Housing and Community Development Committee - Regular Meeting

This is the This is the committee, the city council committee on housing and community development. I am the chair, city councilor at large, Kristen Strezo. And today is Tuesday, 03/04/2025. It is 07:01PM. We are remote and in person at City Hall.

Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2023, this meeting of the city council committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio video recording, audio recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the city of Somerville website and local cable cable access government channels. Or can you please call for roll? This is roll call. Councilor? Here. Councilor? Here.

Councilor? Yes. Present. With three counselors present, we have form.

Thank you. Start out by approval of the committee minute minutes. Item one two four one six eight one. Can we please get a roll call?

This is roll call for agenda item one, ninety twenty four dash one six eight one. Approval of the minutes of the Housing and Community Development Committee meeting of 11/21/2024. Councilor Yankapan?

Yes.

Councilor? Yes. Councilor Scherzo? Yes. Those are accepted. Thank you.

I'm gonna take few items out of order tonight. We'll start with the items one, two, and then three, then we'll go to six, four, and then five tonight. So with that, let's go to the second order on the agenda. Officers communication item 241446. This is about the Fair Housing Commission.

The Fair Housing Commission conveying the FY twenty twenty three annual report pursuant to section 17.7 of the code ordinances. Here to speak, miss Ivan, we have our let me put your title. I call you director, miss Wilson, representing housing. And we have also Shannon Waldorf, who is the fair housing specialist and inclusionary support, and the representative staff on the commission Fair Housing Commission. Here to speak on the side of the committee. We have up on the display. Fair Housing annual report, and then happy to have you in speak tonight. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. So the Fair Housing Commission annual report, this is for fiscal year 2023. It was written by Hanalei Steinhardt. She was the former Fair Housing specialist, and it's presented by me. I'm the current Fair Housing Specialist, and I've been the Fair Housing Specialist since August 0, of twenty twenty four. So you can see the next slide. Okay. So for some background for the report, the Affirmatively Furthering Care Housing Rule was issued in 2015. It was terminated in 2020. It called for municipalities to foster inclusive communities by adjusting persistent segregation and housing discrimination.

It also required that municipalities submit an assessment of their housing. So Somerville did that in 2017. And for a little bit more context since then, under the Biden administration, It was a proposed rule to bring it back, but it has been terminated last week, I believe. So the state context, the Fair Housing Commission focuses on the backlog of complaints with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which I'll refer to as MCD, and addressing them at a local level. And then the local context is the city council expanded the Fair Housing Ordinance and updated it to include relationship status and structure.

That was after the 2020 domestic partnership policy that recognized polyamorous partnerships. So you can go to the next slide. And then I'm gonna go over the commission's activities in fiscal year twenty three. I can go to the next slide. So first is enforcement.

So in December 2022, the commission submitted a letter to the city council on the status of your housing enforcement in Somerville. It was talking about the backlog with MCAD and the increase in complaints received by the commission. Commissioners were looking into the idea of becoming a substantially one agency to HUD, and enforcing fair housing law, within the city, in order to address those long lead times for complaints submitted to MCAD. Those discussions continued into fiscal year twenty twenty four. And then the letter also advocated for the allotment of funds to MCAD to address the backlog.

Let me go to the next slide. So the commission also does education and community outreach. That's their primary role. So they have fair housing month every April. In April 2023, they held two educational events. They were both open to the public, and they were in collaboration with Summerville Public Library. The first event was a discussion of the color of law. It was held over Zoom. And then the second event was a screening of the film segregated by design, which is based on the book The Color of Law, and that was held in person at the Central Library. It had Spanish subtitles and was screened in English.

The a member of the Fair Housing Commission served on the Anti Displacement Task Force Committee that was on residential displacement. And the task force work to identify ways to prevent displacement continued through fiscal year twenty twenty three and into fiscal year twenty twenty four. At the end of fiscal year twenty twenty three, they were preparing to submit a home rule petition to city council on the stabilization budget. And then you can move to the next slide. So also for education and community outreach with the Fair Housing Commission, the program specialist for the Fair Housing Commission, presents at Summerville Community Corporation's first time homebuyer courses.

In fiscal year twenty twenty three, that was on a bimonthly basis. And now it's monthly. The course is open to anyone who wants to learn about the home buying process. The presentation includes information on fair housing rights and responsibilities both for tenants, purchasers, and sellers in Somerville, and it also covers the inclusionary home ownership program and closing cost assistance program. And

then

in terms of language access, the commission continued to facilitate use of the city's language access plan by providing educational materials and languages commonly spoken by some of the residents. So all materials were translated to help address gaps in knowledge between English speaking residents and those who rely on translated resources. And then the staff continued to collaborate with SOIA to or Somerville Office of Immigrant Affairs to conduct outreach to non English speaking residents who might not otherwise know to submit fair housing violation reports due to lack of access to the complaint process or concerns around immigration status and retaliation. Move to the next slide. So there were three priorities from the assessment of fair housing report that was submitted in 2017 by Housing Division.

So they were to ensure that the commission is fully seated and staffed to increase outreach to constituents, specifically tenants and landlords about fair housing issues, and to explore collaborations with local fair housing agencies in the region. So next slide. And then how they did in 2023. In in fiscal year twenty twenty three, the commission was fully staffed, and the members are listed here. And then in terms of increasing outreach to tenants and landlords, they primarily did virtual outreach in that year over GoToWebinar, Facebook page, and the Fair Housing web page, and they provided resources in multiple languages.

And they met virtually throughout 2020 fiscal year 2023, and all meeting information was added to the city councilor city calendar to allow and encourage the public to join monthly meetings. And then in Fair Housing Month, they hosted events on racism and housing for their event their two events that they held. And then in terms of regional collaboration, they focused on presenting rights and resources under fair housing law to the Somerville Community Corporation First Time Homebuyers Course. And then the Fair Housing Specialists referred complaints to enforcement agencies depending on the type of violation that was reported and connected households with resources such as Office of Housing Stability and Legal Services. And then the Commission also took steps to raise awareness of the statewide backlog of fair housing complaints with MCAD.

Can go to the next one. So this is an overview of the the next two slides are an overview of the complaints that were received in fiscal 2023. So there were 13 Fair Housing related reports of discrimination in that year, and that doesn't include reports that were submitted without first going through the Fair Housing Commission. But the reports of discrimination are made in several ways. So they were made through the referral form that's online on the Fair Housing Commission's website.

They can be made over the phone, directly to the staff liaison's email or referred from other city divisions and departments to the staff liaison. The Fair Housing Specialist assists constituents in filing complaints with the relevant enforcement agencies, so MCAD or HUD typically. And usually the discrimination or yeah. It was based on a protected class that was covered by both state and federal jurisdiction. And in that case, it would be referred both to MCAB and to HUD.

So

yeah. Sorry. Next slide. And then this is just a little more into the complaints that were received. So so the graph just shows the number of complaints and how it compares to previous fiscal years, so from '28 fiscal year 2018 to 2023.

And then the protected classes that received complaints about were race, color, disability, familial status, sexual preference, and source of income. And most of the complaints were based on race and that was followed by color and disability. And then the majority of the complaints were received from Ward 1, and then that was followed by Wards 4 And 7. And there are a few complaints that didn't have attached to them if the person didn't follow-up. So what happened with those complaints?

Five of them were submitted to MCAD. Five of them were referred over to the Office of Housing Stability. One complaint was referred to Legal Aid Services. Five were unresolved due to lack of response from the person who submitted the complaint. And then four were referred to Suffolk University's, housing discrimination testing program. Go to the next slide. It's just, if you have any questions, I will try my best to answer them.

Counselors. Do you have questions? Do you want to

go to bed first? I

you raised your Okay. Counselor Nienden Nienden. Counselor Nienden.

Thank you, manager. For you. Quick math question on slide 10. So was 13 reported reported 13 reports, but five plus five plus five plus one plus four does not equal 13. Mhmm. So how does the math yeah.

So through the chair, some complaints are referred several places. So if they're referred, like, both to MCAD and to OHS, for instance, then we would count them in both categories.

Got it. Okay. I have a few questions that I'm Okay. Do we get numbers from MCAD or HUD at all when pieces go directly to them? Through

the chair? I don't know. I can find out. Yep. Through the chair,

I can I can add a little bit? When we when I started working on this with the former care housing specialist, she had actually had to request a list of complaints to the. So we don't get them quite wrongly. We do have

to make them. Okay. It'd be interesting to see, you know, as we compare in the past.

Councilor May I introduce you? Yes.

Can you just state your name and position for the record?

Oh, me. I'm sorry. Lisa Davidson, deputy director of. And through the chair

I know this isn't information you can share publicly, but internally, do you all know if we have repeat offenders, you know, like repeat landlords that that are that get multiple complaints filed against them?

Through the chair. In my year of working here, I haven't seen that, but I definitely can look through past complaints. We can see when the same address is brought up. But if it's the same landlord but different addresses, it's

a little bit more difficult to track that.

Right. It's complicated for both LLCs, and I get it. I was just curious if there's a conversation around city level around consequences for the. Yeah.

Through the chair. So I with the I think it was in, like, the second or third slide when we were talking about enforcement. If I

can add, like, a little

bit of context from the next fiscal year even though it's not Yes. Directly. So, I think the conclusion that was reached is that in order to enforce fair housing, like, in order to enforce fair housing law through the city, we would need to submit, a home rule petition. And with all the other things that need to go through home rule petition, that's not a priority, especially because we have MCAD who, although there's a backlog, is still able to enforce all of that. So I think that that's where we landed in terms of enforcement.

But, definitely, I will keep in mind to be looking for especially if I hear about repeat landlords or looking up the address and see who it is and see that it's a repeat. I'll I'll keep that in mind in terms of in the future enforcement.

And through the chair, what is our backlog now, like, currently today?

Through the chair.

Oh, Marissa, do you know

if gonna see who's not blocked? It I think it it was a little lower, and then it got I'm working on the fiscal year twenty four report right now, and we're almost done. And that was one thing that is a little confusing as to where they're at now. I think they have more capacity, but they've also received more complaints.

Interesting.

I just want to say thank you for the commitment. As I'm seeing in this report to language access and to provide information in multiple languages, so thank you for your team for doing that. My last question through chair is the

new ish new

as of two, three years ago, the housing stability ordinance that requires information to be sent every year to tenants around their rates. Do we include fair housing information in that notification?

And could we?

Through the chair, I think. I don't think we do, but I think it's a good ad. Yeah. We can we can meet with director and see how we can.

Yeah. Because it's a some low hanging fruit in terms

of getting information out to to tenants, and then it happens in. So I know where

happens right around when people start moving in September. So you certainly have the leeway to make that happen this year. I'm all set. Thanks, madam chair. Yeah.

And and on that point, that's a great idea. But, also, as I recall with the HRP, the home rule position, we landed on on the fact when I met with the working with our deputy director and and members of the Fair Housing Commission and the fact that we felt confident not submitting an HRP at that moment because we had a new governor, some new, and the governor has was prioritizing the, fair housing, and and we were getting more staff there. So we thought that we were fairly confident that it was fine to let MCAD do its job. But I am intrigued to know that the numbers have risen again, so definitely we'll hope for another conversation and as we get closer to the end of the year and and what you'll find. I'm happy to have, councilor Yuan Kempen have the floor now.

Thank you, madam chair. And through you, thank you so much to the to the Fair Housing Commission and Housing Division for this report and for all the work. I just had a question about the Suffolk University's testing program. So my understanding is you you this is when there's a complaint that there's discrimination, whether it's landlords not renting to a couple with kids or people of a certain race or, you know, based on the income source, whatever, that we partner with Suffolk. They send out testers and kind of do these tests where, you know, real estate agents or landlords don't know that they're being tested, and then that that can be a basis for follow-up.

And this is something we've discussed in this committee for for years and years that, I think, anecdotally, all of us know this happens constantly. You know, there's just tons and tons and tons of illegal discrimination in in tenant selection. But it's super rare that people actually have the gumption to go file a complaint and and then that we have the capacity to follow-up, through Suffolk. So I know that all of us kind of wish that there was a way to, like, beef up this, you know, whatever you want surveillance, whatever you wanna call it, to kinda put the fear of god into landlords that there are going to be consequences if you're systematically refusing to rent to couples with children, you know, people from different backgrounds. So I guess my question is, is there any thought about expanding that program, being more proactive with it?

Does does it have to be complaint based? Could we have a kind of, like, ongoing testing program just so that, you know, every time people are showing an apartment, they think, well, maybe I better not illegally discriminate because this might be one of these testers we keep hearing about.

Through the chair, are you talking about having a a testing program through the city?

You know, I'm sort of through you, madam chair, I'm I'm kind of agnostic to how we do it. I've always kind of been under the impression that we we partner with Suffolk. We don't have the capacity internally to do it, but kind of somehow increasing the resources for our testing program to just have it be more kind of proactive as opposed to, you know, from from the report, right, in a year, we're getting, four follow ups, which is great. I, you know, I don't wanna poo poo that. But, certainly, it would be great to see, you know, a 100 tests out there and 500 tests and for people to know, like, this is there are there will be consequences for legal discrimination, because I think, anecdotally, we're all I'm certainly under the impression that this is totally widespread.

Yeah. Through the chair. I think that I I was reading something today that was sent by the commissioner, from Suffolk, but it was Metro West. So he was talking about Newton and a few other communities around there where they did testing. They sent fair housing testers into those communities and then did a study based on that. So maybe if that's something that you're envisioning that we could try to talk to Suffolk about in our community or in other communities, like, including ours?

Yeah. In the past, we've we've partnered with them.

So I guess I I'm not going to speak for, but what I think he's trying to get at, and correct me if I'm wrong, do we still have that partnership with Suffolk University? And does Suffolk University have the capacity to do an ongoing warehousing testing throughout the year so that continuously annually to having that check-in. If is is that in any way what you were trying to express?

Oh, yeah. Madam chair, I'm simply advocating for expanding the Right? But, obviously, we have limited resources, and I I I'm not here to tell you how to how to run your ship. But, you know, from my perspective, there would be value in expanding this program so that there's a real sense that, you know, testers are out there in in reasonable numbers. And it's not that there's gonna be four a year. There's gonna be you know, you're you're gonna get caught if you do this stuff. That that's the the vision. Right? Like, we we really do want to end discrimination. I know, obviously, everyone on this commission does.

So I'm just advocating for more resources for a testing program. You know, I just haven't heard kind of a better idea in my time as a counselor for how to get out there and make sure that landlords are a little bit less, pervasive in their illegal discrimination in tenant selection?

For the chair, we can we can certainly reach out to Suffolk and see if they do have the capacity to be more proactive And

I have a few questions to myself unless, counselor, do you have any additional questions?

No, madam chair. Through you. Thank you for that response, and, I'm

Absolutely. So really quick. I I was I was drawn to page eight slide eight. And we had a few questions on on points one and two. What is the current number of commissioners, and and do you have do you have issues with quorum? And do you have anyone in the pipeline, etcetera, or are you in need, etcetera?

Yeah. So the commission is now fully seated. I think, like, a few weeks ago. Yeah. So that that is really wonderful. So we haven't had even before that, we were usually four of the commissioners were showing up, and now we have five. So it's great. Sorry. What was your second question? No.

That's why that's great news. My my point or I'm sorry. My just on the second point on page eight, increasing outreach, I I had a a question if is there consideration of housing authority, tenant associations? In my experience of of what I've seen typically with tenant associations that that are housing based or or small complexes or subsidized housing, there there's, like, a there's a couple of of forces of nature tenants that drive it, drive it, drive it, drive it, and they make a lot of progress. And then somebody moves or steps down, and then it goes beep.

But then the the CFO is kind of just settling in the ocean and not really driving. And then is there is there a conversation of of with outreach and community connecting with? But you can start. Okay. So it's for

the chair of the commission. We were actually talking about that not too long ago about maybe going to the Somerville Housing Authority when they're presenting their, section eight vouchers. However, they don't do that as they do it differently now. It used to be one big piece. So we're providing information to share so the fair,

the Housing Authority can provide the information between your

housing as they get listed.

Mhmm.

Yeah. So if I can add, like, a lot of the complaints that we've received now, I feel, have been more related to source of income as one of the top, like, reasons that people reach out. So mainly vouchers. And, yeah, we did look into presenting at, like, an orientation. But since they're individual to each person, we're gonna provide them with resources.

They already have fair housing packet that they give people, but we wanna provide them with something that's, like, a bit more up to date to use. And then also one of the commissioners works for Somerville Housing Authority. That's, I think, the Yeah. So the seat the seat needs to have the person who works on the or the sorry, the Somerville Housing Authority. So we're trying to work lot with her in terms of getting outreach, especially for, like, the educational events in April and focusing on the source of income discrimination.

With that, on your point of of income discrimination, do you mean that people call for an apartment and they're like, hey. I have a section a voucher. Do you accept that? And then they hang up the phone. Is is that what you mean

by discrimination? Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes it's overt and sometimes less so. But yeah. Yeah. Essentially.

And on page or slide nine, It has it was future work. Has has there been any additional thoughts on realtor screening screenings with family discrimination for realtors seeing if there are children in the home and, oh, gee. Gosh. We don't have we're not let paid. Compliance. Compliance. Thanks.

Yeah. In terms of that, so far, most of the referrals go through Suffolk because it's someone trying to go into a unit. It's easier for

them to test. But I I don't know what we

would do about enforcement since we can't specifically enforce anything, but that's definitely something that people have reached out about.

You know, have you seen an increase of that from this being a 2023 report to 2024?

Or Currently? I don't I couldn't say for sure, but I at least I haven't seen an increase in the past year of too many more, like, familial status complaints compared to previous years.

But I I can't speak definitively. No. I'm so I'm so anxious to hear, like, what updates or where we've increased or decreased or where we are 2023 to 2024 data. So they've done it anymore, but I'll I don't wanna put you on the spot. You know that it's being compiled.

Just one last question on on slide 10. The five complaints that were unresolved to a lack of response from complainant was that they just weren't answering the phone anymore, and they weren't, like, providing information. And I'm wondering if that was a tenant concern, a fear of retaliation, and they were just too frozen in fear to process. And if that is the case or a suspicion, what is is there anything we can do to kind of help guide them to get over that?

Mhmm. So in terms of the notes that I have from that year, from the person who was in the position, it seems like it's just mostly the person in the person submits a complaint, the person in the position reaches back out to them, and then they never hear back. If I can speak to my role now, I've had kind of a mix of the two. You know, a few people submit very few submit a complaint and then never follow-up. But sometimes there are people who say, well, okay.

I'm glad I know what I can do, but I just need to think to make a decision on it. I just need to hold off, and I'll decide there. And I'll I'll follow-up with them. Sometimes they respond with what they've done, and sometimes they just don't respond. So yeah. And I I definitely try to encourage them by, like, telling them, you know, like, the the reasons why they should submit a complaint if they want to, but I don't wanna, you know, bother them too much, especially if they're already going through this by pestering them on the phone. So I'm trying to kind of walk the balance there.

Thank you. Counselors, any last thoughts on that? Okay. Thank you very much for for being here today. Thank you.

Closes agenda items for market were complete. Next order is, number three. Order 240070 that the director of parks and recreation discuss how inclusive playground accessibility is being considered, future playground plans, and redesign projects. Here to speak on this item, we have a cohort, a course, region. Come on forward.

Yes. We have you on on the line as well as. And we also have a memo from our director of public space at Urban Forestry. Let's see. Where are we gonna take this? Oh, director. Are you here to speak out? I mean, welcome. Welcome to the table. Here to That's why you were politely waiting for the last agenda. I don't know if that was your party. Hey.

No intent to fill in the blanks that would not address in the in the message.

Okay. So we have up. There's the memo up. So just a quick scan. And I really appreciate, director, Olivier's thoughtfulness on the process. And then, counselors, do you have any words on this before we head into the conversation? Nice. Okay. I know. Okay. Well, with that, we have oh, yes. Yes. Yes.

Sorry. I just also wanted to add

Oh, please. Oh, sorry. You're new to HCD. Welcome.

Yasmin Erdasi. I'm the newest legislative liaison with IGA. I just wanted to add, it's not linked into the memo, but there's also, on the city's website, our RFP document that lists out the timeline, the scope of the project, and all of that. So just wanted to share that that is not linked in the memo, but

that is information that is publicly accessible. Just wanna share that.

Is it okay, Maddie, if we put that up? Is is that possible to put that in, and we

can access it quickly? Do you wanna send you a link?

Yeah. Happy to do so. Okay. I don't wanna Google while sharing screen.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I know.

Alright. Well, here here, I I have you the sponsor. We have permission for the person with disabilities chair, Polly Simioni. We have who's name? James Buchanan.

How would you like to

be referred to? Sorry? Who is that? Parent advocate. Parent advocate. Concerned citizen. Like, I I don't know. But very, very you do a lot of good pregnancy. And then also we have, I I believe, Shoutelen also from the CPAP Summerville special ed parents here to speak as well. I I have to remember what CPAC stands for.

But, anyway, our our Summerville, special ed community, and and I'm happy to sponsor, her as well to speak. And if I can, she's an attendee. Happy to promote her to analyst or What's the name again? Shoe Challenge. She's in the audience.

So welcome. As as we know, we are now we had this conversation, in the December HCV, committee. I know that, as as far as we know, we have progress. I'm excited about that. We are trudging along the city process.

But as we we go along and and with an update, love to hear your thoughts through our our panel of of what you thought and and as we collaborate with this, where we go and put that on record, and hopefully, that will inspire the process as we go along. I think director Oliviero has been really special and deliberate and always loved that. So I'm happy to sponsor you to to speak if you have any thoughts. Yeah. Either Shu oh, Shu wishes to speak. Awesome. Shu, can you hear us? We cannot hear you. You're muted. That's why.

I don't have to touch anything. Do I? Please tell me.

Yes. I can hear everyone. Thank you.

Oh, hey. Hi. Okay. Can you please introduce yourself and your, and your role?

Hi. I'm, Shu Talan. I'm I'm a parent, of a child with Down syndrome, but I'm also, an officer for the Special Education Parents Advisory Committee. CPAC.

Thank you. I was close. You have the floor, miss

Oh, I do. Thank you very much. So, I'm Shu Talan. I'm a parent of a child with Down syndrome, and I'm here to advocate for accessible swings, more specifically the right kind of accessible strings swings. Kids with Down syndrome have low muscle tone.

Muscle tone enables us to hold our bodies upright. So a child with low muscle tone is is very floppy. And looking back years ago when our son was a baby and a young child, we didn't use, some of those hard plastic accessible swings or or bucket baby swings that, we see a lot in, the Somerville playground. And because, you know, without proper trunk support, our child would flop or slide or slip around in a way that was unsafe. Muscle tone or hypotonia, it is not unique to Down syndrome, and it is a condition that affects many kids with different disabilities.

So while I think it's wonderful that the city is planning on installing more accessible swings, I urge the city to listen to the caregivers of children with disabilities and invest responsibly in the right kinds of swings that can be used for all children. And my second point is just regarding the Kennedy Playground. You know, according to recent data from the special education department, around twenty percent of Kennedy school students have a disability. That's a relatively high percentage compared to other schools. So, you know, Kennedy students, you know, I I I urge all parties involved with the design of this playground, to have kind of common sense and create an amenity that is inclusive and accessible to all children as well.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, miss Talan. Thank you. With that, would anyone else like to speak on that? Yes. I have I'm sponsoring Holly Simioni, chair of the wishing for persons with disabilities. Welcome.

Thank you, madam chair. I my name is Holly Simioni. I'm a lifelong resident. I'm a mother of two children with disabilities. My oldest daughter was extremely medically fragile and, needed a lot of support to be able to swing, which was one of her favorite activities.

I think it was the feeling of motion as well as the breeze and hearing the birds. But I just can tell you that that was just one thing that she really enjoyed. There I'm here as a resident speaking tonight and and acknowledging I also have a role with the commission. I would just like to thank miss Oliveira for this note that she wrote that was included today. And we are working the commission is working with public space and urban forestry.

I can't say p piece PISOF. Off. It just doesn't sound professional, but it is a long acronym. And and we appreciate the work that she's given and the time as well as her staff, and we are engaged. And at the moment, the choices of the swings is is awaiting some more feedback from us.

So this is not a delay on Luis's part in putting those together. But as as all of us know, we wanna be we wanna make sure that the right swings are put in place, and I think that very soon, we'll have some information to share back with Luisa and her staff. So I appreciate everyone being patient with us for that. But I would I would also like to say that one thing that I really appreciated in in her memo is that she talks about going above and beyond the ADA because the ADA really does not provide what children and families need. It is it is beyond nothing more than the bare minimum, and it's not really Sunbrel is not a bare minimum city.

We do not do the bare minimum when it comes to our community. That's not what we're about. And she also mentioned that that the playgrounds are designed to be accessible in the UVA, and that what happens is over time, sometimes the changes in those parks that makes them less accessible is a maintenance issue. It is not Luis's team. It is not PISOF.

It is it is a funding problem. And I would really like to advocate as a resident who wants to see our parks maintained and especially when we put something together for Kennedy on the importance of putting that in the budget and leaving that to keep our our parks well maintained. Because when when when these are built, they are compliant. They have the right materials. They have an the ADA compliance.

But as they erode over time and they're not maintained, they become inaccessible. And it's not fair to say to Pisoft, your parks are are inaccessible, not because they didn't not for their designs, but for their lack of maintenance. So I would really like to just acknowledge that what Luisa put in here is really more powerful than many of you may understand. I really, really want to support that we need this in the budget. And however, whomever maintains those parks, whether it be through DPW or from whatever group it comes from, to please consider funding that as a line item and maintain them because there are so many parks that I and others who are here have said, you know, by example, Edward Leathers.

It's not on the list to be updated, but it is so dangerous because it hasn't been maintained, and that's not the fault of of DPW, or of anyone here. It is a budgeting issue. So I I just hope that people will understand the importance of that because if you can't walk down the path to get to the sling of swing of the slide, you can't play there. And the other thing I would just like to add, again, speaking as myself, is, one thing that is outlined here is that this is there's going to be a selection process, and then there will be some public comments. And I feel very strongly that people who have been who work as advocates like myself and others here, unpaid volunteers, city, you know, municipal residents sit on boards and commissions and are part are elected to roles in our Somerville special ed groups because we have voices that should be heard.

And if there's any way for us to be engaged at the table before things go to a large public hearing or we're given three minutes to respond because partly what we don't know is like, I personally I don't know how big it's going to be because I don't understand how the basketball is gonna stay. Are they gonna be smaller? What are the conditions of the materials that exist there? What's the water table like? Really engineering things that you probably think I don't need to know, but I'm the geek who really likes to know that kind of stuff so I can understand these are the restraints rather than feel that I didn't know what was happening.

And knowing this is what we have to work with, and this is how do we get creative with the budget, the time, and the conditions so that everybody gets what they need. And, also, my last point is a lot of times what we have been told in the past is that accessible, play features cost more, and they take up more space. And there's nothing more upsetting than being told I don't have the same value, and I'm too big, and therefore, I can't play in the same part, my stuff. There are other alternatives, and they are bigger, but they need to be. And so I just really hope that someone could not use those terms to figure out a way to right size everything to fit together.

But that only happens if we sit at the table and say, I want a wheelchair swing. I want there to be a platform swing that someone rolls onto, whether that be the child who's using it or maybe it's their adult or their person who brought them there who uses a wheelchair who wants to sit with that person in their lap there. It's not always the individual with the disability or is the child. It really it varies. So thank you, Kristen, for letting me speak. Absolutely. Mic drop. And thank you very much, Luisa.

Counselors, do we have any thoughts, questions on counselor?

Thank you very much, madam chair. Thank you so much to the to the speakers. I have one quick comment and then a question. I I just wanted to echo what, commissioner Simeone just said, you know, in the memo. It's great to see that the Kennedy Schoolyard will feature the city's first fully inclusive schoolyard and playground. And I just wanna echo as strongly as I can that I I very, very much hope that the the early stages of that planning process include the commission for persons with disabilities.

And then

the the question I have, and this is really just for my own understanding, madam chair, through you. And I I don't know who wants to take it. What type of swing are we looking for, in particular, for kids with low muscle mass that we were talking about? Is there I've seen swings, for example, at Cambridge Parks that are they sort of look like a large plastic chair with, like, shoulder harness that comes down. Is that is that what, would work?

Who would like to answer this question? Because I really genuinely don't know.

I can offer my opinion. President,

Because I you have you and, Nicole Gannon have been on top of this and know the differences and variations. And, also, actually, we have if I may add to counselor point of of inclusion, definitely also alongside the person to disabilities, the Summerville CPAP to be included in the conversation as well. I'd like to hear what has to say about this because you bear it on screen, so I I think you have something to say. I just want to you wish to answer this. No.

I I was gonna defer to, Nicole and and Holly Okay. Who had actually done specific research about, but I can sort of, you know, weigh in on, their sort of thoughts about the specific types of of swings.

Okay. Absolutely. I'm always afraid online that I'm gonna miss something. It's hard to keep the bounce back and screen in person screen in person. So bear with me. If anyone is feels like they're not they have something to say and and please just it's okay. Grab my attention. So, yes, I'm gonna get that. Mr. Cole Cannon? Through the chair.

I just wanted to just speak to our experience with the swing. So there is a swing that exists on multiple city playgrounds called a gens swing, and we actually have one on our our street playground marshmallow. It provides my so my daughter also has a whole muscle tone. It just provides her with more trunk support so that, you know, because as you can imagine, when you're swinging, there's opportunity to kind of slide. So that does a really nice job of holding her in place. One of the swings that was considered that was in the there was a survey sent out by PSEF earlier this this winter. It's like one of

the there was two.

One of them was the genswing, and then the other was that had, like, a plastic harness that you pulled over. And just in my experience, I mean, we've been to a lot of inclusive playgrounds. In my experience, those haven't had the same trunk support. So and now, counselor, I'm blanking on your exact question. But

What was what would be a preferred for Preferred.

Yes. The preferred would be something like a genswing or if something if a swing exists that has that pullover, that plastic harness, if there was some trunk support in a swing like that, that would also work.

Good luck, Sharon. Thank you. I would just add that a swing that has support for legs. Mhmm. In my case, my daughter's legs would, turn blue if they didn't have some type of support and the gen swing.

And and there are other variations that I've found recently that have the ability from head to toe to hold the person in place instead of their legs moving. And that particular swing allows you to adjust the chain so that it is actually reclined back, like, you're in an airplane, and you're gonna sit in the guy behind you a little bit as opposed to straight up. But, again, inclusive is not just people persons who have low tone. It's persons who may need to be secured in the seat so they don't jump out and run away in the middle who may have good tone. So I think that the survey results and that was a small sample, really were split down the middle between a swing that has a lot of open open space and a locking piece and a a one that was longer.

And maybe that is a solution is you provide both. And someone who isn't here tonight, his opinion was, well, I think we have both because and you know where they're located, and you say this swing works better for my child for this reason. And maybe in can they we have one of each if we start out that way so that we have options. But if you know that your child needs something that's longer versus something that's gonna keep them from jumping out because they're more active, then that's where you go to that park. But having options, I think.

But the most important thing for us, and I know for Pisoft, is that they are accredited and certified and safe, and we would never ask anyone to go against that. So I don't know if you had more to add in general. That's either.

Thank you. Counselors, any other thoughts or else?

I just Sorry. I just really appreciate your advocacy around this. I'm the mom of a toddler who has so just, like, gets so much joy from the swing. And so to know that we can bring that joy to more children and youth in our in our community means a lot. I feel like I'm learning it's a whole new world of learning about inclusive, like, structures. We visit the Cambridge Inclusive Playground a lot because it's so beautifully sized. Sorry, Somerville. We do go to Somerville playgrounds, but I will say it's a treat to go into Cambridge. And it's interesting. This genswing, I've I just pulled up some images, you know, has like a it's almost like the harnesses are like stroller harnesses.

Right? It's not that hard plastic. Yeah. And but I see a lot of the hard plastic at the playgrounds that I go to. And so I don't have a question. It's more, you know, I feel like I'm getting educated on this, but it's it's interesting to understand the differences in in the the children who would benefit from from each of those options and knowing that we need a variety of options at our playgrounds is really important. So and I will will put our heads together and submit a a budget parity resolution definitely around this this year, but I just appreciate your

office about it.

For the maintenance of parks or just

For We're gonna figure out more.

Okay. Sorry. I kinda slid that in early, but I really think that that's an underlining underlying issue, and it is it is only solvable with dedicated budget.

Right.

It is interesting because these swings, sometime you know, I do see, like, our teenagers will go and ride the swings, and I'm so I I always wonder, like, what is

the weight limit on 125 pounds.

Right. There's a better signage we can put on the swings that

I I

had an idea for pretty signage based on my friend Carly.

Yeah. But Yeah. Looks definitely something I see when I'm at the park.

You're the chair, if I could. Yes. Add one more thing.

I just wanna acknowledge so Lisa did mention something in her memo that about Kennedy Playground, and I just wanna, you know, I'm I have a healthy amount of trepidation just just because, you know, inclusive is a is

a very broad term. Right?

But I'm I'm just excited that this is a priority and that there's more ears listening and this just inclusive play seems to be like a theme now, and and it's like a discussion that's happening. And there was some mention at one of our meetings about getting some playgroups together for the from the Kennedy front lot committee, which I just wanna say that Kat Johnson is is heading, and she is here tonight. And I'm just I'm just very excited about this whole thing. I'm just cautiously optimistic. So I just wanted to add that.

In my opinion, this is why we do the work, and I'm so delighted. Thank you for your advocacy and your expertise and just I I don't have my my heart is bursting. It's really exciting. So thank you. We're gonna keep this very much in the meeting for now. And before we go, director, if you wish to speak on this end, if you have any thoughts, no. I I'm so not putting you on the spot, but you're here. So if you wanted to so anything, I'm I'm I'm happy.

I'm here to listen. I'm part of the work that our team does. And, yes, we can come up with a better acronym. Again, we do listen, and we you know, our job and the reason why we do the work is to make a difference. So, hopefully, we're taking steps in the right direction to make that happen. But thank you for your determination and your involvement. It's very much appreciated.

Alright. We'll put this item in committee. Madam Chair, like, let me see if I can. Oh, sure. Sure. Sorry.

Is that wrong? I'm sorry. Thank you. I'm happy to have you. Thank you, madam chair. We're my constituent.

That's it. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know who you are. I'll make sure you're sorry. Melissa McQuinney, Dixon Street in Suffolkville. Thanks for this, and thanks for the invitation. My daughter loved to swing. She went

to the Kennedy School. She grew

up and became an occupational therapist at a school for very disabled children. Most of whom I think all of them are

in wheelchairs. Some are not verbal, etcetera. They have swings there. So I am volunteering her to And afterwards, we should I'll I'll give

you her information. Okay.

I know she would be happy to help.

Thank you.

Thank you. Somewhere, wherever she is right now Yeah.

She just stopped. Yeah.

Something just got into my to do list. I'm not sure what. Yeah. I'm following the poll. That's it. Alright. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. Coalition builds. So we'll keep this in committee. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Alright. Number six.

So, we're going to move on to order number on the agenda six, order 250354 that the executive director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development consider increasing permanent supportive housing across the city. Council community, is your order. Oh, awesome. I have

some screen. If you'd like

to speak before we go right into it, I'm gonna have to I

just I introduced this at the council last week, two weeks ago. I know we have some folks here who were a part of that presentation. We'd love to to have them join us. I I'm just sort of interested in now continuing the conversation with our city staff around, you know, how can we do this effectively? What are some of the levers and tools us to be able to increase the currents we're having down behind? No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. I'm sorry. Oh, this has left the building. Okay.

Alice has left the building. So

I guess the I get I don't

that's my introduction. I think, you know, the presentation thank you, Joyce, for making that at the city council meeting was really informative and got my wheels spinning. And so I'm happy to bring you on time. Wanna open up the discussion or have Tom share thoughts? I don't know

if you wanna start there. We he did have his hand raised first.

Okay. Let's do it.

Let's do it. So they're here

to to speak up this item. It's very second we have a a director of. Oh, Oh, got 600-2220. I know that anyway, director, Tom.

Thank you, madam chair. I do wanna correct the record because we have with us today. She's a little modest, but, Lisa is our interim director of. Record show. Thanks for bringing up this issue.

This is an important issue, and, what I wanted to do is do some table setting, because this is not a new concept in Summerville. So I wanted to get everybody up to speed with what the landscape looks like right now in Somerville permanent supportive housing. Currently, there are 68 permanent supportive housing units in Somerville. Over 85% of these units are part of Somerville homeless coalition's Turn the Key program, which are located throughout the city and are funded by Continuum of Care leasing dollars. There are permits of how supportive housing units and properties owned and operated by Somerville Community Corporation at 181 Washington Street, St.

Polytop Village 2 And 3, 109 Gilman Street, and 75 Cross Street. And there's units on homeless coalition provides food services at Washington Street and Gilman Street sites. What is the role of OSBCD housing division? Well, staff are working with these nonprofit property owners who operate buildings with permanent supportive housing units to ensure that the units are leased in accordance with the restrictions in place on the properties and the permanent supportive housing units are accurately reflected in the annual housing inventory count conducted by the balance of state of CFC, of which some of those are participating. We do have some exciting news about the near future or the medium term future and that we have some real interesting opportunities for additional permits for housing units in development and in the planning process at least.

Several projects are in various stages of development and are expected to deal with additional units that will carry the p the the permanent supportive housing designation. Our housing division staff, led by Lisa, the summer before with the Housing Trust have either already funded or expect to fund projects at 270 Washington Street. This is Saint Patrick's Shelter.

Mhmm. Yeah.

They have ambitious plans for redevelopment. Yep. Yep. The shelter is at the end of its useful life. And instead of just fixing it up, they wanna go bold. Good. And the shelter's current owner and operator, Catholic Charities, Rochester Institute of Boston, is evaluating the replacement of the 30 existing shelter beds, which we're all in favor of, and the creation of 45 to 50 units of permanent supportive housing. So we're talking we're gonna, you know, increase our stock of affordable supportive housing by something like 75%. So with that one project. So we're very excited about that for sure.

And we're quietly behind the scenes working with them to get them in a place where that can happen, and that's an ambitious project. They do have some significant land to be able to do this. But when they do that renovation, one of the challenges that we're facing is, trying to find a location, temporary location when construction is taking place so that those shelter beds can stay open. So that's part of the challenge. The big goal is the long term to, expand permanent supportive housing and replace those shelter units.

But in the meantime, we've got a little bit of a juggling act as a community to, to dig into. Another exciting project is kind of a sleepy one in some ways, and that's one I wanna highlight to have. That's the Summerhall YMCA. Mhmm. Many of you know already Summerville Affordable Housing Trust Fund has supported the YMCA.

Again, they're building a big senior center. But as you know, as many know and many but also many are surprised to find out this is an old school YMCA. So there's been SRO housing, single room occupancy housing in that YMCA since it has been built. And YMCA is committed to keeping that, which is currently right now not subsidized, but they wanna keep it affordable Mhmm. When they do their major redevelopment. And so we're we're working closely with them. We've already provided them with acquisition funds. You know, they've acquired that property. If you look out the window, it's dark now, but you see the apartment unit right on I think it's a six unit apartment building right on School Street. Yep.

We, meaning the affordable housing trust, with the early acquisition fund, helped them acquire that site so that they can really, square off that block so they can build and have the flexibility to develop and build a bigger program for a community center, but also keep that affordable housing in some form or fashion as part of the project. Whether it stays there or it moves off-site nearby, it's too early to tell. So we're talking about 68 62 units Mhmm. That would be a mix of one bedrooms and studio units. And the YMCA is assessing the feasibility of attaching the permanent supporting supportive housing designation at least to some of the units Mhmm.

And has initiated discussions with the Pine Street Inn on what to assess and which units to include within PSH designation. Also, a lot of the units we have right now are scattered site. They're not

Mhmm. Yeah. Single

purpose, permits for housing units. They're mixed in with existing affordable housing projects, and so that's an approach that we're exploring. Then we've got Lisa here, director, who, with her background with several homeless coalition is always quick when a developer comes in at one of our affordable housing partners and says, I wanna do affordable housing. She says, and what about permanent supportive housing? Mixing a few units.

And that's what we're exploring right now with 24 Webster Avenue, 237 Metro Street. Staff as, and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund members have raised the possibility of including permanent supportive housing units at two all affordable projects currently under development by Justastart. Yeah. And, you know, projects at 42 Webster Ave and 24 Webster Ave is Just the Starts project that's been funded by the trust, by the state. It's a tax credit project, low income housing tax credit project.

Hopefully, that launches sometime we're lucky next year. Does it sound about right? Yeah. And and hopefully, that will include some supporting housing units. The project at 297 Medford Street, and I have to point out that there's a, neighborhood meeting Mhmm. Next week where Justastar is looking to acquire that site.

Tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Thank you. Appreciate that. Bye. They're looking to acquire that site, the old a one auto body site, which, well, it fell apart or it, suffered a fire. But nonetheless, they're looking to take it over. They need to clean the site as well. And we're looking at the possibility of zoning change so they could go by using the affordable housing. The boat may go as as high as six units on this site that's, you know, right on the, on the transit line. Mhmm.

Again, we always have in mind how can we integrate additional furnace support housing units as part of a larger development. Had a conversation this morning with a significant inclusionary housing project, where at least it's a good model to follow. So it's it's now imprinted in my brain. I'm saying, okay. Hey, guys. What about some permanent affordable permanent supportive housing units? How would that work? I really don't know. I'm gonna bring you over to my subject matter experts, and we can explore and find out what the possibilities are. K.

And so we we look we yeah. It's really a matter of practice now, because we know it's gonna be a lot easier and, you know, a lot easier for the neighborhood to digest. And, you know, as the education process continues and we reduce those barriers where people immediately quench up when they say, oh, there's gonna be permanent supportive housing in my neighborhood. What does that mean? It feels kinda risky.

That feels kind of a challenge. We know in the experience here in Somerville is if we include them and spread them around, you can hardly know what's what's happening. It's it seems it will happen with absolutely no impact and, no concerns from folks. Not to say that we shouldn't explore purpose built permanent supportive housing. We know we should.

We know we need to do more, but that's what we've been doing so far. And that's where we're at. Again, Lisa is our expert with her experience, years and years of working for Sonoma Homeless Coalition, but, we're we're happy to continue this conversation. But I definitely wanted to just, do some table settings so that you, as counselors, know exactly what the landscape looks like today. And when we move forward, we know that we're starting from a good base, and, you know, there's there's much more possibilities ahead of us.

Yep. Well, thank you. Thank you very much, director. Good deal. Analysts. Would you like to say anything? Or

You mean us? Yeah.

Please introduce yourself with your title and your welcome to speak. Sure.

Joyce Tavon. I'm the CEO of Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance. Also, you for providing that overview. Just so you're aware, actually, one of

the things that we If

I may, pardon me for sure.

We define for anybody who is brand new to this what the definition of permanent supportive housing is or how it may deviate from affordable housing or even inclusion?

So I think I touched on this in my presentation that the key pieces that make something permanent supportive housing one is permanent, meaning it's not programmed. And people like tenants, they're not client. They have a permanent lease. It's deeply affordable. So in that way, it's very similar to other kinds of affordable for 1,000. And

to the

left, takes a deep subsidy to make that possible. And services are provided. They're not forced on people, but they absolutely have to be provided and people are engaged. Typically, we call those wraparound services. And what do we mean by services? Someone, a staff person, often called a case manager, who would work with someone to trust and engage them in settling in become a tenant, stay in their housing, and connect with other community supports. And I think as you heard already, supportive housing can take really force. It can all be in one device in building, or it can be scattered throughout a community.

You know, that can be. For the chair, may

I just add? I don't think I heard what the pop the population it's supposed to be serving. It is supposed to be serving the unhoused population. Yes. And it is a housing first model.

Yes. And I think as I touched on, everyone who is unhoused or homeless does not need this intervention. You don't have housing, you need housing. You know, the estimates run between thirteen to thirty percent of those experiencing homelessness need this because it's typically people with a long term homelessness coupled with disabilities. And that's why they give them that wraparound.

Just to piggyback on a

few things.

So my organization is also an intermediary, some funding for supportive housing. We were approached by Catholic charities, and it's a modest amount, but we are, hoping to be able to do a little small amount of predevelopment money for them to help support this project. Because while we put have put money into projects all across the state, we have not had an opportunity to do anything in Somerville. We'd like to support this effort, and I I think I'm very excited. They got some new leadership there.

Someone on their staff who has worked with the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which works nationally on supportive housing. So I think, yeah, they're moving in a new direction. Very pleased to see that. And I hope that the city will be supportive because, you know, when the time comes, it's gonna be in YouTube conversations with the community. I know there's a school around the corner. Mhmm. And so, yeah, support to this project. Of course, the the shelter has been there for a very long time. Mhmm. Yeah.

And the shelter house is three thirty, thirty two people at at the moment announced this. So they're they're only increased. The increase is not substantial.

Don't wish she has any We did have one question. Yes. I was just I probably have more, but, yeah,

than my head. Through you, maybe to director.

Since you started off with the numbers here, six moving units currently. Is that the case we've ever had in the city of Somerville, or can you share

a little more about how that

compares, like, the last five years?

I'm more interested in the that's a great question. I think we're trending in the right direction. We're we're adding units. We're looking to add units. I'm actually curious in how this compares with our surrounding communities. I know Cambridge has a substantial base of permanent supportive housing. And I'm personally curious whether, you know, what the numbers look like for Arlington, for Everest Mhmm. Some of our adjoining communities. Because we know this is this is addressing a regional issue. And, you know, supportive housing needs, supportive housing does not stop and start at the border.

And, you know, we always wanna do more than our fair share here in Somerville. But, you know, we wanna work with our partners in other communities to make sure that we're all pushing in the right direction.

Cheryl, can I speak to that? Yes, sir. Oh, yes. So

one of the things that we also do, we do the analysis of that housing inventory right now for the state. So that information, the 68 units is coming off of inventory that Summerville has to submit to what's called the balance of state. Shortly we still have the federal government. Mhmm. All 11 continuums of care, and they say we'll submit that information to HUD.

We will get those 11 reports, and we'll be doing our analysis of them. Every project has a geocode so we could find out how many are in Everett. It's a little bit tricky because scattered side apartments Mhmm. They're not they're coded to the headquarters of the organization. So that's the thing with the Somerville homeless coalition. Years ago, Lisa and

I worked

on that very inventory. Right? The projects in Arlington, I think, often get coded under. I know I think you've dug into that. Right. But they may get code if they're scattered apartments,

they're getting coded under Somerville when in fact they're located in Arlington.

There is the majority of Somerville homeless coalition's parents I'm sorry. Through the chair. The majority of the Somerville homeless coalition units are in Somerville. They have scattered they do have a few in the Arlington area. And through this activity that I'm so glad that

this work started doing the

firm as well. Because I was at since leaving the Somerville Homes Coalition, I was not looking at the HIC. I was not the housing inventory chart. Excuse me. I was not paying attention to that because I was like, thank goodness. I don't

have to because

it was a lot of work. We noticed that there were some of our our, permanent supportive staff sort of fell off the the housing inventory chart. So we are working with that provider to put them on. We've confirmed that they are they should be on there. They are serving the right population. Mhmm. So they are being added back onto the the

housing inventory chart. So through the chair

but I wanna

start Quickly through the chair. I got a news flash from the group counselor in Ward 4 who wanted to remind me that there's permanent supportive housing at Sewell Street.

Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Right. That's right. It's on the shot.

I don't think it's Yeah. Think it is.

I think two things. One is the reason I brought this up about the role that we play in analyzing the data is we're happy to work with some of them. We'll get new data on other communities to help with this process. And then the second thing, I think the Sewell Street project may

be an example of this. Some of

the things that were done many, many years ago, you can lose track of what happens at turnover.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

And I know this is not coming up. This is not just something that's coming up elsewhere around the state. This is where they're, like, set aside projects. But if no one's staying on top of it and their staff changes Mhmm. Mhmm. Then a turnover of that information is lost, and projects are no longer targeted. Just another thing as we stay while we're looking at the inventory, there's some better practices for sustaining what we have.

Yes, sir. Thanks. Thanks to both of you for your information, and thanks for bringing us here. I wanted to just take a Introduce yourself. I did already before, but Melissa McQuinney, I used to work for CAS for ten years as the director of, homelessness prevention, and then I went and worked for the state for the balance of care overseeing HUD funds, about 15,000,000 in HUD funds that went out to different communities to places like the Somerville Homeless Coalition all up and down the state.

And I just wanted to say a little bit about what it looks like from the client's perspective, from the tenant's perspective, just just to give you an idea. So I am somebody living in Seven Hills Park. I have mental illness. I treat that with substances, not, you know, illicit and not illicit substances. And I'm living on the street, and I can't hold a job, and I, don't have any money or any income.

And, eventually, I find my way to this homeless coalition where I sit down and talk the lovely people who say there's a, you know, there's an opportunity for permanent supportive housing. And and I apply and I wait. And because I'm homeless and disabled, hopefully, will get a union. Or, you know, it may be a very small unit. It's not going to be luxurious.

But I will finally have a place to go with a key and quiet and calmness and a case manager, which is the really the linchpin to this who will understand my perspective, listen to me, and help me get to a better place in life, Find me substance abuse services, find me mental health counselors, find me physical health counselors, unite me maybe to a work program. A huge percentage, I think we said the other day, it was eighty five percent of people who come off the street, living on the street for years, come into units stabilize. They are fine, and it's it's an impressive number. Yeah. I have experienced this.

I've seen it. I've talked to many people who were on the street for twenty five years and are finally in and just become lonely people again, which it's almost impossible to do if you're living on the street. And it's it's really an impressive program. It's worth striving to find more units here. I'm really happy to hear your updates. We have talked about all of those locations in our group, so I'm really glad it's on it's on your plate too. So that's that's what I wanted to say.

Thanks, Natasha. Don't know who to address this to. Sarah or Tom or Joyce. Have you seen any innovative or creative ways that other municipalities or cities have added

on that

square of housing? So I don't know. Pushing a developer and a CBA to guarantee funding for x number of units. Like, I I'm spitballing here, but I'm just sort of curious if you've seen any success with innovative or creative solutions to adding brightness.

I would just say that all these possible solutions are creative and scrappy. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. When you you look at the presentation that Joyce provided last month in the council and you talk to other folks, you know, mine worked years ago in in Lawrence and working with those providers. And it it's all scrappy stuff. Right? So if the city can provide land at a lower cost and the endorsement of, hey. We want this. Mhmm. That can be certainly pretty powerful. And I just was struck by a gentleman who gave the presentation in December who's talking you know, working with the bank and kind of convinced the bank to

Yeah. Was it John?

Oh, John. From father bills? Yeah.

From father bills. Yeah. Right. Relationship with the bank.

The bank said we've got this big parking lot. We're not gonna use the whole thing. And with me, nobody's really showing up at our bank anymore. We do a lot of our stuff online. And so they convinced the bank to donate and make you know? Mhmm. The bank didn't need a lot of convincing. They thought it was good, to donate lands in in the suburbs so that this provider could build permanent supportive housing, and then they finally used the project too. So it was just a great story about how, you know, there are community partners everywhere, and you just sort of have to look. And, what I took away from it, the whole evening was there is no formula. Right?

Right.

And then we just have to problem solve and problem solve and try and figure out. And I guess the key point of the formula is the will.

And and on that point, that's a every everything I've seen supportive housing in different areas, especially West where they have to land. There is all I've seen examples of tiny homes. Mhmm. Yes. Right. Right. That's my dream.

We don't have a problem.

I know. Right? But that is not an option.

I know. I forget too. There would be

nowhere we would put

would put in it our on the mouth. House. Right. But so that it it might that's what I've I've heard. But yeah.

That's okay. I would say I gave the example, you know, like, the two projects in Worcester that are in you're doing infill projects. So you're doing modular construction on a flexible size like triple decker. And there's a lot to be said something. We weigh a lot more cost efficient than doing a

tiny home because you can do Mhmm.

You know, 16 micro efficiency units. Mhmm. And you don't have to you just allow economies of scale to that. So, you know, that's something, you know, maybe that's happening in other community. There is the Yiggy Bee movement, yes, in God's backyard. Mhmm. Oh, yes. The planning officer, her affairs, the the diocese has gotten behind. You know, talked about I'd love to know, like, what's happening. We've got Saint Kwanzaa. They all have some Saint Anthony's.

Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a whole effort, like, how

do you get our faith based organizations, look at properties they have, who they may be under utilizing. So, for example, you mentioned about Fotterville's and Mainstream. Their most recent effort now is they purchased a property in Plymouth from a declining church, and they're gonna rent space back to the church while using part of the land to build both a resource center and supportive housing. And then if the church is not able you know, is isn't able to continue to use the space, it's renting, they would then add more housing over time.

Yes. Okay. Please introduce yourself. Yep. I am Kate.

I'm Kate Byrne, and I am a volunteer with the the boards collaborative. I'm also a master's prepared nurse that has retired from Pine Street Inn, and I worked for years in the housing first program at Pine Street. And one of the things that I think our boards collaborative can offer the city, is, you know, I live around the corner from from twenty four, and and this neighborhood wants this. This neighborhood wants this. And, you know, I think it's the kind of thing that you can use volunteers for to actually get the support in the neighborhood, get people talking about it, getting people interested in it.

And I think that's that's one of the things. And we would love to partner with the city in some ways to be supportive and helpful and make more of this happen and make it more more reasonable. And it's and, again, I think, you know, Joyce is right, that that it's scary for people. But when you look at when you look at the warming center, the common school Mhmm. And how well that has actually worked out and how the neighborhood has embraced that. Yeah. And, you know, it's in the right place.

Mhmm.

And it's like the kind of thing you can say, oh, maybe this can go on for longer. Maybe this can be our cooling center in

the summer.

But it's it the neighborhood has really embraced it. And I think that's when we see people sleeping on the street, when we see people, you know, not being not being housed, when we see people underneath the expressway. You know? People don't want that to be the image of our city. We want our city to be better than that, and we wanna take care of people. And I think, you know, they don't have to be scared of folks. You know? And, you know so, anyways, I just say we're here as volunteers and ready to do whatever we can to be of help to all of you.

That's one. Yes. And then we'll go Yes. Sorry. I just I wanted to say one thing. Thank you, Kate. I wanted to say two things. One is it could be it doesn't need to be that we are, you know, building a housing that we're breaking ground to build a building. It could be set asides. We've talked about set asides at the Holiday Inn, the floor at the Holiday Inn, the floor at La Quinta. It could be going to the new building going up where the

Star Market is going up

on Broadway and saying, we want you know, you have your 20% affordable, but let's do a 5% of permanent supportive housing. Same for the YMCA, as you mentioned. So it can be that that easy and sort of that sort of small and discreet also, which sometimes helps them. The other thing I'd wanna say is that we would love to have a task force of permanence if we could have. So, you know, that would be great. We would volunteer.

Counselors, any other final thoughts?

No? Okay. Counselor, you like to close this? Sure. Okay. We'll work this for complete.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you,

Tom, for the great a great summary.

Oh, oh, my staff prepared me well.

That means they're good staff.

They are.

They we we agree.

Items on the agenda. We're gonna I know the hour is we're we're getting close to the end of the night. And and I I don't know your staff is fine. So our next item is order, 250247 that the director of economic development report on the economic impact to small businesses in Somerville as a result of recent federal immigration policy changes. We have, oh, have the the, Department of Economic Development here. And as I recall, we also have director, Maria Theresa Nagel. I believe you're here to speak on this item as well.

Yes. I am through you, madam chair.

My memory. Okay. Wonderful. I I wanna welcome to your very first meeting our new deputy director of economic development. Welcome. And I'll try. We're a left right here over in housing and community development. Very much. And and and, director, thank you for being here as well. Yeah.

I'm gonna give you just a close. And and and also, we have director Maria. Please, director of of Summerville of the SOIA Summerville Office of Immigrant Affairs. Doctor, if I don't if you wish to speak and I don't see you on the interwebs, please just just just talk, and I will I I don't wanna miss out on each other. Okay. Ta da. You have the floor. Thanks for being here tonight. Thank you.

So good evening, Lars. Thank you for having us. So just to make sure for everyone who missed it, Dana Whiteside here is our newest member of the

newest member? Yes. Still? Yeah.

Of the economic development division. He joined us in December, first time he wrote the committee. We're thrilled that he's here with us. So Dana and I are gonna give a little bit of an intro, and then we'd love to get into your questions. So first, we wanted to share just a little bit about the small business community, our perspective on our work with small business and what's been going on lately for our small businesses.

And if there's anything we don't answer today, I also just wanna make sure that we let everyone know we can always follow-up with you as individuals or with the committee as a whole as well. So first, just wanted to get a a little into, you know, the importance of small businesses here in Sao Paulo. So our small business community here is just, first of all, incredible, and they are incredibly diverse. The tagline of our small business marketing campaign over the last year was it takes all shapes to make a square, and we truly believe that in the economic development division. Belleville is home to really hundreds of main street small businesses.

That's our our restaurants, our retailers, our service providers. We have we count them in a 100. I was looking at our directory today. We're approaching 500 on that list, And that is of the counted businesses and not the ones that we may have missed that they're, you know, hiding in a corner. Mhmm. We may have just opened. It's it's a it's a large group. I would estimate we are at a similar number of non storefronted small businesses. We have all of the artists in studios across the city. They are also small business owners.

We also have the startups at Green Town Labs. There's 95 small businesses in Green Town Labs up under 10 people. There's more than that above 10 people, but still count as small businesses as well. And then we have the loft and uncounted home based businesses. Our cleaners, our occupational therapists, folks who are doing maintenance and repair and all kinds of computer based things.

They also are small businesses as well. So it is a very diverse crew with diverse needs and diverse issues facing them at all times. And those small businesses are are the ethos that shapes. Right? They are what gives that creative spirit and energy to to our community. Right? They are out there every day. Is known as a place where one of a kind is a regular find. That's one of our taglines as well. I love it.

And and that really comes from the small business community. Right? This is a place where you are gonna find absolutely unique opportunities. And those unique offerings in our small businesses are what attracts our larger businesses. And so ensuring the health of small businesses here in Sunbelt is also linked to our broader summer vision goals for transformative development and expanding the commercial tax base.

So big picture, supporting the small business community is core to our work, and that is why we have three very dedicated staff members who just focus on small business support. So we have Adrianna Fernandez. She's our senior planner for women and minority businesses. We have Patricia Tenorio. She's our small business licensing pronated licensing liaison.

And then Kelly O'Wafflin, she is our account development planner. She focuses on small businesses and is leading some really great work right now on technical assistance. We have a lot going on. We're coming off of a lot of a lot of work on direct support. But big picture, whatever we're working on is connecting folks to two resources.

Many of those resources are with partner organizations, not just things that we do. We're connecting folks with financial resources, technical assistance, and then on the internal side, navigating city processes. So really that role that Patricia has of helping a small business go from, hey. I think I wanna open a coffee cart to, alright. What is it gonna take to get that coffee cart off the ground? What permits will you need? What steps will you have as you go through the process here in the city? That's all work that our team is doing. I'm gonna pass it to Dana for

a little bit of

Sure. Again, through you through you, I'm sure I would like to, say how excited I am to be here and excited to be working with Tom and Rachel and the team of development at the OX PCD. I'm privileged to be part of this conversation. I'll take just a brief moment to amplify and address some of the things that Rachel, talked about. And stepping back to to say that our our mantra, if you will, is to really start from a place of listening and connecting with our small business owners and the folks who are really the engineers at the economy.

We try not to be the purveyors of authority, but we're really trying to focus on providing access to information, providing, what we're willing to what we call solid guidance around processes and policies. And also, as as Rich mentioned, really connecting not only business owners but also the workers with the right kinds of information to sort of do their jobs well and to to to provide answers. I think one of the things we talk about lot in our team conversations and and is how do we how do we use our expertise and our connections and our network to expand the access to opportunity? And, you know, all of our work has been trying to get the design. So

we're coming off of as I

was mentioning, we're coming off of this ARPA wave. We've done been doing a ton of work on both the small business front and also the workforce front through our. We had 2,500,000.0 that was given out in various ways to support small businesses. In addition to that, there was a whole another round of funding that was going out focusing on workforce. And then there was all this work with our nonprofits that flowed back into the same channels focusing on workforce and small business community. So there's been a ton happening, that we're just kind of winding down. And then,

I think

the key thing that I wanna make sure we're highlighting for you all tonight, because it ties into what's going on at the moment is we were able to we were the successful recipient of an urban agenda grant from the state that is allowing us to do technical assistance support for small business owners. So what that's looking like right now, that grant, we were at last minute ad, and we have to pull this off by June. But it's exciting because we are able to produce a series of workshops for small businesses as well as one on one coaching with folks who are focused on, you know, general business, you know, admin stuff. That's a key thing relative to this topic as well as, you know, the bigger picture of marketing and just sort of supply chain, all those various issues that they might be facing today. So there's we're excited about that.

We we just launched the with some information sessions on yesterday for small business owners to apply for that that one on one coaching sessions. So we're really excited about this. This is gonna be able to come together after the next few months. And, again, we're doing this this work as Dana was saying as well. We're we're really thinking about our work in terms of connections and working in partnership.

We're really strong partners with Main Street's chamber. We're excited to see that, you know, they have new leadership coming on. They're an engaged group. We have an an emerging group of merchants in the Davis Square that are meeting. We are really thinking in partnership with our local groups as well as regional groups.

SCORE is an important group to support business owners as they grapple with things. We look to our technical assistance providers, networks of employers, and accountants, others who can really help. And so we try and provide those connections for our business owners as as we can. Lastly, as we sort of think about the topic at hand and across the board, we're we're really focused on getting that accurate access to accurate information and the latest information. A lot again, this is where we're leaning on those partnerships too.

Right? There are those at the state level, in the regional level, and across the country who are paying close attention to, you know, what's changing. The landscape is constantly changing when it comes to insurance requirements, the immigration status picture, the requirements for all kinds of different things that are affect our business owners. And so we're looking to those networks to make sure that we're bringing the latest and greatest information and sharing, you know, when our trainings and resources that folks we can point people to if they have a specific question. One of the things that we are continuing to work on is, you know, also growing our team.

There's a the role that we've been working on wage theft that we're gonna be trying to alleged matters fairly soon to talk that one through in more depth. But that role is gonna be focused on workers' rights as well as working with business owners, community, ensuring that employers know what their roles and responsibilities are to ensure that

worker rights are respected. So

tons and tons and tons happening, and we're just trying to keep tabs about it to make sure we're getting the right information in the right hands in in a way that is perceptive to everyone, and that can be different for different audiences too.

Thank thank you for that. Thank you. I I want to open up the floor, but if if I may, to the other counselors, my immediate impression when we were talking about supply chain. Just how how quickly was economic development able to pivot as landscape of our community, and our country just seems to keep really in search verb there. But where I came here is I'm reading, you know, the globe about thinking, okay.

Probably should grab some guacamole now because I don't know what it's going to cost in in in in two weeks or this new Aussie place that the restaurant that just opened up on Highland Ave, I think. Are they gonna be able to get to their supply post whole restaurant for that and and the other not just restaurants, but retail as well. And and tariffs and talk of tariffs and bullying of of tariffs and this and that,

how how quickly can we pivot

as a community, as a city with increasing costs and and how how much is that going to bludgeon our small business owners in in the process, I guess. So happy to just have that thought. Don't know who to answer that, but I'm any thoughts that have on that?

Again, we we start with listening. Right? That's that's really our goal. And so we are out regularly every week, every Thursday. Generally, not runs out. It has various, you know, circuits going with different departments as well, come to, like, business ownership process, trying to understand, you know, what what they're hearing from folks, where what pain points are, and then we're looking into, again, what are those resources that we can connect folks to. As municipal government, our internal resources are limited. Right? We we can't solve all of the challenges for anyone, but we can point folks to what networks exist, where they might be able to find additional support we can look to.

If I may, you, chair, one of the things that I've been most struck by and and impressed by, and I you said we're a new kid on block at for a minute saying this. To to Rachel's point, some of what I think would be, I don't know. It's not being an out of answer necessarily, but it's a it's a it's a thought. Maybe it's absolutely philosophical, but I think it's valid. Some of how we're gonna be able to pivot as a team, as a city, and as a government public service is is mistrust.

And one of the things that I've noticed in my colleagues, within the division, particularly those who are in small business, is that a lot of our ability to as Rachel mentioned, we're putting up this over the gender branch that's gonna do a lot of technical technical assistance training. We're able to make those sorts of programs happen because of the relationships that we've dealt with over years and months. And I think that in this, as you mentioned, very fraught time, the fact that individuals who are businesses or working businesses, who are really feeling it right now, as we all know, they see us as trusted partners. Find the right information to share, when we we we approach them, like, with, like, opportunity or a program or a chance to listen to their problem, they trust us. And they're willing to sort of share an aim and knowing that we'll listen, but also knowing to do our best to get the best information.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Doctor Nabo, would would you be interested in speaking or sharing your thoughts or anything? Very same same feeling.

There we go. Apparently, through you, madam chair, apparently, I forgot how to unmute. No. I mean, I I I just wanted to, as cheesy as it may be, to pat my colleagues on the back just sing economic development a lot of praise for for their approach because as we partner on a series of projects, I get to see it firsthand that commitment to listening. I know you were mentioning, madam chair, ability to pivot.

And I think that one's ability to pivot and to adapt to new circumstances comes from really understanding what those new circumstances are, and that is only possible as we listen and learn from our community members, and in this case, from our business owners, from our small business owners. And, you know, to to again quote what deputy director Dana said, they are the engines of our economy, and we're we're aware of that. And we will continue to connect our constituents to information, services, empowerment, and to listen and grow and change with them and stand in community. And I think that that is perhaps one of the the constants that we can rely on and that is very much within our power. It's our ability to stand in community, to stand up for each other and with each other, and to continue to drive in the right direction so that we can withstand whatever winds may come our way as a community as a whole, and ensure that our economy not only is able to to survive the challenges that may come our way, but instead thrive because we've built that trust, because we've built that community, and because we continue to to learn from one another.

So just a a huge thank you to to my colleagues for their amazing work.

Thank you. And counselors,

do you have any questions? Sure. I wanna echo, Director Miegel's, praise both also for you, Director, and your team at SOIA and the work you're doing in economic development and all, obviously, staff weathering the storm right now.

I

I'm, like, collecting my thoughts around how we respond to such a chaotic environment that our residents are in, but our small business owners are in as well. I appreciate councilor McLaughlin who brought this up, his attempts to, like, showcase immigrant small businesses on social media and encourage folks to come to Somerville and and frequent small businesses there. I reached out to one of my immigrant small business owners that I know who said, like, don't blast me over social media. We're really scared, and my staff were scared. And I I it you know, I totally respect it.

It's it's the environment we're in. I think, you know, staff are scared to leave the house. We know students are scared to go to school. We I was at a school community meeting where the ESOL classes are half full right now because folks are scared to attend. So we're, like, just seeing, right, the impact of the national climate on around immigration on our on our community, and it's just gonna get worse, I think, my opinion, I'll say.

I I wonder you know, one of the things that people talk about a lot in this chaotic time, I will call it, is how do we lean on our local community as a way to weather the storm. And our and we, you know, with the announcement of the tariffs today, know that we're headed toward, you know, an economic crisis that we like, I I I don't I'm not an economist, but I think we all we all know is where we're headed at the moment. And I think leaning hard on our small businesses or or being able to say, like, not the solution, but one of the ways that we can support our community is to frequent our local businesses and our small businesses. I just wonder, like, is there a PSA campaign? Is there, like, an information campaign around, like, feeling depressed?

Right? Like like, go eat at your local small business. Right? Because I just in Somerville in particular, people are geeking to figure out, like, what can I do even if it's on a really small scale? And I've been even as I walk my neighborhood and neighbors stop me and say,

like, what we gonna do? I'm like, I

don't know. Lean lean on each other. Right? Like, that's my first response to folks. And I say, like, I'm so glad to live here of all places. But but as people are aching to figure out what to do, I feel like this is a this is a way to connect in to the local economy knowing that it's there's gonna be a storm ahead of us that's gonna really hurt some weather. So I'm just curious if you all thought about that. I know you do this great, like, Somerville Squares ad campaign I've seen on the tea, which has been really fun, but, you know, sort of curious if there's a a way to think about, like, using frequenting our small businesses, supporting our small businesses as a way to to answer the desperation I think people are feeling about wanting to.

Yeah. I mean, madam chair. The It Takes All Ships to Make a Square campaign was developed as a our small businesses are still hurting post COVID. Right? We we need to get we need to remind folks in Somerville to shop local. We need to remind the Greater Boston region that the Green Line has opened, and they get to more vulnerable small businesses quickly. Mhmm. And share with the world our story of how amazing the small business community is here. Right? And so that campaign was really successful.

One of the things that we have now that we did not have before is we actually have a separate website, explore.somervillema.gov. That's is that campaign's landing. It has a business directory of our main streets businesses that we took a year plus to get into a much better shape. And as businesses are not seeing themselves there, we are happy to

add them. So if you

see any business that isn't on it, we will add them right in, and we get into those, like, periodically from new folks and get them on there. And it has a Google map of all the locations of all the businesses. I mean, it's all of our small businesses. What we are looking at right now is so what what was that campaign is also was a whole Instagram campaign. And those Instagram campaigns were have a lot of these catchy, like, really great taglines of, you know, one of a kind words, regular find, some, like, highlights of don't forget, like, all the amazing dining opportunities.

It is really focused on a broad scale. We had a conversation earlier about, like, could we do individual business highlights? Can't yet. Mhmm. We need a we need a social media policy. We also need to be working very clearly with this small business to know, is this somebody who wants to be highlighted? Is this somebody who doesn't wanna be highlighted? Right? And so we need to set all those policy outlines. And then also, we that was all professionally set up campaign.

It was managed by social media someone with a social media expertise. What we are doing right now is actually working to bring on a project assistant, sort of like a part time as intern, whether it's a communication student or someone who's professional, to actually help us with this before the end of fiscal year. We've got someone like in our budget. So we're hoping that we can pull off basically an extension of that and someone who can really dive in and think, now that we've got this really professional website and campaign established, can we extend? Can we do what is it gonna take to do a next round of photos?

What is it gonna take to do a next round of Instagram? Because our Sonorable Businesses Instagram page went from strictly oriented towards business owners, hey. Here's when the next deadline is for outdoor dining to now we have this whole audience of folks who are interested in learning about some rules and using small business community.

Mhmm.

And so we wanna deepen that, and so we're looking at that role as as an opportunity to to really do that. Our last project assistant was Felipe Donato. If you haven't met him, he's phenomenal. He's a member of Eastern Middle Main Street's board and small business owner himself, and he was really critical in getting our business list up to date. So we're really excited to be able to bring on somebody new to take us to the next step.

Madam Chair, this is a very cool website I did not know about. So thank you for pointing this out. I'm happy to put people to distraction. Yeah.

And if I may add a couple of things. One of the other things we'll probably be coming back to the council with potentially soon is on air because we are with bio coming up. Mhmm. We ran these this part of this ad campaign right in the in the airport. We will probably be back, but we're gonna try and run that again to capture some eyes on our businesses for, you know, when thousands of people descend from all over the world. Hey. Come visit our amazing opportunities here in Somerville.

I like that. Thank you. Counselors, any final thoughts for So marathon begins. I'm sorry? Marathon begins.

We're Marathon. Oh. Oh. Sorry. Oh, marathon like that. Yeah.

That's right. It's it's it's kinda fun. Right. Awesome. Thoughts on that? Planning for

We we can explore. Yeah. Blocks. The other one that we are we did put in for was part of the casino mitigation. We also included and asked as part of our grant request was some funding to be able to extend the ads that you see on the team. So anything on the on the buses specifically because the buses connects to we have this lovely new bus that goes from Union Square directly to the casino. It'd be great to be able to say include our small business ad campaign in you know, to folks who are now on that bus route connecting to

the casino. Hey. Shop small business on. I may, you have a Union Square bus that is the Encore casino bus that goes to the casino. Is that correct?

The new one zero nine route is a one seat ride.

Oh, it's a one zero nine. It's it's a t bus.

It's not Yep. Not an answer bus. Okay. Thank you. Any final thoughts, counselors? No? I'm gonna

keep this item in committee because, on the counts what counselor McLaughlin was was aiming to also discuss with this is the numbers of how, the the impact that, well, if recent federal immigration policy changes have been moving, I don't believe you have that yet. He was hoping for them later in the spring or mid spring, something like that. I was hoping for the dialogue to just check-in and hoping we can come back to discuss that as well. I think this is I really appreciate your insight and all that you've done and are doing to do, and and I think it's good to keep the conversation going with this as well.

Yep. Madam chair, if I may add just one final point. And I know Councilor Pinata Neufeld also alluded to this. But I do think that even as we await gathering this data, it is important to highlight that there is a an important impact that is being had through fear tactics, through a false narrative of what our communities are and what they are not, and that this is impacting everybody. Even people who don't yet know that they're being impacted in our community are and will continue to be impacted by by federal policies, that what they aim to do is essentially put us through almost another forced pandemic where people need to stay home because of fear of something coming to get them.

Right? And this is impacting those those engines in our economy, which are small businesses. So, so I I I do wanna put that out there because I think it's important for our community to know where a lot of these challenges lie and where they're coming from.

Thank you. You. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for being here. Thank you,

We have one more agenda item. I also have to collect my son's. So Yeah. Yeah. So we'll

keep

this in committee. And then our last agenda item for the night, order 250232 that the director of economic development in the process for developing a Teal Square commercial area plan. Welcome. I that wasn't added, but I I just that and this is mine. Director Galgani, welcome again.

Thank you, madam chair. You want it done on

July? No. August. March 31? March 31.

Possible. Thank you. I'll give you till the end of

Oh, thank you

so much.

You're councilor one seven. Thank you. Thanks for bringing this discussion here. This gives me an opportunity to talk about what is happening in our planning preservation and zoning office and the reset that's happening as we think about long term planning. We have been up to our eyeballs in plans for various neighborhoods across the city that have been delayed, altered, adjusted as mainly as a result to COVID and the post COVID rush that we've dealt with with development.

And we're in a place where we need to think about what the next five years looks like, what our our project pipeline looks like for long range planning. And the next couple months are gonna be instructive and important. We are in the midst of updating the capital improvement plan, capital investment plans, just the IP. That over the next couple months, that will come to a conclusion. And at that point, we thought it would make sense when I spoke with director of apartment, working with our capital projects team and our finance team just to take a look carefully at the updated capital investment plan and say, okay.

Where does it make sense? Where are we investing in the next five years? So where does it make sense for us to leverage that investment and to do long range planning in concert with or right before some of those major capital expenses? So we think later on this month and in April, we'll be in a position to have those conversations internally with the, infrastructure and asset management team, finance team, and to really think where does it make the most sense for us to do our next neighborhood plan. Just as a matter of update, we published a brick bottom plan last late last summer.

We've been very close to publishing an Assembly Square neighborhood land. And, also, later on this year, we'll be finishing up the data square. And so that allows us some chance and some some bandwidth opportunities later on this year from and starting in 2026 to think about new places to plan. So I make no promises. So we have an open mind, and we wanna see where our our capital investments are going before we think about what the next neighborhood and neighborhoods or commercial areas we will tackle. Does that make sense?

Can you for those listening, can can you share, like, what does a commercial area plan do for the neighborhood? Like, just for the for those who are curious and hard to understand. Okay. Great. Call her myself. What does it like, what give folks a bird's eye view of what what this plan does mean for these neighborhoods.

Yeah. Well, again, we have various different kinds of plans, so I would welcome anybody to take a look at any of the recent plans that we publish because each of them provides a little trimmer the different kinds of plans that we do, whether it's a neighbor plan or a commercial area plan. We really did the Davis Square plan is the latest sample of a commercial area plan. So we're really talking about the commercial for the area. We're not talking about the residential, largely residential areas that support and surround the core, but we're talking about the the mainstream core, commercial core, and really focusing on what makes that area, that typology tick, know, you the the mixed use commercial stuff, what makes it tick?

What are the challenges though that area is, and what is the vision for that area moving forward? And trying to line up the plan to achieve that that vision. But it's really focused on the commercial piece of it. So if we were to if we were to tackle a a a TL square commercial area plan, we would be focused right on those those you know, largely those those mainstream properties, the stuff along Broadway, the stuff along following street, then even through major intersection there at the top of the hill. Really taking a close look at at the businesses, the land use patterns, the opportunities for maybe creating a hotel somewhere along Broadway.

Your lips are. Yes. But

the other point I I I wanna make that's that's complementary is that even though we're not today doing a commercial area plan or a neighborhood plan in some other place, it doesn't mean that the work doesn't doesn't continue. You've heard from director Ned Carney, about the work that we're doing, the outreach that we do each and every day, and the block walking that we do every day. I was talking to some of the economic development small business staff the other day, and I'm like, oh, coincidentally, I am going to talk about the Taylor Swift Taylor possibility of planning in Taylor Swift. The team just did some block walking in concert with the transport to the mobility improvements that are planned along that stretch in West Broadway. And so the work continues.

As you know, personally, you've been involved, and we've collectively been working with some of the property owners in Teal Square, the ones with, I don't know, negative elevation, the pit perhaps Mhmm. And trying to jumpstart developments on that site. We know what an important site that is and what maybe a notorious site has been people have been staring down at that site for so long. Mhmm. It's it's the most critical.

It's akin to the Star Market site in, Winter Hill. Like, that is the key. If we can transform that site, the future of the square, the trajectory of possibilities is so much different. Right. So we'll continue to nudge along those property homes, incentivize those property homes for those high impact, high leverage locations.

You mean my emails, I love him at night, are not enough for

him? Yeah.

We'll get there.

The and so does a does a commercial air plan also include mobility updates to the commercial board typically?

It could. It's within the area, honestly. And when we scope when the team scopes out what the problems are and what the opportunities are, context is so important.

Right. Right. How long through you, ma'am, Jared, how long does a development of a event typically take?

You can I don't know? You can expect maybe, you know, six to nine months typically depending on the scope and the scale of the work. And I say that with a little bit of a snicker because, again, things happen, and, you know, pandemics happen until things get delayed. So to be completely honest, and I hate to be completely honest in this case, you know, the data support plan, we've been working on that for ten years now. Right.

And this had three distinct starts or stops and then restarts. And we've or and then the fourth restart, hopefully, sometime later this year. So as priorities change and opportunities present themselves, sometimes we need to move in different neighborhoods to, you know, stop a plan, start a plan somewhere else because that's to our strategic benefit.

Madam Chair, also in transparency, so last night I hosted a community meeting for a special permit. Talking about this now. It's under it's gonna be busy. For a new coffee shop, bakery, probably a really good baseball player can throw a ball between that site and the only other coffee shop in the board, Diego. It just opened a couple years ago.

And so the the residents who came to the meeting last night, you know, rightfully concerned about, like, we don't want Yego to close. We don't want you to you know, is there enough business and traffic and demand here? And it was an interesting conversation because on the PPZ side, you know, they're not special permit neighborhood meeting is really about, you know, what are what's the community feedback generally about the projects, not necessarily about assessing competition. But it got me thinking about wouldn't it be nice to have, like, a commercial area plan to come back to in this area around what do we hope and want and expect from from just where or be able to answer that question a little more authority other than we think that we're different enough, and we think that our offerings are different enough than Diego to not compete compete with them. So which is what the answer of the of the applicant was last night.

That's the commonly used strategy or or or tool that we use in doing collision airplanes. It's the gap analysis. Right? Right. So what's missing? What's missing in that area? And what can the area realistically support? Right. Using data tools to

Right.

Get a sense of what the market potential is. You know, is there another market and not enough competition so that a hardware store could happen Yeah. Along that stretch. So that's that would be a tool that we would deploy if we did specifically a commercial airplane.

Yes. Right.

That's why it got me thinking. Was excited to have this conversation.

Great. I don't think I have

any other questions or less.

Counselor in Camping does. Counselor in Camping?

Thank you, madam chair. I have a question. Director Galigani, you mentioned that the CIP would be coming soon. I I must have missed. Can you tell us the date that we'll be getting the CIP?

I can't through the chair, I cannot tell you the dates because I don't know the date tonight. Well, actually, I can't say it's it's it's gonna be on Thursday. I don't know which Thursday, but it I can make sure that it's on Thursday. It's a

good one.

The points be done.

Thought I could get it. And then my only other suggestion, you know, this is it's not my ward, but I feel like we might wanna consider changing the pronunciation to tele square to have kind of a, like, a mystique that might bring in new interest. Just

You're have to arm wrestle my cousin. She's not gonna be happy hearing that you're gonna change her home square into some high pollutant foreign pronunciation, but that's fine. If doesn't have a vote, you have a vote. As

long as we renamed the pit, Counselor and Kevin, something else like, I don't know, the swimming pool or which is what people call it sometimes. Yeah. Whirlpool. Cold plunge. I'm I'm just getting started. I think that this is stage.

And I think we should have a competition for Parks and Rec Parks and Rec sitcom competition character in front of the competition dress up. Something like that. Yeah.

Because we have our own pit.

People

can pretend to fall into the pit. No. Not really. None of this is going to happen. And it's 09:11PM. So, counselors, any other additional thoughts, and what what is the do you want me to keep this in committee, or do wanna close it?

I guess can I ask one more question? So what's the pro so you told us. The process from here is you'll let us know after you talk to IAM and keep busy about the next steps. Right?

We've got some work to do internally to prioritize and to match up our planning work with the investments that we know will take place in the next five years.

Okay. I'm fine with marketing. Okay. Good.

Really quick, doctor. Refresh my memory, please. How frequently do we re re reanalyze the the CIP or just re update it?

It is it share? It depends. Ideally, we're updating it every year.

Yeah.

But we it's been over a year and a half since we've updated. And the world has changed significantly. Interest rates going up. That's really caused a pause and a recalibration.

Thank you. Okay. I'm happy to mark this for complete. Now we can only put in the order. That's it. You very much brought up agenda items so you all wanna hang out, to which you're all lovely people, but I'm having to go to sleep. Thank you very much for being here tonight and and and in person as well. It's a matter of the work with you all. So with that, I wanna move to. So moved. Thank you.

And Jeremy? Yes. Councilor? Yes.

Councilor Schozen. You are adjourned.

Thank you. Good night.

Thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome.