Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

So before we start on our official agenda, we wanted to take a moment to thank Lucia for all that she's done for the Affordable Housing Trust, congratulate her on a welldeserved, well-earned retirement, and just let you know how much we're going to miss you. you've been wonderful, professional, competent, and so reliable, and um we really appreciate it. So, thank you so much. Thank you. This is It was very pleasant working with this group. Well, thanks. We appreciate that.

And it wouldn't be a party without cake. So, we have some cake and get some help in the spirit. Thank God. Have you been rhetorical?

It is worth trying. Thank you. Thank you very

I know right about this tomorrow like this if you're on st It's good cake. Matthew and Susan, you're missing out. I'm terribly disappointed that I'm not there.

All right. So, can we multitask? Yes. Yes. Eat cake while we get started. Cake. Absolutely. All right. So, thanks, Lucia. Really appreciate it. and wish you the best. You're welcome. And thank you very much. Pleasure. Congratulations on retirement, Lucia. Thank you, Amy. I'm going to miss you guys. I can come back anytime. That's right. For for a third retirement. This is my second. Third time's a charm. You'll get it right

eventually, right? Okay, I think we can go ahead and jump in. Um, first roll call for the trustees. We have Matthew and Susan online, Mark Bartlett, Marian here. So, we do have a quorum and also welcome to Maren, Lucia, and Rob. So, we'll start with item two then. Um, strategy 4.1 small grants program. We all received a document that Lauren sent out. So Amy, we can turn over to you.

All right. So we have our final grant applicant. It's a single person household. Um they meet the financial eligibility guidelines. Um they're seeking assistance from the program to help with replacing a picture window in their living room that um is fogging between the panes and is observed to be leaking when it's raining. Um as well as a back door that's um in need of replacement. It's not closing properly properly and they're not able to lock it and it's causing draft. So they're losing heat in the house. Um, so for they're looking to utilize the program to cover some of the costs of that. We have two estimates received which are for both jobs. Um, estimate one came in at 10,250. Estimate 2 came in at 10,96. Henry gave his seal of approval to estimate one. Um, and there's only 6,344 remaining in the program. So, we would be utilizing the rest of that to assist this household. Um, and she's able to cover the difference.

Any questions, comments, concerns? Placing windows and doors was an excellent idea. Yeah, it's necessary. Y was one of the examples we gave, right? Yes. Come up with the program. Okay, folks online. Susan, Matthew, just impressive. Impressive that we've gone through all the money. I know. Let's do it again. Yeah. Seriously, let's do it again next year. This year, whenever it starts up again. Um, I'll move that we approve small grant program application 19th. You have a second. Second. Bartlett seconds. Okay. All in favor? Susan?

Yes. Matthew? Yes. Bartlett. Yes. Mark. Yes. And Maryanne. Yes. Okay. So, strategy 4.1 small grant program SPG 19 is approved. Thanks everyone. That's it for the program. I guess we'll take that off the agenda for now, but look forward to some more funding there. And then next up, Amy, is LRAP.

Yes. So, I this isn't a new LRAP um application. This is a um update for LREP 44 which was um one of the threemonth approvals um because of the income of the household. Um so I just wanted to reach back out. I've been touching base with the household and the income has increased um between their monthly income and their SNAP. They're at 144 a month um for the four person household. So, I'm hoping um that we were we would be able to approve them through to the end of this fiscal year with the ability for her to reapply for the next fiscal year.

Um just one clarification, Amy, it's 2000 plus SNAP or 2000 including SNAP. That's 2014 including SNAP. Okay. Do we normally include SNAP in the calculation? I don't. This is one of those like tanniff programs, the the cash assistance one. So, she got into that program. So, I included it because they're kind of lumped together. Okay. So, with the increase in income though, she still qualifies for our criteria. Yes. Okay. Well, before the increase in income, her income was less than her rent. So

yes, even though we were supporting we were it wasn't putting her above water,

it was just putting her less below. So I'm okay with this since she's above water now. And I think like u um do we extend it through um you mean through um 61 or 71? So, I would have her approved up until 612026 with her reapplying because it's been more than 6 months since she's completed the full application. So, I would have her complete the reertification at the fiscal year turnover like everybody else. Yeah. I thought the fiscal year was July 1st. So, that's why I was confused.

Oh, yeah. So, the So, everybody that we have in the program, Yeah. I go I have them go through to 61. We do the reertification prior to the fiscal year turnover. But yeah, so 71 is the start of the next year for everybody. Okay. I do it the turn of the fiscal year. Yep.

Okay. Susan, did you have a comment? No. Sorry. Any questions? I'll I'll comment. I'll move that we approve um LRAP number 44 through June through June 1st and eligible to reapply for next year. Thank you, Susan. Do we have a second? I'll second. Wonderful. Matthew this time. Okay. And all in favor? Susan? Yes. Matthew? Yes. Yes. Mark? Yes.

Maryans? Yes. So, LRAP 44 is approved. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Amy. The next item here is outreach. Is that a different topic we want to cover under LRAP? I mean, that being I I don't think that's mine. Was there something we were discussing regarding that? Let's see. If I if I recall um the question that arose was about um how the town makes known makes this program known as we have some budget available, right? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So that would that would make sense that we would look for other candidates Amy most of them come through your office, right? So, I don't I don't know if right now we have another source like another another channel to get to get applicants. Is that what we mean by outreach? And I think that's a it's a valid question.

Yeah. So, I communicate with like the proper the property management off offices at Pondside and at Village Green. They're aware of the program. Obviously, they have some tenants that are enrolled. Um so, they're aware of it. And if they have a household that is struggling, I've encouraged them to have send them my way so that I can explore the program possibility um with them. So that's that's the outreach I do. And then obviously any anybody that's coming through that's seeking assistance um if they're a renter, this is something that we explore whether they're eligible or not. Um so it's it's kind of it's it kind of happens in process of figuring out other resources with a lot of folks. Um, we have it in our broadcaster every month. Um, we post things through I don't know when the last time we did something on Facebook is, but we can do that again. Um, but yeah, it's a common it has a it has a placeholder in our newsletter every month. Um, and we have brochures and we have little flyers about it around the office. So,

how many slots do we currently have available? um 20 slots total. Um what 14 14 okay um used now but a few will drop off this year. Okay. Yeah, there's 13 active currently I believe. So since we have a handful if if we don't get candidates through that channel. Um something that's been suggested to to me in the past was um school guidance counselors um if they might know of um need through through working with students and their families. So just something to consider if we if we don't have any more applicants.

Yep. And and that's not difficult to do and reach out to the school department when they share the blurb that goes shared a flyer. Well, we can put it in the town newsletter and Matthew can announce it in his uh comments in his updates on next select board meeting or whatever select board meeting Amy thinks is appropriate here. Here sounds good. Okay, thanks Amy. No problem. Thank you for joining.

You're welcome to drop off at this point. You're also welcome to stay, but I'll I'll leave it up to you. Okay. Next item is strategy 4.4 87 toadawan road update. Do we have an update on that?

Um I talked to uh Carolyn Reed at Habitat earlier this week. Um they're still going forward. They have an updated plan. They've talked to Sherry Gould about um some of the concerns about sheds and things like that. They've been trying to address some of the neighborhood concerns. I don't know when they're planning on presenting a new plan. Um I think Hanscom has given them um conditional sign off. Okay.

Um they have not been in front of the board of health to my knowledge on getting sign off on a subject yet. Um they were meeting sometime in the sometime this week I forget exactly when to discuss what their next steps were internally with their board. So okay with within Habitat within Habitat. Yes. Okay. Got it. And they have they have resigned themselves to building a single family. Is that correct? Uh as far as I know they're still currently planning on a house with an ADU. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, any questions, comments on 87 Darwin?

Okay. Next up, 2.1 Derky farmhouse project. No progress. Um, we're waiting for the snow to melt so that the wetlands can be delineated and the engineers can then count of what is possible. will be possible to do there. Okay. So,

by that time our contact um from MHP may be back from leave. So, that could uh that could coincide with uh with her return, which would be good. Okay, we're flying through this here. Um, next item, board business. And we'll start with you, Marin, with the town planner updates. But I was going to jump to um because I had it written further down the agenda was uh the yes in God's backyard. Yeah. Um so the B U movement yes in God's backyard um is uh some state legislation that's being considered um somewhat similar to the NBTA communities bylaw where um towns were required to zone for multifamily housing. Um and not too different from the ADU um state legislation accessory about accessory dwelling units where um the state legislation overrode local bylaws to allow accessory dwelling units. The yes in God's backyard idea is to allow um uh church properties to be utilized for um housing

multif family multif family. So thank you. Um so that's that's that's the big picture. Um, so given there seems to be a lot of interest um statewide um and regionwide about this, I wouldn't be surprised uh if we hear from some of the local um church communities about what the possibilities are. And it's by right it's similar to the ADU where you can't necessarily deny it if it meets all the other zoning regulations.

Right. And my u understanding from reading it is statewide it's a massive amount of land you know that that could potentially be available all of which today is not being taxed right so that could potentially be another you know source of income for the town also I um I sent a link just before the meeting today so you may not have had a chance to look at it but we'll include it in the minutes too so you can uh see it in more detail but thank you for uh making is aware of that. Um also Mark and I are planning to attend a um chapa dayong session a workshop on Yingbi. So we'll report back next month

what we learn. Yeah, I found it exciting when going through that um document set or the link that you set around um that the Lynch Foundation was very involved in helping to support the effort to move this forward. a a lot of important players. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Exciting. So, I look forward to the uh to the workshop on the town planner updates. Is there any more on the ADU bylaw discussions for the planning board or um that's been put on the back burner because of all the applications currently in front of the planning board? So, will or will not be at Maytown meeting?

Um probably not. We'll keep um town administrator and town clerk updated on whether or not we have one. So just just so I understand properly, is it too many ADU applications in front of planning board or other Oh, sorry. Too many other applications other applications. Okay. So the with Yeah. 550 King Street and everything. Okay. Got it. And if someone were to apply for an ADU today, um how would that be handled?

Um so same as it's been since um February of 24 when the legislation went into 2425 when the legislature went into effect um the building commissioner um can only enforce uh those sections of our ADU bylaw that comply with the state law. It's okay. basically. Um, so it's workable. It's just not particularly easy to um, uh, administrate. Okay. Thank you for that.

Anything else? All right. Anything else? I I don't think so. you may offer color commentary on uh some of the other topics that come up. Okay. Um next up is King Street Common, the location of affordable units. Bratlet, do you want to cover that one or start that one? We can all contribute.

Um it's being negotiated. um there's number of parties involved and um I don't think that the number of 80 of affordable units has been really finally settled or the location has been finally settled is there's um or the schedule for providing one has one opinion town council has other opinions the planning board and AHT have more opinions. Um, and there's nothing definitive at this point. films. So, Marian and I met with Katie Lacy Katie Lacy last week

um who um said that it was unlikely that the state would approve having all of the affordable units in one building um for and being allowed to count them against your subsidized housing inventory that um that if they for I don't know the exact regulations but it if you put but if they were all in one location they would not necessarily

right there is a possible exception to that with the 40 deeply affordable senior units if services are provided to those units then they would be probably allowed to be in one building she said yeah um but what she highly recommended that whatever um agreement is reached is um signed off by the OHLC before we actually finalize it to make sure that they count. So yeah. Yeah. The state is willing to be a partner in in those discussions. So

um and the affordable apartments didn't work necessarily the way I thought they did. It's not like you know apartment 1B is affordable. It's whatever the next when you have 10% affordable. If one of the apartments if someone no longer qualifies for affordable the next apartment up becomes affordable. It's not like next apartment up of the same size. Yes. But it's not like this apartment is always affordable, right? This unit which means the households are not asked to move when they exceed the um income levels. So,

we had also asked Katie if she had any supporting documents around why we want the affordable housing distributed and not clustered all in one spot. And she didn't have any. She was going to look for some. Um, we thought that that would, you know, help help us to understand a little bit better and help to present a case. And her other feedback though was that it yes, that would be nice to have, but you don't really need it because it's law, you know, so we have to comply with it. We don't really need to sell it to anyone. It's um it's law. The law that states that the units affordable units have to be sprinkled into the market units. Yeah.

Now, what I wasn't sure is if like if one of the buildings had like 25% affordable, like I think at like 15 Great Road there's a certain quantity and then because there's a high enough density of affordable units that the whole building ends up counting as affordable. Is that true or

No, that's true for 40B developments. the town counts um all that 15 great road the town counts all 144 apartment units as on our subsidized housing inventory realizing that only 25% of those only 38 of those are actually um affordable units. However, you can't carry that concept over to, for example, if there was a um developer that did 80 um 81 affordable units um and you know, 10 more market rate units, 101 units. Um we couldn't add all 101 to our subsidized housing in the 81 because they're local action units. um hold different similar rules but different set of rules for local action units

that are not correct. So whatever they're doing at 550 and 410 we only count the actual units. We don't get to count the bonus units. Right. Okay. It's a good question then. Okay. Any questions or comments? from the call the zoom. All good. Good. Okay. Thank you. And the next topic we had here was discuss funding for the study of 37 Chadic Street. So, do you want me to address this? I'm gonna start. Do you want me to address this, Mark?

This is So, we Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I'd love your thoughts on this, Matthew. Um, Bartlett and Martin and I had a meeting today um with uh

Jim and Tony to to discuss this topic and um what it was a long discussion but at at the end we decided that we would like for the select board to come back to us and um request that we reopen this this possibility. Jim is basically asking for affordable housing trust to fund the um assessment uh the study for 37 Shadic Street. And I was initially a little confused because I thought that at town meeting the town had told us that this that they didn't want this, right? So I was kind of I was curious about why we were going back in this direction and he gave me a few reasons but or he gave us a few reasons but we said that um we'd like for that to come from the select board. Is that about it?

Yeah, we would like the select board to weigh in before we commit any money towards a feasibility study and later stages of development. Does that sound right, Byron? That's there was a lot more conversation around um you know, the the town office is moving, but we said that's really outside of the scope of what we're looking at. All that we're interested in is more affordable housing, which is all good. and that will remain our focus, but we just want the direction from the select board that this is this is a possibility that we should look into and potentially sponsor or fund.

Did he give an idea on what the scope of the study would be, the cost and Yeah. Yeah. He's asking for $250,000 that would include an initial assessment of the building and then design and units and what else? Those are the two main components that he mentioned. Yeah, two stages. But it was it was from the first look at it through design the 214. Okay.

And at this point the possible number of guests that would fit in that building is not determinable. 40 has been used because that's the minimum for some kind of financing that would be necessary. Yeah. That's the sweet spot as we've been told. So, and as as Bartlet pointed out, if um the 250k investment for 40 units is pretty good if if that we can move forward with that, but we'd want to understand, as we said, what those next steps would be like when it doesn't make sense for us to go ahead without the town select allowing it or asking for it or something. Yeah.

Are there I see all these MHP and other grants. Are there things like that that we for bossing trust will be eligible apply for for things like this or some of that answer is going to depend on the time frame think they had applied for some but they didn't come through right well there's one stop grants I'm talking outside of those right it's worth looking into um but some of the question is going to be you know what time frame are we looking If we wait for grants and we delay the study on the question,

Matthew, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I mean, I I I'm I'm generally speaking in favor of of the of the project as a whole. I think that the Affordable Housing Trust is one of the right organizations to to support it. I support it. I I hope that we go along with it. You know, that's and obviously, you know, I think that I I I as a select board member, I'm also in favor of it. There are clearly things that we need to work out as far as town hall, but um if that is what this, you know, 37 Chatt Street is going to be used for, it's a I think it's the that would be one of the highest and best uses that we can think of for it.

Yeah, I agree. And we talked about that a little bit today, right? The proximity to the library to the center on Shadic Street, you know, Town Sewer, it checks all the boxes, right? When we we'll talk about the RFP later, but when we were looking at that, um, this site would have scored perfectly, right, for right, you know, for that criteria. So, I agree. I agree with everything Matthew said. However, I'm also like if we have to go get town meeting approval and we don't have it, then I'd be a little leerious spending all the money on something that Right. It's

Yeah, that's that was kind of what we shared today, you know, and that's um a little bit of chicken and egg, I guess, of you know, what what comes first, but it's um yeah, I think for us anyways, Affordable Housing Trust, the first step would be to get the endorsement from the select board. Okay, thank you. So, let's go around for trustee updates beyond those three. Um, Sue from Maryland, anything to uh anything to share with us this evening? No, except there's not as much snow here.

Some we have a dusting. No, maybe a little more. Couple of inches. So, just today's snowfall. Yeah, basically. Yeah, I guess that's about maybe what we Well, that's good. Matthew, any updates you'd like to share? No, just I'm I am tired of the snow. That's all. Okay. Bartlet,

not really any updates. No, one one other subject that came up talking about the 40 units in 37 was just the timing of it. Um, I said that I didn't want to have um the the promise of 40 units there delay getting units at at 515 King Street. So, I think that that's solvable. You know, I think that will happen the way we want, but yeah, that is timing is an issue.

Do you want to talk about our CPC requests? Um there's two, right? Well, the request for for funding for this um yeah, I presented the application. Um the funding I think it was passed actually if it wasn't passed it will be passed. with the wrap um that was 46 $48,000 which would bring us up to the 120 to starting fund. Um and then

and then the planning department had a request for um $50,000 to um do a housing production plan. Um and um that request came I I sent it in very late before the last CPC meeting. Um so they started the discussion and we'll continue that at the next CPC meeting. Right. You sent that to us, right? As information forwarded to us. Yeah. Do you need do you need us to send an endorsement letter to CPC or is having Bartlett recommend

good enough? I I don't I guess Barley, you know the personalities a little better. Um I think it wouldn't hurt. Yeah, it would for the for the housing study wouldn't hurt at all to have more people more I have kind of a reputation of just demanding money. Well, that was a good idea. So we as HTT will send a letter of endorsement. We can send we could have someone drafted as their one of their last actions.

She I don't know that would it might carry a little more weight if it was a board vote. Not to put words in your mouth. Yeah. No, for sure we can send that. I um yeah, I can take that action and I'll do you want to you want to I vote that we uh re recommend the planning housing production plan support for CPC. Is that what you want? Pretty much covers it. I supposed to second that second. So sorry, what did you make a motion to make a recommendation to Ah, okay. All right. So, we're making sure that everyone's in favor of us sending a letter. Okay. Sounds good.

We can say that we voted to support it. We voted to support it. Okay. Thank you. So, um Mark, you made the motion. Bartlett second. Um all in favor over to you. Matthew, you support it, right? Susan, yes. Yes. Mark, yes. And Maryans, yes. So, we voted to support it. Thank you. Um Mark, do you have any updates?

Uh, so I'm on that Chapa housing leadership thing. I missed the last meeting because I was on vacation. The one before I was actually also on vacation, but I took it from the beach. Um Um Yeah, it is. Um, you know, these retirement jobs. Yeah. All consuming.

Yeah. Um um the at the end of this six-month process, I think we're I'm supposed to be able to like recommend or write zoning changes that we want for affordable housing and type things. So, um if people have an idea on what we what I should be looking towards or focusing on, feel free to send ideas my way that I can have do for me. Okay. Prohibition on two family houses. Yeah. The case that it's logical to have a a van on two family houses when we have a 318 unit building.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so with shovels in the ground. So, so that's one of the things coming out. So yeah, um at the last meeting they sent her afterwards they sent around some information about you know how much the cost of land is influencing housing now. And um you know when you get in in towards Boston where you know land's million dollars an acre. So it seems pretty cheap around here right now but it's still possible to build affordable units else around here. So that's all I have. All right. Thanks, Mark.

Oh, um, in the Oh, the um people should sign up or get ready to sign up for the MHP thing in June at the the affordable housing summit and at the DC center sometime in June. So, the that should be opening up soon, I think. Yeah, I went to one of the days last year and so did Angus. It was very Okay, I guess might have went to both these. I don't know. I haven't went to one, but it was very it was very good.

Um, and building on that, um, citizen planner training collaborative conference is coming up Saturday, March 21st. One of the sessions, um, at that will be, um, uh, having local action units um, LU units count on a subsidized housing or be a consultant. one of the consultants at Barrett Planning Group and plus uh the the lady that runs the LU um section at um housing liable communities. I don't know if I remember to forward you the announcement of the CBTC conference.

Is that something that's worth one of us or some of us to go to? Um yeah, I'm not going to be able to make that session. should all be presenting at a opposite session also have two people going one to heckle absolutely that works is that the one that was at Clark University um at um yeah the um Holy Cross good breakfast good lunch three sessions doing a day I think I like two years ago it was very good they didn't invite me back though Yeah, all the heckling. It's the heckling.

I will tell Al.

All right. I have um one topic to share and that's the attachment that I sent out this afternoon on the request for proposal. Um Bartlett, thank you for providing input there. I took that and incorporated what Mark had updated the matrix and dropped it into this RFP. I then sent it back to Kim and asked her for next steps and she said that um she responded so quickly I thought it was an out of office reply. She's very responsive but um she said that the next step is to go through town council that they would need to review it but I wanted to circulate one more time um among this group to get feedback before we take that step. But if we have any questions or if they have any questions of us um then that those could be answered through uh through town council.

So you want to give people a deadline of like next week? Yeah, let's say Monday. End of next week. Let's give folks a little bit more time since Susan's away and Angus isn't here. So let's say end of next week, which is March 6th 6th. Okay, that's good. So please send your feedback to me by March 6th. Okay. Did everyone have a chance to review Lucia's final minutes for our affordable housing trust meeting? Yes. No. Here. If so, does anyone have a motion to accept?

I'll make a motion to accept the minutes from January. What was the date? Sorry. 20th January 20th. Second. Thanks, Matthew. Susan seconds. All in favor? Matthew? Yes. Yes. Bartlett? Yes. Mark? Yes. All right. Minutes are approved. Next meeting. Let's look at our calendars. So, normally we target third Tuesday. That happens to be St. Patrick's Day. So, green beer at a meeting.

Green beer. Um, that one will we kind of flip-flop so that will be by Zoom I guess instead of in person. Um, does that date work or do we want to move it to accommodate? I could I'm available the 18th if people would prefer that or the 16th. That's either any of those three is fine with me. Yeah.

Was it March 18th, the next CPC meeting? Probably. Probably. Yeah. But I won't know until two days before. I mean, do people have an issue with um St. Patrick's Day? Is that Mara? I can make that. Yeah. Should we just keep it on the 17th then? Yeah. Okay. Next meeting March 17th. Okay. Anything else then before we close? Do we have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All right. Meeting is adjourned.