on there, but Okay. Um yeah, it shows one ticket sold. Um

Great. I can send a snapshot of like what it looks like if you want. No, it's okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you know it was it was going through and that there was a just kind of keeping like a kind of comprehensive like log of everyone's Yep. It so it shows your name quantity one general admission and it's got like an order number. Okay. It does it does it log the emails so we can send email?

Probably does. Let me just see. There's a tab on here that um the ones I've used in the past it has done that and you can like export a um report that shows all of the emails and stuff. Yeah, I was going to say I think I remember from a pa past events that like because that'll be handy if we can download that and then we can just send like a reminder blast and just to those to those people and say you know one week away and share on your share with your networks and this actually has the ability to do um just that like send an email blast um you can actually post right to um social media all that good stuff.

Perfect. Love it. Yeah, that should be easy to do for sure. Sounds good. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that we're missing um in terms of the followup from the last time. Um, in terms of outreach, I think we're we're in a good spot. We're gradually um pushing it out. I know Amber's going to be emailing um the boards and the general board and commission um email address. Um it's in the select board announcements. I have it um scheduled for the planning board um the next planning board meeting announcements. Um we had a pretty long meeting on Monday. Um, so I just completely um blanked on putting it in the the correspondence for that. So I apologize. But yeah, it's we're pushing it out on the 27th.

Um, it's it's a few page it's a few places on the web page now. It's in the event calendar. Um, if you go to the affordable housing page, it's and I think you did a news flash today, right, Amber? Because I saw something come to my inbox. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, I also um so that news flash appears on the homepage and it's on the planning department. Planning is it? It might be on both planning department. Yes. Yes. Because I got two notifications. So that's perfect.

Great. So, I do want to get feedback if we are good with the outreach or if we want to talk through that more. Um, feel free to stop me. But I did want to get some feedback on the slides as well. Um, just to make sure that I'm on base with what I'm presenting. I think it's I think it's too much right now. Um, that's way too long for a 10-minute intro. Um, so we need to just shave it down to the more salient points. Um,

I can talk fast if we need to.

Yeah, I was trying to Well, the the data stuff was stuff that I had assembled from before and I didn't want to just kind of like unilaterally take it out based on like what I thought was important. I wanted to give the trust just an opportunity to be like just nyx this, nyx that, whatever. Um, I do, you know, I made it, so maybe I'm biased, but I do I do think the first three slides give a good, um, summary of kind of like who who the trust is and what they're what they do and where the money comes from and all that kind of thing cuz I do think those questions do have a tendency to come up. But yeah, I'm I'm happy to shave it down in any way. Um, or just like reduce the text or whatever we need to do. Uh Sophion, um one of the things was just on the who who are who we are.

Um there's some documents referenced there, but I don't see the housing production plan, the most recent one. Okay.

So, I'll put that. I'll make sure. I think I I Yeah, I think I said, oh, the trust like helps implement that plan, but I need to I should reference that. It's a good call. Um yeah, and I don't know. Yeah, the um some of the demographic uh so yeah, some of the hard data later on in the slides is probably going to be difficult to present. um and a lot for people to look at. So

yeah, I was trying to um it was like my attempt during that September meeting to try and like paint the picture sort of and the picture was painted and too much. So I agree. I I think those two slides on occupations and incomes go. I think it's just you you could probably put that into I don't know could definitely combine those but um you could also just make a note of what some of those incomes are and just talk about that as a bullet point for um when we talk about area median income and all that. Um,

yeah. So, take out the bar graph and just like highlight a couple just some of the common occupations, you know, maybe some that I don't know, but those Yeah, those um horizontal bar graphs that's not not great slideware in general. Yeah, you know, maybe that's one slide you could use that was in my original deck because that slide I had was pretty simple. Just had the different AMI percentages and then it had just a couple examples of people who would fall into those buckets. Yeah,

perfect. Yeah, I can take I can just replace replace replace that with what you have, Nicole, because the the AMI like introducing that um idea, that concept, I guess that feels really important to what we do and what housing trusts do and just affordable housing in general. So, that seems like that's definitely something that needs to be in there some somewhere. Got it. Yeah. And I think showing the different um jobs in each bucket like humanizes it. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's the like explaining the AMI concept and then making 80% tangible

I think are the like the two steps that are important there. And and just having like the like the minimum amount of data to to get those points across. I think it is uh is what we want. Okay. Yeah, I did like the slide. Um I got some data from the accounting office about the average um employee salaries for like a Grafton municipal employee. I I love that. Yeah, I was happy with that one. I was like that's pretty telling I think.

Yeah. And you can definitely, you know, just on that slide just mention that um, you know, all the affordable housing stock has a local preference. Oh, yeah. If you could call, can we say all or I don't know if there's any. I know the recent ones that have gone through the ZBA that they definitely added the the local preference, but I don't know if if that's in for everything. All of the planning board lip projects have local preference as well. At least since I've been in Grafton, I think it's a just a a general local policy. Yeah, that should be most of it.

Um, and the only other like suggestion I had maybe on the slides was just do we want to put a slide in for like how can you get involved because that's going to be kind of our target audience for people possibly showing up to meetings in support of affordable housing, attending our meetings, that sort of stuff. Yeah. E either get involved or even just um you know, if you need more information for yourself, like if you think you might qualify for something, you know, how do I you know, where do I go from there? I know I think at least one of the speakers um I believe is going to be touching on some of that. But

yes, yeah, Chapa is bringing they're bringing handouts umformational handouts for people to distribute. So people who are interested in applying or trying to get on a wait list um or find out about um lotteryies and such um we will have that as well, but we can include it in the slides too. Just like a a tiny detail, but um that uh background image on the first slide and then it's uh repeated on another slide. Mhm. Feels very dense. Um, so

yeah, you can take it out. Yeah, feels very like the houses are not like perfectly lined up, so it feels chaotic. So yeah, just want to maybe have a different one. We'll get rid of that. I feel like the the affordable housing skeptics will look at that and and feel very anxious. Yes. Yes, I got you. Okay. Yeah. Back. Sorry. Go ahead. Uh, I could probably get um like a like a drone picture from Grafton, I think. Do you get to fly the drone? No.

You'll love that. The way you said it, I was like, "Oh, is this is Amber trying to get a turn?"

I'm all set. I don't I don't want to be responsible for for breaking the throat. So, um that those slides are for 10 minutes of slot. Yes. Um so I would get rid of the tenure ones. Yeah. Mhm.

Um rest of it looks pretty good. I was confused on the last slide the the housing density maps. Um it looks like there might be some headers at the very top that might be cut off. You see some like dangling like um and I don't know if there are if those are intended to be two different map. They look mostly similar but there are some differences. Um, and I didn't know what the difference between those two maps were, but

yeah, that was um this those were maps that were made during the uh master plan um update and the the red shows basically um the low low density areas and then as the color um as the colors kind of gravitate more toward, you know, you know how the symbology works, but but um one map was um they were over different time frames. But yeah, I I think that it I just included it. Um I I think it'll be more confusing if we have it. So I think we probably can just take it out or maybe we could use like one um one of them. I can keep one in the slide and make sure that the heading is included and um do it that way. Brian, maybe. Sure. And I know circling back towards the beginning, um, you'd mentioned liking the the first three, but I think if if we were going to strip any of those, I think the the funding sources one was probably the lowest um on the food chain. you know, we get most of our outside of kind of lump sums from settlements and things like that. Um, you know, most of our funding comes from, you know, CPA. Um, I don't know if we'd have a a ton more to to say on funding sources. Um, something we could certainly ask answer questions about if anybody has any questions, but

Okay. Yeah, that's fine by me. Yeah, I mean mo Yeah, exactly. majority of the funding is CPA only. So, interesting. The housing density map on the right looks like it includes everything that's in progress, not yet built. I believe that that is the distinction. I'm actually trying to find the um like 8 Pine Street and 1727 Upton Street. Yeah, I think it was it was either what? Yeah. What's in the pipeline? Let me see if I can just find that.

Going back to what you said, like looks almost exactly the same. Yeah, people are some people uh are acting like we're building tons and tons of housing, but actually it's mostly the same in town. Law of large numbers, it's hard to move the needle. Yeah, Fiona, I think um with everything that was still projects that were going to be built that was going to put us at like 12% affordable housing.

Um we are um not definitely not there. Um, we are more we we are in safe we are in safe harbor until February 2026, but we are um we are likely going to be losing um a good amount of units if we cannot get um building permits in particularly for 59 Pleasant Street. Five Millennium is 47 units that will be falling off as that project is stalled. Oh,

and the um 59 Pleasant project um that's the same developer that's doing 116 Upton Street and they've been focusing on that because they needed to get um their utility work uh they needed to expedite the utility work uh based on Mass DOT's paving of 140 and then they just kind of took off running with that. We are we're continuing to engage with them very regularly to make sure that they, you know, they get in what they need to. But yeah, not no guarantees yet. So, we're definitely um at at the moment we're we're probably looking more at like if those fell off like 9.7.

Yeah. Um, I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but like just talking to people in town and stuff, I think people do have um a hard time distinguishing the conversation around affordable housing units. That should be one conversation. And just um I think Dan mentioned it um the amount of housing that's going up more in reference to apartment buildings being built and stuff like I think people lump those two things together and they're not necessarily the same conversation. like the like the fact that um 100% of all rental units are included on the inventory despite only like 25% actually being

affordable. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We could do a slide that um talks about the SHI if we want to and just highlight some of those key points so it's clear. Yeah. Because I mean across the the board, not just in Grafton, that's the case in the entire state of Massachusetts. like Mhm. a very small slice of housing inventory is deemed affordable housing.

Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Cuz out of Yeah. Cuz we are Yeah. Grafton is at 826 units in total across the entire town, which obviously is very small compared to how many units are out there. So yeah, we can do we can highlight that. I just think sometimes the affordable housing conversation gets mixed up with the building of these like large apartment developments. Mhm. But it's should be two different conversations. Mhm. In my opinion. Yeah, I get you.

Yeah. I feel like as we as we approach that 10% in town, I feel like we um it's kind of a a longer term thing for the affordable housing trust is to to look at like what else is there besides these like, you know, big apartment buildings that that have been kind of the the big thing lately that's gotten us closer to 10%. Um because there's definitely there's more to affordable housing than that, but it's a bigger conversation.

Um yeah. So I uh I just want to make sure we're clear on like what is coming out and going in here. So the um the tenure stuff, we decide to to take that out. Um,

yeah. So, so I have in my notes, sorry Dan, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I have um condensing the occupations um and industries slides to be one slide that basically highlight, you know, just kind of picks a few and highlights the average salaries um per occupation by industry. Um, and then I'm sorry, Nicole has a slide that has that information. So, we're actually going to replace replace um what I did with Nicole's much more succinct um slide. So, that's what I have in my notes. Um, we'll keep the a um obviously the um the AMI thresholds so it's clear um you know what the um the qualifying criteria is per household. um note local preference in the slide uh that talks about the um graph municipal employee salaries. I have um a slide about adding a slide about how you can get involved and learn more about um local affordable and regional housing opportunities in the area. Um I have removing the background picture that's um too busy with um Amber's going to try and get some drone imagery to replace that. um getting rid of the tenure ten tenure slides um and trying and maybe getting rid of one of those housing density maps um and maybe keeping one for consideration for the next meeting um based on the the um what the data is is conveying um I'm still just I'm bouncing back and forth between emails trying to find um which which maps is what and then I also have um cutting out the funding sources slide because it's it's there's really no need if most of our funding is from CPA. It's

pretty clear. And then adding a slide about the SHI and making the distinction that um just because a project a housing project is on the SHI doesn't mean that the actual total number of units that's being provided are actually are affordable for the rental projects. So that's what I have. If I miss anything, let me know. That sounds good. Cool. If Fiona, if you want, I can um I can probably take some of the information from the SHI file you and I have been sharing back and forth

um to pull together some information I think might be helpful. I think one of the things could be um built versus, you know, in the pipeline um but then also, you know, that separate column I had broken out for um you know, differentiating. I think to to Nicole's point, um, SHI units versus actual affordable units, um, and giving kind of those two those two numbers so I can try to slice and dice some of that.

Yeah, that would be superbly helpful. Brian, thank you. And Nicole, I might um just have you take a first flush look before the next meeting at the final compilation of slides and just see if there's um other key takeaways from your slide deck that um that make sure that those those two products are are talking because you did a good job on your slides and I don't want to um leave out anything. Yeah, sure. I can resend that to you. I know you you were looking for it

earlier. Couldn't find it myself. So I think if other than you know the modifications to the slides and then um we um the outreach that we discussed I think we we're in good shape with other aspects of the event. Um community barn is is knows um well kind of how we run things. because we did the housing production plan work uh workshop there and um this will probably be similar but so did so just so I'm clear so did we think that probably it's better to just not have um get a a beer and wine wine license

yeah I think it seems like a better fit for a future event if we wanted to yeah if we do like a more informal format for that seems very structured for for that Yeah. Okay, sounds good. Um, going back to the community barn, I also have plans with GCTV. They're going to go with me uh to do a walk through and uh make sure that the like the microphones are set up for them to best capture the presentations.

Cool. That's good. Should I edit either the Eventbrite or the flyer to make a better distinction that like doors open at 6:30, speakers start at or you don't think we need that? just just because I'm thinking like if we if we aren't having like refreshments there like are people going to get there at 6:30 and be and then be like what's going on? I said this started at 6:30. You know what I mean?

Mhm. Well, sounds like I think the plan is to have refreshments just not beer and wine, right? Yeah. Yep. No, there will still be uh refreshments and I think that um on that uh where you have the agenda listed on Eventbrite. Yep. if you could just add one more item at the top for that 6:30 to 7 time slot um for you know just like refreshments light bites or something like that. Yeah. Okay,

sounds good. And then do we also want to um make the end time 8:30 across everything? I mean, the the presentations are going to be over by 8. Any any Yeah, I feel like 8:30 makes sense. I mean, well, the presentations end at 8. I think we had Q&A from like 7:50 to 8:20 in the Oh, okay. Yeah, I was going to say um Okay. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Yep. 8:30 then.

Or even we could even just say 8:15 and shorten that to 25 minutes. Or, you know, I'm not married to either one. I mean 8 is when everything official is going to be over. Anything after that is sort of you know casual. Yeah. Do we think should we leave it at 8 so then people don't feel like they have to stay because if they if you don't have a question like the presentation is over you're welcome to leave or like you know hang out for 15 20 minutes and let's have a Q&A session. I don't know. I'm happy to update either way. Just throwing it out there.

I think leaving it at eight is probably a good idea. I mean, if you make it a whole twohour blocked out event when you're really not, you know, maybe Nicole, we can make um instead of having an end time for for Q&A, you could have it just starting at 7:50 or whatever the last presentation stops at. And then, okay. Yeah, if if the community barn is not going to be, you know, rushing us out at any certain time or whatever, we can leave it kind of open-ended. But

yeah, I can definitely do that. And I think Fiona had mentioned another meeting, but we don't have another meeting between now and and the event, right? At least not currently scheduled. Oh.

Um I think it would make sense for Fiona and Dan to run through the the presentation, but I don't know that the whole group needs to get together for that. Um but it's up to you guys. Yeah, I feel like that can be uh that's fine by me for us. Um I will say I am out all next week and I won't be back until the 22nd, but I think you know just like that obviously like that the slides are they don't need they're not as timesensitive as some of these other Oh, you're going to miss town meeting. Yes. You

must be so disappointed. Uh yeah, we can we can find a time after 22nd.

Okay, cool. Sounds good. I mean, I'm hoping to be able to turn around a lot of this. Um, I'm hoping I can just get it to you tomorrow if possible and just shoot it out so you have it so no one's waiting on me and then All right. Anything else on uh

yeah the only other thing I want to touch on for the presentation do we have um updates that we would feel comfortable um either teed up now or or that will be ready to give by the time of the event for 1727 uh Upton 25 Worester andor the High Point um efforts Yeah, I I can provide an update. Um, for sure. Um, like a ver like a um Sorry, Ryan. You thinking like a verbal update?

Yeah, either. Um, either something to to work into the the presentation or just anticipating that if there are any questions, they'll probably um be focused on. I think working that into the Q&A at the end makes sense. Yeah. and I'll I'll come prepared to um answer any answer any questions as well. Okay, that's all I have. Cool. Awesome. Anything else? Anybody? No. No, I don't think so.

All right. Uh, next we have uh consider support for articles on the October town meeting warrant. Uh, so I I left this a little bit open uh in case there were other articles people had in mind. Um, I feel like the the obvious one is uh the ADU uh bylaw which is uh article 10.

Uh there's also article 9 which is the master plan. Um and then there's uh articles uh where is it uh five and six that are uh you know regarding land use. So uh maybe we can start with uh article 10. Um the uh Colleen has her hand raised. Yeah, go ahead. I just want to say I think this was a a good idea to bring forward and the more we can advocate and throw our support behind things like article 10 uh the better. I I fully support article 10.

Cool. Um yeah. So the um I was thinking we could like there's there's a range of options here. We could like vote to formally support it and then, you know, make a uh a statement supporting it at the uh town meeting. We could we could choose not to do that. We could um uh we could see what planning board might have in mind for uh you know, arguing in favor of it if they're if they have any plans on that. But um yeah, curious what uh other members might think. I think we we've probably all seen enough town meetings to to you know, we're probably all on the same page that I don't think any of these should be overly at least not nine and 10 should be overly contentious. Um but then you get surprised by things you don't expect to get surprised by. Um, I think if we if we want to um support either or both as a as a group, I think the the right way to do it would be to um to have a vote and then um you know, Dan, if you wanted to speak on our behalf just to I don't think we have to be overly verbose,

very brief. Um you on the master plan one, I think we could say that the um you know the master plan aligns with the housing production plan um that the trusty you know put out just a few years prior. Um the ADU I think we generally in sport of housing townwide um and every additional unit of housing helps bring down prices in the market whether it's formally affordable or not. Um but I'd be in favor of something along those lines. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I mean, it's similar to what the um planning board does and Yeah. and other boards and committees. CPC Yeah.

will also speak on on articles kind of on the top floor. So, that makes sense.

Cool. Um, I just realized I probably uh should have drafted something brief to uh for us to vote on. Um, but do we want to uh so I guess we could we could take a motion to uh support uh article 10. Um, and then I could just throw something together that's very brief and high level. Um, I mean there's going to be like a presentation on this I I assume that will like explain it. So like we don't need to explain it. Um, just kind of say that we support it. Um,

yeah, there's going to be a um, so for the ADUs, I did draft a presentation that may or may not be used. So, we're kind of on the fence if we if we should use it or not because sometimes it like sometimes I feel like it over complicates the issue. But um I defer to

I will defer to Dave. I did do it I did do a presentation just in case. And then we do have a handout um that uh the planning department intern did that's really awesome and like succinctly kind of summarizes the issue and the the affordable housing trust was you know you can use that as well to kind of reiterate some of the key points because they're kind of all saying the same thing anyway. Um, and then the master plan, Dave is doing a brief presentation and we do have a one-page handout for that as well. Cool. Uh, Colleen, go ahead.

So, um, I think you should just keep it really simple and when I go to town meeting other towns too, they you just get up and you say, "The Affordable Housing Trust supports this article." Boom. That's it. You don't have to get into it. We're not we're not presenting it. You're just letting you know that another committee supports this and and that's all you have to say. Yeah, sounds good to me. Um, Mr. Chair, would you prefer motion separately on nine and 10 or together?

Uh, I be fine with the other one. Um, I'd make a motion um that the Affordable Housing Trust um vote to support articles 9 and 10 at the fall uh town meeting and designate uh the chairman to speak on our behalf. Second. All right. Uh motion and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Uh we will vote by roll call. I Matt I uh Dan I Brian I Colleen I and Nicole

I

All right, the uh motion carries. Um and yeah, so like if we're just going to make it literally as simple as possible and again that uh that makes sense. So for articles uh five and six, I just wanted to throw it out there. Uh, it feels like um like article six to me feels like it it makes a lot of sense that that not be uh developed and and go into conservation restriction or uh or go to the conservation commission. I don't know. didn't see the word restriction here, but uh like I I just want to throw the idea out there that like we could support that as like we don't the affordable housing trust is not interested in this land like that kind of thing. Um, we also could just not. Um, but

so, um, just on that topic, uh, I did, um, asked to hold the vote from from on select board until we got more information to basically ensure that it couldn't be developed. Um, I was thinking about the affordable housing trust and the potent that potential use. Um yeah, so Evan presented some maps, topographical maps, and it was admittedly light light analysis. Um but basically, um it came down to, you know, it would be very difficult, um if not impossible to develop and it just didn't make sense for for affordable housing. So, I did ask though um

yeah, to sort of make sure um and short of actually doing like a formal study to see if it could be used um which didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So, uh it it abuts other uh town owned uh conserved land as well. So, you know, it just for lots of reasons it it does does make sense for it to just be open space. Um yeah, I don't know. I'm a little I don't think we need to show support for this one. No. Okay, that's just me though.

Yeah, I'd be on the same page. And I think um Fiona could probably correct me if I'm wrong. From hearing um Dave Robbins speaking about it, I thought that this one was kind of a little bit of old housekeeping um cleaning up some documentation that firming up intent that was already kind of known but not necessarily recorded. Um

yeah, I believe it was part it was um the original paperwork had it was it was left like open space like the kind of an open-ended language that um really should be saying under care and control of conservation commission. Um yeah and I think that you know the conservation uh when you know the conservation value of it as well just kind of to drive home from some of the points that were mentioned like there's also implications with the the um Blackstone River bikeway

um and like trying to create you know some like a connected kind of network in some in some fashion um just just to kind of add that as well. Um that's been something that's been kind of a pri a priority regionally for a while and just having some of these parcels under local control with um even for the conservation value um may be able to help in in getting that bikeway kind of moved along. But um you know there's limitations there as well. But uh but yeah, they I think the original intent um from my recollection of reading the the deed paperwork and and such was that these were um that was the the goal originally. All right. Well, doesn't seem like there's a lot of enthusiasm uh aside from me. So I guess we can we can move on. Just stick with nine and 10. Um, all right. Unless anybody disagrees. Uh, and then last thing we have here is, uh, meeting minutes. Uh, any corrections? Anyone want to just make a motion? Mr. Chair, I'd move um that we accept the meeting minutes for September 15, 2025 as drafted.

Second. All right. Motion in a second. Uh further discussion hearing none. Uh we'll vote by roll call. Matt. Matt I. Dan I. Brian I. Uh Colleen I. And Nicole I. All right. Uh the minutes are approved. And uh next item on the agenda is adjournment. Move we second. Motion a second. Uh Matt Matt I. Dan I. Brian I uh sorry Colleen hi Nicole I All right we are journed. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Good night everybody.